House on Fire

by Bonnie Kistler

  She didn’t write any of that, of course. The only issue on appeal was whether the lower court erred in denying Hunter Beck access to his unborn child, and she confined herself to the legal reasons why that ruling was correct. But there was a force behind her writing that was new, and the words seemed to pour out of her. She finished the brief in half a day.

  Another email arrived from Polly on Tuesday: Ashley Gregg called again. Please call ASAP. She’d called before, Leigh vaguely remembered. The last message said You’ll know what it’s about, but she didn’t, and she never responded. Now she had an embarrassed flash of recall. Ashley Gregg was the personal shopper at Saks. Leigh’s only conduit to the other crazy bereaved lady, Sheikha Devra.

  She rummaged through the desk to retrieve the business card of that young woman who delivered the flowers, Emily Whitman. Sheikh Mazin Al-Khazrati was the name of her late boss, and she googled it and in ten seconds confirmed that he had died in January after suffering a heart attack while speaking at an energy symposium at Georgetown. He was a former OPEC minister from Saudi Arabia but not a member of the royal family, as she might have thought. It seemed that sheikh wasn’t exclusively a royal title; it was an honorific bestowed throughout the Muslim world on tribal leaders and clerics, too. There were literally thousands of sheikhs out there. But no sheikhas. Their wives, singular or plural, had no internet presence at all, and a search for Devra anywhere in proximity to Al-Khazrati came up empty.

  It was morbid curiosity that made her reach for the phone and place a business call for the first time.

  “Oh, Mrs. Huyett,” answered the young woman at Saks. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”

  “I’m sorry. I had, uh.” Leigh cleared her throat. “A death in the family.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Ashley said but only in the breezy way of a social convention. “Our mutual friend is anxious to set up another meeting with you.”

  Our mutual friend. Ashley must have imagined their phones were being tapped. Or more likely, Devra imagined it, the deranged widow.

  “Have you known her very long?” Leigh asked. “I was wondering.”

  “Oh, yes. She’s been one of my best customers this last year or so. Such a stylish woman. She has truly exquisite taste.”

  “Did you ever meet her husband?”

  “No, not yet. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, just curious.” Leigh debated what kind of message to relay back to Devra, but everything she thought of came off as too brusque. I’m unable to take on this matter, or I suggest you not pursue this further. Those words were too unkind for a woman so obviously unhinged by her grief. The message should be delivered more gently, in person, and who better to deliver it than Leigh herself? The woman who hallucinated holographic images of her dead daughter. “When would she like to get together?”

  They set a date for the following morning at the same location.

  It wouldn’t be a first client meeting this time—it wouldn’t be a client meeting at all—but Wednesday morning Leigh dressed as if it were, in a suit and heels as before. No pearls this time, though. They’d come unstrung, and she didn’t know what had become of them.

  It was strange to be out in the world, dressed and groomed and on the road. Except for her demented chase after the good reverend, she hadn’t been this far from home since the funeral. Except for a few grocery runs, she hadn’t left the house at all. It was like staggering out of a cave into the blinding sunlight. The letters on the road signs faded in and out of focus like the charts at the eye doctor’s. Better here? Or here? The windshields of passing motorists reflected shards of sun glare, and she had to squint to see their faces through the distortion. They looked unreal to her, like museum specimens behind glass, a diorama of harried D.C. commuters. Everyone in such a hurry to be somewhere else, all of them so busy with their busy lives. Their worlds spinning on.

  She negotiated the heavy inbound traffic and parked by the entrance to Saks, in the same no-parking zone where Ashley directed her before. It was the same spot where she turned on her phone that morning and saw the missed calls from Kip and Peter and the hospital, and that memory was all it took for the grief to billow up and smack her like a wall of water.

  She’d come to think of grief that way, as a giant swell rising up in an otherwise calm sea, cresting into an enormous wave that came crashing down over her. If she was on her guard, if she kept watch for it, she could sometimes see it coming and paddle furiously ahead to miss the worst of it. But too often it came out of nowhere and there was nothing she could do but choke and sputter and gasp for breath.

  The young woman, Ashley Gregg, was waiting at the door. Leigh pretended to be busy checking her phone long enough to pull herself together. She stepped out of the car with a shaky greeting.

  “The sheikha’s already arrived,” Ashley told her as she hurried her along through cosmetics and jewelry and into the elevator. “If you wouldn’t mind carrying this—?” She handed Leigh a hanger holding a plastic-bagged gown, and at Leigh’s blank look, she added, “To—uh—you know.”

  “Oh. Of course.” Leigh maneuvered the gown to conceal the briefcase on her arm as the elevator doors opened.

  The same bodyguard stood at attention outside the door of the designer wear salon. His eyes raked over Leigh as he held the door open, and with a short nod she brushed past him.

  Devra rose from the divan and extended both hands toward her. She’d already removed her black outer coverings, but she was clad in black underneath, too, in a form-fitting sleeveless sheath that revealed a flawless figure. “Leigh. Thank you for meeting me,” she said. “Please, won’t you sit down?”

  “Thank you.” Leigh perched on the edge of the divan. “And thank you also for the beautiful flower arrangement.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The flowers. Your assistant delivered them.”

