Page 23 of Take Your Breath Away

Isabel: What are you waiting for?

Detective Hardy: What you told me when I talked to you the other day is not evidence that Mr. Mason killed your sister, Ms. McBain.

Isabel: Of course it is. He wanted to go off with this other woman. He needed to get my sister out of the way so he could start a new life with her. Didn’t want to have to go through all the trouble of divorce. That seems pretty clear to me. I don’t know why you can’t see it.

Detective Hardy: That might, possibly, be a motive, generally speaking, when a spouse goes missing. But there is no evidence that Mr. Mason did any harm to Brie.

Isabel: Because you haven’t found the evidence. And you haven’t found her. Isn’t that evidence in itself? That you can’t find her? He killed her and got rid of her body. You really believe he was at his cabin all that time? I know how long it takes to get up there. He could have come back in the middle of the night and killed her and still had time to get back up there. Have you searched his cabin?

Detective Hardy: We have people up there, yes. Searching the cabin and the woods. The entire property and beyond. The state police have been up there.

Isabel: That’ll be where be buried her. You just wait.

Detective Hardy: Ms. McBain, I know you harbor a great deal of animosity against your brother-in-law, but negative feelings aren’t evidence. But I want to review some of what you told me about Mr. Mason’s relationship with Natalie Simmons.

Isabel: He was fucking her. That’s what I know.

Detective Hardy: When I asked Mr. Mason about Ms. Simmons—

Isabel: Whatever he said, it was a lie.

Detective Hardy: He made no attempt to hide the fact that he had a relationship with Ms. Simmons, but he said it was brief, that it was more than six months ago, and that he and Brie had worked things out.

Isabel: Yeah, right.

Detective Hardy: What can you tell me that makes you dismiss that?

Isabel: Brie was devastated by what he did. I don’t care if it was brief. If it had only been a one-night stand, that would have been devastating enough, but it was more than that.

Detective Hardy: So how long was it?

Isabel: Well, Brie says it went on for at least a couple of weeks. I really had to pry it out of her. I only found out by accident. I came by to see her and I could tell she’d been crying and I got her to tell me what happened. She tried to make out like it wasn’t a big deal but I knew better.

Detective Hardy: How did Mr. Mason meet this woman?

Isabel: Not sure. I did some checking on her myself and she went to UConn and that was where Andrew went, so I don’t know, maybe she was looking up old boyfriends on Facebook and found him, made a connection.

Detective Hardy: Mr. Mason isn’t on Facebook.

Isabel: Like I said, I guess she found him some other way. At the coffee shop or at the mall. Why are you asking me for details? Isn’t that your job?

Detective Hardy: So far as you know, were there other occasions when Mr. Mason was unfaithful?

Isabel: Not that I know of but it wouldn’t surprise me.

Detective Hardy: Did Brie tell you she and her husband had patched things up?

Isabel: (unintelligible)

Detective Hardy: I’m sorry?

Isabel: She said they had. But I think she was just putting a good face on things. She knew how angry I was with Andrew and she wanted to put him in a better light. Justifying why she hadn’t left him.

Detective Hardy: Have you ever known Mr. Mason to be abusive? Has he ever struck your sister? Did you notice any injuries? Did she, say, have a bruise and tell you she bumped into a door or something like that?

Isabel: No.

Detective Hardy: How about emotionally abusive?