The Castle: A Ripped-From-The-Headlines Thriller

by Jason Pinter

  Kapinski shrugged. “Sure. It’s possible.”

  Just then, there was a knock on the door.

  “Come in,” Kapinski said.

  Wanda Lefebvre opened the door slowly. Her face was downcast. Remy felt his stomach roll. He knew right away.

  “Wanda…” Kapinski said. “Is everything…”

  He let the sentence trail off. They both knew from the look on her face why she was there. Kapinski looked at the press release on the computer, closed it, and dragged it into the trash.

  “It’s Paul,” Wanda said softly, her voice trembling, eyes reddening. “They found him.”

  At that moment, Remy heard a horrible, soul-crushing wail come from down the hall. He recognized the voice. It was Alena. Her husband was dead.

  The Griggs Organization

  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

  Statement on the passing of Paul Aaron Bracewell

  It is with a very heavy heart that we announce the passing of our dear friend, Paul Aaron Bracewell. Paul was the beloved son of Stephen and Elizabeth Bracewell, sister of Alice Belitnikoff, loving husband of Alena Griggs, and cherished son-in-law of Rawson Griggs.

  The entire Griggs family extends their heartfelt condolences to the Bracewell family, Paul’s friends, and the many, many people who knew and loved him.

  At this time, details of Mr. Bracewell’s passing have not been made public pending a police and FBI investigation. The Bracewell and Griggs families ask for your sympathy and privacy during this difficult time.

  The call came from Detective Ferguson of the NYPD. A woman walking her dog saw Paul’s body floating in the East River near Pier 5 in Brooklyn Heights just after seven forty. She called 9-1-1, then flagged down a pair of joggers who jumped in and pulled Paul’s body to shore. Paramedics declared him dead at the scene.

  He was in the same clothes he’d worn the night before at the event at the Grand Hyatt. His suit was torn, the knees shredded, palms scraped and bloody. The wounds and tears were consistent with someone who’d stumbled and fallen, bloodying himself, before eventually falling into the river, where he drowned. The body showed signs of light trauma, bruising, a few hairline fractures, all of which could be ascribed to objects Paul’s body collided with as the current dragged him along.

  The amount of fluid in Paul’s lungs suggested he’d been in the river for at least six hours. For six hours, Alena’s husband floated like a piece of driftwood. Remy couldn’t fathom her anguish.

  To Remy’s surprise and trepidation, Rawson asked him to accompany him and Alena to One Police Plaza to identify the body and speak with detectives. Every fiber of him wanted to decline. He had no place being there, but Rawson insisted. Insisted there was a reason he was asking for such a large favor. Remy knew Alena would need a shoulder during this time, and Rawson’s iron countenance did not provide it. So he agreed.

  Detective Ferguson led them to small, cold room inside the station. It had lime-green walls and metal-backed chairs. He drew the shades to give them privacy and brought them cups of bitter, lukewarm coffee.

  Ferguson led them through the discovery. There were no signs of foul play, and they were awaiting toxicology reports from the lab. The working theory was that after leaving the Hyatt, Paul at some point walked east. He fell, perhaps multiple times, which explained the superficial scrapes and bruises on his hands and knees. Then Paul walked uptown, turned east at some point around 58th Street, and went into the river. It was unclear whether it was on purpose or by accident. And in Paul’s inebriated state, he drowned.

  Paul’s parents were flying in from Spokane. His sister and her husband were driving in from Georgetown. Alena listened, near catatonic, just staring at the coffee. She nodded without hearing. Rawson and Remy listened, knowing it was too soon for her to process it all.

  Detective Ferguson said he would leave to give them time to talk. Alena asked where the bathroom was. Ferguson said he would show her. He placed his hand on her back in a friendly gesture. She looked like a puff of wind could knock her over.

  Once Ferguson and Alena left, Rawson turned to Remy. Sadness was etched on his face, the lines around his eyes and cheeks seemingly having deepened overnight. For the first time, Remy saw Rawson not as someone striving to be the most powerful human being alive, but as a man. A father.

