Wealth Management by Edward Zuckerman

Author:Edward Zuckerman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781956763119
Publisher: Arcade Crimewise
Published: 2022-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

REHEARSAL

Barnstable looked across the dining room table over the remains of his Saturday lunch (baguette, paté, tomatoes) at his wife. He could see the streak of undyed gray in the central part of her hair. She was only forty-three. “I just wanted to let you know,” he said, “how sorry we all are for your loss.”

“That’s very kind, detective. Are you sure you don’t want to come in and have a nightcap before you drive back to the station?”

“Well,” Barnstable said, “I am on duty. But I guess that would be all right.”

“I think it would be more than all right,” his wife said, and she winked. “I make an excellent breakfast. Wait. Let me say that again. I’m supposed to be seducing you. Did I sound like I was trying to seduce you?” She picked up her tea and took a sip.

Barnstable looked up from the script in his lap. It had been a long time since his wife had tried to seduce him, so he wasn’t sure how to answer the question. “Who wrote this script?” he said. “It sounds like a bad TV cop show.”

“Jeffrey, our artistic director. He wanted us to try something original this season.”

Barnstable knew who Jeffrey was. The little gay guy who got his rocks off tormenting the husbands his loyal corps of actresses dragged to productions of their amateur English-language theater troupe. Half-assed Noel Coward was bad enough, but this . . .

“Original?” he said. “The woman murdered her husband. It’s completely obvious. Where’s the mystery?”

“It’s a mystery if I don’t act like I murdered my husband.”

“Fucking the investigating detective isn’t acting like you murdered your husband?”

His wife put down her teacup. “If you don’t want to help me rehearse, I can find someone who will.”

Barnstable looked out the window. It had been raining all morning, but now there were breaks in the clouds, some shafts of clear autumn light.

“If you don’t mind,” he said. “I’d like to take the boat out.” He had a fourteen-foot daysailer in the marina at Eaux-Vives. It was probably the smallest boat there, but it was fun to handle, and he liked being on the lake—it was pretty and calm and quiet—and, bonus points, his wife almost never wanted to go with him.

“In this weather? Isn’t the Bise happening?” The Bise was the cold wind from the northeast. He’d mentioned it to her a few times and now she just liked to use the word. But she was right. The Bise was blowing. But, hey, wind and sailboat—wasn’t that a good combination?

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