by Sharon Potts
Irv invited Rachel back to his place to celebrate. He’d occasionally brought other young women back to his apartment— usually to fuck them— but never Rachel Lazar. She wasn’t like the others— giggling, painted creatures who would do anything to please him to get a promotion. Rachel was pure, like Mary, Mother Mary. And he remembered thinking as he handed her a glass of Drambouie, Rachel would be the crowning glory of his life’s work. He would teach her, guide her, help her become the mother of all accountants. The most highly respected and admired woman in the accounting profession. One who never compromised.
God and Mary. It was perfect. She was perfect.
As they stood on the balcony, watching the lights of the cars going over the causeway, he had decided to tell her his plan. The breeze blew her hair across her face and into her mouth. She laughed as she pulled it away. “This has been such a wonderful night, Irv. I feel like I’m flying.”
God and his Mary. “As do I, my dear.”
“You mean so much to me, Irv. You’ve taught me so much. I want to tell you something. Something wonderful I haven’t shared with anyone yet.”
He took her hand. “Yes?”
“I’m getting married. His name is Daniel Stroeb.”
She had continued talking. At first Irv hadn’t heard anything else she’d said. The lights on the causeway had become a blur and the bay had grown dark and bottomless. And then he realized she was walking away, pulling the sliding glass door closed after her.
“Rachel, wait. Please listen to me.”
She hesitated and extended her head through the gap of the sliding door. He thought of Marie Antoinette at that moment— the potential sliced off in a split second.
“You can do great things with your life. But if you marry and have children, you compromise. You dilute your essence.”
“I don’t see it that way.”
“Ah, Rachel. That’s because there are stars in your eyes. Because a handsome young man is telling you he loves you. Think of what you’re giving up. And think of what you’ll be left with when he stops telling you how pretty you are, how wonderful, how much he loves you.”
“He won’t stop.”
And he had realized he could let her go. That it would just be a matter of time before she’d return to him.
He glanced down at the crushed Coke can in his fist. What a fucking fool he’d been. How could he not have seen the inevitable?
He went back to the kitchen and got a Budweiser. It was after nine a.m. No longer first thing in the morning.
Irv arrived at the office a little before eleven. Not great, but there’d been days he’d gotten in even later. Someone in a dark suit was sitting in the alcove, stiff as a mortician. Irv didn’t really care. He had limited client responsibilities these days and certainly wasn’t taking on any new ones.
Bud stepped out of his office, noticed Irv, and signaled to him to wait, then went to shake the mortician’s hand— a bland man with thinning hair and a moustache. Irv recognized him. Something Stroeb— Rachel’s brother-in-law. A lawyer running for judge or some such shit. A total asshole. Irv pushed open the door to his office, hoping to escape any contact with him.
“Irv,” Bud called after him.
Shit.
“You remember Dwight Stroeb.” Bud rested his large hand on the man’s shoulder. Dwight looked disoriented, like someone who just sat down and realized there was no chair. “Dwight tells me he needs to speak with us about something of great urgency.”
“That’s right,” Dwight said. “Just a minute of your time.”
“Unfortunately, I have to run off to a prior engagement.” Bud patted Dwight’s back. “But Irv will take good care of you. And I promise, Dwight, you and I will get together real soon.” Bud was halfway down the hallway moving at a brisk pace when he turned. “Take care now, y’all.”
Dwight was filling the air with his vapid noise as he stepped into Irv’s office. “A real pleasure. And I believe my friend, Enrique Castillo, is a client of yours. He’s been very receptive—”
Irv regretted he’d only had a couple of beers and a small glass of Drambouie before he came to work. He remained standing, hoping the man would follow suit, but Dwight parked himself in one of the guest chairs. Irv looked longingly at his bottom drawer. Dwight had stopped talking and seemed to be sizing Irv up.
“What do you want?” Irv said, sitting down in his own chair.
“You’ve had a difficult time,” Dwight said.
