A Circle of Wives (11 page)

I tell Peter at dinner. Mussels, so he must have paid another visit to Cook’s Seafood and decided to buy the makings for a meal while he was there. Don’t get me wrong, I love his cooking, but he should be working on his dissertation. I tell him that Taylor’s bruised upper arm and neck coupled with the needle puncture and high levels of potassium were sufficient for the coroner to demand an investigation.

“But even if you have this wrongful death verdict, isn’t there something called motive?” Peter asks. He pries a mussel out of its shell with his fork, places it delicately in his mouth. He is as fastidious as a young child when he eats, tastes everything as though he is prepared to throw it onto the floor in a tantrum. But the truth is, he is quite the epicure, and a terrific cook. The mussels are plump, fresh, tasting of garlic and white wine. Peter definitely didn’t get much work done this afternoon. “I’ve watched my share of crime dramas,” he says. “Motive is always the showstopper.”

“A man with three wives?” I ask. I find I’m speaking more impatiently than I want, so I calm my voice down. “Enough was happening in this guy’s life. Every place we poke around we find motive.” Without thinking I swallow the mussel in my mouth whole. I have to gulp some wine to get it down.

“How do you figure?” Peter asks when I’ve recovered.

“Anger. Jealousy. Payback time,” I say. “All the stuff that accumulates in romantic relationships, but times three.”

“But the only wife who knew the situation was the original one,” he reminds me. “And she accepted it. More than accepted it. She ran the show, right?”

“Right,” I say, but again impatience creeps into my voice. I’m tired. I take a deep breath and tell myself to enjoy the moment. The food, Peter’s presence—it’s been more than a week since we’ve had a meal together—the relief of having the inquest over. I try to relax my shoulders, move my head from side to side to get the knots out of my neck. My body just tenses up again. This used to be enough, us together at night, over simple but good food. Though it has been growing less satisfactory. Something left wanting. Something about the John Taylor case and its web of love and deceit is souring what used to sustain me.

Peter is still intent on the discussion. Possibly because he hasn’t noticed my shift in mood. Or possibly because he has. He’s hard to read sometimes, that Peter.

“Who do you put your bet on?” he asks as he breaks off another piece of garlic bread. Mounds of fresh-chopped garlic spill off the toasted loaf. I calculate the time he must have spent chopping it. This annoys me further. I put my fork down and take another gulp of wine. “When do you defend your dissertation?” I ask.

Peter waves the bread in the air. “End of fall quarter,” he says. “Plenty of time.”

So get to work,
I think, but don’t say. Instead I ask, “So how’s it going?” and despite my best efforts there’s an edge in my voice.

Peter shrugs and ignores my question. Typical. Then, as is also typical, he goes into attack mode. His way of doing this is to push me into a corner with questions.

“Tell me who you think did it,” Peter says. “Tell me what you’re going to do next.”

He’s put his finger right on my vulnerable spot. “I don’t know,” I confess. “I suppose I could interview the wives again. Try and get a better sense of the lay of the land there.” I am suddenly unhappy.

Peter then drops his attack mode, and turns into the comforter.

“You don’t have to have all the answers now,” he says in a soothing voice, and helps me to more wine. This is also quite typical. As soon as he suspects he might have hurt me, or really that I’m hurting for any reason, he turns gentle. It’s as if he doesn’t believe I can take it.

“People do crazy things for love,” I tell him. “Or for what they think is love.” I’m thinking of Helen Richter, speaking of her passion for John Taylor in that flat, professional voice, yet somehow making you believe in it. Like that C. S. Lewis book we read in an undergraduate English class on romantic love.
Surprised by Joy
. That was definitely Dr. Richter.

“Do they, now? And how would you know?” Peter isn’t smiling as he says this. He is staring at the pile of shells on his plate. This is getting perilously close to the discussion we agreed not to have.

I lay my hand on Peter’s hand. “Good mussels,” I say, and he looks up and smiles.

“I’m useful in the kitchen,” he says. “Whatever else you might think of me.”

18
Samantha

LOOKING AT SOMEONE
’
S CELL PHONE
records and emails is like looking in their underwear drawer. Their whole life is laid out in front of your eyes. John Taylor mostly made calls to his voicemail, and mostly received calls from his office. There were a lot of outgoing calls to different numbers that belonged to patients’ families. Dr. Taylor apparently took the trouble to personally follow up after his young patients left the clinic. There were fairly frequent incoming calls from Deborah. Just as she’d said, she organized his life, paid his credit card bills, booked his trips to LA and other places. He even depended on her to make restaurant reservations for him and the other wives.

Occasional calls from MJ, but not as many as I would have expected. Then there was a call every night to Helen’s cell phone. At exactly nine like clockwork. She never called him, but emailed every day to his [email protected] account. Deborah emailed [email protected], and MJ emailed [email protected]. No subtlety there.

But nothing suspicious in any of the content itself. Nothing at all. No anger or hostility expressed. Most of the email communiqués to and from the wives were brief logistical notes: when he’d be home, when he’d be out of town. Deborah gave me access to John Taylor’s Google calendar, which was a virtual map of his life to the quarter hour. Small wonder this guy had trouble being spontaneous—he was locked into a lifestyle that gave him little room to maneuver.

Still, I hit pay dirt when I check John Taylor’s cell phone records for the forty-eight hours before he was found dead at the Westin. Everything just as the wives had said—almost. A call to MJ Thursday morning that lasted about ten minutes—likely enough time to chat with her about domestic items and explain that he had to go down to LA. Deborah began calling his cell phone frequently starting Friday morning at around 6
AM
. Calls of short duration—just one or two seconds. Clearly she’d failed to reach him or have a real conversation. That, I calculate, would be when John Taylor failed to show up for his usual early morning shower and breakfast. Man, that woman was tenacious. She kept calling, emailing, and texting—multiple times per hour all day Friday and Saturday until 3
PM
. That would have been approximately when Mollie appeared at her door with the news. It all fit.

