The Question of the Unfamiliar Husband (11 page)

fourteen

I tried to gather
my thoughts quickly, but realized it was best to forego speed and concentrate on logic and accuracy. The idea that Hazel Montrose had been Oliver Lewis's wife before he married Sheila McInerney (Cynthia Maholm) was disruptive to every train of thought I'd had on the question at hand, and on the one Cynthia herself had posed only two days earlier.

“You were married to Oliver Lewis?” Ms. Washburn said, her voice suddenly hoarse.

Hazel, eyes moist, nodded. “What happened?” she asked.

“His carotid artery had been severed,” I told her. “We are attempting to answer the question of who did that. Part of the answer will be to understand why it was done.”

Ms. Washburn gave me what I have known to be a stern look. I suddenly understood that I had seemed insensitive to Hazel's pain, assuming she was upset by the death of her ex-husband.

“My apologies,” I said. “I am sorry for your loss.”

Hazel held up both hands, palms out, and shook them. “It's not your fault,” she said. “It's just that it came so out of left field.”

I am something of a baseball aficionado, and understand that “out of left field” is an expression that indicates a concept is unexpected or hard to understand. But why such a thing comes from left field and not center field or right field baffles me. I chose not to express that feeling to either Hazel or Ms. Washburn at the moment. The fact that the message had been received and understood was enough.

“Of course,” I responded. “You had merely done your job cleaning up. You were unaware that you were removing traces of your ex-husband.”

Ms. Washburn's eyes rolled a bit, but she remained silent. I would have to ask her later why what I'd said was inappropriate when it was accurate and, I thought, empathetic.

Hazel dabbed at her eye and sniffed briefly, then seemed to rally her thoughts. She sat up straighter in the chair, looked me in the eye and asked, “How can I help?”

“Tell me how you met Oliver Lewis and married him,” I suggested.

“I met him through a friend we both knew,” she said. “About three years ago, in the spring. We started dating and got married only two months later. We were married for a year but lived apart after only about six months. It took a while for the divorce to be finalized.”

“What is the friend's name?”

“Roger Siplowitz. I went to college with him, and Ollie … I honestly don't know how Ollie knew Roger.”

Ms. Washburn, pad back in hand, leaned toward Hazel. “Do you have current contact information for Roger?” she asked. Ms. Washburn is very efficient, and knew I would be asking that very question next.

“No, I lost touch with him after the divorce,” Hazel answered. “You know how the wife gets some of the friends and the husband gets the others? Ollie got Roger.”

The thought continued to nag at me. Life does contain coincidences, but the idea that Oliver Lewis's first wife had simply chanced to be the crime scene cleaner I had contracted to remove the traces of his murder was too unlikely to ignore. There had to be a connection somewhere.

“When is the last time you saw Oliver Lewis?” I asked Hazel.

“When we signed the divorce papers in his lawyer's office, about two and a half years ago. We had no reason to get in touch after that. We didn't have any kids. We didn't even have a dog.”

I closed my eyes, which sometimes helps divert me from the visual stimulus in front of me—in this case, Hazel—and focus on the deeper problem at hand. Oliver Lewis had been married twice. His first wife had divorced him, and the second one (assuming Dickinson's information was correct and Cynthia Maholm really had been married to Lewis) had hired me ostensibly to discover who her husband was and whether the marriage he claimed to have with her was legal.

Opening my eyes, I asked Hazel, “Were you aware your ex-husband had remarried?”

For a moment it looked like Hazel was trying to translate the strange language I was speaking to her into something more recognizable. “No,” she said simply. “Who was he married to?”

Ms. Washburn caught my eye with a glance, drew in her lips and spread her hands a bit, a gesture I have learned indicates one should speak carefully. “His current wife”—I eschewed the term
widow
—“is a woman named Cynthia Maholm, who sometimes goes by the name Sheila McInerney. Do you know her?”

Hazel's brow furrowed, but she shook her head to indicate a negative response.

