Which brought another thought to mind. When a man gets killed for fooling around with a married woman, who’s the usual suspect?
The husband, that’s who.
Which meant that Dave could have a motive, too.
And if Dave had a motive, what about all the other cuckolded husbands? All those doctors?
Wow. The same demographic that had lost their shirts courtesy of Jay Braithwaite Burke, had also been cuckolded by Jay Braithwaite Burke. It was insult to injury—a murderous mix, to be sure. Follow the money and cherchez la femme, all wrapped up in one neat, deadly little package.
“Mitzi, where is Dave now?” I asked.
“Up in Sun Valley,” she said. “He got the condo in the divorce. As an accountant, he can work anywhere.”
I didn’t know Dave very well, having only met him briefly a few times at hospital parties. “So how’s he doing up there?”
“Pretty good,” she said. “He’s got plenty of clients, and he just remarried a couple of weeks ago. She’s already pregnant.”
If Dave had ever had a motive to begin with, he’d probably already forgotten about it, with a healthy business, a new wife, and a baby on the way. Or maybe the girl had used the pregnancy to force Dave to marry her, and he might be more pissed off than ever. Maybe that baby wasn’t his, either. Wouldn’t it be poetic justice if it was Jay’s?
But it probably wasn’t. Not unless Dave’s new wife had been previously married to a doctor who was in Jay’s Ponzi scheme. Not impossible.
Maybe that was why Mitzi and Dave hadn’t had sex in a year. Maybe Dave had already been fooling around with his new love, and Mitzi’s pregnancy just gave him an excuse to divorce her and make it look like her fault.
Jesus. What if Hal was messing around with a student and got her pregnant? He wouldn’t be that dumb. Or would he? If he was thinking with his dick, maybe he would.
I resolutely pushed that thought out of my mind. “Does Dave have a temper?” I asked. “Was he ever abusive to you or the kids?”
“Dave?” Mitzi seemed surprised. “Oh, no. No way. He was a teddy bear.” Her eyes filled with tears again. “I really miss him, Toni. I really do. I really loved him. Don’t get me wrong; I wouldn’t give up Stephanie for anything. But I sure wish I’d never met that slime Jay Braithwaite Burke. Murder was too good for him!”
Whoa. That was more emotion than I’d ever seen from Mitzi in the entire thirteen years I’d known her.
It occurred to me that if Dave had just gotten married, he might possibly have been on his honeymoon at the time Jay was murdered and would therefore have an alibi. It would be easy enough to check. All I had to do was Google him, get his office number, and then call and get the information from his receptionist.
I needed to make a list.
Number one: check Dave’s alibi.
Number two: check Jeannie’s medical chart and see if she’s had a pregnancy test lately.
Chapter 12
A jest’s prosperity lies in the ear
Of him that hears it, never the tongue
Of him that makes it.
—Shakespeare, Love’s Labour Lost
By the time I’d finished talking to Jeannie and Mitzi, it was nearly ten o’clock, which was not good. On the other hand, my slides were all done, and so were my typed gross descriptions from the day before.
So I shut myself in my office without speaking to anyone, put my phone on hold so that Mike would get all the calls, and plowed through the whole stack in about two hours. By then it was lunch time.
Normally Hal would walk over from the house to have lunch with me in the hospital cafeteria, but now …
As if my thoughts had conjured him out of thin air, Hal appeared in the doorway of my office as though nothing had happened. “Ready for lunch?”
We went to the cafeteria, where they had my favorite dessert: hot blueberry cobbler with ice cream on it. I didn’t have much appetite, but I knew that if I didn’t have a blueberry cobbler, Hal would ask questions, and I didn’t want to answer them in the cafeteria with everybody listening. So while he devoured a huge salad, a French dip sandwich, and his own blueberry cobbler with ice cream on it, I picked at mine as the ice cream melted into a soggy purple puddle in my bowl. Hal didn’t seem to notice.
“How was your morning, sweetie?” he asked between bites.
I poked listlessly at my ice cream. “Oh, fine,” I said. “I wasn’t expecting you to come for lunch today.”
“Why not? I’m on vacation, remember? Why shouldn’t I come have lunch with my wife? I thought that would please you,” he said.
“Oh, it does, it does,” I assured him.
“Toni,” he looked at me severely, “you’re a terrible liar. Something’s bothering you, and I want to know what.”
Why the hell do you expect me to tell you, when you won’t tell me? “I would tell you,” I said, “but not here.”
“Then we’ll talk about it tonight,” he said, “when you get home. You’re not sick, are you?” he asked, as if it had just occurred to him.
Yes, I am sick. Sick at heart. “Never felt better,” I assured him.
When we finished, he kissed me good-bye and headed home across Montana Street, while I went back to my office.
On the way, I was waylaid in the hall by Marilyn Sanders, a nurse who used to work in the emergency room at the hospital and now taught in the nursing program at the college. She patted my arm and said, “Nice to see you two back together again.”
“Thanks,” I replied automatically, and then it hit me what she’d just said. “Wait a minute. What do you mean, back together again?”
Her eyes grew round, and she put her hand to her mouth. “Oops. Oh, dear. I just put my foot in it, didn’t I?”
