by Joseph Badal
* * *
At 4:25 p.m., Philippa patted her hair one last time and checked her makeup in her car’s rearview mirror. Satisfied, she got out and walked to the reception building on the St. Francis College campus. She wore a gray suit with a white blouse with a conservative gold necklace, small gold earrings, and a wedding ring. The young woman who greeted her listened to her story and then made a telephone call. Within a few minutes, a woman about Philippa’s age joined them in the lobby. She was tall and thin, and wore a blue blazer over a white blouse and gray slacks. Her brown hair was piled onto her head, high over her intelligent, alert brown eyes.
“Hello,” the woman said. “My name is Helen Davis. I understand you have a daughter who is considering our school.”
Philippa beamed at Helen Davis and introduced herself as Lourdes Sanchez. “Yes, my daughter, Emilia, wants to go to school near a large city.” Philippa chuckled and added, “Anything to get out of Akron.”
“When does your daughter graduate from high school?”
“She’ll be a senior this coming year, so she’ll graduate in May next year. Her father and I are nervous about her going away to college, but we’ve agreed to allow it as long as she goes some place where she will be safe.”
Ms. Davis smiled at Philippa. “We find that girls who come from caring families like yours adjust to being away from home the best. As to the safety issue, we have twenty-four hour security patrols on campus and do not allow our freshman students to be off campus during the week and students have a midnight curfew on weekends. And, as you probably noticed, this area is mostly residential and upscale.”
Philippa nodded her approval. “Is there a chance someone could give me a tour of the campus?”
“It would be my pleasure,” Davis said. “I can’t give you a complete tour as I have a meeting in a little over an hour, but I can at least give you enough of a tour to provide an appreciation for our school.”
“That would be wonderful.”
* * *
Helen Davis’s tour was comprehensive yet efficient. She took Philippa through a classroom building, the library, the sports facilities, and a dormitory. The last place they toured was the grotto with its fountain and the chapel.
“Do you have summer classes going on right now?” Philippa asked.
“No, all the students are off campus except for a couple who have summer jobs here. That’s why it was so hot in the dormitory; we shut off the air conditioning to keep our utility bills down.”
“Good idea.”
“We’re a small institution that depends on the generosity of our alumni and friends. We don’t have a large endowment like the Ivy League schools do.”
“I noticed a few other buildings on campus, away from the school buildings.”
“Yes, we are more than just a college. We also have a church and convent on site.” Davis pointed at a parcel of high ground. “That’s the Mother Superior’s residence. The convent is off to the right about one hundred yards.”
“Beautiful buildings.”
“Thank you. By the way, a lot of our students come from out-of-state. When their parents visit here we make rooms available to them at a small charge.” Davis laughed deprecatingly. “The rooms are not luxurious, so you might prefer one of the area hotels.”
“Where do these visitors stay?”
“In a wing of the convent.” Davis pointed at the far right side of the convent building. “Can’t have fathers wandering around the main part of the building.”
Philippa chuckled. “I can understand that. It might have been fun to stay there during this visit. I haven’t spent a night in a convent since I was a little girl at summer camp.”
Davis smiled and said, “We would love to have had you stay with us. Right now there’s only one visitor, a woman.”
“You’ve been very kind,” Philippa told her. “I’m sure my daughter will apply to your school. It’s so beautiful here; I wish I was the one about to go to college.”
“We hear that a lot.”
Philippa said goodbye and walked back to her car. She drove out to Germantown Pike and turned right. At the next intersection, a corner of the campus property, she took another right. A couple hundred feet down the street, she pulled off to the side, peeked over the stone wall bordering the property, and eyeballed the convent. The visitors’ wing was the part of the building closest to the street. She could easily climb over the wall – there didn’t appear to be any security devices, like cameras or electronic alarm wiring on the wall. Ten second run to the visitors’ wing. No windows showing in the convent building, except on the front entrance side. She smiled. Wouldn’t do to have peeping Toms looking in on the nuns.
She’d have to find a place to park that wouldn’t attract attention. There was an entrance to Fairmount Park on the other side of Germantown Pike. She could pretend to be out jogging; although that might come across lame if a cop stopped her. This was an after-dark job. Most people in their right minds didn’t jog at that hour.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Katherine was thinking about Carrie. The letter she’d received from her daughter had said that she would be released from a hospital in about a week. Considering the time that had passed since Carrie wrote the letter, she figured Carrie should be home already. But Katherine knew she was always doing something mysterious and her schedule was likely to change at a moment’s notice. The telephone rang, breaking into her thoughts. The display showed it was Edward.
“Hi, son,” she said.
“Hey, Mom. How are you doing?”
“Good. How about you?”
“Some reason for hope; nothing definite. But I didn’t call to talk about work; I’ve got something else we need to discuss. I was just checking to see if you were home. I’ll be there in a few minutes, if that’s okay.”
“Of course,” she said.
