“She worked with your husband at the clinic,” I say. “She was doing a fellowship at Stanford, and your husband was her mentor and professor.”
“That may be where I heard the name,” Deborah says. She seems disinterested. “John may have mentioned her. He often talked about his students to me.”
“Claire was more than a student, at least according to her.” I’m watching Deborah carefully for any sign and am reading nothing. Either she is a tremendous actor or she genuinely has no idea what I’m about to spring on her.
“Such as . . . ?” Deborah asks.
“A fiancée.”
“Impossible.” Deborah is emphatic. She is so quick to react she almost speaks before the word is out of my mouth. “John would have said something. He told me everything.”
“According to Claire, they somehow managed without you,” I say. “They flew under the radar by telling you John was in LA a bit more than he actually was. They changed the tickets and the schedules. Not very often. But enough to get involved. Deeply.”
Deborah is unmoved. “It’s impossible,” she says again. “John was not capable of fooling me.”
“There’s more,” I say.
Deborah simply raises her right eyebrow.
“According to Claire, he was going to divorce you, tell MJ and Helen the truth of their relationships, and marry her,” I say. “He was going to announce this on Saturday, May 11. The day after he was killed.”
Deborah is stone-faced. “And what proof do you have other than the word of this . . . medical student?” she asks.
“She has the engagement ring, and the receipt for it, which was paid with John’s credit card.”
“Which card? I pay all the bills. I would have seen it.”
I pull the copy of the Haynes Jewelers receipt and hand it over. Her face falls slightly as she sees the name on the receipt, the account number. “This is not a credit card I know about,” she says, finally.
“Then, perhaps there are some things you don’t know,” I suggest. I get the feeling that I must tread more gently now. Deborah has projected nothing but strength since I first met her, but the fa?ade may crumble if the blow is calculated precisely. I don’t think that coming at her too forcefully will work. Easy does it.
“She also has an explanation for his disappearance before his death,” I say. “According to Claire, he was with her from Thursday morning until Friday lunchtime. They argued both days, and on Friday he left and checked into the Westin. She didn’t know where he went—just that he’d left her apartment. But she was in possession of other facts she wouldn’t have unless her story was true.”
I can see that Deborah’s face is white under her makeup. Her hands are neatly folded on her lap, but I detect trembling.
“In one sense, all this is moot, of course,” I remind her gently. “John is dead. He did not divorce you.”
Silence.
“Still,” I continue, “this provides me with motives that previously I didn’t have.”
Her eyes turn up to my face. She is expressionless again. “You mean me.”
“Yes,” I say.
“And how would that motive work exactly?” she asks.
“Well,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “If your husband really intended to divorce his wives . . .”
“I was his only wife,” she reminds me.
“Okay,” I concede. “Divorce you, and break the news to the other two that they weren’t really married, that would upset quite a few people.”
“By quite a few people you mean MJ, Helen, and myself,” Deborah says.
“No, others too,” I say, thinking of Thomas, but I decline to elaborate.
More silence.
“Well, if you’re asking if I did it, the answer remains no, and I presume my alibi still holds,” she says. “Unless something has caused you to reevaluate the time of death.”
“No,” I say. “The physical evidence hasn’t changed.”
“Then I have nothing more to say,” Deborah says. I take this as a dismissal, and rise to go.
“Wait,” Deborah commands as I’m halfway out of the room. I stop and turn around to look at her.
“You might think you understand what’s going on here,” she says. “But you don’t.”
I open my mouth to protest, but she waves at me impatiently to be quiet.
“He was comfortable with our arrangement,” Deborah says. “Me and the girls, that’s how I thought of them. It wasn’t a rivalry, it was a supportive network; we were his connective tissue. We were a living, breathing organism, one that was thriving. John would never threaten that, not something so carefully nurtured over the years.”
I don’t like not being treated like a grown-up. I make my face impassive. I don’t go into my usual head-nodding routine that is a habit when people in authority speak to me.
Deborah frowns. “I expect to be believed in this,” she says.
“Whatever,” I say. I walk out of the room.
45
Samantha