Part Two: Wilson Tells His Story

I phoned Wolfe to report in. Wolfe was unexpectedly sanguine about having an unforeseen houseguest and said he would get Fritz to air the South Room. I suspected he was enjoying hearing about House riling me, in the same way I'd hoped to enjoy the sight of House riling him. There was plenty of time for that, of course; Wolfe hadn't even met our potential client yet. I really wanted to see Wolfe put House in his place at some point. I went back to the jail, met Parker, collected Wilson, who was very polite and grateful for everything, and took him back to the brownstone in a cab.

We got back about 5 o'clock, so Wolfe was in the plant rooms. I showed Wilson the South Room, and left him to take a shower. His clothes were fairly disgusting after his night in jail so I lent him an old shirt and pair of pants to wear. They were slightly big on him, but not ridiculously so. Wilson was sitting in the red leather chair in the office, looking clean and more relaxed, when House arrived shortly before six. House looked tired and was limping more heavily than he had been earlier. He didn't mention the steps when I let him in though, so I was deprived of an opportunity to toss him.

House walked into the office, threw himself into a yellow chair next to Wilson, and dropped a small suitcase on the floor. Wilson looked at the bag, then at House, and said, "Thanks."

"I took your hotel room for myself. Damn hotel hadn't even cleared it out yet," House said in a wounded tone. "I had to gather together your useless possessions. Don't know why I bothered, especially as you seem to have found some clothes anyway." His clear blue eyes swept Wilson up and down carefully, lingering on his face and hands; he wasn't just looking at the clothes. I thought perhaps House was looking for any injury, any damage, from Wilson's night in prison; but there wasn't a scratch visible.

"Mr. Goodwin was kind enough to lend them to me," said Wilson. His face was turned slightly away from me, so I couldn't see his expression.

"And here was I thinking you'd abandoned your accountant look-alike fetish." House leaned back in the yellow chair, and frowned. "Gimme that red chair. It's more comfortable."

"I was here first," Wilson said indignantly.

"Cripple's prerogative."

"Prospective client gets the red chair," I chimed in, just to be unhelpful to House.

House turned his steely eyes on me. "Actually, that's not the most comfortable chair in the room." And he switched his gaze to the chair behind Wolfe's desk, the one specially engineered for Wolfe's seventh of a ton.

"Wolfe will have me skin you alive if you sit in his chair," I said, as casually as possible. "Don't let me stop you."

House looked tempted, but by now it was six, and Wolfe walked in the door. Nobody switched chairs. Damnit, I would have to wait for another opportunity to sock House. Wolfe settled himself at his desk, and inclined his head regally towards Wilson.

"Dr. Wilson. A pleasure to meet you. You seem to have survived your night in jail."

"Thanks, I'm glad it was just the one night though," Wilson said. "I'm grateful to you for letting me stay here too."

Wolfe inclined his head one eighth of an inch again: don't mention it. A guest was, after all, a jewel resting on the cushion of hospitality.

"To avoid any misunderstanding, let me say first that I have not committed to take your case, only to hear it," Wolfe got down to business, and Wilson nodded. "Can we begin at the beginning? Tell me about your marriage to Mrs. Wilson, which I understand was twenty years ago."

Both House and Wilson winced at the Mrs. Wilson, and Wilson asked, "Can we call her Catherine, please? It sounds too much like we were still married otherwise. She only kept the name because she'd started to establish herself in her career when we split up, and it was easier that way."

"Catherine, then."

"We met at McGill. I was in my final year, she was a freshman." Wilson settled back in the red chair. "She was a long way from home, didn't know anyone, wasn't happy with the program she was doing then. I took her under my wing, tried to look after her, and well, we ended up going out." He sighed. "With hindsight, we were both too young. She was only eighteen, I was twenty-one. She was looking out for a fairytale romantic marriage. We got engaged just before I left at the end of the year. I had a place at med school at Columbia, she had to stay back a bit in Canada as she was doing a short course which took another six months, and to be honest, if I hadn't been leaving then, we probably wouldn't have got engaged when we did. It was a mistake." He shrugged. "But it wasn't a mistake either of us willing to admit at the time." He glanced at House, who was sitting impassively with a blank expression.

"So you went to Columbia," Wolfe prompted.

"Yes. She followed me to New York when her course finished, spent the next six months planning our wedding, and we got married the following summer." Wilson paused. "Once the wedding preparations started, it was like a juggernaut that couldn't be stopped. The wedding got bigger and bigger and more and more elaborate. And our families were so enthusiastic. Her parents loved me. My parents loved her. We even loved each other, but not enough."

He rubbed a hand over his eyes.

