Murder One (26 page)

Oberman stood again and turned his back, inserting the key in the door lock. “The prosecutor told me to call him if you showed up.”

“You could do that. I have his cell phone number programmed into my phone. But why would you? I’m just trying to get the same information you provided him; I’m doing my job, like he is.”

Oberman pulled open the car door. “I’ll think about it. Leave a card with my receptionist.”

“I’ve left a dozen messages with your receptionist, Dr. Oberman. Frankly, I’m out of time. I have to give an opening statement day after tomorrow.”

“Then perhaps you should use your time preparing for that.”

“Do you hate her that much?”

Oberman wheeled and took a hostile step toward Sloane. “Hate? . . . Hate has nothing to do with this,” Oberman said.

At least Sloane had the man’s attention. “Doesn’t it? Then why are you punishing her?”

“I’m not punishing her. I simply told the detectives and the attorney what she said.”

“Then why are you punishing me? You talked to the prosecutor. All I’m asking for is the same professional courtesy. I don’t have an ax to grind, but I have a document from the prosecutor saying you are going to testify that Barclay told you she was going to kill Vasiliev.” Sloane held up the prosecution’s witness list.

“She didn’t use the word ‘kill.’”

Sloane shrugged. “That’s all I’m trying to do—clarify what she did and did not say.”

Oberman’s lips pursed. Worry lines formed between his eyebrows. “The prosecutor said I should call.”

“You can do that. But I have to do this today, and I’ll tell him that, and it will just take longer while we wait for him to get here. Look, if you don’t like a question, you can tell me to pound sand.”

Oberman’s breath marked the cold air. “What do you want to know?”

What Sloane wanted was to get Oberman away from the car and the prospect of easily fleeing. He rubbed his hands together, then crossed his arms. “Is there a warm place we can talk?”

Oberman seemed to consider the question—not whether there was a place but, again, whether he wanted to talk. “I’ll give you fifteen minutes,” he said, and shut the car door with a thud.

Sloane followed Oberman inside the building and down a hallway of worn carpet and poor lighting. Oberman unlocked and pushed open a cheap door, his name on a plastic plaque, the kind that could be easily and inexpensively removed at the end of a lease. Oberman did not sit behind the desk in the office. He dropped his satchel beside a high-back leather chair and plopped into it, his coat still on. Sloane took one of two upholstered seats. With the shade drawn on a narrow sidelight, a muted desk lamp offered the only light. A framed print of the earth taken from space hung on the wall behind the desk, below it the word imagine. Two bookshelves took up a corner of the room, a potted plant in need of watering at the intersection.

Before Sloane could say a word, Oberman’s voice became harsh. “Tell me, has she only hired you, or is she also fucking you?”

The vulgarity, coming from an educated man in an office environment, set Sloane on his heels; he wasn’t quite sure how to respond. It sounded almost as if Oberman wanted to add the word “over” to the end of his question.

“She hired me to file a civil action for wrongful death against Vasiliev. After her arrest, she asked me to represent her in the criminal matter.”

Oberman closed his eyes, seeming to take a moment to calm himself. “I’m sorry. When it comes to matters regarding my former wife, I’m not always at my best. I apologize. I suppose I should ask, how is she holding up?”

The question sounded sincere, but coming so soon after the outburst, Sloane wasn’t sure what to think of it. When it came to his ex-wife, Oberman clearly remained conflicted, and Sloane assumed that to be the reason the man had reacted so strongly to the word “hate” when Sloane used it in the parking lot. Oberman might not hate his ex-wife, but neither was he ambivalent about her, as some
divorced couples became—live and let live. Barclay still provoked deep-seated emotions.

“She’s strong, but obviously, this hasn’t been easy. It’s taken its toll,” Sloane said.

“Yeah, she’s strong.”

Again, Sloane detected a hint of what—sarcasm, bitterness? “I understand that your divorce wasn’t amicable?”

Oberman scoffed. “That’s an understatement.”

“Hard feelings?”

“Many.”

Might as well get it out on the table, Sloane thought. “Barclay indicated you believed she was responsible for your daughter’s death. She said you accused her of not being a good mother.”

