“Oh, uh, just cream, thank you,” I replied automatically.
At last we settled on her couch, but the moment was not as I imagined. There was no awkward silence or pause while one waits for the other to begin in what my aunt referred to as “parlor paralysis.” Aline reclined on an elbow and said, “Are you feeling comfortable in your new home?”
“Little by little,” I replied. “I’ve been living for the past several years near a big city, so it’s a bit of a challenge getting used to the country again.”
“Which city?”
“Fairfax, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C.”
“I’ve never been,” she said. “We see it at the cinema or on the television sometimes—all the statues.”
“It’s just another big city to me.”
“It’s not your hometown?”
“God no!” I said at once. “I was transferred there for my job.”
“I take it you don’t care for Washington?”
“People who haven’t been there believe it’s an amazing city made of marble and alabaster, but behind the statues, D.C. is mostly tribes of hypocrites, professional liars, and self-serving opportunists. They ride in limousines on filthy, violent streets where children get killed over basketball shoes…it’s not my favorite place.”
“Where were you born?” she asked.
“Western side of New York.”
“Near Central Park?”
“No, not the city. I meant New York state; I’m from a small town called Batavia about 350 miles west and nearer to Buffalo.”
“I see,” she said with a nod. “My American geography is not as precise as I’d like.”
I asked if she had been to the US.
“Occasionally,” she answered, “but it’s been a long time.”
Aline turned on the couch to pull a leg beneath her, and I wondered if she would tell me something of her life—the past that Jeremy was careful and deliberate to discuss in only the broadest terms. Perhaps, I thought, she understood my brother’s otherwise innocent social transgressions were not mine. She waited a while, and I wanted to tell her about the place where I grew up if only to continue the topic, but she suddenly looked at me with that funny, sideways glance I’ve since decided is charming and said, “The people you work for; do they understand your situation now?”
“No,” I answered, “but I’ll have to fill them in pretty soon.”
“How will you tell them it’s permanent?”
Her voice was different. Well, maybe not her voice, exactly, but certainly its tone and timbre: almost childlike with an odd inflection of innocence that caught me off guard.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I understand the question.”
She raised her cup, stopping short of her lips for a second to blow away the steam.
“What will you say to let them know you’re staying in Wales from now on?”
Aline steadied the cup in the palm of her hand, looking away, and before I could reply, she continued quickly.
“I’m glad of it, though,” she said softly. “This will be interesting, getting to know each other, and I’m looking forward to it.” She leveled her eyes at mine, straight on and unwavering.
“Are you?”
The question wasn’t delivered in a playful manner or precociously through the suggestive banter we sometimes use to signal our own desires—barely concealed declarations of hope and preference that are often disguised as questions. Instead, Aline spoke with a matter-of-fact quality and confidence that seemed to wash away any pretense of indecision. I didn’t mind, but it was strangely satisfying she somehow understood what I hadn’t told her, as if calling out to me from a future place where she waited. I inched closer but with only enough caution to show the contest was fully engaged.
“We’ll have to see,” I replied with a very small grin. “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
I thought I was being clever in our playful volley, raising the ante as I waited for a coy response, but as she stood and took my cup to refill, Aline just smiled.
“Of course you have, Mr. Morgan.”
Her words hovered in the air as I sat out the silent, thoughtful moment to consider their meaning. It made for a sudden sensation of relief, at least in my mind, that I wouldn’t become an adversary or a bother living on the other side of the hill. Maybe I felt that way knowing she didn’t look at me and see equivalent social challenges that made Damon who he was. As I watched her sipping tea, I wanted desperately to understand how that same moment played out inside her mind, but those answers would have to wait.
We sat a while longer, chatting about the ordinary parts of life that are common and of no particular importance: the places I had been and how it was I came to be an aviation accident investigator. Some of the discussion went to Damon but only at the surface. Throughout, the conversation was one-sided and she was careful to steer each topic away from herself. I saw it immediately, and yet I made no complaint. It was understandable, I thought, since my story was the foreign, untold tale, obliging me to it as a newcomer. The demand for proper etiquette was obvious, so I went along out of respect for a reasonable desire to leave her troubled past in the past.
Aline listened and asked the right questions, but she never revealed much. A coping mechanism, I thought silently, a planned and deliberate part of her recovery one of the faceless psychotherapists might have recommended as a condition of her release.
Laura Maitland, a pal from my childhood days in Batavia, became a clinical psychologist, and she treats those who’ve suffered when ordinary lives are turned to nightmares after the fragile, emotional buffers our minds construct to protect us ultimately fail. Sometimes, she told me, they end it of their own accord or try to, at least. Others descend even further into an irreversible free fall and wind up in locked wards where floor attendants patrol with an eye out for trouble. When it arrives, they call resident physicians who calm with sedatives and restraints, making notes on a clipboard that will guide interviews and therapists determined to reinforce sanity for those on the brink of losing it. I thought of Laura, and I admire her dedication, but it’s not a career path I could endure.