Wolfe looked at House. "Did you know Catherine too, Dr. House?"

House nodded.

"House was best man at our wedding," Wilson informed us.

"At all three of your weddings," House grumbled. "Count 'em. And people say you're the enabler."

"How long have the two of you known each other?" Wolfe enquired. I was pleased because by know I really wanted to know too.

"Twenty years. We met at Columbia," said Wilson.

"You were at medical school together?" Wolfe queried, surprised. There was an obvious age gap between House and Wilson. Or perhaps it was just that Wilson was naturally baby-faced while House cultivated the grizzled look.

"Oh no, House was a resident," Wilson said. "We lived in the same shared house for a bit when I first moved to New York, before Cath arrived."

Wolfe nodded and moved the conversation back to topic. "So you married Catherine. How long did the marriage last?"

"Less than two years," Wilson replied. "There were lots of reasons why it didn't work out. Catherine established her own career after we were married, and got very absorbed by it, and became much more independent, much more confident, didn't seem to need me in the way she used to. I was working really hard in med school, but I have to admit--" He held up his hands, "I wasn't faithful, I'm not making excuses, but after the dust settled after the wedding, we found we really didn't have much in common with each other, and we just didn't work on it. She put up with a lot of crap from me, but eventually she reached the end of her tether, and booted me out. Then we got divorced."

"It sounds remarkable that you kept in touch and were still on friendly terms twenty years later," Wolfe observed.

"Yes, I suppose it is." Wilson hesitated. "We argued a lot at the start, but the divorce wasn't acrimonious once we'd both decided it was the best way forward. I didn't contest, there wasn't any money to haggle over as neither of us had any, no kids, clean break, it was just your classic early short-lived unsuccessful marriage by two people who were too young to know better."

House's expression was still splendidly blank. I wondered if he had a different take on all this.

"I moved around a lot after med school, different jobs," Wilson continued. "Boston, Penn, Princeton. But she stayed in New York and was always in the phone book for her work, so I could find her if I wanted, and I did want to stay on good terms, so I did occasionally look her up if I was in New York. Which wasn't often. Years went by and we didn't see each other, didn't hear from each other. But then, recently--literally only a few months ago--she found me on Facebook and friended me. I friended her back, it would have been rude not to--" House let out a contemptuous snort at this-- "so after that we were kind of more in touch than at any time since we'd got divorced."

"Facebook," Wolfe said disdainfully. I grinned. I take it as part of my job to keep Wolfe up-to-date with new technology and social trends. I'd shown him Lily Rowan's Facebook profile a while back. Wolfe had despaired of humanity for a long time afterwards. The name and concept were bad enough, but the terminology offended him deeply, his greatest ire being reserved for the concept of friending. Lily Rowan had hundreds of friends, most no more than bare acquaintances and including many people she had never met. Wolfe had declared this an abuse of the grand old word friend with its thousand year etymology from the Old English.

"Er, yes, sorry." Wilson had the grace to blush. "Anyway, soon after that she emailed me--" Wolfe looked pained again-- "to say she was coming to Jersey with her boyfriend and would like to detour via Princeton to meet up for lunch. I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about it, but I didn't want to be rude, and I was curious. We hadn't met in at least six or seven years."

"Indeed." Wolfe looked interested. I could see why. What had moved Catherine Wilson to get in contact with her long-divorced husband after such a long period?

"I thought conversation could be awkward so I dragged House along," Wilson went on.

House groaned, apparently at the memory.

"So the two of you had lunch in Princeton with Catherine and her boyfriend three months ago." Wolfe pinned this one down firmly. "This boyfriend would be the fiancé, Mr. Scott Darby? It was their engagement party you were at last night?"

Wilson had been relaxed and chatty, but at the mention of last night he looked suddenly stricken. "Yes, that's right. They weren't quite engaged then, but Cath did tell me she thought they would be soon. The lunch was--pretty awkward."

"Hell on earth might be another way of describing it," House put in.

"Scott didn't want to be there. He didn't want to meet me," said Wilson. "And who could blame him? He was there because she was eager and he was trying to please her. In the end I talked mostly to her, about her job and family, and he mostly argued with House, about life, the universe and everything."

"He's a Grade-A loser and an idiot," House said.

"You didn't have to be so rude to him," Wilson admonished.

"I wasn't," House protested. "No more rude than I am to anyone."

"Afterwards I thought, I've been polite, done the right thing, never again," Wilson continued. "But then I got the invite to their engagement party, a month ago. I emailed her to say congratulations but I couldn't go. But she was insistent--really wanted me to come, felt she wanted my blessing now she was moving on--" He threw up his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "I caved. I said I'd go. So I did. And here I am."

