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her. I wouldn’t recommend she keep it.
    “Hullo?” I hear through the receiver.
    “Greg?”
    A two-seconds-longer-than-eternity pause. “What?”
    Is he drunk? That would be the first time ever. Unless this
    is more evidence I don’t know him as well as I thought. “Do you want to explain what you’re doing there?” No one will blame me for sounding less than gracious, right? “What’s this about, eh?”
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    I drop the phone. It hits the table, then the floor. The little plastic door to the battery compartment pops open and spills battery guts on the tile. My stomach contents will be next. Breathe. Just breathe.
    Jen’s voice is oddly distant. My vision is shrinking. Full field. Tube. Pinhole.
    “Libby! What’s wrong?” Is she shaking me or am I doing that on my own? “Libby!”
    “He’s lived in the Midwest all his life,” I drone through my zombie state.
    “Yes? Sweetie, what is it?”
    I cough out, “It’s not him.”
    ********
    I should have called the Canadian authorities before I talked to the guy with Greg’s Cherokee but not his voice. If the imposter has a teaspoon of smarts in him, he’s long gone already. But even half a teaspoon would have sent him to a motel considerably farther away from the scene of the crime, wouldn’t it?
    And what was his crime? “Offing” my husband so he could steal our high-mileage Cherokee? The villain is bound to regret that move, if he’s caught. Which might not happen, thanks to my faux pas .
    The driving need to talk to my husband exceeded my speed limit of wisdom. I should have let the authorities handle it, should have given them the information about the Jeep sight- ing and let them show up unannounced at the door of the motel room. No, I had to talk to him myself. I’ll pay for this, won’t I?
    Jen uses her cell phone to dial the Ontario Provincial Police. She hands it to me to do the talking. As if I can.
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    With stretches of silence, the sergeant on the other end of
    the phone line expresses his disapproval of my techniques and poor judgment.
    “I’m sorry, Officer. I wasn’t processing my thoughts. All I
    could think about was talking to my husband.”
    “Is it possible,” the man ventured, “that it was your husband
    but his voice sounded strained?”
    Do I need to detail how intimately I am acquainted with
    Greg’s tummy-rumbling low voice?
    Libby, I can’t imagine my life without you. Will you marry me?
    Deep, slow breaths, Lib. You can do it. One more good push,
    hon.
    Libby. Oh, Libby, when you get this message, call me on my cell
    right away. It’s Lacey. I’ve got to get to the hospital. Oh, Lib!
    Lib, I don’t know how to help anymore. What do you want me
    to do?
    I return to the moment and reply, “I’ve heard my husband’s
    voice when it’s strained and that wasn’t it.” Strained. Every day for the last three years.
    “The accent,” I tell the officer. “I heard the Canadian accent,
    that way of pronouncing ‘about.’ A Peter Jennings accent. Not like my husband would say it, no matter how stressed. And the ‘eh?’ at the end.”
    No response.
    “Okay, so it proves nothing except it wasn’t my Greg! If the
    desk clerk had his information correct and it was Greg’s Jeep in the parking lot, then the person who drove it to the motel was not my husband, and any way you view that, something’s not right.”
    “We’ll look into it.”
    I drop my chin to my chest. “You will.”
    “I have someone in the area who will check it out.”
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    And check out my story, he must be itching to say. How can he not want to investigate my there’s-this-guy-in-a-cheesy- motel-and-he’s-a-Jeep-thief story? I’m still a person of interest, aren’t I? By some accounts, I can add obstruction of justice to my list of sins.
    As Jen watches, I tell him, “Thank you. Please keep me informed if you discover anything?”
    “Of course. But I must