“Are the kids there?” Phoebe rubbed the edge of the bedspread.
“Haven’t seen them. Want me to check?”
“Please. And if they’re not there, could you find Theo?”
She waited for what seemed like hours until her brother-in-law came on the line.
“You okay?” Theo asked. “Connie said you seemed panicky. What’s wrong?”
“Are the kids there?”
“Not since they left with Jake yesterday.”
“Have you spoken to them?”
“No.” He sounded beaten.
“I can’t talk,” she said. “Police are here. I’ll call as soon as I know more.”
“What—”
“I gotta go.” After hanging up, she forced herself to walk with calm control, following voices to Jake’s study. A man stood on either side of her husband.
“Mrs. Pierce?” The taller of the men addressed her. He held himself as though in charge and was dressed so soberly his clothes frightened her. Between his somber expression and dark suit he’d brought a funeral into the house.
“Yes.”
“Agent Todd Hynde. This is Agent Ryan Forsyth.” In place of a handshake, they each flipped open a black leather cardholder and showed identification.
“We waited for you,” Agent Forsyth said. “At the request of your husband.”
She nodded as though his words contained a single nugget of normal. Terror trickled down her spine.
“Why don’t we sit down,” Agent Hynde said, pretending that choice existed. She curled her shaking hands into balls.
The agents each took one of the two chairs, leaving Jake and Phoebe to sink side by side into the couch. Hynde, the black agent, took the leather chair. The white one sat on the upright needlepointed bench, the red-and-blue pattern incongruous against his funereal suit.
“We’re here—”
Jake held out his palm. “No need to explain.”
Her husband’s hair, thick and grey with a memory of dark brown, was drying into the thatch she’d loved. She’d always been inordinately proud of Jake’s full hairline.
“I know what this is about,” Jake said.
“Then you’re aware that we’re looking for explanations.” Forsyth, that was his name. His skin held the ravages of teenage acne. His low voice sounded midwestern.
“There are no explanations,” Jake said. “Or, I should say, there’s only the truth. There are no excuses. I’m guilty. The important thing is this: I did it all myself. Nobody else was ever involved.” He looked at Phoebe with intent so hard it hit her chest. “Just me.”
Phoebe could take in only pieces of Jake’s answers to the agent’s questions.
“The funds are gone.”
“I paid investors with money that wasn’t mine.”
“It went on for a few years.”
Agent Hynde stood when Jake stopped talking. “I’ll be right back,” he said, more to Forsyth than to them.
They sat in silence. Waiting. Phoebe brought in coffee but couldn’t open her mouth.
Agent Hynde returned. “Sir, we’ll be going in. You’ll need to get dressed. No belt, no tie, no shoelaces, no jewelry. If you remove them now, you won’t have to do it there.”
“Not even his wedding ring?” A lake of putty surrounded her.
“No, ma’am.”
“They said no jewelry,” Jake said at the same time, as though she’d embarrassed him in front of his friends, his colleagues.
Phoebe sat with Hynde and Forsyth while Jake dressed, somehow thinking she wouldn’t be allowed to go with him to the bedroom—but also not wanting to. The two men sipped coffee, acting out a charade of polite society.
Jake came back wearing a pressed blue shirt and grey slacks.
“We’ll be putting on cuffs,” Agent Hynde said.
“Get my raincoat,” Jake said to her. “To cover them.”
She ran out and grabbed his coat, taking off the belt before bringing it to him, feeling proud that she remembered to do it and then ridiculously stupid for her pride. How did Jake know to ask for the raincoat? He met her eyes as she draped the beige fabric over the steel bracelets. She examined him for some hint as to the horror ahead of them, but he seemed like a kid turning over the reins to his parents.
She shook the thought from her head. He was in shock. They both were.
“Call Gideon,” he said. “Get him down there now. Do whatever he tells you.”
“There? Where is there?”
Jake turned to the two men at his side for the answer, resembling Noah at six. Adulthood tumbled off Jake’s shoulders.
