Mrs Fitzroy

by Rachael Wright

  "I never imagined I'd be here."

  "What do you mean?"

  "In Greece. In this house. In this situation."

  "Where did you want to be?"

  Davonna looked up as though she had only just realized that he was in the car and she was talking aloud. "That doesn't matter now. Thank you for the drive, Sergeant."

  "Davonna please let me know if I can help."

  "How old are you?" she blurted.

  Thanos looked shaken but answered, "Thirty-three."

  "Oh," she whispered. "I've got to go. Can you open the boot?" Davonna leapt from the car, grabbed her bags with surprising vitality, and tore through the front door before Thanos could do anything but stare morosely after her.

  VIII

  Όντες θέλει να χαλάσει ο θεός το μέρμυγκα, του βάνει φτερά και πετάει.

  When God wants to destroy the ant, he puts wings on him and it flies to its destruction.

  Savva strode into the police station at the same time Davonna Fitzroy walked through her front door. The desk staff hid their faces as he entered: engrossed in files or their computers or rushing to fill a water bottle. Savva ignored them; his face a surly mask and the lunch his wife made had done nothing to improve his mood. She was a fine woman but sometimes she liked to experiment—it never boded well.

  The smell of the lobby; a mixture of the stale sweat and piss of the homeless and the thick haze of whatever cologne all the young hooligans were wearing, churned the bouillabaisse in his stomach. He swore to never eat French food again. Why couldn't the woman stick to calamari? Her grandmother had taught her to do it perfectly.

  As he started towards the stairs, a waving hand caught his eye and he turned.

  "What?" he said, before the front desk sergeant formed his name.

  "Forensics wanted to see you, Sir."

  "And?" Savva grunted.

  "A woman is here for you."

  "What woman."

  "The mistress; from the hotel, Athena."

  "Damn," Savva said. He picked up the green file, which the sergeant passed through the barrier, and shuffled upstairs.

  Savva took the stairs leisurely, rubbed his fitful stomach, and decided it might be best to get rid of the mistress first. He rounded the corner, and there she was: sitting languidly in his office. Her long lean legs, encased in black leather, cascaded over each other, and she wore a loose white silk top. It was difficult not to stare at the black bra peeking through. Booras was standing by the door and left with a mumbled 'thank you' as soon as Savva entered.

  "I want to know what you're doing about that woman," Athena said, without preamble, shaking a finger in his face. "He wouldn't tell me anything."

  "Which woman would that be?"

  "His awful wife, Donna, or whatever her name is."

  "What is it you want me to do with her?"

  "I want her arrested. She did something," Athena seethed.

  "To do with what?" Savva said. He leaned back in his chair, as far away from Athena's flailing arms as possible.

  "She's the reason John died. I don't know whether she fiddled with his car or whether she made him so unhappy that he drove off. But we were in love, so he couldn’t have driven himself off the cliff, he just couldn’t have. It was her. It has to be murder."

  "I see. What evidence can you give me to corroborate this?"

  Athena looked as though he had asked her to take off her clothes and dance naked for him. Her mouth flapped open for a moment before she gathered her resolve.

  "We had lunch before he left for his London trip, and he was crying, sobbing really. I'd seen nothing like it. He pulled out a list," Savva's ears pricked at this, but he didn't move from his relaxed position, "On it were these demands of Davonna's. She'd told him to get her the Cartier Balon watch Kate Middleton has, and she wanted new marble countertops for the kitchen, larger chandeliers, and a new BMW sent over from Athens."

  "I see."

  "I have it here," Athena said, with a wide smile.

  Savva sat up straight. "Have what?"

  "I took a picture when John left to go to the bathroom."

  "Why?"

  "What do you mean, “why?""

  "Why'd you take the picture?"

  "I was worried, and besides it isn't about me. Here." She pulled out her phone and shoved it across the desk. "There's the picture. You can see it's her handwriting."

  "So it seems," Savva mumbled. Athena's waves of triumphal pleasure wafted over him. "I'll send this to myself, and if you can note when and where you took the photo … where's the original?"

