The Banker’s Wife

by Cristina Alger

  “Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I should have quit after that. I don’t know why I didn’t. It’s a horrible place.” Zoe blinked back tears.

  “Do you know who was taking pictures of you?”

  Zoe shook her head. “I don’t remember much. I just— I’ve always wanted to apologize to that man’s wife. I’ve never had the guts.”

  Annabel nodded. “Maybe it’s best that you didn’t. It would hurt her. It would cast doubts.”

  “Yes. And she shouldn’t have any. It meant nothing, to either of us. It was a situation that Jonas created. He used a lot of the assistants that way. Some of us were asked to sleep with clients, too.”

  “I just can’t believe Matthew would work for someone like that. It’s not the Matthew I knew.”

  “Well, he didn’t want to. I told him to go to the authorities, but he said that Jonas has the Swiss government in his back pocket. Which, I imagine, is true. Swiss United is the biggest bank in Switzerland, you know.”

  Annabel shivered, thinking of Agents Bloch and Vogel and the speed with which they had closed the investigation. She thought about the photographs they had given her, and the explanation about the ice protection system. A cover-up, but until now she hadn’t been sure who they were covering up for.

  “I thought we should go to the press. But Matthew said that was too risky. Journalists can’t protect you from people like Assad. That’s what he thought, anyway.”

  “Did he change his mind? Someone killed him, Zoe. I’m sure of it.”

  Zoe shook her head. “A few weeks later, he told me that someone at the US Department of Justice contacted him. I think his name was Morse. He had been investigating Swiss United for years, looking for a way into the bank. Matthew met him in New York. He never told me so, but I think he agreed to cooperate with him.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because when he came back from New York, he was like a different person. He apologized to Jonas. He started working twice as hard. Suddenly, he was in meetings with the Assad family. Jonas was happy. He seemed to think Matthew had come around to see things from his point of view. But I had my doubts. He refused to talk to me about anything. He was so tight-lipped, doing all his work himself. He just didn’t seem like Matthew anymore.”

  “I know what you mean,” Annabel said. “He hardly spoke to me anymore, either. He worked all the time, never told me what he was doing. Honestly, I started wondering if he was having an affair.”

  Zoe shook her head. “No. He loved you so much. You must believe that.”

  Annabel nodded but didn’t respond.

  “Sometimes I worried that you might think we were having an affair. I was so scared of you when we first met.”

  Annabel glanced up, surprised. “No, no,” she began, but stopped herself. “Well, all right. Yes. The thought did cross my mind. But not because of anything you did. It’s just hard—maybe one day you’ll understand this—to see your husband work with someone who is beautiful, and younger—”

  “I understand.”

  “Matthew said you were in a relationship with someone, though.”

  “I am. A lawyer in Luxembourg. We met through Swiss United, actually. He is the love of my life.”

  “Matthew told me he’s married.”

  Zoe’s face crumpled. Annabel filled with regret. “I’m sorry,” she said, placing a hand on Zoe’s. “I don’t know why I said that. It doesn’t matter.”

  “He’s separated. He was before I met him.”

  “Really, it doesn’t matter.”

  “He hates the work we do, too. We both want to get out of it, to get away from this whole world. I was tempted by the money at first, but now I can’t stand money. It makes people do terrible things. It makes people terrible people.”

  “And you think Matthew was the same? That he wanted out?”

  Zoe nodded. “Sometimes I’d find him at the office late at night, after he had told me to go home. He would shut his door, pretend he hadn’t seen me. And he was always using this laptop, even at his desk. He was working on something. I think he was gathering evidence for Agent Morse.”

  “So why don’t you contact Agent Morse? Give this laptop to him?”

  “Because I don’t want to end up like Matthew.”

  Annabel inhaled sharply. “Where will you go?”

  Zoe didn’t answer. “Annabel, you need to leave, too. It’s dangerous for us both here. If the bank thinks either of us knows anything, I promise you, they will kill us.”

  “What do I do?”

  “Someone from the bank will come looking for Matthew’s laptop. Give it to them. Pretend you know nothing, you heard nothing, you saw nothing. Make them believe that you are not a risk. You don’t need to be involved in this. Matthew didn’t want you to be involved. Go to New York and never look back.”

  “And you?”

  “I’ll take care of myself. But do me a favor. If anyone asks about me, tell them we spoke after the funeral. Tell them that my mother is sick, and I was returning home to France to care for her. Hopefully they won’t come looking for me. If they do . . . well, I can’t think about that.”

  “All right. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure they know. You can trust me.”

  “I should go.”

  They both stood and embraced.

  “Zoe, are you sure you’ll be safe?” Annabel said, as they headed toward the door.

  Zoe stopped and gave Annabel a wan smile. “No,” she said. “I’m not sure I will ever be safe. You, either. So take care of yourself, Annabel. We both have powerful enemies now.”

  Annabel lingered at the door, reluctant to let Zoe go. But Zoe needed to leave Geneva, and the sooner, the better. She had taken a risk by coming here, Annabel knew, and she was grateful for it. Before tonight, Annabel felt as though she was staring at a large jumble of puzzle pieces, none of which fit together.