“The federal courthouse, Mrs. Pierce.” Agent Forsyth reached into his wallet and withdrew a card. “Call this number.”
“Should I come down?” Phoebe prayed the answer was no.
For a moment, they appeared to be three men linked by their embarrassment at not knowing how to answer a woman’s question.
What do women want?
“Just do what the lawyers tell you,” Jake said finally. “They’re in charge now.”
CHAPTER 28
Phoebe
The wheels set in motion by calling Gideon’s office felt more like a runaway train than the logical legal progression that Phoebe had expected.
“Someone will call you back. Stay there,” a youthful male voice ordered when she called to ask if they needed her.
So she stayed.
An hour later, she phoned again. This time the receptionist connected her to a harried-sounding woman who didn’t introduce herself. Phoebe didn’t ask, tumbling into the role of supplicant without rights.
“I’ve been waiting quite long.” She tried to sound even: not frantic, not entitled. Stable. Calm.
“Be patient,” the woman said. “This isn’t like standing in line for a restaurant table. I can’t tell you any more than what Jerry said before.”
Fuck you.
Who’s Jerry?
Take care of me.
“Got it,” Phoebe said. “I wanted to be sure I didn’t miss anything. A call. Or something I should do. If—”
“We’ll let you know when something involves you.” Phoebe couldn’t read the woman’s sigh. Disgust? Pity? “I promise. We’ll contact you. Do something to relax. It’s a long road.”
Drugs and alcohol were ready answers for relaxing in this circumstance, but she needed a clear head. Water therapy, the only option available, led to a shower, the second shower she wanted earlier, leaving the stall door open in case the phone rang. She lathered lavender-scented gel, praying for the promised aromatherapy of calm. Water splashed over the marbled sill on the floor. Phoebe imagined Jake screaming, “You’re spotting the granite!” She opened the glass door wider, dried off with puckered fingertips, and dropped the towel into the puddles.
Shirley-sounds came from the kitchen. Poor Shirley must be shocked seeing dishes on the counter. Phoebe never left a thing out. Did Shirley realize Phoebe’s compulsive cleaning came from managing Jake’s mania? No doubt. She and Jake were undoubtedly far more transparent than they imagined.
Transparent? Her husband was fucking opaque.
She should tell Shirley before the television did it for her, but the people in Gideon’s office repeated Jake’s order to keep quiet. Eva, Zoya, Linh, and her family—they’d all find out via media unless she acted in split-second timing. In an act of cowardice, she’d left an early- morning message for Eva, alluding to a family problem as a reason for missing work, promising to speak soon.
Oh God, what was she thinking? Her sister needed to hear this from her, not as breaking news on TV. After locking the bedroom door, she pressed Deb’s number into the bedside phone on Jake’s side. Her sister, as always, picked up immediately. She and Ben were up by seven, dressed and out by ten.
“You caught us!” Deb answered as though Phoebe made her day simply by calling. “We’re on the way to Bed Bath & Beyond. The kids are coming down, and I want to get new sheets for the guest rooms. We
were going to get a new mattress, but—”
“Deb. Stop. I need to tell you something.”
Her sister inhaled. “What’s wrong?”
Phoebe pictured her sister clutching her chest just as their mother had always done. “Is Ben there?” she asked.
“Why?”
“Please. Put him on the extension.”
After a moment of silence Deb said, “Hold on.”
Phoebe wanted to break their sisterly intimacy, praying that if Ben absorbed the news with her sister, it might dilute and thus soften the blow.
“Okay. He’s on. What’s wrong?”
“I’m here,” Ben affirmed. “What is it?”
Their voices held the tension of people expecting death, anticipating awful truth. They’d make reservations. Fly to the funeral. Get out the black dress, the somber suit.
“Phoebe.” Ben snapped her to attention. “Don’t keep us waiting.”
She snaked a hand into the drawer and under a mound of scarves, feeling for her emergency cigarettes. She fingered the cellophane wrapper. Unopened, of course. About three times a year, she’d smoke one cigarette, throwing out the pack right after.
“This isn’t easy,” Phoebe said. “Something awful happened.”
