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He smiled and winked at the Kid. The wink could have meant anything. But in this case, Timothy stood up behind his desk, and it was clear that the wink meant the conversation was over.

42

Driving home from work, Timothy used his cell phone to call Frank Arnheim.

‘The Kid's going to screw me,' Timothy said.

‘That's the impression I had, too,' Frank said. ‘What did he say?'

‘That he's going to tell the truth.'

‘That doesn't sound good,' Frank said. Then: ‘There's something else we need to talk about.'

‘Tell me.'

‘I've had a few conversations with John Allen from Shearman and Sterling. That's Pinky Dewer's lawyer. He's handling the lawsuit against you – you know, the twenty million dollars against you personally?'

‘Yes, I vaguely remember that one.'

‘I think they have a case.'

‘Really?'

‘I'm not saying that it's a shoo-in. But your actions did cause Pinky's deal to fall through, and he can legitimately ding you for the damages. That's more than twenty million dollars. Do you have that much?'

‘Yeah, behind the couch, in nickels.'

‘I bring it up because I think you should settle.'

‘And offer what?'

‘I don't know. A nice round number.'

‘Zero?'

‘Not that kind of round number. Maybe two or three.'

‘Million?'

‘I'm just throwing it out there. Now, as far as the CFTC goes, we can try to plead for mercy. You know, admit guilt, offer to
make restitution to your clients, and agree never to work in the securities industry again. You could possibly avoid jail time.'

‘Restitution? Frank, my clients collectively lost fifty million dollars.'

‘Well, it beats prison.'

Timothy wasn't so sure. Being penniless and being incarcerated seemed about equal. At least in the slammer, if you stamp enough license plates, you can afford a pack of smokes. ‘I don't know,' Timothy said.

‘Something to think about. We have three weeks before your testimony.'

‘So that's your high-powered legal strategy? Don't fight; admit guilt. That's the collective output from the finest legal minds at Perkins Coie?'

‘Something like that.' Timothy sped down the street. Up ahead he saw his house. He turned into the driveway.

Frank continued, ‘Look on the bright side. It can't get much worse.'

‘Oh, I don't know about that,' Timothy said, as he saw the police cruiser parked in front of his garage.

‘Detective Neiderhoffer, what a pleasant surprise,' Timothy said as he entered the kitchen.

Neiderhoffer was standing, with his notepad at the ready. Tricia sat at the table with a pained smile.

Neiderhoffer said, ‘I was just asking Tricia how you two met. Very romantic story.'

‘Yes.'

‘Do you have a few minutes, Mr. Van Bender?'

‘Of course.' Timothy put down his briefcase, pulled up a chair. ‘If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were suspicious of me.'

‘Missing wife, new girlfriend,' Neiderhoffer said. ‘That kind of thing.'

‘Not missing. Dead.'

‘But no body. So we can't find a cause of death. That's where the stupid people always screw up. You know, after they shoot
someone, they put the gun in the victim's hand, but in the left hand, when the victim is a righty. Or they drown the victim in the bathtub, but then drop the body in the chlorinated swimming pool. Or they hit someone in the head with a hammer, and then use gasoline to burn down the house. So then we have a suspicious fire, and a smashed skull. But if I was a smart person – a Yale graduate, with a mind for numbers and finance – I would eliminate the problem altogether. Just make the body disappear, and say it was a suicide. Mies van der Rohe School of Foul Play. Less is more.'

‘You work on a lot of murders, here in Palo Alto?'

‘One or two.' He smiled. ‘Between all the eggs and shaving cream cases each Halloween.'

‘I promise you, Mr. Neiderhoffer. I did not kill my wife.'

Neiderhoffer squinted at him, as if weighing the value of just such a promise. Finally, he said: ‘I spoke to Ann Beatty, right down the street from here. A good friend of your wife's, right?'

‘Not my biggest fan.'

‘She mentioned that. She also mentioned that, about a year ago, your wife talked to her about getting a divorce. Ms. Beatty even recommended her own lawyer. I saw her house; I guess that lawyer must be pretty good. She seems to think that your prenuptial wasn't enforceable, since it was signed just a few days before your wedding. Did you know that?'

