by Dana Killion
As I made the short cab ride to the Loop, I found myself fixated on why Elyse Wright would have been secretly monitoring her husband’s communication. Had she suspected an affair? Or was this related to the embezzlement case? In her communication with me, she’d been vague about the threat. But Elyse had trusted me, or thought she could trust me enough to make her information public. The guilt I felt being dismissive of her claims was now hard to shake. I could only assume that part of what CPD had discovered were the very same emails she had intended to show me.
I jumped out of the cab at Wabash and Monroe and headed upstairs to speak to Victor. When I walked through the heavy double doors of the law firm, I immediately sensed an office frozen with shock. A group of three employees stood in a cluster on the far side of the reception area, speaking in low tones instead of hunkered down in their cubicles, eyes on computer screens or heads buried in briefs as they typically were.
“The hell with being politically correct. She was a first-class bitch.”
Marcus Bennett, one of the firm’s paralegals, stood at the center. His round face flushed red when he realized I’d heard his remark. Caught in the act. He sniffed, his eyes went to the floor, and he mumbled something to the men he was with before slinking off to his desk.
On any other day, this group would have known better than to speak within earshot of a client.
“I need to see him,” I said to Nancy, the long-term receptionist. She seemed confused, then answered robotically, mumbling something about checking his schedule. “Tell him I’ll be in the small conference room.” I strode past her, confident that whatever Victor had going on right now could be moved lower on the priority list. Nancy didn’t bother to argue.
I removed my coat and scarf and settled into a chair. Moments later, Nancy came in carrying a cup of tea for me. “He needs about five minutes,” she said before leaving.
As I waited, I fielded a text from Borkowski about the video clip I’d sent, then checked my Twitter feed. I’d posted a few brief updates earlier in the day, and as usual, the comments surrounding Elyse Wright’s murder were a crazy mix of vitriol interspersed with brief moments of thoughtful dialogue. It seemed there was nothing that made the Twitter trolls come out in force more than political commentary or an opinionated woman. Throw a wealthy interracial couple into the mix, and the racists and chauvinists alike were now spouting their ugly rhetoric. I turned it off, disgusted. Victor came into the room, his face as somber as I’d ever seen. He rushed over and pulled me into a hug, then stepped back, embarrassed by his own behavior.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I probably shouldn’t have done that. Not exactly kosher these days.” He turned as if he’d forgotten something, then turned back toward me and took a seat at the table. His face had that pasty look as if he were at the tail end of a week-long stomach flu. I knew the feeling.
I sat beside him and squeezed his hand. “We’re all in shock. I certainly didn’t sleep last night.”
“I can’t imagine you did. I’ve heard lots of nasty things over the years in this business, but this?” He shook his head. “I can’t wrap my head around how anyone could do this.”
“Did she tell you we were meeting last night?”
“No, and if she had, I would have strongly advised against it. What did she want?” He looked at me as if afraid to hear the answer.
“She told me that Gavin had embezzled from others before Isaac Sikora. And that he had made threats against her. I don’t have any details. She was intending to show me something last night. Did she discuss any of that with you?”
Victor let out a breath and ran his hand over his mouth.
“When Gavin’s misdeeds were exposed, she, of course, needed to have other counsel represent her interests. My understanding is that during that time, she found some information that seemed suspicious and caused her to believe there may have been a previous embezzlement incident. This was after the initial charges were made. The information was shared with the prosecutor, but nothing came of it. Apparently, they couldn’t corroborate her statements and felt they had enough evidence against him already. But trust me, if they’d been able to prove additional allegations, that would have come out.”
“How did she take that?” I asked, remembering the vehemence of her assertion.
“Elyse fixated on it, couldn’t let it go. She was furious that Gavin had gotten her into this mess. But the information she presented, well, it just wasn’t enough. No one was going to go to court and make themselves look like an idiot. And if the prosecution had been unable to prove history, it could have damaged the case Sikora put forward. So, bottom line, she told me about it, but no one other than Elyse really thought it worth pursuing.”
