The Question of the Unfamiliar Husband (14 page)

seventeen

“This does not look
like a criminal mastermind's house,” Mike said.

Mike is a large man who began driving a taxicab after returning home from military service in Afghanistan, he told me. “I'm not comfortable staying in one place all day,” he had said the day we met. Mike's favorite Beatles song is “Two Of Us,” whose lyrics are about being on a long road and having the pleasure of another person's company, something I have always strained to understand. I found it especially interesting, since one would expect that a taxicab driver's favorite would be “Drive My Car.”

I had met Mike two years earlier at Newark Liberty International Airport, after having dropped Mother off for a flight to Colorado Springs where she was going to visit her sister Aunt Jane. She had
insisted on my seeing her off, despite the security measures that
would not allow me past the outermost areas of the airport. I had suggested she merely call me when she arrived in Colorado Springs, but Mother can sometimes be unreasonable about such things.

She had handed me one hundred dollars in cash—this was two years ago, before I began to earn a living at Questions Answered—and suggested I take a taxi home to Piscataway. (We had parked Mother's car in what I had determined was the most economical long-term lot at the airport.) It was not my favorite idea; I do not care for taxicabs, or at least did not until I met Mike. The thought of all the people who had sat in the back of the car where I was seated made me feel ill.

I stood in the line for cabs at the designated spot outside the terminal and allowed six parties to pass me and get into a car. Each one had looked so unspeakably
used
that I had not been physically able to open the door.

Finally, a yellow Prius emblazoned with the insignia
Military Transport
drove up. The car was clearly new; it gleamed on the outside and my inspection of the inside found it to be spotless. It was against my better nature, but I got inside and closed the door.

I gave the driver my address and he turned to look at me. His large, expressive face (so much so that I have never had trouble interpreting Mike's signals) seemed concerned. “That's not a cheap fare,” he said. “That's about sixty dollars.”

“I have one hundred,” I volunteered, and showed him the five twenty-dollar bills to prove my honesty.

The driver laughed. “Put those away, man,” he said. “Don't go showing your money to everyone you meet.”

“I didn't. I showed it only to you. Can you take me to Piscataway?”

“Yes, I can. I'm Mike.”

“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Samuel Hoenig.”

He laughed again. I was not aware I'd said something humorous. “Nice to meet you, Samuel. Buckle up and enjoy the ride.”

I thought it unlikely I would enjoy the experience, but knew it was best not to mention that. While driving, Mike told me I was his first passenger, which explained why the cab was so neat. And he went on to tell me of his military experiences. Normally I find such stories—those that people volunteer about themselves—less than interesting, but Mike has a very easy manner. I have, since that day, called him whenever I needed a ride and Mother or Ms. Washburn could not provide one. He has always come from his base in New Brunswick to help me.

Now he was looking concerned again. “You sure you want to just bust into someone's house like this?”

The house in question, belonging (according to the records I had found online) to a Ms. Jennifer E. LeBlanc, did not look especially imposing. It was a Cape Cod style with expanded dormers on the second floor, blue, with a brick facing on the lower half of the exterior.

“I am not going to break into the house,” I assured him. “I am going to ring the doorbell.”

“Yeah, but you didn't call and tell them you were coming,” Mike reminded me, which was unnecessary.

“I did not want Ms. LeBlanc to panic and flee if she is indeed harboring her friend Cynthia Maholm.” I had told Mike about the question I was considering as he drove me here.

“Still seems rude.” That worried me, because I often am not aware when I am doing something considered impolite. I spend a great deal of time pondering this issue.

There was nothing else to do, though. Mike parked the car across the street from Ms. LeBlanc's residence and I got out of the back seat, which he kept very nearly as spotless as the first time I'd sat in it. Mike is a very professional taxicab driver.

“You want me to have your back?” he asked through his window as I checked for traffic and began across the street.

“My back?”

“Do you need me to back you up?” Mike attempted.

“Shouldn't I be going forward?” I asked.

“Forget I said anything.” Mike shook his head just a bit.

I thought it unlikely I would forget, but continued across the street. I climbed the three steps to the front door and rang the doorbell, as I had told Mike I planned to do. I turned and could see him watching me from the driver's seat of the taxicab.

He looked concerned.

After six seconds, the porch light came on and I heard the dead bolt in the front door open. A tall woman with red hair, wearing jeans, a short-sleeved shirt, and a knitted shawl around her shoulders, opened the door and looked at me. “Aren't you kind of old for NJ PIRG?” she asked, referring to the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group, which often employs college students to canvass neighborhoods during the summer.

I introduced myself and asked if she was indeed Ms. LeBlanc. “Who wants to know?” she asked.

