“How is Colin feeling?” Des asked her.
“Defiant, that’s how,” Greta replied. “He is not going to be railroaded out of his job by that woman. I say this not only as his wife but as his attorney-Colin Falconer is Dorset’s superintendent of schools and he intends to remain so.”
“May we speak with him?”
Greta padded over to the fireplace and poked at the fire. “What’s this all about? You were maddeningly vague on the phone.”
“We need to speak with him, ma’am,” Soave said, his voice firm.
“Well, he’s having a lie-down. Poor thing’s exhausted. But I’ll see if-” She broke off, glancing up at the doorway.
Colin stood there in a red silk dressing gown, looking pale and unsteady. There were purple smudges under his eyes, and his hair was disheveled.
“There’s my boy now,” Greta spoke up with motherly good cheer. “How are you, darling?”
“I feel… like I’m dreaming,” Colin replied in a hollow, shaky voice. “I keep thinking I’ll… wake up and everything will be
…” He let out a sudden strangled sob and slumped into an armchair, his head in his hands.
Soave shuffled his feet uncomfortably. He did not deal well with emotionally overwrought men. This one also happened to be married to a woman who was easily twenty years his senior. Ozzie and Harriet they were not.
“We’re sorry to bother you right now, Colin,” Des said. “But there are some questions we absolutely must ask you.”
“Oh, God…” Colin moaned, his long bare legs stretched out before him. He had the skinniest, whitest legs Des had ever seen. She doubted that they had ever been exposed to sunlight. “I’m so confused.”
“We’re all confused,” Greta said to him gently. “The whole damned world is full of confused people.”
“We’re only concerned with the ones who kill other people,” Soave said.
“Of course,” Colin said. “A-and you have a job to do. I understand.”
Greta said, “I want you officers to understand that I am acting here as my husband’s attorney. If I feel any of your questions are inappropriate, I will step in… How about a brandy, darling? It might put some color back in your cheeks.”
She poured Colin a generous slug from a decanter and brought it to him. He drank it down in one gulp, making a face at the taste. Clearly, he was no drinker.
Des and Soave took seats on the sofa. Greta sat in the armchair next to Colin’s, watching him protectively.
“Colin, how long were you and Moose Frye lovers?” Des asked.
Colin immediately glanced over at his wife, whose face registered no surprise. Either Greta knew all about them or she was a very good actress.
“It’s… out in the open then?” he asked Des uncertainly.
“We know it was you who she was visiting every night on the third floor of the Frederick House,” Soave said.
“We’d been together for several months.” Colin’s eyes drifted over toward the fire. “I’ve just lost someone who was very dear to me, you see. Mary Susan was my everything. And she always will be.”
Again, Greta didn’t react-no outward emotional response at all to her husband’s declaration of undying love for another woman. A very cool customer, Des observed, turning her attention back to Colin. “At breakfast yesterday you complained to me about all the noise ‘they’ were making up there. How come?”
“I was afraid you thought it might be me,” he answered guiltily. “I was just trying to be discreet.”
“Not to mention clever,” Des pointed out.
“We had to keep it a secret,” Colin explained. “I’m a married man. She was an employee of the school district. The board couldn’t find out. An ‘inappropriate’ relationship such as ours could have cost us our jobs.”
“Not that it should,” Greta spoke up angrily in his defense. “Colin and I had separated, Moose was single. Why can’t two adults have a consensual sexual relationship anymore? What country are we living in?”
“She called me a madman last night,” Colin said suddenly. “She was so worried about me.”
“Because you’d swallowed the Valium?” Des asked him.
He ducked his head, nodding. “My life’s totally out of control. I couldn’t take it anymore. And by ending it all- this was something I could control.” He smiled at Des faintly. “Strangely enough, after you rescued me I felt much better. I seem to be more in control of my emotional responses ever since I swallowed those pills. Greta wanted me to spend last night here…”
“But he refused,” Greta spoke up.
“I needed to be with Mary Susan.”
“What did you two talk about last night?” Soave asked him.
“Sheryl Crow,” Colin answered tonelessly.
Soave frowned. “The singer? What for?”
Colin fell back weakly against the seat cushion. “We talked about what we always talked about-ending it.”
“And what did you decide?”
“Not a thing. Except that we couldn’t live without each other.”
“And she left your room at approximately five A.M.?”
“Yes, that’s right. I dozed for a while, then showered and dressed and went down to breakfast. That’s when I first heard the news about Takai’s Porsche. But it wasn’t until I dropped by my office to clear out some personal effects that I found out Mary Susan h-hadn’t come to work.”
“You knew about their affair?” Soave asked Greta.
She reached for her wine, gripping the glass tightly. “I did.”
“How did that go down with you?”
“It hurt,” Greta replied, her eyes glittering at Soave. “I am a human being, after all. But I’m also an adult. I accepted it.”
Des said, “Colin, I understand Babette Leanse has an issue with you involving another of your romances.”
“I would hardly call that a romance,” Colin said, shifting uneasily.
“Okay, what would you call it?”
“Sick, filthy porn,” he said bitterly. “Vile, sadomasochistic perversion. It was…” Colin halted a moment to grab hold of himself. “It was curiosity more than anything else, at first. Someone to talk to. Then it became much, much more intense than that. In fact, there was such a ferocity to my relationship with Mary Susan that I began to fear I was using her to push away my growing feelings for my cyber partner.”
“I realize I’m being personal here,” Des said, “but would you characterize yourself as bisexual?”
Colin glanced over at Greta, who gave him a slight nod. “My wife and I have not had a conventional marriage by most people’s standards. Both in terms of our respective ages and our… inclinations. We have each gone our separate ways from time to time. Wherever those ways took us.”
So maybe it hadn’t been her imagination, Des realized. Maybe Greta had been coming on to her yesterday at the gallery. “What can you tell us about your cyber partner, Colin?”
“Why is that important?” Greta demanded, padding over to the bar to pour herself more wine.
“Because we say it is,” Soave said. “Let us do our job, okay, counselor?”
“It’s okay, I don’t mind. His online name is Cutter,” Colin revealed, and proceeded to provide them with the name of the Internet service he’d met him on. It was a brand-name-commercial provider, one of those that allow members to employ a half dozen or more different online identities.
“And his real name?” Des asked him.
“We’ve never exchanged names,” Colin said. “I know him only as Cutter.”
“The two of you have never met face-to-face?”
“That’s correct, trooper.”
“Time-out here,” Soave broke in. “Are you telling us you’re sexually involved with some guy, and it may cost you your job, and you have no idea who the hell he is?”
“I never wanted to know,” Colin explained, coloring slightly. “The not-knowing part is what makes it so
