“No, thank you. Please, I just want to know about my husband. I still can’t believe it, Mr. O’Hara. I keep thinking something’s wrong. That there’s been a mistake.”
He nodded sympathetically. “That’s a common reaction, to think it’s all a mistake.”
“Is it?”
“Denial. Everyone goes through it. That’s what you’re feeling now.”
“But you don’t ask every widow to your office, do you? There must be something different about Geoffrey.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “There is.”
He turned and swept up a file folder from his desk. After flipping through it, he pulled out a page covered with notes. The handwriting was an illegible scrawl; it had to be his writing, she thought. No one but the writer himself would ever be able to decipher it.
“After I called you, Mrs. Fontaine, I got in touch with our consulate in Berlin. What you said last night bothered me. Enough to make me recheck the facts.” His pause made her gaze up at him expectantly. She found two steady eyes, tired and troubled, watching her. “I talked to Wes Corrigan, our consul in Berlin. Here’s what he told me.” He glanced down at his notes. “Yesterday, about 8:00 p.m. Berlin time, a man named Geoffrey Fontaine checked into Hotel Regina. He paid with a traveler’s check. The signature matched. For identification he used his passport. About four hours later, at midnight, the fire department answered a call at the hotel. Your husband’s room was in flames. By the time they got it under control, the room was totally destroyed. The official explanation was that he’d fallen asleep while smoking in bed. Your husband, I’m afraid, was burned beyond recognition.”
“Then how can they be sure it was him?” Sarah blurted. Until that instant she’d been listening with growing despair. But Nick O’Hara had just introduced too many other possibilities. “Someone could have stolen his passport,” she pointed out.
“Mrs. Fontaine, let me finish.”
“But you just said they couldn’t even identify the body.”
“Let’s try and be logical, here.”
“I am being logical!”
“You’re being emotional. Look, it’s normal for widows to clutch at straws like this, but—”
“I’m not yet convinced I am a widow.”
He held up his hands in frustration. “Okay, okay, look at the evidence, then. The hard evidence. First, they found his briefcase in the room. It was aluminum, fire resistant.”
“Geoffrey never owned anything like that.”
“The contents survived the fire. Your husband’s passport was inside.”
“But—”
“Then there’s the coroner’s report. A Berlin pathologist briefly examined the body—what was left of it. While there weren’t any dental records for comparison, the body’s height was the same as your husband’s.”
“That doesn’t mean a thing.”
“Finally—”
“Mr. O’Hara—”
“Finally,” he said with sudden force, “we have one last bit of evidence, something found on the body itself. I’m sorry, Mrs. Fontaine, but I think it’ll convince you.”
All at once she wanted to clap her hands over her ears, to shout at him to stop. Until now she’d withstood the evidence. But she couldn’t listen any longer. She couldn’t stand having all her hopes collapse.
“It was a wedding ring. The inscription was still readable. Sarah. 2-14.” He looked up from his notes. “That is your wedding date, isn’t it?”
Everything blurred as her eyes filled with tears. In silence she bowed her head. The glasses slipped off her nose and fell to her lap. Blindly she hunted in her purse for a tissue, only to find that Nick O’Hara had somehow produced a whole box of Kleenex out of thin air.
“Take what you need,” he said softly.
He watched as she wiped away her tears and tried, somehow, to blow her nose gracefully. Under his scrutiny she felt so clumsy and stupid. Even her fingers refused to work properly. Her glasses slid from her lap to the floor. Her purse wouldn’t snap shut. Desperate to leave, she fumbled for her things and rose from the chair.
“Please, Mrs. Fontaine, sit down. I’m not quite finished,” he said.
As if she were an obedient child, Sarah returned to her seat and stared at the floor. “If it’s about the burial arrangements…”
“No, you can take care of that later, after we fly the body back. There’s something else I need to ask you. It’s about your husband’s trip. Why was he in Europe?”
“Business.”
“What kind of business?”
“He was a—a representative for the Bank of London.”
“So he traveled a lot?”
“Yes. Every month or so he was in London.”
“Only London?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me why he was in Germany, Mrs. Fontaine.”
“I don’t know.”
“You must have an idea.”
“I don’t know.”
“Was it his habit not to tell you where he was going?”
“No.”
“Then why was he in Germany? There must have been a reason. Other business, perhaps? Other…”
She looked up sharply. “Other women? That’s what you want to ask, isn’t it?”
He didn’t answer.
“Isn’t it?”
“It’s a reasonable suspicion.”
“Not about Geoffrey!”
“About anyone.” His eyes met hers head-on. She refused to turn away. “You were married a total of two months,” he said. “How well did you know your husband?”
“Know him? I loved him, Mr. O’Hara.”
“I’m not talking about love, whatever that means. I’m asking how well you knew the man. Who he was, what he did. How long ago did you meet?”
“It was…I guess six months ago. I met him at a coffee shop, near where I work.”
“Where do you work?”
“NIH. I’m a research microbiologist.”
His eyes narrowed. “What kind of research?”
“Bacterial genomes…. We splice DNA…. Why are you asking these questions?”
“Is it classified research?”
“I still don’t understand why—”
“Is it classified, Mrs. Fontaine?”
She stared at him, shocked into silence by the sharp tone of his voice. Softly she said, “Yes. Some of it.”
He nodded and pulled another sheet from the folder. Calmly he continued. “I had Mr. Corrigan in Berlin check your husband’s passport. Whenever you fly into a new country, a page is stamped with an entry date. Your husband’s passport had several stamps. London. Schiphol, near Amsterdam. And last, Berlin. All were dated within the last week. Any explanation why he’d visit those particular cities?”
She shook her head, bewildered.