The Question of the Dead Mistress

by E. J. Copperman

  “No. I was at work. The police called me. A lot of people saw him fall so the cops were there very soon.”

  Any number of questions suggested themselves. Why was her first husband not working when she was at her office? What was he doing on the fire escape? Had there been any suggestion of foul play?

  “How long was it before you got married again?” Ms. Washburn asked. Not my first impulse but a perfectly legitimate line of inquiry.

  “It was six years,” Virginia answered. “I met Brett at a farmers’ market in Metuchen and we just struck up a conversation. He asked me out and I would normally have turned him down, but he seemed so genuine and kind that my defenses were down. We were married only nine months later.”

  Ms. Washburn nodded and wrote something on the form. “And there’s never been any hint before that he might be cheating on you?”

  Given that Virginia Fontaine had come to Questions Answered to determine whether her husband was having an affair with a dead ex-girlfriend, her shocked facial expression was something of a surprise. “Never!” she said a little too loudly. I wondered if she was that upset by the suggestion or, to paraphrase Shakespeare, protesting too much. If Ms. Washburn were to ask me later, I would offer the latter idea as more likely. “There was never even a suggestion!” She sounded weirdly offended.

  Ms. Washburn wisely redirected her questioning, keeping her head down and giving a nod. “Okay. Then we’ll focus on this incident alone. Before all this came up, had you heard your husband mention Melanie Mason before?” She looked up to gauge Virginia’s reaction, which was a more calm and businesslike one than to the previous question.

  “Yes. Of course he’d told me about her. They dated in college, broke up just before he graduated and then got back together briefly a year or so later. That was probably around the same time I got married to William.”

  “And what was William’s last name?” Ms. Washburn asked.

  “Why?”

  Ms. Washburn, I could tell, was trying not to register any emotion but she did cock an eyebrow at the unexpected response. “Because I need to have all the information if I am to research your question successfully.” She had heard me say precisely those words to many of our clients. For some reason people walk into our offices and ask a question but don’t seem to think we need any further data to help answer it. It is very odd, and something I consider a neurotypical behavior.

  Virginia Fontaine seemed to accept the answer without liking it, if I had accurately interpreted the look in her eyes. “William Klein. He was an IT technician with a transit company based in New Brunswick.”

  Ms. Washburn wrote the information down, got the name of the companies for whom Virginia and both her husbands had worked and then looked her client in the eyes. “Do you think Brett has been in love with Melanie all these years?” she asked.

  Virginia did not hold the eye contact, indicating the question was a painful one. “I don’t know,” she answered after a moment. “I guess it’s not the kind of thing you think about after someone dies. I know it’s not a consideration when I think about William. He’s dead. There really isn’t a workable path to having a future with him so I moved on. Brett is my husband now and I love him.”

  “How did your husband—Brett—manage to find and contact Melanie?” Ms. Washburn asked. It was a question I would not have considered because I do not believe such a thing is possible so it is useless to explore such avenues. I had made the correct decision in assigning Ms. Washburn this question.

  “I have no idea. I figured that would be your problem.”

  Ms. Washburn took a moment, pretending to be writing on her clipboard while I knew she was evaluating the meeting and deciding what would come next. I’m sure Virginia did not see the hesitation, which did not last more than two seconds.

  “I think the most direct course of action right now is to follow your husband,” Ms. Washburn told her client. “If he is somehow cheating on you, with his dead girlfriend or anyone else, we’ll find out soon enough.”

  “There’s no one he would consider doing this with except Melanie,” Virginia insisted.

  “All right, but until we know for sure we need to have proof of everything. I understand that as a wife you know your husband better than anyone, but in our area we need to make sure there are absolutely no possibilities we’re overlooking.” Ms. Washburn was explaining the Questions Answered method as well if not better than I could. “My question is: If he is involved with anyone other than Melanie, do you want to know?”

  It would never have occurred to me to ask the question. If there is a truth and it affects one’s life directly, why would it ever be an option to purposely ignore it?

  “You’re not going to find that,” Virginia reiterated.

  “I understand. But hypothetically, if we did, do you want to be told?”

  “No.”

  Again Ms. Washburn nodded in some kind of understanding I did not comprehend. “Okay. We’ll start with following Brett and report back to you if he’s somehow seeing a ghost. But how can you be sure he’s involved with her physically? Is that even possible?”

  Virginia fixed a cold stare on Ms. Washburn that approximated that of some villains in Hollywood films. “It doesn’t matter if they’re having sex,” she said. “What matters is if he loves her more than he loves me.”

  “I’m not sure we can quantify that for you,” Ms. Washburn said.

  “You don’t have to. Report back what he does and I’ll decide.”

  I believe Ms. Washburn was not comfortable with that response, but she did not contest it as I would have. Interactions between and among women should not be different than those involving men, but my experience has been that they are. I do not try to understand such things when it is not directly involved with my own work. This question was Ms. Washburn’s responsibility.

  “One last question, Ginny,” Ms. Washburn said after a pause.

