Widows-in-Law

by Michele W. Miller

  A few minutes later, a gust of wind sent a rack of shivers through her. She wiped her eyes and stood, putting her hands in her front pants pockets. She felt a piece of paper against her fingertips. She took it out and looked at it. It was that asshole’s number, the salesman.

  She crossed the road again and started back to the house. When she reached the driveway, she lifted the lid of a garbage can. Jessica would never call the guy back. Emily would save her the trouble of even thinking about it. She threw the hot-pink sticky in the can and went inside.

  ***

  It was dark outside and the house was silent. After their argument, Emily had returned and shut herself in her room. Once again, despite a good start, Jessica had accomplished nothing today. She’d gotten rid of the pills before they could become a problem, but she couldn’t break free of the depression that had straitjacketed her, making even the most minor tasks Herculean. She rose from where she sat and swayed on her feet, dizzy, her vision going black from low blood sugar. She closed her eyes and held onto the kitchen chair for a moment, waiting for the blackness to pass. Emily was right about her not eating.

  It had been over a decade since anyone had considered Jessica anorexic, but she’d never entirely shaken it. After her one and only hospitalization, she’d always exercised a lot, feeling safer burning extra calories. She’d gone through minor bouts of undereating on occasion: when her mother had cancer eight years ago; during the months after she’d fallen in love with Brian, while she waited for him to leave Lauren; and sometimes, during their own marriage, in the aftermath of arguments. But what was happening now was as bad as she’d been since her miserable college years. The part of her that wanted to die kept her stomach locked up like a bank vault.

  Anorexia was what did her in after the frat-party incident. She never told her parents about the rape, sure that her father would react like her roommate, judging and blaming her. Without support from anyone, Jessica tried to take control of her life and body. She began a never-ending diet and exercise regime that took on a life of its own. Only when she returned home at spring break, resembling a walking corpse, did her mother—a member of the “never too thin or too rich” club—stop complimenting Jessica’s weight loss and hospitalize her. Jessica remembered the expression on her father’s face: disappointment, disgust. She remembered his tirade because he’d already paid the tuition for spring.

  The harsh memory opened Jessica’s eyes now. Her dizziness had subsided, and the ground was steady under her feet. She forced herself to the refrigerator, sick of how hard life was. If she wasn’t worried about taking too many Klonopin, it was anorexia; if it wasn’t that it was anxiety—her heart palpitating in her chest for no apparent reason; or it was depression—sadness even when things were going well. She felt as if she’d been poking her finger in a dike her entire adult life. All the new age hokum she’d tried hadn’t made a bit of difference in the end. She’d already erased the Law of Attraction app from her phone.

  She surveyed the contents of the refrigerator full of leftovers from dishes people had brought. She passed over the containers of foods prepared with hidden fat, hidden gluten, hidden antibiotics that fattened the chickens and people who ate them. All the bogeymen of her anorexic self. She sighed, telling herself she could stick to something simpler. She’d restock basic items—milk, bread, yogurt. Over the last couple of days, she’d become able to focus on what Emily needed in a way she couldn’t do for herself. Even the estate business that had motivated her this morning would have failed to get her out of bed if she had only been looking out for her own interests.

  She pulled an organic yogurt shake from the refrigerator. If she couldn’t bear to chew, she could at least replenish her blood sugar. The yogurt quelled the emptiness of her belly, and anger washed over her. Once all the bills were paid, she and Emily had only a couple of months of liquid assets in the bank accounts. That was what she’d been too hungry to think about. Brian had expected to bring in millions when the cases he’d brought to Steve’s firm came to fruition. So this morning, she’d decided to start on whatever one did with estates so she could settle up with the firm. Her first step had been to call Steve to get his recommendation of an estate attorney. Instead, Steve’s secretary transferred her to Peggy, who said she was supposed to handle any of the questions Jessica might have. So she left a message that Steve should call her with an attorney referral. Simple enough. But nothing. No return call.

