48
Jerry had not been exaggerating when he said that he and the museum had come up with a plan to make a small corner of the museum look like the sprawling “Fashion of First Ladies” exhibit. Looking at the set with a naked eye, Laurie saw a couple of dresses on mannequins in front of a green screen, with two chairs for Ryan and Ivan. But when she looked at the scene on the screen next to the cameraman, the wall behind them appeared to be part of the original exhibit. “Camera magic,” as Jerry had described it.
Unlike the workout clothing she was accustomed to seeing Ivan wear, he had chosen a well-tailored dark gray suit and a conservative striped tie for his interview. For the first time, she could imagine how a cultivated woman like Virginia would find him attractive.
Ryan had already walked Ivan through the basic background of his relationship with Virginia and how they had met at an art exhibit. After just a few dinners together, they began dating regularly. When she bought him a Porsche for his birthday, they had been dating for only seven months. They picked out her engagement ring on the one-year anniversary of their first date. “I considered us engaged,” he said. “She just wasn’t ready to make the announcement yet.”
“What became of the ring?” Ryan asked.
The question caught Laurie by surprise. She hadn’t thought to ask before, and the question signaled that Ryan, as promised, was not going to go easy on his boxing coach.
“I took it back to the jeweler about a month after Virginia died. Seeing the box in my dresser drawer was a reminder of what I’d lost.”
“And the jeweler gave you a refund of some kind?”
“Yes, back on my credit card. They were very understanding about it.”
“But wasn’t Virginia the one who actually paid your credit card bill at the time you bought the ring?”
Ivan shifted in his seat. “Yes. I know how it looks. But, honestly, it made no sense for me to keep that ring, and I knew the family wouldn’t want it. It was because of their hang-ups she wasn’t wearing it in the first place. And by the time I returned it, they were telling anyone who would listen that I was a killer. In my mind, I thought Virginia would want me to return it and put the money into my gym, PUNCH.”
“On top of the half a million dollars she had already fronted you,” Ryan said.
Laurie could tell that Ivan had assumed that the interview would be friendlier than this. “As I said before, she believed in my vision. And it turned out she was right. I could have paid her back sixfold by now.”
“Virginia wasn’t the first older, wealthier woman you had dated,” Ryan said. It wasn’t even a question. “You met many of them among your clients as a personal trainer.”
“There were a few others, but nothing serious. Not like with Virginia.”
“How would you describe the mood within the Wakeling family on the night of the gala?” Ryan asked.
“Cordial,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “Polite, if a bit stilted. They told their mother in no uncertain terms that they did not think I should accompany her to such a high-profile event. Ironically, though, that night was probably the most comfortable I had ever seen Virginia around her family and me together. I honestly thought the ice was beginning to thaw, and then she was gone.”
“What made the atmosphere less chilly that night?”
“I hate to say it, but I think it was because the family had someone else to disapprove of that night instead of me. Their cousin, Tom, had managed to score an invitation to the gala.” Ivan explained Tom’s place in the family tree and the bad blood between Robert Wakeling and his brother, which lasted beyond both of their deaths. “Virginia and her kids kept saying Tom never would have been allowed through the doors if not for his last name. He didn’t sit with us, but he did come by a few times, obviously trying to ingratiate himself to the family. He had this crazy date with him. She was slightly drunk and was rambling on about how her grandmother—a former cabaret dancer—had a passionate love affair with a famous politician and deserved to have a dress of her own in the exhibit. Ginny said it was the most entertainment she’d gotten from that side of the Wakeling family tree in thirty-five years.” He smiled sadly at the memory. “I think the family was having so much fun chuckling at Tom’s expense that I seemed tame in comparison.”
“But you’re not actually tame, are you?”
“I don’t know what you mean by that.”
“Virginia Wakeling was five-foot-four and weighed a hundred and ten pounds. You could easily lift her weight over your head, couldn’t you?”
“Of course, but that means nothing. Most men, and many of the women I train, would be able to lift someone as small as Virginia. And someone obviously did, because I would never, ever hurt her.”
From there, Ryan returned to the subject of money, laying out a detailed comparison of Ivan’s expenses in the months before Virginia’s murder to his income. The implication was clear: he was living off his much wealthier girlfriend.
“Virginia told her children that she was only helping you with occasional spending money,” Ryan said, “and yet she transferred approximately five hundred thousand dollars to open your business. Do you have any contracts showing an agreement with her?”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t formalized. Once we were married, it would be moot. We were going to take care of it as part of a prenuptial agreement, which I was happy to sign.”
“In fact,” Ryan said, “you don’t have any evidence at all to show that Virginia gave that money to you on her own, do you?”
“No, but there’s no evidence I stole it, either, and I shouldn’t have to prove my innocence. Look, was it helpful to me personally that Virginia was wealthy and generous to me? Of course. But once I fell in love with her, she could have lost everything, and I still would have wanted to marry her. I brought something today, and would like to read it with your permission.”
“Go ahead,” Ryan said. He looked to Laurie and she nodded. They always edited later.
“You told me once that Bob was your soul mate. At the time, I understood you were telling me not to expect anything serious or lasting. But then you told me I was your second chance at happiness, and I knew that you had opened your heart to me, where I want to stay with you always, for every breath you and I can take together. Those are the words I used when I proposed to her, because I knew she was not starting a new life with me. I was joining a life that was already long and full before I came along.”
Laurie felt a lump in her throat, thinking about Alex. When I was with Greg, she thought, he felt like my soul mate. She wasn’t erasing anything about her life with Greg, but maybe it was possible to get a second chance.