by Sharon Potts
“No. Nothing like that. It’s just, Mr. and Mrs. Castillo, Bud Mc-Nally, and Irv Luria surprised her while she was going through the papers. They seemed very angry.”
“Well, wouldn’t they be?”
How foolish Jeremy must sound to her. “But she heard their voices,” he said. “When they got on the yacht, she recognized the murderer’s voice.”
“Back up,” Lieber said. “Had the murderer spoken to her at the scene of the crime?”
“She says he had.”
“And what did he say?”
“She doesn’t remember. His voice was muffled.”
“So she saw the murderer and he spoke to her.”
“That’s right. And from what she described, I’m guessing he wore a ski mask and maybe night goggles, so he could see in the dark. And now she’s afraid he believes she recognized him on the yacht. That he wants to hurt her.”
Lieber was silent. In the background he could hear phones ringing, people talking. Was she still at her office? “Then who is it?” she said finally. “Who’s the murderer?”
“Well, it’s one of them. Mr. or Mrs. Castillo, McNally, or Luria. She’s positive. She recognized the voice, but she couldn’t tell whose it was.”
He was pretty sure he heard Lieber sigh. “Jeremy,” she said. “This may not be my business, but has your sister been getting enough psychological support— from you, your grandfather, her friends? Is it possible she’s just very lonely?”
“That’s not it.”
“She’s only sixteen. She’s experienced a tremendous shock. She really should be speaking to a professional— someone who can help her sort this out.”
“She found suspicious files on the Castillos’ yacht.”
“We don’t know that they have anything to do with your parents.”
“Well, can’t you get a warrant to search the yacht and look at them?”
“Do you honestly believe if someone saw Elise going through papers that might connect them to the murders they’d leave them lying around for the police?”
“You’re right,” Jeremy said. “The papers are probably gone.”
Elise came into the living room. Her hair was wrapped in a towel and she wore an old bathrobe that used to belong to their mother. Her face was flushed as though she’d taken a hot bath or shower and the blue-green bruise on her face was more vivid than ever. “Who’s that?” she whispered.
He covered his cell phone with his hand. “Detective Lieber. She wants to talk to you.”
“Oh Jeremy.” Elise’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t want to have to do it again.”
Lieber was talking into his ear. “Tell her I’ll come by tomorrow morning. Early. Before school.”
“She’ll come by in the morning,” Jeremy told his sister. Then into the phone in a low voice so his grandfather couldn’t hear him in the next room. “But what about the threat to my sister? What if she’s right about the murderer? That he believes she can identify him?”
“I’ll send someone over to watch your grandfather’s house tonight.”
“Thank you,” Jeremy said.
“Make sure she stays in.”
“Right. I don’t think we have to worry about that,” he said, but she’d already hung up.
Lieber had made him feel foolish. True, Elise’s story didn’t quite make sense. To someone who didn’t know her, she sounded like a hysterical child seeking attention. But Jeremy knew his sister never made up stories or embellished.
His grandfather came into the living room carrying a tray with cups, a steaming teapot, a couple of packages of cupcakes and a jar of honey. His arms were trembling under the strain.
“Let me help you with that, Grandpa.” Jeremy took the tray and set it down on the coffee table.
“Tea and honey,” his grandfather said, sitting down next to Elise on the sofa. “Your grandmother used to say it’s the best remedy in the world. A panacea for whatever ails you.” He poured the tea into the three cups. He hadn’t asked what had happened tonight— why Elise had been sopping wet and so upset. That had always been his way. Just to be there for them.
Jeremy went to his grandfather’s desk. He found a pen and an old-fashioned columnar pad that this grandfather used long after electronic spreadsheets had been invented. He put the pad down on the coffee table near Elise. She was holding the hot cup in her hands, inhaling the heat.
“Can you write down what you remember?” he said. Elise’s practically photographic memory had been a source of delight to the family. They used to play a game with her. She’d look at a page in a book, then recite it from memory.
Elise studied him through the steam. “So you believe me?”
His grandfather raised his eyebrow.
“I never said I didn’t,” Jeremy said.
Elise put the cup down and picked up the pen. She filled in a few of the columns— deposits, dates, initials, totals, EX, JR, VL. “The totals from these columns were broken down into these columns,” she said. “The ones that say EX, JR, VL.”
Their grandfather examined the paper. “’Transfers to Corporate?’ What’s this?”
“I found some accounting papers on the Castillos’ yacht.”
He frowned. “You’ve been going through someone else’s property, Elise?”
“No Grandpa. It wasn’t like that.” Her eyes overflowed again. “Why is everyone trying to make me feel like I’ve done something wrong?” She pushed herself up off the sofa and ran from the room.
“Elise,” his grandfather called after her. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
Jeremy put his hand on his grandfather’s. “Just let her be.” It was the advice his grandfather had given him only the day before.
“But I’ve upset her. I didn’t mean to upset her. I was simply worried she might get herself into some trouble.”
“She’ll be okay. She wasn’t looking for them, but she found these papers. I’m not even sure they have anything to do with Mom and Dad. But does any of this make sense to you?”
