She was still wearing the business attire but without the jacket: silk blouse, skirt, stockings, and heels. Her eyes were partially closed to slits that studied me, looking for my next step. Standing up, I moved toward her. It was because I believed her that it was time for me to lead, for me to take the next step, not her. I reached my arms around her, she thought for an embrace, but instead, I found the little zipper in back that held her skirt together. I slid it down; her skirt fell to the floor. I brought my hands around to the front of her blouse and began to unbutton it from top to bottom. I eased the blouse off of her shoulders, and it joined the skirt. She looked at me — her growing smile and her widely open eyes, questioning and hopeful.
“Thomas, this is different. As much as I appreciate your assistance in helping me remove my clothing, I am confused by this change in your behavior. Should I be reading into this that you have accepted my proposal?”
“Yep.”
I took her by the hand and led her back toward the bed. She stopped me when we crossed the room. Up until now, her flirting, her teasing, and tempting were to keep my attention, to keep me focused on something very important to her, to decide one way or another, were we going to be together, a couple? And, for the first time, the confidence, the playfulness, the certain knowledge that she was in complete control, evaporated. It was her turn to be concerned — I had given her the answer to her question, the question.
With an uncharacteristically shaky sound in her voice, she said, “Thomas, I need to hear you say it. I need to hear that you accept, that you want to do this, that you want me.”
“Option three — oh, yeah. I accept. Completely. Absolutely. I want you. No more questions. The answer is yes. Committed, one hundred percent. I’m in.”
And then I was.
TRENDY LAWYERS
I awoke to the familiar surroundings of my own bedroom and to the only recently recurring experience of not being alone with the sunrise. This had never happened before at home as I had always kept that part of my life removed from the curious eyes of our family’s staff — there are some things they just don’t need to know, much less tease me about later.
Although I had enjoyed adult bedroom activity many times and in many locations — a personal objective never far removed from my mind — I rarely actually slept with my temporary partner. I always found a reason, admittedly an excuse, to move on after the fun, but always before the sleep. I knew that I had done this intentionally — an admission that, in many cases, the thought of interacting with the selected young lady who although pretty and willing to accommodate my immediate needs, was something I didn’t want. I had no desire to be her soul mate for a morning-after conversation. I won’t deny it. I am scum.
Marilena was lying on her side and pressed against me. I sensed her becoming awake. “Good morning, Darling,” she said. It seemed that in my brave new world, I had acquired a new title.
“Seems like you’re awake,” I answered.
“Yes, and we need to get going. We have a full agenda, and I would like to exercise before we start out.” She was kind enough not to mention that on a previous occasion, my exercise had been limited to falling out of bed. At least I hadn’t done that again.
“We have a nicely equipped facility,” I said.
“Why does that not surprise me?” She gave me a knowing smile. Escaping from my grasp before I could implement my rather obvious plan for the morning, she said, “I will go put on something appropriate for your nicely equipped facility.” Then she slid naked out from the sheets. The room never looked so good. I could get used to this. She pulled the top sheet off of the bed and fashioned it without difficulty into an off the shoulder, emergency-use toga. Had she done this before? She stepped over her clothes, opened and walked out the door and in the direction of her room — another guest room that she would not sleep in.
From outside my door and to my horror, I heard Marilena say brightly and without even the hint of any awkwardness, “Good morning, Maryanne!” Marilena then paused and began a conversation with our housekeeper while completely relaxed about having been seen coming from my room wrapped in the sheet from my bed. Not a care in the world.
“Would you do something for me, dear? I left some clothes in Thomas’ room. I’m sure he will not know what to do with them, and if you would be so kind?”
“Of course. I’ll take care of it when I make up his room. Will you want breakfast?” Maryanne was playing along as if seeing Marilena come from my bed was completely expected.
Marilena answered, “Thank you so much. Yes, we’re going to exercise for a little while first. Something light after that would be very nice.”
“I’ll let everyone know.” Yeah, I’ll bet she will.
*
We arrived at the pricey home of the Central New England Group, LLC on the top floor of a downtown office building. CNEG was one of the first and most successful private equity groups in the country. The letters were always pronounced individually: See — Ehn — Eee — Gee, never See-NEG for obvious reasons. Even some business illiterate like me, who manages somehow to get by without memorizing the Wall Street Journal each and every day, had heard of them, and knew of their impressive track record. Their investments made the news as they always involved large companies and often merged ferocious competitors, domestically and abroad. The returns to their secretive clients, some of whom had recently been revealed to be nefarious international players, were consistently impressive. I found this amusing because I knew that we were clients as well. If my boss, General F., ever discovered this, I’d get gutted, filleted, and fried.
Yesterday, while on the train, I had called the partner who had cultivated Ron as an investor and had set up a meeting for this morning. I was starting to enjoy the power that I had as the controller of our family’s fortune. It didn’t seem to matter whether the cash flow was philanthropic or selfish — I was the guy everyone wanted as a friend. My new friend today would soon discover that if necessary, I would employ some of that power to find out about a past partner at CNEG.