This was confusing, as I had just introduced myself. I decided she must mean that I should explain why I was asking the question. “I am researching a question that involves a Ms. Cynthia Maholm, and I have some evidence that she is a friend of yours,” I said.

The woman's face hardened at the mention of my former client's real name. “You a cop?” she asked.

I reiterated that I was the proprietor of Questions Answered and not a member of any police force. “I am here because Ms. Maholm appears to have left her apartment abruptly, and I still have a report to make to her.”

“And you thought she might be here?” The woman, who I decided was indeed Ms. LeBlanc, looked suspicious.

“Yes,” I told her.

“Well, she's not.”

That was not a very detailed denial, nor a particularly convincing one. “If she is not, are you able to give me some indication of where she might have gone?”

Although I was not directing my attention toward him, I saw Mike watching me from what Mother calls “the corner of my eye.” Eyes, being round objects, do not have corners. Mike was, however, almost at the limit of my peripheral vision, so I had to focus to see what he was doing. He was pointing to my right, and to the right of the doorway in which Ms. LeBlanc and I were standing.

I tried not to be obvious about my glance in that direction. Working very carefully not to turn my head abruptly, I broke eye contact with Ms. LeBlanc, which was not at all difficult for me, as she said, “No. I have no idea where she is. Sorry.”

Turning my head down, as if dejected, gave me the opportunity to turn it in the direction Mike had indicated. There, through the window one room removed from the doorway, was the figure of a woman on the curtains.

“But you
are
Jennifer LeBlanc, are you not?” I asked, simply because I did not want my hostess to terminate the conversation.

There was a pause. The woman behind the far curtain moved away from the window. I could not get a clear view of her, but I was almost certain she was not Cynthia Maholm.

“Look, pal,” the woman in the doorway said. “You come barging into my house in the middle of the night asking questions, I'm not telling you anything. Get it through your head, okay?”

So many thoughts were flooding my brain I did not know which one should be addressed first. I had not barged into her home; the fact was, I was still outside and it was getting slightly chilly on the porch. Second, it was odd that Mike had used very similar language before we had arrived, suggesting that I meant to “bust into” Ms. LeBlanc's home when I had no such intention. Third, it was hardly the middle of the night. Before seven p.m. could barely be considered even late evening. And there was the image of getting something through my head, which is in common usage, but always sounds like it would be painful.

But mostly, I was concerned about the other woman in the house with Ms. LeBlanc. Who was she, and what was it the woman in the doorway was trying to hide?

Diplomacy, of course, is not my strongest talent, but I had to make an attempt to keep the lines of communication open. “My apologies, Ms. LeBlanc,” I said, and waited for two seconds to allow her time to correct me. She did not. “It was not my intention to upset you in any way. I have a neurological disorder that makes it difficult for me to terminate a contract or an obligation before it is fulfilled. Ms. Maholm contracted with me to answer her question, and until I am able to do so to her satisfaction, I will be forced to keep searching for her to the exclusion of sleep or nourishment.” Most people with little knowledge of Asperger's Syndrome—which I had not named aloud—do not understand its “symptoms,” which I consider personality traits. Sometimes, invoking the existence of such a “condition” makes people less suspicious of my motives, I had observed.

Indeed, that appeared to be the case now. Ms. LeBlanc, mouth slightly agape, took a step back. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I had no idea.”

I did not point out that there was no reason she should have had any idea, particularly about something I had grossly exaggerated. I did my best not to smile at the positive effect my ploy had created.

“It's all right,” I insisted. “May I come in for just a minute, please? It is getting a little cold out here.”

She pulled the shawl a little more tightly around her shoulders. This was also a good sign. But her look over her own left shoulder, an indication she was worried about the other woman in her house, was not.

“This really isn't a very good time,” she said.

“I don't mean to trouble you. But it would be a great help if I could use your restroom.” I had no intention of using a bathroom in a strange house, but I could certainly pretend to do so convincingly if it would get me inside the house.

Ms. LeBlanc's mouth twitched a little. “I suppose you can come in,” she said, her voice louder, no doubt a signal to the clandestine guest. “Go ahead. It's the second door on the left.” She took a step back, allowing me in but blocking access to the room in which I had seen the woman in the window.

“Thank you,” I said as I stepped inside. I did not attempt to push past her and reveal her comrade, who must have gotten the message and moved away from the entrance hall. She was not visible in the room, clearly a dining room, where I'd seen her before. “I'll just be a moment.”

I walked to the door she had indicated and went inside the bathroom, really a powder room in real estate parlance. I glanced at Ms. LeBlanc as I closed the door, and she was looking away from me, toward the dining room. Her other guest was obviously still there, out of sight.