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“I remember years ago, you were a bit of a legend. The tough businessman— fair but demanding. A maverick. You used to get written up all the time in the business journals.” Dwight pulled on his mustache. “This must be difficult for you.”
Irv narrowed his eyes.
“No one hears your name much anymore.”
“This meeting is over, Mr. Stroeb.” Irv pushed his chair back.
“I’m sorry,” Dwight said. “You’re a busy man. Let me get to the point.”
“I’ve heard enough of your point.” Irv started to stand.
“I’m here about the murder investigation.”
Irv froze.
“I’m concerned,” Dwight said.
“About?”
“You.”
Irv sat down.
“You’re vulnerable, Irv. I’m sorry, may I call you Irv?” Dwight smoothed his moustache. “In any event, I’m sure you’re aware the police are continuing to dig deeper, looking for a viable suspect. My nephew wasn’t satisfied with the way things were going.”
“Jeremy?”
Dwight nodded. “He’s stirred up the lady detective on the case, asking questions. And unfortunately, the police don’t have a lot to go on. That means their focus is very limited.”
“Which means what exactly?”
“That they’re concentrating on people who were closest to my brother and sister-in-law.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I’m only saying you’re in a particularly bad position. The police know all about your fall from grace, your drinking problems, the fact that Rachel was taking over your key accounts.”
“How dare you come in here and accuse me? Get out. Get the hell out of here.”
Dwight didn’t move. “You misunderstand me, Irv. I’m not here to accuse. I’m here to help protect you.”
The veins were pulsing in Irv’s temples, ready to explode.
“As it happens,” Dwight said, “I have a close relationship with a key person on the investigation. I know he’d be willing to listen to reason. After all, no one wants PCM or its partners embroiled in embarrassing attention from the police.”
“You come here to blackmail me?”
“Blackmail? What do you think I am? I came here to offer you protection. To save you and your firm from needless expense, wasted time, and unwelcome publicity.”
“Get the fuck out of my office, you scumbag.” Irv slammed his hands on the desk. “Before I throw you out.”
Dwight stood up tentatively, decided against saying whatever he’d been about to, then left the office looking more like a blowfly than a mortician. But then, there wasn’t much of a difference, really. They both subsisted on the dead.
Chapter 20
The bedroom resembled a war room, Jeremy speculated, or a classroom with a maniacal professor. Scotch-taped to all available wall surfaces were pages from a flipchart Marina had taken from MIU. On each, written in red marker in all capital letters were the following headings: Thesis/Premise, Who it Offends, Motive for Murder, then Suspects. Piled helter-skelter on the floor, like unmatched pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, were his father’s papers and polemics. The theses, which Marina had arrived at after sorting through all of Jeremy’s father’s work, included rants about government welfare, free-trade hypocrisy, agricultural subsidies, the Cuban embargo, and many other themes that meant little to Jeremy.
But even without fully grasping the issues, Jeremy
could see one thing. D. C. Stroeb had offended many people. His father may have been brilliant, but he had also been reckless.
Marina was scribbling something on the page headed, Ecological Fallacies. A cigarette quivered from the side of her mouth. She hadn’t adhered to their customary routine. Usually they ate right after they’d made love, then they’d study the papers.
She was wearing a black thong and a torn-off tee shirt that left her midriff exposed. This was her best effort at “dressing” so as not to distract Jeremy as they explored motives and suspects in his parents’ murders.
Right— no distraction. Jeremy watched her small, muscular butt jiggle ever so slightly as she wrote. It had deep dimples and was almost perfectly white, with no tan lines. Marina had probably never even been to the beach. And if she had, it would have been to spray-paint political messages on the pier pilings, not work on a Copper-tone tan.
