“Don’t speak to me that way.”
“What way, like a good husband? I’m trying to protect you.”
“I’ll spend my money the way I see fit, and I’ll take the calls I want to. I’ll decide about the retainer, but it’s a bigger issue than that.” Christine tried to think of a way to reach him. “We can’t ignore reality. We used a donor, we agreed to. We know his name now. He exists, and we can’t pretend he doesn’t.”
Marcus stepped away, waving her off. “I have to go to work. Everything blew up this weekend and I have to deal with it.”
“Then we can talk about it tonight?”
“No, we’re going out to dinner with Dad and Stephanie, remember? It’s his birthday.”
“Oh, right.” Christine had forgotten or maybe blocked it. An evening with her in-laws would be the perfect end to a perfect day.
“I got him that putter, but if you could pick up a card, that would be great. You have the time, right? I have to go, bye.” Marcus walked away without another word.
“Good-bye,” Christine called after him. She watched him go, then realized her car was in the opposite direction. She turned around and walked the other way, trying not to see it as symbolic.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Christine sat in her car in the parking lot, letting the air-conditioning blow on her face. She took a sip of an overpriced iced tea she’d bought on the way. She still had another half-hour on the meter and she was eyeing the phone in her hand. Griff had called the first time at nine forty-five, so she assumed that it was right after he’d met with Zachary. She would have to make a decision about the retainer, now.
Christine mulled it over. After what Gary had said, she wasn’t sure she should contribute, but she did want to call Griff back, even though Marcus didn’t want her to. Griff was only following up on something she’d asked him to do, and she hated to drop out of the picture without any explanation, even a fake one. She took another sip of tea, wondering if she should call Lauren to see what she thought. They hadn’t talked much on the way home since Christine had fallen asleep after her crying jag. She scrolled to FAVORITES and pressed Lauren’s cute profile picture. Any reason was a good reason to call your best friend in the world.
“Hey, honey!” Lauren said, picking up after the first ring. “I was just about to call you. How are you?”
“I’ve been better. Just got out of Gary’s.”
“Ruh roh. Did you get yelled at? And what happened last night? Tell me fast, I’m picking up Seth at the orthodontist.”
“The headline is I didn’t get yelled at, but they don’t want me to call Griff and pay any retainer. Griff called.”
“What did he say?”
“I couldn’t get it. Marcus was right there, and we had a fight.”
“Oh no.” Lauren groaned.
“Oh yes.” Christine sighed.
“Christine, I don’t think you should help with the retainer. Paying, even lending him money, is crossing some line I don’t want you to cross.”
“I get that, but what about calling Griff back? Can’t I call and tell him that? The lawyer said not to and so did Marcus, but they just don’t want me to get involved. I felt majorly bossed around.”
“Aw.” Lauren clucked. “They’re not the boss of you. So what, you want to call Griff?”
“Yes.”
“Then call him, but make sure it’s the last time.” Lauren paused. “I have to tell you, Zachary scared me yesterday with all that talk about how you cut into a heart. That was creepy, you have to admit. I started to wonder if he was guilty.”
“I know, but then again, it shows he’s not the killer, or he wouldn’t even go there.”
“So are you completely sold?”
“No, but I’m inclined to think he’s innocent, that’s why I feel so crappy about washing my hands of him. Gary gets it, but Marcus doesn’t. Last night is a story you don’t have time for.”
“Okay. Call me later, I want to hear.”
“After dinner with my in-laws.”
“Big Frederik and his trophy wife? Lucky you.”
“You got that right. Bye, love you.”
“Love you, too.” Lauren hung up, and Christine pressed END. She took another sip of tea, scrolled to recent calls, and pressed Griff’s number. It rang twice, then he picked up.
“Griff.”
“Yes, hi. It’s Christine. Did you get to see Zachary this morning?”
“Yes. I’m going to represent him, if he can get the retainer.”
“Griff, about that.” Christine hesitated. “I don’t know if I can give him half of it.”
“His girlfriend’s lending him the other half.”
