Page 62 of She Didn’t See It Coming

Paige begins to cry. Wrenching sobs and gushing tears. The detective pushes tissues toward her, which she eventually takes and tries to pull herself together. Her attorney rests a hand comfortingly on her back.

“Go on,” Detective Salter prompts.

For a moment Paige thinks of Bryden’s mother, Donna, sitting in her kitchen, calling Sam a monster. At last she manages to find her voice. “He came home in the middle of the day. They had an argument, and he…he smothered her with a plastic bag.”

“Were you there?” the detective asks.

Paige shakes her head. “No.” She sniffs, wipes her eyes and nose. “He called me. I was home that day; I’d called in sick. He asked me to come to the condo. He said he needed my help.”

“Did he tell you what he’d done?”

“No. He just told me he needed my help and to come quickly. He sounded frantic. I asked if I should call 911 and he said no, not to call anyone.”

“What time was that?”

“It was just before one.”

“Go on,” the detective prods.

“I drove over, and when I got there, he let me in and—and I saw Bryden’s body lying on the floor, between the foyer and the living room.

I think I started to scream, but he put his hand over my mouth and told me to keep quiet.

I asked him what happened. He told me that they’d had a terrible argument. That she knew…about us.”

“So you were having an affair with Sam.”

Paige whispers, “Yes.”

“How long had the affair been going on?”

“A few months. We’d get together when she went away on business.” She looks up at the detectives plaintively. “I didn’t know he was going to kill her! I had no idea. I never thought anything like that would happen. He said that he hadn’t meant to kill her…he said he just lost control.”

“Then what happened?”

Paige swallows, notes that her hands are trembling.

“I told him we had to call the police. But he said no, he’d go to prison for the rest of his life.

He said we just had to get the body out of there and they’d never be able to prove it was him, that they’d suspect him, but they’d never be able to prove it.

As long as I helped him. He wanted me to get her body out of the apartment.

“I said no, at first. I was crying, hysterical. He kept telling me to be quiet. He went to their room and got a suitcase, and I just stood there, shaking, while he took off her clothes and put her inside. He wanted me to help, but I couldn’t bring myself to touch her.

Then he told me to take the suitcase down to my car and get rid of it somewhere.

“But I didn’t want to. I was terrified of being seen.

So then he told me to just take it down to the basement and leave it there somewhere, that there were no cameras anywhere.

I asked him why he couldn’t do it, and he said if someone saw him, he’d be recognized, and it would be all over for him.

He thought no one would notice me with a suitcase. It was less risky.”

“Okay, so then what?” Salter asks.

“I gave in,” she says miserably. “I was wearing gloves because it was a cold day. I left with the suitcase—it had wheels on it—and went down in the elevator to level 1B. On the way down a woman got on and got off again at the lobby. I didn’t think she even looked at me, but I forgot about the phone call. I wasn’t thinking straight.

“I went to where the storage lockers are. I was just going to leave the suitcase in front of the storage room door, but it was wedged open with a bit of cardboard. Then I remembered there was an open locker at the end because I’d been down there recently with Bryden, moving the baby things.

So I took the suitcase inside and left it there behind some cardboard boxes. ”

“You say Sam called you, to get you to come over to the condo,” Jayne says. “We haven’t found any call to you from Sam’s phone records for that time.”

She answers readily. “We both had burner phones, so Bryden wouldn’t see any messages. We’ve since gotten rid of them.”

“So you drove over, and Sam buzzed you into the underground parking garage?”

She nods. “Yes.” She adds, her voice bitter.

“He knew the cameras weren’t working, but I didn’t realize then that he’d had Bryden buzz him in so there would be no record of his being there.

I didn’t realize that he must have planned it until…

quite recently.” She looks at the detectives imploringly.

“I didn’t kill her. All I did was take the body down to the basement and get rid of the clothes. ”

“So you disposed of the clothes?” Kilgour interjects.

“Yes, Sam asked me to. He told me to get rid of them because he had to get back to the office, because he’d been gone too long, and it would look suspicious. He said that if I cared about him, I would do this for him. And I did. And I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”

“What did you do with the clothes?” he asks.

“Sam put them in the plastic bag, and I put them in my purse and then threw them in a dumpster.”

“Where, exactly?” Kilgour asks.

“Behind an apartment building on Larch Street.” She begins to cry again. “It all happened so fast. I couldn’t think clearly. He made me promise him I wouldn’t tell a soul.”

“And so this whole time,” Salter says, “you’ve been protecting Sam. You’ve been an accessory to murder, you do realize that?”

“Accessory after the fact,” her attorney clarifies. “An important distinction.”

Paige closes her eyes wearily and drags them open again.

“It was wrong. I haven’t been able to sleep or eat properly since it happened.

Bryden was my best friend. I miss her so much.

” She lifts her eyes to the detectives. “I panicked. I did what he said. I didn’t want him to go to prison.

I thought it was an accident, that he didn’t mean to kill her.

It was too late for Bryden anyway, she was already dead.

” She adds, with a sob, “I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t help him.

Afraid for Clara, growing up without a mother or father. ”

Salter gives her a nod, as if she almost understands.

“I’m sorry. I should have told the truth.” She glances at her attorney. “And there’s something else I should tell you.” She hesitates.

“What’s that?” Detective Salter prompts.

“Bryden wasn’t having an affair with Derek Gardner or anybody else. I made that up.”

“For God’s sake,” Salter exclaims. “Why?”

“To distract you from me and Sam. I just thought of it on the spur of the moment, when you were interviewing me, pushing me about whether one of them was having an affair, and I thought of him because I remembered that when Bryden told me about the accident, she mentioned that he was quite handsome.” She adds, her voice mournful, “Bryden would never cheat.”

The detective stares at her. Then Paige is arrested and taken to the cells.

···

Back in her office, Jayne turns to Kilgour and says, “It amazes me how men can find women to do things like this for them. Let’s arrest Sam and bring him in.” She shakes her head. “Just think,” she says, “of all the time we’ve wasted on Derek Gardner.”

“Bad luck for him,” Kilgour says. “Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Jayne thinks about that. Paige’s fib was unlucky for Derek Gardner, particularly because he and Alice seem to have something to hide. How furious he must have been—he and his cold wife—when he hadn’t done anything to Bryden Frost at all. He’d never even slept with her, let alone killed her.

Maybe now he’ll be able to convince his wife, Jayne thinks.

···

Sam hears the brisk knock at the door and feels a rush of panic. No one had buzzed him to be let into the building. He doesn’t want to answer. The knock comes again, and he gets up on unsteady legs.

It’s the detectives, as he feared. They start telling him he’s under arrest for the murder of his wife.

They read him his rights, but he can’t quite take any of it in.

The handcuffs go on with a click and he feels like he’s living someone else’s life.

This isn’t his life. “I want to call my attorney,” he manages to say, as he sways on his feet.

His unsympathetic female attorney. Maybe he should get someone else.

“You can call her from the station,” Detective Salter says.

And then they take him away. Down the elevator, through the lobby, and out of the building, where he is subjected to the excited jostling and catcalls of the press, who watch him being taken away in handcuffs, and capture it all in images, for posterity.

Someone throws a balled-up piece of garbage at him and it hits him on the side of his face.