Guilty Wives Read online

  The embassy grounds were protected by gates and by United States Marines. Visitors’ identification was checked twice before admittance. At the secured entry, visitors were required to check and turn off their cell phones. They passed through metal detectors and, given today’s events, were subjected to a physical search and an armed marine escort as well.

  Now they stood, two American expatriates, Jeffrey Elliot and Simon Schofield, in the office of the attaché from the United States Department of Justice, Daniel Ingersoll, an assistant U.S. attorney from Washington, D.C., serving a two-year stint in Paris.

  “Terrorists,” Simon scoffed. “Terrorists?”

  Ingersoll, an approachable man with a youthful face and sandy hair, had been here all of four months, and this monumental international incident was being dropped in his lap. It had sounded interesting at the time, this job—a fresh start after the divorce; a chance for his teenager, Molly, to attend a couple years of high school in Paris; and interesting work free of the stress of federal courtrooms. Yeah, right, he thought to himself. This case was going to dominate the rest of his time in Paris.

  “They’ve begun the investigation as a terrorism investigation,” he said to Simon. “It doesn’t mean it ends that way.”

  “And this means what again?” Jeffrey demanded.

  “Walk Jeff through it, Dan.” It was the voice of the United States ambassador to France, Tristan Souter, over a speakerphone, as he traveled back from Australia.

  “Sure.” Ingersoll sighed. He looked at the two husbands, who were wearing expressions he’d seen many times as a federal prosecutor—not so much on the defendants but on their families: desperation, anxiety about their lack of control over events, and overpowering worry, which bent their shoulders and distorted their mouths.

  “The French can detain anyone as long as there’s a plausible reason to believe that a crime was committed,” he explained. “If it’s an act of terrorism under investigation, they can effectively hold a detainee for what is really ninety-six hours. Four days. Technically, three, but it’s always extended by the prosecutor. It could be extended to five or even six days. But four is customary.”

  “And during this time?” Simon asked. “What protections does my wife have?”

  Ingersoll did a slow nod, trying to be deferential to the panicked husbands. “Very few, Mr. Schofield. They can deny her any outside communications. They can deny her a lawyer. For terrorism, they don’t even have to videotape the interrogations. She will see a lawyer at the end of the third day—after seventy-two hours—but only for thirty minutes, and the lawyer will not have seen any of the evidence. And some of us here believe—well, we don’t know but we suspect they record these attorney-client visits. So we always advise our citizens not to reveal anything.”

  Simon flew out of his chair, pacing the room in small circles. “You’re telling me they can interrogate Serena for four days straight and no one will watch them? No one can represent her? She can’t talk to anyone?”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” said Ambassador Souter over the speakerphone.

  Simon waved his arms. “They’re considered terrorists all because of who this man was? I mean, how were they supposed to even know?”

  Ingersoll didn’t have an answer for that one. He knew virtually nothing of the facts of the case. Still, a terrified husband could be forgiven for asking unreasonable questions. All that Ingersoll knew for certain at this point was that the French were stiff-arming him, playing things close to the vest for the time being.

  Jeffrey checked his watch. “And it’s only been about twelve, thirteen hours since they were detained?”

  “About thirteen hours, we think.” Ingersoll cleared his throat. “All we know is that at approximately seven hundred hours this morning, the GIGN raided the harbor in Monte Carlo.”

  “The GIGN?” Simon asked.

  “I’m sorry, the Groupe d’Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale. It’s an elite counterterrorism group. A military unit. Like our Delta Force.” Ingersoll sighed. “They took virtually everyone in the harbor into custody, but most have been released. Your wives, and their other two friends, are obviously their focus.”

  “And you haven’t seen them?” Simon asked. “Aren’t they supposed to let you see them?”

  Ingersoll grimaced. “Typically, someone from the embassy is allowed to visit an American citizen on a daily basis during the garde à vue—the detention period.” He shrugged his shoulders in apology. “But not today. This is no ordinary crime, sir. It’s not even an ordinary act of terrorism.”

