Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 51, No. 6, June 2006

The Other Woman by Rob Kantner

To enter the exercise room, you needed a guest key. I was no guest — just a trespasser. Luckily, a withered grayhair, flushed and dripping, picked that instant to exit. He even held the door for me.

Inside, a young man in red shorts and white wife-beater tee lay on a mat, worshiping in the wall-to-wall mirrors the sight of his tanned hairy self doing odd things with iron dumbbells. Back in the corner was Micki Quick. Micheline A. Quick, that is: J.D., MBA, LL.M., doing eight mph headed nowhere. She waved me over. “Thanks for stopping by,” she said, puffing air as she bounced on her short, bare, flawless legs along the whirring treadmill belt.

“Heck, I live practically next door,” I exaggerated. Belleville is in fact two towns down 94 from Ann Arbor. Micki’s call had come just as I was turning my guys loose on the day’s tasks. “You stayed here overnight?”

She nodded. Micki was in her early thirties, short and slight, with gleaming close-clipped blond hair and a peaches-and-cream complexion. “Doing a seminar,” she said, with what air she could muster as she pounded away, at once in flight and stationary, sneakers doing the whap-whap-whap on the rubber belt. “Too far to drive from home.”

That’s right, she lived in Washington Township, on the way opposite side of the city of Detroit. I heard the dumbbells clank, and the young man left the room. Micki hit some buttons on the treadmill console. It slowed down to a brisk walking pace that she seemed relieved to adopt, pacing along smartly, bare arms swinging. She wore snug charcoal shorts with white piping and a matching V-neck sleeveless racerback. With all the mirrors in there, every available angle offered an eyeful. I kept my thoughts pure, my gaze from lingering. She was way too young, way too spoken for, and — just as important — a regular client.

“This isn’t exactly a case,” she said.

“Okay.” I wished I’d brought coffee with me. I hadn’t had my morning gallon yet.

“I’m litigating a wrongful death matter,” she said. “My client’s husband was killed in an industrial accident.”

“Ouch.”

“Crushed in a twenty-thousand-ton hydraulic press.”

“Sorry to hear.” We’d had such behemoths at Ford’s, way back when. The image sickened me. I eyed Micki. “And the widow wants her dough.”

Micki glanced at me. “What she wants,” she said evenly, “is justice.”

“In the form of large amounts of legal tender.”

“That’s the mode by which people extract justice from corporations that are negligent.”

“Okay.” I wasn’t getting into it with her. But I’ve found that when they say it’s not about the money, it’s about the money. “How can I help?”

“I remember you saying once... didn’t you used to do work for Coyne Cose?”

“Long time ago, when the old man ran it.”

“I miss Arnie,” she smiled, and shot me a look. “I heard you and Arnie Junior didn’t bring out the best in each other.”

“Ted. He insists on being called Ted. You know his TV jingle? ‘Call Ted Instead’?”

“To which of your traits did he object?” Micki asked with a puckish smile. “Your irreverence, your investigatorial exuberance, or your abrupt and alarming attacks of ethics?”

“Let’s just say, we went our separate ways.”

“So who replaced you?”

“Huh?”

“Who handles their investigations now?”

“Last I heard, uh... Del Laing.”

“You know him?”

I shrugged. “Seen him around.”

She hit the stop button and stepped off the treadmill. I handed her a towel. “Excellent,” she smiled, patting her dampish blond hair.

“Why?”

“Well. In my wrongful death matter, Coyne Cose represents the employer. Stone Automotive.”

Ah yes. Deep pockets. “And?”

“And, I’ve picked up rumors that the defense will allege that the victim, at the time of his death, was having an extramarital affair.”

“Um,” I fumbled, “I’m no lawyer — and my degree is from Hard Knocks U. But say they prove the victim was stepping out. How does that help their defense?”

“An element in calculating damages is loss of consortium for the wife, who is my client. She lost the companionship and comfort of her husband,” Micki said delicately. She led me toward the exercise room door. In the floor-to-ceiling mirrors we presented quite a contrast: The rosy, slight, almost elfin attorney in shorts, and the taller, darker, broad-shouldered hombre wearing polo shirt and jeans, and a weathered, battered, quizzical look — a poster boy for Huh? “If the defense can show that the husband was, uh—”

“Doin’ the comfort thing elsewhere?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes. Whatever. If they can prove that, it could significantly mitigate damages.”

“Meaning less dough for the widow,” I translated.

“Precisely.”

“Not that it’s about the dough.”

She tossed the towel into a hamper, raised a hand, flattened the other, miming an oath on an invisible Bible. “She’s that one-in-a-million instance where it’s absolutely true, Ben.”

“Okay. So what do you need from me?”

“Well, Coyne Cose uses Del Laing for investigations. And you know Del Laing. So it stands to reason that you might perhaps—”

“Reach out to him?”

“Yes. And dig up — if you can — details about this alleged affair.”

“Details.”

“Just get me the identity of the other woman. So we can be prepared for whatever they throw at us.”

“Okay. Can I ask another question?”

“Of course.”

“What does the widow say about the, uh, affair rumor?”

“Quote ‘not in a million billion years would he do that to me,’ unquote.”

Another rarity, I thought.

Micki eyed me. “How about it?”

In most situations like this my answer would have been sorry, no. But Micki was a client, and one of the better ones. And I liked her. So what if she hung her hat in collegial, high-cotton Oakland County? She worked and won cases in smash-mouth Wayne County too — native good cheer and dewy looks notwithstanding — sticking up for people without means, clout, or friends. My kind of folks. Micki believed the widow was acting more on principle than on greed. She also believed that the late husband, having been unjustly killed, was now having his reputation trashed. And that was good enough for me.

Plus which, I did know Del Laing.

Well enough to know that timing things right was the key to having my way with him. He was rather predictable, you see.

And sure enough, I found him when expected — three P.M. — as well as where — Jugg’s Astro Lanes down in Ecorse, not far from the Detroit and Shoreline Railroad tracks. He occupied the same corner black leatherette booth, smoked the same Tareytons, and drank the same Stroh’s Dark that I remembered. Judging from the empties, he was just finishing his third. And, as I also recalled, he was more than happy to accept a free refill. By five or six, I figured, he’d be walking on a slant.

“Ben Perkins! I’ll be damned. Slide on in, man,” he said genially, taking the fresh mug in his two big paws. Del was a blousy, pear-shaped middle-ager with thinning dark hair combed straight back and a sad-eyed, hang-dog face that was always ready with excuses. He wore a navy Local 600 jacket that I knew good and well could never have been issued to him. His white shirt had an open collar that showed a bouquet of grayish black hair. “What’re you doing these days?”

“Little of this, little of that.” I lighted a short cork-tipped cigar, glad to be smoking somewhere other than my apartment or my car or the great — and, it being March, frigid — outdoors. Clearly the no-smoking rules hadn’t made it this far downriver. “You’re still with Coyne Cose, I hear.”

“Come on, Ben, you know I can’t talk about that.”

“Jeez, Del. What’s the big state secret? I just asked where you work.”

He looked at me, away, at me again. “Yeah yeah, you’re right.”

Bowling pins thundered in the distance. Two women laughed at the bar. Excellent, I thought. After all these years, Del’s squishy as ever. “Nice gig. Been at it a while.”

“You know, it’s, y’know,” he said, and took a hit off his cigarette. “It goes like it goes.”

“You get along all right with Arnie Junior?”

Del flinched. “His name’s Ted,” he said, lowering his voice.

“Is it my imagination, or did he just get another face-lift?”

“Oh.” Del grinned. “You musta saw the new commercials.”

“Who could miss them? They’re on Law & Order reruns every night, right after the first wisecrack. Still using that ‘Liti-Nation’ jingle and 1-800-SUE-THEM.”

“Keeps working,” Del grunted, “so they stick with it.”

“The go-go girls, though — that’s something new.”

“Keeps the slobs watching.”

“I resemble that remark.”

He winked. “Should have been at the auditions. Ooh la-la.”

“Knowing Arnie Junior, I’m figuring he auditioned them himself in person.”