Oberman gave Sloane a cold, hard stare, and Sloane expected the man to exercise his right to tell Sloane to get out, but then Oberman diverted his eyes as if resigned that he’d have to answer the question eventually. He reclined in the chair and tilted his chin. “I was upset. My daughter was dead, and I was in pain. Maybe I said things I shouldn’t have.”

“We’re all guilty of that at times,” Sloane said, hoping to plant the seed.

“My wife tended to put her career—maybe I should say herself—ahead of everything, Mr. Sloane, including me and Carly. I’m not surprised she didn’t realize Carly had started using again.”

Barclay had said it was Oberman who put his career first, and he’d sacrificed a relationship with his daughter in the process.

“Can you tell me the circumstances that led to your meeting with the detectives?”

“I called them.”

“Why?”

“Because when I saw the news on the television that Vasiliev had been killed, my first thought was that my lovely ex-wife shot him.”

“Why did you conclude that?”

“Isn’t it in the statement?”

“There isn’t much in the statement, Dr. Oberman, and I’d like to hear it from you, if you don’t mind.”

“Because several weeks before—I believe it was a Thursday night, the symphony plays on Thursday nights—I was surprised to run into her.”

“At the symphony.”

“In the parking lot, actually. It was purely happenstance. I locked my car door, turned to leave, and there she stood. I was taken aback at first, as I’m sure she was.”

“Why were you taken aback?”

“Because the symphony was always my love, and Barclay had never been particularly fond of attending when we were married. I always had the impression she did it more for the stature, for the people she was likely to meet there, client contacts for her practice. She even joined the board of directors at one point.”

“So maybe she was there for that reason,” Sloane said.

Oberman shrugged. “She said she was meeting a friend.”

“What did you say to each other?”

“We exchanged . . .” Oberman rocked in his chair, legs straight, brown loafers crossed. “My ex-wife and I aren’t on the best of terms. She’s probably told you that. We don’t have a lot to say to each other, but with Leenie’s death . . . We were cordial. I said something like ‘I’ve seen your name in the paper quite a bit.’ She’d been lobbying the legislature for tougher laws against drug dealers. I asked if she thought it would make a difference. She said she hoped it would. And then I asked her how the trial was going.”

“What trial?”

“I’m not great with legal terms. Barclay had convinced the U.S. attorney to prosecute Mr. Vasiliev.”

“And you were asking about the status of that case.”

“Honestly, I was just making conversation, Mr. Sloane. Frankly, it was very awkward.”

“After all these years?”

He didn’t answer. “She said the defense had brought a motion to have the case thrown out, something to that effect. It upset her. I could hear it in her voice. She said she was going to the hearing. And then she said it.”

“What exactly did she say? Do you remember her words?”

Oberman tilted his head back and looked up at the ceiling. His
beard was darker beneath his chin. When he spoke, the position of his head gave his voice a froglike quality. “I believe her exact words were ‘If I had known it was going to be this much trouble, I would have just put a bullet in the back of his head.’”

“Did you take her seriously?”

This brought a burst of laughter. “Oh, I learned long ago to
always
take my ex-wife seriously.”

“Why is that?” Sloane asked.

Oberman smoothed the hair around his mouth and chin, still smiling, but this time it appeared more irony than amusement. “Answer me this first:
Are
you sleeping with her?”

Sloane wanted to tell Oberman it was not germane to the issue, but he also wanted to keep the conversation alive. “Yes. Barclay and I are dating.”

“Where do I begin . . .” The doctor smirked. “When I sought the divorce, my wife told me she would take everything from me. She succeeded. She told me she would take my daughter from me, and at that she succeeded. She told me she would ruin my practice, a threat she also fulfilled.”

Sloane had assumed from his conversations with Barclay, and now, from seeing Oberman, who was less than physically impressive, that she had sought the divorce, but it did not sound that way. “Who filed for divorce?”

“I did. You see, Mr. Sloane, I came to the conclusion that my ex-wife is narcissistic and sociopathic.”

“That’s a pretty serious thing to say,” Sloane said.

“Perhaps, but I think twenty-five years of practice and ten years of marriage qualify me to make that diagnosis. My ex-wife hates to lose . . . at anything. That’s an admirable quality for an attorney but not necessarily conducive to a healthy marriage. Everything became a competition to Barclay and everyone either a rival or a pawn, including me—and Carly, for that matter. When we disagreed on anything, mostly how to raise our daughter, she couldn’t compromise.”