  “Yes?”

  “What is your favorite Beatles song?”

  I could not have been more proud. Ms. Washburn was using a tactic I have often employed in answering questions. An answer to that question can help interpret the subject’s personality and state of mind. I was not certain Ms. Washburn would use it since the question goes to a special interest of mine, the music of the Beatles.

  “Excuse me?” People often find the Beatles question unexpected and need extra time to organize their thoughts. Ms. Washburn knew it was not necessary to repeat it and waited a moment.

  “Please,” she said. That is a way to get the other person to focus and to impress upon her that you are sincere in your request.

  In this case, it worked as intended. “ ‘Drive My Car,’ ” she said.

  I immediately analyzed Virginia’s response. Sees other people as staff. Probably a liar.

  Ms. Washburn wrote the information on her pad. “Thank you,” she said. “Now I’ll get to work on your question. I will call you whenever progress is being made, so there’s no need to check with me unless there’s some new piece of information you might think of that could help with answering your question.” She looked toward the door, but Virginia did not get up from the client chair.

  “That’s it?” she asked.

  Ms. Washburn, understandably, looked puzzled. “Yes,” she said after recovering with a smile. “We’ll get in touch with updates as soon as we have anything to tell you, I promise. We don’t want to keep calling and say there isn’t any news yet. You understand.”

  It’s always a little risky, I have found, to assume that another person understands. I often do not understand when others clearly believe I should.

  “I understand, but I do not approve,” Virginia Fontaine said. “How do I know what you’ll be doing?”

  “Because I just explained to you what I’ll be doing,” Ms. Washburn said slowly. “If the plans change, I’
ll be sure to let you know.”

  Virginia sat up straighter and shook her head. “I want to go with you,” she said.

  I’m sure Ms. Washburn was as stunned as I was but she did not register her emotion facially, which was wise and impressive. I find Ms. Washburn more impressive every day. “Why would you want to do that?” she asked.

  “Because I need to be able to verify your actions,” Virginia responded.

  Ms. Washburn did exactly what I would do under those circumstances. She removed the client intake form from her clipboard and held it out to Virginia to take. “If those are your terms, I’m afraid we can’t help you.” I could hear the regret in Ms. Washburn’s voice; this had been her first opportunity to handle a question on her own and she was being forced to refuse it.

  But Virginia did not accept the form. “Are you going to be using tactics you prefer I don’t see?” she asked.

  Ms. Washburn did not withdraw the form. “Ms. Fontaine,” she began.

  “Ginny, please.”

  “Ms. Fontaine.” The stress was evident in Ms. Washburn’s voice. “We operate Questions Answered on a very simple basis—you ask the question and we answer it as accurately and completely as possible. It’s a service business relying almost entirely on trust. If you don’t trust me well enough to let me research and answer your question for you, there is no point to our continuing to discuss this matter. I am not going to invite you along on surveillance of your own husband, particularly if you don’t want to be told what might be pertinent information. Quite frankly, if you want to be there when we follow your husband, follow him yourself. Now are you going to trust me or not?” She continued to hold the form out for Virginia to take with her.

  Virginia held up her hands, palms forward, as if surrendering to someone holding a gun and pointing it at her. “I give up,” she said. “It was just a suggestion.”

  What she’d said had not at all sounded like a suggestion, but Ms. Washburn was not about to contest the point. She put the intake form back onto her clipboard and resumed the welcoming smile she had affected for most of the conversation.

  “Great,” she said, as if Virginia had suggested they have lunch together at some later date. People often say such things and then fail to follow through on the appointment being discussed; it is a little confusing. “Go home and just go through your normal routine. I assure you we’ll get in touch immediately when there’s something to tell you.”

  Virginia left without further protest and I actually did resume my research on the question of the orangutan. But Ms. Washburn said, “Samuel,” and I faced her. She was sitting at her desk but not looking at her computer screen. Instead she was looking rather deeply into my face, something I usually find extremely uncomfortable but welcome when Ms. Washburn is the other person. For a moment I thought she might walk over and kiss me again, which would not be at all unwelcome.

  But she did not move. “Yes?” I said.

  “How do you think I did?”

  I could have protested and said I had not been listening but Ms. Washburn knew me too well.

  “I think you did exactly as I would have done,” I said. “I am very impressed but not at all surprised.”

  Ms. Washburn smiled. “Thank you,” she said.

  Then she came over and kissed me. We had to agree later that we should never kiss in the Questions Answered office again. It could be seen as unprofessional.

  six

  I did not accompany Ms. Washburn when she followed Brett Fontaine the next day. In fact, Ms. Washburn insisted on being at the Fontaine home very early in the morning and did not come to the Questions Answered office at all that day. My friend Mike the taxicab driver was available and he drove me to the office at eight forty-five that morning.

  I do have an operative driver’s license. I choose not to use it except when absolutely necessary. The last time had been when we had recovered Reuben in Los Angeles, and that experience had not made driving any more attractive to me than it had been previously.

