The Ambassador's wife

“I’m interested in where you saw her,” he said. “Who she was with, what she was doing, that kind of thing. I’m also interested in what you may have heard about Elizabeth Munson in general, you know, around town.”

Lucinda raised one eyebrow at that.

“Why, you old gossip. You’re here because you want to hear the dirt, don’t you?”

Tay shrugged. “You never know what might be useful.”

Lucinda uncoiled herself from the chair and leaned forward.

“Where do you want me to start?”

“I haven’t any idea. Start wherever you like.”

Lucinda picked up her wineglass in both hands. She held it, not drinking while she seemed to think, and then she began to talk.

Over the next fifteen minutes, Tay heard all about last year’s Red Cross ball, the opening of the concert season at the Esplanade the year before, the Fourth of July party given by the American ambassador, and the charity premiere of the new Jackie Chan movie that was being planned for later in the year. He heard about small dinner parties and large cocktail parties, he heard about symphonies and operas. He even heard about a charity sale of used designer dresses and a golf tournament, the details of which he blocked out as well as he could.

Lucinda talked and Tay listened until both their glasses were empty. Eventually Lucinda was talked out and a silence fell. Tay did nothing to break it. He merely sat and waited to see what might come next.

THIRTEEN

“More wine, Sam?”

“Not for me, thanks.”

“I notice you didn’t write anything down.”

“No.”

“It’s okay with me. I don’t mind. You can quote me on any of it.”

“I’m not trying to protect you, Lucinda. I just didn’t hear anything that was worth writing down, let alone quoting.”

Lucinda looked genuinely hurt and Tay immediately felt embarrassed he had spoken so brusquely.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just that you’ve been talking about parties and clothes. You haven’t told me anything at all about Elizabeth Munson. Who were her friends? How did she spend her time? What do you know about her private life?”

Tay leaned back and waited, congratulating himself on his choice of words. He was thinking how much more subtle private life sounded than sex life, which of course was what he was really asking about.

“I really don’t know about any of that, Sam. Like I said, I just knew Liz to see her at parties. That’s all. Really.”

Tay watched Lucinda’s eyes slide away from his as she spoke. She’s lying, he thought to himself, although he couldn’t imagine why.

He tried another tack. “Was Mrs. Munson happily married?”

Lucinda hesitated. Tay noticed her eyes didn’t return to his.

“You’re really asking me if she fooled around, aren’t you?”

“I suppose so. Yes.”

Lucinda inspected the space above Tay’s head. He felt a shift in the air. It was slight, but perceptible.

“I don’t know how to answer that, Sam. I saw her at functions with her husband sometimes and sometimes without him, but that’s normal for diplomatic couples. When I saw them together they seemed fine…”

Lucinda stopped talking and reached back for a memory.

“But don’t we all seem fine to others who don’t know the truth about us?” she finished quietly.

“No other men in her life?”

“None that I know of, but then I really wouldn’t know.”

Tay nodded slowly. Lucinda was holding something back. He had no doubt of that now, but he wasn’t at all sure how to get at whatever it was. Trying to bully it out of her certainly wouldn’t get him anywhere. It would probably just guarantee she would never tell him.

Tay put his notebook away and they made polite conversation for a while. Whatever it was Lucinda was holding out, he would let her have a few minutes to think about it. Then he would come back and ask her the same questions about Elizabeth Munson all over again. It amazed Tay how many times people answered questions differently when you gave them a second opportunity and refrained from mentioning their original answers. It was sometimes as if the first conversation had never taken place at all.

“Let’s get back to Elizabeth Munson,” Tay said after he figured a decent interval had passed. “The Americans think this was a terrorist attack.”

“A terrorist attack on an ambassador’s wife? Here in Singapore? That’s ridiculous, Sam.”

“Yes, I agree. It doesn’t feel right to me either, but so far I can’t point to anything else that might even conceivably amount to a motive for murder. If I can’t, the Americans are going to have their way about terrorism. That’s why I need you to tell me what you know about Mrs. Munson’s personal life. Maybe something there will point me toward another motive.”

Lucinda hesitated. She was uneasy now. Tay could see that plainly and he had no doubt that Lucinda knew he could see it. It wasn’t just Elizabeth Munson’s death. He was sure of that. It was something in the questions Tay had asked that was troubling Lucinda.

“I already told you, Sam. I didn’t really know her very well.”

Tay watched Lucinda as she glanced away again. He didn’t say anything at all. He knew now that if he kept silent eventually Lucinda would start to talk again and tell him whatever it was she was reluctant to say.

“There were rumors…” she began.

Then she stopped talking and shifted herself on the couch, crossing her legs first to the left and then uncrossing them and re-crossing them to the right. Tay waited patiently. He was ready to wait until next week if it took that long.

“Oh God, Sam, I shouldn’t say this.”

Lucinda took a deep breath and then let it out.

Tay waited some more.

“Okay, look.” Lucinda uncrossed her legs one more time and sat up straight. “There were rumors that she was having an affair with a woman and that she was going to leave her husband for this woman. I have no idea who the woman was or even if it was true. There. That’s it. That’s all I know.”

For a moment, Tay was so flabbergasted that words failed him.

“Elizabeth Munson was gay?” he asked when he regained his voice.

“What?” Lucinda sounded genuinely annoyed with him. “Gay? Samuel Tay, I said nothing of the sort.”

“But I thought you just said-”

“I said I had heard stories that she was having an affair with a woman. That certainly doesn’t make her gay.”

Tay didn’t know what to say to that. What else did it make her?

“Oh, Sam.” Now Lucinda sounded sympathetic. “You really do need to get out more. A great many women have affairs with other women at various points in their lives. It doesn’t mean they’re gay. These things are just … well, things that happen and, usually, they end and these women go back to their men.”

The first thing that came to Tay’s mind was the unselfconscious ease with which Lucinda had imparted that information to him. Did that mean she herself had…no, surely not.

After all, he had gone out with Lucinda for nearly two years and, naturally they had slept together, although he had to admit they had done so rather less frequently as their relationship wore on. He would have known, wouldn’t he? Could Lucinda have also been sleeping with women at the same time without him knowing it? Even the remote possibility of that opened up a whole house of