3
Her words took me by surprise. I took a deep breath, clutching my neck. “Detective Shaw, he was my husband. And he was the father of my
child.”
Seeing my reaction, Detective Shaw didn’t press further. As they were leaving, she suggested I stay at a nearby hotel if I felt unsafe at home and assured me I could reach out to her if I needed anything. I nodded, watching them go.
Coming from a small town like Charleston, South Carolina, I had no one nearby–my family was far away. My husband’s family, too, lived a state over. We’d settled here after college, bought this big house, but now it was just me here alone. The thought filled me with a strange sorrow. I packed a few clothes and went to the nearest hotel, The Crescent.
<
After a quick meal, I took out my husband’s bank cards. I called the bank’s hotline, and after checking the balances, I discovered he had over half a million dollars saved.
I didn’t know his bank PIN, but recently, I’d gone to the store with him to shop for baby things, and while he paid, I’d memorized his payment code. Guessing he used the same password for all his accounts, I tried it once–and it worked.
Since becoming pregnant, I’d had severe morning sickness and had quit my job as a makeup artist. My husband had always been stingy with money, giving me only three thousand a month, which barely covered my living expenses.
With the bank cards secured, I felt exhausted and fell asleep on the bed, where I drifted into a nightmare.
I dreamt that I was paralyzed, lying in bed as Melanie and my husband, Steven, stared at me with twisted smiles, reaching out to strangle me together.
I jolted awake, parched and shaken, reaching for a glass of water. That’s when my phone rang. Seeing it was Detective Shaw, my heart skipped a beat.
Taking a deep breath, I answered.
She asked which hotel I was staying at, saying there was something more she needed to discuss with me. I gave her the hotel’s name, and she arrived about half an hour later, alone this time.
I invited her in, and Detective Shaw smiled as she asked, “Mrs. Langston, although your husband’s death appears to be a suicide, the autopsy showed a high dose of diazepam in his system. Was he using it to treat a condition?”
“Diazepam?” I paused, thinking, and replied, “That’s a sleeping aid, right? He had insomnia. Sometimes he’d take a couple of tablets if he couldn’t sleep.”
“Is that so? Because the dose in his system was more than two pills–closer to five. What do you make of that?”
Detective Shaw’s words made me laugh.
