“I did. Lauren brought me into Dana’s office and we talked for a few minutes. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I knew Lauren and Dana worked closely together. In fact, Dana and her husband had invited us to dinner at their home, and we reciprocated by having them out for the weekend at our house. Which is to say it was not as if Dana’s existence was a secret Lauren was keeping from me. And so it made sense that when I visited my wife, I’d say hello to Dana. I think, if anything, Lauren did it because that’s what she would have done if Dana and she had just been platonic work colleagues. So, rather than there being an implication that there was something odd about it, I think Lauren was guided by the fact that it would have been out of character for her if she hadn’t done it.”

“Were you ever alone in Dana Goodwin’s office?”

“I honestly don’t remember,” he says with a sigh. “I know that this is an important issue in this trial. That the defense is saying I killed my wife and took Dana’s cell phone to frame her for it. And so I know it would help me to swear that there’s no way I was in her office alone. But the truth is that at the time, it was just a visit to one of my wife’s colleagues. I wasn’t thinking that every detail of it would be important later. So as much as I’d like to deny being there alone, it’s more important that I tell the truth. And the God’s honest truth is that I just can’t swear that there wasn’t a moment that Dana and Lauren stepped out and I was left alone. I don’t think so. I don’t remember that. But I can’t swear it didn’t happen.”

This answer was born of compromise. Richard originally did swear it didn’t happen. Over and over again, in fact. It was only when we spoke with Rita DeSapio, the secretary who sat between Dana and Lauren’s offices, that he was persuaded to change his tune.

“Did you take her cell phone?”

“No. That I can swear to without any reservation. Never happened. Ridiculous that anyone suggests otherwise.”

“Did anything out of the ordinary happen at dinner?”

“No. It had been a particularly stressful day for me at work. And the fact that I had to leave earlier than usual to meet my wife’s friends . . . well, it’s something I did for my wife.”

“Were you drunk after dinner?”