A Crack in Everything Read online

  The image of Michael and me under the stars, snug in each other’s arms, stirred me so entirely I felt disloyal to Gil, with his picture still inside my night table, so very close to the bed. By the time we said goodnight, we’d reached an understanding: Easy does it. Camping could wait. Dinner plans worked better for two tentative people, one of whom was perhaps less tentative than she cared to admit.

  ***

  The week passed in real estate closings, travel in my wheezy Beemer to my out of town candidates, privacy research. Michael called, once, just to chat, nothing new on the murders, that he was sharing.

  Every morning Nino’s lease pecked my liver. Odette had promised to help, but pulling rabbits out of hats, not to mention strings, took time, and I knew I couldn’t force the pace. When I checked in with Tavola Rustica, Benny told me Nino was too busy to talk, which meant he was open for business and still angry.

  On Friday morning, a call from Roddie found me slouched at the kitchen table nursing my third coffee. “Guess what?” he said. “Froy’s pulled out.”

  In politics, rumors spread like oil slicks. Candidates were always heisting banks, having affairs, dropping out. “Says who?”

  “Trust me.” He chuckled. “The name Froy will not be blotting the ballot.”

  “After all those bumper stickers and taunts? Why would he drop out?”

  “Maybe I made him an offer his wife couldn’t refuse.”

  The incessant chuckling annoyed me. “Don’t play games, Roddie. Tell me right now what you did.”

  “I didn’t do anything. You did.”

  “Me! I’ve never laid eyes on Kyle Froy. Or his wife.”

  “You urged me to check the ward lines. I mentioned it to Odette, and she called the documents clerk. The lines were redrawn all right, in January, but when Odette challenged the vote, they couldn’t produce the records!” Roddie’s laugh fell somewhere between a bark and a crow. “They’ve been misplaced. Even the audio tapes are missing.”

  Coffee roiled like a cauldron of acid in my stomach. “How very convenient, but the absence of records doesn’t mean the old lines are valid.”

  “No, but suppose I sued. The burden of proof would be on the city. The old lines would hold while we dickered. Even if I lost, it’d be too late for Froy to get on the ballot.”

  Neat. I wondered how many more rabbits former judge Odette had in her hat, then felt guilty about my cynicism. It was not impossible that the records had fallen into a bureaucratic black hole.

  “I explained the situation to Froy,” Roddie said. “That was the stick. Here’s the carrot: Mrs. Froy is a tennis pro at Longwood. So I found her a fabulous new job in Boca Raton with a club that bought my swimming pool system. Froy lives off her so he didn’t have a choice. It’s all settled.”

  “Roddie, you take my breath away.”

  “I want to win, Susan.”

  “And now you don’t have to face a primary.”

  “That’s actually why I called. See, Lauren’s been under the weather these last few days. I was hoping we could take a breather and hold back the voter surveys till September.”

  “September’s too late. You can’t afford to slack off. Froy may be out, but there are three other wannabees who’d love to destroy you.”

  I spent the afternoon at the office, phone off, designing bio pieces, fund-raising invitations, targeted solicitations. And updating accounts. Around six, on replenished paper, I printed out Roddie’s latest contributors’ list for immediate, personal delivery to his finance chairwoman. Odette lived on West Newton Hill, not exactly on my way home, but door-to-door service was the least I could do for the woman who had spared Roddie a primary.

  Before I left, I dialed Deirdre’s substitute server, a woman whose voice and an Uzi had been separated at birth. The only caller, she rasped, had been Johanna Lang.

  Chaz’s widow. Was she grieving? I remembered how she’d recoiled from him the day I found Torie’s body. Grief would have a long road to travel from Johanna Lang’s heart to her eyes. I punched in the number Ms.Uzi had given me, and an elderly woman answered the phone. “Johanna is making tea,” she confided, in a sweetly frail voice. “Real tea, not that herbal stuff.”

  I heard low murmurs, then Johanna was on the line. “You know what happened,” was how she greeted me.