"So the engagement party was last night, and it was there that Catherine was murdered," Wolfe ascertained.

House sat forward a little in his chair; the story from here on would be new to him, too. Wilson leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands. "I went over and over this with the police."

"You need to go over it again," Wolfe stated.

"Right." Wilson shut his eyes for a minute, then opened them again. "It was a nightmare. It was a big party, more than a hundred people there, I think. I hardly knew anyone. I did ask House to come, but he wouldn't."

House flinched slightly. I recalled what he'd said to Wilson through the prison bars: I should've come to the party with you.

"You can't blame me," House said, a trifle defensively. "Anyway, I had a patient. And clinic duty."

"You volunteered to do Saturday afternoon clinic duty!" Wilson rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I didn't mind not knowing anyone at the party, but of course whenever I introduced myself to anyone they asked how I knew Cath. And when I explained I was the ex-husband they looked at me very oddly, and after a while I just got fed up. I figured I'd shown my face and that was enough. I went to find Cath to say hi before leaving, but she said she wanted to talk to me about something privately first. So she took me up to her apartment."

"Wasn't the party at her apartment?" Wolfe queried.

"Yes. It's on two floors, and the lower floor is the one she uses for entertaining and work, a nice suite of rooms, all set up for serving food and drink and so on. She's an event planner, you see, it's important she does events well herself," Wilson said, unconsciously slipping into the present tense when talking about her.

Wolfe looked pained. "An event planner?"

"Yeah, she organizes weddings, parties, that sort of thing. She's very good at it," Wilson said brightly. "Anyway, there's a staircase up from the suite downstairs to the upper floor, which she keeps as her private apartment. We went up and sat in her living room." He hesitated. "It turned out she wanted to ask my advice. As a medical doctor."

House raised his eyebrows, but didn't say anything. We all waited expectantly.

"You must have already told the police about this," Wolfe prompted.

"It just seems wrong talking about it." Wilson put a hand on the back of his neck. "She said--she and Scott had been trying to conceive for the last six months, and hadn't had any success yet, and she wanted my advice. She was a little old to be having a first child, she was worried she might have left it too late. I said lots of older women have no problem, it might just need more time. Of course its not my area, so I offered to look into it, and give her names of some specialists in New York if she wanted to see someone about it."

This was interesting, and explained why Catherine Wilson had been eager to get back in touch with her ex-husband the doctor.

"Then we got interrupted by the waitress," Wilson continued. "The waitress had been standing at the bottom of the staircase, to stop anyone coming up. She put her head round the door and told Cath there were two women to see her and they were being loud and disruptive. Cath looked annoyed and said she'd have to see them just to shut them up."

"Their names?"

"Sandra Jenner and Tammy Marchant," Wilson said promptly. "I wouldn't have remembered that at the time, but the police asked if I knew either of them. I didn't. I don't. I never even saw them. I think they both had some kind of professional dispute with Cath."

This was good; other people with possible motives there at the scene of the crime. We would have to find out more.

"I offered to go, but Cath said she'd see them in her kitchen if I'd wait, and we could talk more afterwards. I didn't want to go back down to the party, so I stayed in her living room. I must've been there half an hour. I watched TV." Wilson looked a little embarrassed. "I channel hopped for a bit, then found Moulin Rouge was on."

House snorted, and said to Wolfe and myself, "If that's supposed to be an alibi it's no use whatsoever. Wilson knows every word of that damn movie."

"Anyway," Wilson said hastily. "Eventually I thought it had been a while, so I went out to the hall to look for her, and saw the kitchen door open... and I went through... and I saw Cath lying on the floor." He swallowed. He had turned pale. "With a knife sticking out of her chest. Oh God." He put his head in his hands.

I had long since given up the idea that I could tell when a murderer was in the room. That never stopped me from trying though. I looked at Wilson and thought that one would get you fifty that he wasn't. He wasn't crying, but then the men rarely did. He did look seriously choked up. House was sitting absolutely still in the next chair. His gaze was fixed on Wilson, but he didn't move and he didn't say anything.

"I rushed over, and shouted for help," Wilson continued in a muffled tone. "And tried to save her... but she was already dead. Poor Cath."

Wolfe hates emotion being displayed in his office, and his tone was gruff. "You must have seen many dead bodies in your line of work, Dr. Wilson."

Wilson looked up, and said a little wryly, "It's not quite the same."

"You're a doctor." Wolfe was brusque. "In your opinion, what had happened?"

"Direct trauma to the heart?" House asked, the medical query apparently overcoming his inclination to sit still and watch Wilson like a hawk.

