Misfortune

by Nancy Geary

  “I suppose it’s inappropriate to make a toast under the circumstances.” Aurelia sat in a straight-backed chair next to Frances. “But we might raise a glass to Clio. May she rest in peace.” She took a sip of her wine. “How’s your father holding up?”

  “I can’t tell.”

  “Weren’t you there for most of the day?”

  “He’s focused on preparations for the memorial service, but that’s probably just a distraction. Clio’s death has also brought back memories of Justin. It’s all so sad for him.”

  “Do you know what he’ll do?” Aurelia asked.

  “Do?” Frances wasn’t sure she understood. Her father was physically and emotionally debilitated. She doubted he had any plans to do anything at all except try to survive another day.

  “Will he stay in the house, I mean?”

  Frances closed her eyes and rocked several times before answering. “I’m sure. His memories are there. It’s his home.”

  “I have memories of that house, too.”

  Frances stared at her mother. She had forgotten that the house on Ox Pasture Road had originally been theirs, a home that Aurelia and Richard had picked out together early in their marriage before she or her sister was born. No amount of renovation or re-decoration could change the simple fact that Aurelia had been there first.

  Frances tried to read the thoughts passing through her mother’s mind, but Aurelia’s expression provided no clues. She had been a handsome woman, but her bronzed face was wrinkled by the sun and age. Her graying hair had thinned, and her eyes seemed smaller and deeper set in her face than Frances remembered. Her ample hips spilled over the sides of the small chair, and her ankles looked thick in her thin-soled red sneakers. Frances noted with some sadness that she had inherited this same body, destined to pass un-gracefully into middle age.

  “Do they know why she died?” Aurelia asked.

  “Apparent heart failure. The coroner hasn’t issued a report, though.”

  “Do you believe it?”

  Frances twisted in her seat. Her mother appeared to be focused on the meniscus of Pinot Grigio in her glass. “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I just was wondering whether you believed it was a natural death, that’s all.” Aurelia smiled. “I bet you have a hunch one way or the other.”

  “Dad says Clio was in excellent health. Her death is certainly surprising.”

  “Would he know how healthy she really was?”

  “I assume so.”

  “Be careful about what assumptions you make in life,” Aurelia said matter-of-factly.

  Frances felt unnerved. First Malcolm, now her mother. It seemed that she was surrounded by people with suspicions about Clio’s death. She rubbed her eyes, realizing how exhausted she was.

  “Did Dad ever talk to you about Clio?” Frances asked.

  Aurelia chuckled. “Not in years.” She took a large sip of wine and swirled it in her mouth before swallowing. “When they first met, he mentioned it. He never said much about her specifically, only that she was relatively young, that he respected her, and that he thought he might like to see a bit more of her. She was a friend of Jack Von Furst’s, if my memory serves me. He didn’t mention her again until he decided he wanted to marry her. He called to find out how I felt.”

  “He did?”

  “He certainly didn’t have to. We had been divorced for quite a while. He was free to do as he pleased, but, at the time, he seemed genuinely concerned with my feelings.”

  “What did you say?”

  “What you might expect. I was happy that he had found someone to make him happy. I certainly couldn’t.”

  “So that was it? You gave him your blessing.”

  “I wanted him to make a life for himself. Our marriage hadn’t worked, but that wasn’t to say he couldn’t make a good husband.”

  “Did you ever talk about her again?”

  “Your father and I had a lot less interaction after he remarried. Occasionally, issues arose with you and your sister, whether to send you to sleep-away camp, whether you should stay in New York for high school, that sort of thing, but we seldom disagreed. Besides, both of us were inclined to give huge deference to what you girls wanted to do, so you might say there was little parental interference. Several times I tried to tell him how you and Blair felt about Clio, to talk about how she treated the two of you, but he wouldn’t discuss it.”

  “You did? Why?”