“I don’t imagine that sat well with her.”
“No, it didn’t.” He let out a wimpy chuckle.
“Do you know what she meant by ‘threats’? Did Gavin threaten her in some way?”
“There were a lot of emails, some vaguely threatening. But she took everything to a fevered pitch in this divorce. My read of them was that Gavin was blowing off steam. These two had an explosive relationship. She was just as fiery as he was, and they both said things in the heat of the moment. I guess I didn’t take it seriously because she was right back at him every time with something equally demeaning. I certainly didn’t think he’d harm her. Would he cheat? Would he steal? Would he lie? Sure. Kill her? Never in a million years did that cross my mind. Elyse could be a bit—I guess you could say they were both a little high-strung. Yelling at each other was how they handled conflict. You know, some couples are just like that.”
He paused, looked at his hands for a moment before continuing. “I got the news early this morning, and it’s all I’ve been able to think about. Was I wrong to downplay it?”
I was struggling with those very thoughts. There was no walking away from “What if?” Victor and I would both question our decision for quite some time.
“And you have copies of these notes?”
He looked at me and nodded. “What are you asking, Andrea?”
“CPD will be here soon, I imagine, wanting to talk to you,” I said.
“Yes, of course. I assumed as much.” He ran his hand over his forehead. “I can’t help but second-guess myself. I’m just sick over this. Would she still be alive if we’d shared these emails with the police?”
“Victor, I doubted her too. I agreed to see her, but I’d already made up my mind that it was just some melodrama I was getting pulled into.” I leaned forward in the chair, my elbows on the table as I rehashed my response to Elyse and once again saw her pleading eyes. “Can I see them? I know you’ll need to turn your notes over to CPD, but could I see them before you do that?”
Victor let out a breath and templed his fingers in front of his mouth, debating. “Obviously Elyse had intended to show you everything last night, so I don’t see why not?” He reached over and picked up the phone.
Moments later, Marcus Bennett entered the conference room, a file in his hand. He laid it on the table, and Victor flipped through the file briefly before tossing back at him. “What is this? These are not the correct documents. It’s not even the correct case file. Surely you can handle something this rudimentary.” His tone reminded me of a particularly cantankerous professor I’d had back in law school and was out of character for the Victor I knew.
“If there’s a mistake, talk to Nancy. I don’t organize the database. Perhaps her female brain isn’t wired for complex thought.”
Victor scowled at Bennett but held back on chastising him further, presumably because I was in the room. “Here.” He jotted something on a notepad and handed it to him.
As Bennett left, I turned to Victor. “What’s his story? That’s the second time I’ve heard him shoot out a sexist comment.”
“I’m sorry about that. Marcus isn’t my most progressive-thinking employee, but he knows better than to make snide remarks in front of clients. I’m sorry you heard that. And
I know better than to embarrass an employee publicly. We’re all a bit on edge today.”
I let it go, but when I added in what I’d heard the other day, this guy would have a hard time spelling progressive. When he put down the file, I’d noticed the wedding ring on his finger and immediately wondered whether he tempered his chauvinism at home or treated his wife like dirt. Regardless, Victor would likely remind him he’d be better served by watching his tongue.
Bennett returned a few minutes later. Victor confirmed the contents, then handed me the file.
As he’d indicated, there was a plethora of email exchanges that put even the most contentious of divorces to shame. My chest tightened at the ugliness and my own memories of divorce. Well into the pile, one line caught my eye.
“‘You hateful bitch. I hope you die,’” I read aloud from one of the notes. “Hard to not look at that statement in light of what happened last night and think he wasn’t serious.”
14
I hope you die. The words were now engraved into my head, permanently associated with the horror that had been Elyse Wright’s last few minutes on earth.
As I left Victor’s office, I pulled my hat and gloves out of my bag and turned up the collar on my shearling. The sky had grown dark while I’d been inside, but luckily the wind had quieted. Under most circumstances I would have hailed a cab, but tonight I needed the crispness of the evening air to wash away the demons circling my mind.