  "With him."

  "We haven't found a list."

  "It could be a hundred places. He could have left it in his hotel room, or on the plane, or thrown it in the trash."

  "Wouldn't he want to remember what was on it?"

  "Oh, he didn't have trouble with that. He had it memorized; rattled it off in the restaurant. So, un-romantic." She wrote the date and time for Savva and passed the slip of paper to him.

  "Thank you."

  "Just arrest her," she snarled. She rose and swung a large leather purse onto her shoulder.

  Savva frowned at it. "Wait a moment," he said. She looked disdainfully at him, her eyebrows raised in boredom. "What bag is that?"

  Athena peered at him and then, deciding it wasn't such a terrible question, said, "It's Prada."

  "I don't keep up with designers, but I know Prada. It's expensive."

  "My dad bought if for me, a birthday present."

  Savva leaned forward, "And your father—his name?"

  Athena rose to her full height, rolled her shoulders back, and said with a sneer, "His name isn't pertinent to your investigation and neither is my purse.

  Savva's eyes narrowed, as he listened to Athena's heels click down the hallway. Athena's father—another item for Booras' list. He picked up a bottle of water from his desk, and, with a great sigh, headed back down the stairs to forensics.

  "What is it?" he snarled, at the first lab tech that walked by.

  "Captain, Sir, um this way."

  The kid looked fresh out of high school, pimples and all. You could smell the pheromones drifting off of him. Maybe the kid saw Athena exit the building.

  "Captain." Jason Rallis, the lead forensics supervisor, stood by a battered wooden desk as Savva walked into the large lab. He was short, as if the low ceilings and little natural light had stunted his growth. But he had keen questioning eyes and long, tapered, quick-moving fingers.

  "Keep it brief, Rallis, I have piles of paperwork."

  "Ok, let's start on the deceased. I have the report from pathology. They ran a toxicology screen, and it came back clean. He was healthy, all the way to his liver and prostate, and there wasn't even a trace of alcohol in his body. His stomach was empty."

  "Empty? Remind me how long the stomach takes to empty?"

  "On average two hours. He was on a plane for most of the morning."

  "So it's reasonable to say he hadn't eaten."

  "Sure, but not even a peanut?” Rallis queried. “Who flies and doesn't even have a drink … or peanuts, makes the whole trip worse. So, cause of death: blunt force trauma to the skull and asphyxia due to drowning. He was knocked unconscious because of the crash and then drowned."

  "Straightforward."

  "Onto the car," Rallis said, moving towards a computer. His fingers flew over the keys, pulling up a series of photographs for Savva to study. "We undertook an extensive examination of the Morgan. It's old, so we can rule out an electrical malfunction or hack ... yes it happens," he said, with a wry grin. "The car was in immaculate condition. According to the deceased's wife, it wasn't driven much, just the 20 miles five days a week to the hotel and back. But we found that the brake lines were nearly sawn through."

  Savva jerked. "What?"

  "The brakes were compromised. I'm sure you don't need to me to tell you what that causes."

  "You said "nearly
sawn through?""

  "I did. What's interesting is that it was done so the car would've made it a few miles before giving out. It's an older car so cutting the brakes would be possible, it's not easy on more modern cars."

  "It can't have been a sure thing. How could you know he'd go off the edge?" Savva mused.

  "No, it wasn't,” Rallis agreed. “He wouldn't need to brake on the way to the hotel, but would on the way back. We'd assumed he’d gone back to the hotel.

  "I drove from the crime scene to the hotel and there's a house about two miles up the road from where Fitzroy crashed through the barrier. His wife said he left in a hurry. Conceivably, he might’ve turned around because he'd forgotten something at the house."

  Savva ran his hand through his grey hair. "Damn it all to hell."

  "What's wrong?" Rallis said, his head suspended over the computer, closing out the files.

  "The damn mistress might be right."

  "I hear she's a looker."

  "Headaches more like. Anyways, thanks. The water washed away any chance for prints, didn't it?"

  "We found none."

  "Let me know if you find more. We need to get a warrant for the house."

