It's Always the Husband

by Michele Campbell

  Jenny hung up resolutely. Maybe she hadn’t come right out and said it, but she’d hinted sufficiently to give Rizzo fair warning: If he didn’t change his tune and start working with her instead of against her, she’d have him removed from office. As mayor, Jenny wasn’t a dictator, but she wasn’t a pushover either. She took care of business when the situation called for it. Speaking of—she got on the phone to the town’s tow-truck concession and told them to boot that damn car and get it out of her parking space, ASAP.

  Walking down Briggs Street, taking care not to slip on the ice in her high-heeled pumps, Jenny marveled at the size of the crowds. Cars were parked haphazardly on sidewalks, TV trucks blocked driveways, and reporters with recognizable faces did sound checks on the town green. Briggs Gate had been closed off by two Carlisle Safety and Security vans parked lengthwise across its expanse. One of the officers recognized Jenny and waved her through. The massive Gothic bulk of Mem Church sat just inside the gate, anchoring the west end of the Quad. Its grayish limestone façade was a drab contrast to the mellow brick buildings around it, and looked sober and gloomy against the fresh white snow. But you couldn’t deny its majesty. From the tall stained-glass windows to the soaring steeple to the sweeping stone steps that fronted it, the church impressed. This was the place Carlisle reserved for its greatest dignitaries—Nobel laureates, presidents, literary lions, Eastmans. Jenny had to wonder if Keniston regretted the decision to hold Kate’s funeral here. It was looking more like an ambush than an honor. Keniston must be wishing he’d chosen some obscure country graveyard for his daughter’s funeral so he could mourn her in peace.

  The massive wooden front doors were locked, so she went around to the side entrance, where another Carlisle safety officer stood guard. From there she took the elevator down to the basement, and walked down a long, echoing stone hallway to the suite of offices at the back, which smelled of burnt coffee and heating oil. When she walked into the conference room and caught sight of Keniston, Jenny struggled to keep the dismay from showing in her face. He sat hunched in a wheelchair, frail and shrunken, a yellow cast to his skin, his son Benji on one side of him, and Griff on the other. Keniston had aged almost beyond recognition in the year and a half since she’d seen him at Victoria’s funeral. Griff looked awful, too—pale as death, with a day’s growth of beard and dark circles under his eyes. Jenny knew Griff intended to be at the funeral, but with the press accusing him of murdering his wife, she’d wondered if he would change his mind. It took guts to show his face under the circumstances—and show it not only to the public, but to his wife’s family. Keniston seemed to be treating Griff with grave civility. Maybe he’d decided that the best way to handle the negative press attention was to present a united front?

  Jenny went to Keniston and leaned down for an awkward half hug. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she whispered.

  Then she made her way around the table, hugging Griff and Benji, and shaking hands with the Right Reverend Maurice Jeffries, Carlisle’s chaplain, who would be conducting the service. They spent a somber fifteen minutes reviewing the order of the proceedings. When that business was concluded, Keniston asked for a moment alone with Jenny. The others left the room, though Jenny wished she could beg them to stay. She’d been dreading this conversation for days.

  “I know what you’re going to say,” Jenny said, before Keniston could speak. “Let me say it for you. I’m beside myself at the press coverage, Keniston. I’ve tried to control it, but the chief of police is new and he’s an outsider. He doesn’t understand the town, or the college. I believe he’s responsible for the leaks to the media, and I swear to you, I’m trying to rein him in.”

  “You think I’m upset about the press coverage?” Keniston said, his craggy eyebrows drawing together. His voice might be weak with age and illness, but to Jenny, he was as intimidating as ever.

  “I thought so. I am,” she said.

  “At my age, you stop worrying about how things look,” Keniston said, “and focus on what really matters. I’m upset that my daughter is dead, and my son-in-law is accused of murdering her. That’s what I care about.”

  “Of course,” Jenny said. “I never meant to suggest otherwise. I just thought, since you wanted to speak to me alone—”

  “That I planned to scold you.”

  “Yes.”

  “And I do. But not about the press coverage. What kind of police department are you running here, that they go after an innocent man who’s grieving the loss of his wife?”

  “I’m not running it. I told you, it’s this police chief.” She paused, letting his words sink in. “Are you saying you don’t believe Griff killed Kate?”

