“He’s actually a friend of mine. Since I was there when it happened, he thought maybe you’d be more likely to talk to me.”
“I have nothing to hide. I’ve told them everything.”
“So, no theories.”
“No. And I don’t care.”
“Pardon?”
Having regained her strength, she scooped the teacup off the table. She looked right at me.
“It’s absolutely immaterial to me. He’s gone, and nothing will change that.”
“With all due respect—”
“Please, Mr. Acquillo, understand. There’s nothing I can do about this. I’m here, in this house. Jonathan left me enough to live on—my God, enough for me to live a thousand years. But I’m hardly up to a crusade. I can barely imagine a trip to the grocery store, so how am I to hunt down my husband’s killers? Isn’t that for the police? Foolish me, I always thought that’s what they did. Not send over retired engineers. With all due respect.”
She looked over my shoulder. When I turned around I saw Belinda standing in the foyer.
“I changed my mind,” I told her. “I’ll have some of that tea after all.”
Belinda looked over at Appolonia for permission.
“Please, Belinda,” said Appolonia. “It’s quite good.”
Belinda spun on her heel and left abruptly enough to stir the air.
“She’s really a doll once you know her,” said Mrs. Eldridge.
A few hundred comebacks leapt to mind, but I managed to shove them back down.
“You’d like my friend, too. Joe Sullivan. The cop who asked me to talk to you. He’s new on the case. He’d be here himself, but he thought it’d be too much for you.”
“I’m sturdier than I look, Mr. Acquillo.”
“Sam.”
“Okay Sam.”
“I believe that.”
“Because of your powers of perception?”
“Yeah. Engineers are big on deductive reasoning.”
“I’ve heard that. I studied abnormal psychology. Surprise, surprise.”
“Doctorate.”
“Boston University.”
I pointed to myself.
“MIT. Just across the river. Though I once lived in a BU frat house. In the attic with the mice.”
“This is why your friend thought I’d speak with you? You’d know the secret handshake?”
“Must’ve been tough to go to class.”
“I was better then. But yes. It was.”
“And Jonathan was at Harvard Business School. When you met him.”
“You must have quite a file.”
“Just guessing, based on the dates.”
“That’s right. I trust you aren’t interested in the exact circumstances.”
“Maybe a little. If I’m not prying.”
She smiled and looked toward the window, which was shrouded in tissue-thin, translucent sheers. Her skin was very pale in the diffused light, though you could see tiny wrinkle lines around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth. It was the kind of face that wouldn’t age well. Too undernourished.
“That’s all you’re doing,” she said, then after a bit of a pause, “We met when Jonathan was in a clinical study. Nothing exotic, I can’t even remember the point of the research. I was helping verify the data with follow-up interviews. The sort of statistical drudgery advisers delight in visiting on graduate students. But, luckily, the subjects came to me. At my house. I lived with my parents.” She added, anticipating the question, “I grew up in Boston. Brookline.”
“So did my ex-wife. Newton, actually.”
“Jonathan grew up out here.”
“Me, too.”
“Curious.”
“But irrelevant?” I asked.
“Possibly.”
“Wow. Too subtle for me.”
“I thought you were the subtle one. Subtle enough to talk to the crazy lady.”
“Or crazy enough.”
She saluted me with her cup of tea.
“Touche.”
“Not trying to cross swords, Mrs. Eldridge.”
“Appolonia.”
“Just trying to learn more about your husband.”
“Ever consider there are some things you can never know?”
“Sure.”
“Though you know a lot already, don’t you.”
“Not really.”
“More than you admit.”
“Engineers are trained empiricists. You only know what you see.”
“At least you know how to duck.”
“Learned that from Rene Ruiz.”
“Engineer?”
“Prizefighter.”
“Explains the nose.”
“Courtesy of Rene.”
“So you didn’t duck in time.”
“That’s what I learned from Rene. Timing is everything.”
“Like when you jumped behind the big table.”
“So you got a file of your own.”
“It didn’t say.”
“What?”
“Why you jumped behind the table.”
“To keep from getting blown up.”
“At that point it was just a fire. It didn’t say why you jumped behind the table. No theories?”
“No theories. Certainties.”
“Really?”
“I wouldn’t think you’d want to know.”
“If I’m asking, I want to know. Rest assured.”
I shrugged.
“Oxygen,” I said.
“Now who’s being subtle.”
“You can tell how much oxygen a flame’s getting from its color. And how hot it is. And the balance between the two. The flame inside the car was starved of oxygen, but very hot. All the windows were shut, but the heat was great enough to melt glass, which would suddenly let in a lot of air. That would cause a rapid acceleration of combustion. Rapid enough to be, for all intents and purposes, an explosion. I didn’t know about the C-4. I might’ve tried to get further away.”
“So he went quickly.”
“Yeah. Quick enough.”
She looked away from me, and might have been ready to tear up, but the doorbell rang. Saved.