Del laughed, leaned closer to me, exhaled smoke. “Funny part is somebody dimed him to his wife. From then on she sat in on every single shoot. Never let Arnie out of her sight.” He took another swig of beer, taking the mug below halfway. “But I shouldn’t be talking about it.”

“And he wants to be called Ted, not Arnie.”

“Right, right.”

I took a pull at my beer, at my cigar, and at my beer again. The lounge was dark and less than half full. No other patron was within twenty feet of us. I figured that Del, squishy to begin with, was sufficiently softened up. “You guys have a case — big Tier 1 outfit, Stone Automotive? Wrongful death deal, one of their workers.”

Del kind of leaned back, sad-puppy eyes on me. “Maybe, maybe not. You know I can’t—”

“Del! Please!” I tapped ash in the ashtray. “Who just bought you a beer, huh? And who’s about to— Watch this.” I raised a hand toward the bar, gave the high sign. The server nodded. “There. Refill on the way. I buy you beer, you help me out. Fair deal?”

He looked pained. “Just so you keep it quiet.”

“Of course.”

He leaned closer again. “Yeah, their dumb-ass maintenance guy got mangled in a machine. His widow’s suing.”

“Monrho, J. J.? Wife’s name Faith?”

“Yeah, that’s right, Monrho, funny spelling.” The beers arrived. I put a twenty on the table. Del wasn’t quite as much in the bag as I had hoped. He’d built up more resistance in the intervening years. And maybe some spine? Could I be that unlucky? “What’s your interest, Ben?”

“Oh, just some chats that got had. Lawyer pal was telling me about ‘consortium,’ and this Monrho case came up.”

“Consorsh...” Del tried.

I waved a hand. “I don’t understand it myself. But supposedly, the widow, when her husband died she lost consortium? So she’s suing for that?”

Del waved both big hands. “That’s way above my pay grade.”

“Mine too. But the interesting part is this victim, the maintenance guy — what I’m hearing is, he had a girlfriend on the side. Which means his wife had no consortium to lose.”

Del stubbed out his cigarette and fetched a fresh one. I lighted it for him. He nodded thanks, inhaling, then said, “Happens a lot.”

“So did he? For real?”

“I don’t know.”

“Del! Please! This is me!”

“I can’t say nothin’.”

“Come on. It’s just between us girls.”

“Ted would strangle me.”

“That cream puff? You could take him easy.”

He drew up. “You betcha. But it’s not about taking him. It’s about keeping my frickin’ job.”

“No one’s losing any job.”

“I’m not like you, Ben. I’ve got a bad past to live down.”

“Bad past? Hell, man. I used to throw guys down stairs for a living.”

“But see, that was union, that was okay. My stuff was... well... these days I gotta maintain absolute top eth — ethli — ethical standards.”

“All the same, you and me, Del, what we are, is like... brothers. Guys like us help each other out.”

He was shaking his head. “No way, man. Sorry.”

I sighed and eyed him. He avoided my look, fiddling with his cigarette, pulling at his beer. Finally, he looked me dead-on and said, “What?”

“I hate to bring up—”

“What?”

“About who hooked you up with the Coyne Cose gig in the first place.”

“I said I was grateful,” he said sourly.

“I’m sure not feeling the love now.”

“We got rules, Ben.”

“And I’d hate to bring up that old Willow Run business.”

“Oh! This again!”

“About whose fat got pulled out of the fire in just the nick of frickin’ time.”

“I wasn’t fat back then.”

“I took a chair to the head while you skedaddled for the—”

“You had to bring this up! You just had to!”

“Del. Please. You’re the one forcing my hand.”

With short savage strokes he jammed his cigarette out in the loaded ashtray. “This was such a good day,” he moaned, “till you had to go and show up.”

I slid a little closer and lowered my voice. “You got my word,” I said, making the sign of the cross in front of my lips, “this goes absolutely nowhere further. The chick the late Mr. J. J. Monrho was dallying with? Just give me her name.”

Joy Monrho’s address, obtained for me off the Internet by Shyla Ryan, turned out to be in Lincoln Park, an older, tucked-away suburb just southwest of Detroit. Her imposing brick colonial was in a surprisingly attractive subdivision of similar houses that squatted large on their smallish treed lots. It was five thirty by the time I parked my ’71 Mustang half a block up. To sit, and watch, and think.

Because I had no business being here. None.

My sole assignment, after all, was to get the name of the woman with whom J. J. Monrho, deceased husband of Micki’s client, was allegedly having an affair. So all I had to do now was get Micki on the horn, give her my report, and go about my business. And I would have, except for what Del Laing had said to me after coughing up the name.

“Watch out, Ben. This broad is bad, bad, bad news.”

“What do you mean, Del?”

“She’s just plain evil.”

“Hey,” I said, rising from the booth, “you keep talking her up like this, I might propose to her.”

“This ain’t funny. Take it from me. And what makes her so scary is how good she is at hiding her true self. People who know her, they think she’s this sweet, quiet, proper, respectable, solid-citizen-type woman.”

“How do you know she isn’t?”

He put a big paw on his heart and looked at me with his droopy sad-puppy eyes. “I know the signs. I can smell ’em a mile away. I was married to one just like her.”

“Thanks anyhow, Del.”

“You’ll see,” he called as I headed for the lounge exit. “I learned the hard way over ninety-one hundred eighty-five days. You’ll see!”

A fairly new silver Impala sat in the driveway. Some lights shone inside. I was getting hungry. This was not, after all, a paying case. I needed to pick Rachel up from day care soon. Fortunately, that was in Plymouth, over a piece and yonder a way. I had a few minutes, and I was here.

And I just had to check this out for myself. J. J. Monrho had been having an affair with — of all the women in all the gin joints in metro Detroit — his ex?

Who does that?

The big door with its half-moon window pulled open seconds after I rang. The woman was of average height and build with short, wavy, chocolate hair and middle-aged plain Jane looks except for her eyes, which were large and a startling shade of green. She wore dressy jeans and a blue chambray shirt with Smarr & Daft embroidered in red over the pocket. Her posture was guarded, but not overly so. She was comfortable in her home and in her skin. “Yes?”

“Hi. Joy Monrho?” She nodded. “I’m Harv O’Gannon, from Coyne Cose?”

She blinked and made an embarrassed half-smile. “Yes?”

After a moment, I chuckled. “You weren’t expecting me, were you?”

“I’m afraid not.”

I glanced down at the small pad in my hand and shook my head. “Our office girl, she’s kind of new,” I said, doing my best aw-shucks. “I had a sneaking suspicion maybe she didn’t confirm with you. One of those annoying logistical foul-ups.”

“What’s this about?”

“Well, I have the report from Del Laing, and we need to lock down all the details.”

“Oh,” she said, honestly puzzled. “I thought... Mr. Bumpps said he was through with me till the deposition.”

Deposition? “Of course,” I said. “But before that we want to be sure we have all the facts. So there are no surprises.”

“I see.”

She was obviously on the bubble. I could try a good hard push, but something told me to go for broke the other way. Might as well — I really had nothing to lose. “You know what, this is just plain awkward,” I said, snapping my notebook shut. “We’ll call and set up another time. Sorry I troubled you.”

“No, it’s all right,” she said, quietly calm. “We can talk now, if it won’t take too long.” She smiled briefly. “Please come in.”

Good old Perkins, I thought. All smooth masculine charm. What’s this about evil? Joy Monrho obviously had excellent taste and judgment.

She led me into the living room, from which the street was visible through a large bay window. The room was overly full with heavy, ugly, and uncomfortable-looking Early American furniture. Framed photographs decked the walls and horizontal surfaces. The low glass-topped coffee table was piled with photo albums and magazines. Joy Monrho sat at the end of the sofa and I took the club chair kitty-corner to her right. “So as I understand it,” I began, “you were married to J. J. Monrho.”

“Twelve years.”

“And then divorced.”

“Six years ago.”

“But you two, uh, kept seeing each other.”

“That’s right.”

“Even after J. J. married Faith.”

“Correct.” No self-consciousness in her response. No defensiveness either.

“Which was — when did they marry?”

“A year ago Christmas.”