  “Never. Griffin Rothenberg would not harm a hair on Kate’s head. That boy saved her life a million times over. He’s a saint. I was angry with Griff’s father, and I let that come between us for a while, but no longer. I have complete faith in him, and I plan to stand by him through this mess.”

  “Oh, I agree with you,” Jenny said. “And yet—” Jenny paused, not sure she liked the repercussions for her if Griff was innocent—if the focus of the press, and the police, shifted away from him.

  “Speak up,” Keniston said.

  “I’m not saying Griff is guilty. But there is evidence. Kate filed for divorce and disappeared. There’s blood all over Griff’s shirt, and Griff’s skin is under Kate’s fingernails. She just came into some money—well, you know about that.”

  “Griff has perfectly good explanations for all of these things. I’m hiring a private detective to work on backing up Griff’s side of the story. What I care about is having my son-in-law left alone and my daughter buried in peace. That’s where you could do a better job, Jenny. Control the press. Call off the police. Put this nightmare to bed.”

  “I’ll try my best, I promise,” she said, nodding.

  Keniston looked at his watch. It was nearly time for the funeral to begin.

  “Let’s get on with it, shall we,” he said, as if he was gaveling a business meeting to order rather than going to his daughter’s funeral.

  By the time they were seated on the dais, the church was full, and a frenzied buzz of conversation echoed back from the vaulted ceiling. There must be over a thousand people here. Who were they? Strangers and pretenders, mostly, along with Eastman friends and relatives, rubberneckers from the town who’d never met Kate, and a load of Carlisle faculty. The press was cordoned off in the north transept, away from the main action, but constantly threatening to swamp the velvet ropes. As the organist began to play the Chopin funeral march and the sonorous notes rose high into the air, the congregation turned as one toward the door. Kate’s coffin was rich mahogany with polished brass fittings, piled high with white lilies, and borne by eight somber, dark-suited pallbearers. The three Eastman boys, four men whom Jenny didn’t recognize, and at the front right, Griff, with tears shining in his eyes. The flashbulbs sputtered like mad as the photographers went wild trying to get his picture. She could imagine the headlines: “Killer Husband Fakes Tears!”

  Once the coffin had been placed before the dais, Griff took his seat beside Keniston as the chief mourner, and the chaplain rose to begin the service. The service lasted a very long time, and when finally it was Jenny’s turn, she walked to the podium feeling drained and emotionally depleted. She clutched her notes, but she couldn’t remember a word of her prepared speech, and the print on the page swam before her eyes. After a long, terrible pause, Jenny cast the notes aside and spoke from her heart. Her love for her friend came pouring out of her. Open on Kate, holding her father’s hand at her dying mother’s bedside. Then Kate with her bright hair on the wide green lawn of the Quad on their first day at Carlisle. Kate, always the belle, whether in jeans and sneakers, or a miniskirt and stilettos. Kate studying but not studying, goofing off, partying yet still getting As because she was so damn smart. (She’d wasted her talents, but Jenny never said that.) Kate holding court at a long table in the Commons, eating that nasty pink yo
gurt she loved that wasn’t even a real flavor, and talking about Freud so that even the dullest among them finally got it. Kate on her wedding day to Griff, full of hope. Kate, leading a life of glamour and luxury. Kate this past summer, returning to Belle River to start over after misfortune struck, in the bosom of old friends, holding her head up. Kate, taken from her loved ones much too soon. But take comfort, for she was at peace now, resting in the arms of God.

  Tears rolled down Jenny’s cheeks, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Jenny believed every word as she said it, even though she was simultaneously conscious of the flip side—the negative, the tragic, the ugly. But you didn’t speak ill of the dead, and after years in politics, Jenny believed in giving the audience what they wanted. A funeral was no place for the bitter truth. They would say a proper good-bye and pray for Kate at the hour of her death. Scandal would have to wait.

  But it didn’t wait long. Griff and the other pallbearers got up to carry Kate’s coffin to the hearse outside, leaving Jenny to wheel Keniston down the handicapped-accessible ramp. They were only a minute behind the others. But by the time they got outside, the coffin was in the hearse, and Griff was spread-eagled against a police cruiser while Owen Rizzo slapped the cuffs on in full view of the national press.

