by Leslie Glass
"Hey, wait a minute, what about me?" She wanted to run after and yell at them. She wanted to yell at somebody. They hadn't even taken her statement. She returned to the phone in her bedroom to call them and complain. She was full of resolve about the matter until she was distracted by the sight of herself in the mirror with the sunglasses and the scarf on her head. "Oh God, I'm being punished," she whispered.
Moaning, she started slowly down the stairs. Her life had spun out of control, but the coffeepot had come on hours earlier at the usual time and now drew her into the kitchen with its delicious aroma. She put one foot down after the other on the beige carpet treads on the stairs. Suddenly she saw it the way the IRS agent would have seen it if she'd let him in. Shabby. The carpet had worn thin with twenty years of constant wear. The color was blah. At the bottom of the stairs the furniture in the living room and dining room was early American, a period that never matched Cassie's flare for the baroque. Blah, too. Mitch had come from Long Island, from Huntington Station. Cassie had grown up in Westchester in a better family. They'd met in college, at Cornell. Cassie had been very pretty then, quite a catch. Shape up, you're a regular person, not a victim, she told herself.
But she'd made some bad choices. Instead of going to law school, she'd married a handsome, ambitious man who'd turned her into a caterer. Mitch was a fanatic about food, so she'd cooked with the great restaurant chefs in Manhattan, always trying to please him. When he'd gotten too busy to eat at home, she'd stayed home with the kids and catered to them. Then she'd begun designing events for not-for-profit causes in the area. She'd planned the menus, done the flower arrangements. Sometimes she'd made the desserts, too. She had a talent for it. Everybody said she could have been a Martha Stewart.
Cassie moved through the dining room into the kitchen, her territory, where she had a Viking stove, a Sub-Zero refrigerator, two sets of dishes, six different kinds of wineglasses, and enough utensils to equip a small restaurant. The tiles on the floor were Mexican terra-cotta. The tiles between the cabinets and the countertops were yellow sunflowers in a deep blue sky. A pots-and-pans rack suspended from beams in the ceiling had bunches of her own dried flowers and herbs hanging on its hooks. Cassie loved her kitchen. She reached for a cup to pour herself some coffee, heard water running, and spun around. Outside, the IRS man was hosing his hand off into her swimming pool.
"Hey." She opened the back door.
"Oh, hi." He turned around and smiled his nice smile, as if nothing unusual had happened. "I wondered where you went."
"I hid in the closet," she said.
"I see. What's with the sunglasses, the scarf?"
"What's with the camera?"
"Cassie! Oh, Cassie, is everything all right?" Carol Carnahan marched through the gate, an entire invading army in one person. A tall, slender woman with long, tapered legs and a big chest, Carol was wearing pedal pushers, and a yellow T-shirt with a plunging neckline. She was fifty-three but looked twenty-five, and took up all the space wherever she went. Now she took up Cassie's whole yard, eyeing with a good deal of interest the attractive stranger on Cassie's patio.
Then Carol saw Cassie's face. "Oh, shit, Cassie! What's with the-?"
"Carol, I'm fine. Just a misunderstanding." Here was one of the thousands of people Cassie didn't want to know she'd had work done. The mortification kept right on coming.
"And who's this?" Carol asked.
The agent turned off the hose at the hose bib. He looked very much at home at her house, but Cassie didn't know who he was.
"Ah, ah…"
He was not as tall as Carol, who was over six feet tall in her five-inch sling backs. He was closer to five ten and had a medium to sturdy build, looked as if he did regular exercise. He certainly had a relaxed manner in the face of any drama. At the moment the drama was Carol, and his intense blue eyes evaluated her slowly, curiously, the way he had Cassie a little while ago.
"How do you do, ma'am," he said, swiping the hat from his head to reveal sandy hair going gray, cut in a crew cut. "Charles Schwab, at your service."
"Charles Schwab of the brokerage house?" Carol yelped. Cassie had a boyfriend, and he was a big cheese-all this was in the yelp. "Is Mitch at home?" Her eyes swept the upper windows. The cops, a boyfriend, a disguise. Very big!
