Mollie and I walk over to the Macy’s men’s store—and sure enough, easily find Jenna, the saleswoman who helped Dr. Taylor with his purchases. She turns out to be about thirty-five, dressed in the requisite black pants and white shirt, a little overweight, but carrying it well. Her posture is superb, and her outfit impeccable. She screams fashion know-how and good taste. On a different salary, I would take her advice to outfit Peter.
She remembers Dr. Taylor perfectly. “At first, he declined my assistance, but then after wandering around for about ten minutes, he came up and confessed he hadn’t shopped for himself in years,” says Jenna. “I took him for a recent divorcé, perhaps a widower, because he seemed rather sad. He told me he was looking for a couple of serviceable pairs of pants and shirts. His size being on the large side, I had to go to the back room to find items that would fit. He was grateful, easy to please. I actually tried to dissuade him from one of the purchases, I felt it wasn’t exactly flattering, and suggested a pair of pants with a different cut. He said no, bought the other ensembles and left. He seemed to be in a hurry.”
“What about the second Macy’s charge?” I ask, looking at the Amex statement. “Same day, just after he bought the pants and shirts.” The woman shrugs. “He probably had also purchased things from another department,” she says. “Do you have the transaction number? I could type in the code.” She scrolls through a screen. “It seems he purchased something downstairs, in our ‘necessities and accessories’ department.”
“That figures,” says Mollie. “He probably needed pajamas or underwear.”
“So what do we do with this information?” Mollie asks.
“To a large extent, it bears out what Claire says. We know he was staying somewhere close by, although not going to work,” I say. “And that he somehow felt the need to buy clothes rather than stopping by one of his homes to pick up a few things.”
“But couldn’t Claire be lying still?” she asks. “What if he just bought these on a whim? What if he did go home? To one of his wives? That Claire, and the wives, all of them, could be gaslighting you. They could simply be lying.”
“All of them?” I ask, with my eyebrows raised. Then, without waiting for an answer, “We did check with Deborah’s neighbors, and none of them remembers Dr. Taylor’s car parked in front of the house after Thursday morning,” I remind her. “Ditto MJ’s, although I’m less inclined to think they would notice. The houses are further apart, and there’s more foliage.” Then I shake my head. “I think this goes a long way toward validating Snow White’s story.”
We walk slowly to the car, when we hear someone running behind us. It is the saleswoman from Macy’s. She is out of breath, her chest heaving. “I just remembered something,” she says. “When he was looking at himself in the mirror with the new pants and shirt on, he murmured, half to himself, ‘need to get a haircut, too.’ I teased him a little. ‘A big day coming up?’ I asked. ‘You could say that,’ he answered. He said Saturday. I told him I hoped it was something fun, but he shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But quite momentous all the same.’”
44
Samantha
WITH CERTAIN ASPECTS OF CLAIRE’S story now confirmed, I decide to confront the wives again. I settle on Deborah first, since she lives closest. Then I’ll try to catch MJ. Unawares, I hope. I consider what to do about Helen. I want to deliver this particular news in person to experience her reaction firsthand, gauge how honest it is. The sooner I talk to Deborah and MJ, the sooner I can fly down to LA. But there is the risk that Deborah or MJ will call Helen and preempt me.
Of course, I have no hard evidence the wives are in contact with one another. But in my notebook, written at 2 AM, are the words Are the girls talking? Some humming of wires seemed to connect them; they each seemed to have soundlessly absorbed whatever information I had given the others. There was nothing I could put my finger on. I just had the feeling that resources were being shared, defenses mutually bolstered.
Deborah is home. She answers the door, as always impeccably dressed and groomed. I ask involuntarily, “Are you going out?” because of her shoes: boots this time, elegant ankle-length leather ones. Then I remember, she’s a shoes-on-in-the-house kind of gal.
“No,” she says. “Please come in.” She doesn’t actually sigh, but I keep expecting her to. I notice she skirts the edges of the rugs as she leads me into the living room. I deliberately step on them with my sneakers, mud-stained from a bike ride through the hills.
She offers me coffee, but I decline. I won’t let her get the upper hand this time. Today Deborah has adopted a resigned air. Like someone patronizing a small child.
“I was wondering if you know a woman named Claire Fanning,” I say as I sit down. I pull out a photo of Claire that I had grabbed from the station house’s security video camera last night. Even with the poor phone-quality image she comes across as an exotic. The concubine of an emperor.
Deborah shows no reaction whatsoever. “The name sounds familiar, but I’ve never seen this woman,” she says.