Widow's Row

by Lala Corriere

  “Do you want me to wait outside?”

  “God no. Once again, I...”

  Jonathan brought his hands in to cup my face and lifted it up toward his. “...You what? Go ahead. You can say it, tough girl,” he whispered.

  “I need you.”

  A warm grin crossed his face as he offered me the chair. I shook my head again and kneeled upon the floor. Jonathan eased himself down next to me. I unwound the brown string that closed the folder, reached in and pulled out the thick stack of papers.

  Neatly organized with paperclips and staples, I began sorting as Jonathan watched. The first section of papers included copies of newspaper clippings, all stapled together. Each page had been marked extensively with a yellow highlighter. Soon I deduced they were in chronological order, starting with stories about the murder of my mother, followed by articles on the death of the private investigator I had hired, and Naomi Gaines.

  The second stack, maybe twenty-five or thirty pages paper clipped together, presented a history of printed email conversations. I was quick to determine they comprised cryptic messages between my father, Baird, and Adam Chancellor. The triangle of evil.

  I flipped through some of the other papers: court documents, travel documents, and miscellaneous memos. Another sealed envelope was wedged against the side of the same compartment.

  I recognized it. It didn’t have an addressee nor a return address, but the scribbles—random numbers and diagrams, were identical to the envelope Adam had handed my father when we were sitting in his kitchen. Adam had joked when I wanted to know what it was. He said it was my dowry, only he was the one making the payment to Dad rather than my dad paying him to take me off his hands.

  Inside was more proof of my father’s betrayal to me. The opened package of notecards was the same paper as the ones used for the written threats I had received. ‘Go home’. ‘I can make you dead.’ Even the calligraphy pen clipped to the side had the same pale pink ink used to write the notes.

  “There’s more,” Jonathan said, picking up the large folder.

  Turning it upside down and shaking it, four flash drives bound by a rubber band fell out. Also, a pair of wadded up latex surgical gloves, a plastic bag filled with a quantity of an oily black powdery residue, and bullets. “Based on everything you’ve told me, I’m guessing this will prove to be ammunition from an antique Russian gun,” he said.

  “I’ve no doubt. It will match the gun I have in my safety deposit box.”

  “Looks like he’s given you everything, Breecie.”

  I swallowed, clamping my jaw tight and staring at the materials now splayed across the coffee table. “I suppose. Everything I need to make things right.”

  “What do you want to do, Sweetheart? What next?”

  “I want to go home. Now that I know what it is, I want to take my time and sift through this stuff. Make sure it’s all the evidence I need. Knowing Dad, it will be more than enough. Then it’s back to that perfect timing thing.” I stood up and started replacing the materials back in the accordion file.

  “Timing?”

  “I think the third of October will be the perfect date for D.C. police and newspapers to receive copies of everything you see here.”

  “Why that date?”

  “First, Adam’s election will only be four weeks away. It will create a juicy last minute uproar, while still giving the party and the voters a small chance to get back on their feet with another candidate.”

  “And?” Jonathan ushered me out the door and retrieved the house key to put back in the lockbox.

  “And truthfully, at least according to Adam, it’s the day we were to be married. It has some sort of political historical significance, none of which mattered to me, but really mattered to him.”

  “Hell hath no fury...” he started.

  “...As Breecie Lemay, scorned,” I finished.

  Once back inside the Range Rover, I needed music. I turned on Jonathan’s CD player. Claire de Lune. I should have known. Maybe things were going to be okay. Maybe.

  Once home we immediately went to my computer and put in the first flash drive. I opened the first file—a video clip. Jonathan and I watched and listened, a captive audience to my father. He started with what I guess he considered to be the beginning.

  He sat alone behind his desk. The camera clearly showed the recording device. He was on the phone discussing the detailed birth of the plans to kill my mother, Cecilia Lemay.

  Voices came through on the speakerphone. George Baird, Adam Chancellor, and James Lemay all spoke freely with one another and with confidence, as if they were in a corporate executive board meeting complete with a formal agenda. No one but my father was aware of the taping. Why he would tape it, I didn’t know. Maybe as blackmail insurance, should something go wrong.

  “You’re exhausted, Breecie. This can wait until morning.”

  I looked across at Jonathan through tears and nodded.

  We collapsed on my bed, naked and spoon-style. I don’t think either of us moved until the next morning when the telephone rang.

  “I’m not budging,” I whispered to Jonathan. “It can go to voicemail.”

  Not one minute passed before I reached for the phone to retrieve the message. Part of me, the naïve and sorry part, hoped it would be my father’s voice.

  “Miss Lemay? I’m calling from your father’s bank. Your father’s old bank. We met yesterday when you were inquiring about his accounts, and well, I came across something rather unusual I thought might be of interest to you. I told you that your father closed his accounts with us on the first of September. What I didn’t know at the time is rather odd. I thought I should tell you; you were so upset and I couldn’t help much. He only took out the rental of his safety deposit box on August twenty-eighth. He never used it. We keep signature records every time a customer accesses his box. Well, people do change their minds, but I just thought you should know.”

