Rebecca Schwartz 05 - Other People's Skeletons

‘Dr. Perlmutter.’ You don’t s’pose we had a l’il ol’ failyah of communication, do you?”
    “Oh, go to lunch.” I called Carolyn back, told the damn receptionist I had a lump, and made an appointment.
    I was fifteen minutes late meeting Mickey as a result. No problem— she didn’t turn up for another five.
    I handed her a tuna sandwich and didn’t even let her get it unwrapped. “So let’s have it. Kruzick’s cheating on you, isn’t he?”
    “No. It’s nothing to do with Alan. Exactly.”
    “Well, what then?”
    “I’m the one who’s having an affair.”
    “You! But, Mickey—” I couldn’t say what came to mind: My baby sister is an angel; she doesn’t do things like that.
    “I’m pond scum, right?”
    “Of course not. But what’s going on?”
    “It’s a friend of Alan’s. A guy from the theater. He’s married and has three kids. The youngest is eight months old.”
    “Gosh.” That was the best I could do. I was as close to speechless as I get.
    “Pretty bad, huh?”
    “Um. May I be perfectly honest? Not good. But like I said— what’s going on?”
    “I don’t know.” The words came out in a whisper. She said it again: “I don’t know. I think I’m in love with two people at once.”
    “You’re in love with this guy?” I was so surprised I practically shouted it.
    Her eyes filled up. “You don’t know. You just don’t know how awful it is.”
    “I guess I don’t. How is it awful?”
    “Oh God, the guilt. And being jealous of his wife and children. And never seeing him enough. And knowing I’d die if Alan found out … You just don’t know!”
    The solution seemed simple enough to one who wasn’t in the middle of it. The question was whether to mention it. I tried to make a delicate little joke of it: “Well. Usually one man…”
    “Oh, stop! Rebecca, you just can’t know what this is like.”
    “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to moralize.”
    “It’s okay.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “I don’t know. Oh God, how could I have not mentioned the indecision? That’s the worst part.”
    “Is it a question of leaving Alan and being with this man?”
    “Sometimes I think so, and sometimes it just seems preposterous. I don’t know anything anymore.”
    I wasn’t used to my little sister as a drama queen. She was usually so sensible— unless you counted the astonishing lapse of judgment that had prompted her to pick Kruzick. I found I wasn’t crazy about being a party to this thing, either— it seemed wildly self-destructive, not to mention unfair to the man’s family. I had a thing about married men who had affairs— meaning I found them beneath contempt. I didn’t at all know how to deal with this. But then, what else was new this week?
    I told Mickey things like I was there for her and to let me know if there was anything I could do (as if someone had died) and didn’t even mention The Thing.
    On the whole I was glad we’d decided on lunch outside. I needed the walk back to clear my head. I thought about consulting an astrologer— surely the stars must be causing all the chaos; it seemed impossible that mere human beings could be responsible.
    Chris came in, calling first to make sure Curry and Martinez weren’t around, and between the two of us we made the place look a lot like a law office for a few hours.
    Rob turned up around three. “I spent the day checking out Tommy La Barre. Bad news: he was at the restaurant at eight-thirty the night of the murder. Eight-thirty and all night. Two nights a week he acts as maitre d’ himself, and that was one of them. The night was one of the busiest they’ve had lately, and he was hopping every second— no way in hell he could have slipped out and done the deed.”
    “A guy like Tommy La Barre could have hired somebody,” said Chris.
    “I’ve been thinking about his giving us Elena’s card. We know McKendrick saw Tami, right? But that doesn’t prove he didn’t also have a scene in one of Tommy’s party rooms. Tommy could have done it to distract us. Rob, listen— is this possible? Maybe McKendrick was just pretending to be friends with La Barre; maybe the whole point was to get a story.”
    Rob shook his head. “He’d have had to work with an editor on it— and that person would have put two and two together by now and mentioned it. But the other part of the theory’s still good— let’s don’t count him out. Meanwhile, I don’t know what to do about the Sean thing; I