As Husbands Go (22 page)

She swiveled her chair to face me and leaned back. Not the usual leather office throne but a fifties-style chair that resembled one of those nut scoopers at Whole Foods. She rested her elbow on her desk, which I took to mean the meeting wasn’t over.

“You gave us authorization, so we were able to get a preliminary look at Dr. Gersten’s office and home hard drives, along with his e-mails and Internet use,” she said. “Our findings and conclusions are in the report. There’s also a good deal of backup data on the CD that I’ll give you before you leave. Now, do you want the bottom line?”

Whatever “a state of suspended animation” actually meant, I was suddenly in it—a cone of silence that wouldn’t lift until she spoke. Would I hear “He had no secret life”? Or would it be something that would change everything, like “Dr. Gersten secretly operated on bin Laden and made him look like Calvin Klein”? “Yes,” I managed to say. “Bottom line.”

“Nothing major,” she said. I realized how tight I’d been clasping my hands only when I eased up; my knuckles ached from where my fingers had been pressing on them. “No evidence of an affair or sexual liaisons.”

I couldn’t feel relieved. “Anything with prostitutes?” I asked.

“Nothing we were able to find.”

“Isn’t that kind of a lawyerly answer?” I asked.

“I’m not a lawyer,” Liz said. “But if you mean it sounds qualified, I’d go with that. Look, the conclusions in the report don’t exist in a vacuum. We have to take into account real-life circumstances. Dr. Gersten was killed in a prostitute’s apartment. It’s entirely possible he was there for a purpose that had nothing to do with sex.”

“But you don’t think so.”

Liz was wearing a large aquamarine ring on her right ring finger. She twisted it around a few times, more thoughtful than nervous. “Let’s put it this way: Is it more likely for a man to be visiting a prostitute for sex or for an undetermined reason—perhaps a benevolent reason? And if the reason was to help her rather than to use her services, why would this particular prostitute, a woman with a criminal record, go into her own medicine cabinet, take out long-bladed scissors, and stab him?”

“But that’s what I don’t get. Isn’t her criminal record for drugs? I mean, she wasn’t in trouble for anything violent. I didn’t hear she was ever involved in something where anyone got hurt.”

“True,” Liz said. “In any case, there is one more point I should make. An entry was added to Jonah’s office computer calendar around eleven-thirty the morning of the day he was killed. According to the police, his calendar hadn’t yet been synced when he died, because the event wasn’t on his BlackBerry. But ‘D.D.’ was put in the office calendar for six-forty-five that evening.”

“Was she on his calendar at any other time?”

“No. Unless it was under an alias both we and the NYPD didn’t come up with in our database searches. We contacted the authorities once we heard about Dr. Gersten’s death. They understand that in a case like this, private investigative agencies are there to support them, not work against them. The cops passed along the information they and the FBI had because we did the same for them.”

“Do you know anything about Dorinda Dillon? Her background, where she comes from?”

“No. Not because we wouldn’t be able to get that information. But because you hired us to try to find Dr. Gersten. Not to investigate his murder . . .” She stopped.

A second later, I realized she was waiting because my eyes had filled up. “It’s okay,” I assured her. “I get teary at least ten times a day. I’m so used to it that half the time I’m oblivious. Well, almost oblivious. Anyway, sorry for the interruption.”

“On my own, no charge to you, I ran a quick search on Dorinda
Dillon. It’s on the CD. But since this case went from being a missing-person case to a homicide, we wouldn’t go much further—and keep drawing down against your retainer—without your go-ahead. Actually, I did call you once or twice.”

I swallowed and recrossed my legs, all the minor movements to cover social embarrassment. Beneath Liz Holbreich’s businesslike courtesy, I sensed sweetness. I said, “I vaguely remember you leaving a message or two. But once I knew Jonah was dead, murdered, plus with dealing with the boys and his family, and then all the publicity. I wasn’t . . . I couldn’t return phone calls. I started making a list and then stopped. I even stopped checking voice mail.”

“Please. No explanation necessary.” A small sigh escaped from deep in Liz’s chest.

I realized I could be wrong about her. Maybe Liz Holbreich wasn’t a sweetie pie, just a cool and extremely mannerly investigator. With all that southern stuff, I could be misreading courtesy as compassion. How could I tell? In the past, I’d trusted my gut because, as guts go, mine was excellent. Now I was too messed up to rely on myself.