Despite Jeremy’s caution and the mysterious circumstances he wanted so clearly to avoid discussing, Aline didn’t seem to be a person recovering from anything, let alone emotional collapse. Laura told me about the life of patients in her facility when I went home a few years ago: sometimes hopeful and calm this moment but carried to a different, confusing place the next. They’re understandably vulnerable, watchful like cats in a new house, alert and scanning with dilated eyes for signs of trouble they know will undo everything and hurl them backward into an emotional no-man’s-land. Aline was nothing like that, and by the time we finished it was nearly dark.
I was cautious of wearing out my welcome but as I stood to go, Aline asked me to wait a moment while she fetched a torch. A walk up the narrow lane to where it intersects with the road and back down the winding road to my driveway would take half an hour, she insisted, but the better option—a shortcut over the hill—would be made easier with a light to guide my way. I promised to return it the following day when I thanked her for tea and turned south along the footpath through her field.
I knew she stood at the edge of her yard for a while, watching as I made my way carefully down the gentle incline where it parallels the hillside, and it made me smile. It wasn’t for any reason other than knowing we took the first steps without the combative skirmishes my imagination created after learning of the mysterious neighbor girl from Jeremy. Those worries were gone, and I felt closer to the place, no longer an unwanted invader. The experience (and a pleasant stroll through the trees with Aline) left me with a sudden confident sensation of belonging.
In my earliest hours in the valley, the thought of veering into the dark recess of the trees would surely have put me on edge, but somehow it seemed effortless. Retracing our earlier steps wasn’t difficult or confusing, and I put the success dow
n to my keen sense of direction. Was it so, or had I only been lifted by a pleasant visit and the warmth it created? I walked without fear—without concern. Even in the echoes of an otherwise eerie place it seemed strangely familiar, and when I reached my back door to switch on the lights, the feeling was immediate and unmistakable; I had come home.
AFTER breakfast I turned into Aline’s driveway in a light morning drizzle. We chatted a while and I returned Aline’s flashlight in exchange for a cup of coffee and an orange-glazed scone. She was about to leave for Colwyn Bay because auditors, she explained, would arrive soon for an inspection of her books and she wanted to be there so the young girl who manages her shop wouldn’t have to endure the grilling alone.
In that brief second meeting, the moments passed with ease and the comfort of familiarity I wouldn’t have expected (but took with gratitude anyway). I said goodbye and made the short drive around our hill back to my house, and as I tossed my keys on the kitchen counter, my cell phone buzzed suddenly with the number of my supervisor, Tony Morales.
He wondered how I was doing and we talked about Damon for a while. I knew Tony would be able to backfill my position without difficulty, and there were certainly plenty of qualified candidates from which to choose, but resigning my position carried with it an explanation I couldn’t make without the guilt of abandoning my post. I had no lucrative job offers or compelling prospects that made leaving the NTSB at least understandable. Instead, my choice was made by simple desire and I wasn’t prepared to tell him.
Of course, a job as means for continued existence had been made irrelevant by the money delivered from Damon’s will, but even drastic early retirement and an easy life as a modestly wealthy landowner seemed shallow and without purpose. More guilt and unresolved questions between brothers, you could argue? I wish it was so because it would be easy to defend, but in truth, it was only because I wanted nothing to do with crowing about my newly acquired resources like a lottery winner determined to show off in front of ex-colleagues. I knew the money surprise would surface at some point but that was a bridge best left for a future crossing. Rather than a lengthy explanation and a clean break, I decided to tell him a lie.
Damon’s possessions, I insisted, had been meted out in haphazard ways that required full-time attention to sort through in order to avoid lengthy legal battles. Since Vienne moved to a new job herding fashion models at an agency in Montreal, the demands of her responsibilities made it difficult to get away and because of it, transatlantic trips to deal with administrative details fell to me. I tried my best to sound disgusted with it all if only to maintain believability, but I still felt like a heel for offering half-truths to an old friend.
Tony is a steady, patient man who trusts people, and I don’t think it ever occurred to him I was making needless excuses. I did find enough courage to admit a chance existed I might not return for a while; I wanted him to understand there was no expectation he would hold my position. Tony said he would give me another two weeks, but unless I could wrap things up and get back to my caseload, he would be compelled to begin a search for my replacement. I heard a tone of sadness in his voice—the professional responsibilities as a manager overriding friendship because he had to. I didn’t resent it, of course, but it only made worse the needling rub against my guilty conscience, knowing that very process was only a matter of time. It wasn’t fair to him, I know, but at least he wouldn’t be taken off guard when I called to say I was done at the NTSB. An hour later the phone went off again, but this time the number was Vienne’s.
“Hey,” she said with a voice that sounded low and muted by fatigue.
“You okay?” I asked, but she had other things on her mind.
“Did you speak with the money people yet?”
“No, but it sounds like you have.”
On Liam Donnelley’s recommendation, we retained a wealth management firm outside London charged with assessing the specifics of Damon’s legacy beyond the cash transferred into our accounts in Montreal and the UK. They sent representatives to find and sort through the details, especially those hidden in almost a dozen banks all over the world. I knew their preliminary work was finished, making for an inevitable meeting—and another train ride south—at their offices in Guildford.