‘No.' Timothy glared at Tricia.

‘I didn't think so.'

‘I think maybe,' Timothy said pleasantly, ‘I ought to end this conversation.'

‘Sure. It's up to you.' He closed his pad and smiled. ‘No problem.'

Timothy stood, holding out his hand. Neiderhoffer shook.

‘You mind if I ask one more question?' Neiderhoffer said.

Timothy smiled pleasantly. Always one more question.

Neiderhoffer continued. ‘There was something that bothered me about your wife's phone call, the one she made from the beach. I mean, that's the critical part of the story, right? She tells
you she's going to commit suicide. You're the only one she tells. No note. No body.'

‘I told you. You can check the phone records.'

‘I did,' Neiderhoffer said. ‘Lo and behold, there is a phone call to your home on Tuesday morning, right when you said there'd be. So that checks out.'

Timothy thought about this. He knew the detective was not simply going to tell him that everything ‘checked out.' There was a catch. What was Neiderhoffer going to spring on him?

Neiderhoffer said, ‘Then I realized what's bothering me. She's standing on the beach, making a phone call? From what phone? No pay phones up there.'

‘It was her cell phone,' Timothy said. Now his mind raced ahead, as if in a maze, trying each path, then reversing and trying another. Why was the cell phone important?

‘Right, that's what the phone company logs say. The call to your house that morning was placed on a cell phone – your wife's. Just like you claimed.'

‘So there's no problem.'

Neiderhoffer nodded. But when he spoke, the words didn't sound like agreement. ‘You know what's funny about that phone call? It's the only evidence we have that your wife was still alive when you woke up that morning.'

‘I'm not following you.'

‘Where's her phone?'

Timothy said, ‘What?' but he immediately understood.

‘No cell phone in her car. No cell phone in the rocks down below. She wasn't wearing clothes when she jumped, so there were no pockets to put it in. If she drove to Big Sur, and called you from the beach, and killed herself … you'd sort of expect to find the phone nearby. Know what I mean?'

‘I guess.'

‘Because that phone call is the only thing proving you were ninety miles away from your wife the moment she died. Without that phone call, who's to say she even came home with you that weekend? The bellboy didn't see her in your car. No one saw her in Palo Alto Sunday or Monday night. You claim you drove home
with her, but what if you drove home alone, after you buried her in a forest near Big Sur? Did you notice all those big empty forests down there?'

‘No.'

‘They're beautiful,' Neiderhoffer said. He paused, as if he was conjuring an image of the beautiful forests. Then he snapped back into the room. ‘So what if Monday morning you're standing right here in this house, and you use her cell phone to call your own number. That way you establish she's alive when you wake up in Palo Alto. That would have been pretty clever. Don't you think?'

Timothy felt sick. ‘But you can find out. The phone company knows your location when you make a call.'

‘Nowadays. On the new digital phones. If you owned a CDMA phone, or a GMS phone, or TDMA phone. If you had bought a new cell phone in the last five years, there would be no problem. We wouldn't even be sitting here. But, there we go, another weird coincidence. You guys both drive the latest cars, and you have the latest televisions, and the newest gizmos. But your wife's cell phone is four years old – old-fashioned analog. No location recorded. You could place a call from anywhere, and no one would know. But you weren't aware of that, were you, Mr. Van Bender?'

‘No.'

‘There you go. I guess you're off the hook, so to speak.'

Timothy shook his head.

‘Is there anything,' Neiderhoffer said, ‘that you want to tell me? Now might be a good time.'

The detective stared at Timothy with a warm, open expression.

‘I did not kill my wife.'

‘Okay, Mr. Van Bender.' He nodded to Tricia. ‘Ms. Fountain. You both have a good day.' He turned and left.

After he watched Neiderhoffer pull out of the driveway, Timothy returned to Tricia in the kitchen. ‘When were you going to tell me that you talked to Ann about a divorce attorney?'