"Thanks for dropping by, Carol. I'm fine. And Mr. Schwab was just leaving." Cassie gave him an ironic snicker. Schwab, indeed.
He waved at Carol. "Nice meeting you," he murmured.
"I can take a hint. Do you have any stock tips for me before I go? God knows I could use a few."
"Oh, no. Sorry, I don't give tips."
"I bet you do," was Carol's parting shot.
Cassie went into the house and carefully closed the door. Oh God. Her head was pounding. Agents and cops and Carol Carnahan all in one day. She glanced at the clock. It was now nine-thirty. Mark was meeting her at noon. She had things to do. She couldn't remember at the moment what they were. She poured herself a cup of coffee, her first of the morning. A noise at the door made her turn around. The man who called himself Charles Schwab was tapping on the glass, still there.
Cassie shook her head. "I'm not entertaining."
"Just one question," he mouthed as if she couldn't hear him perfectly through the glass doors.
"I have to go out soon." She opened the back door. The storm door was still in place. She didn't open the storm door. He opened the storm door.
"What a gorgeous kitchen!" he said, sticking his head in.
"Thank you." Cassie blocked further progress.
"Wow, copper pots and everything."
"Uh-huh." She wasn't going to budge.
"Do you use all those things?"
"Yes, I do."
He shook his head. "That's very impressive. Have you noticed how few women do food these days?"
"It's good for the restaurants. Charles Schwab?" she said sarcastically.
"That's my name." He smiled engagingly. The man was a big smiler. "I love your kitchen; your garden, too. You must be very creative," he said admiringly. "I bet you're good with roses."
She shook her head. Uh-uh, she wasn't buying.
"Do you mind if I take a closer look at your kitchen? I've been considering copper pots."
"It's a bad time." Cassie was trying so hard to be civil. He said he was a civil servant, after all.
"Let me give you a little advice. This is not the way to treat your auditor. First, I break my ankle on your damn potting stuff." He backed away from the door to illustrate a little limp. "Then you cut my hand with your gardening implement. I could call that assault. And then you call the police to try to have me arrested."
Cassie snorted. "Auditor? I don't know what you're talking about."
"I'm the one who's doing your audit," he said officiously.
"Well, I don't know anything about an audit. I'm just the wife here," Cassie told him.
"Wives are equal partners," Schwab said.
"Not in this house," she muttered.
Schwab laughed suddenly, and it was a genuinely pleasant sound.
"I don't think that was so funny," she retorted.
"Look, just let me in for a minute. I won't touch anything, I promise, and then I'll get out of your hair." He held up his hands. "I like your style, that's all."
"That is some kind of joke, right?"
"No, ma'am."
"The IRS doesn't go into people's homes for a tax audit." What did he take her for, a dummy?
"Of course we do. We look at property, possessions, cars, and jewelry. We do whatever it takes. Here." He handed her his card.
The card went into Cassie's hand without her actually taking it. Alarmed, she thought of the files. Mitch's million plus in that Grand Caymans bank. The expenses of the girlfriend who bought so much in Cassie's name. Whatever current practices were, she didn't think a home visit right now would be a good idea. "My husband had a stroke," she said quickly.
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear it. They usually reco
ver during the course of investigations." Schwab had sunglasses of his own. They were the mirrored kind, like the state troopers wore so you couldn't see their eyes when they stopped you for speeding. He gave her a funny look, then put them on.
"No, no, you don't understand. My husband really did have a stroke. He's in intensive care," Cassie told him.
"Oh, that's terrible. Would you mind if I come in for a cup of coffee?" he asked, chilly now.
"Coffee?" Didn't he hear what she just said?
"Just a quick cup. It smells so good. I bet you make a terrific cup of coffee. What kind of beans do you use?"
Cassie licked her lips. What was with this guy? She'd just told him her husband was in intensive care.
