Fallen Idols

by J. F. Freedman

  Slipped in right under the wire, Clancy thought. This inquiry had turned out to be the worst possible scenario they could have imagined. He put the policies back in his pocket.

  “One last question,” Tom said.

  “Yes?” Holbrook asked.

  “When did our father actually get the money? How long after she died?”

  Holbrook thought for a moment. “My recollection is about six months after. I could look it up, if you want the exact date.”

  Tom shook his head. “That won't be necessary.” He looked over to Clancy. “Right when he quit the university and left Madison.”

  Clancy nodded. “What an amazing coincidence,” he said with bitter sarcasm. He turned back to Holbrook.

  “Thanks for talking to us.” He offered his hand. “I can understand why you didn't want to.”

  “I'am glad I did, now,” the agent replied, shaking Clancy's hand. He shook Tom's as well. “It's good that you know.” He hesitated a moment. “Your parents never discussed this with you? Before … or after?”

  “No,” Clancy said. “They lived in their own world.”

  More than we knew, he thought sadly. So much more.

  Holbrook walked them to the elevator. “Be careful driving out there,” he cautioned. He forced a smile. “You have insurance, don't you?”

  Clancy smiled back. “We have insurance.”

  “Well, if you ever want to talk more about life I Insurance—for yourselves—give me a call. I'll do good by you.”

  “Thanks,” Clancy said. “I'll talk to my wife about it.”

  Holbrook edged close to them, looking over his shoulder to make sure no one was in earshot. “What we talked about in my office stayed there, right?” he whispered.

  “Most definitely,” Clancy answered. “He's never going to know.”

  CHICAGO

  The drive back was a misery. To avoid the construction on the Interstate they took U.S. 41 back, a longer and more winding route. The rain, which if anything was coming down harder than it had been earlier, pounded them all the way, and the wind coming off the lake as they got closer to home was blowing almost gale force.

  The climate was worse inside the car. Everything they knew about their father until now had been dispiriting, even scary; but this went beyond anything they had learned. He had been paid four million dollars because their mother was killed, and he had never said a word to them about it.

  Will was waiting for them when they got back to Clancy's apartment. Callie had roasted a chicken and made a Caesar salad, but no one was hungry. They drank, though. Not to excess, they needed to have their wits about them, but a couple of healthy belts of Scotch all around went down fast.

  Clancy and Tom told the other two about the insurance policies, and the accidental death clause that had made their father a wealthy man. That explained where he'd gotten the money to buy his fancy new house in Los Angeles, they agreed, and why he had been willing, even eager, to leave Madison as soon as there was any whiff of controversy.

  “If that student's parents hadn't filed against him, he would have come up with some other excuse,” Tom commented. “He was lucky the kid gave him such a convenient exit.”

  That was low thinking, but none of the others contradicted Tom. They all felt the same way, not only that Walt had deceived them, but that he had acted ugly and under-handedly. And maybe worse.

  “The view from where I stand isn't good, either,” Will announced, as he began recounting his telephone conversation of earlier in the day. He read from a sheaf of papers on which he'd scribbled his notes. “They started investing in 1994, about the time the tech boom was gathering steam and the economy was coming out of recession.”

  “That was the first time they refinanced their house,” Clancy recalled.

  Will nodded. “Yep. It's obvious now that they refinanced to come up with the seed money. And they did very well, for a number of years. They refinanced the house again in ‘97, as you know, and then again in ‘99.”

  “Mortgaging their future,” Tom commented. “That house was the biggest investment they owned.”

  “Was is the operative word,” Will agreed. “Because they made serious money up until the middle of 2000.”

  “How serious?” Tom asked.

  “Over a million. In net gains, profit. They were making out like bandits. You didn't have to be a genius then, it was like throwing darts at a board blindfolded.

