“Oh, it’s true,” she says, not wishing to acknowledge my snarky tone. “There were rumors about John and me simply because we worked together quite closely. But no one had any proof.”
“So you believe,” I say.
“Has anyone else even hinted that we had a relationship?” she asks.
She has a point.
“No,” I admit.
I attempt to take back the reins.
“John was with you Thursday and then Friday morning. But why did things come to a head that particular week? What forced the crisis given things have been, if not calm, at least in equilibrium, for some time?”
“We were preparing to make the announcement to the other,” she pauses, “women that Saturday. May 11.”
Now there’s emotion in her voice. It is definitely scorn when she says other women.
“How did you think these women would react? Helen Richter is a doctor with an impressive CV,” I remind her. I don’t know why I feel the need to defend the three original wives, but I do. “Deborah was his real wife for thirty-five years, and MJ”—I search for the right words and come up with “MJ is a force of nature.” I’ve ended weakly and know it.
“If one of the wives had been suspicious, that would give you a motive to work with, right?” Claire asks.
“Do you have any reason to believe that one of them did suspect?”
“John was very jumpy Thursday night. He kept checking his phone for voicemail, texts, emails. When I asked him what was wrong, he just shook his head. He told me he was worried. But actually he seemed more scared.”
“Why didn’t he go to work on Thursday or Friday?” I ask her. “Was there anything going on at the clinic that he wanted to avoid?”
“I think he was just overwhelmed. His wives, and then there was this tension with his partners,” says Claire. She says partners the same way she says wives: with what I now recognize as her trademark disdain. “They wanted to hire more surgeons, expand the cosmetic practice. John was adamant that the clinic stay true to his original vision.”
“So he might have been avoiding them?” I ask. I recall Dr. Epstein’s perfect cool demeanor. I wouldn’t put much past him.
“I don’t know. John canceled all his appointments for both Thursday and Friday,” says Claire. “Highly unusual. More than highly unusual. Extraordinary. Unheard of. I think it showed how anxious he was about the pending announcement on Saturday.”
“Did he pick up anything from either Deborah’s or MJ’s houses?”
“No. He was in hiding.”
“What did he do about clothes?” I ask, testing her. “He didn’t keep any at your apartment, did he?”
“No. He was never there long enough. When I got home Thursday night, he’d been to Macy’s and bought some slacks and shirts, other necessities,” she says. “That way, he would have a few things if it went really bad on Saturday. We were already looking at rental listings for apartments since we couldn’t possibly live in my studio for long.”
I’m at a loss what else to ask. I’m tired and my head aches. I reach out and turn off my recorder. “That’s enough for tonight,” I say. “But I’ll almost certainly have more questions for you.”
“Of course,” she says, gets up from her chair, and leaves the station house, her pale shapely legs flashing in the overhead lights.
I pick up my recorder and turn it on again. “Holy mother of God,” I say into it. “Do we have a situation now.”
43
Samantha
I RARELY GO TO STANFORD MALL, despite passing it every day on my way to work. It’s full of high-end stores like Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale’s, and Ann Taylor, alongside the usual Macy’s and Victoria’s Secret. There’s one fast-food joint: a McDonald’s for the rich Palo Alto parents who haul their spoiled children around town in Mercedes and Lexus SUVs. Otherwise, no mall food, no hotdog or pretzel stands, no cheap jewelry stores for teenagers. Once I made the mistake of going into a tea shop. It had smelled heavenly from outside, and they were giving samples of some amazing-tasting pink-tinted tea. I asked for half a pound, thinking Peter would like it. Once wrapped and packaged as if it were a gift for the queen, it was rung up, and my jaw dropped. I had to decline. It was the end of the month, and I didn’t have that much money in my bank account.