The Long Road Home

by Mary Alice Monroe

  He heard Sidney’s sigh over the wire. “For God’s sake, Charles. Aren’t you done beating that dead horse? Let it go.”

  C.W. resented the bitterness he heard in Sidney’s voice.

  “I have my reasons for asking,” he replied.

  “Hard to say. There is a big mess over his finances. No one is sure even yet how his estate has settled. The whole estate is shrouded with unusual secrecy. Bad loans somewhere, apparently.”

  “Not from our bank, I assume.” C.W.’s voice rang with a warning that Sidney didn’t miss.

  “Of course not. Your instructions were explicit. No loans to MacKenzie. You called that one right.”

  C.W. sensed Sidney’s discomfort on the other end of the line. Sidney was his sister’s husband and his own right-hand man. At the Blair Bank they had been quite a team: Charles Walker Blair was the spearhead, the man of ideas. Sidney Teller was the detail man, his secretary of state. Together, they had brought the Blair Bank to its pinnacle of success.

  In the past year, however, everything had changed. C.W. had changed. How much, he wondered, had Sidney changed?

  C.W. let the silence linger well into the discomfort zone before quietly asking, “What is it, Sid?”

  Another pause, then a clearing of the throat. “On the subject of loans… Something’s wrong at the bank,” he blurted. “I’ve been searching for you for months, but no one can find out where the hell you are. You’d better come back. Right away.”

  “What’s wrong, exactly?”

  “Some bad loans have been issued. To a number of small firms. It all seemed straightforward on paper,” he said in a rush, “but they’ve all come up short. Smells like shell companies, a front of some kind. And, Agatha’s routing me.”

  “What’s she got to do with this?”

  “I’m not sure, but she’s on the march, patrolling the rank and file, shooting out memos, holding court at the board meetings.” He paused. “It’s been tough.”

  C.W. frowned. That Agatha would force an attack against himself and Sidney was no surprise. His brother-in-law and stepmother despised each other with a deliberateness that C.W. found distasteful. Agatha loathed only one person more than Sidney, and that was him. But he had been able to ignore their personal animosity. It was bad for business.

  “Bad loans imply bad judgment,” C.W. replied in a low voice. “Could bring the stock down. The directors will be held responsible.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Here’s what I want you to do. I want the names of the companies we loaned money to. I want the exact dates. And, I want the names of the officers who issued them.”

  “Got it.”

  “One more thing,” he added, on a hunch. “Sniff around the MacKenzie estate. Something is off there; I can feel it.” He thought of MacKenzie’s widow. Was that haughtiness he read in her eyes—or fear?

  “When will you be home?” Sidney asked. There was no mistaking the urgency in his voice.

  C.W. sighed. Home. Where was that? “Soon. I have a commitment to finish up first. In the meantime, don’t let anyone know you talked to me. Keep a low profile but dig around. Find out what’s not being said and report back to me.”

  “Sure, Charles. Where can I reach you?”

  C.W. smiled. “I’ll call you.”

  He hung up the phone but still felt the intangible tie to the bank. Damn this cursed business, he thought. All cuts and stabs. Would he never find a way to free himself of it? Or was he bound to the bank by birth as surely as some monarch to his throne?

  No, he thought with cold sureness. He’d come too far to let the machinations of the bank bring him down again. He’d give Sid a few days to dig up some information, then he’d help his brother-in-law formulate an attack. If worse came to worst, he’d head back to New York, if only long enough to throw his support to Sidney and resign from the bank. He wanted out, that much was certain.

  C.W. ran his hand through his hair and let out a ragged sigh. Leaning back against the wall, he let his gaze roam the small rooms of the Johnston house. It was a modest house that had seen better days. The walls stooped with age and were covered with faded rose wallpaper. The furniture was sparse and poor, and the sofa’s floral upholstery was worn bare in spots.

  Yet, a bright handmade quilt was neatly spread across the fabric, and fall meadow flowers cheered up the dining table. Neat stacks of newspapers and split logs rested beside the warm wood stove. Near the front door, a long line of muddy work boots sat under a large collection of hanging jackets. Closing his eyes, he could still smell the scent of Esther’s coffee and pancake breakfast from the kitchen.

