Someone Else's Husband(2)

Twenty-two years of being safely tucked away from the chaos of the world, their life as close to perfect as one could reasonably get. Gretchen knew it. She’d known the whole time how wonderful it was. Not a hundred percent perfect. Nothing was perfect. But their family was good. It was her life’s work, and it had all turned out the way she’d hoped—so much warmer and more genuinely loving than her own family. A low bar. Her adult life had rendered her childhood a cold and distant memory. And Gretchen had been appropriately grateful. Wasn’t that supposed to protect them from this kind of…tragedy?

Apparently not. The second she had heard the frantic ringing of their doorbell—obnoxious, really, given that there was no real emergency—she knew something terrible had happened. It was terrible, as it turned out. But it had already happened. At this point, there was nothing that could be done to prevent it anymore, which made all that noise seem calculated to make them panic.

It had worked.

Gretchen had bolted upright, heart racing. The kids. That was her first thought. Once you had children, they were forever your first thought. But her children were grown now or, in Becks’s case, mostly grown, which meant when tragedy came, it came knocking.

Gretchen had put a hand on Richard, warm and breathing steadily in the bed next to her. He had been her second thought. Safe and sound. Thank God.

There were another two rings, followed by pounding—five, six times in a row. Was the building on fire? Gretchen didn’t smell smoke. She shook Richard, hard. Oh, to be the dad.

“Richard,” she said loudly. “Wake up! Someone is at the door!” He still wasn’t moving. She shoved him and shouted in his ear, “Richard!”

Finally, he startled awake. Then another pound on the door. Richard rolled out of bed in his pajama pants and an old Dartmouth T-shirt. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.”

Together, they raced down the steps of the duplex. Gretchen held her breath as Richard yanked open the door. Five, maybe six uniformed police officers were clustered in the hallway with Joseph, the young night doorman, at the far back, gesturing helplessly. A tall, slim officer with a wispy mustache was in front. The way he was standing with his thumbs hooked in his belt loops made him look like a male stripper impersonating an officer.

“Richard Falk?”

Richard blinked and shook his head as if waking from a dream while Gretchen left her body entirely. Such a show of force: One of the children was dead—that must be it. If they never said which one, maybe it wouldn’t be real. But she was floating somewhere up near the ceiling now. Too far away to do anything to stop this conversation. Too far away to scream. She opened her mouth twice, but no sound came out.

“Are you Richard Falk?” the officer repeated, louder and more insistent.

“Yes, yes, sorry,” Richard said finally, gripping the back of his neck. “Has something happened to one of our kids?”

The room rocked to the side. Gretchen pressed a hand against the wall to stay upright.

“No, sir. That’s not why we’re here.” The officer held out a piece of paper. “We have a warrant to search the premises.”

In the long, confusing moments that followed, Gretchen saw things from a blurry distance, heard them in fits and starts. Richard saying there had to be a mistake, the officers saying he could read for himself. It was all in the warrant.

Richard stared at the paper for the longest time, trying hard to keep his face neutral. Gretchen knew the expression of her husband of thirty-four years trying, for her sake, not to have an expression. It was worse than worry.

Sweat began to bead on Gretchen’s lip. “What is it?”

“Frankie is dead,” Richard said finally. And when he looked at her, the agony in his eyes was overwhelming.

And just like that, Gretchen knew that their life, perfect as it had been, was over.

“Who?” Her heart was a bomb pulsing against her breastbone.

“Frankie Callahan. From the Kilimanjaro trip. Looks like she’s been murdered.” He tried to clear his throat. “That’s what this seems to be suggesting.”

She edged closer to see for herself: Murder in the Second Degree; Evidence of items belonging to Frankie Callahan. “What are they doing here, though?”

Richard looked dumbfounded. “I have no idea.”



* * *



—

As the police officers began their search, Richard called Scotty. Scotty handled white-collar defense, but he was the only criminal lawyer they knew. He had gone to Africa with Richard and the rest of the Dartmouth crew. He had met this woman. Frankie. But Scotty didn’t answer, so Richard tried Bruce Barone instead. Bruce handled the family’s trusts and estates; he was with Wachtell, one of the best firms in the city, and Gretchen had known him for years. He’d done work for her parents—they could trust him, at least—and, most important, he picked up. Richard held the phone slightly away from his ear so Gretchen could listen in.

“If they have a search warrant, they have a right to search,” Bruce instructed. “Have they said why they’re at your apartment?”

“No,” Richard said. “But the warrant says someone was murdered.”

“Cooperate, but do not make any statements of any kind, Richard.” Bruce sounded very concerned. “Do not answer a single question.”