Her hand struck my cheek and I felt the burn on my face. I couldn’t help myself and I hit her as Ralph watched, unperturbed. Constance swayed but managed not to lose her footing.
I strode across the room and put on my shirt without bothering to properly do up the buttons. I picked up my jacket and lurched for the door.
“No! Don’t go! You can’t leave me!” she yelped, desperately pouncing on me.
Ralph held her back, trying to keep her from following me as I scampered down the stairs. I felt I couldn’t breathe. I heard a blow and a scream. Constance had rushed after me and I don’t know if she tripped or…perhaps Ralph pushed her. In any case, she fell on top of me and I still don’t know how I managed to catch her and prevent us both from falling to the ground.
“Murderer!” she wailed, looking at her husband while I tried not to lose my balance with her body’s weight against me.
As soon as I got my footing I unhooked myself from her arms and bolted for the door. I didn’t look back. I didn’t want to. Nor did I want to listen to her screams, begging me not to leave her with him.
“Murderer, you pushed me, you want to get rid of me! Don’t go, Thomas, don’t leave me with him, he’ll kill me!”
Her words echoed around the house. I rushed to the door. Outside, the rain was pelting down onto the lawn. I careened across to the car and I wasn’t able to breathe calmly until I drove off. I’ve never wanted so badly to get home.
Could I have done anything differently? Yes. I could have faced up to Ralph:
I should have taken off my jacket and covered Constance, leading her back up the stairs.
“Calm down. It’s all right.”
“He pushed me…Murderer! Murderer!”
“Please, Constance…Come on, you need to get dressed.”
I would have helped her up the stairs. At the top, Ralph would be staring down at us both, with clenched fists. We would have shuffled by him toward their room.
“Get dressed, please, quickly. You don’t have much time left, you need to go and pick up Ellen.”
“Don’t leave me with him!” she would have begged.
“I won’t. Go into the bathroom and get ready, I’ll stay until you’re ready. I won’t let him do anything to you. Calm down.”
While she got dressed I would challenge Ralph. We’d look at each other, sizing each other up to see how far we were willing to go.
“I don’t know if you pushed her, but don’t you dare lay a finger on her again, or I will destroy you. I don’t care if you decide to leave her and get divorced. Do whatever you want, but if something happens to her I will report you and I’ll swear I saw you push her down the stairs. Do you understand? Be careful, Congressman.”
Ralph would have looked at me hatefully, but he would have had no other choice than to admit the truth. He could accuse me of sleeping with his wife, which would only be a mild inconvenience for me. But if I accused him of attempted murder, his career would be finished forever.
“Considering what just happened, it would be best for Constance and Ellen to move out or for you to leave. But don’t ever think of going near them again.”
When Constance was dressed, I would have walked her to the door, encouraging her to go and pick up her daughter. I could have promised that we would speak later, that we both needed time to reflect after what had happened. I could have encouraged her to call her parents and tell them she was going to stay with them for a while. Her parents’ house was not far from hers. And I could even have given her the number of a good lawyer.
—
But I didn’t do any of that. I didn’t even say goodbye. I was relieved when the fresh air hit my face.
The city was jammed. What time was it? Around three. Thankfully my house wasn’t very far from Ralph’s, even though we lived in different neighborhoods in Brooklyn. I realized that Ralph had missed his appointment with the mayor. What excuse might he have given?
As I was navigating through traffic, I was startled by the sound of my phone. Esther’s number appeared on the screen.
“Where are you? I just got home. I’m going to take a bath and go to bed. I’m exhausted. You were right—not resting after a transatlantic flight is for young people.”
“I won’t be long. I have a problem. Don’t fall asleep, please…”
Esther was waiting for me in bed. She could barely keep her eyes open. As soon as I saw her I calmed down.
“I’m so tired, I need to sleep; although going to bed at this time will mean we’ll be up at midnight.”
“Well, we’ll think of something to do.” I chuckled.
“What did you do today?” she asked me.
I was tempted to lie but I didn’t, at least not wholly.
“I bought a teacup with a bear on it and I took it to the Morgans’. I hope Ellen likes it.”
“British?”
“Yes, the saucer said ‘Made in England.’ It’ll do the trick.”
I undressed and lay by her side. Esther gave me a kiss and pulled away quickly.
“You smell like…”
I smelled like Constance. But she didn’t finish the phrase. She just gave me a suspicious glance and wished me good night.
We sank into a deep sleep, so deep that, when my phone started ringing, it seemed to me that the sound belonged to the world of dreams. Esther had to give me a shove for me to wake up and answer.
“Someone is desperate to speak to you.”
I glanced at the clock. It was eleven. Too late for any of our friends to call. I noticed it was Carter’s number.
“There is nothing that you need to tell me at this hour,” I said when I answered the phone, intending to hang up and continue sleeping.
“I don’t, but you will have something to tell the police,” he answered in a chilling voice.
I didn’t quite understand what he was saying; I was still in the fog of a dream. What had he said? Esther looked at me expectantly.