Cai and I had made plans to meet this evening at Erik’s condo. I’d been stalling on sorting through the last remaining items. Most of the furniture was gone, as was anything that lacked emotional value, but I’d been unable to finish, my mind and body fighting the finality.
So after months of being deep in avoidance mode, I’d committed to getting his condo listed for sale by the end of next week. Apparently, a kick in the backside was the only way I would get this done, so like it or not, last night’s trauma could not be the source of another delay. The place needed to be cleaned and then staged to soften the slick masculine finishes, then photographed in less than a week.
Selling the condo was the last task in settling Erik’s estate. I knew I would feel better once it was over, but until then, my mind rebelled at the task. To counter the pain, Cai had committed to providing moral support and liquid courage.
As I walked north on Wabash toward the river, my head filled with images of Elyse, thoughts about her husband, and the thorny overlap between our lives. Two men governed by ego and greed, both experts at lying. And two women left with the shock of their betrayals and obligations to clean up their messes. Erik hadn’t been the one to try to have me killed; in fact, in the end, he had tried to save me. But somehow Elyse Wright and I both had ended up in situations where someone thought we were better off dead because of our husbands’ misdeeds. I shivered at the thought, flashing back to the evening on my terrace when Erik’s business partner tried to silence me.
There was too much pain wrapped up in those thoughts for me to deal with right now, and I wasn’t sure how I would get through the evening. The likely answer was to cry it out and try to move forward. It wasn’t as if I had a choice. Sorting through your ex-husband’s memorabilia was not a task I could hire out.
I let the lights of the city and the cool air do their best to clear my head as I walked north, past office buildings clearing out for the night, random retail stores, and fast-food restaurants now empty without their lunchtime patrons.
I paused at the Wabash Avenue Bridge, admiring the beauty of the Chicago River reflecting back the lights of the high-rises. The DuSable Bridge to the east, with its four decorative bridge houses and double-decker roadway, glowed over the water. I turned, looking up at Erik’s condo building, instinctively trying to figure out which blackened windows were his, dread in my heart. But avoidance was no longer an option.
Continuing north, I arrived at the condo tower, signs of the commotion from earlier that day now long gone. It was after six o’clock, and the TV news would be blasting their video feeds of Gavin Wright’s arrest. The desire to check my phone, curious about how others would slant today’s development, came and went. It could wait.
I said hello to the doorman, asked him to send up Cai when she arrived, and took the elevator to the thirty-fifth floor. My hand shook as I put the key in the lock. Despite the number of times I’d been here since Erik’s death, my emotions were always in turmoil. One part of me expected to see him, alive and well, and another felt I was intruding in someone else’s home. Another was still stung by the pain that had been part of our marriage.
I didn’t immediately turn on the lights when I entered the apartment, captured as always by the beauty of the Chicago skyline at night. The sweeping view included a partial view of the lake and panned south over the river, Millennium Park, and the iconic diamond shaped roofline of the Crain Communication Building.
Erik had purchased the condo almost immediately after we separated, pissing off his attorney with the new complication in our financial settlement. At the time, it had been the last thing I cared about. As I stood in the dark, the space was both foreign and familiar. Foreign with its hard edges and slick surfaces, familiar because now and then I swore I could still smell Erik’s cologne. It always made me turn, expecting to see him or maybe expecting an apparition, one refusing to let go of the life he had led with vigor.
Time to chase away the ghosts. I flipped on every light in the apartment. There was nothing to be gained by allowing my thoughts to wallow in pain or in what might have been. Making my way to the kitchen, I opened the wine fridge, hoping that I’d had the forethought to leave a bottle handy for this last task. No such luck. I’d have to wait for reinforcements. Packing materials were already stacked in the dining room, so I kicked off my shoes and distributed boxes between the rooms, trying to figure out where to start. Certainly not the bedroom. I would need far more alcohol to get through that task. Instead, I returned to the kitchen and began wrapping the small number of remaining items in paper. Cai knocked fifteen minutes later.