“Was … ” Ms. Washburn seemed to hesitate, as if wondering whether she would cause Hazel some sadness by continuing, but the question was begun. “Was Oliver ever married before you met?” she asked.

The thought had not occurred to me that there might be more ex-wives in Oliver Lewis's past. Should any of them be women I had met before, I would have to seriously reconsider my notion about the plausibility of coincidence in daily life.

“No,” Hazel answered. “I was Ollie's first wife.” That simplified
matters and I was grateful for it. More ex-wives would have increased the number of uncomfortable interviews I would have to conduct in answering the question.

“What was it about him that made you want to marry him?” I asked. I cannot say for certain that the question was directly related to my work; the subject has always puzzled me. I do not understand how a person can feel so strongly about another, be so certain, that he or she would commit every remaining moment of life to the other. It is irrational and improbable, which is likely why so many marriages end in divorce. Or in this case, murder.

Hazel smiled, but I was sure Mother would say it was a sad smile. Her lips did not curl upward symmetrically and her eyes looked down a little.

“The cliché is supposed to be that he made me laugh, right?” she said, but neither Ms. Washburn nor myself answered her. “Well, Ollie didn't make me laugh. He was never a very happy guy.”

Ms. Washburn, perhaps against her better judgment, asked, “Then what was it?”

Hazel's attention seemed to focus. But she looked at me, not at Ms. Washburn, when she said, “I think he made me feel like I was the center of his world. Until I wasn't anymore.”

“There were other women?” I said. I did not look to Ms. Washburn for a reaction.

Hazel tilted her head to one side and nodded slightly, flattening her mouth. “Probably,” she said. “All I know is that after we were married and he'd gotten what he wanted, I wasn't a priority anymore. I think for Ollie, the pursuit was more important than the possession, if you know what I mean.”

I did not, but I trusted that Ms. Washburn did.

Hazel had little to say after that, and Ms. Washburn offered to drive her home. Hazel accepted the ride. I opted to stay in the office for several reasons: I was behind on my exercise, which was a concern; Mother would be arriving to drive me home for lunch in forty-seven minutes (or forty-eight—Mother is not always precise); and I presumed that if Hazel had more information to add to our ongoing work, she might be more likely to tell it to another woman without a man present. I am not certain about the motivation, but people of both genders tend to be less circumspect when among members of their own sex.

They left after Hazel bid me farewell, and Ms. Washburn said she would return within the hour. I mentioned that Mother would probably pick me up for lunch shortly and Ms. Washburn said she would meet me at the house I share with my mother. I nodded. It occurred to me after she left that Mother would have wanted me to invite Ms. Washburn to lunch with us. I felt it would be unwise to call her cellular phone while she was driving, however, so I left it unsaid.

The time alone gave me an opportunity to research a few of the multitude of loose ends hanging from this question. (I try to use metaphors occasionally in an effort to incorporate them into my natural speech pattern.) I began where I had been interrupted when Hazel had returned from the van, investigating the name Terry Lambroux.

Google is not the best way to search for something, but it is the simplest, and to begin an inquiry, simplicity can be a gateway to more substantial information. So I started with a straight search of the name as an attempt to find a direction.

There were no entries.

It is extremely unusual for a name to have generated absolutely no hits in a search on the most wide-ranging search engine in the world. I should have expected to find at least some erroneous links, to dishes made with lamb or other people named Terry. To get no results was in some ways unsettling; it had never happened to me before.

I tried the names “Terrence Lambroux,” “Teresa Lambroux,” various alternate spellings of both names, and then “T. Lambroux.”

Nothing appeared. The same was true when searching Google Images, which at that point was no longer a surprise at all.

I will admit to sitting behind my desk staring at the Mac Pro for at least thirty seconds in wonder. Then I used various other search engines and a few specialized sites I know of to search for missing people, and each time was rewarded with the same lack of data.

It seemed, at least as far as the Internet was concerned, there was no such person as Terry Lambroux.

“Well, that's certainly odd,” Mother said.