“I don’t understand…”
“Constance Morgan is dead. She took a fall as she was going down the stairs. She probably tripped. The police are investigating what she did in the last twenty-four hours, and apparently you visited her. Ralph told the police that you were at their house this morning to deliver a present for Ellen; that you spoke about everything and nothing and then you left. Do you understand me, Thomas? Just that. Oh! And Constance has a split lip and a swollen cheek, which apparently have to do with the way she hit the floor when she fell down the stairs. I think the police will be knocking on your door in a few minutes. Ralph is devastated, but I know that, together, we will overcome this situation. You know how fond Ralph is of you, and how important your agency has been for his campaign, as it will be in the future. Good friendships last forever.”
I realized that Carter was delivering a message: Ralph had not confessed any of what had happened. Not even that he’d caught me in bed with his wife, or the incident on the stairs. I was being asked not to say anything either.
I didn’t know what to say. Constance was dead. I found this impossible to visualize. But Carter said she was dead. Why?
Esther grew worried when she saw how overwhelmed I was and grabbed the phone.
“Who is this?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, Esther. This is Nicholas Carter. Mrs. Morgan has had an accident. I called to let you know. I’m at the Morgans’ house. Ralph is very upset.”
“What kind of accident did Mrs. Morgan have?” Esther asked the question without looking at me. She seemed distant, holding the phone.
“She fell down the stairs. Apparently she was going to get something for Ellen downstairs and she tripped. She broke her neck.”
“Oh my God! That’s awful! When did this happen?”
“A couple of hours ago, around nine.”
“I see. I’m terribly sorry. What about Ellen?”
“Ralph’s parents will take care of her. As you can imagine, Constance’s parents are devastated.”
??
?We’re so sorry. We’ll keep in touch. Please give Ralph our condolences and let us know if there’s anything at all we can do…”
Carter cleared his throat. He didn’t know how to tell Esther that the police wanted to interrogate me. In the end he just said it.
“I’m calling because the police want to speak to Thomas. It’s probably just routine.”
We got up. Esther told me to take a shower. I did. We needed to clear our heads. She made me coffee while I got dressed. It wasn’t until we sat down with a cup of coffee in hand that she asked me why the police wanted to speak to me.
“Carter said they’re going to speak to everyone who was with her in the last few hours. I already told you I was at their house.”
“If you want me to help you, you will need to tell me the truth, Thomas. The whole truth.”
“Help me? Hey, I don’t have anything to do with what happened to Constance.”
“From what Carter said the police will knock on our door any moment now.”
“Well, let them come. I can’t help them. I wasn’t there. Remember we were sleeping in the same bed until the telephone rang.”
“What time did you arrive and how long did you stay at the Morgans’?”
“I don’t know…I got there at around twelve thirty or one, maybe later. I stayed for a good few hours, and then I came home.”
“It doesn’t take long to get here from the Morgans’ house even when there’s traffic. You were back here before four. It’s obvious you weren’t there when the poor woman fell down the stairs.”
“But what did you think?”
“Tell me the truth, Thomas. Apart from bringing the teacup for Ellen, did you sleep with Constance? When you got into bed you smelled like…well, you smelled like sex. Am I wrong?”
I panicked and broke into a sweat. If I admitted I had slept with Constance, Esther might decide to leave me. I myself would have given her the excuse she needed to get rid of me.
“Do you think I didn’t notice the way she looked at you?” she asked me. “Every time we met up with the Morgans it was obvious. She followed you with her eyes; she considered you hers. I admit at some point I even thought she was a bit mentally unstable. It was all too clear that there was nothing between Constance and Ralph except for that poor kid. Constance was the kind of woman who’d die for a man to look at her. And you were the ideal candidate.”
I couldn’t believe that Esther was speaking so matter-of-factly, as if she were referring to someone else. I continued to debate with myself whether I should tell the truth or deny everything.
“Thomas, I know you too well. I know you wouldn’t want to lose me for anything in the world, but even so, you’re taking risks with affairs that don’t mean anything to you but that sometimes have consequences.”
“I…No…Please…I swear there is no other woman I care about but you…” I stuttered as if I were a little boy.
“I know, I know…But we’re not talking about that now. We’re talking about what happened today between you and Constance.”
I didn’t admit it. No. I didn’t admit that I’d slept with Constance and that Ralph had caught us.
“I swear that woman pursued me…Today I went there to beg her not to insist anymore, to tell her I didn’t want anything to do with her…I didn’t want to upset you and that’s why I came up with the idea of the present for Ellen. It’s not the first time I’ve asked her to leave me alone…But she refused. She deceived me, she told me she was going to the bathroom and what she did was call her husband so that he would find us together. Ralph turned up and…You can imagine the scene…”
“Yes, I can imagine that Ralph was upset to find his dear wife with another man. And then what happened?”
“Nothing…I told Ralph there was nothing between Constance and me, that she loved him but she felt lonely and she meant nothing to me. I told him we should behave like adults. Then I left.”
“Was that it?” Esther seemed skeptical of my version of the facts.
“Well, she ran after me. I was already halfway down the stairs and I didn’t see what happened, but I realized she’d tripped and when I turned around I was able to catch her; we both could have died. I got out of there. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.”
“So this afternoon she fell down the stairs.”
