Out of nervous habit, she was doing dishes by the light of the television in the kitchen when she heard him put the key into the lock and open the door slowly, trying not to wake her. The television program was a midnight movie about a detective who chases a killer out into the snow, and they both get caught in an avalanche. She had the sound turned off, and the dog was sleeping in the other room.

Her husband tip-toed into the kitchen, not knowing she was there. It was very bright because all of the snow on the movie. When he saw her he said “oh, hello,” and hung his coat on the hook beneath the calendar from the bank, next to the stove.

“Hello? Is that what you say?” she said, drying a plate.

Instead of answering, he poured himself a glass of water from a pitcher in the refrigerator and drank it. She said, “I’m worried about you. Where do you go every night? Why are you so mysterious all of a sudden?”

He leaned over and gave her a peck on the forehead, and told her not to worry so much. Then he went to bed, because he had to go to work in just a few hours. In his pockets, she found a matchbook from a bar down town, and a token for the subway. His shoes were muddy. She turned on the radio and there was a story about a jogger in the park who had been murdered.

The next day at breakfast she asked him again what he’d been doing going out for walks at midnight. He said, “Can’t a man have a few secrets?”

The matter was not settled, because that night he went out again when he thought she was asleep, and she went into the kitchen to listen to the radio. She drank a cup of coffee and sat with her hands folded for more than an hour before the radio said something that made her worry even more: a warehouse fire had just been put out, and the police already suspected arson. She was in bed again when he came home, but she wasn’t asleep, yet neither did she say anything to him.

In the morning they ate breakfast in silence, and for the first time in their twenty year marriage she wasn’t sure she trusted her husband. He folded the paper and got up to leave, and she began to clear off the table. She fed the dog a piece of bacon. The door rang just as he was about to open it.

She could see his shoulders slump.
“It’s the police, isn’t it? They’ve found out.”
“Stay out of this, I’m warning you,” he said, sounding too tired to do anything.

It wasn’t the police, it was the FBI. Two men who looked just like in the movies. They showed their badges and stepped into the house with nobody protesting.

“We know it was you,” they said, “the murders, the arson, the counterfeiting.”
“I didn’t counterfeit anything,” he said.
“All right, we believe you,” they said.
“Well,” he said, “do you have any proof?”
“Not really.”
“Maybe you’ll find some,” he said.
They shrugged. “It’s enough that you know that we know.”
“Well, I was just on my way to work.”
“Guess we’ll be leaving, then. Wouldn’t want to keep you,” said one of the FBI men, then he turned and walked toward the black sedan parked an inch from the curb. He opened the door and got inside the car, and the woman was watching him and trying to watch her husband at the same time.

The FBI man rolled down the window and said, “You must think you’ve gotten away with it.” He shook his head and snorted. “I guess maybe you have.”

Then they drove away, leaving the man and his wife standing just inside the doorway. The man adjusted his tie and picked the newspaper up off the porch. She couldn’t stand it any longer, quite naturally.

“Aren’t you going to tell me what that was all about?” she asked crossly.
“Jesus, would you just mind your own business for once?”