The Widower's Wife Page 3

  When it was his turn to order, he requested coffee, skim milk, no sugar, the way Leslie had gotten him to order it after years of nagging. He pushed the thought of his ex-wife out of his head and looked for a spot to sit. The women ahead of him had taken their drinks to one of two bistro tables pressed against a picture window. As good a thinking spot as any.

  He paid and brought his drink to the empty table. Silver light struggled through a chalky film covering the glass. It would snow later. He’d need to get back on the road before it started.

  Ryan plopped down on the stool and then pulled his cell from his pants pocket. He opened his e-mail and started a new message. His own address went in the to field. The subject: Ana Bacon.

  Suicide wouldn’t be easy to prove. It was rare for women to take their own lives. Only about five in one hundred thousand American females killed themselves each year, and most of those were either terminally ill or recently divorced. Still, suicide was more likely than the alternative. Of all the unfortunate ways to die, falling off a cruise ship was one of the unluckiest. The odds? Exactly 1 in 2.31 million. A person was twice as apt to be struck by lightning. Plus, nearly all “accidental” falls were due to intoxication. As a pregnant mother, Ana hadn’t been drinking, at least not according to her husband.

  Tom had blamed illness for Ana’s death. He’d told news crews that his wife had suffered from a bad combination of morning and motion sicknesses. On the day that she died, he’d left her sleeping in a lounge chair on their balcony to go to the pool (where he’d been seen by multiple people). She’d been exhausted from vomiting on and off all afternoon, leading Tom to believe that Ana must have gotten sick over the side of the boat and lost her balance. Fellow vacationers had supported his story, claiming that Ana had been ill during dinner. Tom’s alibi and the anecdotal comments from cruise-goers had been all the BMA had needed to claim “no evidence of foul play.”

  Ryan sipped from his coffee cup. He tapped the sides of the cardboard, pounding out the pins and needles from his thawing fingers as he tried to imagine the scenario Tom had envisioned. He pictured the attractive woman in the news photos leaning over the railing, her thin frame, made thinner by the inability to keep down food, extending too far over the side of the boat in a vain attempt to avoid splattering the boards beneath her with sick and then, somehow, tumbling over the forty-two-inch railing.

  Ryan pressed his eyes shut. It just didn’t make sense, and it would never fly with his bosses. His job was to get ISI out of paying ten million dollars, not explain how a five-foot-seven woman could, from the force of vomiting alone, propel herself up and over a large wooden bar set just below her sternum.

  He typed “suicide” into his notes. To prove it, he’d need to know more about the Bacons’ finances and marriage—especially their marriage. Men took their lives because of money problems. Women did so because of relationship issues. If he could prove both existed in the Bacon household, even better.

  Where to start? Investigating rule of thumb: people grumbled about work at home and about home at work. He would speak with Ana’s old coworkers at Derivative Capital. If the Bacons’ relationship had been on the rocks, Ana was more likely to have complained to an office pal than to a neighbor.

  Ryan took a long sip of coffee and stared outside the salt-splattered window. The street was as empty as a Hopper painting, though there were surely people in the shops. Ryan noted nail salons, hair salons, Pilates studios—establishments catering to well-to-do women. A less affluent suburb might have fast food restaurants, but here, if both parents worked, they probably employed a housekeeper or a cook.

  Tom Bacon didn’t appear to have help. But he didn’t come across as a stay-at-home-dad type. The guy didn’t even know how to get his kid a snack.

  Ryan typed himself an instruction to track down any current or former workers in the Bacon home. Nannies. Housecleaners. Service people are great sources. Stay-at-home moms confide in their staff, as they are typically the only other adults around during the day. Women who work in others’ homes are also experts at blending into the background when needed, enabling them to witness arguments.

  Tom wouldn’t just volunteer the name of any mommy’s helper, not if she’d seen anything relevant. Ryan had his work cut out for him. He looked up at the women beside him, now chatting between sips. “Excuse me, misses.”

