twelve

“Melanie was the most amazing woman I ever met.” Leon Rabinski smiled softly at the memory of his late wife. “She was so alive, so energetic and enthusiastic, that for three weeks after she passed I was sure it was all a mistake and I waited for her to come walking through the door.” Rabinski looked toward the entrance of Fontaine and Fontaine Real Estate, a rather disappointing office in a nondescript office building in New Brunswick, as if this were the door he had been discussing. I assumed it was not.

Ms. Washburn and I had intended to visit Brett Fontaine’s place of business anyway, but the revelation about Rabinski’s marriage to Mr. Fontaine’s college girlfriend had accelerated our interest in the office. It was as plain and indistinct as such businesses usually are. Real estate agents do not often bring clients to their places of business, preferring to view properties in person and signing documents in the clients’ homes. There is no reason to have an especially aesthetic workplace.

“Did you meet your wife at Fairleigh?” Ms. Washburn asked. New Jerseyans often abbreviate the name of Fairleigh Dickinson University as a kind of insider shorthand. I have never heard it questioned.

“Actually, no,” Rabinski answered. “I met her at a party at Pete Belson’s apartment ten years ago. Fairleigh’s a pretty big campus and you don’t get to know everybody in the place or even everybody in your class.”

“But when you met her at Mr. Belson’s place, you hit it off right away?” Ms. Washburn said. I disagreed with her choice, giving the person being interviewed an answer instead of insisting on his own account of the event. But I was allowing her to do most of the questioning. I was finding it difficult to restrain myself but I did trust Ms. Washburn. To this point she had not made what I considered to be a major error.

“Sort of,” Rabinski answered. “She was so beautiful I figured I didn’t have a chance with her so I didn’t really do much except stand around and talk to her. She told me later she liked that and thought I was funny. In a couple of weeks we were dating. Go figure.”

“She died in an automobile accident?” I said. I had not agreed to remain entirely silent; Ms. Washburn had not asked me to do so. But her expression indicated some impatience. I later asked and she told me it was not about my asking a question but that she thought my manner would especially upset Rabinski.

Indeed, he almost winced at the memory. Then he nodded. “Yeah. She was driving on Route 22 in Union and a guy in a truck came around one of those crazy ramps they have there. I don’t even think he’d been drinking; he just didn’t look. Mel’s car was pushed and hit by a BMW, then went up in flames. Everyone else walked out without a scratch.” He shook his head at the idea. “Ruined my life and nothing happened to that truck driver at all.”

Ms. Washburn’s tone was certainly gentler than mine had been, I see in retrospect. “So you had a happy marriage.” It was stated as a fact, not posed as a question, and Rabinski did not respond. He accepted the information and confirmed it by not challenging the speaker. Ms. Washburn did not lean forward, did not suggest through her body language that she was about to ask a more personal question than before. “Were you aware that your wife and the man you work with were involved years before you met her?” That was as sensitive a way to ask an insensitive question as I could imagine, so I took note of Ms. Washburn’s style.

As fitting the tone, Rabinski did not seem at all offended. “Of course I knew. We laughed about it. Mel never told me much about that time but when she found out I worked with Brett she was kind of stunned for a minute.” He meant she was stunned for a moment, but I thought it counterproductive to intrude on the conversation. “She said they stayed friends, sort of, but I noticed when they saw each other at business parties and such, she made sure to be on the other side of the room. They said hello and that was pretty much it.”

I thought it would be time to ask Rabinski about the rumors Detective Monroe had alluded to, that he was having an affair with Virginia Fontaine. But Ms. Washburn obviously wanted to take the inquiry in another direction, one I would not have pursued on my own.

“Forgive me for asking,” she began, “but sometimes when a loved one passes away so abruptly, there’s the feeling of unfinished business, that things were left in the middle and not at the end.” Despite her asking for forgiveness, she had not asked Rabinski anything.

“I know what that feels like,” Rabinski said. “I spent months rehearsing the conversation I thought we were going to have when she got home. I kept thinking, I guess, that if I got it right Mel would come back and I could talk to her again.”

That seemed to charge Ms. Washburn’s interest. “Did you ever try to talk to her again?” she asked. “A lot of people in your situation do that. They seek out someone who says they can reach to those who have left us and pass messages. Did you do that?”

Rabinski’s mouth turned to one side as if he were chewing on an especially tough piece of meat. “You mean like mediums and that?” he said. “People who take your money and pretend they can talk to the dead? No, ma’am. I was devastated, but I wasn’t crazy.”

“So you’ve seen no sign of your wife since that night,” Ms. Washburn continued. This was the ghost theory she was trying to pursue and I thought it particularly pointless.

“Of course not,” Rabinski said. “Now, if that’s it, I have to lock up the office and take off. I have a couple of appointments before I go home tonight.” He stood up to signal that our conversation had ended.

I saw no other choice. “Are you having an affair with Virginia Fontaine?” I asked. It seemed the most likely way to obtain a direct response.

Ms. Washburn’s expression indicated I had been socially inappropriate. I did not see how. Rabinski and I were not friends or even acquaintances. I was here to ask questions and receive information. I was asking the most pertinent question to the matter we were researching. Sometimes even Ms. Washburn interprets things in ways I fail to understand.

“What?” Rabinski was not, it should be noted, asking me to repeat the question because he had been unable to hear it. He was expressing some level of outrage, assumedly at me for asking such a personal question, but I saw no reason to respond and simply waited for him to continue. “Get out of my office.”

That was not an answer to the question. “It is an important point,” I explained. “If you are seeing Ms. Fontaine that might shed some light on a possible motive for Mr. Fontaine’s murder. If you are not, we will know there is a definite flaw in the thinking of someone involved in that question. Do you understand?”

“I said get out,” Rabinski responded. “And don’t come back. You’re not cops and I don’t have to talk to you.” He pointed to the door, as if our continued presence was evidence that we did not know how to leave the office.

“Thank you for your time,” Ms. Washburn said, standing up and walking toward the door. “Sorry if we upset you.”

“Just get out,” Rabinski repeated. He wiped his face with his left hand although it had not seemed especially damp with perspiration.

I rose from my chair and followed Ms. Washburn to the door. Then I turned and looked at Rabinski, who had now covered his eyes with his palms and was inhaling deeply.

“Now that Brett Fontaine is dead, are you president of the company?” I asked.

Ms. Washburn led me out of the office before Rabinski could answer.