The Silent Wife (29 page)

“About your relationship with the deceased,” he is saying through the haze of smoke. “If you would just clear that up for me.”

She wants to tell him the truth, that the deceased was someone she barely knew—or not the man she thought he was, anyway. She says instead that she and he had lived together for twenty years. He pounces on this and bleeds it of every conceivable drop of suggestion, asking her why they never married, whether or not it mattered to her, how she felt about him leaving, if she'd seen it coming. He's ghoulishly curious about their failure to produce any children; in his world it has to mean something. He wants to know if she's acquainted with Todd's fiancee, the woman he was living with at the time of his death. When she thinks he's come to the end he circles back and begins again. What circumstances led to his departure? Did she subsequently have any contact with him? Has she consulted a
lawyer? Does she know that at the time of his death he was a father-to-be?

On and on he goes, working his way through ever more intrusive questions, leaning forward in his chair now, grave and intent. He learns about her practice, that she works part-time from home, that she went to Florida to attend a conference. “It's too bad, ma'am, that you had to come all the way back from Florida,” he says. “You manage to escape from the cold, and then something like this has to happen. What kind of conference was it?—if you don't mind my asking.”

She sucks on the stub of her cigarette, squinting against the smoke, eyes watering. The head rush brought on by the first intake of nicotine and carbon monoxide has been replaced now by a tightening in her chest. “It was a conference on stress and aging,” she says. “For mental-health professionals.”

“Was there a special reason for you to be there?” he asks. “Were you invited to speak, for instance?”

“I wasn't a speaker,” she says.

“Do you attend such events on a regular basis?”

“Not on a
regular
basis.”

“How often then?”

“I don't know. When something comes up that's important to my work.”

“When did you last attend a conference, prior to the one in Florida?”

“I'd have to think about that.”

“Take your time.”

“There was a conference in Geneva, oh, maybe two or three
years ago. I guess it's been a while.” In spite of herself she laughs apologetically.

“In what way was the conference in Geneva important to your work?”

“The theme was communication. That's a key area for any counselling psychologist.”

“So the last conference you attended, prior to the one in Florida, was on communication, and it took place in Geneva either two or three years ago. Have I got that right?”

“It could have been four years ago.”

“So then. Can we say four years?”

She knows what he's getting at. That she happened to be out of town at a conference on this particular occasion is a little too convenient, a little too pat. In spite of the story in the paper with its angle on drug-crazed teens and organized crime, this detective knows exactly what he's dealing with, and the big tip-off is her airtight, impregnable alibi, which is now working against her and which in any case she didn't need because no one was going to suspect her of taking part in a drive-by shooting. That it was a hired kill would be obvious to a ten-year-old.

“Oh hell, how should I know?” she snaps. “Maybe it was
five
years ago. How can you expect me to remember something like that at a time like this?”

“Now, ma'am, try to calm yourself,” he says in his unperturbed way. “I know how difficult this must be for you, but as I said before, it sometimes happens that a seemingly trivial piece of information turns out to be an important clue. Nothing can
be neglected. I'm sorry to put you through this, I truly am, but getting the case wrapped up is in your best interests too.”

She finds the room so airless and stifling that she fears she might keel over. She thinks of getting up to open a window but instead takes a copy of
Architectural Digest
from the stack of magazines on the coffee table and uses it to fan herself. Meanwhile, the detective moves on to ever more forward questions.
What is your income? What was the income of the deceased? Did he give you any money after he left? What is the total worth of his estate? Are you familiar with the terms of his will?
And still he's not done. Not until he's asked about her parents and her friends and taken down their names. But not Alison's name. This she has withheld.

When he gets to his feet at last, he turns once again to the view and comments on the cloud formation over the lake. “Cir-rostratus,” he says. “Snow on the way.”

She looks out at the white haze. Now he wants to linger and talk about the weather. Next he'll invite himself to lunch. She moves deliberately toward the foyer, leaving him little choice but to follow. On his way out the door he hands her his card and says, “Call me for any reason. As I said, we're counting on your help. Crimes get solved because people tell us things. Call me even if you think it's not important. Let me decide. You have my number right here.”

She keeps an eye on the obituary pages of the
Tribune
and in due course comes across the announcement. It's brief, just a few
lines, ending with the particulars of the funeral. There's nothing about the way he died, and she, Jodi, is not mentioned. Natasha, who no doubt wrote the piece, has positioned herself and her fetus as the chief mourners. “Todd Jeremy Gilbert, 46, entrepreneur, is survived by his loving wife-to-be and their unborn son.” Jodi's own twenty years with him, her care and attention, devotion and forbearance, have not qualified for the public record, while he himself is dismissed in his own obituary as an “entrepreneur.” Natasha must know his story: that he rose from humble beginnings, met with success under his own steam and through his own mettle. Todd was the ultimate selfmade man. If there's a time and place to give him credit, surely this is it.

Whether or not she will attend the funeral is yet to be decided. She's been keeping her clients at bay, sleeping a lot, and mostly staying home. Maybe during her period of confinement she got used to not going out, and maybe, too, she needs a chance to catch up with herself. She's having memory lapses, forgetting for long moments at a time that he ever left her. Even his death is not firmly established in her mind. Parts of her seem unaware of it—or maybe just refuse to believe it. On one occasion, as she navigates the mists between waking and sleeping, she makes up her mind to call him and ask him outright if he's dead or alive. “Tell me the truth,” she means to say. “I need to know.”

