A Circle of Wives

by Alice LaPlante

  John surprised me then. I usually can predict every move. I know that sounds grandiose, but it’s true. Still, that morning I was taken aback when he pushed his chair away from the table. He then very deliberately walked to my chair and stood behind me. I tried to see what he was doing, but he had his hands anchoring my shoulders so I couldn’t move; I could only turn my head, which gave me a sideways view of his rather expansive chest. My cheek scraped against the buttons on his shirt, and I felt his breath on the back of my neck. It was incredibly unnerving. Then he took his right hand and, reaching over my shoulder, placed it on my breast. I immediately slapped it away, of course. But the feel of his hand lingered. He’d managed to give my nipple a slight pinch and I felt that most of all. I was enraged, but the anger was shot through with shame, and if I could have cut off my breast in that moment, I would have. Anything to erase the feel of that unyielding palm, that burning pinch. The brute. The brute. By the time I had composed myself, he was gone, out the door and to the hospital. And good riddance, I thought.

  48

  Samantha

  SUSAN RELUCTANTLY OKAYED ANOTHER TRIP down to LA. I insisted that I needed to talk to Helen face-to-face, confront her with the idea of Claire Fanning in person. So here I am on United Flight 42 to LAX, jammed next to a middle-aged older man who started out the flight working on an Excel spreadsheet, but is now playing Spider Solitaire. He swears loudly when he can’t find a solution and has to reshuffle. I find myself thanking God for Peter, who only opens his laptop when he’s ready to bang out another chapter of his dissertation. Be grateful for small things, I tell myself. Even if those chapters are slow to come. Peter seems to be making an effort recently. He even packed for me, and when I opened my purse to get my driver’s license out for airport security, I found a bar of dark chocolate with almonds in it. I almost drove home to give Peter a kiss.

  When I reach the UCLA hospital, I have to show my badge about ten times. I suppose that means the media are still trying to get through to Helen. I think of Claire. If they only knew. Especially if they managed to get a photograph of her. That face would sell a lot of magazine covers.

  When I knock on Helen’s office door, it is opened almost immediately by a woman with a blond pixie cut.

  “I’m here for Dr. Richter,” I say.

  She laughs. “Sam,” she says. “It’s me.” Now I recognize her, but barely. And it’s not just the hair. Helen also appears younger and much less serious—like a schoolgirl, lighthearted.

  “Well!” I say.

  She ushers me into her office, which looks the same, the comfy chairs, the stuffed animals lying all over the floor.

  “More about John?” she asks as she settles into her chair. She pulls a kind of black knitted shawl around her shoulders. It’s too cool; the air conditioner is turned up high.

  “I know,” she says, catching me shiver. “We have no control in the offices and examining rooms, and they keep it chilly in the summer.”

  Summer. It’s now mid-August. I can’t think of another year where the summer has gone by so quickly, or which I’ve enjoyed less. Usually, Peter and I spend a good deal of our weekends and evenings outdoors at concerts and picnics. But this time all that has seemed to fall off the cliff. Or perhaps I simply haven’t been paying attention due to the slow-moving Taylor case, and Peter hasn’t been reminding me.

  “What happened?” I ask, gesturing at her hair.

  Helen smiles. “An experiment,” she says. “One that turned out splendidly.” It is only then that I see the slight bump at her waistline. After any number of social gaffes, my rule is to never ask anyone if they’re pregnant unless I see an actual baby coming out. But this time I can’t help myself.

  “You’re pregnant!” I gasp. She nods. “Is it John’s?” I ask, then curse my stupidity. Of course it is.

  We sit for a moment in silence. Helen doesn’t seem to find the pause uncomfortable, but I am squirming in my chair.

  “I thought you had a deal that there’d be no children,” I say.

  “We did,” says Helen. “But life had other plans.”

  “Did John know?” I ask.

  A shadow passes over Helen’s face. “No,” she says abruptly. “I never got the chance to tell him.” She then changes the subject to signal that part of the conversation is over. “That’s not why you’re here. What do you need from me at this point?”

  “It’s about John,” I say. “Or rather . . .” I hesitate. “About the situation.” My mind is still reeling.

  “Yes?” she asks, but doesn’t really seem interested. She’s looking extraordinarily healthy and happy, almost obscenely so in this room, which is likely viewed as a chamber of death by her patients’ parents.

  “Another woman has turned up.” I say, and wait.

  She laughs. Whatever reaction I’d expected, this wasn’t it.

  “Not another wife,” she says.

  “No, but someone who wanted to supersede all of you,” I say. “A fiancée.” Then, curious, I ask, “How would you have felt if John told you he wanted to end the relationship?”

  She appears to give my question serious consideration.

  “Before,” and she pats her bump, “I would have been devastated. But now? I’m not particularly concerned.”

  We sit and look at each other. “And when did you find out you were pregnant?” I ask.

  “Not until after John was dead,” she says.

  I consider this.

  “I don’t believe you,” I say suddenly.

  She smiles. “Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to assume I’m the ultimate expert witness in this regard,” she says. I’m struck by the fact that she seems to be treating this like a game.