  “How could I not? I saw how upset she made you. Remember the time she insisted that you change your clothes before some dance? She was embarrassed that you wore stripes with checks, or stripes and flowers, I can’t remember the details, but you called me, upset. She humiliated you. Frankly, it was none of Clio’s business what you wore, and I told your father so. You were developing your own style.”

  Frances remembered the episode well, how she had stood in front of the mirror studying her carefully chosen outfit, a navy-and-white-striped T-shirt and pale blue corduroys with red flowers on them. She had been as anxious about the dance, and her appearance, as any slightly chubby thirteen-year-old with budding breasts could possibly be, and she had changed her clothes a dozen times before settling on something that pleased her. Then, without knocking, Clio had come into her room. “You may not leave this house dressed like that. Don’t you see you clash? You look ridiculous,” she’d said. Frances had held back her tears only long enough for Clio to leave the room. She hadn’t changed, but she hadn’t gone to the dance, either.

  “Of course, my information came from you and Blair, the stories you told me, the complaints you had,” Aurelia continued. “Richard told me everything was fine.”

  “I never had the courage to say anything.” Frances felt her chest constrict. How many times over the years had she waged an internal battle over whether to stand up to her stepmother and risk the consequent wrath or swallow her own desires and remain the obedient daughter? It seemed like the dilemma that defined her childhood. Perhaps, Frances thought, that’s why she ended up at law school. She couldn’t defend herself, but she could make a career out of standing up for others.

  “It was a lot harder for you to speak up than it was for me. I had nothing at stake in the relationship with your father by the time Clio came along. You did. I should have been more insistent with him, but he didn’t want to hear. I gave up pretty quickly.”

  Frances didn’t respond. She never expected anyone to come to her rescue and was touched that her mother had tried, even if her efforts had been unsuccessful.

  Aurelia reached over and held on to Frances’s arm. “I’m sorry for your father’s loss. Being old and infirm is not a particularly nice way to spend your golden years, but I’m more sorry for what that witch of a woman did to my girls.” She leaned over and kissed Frances on the cheek. “I’ll fix us some dinner,” she said, standing up.

  “Do you need help?” Frances asked.

  Aurelia shook her head and moved toward the screen door. Just before entering, she turned back to look at Frances. “I’m awful to speak poorly of the dead. Perhaps I shouldn’t judge someone else’s relationship,” she said with just a hint of sarcasm.

  Monday, July 6

  Scott Bendleton, known to most members of the criminal bar as “Bender,” a small, thin man in a navy blue double-breasted suit with oversize brass buttons, was just finishing his plea for leniency on behalf of the defendant, William Howard Avery III. Frances, stuck in her chair only ten feet away from his booming voice, resented his long-windedness, typical of lawyers who were paid by the hour. As far as she could discern, Bender’s pitch was unoriginal: despite the jury’s finding that his client was guilty of larceny, Avery wasn’t a bad guy. He had meant to invest the victims’ money wisely and provide them with a substantial return. He hadn’t meant to use it to purchase a new Range Rover, a condominium in Boca Raton, or a twenty-five-foot Grady White motorboat with twin 150-horsepower engines. The Suffolk County prosecutor had been overzealous in comin
g after this quiet, well-liked man, a vestry member of the Saint Francis Episcopal Church, the dutiful husband of Sissy Avery, who volunteered at the local chapter of the Red Cross twice a week, and the father of two adopted boys and a little girl with special educational needs. Bender seemed to think that because his client was such an upstanding citizen, the court should excuse his embezzlement of nearly half a million dollars.

  “My friend here…” Bender paused for dramatic effect and touched his client’s right shoulder as he looked up at the judge. “Bill Avery has suffered more than you’ll ever know, Your Honor, more than any punishment our fine system of jurisprudence could ever mete out. He’s received more punishment than any period of incarceration could ever signify. He’s suffered the shame of his family, of his community, of his colleagues at Mitchell and Avery Investment Advisors, and of his fellow parishioners at Saint Francis. He’ll have to explain to his sons what has happened. He’ll have to live with this, this…” Bender cast his eyes upward, as if searching the heavens for assistance. “I implore you, Your Honor, to let him return to his family and begin to put this horrible episode behind him.”