“Just tell us,” Deb said.
“The money is gone.”
“What money?”
“Yours. Everyone’s.”
“What are you talking about?”
How many conversations like this were ahead? People would call asking for reassurance, “Not me, right?” She imagined the faces of her friends, cousins—even the rabbi who’d performed the ceremonies at the kids’ weddings.
“Jake totally . . .” Phoebe couldn’t think of a way to frame the enormity. “He lied about the investments. All the investments. Everyone’s.”
“What? How?”
“In every way possible. There are no investments. Nothing. It’s all made up. It’s paper.” Jake had said that. Paper.
“Paper? What do you mean ‘paper’?” Ben’s voice rose.
“Please don’t yell,” Phoebe said. “I’ll tell you everything. I just found out.”
Ben took two loud breaths. “What about the statements? The money we take out every month? Where does it come from?”
“I don’t understand anything.” She tried to relax her fingers before she squeezed the cigarettes so hard she’d crush them. “He said it’s all just paper.”
“What the hell does ‘just paper’ mean?” Ben asked. “Has he gone off his rocker?”
“The kids. Ben’s family!” Deb said. “Them, too?”
“Of course them, too,” Ben said. “What? You think he only screwed his family? What the fuck, Phoebe? Is he insane?”
Crazy, insane, psychotic, I don’t believe it, how, why, what the fuck—so many words doomed for repetition.
“Don’t scream at her,” Deb said. “You don’t think she’s dying from this?”
For a few moments, no one spoke.
“You knew nothing?” Ben asked. “Are you sure?”
“How dare you ask that,” her sister said.
“It’s not such an impossible question, Deb.” Anger crackled through the phone. He’d obviously raced ahead to the consequences of Jake’s actions faster than Deb. “They live together. She has an office there.”
Phoebe pulled at the cellophane strip locking away the pack of Marlboros. “I use the office for convenience. That’s all. To take care of Cupcake Project business. The only thing I do for JPE is wrap presents. This was as much of a shock to me, to the kids, to Theo, as it is to you.”
“Of course.” Deb sounded dazed.
Ben kept quiet.
“Nothing’s left?” Deb spoke so softly that Phoebe had to strain to hear. “Nothing?”
Phoebe thought of Jake’s checks, waiting to be sent out. Then she thought of the FBI. “I only know Jake wanted you to be first in line for what he still had. He planned to write you a check today, but the FBI took him.”
“Jesus,” Ben said.
“I don’t think he’ll be sending those checks out.” Fuck it. She’d smoke right here.
“What’s going to happen?” Ben sounded stunned.
Her sister began weeping, her tears starting Phoebe’s, until both of them were sobbing.
“I’m clueless,” Phoebe said between gulps. “I’m waiting for the lawyer to call.” She ripped open the pack of cigarettes and lit one.
After disengaging from her sister and brother-in-law, she splashed icy water on her face and then reached Theo on his cell. “They’re already here,” he whispered. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
She held a match to the end of another cigarette and called Noah, then Kate, again and again, repeatedly, until finally her daughter picked up.
“We’re not supposed to speak with you,” Kate said without preamble.
“According to whom?” Phoebe asked.
“Our attorney.”
“You have a lawyer? Did you have Daddy arrested?”
Kate didn’t answer.
“You didn’t give Daddy the weekend?”
“Have you lost your mind, Mom?”
Crazy, insane, psychotic.
“Do you realize the scope of this scheme?” Kate asked. “This isn’t a mistake or a lapse in judgment or Daddy’s usual bullshit. This is billion-dollar fraud. Do you have a clue what kind of risk he put us in? Hasn’t the impact of what he’s done hit you?”
“He only asked—”
“Asked us to give him the weekend? For what? To make us coconspirators? You’re very lucky our lawyer made this move.”
“But . . .” But what? “We don’t even know why he did it,” she said finally.
“Who the fuck cares why! Get your head out of the sand and leave, Mom. Now. Stay with him, you lose us. Stay with him, everyone blames you along with him. Get out.”
