The Couple Next Door(49)

Anne smiles for the first time in the interview, but it’s a bitter smile.

“I have, however, spoken to one of your old schoolmates. A Janice Foegle.”

Anne goes completely still, like an animal in the wild sensing a predator. Then she stands up abruptly, her chair scraping the floor behind her, taking Rasbach and Jennings by surprise. “I have nothing more to say,” she tells them.

Anne joins Marco in the lobby. Marco notices her distress, and puts his arm protectively around her. Anne can feel Rasbach’s eyes on them, watching as they leave. She says nothing as she and Marco walk out of the station. Once they’re on the street and hailing a cab, she says, “I think it’s time we got a lawyer.”

? ? ?

Rasbach is putting pressure on them, and it doesn’t look as if he’s going to let up. It has come to the point that even though they haven’t been charged, they know they’re being treated like suspects.

Marco is anxious about what happened in the interview between Anne and Detective Rasbach. There was panic in her eyes when she came out. Something in that interview had rattled her enough to make her want to get a lawyer as soon as possible. He tried to find out what it was, but she was vague, evasive. What is she not telling him? It’s putting him even more on edge.

When they arrive home and have fought their way past the reporters into the house, Anne suggests they invite her parents over to discuss hiring a lawyer.

“Why do we need to have your parents over?” Marco says. “We can find a lawyer without their help.”

“A good lawyer will expect a hefty retainer,” Anne points out. Marco shrugs, and she calls her parents.

Richard and Alice arrive soon after. It comes as no great surprise that they’ve already been looking into the best lawyers money can buy.

“I’m sorry it’s come to this, Anne,” her father says.

They are sitting around the kitchen table, the early-afternoon sunlight slanting through the kitchen window and falling across the wooden table. Anne has made a pot of coffee.

“We think it’s a good idea to get a lawyer, too,” Alice says. “You can’t trust the police.”

Anne looks at her. “Why didn’t you tell me they had you in for questioning this morning?”

“There was no need, and I didn’t want to worry you,” Alice says, reaching out and patting Anne’s hand. “All I told them was my name, and that I had nothing to say. I’m not going to let them push me around,” she says. “I was only in there for about five minutes.”

“They questioned me, too,” Richard says. “They didn’t get anything from me either.” He turns his eyes on Marco. “I mean, what can I possibly tell them?”

Marco feels a jolt of fear. He doesn’t trust Richard. But would Richard say anything to the police to stab him in the back?

Richard tells Anne, “They haven’t charged you with anything, and I don’t think they will—I don’t see how they can. But I agree with your mother—if you’re represented by a top defense lawyer, maybe they’ll stop pushing you around and calling you in for questioning all the time and start focusing on who really took Cora.”

Throughout this entire meeting at the kitchen table, Richard has been colder than usual to Marco. Richard barely looks at him. They have all noticed it. No one has made more careful note of it than Marco. How stoic he’s being, Marco thinks, about my losing their five million dollars. He hasn’t mentioned it once. He doesn’t have to. But Marco knows what Richard is thinking: My useless son-in-law screwed up again. Marco imagines Richard sitting around in the lounge at the country club, drinking expensive liquor, telling his rich friends all about it. About what a fuckup his son-in-law is. How Richard has lost his beloved only grandchild and five million of his hard-earned dollars, all because of Marco. And what’s worse, Marco knows that this time it’s true.

“In fact,” Richard says, “we’ve taken the liberty of putting one on retainer, as of this morning.”

“Who?” Anne asks.

“Aubrey West.”

Marco looks up, clearly unhappy. “Really?”

“He’s one of the best goddamned criminal lawyers in the country,” Richard says, his voice rising a notch. “And we’re paying. Do you have a problem with that?”

Anne is looking at Marco, pleading with him silently to let it go, to accept the gift.

“Maybe,” Marco says.

“What’s wrong with having the best lawyer we can get?” Anne asks. “Don’t worry about the money, Marco.”

Marco says, “It’s not the expense I’m worried about. It just looks like overkill to me. Like we’re guilty and we need a lawyer who’s famous for big, high-profile murder cases. Doesn’t that lump us in with his other clients? Make us look bad?”

There’s silence around the table as they consider this. Anne looks worried. She hadn’t thought of it that way.

“He gets a lot of guilty people off—so what? That’s his job,” Richard counters.

“What do you mean by that?” Marco says, slightly menacing. Anne looks like she’s going to be sick. “Do you think we did this?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Richard says, reddening. “I’m just being practical here. You might as well avail yourself of the best lawyer you can get. The police aren’t doing you any favors.”