And, I reflected, J. J. died three months later, just a year ago. Joy sat there, one jeaned leg crossed over the other, arms loosely folded. Her demeanor was calm, her tone willing. She was looking not at me, but past me, expression reflective, bemused. She was, by God, enjoying this — enjoying the act of telling the story. I jotted some dates in my notebook. “A little bit unconventional.”

She shrugged and smiled a bit secretive and, I thought, borderline smug. “There wasn’t much conventional about J. J. and me, Mr. O’Gannon. We married way too young. We broke up dozens of times. But we always reunited.”

“Even after the divorce.”

“Yes.”

“And even after he remarried.”

She shifted. “He swore off me a dozen times. I knew all I had to do was wait. Within three days of his ‘wedding,’ ” and she made quote marks with her fingers, “he was with me again, same as ever.”

“Sounds like he was pretty obsessed with you.”

She shrugged. “We were soul mates. Meant only for each other. Despite the difficulties.”

“You kept his name, I notice.”

“It’s my name,” she said with quiet pride.

Smug was the word, all right. Joy Monrho just plain loved it that this man could never just be done with her once and for all. That I could understand. What was not so understandable was the apparent lack of grief that she exhibited. There was no sign that she mourned this “soul mate” who had been cruelly taken from her.

I shifted gears. “So how did it work? What was your, uh, routine with him?”

“He came here Thursday evenings for,” she arched a brow, “dinner.”

“Every single Thursday?”

“Just about. And we met for lunch a couple of times a week too, usually.”

“Where?”

Her eyes narrowed briefly. “Why does that matter?”

“Please understand: The plaintiffs are going to attack your story. We need for it to be bulletproof.”

“Well, it was a Waffle Wagon about halfway between the scrap yard and the plant.”

“The scrap yard is where you work?”

“Yes.”

“And the Waffle Wagon is where again?”

“The Boulevard, just south of the Ford Freeway. Listen,” she said earnestly, “if what you need is evidence we were still together — I can help with that.”

“Okay,” I said doubtfully. “What do you got?”

From the lower shelf of the coffee table she brought up a couple of leather-bound picture albums. Opening the first, she spun it to face me. The eight by ten showed a smallish sailboat with two people on it. One was Joy, looking pretty fine in a two-piece yellow swimsuit.

“And that’s J. J.,” I said, pointing, gambling a little — but she’d probably expect that I knew what the man looked like.

“Yes. That was Labor Day weekend. He died the following March.”

“Which was... how long after he married Faith?”

“Well, as of Labor Day he hadn’t married her yet. But they were ‘engaged.’ ” Again with the finger-quote marks.

I looked at her. She was quite calm, impassive, unreadable. “You didn’t mind?”

“Of course I minded. But I was sure his... dalliance with her would run its course.”

“Instead, he married her.”

She shrugged. “Some dalliances run longer than others.”

“And you kept on with him.”

“Yes.” She flipped some more picture pages.

“So you didn’t mind being the other woman.”

“I’m not the other woman,” she said without looking at me. “She is the other woman.” It occurred to me that Joy had not once uttered Faith’s name. She tapped the book. “Look at this one.” The group shot showed probably twenty people, all dressed for holiday revelry. “This was the New Year’s Eve party for J. J.’s work. Three months before he died.” She pointed to a couple in the center. “There we are,” she said softly.

I looked at his round face — long hair, goatee, big smile. A cheerful-looking, bang-about good-old-boy type, and behind that grin, such secrets. “And he married Faith when? Just a few days before this?”

“Yes.” Turning a few more pages, she showed me a few more pictures, mostly of the two of them, riding bicycles, sitting out on her deck, cuddled up on the couch on which she now sat. I realized that many of the pictures on display in that living room were of J. J. Monrho also. There were more of them than I’d thought. Quite a lot, in fact. Almost to the point of making this room a shrine to him.

“Check this out,” she said, picking up a plastic badge that had been tucked in the album. It was credit-card sized, thickly laminated, with a long, red neck fob. On it was imprinted the well known Stone Automotive logo, the name Monrho J., and some kind of serial number. “His plant badge.”

“How’d you get this?”

Her smile was small and, for once, warm. “Oh, it sounds so silly. When he was in the Navy — we were just kids then — he gave me his dog tags to wear while he was at sea. It became a sort of tradition with us. So when he got the job at Stone, he conned them into giving him a replacement plant badge. I wore it twenty-four seven, under my clothes. As a way to—” And here Joy Monrho fumbled, for the first and only time during our talk — “keep him close to me.”

“But you don’t wear it now.”

A phone rang faintly, a wall away. Joy’s green eyes shifted to me, and then went far away. “Will you excuse me?”

“Sure.”

She left. I gazed at the picture album and the plant badge. Keeping that trinket — showing it off — was Joy’s way of saying, This is how much he loved me. I wondered how much of all this Micki knew. My bet was not much. I picked up the badge. It was heavier than it looked. I wondered if it had a metal strip in it. I wondered if it was the type of badge, magnetic or whatever, that opened secure doors. I wondered further if the thing still worked.

Thirty seconds later, I was on my feet when Joy returned, extending the wireless phone. “It’s for you.”

Now, there are times in this work when you need every ounce of your acting ability to keep from blowing yourself out of the water. Since no one was supposed to know I was here — and, by the by, the Harv O’Gannon I was posing as does not exist, except when, like an old shirt from the closet floor, I put him on — this was one of those times. I kept my chin from smacking my chest, if just barely. Control is all. “Thanks.” I took the phone. “Hello.”

“Who the hell are you?” growled a male voice.

I snorted. “Well, who’s this?”

“According to you, whoever you are, I’m your boss!”

Joy Monrho stood off to the side, arms folded, watching me impassively. I gave her a wink. “Oh, hi, Arnie.”

“You mean Ted. Mr. Bumpps to you. I got no frickin’ O’Gannon working for me. So who the hell are you?”

The latest face-lift notwithstanding, he sounded just the same. I was not surprised he did not recognize my voice. To Arnie Bumpps, guys like me are as disposable as sneeze rags. “I’m just finishing up here. You want my report in person, or should I e-mail it?”

“The cops have been called. Just for your information.”

“The Lincoln Park police! Oh no!”

“See you in the pokey.”

“Yessir. Bye now.” I hit the OFF button. “Arnie’s quite the card,” I said, handing the phone to Joy.

“He didn’t seem to know who you are,” she remarked.

“Ahh. Another one of those annoying logistical foul-ups,” I said, strolling in the direction of the front door. “I think I’ll be going.”

“Probably a good idea.”

“Bye then.”

“Bye.”

Like a mountain cat off a tree limb, Micki was on me before the door of my Mustang closed. “Tell me those calls I got last night were just a bad dream. Tell me.”

“Sorry,” I said.

For once Micki’s cheeriness had slipped, like a scabbard from a sword, giving a glimpse of gleaming blued steel. “You won’t believe how furious Arnie is.”

“Play-acting. He’s a big strutting, scene-chewing ham, is our Arnie.”

“He’s threatening to report me to the bar association!”

“Why? You didn’t do anything.”

“He assumes I sent you to Joy’s house under false pretenses!”

“I went off the reservation. I’m known for that.”

“And now I’m getting the heat!”

“The dogs bark,” I said, “but the caravan moves on.” I looked around. The townhouse complex was in Romulus, not far from the airport. It was a beautiful, sunny March morning, the kind of weather that makes places look nicer than they really are. But it didn’t do much for this joint. “So Faith lives in this dump somewhere?”

“Yes,” she grumped, “just up the way.”

“This was where she and J. J. lived?”

“Yes, why?”

“Because jeez. You should see Joy’s digs. Flossy.”

“J. J. had to pay Joy alimony. It was all he and Faith could do to dig it up every month.” Her eyes narrowed. “And you aren’t supposed to know what Joy’s ‘digs’ look like, may I remind you.” She started up the sidewalk, scowling. “You wanted to talk to Faith, let’s go talk to her.” As we approached the door of 8619, she asked, “Could you refresh my memory on a point?”

“Why sure.”

“Did I ever actually, like, hire you for this case?”

“Surprised you don’t recall,” I said airily. “Of course, at the time, you were running treadmill. Maybe you blanked it all out, overcome by, whatchacallum, dolphins.”