  I relayed the message to Jonathan. “Open and closed within days, and the paperwork to prove it.”

  “I’ll be damned. You told me that was your first clue. That your father would never have a safety deposit box at a bank,” Jonathan said, pulling me tight against his warm skin. “He was giving you another clue, just in case, wasn’t he?”

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  For Sale

  One good night’s sleep and a spontaneous Marasco deep-tissue massage, and I could feel the revitalization of my body. My mind was another matter, more like dried up mud that crunched like potato chips when you walked on it. I took a deep breath and rolled around to check the clock on my nightstand. Almost ten, already.

  Jonathan laced his fingers through my hair. “Are you worried about your dad?”

  I turned back around to catch his pensive look. “Inexplicably, no. I’m not worried about where he is and I’m not worried about what will happen to Adam. Maybe that’s the last gift my dad gave me. It’s all about the knowledge that I now have what it will take to find a little justice for my mother.”

  “It’s going to be a tough road to travel.”

  “I imagine it will take a few curves.”

  Benny leaped onto the bed and promptly curled up on the blanket between Jonathan’s feet.

  “It’s way past his breakfast time. I’ll put on some coffee for us, too.”

  Even in the midst of turmoil, it was a new day for me. A day for me to reclaim my life. Colors seemed brighter. The air smelled fresher. The robe around my body felt softer. Even the dripping coffee sounded like an enchanting melody.

  I poured a scoop of cat food into Benny’s dish and reached for a bag of Niger seed for the gold finches and small songbirds that frequented the feeders out on my veranda. All too soon, most would disappear for the winter.

  Opening the French doors, cool air rushed in as I stepped out. I tightened the belt of my robe, than began the ritual of filling my brass bird feeders that overlooked the front grounds. That’s when I noticed Ari Christenson shaking hand
s with another man.

  Overhearing the conversation was easy, even from two floors above. They both boasted obnoxious voices that carried.

  I heard Johnny Yan first. “You won’t be sorry. You’ll get top-notch service from the best.” I peered down to see him replacing dark, celebrity-style sunglasses across the bridge of his pinched nose.

  “Leave your signs here with me. I’ll have my ranch hand put them up this morning,” Ari said. “I want you working on this right away.”

  “You’ll be in the MLS within the hour. I’ll have a photographer out here for exterior shots this afternoon. Ads will be in the newspapers by the weekend. You work it out when I can get interior photographs, given your tenant situation.”

  From behind me, “I love the smell of brewing coffee on a crisp autumn morning.” Jonathan joined me in nothing but his 501 jeans, not quite buttoned up. He took one look at me and asked, “What’s happened now?”

  My hands became sweaty and the lump in my throat prevented me from responding. Ari looked up at the two of us and waved.

  “Guess we’re busted,” Jonathan whispered.

  “We’re more than busted,” I said, feeling the loss as any brief happiness fled my body. “We’re about to be up a creek. He’s just listed this place for sale.”

  Ari hollered up without missing a beat, “Now, don’t you two sick love birds worry ‘bout nothing. Any buyer will have to honor your leases. Just ain’t no law says I have to stick around to see it.”

  Yelling at Ari to stay put, Jonathan grabbed my hand. “Throw some clothes on,” he said.

  His warm voice reassured me. “Button up your pants,” I said.

  He smiled.

  We stormed down the stairs and out to the front lawn. Johnny Yan didn’t stick around. He had all he needed in the signed listing agreement I guess.

  Ari leaned the real estate signs up against a hedge and ran his nail-bitten fingers through tangled strands of greasy hair. “Like I said, you guys, ain’t no skin off your backs. I just can’t afford this place anymore. There’s no income coming in ‘cept for you two renters. The only thing kept me going was the money off of...”

  “...George Baird,” I interrupted. I could feel those muddy potato chips in my brain falling to the pit of my stomach.

  “Hey, I know nothing ‘bout the man ‘cept that he’s dead. He rented these storage buildings from me—not my business as long as it was nothing gonna blow us up, and he ran what I would call two good businesses outta here. Now, I’m left with about a month’s worth of food for those damn chinchillas, two more months on the bulls. Then they start costing me money ‘less someone comes lay claim to them or I can sell them off.”

  I motioned to the front porch, now more worried about the animals’ welfare than mine. “Mind if we talk? I mean, we are curious. It will only take a couple minutes.”

  Ari complied, shuffling his Tevas and following Jonathan and I up to the informal circle of Adirondack chairs on the front porch. “I hope this has nothing to do with your dad,” he said to me. “I never met him, you know.”

  “I don’t doubt you. Outside of when he practiced law, he laid low most his life. I’m just wondering, with regard to Baird’s interests here, has anyone even tried to locate any next of kin or his attorney?”