“For a moment I thought that…Well, it’s silly.”
“You thought that Ralph had pushed her.”
“She started to yell. She called Ralph a murderer and asked me not to leave her alone with him. I thought that my presence there was not necessary, that I would only make the situation more difficult.”
We remained silent, each thinking about what I hadn’t dared to say but which Esther had spelled out. The building’s night porter phoned us to say that the police were coming up.
“What should I tell them?” I asked, terrified.
“You’re not to blame for anything. She fell down the stairs a couple of hours ago; it’s obvious you were not there.”
“I hit her,” I mumbled.
“What?”
Esther’s severe gaze reflected a sudden distancing from me. In her eyes, I saw something similar to contempt.
“Well, not exactly. Before Ralph arrived I wanted to go and she hung on to my neck…I couldn’t get rid of her. It’s not that I hit her exactly, just that I had to twist her arm.”
I didn’t tell her the truth because I realized that Esther would never have forgiven me if I had hit a woman.
“You should tell the police what happened. The whole truth. That’s the best thing to do. If Ralph tried to kill Constance this afternoon it’s obvious he managed to do it tonight. However, you’ll have to explain yourself and we’ll be in trouble. You’ll be in the papers, which will have negative consequences for our agency but…what can we do? I’m afraid we’ve run out of luck. It was bound to happen eventually.”
In Esther’s words there was not only a rebuke, there was also disappointment and hopelessness at the idea of having to start over from scratch. In Manhattan, if you’re in the crime section of the newspaper, your career is over.
A few minutes later a couple of policemen turned up at my door. The police lieutenant was nice to us. The garage attendant confirmed my time of arrival at home. Esther also confirmed it. I wasn’t suspected of anything—they were only trying to reconstruct what had happened and whom Constance Morgan had been with that day. Some neighbors said that a man had visited her, and one of them even memorized my license plate number.
Under Esther’s scrutiny, I explained that I had brought a gift for Mr. and Mrs. Morgan’s daughter and that I had stayed for a while chatting with Mrs. Morgan, with whom I had a good friendship since our PR agency had worked on her husband’s campaign.
“Yes,” I declared, “Mrs. Morgan was as charming as ever. We spoke about her husband’s work as a congressman and the possibility of continuing to work with him. A friendly conversation, nothing more.”
The policemen left. The lieutenant seemed satisfied with my answers. If he thought that Constance’s fall down the stairs had not been an accident, he could rule out that I had anything to do with it. I wasn’t there. Simple as that.
“You lied to him,” Esther said, with both relief and concern.
“I didn’t tell them the whole truth; what I didn’t say was that I suspect Morgan. But I can’t accuse a congressman without proof just because I think he pushed her. Besides, if I did, we would be implicated in the scandal. I don’t think either Constance or Ralph deserves to have us sacrifice ourselves for them,” I observed. My voice was weary.
“But if Ralph tells them the truth…”
“You think he’s going to turn himself in for pushing his wife? He’s not that stupid, and Nicholas Carter is with him; he won’t allow him to fall apart. It will all depend on what the autopsy reveals.”
“I don’t know, Thomas…I don’t know if you’ve done well in not voicing your suspicions. If Ralph Morgan pushed Constance
…It’s horrible to think something like that could have happened.”
“But I don’t know for sure, I can’t swear it, so I’m not going to accuse him when I don’t have real proof beyond my own impressions.”
I tried to sound convincing, to appease her conscience. Esther seemed ready to assuage my afflictions, but not her own. I knew she couldn’t stand knowing that Ralph Morgan had murdered his wife but not telling the police.
We couldn’t sleep the rest of the night. I could feel her tossing and turning in bed, uncomfortable with me and with herself. Esther thought I should have told the truth even if it ruined us, but at the same time she didn’t want that to happen. She would have to live with that contradiction.
I know I didn’t do what I should have done. When the police lieutenant interrogated me about how long I’d been at the Morgans’ and what I’d done there, I should have had the courage to tell the truth:
“Lieutenant, what I’m about to tell you may cost me my marriage. I’m sorry, Esther, I lied to you. I hope you’ll forgive me. The truth is that, for a period, I was Mrs. Morgan’s lover. Today Mr. Morgan caught us in bed. We had an argument. She told him she wanted a divorce and to keep custody of their daughter. He refused. I asked them both to behave civilly. I can’t be sure, but it seemed to me this afternoon that Mr. Morgan pushed his wife down the stairs. Nothing bad happened because I was able to catch her—we both stumbled, but we were all right. She screamed that he was a murderer and wanted to kill her, and begged me not to leave her alone with him. Constance Morgan was afraid of her husband.
“I left and I didn’t hear anything from them until tonight when Mr. Carter called me to announce what had happened. I’m sorry. I will cooperate in any way I can so that justice is done and Mrs. Morgan’s death does not go unpunished.”
Yes, I could have said all this to the police lieutenant. Esther would have listened. My confession would have overwhelmed her. I would have sensed her growing aversion toward me as she learned of my lies. The lieutenant might have asked me to accompany him to cross-examine Ralph. An opportunity to demonstrate that I had courage and that I was capable of owning up to my responsibilities.