  Botox Queen liked his choice of prefix. She smiled at him, blank face prepared for a compliment.

  “I recently came to the area. Are there any cleaning services that either of you could recommend?”

  The edges of her plastic smile pulled in without crinkling the skin. “Did you buy in town?”

  He ignored the question. “If we wanted someone to clean a large home . . .”

  “Sorry. My nanny cleans while the kids are in school.”

  The friend sat up straighter. “We’re thinking of getting a service to come in once a month.” She turned to her gym buddy. “I think Madeleine straightens up more than really scrubs, you know? And the kids are always tracking in the salt from outside. It’s ruining the floors.”

  “Which service are you thinking of?” Ryan asked.

  “Robomaids. Everyone in town uses them. They come to your house like an army with mops and brooms. Done in a few hours, then on to the next house. And they’re like the mailman,” the woman giggled. “Neither rain nor sleet nor nor’easter.”

  “Well, the problem with having an army is you don’t know who is really in your house.” Ryan imagined that Botox Queen would have frowned at her friend’s suggestion, if her muscles hadn’t been paralyzed. “A lot of these services are staffed with illegals, so if they steal something, they can just disappear.”

  The other woman waved off her criticism. “They have so many clients. I can’t imagine they have a problem with things going missing. Reputation is everything.”

  Ryan smiled broadly and thanked them before rising from the table. He took his coffee with him. Now that he’d opened the lines of communication, the women might want to chat. He’d enjoy the drink more in the car. Besides, he had work to do.

  4

  August 11

  The lap pool beckoned at the edge of the property, a sapphire sparkling in the darkening sky, set in a square of tarnished grass. Blades crunched beneath my bare feet as I crossed the lawn to my oasis. My escape from my husband.

  I couldn’t argue with him anymore. The alcohol had been talking, not Tom. I’d said as much when he’d tried to outline his ludicrous plan to collect on an insurance policy that we didn’t even have. You’re insane right now. Go sleep it off. My swimming would give him time to stew and then simmer down. Once sober, he’d realize how silly he’d been. He’d apologize.

  My black racing suit hugged my curves as I strode to the pool. Too often, clothing hung from my narrow frame, bypassing the inset of my waist to make me appear as rectangular as a Lego figurine. But the Speedo accentuated my hips. I wondered whether Tom was watching me from the kitchen window. Would he find me sexy? Did sex even cross his mind anymore, or was he too despondent from his job loss?

  Prickly grass gave way to smooth stone. I dipped my toes into the water. It was cool, not cold. Still, shivers ran down my back as I lowered myself into the pool. I submerged my face, an ostrich burying its head in the sand. I screamed.

  Yelling is silent underwater. I could wail until my face turned blue and all anyone would see was a tiny disturbance on the surface when, beneath, a furious sea fizzed around my eyes and nose. How could Tom just fall apart like this? I understood that for type-A men, losing a job was akin to the death of a loved one. I’d expected the anger and despair, even the drinking. But irrational fantasies?

  Lack of air squeezed my temples. I tossed back my head and gasped. I felt sick. Screaming wasn’t good enough. I needed to swim.

  I grabbed the silicone cap that I always left to dry at the edge of the pool and tucked my hair inside. I pulled the goggles from my scalp onto the bridge of my nose.
Ready, I scrunched like a spring against the cement wall. My thighs shot forward. My right arm extended straight, fingers flat. I pulled my hand in. Pounds of water pushed behind me.

  I owed Tom for this release. If not for fear of losing my fiancé to baby bulge, I would never have dragged myself to the YMCA in the first place. I wouldn’t have started swim classes and learned to shed tension in the water.

  The lane line beneath me turned into a T. The wall loomed within a stroke’s length. I folded at the waist. My legs flipped over my head. My feet hit tile. I propelled forward, kicking the water into froth. Swimming, rather than sniping, drained my anger. Tom needed an outlet other than drinking.