“I’ll decide that after you tell me what in hell you’re talking about,” I said, trying to stay calm and keep my voice down. “Come on; let’s get out of the hall.”
In my office, Marilyn apologized for upsetting me. “I have a noon class at the college,” she told me. “Sometimes I see your husband with a young woman. She’s almost as tall as he is, and slender, and she has gorgeous, long, blonde hair almost to her waist.”
Oh goody. The exact opposite of me in every way. Another Rebecca.
“I think she’s a student,” Marilyn said. “She’s not in the nursing program, though, so I don’t know who she is. He eats lunch with her fairly often, and I’ve seen him kiss her. I came to the obvious conclusion. I guess I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
“Kiss her how?” I demanded.
Marilyn seemed unsure as to how to answer that. “Oh, I don’t know, on the cheek, on the lips, you know.”
“Does he kiss her like a lover or like a friend?”
“Oh, like a friend, definitely,” Marilyn said too quickly, not meeting my eyes.
Translation: like a lover, but I’m not gonna tell you that. “How long has this been going on?”
“Since school started in August. I’m so sorry, Doctor. I wouldn’t have said anything, but I thought you knew.”
The wife is always the last to know. So I was right. Just a little late. The timing fits, I reflected. That’s just about how long he’s been unlike himself. How blind could I be? He might as well have been wearing a sign.
“I think I know who that must be, and it’s quite all right,” I lied. “Thanks for telling me, though.”
Now how in the hell was I going to get through the rest of the day? Sitting at my desk, I put my head in my hands, groaned dismally, and then jumped when Lucille, my senior histotech, picked just that moment to come into my office with a tray of Pap smears.
“What’s the matter, Doctor?” she asked with concern. “Are you okay?”
I told her I had a headache, which wasn’t too far from the truth
.
“That’s too bad,” she said. “Maybe you oughtta go home. I know sometimes when I get headaches, I have to.” Lucille had good reason for headaches; three years ago she had suffered a head injury that nearly killed her. It took six months of rehab before she could come back to work.
“Oh, it isn’t that bad,” I assured her, and she went away.
By now all the pathology reports were typed and on my desk, so I could just sign them and go home, which I did. The walk gave me a chance to think about what to do next, now that my suspicions had been confirmed. Should I act normal? Confront him? Try to get him back? Did I want him back, under the circumstances? Should I divorce him? Would he want to divorce me? If he asked me to forgive him, should I?
Wait a minute. What was I thinking? Why was I beating myself up because Hal wanted to have an affair? Why should he get to have all the fun? Why, the next time Bernie Kincaid comes on to me, by golly, I just might …
By this time I was home, and Hal wasn’t. Big surprise. I had no idea what I would do when he got home, or if he got home.
Maybe I should talk to my mother, I thought. Why, I don’t really know, since Mum has no experience with this sort of thing, never having had her husband be unfaithful to her or ever having been divorced. My father had been killed shortly after they were married, and she had never remarried. So, actually, I had more experience with marriage than she had, for what it was worth, which was apparently not much.
But she was my mother, and she did have seventeen years on me, and she loved me. And she had simply oodles of common sense. But as I reached for the phone, I saw that Hal had left me a note saying that he was next door and to come over as soon as I got home.
Hmmm. That was all it said. It didn’t say why. Well, I needed to talk to my mother, and the son of a bitch could just wait.
“Darling,” my mother greeted me. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your call? Is everything all right?”
Should I lead into it gradually, or just dump it on her? Oh, to hell with it. “Hal’s having an affair,” I said.
“Are you sure, kitten?”
“Pretty much,” I said. “An acquaintance told me today that she’d seen him on campus with a young blonde who may or may not be a student, and she’s seen him kiss her.”
“Kiss her how?”
That’s what I said. Is this telepathy or genetics? “She said on the cheek, on the lips, and when I asked her if he kissed her like a friend or like a lover, she said like a friend, but she was lying.”
“Why do you assume she was lying, kitten? Why couldn’t she have been telling the truth?”
I sighed. Mum just wasn’t getting it. “Because she started out by saying it was good to see Hal and me back together again, and then she backpedaled all over the place when she realized I didn’t know what she was talking about. She thought I knew.”
“And what did Hal say when you asked him about it? Because of course you have. One doesn’t go around accusing one’s husband without more to go on than somebody’s casual observation, dear, now does one?”
Oh, wouldn’t I? “Mum, whose side are you on here?” I said. “If I ask Hal, he’s just going to blow me off. Ask me how I know that. It’s because he’s been blowing me off for at least three months already, ever since school started.”
“Darling, are you telling me that he’s been having an affair since school started and you’re just now telling me?”
With growing exasperation, I said, “No, Mum, I just found out today. But he’s been acting strange since about when school started, which makes sense if this has been going on that long, and Marilyn says that it has been.”
“And in what way is he acting strange, dear?” my mother asked.
“He’s been distant, preoccupied, and he gets pissed off at things that never used to bother him before,” I told her, “and we hardly ever have sex anymore.”