  After Zoe left, Annabel went out onto the veranda. She peered out over the balcony at the street below. She saw Zoe emerge from the building’s lobby and hurry down the block. She was dressed all in black, and her slender form was barely visible as it slipped in and out of the shadows.

  Zoe darted across the street and then alighted into a dark SUV parked just at the corner. A moment later, its headlights went on and it pulled away from the curb. Annabel was about to turn away, when she noticed the lights of a second car, a hundred meters back, turn on its lights and pull into the street. She watched as it followed the SUV, creeping slowly down the emptied street like a predator stalking its prey.

  Marina

  We are running out of time. The company I work for is aware there is a leak.

  Marina was pulling up to Duncan’s house when the email lit up her phone. She turned off the engine and chewed her lip, debating how to respond. On one hand, she wanted her source to know that she was working with Owen, who was far more tech savvy and had experience with large-scale, global investigations. He had already set up a secure channel for them to receive more data. He had access to a computer capable of handling a vast inflow of information. Without his help, there would be no way for Marina to effectively sort through the data that her source claimed to have access to.

  She was worried, though, that the mention of a colleague would spook her source. It was an understandable concern. The fewer people involved, the safer they would be. Clearly Duncan had not been able to keep his investigation under wraps; otherwise he’d still be alive. Every new person who gained access to their information was a potential leak. And a potential leak in an investigation like this was a risk they couldn’t afford to take.

  Marina had no way to prove to her source that Owen Barry was trustworthy. She wasn’t entirely sure why she trusted him. He wasn’t exactly the type she’d set up with a friend. He had never had a sustained re
lationship with any woman as far as Marina could tell, and she knew a few who hated his guts. He was a true adrenaline junkie, the kind of guy who thought it would be fun to sneak into North Korea just because he could, and that made him inherently unpredictable. He had run afoul of enough rules and regulations to get himself either fired or arrested several times over. In fact, Marina had heard rumors that he had been fired from the Wall Street Journal, despite the array of awards he’d accumulated while working there. The editor in chief didn’t trust him anymore, people said. He had bailed Owen Barry out one too many times. He was more trouble than he was worth.

  But Marina had worked with Owen over enough years to know that Owen’s integrity when it came to a story was unimpeachable. He could not be bought or swayed or corrupted, and he would die before revealing the identity of a source. He was a journalist’s journalist. To Owen Barry, truth was everything.

  I have a colleague who can help us, Marina typed.

  He can create a multi-level security database and has the technical ability to sort through vast quantities of data quickly. He’s done this before for investigations of this scale. His name is Owen Barry; he worked for the Wall Street Journal for many years and now is the head of a website called the Deliverable. I have worked with him before and I trust him.

  Marina hit send and waited. Her car was cold and her breath was visible. She rubbed her hands together to keep them warm. Seconds ticked by, then minutes. If the source got spooked, he might evaporate, disappearing like a ghost. He might go to another journalist; he might go underground. She hoped she had not made a vital mistake.

  With your life?

  Yes, she replied. I trust Owen with my life.

  All right. Are you ready to receive the data? There’s a lot. More than a terabyte.

  We are ready.

  You will begin to receive it in the next few hours. Have you been able to determine who Duncan Sander spoke to before his death? We must be very careful not to make the same mistake that he did.

  Working on it now, Marina wrote. And trust me, we will not. We both know the stakes here. She thought about Matthew Werner. She couldn’t shake the feeling that he was somehow a part of this. It seemed too coincidental to her that he had died the same day as Duncan, especially in a plane crash with a high-profile client of the biggest bank in Switzerland, and of Schmit & Muller’s. Someone at Schmit & Muller had been looking for a mole. What if they thought it was Matthew Werner?

  Marina thought better than to ask the source. She didn’t want him to feel as though she was trying to figure out who—and where—he was. She would have to research Matthew’s death on her own. She made a mental note to do it later that evening.

  The sooner this information is public, the better off we will be.

  Agreed. We are on it.

  Stay safe.

  You, too.

  A rap on Marina’s window startled her. Marina looked up; a young guy in a Somerset County Police Department jacket was peering at her through the glass.

  Marina rolled down the car window.

  “Marina?” he asked, with a tentative grin.

  Marina smiled back. Though she hadn’t seen Miles Leonard since middle school, she recognized him immediately. His thatch of red hair had mellowed to a strawberry blond over the years, and he had grown from a skinny, gangly kid into an imposing man with broad shoulders and a bit of a belly. He had the same warm smile and light blue eyes that she remembered from her days at Lakeville Elementary. For a time, Miles and Marina had lived across the street from each other. His mother, Sandra Leonard, drove Marina to and from school twice a week, when Marina’s mother was at work. As she looked up at Miles’s face, Marina remembered the scent of his mother’s vanilla perfume and the taste of the peanut butter cookies they would eat in the back of the car on the way home from school. The summer before they were supposed to enter the sixth grade, Sandra filed for divorce from Miles’s father. Miles moved with her to Somerset, just a few towns over, where Sandra took a job as a secretary at the local precinct. Thanks to Facebook, Marina knew Miles was a newly minted detective in Somerset County. It never occurred to her that they would ever see each other again or that he would one day help her as he was about to now.