  The sheikha’s brow furrowed.

  “Emily Whitman. Your assistant?”

  She looked more and more confused. “I don’t believe I know anyone by that name.”

  Leigh didn’t know how to proceed. If she tried to press too much reality on her, the sheikha might have a complete psychotic break. Hesitantly she said, “Back in January—did your husband suffer a heart attack?”

  Devra gaped at her. “Why would you ask such a thing?”

  “I saw it in the newspaper.” Leigh pulled the printout of the obituary from her briefcase and handed it to her.

  The sheikha read it and looked up with a frown. “I don’t understand. This is about the death of Mazin Al-Khazrati.”

  Gently Leigh said, “Your husband.”

  Devra stared at her a moment. Then she threw back her head and let out a peal of manic laughter. “Al-Khazrati is not my husband! Where did you ever get such an idea?”

  “From Emily Whitman. Your assistant.” Leigh reached in her briefcase for the young woman’s business card.

  Devra shook her head as she read it. “I do not know this person.” She passed the card back. “This confusion is obviously my fault. I should have told you everything from the start.” She rummaged in her handbag—today it was a crocodile Chanel—and came out with a business card of her own. “Here. This is my husband.”

  Leigh took the card from her and read it:

  His Excellency Faheem bin Jabar

  Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary

  Embassy of the State of Qatar in the United States

  2355 Belmont Road NW, Washington, DC 20008

  She looked up. Carefully she said, “Your husband is the Qatari ambassador to the United States.”

  “That is correct, yes.” Devra folded her hands, as if pleased that the misunderstanding had been so swiftly resolved.

  Leigh couldn’t imagine any reason for the widow of a Saudi sheikh to carry the business card of the Qatari ambassador. But she also couldn’t imagine any reason for Emily Whitman to lie to her. “And this is your address?”

  “That is the address of
the embassy,” Devra said. “We have living quarters there, of course, but we spend the weekends at our country estate here in Virginia.”

  “Where, exactly?”

  “In Hampshire County.”

  Leigh blinked. “That’s where I live.”

  “Oh?” Devra didn’t seem to register the unlikelihood of that coincidence. “During our last meeting,” she went on, “you told me I couldn’t seek a divorce in the District of Columbia unless I was first separated from my husband. But in Virginia, separation is not required if certain fault grounds exist. Is that correct?”

  “That’s all correct.” And cogently summarized, too, Leigh had to admit.

  “So would I be permitted to file for divorce in Virginia rather than Washington?”

  Leigh didn’t know how to answer. Devra seemed perfectly rational, but if she wasn’t deranged, it meant that Emily Whitman had lied, which made no sense. But if Leigh didn’t know how to answer, at least she knew what. “Only if you’ve been a domiciliary of Virginia for at least six months. Domicile means your fixed, permanent home. You can reside in several places, but you’re only domiciled in one.” She ticked off the factors the Virginia courts would examine: where she voted, was employed, banked, participated in community activities, and insured her automobiles, as well as the state that issued her driver’s license and car registration.

  Devra looked helpless when Leigh finished the litany. “I’ve never done any of those things,” she said. “Anywhere.”

  Of course she hadn’t, Leigh realized. The test for domicile wasn’t designed with cloistered wives in mind. “We might persuade the court to make a more subjective examination, in your case. To determine which residence is more truly your home.”

  “As between Washington and Virginia? Virginia. Clearly. The embassy is an office building full of functionaries on computers and strangers standing in line. We do not own it and it is not our home. Or at least not mine. My husband seems content enough there.”

  “Your husband”—Leigh read from the business card—“the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary.” It sounded as grandiose and mythical as the Great and Powerful Oz.

  “That is his title, yes.” Devra pushed the buzzer beside her chair, the signal, Leigh now recognized, that their meeting was over. “If you would please give some consideration to the domicile question, perhaps at our next meeting I will be prepared to go forward. Meanwhile, I have arranged for the sum of a hundred thousand dollars to be wired to your firm’s bank account. I hope this will suffice for your initial retainer.”

  A knock sounded on the door, and Ashley Gregg came through with another rolling rack of dresses, and the three women went through the same routine as before, pretending Leigh was a fashion consultant for the sake of the brooding bodyguard posted outside.

  “Until next time,” Devra said, clasping her hand warmly.

  The charade was so elaborate, pretending a marriage to the Qatari ambassador, setting up clandestine meetings, carefully parsing out the venue requirements for her divorce from a dead man. As soon as Leigh got home, she sat down at the computer in the kitchen and pulled up the website for the Qatari embassy. There he was, Faheem bin Jabar, a gray-bearded man with an unsmiling face, wearing a dark business suit and a starched white ghutra on his head held in place by a corded black agal. He was indeed the ambassador from Qatar, having formally presented his credentials to the president at a White House ceremony last year. But nothing on the embassy website mentioned his wife or any other information about his family.

