“The kitchen. I can make some coffee if you like. I could use a cup myself. This way,” Griff said, trying to sound accommodating.
In the kitchen, the cops took seats at the table while Griff puttered around gathering the coffee things. He needed a minute to clear his head before he talked to them. He caught the girl cop glancing at his laptop, which sat out on the kitchen counter. She could search it all she wanted and she wouldn’t find anything interesting. Just some porn and a few pathetic relics of his useless job search. Griff had given up on finding work months ago. Big surprise—nobody wanted to hire a financial consultant whose father was locked up for a notorious financial crime.
Griff started the coffeemaker and took a seat across from the two cops. Their names had gone in one ear and out the other. All he remembered was that the man was chief of police, which worried him. If the chief of police was paying a house call, that must mean something big. Plus, it was bothering him—where had he seen the guy before?
“You asked about Kate. Did she do something I should be aware of?” Griff asked.
The cops looked at each other.
“So she went by Kate?” the chief asked, looking pained as he made a note in a spiral notebook.
“Yes.”
“Kate Eastman?”
“Yes.”
“And what was your relationship to her?”
“She was my wife.”
“Was?”
“Is my wife. Kate Eastman is my wife.”
“Eastman. Not Kate Rothenberg?”
“No. She never took my name.”
“Ah.” The chief was silent for a moment, taking Griff’s measure. He made a motion toward his own face. “What happened to your face, if you don’t mind my asking? You look like you took a punch.”
Griff touched his jaw again. “Oh, I uh, must’ve walked into something. I should probably cut back on the beer. Old college habit.”
“Uh-huh,” the chief said.
Griff’s hands were shaking. That could be chalked up to excessive alcohol consumption or might be the first sign of an impending anxiety attack. The attacks were a recent thing with him. They started when his father and the money went away simultaneously, and picked up steam once he realized that Kate was likely to leave, too. Griff had been steady all his life, but of course, he’d had an easy life until recently. Maybe if he’d had things rougher, he would’ve been a bag of nerves all along. He’d tried Prozac for a bit, but quit when it interfered with his drinking, alcohol being his preferred refuge in a crisis.
The shaking attracted the chief’s attention to Griff’s hands. There were noticeable scratches on the backs of his hands and on his forearms. The chief saw the scratches, and exchanged a meaningful look with the female detective, who pulled a notebook from her purse and wrote something down. Griff got up to check on the coffeemaker, wishing he had never let them in.
“So what is Ms. Eastman’s relationship to the Keniston Eastman who owns this house?” the chief asked.
“Keniston is Kate’s father,” Griff said. “You said if I let you in, that you would explain what this is about.”
“We’re getting to that,” the chief said, staring at Griff with dislike, or maybe it was suspicion.
“Mr. Rothenberg,” the female detective said, looking at her notebook, “a couple of nights ago, one of our officers found a vehicle abandoned in a parking lot off River Road, near the town boat launch, just downriver from the old railroad bridge. A 2014 red BMW three-series convertible with New Hampshire plates, registered in the name Katherine Elizabeth Eastman. Are you familiar with that vehicle?”
“Yes, that’s Kate’s car. What was it doing there?”
“We’re hoping you can help us figure that out,” she replied.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know.”
“When did you last see your wife?” the chief asked.
“Uh, hmm. How do you take your coffee, by the way?” Griff asked, to buy time.
“Any way is fine,” the chief said, watching him closely.
Their questions were beginning to alarm him. He needed time to organize his thoughts. He needed moral support, or better yet, legal advice. Too bad Burt Lippmann was serving five-to-forty in Allenwood for conspiring with his father.
Griff filled three cups and carried them to the table. He was shaking so hard that coffee sloshed onto the tablecloth.
“I asked when you last—”
“Yes, I heard you,” Griff said, taking a seat and a big gulp of coffee. It burned his mouth, and he winced. “Uh, let’s see. I last saw Kate … maybe a day or two ago. Maybe three.”
“You’re not sure?” the chief asked.
“Let me think,” Griff said. “Thursday. I’m pretty sure I last saw her on Thursday. What day is today?”
“Today is Sunday.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Do you still think you last saw her Thursday?”
“Yes, it was the day before her birthday, and her birthday was on Friday.”
“So you didn’t see your wife on her birthday?” the chief asked.
“No.”
“That’s pretty unusual, for a man not to see his wife on her birthday. Were you having marital problems?”
“What business is that of yours?”
“Based on what you just said, you haven’t seen your wife in three days, but you didn’t report her missing. Why not?”
Griff’s heart started to pound, and he felt like he couldn’t breathe. “Did something happen to Kate? Just tell me.”
Griff glared at the cop, and he glared right back. The female detective cleared her throat.
“Mr. Rothenberg, I’m afraid we have some bad news,” she said.
Griff went cold, and then hot. He’d been avoiding acknowledging to himself the likely reason behind their visit, but the moment had come when denial was no longer an option. He looked into the female detective’s eyes, which were kind, and tried to speak, but found he couldn’t. Kate, Kate, Kate, I love you so.
“Yesterday, a jogger on the river trail found a body washed up on the bank of the Belle River,” she said. “The 911 call initially went to fire and rescue, who responded and took custody of the body of a female subject, approximately five-four, a hundred ten to a hundred twenty pounds, blond hair, thirty to forty years old, deceased. Does that match the description of your wife?”
“Yes,” Griff said softly, looking down at the tablecloth. “I mean, it generally does, but that doesn’t mean it’s her. Right?”
The detective flipped through her notebook again. “The medical examiner took fingerprints from the body, which is standard procedure. The fingerprints were matched to one Katherine Elizabeth Eastman, previously arrested in New York five years ago on suspicion of DUI. We were able to trace her to this address, which is how we found you. The conclusion is that the deceased is most likely Ms.—”
“Yes,” he said, and the syllable came out like a plea for her to stop.
“We were hoping you might be able to come down to the station,” she said gently. “You won’t be viewing the actual body. The ME photographs the victim prior to autopsy, and we have the official pictures at our office. We need you to make a formal identification for the record.”
Griff put his head down on the table and cried like a baby.