  God almighty, he thought, squeezing his closed lids tight. He’d give his fortune for what he found in this small, family home.

  In Manhattan, in a tall building of ornate cement, up in the penthouse suite, Agatha Blair was just informed that Charles Blair had placed a phone call to Sidney Teller.

  “Where did the call originate?”

  “We don’t have tracers on the line,” replied the voice. “It’s just bugged.”

  Agatha tapped her long red nails in irritation. Such incompetence. Did she always have to tell others how to do their job? Oh well, she muttered. What did it matter? As long as Charles Blair remained out of the picture for two more months.

  Still, it rankled. What was Blair up to now? Sniffing around the MacKenzie estate after all this time. Could he be on to something? Or merely more guilt.

  She pushed the intercom button. “Ask Mr. Strauss to see me. Immediately.”

  As she waited, Agatha Blair considered again her hatred for Charles Blair. The entire Blair family, for that matter. Everything about them, from their clipped, perfect English, their patrician manners, their worldliness, their impeccable taste, all the things that came from growing up with privilege. Even this room, she thought. She was unaware that her lip curled in distaste.

  It was a man’s room, Agatha thought for the millionth time. Dark mahogany wainscotting and baseboards lent the room a denlike quality. On the walls were assorted paintings of indisputable value, but of little interest to her particular taste. She found the landscapes boring and the hunting scenes ridiculous with those long-nosed, long-eared dogs sniffing about.

  This had been the office of the bank’s president, Edwin Charles Blair: her husband. When he died a decade earlier, at long last she’d always thought, Agatha had moved in. She didn’t change a thing. Not that she kept them in fond memory of her husband. No. Each dreaded painting, every masculine appointment, served to remind others not only of her position in the Blair Bank, but in the Blair family. A position hard earned, in her opinion. Despite what the family had thought initially, regardless of the opposition she faced during those years, she had clawed her way to this office and guarded this den as fiercely as any lioness.

  Agatha leaned back in her chintz-upholstered chair, her single deviation toward femininity in this horrid office. It was a man’s room, she thought again. And banking was still a man’s game. She knew the rules and with skill and cunning had bent them, twisted them, and made them work for her.

  The buzzer rang. Her hand tightened upon her cane for a moment, then she slowly released it and moved to the telephone.

  “Send him in.”

  The door promptly opened and stocky, stern-faced Henry Strauss marched into the office. He crossed the room with purpose, and when he reached Agatha’s desk he placed his hands upon it. A simple transgression. Not a threat, that wasn’t Henry’s style. More a reminder of his position and seniority in the bank.

  Agatha’s eyes remained on Strauss’s hands. Fat, peasant hands, she thought with disdain. With delicious slowness she raised her eyes, past the bulging buttons on his double-breasted suit, past the fold of flab that simply could not be contained by the starched button-down collar, inching up beyond jowls far too fleshy for a man in his fifties, to his eyes. Yes, here she could alight without that nasty taste in her mouth. Even behind those heavy black glasses, Strauss�
��s eyes still had that clear German blue, intense and fringed with thick blond lashes. Today, those eyes were angry, as she knew they would be. She considered whether to punish him for his rudeness. Perhaps not. Next time. This time it wasn’t prudent to anger Henry too much.

  “Sit down, Henry.” She flipped her small fingers up twice, shooing him away. Henry cleared his throat, then obediently took one of the dull green leather chairs. Agatha’s eyes gleamed.

  “There’s been a two point drop in MacCorp.,” he said.

  “I know. A trifle.”

  Strauss’s expression did not change, but Agatha’s sharp eyes noted that his nostrils flared.

  “Maybe not for a Blair, but that represents a significant amount of money to a Strauss.” His voice lowered. “I’ve risked everything. You promised me a killing on this stock.”

  Agatha could not contain her smile.

  Strauss blanched. “Oh God, I didn’t mean…”

  “Of course you didn’t. No one imagined poor MacKenzie would take such a drastic course.”