“Endorphins is the term I believe you’re trying to misapply. And I seriously doubt they have any such effect.”

“Well, you can’t go by me,” I admitted. “I’m more into adrenaline and alcohol.”

Faith Monrho let us in. We did the introductions and got seated in the smallish living room. It was equipped with mismatched hand-me-downs that, even so, imparted a homey, comfortable feel. Faith was older than Joy by a fistful of years, and much taller, five eight or nine in her bare feet. She wore white pants and a white top, which made her either a nurse or a clerk at Baskin Robbins. Her black hair was cut in a thick shoulder length shag, and her blue eyes peered at us through rimless glasses. Some kind of classical piano music played from the next room, probably WHJR. Faith seemed not to notice. She did not seem to be fully with us, either.

“...Some information that he’s gathered,” Micki said, finishing her introduction. “Ben?”

I took a deep breath. “Ms. Monrho, it’s a sad task we’re embarked on here. You’ve been hurt a lot already. Some of what I have to say may cause you more pain. For that I apologize in advance.”

“It’s all right,” she said. Her voice was rich, melodious. I wondered if she’d ever sang. She was pretty, in a regal, stricken sort of way, but from the absence of makeup and female adornment, found it hard to particularly care. “Did you find out who the... the other woman is supposed to be?”

Micki reached a hand to her knee. “It’s Joy. I am so sorry.”

“Joy?” Faith echoed. She blinked, bowed her head, and then shook it. “Can’t be true.”

“I talked to her last night,” I said. “She laid it all out for me.”

“What exactly did she say?”

With a glance at me, Micki said, “I’m not sure it’s important to—”

“No.” Faith raised her head and stared at us. A single shiny tear gleamed in each eye. “I want to hear it. I want to know what that bitch said about my husband.”

“It’s like her mainspring’s broke, isn’t it?” I murmured.

“Yes,” Micki said quietly.

We were back out in the parking lot. I leaned against the fender of my Mustang, smoking a short, cork-tipped cigar. “Like she can’t stand up fully straight,” I said. “Walking wounded.”

“It’s been a year,” Micki, deliberately upwind from me, said. She was dressed for court in a navy suit, a cluster of gold chains adorning her neck. “You’d think she’d be recovering.”

“My ex, Raeanne, she had a lot of experience with this stuff — she said a lot of times it takes a full year for it to even really hit.”

“Wow,” Micki murmured. “Well. At least Faith gave us some things to work with.”

“Some leads, anyhow. But what we got here is some kinda she-said she-said, huh?”

“Yes. Except, from what you say, Joy would seem to have evidence. Which means we need some.”

I looked at her, bending a little to make direct eye contact. “Is that your way of saying I’m on the payroll now?”

“If you can follow instructions.”

“Your druthers is my ruthers, like my daddy used to say.”

“I mean to the letter.”

“Now that’s overreaching. What I do is meet objectives. Hit targets. With ordnance, if necessary.”

Micki looked at me sourly, rolled her eyes, released a big sigh. “I could just replace you. But we’re probably in too deep for that.”

“You’re gonna give me a fat head, those kinds of glowing endorsements.”

“And this deposition is coming up quick.”

“Why the deposition? I don’t get it.”

“It’s a tactic. Like throwing down a glove. They get Joy’s version on the record, it puts the settlement negotiations on a different playing field, whether we like it or not.”

God, I was glad I didn’t have her job. “Okay.”

Micki paced the sidewalk, considering. “I’ll move for a postponement. You get rolling. Full court press. What’re you going after first? The Waffle Wagon?”

“Forget the Offal Wagon. I mean, the one Joy mentioned is where she said it is. And it is in fact halfway between her work and his. But that kinda place, nobody there’ll remember squat about them.”

“You’re probably right. What about the scrap yard where she works?”

“What about it? She’s their health and safety supervisor. Been there for years. Big whoop.”

“So... the Thursday night issue then?”

“Reckon so.”

“Do that, then report back to me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Before you proceed. Before you do anything else.”

I grinned. “Yazz’m,” I drawled, and swung in behind the wheel of my Mustang, the plant badge burning a hole in my pocket.

The church was in Livonia, set well back from one of those nameless mile roads, its stained-glass front dark in the shadows of the setting sun. I circled the parking lot till I found a cluster of cars, where I parked. Directly across was an unmarked door, with several nondescript people standing around chatting and smoking cigarettes. As I watched, others arrived. There was much handshaking and hugging, and a lot of cutting up and laughing. I wondered if I was at the right place. But this was where Faith had sent me, and this was Thursday evening. So I got out of the Mustang.

People glanced at me as I approached the door. They ranged in age from teens to septuagenarians. When I’m at a bit of a loss, which on this job I am quite often, I tend to just bull on ahead. So I stopped by a pair of matronly ladies and asked, “Can you point me to the group chairman?”

“I guess that’s Rose,” one of them said.

“She’s downstairs,” the other added.

“I’m Mary,” the first one added. “Welcome.”

“Thanks,” I said, and went inside.

Downstairs turned out to be some sort of Sunday School room. Classroom tables were arranged in a U, and a dozen or so people — adults — were already seated. At the front, posters stood on easels, headed twelve something and twelve something else. An elderly woman, with upswept gray hair and excellent clothes, was setting books out on the tables and chatting easily with others. I went to her. “Are you Rose?”

“Yes?” she answered, turning, a big welcoming smile wreathing her lived-in face.

“I’m Ben. Word with you?”

“Hi, Ben. Certainly.” We stepped over to a piano near the corner. “What can I do for you?”

I took a deep breath. “I’m sure you’ll have issues with this, but I need help. It’s about a former member.”

“Former?” she asked. She arched a brow, gave me the once-over. “Are you a cop?”

“No. Private. Working for the widow of a man who she says was a member here.”

“Oh,” she said guardedly. “What was his first name?”

“Went by J. J.” She did not react. “First name was Jeff.”

She smiled. “We are awash in Jeffs.”

“Listen, Rose. If I show you a picture, could you at least tell me if he was a member?”

She thought it over. “If he is really dead. And if I knew him. I suppose so.”

“And if the answer is yes... maybe some details.”

“Depends on the details,” she said. But the glint in her eye was mischievous.

“Okay. Here comes the picture.”

Like the good boy I occasionally am, I dutifully reported the results to Micki Quick. But by the next day it was time for another trip off the reservation.

The appointment hadn’t been hard to set up. I just called the Stone Automotive plant in Melvindale, asked for the director of maintenance, and said I needed to ask him some informal questions about the death of his predecessor, J. J. Monrho. Which of course was completely untrue. That ground had been tilled to death already. My real purpose was to get inside the plant, shake loose somehow, and snoop around.

Ike Watt met me in the lavish plant foyer. He had me sign a guest registry that included my name, address, date of birth, and citizenship. He had me sign a slip of paper about Stone Automotive’s environmental policy, in which I promised to report hazardous substances, to recycle, and not to drill holes in the polar ice cap. He stuck a VISITOR sticker on my shirt, bright red, like a bull’s-eye. Several cameras, not so carefully hidden in plastic bubbles in the corners of the foyer, took my picture from several different angles. Those shots would go well, I thought, with the videos taken of me earlier in the parking lot by cameras mounted on light poles. “Need a palm print?” I asked Watt, as he used his plant badge — just like the one in my pocket — to activate the door exiting the foyer. “Or a retinal scan?”

Watt chuckled easily and led me down a wide, picture-flanked hallway as the security door clicked shut behind us. “Nuts with guns,” he said vaguely. He was an inch or two taller than me, a light-skinned African American, with dark friendly eyes and salt-and-pepper hair and just the lilting hint of New Orleans in his voice. “To look at you,” he said, “my guess is you’ve done some years on the shop floor.”

“In my youth,” I admitted. “The Rouge. You?”

“Dodge Main, then Dearborn Assembly, then drove hi-lo at Clark Street till it closed.” We shook calloused hands, grinned at each other. “I was shift supervisor here till J. J. passed. Then they moved me over to his job. We’re in here.” He opened an unmarked door and led me in. The long and well-appointed conference room sat twenty easily. But now there were but three, all suits. Two I did not know, and one I did, standing at the head of the table, glowering: Arnold “Ted” Bumpps, attorney at law — or “Esquire,” as they style themselves.