Jeremy had been coming here every night for almost two weeks. He hadn’t seen his sister in more than a week. After dinner at the Castillos’, he and Elise had gone to the movies, but that had been the last time they’d done anything together. Jeremy would arrive home long after she’d already gone to sleep. If she was still having nightmares, he saw no evidence of them. And she seemed to have a thing going with Carlos. Maybe Jeremy was rationalizing that she was doing okay, but he couldn’t help it. The pressure of needing to be there for his sister, of not letting her down, was getting to him.
So he had concentrated on Marina, hoping she would help him find his parents’ murderer. He would drive directly to Marina’s apartment after work, skipping class. They’d pull off each other’s clothes and pounce on each other like he’d seen sharks attack a meal of entrails at the Seaquarium. Marina wasn’t a big fan of her bed. So they’d screwed on the futon, on the old Indian blanket covering the filthy kitchen floor, in the tiny bathtub— with or without water— and occasionally, mainly just for variety, in her bed with its sagging mattress.
Then she’d feed him. And Jeremy had come to crave this part of the evening ritual almost as much as the sex. There was always something amazing. And not just French cooking. Marina was accomplished in Peruvian cuisine as well. One night she’d made cebiche de pescado— she’d called it. Cubes of mahi mahi cooked in crushed garlic and a hot pepper sauce that burned his throat and brought tears to his eyes. But then she handfed him pieces of cooked sweet potatoes that balanced the harshness, which he devoured like a starving dog. And another night, lomo saltado, thin steak sautéed in garlic with onions, peppers, and chopped tomatoes. They ate it with fried potatoes out of the blackened, crusted iron skillet, which she’d rested on a pile of newspapers on the tiny kitchen table.
And just when he believed Peruvian food was the most tantalizing in the world, Marina reverted to French with rabbit sauté chasseur. They’d eaten that in bed. Marina had poured it steaming from the pot into a chipped ceramic mixing bowl and set it on a pillow between them. They sat cross-legged on crumpled sheets, naked, and picked the rabbit bits, which had been sautéed in butter with tarragon and mushrooms, out of the bowl with their fingers. Brown sauce had dripped down Marina’s chin onto her white breasts. He’d leaned over to lick it off. In the next moment, she was smearing the rabbit gravy all over him— on his arms, chest, abdomen, lower still. Rubbing it on, lapping it up with a powerful, purposeful rhythm. Causing such intense sensation he had to bite down to keep from screaming out. Feeling like a helpless rabbit himself.
Faraway thoughts would peck at his consciousness. Was Elise really okay? Shouldn’t he at least go to class, maybe talk to some other people at the school? Were he and Marina really getting any closer to finding his parents’ murderer? And the guilt would overtake the ecstasy. His head would clear. He couldn’t keep doing this. He had other responsibilities.
But then Marina would wipe her chin and climb out of bed, her hair wild and tangled as though she’d just emerged from months in the jungle. She’d put on a few small items of clothes, then would turn to the pages hanging from the wall. Her manner would change. She became the teacher and he the student, and the guilt would dissolve. This was why he came here night after night. And they were making progress. Good progress. So how could there be anything wrong with it?
“There,” she said. Each word was written in bold caps as though everything had special significance. The room smelled like magic marker and her hand was smeared with red ink. “SFWPA. The South Florida Water Protection Agency. Today’s suspect and today’s lesson.” She sat down in front of him, Indian-style, and took a puff on her cigarette.
He tried to focus on the paper on the wall, not on her tight thong. “But they’re an environmental protection group. Why would my father attack them?”
“Jeremy, Jeremy. You disappoint me.”
His father used to say that and it made him feel stupid and defensive.
“Fine. Tell me how they’re corrupt. Tell me what he found.”
“It’s back to the sugar growers, I’m afraid.” Marina pulled the cord to the ceiling fan, then fell back against the mattress, leaning on her elbows. The fan spun above them, shifting the stagnant air. “The sugar growers have a vested interest in the Everglades. If they had to keep the runoff of fertilizer and pesticides from their fields out of the Everglades, their business wouldn’t be nearly as profitable. So they use their money to influence the watchdogs.”