  Rawson placed his left hand on Remy’s forearm.

  They sat in silence for what felt like hours, but was in reality only a few seconds. The hand on Remy’s arm felt both comforting and foreboding at the same time, like Rawson was preparing Remy for some hardship.

  “Alena is going to need you,” Rawson said. Remy turned his head. Rawson was looking off at the mint-colored wall, unfocused, drifting. “She’s never been through anything like this. She was young when her mother died. Young children are easier to console because they don’t fully understand.”

  “I’ll be there,” Remy said. “Whatever I can do. You know that.”

  “Alena looks to you more than you know. You’re more than her peer. You’re her friend. You’re her family now. That night you saved her and…Paul…it forged a bond between you two. Forever. It’s deeper and stronger than you think.”

  Remy stayed quiet. There were no words. He just let Rawson speak.

  “As a young man, I never believed I was meant to be a father,” Rawson said.

  Remy looked at Rawson, surprised by the confession.

  “I never had that desire for children. Some men do. They want to pass on the family name. They want a legacy. I did too, but not through offspring. I wanted my legacy to literally be my name. My empire. People would know the name Griggs as long as they lived. Children never seemed to be a necessary part of that picture.”

  Rawson took a sip of his coffee. It was cold and powdery, but he didn’t seem to care. Then he continued.

  “Liliana wanted a family. She made no secret of it. She made it clear our marriage was contingent on it. And I took convincing. I always felt that if you decided to raise children, you would eventually have to choose between them and your passions. Well, my work was my passion. My legacy was my passion. They were my children before Alena was born. I raised my company from nothing. I planted the seeds with my own hands. I nurtured it, watched it grow into something spectacular. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for those children. Nothing. I never thought I needed more. But finally, I relented. Partially because I feared I would lose Liliana if I said no. Partially because, deep down, perhaps I wanted to prove to myself I could be a father. Rise to the challenge. I have never respected people who back down from a challenge. And yet, by refusing Liliana’s wish, that’s exactly what I was doing.”

  Rawson’s eyes grew red as he spoke. Remy listened, unsure of how to respond.

  “I remember the morning Alena was born. It was a torrential downpour like I’d never seen. As we drove to the hospital, visibility near zero, I took it as a sign. I thought God was angry with me for relenting. They were going to make it difficult. But when the nurse put Alena in my arms, her skin so smooth, her body so small, I worried she could just float away…when her tiny fingers wrapped around mine, everything faded away. My empire evaporated. This was legacy. What I passed down to her. That’s the love I have for my daughter. She makes everything fade away.”

  Rawson paused.

  “Liliana wanted another child. She hoped for a son. Obviously, there were no guarantees, but she talked about her perfect family being a daughter and a son, and the two of us. I said no. No more. My company was growing. And I knew as long as we had a child together, I would never lose Liliana.”

  Rawson paused.

  “But then I lost her anyway.”

  “I wish Liliana was here to see what we’re accomplishing,” Remy said.

  “If she was here, Alena would never have married Paul. I was the bad cop. I think she married Paul to defy me. To prove she didn’t need the Griggs name. Liliana would have straightened her out.”

  “Alena is an extraordinary woman,” Remy
said. “She has your strength. And she has a grounded decency that’s beyond admirable. You should be proud of her, and proud of the job you did raising her. Especially on your own.”

  Rawson said, “I have wondered about you, Jeremy. Whether decency will limit your ambitions. I live to win. There is no other option. And to win, you often have to be vicious. There is no other way. There are times in my life when I wish I had the gentle touch Alena does, but I’m also glad she doesn’t see the world the same way I do. That decency you speak of would have served me well when Alena’s mother passed. But you have that decency. That is why you helped Alena and Paul that night. I suppose that night showed me you can be strong and decent. That is why I wanted you to work for me. You add a valuable element to my campaign. But right now, you are needed in a different way. What Alena needs right now is not in my nature. Man to man. Be there for my daughter.”