  “Your alibi is the most porous, you know,” I tell her.

  “Do you have any evidence against me that places me in Palo Alto? Hundreds of miles from home?” she asks.

  “No,” I admit.

  “So I must have been particularly clever,” she suggests. For the first time, I find myself actively disliking her.

  “A man is dead,” I say. “And one of you three almost certainly did it.”

  She smiles again.

  “If you can guess who,” she says. “You win the prize.”

  49

  Samantha

  “TALK TO ME, PETER,” I say. “You’ve got three women, no, make that four women, all feeling extraordinarily possessive of the same man.”

  I’ve just returned from LA and we’re having a lazy Sunday, of the type that used to delight us, sitting outside in our tiny patch of garden that borders the creek. It’s almost sunset, and the cicadas are starting up but the mosquitos haven’t come out in full force yet. The perfect time in what should be a perfect August afternoon. Yet Peter is mostly absent, playing some game on his phone. Not that I particularly need his attention. I’m half reading a library book, and thinking about the Taylor case. But I sense some hostility in the way he’s holding his phone at arm’s length—positioned precisely so it blocks my face.

  Peter reluctantly puts it down when I speak. “And?” he asks. “‘Possessive’ is the word? I notice you didn’t say ‘in love with a man.’”

  “You’re right, I didn’t.”

  “So what’s the question?”

  “You find out about these other women. You realize your existing life is basically over. Total wreckage. What do you do?”

  “You’re asking, does this make a woman crazy enough to kill her husband?”

  “I guess,” I say. “Yeah. Is it enough provocation? Forget about alibis, opportunity, whatever, for now. Just think in terms of motivation.”

  Peter stretches. His long 6'2" body overhangs the cheap deck chairs we got from some garage sale. He’s taller than me by almost a foot and has a fairly massive amount of facial hair. I used to call him Sasquatch. We no longer have nicknames for each other, I think, sadly. Some phase of life has passed by while I wasn’t paying attention.

  “Give me before and after p
ictures of these women’s lives, and I’ll tell you who killed him,” Peter says.

  “Let start with Helen,” I say. “She’s the easiest, because she had the most independent marriage of the three. With John, she had the occasional companionship of a man she seemed to quite genuinely love. She sounded sincere when she described the relationship.”

  “And if this sexpot young doctor takes Taylor away from her?” asks Peter.

  “Well, she loses that companionship. And from things she’s said, I don’t think she’s had a lot of romantic attachments in her life. So that could be a real bummer for her.”

  “Not to mention the whole woman-scorned aspect of things,” Peter says.

  “Yeah, there’s that. Female rage and jealousy.” I say. “Bo-ring.”

  “That’s the one who’s pregnant, right?” Peter asks. “Making this guy a father from the grave?”

  “Yes. And he wouldn’t have been happy about being a father again,” I say.

  “She wants the baby, though? She’s happy about it?”

  “Absolutely,” I say, thinking of the transformed woman I saw in LA.

  “But her financial position doesn’t change, does it? Presumably as a doctor she’s raking in some pretty big bucks on her own. Enough to support a kid.”

  “She didn’t need him financially,” I say. “Not like MJ did.”

  “This MJ, she had the most to lose, right?”

  “It depends on your values,” I say. “She would certainly have suffered financially if Taylor left her to marry Snow White. She’s now in a tenuous legal situation regarding the house. Legally, Deborah could make the case that the house belongs to her. Leaving MJ with nothing.”

  “Which brings us to my favorite wife, Deborah,” Peter says.

  “Why is she your favorite? She’s the one that gives me hives,” I say. “I kinda get MJ. And I have a healthy respect for Helen. But Deborah?” I stop talking.

  “I’m just teasing,” Peter says. “You stiffen up when talking about her, and your voice gets deeper. Unconscious mimicking.”

  “Deborah had the most to lose in the case of a divorce as far as her social standing in the community. That seemed awfully precious to her.”

  “What’s interesting about that?” Peter asks. I see him glance back at his phone. I’m losing him. And here I am, trying to engage in a conversation, spend some time together. Anything to dispel the heavy silence that we’ve had between us all day.

  “She also had the most to gain from the death,” I say. “A ten-million-dollar life insurance policy. Hey,” I say, louder, as he continues to poke at his phone, “I’d shoot you in a heartbeat if you had that kind of bounty on your head.”

  “I bet you would,” Peter says without looking up or smiling.

  I smack my hand on the end table next to my chair. My glass shatters as it hits the brick pavement.

  “Goddamn it, Peter,” I yell. A couple of crows that had been feeding on crumbs from our late lunch spun off into the air.

  “What?” he asks. He finally looks up.

  “You know what. You’ve been in such a mood. Out with it.”

  He doesn’t speak for a moment. Then, “It’s just all the cracks you’ve been making about marriage. The disparaging remarks.”

  I’m puzzled by this. My voice loses its heat. “Have I?”

  “You’ve been pretty damn scornful of these women. You find something at fault in each of their . . . marital arrangements. Well, if there’s a perfect model for marriage, some ideal standard that none of these relationships meet, I’d like to know what it is.”

  I have to think about this.