“Really?” Christine felt confused. “I thought they broke up and—”
“Gah,” Griff growled, impatient. “I don’t care. I didn’t call you to talk about romance. I called about that woman you told me about. The neighbor who told you Robinbrecht used to have men up all the time. Did she see anything that night?”
“I got the idea that she did, but she wouldn’t say.”
“What was her name again?”
“Linda Kent. She lives around the block from Warwick Street, but I don’t know her house number.”
“Then it is the same one. The house number is 505. I went over there. She’s dead.”
“What?” Christine asked, shocked.
“It was an accident.”
“How? What kind of accident?”
“She fell down her staircase. Her neck was broken.”
“How horrible!” Christine tried to visualize it, from what she remembered of the backstreet. “Do they know how she fell, or what happened?”
“At midnight or so. She probably slipped on the stairs. Neighbors say she drank like a fish.”
“But why would she be out on her stairwell at night?”
“How the hell do I know?” Griff grunted. “I don’t have time to shoot the breeze.”
“She said she had a clear view of Gail Robinbrecht’s steps, in the back. That’s the only entrance to a duplex, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Typical West Chester. The realty companies came in, chopped the houses into duplexes. Kent lived in one. So did Robinbrecht.”
“Doesn’t that seem strange to you, that Mrs. Kent dies in an accident, just a few days after the woman who lives directly across from her is murdered?” Christine was thinking out loud. “I mean, we know that Kent could have seen something that night, or maybe the killer simply thought she did. Kent looked at Robinbrecht’s apartment all the time, and the back stairs. If she told that to me, a complete stranger, how many other people do you think she told it to? Anybody who went to Robinbrecht’s, like Lauren and I did that night?”
“Oh boy. Speculating. I gotta go.”
“But wait, please. Think about this. A person who thought he was seen by Linda Kent going up Gail Robinbrecht’s stairs, or who might have believed he was seen, would have a motive to murder Linda Kent. Maybe he’s the real killer, not Zachary. The killer would be somebody who knew, or suspected, he was seen and didn’t want to take any chances.” Christine’s thoughts raced. “Zachary’s in prison, so it couldn’t have been him. Don’t you think that’s worth following up on? I think that’s the kind of thing that can really help the defense, don’t you?”
“Leave Jeffcoat’s defense to me—”
“I am, I’m just saying that this seems like an unusual turn of events. Don’t you agree?”
“I don’t want to discuss it with you. Now will you please let me hang up? I’m trying to remain a gentleman—”
Christine couldn’t let him go just yet. “One last question. Now that you met with him, do you think he’s innocent? He told me that he wanted a lawyer who believed in his innocence.”
“Well, all he’s got is me,” Griff answered, then hung up.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Christine tugged a weed from between two purple coneflowers, trying to clear her head. She hadn’t
known what to do with herself after the phone call with Griff, and she couldn’t seem to shake the notion that Linda Kent’s death might not have been an accident. She needed not to think about it anymore, and the same went for Zachary. She took out another weed and tossed it in the red plastic bucket she used for plant refuse.
She had started the garden three years ago, back when they couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t getting pregnant, and even then she was self-aware enough to know that she wanted to grow something, even if it wasn’t a baby. They had a small yard in the front and back of the house, but she had located the garden in front by the driveway, so she could see it every time she came home.
Their house, the New Construction, was actually set perpendicular to the road, not facing it, and a tall hedge bordering their street gave her privacy while she gardened, so she could wear whatever she wanted, like the tank top and gym shorts she had on now, even braless. She’d never felt so constrained by a bra before she had gotten pregnant, and last week, before all hell had broken loose, she had happily begun to notice her breasts swelling, newly sexy on her tomboyish figure. Ordinarily, she would’ve spent the afternoon shopping online for the least-ugly nursing bra, but shopping for the baby had been tainted by the events of the morning.