  Agatha forced herself not to reveal her anger at the memory. That fool MacKenzie almost screwed things up killing himself that way. Such a mess; too soon a scandal that rocked the bank. Yet, the Big Mac’s suicide did have its advantages. Not even in her wildest dreams did she think that a man like Charles Walker Blair would have reacted so radically to the suicide. Like father like son.

  Another smile. It was a long, thin slit in an unnaturally tight face. “It turned out rather well in the end, no?”

  Strauss, a veteran of Wall Street slaughters, sat back in his chair, appalled. “Why? Because Charles flipped out? We cannot allow family rivalries to threaten the bank’s stability. Again.”

  Agatha knew Strauss was testing, gauging her reaction. She maintained a cool surface over her boiling point.

  “But of course. Although—” she paused, folding her hands together “—it is rather late for you to be discussing integrity, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Henry’s pale, heavy features deepened in color as he looked at his fat hands. “Where the hell is Charles anyway?” he asked, throwing his head up. “I can’t believe all your private investigators can’t find him. He’s a goddamn Blair after all. You’d think the society pages would have tracked him down by now!”

  Agatha leaned back and brought her nails to tap at her red lips. The tension was clearly getting to Henry Strauss. She had never before heard him use profanity or even raise his voice out of a monotone. Strauss prided himself in his Old World ways; he being from old money. Agatha despised his pretentiousness. She knew that the old money was long gone. They were poor as church mice, the lot of them.

  “Relax, Henry,” she replied, wary now. “All bad pennies turn up.”

  “It’s not like him to run off like that. Maybe he’s dead. He was a mess when he left. A raging drunk.” He shook his head.

  “Since when do you have sympathy for Charles Blair?”

  Strauss looked up again, his pale eyes hooded. “I don’t. I simply don’t trust him. Charles is like a snake. One never knows when or where he’ll strike. He can be very dangerous, you know, especially when riled.”

  Agatha’s eyes narrowed. She thought of Charles’s phone call to Sidney Teller. A small sense of alarm seized her. “Has Bellows turned up anything?”

  “No. Bellows has come up short.”

  She swiveled in her chair. “He’s out,” she snapped. “Understood?”

  “Quite so.”

  Agatha sat back in her chair, tapping the tips of her polished fingernails. “I hear MacKenzie’s widow has left town.”

  “That’s right. Bellows assures me she’s out of the picture. A pathetic figure, actually.”

  “Who cares about her? It’s MacKenzie’s papers I want. That conniving bastard. It would be just like him to keep a secret file on the deal. He was a double-dealer.”

  “We have no reason to believe he did.”

  “All MacKenzie would have had to do was implicate me in any way and that would have been enough for Charles Blair. He is too sharp and he loves the kill as much as I do. No, if those papers exist, I want them.”

  “This whole deal reeks. MacKenzie never should have died. It was supposed to be a done deal. Prop up MacCorp. stock: buy low, sell high. Quick and clean. Who ever would have thought…”

  Agatha narrowed her eyes. “MacKenzie couldn’t make the repayment schedule.”

  “We held twenty-five million in the company as collateral for the loan, for God’s sake! We should have been well protected. If Charles hadn’t sniffed it out and called in the loan, we could have stalled. That was the plan.”

  Agatha sank back in the upholstery, looking with disdain at the sulking figure. Oh no, she thought with satisfaction, that was not the plan. MacKenzie may have duped other bankers into believing his illusion of wealth, but not her. She’d known all along he was too highly leveraged; why else would she have chosen him for her plan? She felt a ripple of pleasure. Banking could be orgasmically delightful.

  Henry gritted his teeth. “There are going to be some embarrassing questions if this gets out.”

  Agatha raised her brows. “If? Surely, you mean when.”

  Henry Strauss flushed along his starched collar. It had to be a first. “We have got to keep MacKenzie’s bankruptcy under wraps,” he said. “It’s agreed.”

  “By whom?”

  “Everyone. The banks, the auditors—everyone wants to get paid back and no one wants a scandal.”

  “His company is headed for receivership. It’s being raided even as we speak. My dear boy. It’s too late.”

