The Tolling of Mercedes Bell: A Novel (46 page)

“I
T’S GOOD NEWS,”
the nurse said. “You’re lucky so far. The results are negative, again.”

Mercedes had steeled herself for the worst. The moment she heard the news, whatever had clenched around her heart let go, and she took a deep breath. She and Germaine now had a little more time. Every increment was a gift.

“Congratulations,” the nurse smiled, “but come back for another test in six months, please. And enjoy yourself in the meantime.”

They both knew what her odds were. Nevertheless, the immediate future had cleared. Whatever problems she had to face were manageable as long as she could have just a little more time to take care of things for Germaine.

T
HAT EVENING
J
ACK MADE THE
unprecedented effort of greeting her at the door when she arrived. He put his arms around her and gave her no choice but to hug him and feel his bony rib cage. He smelled fresh and clean and of fine cologne. For a moment she rested her head on his chest and closed her eyes. She listened to his heart beating. If only their last months could be like this, she would be so grateful.

“Bella,” he murmured and held her close, stroking her hair. “I’m sorry things are so difficult for you.”

She almost laughed at the understatement. It was the first time he’d expressed any kind of empathy since becoming ill, so she had to give him credit for that. She looked up to see his eyes, but he was staring out the window.

“Here, put your stuff down. Let me pour you a glass of wine,” he said.

He lifted the bag off her shoulder and hung it on the back of a chair. He looked down into her face and smoothed her cheek. She wondered at the change in him since yesterday. Whatever it was, whoever he was tonight, was a great improvement over the big baby of recent weeks. She looked around and noticed that he’d picked up the living room and straightened the cushions on the couch. There were even flowers from the yard in a vase on the coffee table.

She followed him into the kitchen. His dishes from lunch were in the drainer. He’d eaten a real lunch on a real plate and actually cleaned up after himself. Could he be coming around? He poured her wine and led her out onto the deck where they could sit, as they had tried the evening before, to enjoy the soft summer air and the fading light of day.

“I want to explain something that you should know before we meet with Matthew,” he said. “I would like you to listen to everything I have to say without judging until you’ve heard me out. Can you do that for me?”

“Of course I can.”
At last, an explanation.

“Do you remember, when I was drafting our prenuptial agreement, how we disclosed to each other the details of our assets and liabilities?”

“Yeah, I had nothing and you had everything,” she quipped.

“And I told you that I took care of Janine, managed her money, and paid her bills?”

She nodded.

“I don’t know if I told you then, but I’m her sole heir,” he said, gazing off into the distance.

“It’s obvious she thinks of you as a son.”

“Janine’s investments have done very well—so well that she’ll
never be able to spend all her money even if she were physically able to do so.”

Mercedes recognized the tone of voice. She’d heard it when he was cajoling opposing counsel or schmoozing a potential client at a party or dealing with Eleanor.

“As you well know, Janine is very elderly and frail and I’ve made sure she has every comfort, a full-time attendant, and the best possible medical care.”

“That’s true.”

“From time to time I’ve also borrowed funds from her, as a son is apt to do. I may have neglected to tell you that. I don’t recall.” He turned to make eye contact.

She watched him with sphinx-like impenetrability, not moving a muscle.

“The thing is, I haven’t always paid the money back. Nevertheless, Janine and I have an understanding.” He waited for her to react, but she didn’t, so he continued. “And that understanding is this: as I’m like a son to her, and I’m her sole heir, my repaying the loans, which is what they really are, is not a priority.”

She said nothing.

“So, of course, when Matthew questions us about this, I don’t want you to be surprised.”

“How nice of you,” she lied. “When you said that about ‘repaying the loans, which is what they really are,’ did you mean that Janine isn’t aware you’ve been borrowing money?”

“I think that’s a fair statement. I saw no need, given the extent of her assets.”

“I see,” she replied sweetly. “So when did you first ‘borrow’ from Janine?”

“Well, that’s the thing. Quite awhile ago.”

“So, like right after you started taking care of her money?”

“Uh-huh.” He looked quickly at Mercedes again.

“What kind of money are we talking about?” she asked, frowning. “And why would this be of concern to Matthew?”

“I’m not sure—maybe $500K, give or take. Matthew will notice the debits from her accounts and the deposits into—”

“Half a million dollars? Or more?” She nearly choked.

“Yes. But it’s really my money, you see. I’m her sole heir.”

“So you keep saying. But if it’s your money, why are you telling me they were loans that you neglected to repay?”

He did not answer.

“And didn’t
you
prepare her will?”

“Of course. I’m a probate attorney,” he said proudly. “Who better to do it than I?”

She took a sip of wine. “Someone who didn’t have a conflict of interest.”

“I think Matthew will see the logic of my taking care of Janine and her taking care of me.”

She had to admire his gall. “What about the small matter of ethics—you know, right and wrong?”

“That’s relative. It’s not anyone’s business but our own.”

“No, that’s not quite true.”

He seemed calm and oddly receptive, the lawyer in the middle of negotiating with the other side, his eyes on the prize.

“I can see a couple of scenarios,” she continued, her temperature rising. “Let me break it down for you. You have AIDS. Or did you forget that? So there’s a high probability you’ll die before Janine. She will need someone else to take care of her when you’re gone, and it won’t be me. I’ll probably be quite sick myself—or have you not considered that either?”

He studied her face.