  Jeffrey ran a hand over his face. “Where are they? The Palace of Justice?”

  “We don’t know, Jeff,” said the ambassador over the speakerphone.

  “You don’t know?”

  Ingersoll said, “The GIGN could have taken them to their headquarters in Satory, out west. But we think they’re being held by the Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence. DCRI. French intelligence. We think they’re in DCRI headquarters in Levallois-Perret. A suburb of Paris.”

  “This is absolutely—this is outrageous,” said Simon, who was all but bouncing off the walls. His face was ghost-white. “What—what’s happening right now? What do you think they’re doing? Are they eating? Can they sleep? Are they—”

  “The French are building a case,” said Ingersoll. “They’re questioning the women and gathering evidence and incorporating new information into the interrogations. This case will receive the highest priority, so the evidence is coming in fast. Evidence that takes months to process will take hours.”

  “They’ve got our wives all to themselves for four days, interrogating them hour after hour and doing God knows what to them,” said Jeffrey. “And we know nothing? They haven’t told you a single thing? Not one scrap of information?”

  Ingersoll paused, nervously scratching his head, debating. “I’ve exhausted my contacts. I’ve not been given any details. The lid is being shut extremely tight on this one.”

  That wasn’t altogether true. He’d largely been kept in the dark, but he had a few sources of his own, some relationships he’d built up within the Paris police force. He hadn’t been told anything concrete, but he’d been given one piece of information, probably better described as opinion than fact.

  He was told that the evidence against the four women was very, very strong.

  CHAPTER 27

  I WAS LOST in a sea of white light. I couldn’t very well sleep, even had I wanted to, given the brightness of the room and the cool temperatures, which had given me a permanent chill. Or maybe the slight tremble in my body was because of my jangled nerves, a simmering fear that shot up to a full-scale boil whenever I let my imagination get the better of me.

  Time had passed, but I didn’t know how much. There was no clock in this time warp of a room, nor were there windows or any sense of the world beyond these walls. The typical indicators of time—the movement of the sun, meals, human interaction—all were denied me. I had only my internal barometers, hunger and drowsiness, neither of which were reliable in my current state.

  I didn’t know if it was day one or day two now, if it was midnight or noon. My best estimate was that I’d been in this wooden chair for approximately eighteen hours, but I wouldn’t have bet a nickel on that guess.

  Nor was I having a great day from a physical perspective. A rather consistent pain shot from my buttocks up my spine to my neck. My arms had grown numb. My neck was sore from the rolling, side-to-side motion of my head along the back of the chair.

  Make the suspect uncomfortable, off balance. I got it. Their tactics were predictable, even primitive. But they were working, regardless.

  They had fingerprinted me, swabbed the inside of my mouth, drawn my blood, and run tests on my hands and forearms. Otherwise, I had been left alone. More alone than I’d wanted, in fact. I’d called out regularly in the beginning—requesting water, the bathroom, a moment to stretch my limbs—and soon realized that I would settle for an ang
ry confrontation. Some interaction. More information. Anything. I was left alone with this puzzle, of which I had only two pieces: Devo and Luc had been killed, and the murder weapon had been found in my purse.

  Or so they’d said. I didn’t know what to think. Either they were lying to me or someone had put a gun in my purse. Either way, this was a mistake. It had to be.

  “Hello!” I called out, recognizing the incongruity of my actions: refusing to talk but wanting someone to visit; recognizing that I should have a lawyer present but wanting to talk to Durand and Rouen anyway, wanting to know what other information they had, why they thought I was a suspect, what the other ladies had told them.

  It was a ploy, this silent treatment. They had shown me a damning piece of evidence and then left me alone for about twelve hours, enough time to let my imagination interact with my fear and concoct all sorts of heart-stopping, worst-case scenarios. A traditional tactic, maybe, but traditional for a reason—it was effective.