  “I will be,” Remy said. Rawson nodded and removed his hand from Remy’s arm. It felt to Remy like an electrical current snapping. There was an innate understanding that this was not to be discussed around Alena. And that from that moment on, Remy promised himself he would be there for her.

  When Alena came back, she looked as though her soul had left her. Rawson thanked Detective Ferguson and they left the police station. When they walked outside, Remy put his arm around Alena. She practically fell into him, and he held her up. She was so light, Rey thought. Remy noticed a faint smile on Rawson’s face.

  He hugged Alena goodbye, felt her shudder as she held back tears. Then he shook Rawson’s hand and took a cab back to his apartment. Alena went back to Griggs Tower with Rawson to grieve with what remained of her family.

  When Remy got home, he noticed his lapel was damp, and a long blonde hair was stuck to his collar where Alena had wept on him. He would never forget the pain on her face, the agonized wail that seemed ripped from her soul when Paul was found.

  Oddly enough, Remy noticed the strain in their marriage the very day he met them in the hospital. They seemed like actors occupying a stage in between takes. Cordial, with little warmth. Alena was like her father in many ways: decisive and shrewd. From what he could tell, Paul was none of that. Alena had seemed to carry him like a cumbersome purse that was too large for the occasion.

  After they sent out the release about Paul’s death, Remy’s inbox had been flooded with media requests. Some producers even had the gall to request interviews with Alena. Respect the grieving widow’s privacy, unless it could boost ratings.

  Donna was gone when he got back. She’d even made the bed. There was a note on the table with her telephone number inside a heart written in lipstick. Remy looked at the note, then folded it and put it in a drawer.

  Remy took a bottle of Dogfish Head from the fridge. He cracked it open and had finished half the bottle before he realized it was barely noon.

  He knew working for Rawson would change his life, but he never thought he would have to grieve, to be around death. He felt hollowed out.

  And for the first time, unprompted, in months, Remy’s thoughts turned to his father. Even though he pushed them away, every so often they would jolt him like a car rear-ended, unwelcome and painful.

  He thought about his mother, lying in bed as the cancer that would soon claim her life began to drain the essence of what made her her. She was frail, less than ninety pounds at the end. She was only awake sporadically, couldn’t focus, and in constantly in pain. Sometimes, on his darkest days, he wished God would take her sooner. If she couldn’t recover, then don’t let her suffer.

  When she was awake, he held her hand, her skin paper-thin, dark blue veins visible underneath. Her hair was gone, her head a mottled mess of dry skin and lesions. Her eyes sunken, cheekbones hollowed out. He forced himself to ignore the horror of death, thought about the good times, the memories he would take with him when she was gone.

  And despite his own pain, Remy refused to allow himself to cry around her. Her pain was enough. He couldn’t burden her with his sadness. And since he had no outlet for his own pain, his own anguish, it festered.

  Two days before Margaret Stanton passed away, Remy’s father appeared in the hospital room. Neither of them had seen him in two years. Margaret was asleep, thankfully. Remy was alone with her, skimming a paperback Stephen King novel, but not processing any of the words. And then he looked up and saw his father standing there, and wondered if he was real, or if one of King’s horrors had come to life.

  Remy’s book fell to the floor. His father’s mouth was open slightly, as though he wanted to say something but the words had escaped him.

  His father had grown deep crows feet around his eyes, mottled veins blotted his nose. His mouth was a stubbled, a dirty little O. His lips were purple, bruised. He wore a scuffed denim jacket, his gray hair in a ponytail tied with a rubber band. His jeans were faded and torn around the hems. He looked like a man the world had tasted, then spat back out.

  A pair of aviator sunglasses peeked from his jacket pocket. For some reason, that set Remy off.

  Fucking sunglasses.

  He wanted to scream. For help. Out of rage. He had no right to be there. He had no right to force one of Margaret Stanton’s final memories to be of the man who had broken her from the outside in.

  “I just…” Remy’s father said. He was looking at the white linoleum floor. He tapped one foot with the toe of other. “I heard from a friend that she was sick. And…um…I known her since I was a kid. She gonna be okay, you think?”