“She had just changed her name to Dorinda Dillon a few months before. From Cristal Rousseau. But Cristal’s name had come up in a drug case. When the cops got to her apartment to question her—ultimately, it turned out that time she wasn’t involved—the super told them Cristal hadn’t moved away, just changed her name.”

“I’m assuming what you told me is all there is,” I said hopefully. “Right? There wasn’t anything else?”

“If our investigation had run its course,” Liz replied, “there were a few avenues we might have explored.”

Now I didn’t have any choice except to ask, “Like what?”

“Nothing to be concerned about.”

Had I looked concerned? Even after all her reassurance, was I still fearful that she’d spring Percocet addiction, spying for Russia? From the moment of Jonah’s disappearance, I’d left no nightmare unimagined—except for some horror I lacked the capacity to conceive of, the one that could kill my love for him. If he was capable
of going to a prostitute, was he capable of something much worse? If a husband is alive and a wife learns something awful, she can confront him with “I’ll never be able to trust you again.” What about a great guy who was maybe not so great and who was dead?

“We found a few e-mails indicating . . .” Liz tilted her head to the side. Shrugged.
Get it over with!
I wanted to scream. “I wouldn’t even call them fights,” she said at last. “Squabbles. The routine disagreements anybody could have in business or family life. They might be overlooked in the normal due-diligence investigation. But if an individual inexplicably disappears, we need to go the extra mile.”

“Can you give me an example of a squabble?”

“Everything’s on that CD,” she said. She touched the edge of the desk with the heel of her hand, and the bright computer monitor faded to black.

Being an executive at an international investigation agency, Liz Holbreich clearly understood the world in a way I never would. So although I was a reasonably chic, très-upscale sophisticate in my black Proenza Schouler skirt and jacket, I was feeling more like a hick in a purple velour warm-up suit.

“I get the impression there’s a lot of stuff on the CD,” I managed to say. “So I’d appreciate some guidance. Maybe you can tell me ‘I would have looked into this’ or ‘I wouldn’t have wasted my time on that.’”

“Sure. I wasn’t trying to blow you off. I’m genuinely sorry if I seemed abrupt. If I was holding back, it’s because I was hesitant about giving too much detail,” Liz said. “You’ve been through such hell. It would have been one thing to look over your husband’s shoulder in the normal course of events, watch him typing an e-mail, and say to yourself,
Wow, is he pissed
. It’s quite another to read or hear about that same e-mail if it was written in the last couple of days of his life. It has a great deal more weight.”

“If Jonah had dropped dead of a heart attack, it would be one thing,” I said. “But because he was murdered, murdered in a place where I would never in all my life have believed he would go, I need
to understand what was going on in his head—and in his life.”

“Fair enough. As I said, no matters of great consequence. There were a number of e-mails between Dr. Gersten and . . . I believe it’s the manager of the medical practice. A Donald Finsterwald.”

“Yes. Were there problems?”

“Basically that when the going got tough with the economic downturn, Dr. Gersten thought Finsterwald was turning to mush. Doing less marketing, less PR rather than more. Your husband discovered Finsterwald had turned down an offer for one of the three partners to go on
Today in New York
because it was a local show, not national. Finsterwald e-mailed back to Dr. Gersten apologizing profusely. Had there been a history of friction between them?”

“No. Jonah thought Donald was the ultimate suck-up with physicians but too uncaring with staff. Jonah didn’t like him personally, but I didn’t realize he was so annoyed.”

“More than annoyed, I think. Sometimes it’s hard to get a reading just from e-mail, because in any office setting, there are always conversations taking place between correspondence. But the last few days, it looked as though your husband was downright angry.”

“Anything else with Donald?”

“Yes. Apparently, part of his job was tracking financial performance. Finsterwald sent several e-mails apologizing for not having weekly reports done, saying it was difficult getting numbers, what with Dr. Noakes doing so much pro bono work and traveling. The records were incomplete.”

“Gilbert John was good with his medical notations,” I said. “But he practiced by himself for so many years before taking on Jonah and then Layne that he couldn’t deal with being accountable to partners. And with the practice’s businessy computerized systems, he was technologically lame.”