  “Of course. I’m so very sorry.”

  “We buried Charles this morning.”

  When I apologized for missing the funeral, she cut me off. “The service was private.”

  Johanna’s brusqueness irritated the hell out of me. She must control NGT now, and I wondered if she smiled secretly at Chaz’s death.

  “I’ll come right to the point,” she said. “Charles advanced you twenty thousand dollars to find a new site for NGT. My husband had an unfortunate habit of overpaying for services that came with a pretty face. I want the money back.”

  Well, that was direct. A boss lady who knew what she wanted, if not how to charm the person who stood in her way. “Actually,” I said, awed by the way she made “pretty” a slur, “Chaz paid me to advise his campaign, not find a site for his company. He hadn’t told many people, but he was planning a run for mayor.”

  “The police mentioned that ridiculous story, Ms. Callisto, but I know what you’re up to. You’re a real estate lawyer. Yesterday I found a copy of your contract in Charles’ safe.”

  Michael had asked me about a contract. What was going on here? “We had an informal agreement,” I said. “Nothing in writing, and nothing about NGT.”

  “Please don’t insult my intelligence. Last week my husband signed a lease for property in the old Navy Yard. His contract with you specifically excludes that location. You are not entitled to keep one penny of the advance.”

  “I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.” And I have no intention of giving you anything, lady. The money was unconditionally mine Chaz had said, assuming I wanted it, which I suddenly, fervidly did. “Is this really the moment to talk about my fee?”

  “Fee? In your pocket that money is plunder.”

  My heart began to race. “Your husband hired me to help him win an election. He paid me the fee he felt I deserved. You’re misunderstanding something here, Ms. Lang.”

  Another crabby sigh. “It’s Dr. Lang. I’m a Ph.D.”

  “Ah, well, in that case you need to call me Dr. Callisto, Dr. Lang.” A niggling good quibble raises pettiness to an art form, in my opinion. “I’m a Juris Doctor, see.”

  “Were you and my husband having an affair, Dr. Callisto?”

  “Was he your husband? He told me you were divorced.”

  “Separated. About to reconcile. The affair doesn’t matter. I was curious, that’s all.”

  “There was nothing between us except his campaign, and that was iffy. He needed hundreds of signatures.” The signatures. “There should be nominating petitions in a drawer somewhere. They’re evidence of his intentions.”

  “Stop wasting my time. You owe me twenty thousand dollars.”

  “Find the papers. Then we’ll discuss my fee.”

  Over her silence I heard a querulous voice in the background.

  “I’ll be right with you, Mother.” Returning to me, Johanna said “All right, I’ll look for your…for the papers as soon as I get back to NGT, but can’t you meet me today? Now, even? It’s rather urgent.”

  “How about my office?” I said. Oh, these power games. Whose agenda? Whose turf?

  “I’m without transportation. Glenn and I drove in this morning for the funeral. He’s got my car, and I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

  “Okay.” I sighed. “I’ll come to you.” Power tripping was just not my thing. I could always fall back on the quibble. “Where does your mother live?”

  “Charles’ mother. Sh
e’s in a retirement community, off Gardenia Road in Weston.” Johanna gave me lengthy directions, which I couldn’t hear over the roar in my ears.

  “Whose mother?”

  “Charles’. She’s quite elderly. I’m not sure how much she understands. At the cemetery she kept asking when Charles was coming.” Johanna clucked her tongue. “So terribly sad.”

  But Chaz’s mother had died of melanoma. That’s why he became a molecular biologist. Wasn’t it? “Where is Chaz’s father?” I asked.

  “He died last year.”

  “All alone in his garden?”

  Silence struck. When Johanna finally spoke she was furious. “That was my father. I don’t know why you asked me that, but Charles’ father died right here in Weston. He simply didn’t wake up one morning. We buried Charles next to him.”

  “And the flower shops? The nurseries?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Chaz told me his father owned a chain of florists.”

  “His father was a pharmaceutical salesman.”