  Without warning, my right leg seized. Lights exploded in my vision as my calf contracted with labor-like pain. I thrashed in the water, trying to rub out the cramp while floating. Too much lactic acid. Not enough water. Tom’s fault. Had he not gotten me so upset, I wouldn’t have wasted precious hydration on tears.

  I drilled my thumbs into the spastic muscle. After an excruciating minute, the pain subsided. Aftershocks ran through the leg. I pulled myself up onto land and extended the injured limb above the water.

  A minute later, I limped to the gate. Tom leaned on the other side of the iron finials. A frown, highlighted by the lights beneath the shimmering water, drew down his face. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Charley horse. How long have you been there?”

  Tom shrugged. “I brought you a towel.” He tossed the white, fluffy fabric over the fence. It waved like a flag of surrender in the air.

  I caught it. “Thanks. I forgot to bring one down.”

  “Are you coming to bed?”

  “Right after I rinse off.”

  The night air no longer felt warm as I rubbed the towel over my extremities. I pulled off my cap and shook out my hair, trying to look like a swimsuit model, trying to make my husband want me.

  Tom’s eyes glazed. He watched something in his mind, a scene from the past or hope for the future.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “You’re not going to tell anyone about what we discussed?”

  Our ridiculous dinner conversation hardly qualified as a discussion. “No. Of course not.”

  “Good.” Tom turned toward the house. “You coming?”

  “I’ll follow you up right after I shower.”

  “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

  “I love you.”

  My words trailed him as he marched back to the house, stamping a path into the brittle remains of our once lush lawn. He didn’t seem to hear me. He didn’t look back.

  5

  November 17

  The phone rang in Ryan’s ear, a mechanical tone that had twice before ended with a machine. The woman sitting perpendicular from him at a broad mahogany desk cast a scolding glance over her shoulder. She clearly didn’t think it appropriate for visitors to Derivative Capital to chat on their cells while waiting for her boss.

  There was little cause for concern. He knew Robomaids wouldn’t answer his calls. If they’d intended to discuss a former client with an investigator, they would have returned his voicemails by now. He regretted not pretending to need a quote when he’d first phoned. Now he’d need to harass their answering machine until they called to make him stop.

  A familiar Spanish accent picked up. “You have reached Robomaids. Out with the stains, in with the sparkle.” The woman spoke the line as though she read off a card, with difficulty. “Please leave a message with your home’s square footage, number of beds and baths, days you require the cleaning, address, and a contact number and we will call you back with an estimate.”

  For the third time, he explained that he investigated Ana Bacon’s disappearance and needed to know if she’d been a client. The secretary stared at him the whole time he spoke. When he hung up, she finally relaxed into her chair, leaning back and angling her torso so that the boss behind the glass wall had a prime view of her improbable breasts.

  The plaque on the woman’s desk read administrative assistant, but her outfit advertised an altogether different profession. Cleavage popped from the plunging neckline of her white button-down, which couldn’t have closed if she’d tried. Her black skirt barely covered her upper thighs when seated.

  The outfit embarrassed him. He averted his gaze and fidgeted with the lock on the briefcase in his lap, feeling as though he was about to interview for a job above his pay grade. At times like this, he missed his NYPD badge—the way it forced people to stand up straighter, show respect, and above all, share information. Without it, he was just an employee of a private company, begging the favor of a conversation.

  Ana’s old boss, Michael Smith, had agreed to a meeting, providing that Ryan “kept it brief.” No one would have dared say that to him when he’d been in the Financial Crimes Unit.

  “Mr. Smith will see you now.”

  Ryan turned to see the blurry image of a man waving behind a frosted glass door. Michael stood from his desk as Ryan entered. He wore a smug smile that advertised his wealth as easily as his custom suit and the thick, silver hair that fell low on his forehead.

  The banker leaned across his desk to dole out a salesman’s shake, which Ryan returned with some awkwardness. Michael remained standing after his hand dropped to his waist, as though this last-minute meeting was keeping him from heading out the door. He cleared his throat. “So I understand that you have some questions about Ana Bacon.”