Edward sounded mysterious. Katherine hoped there wasn’t more bad news. She quickly shucked out of her dress and pulled on jeans and a work shirt. She opened a bottle of California Chardonnay, a 2007 Londer, and was halfway through her first glass when the doorbell rang. She went to the door, swung it open, and shouted, “Carrie!”
A grinning Edward stood behind Carrie, holding her travel bag.
Katherine moved to embrace her daughter, but Carrie took the wine glass from her mother, downed the contents, and tossed the glass over her shoulder onto the lawn.
“Now I’ll take that hug,” she said.
Mother and daughter squealed and danced around, all the while wrapped around one another. Edward squeezed around them and set Carrie’s bag inside the front door. Katherine and Carrie finally followed him inside.
“You look great,” Katherine told Carrie. “After I read your last letter, I was afraid you’d look like your brother did when he returned from Iraq.”
Carrie smiled at Edward and said, “I’ve always been tougher than Eddie. Actually, I’m feeling great. And I’ll feel even better after I have another glass of that fantastic chardonnay and you tell me where we’re having dinner tonight.”
“What do you feel like eating?” Katherine asked.
“Steak, steak, and more steak. I’ve had so much lamb, flat bread, and grape leaves, I’m starting to turn into an Afghani.”
“Is that where you’ve been, Afghanistan?” Edward said.
She waggled her hand in front of her and laughed. “Let’s just say where I’ve been is the armpit of the universe and I never want to return there ever again.”
“Okay, steak it is. How does Paisano’s sound?”
“Great!”
Edward hugged and kissed his mother. “I’ll go get Betsy and meet you there. Say, in an hour.” He turned to Carrie and hugged her as well. “Are you sure you’re up to this? I mean, you just flew more than halfway around the world.”
“Still looking out
for me, big brother?”
“Absolutely.”
Carrie kissed Edward on the cheek and hugged him tightly. “Go get Betsy. I’m fine. Well, besides being starving.”
“What’s going on with Edward?” Carrie asked after she and her mother sat down in the kitchen. “Something’s bothering him.”
Katherine shook her head. “It’s a long story, but the essence is the federal government has overreacted to the banking and capital markets crises. The bank regulators are taking over banks all over the country and forcing most of them to stop making commercial real estate loans. Edward’s loan is coming due at the end of this month and the bank told him they won’t renew it. He’s tried to get it refinanced at another bank, but most of them aren’t in the market for new commercial real estate paper. The one bank that wants his business isn’t large enough to take the whole loan.
“Edward’s been working like crazy trying to get his bank to change its position, but without success. His bank was taken over by the Feds and then sold to an investor who . . .” Katherine paused.
“What is it, Mom?”
“The new owner of the bank is Gerald Folsom, the same man who put your father into those real estate deals more than twenty years ago. The same guy who wound up owning your father’s bank and all his real estate after he died.”
Katherine saw a change come over Carrie, a dark and vengeful force that invaded her being. Her eyes narrowed.
“So, what happens at the end of the month?” Carrie asked.
“The bank can foreclose on the collateral behind the loan. That’s all of the restaurant locations, which would, in effect, put an end to the company. I assume the bank would close down the restaurants and sell the buildings and land. I doubt they want to be in the restaurant business. There’s so much equity in the property the bank should easily come out ahead.”
“And Edward gets the shaft.”
“Edward and Betsy and you and me. All shareholders. And the hundreds of employees who helped us build the company.”
Carrie was quiet for a while and then said, “I’d better go change.” She smiled, the dark and evil spirit apparently gone. “I really am starving.”
* * *
“I think I’m ready to crash,” Carrie said after they’d finished coffees and cannoli’s.
“Oh, thank goodness, me too,” Betsy responded. “I had no idea being pregnant could be so tiring.”
Katherine chuckled and said, “Wait until the baby is born. You don’t even know what tired is.”
“Oh, great,” Betsy said, smiling.
* * *
Edward and Betsy drove off while the valet retrieved Katherine’s car. While Carrie and Katherine waited, Katherine pulled her cell phone out of her purse and punched in a number.
“Hello, Wendy, it’s Katherine. Just checking to see how you’re doing.”
“Thanks for calling. I’m okay.” Wendy’s voice wobbled, then she broke down, crying.
“What’s wrong?” Katherine said, alarmed.
“We need to talk. You’re not going to be happy with me, but I think it was the right thing to do.”
“What?”
“Let’s wait until we get together. How does tomorrow morning at 9 work for you?”
“Honey, I’m no more than ten minutes away from you. I’m coming over there now. By the way, my daughter is with me.” Katherine closed her cell phone.
“Who was that?” Carrie asked.
“I know you’re tired, but this is important. Can you stay awake for a story?”
“Go ahead and start. If I fall asleep, you can continue tomorrow.”
“Once I start this tale, there’s no chance you’ll fall asleep.”
Katherine drove to the convent as she started her story in 1988 with Frank’s death and then segued to the current problems in the banking industry, explaining how the politicians and the regulators and the banks and the investment banks and the rating agencies and greedy borrowers created a toxic economic environment that was now threatening Winter Enterprises. She then told Carrie how she met Wendy Folsom and what had transpired since then.
