The Widower's Wife

by Cate Holahan

  Michael sneered a response. He didn’t look as confident as he had moments before. I leaned over the desk, tempting him to lash out, to strike me right beneath the eye socket in a place that would show up real nice for my meeting with his wife or in a tabloid photograph. “And you don’t just have to worry about your wife. After I tell her, I’ll tell the media. The financial crisis has vilified Wall Street. Folks are eating up stories about bad bankers. My story will be a Thanksgiving feast come early.”

  Michael’s eyes went wide. “What do you want?”

  I wanted enough to keep my house and stay afloat for another year, but there was no way Michael would cough up a hundred thousand dollars, or even twenty thousand. I needed to ask for an amount that wouldn’t be noticed missing from Michael’s personal accounts. An amount he could “gift” to a needy coworker without explaining anything to his accountant or his spouse.

  “Fourteen thousand,” I said.

  Michael lowered his chin. “Ten, and only because I don’t feel like putting my wife through any conversation with a whore.”

  The name-calling emboldened me. “Fourteen—or my second call after your wife will be to the Daily News.”

  Michael looked at the clock on his desk. We’d argued for five minutes, at least. His big pension fund appointment would be here soon.

  “You’re not worth it, but my time is.” A drawer opened. He slammed a checkbook onto his desk, scrawling the figure across the paper so violently that I thought the pen might puncture the carbon copy beneath. He tore it from the book and slid it across to me. It was made out to cash.

  Fourteen thousand dollars. Enough for the initial payment to secure my passage with the coyotes plus something for my family to live off of while we waited for the insurance to pay out. I grabbed the check.

  “Now get the fuck out. I have an important meeting.” He nodded in the direction of his assistant. She didn’t notice. His hand flew to his intercom. “Fernanda, escort Mrs. Bacon to HR. Now. She quit and has to fill out her exit paperwork.”

  The girl jumped from her chair. She flew to the glass door. It only took her a second to reach it, but I already stood outside. Water churned in my stomach. I needed to vomit. One thing at a time. I swallowed the bile in my throat. First, I had to cash this check.

  Fernanda looked at me bug-eyed, unsure of where she’d been instructed to take me. “Linda is down the hall,” I said.

  25

  November 28

  Ryan opened the Dodge’s passenger door and grabbed Vivienne’s calf-length coat from the backseat before David could slide it forward. She shivered in the cold but still waved the garment away.

  “He’s not one for hospitality,” Ryan cautioned. He held the coat open so Vivienne could slide her arms in.

  The car door shut, announcing that David was joining the conversation. “What do we want with Tom?” David asked.

  “I’m hoping he’ll clarify the timeline, make it clear that someone else could have been in the room with his wife,” Ryan said. “You guys might help him remember things more clearly.”

  “If he knows we’re looking at Michael for his wife’s death, he’ll want to tell us everything,” David said.

  Vivienne jostled her arms through the coat sleeves. “Let’s not reveal our suspicions right away. We don’t want him manufacturing facts.”

  Ryan led the way down the Bacons’ long driveway with David flanking him. Vivienne lingered a few steps behind, apparently checking out the neighborhood. The Wu-Nosek clan could afford the million-plus suburbs. If Vivienne ever had a kid, she might acquire her own starter castle someplace like this, maybe even in this exact town.

  A woman’s shout followed the bell ring. Ryan thought he recognized the voice. He’d seen a white BMW parked down the block.

  Tom answered the door in his jacket. Ryan gave Vivienne an “I-told-you-so” look as the master of the house shut the door behind him.

  “Any word on my wife’s policy?”

  Ryan answered by introducing his companions, emphasizing their titles and task force. Vivienne removed her hand from her pocket to shake hello. She held it out for an awkward moment before Tom decided to make nice.

  His face lost color as he shook. “Financial crimes?”

  “May we come in?” Vivienne asked.

  Tom’s lips parted, but a protest didn’t emerge. Instead, his breath formed a cloud in front of his face. He opened the door and led them through the foyer and dining room, toward the kitchen.