  Whatever you hit was a winner, especially in the big tech issues. They were into Intel, Cisco, all those glamour stocks. Even dicier ones that were going up in multiples of thousands. Real high-wire stuff. I know people who parlayed ten thousand dollars into ten million.”

  “Except most of them didn't keep their ten million,” Tom commented. He could see where this was going. They all could. He felt like he was standing at the side of a road watching a train wreck about to happen in slow motion and was powerless to do anything to stop it.

  “Most didn't,” Will agreed. “Including mom and dad.”

  “How much did they lose?” Clancy asked. He got up from the couch where he was sitting with Callie, went into the kitchen, and came back with the bottle of Laphroaig. He poured himself a few fingers. “Anyone else?”

  Both his brothers held up their glasses. He tipped a bit into each. Callie wasn't drinking. She sat next to him, not saying anything, taking it all in.

  “They lost everything,” Will told them. “Almost everything.”

  “They had the house, still,” Tom said.

  “Yes, but it was burdened by a big new mortgage. They were getting older, they would have owned it free and clear. Now they were looking at a mortgage that would outlive them.”

  “Stupid,” Tom commented bitingly. “Jesus, what were they thinking?”

  “It gets worse.” Will stuck his finger into his drink, sucked it.

  Tom and Clancy both looked up. “How?” Tom asked.

  “They were borrowing against their pension plan.”

  “Ah, no,” Clancy groaned. “You've got to be shitting us.”

  “I wish,” his brother answered. “They dipped into it pretty heavily. Dad isn't taking nearly as much out of it every month as he should have been. Most of it's going to pay down loans he took out against it to play the market.”

  “Like he really needs it,” Tom spat out. He was white-hot with anger. “Four million in the bank, who gives a damn about some sorry-ass pension plan?”

  They sat in silence for a moment, until Callie broke in. “We need to take a break. This is an awful lot to digest in one bite. Speaking of which, you guys have been drinking on empty stomachs. I made this nice dinner, I want you to eat it.” She got up, pulled Clancy to his feet. “Come on.”

  They sat at the dining table, with the bottle of Scotch as the centerpiece. Callie dished up the portions. They pushed the food around their plates, but no one had an appetite.

  “It's good, hon,” Clancy said, forcing down a mouthful.

  “Real good,” Tom echoed. “Thanks.”

  Will pushed his plate away from the table. “Someone has to say it.”

  “They looked at him. The youngest, the baby of the family, all grown up now, their king of finance.

  “They were living over their heads for years, taking stupid chances on things they didn't know squat about, they mortgaged their future, and then they got waxed. And then mom gets killed, and dad's a rich man suddenly. He benefitted from her dying, financially. That scares the hell out of me, to think of where that could lead.” He rubbed his eyes, then looked up. “We've been ostriches, burying our heads in the sand, but we have to get real now.”

  They stared at each other. No one wanted to say it.

  “Screw it,” Tom said finally. “I'll break the ice. Was dad involved in mom's death? That's what we're looking at, isn't it? Was mom's killing something other than a random, tragic accident?”

  The atmosphere in the apartment was that of a funeral home. Outside, the rain was sti
ll falling.

  “It's still all circumstantial,” Clancy said. “There's no smoking gun, no gun at all. All those people were there. They all saw and said the same thing. It was how you just described it, Tom. A random, tragic accident. Everything we've learned is terrible, ugly, scary. But it does not mean dad had anything to do with mom's killing.” He pushed away from the table; if he'd had any appetite at all, it was gone now. “If we're going to accuse him—”

  “We are accusing him,” Tom butted in. “That's what all this has been about. Let's stop lying to ourselves, for Christ's sake!”

  “You guys aren't seeing the forest for the trees.”

  They turned to Callie.

  “Cherchez la femme,” she said.

  “Meaning?” her husband asked.

  “The mystery lady in his life. What do you know about her?”

  They looked at each other, but no one spoke.

  “My point exactly: nothing. I brought this up before, and you tabled it. I think it's time to look at her again.”

