Someone Else's Husband(69)

We are a freight train. We will crash if someone doesn’t pull the brake.

It has to be me. Right now. I will not be this person again—the other woman. No matter how different, how real, this feels. Real and right aren’t the same.

“I have to go.” I manage to smile in spite of the burn in my throat. I give Richard a quick, stiff hug before darting for the stairs. “Thank you for dinner.”

“Frankie!” he calls after me.

But I keep rushing down the stairs until I’m at the first landing, caught between one staircase leading up, one down. I look up at Richard. Ringed in light at the top of the steps, he looks beautiful. So beautiful.

The silence stretches out. But it’s light now. It feels like alchemy.

“I miss you,” he calls down finally. He presses a hand to his chest like he’s trying to wrap his fingers around his own heart. “I miss you.” The second time he says it, his voice breaks.

I grip the handrail, afraid my knees are going to buckle.

But I don’t reply. If I try to speak, I’ll start crying. Or, God forbid, I might start back up the stairs. Instead, I raise a hand, intending to wave, but it ends up more of a salute.

I hold it together for a second more, then the tears begin to fall as I run down the rest of the stairs.





Richard Falk Police Interview


5:37 a.m., September 12


Q. Did you love Frankie Callahan?

A. What does that question even mean?

Q. What does “Did you love her” mean?

A. I see the way you’re looking at me. I’m not trying to be flip. I just think—people throw around the word love all the time like it’s something completely singular. Love is a lot of different things. I’ve loved a lot of people in my life.

Q. Women you’ve had affairs with?

A. No. That’s not what I mean.

Q. What were they, then? These other people you’ve loved.

A. Friends, colleagues. Men and women. It wasn’t romantic and it had absolutely nothing to do with my marriage to Gretchen.

Q. Is that the way the women felt toward you? That you were their friend?

A. Of course. It would be patronizing to assume otherwise, don’t you think? Sexist, too.

Q. So Frankie was a friend who you loved?

A. Yes.

Q. Were you having sex?

A. No.

Q. Because she turned you down?

A. No. That’s not what happened.

Q. So she said yes, but then something went wrong? Did she change her mind? You lost your temper.

A. That never happened. None of it.

Q. I’m just confused, I guess. I mean, given that text you sent, the fact that we know you were at her apartment when she was killed— A. That’s not true. I wasn’t at her apartment.

Q. Maybe—then why don’t you tell me how you did feel about Frankie Callahan?

A. “Feel”? I thought she was a very good artist. An excellent hiker. She was attractive, too, of course. But more than anything, I admired her bravery. She was a very brave person. And I liked how I felt around her.

Q. Which was how?

A. Young, wise. Alive. I liked her point of view. I enjoyed seeing the world through her eyes.





After


Gretchen

September 15

It was past 3:00 p.m. when Gretchen breezed into the Fifth Avenue Cartier store. How one entered a space like that was critical: Confidence was key to conveying a sense of belonging. Belonging was, of course, something Gretchen did not have to fake. But on this particular day, she still felt uncomfortable. To be selling a watch and under these circumstances? It had an unseemly air about it. Especially because it was this tacky watch, of all things. But sell it she would to extract herself from that other situation. Five p.m. in the park. Bills that were untraceable by the police. Once she had the cash in hand, she could make the payment and then put this illfated detour behind her forever.

Gretchen strode toward the watches along the wall—she was in head-to-toe Chanel, even her clutch. Overkill, perhaps, but if ever there was a day. The man behind the counter had the smooth face of a child, along with perfectly manicured hands. She smiled at him warmly, then laid her arm casually on the counter.

“Could you help me with something?”

“Of course, madam,” he said, which Gretchen found irritating. Because they weren’t in London, and it wasn’t the 1800s. Nor was she eighty.

“My husband bought a watch for me at your store in Paris, and I need to know how much it cost,” she said. “I just don’t feel comfortable wearing it, with the city being what it is these days. He keeps telling me that it’s not as expensive as it looks, but I don’t believe him. He tends to be too extravagant.” She rolled her eyes—a woman accustomed to the burdens of great wealth. Which she was.

Gretchen had checked the Cartier website—she wasn’t an idiot—but there were several different versions of the same watch that varied wildly in price. This was typical, so the company could produce lower-priced alternatives to the most expensive pieces, with fewer stones or more affordable metal. If she was going to sell the watch, she needed to know precisely how much Richard had paid for it. She might be in a bind, but she had no intention of being fleeced.

“I understand completely,” the young man said. “Do you have the item with you?”