  “I do.” Ryan pulled out a chair in front of the desk and settled in. He set his briefcase on the floor and removed a notepad. Michael’s eye twitched as he brought out the pen, a whistleblower spooked by a recording device. Ryan waved the pad. “Helps me remember.”

  Michael’s mouth drew into a line. He glanced at a wall clock and then resumed his seat in a wide captain’s chair. “I’ve got a meeting soon.”

  “I understand.” He did. He just didn’t care. “When did Ms. Bacon start working here?”

  Michael’s eyes rolled toward his forehead, as though struggling to remember something years, not months, before. “I guess it was the beginning of February. She came in for an interview in late January and I hired her soon after.”

  “She was your secretary?”

  “My administrative assistant.” Michael gestured toward the glass wall and the woman sitting just outside it. “I need someone to keep my schedule, answer the phone, get coffee, that sort of thing.”

  The mention of coffee alerted Ryan to the stale scent of java lingering in the air. It mixed with a musky cologne that Ryan could only assume wafted from Michael.

  “Was she good at it?” he asked.

  Michael’s self-satisfied smirk twisted at the edge, turning sheepish. “I hate to speak ill of the dead.”

  “So she wasn’t good at it?”

  “Well, you know . . .” He shrugged. “What can I say? Clients liked her.”

  Ryan bet they had. Judging from the photos on the news, Ana Bacon was a good-looking woman with large, downturned eyes, a tawny complexion, and a straight, narrow nose. Nice figure. Pretty smile. The kind of woman most men enjoyed having around.

  “But you didn’t like her?”

  Michael rubbed the back of his neck. A tell, for most people. Smith was probably about to lie, maybe to avoid trashing a former employee. “I wouldn’t say I disliked her. She was nice. Very friendly.” Had he winked, the suggestion that Ana’s behavior had bordered on inappropriate could not have been clearer.

  “Flirty?”

  Michael tilted his head as if to rhetorically ask, Aren’t they all? A thick, platinum band glinted below the knuckle on his left ring finger. By age forty, about four-fifths of Americans had married. Roughly two-fifths of those got divorced. Ryan had never wanted to join the latter statistic.

  “Was Ana’s friendliness an issue for you?”

  Michael shook his head. “No. No. I didn’t care. Again, she was fine. Competent, for the most part.” He leaned forward. “Truth is, her husband
was the real problem. He wasn’t working, but he couldn’t even remember to pick up the darn kid from daycare. She’d end up running out all the time to get her daughter.”

  Ryan wrote family emergencies in his notepad. Below it, he scrawled, Tom = Depressed? “Do you have the name of the daycare?”

  “Not sure. I think once I heard Apple something-or-other.”

  “I guess the Bacons didn’t have a backup sitter?”

  “I don’t see how they could have afforded one. We paid Ana well, of course, but she was just an admin, and she’d been out of work for a few years prior, so it wasn’t like she commanded top dollar. Her husband didn’t contribute anything.” Michael said the last comment with disdain, as if the worst thing a man could do was not make money.

  “She told you that?”

  Again, Michael scratched behind his neck. Ryan wondered what made the man more uncomfortable: the presence of an investigator or disparaging a dead woman.

  “Well, she didn’t exactly talk to me about it, but I’m guessing she wouldn’t have returned to work if her husband had a bunch saved.” Michael leaned back and lowered his head, speaking down his nose. “Between us, the guy didn’t manage risk right. Trade blew up on him. Cost his bank a hundred mil.”

  A smile cracked Michael’s mouth. Ryan got the sense that the details of Tom Bacon’s departure were an open secret on Wall Street, one that traders enjoyed sharing. Given that Tom’s wife had just died, Michael’s undisguised schadenfreude said something. But was it simply evidence of a competitive personality? Or did it have something to do with Ana?

  “I take it that he would have had trouble securing other employment?”