  Ryan’s peripheral vision caught a petite woman emerging from a bathroom. She was blonde. Pretty with round blue eyes and high arched brows. Tom turned toward her. “Check on Sophia.” The tone ordered.

  She hurried up the stairs. Ryan listened to the quick patter on the steps, hoping to hear Sophia call out the woman’s name. She seemed too young to be “Eve,” the family friend. Ryan put her in her early twenties. Au pair age. Maybe she was a neighbor’s live-in nanny, lent out to help the grieving widower.

  Tom cleared his throat. “This way.”

  The white kitchen was as stark as a cleaned-out cupboard. The boxes from Ryan’s first meeting were gone, as was the lavender and other feminine touches that had indicated a woman lived in the home. Tom gestured to the chrome bar stools at the island. He moved to the other side of the room, a safe distance away from the cops.

  “I don’t understand. Why is the NYPD financial crimes unit involved with my wife’s insurance benefit? Are you trying to argue now that my wife killed herself to commit insurance fraud? I don’t—”

  “It’s not that.” Ryan settled into the barstool and watched Tom’s eyes dart from Vivienne to David and back to him. The presence of real police in the house unnerved the guy.

  “Did you know that Michael Smith made advances on your wife before her fall?”

  Tom’s shoulders rose as he took a deep breath. He nodded.

  “Yes?”

  Tom scratched his brow. “Ana told me Michael got drunk and tried to force himself on her after a client meeting. She was pretty upset.” He shook his head and then looked up at Ryan. “But not suicide upset, if that’s where you’re going.” Tom gestured at Vivienne and David. “I still don’t understand why the NYPD is here.”

  “Did you and Ana discuss going to the police?” Ryan asked.

  “No.”

  “She didn’t want to press charges?”

  “Of course she did, but it would have been pointless.” Tom’s voice raised. His hands landed on his hips. “Michael would have argued it was consensual, and he has a lot of money to help prove his case. He has a lot of money to put me in jail for attacking him.” He threw up his hands. “Sometimes, you have to let things go.”

  He glared at Ryan. “And none of this has anything to do with her death. She wasn’t worked up about Michael. She was ill. She fell after vomiting—”

  Ryan held up his hand. “With respect, Mr. Bacon, you weren’t in the room when she went overboard. You don’t know how she fell. You only know that she’d been sick earlier in the trip.”

  Tom pressed his lips together. He blinked hard as if he didn’t like what he was seeing. “It had to be an accident.”

  In cop work, there was a time to act casual and a time for confession. Ryan’s internal clock told him it was fessing-up hour, both for Tom and for him. He’d go first. “I talked to the cruise line. Your room door was opened at 6:58 PM from the inside.”

  “Right. I left to go to the pool.”

  “And it was opened again at 8:03 PM—before you entered with your key at 8:05 PM.”

  Tom’s hands hit his hips. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “It does if someone else was in the room with Ana.”

  “No one was in the room with Ana.”

  “Are you sure? Because if you went straight to the pool, instead of dropping her off—”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  Tom shook his head at the floor. “No more question and answer until you tel
l me what the NYPD is doing in my kitchen.”

  Ryan felt Vivienne sit up straighter beside him. “Mr. Bacon, we’re not here because of your wife’s policy.” Vivienne’s voice was gentle and firm, as if she talked to a child. “We are here because we believe Michael Smith may have paid your wife to keep quiet about him sexually assaulting her on the night of August eighteenth. And we are looking into whether or not he took any additional actions.”

  “What?” The fight had drained from Tom’s voice. He sounded surprised. “Paid? No. He gave her a package, some back-owed pay and unused vacation days. Or HR did. She cashed the check.”

  “Michael admitted to giving her money,” Ryan said. “There was a check made out to cash from his account for fourteen thousand.”

  Tom’s cheeks puffed. He released the air with a whooshing sound, like a toilet flush.

  “Does that amount seem familiar?” Vivienne asked.

