The Girl in the Green Raincoat

by Laura Lippman

  Tess was thinking about dinner, too. Not hers, but the food that Annette Epstein had eaten in the hospital. Could Don Epstein have slipped antibiotics in her food while she was there? And what about the idiopathic nausea that landed her in the hospital but hadn’t killed her? She clicked away on the Internet, reading about poison.

  Crow walked in, looked over her shoulder and sighed.

  “It’s fascinating,” she said. “It’s not that easy to find a poison in someone’s system unless you have some idea what it is. Yes, everyone agrees that Annette Epstein had antibiotics in her system. But what about the nausea that put her in the hospital to begin with? Of course they did a tox screen, but that only uncovers so much, and no one was arguing about the cause of Annette’s death, which was clearly a complication of the staph infection—”

  “Tess, this isn’t healthy.”

  She held up the spiral-bound notepad on the bedside table. “My blood pressure readings have been normal for days.”

  “I’m talking about your mental health. You set out to get the police’s full attention. Mission accomplished. Let it go.”

  Tess decided this was probably not the best time to tell him that she had sent Whitney out to land a date with Baltimore’s best known bachelor. She moved her feet, creating a space for Crow to sit. Of all the things she disliked about her confinement, the worst had been sleeping alone, out here. A small thing, not sleeping in the same bed. No, check that. A big thing, a huge thing. She felt estranged from him. He was loyal, but she realized now she was never truly sure of him. Over the years they had been together, he ran away from her twice. Both times she had all but forced him to leave her, but still—he was the one who ran. What if he ran again?

  “Do you remember,” she asked, “how we met?”

  “I worked in your aunt’s bookstore.”

  “You had a crush on my aunt.”

  “Everyone who worked in the store had a crush on your aunt. It’s a rite of passage.”

  “When did we fall in love?”

  “Isn’t that a song from Fiorello!?”

  “Possibly the worst musical to ever win the Pulitzer, no small feat,” Tess said.

  “And poor George Gershwin got no recognition when Of Thee I Sing won.”

  The exchange of trivia cheered her. It was normal, it was what they did. “I’m just saying, this all seems so . . . accidental.”

  “The pregnancy was an accident. Our life together feels purposeful to me. That’s why the baby didn’t faze me. I always assumed we would have one.”

  “You did?” It had been a shock, when she first went to see the ob-gyn, to discover the cause of her nausea. The next shock was discovering that she was considered, at thirty-five, an “older” mother. She thought she had all the time in the world to start a family, if that’s what she decided she wanted, and then she was told she was a long shot.

  “Yes. I just thought I was going to have to launch a campaign. By the way, I know you don’t want to make any plans about the baby, but there is one thing we have to talk about.”

  “Yes?”

  “We have to pick out a guardian.”

  “I thought we settled on Whitney.”

  “The other day, when I was out with her, I started to ask, but I had second thoughts. I don’t think she likes kids, Tess.”

  “She’ll like our child.”

  “She’s so . . . rootless. Living in that cottage on her parents’ property, working at the family foundation. And she gets bored easily.”

  Crow had never criticized Whitney before and it made Tess uncomfortable. What else might he criticize? And whom?

  “Do you have an alternative in mind?”

  “Not really. That bothers me, too. We know a lot of people, but not many intact families, with kids. Soon that’s going to be our peer group, that’s going to shape how we live. Our life is going to change, Tess.”

  “I know that.”

  “Do you?”

  This had been a refrain since her pregnancy first became public. Oh boy, is your life going to change. Usually, it was said with joy and anticipation. But just as often there was a flicker of malice in it, a misery-loves-company vibe that Tess found disturbing. No more restaurants, her friend Jackie, the single mother of a little girl, had pronounced. That is, no more real restaurants. You’re not going to see a cloth napkin for another ten, fifteen years. Others had predicted the end of sleep, sex, travel, reading, a clean house, and clean clothes. Apparently, she and Crow had been having far too much fun and it was now time to pay the piper, to surrender to this invading army of one. Why was this information withheld until it was too late?