Luckily, the powder room was equipped with an exhaust fan. I took the handkerchief out of my pocket and flipped the switch to activate it, creating some mechanical noise to cover anything I might do while formulating a plan. Then I opened the medicine cabinet, but it contained no prescription medications on which I might find a name I might have known or one I had not. This room was not meant to be the main bathroom. I had no idea if Ms. LeBlanc lived alone.

I considered asking for a glass of water when I left the room, but there was a plastic cup on the sink in the powder room. More daunting, if my hostess was feeling contrite and decided to give me some water in one of her glasses, I would be required to drink it, and I did not know Ms. LeBlanc well enough to do that.

Another plan of action was clearly needed. The only reasonable thing was to be dogged and refuse to leave until Ms. LeBlanc identified the other woman, who must have some connection to Cynthia Maholm, and explain what she knew and where I might find the woman who had hired, then deceived, then betrayed me. The aggressive approach, no matter how unnatural it was to my nature, was the best chance for progress under these circumstances.

I used my handkerchief, which would have to be laundered after tonight, to activate the flush lever on the toilet, feeling somewhat guilty about wasting the water, then actually did wash my hands and dry them, reluctantly, on a small hand towel left on the vanity. I repeated the action on the switches for the light and the exhaust fan, opening the bathroom door armed with my new aggressive approach.

That was somewhat dampened by the sight I took in upon exiting the bathroom: Less than eight feet away, standing in the corridor I'd walked from the main entrance, was the woman I assumed was Jennifer LeBlanc.

I did not employ the aggressive approach with her because she had a handgun trained on me.

My first thought was, “I'm certainly glad Ms. Washburn is not here.”

eighteen

“Now tell me who
you really are.” Jennifer LeBlanc held the handgun very steadily in her left hand. There was no trace of emotion in her voice and no sign of the other woman I'd seen in the hallway behind her.

“I am who I said I am,” I responded. “I am Samuel Hoenig of Questions Answered, and I am looking for your friend Cynthia Maholm.”

“No, you're not.” She took a step closer, but I did not raise my hands in the air as people do on television or in films. I had not been instructed to do so, and knew I had no weapon concealed on my person. “You're a cop or a detective or something and you think you can use Cindy's name to get in here. Now think really hard because this is the last time I'll ask you: Who are you?”

“I am Samuel Hoenig.” There was no alternate answer because I
am
Samuel Hoenig. “I don't understand why you are threatening me.”

From behind Ms. LeBlanc came a smaller, lighter voice. “I believe him, Jen.”

The woman with the gun flinched, then seemed to remember she was supposed to be the aggressor and snapped back into her stance, aiming directly at my midsection. “Just stay there,” she said slowly. Louder, to her companion, she added, “Don't come in. I don't want him to see you.”

“I have already seen her,” I pointed out. “Through the window.” I realized shortly after that this might not have been the best strategy. If Ms. LeBlanc did not want me to see her guest and was holding a gun on me, reporting that I'd done so could cause her to become angry. I don't always anticipate the reactions of others in a reliable fashion.

She did not react with fury, however. She simply looked me in the eye, something I worked at maintaining because I have been told it is more difficult to hurt a person when maintaining eye contact (although I don't know why that would make a difference) and said, “So you were looking for her.”

“No, I was looking for Cynthia Maholm. If that is not Cynthia, then I am not looking for your friend.”

“So it's okay then.” The woman from the other room stepped into the hallway behind Ms. LeBlanc. She was younger, perhaps in her late twenties, and smaller, wearing a sundress and speaking in a tone that suggested innocence. “He's not looking for me.”

Again, Ms. LeBlanc seemed unnerved by her companion's refusal to treat me like a dangerous invader. She started to turn toward the other woman while holding the gun straight at me. “Don't do that!” she shouted. “You're jeopardizing everything!” She turned her attention back to me.

I decided that if Ms. LeBlanc were going to shoot me, she would have done so by now. I did not move toward her, which could have been seen as threatening, but I let out my breath. “Ms. LeBlanc, you have no reason to disbelieve me. Obviously there is some situation between you and your friend that you wish to keep from the authorities. I am not affiliated with any governmental or criminal justice organization, and I am not looking for anyone but my client, Cynthia Maholm. So may we please discard the charade that you're about to kill me?”

Perhaps that was the wrong tactic. Ms. LeBlanc's mouth curled into a snarl and her eyes seemed to be searching my body for the right place to aim. “I can't take the chance,” she said.

And she pulled back the hammer on the gun.