We were escorted to the offices of William Heget by a very serious young man. After the intros, expressions of remorse about Ron and offers of coffee, we settled in to talk. I introduced Marilena as a friend helping me in my new role as family head, not as an FBI agent. Heget began by describing the preparations he had made for our meeting.
“Colonel, I’ve prepared a summary and an analysis of your family’s holdings, specific investments in our partner ventures, and the returns to date. I can explain them to you now, or if you like, you can read this, and we can get back together in person or by phone at your convenience. My partners and I strongly hope that we can continue to serve and to provide the excellent return on investment that you have enjoyed.”
Although his words were self-serving, I liked his approach. No nonsense — we had a deal, and his team had been living up to its end. The message being, “Let’s keep doing just that.” Given the numbers I was seeing while rifling through the data and the associated color graphs, I was OK with a continued relationship. I wasn’t even sure of how difficult it would be to disassociate us. Our initial investment had grown to somewhere near ten million dollars at current value. It was a small enough percentage of the whole portfolio (God, I was sounding like a finance geek) that I wasn’t worried about the speculative nature of what PE firms did, not that I fully understood whatever that was. I passed the file to Marilena, helping maintain her role as adviser. She set it on her lap but did not look at the contents.
“Mr. Heget, as you might guess, all of this is new to me. Ron made my life easy by taking care of the family business, so I do appreciate your time. I will read your package and with some help (nodding in Marilena’s direction) do my best to understand everything. I am sure that I will take you up on your offer to call back.”
“By all means, please do. And if you like, your brother and I had become on good enough terms to use first names.”
“All the bett
er by me,” I answered. “I go by Tom.”
“I’m Bill, but a couple of times when Ron and I had too much to drink after a dinner meeting, I somehow had been Billy. No one else ever called me that.” He looked off at the window, obviously remembering good times with my brother.
I thought it best to be as straightforward with him as he had been with me. “Bill, we have reason to believe that he did not commit suicide.”
“What?” he spoke the word softly, without emotion. “Are you sure? Can I help?” his voice sincere. Once again, Ron’s impact on others was making it easy to get their cooperation.
“I don’t know if you saw the news yet about your former partner, Margaret Townsend?”
His face took on a grimace. “Yes, I saw that she died yesterday. Here in town.”
“We were there when she died.”
“You were? Why?”
“Yes. We recognized her driving a car that was following us on the way back from an appointment in Cambridge. When we stopped and got out of our car to talk to her, to see if she needed anything, she quickly backed up away from us and caused the accident that killed her.”
“Any reason why she did that?”
“No. She was, however, a person of interest to the police authorities, but it has been determined that she was not physically near Ron when he died and could not have been his killer. I don’t know if she was following us or, for that matter, why she would have followed us here to Boston and then tailed us around town. Do you know if she had an appointment here? Maybe seeing us was just a coincidence.”
“Funny you should ask. This morning when the news broke here, one of the partners asked around if she had an appointment with any of us. He checked with everyone and she didn’t. So, she wasn’t here to see us, and, in any case, since she left the firm, I can’t remember her ever having come back. I’ll level with you because of my relationship with Ron. She didn’t have friends in Boston to my knowledge — just the opposite.”
“The opposite?”
Marilena was letting me run with it, not wanting the purpose of our visit to become official. She played the attractive girlfriend well, showing just the right amount of interest.
“Yeah, well, Margaret is, was, a bit of an embarrassment for me. I was the one who brought her on, pushed the others to start her as a partner, and then had to deal with the mess that it became.”
“I’ll admit that I don’t know many people who are in the private equity world, but when I met her in New York, she didn’t seem like someone I would invest my money with,” I prodded, gently.
He nodded back at me and then said, “About ten years ago, we were getting beat up in the press as being a boys’ club, one of many in our business. One of the first and largest PE firms had been started out in the lobby of a midtown Manhattan hotel in a casual meeting between a couple of guys. Since then, our industry has had the image of businessmen, emphasis on men, meeting in smoke-filled bars and hotels, no women allowed. I started out as a securities lawyer and know how fickle big investors can be. Their investment criteria are not always objective. The issue of gender bias might get some pillow talk going, and some client’s wife might keep us from working for them. Because of this, we decided to add some women to the team. One of them worked out great, but one of them, the one person I found and pushed for, didn’t. Margaret was a nightmare. Within a month of getting started here, we learned two things about her: in spite of her degree in finance and work experience, she didn’t know much about deal valuation or investment analysis, and, even worse because we couldn’t hide this, she was a bitch on wheels. Within two months, everyone in the building hated her, even people who worked for other companies whose only interaction with her was passing her in the hallway. Several of us tried to talk to her, to get her to fit in, to lighten up. It only got worse. Eventually, we struck a deal to get rid of her — an expensive deal. She was promoted to partner and retired from the firm on the same day. Walked out with over a million bucks for less than five months’ work where she basically did nothing except screw up one of my projects. Part of the deal was that we had to publicly attribute the success of one of our largest investments to her when in fact she had nothing to do with it. Her lawyer said that it would reduce the damage to her reputation that we would have to pay for in addition to the seven-figure settlement. I understand that one of my partners had to be a reference for her to help her get the job at the CID charity where Ron worked. Ron was decent enough not to ever bring her up although I am sure that he knew our role in getting her hired. I don’t know the makeup of the senior team where Ron worked. Maybe they were under some pressure to balance the team with some ladies. The cost of being trendy.”