  “I’ve heard all the lectures,” she told Crow now. “I still think that we can take her to restaurants we like. And we don’t travel that much, so that’s not a big deal, and—”

  “Tess, I’m talking about your job. A job that, at times, has been dangerous.”

  “Just the once,” she said.

  “You were almost killed ‘just the once.’ And there have been other close calls.”

  “I’m much more cautious than I used to be.”

  “That’s true,” Crow said. “But what about the mundane details? Take, for example, surveillance. What if you’re watching someone but I need to go to work and we don’t have backup babysitting? Are you going to go on jobs with the baby in the car seat, strap her into a Snugli and go about your day?”

  “A baby in a Snugli would be an excellent cover,” she said.

  “Tess.” Crow was as angry and agitated as Tess had ever seen him. “I’ve never tried to tell you how to conduct your life. But your life isn’t strictly yours anymore. I’m not saying you can’t continue to work as an investigator. But you could go full-time for an insurance company, or a big law firm.”

  “What about you, then?” she countered. “Do you think managing a club is a suitable job for a man with a young child? On a typical workday, you head out at five p.m. and come home at four in the morning. You work most of the weekend. What changes are you prepared to make?”

  “Fact is, I’m thinking of going back to school, part-time, get one of those weekend MBAs.”

  Tess almost burst into tears, and for once it wasn’t the hormones. Six years ago she had fallen in love with a man who was a musician and an artist, and now he was talking about MBAs?

  “No,” she said. “That’s not you. But what you’re talking about—that’s not me. An office, working for other people. That’s the one thing I can’t go back to. Once you’ve been your own boss, it’s impossible to go back.”

  Her iPhone rang, the jangly tone assigned to Whitney. Crow recognized it, too. After all, he had programmed it.

  “Go ahead, take it,” he said. “Whatever Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden are cooking up is far more important than the small matter of our future.”

  Chapter 13

  Whitney Talbot had always spoken her mind. Not because she was indifferent to the feelings of others—although, to be honest, that was a big factor—but because it was too much trouble keeping track of lies. Tell the truth and bear the consequences was Whitney’s motto. But now she found herself juggling two big lies. She was going on “dates” with Don Epstein, pretending to be a naïve Eastern Shore girl, estranged from her parents and with few financial resources.

  And she was lying about those dates to her oldest friend, Tess Monaghan, who had no idea how much she was enjoying her assignment. Don Epstein was surprisingly good company, who suggested almost teenage activities for their evening together. Duckpin bowling, ice skating, even a ceili at a North Baltimore church. Whitney had always thought she would rather drive nails into her eyes then attempt Irish dancing, but Epstein made her feel utterly unself-conscious. Having come into this world exceedingly self-conscious, that was no small thing.

  He also was, to use one of her mother’s outmoded words, a gentleman. True, her mother would be appalled by him, but that would be based on appearances and her mother’s idea of status. Don Eps
tein dressed atrociously, in a style Whitney thought of as Bad Florida. Bright patterned shirts worn untucked, slip-on loafers in sherbety colors. And the jewelry! Epstein wore two large rings, not counting his wedding ring, an ID bracelet, and occasionally a gold chain around his neck. Whitney wondered if there was a polite way to tell him about the etiquette rule that dictated a woman should put on all the jewelry she intends to wear, then remove one piece before leaving the house. Maybe two pieces, in his case.

  But she had bigger fish to fry than his wardrobe. She was supposed to get into his house, begin poking around. She had worried, at first, that Epstein would rush their courtship. Now she was worried by its low-key platonic nature. To keep the lie of her identity going, she instructed him to pick her up in the lobby of the Ambassador, an old apartment building on the city’s North Side. He returned her there each evening, walking her to the elevator. But he never asked to come up, or tried to kiss her. A relief at first, then a worry. Did he think of her as a sister? Did he not find her attractive?