“Yes, you can,” came a voice from behind them. As the two women turned, Mike stepped into the hallway at its connection to the foyer. He was carrying a pump-action shotgun he keeps in his taxicab “in case there's trouble.” “If Samuel says he's not a threat to you, he's not,” he continued.

Ms. LeBlanc moved just a bit toward him.

“You're going to want to put that down,” Mike said. “I have had practice with this thing, and before that I was a marksman for the Army. So you don't want to go up against me with a gun.”

“I can't take a chance,” Ms. LeBlanc reiterated.

Before she could turn more into Mike's line of fire, I stepped forward and positioned myself between the two, effectively blocking either person with a firearm from using it on the other without hitting me.

“Samuel,” Mike said. Clearly, he was the one who would be more reluctant to fire in my direction.

“I believe I can defuse the situation with no one being hurt,” I said, although an idea was only now forming in my mind. I turned toward the younger woman and asked, “Is there something I can do to help you?”

“I'm hiding here from my ex-husband,” she said. “I need to keep him away from me until my baby is born.”

“Amy!” Ms. LeBlanc shouted. “What are you doing?”

“She is telling me her problem,” I answered before the young woman, who looked a little confused by Ms. LeBlanc's livid response, could do so. “If I know more, I might be able to help.”

“You're not doing
anything
,” Ms. LeBlanc insisted. “You're working for him, aren't you?”

“I am working for Cynthia Maholm,” I said, which was technically true, in that Ms. Maholm had not terminated our contract. I felt it best not to mention Detective Dickinson on the very slim chance that he was the ex-husband Amy had mentioned. If I were working for him, it would be best now to have what is called “plausible deniability.” I added, “But I can certainly help the two of you in this situation if everyone is willing to discuss it calmly.”

“Samuel, I want you to duck down right now,” said Mike, who was still aiming his shotgun over my shoulder in Ms. LeBlanc's direction. “I don't want to hurt her, but I'm not going back to your mother and tell her I let you get shot.”

“Aww … ” Amy said. “He has a mother.”

She did not seem to be speaking ironically, but the fact is that everyone, at least when starting life, has a mother. The fact that mine was extant, which appeared to be her point, seemed irrelevant.

“I'm not going to duck down,” I told Mike. “Because Ms. LeBlanc is not going to shoot me. Are you, Ms. LeBlanc?”

Jennifer LeBlanc was looking at Amy, not at me. She turned at the mention of her name and her face seemed almost surprised by the interruption of her thought. “No,” she said, with a tinge to her voice that I believe might have actually been sadness, as if she had been looking forward to shooting me and was now unable to do so. She lowered the gun. “Go ahead. Do what you're gonna do.”

I nodded to Mike. “Thank you for the help. Now the ladies and I are going to sit and talk for a bit. Would you prefer to stay or go back to the cab?”

Mike lowered his shotgun but held onto it. “I think I'll stay and hear what everybody has to say,” he said. “I'm off the meter.”

We went to the kitchen, where Ms. LeBlanc said she and Amy had been before I had arrived. There were indeed two glasses of what appeared to be red wine poured and sitting on the table in the medium-sized room that featured a small table to one side opposite the fairly new appliances. It was not a state-of-the-art facility, but it was definitely serviceable.

“Do you want some wine?” Amy asked. “Mine's just grape juice because I'm pregnant, but you can have the real thing.”

Jennifer LeBlanc looked at her companion with an expression that appeared to merge affection with exasperation. “They're here to kill us, Amy,” she said in a hoarse voice. “You don't have to give them a drink first.”

“We are not here to kill anyone,” I said, trying to make my tone sound authoritative, a pursuit in which I believe I was not successful. “We are here to try to make sense of the situation, and then Mike and I are going to leave and you two ladies will go on with your evening. There was never any violent intent on our part until you produced a gun.”

“I told you,” Amy scolded Ms. LeBlanc.

Her hostess sat down heavily in her chair and took a drink from her glass, which must not have been filled with grape juice. “What do you want?” she asked wearily.

Mike leaned against the counter to the left of the stove, his hand on the shotgun, which he rested on the countertop. He did not grip it, but maintained contact in the event he might need the weapon. He is a very good listener in addition to being an extroverted taxicab driver, so I could rely on him to remember any nuance I might miss.

“As I said, I am here to try to ascertain the whereabouts of Cynthia Maholm,” I said. “But I meant it when I said that I would help with any situation you and Amy might be involved with if I can. Do you know where Cynthia is?”

Both women shook their heads. “I haven't heard from Cindy in at least two months,” Ms. LeBlanc said. “We're not really close or anything. We just keep tabs on each other when there's a major change in our lives. When I met Amy,
that
was a big change. So after a few weeks I got in touch with Cindy. But like I said, that was a couple of months ago.”

