"Beth was not an abused wife."
She softened her tone, not looking for a confrontation. "Can we talk a little about that? You said the same thing the night we met at the medical examiner's office. I'd like to believe you. But why did she file that report?"
"Like I said. It's complicated."
She wondered if "complicated" meant Martha Goldstein. "I think it's important for me to know, don't you?" He wasn't eager to reopen those wounds, but it was undeniably relevant. "After Morgan was born, Beth had terrible postpartum depression. Didn't come out of the bedroom for days at a time, didn't want anything to do with Morgan."
"That's more common than _you would think."
He stirred a little sugar into his coffee. "That's what I'm told, but that didn't make it any easier. We needed double-shift nannies to take care of the baby, because Beth wasn't even taking care of herself. I tried to get her to see a psychiatrist, but she wouldn't go. It got to be a daily routine. I'd come home, she'd still be in bed where I left her. We started having arguments. Just the exchange of words, nothing else. She would cry and yell at me, saying I ignored her, I neglected her. It seemed like we were having the same argument, night after night. Except, after a while, she started using the word abuse. Things hadn't changed. If I was doing anything wrong, I was still busy at work--ignoring her, as she said. But suddenly she was calling it abuse."
"So you're saying that's the full extent of the abuse?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying."
"That's not what you'd infer from the police report she filed. She claimed you physically hit her."
"That was pure embellishment."
"Why would she make that up?"
"Why would she steal a size twelve dress from a department store?"
"Is that what you're hoping? That people will hear she was shoplifting and finally believe she made up the abuse allegations?"
Gus looked stunned, then angered. "I have no intention of making this public. I'm telling you this only because I hope it will help you find out what happened to Beth. I called you in confidence."
"Sorry. It's just that you're a very prominent attorney in this town. Kind of hard to believe you don't care what other people think."
"I did care. It bothered me a great deal the way people reacted back then. My friends, her friends. My own law firm. I almost lost my job over it. Somehow, a mere accusation was enough to convict me, even after Beth retracted it."
"It's hard for outsiders to know what to believe in those situations."
"Then why do they always want to believe the worst?" "It's juicy, I guess. A high-powered lawyer who abused his wife. Or a desperate wife who makes the whole thing up to keep him from leaving her for another woman." "Where did you hear that?"
"I can't say."
"You talked to Martha Goldstein, didn't you?"
"I really can't talk about that."
"That's her angle. She plants ideas in your head so she can honestly tell my partners and my clients that I'm under police investigation. It's all a ploy. She's using you."
"I don't know anything about that."
"I know it's Martha. She somehow fancied herself the other woman. Rumors like that only made it harder for Beth and me to patch things up and move forward. It is hard, even if you love each other. And I did love Beth."
"But not enough to change."
He stared into his coffee cup. "We just seemed to drift further apart."
"Over the Martha rumors?"
"No. The real difficulty was me. I never fully believed she made up the charges to get my attention or keep me from leaving her. When she filed that report, it was as if part of her were wishing I had crossed the line. I'm not saying she wanted to be abused. But I do think she wished the issues had been more black and white. It sounds crazy, but the real problem was that we had something really good a long time ago. I suppose she_needed something really bad to make her finally give up on that. You know what I mean?"
His question hit close to her own personal disaster, her own recent pain at the altar. "I suppose decisions are easier when somebody does something horrendous. Like me and my ex-fiance. Barn. I was out of there. No hesitation."
"What happened?"
"Not important. It was so unlike your situation with Beth."
"But you do understand?"
"I understand what you're saying. But if you really loved her, I can't say I understand how you let it get to that point."
He fell silent, absorbing the blow. "Neither can I." "Daddy!" Morgan was sprinting up the hall. Gus turned and braced himself. She nearly ran him over.
"Daddy, you missed it, you missed it!" She spoke in short, panicky breaths, her voice shaking.
"Missed what?"
"I can't believe you missed it!"
Tears filled her eyes. Gus lifted her up and sat her on the counter. "Missed what?"
"Just--just now!"
"Morgan, calm down. What's wrong?"
"While you were talking, you just missed it!"
"Missed what?"
She shouted with all her breath, "Mommy called!" He froze for an instant, then raced down the hall.