  It took three dates before he began to confide in her. “I hate talking about this,” he began, over dinner at Cantler’s, a much beloved but out-of-the-way restaurant near Annapolis, the kind of place no one ever found by accident. Epstein preferred out-of-the-way places, Whitney was beginning to notice.

  “I admit,” she said, “I Googled you.”

  “I thought you didn’t have a computer. That’s what you told me, when I asked for your e-mail.”

  Whitney thought quickly. “There are computers at the library.”

  “Then you do know.”

  “I know what’s been in the newspaper. I haven’t heard your side of it.”

  He sighed. “I don’t want to talk about it now. But next Saturday, there’s someplace I’d like to take you. Someplace almost . . . well, sacred to me. Would you do that for me, Whitney? Would you let me take you to this sacred place and explain myself?”

  Of course she would.

  Tess was happy to know that Whitney was spending so much time with Don Epstein, although it didn’t seem that she was learning very much. “Pin him down,” she reminded Whitney the next time they spoke on the phone. “Get him to talk about Carole, take you to the house. You’re looking for inconsistencies, remember, the sort of details that reveal a lie.”

  “I have to say, he’s been remarkably consistent. He’s very melancholy, in a way.”

  Tess snorted. “ ‘Melancholy’ is an interesting choice of word.”

  “Well, if he’s a liar—”

  “If?”

  “He’s a remarkably good one.”

  “Sociopaths usually are,” Tess said. She felt a prickle of worry. “On this next date, Whitney? The one where he’s taking you someplace special?”

  “Sacred,” Whitney corrected.

  “Whatever. Be . . . careful. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to take a handgun in your purse. I know you have rifles and shotguns, but you still have a handgun as well, right?”

  “Tess, there’s no reason he would want to hurt me. I don’t know anything. If you’re right, he kills for financial gain, to trade in one model for the next, and the previous model is indisputably gone.”

  “Or he kills because someone knows too much. I think that was the case with Carole. She found something, maybe his second wife’s engagement ring, which he claimed was stolen.”

  “You know, that doesn’t prove he killed her—”

  “Whitney, whose side are you on?”

  “I’m just trying to keep you tethered to the facts.”

  Tess wished she could see her old friend’s face, but she stopped by less and less these days, preferring to check in by telephone.

  “Here are some facts, Whitney, in case you’ve forgotten. Three dead women. One missing, at best. Be careful.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  Tess’s computer beeped, announcing the arrival of an e-mail. She had once loathed e-mail, but now it was her lifeline. She even found herself IM’ing at times. This one was from her mother, who had attached a file. Tess didn’t even know her mother knew how to attach files.

  Isn’t this the ring you asked me to research? she had written. I was trying to find out how common the design was, and my search terms yielded this item on eBay. Looks awfully similar to me.

  Interesting indeed. Far more interesting to Tess was the seller’s location, listed as Glen Burnie, a mere few miles south of Cherry Hill. Could Epstein be that stupid? She clicked on Other items by this seller and found a pair of diamond earrings, a tennis bracelet, and several other items—bracelets, pins, necklaces. Except for the ring, it was what she considered mallish—expensive, but not distinctive. Diamond studs and a tennis bracelet had been listed among Annette Epstein’s missing effects. Did the other pieces belong to her as well? How to explain the ID bracelet with “DM” on it? Did it stand for Don and Mary? Or Danielle Massinger?

  He gave Danielle a lot of jewelry, Mrs. Zimmerman had said. Gave it—and took it back after pushing her down the stairs? This could be what Carole Epstein had found, which was why she had to disappear. Annette’s jewelry proved only that Epstein was a liar and a fraud. Danielle’s jewelry proved he could never let go of anything.

  Tess clicked Ask the seller a question, using her personal account, TEMonaghan@aol.com. She was interested in the ID bracelet, she wrote, but had been burned in other online auctions. Could the seller provide any details about its provenance?

