Bennett Sisters Mystery, Volumes 1-2, page 3
Betsy's eyes widened. “Wait — no trust fund for Tris?”
“I guess he never got around to it.”
The word hung in the air: Bastard. “But what about you? Will you stay at Legal Aid?”
“For the time being. I’ve been trying to think. Do you know anybody else whose husband died young like Harry?”
“Well. You remember Margo Willoughby. She was about forty-five when Gus died.” Betsy bit off her next sentence as they both remembered Margo had flipped out, treated herself to a bad face-lift then married a guy who owned a strip club in New Jersey.
Merle drained her tea cup and smiled. “Time to perfect that cannoli recipe?”
* * *
She took the file Troy Lester gave her to bed. The obituary for Harry’s parents was something he’d never shared. Despite his material generosity he hadn’t really been the sharing type, always buzzing off to his meetings and reading endless financial newspapers. He’d rarely sat down in the kitchen to chat like she’d just done with Betsy. Had he ever seen this clipping?
* * *
New York Herald Tribune. March 2, 1954.
Weston Montgomery Strachie and his French bride, Marie-Emilie, died tragically on a rainy night as they returned to their home on Long Island from a romantic outing in Atlantic City. Their auto skidded off the road on a curve and struck a large oak tree that has claimed the lives of more than a few drivers over the years. Husband and wife were pronounced dead at the scene. They leave behind their four-year-old son, Harold.
Weston, 37, was a devoted husband and father. He met his bride in France after his Army service during World War II. His business as a wine and spirits importer brought him frequently to the country. They married in 1947, and their son was born several years later. They moved back to the United States in 1952, settling in Levittown.
Marie-Emilie, 26, who preferred to be called Emilie, will be remembered as a sunny, lively girl, a devoted wife and mother. She will be sorely missed by all who knew her.
Weston is survived by his loving sister, Amanda Wilson and her husband, Sylvester, who have opened their hearts and home to little Harold, and by his mother, Louise Strachie, of Buffalo. Marie-Emilie is survived by many relations in France.
* * *
There was another, smaller announcement in the Times. The only new information was Marie-Emilie’s maiden name, Chevalier. She reread the Herald Tribune obit; it had the touch of Aunt Amanda, last seen in a dinner plate hat at Harry’s funeral. After Sylvester died she traveled the world with friends from her days as a dress buyer at Macy’s.
“Marie-Emilie Chevalier,” Merle whispered aloud. Was she really sunny and lively, or was that just Amanda’s drama? Merle closed her eyes. She’d missed having a mother-in-law, all these years. Amanda had played the part but not exactly, not being the maternal type. Merle tried to imagine Harry as a little child, round and smiling, playing in the fields of lavender — the way she imagined the French countryside, bucolic and fragrant.
The bass and drums of music videos thumped through the ceiling, bringing her back to the present. She put the obituary aside. Like so much in the past, it didn’t matter. Not any more.
Chapter Three
1949
“Complaining will not keep you alive.”
She backs through the gate with the chicken held by its legs as it flaps and squawks. Pausing inside the garden she looks up at the window. Cigarette smoke curls out, which means Weston is working at his typewriter. No tapping sounds so he isn’t actually typing. She wonders if that is good or bad. He believes, like the chicken, that complaining will change his fate. He truly thinks that sour thoughts, and words, about his writing not selling will magically make it sell, when it made sense to accept defeat.
Marie-Emilie sets down the vegetables and the bread on a spot of shade behind the outhouse. She has been lucky at the market, the first real piece of good luck they’d had in weeks. There had been potatoes and leeks, and some asparagus for the first time. The chicken is scrawny but will provide a week’s worth of soup. The bread was cheap because it is last week’s, hard and dry but she has a method to make it right again. Normally the farmers are hard on her at market, raising their prices out of spite. They are suspicious of strangers, from the war, she imagines, but why they take it out on her, a real Frenchwoman, is beyond her. The villagers’ coldness hurts her. She would move back to her own village in a moment, but there is no house to live in there.
