Laura Lippman - By A Spider's Thread

"I'm surprised he gave up so quickly."

"A man in prison is easy enough to ignore. You refuse the collect calls, you don't open mail with a certain postmark. Besides, when I told Boris I didn't care what he knew about Natalie, he lost all power over us. Blackmail isn't that different from other luxury goods. The pool of customers is smaller, so the salesman has to be sharper. Boris had only one customer for what he was selling, and I shut that down."

"But now that Natalie's gone-"

"I vowed to her ten years ago that I would not listen to her father's lies about her. A promise is a promise."

"She promised to love, honor, and cherish until death do you part, so I think you can go back on your word in this instance."

"Whatever he wants to tell me, it's probably not true. So what's the point of listening?"

Mark Rubin's face seemed to be hardening as she pressed him. But Tess saw more than stubbornness in his features. She also saw fear and desperation. He was terrified of hearing whatever his father-in-law had to say.

"Because it's a lead, the best one we have. You're the one who suggested Natalie left because she wanted to protect you from some secret in her past. Boris may know what it is."

"No. He's a liar. And a thief. Not to mention a killer. Trust me, there's no reason to talk to him."

"The thing is"-she hated herself for what she was about to do-"maybe Boris could help us figure out the identity of the man who was with Natalie in French Lick."

Tess might as well have vomited on Rubin's desktop, given the way he recoiled. She tried to pretend the gaffe was more accidental than it was.

"I'm so sorry. Does kosher wine have a higher alcohol content than the regular stuff? Because that's not how I intended to tell you that one detail."

"I'm not sure anyone would know how to break such news. When you say ' with' …"

"That's all I know. With. The people at the McDonald's said Natalie left with a man. The description was vague-six feet, dark hair, slender. Not a lot to go on, but does it mean anything to you?"

"She was with a man ?"

It had never occurred to him. Which was amazing, because the likelihood had been in the back of Tess's mind from the outset.

"It helps to explain the strange car, and maybe even how she's getting by financially. But it doesn't explain why she's in French Lick, Indiana. And it doesn't mean she's with him. I mean, if she wants to leave you for someone else, she could have done it in a more traditional way."

"More traditional?"

"Served you with papers and asked for half of everything you have."

"She wouldn't get it. The divorce, I mean. I would fight her on that."

"You could, but all she has to do is wait you out two years. After a two-year separation, even an involuntary one, Maryland courts will grant a divorce, no matter what rabbis do or don't do. Of course, the custody and the financial details would still have to be arranged. But it's pretty hard to make someone stay married to you these days."

"Our rabbi would talk to her, make her see common sense. Besides, there isn't that much money."

Tess rolled her eyes. "You mean, besides this million-dollar house and everything in it, and the business, and your investments? Not to mention the child support you'd have to pay."

"The business's value has been flat, and even this house has increased only marginally in value. I bought right before the market slumped a decade ago, and I'm just beginning to catch up. Most of my money comes from an inheritance. Spouses have no right to inherited funds-and that's true under state and religious law."

"You know a lot about Maryland's marital-assets law," Tess said, "for a man who has never contemplated divorce."

Rubin swirled his wine again, watching the dregs slide down the interior of the glass. "A few years back, Natalie had a strange episode of depression and talked about leaving. I… outlined the financial realities of such a decision. I also told her I would fight for custody of Isaac."

"You said there was no marital strife, that you had never discussed separation or divorce." Tess, usually tolerant of clients' lies and evasions, was beginning to lose patience with Rubin.

"We hadn't, except that one time, and it was six years ago. We're talking about a week or two, one bad patch in an otherwise strong and happy marriage. It turned out she was pregnant with the twins at the time, and we both decided it was just hormones."

You decided, Tess thought, and Natalie acquiesced. What other options did she have after you told her you'd give her no money? But she let it go. There were more pressing matters to explore.

"So any ideas about our mystery man?"

He winced, pained just by the mention. "None. As far as I know, the only men in Natalie's life were the merchants at the local stores, some teachers at Isaac's school."

"Does she have a friend, or a male relative, who might help her leave for whatever reason?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"Was there any man she came into contact with on a regular basis?"

"I don't see how."

"This man was tall and slender, with dark hair and blue eyes. Clean-shaven. Sound familiar?"

"No."

"Don't be so quick and emphatic. Think about it. Everyone knows someone who looks like that. My boyfriend looks like that, okay? Hey, maybe he's in Indiana with Natalie, not in Virginia with his family."

Rubin frowned and waved Tess away, as if he wanted her to leave, or disappear. Abracadabra, make all bad news go away .

"Okay, I just thought you should know what Gretchen found out, and I thought I should deliver the news face-to-face. Now I have. Please call me if you think of anything, anything at all. Because we're at a dead end unless your phone rings again. You should get caller ID at home, by the way. If your office phone hadn't shown us that number, we wouldn't know anything right now. Star 69 is okay, but more stuff gets through on caller ID."

Rubin opened his mouth as if to speak, then thought better of it.

"I've been cheated on," Tess said. "It sucks. I cheated, too, and that sucks even more, believe it or not. And I still didn't learn from that. I did a Jimmy Carter cheat on my boyfriend a few years ago-I was guilty only in my mind, but it was just a matter of time before my body followed. He knew me so well he saw it coming, and he left. I had to follow him all the way to Texas to get him back."

"Why are you telling me this? Take my advice, these are not the sort of confidences that a businesswoman imparts to someone who has hired her. I don't wish to know anything about your private life."

"I'm confiding in you because I'm human, and I know how this feels. Okay, you say your wife would never cheat on you, that you'd know, in your bones, if she had slept with another man. And maybe you're right. But in my line of work, I see people who do things primarily for two reasons-sex and money."

"Surely there are other reasons, other secrets."

Tess nodded. "Yes, there's shame, the need to cover up a past transgression. Is that involved here? Is there anything else you're not telling me?"

Rubin shook his head.

"Your wife left you, forgoing money. She's driving around in the Midwest in some old clunker of a car and eating at McDonald's, which wasn't kosher last time I checked. Did she want to get away from you and your life that badly? Or did she want someone else that much? It's one or the other, and it could be both."

She thought her harsh words might make the always-emotional Rubin dissolve into tears, but he just stared into the distance, shaking his head. He truly seemed overwhelmed by everything she had told him, which surprised Tess. Typically, the revelation of an affair was an aha moment that shed light on many smaller mysteries in a person's life. It was like living in a house where plaster cracked and faucets leaked and wind whistled around the window frames, then finding out the foundation was sliding off the slab.