  Bender’s gaze hung for a moment on Judge Frank Cohen, who wrote something on the pad in front of him and then turned to Frances. “I’ll hear from the assistant district attorney. Ms. Pratt,” he prompted her.

  Frances rose and buttoned the front of her dark green gabardine jacket. She felt the pull of the fabric in back and, for a moment, considered undoing the front button. No, she decided. Too much fidgeting with her attire might make the judge think she was nervous, which she was, but she wouldn’t give Judge Cohen, or Bender, for that matter, the satisfaction of seeing into her soul.

  Frances looked down at the notes in front of her, the sum total of her labors from the night before. Pushing images of Clio’s body from her mind, she had forced herself to concentrate. The Avery prosecution was important, too. The criminal process marched on despite a death in the Pratt family.

  Even without the distractions, though, Frances’s argument was difficult to fashion because she knew almost nothing about the middle-aged man in the black robe who now stared down from his perch in the front of the courtroom. Judge Cohen was relatively new to the bench and hadn’t come from the criminal bar. A politically connected New York corporate lawyer with a substantial home on the beach in Westhampton, he apparently had decided to spend his remaining work years presiding over a courtroom in Suffolk County. Rumor had it that Judge Cohen was liberal, even though he had run on a Republican ticket. If so, Frances could only hope that, while he may be lenient toward defendants convicted of crimes of poverty—drugs, robbery, domestic abuse, crimes that arose out of addictions and lack of opportunities—he would have little sympathy with a relatively affluent defendant who had simply gotten greedy.

  The problem Frances perceived was that Avery could have been one of Judge Cohen’s own corporate clients. He looked the part. Avery’s black hair was parted on the right side and held in place by a slick of goo that emanated a spicy, clean odor. He wore a khaki suit and striped shirt and tie, held his collar in place with a gold tie pin, and kept his hands clasped together in front of him as though he still wore handcuffs, which the bailiff had removed more than an hour ago. Avery’s brown eyes were rimmed in red and seemed shrunken in his round, blotched face. Frances had to admit that he did look genuinely sad.

  Appearances aside, jail time for defendants of so-called white-collar crimes, a phrase Frances had never really understood, was hard to come by. The defendant had no criminal record; the amount of money stolen was small by financial crimes standards, and what Bender said was true: Avery had the trappings of being a good guy. But jail time was warranted, Frances had no doubt. She just had to remind the court of the victims, an elderly couple from Avery’s own congregation who had entrusted him with their life savings. How was this any different from sticking his hand in the offering plate and making off with cash? Mary Lou and Roger Horton, who had spent every day of the trial in the front row of the courtroom, were completely wiped out. These people would not be able to put the “horrible episode” behind them. They had to live with the consequences immediately and forever. At seventy-eight years old Mary Lou was going back to work, scooping cookie dough ice cream for $6 an hour at the Candy Kitchen because William Howard Avery III had absconded with her retirement fund.

  Frances began. “I’m not going to waste the court’s time. Your Honor presided over a lengthy jury trial and heard all the facts, including the defendant’s own self-serving testimony, which, I might point out, the jurors obviously disbelieved. Mr. Bendleton argues that his client’s been punished enough. I ask you, how much is enough? Mr. Avery had a prosperous investment business. He didn’t need money. He used his contacts in his community and his church to lure Mary Lou and Roger Horton into his carefully planned scheme. These people had worked and saved for more than forty years so that they could enjoy a peaceful, comfortable retirement. Then he stole their money. They trusted him to act on their behalf, and he betrayed that trust for personal profit. He spent their life savings on luxuries for himself. It is the coldest, most calculating type of greed imaginable. Any shame he has suffered is nothing compared to the hardship and suffering he has inflicted on the victims in this case.” Frances turned toward the back of the courtroom. She wanted the judge to focus on the two wrinkled faces huddled together, the human dimension of her prosecution.