The chicken scratches her leg with its beak, causing her to cry out. Weston comes to the window, frowns, and disappears. Jaw clenched she grabs the neck of the bird and gives it a violent twist. With the axe she dispatches its head. Basket between her legs she plucks its feathers, then cleans it. Inside she lays a fire, filling the kettle with water and hooking it onto the iron arm. Weston hollers down from upstairs.
“What the blazes are you doing now? It’s so hot my fingernails are sweating and you build a fucking fire.”
He appears on the stairs, cigarette hanging from his mouth, in his undershirt. She dislikes seeing him this way, half-dressed in suspenders and wrinkled trousers. Sometimes he goes out on the streets, walking in the evening, like this. Is it any wonder no one likes them?
“Fresh chicken,” she says. “For soup.”
“It’s too fucking hot for soup,” he growls. “Where’d you get the money?”
“Barter,” she says, smiling. “No money.”
“What did you barter then, cherie?” His eyes are hateful and black. Money is his biggest worry since things went bad in Nice. They had come with such hopes, with money in their pockets. All gone now. Between the wine business and the writing, they haven’t seen any money for a month. But he finds wine to drink. His fingers are stained with it.
“Old clothes,” she says, smoothing her cotton skirt. He would never know if she had sold clothes or not. He hates all her clothes.
He takes a long drag on his cigarette. “What clothes?”
“Some old ones I do not wear.” In Nice he bought her the satin dress, fancy shoes, the lovely soft jacket. She sold them months ago.
He looks her over with his hard eyes, not lingering, as she hoped he wouldn’t, on the faded blue scarf she wears on her head. Planning this day she wore the scarf for a week, hiding her long, black hair until this morning when she sold it for sixteen francs to a woman from Bordeaux who makes wigs for whores.
He frowns at the kettle, now bubbling. “I’m going out.” In the garden he washes himself in the American way, she supposes, of splashing a few handfuls of water on one’s neck, and slams the gate behind him.
Sitting on the stool in front of the hot fire, she thinks she will write to her aunt. Ask her why she gave up this house, if there is some curse on it. Maybe there is a way to find happiness here that she is too blind to see. With the curse lifted, Weston will be happy and they will have a baby.
She chops leeks and tears flow from her eyes. As she throws the vegetables into the kettle she prays once more for a child. Then they will both be so happy they will love each other forever.
Chapter Four
It was late morning by the time they arrived in the financial district. Fifteen days since Harry died, a Wednesday. Merle was missing a staff meeting at ten-thirty, a lunch meeting in Queens, and six afternoon appointments with clients, one of whom was an old black man named Elmer she’d been helping for years.
She sighed and tried not to think about Elmer and his problems. She was a walking appointment book, her mind fixated on the calendar the way others memorized football scores and bird lists. It was a curse to be so obsessed with days, hours, appointments. Calendar Girl, Harry used to call her, teasing her as he asked on what day of the week the Fourth of July fell three years from now, as if she were a parlor game. And she knew, she always knew.
Tristan sulked in the train. Merle forced herself to look at the scenery and feel joy — or something, anything — whenever she saw a redbud or crabapple in bloom.
Why was she so obsessed with time? Now the future looked fuzzy, and it scared her. She had no idea what was going to happen, and felt herself clinging to her old life, unwilling to let it go even though the reality was that it was gone already. And shame, that was a big one. Her failure to love her husband hovered at the edges of everything. She was deficient. That was obvious. She hadn’t admitted it to her sisters yet but she would. She couldn’t keep something so big, so emotional, from Annie especially.
She watched Tristan, his black eye and sad face full of boredom and pain. She loved her son deeply, but that was organic, wasn’t it? She reached out for his hand on the train. He allowed the touch for exactly ten seconds. She didn’t have to consult her watch.