“Oh my,” I said. “The star of stage and scream.”

Bumpps was well fed and swarthy with slick dark hair combed back and coarsely handsome features. His dark pinstriped suit was flawless. His smile was steely. “Caught ya, Perkins. Or are you O’Gannon?”

“Howdy, Arnie. Or are you Ted?”

He scowled. “State your business.”

“Here to chat with Ike, was the plan.”

“Without counsel present? In your dreams. Have a seat.”

As the men pushed business cards across to me, I maintained my bluff brave front, but inside I knew my mission was toast. Given the stakes in this case, I should have figured that Arnie would have the Stone operation on total lockdown. Even so, I went through the motions. In response to my questions Ike Watt explained yet again the circumstances of J. J. Monrho’s death. How early one morning last March, before the start of first shift, he had gone inside the monster machine press to do some sort of maintenance — without locking it out first. The area team leader had come along and, without realizing J. J. was inside, started the press up. Nothing new or different from what Micki had related to me before.

“So there’s no company negligence here,” Bumpps declared. “They long ago implemented appropriate lockout-tagout procedures. Did all the training; we have the records. Monrho clearly should have known better. He either forgot or... just cut a corner that morning.”

I closed my notebook, in which I’d done a doodle or two just for show, and rose. “That’s it then. I’ll get out of your hair.”

“You escort him all the way to his car, Watt,” Arnie said. “Make sure he signs out. Relieve him of his visitor tag. And don’t let him out of your sight.”

Ike gave me a slow, inscrutable glance. I just looked back at him.

“Yazzuh,” Ike drawled, with sarcasm that Arnie, in his terminal self-absorption, had not a prayer in the world of catching. We left the conference room and headed back the way we’d come. In a low voice Watt asked, “Did you get what you needed?”

“You kidding?”

“This wasn’t my doing,” he said, even softer. “The heat on this thing is incredible.” We reached a hallway intersection. “Wait here a minute,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” He went up the side hall a ways and ducked into what I assumed was a restroom. I dawdled in the main hallway, keeping myself out of trouble by looking over the commemorative plaques and award certificates and employee group pictures that lined the walls. All pretty boring, till I got to a larger one in the middle. It was headed “Ford Q-1 Certification 1988.” The workers were arranged in two rows, all wearing Stone Automotive uniforms. In the center of the front row was J. J. Monrho, grinning, with goatee and longish hair. That didn’t surprise me. What surprised me was who posed behind him and to his right. Also in plant uniform, making a formal self-conscious smile, with dark brown, tightly permed hair compressed under a yellow hard hat with EHS printed above its bill.

Joy Monrho.

Ike had not returned. I had a feeling he was not going to. I thought about my options. There really was just one more thing I needed to check. I went through the door to the foyer, closed it behind me, and looked around. No one was watching. With my back to the door I fished Joy Monrho’s plant badge out of my pocket and swept it past the activation pad. In response, the door latch snicked.

Bingo.

Quickly, I left. I did not sign out and I did not return my visitor tag. That’ll show them. Safe behind the wheel of my Mustang, I fished the business cards out of my pocket, flipped through them, and then dialed a number on my cell. Come on, answer, answer. “Hello?” came Ike Watt’s easygoing voice.

“What does EHS stand for?” I asked.

“Perkins?”

“Do you know?”

“Sure I know. Environmental-Health-Safety.”

I took a deep breath. “Question two. Where’s the plant saloon?”

“Beg pardon?”

“C’mon. There’s got to be one.”

“Uh... The Pour House. Dix Road, just this side of Schaefer.”

“Okay. No lawyers. Just you and me, two old shop-floor men. Half hour?”

“Sure.” He hesitated. “Don’t know how much I can help you.”

“Not to worry. I suspect it’s me that’ll be helping you.”

Micki called me back just as Ike pulled into the Pour House parking lot in his midnight blue Topkick. “Don’t postpone the deposition,” I told her.

“But it’s scheduled for Monday! How can we—”

“We’ll be ready. We’ll do good. Trust me,” I said, fingers crossed hard.

The Coyne Cose conference room — my second such in four days — occupied a corner of their suite on the twenty-ninth floor of the main Town Center skyscraper in Southfield. Micki Quick, in a Ferrari-red suit, met me by its open double doors, briefcase in one hand and bowling ball bag in the other. She took me aside. “Everything set?”

“Yeah, my guy’ll be here any minute.” At least I thought he would. Art had never let me down. “You got everything?”

She hefted the bowling ball bag. “I feel like an idiot!” she whispered fiercely.

“Well, what’re you gonna do,” I drawled. “What about the Melvindale crew?”

“They’ll be here in an hour.”

“You locked and loaded?”

For such a pretty woman, her smile was anything but. “This’ll be fun.”

“We’re ready,” came a female voice from just inside the double doors. Inside, at one end of the gleaming mahogany conference table, sat Joy Monrho, dark hair well coifed and squarish plain-Jane face placid of expression as always. She wore a sort of mud-colored cardigan over a black shirt. At the opposite end sat her opposite number, Faith Monrho, in whites and a hospital badge and heavy, dark-framed glasses. Her gaze was out the broad windows at the flat metro Detroit cityscape. Joy, on the other hand, was watching her successor, thinking only God knew what.

Arnie Bumpps, in full dark-suited Mafiosi mode, bustled in with his retinue, like a gander amid a flotilla of goslings, and seated himself protectively next to Joy. Halfway down the table, with her back to the windows, perched over a little steno machine on a tripod, sat a harried looking woman in a dark blue suit. “If we could begin,” she intoned. “We are now on the record.”

Micki and I sat at Faith’s end, flanking her. One of Arnie’s crew closed the double doors. The blue-suited woman said, “I am Maren Bickers, licensed court reporter and notary public for the county of Oakland, state of Michigan, under contract to Coyne Cose et al. Today’s proceeding is in re Monrho versus the Triangle Group LLP, d/b/a Stone Automotive. Case number DM-44510. We are here to take the testimony of one Joy B. Monrho, testifying for the defense. Which of you would be Joy B. Monrho?” Joy raised her left hand, no doubt deliberately, to show off her wedding rings. “Picture ID, please.” Obviously prepped, Joy slid over her driver’s license. After inspection, Bickers said, “Now raise your right hand, please.”

As Bickers administered the oath, a tapping came at the double doors. Bumpps’s doorkeeper, a whip-thin twenty-something with spiky black hair, leaned out, then turned and beckoned me. I slipped over there to see the squat, balding Art Drinkard hovering in the hallway. He handed me a big padded envelope, slightly damp from the sweat of his hand. “All set. Just hit ON,” he wheezed.

“Thanks, pal.” The conference room was silent as I went back to my seat. “Sorry, folks,” I said.

“For the record, I wish to object,” Arnie Bumpps blared, “to the presence of Ben Perkins at this proceeding.”

“Come on, Arnie... er... Ted,” Micki said, smiling. “He works for me. And look at him — he’s cleaned up pretty good.”

A titter sounded in the room. Bumpps’s scowl was fixed. “I respectfully ask the court to take official judicial notice that Perkins has, during the discovery process, acted in a fraudulent and deceptive manner toward my witness here.”

Woo, was I scared. “So noted,” Bickers intoned, fingers fluttering almost silently on the steno machine keys. “If that’s all, Mr. Bumpps, you may begin your direct.”

“He used to work for me, you know. I fired his sorry ass out of here years ago.”

Bickers’s fingers fluttered a bit more. Then she paused and gazed down at Bumpps. “Feel free to continue, counselor. Like you, I’m paid by the hour.”

Now here was a chick to like. I tried not to laugh. Micki beamed. Faith smiled briefly. Bumpps’s entourage stirred, and the spike-haired man by the door hissed, “Ted!” Arnie rose to his feet and blared, “May we begin.”

