The Question of the Unfamiliar Husband (2 page)

Two

This time, I made
sure to establish eye contact with Ms. McInerney. “Do you believe an impostor is claiming to be your husband?” I asked. “Are you married to someone else?” She seemed to have said the opposite before, so I watched her face very carefully. There was no hesitation, no flinch. She had expected the reaction, and had indeed phrased her question for the maximum effect. It had worked very well.

I was intrigued.

“No, I believe I'm unmarried. I think the man who is now living in my apartment and sleeping in my bed is a fraud.”

I looked at her left hand, where a woman often wears an engagement ring or a wedding ring, or both. Hers had the simple gold band and nothing else. Neither hand bore a diamond nor any other jewelry. “How is that possible?” I asked. “Surely you would know if you married someone.”

“It's complicated,” she answered, and I noted that this time she was the one to break eye contact. That can be telling in most people considered “neurotypical.”

“I would imagine it is. How, specifically, is it complicated?”

Ms. McInerney sucked in on her lower teeth as if trying to expel an unpleasant taste. “I don't want you to think that this is something that happens a lot,” she said.

My opinion of her actions seemed to be important to her, and as a potential client (now that I was interested in the question), it was important to alleviate her concerns. “I can only imagine you have just one unfamiliar husband,” I said.

“It's not funny, Mr. Hoenig.”

“I was not attempting to be amusing,” I answered. “Please. Tell me what happened.”

She nodded and took a breath; I could not be sure if the action was genuine or for my benefit. I found myself wishing Mother were in the room, as she can often explain a gesture or signal that I will not recognize.

“It was at a party a little over a month ago,” Ms. McInerney began.

“Who hosted the party?” I asked.

Ms. McInerney's eyes blinked and widened just a little, which indicated she was either surprised or irritated at the interruption. “A friend of mine from work, Jenny LeBlanc,” she said. “It was a costume party, which I don't usually like. But this one was fun. You were supposed to show up dressed as your favorite character from the movies.”

I took a moment to process the idea that Ms. McInerney did not mean
I
was intended to be at the party in a costume. “As whom did you attend?” I asked, because I believed she wanted me to do so.

“Actually, I went as Harpo Marx,” she said. “Do you know who that is?”

Was it a trick question? I had seen all thirteen of the Marx Brothers films, and while some of the jokes were difficult for me to understand (“viaduct” really would not be mistaken for “why a duck,” a question which itself makes no sense), I was familiar with Harpo Marx. But Ms. McInerney masquerading as that character was confusing to me.

“Harpo Marx was a man,” I pointed out. “And your hair is straight. His was very curly and unkempt. He has been dead for over sixty years. How could you have hoped to be mistaken for Harpo Marx?”

She did not stare at me but held my gaze for a long moment, as if searching for something that was not there. “I wasn't hoping people would think I was the real Harpo Marx,” she explained. “I was simply pretending for the party. Other people pretended to be Spiderman and Ron Burgundy. One woman came as the princess from
Frozen
. It was a party.”

I forced myself to put aside the idea of masquerading and focus on the question. “How does this relate to the husband you claim is a fraud?” I asked.

Ms. McInerney nodded, getting herself back on topic. I resolved silently not to allow for any more unproductive tangents in the conversation. “I met a man at the party. That much I remember. He had come dressed as Zorro, with a mask over much of his face.”

I had never seen a film about the fictional Zorro, but I had seen photographs of actors in the role, so I was familiar with the look the character would have had. A wide-brimmed hat and a mask over the eyes would have obscured much of the man's face. “Was it the man to whom you are now married?” I asked.

Her arms flapped a little at the sides, just once. Some people with autism spectrum disorders will flap their arms in excitement or frustration, but this gesture was less severe—more like a shrug to indicate she could not answer definitively. “He says so,” she reported. “I remember having two glasses of red wine with him on the deck behind the house, and then I don't remember anything until three days later. He says we were married the second night because we were so taken with each other that we couldn't wait any longer. I don't have any memory of that at all, but there is a marriage certificate and pictures his best friend Roger took at the wedding. I'm smiling. I don't know why.”

“Where was the wedding performed?” I asked. “You wouldn't have been able to get a marriage license that quickly in New Jersey.”

“Apparently we went to Darien, Connecticut,” she said. “They don't have a waiting period up there as long as you have identification on you.”

“I would have suspected Delaware, but if the person getting married is not from the state, there is a four-day waiting period there,” I noted. I hadn't actually made a specific study of the delay times for marriage licenses, but I had once been asked a question about Delaware's specifically, when a man had wanted to know if his parents' marriage license was indeed legitimate. It was.

“I don't know,” Ms. McInerney said. “I don't remember being in Darien, Connecticut. I don't even remember leaving the party. I think I was drugged, Mr. Hoenig.”

“I am not aware of a narcotic that would erase three days of your memory, Ms. McInerney, but I will have to do some research. What do you remember after attending the party as Harpo Marx?”

Her face clouded over, as if she were being forced to recall a traumatic experience. I have seen people look that way after the death of a pet or the loss of a favorite sports team's most important game.

“I remember waking up in my apartment, like always,” Ms. McInerney said. “And when I saw Ollie—that's his name, Ollie Lewis—in bed next to me, I almost had a heart attack.” She was clearly exaggerating at this point, since heart disease is brought on through arterial blockages or other organic internal causes, and not by a surprise. I ignored the point. “I thought I'd done the most impulsive, ill-advised thing ever, and I was right, but I had no idea how right until he woke up and started calling me his wife.”

“You had never met Mr. Lewis before?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Never. I'd never even heard his name mentioned.”

I had not been taking notes, but they would not be necessary; I knew I would remember the conversation accurately. “What was his connection to your friend Ms. LeBlanc?” I said. “Why was Oliver Lewis at her party?”