  “For this reason, Your Honor, the people request that the defendant be sentenced to a two-year period of incarceration and ordered to make restitution in the amount of $517,386.”

  Bender was on his feet. “Your Honor, my client—”

  Judge Cohen cut him off. “Sit down, Mr. Bendleton. You’ve had your turn.”

  Then he turned to Frances. “How are you contemplating restitution if the defendant is in jail?”

  “The defendant has substantial assets, including the boat that was purchased with money stolen from the Hortons, the house in Riverhead where he and his family live, and, I believe, he still owns the condominium in Florida.”

  “The bank owns it. There were foreclosure proceedings several weeks ago.” This time Bender spoke without rising.

  “The point is,” Frances continued, “this defendant is not without means. I’m sure he’s been able to pay significant sums for the first-rate representation he’s received.” Frances smiled at Bender, pleased with her own attempt at sarcastic humor. “He should be ordered to make restitution. If he liquidates his assets and still has a shortfall, he can serve an additional six months on a suspended sentence to make up the remainder, but the restitution order should be entered as a condition of his probation. These people deserve to get their money back.”

  Judge Cohen sat silent for a moment. Frances was unsure whether to continue or to give him time to think. As she debated how to proceed, he spoke. “Ms. Pratt, while I understand your concern, and I, too, am sorry for what the victims have been through, this court is not in the collections business. The Hortons are entitled to bring a civil suit, obtain a judgment, attach assets, and use any other legitimate means at their disposal to get their money back. In fact, I would strongly urge them to do so. But, I repeat, that is not the business of the criminal courts.”

  “Recouping the money they are owed will be small recompense for the hardship these people have suffered. Your Honor, please don’t make them go to the additional expense and agony of a civil suit. It’s within your power to order restitution along with any sentence you may impose.”

  “There is a limit to what I’m willing to do. Mr. Avery has a family. Besides, if Mr. Bendleton’s account of his client’s finances is accurate, you can’t get blood from a stone.”

  “Your Honor—”

  “I am making my ruling. The defendant is sentenced to one year suspended for two and ordered to pay a fine of ten thousand dollars. Mr. Bendleton, I expect payment by Mr. Avery no later than close of business tomorrow. You may make arrangements
with the probation department.”

  Before Frances could interject a further word, the court officer announced, “All rise.” Judge Cohen stepped down from the bench and disappeared into his private chambers through a door at the back of the courtroom.

  A year suspended. Frances stood perfectly still. Not a day in jail. Not even the money he stole returned. Avery would be on probation for two years, free to do as he pleased. That was it. Basically, his $500,000 theft cost him only $10,000, plus Bender’s fee. Easy money. The investigation and prosecution had cost the state of New York significantly more than that between overtime for the investigators, grand jury fees, and time spent by Frances, plus the court expenses incurred from a two-week jury trial. This was the system.

  Frances couldn’t bear to move. She couldn’t face the Hortons’ inquisitive expressions as they looked to her to explain what kind of justice they had received.

  Frances listened to the shuffling of feet and the low murmur of voices as the spectators filed out of the courtroom. She heard Avery thanking Bender, and Bender offering to buy his client lunch. Sissy Avery squealed something in delight, presumably, as she threw her arms around her husband’s neck. She would be able to keep the diamond pendant purchased with the Hortons’ hard-earned cash. The little Averys were probably there, too, hugging Dad and praising Bender for saving their father. They could all go home together and ride around in their fancy motorboat without a care in the world. It made Frances sick.

  “Miss Pratt?” She heard the unmistakable voice of Roger Horton close behind her. She turned to see him and his wife standing a few feet from her, their eyes desperate for an explanation. They were dressed impeccably. It was ironic that the victims seemed to respect the majesty of the legal system. Mary Lou’s white hair was enclosed in a net so that it didn’t stir, although her head trembled slightly. She dabbed at her eyes with a pale blue handkerchief held between gloved hands. Roger had one arm around his wife’s waist and supported himself with the other by resting it on the bar that separated the counsel tables from the public seats.