Cursorily glancing behind him, she nodded. “I tend not to notice it much anymore. It never changes, you know. But, please.” She stepped back and pulled the door with her. “Do come in.”
They sat on matching chairs with a table between them. The table held a plate of chocolate chip cookies, a floral pitcher of water, a coffeepot, sugar and cream, two cups and saucers, and two glasses.
Ellen was very nearly beautiful, obviously fit, and exquisitely turned out. Here in the midafternoon, she wore a demure, dark brown, tailored evening dress. Not a perfectly dyed reddish-brown hair on her head was out of place. Hunt thought it was possible that she’d had a face- lift and maybe other cosmetic surgery, particularly around the eyes, but if so, the work was all but undetectable. He noticed her hands-usually a giveaway of age-and they were smooth and graceful-looking. She might equally have been thirty-five or forty-five and, at whatever age, a product of wealth and breeding.
“Before we get started,” Hunt began, “I wanted to express my condolences to you. I realize that this must be an incredibly difficult time, and if at any point you don’t feel up to talking…”
She acknowledged him with a small nod, a tiny lift of her cheekbones that might have been an attempt at a smile. “Thank you, but I asked you here, if you recall. I’m very grateful to you for coming out.”
“Of course. So how can I help you?”
She gathered herself, drew in a breath, folded her hands together on her lap. Her shapely legs were crossed at the ankles under her chair. “You said you’d be looking into tips you got from people who might want to claim part or all of the reward?”
“Right.”
“Well, I thought to do that efficiently you might need to have background on Dominic, on what he was involved in, who he was involved with.”
Hunt decided to come out with it right away. “Are you talking about Alicia Thorpe?” He’d already gotten the report from Mickey that Ellen had sent Juhle and Russo to talk to Alicia, to consider her a suspect.
Ellen Como narrowed her eyes, perhaps surprised by the question. “I mentioned her to the police,” she said, “and they didn’t seem too interested. They seemed more concerned with where I was, my so-called alibi.”
Hunt was canted forward on the chair, comfortable. “They did go and interview her,” he said. “I think the problem is that they don’t have any physical evidence yet. The murder weapon, anything like that.”
“So you’ve been talking to them too? The police?”
Hunt gave her what he hoped was a reassuring look. “Last time, just about three hours ago. We’re in pretty close communication.”
“When you saw them, did they mention that girl?”
“As a matter of fact, they did. I think they’re considering her a person of interest at this time, but as I say, since there’s no actual evidence…”
Her eyes flashed in sudden anger. “What do they need? There’s plenty of evidence that she and my husband… I told them this, but they won’t do anything.”
“I’m sure they would if they could, ma’am. They’re under a lot of pressure to make an arrest soon. If they get something on anybody, they’ll move quickly on it.”
She now came forward herself. “Listen to me. I’m telling you for an absolute fact that my husband was infatuated with that girl. He told me so himself. He thought it was only fair that I should know.” She coughed out a bitter laugh. “He said they hadn’t done anything, if you want to believe that. Lorraine Hess as much as told me that she caught them in flagrante in the office. And she said it wasn’t the first time. As if that mattered. He said he was ‘just kind of in love with her,’ whereas he loved me. That was the real thing, where with her it was just something he was going through, he was sure he’d get over it, but he wanted me to know. He wanted to be honest, whatever that meant. It was all so civilized. He didn’t want to hurt our marriage.”
“So what did you do when he told you that?”
“What did I do? I didn’t do anything for a while. I was just numb. Here was my husband of thirty-two years telling me he was in love with another woman, but somehow that didn’t mean he didn’t love me too. Or even more. So for a couple of weeks, I think I just sleepwalked around the house, trying to understand.” She let out a long breath and straightened up with her back against her chair. “Then I came to my senses and told him that I just couldn’t take this any longer, that he had to fire her.”
“When was this?”
“I’m not sure exactly. Not the exact day. But recently, anyway. In the last week before he… he disappeared.”
“And what did he say to that? Your demand that he fire her?”
“He said he didn’t know if he could. It wouldn’t be fair to her.” Suddenly, she slapped her palm down on her lap, and again, and again. “Fair, fair, fair. As if what he was doing to me was fair. All that talk of fair, it made me sick. Literally sick. He didn’t know if he could. Can you imagine?”
Hunt could only nod.
“He kept saying that because they weren’t doing anything, and by that he meant having sex, that he was still faithful to me, that he wasn’t cheating. But I didn’t even know what he meant by having sex. I mean, since Clinton, who knows what that means anymore? Maybe they were doing everything but…” She blew out heavily. “Oh, listen to me. It doesn’t matter what they were doing. He was in love with her. That was the important thing.”
Hunt gave her a few seconds to get herself under control. Then he spoke quietly. “So what finally happened? How did you leave it?”
Her head nodded several times. “Last weekend, his last weekend, I mean, I told him I was kicking him out if he didn’t fire her. That was it. I couldn’t take it anymore. We had a terrific fight.”
“And?”
“And he agreed.”
“He agreed to fire Alicia?”
“Yes. I told him it was me or her, and for once he made the right decision.”
“And this was just before he went missing?”
Another nod. “A day or two before.”
Hunt mulled this over for a moment, then raised his eyes to meet hers. “Ellen, did you tell all this to the police?”
She hesitated. “Not all of it,” she said, then went on. “They made it clear they thought it might have been me who killed him. They wanted to know what I had done the night… the Tuesday night. They kept going on about was I sure what I’d done and what time I’d gone to sleep, and why didn’t I report him missing until the next day.” She sighed. “Anyway, it was just clear to me that they thought it must be the spouse, it was always the spouse. They weren’t going to look too closely at the Thorpe girl, no matter what I said, they already thought it was me. But then I got to thinking that maybe I didn’t tell them what they’d need if they talked to her. I was just mad, and not thinking too clearly, since they’d only just told me they’d found Dominic.”
Hunt paused again. “So did he, in fact, fire her?”
“Yes.” She tightened her lips. “On that Tuesday, he called me at home to tell me specifically that he had told her it was over. She was done working for him.” She gathered herself, drew herself up. “Then I’ll tell you what happened. Then she met with him that night to beg to get her job back, and he told her he couldn’t give it to her, and she went into a rage and killed him.”
Hunt let out a breath. This was a compelling and believable enough scenario. Unfortunately for Ellen, there was an equally compelling argument to be made that everything had been exactly as she had described it except for Dominic actually firing Alicia. Instead, perhaps Ellen had followed him to the Palace of Fine Arts, and heard him tell Alicia he was leaving his wife to be with her. If it was going to be either Alicia or Ellen, Como might have said, it would be Alicia. And so by the time Alicia left, Ellen had worked up enough of her own jealous rage to kill him herself.