Amy, who seemed content to be a spectator, merely nodded in agreement.

“Have you known Cynthia for a long time?” I asked. Perhaps Ms. LeBlanc would have contact information for other old friends who might be more in touch with my erstwhile client than she.

“No, less than a year,” she answered. “I didn't meet Cindy until she was already getting married. But I was too late to change her mind.”

That must have piqued Mike's interest, because he stood a little straighter and asked, “You tried to talk her out of getting married?”

Both women laughed, seemingly in surprise. “Of course!” Ms. LeBlanc said. “You see someone, even if you don't know them, driving at top speed in the wrong direction on a one-way street, you try to warn them, don't you?”

I believed there was some point I was missing, so I looked at Mike. He shrugged. It was not my Asperger's Syndrome that was making this situation a confusing one. “I don't understand. Please start at the beginning. You say the two of you met only two months ago?” Amy and Ms. LeBlanc seemed like an established couple in my eyes.

“Maybe a little longer,” Amy said. Mike looked at her quickly; I think he had forgotten she was in the room. “I had just found out about the baby, and that's when I came to find Jenny. She's been great to me, protecting me, keeping me here in her house.”

“You are living here?” I asked.

“Oh yeah. For about four or five weeks now. Jenny said it would be safe.”

Ms. LeBlanc's face became stern again. “It was, until you two showed up.”

“We bring you no danger, I assure you.”

“Even if you didn't mean to, you will,” Ms. LeBlanc responded. “Someone's probably following you.”

The deliberate vagueness had begun to irritate me. “What is this danger? Who would be coming after you, and why?”

Ms. LeBlanc looked at Amy, who nodded. “Ollie Lewis,” she said. “He's definitely looking for Amy, and if you've been in touch with him, he probably has someone watching you. So once you showed up on my doorstep, he'll follow up. You say you weren't looking for Amy, but you've found her, and that's what he wants.”

“I can assure you that Oliver Lewis is definitely not following me,” I said. “He is dead.”

It was a moment in which I made sure to watch Jennifer LeBlanc's reaction to my statement. If she were pretending to be unaware of Oliver Lewis's death, it would be difficult for her to hide that knowledge now. Still, I was no expert, and some people are better at pretending than others, which is why some people are actors.

It was a problem that I could not watch both Ms. LeBlanc and Amy at the same time, because while Ms. LeBlanc's reaction was probably the more relevant, Amy's would most likely be more genuine. Amy seemed to have very little natural ability to deceive.

But I had to admit, Ms. LeBlanc's reaction was quite telling on its own. It was not what I would have expected under any circumstances.

She laughed.

“You're kidding,” she said after a moment during which she seemed to collect herself.

“I assure you, I am not. I was one of the people who discovered his body. He is unquestionably deceased.”

Ms. LeBlanc looked toward Amy, so my eyes naturally drifted toward the younger woman as well. Amy was not laughing; she looked stricken. Her face was pale, her eyes were wide and her mouth was open, but not emitting sound.

“Oh honey,” Jennifer LeBlanc said. “You can't be that upset about this guy. He's not worth your tears.” She stood up and walked to Amy, putting her arms around the other woman and patting her shoulders, which shook a little, although Amy did not appear to be weeping. “If it's true, this makes our lives a whole lot easier.”

I took a moment to look in Mike's direction. He seemed not to have moved; he was watching the scene with a face that betrayed no emotion at all to me. It was like looking into the eye of a camera. I began to wish I owned a cellular phone, so I could have called Ms. Washburn and asked her to assess the situation. Mike would have an opinion, I knew, when he drove me home, but it might lack the insight my associate brings to such matters.

“I just … I was afraid of Ollie,” Amy said to Ms. LeBlanc. “I didn't hate him. I didn't wish that he would die. What happened?” I could not see her face, as Ms. LeBlanc's embrace had obscured it from my view, but I assumed the question was directed at me.

“Someone murdered him,” I said, and suddenly I was able to see Amy again, because Jennifer LeBlanc had stood up stiffly, straight and surprised.

She turned and looked at me. “You're kidding,” she repeated, but this time she did not laugh.

I did not understand why she would believe that I had such a macabre sense of humor, but this was the second time she had insisted my report of Oliver Lewis's death was a joke. “I am assuredly not,” I told her.

“Expression,” Mike mumbled from his corner of the kitchen. I had actually understood that point, but the expression itself made little sense. Telling someone he or she is kidding is ridiculous; of course the person would know if what was being said was meant to amuse.