Now she tied that together with the other oddity she’d spotted among the last photographs the pathologist had shown her: the images of the interior of the car. Frankel was a tall man. Maggie had known that much just seeing him around the White House. The document she had glimpsed at the Chief Medical Examiner’s office described him as six foot one. And yet the photograph of the car showed the driver’s seat brought forward, close to the steering wheel. That was how Liz’s car always looked. Whenever Maggie visited her in Atlanta and borrowed the keys, she would always have to slide the seat back to make room for her legs, which were much longer than her sister’s. There was no way Frankel could have driven his own car with the seat in that position.
No, Maggie was certain. Someone else had driven Frankel to Rock Creek Park. And the doctor had not walked to the place where his body was found. Maggie imagined him carried, perhaps unconscious, over the shoulder by one man or else lifted by a couple of men, clean off the ground. One of them, wearing gloves, must have put the gun in Frankel’s mouth or under his chin and forced his finger on the trigger. But who would have done that? And why?
And what about the police? The Medical Examiner’s office must have seen what she had seen. They had to have done. Surely they’d passed both anomalies on to the police or, if they hadn’t, they must have assumed that the police themselves had spotted them. They were obvious, weren’t they? They would have been grounds enough to have demanded a more detailed autopsy at the very least, to run a few extra tests.
But that couldn’t have happened and now it could never happen. Frankel had been buried a few hours ago, swiftly, in accordance with Jewish custom. The family must have demanded it. Though why did the Chief Medical Examiner agree to it, when there were clearly unanswered questions that stood in the way of a straightforward ruling of suicide?
Ben Jackson had lost interest. Spotting someone else, he gave Maggie another peck on the cheek and insisted they should have lunch. She nodded goodbye and looked ahead in the shuffling queue, still moving in only the fractions of inches. Behind her she could hear a couple, perhaps in their thirties.
‘… and Laura were so close. Do you remember the speech he gave at her wedding? And the way her mom was begging him to sit down, because he’d gone on too long?’
‘He was so proud.’
‘I’m not sure how she’ll get over this.’
‘And what about Sheryl? This won’t be—’
But the rest was lost as they were swallowed up in the big hug of another friend.
Maggie looked ahead and felt that sensation which came to her less often these days, but could still leave a sting. No matter how many years she had lived in this country, she did not have roots here the way these people had roots; she could not fill a roomful of friends and relatives like this. In Dublin, yes. But not here. This place would never be home.
By now, it was nearly her turn. She had made her way to the front of the room, where five people were sitting on five low chairs. She guessed that three were Dr Frankel’s adult children – including the two daughters, Laura and Sheryl – one was his wife and the older man must have been a brother. This too she remembered: these were the people deemed to be the official mourners, the immediate family.
The man in front of her worked his way across the group, shaking hands with the others before lingering to talk to the Frankel son. He leaned in for an awkward hug with his bereaved friend, who remained seated.
Now Maggie stepped forward, introducing herself to the son, daughters and brother, explaining that she worked at the White House with their father and that she was sorry for their loss. When she reached the wife, she shook her hand and said, ‘Mrs Frankel, I am so sorry. This must be so hard.’
The woman nodded, but said nothing.
Maggie tried again. ‘None of us can understand it. Not at all. It seems so … out of character.’
Helen Frankel clasped Maggie’s hands and said, ‘Of course it’s out of character! Jeffrey would never do such a thing. Never!’
‘But the police say the gun was his.’
‘Mine actually. He didn’t want it in the house. He never picked it up. It was me,’ she sniffed. Maggie saw her eyes were rimmed red.
‘It was you?’
‘Yes, me. Who said we should have a gun. To keep us safe.’ She shook her head, furious with herself. She was still holding onto Maggie’s hand. ‘Such a terrible mistake. Terrible.’
Then, pushing to confirm what she already knew, Maggie nodded and said, ‘And with Sheryl’s wedding coming up too.’
At that the woman squeezed Maggie’s hand harder. ‘This is it, you see. It makes no sense. You know Jeffrey. He lived for his family. He would not have missed his baby daughter’s wedding. Not in a million years.’
‘He had everything to live for.’
‘He wanted to see Sheryl have children. He loved being a grandfather, you know that.’
‘It makes no sense.’
‘He loved life! This was a man who loved life.’
Maggie could sense the couple behind her, edging closer. They’d finished their conversations with the other mourners and were now giving her the tacit, but unmistakable signal to wrap things up and let someone else have their turn. It was time to make her move.
Looking directly into the widow’s raw eyes, she said, ‘What I’m trying to understand is whether anything happened at all, maybe something out of the ordinary, that could have, you know, distressed him.’
At that moment, the woman glanced over Maggie’s shoulder, acknowledging the presence of the couple behind her. Maggie feared the moment had been punctured, the spell broken. She tried to lock Helen’s gaze back onto hers. ‘Do you remember anything, Mrs Frankel? Anything that happened to Jeffrey in the last few days that might have distressed your husband?’
She looked down. ‘He seemed happy. He was talking about a vacation in Europe, after the wedding. We’d never been to Rome. Not together, I went once, before we were married but—’
‘Could something have happened at work, perhaps?’
‘He didn’t really talk about that. He didn’t bring his work home.’
‘Maybe something with the President? Had the President perhaps …’ Maggie stopped herself. She could see a thought had passed across the woman’s eyes, like a plane across the sky.
‘The only thing I can think of.’
‘Yes.’
‘Talking of bringing work home—’
Maggie nodded.
‘—was last night. That was unusual, I suppose.’
Maggie stayed silent, aware that she was taking a risk: the couple behind her might step into the lull and seize Mrs Frankel’s attention for themselves. But instinct told her she needed to keep quiet.
‘Jeffrey doesn’t often get visited at home. But Mr Kassian and General Bruton came here last night. They went into Jeffrey’s study with him.’
‘The Defense Secretary? And the Chief of Staff? Here? Last night?’
‘I offered them lemonade.’
‘Do you know why they were here?’
‘They didn’t want any. Even though it’s homemade. And it was such a warm night.’
‘Do you know what they wanted, Mrs Frankel? It could be important.’
But she was already looking away, extending her arms to hug the woman who’d been waiting so long. Maggie heard a muffled, ‘We’re so sorry, Helen.’ She squeezed her way back through the throng, raising her eyebrows in recognition as she saw more colleagues,