  At five, she called Peggy again, but Peggy didn’t know anything and thought that Steve might have been in court all day. Well, it was seven o’clock now, and still no call back. It made no sense. Even if Steve were busy, attorneys loved to refer business to each other. Jessica knew that from Brian. Referrals led to referral fees or at least reciprocal referrals. It meant money, and if there was anything that Steve cared about, it was money.

  She threw out the yogurt container, remembering that she hadn’t checked the landline messages when she returned from the store. In the darkened front vestibule, the telephone sat on a spindly antique table. The red light was blinking. She pressed the play button, hoping Steve had called on the landline instead of her cell. She erased her mother’s message halfway through her lengthy chitchat with the machine. After the next beep, Jessica heard the annoyed voice of a man she didn’t know. He didn’t state his business, and his voice smelled of salesman, a stressed-out salesman. Maybe he needed to make a quota or he would lose his job. There was nothing she could do to put a dent in that, least of all buy phony timeshares or sell her house. Exasperated, she pressed the erase button again. And that was it. No call from Steve or his office.

  She looked up to see Emily coming from the hallway that led to her bedroom. Emily’s face was slack, half-awake. A pillow indentation line ran from the outer corner of her eye to her mouth. “Did you hear from Steve?” she asked.

  “Steve? Why?”

  “I heard you talking to Peggy before. Is there something wrong?”

  “No,” Jessica answered quickly. “I was trying to reach Steve to get an attorney referral for the estate. It’s no big deal, he was probably in court all day.”

  “That never stopped him from calling Daddy back. They used to talk a couple of times a day when Dad worked at home, and on weekends.”

  “Maybe he’s having a hard time, too. He was your father’s best friend.”

  “Yeah,” Emily agreed, but her eyes bore into Jessica as if watching the demeanor of a witness. Once again, Emily reminded Jessica painfully of Brian. “Have you talked to Nicole?”

  “I haven’t heard from her. She’s out of town on a deal.”

  “I’m sure they have cell service there. Some friend.” Emily shrugged. “Anyway, you can call my mother. She’ll get us a lawyer.”

  Jessica turned away and Emily followed through the bright kitchen doorway. “I don’t think your mother would know anyone,” Jessica said, annoyed at the idea. “I mean, she works with abused kids, not this sort of thing.”

  “She is a lawyer, Jessica.”

  The sudden bitterness in Emily’s voice snapped Jessica’s head back around. She’d put down Emily’s mother. Shit. Things turned so swiftly between Emily and her. “You’re right … I’ll speak to her later.”

  “Whatever.” Emily’s face took on the blank, noncommittal look she cultivated. She picked up a bunch of bananas that lay on the counter and ripped one off. “I’m going downstairs.”

  “What are you doing down there? Anything interesting?”

  “Homework,” Emily said quickly, and turned away.

  Jessica watched Emily head toward Brian’s office. It was hard to believe she was doing homework, but on the occasions when Jessica checked on her, nothing was amiss besides the slight smell of cigarettes—just like when Brian smoked there. That was bad, really bad, but she didn’t know what to do about it and hadn’t mentioned it to Lauren yet, fearful of her reaction.

&nb
sp; Jessica picked up her phone from the table. Emily was right about one thing. Jessica could call Lauren to see if she knew any estate attorneys. She couldn’t deny it any longer: she was getting bad vibes about Steve not returning her calls.

  CHAPTER 12

  Thursday, October 31

  Across from City Hall Park, a solo estate practitioner sat behind a scuffed desk in a modest office in the Woolworth Building. Its window over Broadway let in little light due to scaffolding and nets that covered the less expensive bottom floors during facade repairs on the old landmark. Not knowing enough about estate work to handle things herself, Lauren had asked around for an attorney for Emily and her. This lawyer was relatively cheap by New York standards and had a good reputation even if his office reminded her of The Maltese Falcon. Lauren fingered the seam of a stiff leather chair as she talked. “I received a call last night from Jessica, Brian’s wife. Luckily, she doesn’t seem to want an estate fight—with me or Emily, at least.”

  The lawyer’s U-shaped bald spot left a lonely tuft of hair at his crown, and his sympathetic smile puffed his thick cheeks. “That must be a relief.”