  “Ana told me she’d gotten about half that.” His eyes rolled to the ceiling. “Knowing her, she probably gave the other half to her parents.”

  Ryan didn’t like the tangent. “Could Ana have let someone in, Tom? Are you sure it was you leaving the room at six fifty-eight? If I check ship cameras, I won’t see you at the pool earlier?”

  Tom’s palm went to his mouth. He wiped at his lips and then squeezed his chin. “This is all a lot to process. I can’t do this right now. I need you all to go.”

  Tom began walking toward the mudroom. Ryan knew there was an exit door out there. He wasn’t ready to leave yet.

  “When you entered around eight, did you have problems with your key?”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “Then someone left your room right before you got there.” Ryan followed Tom into the mudroom. He could hear Vivienne’s heels clicking behind him. Tom opened the door, letting in the frigid outdoor air. “If someone else could have been in that room, we need to know.”

  Tom dragged his bottom lip beneath his top teeth. His eyes moved around, as if searching for the right answer on his guests’ faces. Finally, he blinked and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I went straight to the pool. Ana told me she was going to the balcony to nap so I figured that she must have been out there, suffered a bout of nausea. . . .” Tom’s head dropped as though it weighed too much for his neck. He let go of the door. Ryan put his back against the wood, holding it open for Vivienne and David. After his partners walked through, Ryan felt fingers dig into his bicep.

  Tom stared at him. Ryan expected watery eyes. Instead, he was met with a cold fury. “If you find he did anything, you’ll let me know?” The fingers tightened on his arm. Ryan wanted to wrest his limb away, but sympathy stalled his march out the door. He knew what Tom was really asking.

  He patted Tom’s hand, encouraging him to let go of his bicep. “Your wife’s dead. But your daughter needs you.”

  *

  Vivienne stood in the driveway, black coat flapping in the wind like a superhero cape. She turned toward the car and made a slow advance down the asphalt, waiting for Ryan to catch up. David was already halfway to the Charger, apparently unwilling to keep pace with a gimp. The door thudded shut behind them. Vivienne glanced over her shoulder and then leaned into Ryan’s ear. “You get a read on that guy?”

  “I thought him odd at first.” Ryan rubbed the stubble breaking through his skin. “I don’t know, though. Wife dead. Maybe murdered. It’s a lot to process. And given Michael paid that massive sum to a known criminal who—”

  “What do the neighbors say about him?”

  “I didn’t talk to them yet.”

  Vivienne stopped walking.

  Ryan’s face flushed. When someone died suspiciously, the cops always talked to next of kin, neighbors, and coworkers, people who would see the person on a daily basis and notice changes in their behavior or in the attitudes of those closest to them—the people with motive. But he was just one investigator, and he’d been chasing the soured affair and suicide theory.

  “It’s on my list.”

  Vivienne made a small gesture toward the house next door. “Tomorrow, I’ll try to chase down Pinder. You talk to the neighbors.”

  “The husband has a solid alibi.”

  “And he lies.”

  Lies were like mosquitoes. Once you heard one, you could be sure there were others. But Tom’s lie had been to deflect suspicion from his wife killing herself. What reason could he have to tell more?

  The gleaming federal mansion next door sprawled out toward them, reaching for the Bacons’ property. Its side windows had a view of the French home’s rear windows and backyard.

  With luck, the neighbors would be nosey.

  26

  August 24

  Return Trips Travel operated out of the first floor of Newark row house. A large map of the Americas covered the storefront’s picture window. Two Mexican eateries flanked either side of the agency. One offered tapas, the other tacos.

  A teenage boy sat on the stoop outside the travel agency. He eyed me as I approached, judging my immigrant status. I was tempted to say something in Portuguese but feared my American accent would stoke his suspicions. Instead, I waited while he assessed my suntanned complexion and dark hair. He scooted to the side, permitting me to enter.

  An older man hunched over a large screen laptop behind a tall, white counter. Plastic bins filled with bus schedules, train maps, and what appeared to be customs documents surrounded him. A large fan whirred by his head.

  Brown eyes looked over the top of a laptop screen. “How may I help you?”