Joy Monrho’s direct examination went pretty much the way we expected. Arnie led her through her courtship with J. J., their wedding, their marriage. They reviewed the fights, the separations, the reunions. Joy owned up to three affairs, one just before their wedding and two after. She would not comment on J. J.’s fidelity record, insisting, with a quiet tear and trembling chin, that the memory of the deceased be untarnished. She was something, all right. Utterly credible. Yet she seemed a bit distanced, too, as if on a mild sedative.

The bulk of the time was spent on the five years between their divorce and his death. She recounted the informal if continuous extension of their relationship. And, under Bumpps’s labored questioning, she went into great detail about their together-time before and after his marriage to Faith. She showed the pictures I’d seen at her house, which were admitted as evidence. She described the phone calls, the e-mails, the weekday lunches. And she detailed the Thursday evening trysts, in terms that teetered on an R rating.

“It is your contention, then,” Bumpps said, addressing his witness but casting a glare down the table at us, “that J. J. Monrho, matrimonial technicalities notwithstanding, derived his physical and emotional comfort not from the plaintiff in this case, the putative wife, but in actuality of fact from you, Mrs. Monrho.”

“Objection,” Micki said quietly, speaking up for the first time. “Counsel is leading his own witness. And calling for a conclusion. Using run-on sentences. And whatever else.”

“So noted,” Bickers murmured.

“Yes,” Joy Monrho answered. “In every way that matters, I remained J. J.’s wife. And will be, till the day I die.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Monrho.” Arnie grinned at us. “That’s all I have.”

Bickers typed a bit more, then sat back. “Let’s take ten. We’re off the record.”

People moved about. Arnie bent down and gave Joy a big hug, causing her to squint. Faith, Micki, and I stood to stretch, and I bent to Micki’s ear. “I thought you’d decided not to object to anything. No point.”

“I just could not stand it,” she muttered.

As for Faith, her long face behind her heavy black glasses was a mix of sadness and anger. “How dare she say those things,” she whispered shakily. “First she made his life a hell on earth all those years. Then she drove him out. And now she wants to hurt him and me further — by claiming he cheated on me, with her as the other woman.”

Micki took her arm reassuringly. “Hang in there,” she said quietly.

“ ‘Matrimonial technicalities.’ ”

“Yes.”

“ ‘Putative wife.’ ”

“I know, I know.”

Faith looked at me. “Didn’t I hear you used to beat people up for a living?”

“Just her? Or Arnie too?”

“Now stop it,” Micki said. “And be patient. It’s our turn at bat.”

“But what can you do?” Faith asked. “It’s... it’s my word against—”

“Just relax. It’ll be okay.”

Faith sat back down. Micki glanced at me. We had argued about how much to tell Faith. In the end, over Micki’s misgivings, we’d decided to keep our gal pretty much in the dark. We wanted her reactions during the deposition to be absolutely natural, so that no one would be tipped off. Now I was glad. Arnie, with his tin ear and eyes blinded in the glare of his own ego, was no problem. But not everyone on his team was so clueless. “The spike-hair,” I murmured to Micki.

“Right.” She remained standing at our end of the table, slight and resolute in her bright red suit, tiny oval glasses perched halfway down her nose. A manila folder of papers sat in front of her. People returned to the table, the spike-haired man closed the conference room doors, and Maren Bickers resumed her place behind the steno machine. I sat in my chair, trying not to fidget or yawn. I’m an action kind of guy, born and bred. For me, nothing was more dreary than sitting around a conference table for what seemed like hours and hours. And — though I’d spent a ton of weekend hours sorting this out with Micki, my work here was pretty much done.

But, though I really didn’t know for sure how it would all play out, I was, of course, staying. If there was a kill to be in on, I wanted in.

Maren Bickers said: “We’re back on the record. Counselor?”

“Thank you,” Micki said. “Ms. Joy Monrho: Good morning.”

“Hello,” Joy replied. “Please address me as Missus Monrho.”

“I am Micheline A. Quick, counsel for the plaintiff.” She glanced at Bickers. “P—827320.”

“So noted,” Bickers murmured.

“And I’d like to take you back, if you please, to the sailboat you told us about.”

“Yes.”

“And the picture you showed us. Defense three, I believe? Ms. Bickers?” The reporter flipped through the marked exhibits and leaned the picture on a little tabletop easel so we could all see it. “Thank you,” Micki said. “This picture was taken when, Ms. Monrho?”

“I’m not positive.”

“Well, you seemed quite positive during your direct questioning.”

Joy shrugged. “I can’t be sure.”

“Please read back the deponent’s earlier response,” Micki said to the reporter. Bickers, after a pause, said, “ ‘Summer of 2003.’ ”

“Can you be more specific?” Micki asked Joy.

“I don’t keep minute by minute track of things.”

“Well, then. Perhaps this will help.” Micki took a sheet of paper out of the folder and handed it to Bickers. “Plaintiff’s Exhibit One, please.”

“So noted.” Bickers slid the paper down the table. Arnie Bumpps, scowling, pawed it over to himself.

“This is a bill of sale,” Micki said. “By means of which J. J. Monrho sold the boat to one Zaneta Rozalska. Would you please read the date on the bill of sale, Ms. Monrho?”

Joy squinted at the paper. “June 8, 2000.” She shrugged. “Obviously I was off by a bit.”

“And as long as we’re talking dates,” Micki said, “would you remind us please— When did you and J. J. divorce?”

“Ninety-nine,” she said shortly. “September.”

“Thank you.”

“And I object to this entire exchange,” Arnie blared. He waved the bill of sale disdainfully. “This could have been trumped up on any word processor. It utterly lacks credibility.”

“So noted,” Bickers said, typing.

“Ms. Rozalska is available to testify,” Micki said, “if it comes to that. Which I doubt. Let’s move on.” I noticed that Arnie was sitting a bit closer to Joy now, looming, protective, grinning like he’d won something. Spikes, over by the door, was watching Micki speculatively. He knew that the bill of sale had been nothing but a soft lob. “Now. These Thursday night dates,” Micki said, “that you described in such lascivious detail.”

“I object to the characterization,” Arnie said.

“So noted.”

“Oh, all right, withdrawn,” Micki said. “In any event, Ms. Monrho — isn’t it a fact that your late ex-husband was a recovering alcoholic?”

Joy’s eyes averted. “No,” she said. “Not really.”

“Didn’t he join Alcoholics Anonymous? Two years before you and he divorced?”

“No!” Joy said, indignant now. “He wasn’t a drunk. He liked to drink, but—”

“And these Thursday nights of his— Wasn’t that when he attended regular meetings of his AA home group?”

Spikes, by the door, said, with an annoyed glance at Arnie, “We object. No basis for this line of questioning in our direct.”

“On the contrary,” Micki said. “Deponent, under the guidance of Brother Bumpps, dwelled at considerable length on the deceased Mr. Monrho’s personality traits.”

“So noted.”

From her folder Micki took out a small brown envelope and slid it over to Bickers. “Plaintiff’s Two. Ms. Monrho, if you would, please examine these.” Bickers slid the envelope down. Joy opened it and out clanked several heavy brass, half-dollar-sized medallions. Micki said, “Tell us what those are?”

With gingerly fingers, Joy arrayed them on the gleaming table-top. “I don’t know.”

“Would it surprise you to learn they are gifts from J. J.’s AA group? They commemorate his years of sobriety. What’s the Roman numeral on the darkest one there?”

“X.”

“Ten years,” Micki said. “Isn’t it a fact that, prior to your divorce, your husband kept these coins on the top of his dresser in your bedroom?”

Joy snorted. “I never saw them.”

“And this,” Arnie sputtered, “none of this... I object. I sincerely object. These ‘coins’ could have come from anywhere. And even if they were his, they are still not evidence that J. J. Monrho was not with my client on all those Thursday nights.”

“Your witness,” Bickers murmured.

“Pardon me?”

“Ted,” Spikes said, shaking his head.

“Ms. Joy Monrho is your witness,” Maren Bickers said to Arnie. “Not your client.”

Impossible to embarrass, Arnie just shrugged. “Strike that. I misspoke.”

With a short dismissive gesture, Joy pushed the coins and envelope back toward Bickers, who secured them. Micki remained in place, watching Joy with a look of, well, call it curiosity. I would not have wanted to be Joy at that moment. It was impossible, though, to tell what she was thinking, or how she was feeling. She was that good.

