Look Closer(105)

Gavin leans forward. “You’re denying that you kept a diary all about your affair with Lauren?”

“I’m denying every part of that sentence. I don’t have a diary, Agent Crane. And if you know anything about me at all, you’d know that I would sooner drink cyanide than have an affair with Lauren Lemoyne. Or Betancourt, whatever.”

“That’s . . .” Gavin shakes his head. “That’s impossible.”

“If I have a diary,” I say, “show it to me.”

“That’s not how this works, Mr. Dobias.”

“Okay, well, someone must have written a bunch of words on a page. I suppose anybody could say anything, right? It doesn’t have to be true.”

Gavin sits back. He’s playing catch-up. He only knows what Christian told him, and Christian bought the whole routine hook, line, and sinker.

It’s almost humorous. This guy’s a con artist himself, in cahoots with a fellow swindler. And yet the possibility that someone swindled them seems beyond his capacity at the moment.

Here’s the problem. It’s a lot easier to fool someone than to convince someone they’ve been fooled.

“You were about to divorce your wife and leave her for Lauren,” says Gavin, though with a bit less conviction. He’s starting to realize the ice under his feet is a little thinner than he thought.

I let out a harsh chuckle and stare at him. “Are you kidding me?”

“You weren’t about to leave your wife?”

“This is ridiculous.”

“You’re not estranged from your wife right now?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know where you get your infor—”

“Then where has she been?” he snaps. “Where has your wife Vicky been since Halloween? Because we’ve been watching your house, Mr. Dobias. And since Halloween night, when both Lauren Betancourt and Christian Newsome were murdered, your wife, Vicky, hasn’t come home.”

“There’s a good reason for that,” I say.

“Yeah? And what’s the reason?”

I cup my hands around my mouth, as if to shout: “I don’t have a wife! I’m not married, and I never have been!”

? ? ?

This meeting is not going as well as Gavin had hoped. He puts a hand on the arm of the couch, as if for support. “Vicky Lanier,” he says, grasping, flailing.

“Vicky who?”

“Vicky . . . Lanier,” he says, almost as a plea.

“Never heard the name.”

“The woman who’s been living with you,” he says.

“Nobody has been living with me. Not someone named Vicky or anyone else. I’m a bachelor. I’ve never been married. Hell, I don’t even have a girlfriend.”

I used to. I love Vicky Tremont. I asked her to marry me once. She said no. I asked her a second time. She said no again. She broke things off, because she could see I wanted the whole thing—marriage, kids—and she couldn’t do it. Or at least not with me.

These last few months, stressful as they were plotting out all of this, were at least enjoyable in the sense that Vicky was staying with me. Always coming and going under darkness, using the rear alley garage and coming in under the shield of my privacy fence. But I loved having her here again. I wish she would stay forever. But what I was offering—commitment, love, devotion—was not enough for her.

“You’ve been married for ten years, Mr. Dobias. As of today, ten years.”

Poor Gavin. He’s still trying to keep his chin above water.

Ten years ago, I didn’t even know Vicky. I met her three years ago at Survivors of Suicide, not long after Vicky’s sister, Monica, overdosed on oxycodone. But yeah, Vicky told Christian about the ten-year anniversary. And I milked the hell out of it in the diary.

“We’ve seen a divorce petition,” he adds.

“Sounds like another fake, like the diary,” I say.

“We’ve seen a marriage certificate.”

“Probably another fake, Agent Crane. I mean, how hard would it be to fake a marriage certificate? Look me up, if you like. See if I’m registered with Cook County as married.”

“You don’t have to be registered with the county to be married,” he says. “Not if it’s a foreign marriage.” His eyes are beginning to water. Anger, probably.

“A foreign marriage certificate? Shit, that’d probably be even easier to fake.”

It was, actually. I just downloaded a blank form and edited it on PDF. Took me about half an hour. Vicky helped. She helped a lot with the diary, too, for that matter. Gave me some details from a woman’s perspective.

See, here’s the thing: If you’re a con artist like Christian, and someone like Vicky walks in with a wedding ring on her finger—my mother’s, by the way—and says she’s married to Simon Dobias, why on earth would Christian think she was lying? Who lies about something like that? He was spending so much time trying to con her, he didn’t realize he was the target all along.

“You have a . . . a trust,” Gavin stammers. “Over twenty million dollars.”

“That’s true,” I say, because it is.

The first time Gavin has found firm ground, gotten an answer he wanted and expected. But it’s a very small patch of ground.