  Lauren smiled back, halfheartedly. “The possibility of a fight had occurred to me.”

  “Money has a way of skewing more natural family relationships than yours.”

  “She’s really committed to Emily right now. The problem seems to be Steve Cohen. He’s not returning our calls. Since Jessica and I have a conflict of interest—technically at least—I gave her the name of a separate attorney, one of my law school professors. He has a Park Avenue overhead and charges lots of money. She’ll feel more comfortable if she pays through the nose.”

  He laughed. “You’re giving me ideas.”

  “It took a lot for her to call me. She doesn’t think I’m a real lawyer like Brian and his sleazeball friends. I’m a City lawyer, Family Court to boot, and God forbid I had to raise a kid so I couldn’t take one of those top-of-the-food-chain, hundred-hour-a-week jobs. Not that I’d want that.”

  He nodded, sympathetically. “I’ve run into some prejudice myself.”

  “You can see how much Brian’s friends are doing for us.”

  “We’ll see.” He looked down at his legal pad then back at Lauren. “The first thing I need to do is call Steve Cohen and see what we can do to free up Brian’s money. But you know this is a litigation firm you’re dealing with. If they want to fight you, they don’t have to pay anyone to represent them. They can keep you in court for years with little downside. For Emily, the litigation costs could easily run into hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even if she wins, the legal fees will still cut heftily into her recovery. As for you, since you only get ten percent of Brian’s profit, litigation would probably wipe you out, win or lose.”

  Lauren leaned forward. “There has to be a way to avoid that.”

  ***

  Carl sat at his desk. An empty coffee cup rested amidst strewn pens and half-read reports, pages flipped over, one on top of the next in a lopsided pile. Carl listened to Jorge Arena’s voice coming from his PC’s speaker. “Have you heard from the wife?”

  Jordan’s voice responded, jittery bravado, “We’re talking. No worries.”

  “Don’t fuck with me. When will I hear from you?”

  “Jorge, where is the faith? Give me some credit. Tomorrow.”

  “Come see me tomorrow. We’ll talk, either way.”

  Jordan’s voice cracked, “Wait.” The phone clicked. Jordan spoke alone now. Carl imagined him looking at the phone for answers it couldn’t give: “Fuck. Fucking shit.”

  Carl closed the audio file with a click and turned to Rick. “Jordan’s in trouble. Brian Silverman has to be the key.”

  “Silverman is dead.”

  Carl looked away, irritated. He’d spent a couple of nights at the sports bar, working security and greeting customers, grueling hours that dragged as slowly as an airport security line at Christmas. It was a long-term assignment, he knew, so he wasn’t expecting instant pay dirt. Once the Arena crew got to know him, he could present himself as a betting agent, a guy with clients. Anyone who brought business to a gambling website received commission. So Carl had to get into Arena’s confidence and cut a deal to bring clients to Jordan. If he could get specific actions by Arena to set him up with Jordan Connors here in the States, that could be the linchpin to put Arena away. But so far, Carl had gotten nothing but flirtation from the well-endowed cocktail waitresses.

  “I’m telling you, Rick, Arena had to be talking about Silverman’s widow. Where did the twelve million dollars go that Silverman withdrew from his account? Now the wife may be in danger, dying for our help, or maybe she was in on it, too. If we get her, she’ll talk.”

  “Your imagination is way ahead of the proof. We already have evidence on a dozen people involved with fixing games and individual plays. Why go for the spokes of the wheel—a tangential guy like Silverman, a dead guy no less, when we’re so close to an excellent RICO bust on the entire criminal conspiracy? Maybe we’ll even snag big-name athletes.”

  Rick sounded like the US Attorneys, who always compared RICO conspiracies to chains, wheels, and pyramids, diagramming the relationships of each defendant on a whiteboard before trial, snaring every minor participant in a dragnet. Carl felt no joy at catching ball players.