  Talking to Remy like he was a drinking buddy and not his son. As though tenure gave him the right to see her. Remy looked at her mother. The faint white scars were still visible on her cheeks, and her nose was still slightly bent. She couldn’t raise her right arm above her head because they didn’t have health insurance and the bone never set properly. Remy thought about all the times he had to help zip up her dresses. Remy thought about all the times he stood at the entrance to his parents’ bedroom.

  His father kept a loaded Glock in the bedside drawer. Remy took it out occasionally. Loaded and unloaded it. Figured out how to work the trigger guard. Remy often wondered, if his father refused to stop, if he would have the guts to pull the trigger.

  His father. His monster.

  “She doesn’t want you here,” Remy said. He did not stand. Did not approach his father. The man did not deserve any pleasantries. “I don’t want you here. Leave before she wakes up.”

  Remy’s father stood there, tap tap tapping his shoe. Then he took the sunglasses from his jacket pocket, slipped them onto his face, turned around, and left. That was all. He said nothing to his ex-wife. Nothing else to his son.

  That was over ten years ago. It was the last time Remy had seen his father.

  Two days later, Margaret Stanton passed away. She fell asleep and never woke up. And then, when his mother’s beautiful soul had finally left her disease-riddled body, Remy finally allowed himself to cry.

  Things felt like they were spinning out of control. He had relished the possibilities that came with working for Rawson Griggs. But sitting there in the police station, seeing the pain in Alena’s face, Remy felt like a fraud. He barely knew Paul. And truthfully, hadn’t thought all that much of him when he was alive.

  Remy looked down at the floor. He noticed he was tapping his own shoes together. Like his father.

  Long ago, Remy had promised himself he would not be his father.

  He would be there when it mattered. He would be there for Alena.

  He needed to get his mind off of Paul. Remy opened his campaign scheduling spreadsheet and began to plot out Rawson’s travel for the upcoming weeks. He would spend the next ten days crossing the upper Midwest—Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota. He would tour a Ford plant outside of Detroit, a Jelly Belly center in Pleasant Prairie, and a goat cheese manufacturer in Grant County.

  Remy was coordinating the details of the Jelly Belly tour when his buzzer rang.

  He pressed the intercom and said, “Who i
s it?”

  The voice on the other end was difficult to make out.

  “Sorry, can you speak louder?”

  The second time, Remy heard the man’s voice loud and clear.

  Why in the hell is he here? Remy thought. And why does he sound like he’s scared to death?

  “It’s Doug Rimbaud. Annabelle Shaw’s campaign manager. We met while you were talking with Grace Rivas. I’m here about Paul Bracewell. We really need to talk.”

  That night, twelve hours after Doug Rimbaud rang Remy Stanton’s buzzer, there was a knock on Rawson Griggs’s office door.

  “Come in,” he said.

  Wanda Lefebvre entered. Rawson checked his watch. It was after midnight.

  “Wanda,” he said, “I sent everyone home. You didn’t have to keep working.”

  “It would feel strange going home while you’re still here.”

  Rawson nodded. She was like him. He understood.

  Wanda approached the desk. “I know today is…difficult,” she said. “But this just happened. I hate to put more on your plate, but you need to see it.”

  She placed a USB drive on his desk.

  “How urgent?” Rawson said.

  “Unless there’s a general election debate tomorrow,” Wanda said, “you’ll want to watch it right now.”

  Rawson picked up the fob and inserted it into his computer. He clicked on the folder that appeared on the desktop, and then opened the video file inside.

  He recognized the apartment immediately. He turned the volume up. The buzzer rang, and Jeremy Stanton crossed the room to answer it. He picked up the intercom and said, “Who is it?”

  “It’s Doug Rimbaud. Annabelle Shaw’s campaign manager. We met while you were talking with Grace Rivas. I’m here about Paul Bracewell. We really need to talk.”

  “What in the hell do you want?”

  “Not down here. Let me up,” Rimbaud said. “And I’ll explain.”

  “Go to hell. And tell the senator she really needs to vet her employees better.”