  31

  The cell was cold and grimy. It reminded Griff of that godawful house on Faculty Row. That place was a pigsty and depressing as hell, with old steam radiators that rattled and spit, and drafty windows that leaked frigid air on cold nights. For a while Griff had tried to maintain the place, but it was a losing battle. Every time he did something, Kate undid it. She didn’t understand the basics of taking care of a house, or taking care of herself for that matter. He couldn’t blame her. She’d had help all her life. First in New York with her family, and then with him. Kate’s favorite thing of all was living in hotels, which they did for months on end. She liked her sheets ironed, and changed every day, her crumpled towels whisked away, fresh flowers, a chocolate on the pillow. In the best places, the staff tiptoed in when you were down at the pool, and you never saw them. She didn’t want to have to tell someone what to do; she just wanted it done. Room service at odd hours, breakfast on the terrace in her bathrobe with dark glasses on to block the tropical sun, aspirin from the gift shop for her hangover—that’s the life Kate was used to. Griff could hardly blame her if, when all that disappeared, Kate had difficulty learning to cook or clean or do laundry. Kate was a New Yorker. She didn’t like to drive, so if there was no deli on the corner, if nobody delivered, how could she be expected to buy groceries?

  Griff did all the shopping, and when he did, he noticed things. He knew Kate was pregnant, because he knew when she got her period. He knew whether there were tampons in the drawer, because he made the drugstore runs. He noticed the puffiness in her face, and her breasts, and the flush that came to her cheeks. He knew she wanted this baby, because she changed what she ate, and cut back how much she drank. He knew what those special vitamins were for. She didn’t have to say. He also knew that the child wasn’t his, because she’d never agreed to get pregnant even though he’d begged her, and because they hadn’t had sex in a year. He knew that Kate didn’t want his baby, but that she wanted this one. And Griff knew whose it was, because he’d been watching that little romance from the beginning.

  Ethan Saxman was Aubrey’s husband, so Griff and Kate had met him on several occasions before moving back to town. But mostly, they’d kept their distance from the Belle River crowd. Kate hated the place. It reminded her too much of that unfortunate business at the bridge, and as much as Belle River itself reminded her, her freshman-year roommates reminded her even more. Kate had only seen her ex-roommates for the occasional weekend or birthday or holiday here and there over the years, and even that was at their instigation. If Aubrey and Jenny hadn’t pursued Kate, the connection would have been lost. Griff himself was in close communication with old chums from his frat, as well as a number of other Carlisle men from his graduating class. He liked having a history with people. Kate didn’t. It made her feel too exposed. He understood that. He accepted her idiosyncrasies.

  When they moved back to Belle River—under a cloud of suspicion, in dire straits financially, in need of friends—Ethan Saxman was the shiny new toy that distracted Kate from her troubles. They saw him again for the first time in several years in some mediocre restaurant when the three couples met for dinner early in the summer. The tables were too close together; it was hot and noisy and unpleasant. Ethan stood up and moved his chair to make room for Kate at the table. Griff watched the whole thing happen. She looked at him, he smiled at her—done. The look in Kate’s eyes, the timbre of her voice as they talked to each other. Ethan was tall and dark, with those thick, girlish lips, like Lucas Arsenault had. Kate went for that sort of thing—tall, dark, and obvious, with an ostentatious sex appeal. Griff was not as tall, he was blond, his looks were more refined. Women still followed him with their eyes when he walked into a room. Women did; not Kate. You’d think physical appearance wouldn’t matter after a lifetime of devotion, but people were shallow. Kate was the shallowest of all.

  Griff followed the details of the affair like he was hate-watching some awful, addictive TV show. Kate refused to learn about technology or be bothered paying bills, so their various accounts were set up and handled by Griff. They shared an Apple account, which meant that he could set her texts to show up on his iPhone and she didn’t even realize it. They shared an Uber account, so he could see where the cars took her. And they shared their one remaining credit card, so he saw every charge she made. No need to pay for a private detective when he could follow her with the swipe of a fingertip. He knew which hotel Kate frequented with her lover. A motel really, a seedy place called the Pinetree Inn, out on Route 17 in Mill Junction where they hoped to escape prying eyes from Belle River. Kate was kind enough to leave Griff the car on these occasions. This was because the first time she stayed out all night with her new beau, Griff had been hesitant to confront her directly, so he threw a fit about being stranded with no ride. Kate took that to heart, and never made that mistake again, which meant Griff had the BMW to drive out to Mill Junction and spy on them. Half the time they didn’t bother closing the blinds. Griff saw them together. He saw what they did.