The light coming through Liz’s window was beginning to soften. Instead of looking overbright, like an HDTV test pattern, her black hair, blue suit, and aquamarine ring were starting to appear washed out, almost fuzzy, more like one of those fifties movies you rent that was done by some cheaper process than Technicolor. “Does every
body call Dr. Noakes ‘Gilbert John’?” Liz Holbreich asked.

“Yes. At least, I’ve never heard him called anything else. It’s weird, because he’s probably the most boring guy at Mount Sinai, which takes doing, but everyone plays up to him. Part of it is that he’s a really good-looking man. But there’s something truly formidable about his manner. Jonah always said Gilbert John had a brilliant reputation as a surgeon, and the grand style to go with it.”

“Is he a nasty kind of guy?”

“Not at all,” I said. “He just has—pardon me—a permanent stick up his ass. And Layne is just the opposite: ‘I’m just a down-to-earth gal from Albuquerque, and don’t bother calling me Doctor because, gosh, all that formality just isn’t me, and now, is there anything I can do to make you feel better about yourself because you’re a wonderful person?’ My guess is that’s why Jonah was so upset with Donald Finsterwald, because he’d been hired to ease the pressure and make it easy for the three partners not to have any issues.” My left foot started falling asleep. I wriggled my toes, but as I was wearing pointy stilettos, all I could do was rotate my ankle slowly so Liz wouldn’t notice. “You mentioned avenues you might have gone down if you had more time to investigate. Besides Donald and the practice, does anything else come to mind?”

“Let’s see.” Liz shut her eyes, doing a major
I’m thinking
.

“Please don’t be concerned about hurting me. I do flowers. I don’t have the background, the way you do, to evaluate what’s potentially investigatable.”

She nodded and did the pushing-back-cuticle-but-really-looking-at-watch business. Maybe she was thinking her shot at leaving early to check out the shoe sales at Saks would be lost if I dissolved into tears.

“You’re absolutely right to ask for a professional’s opinion, though in this case, I don’t know what it’s worth. I was only hesitating because it involves family,” she said. I almost laughed because my first thought of family was my parents and assorted cousins, whose existence seemed way too mind-numbing to merit investigation, except by researchers into the nature of boringness. “Dr. Ger
sten’s brother, Theo.”

“Theo?” Definitely an interesting life. And a self-centered one. Aside from their being siblings, I couldn’t imagine his life and Jonah’s crossing in any significant way. Years earlier, when Theo was still trying to be an actor, he kept sending his friends to his brother for consultations, though they seemed to believe Jonah would not only work on them for free but take care of the anesthesiologist and OR costs. After Jonah told them—and Theo—all he could give was a discount, Theo stopped the referrals, but only after telling Jonah that he was appalled at the cheap fuck he had become.

“He recently asked your husband for ten thousand dollars,” Liz said.

“He did? Like ‘Hey, can you give me ten thou?’”

“He needed it to pay for some fire damage to his apartment building from a sauna he’d had installed. Illegally, it turned out.”

All I could do was shake my head. It was so Theo. “Jonah didn’t tell me about that one.”

“I must say, you don’t seem surprised,” Liz said.

“I’m not. Unless Jonah gave him the money.”

“No. He sent him . . . I wouldn’t call it angry, but it was a strongly worded e-mail. Essentially, it said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding, asking me.’ Theo came back with ‘If you can’t see your way to helping me out, could you loan me the money?’” I felt that tennis-volley anticipation, waiting for Jonah’s response. “He refused,” Liz said.

“How did he put it?”

“Something about Theo already owing him the equivalent of the national debt. Obviously, I don’t know if he was being ironic or if Theo did owe him a large amount.” Natural curiosity made her pause, hoping for an answer, but I didn’t have one. I hadn’t a clue that Theo owed him—us—money. “Us” because everything we had was joint. Still, I couldn’t think up a way to make it sound like “Oh, Jonah told me everything.” For whatever reason, that was what I wanted Liz to believe. “Dr. Gersten suggested if Theo couldn’t get a loan from a bank, he should ask their parents. Then it was a great deal of back-and-forth: Theo writing that Jonah should go F himself
and Jonah asking him why, since they’re both in their thirties, he should have any responsibility for Theo.”