His grandfather studied the columns. “EX, JR, VL.” He shook his head. “Execute? Junior, or maybe Journal? Volume? Volunteer? I don’t know, Jeremy.” He looked toward the hallway. “I didn’t mean to upset her.”
“I’m going back to the house,” Jeremy said. “Maybe this will match up with something in Mom’s office that we hadn’t noticed before.”
His grandfather opened the package of Twinkies and stood up. “I’ll bring her these. They were always her favorite when she was a little girl. And maybe a glass of milk. Warm milk.” And he shuffled off.
Chapter 41
It still didn’t make sense. Robbie rubbed her eyes. She’d been staring at the same numbers and bits of information for over three hours. It was nine at night and everyone else at PCM had gone home. About a half hour ago, one of the junior partners had passed Robbie’s office and popped his head in. “Looks like you’re the last one here, Robbie. Shall I wait for you?”
“No thanks.”
“I’ll lock you in, then. A minute later, she heard the echo of the heavy front door thumping shut down the hall.
Her small, standard-issue office was eerily quiet. A photo of her mother holding a pink-cheeked Robbie in a snowsuit sat on the credenza. Beside it was a snapshot she’d framed of herself and Rachel at a firm picnic, toasting the camera. The two most important women in her life. Both gone.
She returned to her papers. Trying to come up with a theory of why someone would have wanted Rachel Stroeb dead. She studied the notes from her and Jeremy’s meeting with Enrique Castillo, the financial statements of Castillo Enterprises, the annual reports that Jeremy’s grandfather had loaned her. It had to do with the Olympus; she felt certain of that. There was some connection to Rachel being on the audit eighteen years ago. But what? If only they hadn’t been frightened out of the file room last night, they might have found more audit papers containing the answer. She checked her watch. 9:05. Should she try the file room again? But this
was a futile mental exercise; what was the likelihood the door would be unlocked? And if it was, would it be safe for her to be alone in there? What if they hadn’t imagined the camera, the strange noises, the open door that she thought she had closed?
She picked up the photo of herself with Rachel. When Robbie had first met her, she found Rachel almost intimidating in her self-confidence. A partner and so smart, so pretty. Robbie had kept her distance. But Rachel had sensed the emptiness in Robbie. And gently, like a wave closing up a hole in the sand, Rachel had filled her void. They had been close for almost two years. Friends, yes, but something more. In Rachel, Robbie had found her mother again.
She put the photo down. She hadn’t heard from Jeremy since he’d gone after his sister earlier this evening. Maybe he’d be willing to hit the file room with her. This time, one of them would stand guard at the door.
He picked up on the fourth ring. “Hey.” He sounded tired or distracted.
“How’s Elise? Is everything okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, you said she sounded very upset when she called.” Why was Jeremy talking in monosyllables?
“She’s better now.” He obviously didn’t want to share whatever was going on with her. “So,” he said finally, “what are you up to?”
“I’m at the office, going through some stuff.”
“Alone?”
“I’m usually the last one out.”
Jeremy was silent for a moment. “You should leave, Robbie.”
“Why?”
“Just to be safe. After last night in the file room.”
“We were probably imagining things.”
“Maybe. I still don’t think you should be there by yourself.”
She definitely couldn’t ask him to meet her, not with his paranoid attitude. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll leave in a few minutes.”
She gathered up her papers and laptop. She’d stop at the file room. It was most likely locked anyway. Then she’d go home.
A noise in the hallway, quiet and shuffling, made her jump. The hair on her arms stood up. She poked her head around her doorway. “Hello?” she called.
It was probably the A/C unit shutting down. Her conversation with Jeremy was making her jumpy. She turned out the light in her office, then went to wait for the elevator. Her stomach grumbled. She hadn’t eaten since grabbing a yogurt around lunchtime. The elevator binged softly and the door opened. Her finger hovered by the “L” for lobby. Maybe she should just go home. But as the elevator door slid closed, she quickly pressed a different button.
The door opened on the eleventh floor. The elevator bank was dark except for the lighted exit signs. She hesitated, then jumped out as the door closed behind her.
She went down the darkened hallway and tested the door to the file room. It opened easily. That was what she’d been hoping for, but now she felt uncertain. Why was it unlocked? And why had it been open the other night when she left with Jeremy? She was sure she was overreacting. That her mind was playing games with her as it had been all evening. But she wasn’t going to be a fool about this. She dialed Jeremy’s number and waited as it rang several times. “Hey—” his voice said.
“Jeremy?”
“Leave a message,” his voice mail continued.
“Damn,” she said softly. Well, she was already here. The phone beeped. “Jeremy. I’m on the eleventh floor. Just wanted you to know. Don’t worry. I’ll be in and out.” She closed her phone and dropped it in her handbag.
Robbie flipped on the light in the file room and leaned against the closed door, this time making certain she locked it behind her. Everything appeared just as she and Jeremy had left it the other night. She took a deep breath to settle her nerves. Why was she feeling so shaky? She went directly to the aisle of cabinets that she knew held at least some of the old Castillo binders. The tapping of her heels echoed against the linoleum floors in the cavernous room.
She stopped abruptly. It was completely silent. Okay. Get the right binders and get out of here.