“You said she ruined your relationship with Carly?”

“She poisoned her against me.” Oberman seemed reluctant to continue. “For the longest time, I blamed myself for being weak, but I’ve come to realize there was no reasoning with her.”

“I’m not following. I’m sorry.”

“That’s because I’m trying to condense two years of hell into a single sentence. That’s how long it took her to destroy me—two years. I found out that the house I thought we had purchased together was in her name only, as were nearly all of what I understood to be mutual investments. I hadn’t paid much attention to any of that. Since it was her professional forte, I was happy to leave it in her domain. My attorney said that given the manner in which the accounts were set up—including the prenuptial agreement stating that all of our finances would remain separate property, a document I don’t ever recall seeing or signing but which had my signature—I would have a very difficult time even arguing that the investments or real estate were community property. He also indicated that, while he could not prove it, it seemed that a significant amount of our accumulated wealth was nowhere to be found. I barely had enough to rent an apartment, but when you’re going through a divorce, you just want it done. I always figured I had my practice to sustain me.”

Oberman swiveled his chair to reach a glass of water on the edge of his desk. “I wasn’t happy to be fleeced, mind you, but money was never a huge concern of mine.” He drank the water and put the glass back on the desk. “I turned my attention to my daughter. When I sought joint custody of Carly, I learned that Barclay had hired a private investigator to follow me. One of my clients, Mr. Sloane, was a transvestite with suicidal tendencies. I had talked him out of killing himself on several occasions, and since the call service at the time was under a legal obligation to call us at home when such circumstances presented themselves, Barclay was aware of this particular patient. She hired a private investigator and this man photographed me in the parking lot of a known homosexual establishment when I responded to a telephone call that my patient was contemplating mixing his next drink with a dozen sleeping pills. If the implications were not clear enough, her attorney presented me with a signed affidavit from the patient that we had been engaged in an affair. My license was suspended pending a very expensive investigation and inquiry that cost me a fortune in legal bills. I ultimately prevailed when the patient failed to appear at the hearing.”

Oberman’s nostrils expanded. Sloane could hear the intake and
outtake of air. “Seeking a truce, I asked Barclay to meet me one evening for a private conversation. No lawyers. No investigators. Just the two of us having a civil conversation. Perhaps I am an optimist—or an idiot. Perhaps I underestimated the extent of her disorders . . . I don’t know. But she agreed. We had a civil discussion. Later that evening, two police officers arrived at my apartment and fitted me with a pair of handcuffs.”

“What for?” Sloane asked, though he already knew the answer. He had obtained a copy of the file from the police.

“Domestic violence. I told them it was preposterous but I spent the night in jail anyway. The next day, at my arraignment, I was astonished when she walked in with her eye swollen shut, lip split, abrasions along her cheek.”

“You’re suggesting what, that she did it to herself ?”

“I wouldn’t know. All I know is that I did not strike her. Nor have I ever struck a woman. You’re a lawyer. You know the drill. I spent sixty days in jail and was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation and to enter anger-management classes as part of my five-year probation. A restraining order prohibited me from having any contact with Barclay or my daughter. Of course, all of this made the newspapers, which was the further ruination of my professional practice.”

Oberman tilted his head and lifted his palms in the air. “As I said, the woman hates to lose.”

Outside the building Sloane watched in his rearview mirror as Oberman drove off. He didn’t know what to think. He had read the divorce file and the domestic-violence report, and Barclay had told him that Oberman was bitter, that he blamed her for just about every failing in his life and . . . Come on, did Oberman really expect the court to believe . . . what? That she’d let someone punch her in the face in order to bring a domestic charge against him? She’d have to be certifiable.

He thinks she is
.

Yes, but Oberman is a psychiatrist and would know exactly what to say and what type of behavior to allege to support his diagnosis. Barclay had been president of the Washington Bar Association, sat
on numerous legal and charitable boards, and remained the managing partner of a successful law firm. And, Sloane had spent 24/7 with the woman for three months and not seen any of the behavior Oberman said made her a closet Ted Bundy.