  “It’s not too late.” Henry’s voice rose as he did. “The MacKenzie auction can satisfy our loans, at least. We just have to allow a delayed payment schedule. If not, the shit will hit the fan. Sidney Teller is already hot on my trail, trying to call them in. He’s a solid banker. Teller won’t give up.”

  “Think, Henry.” Agatha’s fingers tapped impatiently over the ball of her cane. “What if the auction does not satisfy the loans?”

  “The board will trace the loans to Charles Blair’s office. He’ll be forced out. We all will.”

  “Not all of us. I will not be implicated.” She flicked lint from her lapel. “I will protect you.”

  “And let Charles take the fall?”

  Agatha smiled. “He’s the top man. It was always the risk.”

  Henry Strauss straightened his shoulders and looked Agatha in the eye. For a moment she thought the old Henry had returned. He appeared cool and detached.

  “Of course,” he eventually replied, a hint of the patrician air returning to his voice. “That was the plan all along. I was blind not to have seen it earlier.”

  Agatha looked at Strauss now, not even attempting to disguise her disgust.

  Strauss’s pale lids fluttered. “MacCorp. stock will surely plummet.” His voice flattened. “I’m ruined.”

  Precisely, thought Agatha. They both knew that now Strauss had no choice but to go along.

  “It’s only money. We can make more,” she told Strauss. “You’re tired. Ask Miss Wilton to give you a set of keys to Bar Harbor. It should be empty.” She flipped her thick leather schedule book. “Yes, Cornelia is in Palm Beach already.”

  Flipping the pages back again, Agatha assumed a magnanimous expression. “Take a few days to unwind. The next few weeks will be critical if we are to pull this off. And we will. Charles has no power here any longer. I hold all the strings. We can’t have you tense, now can we?”

  Henry narrowed his eyes. Agatha searched them but could not read them. He was the old, cold Henry.

  “Yes, I think I will,” he said. “I am tired.” His florid features were immobile as he stood lifeless before her desk. His eyes, however, were staring without a blink straight at her, or rather, through her.

  “Thank you for your concern,” Strauss finally said with a slight nod of his head. Then he turned and walked stiffly to the door, never once looking be
hind.

  Agatha watched him leave, an inordinate hatred bubbling up against the younger man. Pathetic pup! How could men be such fools? Edwin, her husband, had proven himself naive, despite his intellect. His son, Charles, was of the same ilk. One after the other, they were all little boys with egos brandished like swords at play. Swagger, spin, and fall.

  She pressed the intercom button. “Call Sidney Teller. Tell him I’m on my way to his office…. Yes, immediately.”

  With Strauss out of town and Charles Blair on the horizon, it was time to get things stirred up a bit. She’d leak just enough to see how much Charles knew. In any case, the MacKenzie estate had to fall quickly.

  “Well, little Henry,” she murmured, grabbing hold of her cane and raising herself up on stiff legs. “You shall get yours. Poor Henry. You were the biggest fool of all. For you, a brief parry and score. But Charles…” Her hand tightened around the cane.

  “Oh, for you, stepson, I waited till the moment when you were most vulnerable. When your mental guard was down. Now, at last, it is time for the attack.”

  Agatha slowly, precisely, extended her arm, aimed her cane, and after a brief swirl of the wrist, thrust the cane forward in a mock fencing ritual.

  “For you, Charles, the thrust lunge.”

  11

  NIGHT IN THE MOUNTAINS comes on quietly, like a thief that steals the farmer’s precious light. Nora climbed from her bed and, slipping a thick robe over her flannel nightgown, padded in her slippers down the stairs into the great room. Even in the evening shadows, the room was magnificent. The ceiling vaulted to twenty-five feet at its peak over huge windows that allowed the night to flow in.

  In the city, the night sky was broken by the lights of other apartments, neon signs, and headlights. Here, the wilderness poured in, thick and unbroken. From somewhere out in the silence, an owl hooted and an animal screeched a shrill wail.

  She shivered and wrapped her robe high along her neck. Outside, she knew the stars shone bright in the crisp air of a country sky. She might see the Big Dipper, maybe even the Milky Way. But she couldn’t bring herself to venture out into the dark unknown. Even the great room was foreboding. Its vastness mirrored the wild space outdoors.