The Girl in the Green Raincoat_ A Novel - Laura Lippman [8]
“My wife is, um, self-employed.”
“So she’s—”
“Gone. On a business trip.”
“When do you expect her back?”
“I don’t. That is, I don’t know. She’s a, uh, free spirit. Comes and goes as she pleases.”
“Where did she go?”
“That’s none of your business.”
He slammed the door. A heavy wooden affair, perhaps it couldn’t help closing with such thudding finality. Mrs. Blossom didn’t know architecture, but the house suggested “Italian” to her, with its sand-colored stucco walls and red tiled roof. It sprawled over an enormous lawn, presumably tended by landscaping crews. Not to stereotype—after all, that’s what people were forever doing to her—but Mr. Epstein looked too blow-dried to be the gardening type. He had a fresh manicure and two gleaming rings. She would jot those details down later. Funny, her memory, which had been growing unreliable, was sharpening since she took this job. Tight, shiny maroon shirt, she added to her mental inventory. A gold bracelet, too, ID style.
His taste in houses was better than his taste in jewelry. Even in today’s deflated market, this was a million-dollar home or better, and a million dollars bought a lot of house in Baltimore city.
Instead of walking down the flagstone path to where her car sat at the curb, she wandered toward the garage as if confused. Confusion was an older woman’s prerogative, after all. The garage had small diamond-pane windows that allowed her to peer in. A three-car garage, it held only two vehicles—a BMW SUV and a low-slung Porsche that made her back hurt just looking at it. Imagine getting in and out of such a car. Mr. Epstein was only in his fifties, by her estimation, but he was a big man. She tried to memorize the license plates, a much trickier task. Luckily, one was a vanity tag, although she couldn’t sort out its meaning: mlcriss.
“Mid-life crisis!” Tess hooted. “Interesting thing to announce to the world. But where’s the trophy wife that usually comes with the package?”
“She’s on a business trip,” Mrs. Blossom said.
“He says,” Tess scoffed. “What else did you get from your background checks?”
Mrs. Blossom read from her notes: “He owns a chain of check-cashing businesses, with five franchises in Baltimore alone.”
“Some of those guys are legit, but I bet he’s one of the scummy ones, preying on welfare recipients, making payday loans at exorbitant interest rates. How long has he been married?”
“Six months ago, according to the license. First marriage for her—Carole Massinger Epstein—but not for him. License says he was widowed.”
“Newspaper searches?”
“Not much, but then—the Beacon-Light database online only goes back to 1995. He pops up in some stories about check-cashing owners worried about electronic benefits, and that’s that.”
“And Carole?”
“She’s younger, thirty-two to his fifty-three. But that’s all I’ve been able to find so far.”
“What about the MVA?”
“The two cars I saw are registered to him, although at an old address in Anne Arundel County. So he doesn’t update things, timely. But her car is newer, bought only three months ago, so it carries the Blythewood address. A BMW convertible, green, according to the registration.”
“So, if Mr. Epstein is to be believed,” Tess said, “his wife got into her spanking new BMW, drove off on a business trip, and never mentioned that she lost their new dog. Who would do that?”
“The dog is a bit of a . . . handful.”
“He’s not that bad,” Tess said. The still nameless dog had stopped soiling the crate, although he was still inclined to snap and snarl at almost everyone. With the exception of Tess, whom he seemed to regard as a fellow captive in a most unusual jail. If only he could speak, they might enjoy one of those terrific bonding experiences common to prison movies. The Dog in the Iron Crate, The Kiss of the Greyhound, The Preeclampsia Redemption.
Mrs. Blossom eyed the crate warily. “You know, I met Mr. Blossom because of a dog. Did I ever tell you that?”
“No,” Tess said. “I know you married him less than a month after your first date, but you’ve never mentioned the circumstances.”
“I was at the