  Ari sank against the hard wood of the chair as if it were his mother’s womb. “Talked to his secretary the day she was shutting down the guy’s Denver office. Hysterical little woman. She found herself high and dry without a paycheck. Told me the wife had got herself whacked right before the old geezer did, and so far as she knew no one came forward to foot the bill to ship Baird’s body back from Mexico. Secretary told me the only things that might be his, and not belong to the Mexicans or the Russians, not that I know nothin’, might be an old cabin and a private plane—a damn fancy plane, but no one seems to know where they are. Might have sold them off or something.”

  The lawyer in me saw the twitching in his throat as he spoke. He was lying about something.

  “I’m sorry you have to sell,” Jonathan said. “I know you really like it here.”

  Ari drew out a pack of cigarettes from the front pocket of his Hawaiian shirt. He palmed one, then toiled with his lighter as if maybe he was reconsidering telling us anymore. “Yeah, well, I’ve got a place to go. Have some new ranching plans, just as soon as I cash out of this place.”

  “A smaller ranch, I guess,” I said. I watched as he lit one of the Sobranie cigarettes he could still manage to afford. His derisive grin turned to a deep frown when he noticed a rabbit, two babies in tow, scampering back into the shelter of the hedges surrounding the house. Ari was always annoyed when I threw handfuls of carrots to them.

  He took a full drag on his cigarette. “Actually, bigger and better.”

  “I don’t understand. I mean good for you, but if you can’t afford this place?” Jonathan probed.

  “Let’s just say it’s legitimate ranching, but only in certain counties of Nevada.”

  The smirk across his face betrayed any secret he thought he might be keeping. I knew exactly what he was saying. “Like the Mustang Ranch?”

  “Seized and destroyed in 1999, not because it wasn’t a lawful business, mind you, but because of tax evasion. Since then, there’s been a lack in the culture, so to speak. I’m just gonna give the people back what they want, with the next legendary establishment.

  “Listen, kiddos. This has been fun, but I’ve got to get those signs over to Rudy so he can get them up for me.”

  He bounded off the porch before we could manage a ‘see you later’.

  Jonathan leaned forward in his chair and propped his chin in his hands. “I never realized how much I felt at home out here.”

  “I’ve been here almost a year. Not here at the ranch, but in Trinidad. A lot of it has been pure hell, but I can’t imagine life anywhere else.”

  “I don’t suppose those bulls are too eager to take a cattle drive out of Dodge, either.”

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Are You Alive?

  Jonathan kissed me goodbye, his tongue exploring the slight parting of my lips for too brief a moment. I watched as he retreated down the stairs toward his apartment. He lamented that a serious day of trading weighed him down and commanded his attention. I suspect he knew I needed my time, alone. Me, and what remained of my dad’s legacy of lies.

  Back at my sunlit desk in what I called my Rotunda Room, I spent the morning re-reading, organizing and tabbing Dad’s collection of evidence. I became more and more aware my father, by gifting me this package, was burying himself right alongside George Baird and his protégé, Adam Chancellor. The exhibits he left behind would be unequivocal in the courtroom. All three men would be indicted and found guilty even if one, posthumously.

  Are you alive, Daddy? Of course you are. You’re the great James Lemay. He’s probably running around naked on some beach in Brazil, going by the name of Jesus, I thought.

  I had yet to phone my sister and felt remorse we didn’t have a closer relationship, especially as twins. That was my father’s doing, constantly pitting us against each other. We did, however, share much the same sentiment when it came to Dad. The last time I spoke with her, I’d called him a fucking asshole. She, living across the pond for so many years, referred to him as a sodding arsehole. We broke into a duet of laughter and I remember I said goodnight and she responded, good morning.

  I’d call her soon enough. If Johnny Yan proved to be half the Mr. Real Estate he claimed to be, I’d have news of equity money heading her way.

  Instead, I phoned Kate. “Don’t you think it’s time you get out of that house?”

  She was silent.

  “Rumor has it that between Rosa, Jennie, and Macayla, the place is running fine without you. So, my dear, even though it took three to replace you, you aren’t indispensable after all. Let’s go grab some lunch.”

  “I’m not ready for that. I’m just not ready.” Her voice fell by octaves.

/>   “Honey, dig out one of your beautiful autumn sweaters and one of those flowing lace skirts. You’ll look gorgeous, and no one will think otherwise.”

  “This isn’t D.C., Breeze. Everyone in this town knows exactly what happened to me.”

  “Okay. I won’t force you. Not if you’re truly not ready.” Another thought occurred to me. “Can you drive?”

  She answered, her voice, reserved. “Yes.”

  “Why don’t you hop in your car, pop in your favorite Norah Jones CD, and drive out here for a late lunch? It’s warm enough. We can picnic down by the stables.”