power of five thousand dollars. Her nail polish was the color of iron rust. Gently I said,
'Do you think your husband killed his first wife?'
'No!'
'Then what have you got to be afraid of?'
'I don't know.'
'When did you meet your husband, Mrs. Ettinger?'
She met my eyes, didn't answer.
'Before his wife was killed?' Her fingers kneaded her handbag.
'He went to college on Long Island.
You're younger than he is, but you could have known him then.'
'That was before he even knew her,' she said. 'Long before they were married. Then we happened to run into each other again after her death.'
'And you were afraid I'd find that out?'
'I-'
'You were seeing him before she died, weren't you?'
'You can't prove that.'
'Why would I have to prove it? Why would I even want to prove it?'
She opened the purse. Her fingers clumsy with the clasp but she got the bag open and took out a manila bank envelope. 'Five thousand dollars,' she said.
'Put it away.'
'Isn't it enough? It's a lot of money. Isn't five thousand dollars a lot of money for doing nothing?'
'It's too much. You didn't kill her, did you, Mrs. Ettinger?'
'Me?' She had trouble getting a grip on the question. 'Me? Of course not.'
'But you were glad when she died.'
'That's horrible,' she said. 'Don't say that.'
'You were having an affair with him. You wanted to marry him, and then she was killed. How could you help being glad?'
Her eyes were pitched over my shoulder, gazing off into the distance. Her voice was as remote as her gaze. She said, 'I didn't know she was pregnant. He said … he said he hadn't known that either. He told me they weren't sleeping together. Having sex, I mean. Of course they slept together, they shared a bed, but he said they weren't having sex. I believed him.'
The waitress was approaching to refill our coffee cups. I held up a hand to ward off the interruption.
Karen Ettinger said, 'He said she was carrying another man's child.
Because it couldn't have been his baby.'
'Is that what you told Charles London?'
'I never spoke to Mr. London.'
'Your husband did, though, didn't he? Is that what he told him? Is that what London was afraid would come out if I stayed on the case?'
Her voice was detached, remote. 'He said she was pregnant by another man. A black man. He said the baby would have been black.'
'That's what he told London.'
'Yes.'
'Had he ever told you that?'
'No. I think it was just something he made up to influence Mr.
London.' She looked at me, and her eyes showed me a little of the person hidden beneath the careful suburban exterior. 'Just like the rest of it was something he made up for my sake. It was probably his baby.'
'You don't think she was having an affair?'
'Maybe. Maybe she was. But she must have been sleeping with him, too. Or else she would have been careful not to get pregnant.
Women aren't stupid.' She blinked her eyes several times. 'Except about some things. Men always tell their girlfriends that they've stopped sleeping with their wives. And it's always a lie.'
'Do you think that-'
She rolled right over my question. 'He's probably telling her that he's not sleeping with me anymore,'
she said, her tone very matter-of-fact. 'And it's a lie.'
'Telling whom?'