  “If the bet-fixing led to Brian Silverman’s murder, it would make it a much bigger bust,” Carl countered. “With the kind of evidence we’re gathering about Jorge Arena’s gambling activities, he’ll spend less time in jail than we spent investigating them.”

  “You’re a pessimist, Carl.” Rick rolled away, spanning the couple of feet to his desk. Spotless. As if he never read a report or used a pen or drank a cup of coffee. Rick logged into his computer. “We just put you in Home Game. Arena and his crew are so greedy, in a few weeks, they’ll jump to take on a new agent, especially with CB backing you. Plus, everybody likes you, even killers, I can’t exactly say why …” A spreadsheet appeared on the screen in front of Rick. “Look at these reports of weird betting patterns on blackjack games. And remember the strange poker plays on Jordan Connors’ site? Somebody has to be taking a cyberpeek at the other players’ cards.”

  “If that kind of bet went sour, Silverman might have been caught in the middle while delivering money.”

  Rick turned in his chair and took a long look at Carl. “Do me a favor—we’re making good progress, so save me the nightmares about you doing illegal searches or wiretaps on the Silverman angle. Not on his wife, definitely not on his law firm.”

  “What?” Carl grinned. “I believe in the Constitution.”

  “I’m gonna hold you to that.”

  Carl had no plans for illegal taps or anything of the sort. But he also had no plans to tell Rick about running into the ex-wife at the gym—not yet anyway.

  When he’d last seen Lauren Davis, she’d told the guy she was talking to that she usually went to the gym after work. Carl intended to be there. As pretty as she was, it would be no sweat for Carl to put in a little unofficial overtime on the Silverman angle. Carl tossed his empty coffee cup into the garbage and got up. “I’m taking Mookie for a run.”

  Rick swiveled to face him. “You need to give that old dog a break.”

  “Man, he’s in better shape than you.”

  Rick looked down at himself, not an ounce of flab. “I hope so, because you’re a sorry motherfucker about that dog. Personally, I don’t understand that kind of attachment to an animal.”

  “You should try it. It would do you good.”

  “It makes me wheeze just thinking about it.”

  ***

  The scent of microwave popcorn filled Lauren’s office as the afternoon sun faded. She read the day’s email and munched. Her cell phone rang, and she wiped her fingers on a napkin before picking up.

  “I heard from Steve Cohen,”
her new attorney said. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I think you have a problem.”

  “What?”

  “Cohen said Brian was an employee, not a partner. He claims the firm doesn’t owe anything on his cases either. According to Cohen, the only thing Brian got beyond his salary was at year’s end—a major appliance like a microwave or a washer-dryer—if the firm did well that year.”

  “A major appliance?” Lauren’s voice raised with blindsided anger. “Brian paid for two homes. He leased a plane and lived like a goddamn multimillionaire. Even our divorce decree says I get ten percent of profits, so there have to be profits.”

  “Have you checked with your divorce lawyer to see if Brian’s agreement with Cohen is in his file?”

  Lauren felt a twinge of embarrassment. “Our divorce was uncontested, before I went to law school. Brian drafted the divorce papers. I didn’t ask to see the agreement he had with Steve.”

  There was silence on the line for a beat before Lauren’s attorney spoke. “Brian might have wanted to keep his deal with Steve Cohen unwritten, under the table, to save paying you the ten percent on the big cases. If Brian didn’t want a paper trail, that could work to Steve’s advantage now. Ex-husbands hiding assets is very common.”

  “That bastard … I mean Steve, not Brian. I don’t think Brian would do that. He felt too guilty to be petty after we divorced, and he liked showing off how much money he made. That alone made it worth paying me.”

  “Okay, then. When Brian’s widow retains her lawyer, have him call me. Maybe she’ll find a partnership or profit-sharing agreement, although I doubt it exists if Steve is claiming it doesn’t. In any event, Jessica’s attorney and I can put our heads together on how we’re going to deal with this. At least we can join forces to cut costs if it comes down to it.”

  “Okay.” Lauren exhaled, trying to calm herself. “In the meantime, I’ll try to get Jessica to search Brian’s files at home to see if she can find something written about fee-sharing.”