“Why is she here?”
“The U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecutes our cases.”
“I’m being prosecuted?”
“Having an AUSA here is a formality,” Sam said. “She’ll help us determine whether charges should be filed.”
“I didn’t do anything!”
“Then you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. Let’s go back to the beginning. Tell us what you know about Gretchen’s relationship with Sergei Ivanov.”
His expression changed from afraid to bitter in the span of a second. “She once described him to a friend, while we were still married, as the one who got away. She doesn’t know I overheard that.”
“So she was in love with him?”
He shrugged. “Who knows? She never said much about him to me, other than that they dated at Oxford and she supported his resistance movement.”
“What has your relationship with her been like since your divorce?”
“We already talked about this.”
“I need it on the record.”
He sighed and said, “After a long, difficult struggle, we were back in a really good place.”
Sam took notes as he spoke so she wouldn’t have to revisit the recordings for details she could easily write down. “What do you mean by ‘a really good place’?”
“We were, you know, talking a lot more and about things other than our kids. We spent time together as a family, and I’d started to have hope that we might put our personal relationship back together. Maybe not right away, but eventually.”
“Were you sleeping with her?”
“How is that relevant?”
“Everything is relevant in a homicide investigation.” She ought to have a T-shirt made with those words on it to save her the time of having to say it so often. “Please answer the question.”
He glanced at Devon, who nodded.
“We’d slept together a couple of times in recent months.”
“Did you feel that you and she were back together?”
“Not entirely. I mean… We were still living separately, but I felt like it would only be a matter of time until we lived together again.”
“How did you find out she was spending time with Sergei?”
“I told you that before.”
“Say it again for the sake of the AUSA.”
“My kids mentioned it.”
“What did they say about him?”
“That Mom had a friend staying with her who talked funny.”
“What did you say to that?”
“I asked what his name was, and they said Sergei.”
