Think Twice

Ben gave a firm nod. “Lou.”

“Lou Himble, Cecelia’s husband?”

“They were separated. Cecelia hated him. You know what he did, right?”

“Some kind of Ponzi scheme.”

“Like Madoff. Not that big. Lou isn’t that heavy a hitter. But yeah, he stole a lot of people’s money. The feds wanted Cecelia to testify against him. She agreed right away. Didn’t ask for immunity because she knew she was innocent. She just wanted to do the right thing. Then suddenly, poof, Cecelia ends up dead.” He shrugged. “So you tell me.”

“Sounds like you were in regular touch with Cecelia.”

“We were still close. You married?”

Myron shifted his feet. “Yes.”

“A long time?”

“No,” Myron said. “It’s new.”

“I bet she’s pretty.”

“She is.”

“But I hope she’s not” — Ben Staples made quote marks with his fingers — “‘a supermodel.’ That’s what they called my wife. Not a model. A supermodel. Like she was in the Avengers.” He smiled. “Anyway, don’t marry one. It’s a mess in so many ways. She walks in a room, she knows everyone’s looking at her. Judging her. Hoping her looks will be a disappointment so they can say, ‘I don’t get what the big fuss is about.’ Supermodels worry about aging all the time. Everyone hits on them. Even your closest friends.”

“Did Greg?” Myron asked.

“Probably. I don’t know. Everybody wanted to screw my wife. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that was a high too. I had what everybody else wanted. You know what I mean?”

Myron gave a small nod.

“But I was so naïve, so overconfident.”

“In what way?”

“You have a wife like that, you can’t even trust your friends. But I did. Cecelia was the ultimate notch on the belt. I loved her. I really did. But did I like the jealous stares from other guys? Who wouldn’t? I thought it didn’t matter. No way she’d give in to that. But now, after what happened to us, I was just so dumb. Now it all seems so...”

Ben Staples turned his attention to the pile of dirt on the right now. “Clay wasn’t my son, you know. Cecelia confessed that to me right away. Didn’t pretend otherwise. It was the worst day of my life. We’re married, I’m a naïve happy dope, she comes in, she sits me down, she takes my hand, she tells me she’s pregnant and it’s not mine. Just like that.”

Ben Staples swallowed, looked away. A bird started cawing. A car drove by with its windows open, blasting something with a heavy Latin beat.

“That must have been awful,” Myron said, knowing the words were inadequate, but again what else can you say? Then as gently as he could: “Did Cecelia tell you who the father was?”

“No.”

“Never?”

He shook his head. “And I never let the public know Clay wasn’t mine. He was a good kid. We had a nice relationship. Not father-son obviously. But I wasn’t just his mother’s ex either.”

“Did Clay know who his father was?”

“Not until years later. It’s complicated.”

Myron waited.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,” Ben Staples said.

“They were murdered. I want to find out who killed them.”

“You’re not a cop.”

“No.”

“But I asked some friends,” Staples said. “They told me you’re good at this — that you’re on the side of the righteous.”

“I try,” Myron said. “You were saying something about Clay finding out about his father?”

“Cecelia didn’t want him to know. She said it wasn’t relevant. But when Clay was old enough, he put his DNA into a few of those genealogy databases.”

“And he matched with his father?”

“It wasn’t that simple. I don’t know the details. Clay found a first cousin. He talked to them. He sought out relatives in that cousin’s circle. Process of elimination. Or maybe once Clay got close, Cecelia told him. She didn’t want him knocking on the guy’s door.”

“Did Clay knock on the guy’s door?”

“I don’t know. It seemed to me once Clay found out, he let it go. But I don’t know.”

“Was your divorce with Cecelia amicable?”

He turned to Myron. “Do you think—?”

“No, not at all. This is about Greg. I heard that Greg seemed upset about the divorce. Did you notice that at all?”

He thought about it. “Now that you mention it, yeah. Greg trashed Cecelia a bit. But he wasn’t alone. To the world, she got pregnant with another man and dumped me. That’s what everyone saw. Hell, that’s what happened, when you think about it.”

“Ben?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t know how to ask a lot of this delicately, so I’m just going to dive in, okay?”

He nodded. “Part of the reason I agreed to see you.”

“I’m not following.”

“I figure you are here because you know more than you’re saying,” Ben explained. “So here’s the deal: You want to learn from me — and I want to learn from you. So go ahead. Don’t pull punches.”

Fair enough, Myron thought. Then: “Was your wife acting differently before she asked for the divorce?”

“Yes.”

“How so?”

“She was moody, withdrawn. Depressed, really. I wanted her to see someone. She wouldn’t. I think she was taking pills a friend got for her.”

“When was this exactly?”

“A month, maybe two before she told me she was pregnant. Hard to remember. But if an affair is supposed to lift a woman’s spirits, this was doing the opposite. It seemed to be crushing her.”