  A salesman. What had Chaz sold me?

  Chapter Eleven

  Blood Relative

  It was cooler in Weston. The sun filtered gently though miles of trees, and at an engine-conserving speed, the drive gave me time to appreciate the tranquility. When I finally pulled into Idlebrook retirement community, I understood how fitting a place Weston was to grow old and die in. Myself, when my time came, if it came, I planned to roller blade down Route 128, middle finger raised high.

  “Susan,” Chaz’s mother said in a whispery voice, as if my name were a secret. “How nice. Everyone calls me Cordy, more’s the pity.” There was no hint of mourning in her face, but I imagined I could see Chaz in the narrow nose and cloudy blue eyes.

  We shook hands. Cordy was tall, thin as a finger bone, dressed in black ski pants and sweater. At ninety-one, I guessed she was entitled to feel cold in July. She drifted to an overstuffed chair and picked up a remote, aiming it at the TV on a shelf inside a false fireplace. Gigantic letters and a roulette wheel absorbed her. “Bring my supper here, will you, Johanna?”

  Cordy was able to live in one of Idlebrook’s condominium units Johanna explained as she led me into a kitchen/dining room that overlooked a gazebo. Apart from memory failures, Cordy had no health problems. Chaz had visited her every Sunday, and she didn’t grasp that he wouldn’t be dropping by anymore. “And maybe that’s a blessing.”

  She set a dish of grilled tomatoes on a tray, next to what looked like tuna casserole and had me yearning for a taste. Cordy yearned too, to judge by her avid look when Johanna placed the tray in her lap.

  “Thank you, dear. Tell Charles to bring me my blue comforter.” A hint of autocrat in her voice, and then she was stirring her noodles, no more talk of comforters. Sadness touched Johanna’s face, fading as quickly as Cordy’s short-term memory.

  “I’ll buy two consonants,” somebody shouted to wild applause.

  We went back to the dining area. At the window, I watched shadows race across the summerhouse roof. The evening sun flared through a cloud, and I remembered how dawn had burnished Chaz’s face in the hospital waiting room.

  Johanna joined me, an envelope in her hand. She was wearing elliptical glasses that made her look shrewd. “Why did you ask about my father this afternoon?” Her voice was accusing, and my first impression of her, someone to dislike, came galloping back.

  “I didn’t know he was your father. Chaz told me he’d lost his parents in tragic ways. The question is why would he tell me those stories?”

  “Negotiating tactic.” She rubbed her finger across the top of the envelope.

  “Nothing to negotiate.” I repeated my mantra. “I signed no contract with Chaz.”

  “What do you call this?” She yanked papers out of the envelope.

  We sat at the table, and I read over a standard agency contract: I’ll find what you want if you pay me a fee. In this one, the agent, me, agreed to find a relocation site for NGT anywhere in Massachusetts except the Navy Yard because Chaz was aware of that location. Twenty thousand of my forty thousand dollar finder’s fee was payable upon signing. It was a copy, dated two Mondays ago, the day I had agreed to advise Chaz’s campaign.

  It certainly looked like my signature.

  “It’s a forgery,” I said, out of my depth and wildly calm.

  Johanna shoved her glasses to the top of her head, her eggshell skin sallow in the waning light. “Why on earth would Charles forge your signature?”

  “Who says he did? Maybe whoever benefits forged his signature, too.” I aligned the pages and reattached the clip. “He paid me to advise his campaign. You’re certain he didn’t mention that to you?”

  She leaned across the table, ready to leap for my throat. “My husband had no interest in politics. In our twenty-three years together, he never once voted.”

  “Maybe he changed more than houses when you separated.”

  “And maybe you are looking to keep money that doesn’t belong to you.” Her lips stretched over her teeth, nothing in her eyes except an anger that reinforced my calm.

  “Your husband wanted a campaign consultant,” I insisted, as if stubborn repetition ever convinced anyone of anything. “He considered twenty thousand dollars a suitable fee for my services. And I intend to keep it.”