“I’ll think about it. Really. I promise. But not when—”
Kate hung up.
Phoebe put the phone back in the cradle. She turned the television on low, tuning into CNN in case the story broke.
What do you wear to a courthouse? A suit? A dress?
Just then, Ben’s words came back: “Did you know?”
If her own brother-in-law asked her that, what would the rest of the world think? Her hands shook as she pulled on beige wool pants and a plain black sweater.
Who knew what this sweater cost—she couldn’t remember. Five hundred. Eight hundred. Two thousand. Phoebe still looked at tags when she bought things—nobody grew up in Brooklyn without checking prices—but the theory of relativity crept in and then tipped so far she threw cashmere sweatshirts over Gap jeans while gardening.
Now, more than anything, she wanted to be invisible.
After dressing, she smoked another cigarette before calling Eva at the store. Her stomach turned at the prospect. As she took her last puff, the phone rang. Phoebe jumped at the shrill tone.
“Gideon wants you at the courthouse. Now. Bail, everything else. This will move fast. Someone will meet you in the lobby.”
The woman said this as though Phoebe understood what “everything else” and “bail” meant beyond what she’d gleaned from years of watching Law & Order.
“Right,” Phoebe said. “Can you tell me who I’m speaking with?”
A beat or two later, the woman answered, “Luz Aguilar. I’m on your husband’s team.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Go.” The woman spoke as though the entire world waited for her. “A fast one.”
Phoebe adjusted her tone to match Luz’s. “Dress code?”
“For you? Now?”
“Right,” Phoebe said.
“Doesn’t matter. No difference. Sorry, but you don’t count. Just get here now.”
Luz Aguilar disconnected without saying good-bye. Apparently Phoebe had sunk so low that not only did she not count, she no longer rated courtesy. She peeled off the expensive wool pants and pull
ed on black jeans.
• • •
Hurry up and wait.
Phoebe sat for hours, uncomfortable, anxious, and angry, and with no one to call. No one to complain to, no one to ask to keep her company. Calling to say what?
“Waiting in a court lobby is awful, you know.”
“Yes. I’m here because Jake’s been arrested.”
“And, oh, all your money is gone.”
If someone died, support flowed like water. For this, there were no friends.
They’d stuck her on a bench, occasionally running out to make demands and ask questions. Houses to sign over. How much in her private checking account? Turn it over. She made a series of phone calls under orders from Gideon’s staff. Banks. Real estate lawyers. Maybe Jake moved that money to cover his legal ass. Paying her sister, friends, and family was probably more of his bullshit.
Luz’s heels clicked on the hard stone floor as she approached. Phoebe recognized the shoes. Red soles. Black leather. “We’ve hammered out an agreement. Now we’ll see if the judge takes it.”
About nine hundred dollars for that particular pair of Louboutins. Phoebe’s latest pair cost more than twice that.
Luz got up, began clicking away, and then turned to where Phoebe still sat. “What are you doing? Gideon is expecting us.”
“Sorry, I thought you were filling me in.”
“This isn’t a hospital where you’re waiting for someone to give birth, Mrs. Pierce.”
Phoebe blinked away angry tears. More than anything, she wanted Noah and Kate. Alone, she’d become paralyzed and humiliated, letting this bitch teetering in low-end Louboutin heels treat her like an addled old lady.
• • •
The moment she walked into the stuffy courtroom, she recognized the back of Jake’s head. He turned as though sensing her—no surprise after a lifetime together—and gave a wan half-smile. If he’d shaved that morning, it wasn’t apparent. The agents must have come just as he’d lathered up. His hair stuck out in grey tufts. The wrinkles in his face and creases in his shirt stood out with such sharp sadness that she wanted to close her eyes. Loose skin hung from under his chin. The word elderly might be attached to his name at that moment.
Phoebe touched her neck.
All the Botox and other poisons she’d injected, keeping herself perfect for him. The tweaks she’d gotten to look younger. Jake smiled a little wider. Words from his eyes burned across the courtroom. The noose tightened.
The Widow of Wall Street Page 23