  The door opened. Durand and Rouen again. The brute and the stately elder.

  “I need…water,” I said. “And a bath—”

  “You would like a meal and a bathroom and a phone call,” said Durand. He unscrewed the top of his water bottle and took a long swallow. Then he screwed the top back on. Taunting me. “Like your friends have had,” he said.

  “What…about my friends?” My voice cracked as I spoke. My mouth was so dry that my tongue was sticking to the roof.

  “Bathed and fed,” he answered. “Now they are sleeping on beds. Because they told us. Madame Elliot, you have little time. We know what happened. We do not know why. Mais soon, we will have no need for a statement from you.”

  “Tell me…what they said.”

  “Your friend Winnie? Winnie says that it was you. You fired the weapon and it was your idea.”

  “It was my idea to kill Devo and Luc? That’s ridiculous. She wouldn’t say that.”

  Durand shrugged his shoulders.

  “And why would it be me? I wasn’t with Devo or Luc. I was probably the only one who wasn’t, frankly.”

  Stop, Abbie. This is what they want. They want us to turn on each other.

  “Then perhaps,” Rouen offered, “this is why they are all saying it was you. Because you were separated from them last night.”

  “They can blame you,” Durand added, “without blaming themselves.”

  Rouen said, “If it is of consolation to you, your friends Serena and Bryah were…réticent. Reluctant? Yes, reluctant—they were reluctant to say it was you.”

  “You, who have no alibi.” Durand.

  “You, whose purse contained the gun.” Rouen.

  “Now is the time, Abbie.” Durand moved in close.

  I shook my head. No. No. This couldn’t be. This couldn’t be right. My friends wouldn’t have done that. This couldn’t be happening.

  I took a breath and made a decision. Once the words came out, they couldn’t be put back in.

  “Damon Kodiak,” I said. “Damon is my alibi.”

  CHAPTER 28

  EVERYONE WAS DIFFERENT during the garde à vue. Some were indignant. Others, scared silly. Some would ramble incessantly while others wouldn’t open their mouths. Some wanted desperately to please the authorities while others spat in their faces.

  This one, this suspect, had been different from the other three women from the start. More visibly upset. More remorseful, less combative. Almost despondent.

  “You were in love,” said Durand.

  “No.” Winnie shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. Maybe. I cared for him…yes…I cared for him…maybe I loved him…”

  “You hoped he would obtain…divorce.”

  “No. That wasn’t…” She sighed. “That wasn’t…possible…for a…lot of reasons.”

  “It would be understandable that you would be…upset,” Rouen chimed in. “This man you cannot have? This life you cannot have?”

  Winnie didn’t answer. Her head continued to rock back and forth, as if it were no longer a denial but merely her attempt to stay conscious.

  “And you still deny touching this gun we found?” asked Durand.

  Winnie moaned. “Why do you keep asking me the same questions?”

  “Because you have not given me the truth.”

  “I have! For God’s sake, I have! Twenty…times now.”

  “Why would Serena do such a thing as kill him?”

  “She wouldn’t.”

  “And Bryah? And Abbie? What reason?”

  “No reason. They wouldn’t hurt a—”

  “Then it is you, Winnie. There is no other possibility. We know that you pulled la détente. The trigger. We know it was you.”

  “Tell us why you killed him, Winnie,” said Rouen.

  She didn’t answer. Her head fell back against the chair.

  “You wanted money,” said Durand. “If you could not have him, you wanted him to pay.”

  “You think…I killed him…for the money…what money? He wouldn’t pay me…he wouldn’t pay me money. Why would he…pay me money?”

  “To be quiet about your affair,” said Rouen.

  “No…that’s…ridiculous. Please…I need some…I need water and a bath—”

  “Soon, Winnie. Soon,” said Durand. “Tell us about the money.”

  “I don’t need…money. None of us…does. Well, Abbie…Abbie doesn’t have money…but she…she wouldn’t…please…just some…water?”