I thought about the CID senior team and smiled. No one would ever accuse Alison Montgomery of not hiring enough women. But trendy, she did trendy well.
*
Our next stop was at the police station. Gus went in with us, and he and I each wrote out a statement. Marilena went off with O’Shanlon to meet the precinct commander and talk police talk. They let me borrow a computer so I could type my statement out. I had told them that my handwriting started out bad, and then I became a doctor. They understood.
After we finished, Marilena read our reports and suggested some changes. The locals didn’t seem to mind this, which I found strange. She had worked out some very close interdepartmental cooperation. We signed our statements and were led to a conference room. Lieutenant O’Shanlon was waiting for us and had brought a bag marked “Evidence.”
“We can’t find any reason for Margaret Townsend to come to Boston. There is no record of an appointment with anyone whom we have uncovered, and she sold her home here when she moved to New York. That doesn’t mean that she didn’t have a reason to come here; we just can’t find one.”
He turned to an evidence bag on the conference room table. He surprised us by producing a gun from the pouch. It was a revolver, a thirty-eight Smith with a shrouded hammer. A five-shot, aluminum-framed hand blaster that wouldn’t hang up when you yanked it out of a pocket. I asked if I could see the ammo in the plastic bag. They were .38 plus P rounds and as hot as that gun could handle. She had been planning some serious damage. Well, as serious as her pistol could inflict.
“She had this in the front seat with her. Did she have motive to kill you?” O’Shanlon asked.
“We still don’t know what her plans were or her role in Dr. Briggs’s murder,” Marilena answered.
“Seems like pretty poor planning, just riding around behind us hoping to get an opportunity to drop us all without getting noticed,” I offered.
“Yeah — not bright,” O’Shanlon said. “Although, every time I try to credit a criminal with some intelligence, I’m wrong. Also, the more desperate the crook, the more crazy they get.”
I didn’t say the words, but in my mind I heard, “We’re counting on that.”
*
Our last stop of the day was a meeting with our family lawyers. This had nothing to do with the case, but they were clamoring to meet with me. Their stated motivation was to educate me; a second one was to begin developing a relationship with me like the one they had with Ron.
Gus took us to a seafood restaurant for lunch that had a view of the harbor. He regaled Marilena with a series of embarrassing stories about my childhood. She pushed for more, and he promised that later he would get out some photo albums and fill in the rest of my ill-spent youth. She thought that this was a fantastic idea. I considered joining the French Foreign Legion.
I took Marilena in with me to meet Jason Inch, our senior partner at Keeson, Inch, Merrimack and Wynters, an erudite collection of barristers, I’m sure. I had met Jason about a dozen times, mostly when my signature was needed and Ron took advantage of the request to expose me to some of the family business issues. I remembered that Jason always wore the latest GQ fashions, something that Ron would bring to my attention later with a little laugh. Another trendy lawyer.
He asked Marilena’s
standing with me or the family, prompting her to offer to excuse herself so we could meet in private. I didn’t know whether I should feel awkward about this or whether I should decline her offer or what I should do when she said, “Listen to your lawyer. These are confidential matters. I’m sure there is somewhere here where I can use a telephone?”
Jason was relieved and made immediate arrangements for a comfortable office with refreshments. He then led me through a two-hour presentation of my business interests and my new role as head of the family. Most of it I had heard something about before and had only one real surprise. It turned out that we were being sued in two separate actions. Jason assured me that it was nothing to worry about — we were always being sued! A fact of life for a wealthy family but not of any concern because he and his team of legal pit bulls handled them all to a satisfactory conclusion. I wasn’t too worried. I knew I had talented help, and they would work me into everything, keeping me from screwing up too badly, and they would be paid excessively. What amazed me about all of this was that when Ron was about half my age, he had taken on this same role.
We finished up and went together to collect Marilena. While I left them for a visit to the restroom, she began a conversation with Jason. My return five minutes later provided me with another surprise.
Jason spoke first. He was very pleased about something. “Tom, Marilena has made an excellent suggestion that we should act on. It is very considerate and understanding on her part.”
“Yeah, what’s that?” I said, having absolutely no clue as to what he was talking about.
“She has asked me to create an agreement, a palimony agreement, between the two of you and specifically directed me to state that irrespective of the nature of your relationship, or how long your relationship lasts, even if it’s forever, she will have no claim against your personal or your family’s financial interests.”
I stared at the two of them. “Palimony? What’s that?”
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