Christine pulled another weed, but it came with too much dirt and she shook it out before she tossed it into the bucket. The garden was just beginning to bloom, and she could see that it was going to be a good summer. She’d planted only perennials because they’d come back every year, saving her a lot of work since she’d hoped she’d be busy when their baby finally arrived. When that looked like it was going to take longer than anticipated, she made peace with the perennial decision, if only because she loved the unruly wildness to coneflower, some with delicate purple petals and others with a dusky pink, and rudbeckia, or black-eyed Susans, whose bright golden petals stood out like yellow caution lights in the mass plantings she favored.
She pulled another weed. Elsewhere in the garden she had planted groupings of purplish Japanese anemone, tall white phlox, and some pale blue delphinium, which she couldn’t wait to see bloom. Along the border, catmint was already beginning to spread, and she felt happy that she had at least one plant that deer and rabbits wouldn’t eat. She hadn’t begun to spray yet, pumping the rotten egg and pepper repellent that obliterated the sweet perfume of the yellow roses and the fresh earthen smells of the dirt, but it was a price every gardener had to pay.
She plucked another weed from the coneflowers and tossed it into the bucket. She was one of those strange birds who loved weeding, seeing it as a way to nurture the garden entire, and usually it transported her and she would lose her worries in the performance of a simple task, but she couldn’t find her weed groove today. She was too preoccupied by everything. She couldn’t help but wonder about Linda Kent and shuddered to think of the woman’s being pushed down the stairwell to her death.
Christine tried to puzzle out why Kent would be outside on the stairwell at night, anyway. Having a smoke? Looking at the stars? She tried to remember if she had seen any plants or flowers on Kent’s stairwell, maybe something that needed watering, but she couldn’t remember anything like that. Kent could have gone out to answer the door. But for whom?
Christine kept weeding, imagining the awful scene. There would be a knock at Linda Kent’s door, and she would go to answer it, maybe after a few drinks. She would open the door, either recognizing the man or not, even assuming it was a man, but what if it wasn’t a friendly visitor? What if the man had thrown her down the stairs? Would neighbors have heard it? Would anybody have seen it?
Christine keep weeding and thinking. She didn’t have any answers. She didn’t remember any streetlights in the street behind the houses. Maybe there was security lighting or motion detectors. Maybe somebody saw something but hadn’t reported it to the police. Or maybe the police had made a mistake and not asked enough questions, so they’d ruled the death an accident. Kent might not have had the chance to tell them about the men going up Gail Robinbrecht’s stairwell, so they would have no reason to consider anything suspicious about her death.
Christine pulled another weed, shook off the extra dirt, and tossed it into the bucket. Wondering why she was wasting her time, at home.
But she still had dinner with her in-laws to get through.
Chapter Thirty
Christine sat alone at the table, nursing her ice water while she waited for the others to arrive. The restaurant was called Bangkok Dream, a pricey favorite of Marcus’s father’s, with floor-to-ceiling draperies of tangerine silk and scrolls of antique Japanese art bordered by red calligraphy. Pendant halogen lights glistened off the polished teak tables, each set with exotic chopstick holders, and the food was Thai, Japanese sushi, and other Asian fusion, even the smells of which did not appeal to Christine in her current state. She wished for a strong margarita, but of course she hadn’t ordered one. She was already worried that her baby was going to have enough strikes against him. Or her.
Sitar music played in the background, which was Thai enough for the suburbs, and the coveted tables were filled. The other diners were well-dressed middle-aged couples, and Christine was glad she’d dressed up. She’d showered after gardening because she was ridiculously sweaty and she’d even blown her hair out completely, applying Moroccan oil to give it some shine. She had on her nicest summer dress, of lime-green silk, and for once she was glad she wasn’t into maternity clothes. She hadn’t dressed to impress Marcus or his father, though Frederik Nilsson was the type of man that women tended to dress up for. She was dressing for herself, to improve her mood and put the day behind her.