“Like the water protection agency.”
“That’s right.”
“Jesus, Marina. It seems everyone’s bribing everyone else just to keep making money.”
“Corruption. It’s what makes the world go round, your father liked to say.”
“So he attacked the water protection agency for allowing the Everglades to be polluted.”
“And the sugar growers for doing it.”
“And pissed off lots of people in the process.”
“You’re starting to get the feel of things.” She climbed off the bed. “Fillet of veal with Cointreau tonight. The veal’s been soaking in liqueur for over two hours. It’ll take a few minutes to fry. Are you hungry?”
Jeremy followed her into the kitchen as he flipped through some of his father’s papers. His father had named several organizations as being fronts. One was SWEET— Sugar Workers’ Ecological Enterprise Trust. The café jers had made a joke about SWEET. Could there be a connection? Jeremy scanned the names his father had listed of its key members not expecting to recognize any, but there, in black and white, was the name Liliam Castillo. Jeremy felt a rush. “Who is SWEET?”
“You are, mon amour.”
“The organization.”
“I know. I was making a little joke.” She moved a pat of butter around the skillet with her finger. “Smells good, no?”
“Yes. Tell me about SWEET.”
“What’s caught your interest?”
“I recognize one of the names, Liliam Castillo.”
“Ah. Your neighbor and gracious hostess to your parents’ funeral services. You think she murdered your parents?”
“I just want to understand her connection to this organization.”
“It’s a bit complicated. You see, SWEET purports to be a benevolent group, interested in the welfare of the migrant workers. Many of the people on the board are society women. They throw parties, raise money— it makes them feel important and altruistic. I wouldn’t be caught dead at one of their benefits, but I doubt the charity ladies are murderers.”
Jeremy wasn’t amused by her humor. “But why would my father have a problem with a group of fund-raisers?”
“Because the charitable operations are a front. SWEET is actually a lobbyist group for the sugar growers. Yes, I’m sorry— them again. SWEET is one of the organizations your father maintained bribes the water protection agency and other influential groups.”
“So they would have hated my father’s positions.”
“That’s an understatement. They’re also one of the largest benefactors of MIU’s business school. Yo
u can imagine the embarrassment to Dean Winter every time one of your father’s pieces came out.”
The rich scent of melting butter hung in the air. “So SWEET and Winter both had a strong motive for wanting my father out of the picture.” He was feeling encouraged, optimistic. Maybe not Liliam Castillo, but certainly one of the other names on the list could be the murderer.
But this was no different from the way he’d felt last night, and the night before. Every thesis he’d reviewed with Marina had revealed a new set of suspects. Everything his father wrote about pointed to a villain. But by now, they had four or five lists of people who had pretty good reasons for wanting D. C. Stroeb stopped. And Jeremy was wondering whether he was in fact getting closer to the truth, or just being led on a wild goose chase. But why would Marina want to do that?
The butter sizzled. Marina had dropped the Cointreau-soaked veal into the skillet. She slipped one leg on either side of him, as though she were mounting a horse, and settled herself on his lap. “You look sad, my Jeremy.”
“I just don’t see us getting any closer.”
She tensed on his lap. “Did you think we’d come up with a solution overnight? That we just do a little research and zap, we’re done? Instant gratification? This isn’t like one of your video games, Jeremy.”
“And what if my mother had been the target? I’m spending all my time here.”
Like a cat’s, the pupils of her eyes seemed to expand and contract. “After all we’ve uncovered about your father, do you really think your mother was the target? Because if you do, leave now. I don’t want to keep you any longer from finding the murderer.”
She was right. His father had left a wide wake of outraged people. And whom could his careful mother have alienated?
“We’re almost ready to narrow it down, Jeremy.” She rested her warm hand on his shoulder. “I just want to be sure we haven’t missed anyone.”
“So many people.” He shook his head. “He made so many people angry.”