“And when that someone hires a lawyer, or if that someone
is
a
lawyer, he or she will go over all of Janine’s accounts and investments. And what, Jack darling, will this person see? Enormous holes where the money should be. Don’t you think this person will wonder where it’s gone and try to recover it? Where will this person look first? To her previous lawyer—to you. But you won’t be here, will you? So the next place will be your estate—meaning me, if I’m alive, or Germaine and whoever her legal guardian is when she’s orphaned. You’re going to leave
us
holding the bag to pay back Janine all the money you
stole.
You’ve just confessed to multiple counts of grand larceny and legal malpractice over many years.”

Although she had not raised her voice, her pulse was raging.

“Oh, now don’t get carried away,” Jack said smoothly. “It won’t come to that, Bella. I’m going to live a good long while. Janine’s in her eighties. You worry too much.”

“Do I? I suppose it’s easy not to worry if you don’t have a conscience.”

He chuckled. “No one has done anything wrong here. It’s
my
money pure and simple. No one needs to know about those accounts. I don’t have to make them available to Matthew.”

“There’s an even better way to handle it . . . pay her back.”

“With what?” Now he was the incredulous one.

“Sell off your real property.” She quit gripping her chair—the side he couldn’t see—and took another sip of wine.

“It’s not quite that simple. Especially since there’s no need.” He was beginning to sound irritated.

“Of course there is. Unquestionably, emphatically, there is. Why can’t you sell your properties?”

“They’re encumbered.”

“With what?”

“Tax liens. Really, Mercedes, I expected more loyalty from you.”

She shot a look at his new diamond ring. “And I expected more integrity from you. Did you buy
that
with Janine’s money?”

“What difference does it make?”

“Did you buy my engagement ring with Janine’s money?”

“It’s
my
money. When you understand that fact, Bella, your apprehensions will be dispelled. You enjoy our lifestyle as much as I do. Germaine certainly does. She’s at summer camp right now because of it. Didn’t you ever cheat on a test in school?”

“Not once.”

“Didn’t you ever pilfer anything from a store when you were a kid?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Let’s not argue. We’re in this together. Just let me handle Matthew at the meeting.”

She regarded her formerly debonair rake of a husband, enjoying a drink on his deck—at whose expense?

She got up and went into the kitchen to start dinner. Cooking relaxed her and helped her dial in on her mission.

Jack’s face was beaming when he sat down to the candlelit table, taking the scene before him as a victory. With his newly redeployed charm, he complimented her cooking and her hard work—but she could see his artifice and the ease with which he turned on the charisma when necessity dictated.

He ate a big dinner. He talked about vacations they should take, the traveling they would soon have the money to do. He shared the details of the day he’d driven into San Francisco and purchased his ring. She nodded politely and forced herself to eat.

She was thinking of tiny, white-haired Janine and the complete trust she had in Jack. Then there was the puzzle of Jack’s law practice. Hadn’t there been a lot of money coming in every month from legitimate business? Why had he felt the need to steal? How could there be tax liens on his properties if he had so much money at his disposal? It didn’t add up. Emerson must have known that the house of cards was
about to collapse. No wonder he vanished at the first sign of trouble.

After dinner he cleared the table and helped her with the dishes for the first time in their marriage.
You must really be desperate. You’re laying it on so thick.
If she were not so intent on her purpose, she would have walked out and let him do all of it. It was high time he cleaned up his own messes and it was her turn to be “strategic.”

Although he seemed to have made miraculous progress in the last two days, he tired quickly. He tried to lure Mercedes to come to bed with him, no doubt to seal the deal he thought he saw—a grotesque prospect. She assured him she would be in as soon as she finished up a few things. He had no idea of the revulsion she was stifling—the outrage building inside her.

She ran a bath in Germaine’s bathroom and lay in the deep water by the light of a candle. Now her mind raced from memory to memory—his shopping sprees, their storybook wedding, the honeymoon in Italy, the dark side of him she had first glimpsed there, his purchase of the Alfa, their trip to Hawaii, and his callous disregard for her that afternoon when she got so badly sunburned. She pictured the ocean off that beach, and the oceans of money that had been going in and out of Jack’s bank accounts, credit card accounts, and law practice. How much of it had been Janine’s? She wanted to know, and at the same time couldn’t bear to find out. She focused on the present. Jack was waiting for her, if he was still awake. She would never have a better opportunity to ask the ghastly question that had been eating away at her.

She slipped into bed beside him. He was lying on his side facing away from her. He seemed to be asleep, but then he reached back with his long arm to give the back of her thigh a proprietary squeeze. She bit her tongue and snuggled up to him, putting her arm around his waist and burrowing her head against his back as she used to do when they first became lovers.

“Bella,” he said in his deepest, most affectionate tone.

She smoothed his pajama top over his heart with her hand. She could feel it beating underneath her palm. The black heart of her lover.

“Jack?”

“Yes, Bella?”

“Why did you marry me?”

He paused a moment, then said thoughtfully, “You have the perfect combination of qualities. I knew I would never tire of you, and we would be a ready-made family. And I knew I wouldn’t have to die alone.”

“Because you knew I would take care of you.”

“Yes, just as you’ve been doing. You’re the perfect wife.”

“But weren’t you afraid of giving me the virus?”

“It was a calculated risk.”

The words detonated in her consciousness like a bomb. John Slayne had been right.

After a moment she said, “You could have protected me.”

He chuckled. “That kind of sex isn’t any fun at all and you know it.” He cupped her buttock in his hand. His meat. She struggled to keep her voice calm.

“But what about Germaine?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, giving me the virus will make her an orphan.”

“I thought about that,” he said, matter-of-factly. “But my mother died when I was young, and I turned out okay. Besides,” he added, “she’ll be rich. She’ll inherit all the life insurance proceeds and everything in the trust—maybe just in time for college. She’ll be all set.”