A Circle of Wives (12 page)

Then, “Ready?” the detective asks after coming back in and seating herself. Really, she’s young! She has a habit of fiddling with her little finger, twisting it around as though winding up her hand like some sort of child’s toy.

“When was the last time you saw Dr. Taylor? John?”

“I’ve told you this. Several times. It was Thursday morning. He’d gotten up early as usual to make his rounds”—I stop briefly before I’m able to go on—“and left a bit after 5
AM
. All as usual. Why don’t you ask Deborah? According to her, that’s where he headed every morning, their deal was supposedly sacrosanct.” My voice betrays my bitterness. Resentful that Deborah had deprived me of the kind of lazy mornings in bed with John that I had always cherished as the sweetest part of a relationship.

“But you heard from him later in the day.” The detective consults her notes.

“Sometime late in the morning. Here, I’ll tell you the exact time.” I pull out my cell phone and scroll down the calls. “At 11:07
AM
precisely. I was at work.”

The detective nods. She really hadn’t needed to ask that question. She applied for—and received—a subpoena to vet my phone records and emails. I think of the dancing cats and poop jokes and other things I share with friends, and am resigned to looking like a fool in front of everyone assigned to the case.

“Your office is in. . . . Santa Clara.”

“Yes. At WebSys. On Tasman Drive.”

“Tell me again what he said in that phone call.”

I sigh impatiently. And I can feel another hot flash coming on.

“Just that he had an emergency case in LA. That he was flying down that evening. He thought he’d be back on Friday, but he wasn’t sure.”

“And this was unusual?”

“Very. But not that he was going to LA, since he had an adjunct appointment at UCLA for the academic year and was there twice a month for a few days at a time.”

“So what was unusual?”

“The disruption to our routine. He was very regular, and hated any disorder in his schedule. I wasn’t allowed . . . well, he preferred . . . that I didn’t surprise him with social events, or spontaneously suggest outings. That sort of thing made him extraordinarily anxious. He thrived on routine. He did travel, but everything was always meticulously planned ahead of time.”

“What did he consider spontaneous?”

“He needed to know a full week in advance,” I tell her. “His rationale was that he needed that time to process any changes to his plans.” I realize how strange that must sound. And how foolish (and downtrodden) I must seem for catering to such unreasonable demands. I quickly elaborate. “When we first started dating, I would make the mistake of asking people over for drinks on the spur of the moment. You know, you run into friends at the grocery store, you don’t think about it, you just invite them round. But it upset John terribly.”

“Didn’t that strike you as odd?”

“No. Yes. Maybe.” I curse myself. “Well, John
was
odd.”

“What was his reasoning?”

“The nature of his work with trauma victims was such that he led a very unpredictable professional life. He often didn’t know what was waiting for him when he showed up at work in the morning. He demanded utmost regularity in the rest of his life as a result.” I pause. “So he said.”

The detective nods. I’ve told her all this before, why is she going over the same ground? She even has it on videotape. Did the reading of my rights make some sort of difference in how she can use what I say? I suddenly feel chilled.

“And then you didn’t see him again,” she says.

“No.” Despite myself, the tears well up. Those first few days after John’s death I’d been inexplicably calm. Since then, I haven’t stopped crying. My boss told me to take a week off, but what would I do with that time? Sit in the house alone? Much better I’m with my precious financials, making order out of chaos. John and I weren’t so different in some respects. We both thrived on routine.

“And you didn’t talk to him either, after that 11:07 call on Thursday morning?”

“No. That was unusual, too. We’d talk every night whenever he was in LA. He made a point of it. He said . . .” and here I break down again. The detective wordlessly hands me a Kleenex. “He said he didn’t want us to get in a pattern of not communicating.”

“What did you make of that?”

“Of course it made me wonder about his previous relationships, about whether he’d had communication problems. It made me wonder if that was why he hadn’t married. He had always explained it away by the demands of his job, by never finding the right woman. And I . . .”

“And you wanted to believe him.” The detective smiles sympathetically. Really, she is a pretty little thing. No wedding ring. Then she is so awfully young. But it’s clear I’m the simpleminded one in the room. My naïveté must seem preposterous.

I take another Kleenex and begin systematically shredding it into long thin strips. Another stress-reducing act. But the detective doesn’t seem to notice. Although she has a notebook and a pen on the table, she isn’t taking notes, is letting the video recorder do all the work. She is winding up her hand again. Another question is coming.

“What about the text John Taylor sent to your cell phone Friday evening?”

I try to keep my voice steady. “What about it?”

“At 6:47. Perhaps the last thing John Taylor did before he died was send you that urgent text.
Come to the Palo Alto Westin, room 224.
But you didn’t respond until 7:45. Then you started calling his cell phone at frequent intervals—every twenty minutes or so well into the night and the next day. We tallied forty-three calls total between 7:45 Friday night and 11:30 Saturday night. You also called the Westin thirteen times during that same time period. Then all the calls stopped. What was going on?”

I sit up straight. “I went out Friday evening to run errands,” I say. I am careful to be precise. “I went to both the grocery store and the drugstore. I left my cell phone at home, I frequently forget to take it with me, it drives . . . drove . . . John crazy. So I didn’t get John’s text or see that he’d tried to call until I got home. Around a quarter till eight. Then, of course, I was alarmed. What was he doing in Palo Alto? He should have been in LA! I started calling him. When I couldn’t reach him, I called the Westin, asked for room 224. No one answered. I also asked the receptionist if John was a guest there. She said no. She couldn’t tell me the name of the guest in room 224, but she could say it wasn’t John Taylor.”