Before she could open her mouth to tell him he couldn't have coffee right now, a loud metal crunch announced the arrival of Aunt Edith. As on many other occasions, she misjudged where the road ended and drove her 1963 monster Cadillac into the mailbox. "Cassie! Cassie," she started screaming, "I can't get out."
"Oh my, what's that?" Schwab asked.
"My aunt has come to drive me insane," Cassie told him.
CHAPTER 15
AN HOUR LATER the Cadillac was separated from the mailbox and was parked in the driveway. The lovely conversation azalea that had been blooming in its myriad colors was a mangled mess. Above it, the post that secured the mailbox was bent to the ground, and the mailbox itself was crushed like a cookie in a toddler's hand. The bloodred clematis that had started winding its way up the post on its way to becoming a glorious flower bower that would camouflage the mail by July was in leaf but hadn't yet produced a single fist-sized crimson bloom. The vine lay on the grass, twisted forlornly around the wreckage.
Charles Schwab, the IRS one, had taken off, but Edith was still there, unrepentant about the damage to her niece's house and eager to be of help. Her idea of help was telling Cassie how awful she looked, how thin she'd gotten; requesting a breakfast of goat cheese and pancetta omelette with raisin toast, none of which Cassie happened to have in the house; and scolding her about wanting to improve herself (the surgery). She also encouraged Cassie to think of the pleasant future they would have together when Mitch was gone.
"Sweetheart, I'm going to take you on a cruise the minute this thing is over." She said as they left the house to drive to the hospital to visit the vegetable who was not likely to be with them long.
Edith wanted to drive, but Cassie wouldn't hear of it. So now the old woman was sitting regally in the passenger seat of Mitch's brand-new Mercedes that Cassie wasn't supposed to drive herself for another four days, doctor's orders, or forever, if Mitch had anything to say about it. Edith was wearing a white jogging suit with red chevrons on her thighs that matched the white Cadillac and made her look almost as large. Her moon of a face was round and rouged. Her lips were drawn on big and red. Her chins were multiple. Her hair was done like Debbie Reynolds's in 1952. And she was in a jolly mood, for there's nothing in the world a widow enjoys more than the impending widowhood of a close friend or relative.
"I don't know, it's almost summer, so we could go to the Greek Isles, how does that sound? Or maybe the Mediterranean. Heaven knows you'll be able to afford it. Mitch did very well for himself, didn't he? And you! You need to get away, get some rest, recover from your ordeal. Poor Mitch," she rambled on. And on.
"But, you know, it won't be so bad without him. He wasn't around much anyway, was he poor thing?"
"No, he wasn't," Cassie affirmed stonily.
"Well, men aren't all they're cracked up to be, if you want my opinion," she said. "Keeping up your curiosity. That's what keeps a person young. Look at me. I done all right for myself, haven't I?"
Cassie didn't want to look at her aunt. After the weekend she'd had, her nerves were completely shot. And now the thing that was beginning to gall her was that she couldn't even talk to Mitch, couldn't confront him with all her years of loyalty and the heartless way he'd repaid her for it. She was driving very slowly in the Mercedes, reminding herself that she mustn't hit anything and have an encounter with the police on the day she was going to murder her husband. If she couldn't yell at Mitch, at least there was the plug to pull.
"Who was that Charlie you were with?" her aunt demanded abruptly.
"I told you, Edith. He's assessing all the houses in the area for the IRS," Cassie told her.
"I never heard of such a thing," Edith clicked her tongue. "Casing the place in the morning before anybody is even up. My land! What is this world coming to?"
"My land," as far as Cassie knew, was an expression that dated back two centuries from the Midwest, where Edith's grandmother was said to have fought the Indians. Or maybe it was the far West. "My land," indeed.
"I never heard of it either," she said grimly about the sneak IRS attack. She couldn't get Charlie Schwab out of her mind. Hadn't she read somewhere that the IRS was trying to improve its image and wasn't auditing people anymore? The New York Times? People magazine? How could this be happening to her? Why now? What were the procedures? Could the agency really make home visits without warning, check out people's cars in their garages? Do anything they wanted? Maybe this was one of those "random audits," like the pat-downs at the airports.
