Equivocal Death (18 page)

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16

17

Kate chewed on a thumbnail and looked around. Madeleine’s of-18

fice was perfectly still, illumined by a clear winter light. The pol-19

ished top of her desk was almost empty. Just a phone, a small lamp, 20

and a recent issue of
American Law.
Her leather chair was pushed 21

back slightly, as if she’d just left the room. Kate found herself 22

thinking of a painting she’d studied in a college art history class.

23

Still Life with Lemon Peel.
A bright yellow fruit nestled in a clutter 24

of silver and crystal, its peeled skin scrolling off the table’s edge.

25

You had a sense of something interrupted, as if a diner had been 26

called away. Her professor had called this painting a
vanitas,
a re-27

flection on the transience of life.

28

From Madeleine’s desk, Kate’s eyes drifted to the wall behind it, 29

to the photograph she’d noticed Tuesday morning. A seascape.

30

She could see why Madeleine loved this picture. There was some-31

thing mesmerizing, transporting about it. The surf slamming hard 32

against the shoreline. The impervious rocky coast. The photo 33

seemed to suggest a contest of wills, a contest with a far-from-ort 34

certain outcome. Madeleine had said the picture was taken by a reg 35

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friend. Was it a place from her past, somewhere she’d once spent 1

time? Or was she, like Kate, simply drawn to the image itself?

2

Pulling her gaze from the picture, Kate walked over to 3

Madeleine’s desk. After a moment of hesitation, she sat down.

4

Madeleine’s chair was larger than her own, larger and softer, with a 5

buttery leather cushion. The simple act of sitting there filled Kate 6

with a vague unease. She felt strangely exposed, as if she were tak-7

ing some sort of unwarranted risk. As if at any moment Madeleine 8

might appear, demanding an explanation.

9

What are you doing in my office?

10

But time was flying by. Kate tried to forget about Madeleine’s 11

murder, about the facts that had brought her here. Gingerly, she 12

reached for the handle on the top drawer of Madeleine’s desk. An 13

irrational anxiety coursed through her, as if she were an actress in 14

some B-grade movie, in search of a terrible secret. But there was 15

just the usual assortment of paper clips, pens, and rubber bands, all 16

neatly arranged in a plastic tray.

17

What Carter Mills wanted was pretty straightforward: a list and 18

description of office contents. Jennifer could type up her notes at 19

the end of the day, and the list would be on Carter’s desk by morn-20

ing. Kate closed the top drawer and moved on to a much larger 21

drawer on the desk’s left-hand side. As she’d expected, it was 22

stuffed with folders. Gathering up the first bunch — fifteen or 23

twenty files — Kate heaved them off the hanging metal rods and 24

placed them on top of the desk. On a yellow legal pad, she began 25

to jot down captions from the labels. The first few folders con-26

tained general firm materials: interoffice memoranda, time sheets, 27

general correspondence. Then came a file labeled Investments.

28

Madeleine’s personal records. Kate felt a twinge of curiosity. Noth-29

ing to do with the murder. Still, she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

30

It’s really none of your business.
But she’d already opened the file.

31

The top page was a summary from a brokerage house statement.

32

Kate’s eyes scanned the sheet, looking for the bottom line. Three 33

million dollars. And that was just in this account. Kate wasn’t 34 sh

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really surprised by the amount. It went without saying that Samson 2

partners were wealthy. And three million dollars was hardly what 3

it used to be, not in an era when young investment bankers were 4

bringing home more than a million bucks a year. But there was 5

something arresting about seeing the figure in black and white.

6

Three million dollars was still a lot of money.

7

Staring at the figure, Kate felt a wave of desolation. All that ef-8

fort, all that stockpiling, and for what?

9

Vanitas, vanitas . . .

10

What had Madeleine planned to do with her savings? From the 11

firm directory, Kate recalled Madeleine’s Park Avenue address. She 12

must already own an apartment. Had she perhaps planned to retire 13

early? To collect art or antiques? To engage in some sort of philan-14

thropy? Or maybe it was simply a nest egg, put aside for a future she 15

had yet to plan. For a future she’d never have.

16

Chewing at her thumbnail, Kate felt a glint of pain. Looking 17

down, she saw that the nail was ragged, bitten down to the quick.

18

She stared at it in surprise and then examined her other fingers.

19

Without even realizing it, she’d gone back to biting her nails. She 20

hadn’t done that for years, not since that last year in law school.

21

When had she started again?

22

Kate’s eyes lingered on her right hand. On her forefinger, below 23

the bitten nail, she wore a small ruby-and-pearl ring set in gold.

24

A gift from her mother on her sixteenth birthday. Her mother.

25

That must be part of what had her so distraught. Strange she 26

hadn’t made the connection until now. Of course, it was differ-27

ent, death from natural causes versus murder. But at the time, she 28

hadn’t seen it that way. The cancer had seemed to her a murderer 29

of sorts, every bit as evil, as bent on destruction, as any human 30

killer could be.

31

It was more than five years since her mother’s death, but Kate 32

knew she hadn’t come to terms with it yet. It had happened in July, 33

the summer before her senior year at Barnard. At the time, she’d ort 34

just tried to keep busy. Funeral arrangements. Then selling the reg 35

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house. Once that was over, she was back in college. It was then 1

she’d decided on law school. Next came Harvard and Michael and 2

Samson & Mills. Plenty to keep her occupied.