More than once she dreams that he's come back to life. For the most part it's all very prosaic. They're sitting down to dinner and she says, “I thought you were dead,” and he says, “I was
dead but I'm not anymore.” Or she's riding the elevator with a stranger and the stranger turns out to be him. And always there's a sense of relief. Something was horribly wrong, but now all is well and life can return to normal. It's this intermittent backsliding that finally makes up her mind about the funeral. Although she's apprehensive about appearing in public as the discarded wife and as much as she'd like to preserve her pride, she needs to have closure. She needs to teach herself that he's dead.

His death might be easier to swallow if it hadn't been so grisly. The way it happened has affected her deeply. When her friends call she talks to them about it obsessively—the obscene public execution—and as time goes on her fascination with the particulars tends to grow rather than abate. She feels compelled to eviscerate every sordid detail, never tires of poking and prodding the tattered corpse. Her feeling is that it should add up to more than it does. It should amount to something meaningful, some unholy grail or inverted power that she can use to shield herself, but the scandalous facts remain inert and somehow negligible as compared with the overriding reality of his absence. Unable to share the truth of her situation she's forced to fall back on conventional statements such as, “I can't believe it happened” and “It doesn't seem possible.”

The family man has been to see her parents, has been plying them with questions. She takes comfort in their proprietary outrage, their annoyance that her honesty and decency should be in doubt, their objection to picking through the details of her private life. As always, her parents talk to her simultaneously,
her father upstairs in the bedroom, her mother on the kitchen extension. They know of course what Todd was up to before he died and don't quite say that he had it coming, but clearly that's what's on their minds. She finds it endearing that they've done this about-face on her behalf, setting themselves so thoroughly against him.

The family man has also been visiting her friends, and they too are on her side.

Corinne says, “Most murders are committed by someone the victim knew, and ninety percent of the time it's the spouse or the ex, so they
have
to check up on you. Don't worry, it's just routine.”

Ellen says, “I'm sure you wanted to kill him and God knows you
ought
to have killed him. Look at it this way: Somebody else did it for you.”

June says, “I told the detective that you didn't do it.”

The friend she most wants to speak to is Alison, but Alison is not returning her calls. She doesn't know quite what to make of this. There's no reason she can think of why Alison would be on the outs with her. It can't be a money issue: Alison has her money. She wasn't sure about handing over the full payment in advance, but Alison promised to dole it out to Renny in fitting installments. “No worries,” she said. “I'll give him a down payment of half, or maybe not even—enough to enlist his recruits—and the balance when he gets the job done.” Maybe Alison is just being cautious. It could be that she wants to avoid contact till things settle down. But if that's the case she could have said so in the first place.

The day before the funeral she drives to Oak Street, which features valet parking and the best shops, to look for a black skirt suit, a black overcoat, and a black hat. She knows that dressing in black for a funeral is not obligatory, but she wants to go this extra distance, let people know what kind of person she is, show them that in spite of Todd's latest indiscretion she has enough class to see him off with proper respect. When she's back home unwrapping her parcels, a call comes in from Cliff York.

“How are you holding up?” he asks.

The call is unexpected. Cliff was a fixture in Todd's life, but it was rare for her to see him or hear from him. It occurs to her now that Todd's death must be quite a blow to Cliff.

“I'm doing okay,” she says. “I guess this is bad for you, too.”

“It's just kind of unbelievable,” he says. “A lot of us are taking it pretty hard.”

By “a lot of us” she knows he means the construction crew, which includes men who share years of history with Cliff and Todd both.

“I know,” she says. “It doesn't seem possible.”

“I guess we're all still in shock,” he says. “But listen, I wanted to check in with you about the funeral. I hope you're planning to come, and I know some of the guys are thinking about you, and—well, if I could just say something on Todd's behalf, he made some mistakes and did some stupid things, got himself into a mess of trouble, and I don't want to make excuses for him, but the way it happened, things just kind of spun out of control. He was up to his neck before he knew
what hit him. I hope you don't think it's out of line for me to say so, but he spoke very highly of you right to the end. He really did, you know. I think he felt kind of lost, that things had gotten away from him. I think if he'd seen a chance to get back with you and get things back to normal, he would have jumped at it.”

As Cliff is saying this she's thinking about the eviction letter. Cliff probably doesn't know about that. Why would Todd tell him what's really going on when partial truths could get him sympathy? But anyway it's nice of Cliff to call. He really just wants her to know that he's on her side, she can see that, and she's grateful for the effort he's making.

“I'm glad you called, Cliff,” she says. “I
am
planning to be at the funeral, so I guess I'll see you there.”

But Cliff has something else on his mind. He wants to talk business.

“I don't like to add to your burden, but I just want to say that the timing couldn't be worse. The apartment house—another couple of weeks and it would have been done. It's that close. And now the work has stopped, and I hate to think how long it'll be on hold if we don't do something about it. So I was thinking that—maybe after the funeral—you wouldn't mind getting together. We could talk it over, look at some of the details, deal with the outstanding accounts, maybe find a way to carry on.”