  “Miles Leonard,” she said. “My God. It’s been years.”

  “About twenty.” Miles laughed. He opened the door, and Marina stepped out of the car. He extended his hand, but Marina hugged him instead.

  “Thank you for calling me back,” she said. “And for meeting me here. I know this isn’t exactly protocol.”

  Miles shrugged. “I think you might be able to help me. I’m the only one around here who seems to think this wasn’t just a random break-in gone wrong.”

  “That seems to be the prevailing theory.”

  Miles cleared his throat. “Listen, Marina,” he said in a low voice. “Everything we talk about now is off the record, right?”

  “Of course. You have my word.”

  Miles nodded. “Chief Dobbs wants this case wrapped up. This isn’t the kind of community where people get murdered, you know? Hell, before the burglaries started, no one even locked their doors. People leave their keys in the car when they go into town. You remember. You grew up around here.”

  “Somerset is a quiet place,” Marina agreed. “It’s one of the things Duncan loved about it. Any leads on the burglaries?”

  “Nope. This case doesn’t fit that profile, but Dobbs keeps insisting it’s the same guys.”

  “Why, do you think?”

  Miles shook his head. “Not sure. Maybe he doesn’t want the town to go crazy thinking there’s now a killer on the loose. People are nervous enough.”

  “So why doesn’t it fit the profile?”

  “I’ll show you.” Miles gestured for her to follow him up to the house. The front door was still sealed with yellow tape reading “Crime Scene—Do Not Cross.” Miles walked up the steps to a side door and ushered Marina into the kitchen.

  She stepped inside. Everything was as she remembered it: the large aproned farmhouse sink, still filled with dishes. The blue-and-white-tiled backsplash behind the stove and the upholstered breakfast nook and the quaint, exposed beams running lengthwise across the ceiling. This house had been Duncan’s sanctuary. He had restored it lovingly, making it both stylish and homey. In the months leading up to his death, he had all but relocated here, returning to the city only when absolutely necessary.

  A pile of mail sat on the counter, and the coffeepot was half full. It was as though Duncan had just stepped out to run an errand. Only the air felt strange. It was cold in the house, too cold for habitation. Marina shivered and buttoned up the collar of her coat.

  She had been to crime scenes before, some quite gruesome. But this was the first one involving a friend. Owen had offered to take the lead on investigating Duncan’s death, but Marina had insisted. She didn’t like the implicit suggestion that she wasn’t able to control her emotions. After all, they had both been close to Duncan. Just because she was a woman didn’t mean she was any less capable of handling a violent crime scene, she said. Anyway, she was the one with the connection at the Somerset Police Department. Owen’s time was better spent setting up a secure database. That was something Marina couldn’t do. So off she went to Connecticut while he focused on the data they’d already been given. They planned to reconvene the following morning to compare notes.

  “You okay?” Miles asked.

  “Fine,” Marina replied. “Sorry. It’s just—I was here last month.”

  Miles nodded. He understood.

  “Where was he? When he died, I mean.”

  “In his office. I’ll show you. Don’t touch anything.” They walked down the hall, through the living room. Miles ducked beneath more crime scene tape and held it up for Marina to do the same. Marina stared at Duncan’s desk and the chair, which lay on the floor behind it.

 
“It looks like the killer let himself in through those doors there.” Miles pointed to French doors leading out to the patio. “They were locked, but he picked them. Very skillfully, I might add. Then he walked here”—Miles strode across the room to an alarm touch pad—“and entered the code. Or I assume he must have, because the alarm system was off when we found the body. The neighbor said the vic—I’m sorry, Mr. Sander—was a little paranoid about security. She said he turned it on every time he left the house. The housekeeper confirmed that.”

  Marina nodded. “He was,” she said. “Especially lately.”

  “So the killer—or killers—disarmed the security system and waited for Mr. Sander to return home. He was patient about it, because Duncan entered through the kitchen with groceries, unloaded them, and made himself a sandwich. Then he came in here and sat down at his desk.”

  Marina wasn’t listening. She was staring at a burst of dark red on the wall behind the desk. It was Duncan’s blood, she realized. It was splattered all over the wall, the floor, the chair, the desk. The body itself was gone, of course, and it seemed as though someone had cleaned up most of the gore that came with it: the bits of brain and skull and skin that had, no doubt, exploded upon impact. But the stains remained, as did a neat hole where the bullet had lodged itself after tearing straight through Duncan’s head. Marina swallowed hard.

  “The bullet was removed from the wall,” Miles said. “It was a clean shot, judging from the height of it, straight between the eyes. I’m guessing a .45 caliber.”

  “Professional?”

  “That would be my guess. I’m assuming he hid there”—Miles pointed at an open closet door—“and when Duncan was sitting at the desk, he came out and shot him. It’s about eight feet from the desk, so a less assured shooter would have gone for a body shot first, then moved in for a head shot. But here, there was only one shot and it was a bull’s-eye.”