  Tom shook his head. “I don't buy that at all,” he said with force.

  “Why not?” Callie asked. “Shouldn't everything Walt's been involved in over the past few years be under suspicion, or at least checked out?”

  “He didn't even know her then,” Tom pointed out stubbornly. “He met her after he moved to California.”

  “At a party at UCLA, isn't that what you told me? Callie asked Clancy, who nodded. “But UCLA doesn't know diddly about Walt, so he couldn't have met her that way,” she exclaimed strongly. “So what we have to find out is, how did he really meet her?”

  “Okay, so he lied about that,” Tom conceded. “What difference does it make?”

  “It could make a world of difference if he had met her earlier,” Callie answered.

  “If,” Tom said grudgingly. He was living with a romantic and erotic image of Emma in his head, an image that carried with it a yearning that was painful to think about. He didn't want to have it taken away from him.

  “I'm going to lay a piece of information on you guys that's going to blow your minds,” Callie said. “It isn't pretty, but it's cut from the same cloth as all these other ugly revelations.” She paused. “Emma Rawlings does not exist.”

  “Babe,” Clancy said. “You're pushing it.”

  “I don't mean there isn't a body there. You and Tom have seen her, spent time with her. But she's a spook, she has no record.”

  Tom almost leaped out of his chair. “Why in hell would you say that?” he asked her harshly.

  Callie's answer was emphatic. “Because I checked on her.”

  All three brothers gaped at her.

  “She's never fit in the picture for me,” Callie said. “You guys wanted to check on all these other areas, which was what you had to do, so I did it—looked into her background.” She got up, went into the living room, and came back with a looseleaf notebook, which she flipped open. “There is no Emma Rawlings enrolled in any school, undergraduate or graduate, at UCLA, which gives the lie to Walt claiming she was close to getting her graduate degree there. She isn't at USC, either. Those are the only two universities in the L.A. area that have graduate archaeology departments.”

  She sat back.

  “Sonofabitch,” Tom spat out. His head was reeling. “How many more lies are there going to be? Is this ever going to end?”

  “We're going to have to deal with this now, too,” Will said. “Good work, Callie.”

  “Thanks. Sorry to be the bearer of more bad tidings.”

  “So now what?” Clancy said. “Anybody have a bright idea what to do next?”

  Callie raised her hand. “I do.”

  “What?”

  “I want to see this woman. Up close and personal.”

  “What difference is that going to make?” Will asked, curious.

  “Women's intuition. We see things in other women that men are blind to.”

  Tell me about it, Tom thought. He wanted to tear handfuls of hair from his head, he felt so angry at himself. So self-deceived, yet again.

  Tom and Will left. Everyone was exhausted—their emotional tanks were empty. Tomorrow, Clancy would call Walt and invite himself and Callie out. He'd make up some excuse—business for him, a chance for Callie to see old friends from her volleyball days. It would take a few weeks to set up, because he was booked solid at the clinic, and he knew his father wouldn't be available immediately, either. Teaching a clinic at Stanford, a lecture series in Arizona. Some excuse, which, up until a shot time ago, would have been perfectly plausible. Now it was lies, all lies. He felt like his world was caving in on him.

  “Are you all right?” Callie's hand reached for his.

  They were in bed, under the covers. They'd been too tired to make love. She snuggled up against him.

  “No,” he answered truthfully. “I feel horrible.”

  “Me, too. Why is this all happening?”

  “I don't know,” he answered. “I don't know if I want to know.”

  She propped herself up on one elbow. “I have something else to tell you. I didn't want to earlier, with the other guys around.” She smiled. “It's good news, for a change.”

  She leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. “I'm pregnant.”

  LOS ANGELES

  Walt was overjoyed with the news that he was going to be a grandfather. “It's about time,” he had crowed over the phone, when Clancy called him. Of course he wanted them to come out for a visit, as soon as possible. He was tied up for the next couple of weeks, unfortunately, but he would make himself available right afterward. “If only your mother was still alive,” he lamented. “She would have been so happy.”