The gray cabinets stretched out in a perfect line like tombstones in a military cemetery. She went to the end of the row to the cabinet where she had found the other Castillo binders.
She pulled out the top drawer, too quickly. Oh my God. It was off balance. The cabinet was moving of its own momentum, falling toward her. She tried to brace her weight against it, but she was no match for it. Jump. Get out of the way, her brain said. But her body couldn’t respond in time.
Something hit her head hard. Then a flash of unbearable pain. And she realized in that split second there was nothing she could do to stop the cabinet from toppling and crushing her.
Chapter 42
Jeremy lay on his bed in the darkness. The wind outside was blowing in gusts, flinging raindrops like pebbles against the windows. He had spent the last hour rummaging through his mother’s office hoping to find papers, reports, anything that might connect to the abbreviations Elise had picked up on the accounting report on the Castillos’ yacht. He’d found nothing.
The house was lonely without Elise. All the times he’d been here over the last month, she had been home as well. Elise and Geezer both. Now, Jeremy was alone with the silence of the rooms, the wind and rain pounding against the windows. How scared Elise must have been sleeping in the house by herself, while he was busy screwing Marina and deceiving himself into believing he was doing something virtuous. The thought made him very angry with himself. How ashamed his parents would be if they knew.
But they would never know how he’d let them down, would they?
He took a deep breath, dragging a smoky smell into his lungs. Stale cigarette smoke. He sat up and focused, alert to every sound, every detail in his surroundings. It reminded him of one time during exams he hadn’t slept for thirty-six hours straight. How his sensory perception had become magnified. Why hadn’t he noticed the smell before? Geezer. Of course. Geezer’s rank fur had masked the odor.
Jeremy turned on the lamp on his nightstand. He was remembering the lingering reek of cigarettes in his room the day he’d returned home after his parents’ funerals. It had been fresh, recent.
He pushed his laptop out of the way and pulled his old computer forward on the desk. It blinked to life as he pressed the on switch. It made sense, suddenly. His parents using this room as their private haven. They’d sneak in here to smoke, to think, maybe even to use the old computer to back up their laptops.
The Desktop displayed on the screen. Jeremy clicked “My Documents.” There were his old high school papers, his music files, his college application essays. And there were two folders he hadn’t made. One was labeled, “DC” the other, “RLS.”
His cell phone rang. Robbie again, probably to let him know she’d left the office. But his adrenaline was pumping; he’d get back to her.
He clicked on his father’s initials. The folder opened to ranks of other folders. How easy it was. If only he had realized weeks ago that his parents had been using his long-abandoned computer, would he have been able to get to the truth that much sooner? Would it have saved him from Marina? The cell phone beeped, letting him know he had a voice mail. He ignored it.
He found the papers he had gone over with Marina at her apartment, but there probably wasn’t anything new here to shed light on the murders. It was his mother’s files that were important.
He clicked on RLS. The folder flew open revealing dozens and dozens of folders.
“Yes,” Jeremy said, hitting the desk with the palm of his hand.
Jeremy clicked on a folder called “Olympus.” There were spreadsheet files containing calculations of revenue, analyses of reserve accounts, dozens of papers with numbers and formulas. He looked for the abbreviations: EX, JR, VL. Nothing. He let the computer search for them. No matches.
Whatever was in the papers Elise had found on the yacht didn’t seem to have a connection to his mother’s work or observations.
Jeremy opened a recent text file. A memo addre
ssed to Bud McNally with a copy to Irving Luria. He read it through twice, trying to absorb its significance. A few days before she left to visit Jeremy in Madrid, she had sent the memo to her partners. It was fairly straightforward. She would be visiting the Olympus Grande the day after she returned from Spain to review the on-site records. That she’d notified Enrique Castillo and he planned to be there as well.
He remembered Liliam mentioning the trip at dinner. So, the Castillos and his mother’s two partners all knew his mother had been planning a visit to the Olympus. But Elise had already said that one of those four was the murderer. This new memo didn’t narrow anything down.
He typed in the word “Olympus” to do a computer-wide word search and waited as the old computer processed. It seemed to take forever. Jeremy had forgotten how slow the old technology was. Finally, the computer spit out the dozen or so files he’d already found for his mother. But there was a new document he hadn’t seen before, a letter addressed to his mother within their father’s folders. Jeremy clicked on it.
Dear Rachel,
In accordance with our attorneys’ instructions, I have put together a list of our assets divided as I think is fair. Please review them and make whatever changes you determine to be appropriate.
That’s the business part of this letter. Now let me tell you what’s in my heart. I know I haven’t been the best husband and that we’ve drifted apart this past year. But the thought of losing you dismays me beyond what words can express. We have a family, Rachel, the beginning of a future. Can’t we give it one more chance?
His parents were on the verge of getting divorced over Marina? He read on.
I know you love another. I understand that.
Jeremy stopped. What? What was his father saying? His mother loved another?
But please, Rachel. Don’t throw our lives away. When you return from the Olympus, let’s talk. Please.
And then he took in the date. The letter had been written eighteen years ago. His mother had been in love with another man eighteen years ago— the first time she had visited the Olympus.