  That day was spent working on a new question, one that involved the amount of time it might take to circle the globe without flying in an airplane or helicopter. The answer would require a great deal of simple research and even more arithmetic.

  I was, therefore, working on a complex series of computations involving steamship departure schedules and the wind speed in Madagascar in January when my cellular telephone rang. Ms. Washburn had been suggesting fairly frequently that I customize the ring tones on my device to better identify certain callers with whom I communicate frequently, like herself, but since the only others are my mother and Mike the taxicab driver, I have not seen any potential efficiency in doing so and have refrained.

  The current call was from Reuben Hoenig. I had given him the number for my cellular phone while we were in Los Angeles in the hopes he would call then, but he did not for reasons that became evident before we left. Now I had to decide whether to accept his call and I found myself wondering why I hesitated to do so. It was complicated and emotionally charged, and probably something I should be discussing with Dr. Mancuso. There was no time to do that before deciding about the call from Reuben. The easy thing to do would be to ignore it, but in the moment I felt that would be cowardly so I hit the accept button.

  “Samuel!” My father sounded as if it were a surprise that he had called me. I did not understand his tone and had not known him very long. “What are you doing for lunch?”

  I did not know how to answer his question. “All I am doing for lunch is to come home and eat with you and Mother, like I do every day,” I finally said. His asking was odd on the surface, but I was sure Reuben had some secondary reason for asking, or an alternative plan he had not yet introduced into the conversation.

  “Well, suppose I come over and pick you up and the two of us go somewhere to have a sandwich and talk,” he said. That was clearly the alternative plan I’d anticipated.

  “Why would we not talk if I came home for lunch?” I asked. It wasn’t as if we sat and ate in silence very often. It had only happened once or twice since Reuben had re-entered the house.

  “I want to get to know you better,” he answered. “Sometimes it’s easier to do that when it’s just us two guys.” He meant he did not wish to include Mother in whatever conversation he had planned. I considered that rude.

  “With whom will Mother have lunch if we are not there?” I said.

  “Believe it or not, Sam … uel, your mom doesn’t mind having lunch by herself every once in a while.” Reuben had called me Sam before he left when I was four and had undoubtedly been thinking of me with that nickname all the years he’d been a mysterious presence in my mother’s life from various places in the United States. He was still not comfortable with my name as I use it and hesitates when he says it. I am not sure if the momentary pause is intentional or not and Dr. Mancuso has told me it doesn’t matter. What does matter, he says, is whether I believe Reuben is trying to co-opt my name. Dr. Mancuso tends to say things like that. I usually have to ruminate on them for weeks before I can decipher their meanings.

  “I have lunch with Mother every day,” I reminded him. The order of things and their predictability is more important to those of us identified as on the autism spectrum than it is to neurotypicals. Doing something other than what I am accustomed to doing on a daily basis is upsetting and would normally require a period of days to anticipate before I could accept it without protest.

  “I know, and I’m aware that you don’t like to change the way you do things.” That was an inaccurate interpretation of the situation but I understood that Reuben was trying to comprehend. “But I promise we can go anywhere you like and order any food you want. I just want to talk to my son alone for a little while. That’s fair, isn’t it?”

  It occurred to me that it would have been more fair if Reuben had mentioned this desire, for example, a week earlier and s
et a specific time and date for our father/son meeting but he clearly had a rather inadequate grasp of the way my mind works. In such cases, Mother says, it sometimes helps to be a little more flexible than usual. I do not like doing so and Mother knows it, but I have found her judgment and Ms. Washburn’s to be impeccable in these circumstances.

  “Very well,” I said to Reuben. “We will go to the Applebee’s restaurant on Centennial Avenue in Piscataway.” I had been there a number of times before and found the fare to be absolutely predictable.

  “Great.” Reuben was apparently given to hyperbole. “I’ll be there to pick you up at noon.”

  That left approximately sixty-three minutes before he would arrive. It was past my time to exercise, which I do every twenty minutes while working at Questions Answered. This allows for the proper number of calories to be burned at an efficient rate and keeps my cardiovascular system healthy. I stood and began to walk the perimeter of the office, raising my hands over my head and increasing my speed as I progressed. I would make thirteen such circuits and then allow myself to purchase a bottle of spring water from the vending machine we keep in the far corner.

  While I walked I tried to imagine what Reuben might want to discuss. Having an idea of the topic before the conversation began would be one way to avoid surprises, which is always a desirable goal in my mind. But never having been a father who had abandoned his family for twenty-eight years, it was difficult to project.

  Reuben arrived three minutes earlier than he had suggested. This was better than arriving three minutes late but was still not the time I had anticipated. I was in the midst of determining exactly how fast the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express might be expected to travel through a particularly mountainous region of Romania when the bells left by the pizzeria owners rang and Reuben arrived.

  He was dressed somewhat less casually than I had become accustomed to seeing. He had not worn a necktie but he was dressed in what was clearly a business suit and a white shirt with a collar and long sleeves.