  "Do you think she did it—the wife?" Rallis said, and pushed over two green file folders for Savva.

  "Who the hell knows?" Savva said, over his shoulder as he left.

  He made his way back to his office, glaring at what must have been ten co-workers until they shrank back against the unwashed beige walls in fear. Savva plopped into his chair with a muffled thump and tossed the green folders onto the desk. They lay there, taunting him, laughing at his dilemma. Could he take this Athena at her word? And then there was the car. John’s wife had the means since she lived at the property. But did she have the time or the ability to tamper with the car? There was the list … the deviously long one her husband had written her. He picked up the phone, pawed through his notebook and dialed.

  "Mrs. Fitzroy, I'd like to schedule a time for you to come to the police station, tomorrow," he paused, "Yes, Ma'am that'll work. Goodbye."

  Savva hung up and then dialed another number.

  "Sergeant Booras."

  "Booras, I want you to look into Athena Carras' background. I want to know who her father is and where he gets the money to buy her a Prada purse."

  Davonna unlocked the door and sighed. Her shoulder ached and throbbed with the weight of the sagging basket. She shuffled back to the kitchen, deposited it on the table, and stared at it. Bread, vegetables, and meat in their brown wrappers, spilled out.

  She collapsed on a chair and hung her head. Savva's words, the realization he might suspect her of having something to do with John's death, echoed in her mind like a skipping tape. Her life, her future, was all on hold. And she was captive to it ... this insanity.

  She pulled at her dress, rubbed the beige linen in between her fingers, and stared out the kitchen window. The day was bright; the days usually were. Tourists were fond of referring to the island as a paradise. It was, in it's own way, but the land was harsh and could be unrelenting and the heat was overwhelming, but the people were predisposed to kindness and made some of the world’s best hosts. But tourists didn't come as often anymore. Greece was in economic turmoil. Syrian refugees scared off the rest. No one wants to be confronted with a massive humanitarian crisis while on holiday.

  A crisis, Davonna thought, nothing was truer. A dark night of the soul; St. John had it right. She jumped up, cutting off the uncomfortable, unwelcome feelings of shame, shoved the groceries away, and went upstairs. She left the house, keys in hand, not five minutes later.

  Davonna drove down the winding hillside road and into the center of town. Greeks walked in every direction: teenagers in grey hoodies chatting on phones; exhausted parents smiling at the toddlers they held on their hips; and old grandmothers with shock white hair speaking emphatically with their hands. What had touched them? Would pain ever corrode their happiness?

  She parked the car in front of an office off the main road, on a back route to the sea. The car door shut behind her, and she fidgeted with hem of her shirt. She stood, in the parking lot, just staring at the out-of-place brick two-story office. But a mass of rake-resistant leaves tore across the parking lot and crumbled around her shoes. She stumbled forward.

  "I'd like to see Ms. Gabris," she said, reaching the receptionist's desk. The office was white. Calm and impersonal paintings of the sea hung at easy intervals along the wall. There wasn't anyone in the room.

  "Do you have an appointment?" a young woman asked. She was petite, her cheekbones protruded at a harsh angle, but she had kind intelligent eyes. Flakes of mascara clung to the skin under her eyes.

  Davonna shook her head.

  "Well, I can ask if she's free to speak with you. Is this for a consolation?"

  "Yes, my name is Davonna Fitzroy."

  "Ok … oh," the receptionist said, unable to hide her surprise. "Well, I'll go speak to Ms. Gabris, if you'll have a seat."

  Davonna went to sit on one of the plush leather chairs by the windows. They were warm, reposing there in the sun all day—a delightful warm where you might relax and fall asleep within moments. She wanted to sit back and curl her legs underneath her and fall into blissful oblivion, here in this safe space, away from the house.

  "Mrs. Fitzroy?" the thin receptionist said from the doorway; a calm smile on her face. "Ms. Gabris said she will see you if you'll follow me."

  The young woman led Davonna through to a back office full of red and brown books on large shelves and an eye-catching blue and gold desk. The woman behind it rose. She wasn't tall, but had soft curves and perfectly blown out hair, but it was her poise, her assuredness, which held Davonna's stare.

