Time moved very slowly, as drunk as he was. Half an hour passed as Griff pondered whether to get out of the car. Why was he here, if not to barge in and win his wife back? He ought to stop stalling. But if Griff went over there, would Kate agree to come home with him, or would she hold to Saxman tighter, out of some rebellious sense of pride? He might be sending her further into Saxman’s arms.
Eventually nature called. The cold air woke Griff up as soon as he opened the car door. He stepped behind the Dumpster to take a piss, and while he was back there, he made a decision. He zipped up and hurried back around the Dumpster, then marched across the blacktop, heading for room 21, to take his wife back from that asshole Saxman.
At the yellow door, Griff paused. Ethan was speaking—rapidly, urgently, roughly. Griff couldn’t make out the words, but the tone alone was enough to piss him off. How dare that creep Saxman speak to Kate that way? Griff raised his fist and pounded on the door.
“Who is it?” Ethan said, in an annoyed tone.
“Manager,” Griff said, putting on some vague foreign accent. “We had noise complaint. Open door, or I call the police.”
Saxman opened the door. As he caught sight of Griff, his expression morphed from irritation to shock. He moved to slam the door a second too late. Griff threw his weight against it, and they went tumbling into the room in a tangle of limbs. Kate screamed. Griff leapt to his feet, kicking away Saxman’s grasping hands, and started toward her.
“Did he hurt you?” Griff cried.
“Did you follow me, Griff?” Kate demanded. She sat on the bed fully clothed, her face red from crying, which only incensed Griff further.
“Did I hurt her? You’re the lunatic causing a scene,” Ethan said, as he got to his feet, his face flushed with anger.
“Stay out of this! Kate is my wife, and she’s coming home with me right now,” Griff said.
“No, I’m not,” Kate said.
“Yes, you are.”
Griff grabbed Kate’s arms and yanked her to her feet, dragging her toward the door. She dug her heels into the ugly carpet.
“Let … go … you crazy stalker!” she cried, twisting from his grasp, flailing at him.
Griff felt the sting as Kate’s fingernails gouged his arms and his hands. Saxman grabbed Griff by the back of his shirt, and pulled him off Kate, shoving him across the room. Griff’s head cracked against the wall. He fell sideways and crashed into a lamp, which toppled over beside him, its lightbulb exploding in a blue flash. Griff staggered to his feet, breathing heavily, just in time to see Saxman rushing him. They grappled, in a clinch, neither of them able to land a punch. Saxman was taller and had a longer reach, but Griff was heavier and stronger. Griff mustered the strength to push the guy off him. Ethan staggered backward, recovered instantly, and came back at Griff. Griff threw a poorly aimed punch that glanced off the side of Saxman’s face. Saxman swung at Griff hard and connected with his jaw. Momentarily stunned, Griff took a step back and put a hand to his lip. It came away bright red.
“Get out now,” Kate said, her voice thick with rage. “If you don’t leave right this minute, I swear to God, I’ll get a restraining order.”
She looked at him with such disgust that it took his breath away. The manager stood in the open doorway. He was a Sikh man in a turban, tall and dignified, and informed them gravely that the police were on the way.
Griff stared at the blood on his fingers. He knew he was blind drunk and reeked of alcohol. He was the one who forced his way into the room. With Griff’s luck, when the cops showed up, he’d probably be the one they arrested, no matter how unfair that was.
“You’ll regret this,” he said bitterly, though he didn’t know if he was speaking to Kate or her lover. All he knew was, he’d made it more likely Kate would leave him for Saxman, not less.
Griff forgot that he had the car. Next thing he remembered, he was running down the road, blind with rage and pain. He wound up in a bar, where they refused to serve him, and called a taxi for him instead. He went home and stripped, stuffing his shirt into the laundry hamper. He noticed the blood on it, but he didn’t think twice about it. Ethan was the one who slugged him, so why would he worry? Griff fell into bed and passed out. He never imagined that shirt would be seized by the police and become the centerpiece of a murder case against him. But then, he never thought any of this would come to pass—Kate dead, him sitting in a jail cell charged with her murder.
Griff heard the clanging of metal doors.
“Rothenberg,” the guard said, unlocking Griff’s cell. “Lawyer here to see you. Let’s go.”
Griff was escorted to a small, windowless interview room. He recognized the man who waited for him, because he was famous. Leonard Walters, an aggressive New York criminal lawyer with a national profile, a shock of white hair that set off his perpetual tan, and a fondness for trying cases in the press.
“Mr. Rothenberg, good to meet you,” Walters said. “I’m here to represent you at your father-in-law’s behest. No need to go through the formalities about retainer and such. He took care of all that.”
“I’m very grateful,” Griff said. “Keniston knows I would never hurt his daughter. I loved Kate—”
Walters held up a hand. “Let’s skip that and cut to the chase. It doesn’t matter how you felt or even what you did. What matters is what the police can prove, and how effectively we can undermine their case against you.”
“I want you to know, I’m innocent.”
“Glad to hear it. If you’re guilty that’s fine, too. Everybody deserves a defense. Only I’d advise you not to confess to me, because that makes my job harder, avoiding perjury and so forth.” Walters glanced at the gold Rolex on his wrist. “No time to waste. Here’s my plan.”
As Walters explained it, he intended to demolish the case against Griff by painting Chief Rizzo in the media as a trigger-happy rube who’d missed important pieces of evidence and manipulated others. Griff would come off as the martyr—a falsely accused, grief-stricken husband, dragged from the graveside of his beloved wife by an overzealous cop. It was a think-outside-the-box approach, and Griff liked it. They spent the rest of the visit going over the details of Kate’s affair, and the confrontation at the motel, so Walters’s investigator could start collecting evidence to back up Griff’s version of events.
“The blood on the shirt that this cop made such a stink about, you’re saying that’s your own blood? From when your wife’s boyfriend slugged you?” Walters asked, scribbling notes.
“Yes.”
“Oh, that’s good, that’s very good. And you left your wife alive, in the love nest with the other man?”
“At the motel, yes.”
“I love it. She’s pressuring him to leave his wife and kids. He doesn’t want to do it. And he’s the last one who saw her alive, not you.”
“And that’s not all. I don’t know if this helps or hurts us, but you should know. It’s my belief that Kate was pregnant with Saxman’s baby.”
Walters raised his eyebrows. “Really.”
“Yes. Now I have no proof of that. She never told me directly. But I lived in the same house as her, and I’m fairly certain.”
“A rich doctor with a wife and three kids at home. A pregnant mistress who’s starting to make demands. It’s classic. One thing, though. This was Thursday night, you say?”