Micki addressed Bickers. “Could you display Defense Five?” Bickers set the picture on the easel. It was the group shot of party revelers that Joy had shown me at her house. “Ms. Monrho,” Micki said: “Please remind us of the occasion on which this picture was taken?”

“New Year’s Eve.”

“December 31, then?”

“That’s when New Year’s Eve usually falls.”

Micki smiled. “What year?”

Joy calculated. “Oh-three.”

“How long before Mr. Monrho died?”

“Three months, about.”

“And how long after he married Faith Monrho?”

Joy’s green eyes glinted briefly. “Several days.”

“Very well. And the occasion of the photograph?”

“It was a party for J. J.’s work.”

“Which one is he?”

“That’s him. In the center.”

Micki extracted something small from her folder and spun it over to Bickers. “I enter this document as Plaintiff’s Three. Ms. Monrho, please tell us what it is.”

“So noted,” Bickers said, and slid it down to Joy. She and Arnie squinted at it. Joy said, “It’s his driver’s license.”

“Whose?”

“J. J.’s.”

“All right. And what is the expiration date?”

She studied it for a long time. “July 15, 2004.”

“The year he died?”

“Yes.”

“And tell us, Ms. Monrho. What is the term of a Michigan driver’s license?”

“I’m not sure.” She glanced at Arnie. “Four years?”

“Four years,” Micki agreed. “Meaning the picture on the license was taken when?”

Mildly irritated, Joy said, “Well, I suppose, 2000 sometime.”

“Now Ms. Monrho — please compare the driver’s license photo and the party picture. Describe for us the differences in your late ex-husband’s appearance.”

Which were obvious. In the party picture, J. J. Monrho had very long hair and an elaborate goatee. In the driver’s license photo, he was clean-shaven, his head scraped nearly bald. Joy made an indifferent show of looking over the photos. “He changed his look all the time.”

“Isn’t it a fact,” Micki pressed, “that after your 1999 divorce, Mr. Monrho adopted the clean-shaven look in the license photo, and retained it till his death?”

“No, he was always—”

“Which would mean that the pictures you’ve shown us — of the party, and the boat — had to have been taken years before the time you are claiming.”

“I object.”

“So noted.”

“I — have told — the truth,” Joy said, for the first time showing emotion, if only barely. Anger, barely concealed, churning beneath. “The only lies in all this are being told by you and — that woman.”

“Move to strike the deponent’s last remark,” Micki said.

“So noted.”

“Are we done?” Arnie demanded.

“Oh no, Brother Bumpps,” Micki said, reaching for her folder. “We are just warming up.”

And warm it was. Very. You take all those bodies, all those suits, all that tension — it jacks up the temp, and the humidity too. Ironic, considering how chilly the sunny day was outside the broad windows of that twenty-ninth floor conference room. I was wearing my dark blue blazer, and wishing I could shuck it.

“What is your job, Ms. Monrho?” Micki asked.

“I object,” Arnie cut in. “Outside the scope of the direct.”

“My colleague opened the door with questions related to the deponent’s alleged workday meetings with the deceased.”

“So noted.”

“They weren’t ‘alleged’ meetings,” Joy said. “They really happened.”

“And you and J. J. met for the first time on the job, isn’t that so?”

“I object. That’s outside the scope too.”

“Counsel led the witness through a rather labored chronology,” Micki said.

“So noted.”

“Yes we did,” Joy answered. “So?”

“And what company was this?”

“Stone,” Joy said readily, as if it meant nothing.

“Stone Automotive,” Micki said. “The defendant in this action?”

“Yes.”

“Where J. J. Monrho was employed most of his adult life, is that so?”

“It is.”

“The plant in Melvindale?”

“Uh, right.”

“Where he eventually died.”

“Yes. But I quit there. A long time ago.”

“When?”

“Oh... years and years ago.”

I was dying for Micki to ask why. But she stayed on track. “What was your job at Stone Automotive?”

“I object. Out of the scope of the direct.”

“The relevance to the direct will become obvious.”

“So noted.”

“Ms. Monrho?” Micki prompted.

The woman’s squarish face was a mask of puzzlement, but her green eyes were focused and intent. “I don’t remember. It was many years ago. Some kind of office job.”

“Clerical work.”

“Something like that.”

Micki opened the folder, took out an item, and scooted it down the table toward Bickers. It was a Stone Automotive plant badge. “Plaintiff’s Four,” Micki murmured, then asked: “Do you recognize this, Ms. Monrho?”

Joy looked at me with green eyes that were, for just a split-second, enraged. “You took it!” she said, and her tone had no anger at all, just hurt and indignation. To Bumpps she added, “Perkins stole it from me!”

“We object,” Arnie Bumpps said, with well-oiled scorn, “to the plaintiff’s use of misappropriated property in this proceeding.”

“So noted.”

“Whose property is this, Ms. Monrho?” Micki asked.

“Mine.”

“And whose was it before it was yours?”

“My husband’s.”

“You’re absolutely certain?”

“See, it has his name on it.”

“We do note that, for the record.”

“It’s mine now.”

“And you’ve had it all this time?”

“Yes. And I’m keeping it,” Joy said, chin upraised, beringed hands cupping the badge. “It’s precious to me. You can put me in jail. But I’m not giving it up.”

Arnie started to say something to her, but Micki said: “That’s all right. You just hang onto it.”

“You’re waiving entering it as evidence then?” Bickers asked.

“Yes, that’s fine, let her keep her little trinket.” Micki bent, reached into the unzipped bowling bag at her feet, and rose. “Let’s make this Plaintiff’s Four,” she told Bickers, and slid the yellow plastic hard hat down the table.

All eyes gaped at the thing as it slid to a stop, bill aimed at the end, Micki’s shot as pretty as if she’d made a seven-ten split. Joy Monrho edged back in her chair, staring. “I don’t understand.”

“On the contrary,” Micki said.

“I object,” Arnie sputtered. “Scope of the direct.”

“So noted.”

“You’ve never seen this before, Ms. Monrho?”

“I don’t know.”

“Read us the initials on the bill.”

“EHS?”

“What does that stand for?”

“How should I know?”

“One would think you would, ma’am,” Micki said, extracting an eight-by-ten photo from her folder. “Plaintiff’s Five,” she informed Bickers, who put the photo on the easel. It was the plant shot from ’88, featuring, among others, the much younger J. J. Monrho and his soon-to-be-wife Joy, making her formal unwilling smile beneath the bill of her yellow hard hat.

“Oh,” Joy said. “That.”

“So now the fog lifts a bit?” Micki asked.

“I object,” Bumpps said, “to this whole, entire line of inquiry. It’s wholly irrelevant, impertinent, impermissible. And while we’re at it, I object to the counsel’s sarcasm.”

“So noted.”

“Do you now recall what EHS stands for, ma’am?”

“Not exactly.”

“Would it surprise you to be reminded that it stands for Environmental-Health-Safety?”

“I guess. Whatever.”

“So — just like the scrap yard where you work now — you were in charge of safety at the Stone Automotive plant then, weren’t you?”

“Oh, they gave me all kinds of jobs,” Joy said, stirred up now, her green eyes hard and glinting. “Stupid thankless jobs. Girl jobs. Paperwork and training and books to keep up. They gave me that job because I had a cute figure. The OSHA inspectors liked me. I hated it. Just hated it.”

“And you just finally had your fill of it, didn’t you?”

“Yes. One day I just marched out.”

“Marched right out.”

“Absolutely.”

“And never went back.”

“Not ever,” Joy said, with steely satisfaction, “not even once. J. J. could keep working there if he wanted to. He was a man, they treated him right. But I never again darkened that building’s door.”

Oh, man. Was this a gift or what. Micki had played her right into the tightest of corners, and Joy had no clue. Neither did Arnie. Nor could they, really, because Micki hadn’t slammed the door yet. Spikes, though — the skinny gent in black, by the door — he sensed something. He drifted over to Arnie’s end of the table, eyes on us.

Micki stood with arms folded and looked down the table over her little spectacles at Joy. “Please explain to us, Ms. Monrho, what ‘lockout-tagout’ is.”

