The Girl in the Green Raincoat (14 page)

He also was, to use one of her mother’s outmoded words, a
gentleman
. True, her mother would be appalled by him, but that would be based on appearances and her mother’s idea of status. Don Epstein dressed atrociously, in a style Whitney thought of as Bad Florida. Bright patterned shirts worn untucked, slip-on loafers in sherbety colors. And the jewelry! Epstein wore two large rings, not counting his wedding ring, an ID bracelet, and occasionally a gold chain around his neck. Whitney wondered if there was a polite way to tell him about the etiquette rule that dictated a woman should put on all the jewelry she intends to wear, then remove one piece before leaving the house. Maybe two pieces, in his case.

But she had bigger fish to fry than his wardrobe. She was supposed to get into his house, begin poking around. She had worried, at first, that Epstein would rush their courtship. Now she was worried by its low-key platonic nature. To keep the lie of her identity going, she instructed him to pick her up in the lobby of the Ambassador, an old apartment building on the city’s North Side. He returned her there each evening, walking her to the elevator. But he never asked to come up, or tried to kiss her. A relief at first, then a worry. Did he think of her as a sister? Did he not find her attractive?

It took three dates before he began to confide in her. “I hate talking about this,” he began, over dinner at Cantler’s, a much beloved but out-of-the-way restaurant near Annapolis, the kind of place no one ever found by accident. Epstein preferred out-of-the-way places, Whitney was beginning to notice.

“I admit,” she said, “I Googled you.”

“I thought you didn’t have a computer. That’s what you told me, when I asked for your e-mail.”

Whitney thought quickly. “There are computers at the library.”

“Then you do know.”

“I know what’s been in the newspaper. I haven’t heard your side of it.”

He sighed. “I don’t want to talk about it now. But next Saturday, there’s someplace I’d like to take you. Someplace almost . . . well, sacred to me. Would you do that for me, Whitney? Would you let me take you to this sacred place and explain myself?”

Of course she would.

Tess was happy to know that Whitney was spending so much time with Don Epstein, although it didn’t seem that she was learning very much. “Pin him down,” she reminded Whitney the next time they spoke on the phone. “Get him to talk about Carole, take you to the house. You’re looking for inconsistencies, remember, the sort of details that reveal a lie.”

“I have to say, he’s been remarkably consistent. He’s very melancholy, in a way.”

Tess snorted. “ ‘Melancholy’ is an interesting choice of word.”

“Well, if he’s a liar—”

“If?”

“He’s a remarkably good one.”

“Sociopaths usually are,” Tess said. She felt a prickle of worry. “On this next date, Whitney? The one where he’s taking you someplace special?”

“Sacred,” Whitney corrected.

“Whatever. Be . . . careful. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to take a handgun in your purse. I know you have rifles and shotguns, but you still have a handgun as well, right?”

“Tess, there’s no reason he would want to hurt me. I don’t know anything. If you’re right, he kills for financial gain, to trade in one model for the next, and the previous model is indisputably gone.”

“Or he kills because someone knows too much. I think that was the case with Carole. She found something, maybe his second wife’s engagement ring, which he claimed was stolen.”

“You know, that doesn’t prove he killed her—”

“Whitney, whose side are you on?”

“I’m just trying to keep you tethered to the facts.”

Tess wished she could see her old friend’s face, but she stopped by less and less these days, preferring to check in by telephone.

“Here are some facts, Whitney, in case you’ve forgotten. Three dead women. One missing,
at best
. Be careful.”

“Okay, okay.”

Tess’s computer beeped, announcing the arrival of an e-mail. She had once loathed e-mail, but now it was her lifeline. She even found herself IM’ing at times. This one was from her mother, who had attached a file. Tess didn’t even know her mother knew how to attach files.

Isn’t this the ring you asked me to research?
she had written.
I was trying to find out how common the design was, and my search terms yielded this item on eBay. Looks awfully similar to me.

Interesting indeed. Far more interesting to Tess was the seller’s location, listed as Glen Burnie, a mere few miles south of Cherry Hill. Could Epstein be that stupid? She clicked on
Other items by this seller
and found a pair of diamond earrings, a tennis bracelet, and several other items—bracelets, pins, necklaces. Except for the ring, it was what she considered mallish—expensive, but not distinctive. Diamond studs and a tennis bracelet had been listed among Annette Epstein’s missing effects. Did the other pieces belong to her as well? How to explain the ID bracelet with “DM” on it? Did it stand for Don and Mary? Or Danielle Massinger?

He gave Danielle a lot of jewelry
, Mrs. Zimmerman had said.
Gave it—and took it back after pushing her down the stairs?
This could be what Carole Epstein had found, which was why she had to disappear. Annette’s jewelry proved only that Epstein was a liar and a fraud. Danielle’s jewelry proved he could never let go of anything.

Tess clicked
Ask the seller a question,
using her personal account, [email protected]. She was interested in the ID bracelet, she wrote, but had been burned in other online auctions. Could the seller provide any details about its provenance?

Three days later Whitney couldn’t help remembering Tess’s warning as Don Epstein drove farther and farther into the country, racing the sunset. “We should have gotten an earlier start,” he said. “We’ll never make it before dark. But I have some flashlights.”

Flashlights?
She knew he liked out of the way places, but this was ridiculous. She didn’t feel so silly now, slipping her handgun into her purse. He turned on a roughly paved road, then a gravel one, then a dirt lane. She had mocked Tess’s iPhone, but it had a GPS function, something she would dearly love to have right now. Where was she? Somewhere in Carroll County, north of Union Mills. The last street sign she had noticed was Humbert School House Road, a nice Nabokovian touch in the middle of nowhere. She had tried to call Epstein’s attention to it, but he didn’t know the reference and didn’t find it funny when she explained it.