We were removing plates and utensils from the kitchen table and I was placing them in the dishwasher. Had Mother been clearing the table, she would have put everything into the sink and washed it all by hand, arguing that it was just the two of us and the dishwasher wasn't necessary. I worry about her health more than she does, or at least more than she will admit to, and I try to keep Mother from doing anything she doesn't have to do. She has had cardiac issues in the past.

To distract her from my dishwasher use, I was informing her about my most recent efforts involving Detective Dickinson's question. “At least I did find some mentions of Roger Siplowitz,” I answered. “He apparently is an attorney specializing in family law in New Brunswick, but as far as I can discern, he did not participate in Oliver Lewis's divorce from Hazel Montrose.”

“How do you know that?” Mother was putting mustard and mayonnaise back into the refrigerator, knowing well of my disgust for such substances.

“There are court records when such an action is filed,” I said. “They are a matter of public record, and can often be found online.”

The doorbell rang, which interrupted our cleanup activities. Mother always answers the door when she is downstairs because she knows I am not fond of surprises. But in this case, I expected Ms. Washburn to be in the doorway, and so she was.

Mother immediately asked if she'd like some lunch, but Ms. Washburn said she had eaten a small salad with Hazel Montrose, which surprised me. “I believed you were simply driving Hazel to her home,” I said.

“She wanted to stop,” Ms. Washburn said, sitting at the kitchen table. Mother and I, having completed the cleanup process, joined her there. “She was pretty upset about what happened to her ex-husband, and she asked me to stop at a coffee shop so she could compose herself.”

This led me to conclude that Hazel must be living with another person or more, since she seemed to have issues about being visibly emotional when she arrived at her home. But I did not voice that opinion (and it was just that) because I wanted Ms. Washburn to continue. Clearly, Hazel must have said something of significance for Ms. Washburn to mention the conversation so soon after arriving.

But Ms. Washburn studied my face a moment, intent. “You've decided Hazel's living with a guy, and it's bothering you,” she said.

“Amazing,” Mother chimed in. “I was thinking the same thing.”

That was, to say the least, odd. While I had been speculating about Hazel's motivation for delaying her return home, it was not troubling me in any way. “I don't understand,” I said.

“Come on, Samuel.” Ms. Washburn folded her arms, a posture which I have learned can be a signal of resistance or of a person who is defending an unpopular position. This confused me further, as it seemed the scenario would cast me in that role. “You have a little crush on Hazel Montrose, and you don't want her to be married or living with someone. It makes sense.”

“A crush?” It was a ridiculous statement, but I was sure it would be considered rude for me to say so. “I have no such feelings.”

Mother laughed.

“You were flirting with her all through the interview, Samuel,” Ms. Washburn said. I was unfamiliar with the smile she was adopting. “And I have news for you: she was flirting back.”

“I believe you are mistaken, Ms. Washburn. Hazel was simply someone who had information I required, and I was acting as anyone would to ingratiate myself with her and extract the data.”

Ms. Washburn's smile got wider and more difficult to read. “Really. Samuel. I've known you for months. We've answered questions together. We've almost died together. But you continue to call me ‘Ms. Washburn'. You knew Hazel for maybe a minute and a half and you were addressing her by her first name.”

Mother nodded. “It's nothing to be embarrassed about; it happens to people all the time.”

I shook my head at the absurdity of the conversation. “I am not the least bit embarrassed. I have no ‘crush,' as you put it, Ms. Washburn. I believe you misread the body language during my interview with … with Ms. Montrose.”

Ms. Washburn exchanged a look with Mother, who shrugged.

“Okay,” my associate said. “Do you want to hear what
Hazel
said at the coffee shop?”

I ignored her emphasis on our acquaintance's name and said, “Of course, if it is of interest to our work.”

Ms. Washburn seemed to become suddenly interested in the saltshaker on our kitchen table. She picked it up and examined it, although I have never considered it to be especially interesting in design. “She said she wasn't surprised someone had killed Oliver Lewis.” I caught a slight flicker of her eyelashes as she looked quickly at me to gauge my reaction.