“Object,” Arnie snapped. “This witness has no knowledge of—”

“But of course she does, Brother Bumpps,” Micki said. “At her current job, she is the safety coordinator. At Stone, her role was similar. The question must be answered.”

“She can answer,” Arnie said sourly. “What do I care? By the time the judge gets done ruling on my objections, Sister Quick, your cross will end with ‘Hi! I’m Micki!’ ”

His rude condescending tone made my fists knot. Micki stiffened, let out a breath, shook her head. “Let’s move on,” she said, remarkably steady. “Ms. Monrho? Lockout-tagout?”

“It’s hard to explain,” Joy said.

“If you take us along in tiny baby steps, we’ll try real hard to understand.”

Joy shifted. “When a machine needs repair or adjustment or other work, lockout-tagout is a process for securing it. To prevent the release of hazardous energy, thereby protecting the safety of the people working on the machine.”

“Very good! Thank you! Were you not, in fact, a lockout-tagout instructor while you were at Stone?”

“No.”

“No? We have records.”

“Oh,” Joy said, waving a hand, “half their paperwork was fakes.”

Spikes, standing at Arnie’s shoulder now, spoke up. “We need a recess.”

“That sounds good,” Bickers agreed.

Faith Monrho suddenly put a hand on Micki’s arm and stared wide-eyed up into her face. Micki patted her once, and winked. “We’re just about finished,” Micki said. “Five more minutes.”

“I don’t want to stop now,” Arnie growled. “Let’s just wrap this farce up.”

“Ted,” said Spikes.

“Five more minutes and we’re done,” Micki pressed.

“I agree with counsel,” Arnie said. “Let’s finish this and get the hell out of here.”

A murmuring had built in the conference room. Now it ceased. Spikes, looking openly disgusted, moved back to the wall, arms folded. Micki reached for the Stone Automotive plant badge from Bickers. “Ms. Monrho,” Micki said to Joy. “You’ve sworn under oath that this badge is your property.”

“Yes.”

“All right. Were you aware, madam, that every time a badge like this is used, it leaves a unique digital signature?”

Joy’s brow furrowed. After a long silence, she said, “I wouldn’t know either way.”

“Every time. So if you would: Tell us where you were on February 25, 2004.”

“I don’t know. Work probably.”

“March 10?”

“Could have been work, I don’t know.”

“And March 22, 2004?” Joy did not answer. Just stared. Micki asked quietly, “What is the significance of that date, Ms. Monrho?”

A tear formed at the corner of one green eye. “The day the love of my life died.”

“Do you remember where you were that day?”

“Of course. I remember every minute.”

“So you do recall going to the Melvindale plant very early that morning.”

She hesitated, then snapped: “No!”

Micki dropped the badge on the tabletop. “That’s puzzling. Because this badge, this precious keepsake of yours — this badge was there on that date, ma’am. This badge registered in the plant’s computer at four sixteen A.M.”

She extended a hand to me. I gave her the padded envelope that Art Drinkard had brought. As Micki took out the flat silvery portable DVD player, Arnie said: “I once again lodge my most urgent objections to Counsel’s fishing expedition — and her irrelevant, argumentative, immaterial assertions — and—”

“Ted,” Spikes said from his spot by the wall in a weary, cutting tone, “would you please just shut up.”

I did not see Arnie’s reaction because Micki, DVD player in hand, had bent to me. “How do you turn this thing on?” she whispered.

I opened the lid, mashed the ON button. The little screen lit up. Micki put the player on the table and gave it a push. It glided down and stopped not far from Joy and Arnie. He and his flunkies clustered close, staring at the screen. Joy looked too, with an odd half-smile that mystifies me to this day. Micki said, “The footage you’re viewing was shot from the parking lot cameras scanning the receiving dock on the east side of the plant. You see the date stamps. The first segment is from February 25... Right about now you’re seeing a segment from March 10, again early in the morning... And now what you’re viewing is the same entrance door just after four A.M. on the morning of March 22.”

Joy abruptly slid her chair back and rose. “You know what, we’re done here.”

“Who, madam,” inquired Micki, “would be the person the tape shows entering the plant on the morning of your ex-husband’s death? Is that you, by chance?”

Joy pushed by Arnie, who was staring dumbstruck at her. “You’re on your own,” she hissed at him. “I can’t help you with this anymore.”

“Please, Ms. Monrho!” Micki said. “Don’t go. We’d like to hear your answers.”

As Joy swept past the law firm flunkies, she looked at us, face a mask of blind sulfuric rage, and spewed a short and specific instruction as to what we could do. Pushing past Spikes, she plunged through the big double doors. Everyone else, including Arnie, who was, for once, speechless, sat frozen, staring. Never one to freeze, I got to my feet and went out into the carpeted hallway. I could have given chase and apprehended her with a full body slam. But there was no need. As Joy Monrho marched up the paneled hallway toward the skylighted foyer, two men in business suits rose from chairs. Between them was a uniformed officer. Joy did not hesitate, just headed toward the elevators. The detectives stepped toward her. “Joy Monrho?”

“Three months,” I said.

Micki, who had been lost in thought, stirred. “What?”

“Three months it took,” I told her, “after J. J. married Faith, for Joy to fully realize that he was not coming back to her.”

“Yes,” Faith said.

“All those other separations, he’d always come back. But not this time.”

“And she just lost it,” Micki said.

“The ultimate scorned woman.”

We sat in one of the small Coyne Cose interview rooms. The Melvindale detectives had questioned us, then asked that we sit tight. I needed a smoke; I needed to be on my feet; I needed out of here. Micki sat to my right, Faith to my left. The widow in white was anything but elated. She seemed in fact more numb than ever. She now had to get her mind around a new and much uglier reality. And J. J. was still dead.

“Thing is,” Micki said, “Joy’d gotten away with it. It was so obviously an industrial accident, the police had never investigated. But she still needed to strike at you,” she said to Faith. “And when she heard about our lawsuit, she saw her chance.”

“And overreached,” I added.

“So cruel,” Faith said softly.

We sat in silence for a bit. Then Micki touched my arm. “You did good, Ben. Putting it all together.”

“Thanks, coach.”

“You can be a whirlwind in a thorn tree. But you get the job done.”

I suppose. But, as always, I had help. Art Drinkard, Ike Watt, Del Laing. I thought back to Jugg’s Astro Lanes and my chat with Del early on. The big, squishy, hapless lug never seemed all that swift to me. But he was living proof that everyone is an expert at something. What Del Laing was expert at was women like Joy Monrho.

“At least,” I remarked, “I got through one without being knifed or shot or run off the road or knocking over furniture. That’s something.”

The door opened and Spikes came in. Up close he was, if anything, skinnier, in his black suit with blank pinstriping that mirrored the vertical black spikes of his hair. He looked grim. “The cops said you all can go.”

“Thanks, Gerald,” Micki said as we stood.

“I just need to get something out,” Gerald said, glaring at Micki.

“Okay.”

“Why didn’t you come to us? Give us a head’s up?”

Micki shrugged. “No time.”

“That’s not true. You had all weekend. You blindsided us. It’s unprofessional.”

Micki fixed him with a stare. “We wanted Joy on the record, with sworn testimony. To make sure that if she got nailed, she stayed nailed. We couldn’t run the risk of tipping our mitt.”

“We’d have worked with you. After all, what you did helped our client.”

Micki waved a dismissive hand. “You I can deal with, Gerald. But I couldn’t count on that idiot you work for not to screw it all up.” Gerald did not react. “And besides,” Micki added, with a glance at Faith, “after all the grief that woman caused my client, Faith deserved this moment today.”

Gerald was nodding but clearly not buying it. “You’d just better file a motion to dismiss, Micki, forthwith. After all, your case against Stone Automotive is moot. And if you think we’ll agree to even a nuisance payout, you’re dreaming.” He spun and stalked out.

We trailed him up the hall toward the elevators. “Oh no,” I murmured. “Does this mean we don’t get paid?”

“Everybody gets paid,” Faith said. “I have the insurance.”

“But no big payout from Stone,” Micki said.

“That’s okay,” Faith said as we reached the elevators. “What you two got for me is better than any amount of money.”

Now I believed her.