  They made a firm date, and Clancy bought the airplane tickets.

  Two weeks later to the day, Clancy and Callie arrived at Walt's house, shortly after six in the evening. The sun was almost down, a few fingers from dropping below the horizon. The full-leafed trees, in contrast to the sad bare skeletons they had left behind in Chicago, cast long shadows on the street.

  Callie got out of the car, stretched, and looked around. Her lower back was sore. Now that she was pregnant she needed to drink more water, to keep her kidneys flushed.

  It was balmy out. That was the thing she loved the most about southern California, it never got cold.

  “Which one?” she asked. They all looked impressive to her.

  Clancy, taking their bags out of the trunk, pointed across the street. “That one.”

  She shaded her eyes against the sun, which was full in their faces. “Pretty impressive.”

  “Yes, it is.” He stared at it. Walt's Mercedes and Emma's BMW sports car were both in the driveway. “You can buy a hell of a lot of house with four million dollars in the bank.”

  They walked across the street and rang the doorbell. Almost immediately the door swung open and there was Walt, grinning from ear to ear. He grabbed Callie in a bear hug.

  “Oh, man!” he cried out. “This is absolutely incredible.” He stepped back and looked her up and down. “You aren't showing yet.”

  “It's only six weeks, Walt.” She hadn't seen him for over a year. He looked good, she thought, but he definitely looked older.

  “Oh, man,” he cried out again. “I haven't felt like this since … Will was born, I guess. Jesus. If only your mother …” He trailed off, shaking his head. Smiling again, he grabbed her hand in both of his. “Come on in. Come on.”

  They followed him into the house. “You know where the guest room is, Clancy,” he told his son. “Go ahead and drop your stuff. I'll show my future grandchild's mother around.” He took Callie's hand again. “Come on.”

  He led her through the house, pointing out this particular rug, how old it was, where it had come from, where he'd bought this painting, that old vase. His voice was prideful with ownership of these fine things. She told him how nice everything was, how tasteful.

  “That's Emma's doing. She has a great eye.” He looked toward the bedro
oms. “She'll be out in a minute.” He leaned toward her like a conspirator. “She's nervous about meeting you. Another woman, my son's wife, family.” He was exuding energy. “You're going to like her. She's your kind of people.”

  “I'm sure,” Callie answered.

  They walked around the spacious backyard, the light now a deep purple-green in the dying throes of the day. It was quiet back here, no traffic noises, no radios or televisions, no human voices. The crickets were starting to sing, and somewhere in the distance she heard a bullfrog's croaking. This is some life, Callie thought. But at what a cost. She looked at her father-in-law, in his shorts and faded tennis shirt and worn boat shoes on his tanned legs, his skin like dark burnished leather from his years of being out in the tropical sun, and she felt, despite what she knew about him and his deceptions, a surge of warmth, almost compassion. He was the father of her husband, the man she loved. The grandfather of her unborn child. The same blood ran through all their veins, even hers, now that she was pregnant by his offspring.

  Please let there be an acceptable answer to all this, she thought silently to herself.

  Clancy hadn't joined them. Deliberately, she knew, He was giving her private time with his father, on the chance there was some vibe from Walt she might pick up that would be disturbed by the presence of a third party.

  She didn't feel any vibe; not yet, anyway. If there was one, it would transmit not from Walt, but from Emma. Whoever she was.

  “Hello.”

  They turned. A woman was standing on the back patio, framed by the open French doors. Her face was in darkness. She hesitated a moment, as if waiting to make her entrance, then walked across the yard toward them.

  “I'm Emma.”

  “Callie.”

  “It's nice to meet you, at last.”

  Callie looked at her closely, as if trying to see past Emma's eyes to what lay behind. “Thank you,” she said. “You don't know how much I've been wanting to.”