Her voice sounded wistful and betrayed regret. “He was a friend of a friend,” she answered. “I heard he came with Terry Lambroux.”

“Terry” is a name that can be assigned to either gender. “Is Terry a man or a woman?” I asked.

“That's a good question,” Ms. McInerney said. “I wish I could tell you, but I've only heard the name. I've never met the person. The only other person I met at the party was Ollie's friend Roger Siplowitz.”

“The party and the wedding, if one actually took place, happened weeks ago,” I said, moving the conversation ahead. “What steps have you taken? Have you notified the police?”

“And tell them what? That a man married me against my will? It doesn't make sense, Mr. Hoenig. I'm not a wealthy woman; I work for a living. Ollie can't be trying to claim he's my husband to have access to my vast fortune. I don't have one, and neither does anyone in my family.”

“Perhaps he just wanted to have sex with you,” I suggested. Sex is often a motivating factor in the actions of people, particularly men.

“So he married me? If Ollie slipped a date rape drug into my drink, he could have done what he wanted and then left. I hear it happens all the time.” She stood up and turned away from me. The effect was similar to that in an old noir film, except Ms. McInerney wasn't wearing a trench coat and had no cigarette in her hand.

However, she was correct in pointing out the illogic of my suggestion. “Have you seen the marriage license Mr. Lewis says you have?” I asked. “Do you have a copy with you?”

The question seemed to surprise Ms. McInerney; she blinked twice and then bit her lower lip again. “No, I don't,” she said. “But I have seen it. It looks official.”

I ran my tongue over my upper teeth, which is something I seem to do involuntarily when thinking. Since it took me over a year in therapy to break myself of a larger gesture (wiggling my fingers), this did not seem to merit much attention. “It is not difficult to produce an authentic-looking document,” I said. “I will have to do some searches in the files of the Fairfield County clerk's office.” I was speaking more to myself than to Ms. McInerney, whose expression was difficult to read—Irritation? Puzzlement? I couldn't tell.

“Then you'll take the case?” she asked.

“I do not take cases,” I explained again. “I answer questions.”

“Will you answer my question, Mr. Hoenig?”

“First, what is your favorite song by the Beatles?”

Ms. McInerney's eyes narrowed, as if trying to see me more clearly. I have observed this reaction to that question—one I ask to help determine a person's state of mind—before. But she did not ask why I might be interested. Her lips bulged a moment, very slightly.

“‘Yesterday,'” she said.

Conventional. Possibly regretful.

“That is all I needed to know,” I said.

“So you
will
answer my question.”

“Yes, and the one about your purported husband, as well.”

She thanked me. We agreed upon a fee, and she paid half of it, as I require whenever a new client employs me. She filled out my client intake form, which took nine minutes, and then left, saying she was pleased I was going to help her. I wanted to tell her that I had not agreed to help—if she was indeed married to a man she barely knew, I couldn't extricate her from the situation as a divorce attorney could—but decided reiterating that I would answer the question was enough.

But once Ms. McInerney had left, I noticed a feeling of anxiety in my stomach. Usually the questions I am asked can be answered with some simple research. In fact, I often turn down easy questions, or answer the client on the spot and charge a small fraction of my usual fee. People could easily discover the information they believe to be elusive. Usually, coming to Questions Answered is more a symptom of laziness than difficulty.

With this sort of situation, however, I was entering into a situation that did not play to my strengths. Facts are often easy to obtain, particularly when they pertain to history or science. Determining whether the Battle of Gettysburg was influenced by one general's facial hair (as I had once been asked to do) was a simple matter of research and meteorology. A supposedly legendary trade of the Boston Red Sox slugger Ted Williams for the New York Yankees star Joe DiMaggio, which purportedly had been agreed upon and then abandoned, took less than three hours to confirm.

But Ms. McInerney's question ventured into considerably more unfamiliar territory. It would be easy enough to find out whether or not a legal marriage had been filed and recorded in Darien, Connecticut, on the date she has mentioned. But her question was more complex than simply knowing if she were indeed now a wife.

Ms. McInerney's question was more complex than that: “Who is the man in my bed who calls himself my husband?” In order to answer that, I would have to venture into the interactions between men and women, matters of emotion and expression that are not at all my area of expertise. It was possible I had agreed to answer a question that I was especially unqualified to address.

I started to do some power walking, raising my arms for extra aerobic effect, around the perimeter of the office. Since I had been advised by my doctor not to stay in an office chair for more than twenty minutes at a time, I had been very careful about raising my heart rate three times an hour. I would like to say the practice helps me to think more deeply, but the sad truth is I think at exactly the same level, but with heavier breathing and a higher perspiration rate.

Mother appeared at the door when I was on my eleventh lap around the office. She was accustomed to my exercise regimen but looked at her watch, no doubt wondering why I was doing so seven minutes later than usual.

My breath was slightly forced, but not enough that I could not tell her, “I was meeting with a new client.” Mother knows I will adjust my routine when an unfamiliar person (particularly one who might become a paying customer) is in the room. For some reason, seeing me walk rapidly around the room while raising and lowering my arms makes some people uncomfortable, although it is a reasonable thing to do in terms of health. Mother nodded her understanding.

Once I had completed my rounds, I walked to the vending machine and bought a bottle of spring water. A man named Les comes once a week to restock the machine, and he gives me what he calls my “cut” of the money I have used to pay for the drinks I have bought that week. It doesn't seem a rational system, but it seems to satisfy Les and I pay only half for water all week.

“What's troubling you?” Mother is able to read expressions, particularly those on my face. It is a talent I am working very hard to cultivate, but it does not come naturally to me. Before I'd had a chance to say a word, she was already aware that I was perplexed, and possibly a little concerned. “Does it have something to do with the new client?”