Ten minutes later, they checked in at the administration building at St. Francis College and told the young woman there where they were going.
“I can’t let you go anywhere on campus after hours without first announcing you and then having a security guard escort you.”
“Fine. Please call Mrs. Folsom.”
The woman blushed. “There are no phones in the visitors’ rooms.”
Katherine gave her Wendy’s cell number. “Try this.”
The woman got through to Wendy and then called a security guard.
Katherine guided Carrie to a corner of the massive reception area and filled her in on some details about Wendy. When she described the way Folsom had beaten Wendy, Katherine saw Carrie’s darkness reemerge, something visceral and vengeful and dangerous.
“Have you met this guy, Folsom?” Carrie asked.
“A long, long time ago.”
“Tell me what you know about him.”
“Wendy’s his third wife. All of them were young, blonde, and blue-eyed. All from good families. He seems to have a thing for preppie girls. Apparently he treated Wendy well in the beginning, but became more violent as the months went by and she thinks he would have killed her if she’d stayed with him, and that he wouldn’t have cared. The only thing that’s important to him is money, she said. He’s manic about it. ”
“And now this bastard’s bank is trying to ruin Edward.”
“Seems that way,” Katherine said.
A seriously overweight, sixtyish man wearing a wrinkled gray uniform arrived ten minutes later. His hair looked tousled and his eyes were puffy. Katherine thought he looked as though he’d been sleeping. In fact, he looked like an unmade bed. The young woman at the reception desk asked the guard to take Katherine and Carrie to the visitors’ wing of the convent. They all loaded into an extended golf cart and rode up to the convent.
After thanking the guard, the women entered the building and found Wendy waiting for them in the hall. Her eyes were wet. Katherine noticed Carrie’s eyes narrow when she looked at Wendy, whose face was still swollen and bruised. Katherine introduced Carrie to Wendy.
“Let’s go down the hall,” Wendy said. “There’s a break room we can use.”
* * *
Philippa Gonzalez found an empty lot across from the college, next to a small, darkened building with a sign out front that said a paving contractor occupied the building. It was almost 10 p.m. and dark. She ran across the street and scaled the rock wall onto the college grounds. After a quick run, using trees and bushes to cover her approach, she entered the convent’s visitors’ wing. She padded softly down the hall to an intersecting hallway, and peered left and then right. A light shone twenty yards away, on the right. She was about to turn the corner but stopped when she heard female voices.
* * *
“It’s good to finally meet you,” Wendy told Carrie after they were seated in a small room with a two-seater couch, two arm chairs, and a coffee table. “Your mother talks about you a lot.”
Carrie smiled. “Don’t believe half of what a mother says about her children.”
“Wendy, what’s going on?” Katherine interrupted.
Wendy lowered her gaze to her hands in her lap. “I called Gerald today.”
“Why, Wendy? Both Paul and Sylvia Young told you to have no contact with him.”
“I made him a proposal. He’s agreed to do something for me in return for my dropping the charges against him.”
“Is this about money? Did you demand more money from him?”
Wendy’s head came up and met Katherine’s eyes angrily. “No, it’s not about money. I would never make a deal with him so I could get more money out of him.”
“Then what?”
Wendy dropped her gaze again.
“Come on, Wendy,” Katherine implored. “What is it?”
She looked at Katherine and said, “I told him I’d drop the charges if he made the bank stop harassing Edward.”
Katherine was dumbstruck. She sat on her side of the couch without any idea how to respond. Finally, she leaned forward, elbows on her knees and said, “Wendy, Edward wouldn’t want you to do anything to jeopardize your safety, nobody does. I truly appreciate your desire to help us out with the bank, but negotiating with Gerald Folsom is like negotiating with the devil. Maybe worse”
“But it’s a win-win situation for everyone,” she protested.
“Only if your husband holds up his end of the deal.”
Carrie cleared her throat and said, “I hope you don’t mind my butting in here, but how did you call your husband?”
Wendy considered the question for a few seconds and said, “I used the phone in the office around the corner.”
“So, Folsom could have captured the phone number and figured out where you are?”
Wendy’s face went pale; her eyes widened.
“Wendy, my mother explained about your husband’s abuse. Do you believe he’s capable of doing you more harm?”
Wendy nodded slowly.
“Do you believe he’s capable of killing you?”
Wendy hesitated a second before nodding again and saying, “Yes.”
* * *
Philippa heard one of the women speak the name Wendy and she heard a reference to Gerald Folsom and the threat he posed to this Wendy. Philippa put two and two together and guessed the hit on Wendy Folsom had been commissioned by her husband through Toothpick Jefferson. It made no difference to her.
* * *
Katherine’s stomach cramped. “You’re coming home with Carrie and me,” she said, standing, moving toward Wendy, and extending her hand. “Let’s go. Now.”