“Child molesters,” he said, “should be killed. I was disappointed when the Supreme Court struck down the death penalty for rape.” It was the first little splinter of dissatisfaction she had experienced in his company.
A man who believed in the death penalty—ugh
. Then:
Does he believe in applying it on his own?

“Are we there yet?” she asked, trying for a joking tone.

“Almost,” he said.

“You know, this has the feel of a horror film. Two people, out in the middle of the country on a dark night.”

“Not a horror film,” Don Epstein said. “This is a love story. A very sad one.”

Tess checked her e-mail for perhaps the quadrillionth time. The eBay seller never replied, and now the items had been removed.
Stupid, stupid, stupid
. She should have bid on one of the cheaper items, seen what information could be gleaned. Somehow, she had alerted Epstein that she was on to him—and now he was out with Whitney. How had he made the connection? He didn’t know her name. Shoot—the photograph with Dempsey, the one used on the
Today
show. If he had plugged “Monaghan” into an image search . . .
Stupid, stupid, stupid
.

She had thought such mistakes were behind her. Her learning curve as a private detective had been a steep one, but it was a long time since she’d done something truly boneheaded. She loved her job. True, she hadn’t dreamed about being a private investigator when she was a child. What child ever did? But once she found this vocation, she realized she was made for it. Much as she had realized she was made for Crow once she found him. Now it seemed she must choose between the two.

She had meant what she told Crow. The one thing she could never do was work for someone else again. Except—
never
was a big word. If it came down to putting food on the table, one would do just about anything. And Crow had already compromised quite a bit, shelving his own dreams. What was she going to do? What were they going to do? Stymied, she refreshed the eBay page. Empty.

Don Epstein stopped near a small wire fence, thick with rust. “I bought the land twenty years ago, thinking to build a house out here for Mary and me. Then I found out about
this
.”

“A garden?”

“An old cemetery. All my wives are buried here.”

“All?” Whitney’s voice squeaked a little. “I mean, um, both?”

“Mary and Annette. It’s not exactly legal to do that, you know, so please don’t tell anyone. They didn’t have anyone but me, so I didn’t think it mattered.”

So there was a body to be exhumed
, Whitney thought. Tess would be thrilled.

“Only one other person even knows about this place, and that was Carole.” He seemed on the verge of tearing up. “I’m sorry now, but you see—it started with Annette.”

Oh dear. What, exactly, had started with Annette? Thank God she had her handgun in her purse. Which was in the car.
Damn, damn, damn.

“I met Annette at a meeting for people who were grieving. Carole was the one who persuaded me to go. Annette had lost her husband to cancer. We started dating. And when I decided to marry her, I brought her out here and asked her, right here, at Mary’s grave site. You know Mary was my high school sweetheart, right?”

Whitney nodded. God, her throat was suddenly so dry, her lips almost stuck together. Perhaps she could ask to get her purse, in order to apply some Carmex?

“I admit, I never loved Annette quite as much as I loved Mary. Annette was great. Sweet, considerate. I couldn’t believe it when she got sick. And when she died . . . But you know what they say: A hospital is no place to be ill. So she was gone and there was Carole . . . I had no options, Whitney. None.”

Whitney realized that Epstein, while declaring his love for these women, had not declared his innocence in their deaths. The two things would seem contradictory to most people, of course. But was Epstein most people? Had he managed to blank out his responsibility for his wives’ deaths? Was that why he was such a persuasive tragic figure, one on one, because he no longer remembered that he had caused his own bereavement?

“Whitney, Whitney, Whitney,” he said. “I have brought you here today because I know you are not the woman you claim to be.”

She should really get her purse. “I should really get my purse.”

He shook his head. “Take my hand, Whitney.”

She did, realizing that it was the first time they had touched in any intimate way. As recently as a day ago she would have been at least curious about physical contact with Epstein. Now she wanted to snatch her hand and run. But where would she go?

“Whitney, you are not alone in this world. You are not without resources.”

Oh, dear. “I really need my purse.”

Don Epstein shook his head, placing his hands between hers, kneeling before her.

“Kneel with me, Whitney.”

“The ground looks awfully damp—” He jerked her down the ground.

“Pray with me, Whitney. Absolve me, Whitney. I feel I can tell you the truth. I am responsible for Mary’s death.”

“Oh, I can understand why you would feel that way—”

“No, Whitney. I killed her as surely as if I pulled that trigger myself. Will you pray with me, Whitney?”

“Um, sure.”

Tess, dozing, was awaked by her daughter’s nightly gymnastic routine and a comfortably familiar hollow feeling in her stomach. Who was supposed to be bringing dinner tonight? Lloyd? Mrs. Blossom? She had forgotten to ask Crow when he left for work. How late was it? Late enough that when she opened Dempsey’s crate, the dog insisted on relieving himself in the chamber pot. Great.

Finally, there was a discreet knock, then the door opened, a sharp rat-a-tat of high heels on the wooden floors. Ah, that would be Mrs. Blossom. No, her mother, because Mrs. Blossom never wore heels. Esskay and Miata, shut up in the bedroom, scratched and whined, then settled back down. Would it be Afghan food? Tess recalled telling Crow that morning that she craved
kaddo borawni
, the Helmand’s pumpkin appetizer. She sighed in happy anticipation.

“Mom?” she called out.

“No,” said the woman in the green raincoat.

In her hand she held what would appear to be a black and violet flashlight to the untrained eye. But Tess’s eye happened to be trained by the endless stream of catalogs she received at her office. It was a taser, a small one. But even the small ones had ranges of up to twenty-five feet.

“What’s the matter, Carole?” she said. “Couldn’t you find one in green?”