3

Kate’s eyes returned to Madeleine’s brokerage statement. The 4

orderly records seemed an implicit rebuke. Kate thought of her 5

own haphazard files, a clutter of unopened correspondence. Once 6

a month, she received statements from the investment firm that 7

handled her mother’s estate. Once a month, she dumped them, un-8

opened, in a drawer. She couldn’t face them just yet, these 9

monthly reminders of her mother’s death.

10

Kate closed the file and pushed it aside. She reached for another 11

folder, then stopped, dropping her hand back to her lap. While she 12

couldn’t quite articulate the reasons, something about her position 13

here was making her uncomfortable. What was she doing in 14

Madeleine’s office, rifling through her papers? Madeleine had 15

never consented to her presence. And yet, here she was, privy to 16

the most intimate details of the dead woman’s affairs.

17

The more she thought about it, the stranger it seemed. What 18

had Carter Mills been thinking when he delegated this task to her?

19

He obviously thought she could be trusted, and she was grateful for 20

this confidence. Still, there was a nagging uneasiness. Was she 21

really the proper person for this role? And beyond that, what about 22

the murder investigation? Should anyone be here before the police 23

had taken stock? Carter had told her to leave everything as she 24

found it. And the office wasn’t the crime scene. It was just where 25

Madeleine had worked. Still . . .

26

Glancing at her watch, Kate saw that it was already eleven-27

thirty. As she turned to gauge her progress, her eyes encountered a 28

small, flat object lying at the bottom of the drawer, in the space 29

from which she’d taken the files. She peered closer to see what it 30

was, then picked it up. An unlabeled cassette tape. It must have 31

fallen from one of the folders that she’d removed.
Damn.
She 32

needed to be more careful. Maybe if she listened to the tape, she’d 33

be able to figure out where it belonged. She stuffed the cassette 34 sh

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into her purse, along with Madeleine’s black leather Filofax. These 2

smaller items she could take back to her office for review. No point 3

in hanging out in Madeleine’s office any longer than she had to.

4

Kate was moving on to the next file when the door swung open.

5

Her head snapped up and she was face to face with Martin Drescher.

6

Drescher stared at her incredulously, his eyes bulging froglike 7

from beneath bushy brows. “What are you doing here?”

8

Kate tried to stay calm. After all, she had every right to be here.

9

She was simply following instructions.

10

“Carter Mills asked me to prepare a summary of Madeleine’s 11

files,” she said, gratified to find that her voice held steady.

12

Drescher’s face had taken on the same orange-redness as his 13

hair. Even from across the room, Kate could smell stale tobacco 14

mingled with a fetid sweetness. Breath mints, perhaps?

15

“Let me make myself clear, Ms. Paine. I want you to get the hell 16

out of this office.”

17

Kate hesitated. She’d worked for Drescher, knew how quickly 18

his anger could escalate. But Mills was counting on her to get this 19

job done.

20

“Maybe I should at least call Carter,” she said, glancing toward 21

the phone on Madeleine’s desk.

22

“Ms. Paine, I
said
I’d take care of it,” Drescher bellowed. “Have 23

I —”

24

“Yes, of course,” Kate said quickly. She picked up her purse and 25

legal pad from Madeleine’s desk. “I’m sorry if I’ve done something 26

wrong,” she said, in a last-ditch attempt to salvage what remained 27

of the encounter.

28

Drescher gazed stonily ahead. If he heard Kate, he did not let on.

29

As Kate headed toward the door, she heard a rustle of papers.

30

Glancing back, she saw that Martin Drescher was already ab-31

sorbed, flipping rapidly through the files on Madeleine Waters’s desk.

32

w

33

Back in her office, Kate immediately picked up the phone and ort 34

called Carter Mills. Clara picked up. “He’s not in, Kate. Is there reg 35

anything I can do?”

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“I . . . if you can just tell him I called. Do you know when he’ll 1

be back?”

2

“He didn’t say. I’d guess within the hour, though. I don’t see any-3

thing on his calendar.”

4

Kate hung up. Where should she go from here? When in doubt, 5

make a list. Reaching in her purse for a pen, her fingers closed on 6

an unfamiliar object. She pulled it out, to see what it was.

7

The cassette tape from Madeleine’s desk.

8

And with it, Madeleine’s date book.

9

Kate bit her lip. In her haste to get out of Madeleine’s office, 10

she’d forgotten about the objects she’d pocketed for later review.

11

It is critical to the investigation that you leave everything just as you
12

found it.
That’s what Mills’s protocol said. She considered re-13

turning the objects now, before they could be missed. But that 14

wouldn’t work. Drescher was probably still there. She’d have 15

to wait. If she was lucky, she could get Carmen to slip the items 16

back into Madeleine’s desk before anyone knew they were gone.

17

Until then, she might as well see what she had. If Mills coun-18

tered Martin Drescher’s directive, she’d have to make up for the 19

lost time.

20

Kate opened the cover of Madeleine’s Filofax. The first section 21

of the book contained a calendar of the week-at-a-glance variety.

22

Three days on one page, four on the adjacent leaf, with Saturday 23

and Sunday squished into a single tiny block. Madeleine had al-24

ready swapped out last year’s pages. The calendar seemed to be de-25

voted to private matters. Madeleine must have used this book as a 26

personal reminder, a supplement to some more comprehensive cal-27

endar that she probably kept on her office PC.

28

Kate scanned the few entries before Madeleine’s death, noted in 29

a small, precise hand. A haircut at Louis Licari. An alumni event 30