Chapter 4: The Man on the Other End of the Line
I did not go to bed.
I sat in the armchair just inside my study with the door open two inches and I waited.
Forty minutes later, the light under the sitting room door went out.
Gwen's footsteps moved down the hall.
The bedroom door opened and closed.
I waited another twenty minutes.
Then I crossed the hall and went into the sitting room.
It was a small room — two chairs, a writing table, a lamp.
Gwen kept a few things there.
A novel she was working through.
A notepad.
Her reading glasses.
I looked at the notepad.
The top page was blank.
I tilted it under the lamp.
The impression of handwriting from the previous page was still there.
I could make out most of it.
*Thurs.
— R confirms.
Account active.
F signs or we move without.*
F.
My initial.
R.
I did not know who R was.
I tore the blank page off carefully, folded it, and put it in my pocket.
The next morning I called Gerald Marsh at eight o'clock.
"Franklin." His voice was careful in the way it always was when he sensed something was wrong.
"What's happened?"
"I need you to look at something.
Not over the phone.
Can you see me today?"
"Two o'clock," he said.
"Come to the office."
I told Gwen I had a routine appointment with my cardiologist.
She offered to drive me.
I told her Gerald's assistant was sending a car.
She accepted this without question, which told me something.
Gerald's office was on the fourteenth floor of a building downtown.
He met me at the door himself, which he only did when he considered the matter serious.
I laid the document on his desk without speaking.
He put on his glasses.
He read it once, quickly.
Then he read it again, slowly.
"This is not your signature," he said.
"No."
"Who had access to your signature?
Documents you've signed recently — anything she could have used as a template?"
"The property insurance renewal.
Three weeks ago.
I signed it at the kitchen table."
Gerald set the document down and looked at me over his glasses.
"Franklin.
Has anything else happened that concerned you?
Anything at all, even something you dismissed at the time?"
I thought about it.
"My evening medication," I said slowly.
"About two months ago, I started feeling unusually tired after dinner.
I thought it was my age.
I stopped taking one of the supplements Gwen had recommended — she said it was for circulation — and the tiredness went away within a week."
Gerald did not move for a moment.
"Do you still have the supplement?"
"I threw it away."
He nodded once.
He picked up his phone and dialed without explaining who he was calling.
When the line connected, he said only: "I need Marcus.
Tell him it's urgent."
He covered the receiver and looked at me.
"Marcus Hale.
He's a private investigator.
Former financial crimes detective.
I've used him twice before.
He's discreet and he's thorough." He paused.
"Franklin, I want you to listen to me carefully.
You go home tonight and you behave exactly as you normally would.
Nothing different.
Can you do that?"
"Yes," I said.
"Good." He went back to the phone.
"Marcus.
I have a client.
Forged financial authorization, possible document fraud, and I need a full background trace on a woman named Gwen Sterling.
Married name.
I'll send you what we have."
He hung up and looked at me again.
"How long has she had access to your accounts?"
"Since we married.
I added her to the household account.
The investment accounts and the estate accounts she cannot touch without my signature."
"Except," Gerald said, tapping the document, "someone has been working on solving that problem."
I looked at the paper on his desk.
Four hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
A routing number.
A deadline two days away.
"What do I do tonight?" I said.
Gerald folded his hands on the desk.
"Tonight you have dinner with your wife.
May you like
You tell her the cardiologist said everything looks fine.
And you watch her face when you say it."