  She snatched the papers out of my hand. “I’ll get the money back, in court if necessary.”

  “Go ahead and sue me. Other reputations besides mine will be on the line.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  I pointed to the contract. “Who else but you benefits from the forgery?”

  “I am not a forger.”

  Cordy’s television erupted in laughter, a better reply than the one I bit back. I got up to leave. “You won’t get far without the original agreement. If one exists.”

  “Wait, Susan.” With visible effort, Johanna smothered her anger. “Let’s look at this another way. What if Charles did come to you for campaign advice? Was whatever you did worth twenty thousand dollars?”

  I walked to the window and studied shadows on the lawn, about as reasonable a way to insight as tea leaves or psychotherapy. The short answer to Johanna’s question was no. A longer answer would surely tangle me in tedious quandaries about rights, honor, personal integrity, the rule of law. I went with no.

  Back at the table, I said, “Got any more of that casserole?”

  ***

  “Find the nominating petition and you’ll see where I fit in.” A few noodles clung to the rim of the pan, and I scraped up every crusty bite.

  The coffee stopped brewing, and Johanna unplugged the pot. “Whatever game Charles was playing, his candidacy doesn’t matter. Only the money matters. The twenty thousand he paid you came from a small personal account. It was collateralizing over a million in new loans. I’ve got to replace it or NGT will default straight into bankruptcy.”

  “What about key man insurance?”

  “The insurers are delaying because…it was murder. They want to audit the books.”

  Grande finale music reached us from the library. Johanna didn’t seem to notice, and Cordy probably hadn’t either.

  “We’ve got the Navy Yard lease, so our investors can’t pull the plug because of that.” She sighed. “There’s light at the end of the tunnel. I would hate to lose everything over…an accounting glitch.” She smoothed her arms and looked at me, a sincere look that, had I been a man, would surely have hinted at sex the way certain wines hint at spice. “I can tell what you’re thinking,” she said. “Charles is dead, Torie is dead, and I am completely focused on NGT. You disapprove.”

  “Not at all. Sometimes it’s easier to face tragedy by being practical. I admire that in a way.” A little tiny way. Peculiar people the Langs
and the Renfrows, superegos fully in charge. Chaz had been eager to resume his campaign the day after Torie’s murder.

  “I am in shock,” Johanna said. “But I can’t bring back the dead. My job is the survival of NGT. Charles would have demanded no less of me. NovoGenTech was his proudest creation.” She raised her cup in a kind of salute. “Now, it will be his monument.”

  For a moment, her eyes blazed with the same zealous light I had seen in Chaz’s the night he told me about the immortality gene. I had to admit Johanna was probably correct in her assessment of Chaz’s priorities. His very political campaign had been driven by NGT’s need to expand.

  “When do you pull out of Telford?” I asked.

  “February one. Our Navy Yard site has got to be ready by then. We won’t need to borrow much, just a bridge loan to keep us going till the insurance money comes in. Charles insisted on a large policy, thank God.” She leaned back, her smile almost a gloat. “The police seemed disappointed to learn that NGT is sole beneficiary.”

  That sounded like Sgt. Paul Tyre, who would feel personally thwarted by evidence of innocence.

  “Don’t Chaz’s relatives inherit his shares?”

  “That’s what the sergeant said. Yes, Glenn and I benefit. If NGT survives.”

  I wondered what a divorce would have done to Johanna’s ownership position. “When did you and Chaz separate?”

  “About six months ago. But a few days before he died, he asked me to give it another try, for our son’s sake, and I said yes.” Her complaisance evaporated. “Glenn may be nineteen, but he was devastated by the breakup.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed her, but with Chaz dead, who could contradict her?

  Real-time voices reached us from the library. The television volume dropped, and Cordy murmured a greeting. Seconds later Glenn and a dark-haired girl with puffy cheeks and a small, curved mouth joined us. “Mom, this is Darcy Villencourt,” Glenn said. “I told you about her. We were in the same econ class last year.”