  "Mrs. Fitzroy, it's a pleasure to meet you; Sofia Gabris."

  "Davonna, please," she said, shaking Sofia's extended hand.

  "What can I do for you today, Davonna?" Sofia said, and motioned for Davonna to sit.

  Davonna couldn't take her eyes from the desk. It was contrary to what she thought she'd find here. All black and boring and stuffy. But the desk was an uncompromising blue. Not the navy blue found in Britain's Union Jack, it held the slightest hint of green, more like what the sky and ocean looked like as they merged into one on the horizon.

  "My husband just died. His car plunged over a cliff. The police suspect me of causing his death. I'd like to secure your representation."

  Davonna'd practiced the whole way there to make sure she was clear and professional and devoid of any emotional appeals.

  "I heard about the accident. I am sorry."

  "I didn't kill him, please believe me," she blurted.

  Sofia smiled. A kind, knowing smile, like she didn't mind, but knew the outburst would happen sooner or later. "That's immaterial, Davonna. I will represent you."

  "You will?"

  "Yes, I will."

  "Thank you," she said, wearily.

  "I'll get down to the police department and tell them you've retained me as your solicitor. Is there anything else I should know before we start? Background? Any details you can remember?"

  Davonna took a deep breath. Sofia pulled out a large yellow legal pad and clicked the top on a black pen, poised and ready. Davonna opened her mouth to speak, but couldn't. Everything closed around her; the brightness of the room and Sofia's eager mind whirring almost audibly. She was a strong well-educated woman with a successful legal practice. Would she understand? How would she react … what was the point? It didn't become easier with the telling; it was harder, soul wrenching to tell it to anyone. Davonna closed her eyes, and tried to concentrate on an end to it all; and then—safety.

  She told Sofia that her relationship with John was strained and about the affairs. She talked about Savva's last conversation, that they were still investigating the accident. It was cold and dispassionate. Sofia listened raptly, taking notes. She skirted the entire issue of John's abuse and the cold reality of what life was like with him.
It was as though a wall had risen in front of her, and she couldn't break through it. The words wouldn't come.

  "Someone also broke into our house."

  "When was this?"

  "Two weeks before John died. A friend of mine, more an acquaintance, is a sergeant with the police department. He came."

  "Did John know?"

  "Yes. The police have the entire report."

  "That's interesting."

  Davonna grinned weakly, unsure of what to do, or what to say. She felt so reduced … as though her earlier life had sat too long on a stove and all the good pieces had boiled off. How long ago was it she'd worked at the UN? Was it all a dream?

  "Mrs. Fitzroy, as this is a consultation, I can't give you much beyond a few things I will do first. I'll go to the police department and ask for the documents pertaining to the case. They won't give them all, but we'll manage. Please do not speak to them without me present. They are under no obligation to tell the truth when they ask questions; it's easy to get trapped."

  "I understand."

  "I would also caution against seeing your friend ... the sergeant," Sofia added, flipping back through her notes.

  "Alright."

  "We will need to refute evidence they collect, and that's where I come in."

  "Thank you."

  "Whatever you do, don't get discouraged, Mrs. Fitzroy," Sofia said, her eyes warmed and lost some of their professionalism. "I'm sure this will all be settled soon."

  "Of course."

  Sofia stood, signaling the end of the meeting. Davonna hesitated. Her mind lingering on the effort it would take to stand up, to walk to the door, to reach the car and drive home ... did she even have enough?

  "Are you alright, Davonna?"

  "It's all a little overwhelming. My husband is dead and my whole life has changed. I can't even mourn. It's ... no, I'm sorry, this isn't proper," she said, managing at last to stand.

  "I can recommend a good therapist, if you need one," Sofia said kindly.

  "I don't think I'm ready yet."

  "Much of what I will tell you and ask you to do will sound unfeeling, but it's for your benefit. It's my job to represent your interests."

  "I understand. I do. Thank you for your time, Ms. Gabris."