“Martinis or wine?” she said the minute I opened the door, handing me a brown paper bag.
“Love it. A girl who thinks of everything. Tonight, martinis. Definitely martinis.”
Cai barreled in, tossing her coat onto the island in the kitchen as I emptied the contents of the bag.
“Are there any glasses left, or shall we make do with the plastic cups I brought?”
“We’re stuck with plastic.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.” She laughed, pulling her long dark hair up into a clip. “Let’s get drinks made. I brought a change of clothes, then you can put me to work.”
“You even brought olives. And where did you get chilled vodka?” I asked, thrilled with Cai’s resourcefulness.
“The market in my office building keeps a stash on hand behind the counter. You’d be surprised how many attorneys need a good stiff drink in the middle of the day. I take that back—I guess you wouldn’t be surprised. I forgot who I was talking to for a moment.” She laughed.
As Cai mixed the drinks, I looked around, feeling overwhelmed again.
“Hey, are you getting weepy on me already?” She handed me a cup.
“Sorry, it’s going to be one of those nights. Just ignore my blubbering, and keep tissues nearby.”
“You mean keep your glass filled.” She raised a brow and gave me an amused smile. “Are you really going to give this listing to Lane? Do you think she can sell it?”
My sister, Lane, was a Realtor, and in the eight months since Erik’s death, she’d alternated between hounding me about this listing and pushing me to downsize, with her as the agent for both transactions, of course. We had a relationship that could only be described as complex. I disapproved of her life choices, she disapproved of mine, and money was often a touchy subject because she never had any.
We’d healed a few of our old wounds the previous fall after she nearly died of poisoning, and now I was
feeling sorry for her.
“It’s a bit above her normal price range, but she’s motivated. After losing so much time while she was ill, it’s been hard for her to rebuild momentum. The holidays didn’t help. But I told her if we’re not in contract by the first of June, I’m taking it to the competition.”
“You’re a better person than I am. I hope you don’t regret it.” Cai lifted an eyebrow. She knew our history, and if history repeated itself, this moment of empathy would be another one I’d regret.
“Cheers.” I lifted my plastic cup. “Cai, thanks for being here. I know this is no fun, but I’m glad you’re doing it with me.”
She leaned over and gave me a hug. “Are you kidding me? I’ve been looking forward to this for months. I want to see you box up all this man’s shit and light a match to it.” I laughed, knowing she meant every word.
I took another drink and let out a breath. “Okay. I think I’m ready. Let’s pull the Band-Aid off quickly. Grab your drink, and follow me to the bedroom.”
“Are you having it fumigated after?”
We laughed again and headed down the hall. “Why don’t you start with his closet, and I’ll do the dresser,” I said, carrying a dozen boxes over to the walk-in closet. Cai saluted and winked. After tossing her pumps in the corner, she slipped into jeans and a sweater, then removed suits from hangers and folded them into boxes. We worked for about an hour, mostly silent, boxing and bagging Erik’s clothes, sorting those for donation and those that just needed to go into the trash.
Drawers emptied and closet nearly done, I moved to the nightstand. My heart suddenly pounded in my chest. I sat on the edge of the bare mattress, clenching my hands and trying to wipe away the emotion.
Cai sat next to me, her arm around my shoulder. “Cold feet? Do you want me to do this?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m just expecting to find something that breaks my heart again.”
“Like I said earlier, I’m happy to research dumps that still allow burning.” She smiled and squeezed my hand. I nodded, let out a breath, and opened the drawer. With a trash bag at my feet, I glanced at the assortment of receipts and odd papers it contained, then began tossing everything in the trash. At the bottom of the pile was a small silver picture frame, a photo of me inside. Happy, smiling at the camera, caught in a moment of carefree laughter. The tears flowed freely as I looked at the image, trying to remember when it had been taken. And why Erik had kept it.