I’m wondering if it’s apparent how much I’m sweating. I can feel my shirt sticking to my back, and the drops of perspiration rolling down my sides. This girl is making me as nervous as a june bug on a string.

“Why did you stop calling Saturday night?”

“I went to bed, finally. And the next morning I saw the obituary in the paper,” I say.

“Why didn’t you volunteer this information earlier?” the young detective asks. She looks genuinely puzzled rather than suspicious.

“No one asked. I was questioned about the last time I talked to John, but not about what happened afterward.” I know this sounds lame, but what can I say? That I was frightened? I felt responsible that John had apparently reached out to me for help, and I wasn’t there for him? I wipe a damp strand of hair off my face, tuck it behind my ear.

The young detective is silent for a moment. Then she asks, “Did it seem usual for John Taylor to do such a spontaneous thing as fly to LA at the last minute? And then suddenly surface in Palo Alto?”

I’m eager to answer this one. “Oh, it was highly unusual! We had no surprises in our lives. Everything was carefully planned.”
By Deborah
, I think.

“And that worked for you?”

Do I detect a hint of scorn in her voice? The superciliousness of the very young, who believe that spontaneity is the spice of life.

“We made it work,” I say. I sound defensive.

“How far did this go?”

“What do you mean?”

“This lack of spontaneity. Were you allowed to change the television channel, for example?”

I look at her to see if she’s kidding, but she’s not. “If it wasn’t one of
his
shows, yes.” I hate how pathetic I sound. As though I was under John’s thumb, but it wasn’t like that (not really). We had a rhythm. It worked.

“What were his shows?”

“Mostly PBS. News. He enjoyed
Antiques Roadshow
. Documentaries. Although he hated so-called reality shows. They had no structure to them, he complained.”

The detective allows herself a smile.

There is a brief silence as she winds up her hand again. But before she can come at me, I decide to try to take control. “Why are you asking me these questions?” Then, as a kind of joke, “You’re not planning to charge him with bigamy beyond the grave?”

“No.”

Silence.

“Are you asking his other . . . wives?” I pause. “Or are you singling me out?”

“We’re questioning all of you.”

“Why?”
My voice comes out louder than I intend.

“We have some concerns about the death.”

“Yes, obviously. But no proof.”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“You don’t have proof he was murdered. Only suspicions.”

The detective nods. “That’s right. We don’t know for sure. We have suspicious circumstances.” She doesn’t say anything more.

“And?” I prompt her.

“Some definite irregularities,” the young detective says. She shifts in her seat as though she’s uncomfortable. I derive some satisfaction from that, and from her obvious lack of experience. “So I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you again where you were and what you were doing Friday afternoon and evening.”

I feel relief. “That’s easy. I was at work until 4
PM
. I took off a little early. My work was done, and it was Friday after all.”

“And then?”

“I went home, took a nap for an hour, dallied about until around 6:30.”

“Can anyone verify that you were there?”

“Not at first. Later, my brother, Thomas, could. He lives in the city, but visits frequently. Given that John was out of town, he came down to spend a couple nights in the guest room.”

“Was this usual?”

“Yes, when John wasn’t around. We’re very close, my brother and me.”

“We’ll talk to him,” the young detective makes a note of it. “What did you do while waiting for your brother?”

“I went out at maybe 6:30, 6:45 to Trader Joe’s to do some grocery shopping. I’m pretty sure they’ll remember me there. I’m a regular. They always comment on my hats.” Here I flush a little with shame. “Actually, I’m sure they’ll remember me, because I accidentally knocked over a display of cereal boxes.”

“And after that?”

“After that I went to Walgreens to buy some shampoo and stuff. I forgot I had a prescription ready until I got to the car. I didn’t feel like going back into the store, so I used the drive-through window. It was probably 7:30 by then. I imagine they’ll have a record of both those transactions.”

The detective writes these times down in her notebook.
Trader Joe’s 7:15
PM
. Walgreens 7:30.
I see her draw a little happy face next to those numbers. She looks up, and it’s her turn to blush when she sees that I’ve been watching.

“And after that?”

“Why, I went home. My brother Thomas had finally arrived. We went to dinner. They’ll probably remember us at the local Chinese restaurant—we go there all the time. And we must have got home again by 9:30.”

“And all through dinner you were calling John Taylor.”

“Yes. When I got home at 7:45 and found the text, I was obviously worried. So I kept calling. But never got an answer.”

“Thank you, this is all very helpful,” the detective says. Then, suddenly, the interview is over. “You’re free to go now.” Despite her words, she remains seated, seemingly waiting for me to leave first. I clumsily extricate myself from my chair and stand, towering over her.

I have so many questions, so many anxieties. I leave the police station infinitely more distressed than when I went in.

20
Deborah

TONIGHT, FOR THE FIRST TIME
in many years, I find myself thinking of Gerald. He was one of John’s colleagues when we first came to Stanford, before John founded the clinic. John had just finished one residency at UCSF, had started another one at Stanford, and what with paying back his tuition, a four-year-old, a toddler, and another baby on the way, we didn’t have much to spare. We were living in married student housing at the time, surrounded by the shrieks and wails of newborns and toddlers. No one even bothered bringing in the toys from the outdoor common area, they just let the kids out in the morning to pick up where they’d left off the previous afternoon. It was before all the fuss there is now about abductions; that anyone would steal one of our babies was the furthest thing from our minds. The kids wandered in and out of each other’s apartments, and at mealtimes you could hear the mothers up and down the sidewalk outside the complex calling for Sean or Dorothy or Steven. And if they were at your house, you simply sent them home. Life was simpler then.