She looked up when the restaurant doors opened, her attention drawn by a flash of bright sunlight. In the doorway she spotted Marcus’s silhouette, followed by an almost-identical silhouette of her father-in-law Frederik, with his wife Stephanie. Christine smiled and gave a pleasant wave, and Marcus waved back. He walked toward the table, though his father and Stephanie lagged behind, greeting the restaurant owner, who came out to shake Frederik’s hand.
Frederik Nilsson was a star architect, or “starchitect,” who lived in Avon and owned his own architecture firm in Hartford, Nilsson International, which he had started by designing modern glass homes for the wealthy residents of Greenwich and Darien. After one of his houses appeared in Architectural Digest, his client base expanded to national proportions, though Christine thought his glass shoeboxes reminded her of a fourth-grader’s diorama. Frederik touted his “design aesthetic” as his “Scandinavian architectural voice,” but to her, it was cookie-cutter for a five-million-dollar cookie.
Christine truly didn’t begrudge her father-in-law his success, though she wished he wore it with more grace, for Marcus’s sake. Frederik always acted as if architects were true artists, while architectural engineers were boring number-crunchers. Frederik gave lip service that engineering was equal to architecture, but Marcus knew his father was disappointed in him for choosing engineering over architecture. It came to a head five years ago, when Frederik had asked Marcus to join his architectural firm, to provide it with an adjunct engineering arm. Marcus had declined to move under his father’s thumb, which Frederik took personally, and the competition between father and son formed a constant undercurrent of tension.
“Hey, honey,” Marcus said, leaning over and giving her a quick peck on the cheek, and she realized that he hadn’t touched her in days.
“Hi, good to see you.”
“God, what a day.” Marcus sat down next to her but avoided eye contact, and Christine could feel him being gingerly around her, his feelings still hurt. They hadn’t spoken since Leonardo’s office, not even a text.
“Busy?”
“Totally, but it looks like North Carolina settled down.” Marcus loosened his tie. “Dad’s in a great mood.”
“Good,” Christine said in a way that she hoped sounded pleasant and not relieved. Frederik could be temperamental, and his moods tende
d to dictate the mood of the evening, if not because he enforced it but because everyone around him became accustomed to acquiescing.
Christine and Marcus looked up as Frederik and Stephanie had finished with the owner and were coming over, with Frederik making a great show of walking between the tables, smiling at the diners as if he knew them, wheeling his head of cool, longish ash-blond hair this way and that. The man had presence, projecting that he was the kind of man you should know, expensively dressed in a dark gray Italian suit tailored closely around his lean torso and waist, which he’d paired with a black silk shirt worn open at the collar, with no tie. His eyes were a fiercely intelligent light blue, sharp against his light tan, and he kept flashing a smile with aggressively large top teeth that Christine always thought of as Kennedyesque, but in a bad way.
“Christine, how’s our girl?” Frederik boomed, finally reaching the table, leaning over, and giving her a quick kiss on the cheek.
“Great, thanks. Happy Birthday!”
“Don’t remind me! Sixty-five is for speed limits, not men!”
Christine chuckled, then leaned over to smile at Stephanie, who, at about five-ten, was nevertheless hidden behind her husband. “Hi, Stephanie, great to see you!”
“You, too!” Stephanie said with a warm smile, sitting down at the table. Christine liked Stephanie, having gotten over the fact that she was the proverbial trophy wife, some twenty-five years younger than Frederik. The former Stephanie Wooten had caught Frederik’s eye when he started taking a Pilates class she taught, after he had injured his back. Stephanie was kind, thoughtful, and artsy but happy to let others take the spotlight, namely her husband.
“You look amazing!” Christine said, meaning it. Stephanie had worked as a catalog model in Europe and was beautiful in an exotic way, with almond-shaped brown eyes, and tonight, her long brown hair slicked back into a chic high ponytail. She wore almost no makeup except for lip-gloss, letting her ethereal beauty just be, like a Zen goddess. Delicate gold hoops hung from her ears, and she looked effortlessly elegant in a sheath of taupe jersey with a dramatic halter neckline, which hugged every inch of her ballet-lean body, all the way down to her flat, Roman sandals.