  He had an unplaceable face. No single ethnicity could claim his latte complexion, curly black hair, wide nose, and almond-shaped eyes.

  “I called earlier. I’m taking a trip to the Bahamas and need to get back into the country.”

  He gestured to a row of blue chairs lining the side of the room like the dismal waiting area at the DMV. I sat down, legs sticking to the plastic. I pulled my purse close to my torso. The cash sat in my bag, weighing it down like a tin full of loose change. A little more than thirteen thousand, in hundreds, filled the inside. I’d cashed the check at Michael’s bank right after leaving his office.

  My travel agent sat beside me. “Do you have your deposit?”

  “Yes.”

  His focus dropped to the leather bag in my lap. My fingertips paused on the zipper. “Five thousand now and then I work off the rest, right?”

  “Yes. We have jobs when you get back.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Gender-appropriate work.”

  My gut twisted at the addition of “gender” to the word “work.” I’d assumed from the website that “employment opportunities” meant cleaning or watching kids in an uncertified daycare, something that didn’t require a social security number. Gender-appropriate hinted at something more sinister. A massage parlor? Worse?

  I pulled my bag closer to my chest, blocking the view of my breasts. “I’m not a prostitute.”

  The man scooted back in his chair as if I’d sneezed without covering my mouth. “No. No. Women clean, men do construction. You make eighty dollars a day to scrub, say, the bathrooms in four or five big homes. You work with other girls; a bus picks you up.”

  “How long will it take to pay you back?”

  “It depends on how many houses you work in. We take a third each week, like taxes. In five months, most people have paid the remaining ten thousand dollars.”

  My shoulders relaxed onto the hot plastic behind me. I fiddled with my bag’s zipper, still not willing to reveal all the cash inside. This man was a criminal, albeit not the kind that seemed to walk around with a loaded gun. “So how does it work?”

  The travel agent leaned sideways in the chair, arm draped over the side. “You go to Grand Bahama Island, as discussed. When you get there, you’ll take a sailing tour with our guy. He’ll give you a pass for a one-day cruise from Bimini to Miami and an excursion stamp. You’ll go to Bimini, get on the ship, act as though you cam
e from Miami and had a nice day on the island. When you disembark, you’ll grab a bus back to New Jersey. You start work the day after you return.”

  “What about immigration?”

  The smuggler shrugged. “Immigration officers board the single-day cruises to expedite offloading of passengers. They check documents in the dining areas. Don’t go there. Hang out by the pool. No one will come find you.”

  “Won’t the cruise staff realize that I don’t belong on the ship?”

  “The boats have hundreds of people; they can’t remember everyone who got on in Miami. They just assume that if you have a ticket, you had to have boarded in Florida. The tickets are legitimate. Our people are on the boat. One man leaves with all our people’s passes and hands them out to our clients.” He patted me on the back and gave a friendly, customer-service smile. “Don’t worry. We do this all the time.”

  He’d made it sound so easy. Of course, he didn’t know that I needed to jump off a moving cruise ship and swim to the Bimini islands. I unzipped my purse and withdrew a wad of cash, separated from the roughly eight thousand that I planned to use to pay the cruise fares and support my family while we waited for the insurance settlement. I dropped it into the stranger’s hand.

  He brought the five thousand behind the counter and counted it with the speed of an Atlantic City blackjack dealer. Then he counted it again, holding up each hundred-dollar bill toward a ceiling light. Satisfied, he pulled a safe from below the counter and inserted the money.

  Anxiety rushed through me. I’d just paid coyotes to smuggle me back into the country. No turning back now. “What’s next?”

  “I need your name and a contact number. Then we’re all set. You call with your travel date. We’ll handle the rest.”

  I didn’t dare use my real name. If something went wrong, I couldn’t have them visiting my house to collect. I offered up my mother’s middle name and my maiden one. “Camilla de Santos,” I said. “I’ll need to get back to you with a number.”

  “You don’t have a number?”

  “Not one that will work when you bring me back home.”