  Three days later Whitney couldn’t help remembering Tess’s warning as Don Epstein drove farther and farther into the country, racing the sunset. “We should have gotten an earlier start,” he said. “We’ll never make it before dark. But I have some flashlights.”

  Flashlights? She knew he liked out of the way places, but this was ridiculous. She didn’t feel so silly now, slipping her handgun into her purse. He turned on a roughly paved road, then a gravel one, then a dirt lane. She had mocked Tess’s iPhone, but it had a GPS function, something she would dearly love to have right now. Where was she? Somewhere in Carroll County, north of Union Mills. The last street sign she had noticed was Humbert School House Road, a nice Nabokovian touch in the middle of nowhere. She had tried to call Epstein’s attention to it, but he didn’t know the reference and didn’t find it funny when she explained it.

  “Child molesters,” he said, “should be killed. I was disappointed when the Supreme Court struck down the death penalty for rape.” It was the first little splinter of dissatisfaction she had experienced in his company. A man who believed in the death penalty—ugh. Then: Does he believe in applying it on his own?

  “Are we there yet?” she asked, trying for a joking tone.

  “Almost,” he said.

  “You know, this has the feel of a horror film. Two people, out in the middle of the country on a dark night.”

  “Not a horror film,” Don Epstein said. “This is a love story. A very sad one.”

  Tess checked her e-mail for perhaps the quadrillionth time. The eBay seller never replied, and now the items had been removed. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She should have bid on one of the cheaper items, seen what information could be gleaned. Somehow, she had alerted Epstein that she was on to him—and now he was out with Whitney. How had he made the connection? He didn’t know her name. Shoot—the photograph with Dempsey, the one used on the Today show. If he had plugged “Monaghan” into an image search . . . Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  She had thought such mistakes were behind her. Her learning curve as a private detective had been a steep one, but it was a long time since she’d done something truly boneheaded. She loved her job. True, she hadn’t dreamed about being a private investigator when she was a child. What child ever did? But once she found this vocation, she realized she was made for it. Much as she had realized she was made for Crow once she found him. Now it seemed she must choose between the two.

  She had meant what she told Crow. The one thing she could never do was work for someone else again. Except—never was a big word. I
f it came down to putting food on the table, one would do just about anything. And Crow had already compromised quite a bit, shelving his own dreams. What was she going to do? What were they going to do? Stymied, she refreshed the eBay page. Empty.

  Don Epstein stopped near a small wire fence, thick with rust. “I bought the land twenty years ago, thinking to build a house out here for Mary and me. Then I found out about this.”

  “A garden?”

  “An old cemetery. All my wives are buried here.”

  “All?” Whitney’s voice squeaked a little. “I mean, um, both?”

  “Mary and Annette. It’s not exactly legal to do that, you know, so please don’t tell anyone. They didn’t have anyone but me, so I didn’t think it mattered.”

  So there was a body to be exhumed, Whitney thought. Tess would be thrilled.

  “Only one other person even knows about this place, and that was Carole.” He seemed on the verge of tearing up. “I’m sorry now, but you see—it started with Annette.”

  Oh dear. What, exactly, had started with Annette? Thank God she had her handgun in her purse. Which was in the car. Damn, damn, damn.

  “I met Annette at a meeting for people who were grieving. Carole was the one who persuaded me to go. Annette had lost her husband to cancer. We started dating. And when I decided to marry her, I brought her out here and asked her, right here, at Mary’s grave site. You know Mary was my high school sweetheart, right?”

  Whitney nodded. God, her throat was suddenly so dry, her lips almost stuck together. Perhaps she could ask to get her purse, in order to apply some Carmex?

  “I admit, I never loved Annette quite as much as I loved Mary. Annette was great. Sweet, considerate. I couldn’t believe it when she got sick. And when she died . . . But you know what they say: A hospital is no place to be ill. So she was gone and there was Carole . . . I had no options, Whitney. None.”