She wiped at her eyes with a tissue, glanced at Muller, and then said, “He stopped touching me, if you must know. And it felt like he had secrets. He kept a second phone. Spent money he didn’t have. I figured he had a mistress.”
Bree didn’t comment on that.
“Did Tommy have a mistress?” Muller asked.
“I don’t know,” Vivian said. “I think so. You tell me. I never hired anyone to look, I mean. But I could see Tom was unhappy with me, so three months ago I asked him if he still loved me. He wouldn’t answer the question. I asked him if he wanted a separation, a divorce, and he said that was up to me.”
“If you wanted to stay with him, why did you suggest the separation?” Bree asked.
Vivian wiped at her eyes, pulled herself up straight, and gazed at Bree evenly. “I thought it might knock some sense into him, make him come back to me.”
“I gather he didn’t,” Muller said.
She looked humiliated. “No.”
“Had you filed for divorce?” Bree asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I still loved him,” she said. “I hoped …”
“Must have hurt,” Bree said.
“It hurt, it demeaned, and it saddened me more than you can imagine, Detective Stone,” she said with a stricken expression.
“And angered you?”
Vivian looked right at Bree. “Of course.”
“Enough to kill him?” Muller asked.
“Never. We used to watch those television shows like Forty-Eight Hours and Dateline where there’s always one spouse killing another. We always said we couldn’t understand that; if the marriage wasn’t working, you left. Found a way to be friends or not and just moved on.”
“How did your marriage work financially?” Bree asked.
“There was a prenup, if that’s what you’re asking,” Vivian said. “The day we married, seventeen years ago, Tom knew he’d get nothing if we divorced.”
“He angry about that?” Muller asked.
Vivian snorted. “Quite the opposite. Tommy was fine with the agreement—proud of it, in fact. He said it proved he’d married me for …”
Tears welled in her eyes again. She took a deep breath. “He liked the personal independence it represented, and the self-reliance.”
“How did your lives mix?” Bree asked. “I mean, you’re out here, leading a country-club life, while Tom was in the city doing a dangerous job.”
Vivian’s face went through a slow flurry of emotions—resistance, then consideration, and finally acceptance. Her shoulders slumped.
“The more I think about it, Detective Stone, the more I see that Tom and I did live in separate worlds, right from the beginning. Here we had a safe, fairy-tale life, but out there in DC, on the streets—well, Tom liked to fight dragons. Being a cop made him feel alive, and all I could feel when I went into the city with him was fear.”
Muller said, “He was killed with a younger woman.”
“I heard that,” she said. “Who was she?”
“Edita Kravic, early thirties, studying law at American University, damned attractive.”
Vivian took the news that the woman her estranged husband had died with was in her early thirties and damned attractive like a one-two punch.
“Was she his mistress?” she asked in a strained voice.
“We don’t know,” Bree said. “He ever mention that name to you?”
“Never.”
“Just for the record, Mrs. McGrath,” Bree said, “where were you at seven twenty this morning?”
Vivian looked at her incredulously. “You honestly think I could kill Tom?”
“We have to ask, Viv,” Muller said. “It’s part of the job. You know the drill.”
“I was probably taking a shower.”
“Anyone see you?”
“I should hope not. I’ve been living alone.”
“Who was the first person you saw this morning?”
“Catalina Monroe. My massage therapist. I had an eight o’clock.”
“You have a way we can contact her?”
McGrath’s widow rattled off a phone number, then said, “You know who you should be looking at?”
“Tell us,” Bree said.
“Terry Howard,” Vivian said with spite in her voice. “He threatened Tom on multiple occasions.”
“Cross is working that angle,” Muller said.
“Good. Good. I was afraid it might be … well, you know.”
“Are you planning a memorial?” Bree asked.
Vivian seemed more confused than ever; she looked down and whispered, “Is that something I’m supposed to do? I don’t know if Tommy would even want me to be involved.”
Muller said, “I suppose you make that decision by first taking a moment to honor the good times you had with Tommy, figure out what they meant to you. If Tommy’s love during those years was enough, you do it, you see him buried. And if those years of love weren’t enough, you don’t.”
“If you decide not to do anything, I’ll take care of the arrangements,” Bree said.
McGrath’s widow looked around as if in a daze, her chin trembling, and then said, “No, Kurt’s right. Honoring our love and burying the husband Tommy was is the least I can do.”
The dam burst, and she wept. “It’s the only thing I can do for him now.”
CHAPTER
8