The Perfect Marriage(64)

This was also the first time he’d been in the unfortunate position of talking to his lawyer while incarcerated.

“I’m sorry, Reid,” Weitzen said. “I can’t push up the arraignment date. By law, they can hold you for forty-eight hours. I think they want to squeeze you a bit on the Sommers murder.”

“I don’t know anything about the murder,” Reid said.

Weitzen showed no emotion. Reid knew he didn’t care one way or the other about whether his client was a murderer, a money launderer, or an art thief.

“I hear you. The good news is that you’ll get bail when we get before the judge. The bad news is that they think you do know something about the murder, and that means you’re inside for two more days.”

“What if I give them my DNA? Will that give us some leverage with them to push up the bail hearing?”

Weitzen considered this for a moment in his lawyerly way. “It can’t hurt,” he finally said. Then he caught himself. “Are you absolutely certain that your blood isn’t going to be a match?”

Reid looked at him. “I’m not stupid, Steve. I wouldn’t be suggesting this if I had actually murdered the guy. My DNA will be at his office because I was there. But that’s not a secret at this point. I don’t know what they’re looking for with my DNA, but it’s not going to show I killed James because I didn’t.”



Jessica had been told that once she invoked her right to counsel, the police wouldn’t bother her anymore. Yet there they were, standing on the other side of her front door.

Even before she could tell them to leave, Lieutenant Velasquez said, “We have some news about the woman who was doing the art deal with your husband. The woman named Allison.”

She considered telling Lieutenant Velasquez that she didn’t care anymore, just like she’d said the other day. But that hadn’t been true then, and it wasn’t true now.

She opened the door. No harm in simply listening, she figured.

“Okay. So tell me about Allison.”

“It turns out Allison is Allison Lashley. She’s an FBI agent.”

If they had said Allison was Bigfoot, Jessica would have been no less surprised. “Why was an FBI agent involved in selling art?”

Detective Jamali smiled at Jessica’s mistake. “She was working undercover. The FBI was investigating stolen art. The pieces that your husband was selling with Reid Warwick—the Pollocks—were stolen.”

When Jessica finally made sense of what the detective was telling her, her sole takeaway was that James hadn’t been unfaithful. Of course he hadn’t. She was annoyed with herself for ever doubting him and hoped that, wherever he was right now, he forgave her.

“Did you hear what I just said, Mrs. Sommers? Your husband was trafficking in stolen art.”

Instinctively, Jessica wanted to defend James; then she remembered that he didn’t need her help. He had the best defense possible—he was dead.



Wayne looked forward to seeing Jessica when he arrived at the hospital. He was hoping that she might agree to have dinner tonight. She’d declined his offer the previous night, and he thought she was working on an every-other-night pattern.

Much to his disappointment, however, she was not in the waiting area when he got there. He assumed that he’d find her with Owen, yet when he entered his son’s room, he saw that was not the case. Wayne’s spirits were nonetheless lifted by the fact that Owen was awake, which was not a common occurrence. In fact, Owen seemed to be on some type of sleep cycle that made 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. the middle of the night.

“So how are you today? Scale of one to ten.”

Wayne had read that this question was a good way to get information about Owen’s health. Asking “How are you?” was invariably met with “fine,” whether Owen was or not. At least a numerical evaluation gave Wayne a way to measure Owen’s progress.

“What was I yesterday?”

“Two, but almost three.”

“Holding steady, then.”

“I’ll take that.”

“Good, because that’s what I’m giving you.”

“You know, now that your mom isn’t here, and you’re lucid during one of my visits, I thought maybe we could talk about something.”

Wayne stopped, gauging Owen for some sign that he was receptive to the idea. As usual, his son provided little visual evidence of his thoughts.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Wayne said with a smile. “One of the things about being a teenager, if I remember, and I think I do, is that you pretty much have the perspective about life that you’re always going to have. Of course, it’ll change a little bit; the importance of certain things will grow or decrease. You won’t be as passionate about playing video games, for example. But who you are, how you feel about people . . . you already have a clear sense of that. Even though, as far as I know at least, you’ve never been in love, I suspect you have some sense about what that’s going to feel like.”

Another pause. The same blank stare from his son.

“But the one thing you don’t know, which you can’t know, is what it’s like to have a child. It utterly transforms you, in a way that nothing else ever could. And that’s not hyperbole, O. It’s the truth. We humans are hardwired in certain ways. As a biology teacher, I can speak with some authority about this. There is a biological imperative for survival. So much of what we do is to protect ourselves from pain or death. You with me so far?”