I’ve never endured that kind of harassment. Peter is my only relationship, and he’s usually pretty mellow. I see that anxiety though in some of my friends’ relations, the perpetual hounding if plans aren’t followed as expected. I wonder, not for the first time, what relationships were like before email, before cell phones, hell, before answering machines. My generation cut its teeth on this technology, but earlier generations? They must have had a lot more air, and a lot more mystery. Perhaps more doubt? Although I can’t imagine doubting Peter. And it seems as though neither MJ nor Helen had any doubts about John Taylor. So far, the records reflect their stories. Were they stupid or blissed out? Some combination of the two, I decide. Whereas Peter and I are just boring.

Then I see two unexplained outgoing communiqués from John Taylor’s phone on Friday evening, right in the window we’d identified as when he’d died. I sit up straight. At 6:47
PM
he called MJ’s cell phone. It was only five seconds in duration—he must have hung up when voicemail clicked in. Certainly not enough time for a conversation or a message. Then, thirty seconds later, he texted MJ.
Urgent. Come to Palo Alto Westin, room 224. Now.

Then nothing. So John Taylor had been alive at 6:47—and had summoned MJ to his secret hotel room. This requires some serious follow-up. I pick up the phone to summon MJ myself.

19
MJ

AT LEAST THEY HAVE AIR-CONDITIONING
here at the station. I hate this hot weather, it reminds me of Tennessee, and of the silly things people used to say about the heat.
Hot enough to make a prostitute sweat in church. As hot as a goat’s butt in a pepper patch.
It’s also not good for some of the more delicate plants in the garden. Yesterday the temperature reached 99 degrees and today they’re forecasting more than 100. At ten in the morning, I’m already perspiring. Of course, it’s that time of life. And stressful situations make the flashes more frequent, and more intense. I’ve taken to wearing sleeveless shirts, even on cool days. At the office I wear short skirts (probably shorter than my figure can now bear). But the discomfort of being hot outweighs my sense of vanity. I heard a couple of the younger women snicker last week as I bent over the copier. All the sympathy and kid-glove treatment after John’s death lasted exactly two weeks. Let them. So what. I’ve got more important matters to worry about.

This time I know why I’m sitting here in the interrogation room. I’m a suspect. In a case of wrongful death. Meaning murder. I would expect (well, would hope) anyone who knows me to laugh at that, only I haven’t been able to face anyone since the first article named me as a “person of interest.” Other published reports quickly followed, of course, along with the announcement that this was officially a murder investigation, which fired up the media circus again.
Person of interest!
It sounds flattering. Yet I know how serious this is. Last night I couldn’t sleep, but wandered through the dark house, so nervous even my feet were sweating.

The door opens and that same young detective comes in. She holds out her hand and I extend mine shakily. “MJ,” she says, “good to see you again,” and I nod and say, “Detective,” but she smiles and says, “Remember? Just call me Sam.” It all feels very civil, would she be treating me like this if she truly thought I was capable of murder? I relax a bit, then recall what I’ve seen on television—the good cop/bad cop thing. Sam is the good cop? I tell myself to keep my guard up. Her next question only confirms that I should.

“So you decided not to bring your lawyer?” she asks. She walks over to the wall, and pushes the button on a machine connected by a cable to the video camera mounted high on the wall. “Do you mind?” she asks, and points to it.

I shake my head no, not trusting my voice. She settles back in her seat, and looks at me questioningly.

“I don’t have a lawyer,” I say. This is true. I don’t know anyone who does. Who needs lawyers except rich people and criminals? We’d gone to a lawyer to draw up our wills, but that woman wasn’t
my
lawyer in any sense of the word.

“As I told you on the phone, people usually bring their lawyer to an interview of this kind,” she says, and her voice is gentle as she adds, “I’d really advise you to get one.”

“I don’t have the money,” I say, and am embarrassed at how much my voice quivers.

“Oh,” she says. And then, seemingly genuinely, “I’m sorry. I understand you’re in a difficult position. But,” she clears her throat, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense.”

She says all this in such a normal voice that I only afterward grasp that she’s read me my rights.

She stops and looks at me. “Do you want me to put you in touch with the public defender’s office? It’s your right.”

“No,” I say flatly. “I have nothing to hide. I can’t say anything that can be used against me because I didn’t do anything wrong.” I hope she can’t see how tightly my hands are clutching each other under the table.

The detective nods.

She then begins asking me questions again, but mostly they are the ones I’ve already answered. I slowly begin to relax, even begin to feel a little bored. Some water would be nice, but she doesn’t offer me any. No two-way mirror, unlike all the cop shows I’ve watched. Just the cinder block walls. And the chair is comfy. Where did they get it, from someone’s living room via the Salvation Army? It’s so out of place here.

And this detective is very young. I know it’s hot outside, but hair in pigtails? I’ve never seen a grown woman wear them before. But they somehow suit her. And there has been nothing ridiculous about her manner. She’s very professional. Surely, though, she already knows everything about my marriage and life with John to write her report. And I’ve missed half a day’s work. I look at my watch and take a series of deep breaths. In and out, in and out, that’s what my shrink recommends in times of stress. Or clenching my fists, then releasing them—first one hand, then the other. It does something to both sides of your brain to help you relax. I do that, but it doesn’t help.

The detective tells me to take a break. I go to the bathroom, grab a drink of water from the fountain in the big open room filled with desks. I notice that the officers stare at me. Even to them I’m an object of curiosity. I return to the examining room before the detective does, feeling acutely the strange mixture of boredom and anxiety that has plagued me since John’s death.