  “I don’t think I’ve been scornful of Helen,” I say. “I even admire her for carving out happiness under such extraordinary circumstances.”

  “Oh, great,” says Peter. “You admire the woman who saw her husband once a month for two days.”

  “That was twice a month, for three days,” I say.

  “Whatever.”

  “And it isn’t the time aspect of their marriage that interests me,” I say. “It’s the intensity of the emotional engagement.”

  “The passion thing again,” Peter says.

  “Yes! The passion thing. Which has nothing to do with sex, by the way,” I say.

  “So you’ve said.”

  “Peter, what do you want from me?” I bend down and start picking up the shards of glass. As I should have predicted, the sharp edge from one piece slices into my finger. Great. Bloody hands just as I need to start prepping dinner.

  “Sam, the question is what do you want from me? I’m apparently incapable of rousing passion.”

  I stand there, my hands filled with broken glass. “Don’t step in your bare feet until I get it,” I say and go inside, discard the glass in the garbage, wrap a bandage around my hand, and return with the handheld vacuum cleaner.

  Peter is again playing with his phone. He’s already over dealing with me. I stare off at the creek, at the manzanita trees that are darkening as the sun dips toward the horizon.

  “Why don’t we get married?” Peter asks suddenly. I see that he’s sitting up straight. “Most of our friends have, and we’ve been together much longer than any of them. Last year, we went to so many weddings that rice got into the seams of my suit.”

  “It was the approach of the dreaded thirty. Everyone thought they needed to get serious.”

  “And don’t you?”

  “Not really,” I say. “So much is still unknown. You have to finish your PhD. And find an academic job in a lousy hiring market. You know how that goes, Peter. You could be moving to Arkansas or Florida or Alaska. If you’re lucky enough to even snag one of those.”

  “Are you saying you wouldn’t come with me? To Arkansas or Florida or wherever?”

  “Definitely not Arkansas,” I say, “And Florida is plain weird.” I’m trying to make a joke out of it, but I can see that makes Peter angry. “Look, Peter, I just can’t commit to saying, ‘Yeah, I’ll follow wherever you lead.’”

  “Your commitment problem. I know.” His voice is deeply sarcastic.

  “Hey, dude, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to not commit to being a barnacle on your ship when I don’t even know if it won’t sink.” I surpass myself: a quadruple negative in one sentence. And as soon as I say this, I regret it. I’m well aware of Peter’s anxiety over his dissertation, over the job market for PhDs—the last thing I want to do is exacerbate it.

  His face tightens.

  “Sam,” he says, in a low voice, not looking at me. “What you don’t understand is that we’ve got what people hope to have after the passion and initial excitement have burned out. We’re best friends. It’s what you want when you’re fifty, sixty, and beyond. The marriages that last get here. After all the other stuff is finished. Where we were lucky enough to start.”

  “So you’re saying we’re already done with that . . . stuff,” I say. “Shit, Peter!” I’m speechless for a moment, which is good, because bad things are coming, terrible things. “Do you think I want to go through life missing one of the most profound human experiences there is?”

  “And what’s that, may I ask?” Peter says. I hate it when he gets sarcastic. It doesn’t suit him, and it just about sends me to the moon in rage.

  “Falling in love,” I say. The cicadas have come out with the darkening sky, and now sound loudly in the silence that greets my words. I slap at a mosquito. More blood on my hands.

  “Well!” Peter says, and stops. He seems too choked up to continue, but eventually manages to say, “That’s a pretty damning statement.”

  I panic. “Peter, no, wait. Don’t take it the wrong way.”

  “I don’t think I possibly could,” he says. “You were extraordinarily clear.”

  50

  Samantha

  WHEN I GET TO THE station house this morning, I can tell something has happened. Grady is sitting at my desk, talking to Mollie, who seems terribly excited. Susan is standing next
to her, the inevitable Diet Coke in hand. She’s nodding and smiling.

  “Way to go,” says Grady when he catches sight of me. “Good police work.”

  I ask Mollie. “You got a hit?”

  She is all smiles. “Yes! I was interviewing about the millionth person from that conference attendance list, and showing the photos, when this woman tells me, ‘Wait a minute, I know him.’ And pointed.” Mollie grins. “Guess who?” she asks.

  Susan breaks in. “No time to be coy, Mollie, just tell Sam.” Mollie looks abashed for about three seconds, then says, “One of the doctors from the clinic. That Epstein guy.”

  “Is the witness sure?” I ask. I’m getting excited. After a sleepless night with me in the bedroom and Peter on the couch, I can use the good news.

  “Absolutely. She rode the elevator with him to the second floor. She remembers him because he was a relatively short man with what she called ‘wispy’ facial hair. Apparently she can’t stand small men with ineffectual beards. She was no lightweight herself, which is why I believed her. She probably could have eaten Epstein for breakfast.”

  “And he got off on the second floor?”

  “Better than that. She got off, too, and happened to be staying in room 225—which is directly across the hall from John Taylor’s. So they both ended up walking down the corridor in the same direction. Then, he fell behind her. She says she had the distinct impression he was dragging his feet on purpose.”