“They called about an hour ago,” she said in a careful, hushed voice. “Evan, this is getting crazy now; when we gave them all the stuff from the will—the keys and custody documents—they sent their agents to bring back the valuables Damon had in those banks.”
“What did they find?”
“They finished with the first phase, so I went online and looked at our joint account—the one I set up after my first meeting with Mr. Donnelley?”
“I remember.”
“The bill for their services so far was almost twenty-five thousand and that’s not even counting their management fees; it was mostly expenses for hotels and airline tickets!”
“Twenty-five grand for travel? Where were they going?”
“That’s what I wanted to know, so I looked at the itemized invoice they sent to my e-mail and now I can see why.”
The amounts seemed excessive, but Vienne’s discovery was only the beginning.
“They had to fly to Tokyo, Hong Kong, then to Melbourne, and that’s just the first wave. They came back to England for a day or two, then off to Pretoria, some place called Antananarivo, and then back up to Zurich. Yesterday, two of them came in to London after a final stop in Santiago. I knew Damon’s job took him all over the place but this is ridiculous!”
“What the hell was he doing in Chile?”
“Looking at dead people,” she mumbled. “He told me about freeze-dried mummies, or some weird shit like that—typical Damon stuff—but the dig was in a really remote desert, and…”
“The Atacama,” I noted. “It’s where those copper miners were stranded a few years ago, remember?”
“Yeah, that’s it; Damon was so excited because he’d never been. He sent me a card right after he arrived in some town called Antofagasta. It’s a beautiful city near the ocean with palm trees and beaches, but it’s right on the edge of this huge desert wasteland. I always loved that name—Antofagasta. It sounds like a Mafia insult or something, right? Hey asshole, Antofagasta!”
“Vienne…”
“Okay, I’m sorry, Evan; this is just so strange and…”
“He had bank accounts in all these places?” I asked, as the details of Damon’s secret life began to emerge.
“Yep, and we’re not talking about some hole-in-the-wall credit union, either; these are places with armed guards in the lobby and customers who don’t use drive-through ATM machines to grab a twenty.”
“So where does that leave us?”
“There’s a separate amount for handling fees,” she continued. “Another fifteen thousand.”
“What was there to handle,” I demanded. “Isn’t the currency safe where it is?”
“They left most of the currency; their handling fee was for the gold and silver—a lot of it.”
“I thought it was just a few coins or Krugerrands.”
She waited a moment and I heard her take in a full breath of air, exhaling slowly.
“You didn’t see the full list. There are thousands of them, Evan. They had to be gathered and put into special locking containers accompanied by hired goons all the way back to London. Some of the little bars were minted over a century ago; they’re worth more than the gold they’re made of.”
“Damon was always crawling around in the places where priceless stuff pops up, so I guess it makes sense he kept a few for himself, right?”
“He didn’t find them,” she said. “When I looked at copies of his invoices and transfer statements with his clients, I noticed a sudden uptick in his service fees and part of their payments started shifting to gold.”
“I don’t understand what that means.”
“He started charging twice or even three times the amount for a standard appraisal t
han he did before,” she replied. “This wasn’t a random percentage increase here or there; it was applied across the board. I know those artifacts are high-end, but even still…”
It was my turn to pause, trying to envision what Vienne’s words meant.
“What the hell was he into?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, “but whatever it was, he jacked the price for his services right out of the blue. Damon never gave a shit about the business side of appraisals; he did what he did because he enjoyed the work.”
“What changed?” I asked.
“He changed,” Vienne replied. “I checked around with some people in town who know a lot about the market for the shit Damon dug up or went to look at on his clients’ behalf.”
“And?”
“He was charging next to nothing for his services, but then almost two years ago he woke up and made huge adjustments to his price list.”
“Wouldn’t that hurt his business?”
“I guess not because none of his clients put up a fight; they kept going to him for appraisals.”
“They must’ve done well following his advice,” I added.
“I’m sure they did,” she replied, “but it gets stranger still: last year, Damon’s invoicing for services switched from electronic transfer of funds to equivalent amounts in precious metals and also for options in a bunch of companies.”
“Damon did that?” I asked in disbelief.
“Yes, and it was so sudden; almost overnight.”
“So, now what?”
“Hold on,” she continued, “we’re just getting started.”
I smiled and shook my head in helpless disbelief as she read from a list.
“That little farm of yours and the apartment in Malaga weren’t the only properties he owned, not by a long shot. The agents brought back letters of incorporation, or at least the local equivalent, from businesses in places I’ve never heard of, and all those documents showed partial interest or ownership in Damon’s name.”
“What kinds of businesses?”
“Well, for starters, a precision manufacturing shop in Linz, Austria—five percent. Here’s an advertising and promotional studio, also in Austria, but this one is near Salzburg—eight percent. Almost fifteen percent in a farm that grows cash crops somewhere near Manaus, which I had to look up on the internet to find it’s a city way the hell down in central Brazil. Damn it, Evan, this is like learning he was some sort of secret agent, or who knows what!”
The Seventh Life of Aline Lloyd Page 6
