“…lavender blouse, second row,” Mrs. Whitaker finished. The blonde woman with the sunglasses. The one my husband had glanced at and not recognized, because he had never once looked at her closely enough to fear this moment. Her name was Coralie, and she reached into her coat pocket to leave before the bailiff reached her, and when she pulled her hand back out, my grandmother’s ring was still on her finger. An emerald with two little diamonds. She had worn it into that courtroom the same way she wore it into the bank, because she had come to believe it was hers.
She was my husband’s sister’s friend, though “friend” understated it. She and my husband had been together for two years, since before the pipeline job, and the Wyoming schedule that made the withdrawals so convenient for their story was the same schedule that had given them the time. The plan was simple and cruel. Empty the account in my name, brand me a thief in the county paper, and let the court hand him the settlement and the reputation both. His mother had known. His mother had helped Coralie match the photo.
Mrs. Whitaker identified her again, in a written statement, from the branch camera stills my lawyer subpoenaed the moment she named the row. The old license photo, the styled hair, the ring, all four visits. The judge did not rule on the divorce that afternoon. She referred the matter, and the divorce became the smallest of my husband’s problems.