“Yeah,” Elizabeth muttered. “This has got ‘mentee’ written all over it.”
Was that sarcasm? It was impossible to be sure. She’d turned toward the windows so Gretchen couldn’t see her expression.
Mikey Pearce laughed. “That’s generous of you to allow him to have so many female friends.”
“Is it?” Gretchen asked sharply. “Are you married, Mr. Pearce?”
“Not anymore,” he said, wriggling his empty ring finger. “And I’ve decided to spare another innocent woman a lifetime of certain disappointment.”
“Well, Richard and I have been married thirty-four years. AndIhave always thought that a marriage should be a place where both people are encouraged to be their best selves. Richard is a magnetic sort of person.Iwas drawn to him because of it. It would hardly seem right to hold that against him now.”
“Richardisjust kind of that guy,” Scotty offered diplomatically. “Always has been. People fall in love with him right away. Menandwomen. It’s annoying.”
Gretchen felt validated. She wasn’t inventing an idea of Richard. Others saw him that way, too.
She turned back to Mikey Pearce. “So to answer your initial question: I don’t know of anything unusual, and neither do the children. This has all blindsided us completely.”
Mikey stared at Gretchen for what felt like an absolute eternity. As if he were accusing her of something. Perhaps lying, which she both was and was not.Truthwas such an overly roomy word. The same could be said oftrust. Gretchen did trust Richard completely, but also, apparently not at all.
“Okay,” Scotty said finally. “The night it happened—do you know what time Richard got home?”
“No. I was in bed. It was very, very late.”
Shehadbeen in bed when he finally got home the night Frankie was murdered. That part was true. She’d fallen asleep around 11:00 p.m., exhausted from a full day of Literary Lions nonsense. Right before she turned off the lamp, though, she’d checked Richard’s location and seen he was at the office. She checked his location all the time just for peace of mind. The children’s, too. But when Gretchen had startled awake to find the bed still empty at nearly 2:00 a.m. and no text from Richard, she’d checked his location again. It had been unavailable. It was never unavailable except when he was on a flight. And then, suddenly, about thirty minutes later, there it was: Richard’s green dot sailing up the FDR.
A little while later, she heard Richard come in. She expected him to wake her as he sometimes did, to complain about some unreasonable client on the West Coast who had tied him up at the office so late. But he hadn’t made a peep. And Gretchen had pretended to be asleep. She couldn’t say why. Actually, yes, she could. She was afraid Richard would lie to her. And that she’d know he was lying.
The pattern of his movements had been very strange, too. An odd rustling as he changed in the closet, of all places. Like one of those deli bags being crumpled. And afterward, Richard had left the bedroom to go back downstairs. She’d even thought she heard the front door open and close. He was going back out? Where?But after a moment, the door to their bedroom opened again. And then Richard finally slid into bed. Storm passed. Strangeness over.Notsmelling of another woman’s perfume. She had checked that, too.
In the morning, he’d said he was supposed to have a drink with a client who never showed, then fell asleep on his couch in the office while he was working. A plausible explanation for the lateness, but not for his location being unavailable. It was also one that usually would have come with a lot more complaining. Still, Gretchen hadn’t thought much of it until the police showed up at their door. After that, she didn’t want to think about it at all.
“Is that unusual?” Mikey asked, bringing Gretchen back to the present. “For Richard to come home so late? I’d think someone as senior as him wouldn’t have to pull those hours.”
“It happens all the time,” Gretchen said, trying not to chafe. Whose side were they on, anyway?
“I’m only asking because sooner or later the prosecutor will,” Mikey explained—she must have made a face. Or maybe he’d just picked up on her hesitation. She was going to need to be more careful with him. Very careful. “As Richard’s team, we need all the facts. That’s the only way we can figure out how to properly manage them.”
A lovely speech, but she still had no intention of sharing any of that strangeness about Richard’s return home with them. Not in front of the children. Not ever. It felt too awful to even think about what it might mean.
“Richard’s schedule changes all the time,” Gretchen said crisply. “He tries to let me know, but he’s so busy. He forgets sometimes.”
“Hilary gets furious if I try to slip into bed that late. You must be a heavy sleeper or very patient.” Scotty laughed, but really it was more of a snort. “She’ll bolt right up and then be up all night. She’s been like that ever since the kids.”
“So, what? You don’t come home?” Elizabeth pushed back.
“I sleep on the couch a lot.” He shrugged, but there was an iciness to the way he looked at Elizabeth. “Amazing what you can get used to.”
“That’s fucking weird,” Elizabeth said.
“Weird?” Scotty asked, the muscle in his jaw flexing.
“That your wife hates you that much.”
“Elizabeth!” Gretchen scolded when she saw the very real anger in Scotty’s eyes. He was so easygoing and warm usually. But she was also touched. It seemed like Elizabeth was, in her way, trying to defend Gretchen.
“So, you didn’t wake when Richard came in?” Mikey prompted. “And, therefore, you don’t know what time it was, exactly?”
“No,” she said. “I have no idea.”