“Does he work late a lot, or seem to have more meetings at night, or go places on weekends without you? Does he take more showers or use a different aftershave, like he wants to make himself attractive to someone other than you?”
“No,” I said. “I mean, he showers in the morning before he goes to work, which he’s always done, and he uses the same aftershave he’s used ever since I’ve known him, and he doesn’t go out at night or on weekends at all. But then, if he’s having an affair with someone at the college, he wouldn’t need to.”
“You don’t think so, dear?” Mum asked. “I should think that if Hal were having an affair, he would want to spend every possible moment with his new love. He did with you, as I remember. Wouldn’t you, if you had a new love?”
Well, I guessed I would. I hadn’t thought of it that way. Perhaps Mum had a point. But if I didn’t argue with her, she’d think I was sick. “So why is he acting all preoccupied? Why don’t we have sex anymore? There’s something going on, Mum. What else could it be?”
“Any number of things, kitten. Perhaps there are problems at the college. Perhaps he’s having problems with a class, a student, a coworker. Perhaps there’s some policy change that he objects to. Or maybe he’s ill. Had you thought of that?”
“Actually, I did think of that,” I said. “But why couldn’t he tell me about it? If he’s having problems at work, why can’t he tell me about that? I ask him what’s bothering him, and he tells me there’s nothing, and to get off his case. I figured that an affair would be the one thing he couldn’t tell me about, and then today when Marilyn told me …” At this point I burst into tears and couldn’t finish.
“Darling child,” my mother said, “I don’t think you need to worry about your Hal. Whatever is bothering him, he’ll tell you about it when the time is right, and perhaps you should stop nagging him about it. But I do think you need an awful lot more to go on than you have now, to accuse him of having an affair, dear. Oh, I don’t mean you shouldn’t ask him, but if he says he’s not, just let it go at that until you have more evidence.”
I blew my nose. “I’ll try,” I said, “but it’s not going to be easy, you know.”
“No, kitten,” Mum agreed. “These things never are. Do you want me to come?”
Oh, God, do I. But I’m a big girl now, right? Right? “Oh, no, Mum, you don’t need to. I’ll be okay.”
“Okay, kitten. But if you change your mind, let me know and I’ll be there posthaste.”
After exchanging I-love-yous, we hung up.
Instantly, the phone rang again.
How rude, I thought. Here I was, all weepy and emotional, and I was supposed to deal with some telemarketer as if everything was all right? To hell with that. Whoever it was could just leave a message or call back. I’d deal with whatever it was when I was good and ready and not before.
I let the phone ring until the answering machine picked it up. Hal’s voice said, “Hi, honey, it’s me. I guess you’re not home yet. I left you a note, but in case you don’t see it, I’m next door at Jodi and Elliott’s. All hell’s broken loose. Get over here as soon as you can, okay? Please? See you then. Bye.”
Chapter 13
The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved.
—Victor Hugo
It was the “please” that did it.
When I went next door, I had to ring the doorbell several times before anybody answered. It was Hal himself who finally answered the door. The household was in an uproar. The kids were fighting over the TV remote. They had the volume up so high that I couldn’t hear myself think. Kathleen was screaming into the phone, her opposite ear plugged with a finger.
“Where the hell have you been?” he shouted over the din.
“I was talking to my mother,” I yelled back. “Anything wrong with that?”
“I’ve been waiting for an hour. What did your mother want?”
“No
thing. I called her.”
“Didn’t you see my note?”
“I saw it. I didn’t know there was any big rush. So what’s the big deal?”
“Tiffany’s in the hospital. So’s her boss, Lance Brooks. Smoke inhalation. The office burned down.”
Well, that stopped me in sarcastic midstream. “No shit.”
“The office burned to the ground,” he said. “Didn’t you hear the sirens? The fire trucks had to go right by the hospital.”
Obviously I was too busy all day obsessing over my marriage to notice. “Hello. I work in a hospital. There are sirens all the time. Why should I have noticed those particular sirens?”
“Because the fire trucks have a different siren, as you know very well. Why are you being so bitchy?”
“That’s what we’re going to discuss at home,” I said. “Any time you’re ready. I’ll see you there.” Then I turned and walked out the door, ignoring Hal, who called after me. “Toni! Come back here!”
So, I thought as I sprinted back across the lawn, Burke, Braithwaite, Burke, Bartlett, and Brooks—the five Bs—was no more. Now it was in the hands of the arson investigators at the fire department.
Unlike Elliott and his partners, whose office was in a bank building, Jay and Lance had their offices in a converted house.
It took Hal barely two minutes to make his farewells and follow me home. When he threw the front door open, I was waiting with my arms crossed defiantly.
“Toni, what the hell is this all about? You do realize we’ve got another party to go to, and it’s already six-thirty. We have to be down at the country club in half an hour.”
I felt no obligation to put in an appearance at this party, which was the faculty party for the college. Hal could go by himself for all I cared, or at least that’s what I told myself. Whether or not I believed it was another matter. “Fine. If you think your party is more important than our marriage, go ahead.” I turned and walked into the kitchen, where I got a clean glass out of the dishwasher and prepared to pour myself a scotch.
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