  Griff recently realized, from reading Kate’s texts, that she was pressuring Ethan to leave his wife. He couldn’t tell if she’d told Ethan yet that she was pregnant. (Indeed, Griff had no official confirmation that Kate actually was pregnant, beyond his own observations. She certainly hadn’t talked to him about it.) The fact that Ethan had three children with another woman meant nothing to Kate, for whom other people’s needs didn’t register. The interesting thing was that Ethan was not on board with Kate’s plan. In his texts, Ethan seemed to be hesitating, backing off, even hinting at ending things. And it might have gone that way, had Griff not intervened and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

  Sitting in the cold jail cell, Griff had plenty of time to relive the confrontation in all its awfulness. It was last Thursday night around nine o’clock, cold and windy with a chance of rain. Griff sat drinking in the gloomy kitchen, wondering if Kate was coming home. The clock on the wall ticked loudly, and the bottle of vodka was almost empty. Griff was just about to get up and raid the pantry for another bottle when his phone buzzed with the duplicate of Kate’s text to Ethan Saxman.

  “I decided to file,” Kate wrote. “I know you said not to but I have to. I want to explain so meet me at Pinetree ASAP.”

  Then nothing.

  Five minutes later, Kate texted her lover again. “Babe r u coming? Please answer. So important.”

  Poor Kate was feeling insecure. Had Saxman ditched her already? Aww, how sad. Griff took a swig straight from the bottle and waited, but his stomach felt funny. One word in her text had leaped out, and it troubled him. File. What did she mean, file?

  “Can’t get away tonight. Don’t do anything until we talk,” Ethan re
plied, several minutes later.

  “No, too important,” Kate texted back almost instantly. “Have to tell you something big. You’ll understand once you know.”

  “I can meet tomorrow but don’t do anything yet,” Saxman texted back.

  Don’t do what? What the hell were they talking about?

  “Lawyer says I need to file in the morning bc $. At Pinetree now pls come!!” Kate wrote.

  Understanding broke over Griff like a tidal wave. “File” meant file for divorce. Kate was about to reveal to her lover that she was pregnant with his child, and planned to file for divorce from Griff the next morning. Kate wasn’t simply having another in a long string of affairs. She was leaving Griff—correction, divorcing him, on a timeline designed to deprive him of his fair share of her trust fund money. Griff and Kate had been talking for months about what to do with that money when it came in, which would be on the day of her fortieth birthday. He had a plan for a fresh start for them, both of them, together, far away from the pernicious influence of Ethan Saxman. In the Keys, or maybe the Virgin Islands, captaining a little boat, booking fishing charters. He could earn their keep, he was confident of that. Griff was excited about the plan but Kate refused to commit to it. Maybe, let’s wait and see, she’d say. That had obviously been a lie, a stall, a scam. She never had any intention of going away with him. She was stringing him along while she made other plans. Griff lavished years of his life and millions of his father’s fortune on Kate, and this was how she repaid him.

  Griff hoisted the vodka bottle and discovered that it was empty. The car keys sat in the middle of the table where Kate had left them. His next step unfolded with perfect logic. There was no thought process involved. He simply picked up the keys and walked out the front door. He didn’t even stop to get his wallet.

  He didn’t remember driving to the motel, but sometime later, Griff was there, parked in his usual spot. He liked to hide at the far side of the lot, next to the Dumpster, beyond where the streetlights reached, and watch without being seen. The Pinetree Inn was the sort of single-story, low-rise dump where the rooms opened directly onto the parking lot. Each room had a different-colored door. About half of the spaces were taken tonight, but nobody had gone in or out recently. Saxman’s car was parked in front of the cheerful yellow door to room 21. The blinds were closed, so Griff used his imagination to visualize what they were doing in there.