Don’t think: of pain or regret, love or hate, past or future. Just be in the world. She breathed out, slowly. Relax, this is your life. Why is that so hard? Her mind spun, torturing her. The past was a minefield. The future refused to show itself, as murky as the puddles in the streets.
Hanford Welsh was on the ill-fated seventh floor of the building, not far from the Stock Exchange. They took the elevator.
“Whoa, buddy,” said one of the traders in the lobby, Mike, or Ike, or Mickey. “I hope the other guy looks worse.”
Tristan put up his fists. “You want some?! Come on!” The trader laughed and edged away.
Dragging the boy into Harry’s corner office Merle shut the door. “This is hard enough without you acting like a child.” He stalked to the corner windows. Everyone had stared at him on the train. She could kick that trader except she’d said the same dumb thing.
Harry’s secretary poked her head in. “Hi, Merle. Do you need anything?”
Merle tried to smile. People were scared enough around the Widow. “Thanks, June. A box maybe?”
She returned with two paper boxes with lids. June was a tiny, young thing, just Harry’s type, with wispy light brown hair and big gray eyes. “I’m working for Mr. Marshall now. He said to help you, if you need me.”
“I want to look at Harry’s computer files before I leave. I need his password.”
June frowned. “I’ll check.”
Merle looked over Harry’s desk, the death site. There was no sign of his last breath, of the ambulance workers who pushed him to the carpet and pounded on his chest, shocked him with paddles, gave him mouth-to-mouth. Everything was tidy, as if he’d be back tomorrow. There was his nameplate, which she dropped in the box. On a spindle a stack of pink “While You Were Out” messages sat skewered.
“You want all these pens and stuff?” Tristan was staring at the open pencil drawer.
“Why not.” He grabbed two handfuls. “Do you see any passwords?” The boy pushed the mess of papers around and said no. “Keep an eye peeled.”
The message slips were old, from people who must have given up weeks ago. Should she call them? She owed Harry a little dignity. She dropped them into the box. His gray overcoat still hung behind the door. She folded it and set it in the second box.
There was a solid wall of file cabinets across one wall. Last night when she couldn’t sleep she’d spent a couple hours poking aimlessly around in Harry’s den. She didn’t have passwords at home either. What was she looking for? His life, in a thousand manila folders. It was depressing.
She was fingering files when Steve Hanford burst in and enveloped her in designer cologne. If there was a fine grooming class at business school, Harry’s manager had aced it. Steve oozed success, from his tasseled Italian loafers to his dyed brown coif that swirled elaborately over his forehead.
“How are you? You look great, Merle. But you shouldn’t have to do this. I'm so sorry. It can’t be fun.”
Tristan was making a face behind Steve’s back. Merle said, “Life goes on.”
“That’s what they say.” He put an arm around her shoulders, easing her away from the file cabinets. “What can we do to make things easier?”
“There’s a steep learning curve here. I let Harry do all the financial stuff — ” Steve winced dramatically. She felt a jolt: What-what?! “What — is it?”
“Dee Dee was just saying that. She wanted me to explain everything to her. And it’s taken me years to get things balanced — Oh, listen to me. Please, go on.”
“I need to see Harry’s personal accounts. I have to know everything that went on here with our money.”
He flinched again and stepped back, hands deep in fine gabardine. “Of course, Merle. That’s your privilege. Let’s — can you follow me out here?”
In the hallway he stopped, lowering his voice. “Merle, did Harry tell you about his trading account? What he did?”
“I assume he traded stocks.”
Steve rubbed his forehead. “Right before — you know — he ran some options, you know, futures? Trying to predict if prices of stocks and commodities will go up or down. He was selling short because he thought prices were going to fall. He would have cashed them the next day, probably, because prices did go down a little. But he didn’t, because, well.” Because he was face down on his desk. “Nobody looked at them until the end of the week. By then it was too late. The options were called.”
Merle felt bile rise in her throat. Called options meant you had lost your bet. You had gambled and lost. And you had to pay up.
“His clients’ money?”
Steve shook his head.