Tricia shook her head frantically. ‘No, Timothy, I didn't – I wasn't serious. It was just talk— one day I saw Ann, and I was upset and depressed – I don't remember why – and she encouraged me … you know how she is – but I told her no, I wasn't interested.'

‘Why didn't you tell me?'

‘Because,' Tricia said, ‘there was nothing to tell. Where was I going? You think I want to end up like Ann, alone in a big house in Palo Alto, with a cat and menopause to keep me company? I wasn't really going to divorce you.'

‘Did you meet with a lawyer?'

She shook her head, vaguely.

‘Did you?'

‘Once. Just once. It was just a ten-minute meeting. It was nothing. It happened before I got sick. Months before. I just wanted to … to see …'

‘About the prenuptial agreement?'

‘You can't blame me.'

‘I can't blame you? Don't you understand? Now they have a motive. They think I killed you.'

‘Well, we can tell them. It's simple. You didn't do it. I can prove who I really am.'

Timothy laughed. He pulled a chair, swung it around and then sat backwards in it, facing her. He ran his hands through his hair. ‘You've got to be kidding. First of all, assuming they believe that you're my wife – assuming that we get Dr. Ho to explain what's going on, which does not exactly seem likely to me – but even assuming we do – then what do we tell them about Tricia? That we gave her a lobotomy without her consent? You see? Either I killed you, or I did something horrible to her. There's no winning.'

Tricia reached out her hand and touched his shoulder. ‘You're overreacting. You didn't kill Katherine. And you didn't kill Tricia. That's the reality. Remember that. There's no evidence that you did either thing. It's all circumstantial. He's just fishing, because things look strange to him, and he can't piece it together. But what do they have? Nothing.'

‘Then where's your cell phone?'

Tricia said, ‘I don't know.'

‘You went to Big Sur that morning, and you stood on the rocks, and you called me with a cell phone. What did you do with it?'

‘We've been through this. It wasn't me that day. I'm the backup. I have no idea what happened that day. Maybe I threw the phone in the ocean.'

‘Well, think about it. Imagine that you're about to kill yourself. Would you take a moment to throw your phone in the ocean?'

‘I don't know. Maybe.'

Timothy shook his head. ‘I'm going to get fucked. And if I get fucked, you're going to get fucked, too.' He meant it as a let's-bear-down-and-beat-this-thing-together motivational speech, but it came out sounding like a threat. ‘What I mean is, we need to figure something out. We need a plan. I don't want to keep playing defense.'

43

They drove to the Arestradero Preserve in Portola Valley to hike through the foothills, away from distractions – away from police officers and lawyers and death threats. Timothy needed to clear his mind and think.

Things were out of control. Tricia's coked-up boyfriend was trying to kill him, Pinky Dewer was suing him, the Kid was betraying him, the government was threatening him with jail, and now the police thought he had murdered his wife. For forty-seven years, Timothy Van Bender had been in command of his life. He was never the smartest man he knew, or the most ambitious, or the most handsome. But he was successful. And that success bred confidence – gave him a regal bearing and easy-going comportment – which in turn comforted the people around him, and bred still more success.

But now, bad things were happening – a chain of ugly luck – and there was no end in sight. The thing that prevents success, Timothy realized, is needing it. You can always recognize a desperate man: the haunted eyes and brittle smile. No matter how hard he tries to seem casual, the desperate man is one step away from ruin, and everyone knows it. To these haunted souls, success never comes.

Timothy tried to pinpoint the moment his slide began: going back to Tricia's apartment? His gamble on the yen? Holding Pinky's money? They were symptoms of a tepid kind of risk-taking, a desperate man's gambles – too little, too late – and so of course they could not succeed.

The only recent success in his life was getting Katherine back – and he had achieved that by being bold, by taking a huge risk: by drugging Tricia, and dragging her body to a laboratory, and
then performing a medical experiment upon her. It was crazy, of course, and no one would believe it, but it had worked. And now he needed a similarly bold plan, a radical change of course. He could not sit back and let the Kid send him to prison, or give all of his money to his investors as restitution, or live in fear of a coke-head punk, or worry about the police pinning a murder on him.