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“I think any husband or wife in this room can empathize with that.”
I ask her if she ever heard her husband express any animosity toward Mitch Gates.
“Never. I know what Gus Hennessy has testified to, that argument he says he heard on the beach. But Rob still disputes that the argument ever occurred. The truth is, I never heard him mention Mr. Gates, or his family. They were in their world, we were in ours.”
And what rarefied air it is.
Yours, Claire.
Not theirs.
“But then,” I continue, “those two worlds collided, at least in the view of the state, on the night of the murders, correct?”
“Obviously, yes,” she says.
I look at her admiringly, the role she’s playing of supportive and caring wife. She really does look sensational. The whole package. Clothes. Hair. Makeup. Jewelry. Her entire regal bearing.
“Now, you told police that you weren’t aware what time your husband came home the night of the murders. Isn’t that right?”
“That’s right.”
“When originally interviewed, you told the police that you’d been at a meeting of the East Hampton Historical Society.”
“I’m a board member,” she says.
“And you further informed the police that when you returned home, your husband was still out.”
“Yes.”
I am leaning against my table, my tone relaxed and conversational. Jimmy has said in those moments I’m trying to sound like the solicitous solicitor. Almost as if Claire Jacobson and I are gal pals.
“You told police that when you did arrive back home, straight from the meeting, you took a sleeping pill and were then, in your words, ‘completely zonked.’ Correct?”
I’m smiling again. Good neighbor Jane.
“I’m not proud of the fact that I occasionally need to medicate to get a good night’s sleep,” she says. Then adds, “Now more than ever.”
“Completely understood.”
I pause just slightly. “I don’t need to remind you, do I, that you’re still under oath?” I ask.
“Of course not.”
“But again, you told police that you came straight home from the Historical Society meeting, which ended at eleven o’clock, according to the minutes.”
I see a little something in the cat eyes. Not fear, exactly. Wariness. I’d asked her downstairs how quickly she could produce the prenup she’d signed with her husband. She’d said no way in hell.
But I didn’t need it.
At least not in the way she thought, the language in it about how a murder conviction would cause the “moral turpitude” clause to kick in.
And enable her to walk away with everything.
“Yes,” she says. “I came straight home.”
“But you didn’t come straight home, did you, Mrs. Jacobson?” I ask.
Now she pauses.