She felt her breath catch. “How much?”
“He never did anything halfway, you know that. He loved rolling the dice. ”
“How much did he lose, Steve?”
“Six-hundred.” She squinted at him. “Thousand. And change.”
* * *
After a microwaved casserole that night Merle spread the day’s booty across the kitchen counter to commence a stare-down. Almost immediately her parents called. They were “in the neighborhood.” They lived about an hour away and had only returned from Florida a few days before Harry died.
Although moved by their concern, what she really needed was some quiet time. After Steve Hanford’s little revelation that her husband had lost over half a million dollars and she could be sued for even more lost dollars from his chancy option trading, she had gone to the bank. When she tried to clean out the joint account, she found out Harry had taken almost thirty-thousand dollars out of their checking account the day before he died. While she was fuming about that she emptied out the contents of his safe deposit box into a McDonald’s sack still warm with grease from Tristan’s lunch.
Then, after the bank, back to the lawyers.
“Anything I can do to help,” the younger partner boomed. They must love him in court. Troy Lester was the Brooks Brothers version of Steve Hanford, but bald and smelling of spearmint chewing gum.
“At Harry’s office,” she said slowly, trying to breathe. “He was trading options when he died, and they were called. He lost whatever he was trading, our money, and a lot more. I won’t be liable for that, will I?”
“Normally, no.”
She stared at him, willing him to speak. “Normally?”
“The house is safe, since he put the mortgage insurance in your name. And the French property is too complicated to touch. That leaves the life insurance policy — ” He paused, frowning, as if life insurance was nauseating.
“Do you mean — can they garnish that?”
“I think we can avoid that. But there’s a problem Mr. McGuinness wasn’t aware of.”
The other shoe hovered, preparing to drop. She felt it deep in her guts, the looseness, the hollow sense of doom. You thought that was bad, eh? Well, let me tell ya.
She swallowed hard and looked him in the eye. “Tell me.”
“Creditors would have to sue the estate, which if the debts were large enough — and from what you’re telling me maybe they are — they definitely would. Even I would sue.”
“And litigation isn’t your bag. What are you saying?”
He grimaced. “Lawsuits are potential problems, if there are creditors. But the immediate problem is that he borrowed against the life insurance.”
She stared at Troy’s oversized forehead. She had already decided how much she would set aside from the insurance for Tristan’s prep school, then college, and the funeral expenses. But this was what Harry had used to play the options market. This was how much he cared about the security of his family. Damn him. It was gone, all of it. Harry had borrowed against it and lost it all.
She may have swatted Troy Lester with her purse. Lawyers! Who could trust them?
In the kitchen Merle stared again at the meager list of sums on her notepad. Her parents would want to help if they thought she was in trouble. She swept up the checks and statements into her address book and put them on the shelf over the kitchen desk. The last thing she wanted was their pity. They had their own problems, everybody did. One thing she’d learned already since Harry’s death — there was only so much sympathy in the world, then people turned back to their own woes. And who could blame them? The world was a hard, unfair place. She would lie and tell her parents Harry left them secure and well-off.
They stood under her father’s big golf umbrella then shook themselves in the front hall. Her mother was still an elegant woman, not as straight and tall as she used to be but always finely coiffed, her gray hair pinned up in a twist. Tonight she wore a simple black dress and pearls. They were at the age when funerals were unfortunately common. Maybe they’d come from one. Merle glanced down at her sweatpants and Harry’s old Penn t-shirt. Making an effort was, well, such an effort.
“Someone here?” her father said, fixing his blue eyes on her as if she was hiding a boyfriend upstairs. Jack Bennett never lost that protective feeling toward his five daughters. He looked tired though, the bags under his eyes tinged with blue. He was dressed in a dark suit from his attorney days, a blue shirt with no tie. He missed the law, he told her at Christmas, missed the action, hated being old and put out to pasture. She would tell him about old McGuinness the Turd one day, whose retirement plan was to keel over at the water fountain.