  She telephoned her office for the first time in weeks and asked for Miguel Gonzalez. He was the head of the firm’s government relations department—their euphemism for lobbyist—and he had a vast network of contacts in virtually every branch of the federal government. She announced herself to his secretary, and to her surprise, Gonzalez himself came on the line. Ordinarily he wouldn’t take her unscheduled call, but her bereavement must have stirred enough sympathy for him to overlook the difference in their places within the firm’s hierarchy.

  “Leigh,” he said in a pained whisper. “I can’t tell you how sorry Gina and I are. We just can’t imagine.”

  Leigh had never even met Gina, but men like Gonzalez seemed to shy away from expressing any emotion as their own; they always thrust their wives out front and center in conveying the sentiment.

  “Mike, who do you know at State?” she asked without preamble.

  “Why, quite a few people.” It took him a second to recover his footing. “What do you need?”

  “I’m looking for some information on the ambassador from Qatar.”

  “Be more specific.”

  “The name of his wife. Or wives.”

  “Hmm. You probably want to talk to the Office of Protocol. They liaise with all the foreign diplomats and organize the various ceremonial affairs. I’ll switch you back to Shirley and she’ll get you the number of my best contact there.”

  “Thank you, Mike.”

  “Oh, and while I have you. I have a new matter for you. A custody case.”

  Leigh was too startled to respond. Gonzalez had never referred a case to her before, and she couldn’t believe he’d choose this time to begin.

  “He’s a very impressive young man. An honest-to-God war hero. Special Forces. John Stoddard’s his name. He was awarded the Silver Star last week, and Congressman Breating held a little dinner for him afterward. We got to talking, and he mentioned his domestic situation, and I told him we have the perfect lawyer for him.”

  “I’m sorry, Mike. I’m really not ready—”

  “Of course. I understand. You need time. Let me set something up for, let’s see. I’ll get him in here in a week or so. Until then, take it easy. Take care of yourself. And again, Leigh, our deepest condolences.”

  Leigh stared at the phone in disbelief. There was no way she was going to represent a man who wanted to take a child away from her mother. War hero or not.

  Gonzalez’s assistant came on the line with the name and number of his contact at the Office of Protocol. Leigh dialed the number and waved the magic wand of Miguel Gonzalez’s name to get through to the chief, who promptly transferred the call to a subordinate responsible for maintaining the Diplomatic List. The List was a State Department publication detailing the names of everyone having diplomatic rank in every foreign mission in the country, along with their spouses. The subordinate located Faheem bin Jabar’s name on the list but told Leigh there was no spouse name below it.

  “So that means he’s unmarried?”

  “Or he left her behind in Qatar. Or he elected not to publish her name.”

  “But there’d have to be a record of any diplomatic passport issued to a spouse.”

  “That would be classified.”

  She made one more attempt. If Devra and her husband had purchased a country house in Hampshire County last year, there’d be a record of the property transfer. She called a paralegal in the real estate department and asked her to do a record search under the name bin Jabar, and also, just in case, under the name Al-Khazrati.

  The answer came back in thirty minutes. There were no recorded property transfers in Hampshire County under either name in the past year or, in fact, ever.

  She was ready to give up. Devra didn’t exist in the real estate records, or on a driver’s license, a car registration, the voter rolls, or the Diplomatic List. It was as if she left no footprints in the world. She might as well be a ghost.

  But at that moment her computer pinged with an incoming email. A notification from the Accounting Department that the sum of $100,000 had been wired into her client trust account that day. From an anonymous, numbered account in Vienna.

  Ghosts didn’t wire money.

  She leaned back and thought for a while before it came to her. There was an easy way to find out if Devra was the ambassador’s wife, and she was an idiot not to have done it sooner. She reached for her phone.

  “Hello,” she said when the embassy operator answe
red. “Could I speak to Devra please?”

  She could hear a whispered exchange before the operator returned to the line. “The sheikha is not receiving calls. You may leave a message.”

  “No, no message.”

  So. Devra was who she said she was. It was Emily Whitman who wasn’t. She located the young woman’s phony business card and dialed the number. The call went directly to voicemail with no override option to an operator. “This is Leigh Huyett,” she said. “And I’d like to know why you lied to me. Call me back. At once.”

  The phone didn’t ring until that evening, and it wasn’t Emily Whitman. It was Jenna Dietrich, two days later than promised and twice as surly. Leigh asked about her health, her safety, her finances, until the girl snapped, “God! I already went through all this shit with my mother. Why don’t you two coordinate and save me the hassle of saying it twice?”

  For a moment Leigh was stung silent. “You’re right,” she said finally. “I’m only your lawyer. But all these questions are pertinent to your divorce case. You’ll have to answer them before custody and visitation are decided.”

  “I guess we’ll see about that.”

  “Meanwhile, I have Canaday’s brief and a draft of our response I’d like to send you.”

  “What for?”

  “You’re the client, Jenna. You have the right to see their arguments and sign off on ours.”

  “Oh, like suddenly I have rights?”

  Leigh sighed. “You’ve always had rights. The lower court said so, and the appellate court will, too, as soon as we get this brief filed.”

  “Then file it already. Jeez.” Jenna snapped and hung up.

  Such a difficult girl, Leigh thought as she put down the phone. She did not envy Carrie her daughter.

  But no, she thought an instant later. No, she did.