"You two seemed very cozy. Did you know him before?"
"No, of course not," Cassie snapped.
She stopped at a red light on Northern Boulevard, only a few blocks from the hospital. She hadn't heard from anyone there this morning, and she hadn't called the nurses' station to check in. She didn't know what she was going to find when she went into that intensive care unit. Maybe Mitch had had another "event" in the night. He could be gone already. She forgot about the IRS incident, was filled with trepidation about the medical situation. Code, code. Where was a code when one needed one?
The light changed. Cassie reminded herself that she had to tell Mitch's employees what had happened to him, take charge at the warehouse. She had to call his lawyer. All kinds of arrangements had to be made. She pulled into the hospital, her head spinning again. She didn't know who Mitch's girlfriend was, what that woman was doing right now, or how she and Mitch communicated. One thing she did know was that the two of them were not talking again. She was going to pop that woman's balloon.
Cassie parked the car and got out. She adjusted her scarf and sunglasses. The tide was rising in her. Mitch had underestimated her. She wanted revenge.
"Come on, Aunt Edith, come say goodbye to Mitch."
"Oh dear, oh my, your poor children, losing their daddy so young," Edith said. Then, "You know, dear, I never liked that man."
"What?" Cassie turned to look at her. Edith was heavy. It wasn't easy for her to get out of that Mercedes, roomy as it was. She moved one enormous chevroned leg out the door, then another. Cassie had to haul her to a standing position. Upright, she examined her niece again.
"Cassie, are you sure you're all right? You look so thin."
"You never told me you didn't like Mitch."
"Oh well, you know. People don't say these things. They don't want to hurt your feelings. But he was a difficult man," Edith said vaguely.
Cassie blew air through her nose. Edith's opinion of her husband came as a surprise to her. She thought everybody liked Mitch. This was getting to be the longest day of her life. Slowly they made their way through the lot and into the hospital. There was the same bustle in the lobby on Monday at midday as there had been all weekend. They moved down the glass hallway into the head trauma wing. Cassie tried not to look at the people around her, all suffering losses.
When they got to the intensive care unit, everything seemed the same. The nurses at the station. Other staff with their blue pajamalike uniforms. In Mitch's cubicle of a room, his body was in the same position on the bed. His eyes were still at half-mast. Today, however, there was a little tremor in his hand. Cassie watched it with horror. The hand seemed to have taken on a life of its own.
Edith moved her great bulk toward the bed. Her chubby face held
an expression of astonishment, as if she'd been ambushed by an unexpected feeling of sorrow over the mortality of a man she claimed she'd never liked.
"Mitch, honey. It's Edith," she said in her loudest, bossiest voice. "You remember Edith, don't you? Charlotte's sister. Cassandra's aunt. I've come to see you in the hospital. You look good, Mitch. Really good. How are you feeling, honey? A little better?"
Stupid question.
She gave him a big bright smile. "We're all praying for you, honey."
That would get him. Mitch hated God. Didn't believe in the power of prayer. The big woman's smile faded just a little as she stood there eyeing all those tubes going in and out of him. Her face was one big pucker of wonderment until she noticed Mitch's twitching hand that seemed to be trying so hard to say something. This got her going again.
"You'll be on your feet in no time," she said softly and with real conviction.
This wasn't the goodbye that Cassie had envisioned on the way over. On the other side of the bed, she held her breath, for Mitch seemed to be coming out of it. He looked drained, but definitely alive. Maybe that noisy machine pumping air into his lungs was actually charging him up again like a car battery, and soon he would roar into life again. A disheartening thought.
Cassie tried to muster some sympathy for him, to remember the bright moments, the good times of their twenty-six years together. As before, she was stuck in the later years, after he'd left her for another woman without her even knowing it. All the joy she could remember was being the mommy of Teddy and Marsha when they'd been babies, bathing them and changing them and cooking their favorite foods, teaching them those ABCs and making life fun. She remembered their hugging on the big bed, cuddling like puppies. Those long-gone days brought tears to her eyes.