Rachel Alexander 09 - Without a Word

standing suddenly, brushing some hair off her face, picking up the tray and heading for her kitchen, letting me know the interview was over.
    I got up and followed her.
    “Well?” I said.
    “Why is that your business?” she demanded, the delicate skin of her face flushed, as if she’d just climbed all those stairs, her daughter pulling on one hand, a heavy bag from D’Agostino’s in the other.
    “You have no right,” she said, her small, thin body visibly trembling. “It was between us. We weren’t hurting anyone else.”
    “Is that right?”
    No answer.
    “Not your ex-husband? Not Mrs. Bechman? Not your daughter?”
    “What happened between Charles and me, that’s over. That’s ancient history. And Mrs. Bechman didn’t know.”
    “Which makes it okay?”
    “Look,” she said, getting angry now, “we didn’t plan this. What happened happened and we were making the best of it, doing what was best for JoAnn and . . .“ She took a big breath, let it out. “And none of this is any of your business.” Her back was to the counter. There was nowhere to go, and she knew it. There was nowhere to go in another way, too, because if I didn’t get the answers I wanted from her, she knew I’d get them some other way, and that whatever that other way was, it would be worse, it would be public. Who was she protecting at this point? Her lover’s reputation, his widow, her daughter? And if she was protecting JoAnn, who was protecting Madison?
    “It is my business,” I said quietly, nearly whispering it. “I’m here to speak for a little girl who’s accused of murder and who refuses to speak for herself.”
    “What does one thing have to do with another?” she asked.
    “That’s one of the things I have to find out, don’t I? So what was it, all told, five thousand a month? What about health insurance? He couldn’t still carry you at the office, could he, not with two partners looking at the books? So how did he do it? With health insurance,” I shook my head, contemplating the late doctor’s monthly nut, “it would have been a considerable amount.”
    “He was a consultant,” she said. “It’s no big deal, it’s done all the time, except. . .“ Her eyes were wide now, and I could smell her fear.
    “Except?”
    Dashiell had gotten up when I did. He put his paws up on the sink now, asking for water.
    “Well, it was separate from his practice, of course,” shrugging, playing the little woman who didn’t fully understand her man’s business now. “It was hard, you know, putting in extra hours, but he had to do something so that he could . . .“ Her hand made a small circle and then dropped to her side.
    “Afford to take care of you?” I asked.
    There was a bowl in the drainer. I filled it with cold water without asking and put it down on the blue vinyl tile kitchen floor for Dash, waiting for him to drink before continuing, wanting to make sure Celia heard every word.
    “And this additional work he took on,” I said, “it paid him in cash?”
    Celia frowned.
    “It was off the books?”
    “I, well, I guess so. It would have had to have been. It would have been awkward if it showed up on his taxes.”
    “Very.”
    “I know what you’re thinking. I worried about it, too. Doctors’ incomes are scrutinized so carefully by the IRS, but he said it was safe and it wasn’t all that much money.” She bent and picked up the empty bowl, placing it in the sink. “He didn’t want to hurt her. He didn’t want to hurt his sons. It wasn’t the way you think it was. He wasn’t a bad person.”
    I lifted one hand, let it drop. “What else could he do? What other choice did he have?”
    “Exactly,” she said, so happy I understood their situation at last.
    Celia smiled. I smiled back.
    “And who was it he did this consulting work for,” I asked, “to keep you and JoAnn in groceries?”
    “Drug companies,” she said, her voice even lower than mine had been.
    “Drug companies?”
    “For their advertising divisions. They do these focus groups, you know, asking people questions about new drugs they want to market, and they need experts to lead them. They pay very well.“
    “What sort of questions?” wondering why they needed a doctor to ask them. Were they technical questions perhaps?
    “For instance,” Celia said, “he’d ask them if they’d be more likely to choose a pill that was pink or one that was blue.”
    “I see.”
    “And he’d ask them about the wording of the