  “When you show remorse, Winnie.”

  “Show remorse, Winnie,” Rouen urged. “Say that you are sorry.”

  “Sorry?…I’m sorry…he’s dead.…I would give anything…to bring him…back…but I didn’t…I didn’t do anything…”

  The two interrogators looked at each other and made a decision—they could work with that statement. Winnie would get a bottle of water and her bathroom break. They had, for the moment, what they needed.

  CHAPTER 29

  “YOU WERE IN LOVE.”

  “No. I don’t know. Maybe. I cared for him…yes…I cared for him…maybe I loved him…”

  “It would be understandable that you would be…upset. This man you cannot have? This life you cannot have?”

  “Tell us why you killed him, Winnie.”

  “I killed him…for the money…he wouldn’t pay me…he wouldn’t pay me money…I’m sorry…”

  Durand turned off the small, handheld voice recorder. After he had secretly recorded Winnie’s statement, he had spent an hour reviewing the recording and making editing decisions, then a technician had spent another hour cutting and splicing Winnie’s words so that only the damning ones remained, making it sound like a seamlessly flowing conversation.

  Bryah shook her woozy head. “No…no…it…can’t be…Winnie wouldn’t…she couldn’t…”

  “She has already confessed. You can no longer help her. Your only question is whether you help yourself.” Durand was freshly showered and refreshed from sleep. Rouen was wearing the same suit but with a different white shirt underneath. Each of them was holding a bottle of water.

  To Bryah, handcuffed to a rickety wooden chair, it had been one long day-and-night-and-day of blinding lights and white walls. As much as she’d tried to track the time, she could do no better than a very rough estimate. Thirty-six hours was her guess. They’d fed her a cheese sandwich and a small bottle of water and they’d let her sleep on the floor for some time—how long, she had no idea, but probably just long enough to make her desperately want more.

  Her head bobbed. She began to cry. It was Winnie’s voice on the recording, no doubt.

  “She already confessed to shooting them,” said Durand. “You can deny all knowledge and join her in prison for life. Or,” he added, “you can tell us what we already know. You will have a…very short sentence.”

  Bryah shook her head, as if she were shaking away cobwebs.

  “She already confessed to shooting them over the money,” said Durand. “Say it. ‘She shot them over the
money.’”

  “No—”

  “Say it. ‘She shot them over the money.’” Durand nudged her shoulder. “And then we can permit you a bath and get you something to eat and drink. You want…sandwich? Croissant? Café?”

  With dark, tired eyes, Bryah looked up at Durand. “I…can’t. No…”

  “Why this nonsense?” Durand flailed his arms. “We already know! You simply say what we already know! You do this and you leave prison in two years. You do not do this? Then you are a liar and you are equally to blame. You never see your famille again. You spend thirty years in la prison. Maybe a lifetime.”

  “Madame Gordon,” said Rouen. “Écoute-moi bien. Winnie has admitted she killed him over the money. This is a benefit to her. It means for her that this was not une action terroriste. Not an…act of terrorism. You see? For le terrorisme, we have stronger laws, yes? Harsher punishments. Lifetime in prison. But what your friend has confessed? This is not terrorism. The penalty is…much lower. Yes? So you must help her now. You must…support what she says.”

  Durand pressed a hand to his chest. “We? We do not know that what Winnie says is true. She wants us to believe this so she receives the lesser sentence. If you want to help her, you say only what she has already said herself. You help her avoid a terrorisme charge and you help yourself by…cooperating.”

  Bryah tried to control her sobbing. She’d heard about France’s terrorism laws, the lengthy detentions, the harsher penalties, the outcry from human rights groups. She wasn’t a lawyer and she didn’t know the details, but what they were saying rang true. And—

  And it was Winnie’s voice on that tape.

  “She shot them over the money,” said Rouen. “She shot them over the money.”

  Bryah’s head dropped.

  “She shot them…over the money,” she said.