Wilson nodded. "I think so. She looked dead--there was pallor mortis, she was absolutely white--but I thought...maybe I could save her. There wasn't much blood from the wound that I could see, though she was wearing a red top and I think that it must have absorbed a lot of it. I checked the carotid pulse and her airway, then I tried CPR, though it was difficult, what with the knife handle--it was a kitchen knife, you could see the gap in the knife block on the counter. The waitress came when I shouted, and she screamed and ran off to call 911...and I carried on for a few minutes until another doctor arrived, he was at the party downstairs...and he took over until the paramedics turned up, which was very quick... but it was all no good. She was dead."

"How long had she been dead?" Wolfe asked.

"Oh..." Wilson shook his head and took a couple of deep breaths. "I don't know. She was very warm. But then the kitchen was warm, the apartment was warm. I would say not more than five, ten minutes. I think she must have died pretty quickly after she was stabbed, maybe instantaneously." He looked a little hopeful at this.

The rest of the story was covered swiftly. While Wilson and the other doctor had been trying the CPR, partygoers including the fiancé Scott Darby had arrived. Scott had seen Catherine dead on the floor, Wilson kneeling next to her, sweating and with hands covered in blood. Scott had grabbed Wilson by the arm and forcibly dragged him away from Catherine, accusing Wilson of killing her; Wilson shook slightly as he related this, and I saw House's expression darken. The police had arrived, taken one look at the situation, heard Scott's accusation, found out that Wilson was the ex-husband, and hauled him in for questioning right there and then. I was sorry to hear that Lieutenant Rowcliff had been the arresting officer.

There were of course many questions still to ask. However Wilson was showing signs of distress: his face was chalk white as he related his experience of being questioned by Rowcliff, and he kept putting a hand on the back of his neck, and then pinching the bridge of his nose. More importantly, it was after seven and dinner time was approaching. Wolfe looked at the clock, considered for a moment, and then spoke.

"Dr. Wilson, as you are our guest and indeed obliged to remain in this house tonight, I hope you will join us for dinner, which will be served at eight o'clock. Dr. House, I hope you will join us also." Wolfe rose to his feet. "Please take a few minutes to compose yourself, Dr. Wilson. Archie?"

It took me a second. Wolfe had walked out before on crying women, this wasn't quite the same. But I got it, and followed him out of the room. Wolfe turned and strode down the hall towards the alcove where the waterfall picture was. For such a big man he can move quickly and silently when he wants to. We both stood by the picture and peered into the office.

Wilson was sitting with his head in his hands, we could see him quite clearly. We didn't have such a good view of House, who was angled away from us. But we could hear House quite distinctly when he spoke.

"Wilson, were you fucking her?"

Wilson lifted his head out of his hands and looked at House, dead in the eye as far as I could tell. "No, I wasn't."

"It wasn't a case of come up and see me, make me smile?" House said, his tone skeptical. "She really asked you up to her parlor, as the spider said to the fly, to get your advice as a doctor?"

"Yes." Wilson spoke through gritted teeth. "For Christ's sake, House, it was her engagement party!"

"Well, knowing what you got up the night before all three of your marriages--"

"House!" Wilson slammed a fist down onto the arm of the chair. "She was in love with Scott, was going to marry him, and wanted to have his children. It was their engagement party and he was there. She wasn't interested in me like that, and God knows I wasn't interested in her like that either. I've been saying so all night to the police and I'd really hope you'd understand better than them."

"All right, all right." House held up a pacifying hand, and Wilson subsided back into his chair. "I believe you."

"Thanks." Wilson buried his head in his hands again.

And then House rumbled us. I couldn't see how; maybe he just thought it was odd we had left the room just then--which it was--and now he'd asked Wilson what he wanted to know, his mind had switched back to us. Abruptly he looked round the room, his eyes sweeping Wolfe's desk. Then he frowned, grasped his cane and stood up.

"Gotta pee," he said to Wilson, and strode out of the room.

I could only marvel that a cripple with a cane could move as fast and as quietly as House did. He came out into the hallway, peered round the corner, saw us in the alcove, and walked down to join us. Wolfe and I looked at him, Wolfe impassive. House stared first at us, and then at the back of the waterfall painting. He then stepped past us and peered through the waterfall painting, at Wilson in the office. Wilson was still sitting with his head in his hands. Then House looked back at us, with a look not of anger but grudging admiration.

"You cunning bastards," House said. "Perhaps you do know how to do your jobs after all."

Then he turned on his heel and added, "I really do need to pee," and strode off down the hall again.

I looked at Wolfe and shrugged. Wolfe still looked impassive, but I thought I saw a small twitch in the corner of his mouth.

END OF PART TWO