I came back with a full glass of red wine. She downed half of it, handed it back, and said, “Top it up.”
I’d brought the bottle, and obliged. I sat down on a chair opposite her.
“You’re not having anything?”
“I’m good,” I said.
“I’d tell you I hate to drink alone, but you’re a detective, so you’d figure out I was lying pretty fast.” She shot a quick look at the closed bedroom door, then gave me a critical look. “Jesus, this is unbelievable. Tell me again what happened.”
I told her what I knew.
“Oh my God. The two of them crushed? And they’d have been in his old Jag. Oh, Jesus, he loved that car. If he were here now, that’s what he’d say was the most tragic part of this. Sure, Miriam getting killed, that’s bad, but he really loved that car.”
I didn’t know what to say. But I didn’t have to come up with anything. “Why are you here?” she asked.
“Issues related to Mr. Chalmers’s death. As his ex-wife they may have some impact on you.”
She pursed her lips. That seemed to be good enough for her. “You know, I could see Adam dying any number of ways, but a movie screen falling on him?”
“What other ways could you imagine?”
Felicia shrugged. “Some old biker from his past killing him for ripping him off, maybe. A jealous husband who didn’t like Adam fucking his wife. Or maybe a former wife like me who was tired of listening to his bullshit. I don’t know. Take your pick.”
“Was there some old biker buddy from his past who got ripped off?”
“Shit, there were probably a bunch. Except Adam would have been smart enough to cover his tracks, or cover up the guy he ripped off with enough dirt that he’d never be coming after him, if you get my drift.”
“I think I do.”
She leaned forward. “I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. Adam was a good guy. He just had one hell of a past, is all.”
“Why’d the two of you divorce? I gather you were the one who wanted out.”
She took another big swallow of wine. “And why, exactly, would I even answer that question? I don’t know who the hell you are or why you’re really here. Some bullshit about issues related to his death?”
I smiled. “Someone broke into your ex-husband’s home. After it became known that he’d been killed in the accident.”
Her eyes widened. “What kind of sick bastard does that? I’ve heard about something like that. Creeps who break into people’s houses when they’re at funerals. They know they won’t be home. People get home, all broken up over the death of a loved one, and their flat-screen TV and jewelry’s gone.”
“It wasn’t quite like that. This thief was looking for something very specific, in a very specific place.”
Felicia Chalmers blinked.
“Oh,” she said.
“I think whoever came into the house had a key, and knew how to deactivate the security system. Someone Adam or Miriam, or both, trusted.”
Felicia nodded slowly. “I see. And you’re wondering if I’m that person?”
“I’m wondering if you have any idea who it could be.”
“Well, it’s not me. I can tell you that much. Adam would surely have changed the locks after our divorce. I mean, probably. Although I don’t think he ever distrusted me. But once he married Miriam, I’ll bet she’d have wanted to be sure I could never get into that house.”
“You never tried?”
“Of course not. I had no reason. I probably still do have a key somewhere, but I can’t say whether it would work or not.”
“Could you find it?”
“Now?”
I nodded.
A sigh. She got off the couch and went into the kitchen. I could hear her rummaging around in a drawer. “Maybe I got rid of it,” she said, loud enough for me to hear. “Oh, wait. I think this is it. Oh, looks like I’ve actually still got two of them.”
She returned to the living room with a key held between thumb and forefinger.
“May I have that?” I asked. “I’d like to see if it actually works.”
Felicia hesitated.
“If you’d like to call his daughter, Lucy Brighton, to confirm I’m legit, that’s fine with me,” I said.
She hesitated another second, then decided it was less trouble to trust me than to take the time to learn the truth from Lucy. “Here, take this one. I don’t need it.”
I did. I slipped it into the pocket of my sport jacket.
“Let me try asking again. Why did you and Adam get a divorce?”
She studied me for a few seconds, then gave a what-the-hell shrug. “I couldn’t take it anymore. I just couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t take what?”
“The lifestyle.”
“I’m sorry. What lifestyle?”
“The lifestyle,” she said.
Now I was the one shaking my head. “I don’t understand. Are you saying Adam Chalmers was gay?”
“No, no, no. Although I suppose he was bisexual to some point. I mean, you’d kind of have to be.”
“Wait, are you talking about wife-swapping?”
She frowned. “That’s what they used to call it in the dark ages. But that’s not a very politically correct term anymore. Made women sound like baseball cards. It’s not wife-swapping, but spouse-sharing.”
“Like group sex?”
Felicia looked at me like I was five. “Where are you from? Mayberry?”
“Enlighten me.”
“The lifestyle is when one couple meets up with another couple for sex. Okay, it could be three couples. Anything more than that and I guess it would be an orgy. Adam always liked to keep it to two other couples. You have six people, and there are quite a number of permutations, even more if the men are into men and the women are into women. Or at least give it a try. Everything consensual, more or less — at least that’s what they pretend. Everyone fooling around with each other, right in the open, no one going behind anyone’s back to have an affair. Supposedly. The openness, the freedom, actually makes relationships stronger. Gets the urge to stray out of your system. You indulge your fantasies with your partner’s blessing.”
“Supposedly.”
“Some spouses go along because it’s what their partner wants. They tell themselves they’re into it, too. But... not so much.”
“Like you.”
Felicia shrugged, knocked back some more wine. “You think it’s all out in the open, that that would eliminate the need for an actual affair. Why sneak around behind your spouse’s back when you can fuck someone else right in front of her? But with Adam, it was the secrecy he liked. That was the thrill. So even if he was banging his best friend’s wife right in front of him, the real thrill was to do it someplace else when he wasn’t there.”
“Is that what Adam did?”
She smiled sadly. “Oh, yeah. He had to see women outside the playroom. When I learned he was doing that, I’d had enough. I wanted out.”
“The playroom,” I said.
Felicia took a moment to size me up, wondering how much I knew. “You found it,” she said.
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes, as though trying to picture it. “It all seems so silly, when you think about it. And a little bit tacky, I guess. But Adam felt those activities deserved to be relegated to a special room. Like it shouldn’t taint the rest of the house. But it had to be hidden. He didn’t want anyone wandering in there by mistake.”
“I saw the DVD player. And the camera equipment under the bed.”
“Adam liked to record sessions,” she said, opening her eyes. “We’d play them back sometimes, with guests. Kind of like reviewing a football game play by play.”