The Best of Enemies (22 page)

Bobby grabs my hands and holds them steady.
“Whoa, take it easy, slugger.
Number one, there’s no proof yet, right?
So far it’s all hearsay.
And number two, how could you have known anything?
What, are you a psychic now?
If so, we need to have a very important conversation about Powerball numbers.”

I can’t accept his solace.
Because I stood by and did nothing about Trip, I’m essentially complicit.
“I wish I’d trusted my gut.
Why wasn’t I more insistent when I went to Vegas for her bachelorette party?
I knew that was him at the airport in New York all over some other woman.
He was so smarmy, so slick, but covered it up with that veneer of old money and Ivy League respectability.
I should have made Sars listen.
Better for her to have had a small hurt than this heartbreak.”

Satisfied that I’m not going to punch anything else, Bobby lets go of my hands, picking up the antique brass pheasant-shaped object on the corner of the desk, turning it this way and that for inspection.
I always wondered if he wasn’t a little ADD with his inability to sit without fidgeting.

“But that’s not your job,” he says, finding the hinge on the back of the pheasant’s neck that opens to reveal a hidden reservoir.
He opens and closes the pheasant’s head, like Pac-Man gobbling pellets.
“You aren’t responsible for protecting everyone.
People have to make their own decisions and live with their own consequences.
Remember how Mom was always saying that?”

“How’d that work out for her?”

He snaps shut the head, which makes a clacking noise.
“Don’t go there.”

“I’m not wrong.”

“I’m not saying you’re wrong.
I’m just saying you should be logical, Jack.
What were you gonna do?
You aren’t Sars’s keeper.
Never were.
She’s a grown-ass adult.
Think about what Dad was always saying to us as kids.
‘Not your circus, not your monkeys.’”
He begins to toss the item back and forth; each time it lands with a satisfying smack on his palms.
“Hey, what is this thing, anyway?”

“That’s one of the vintage inkwells Teddy started collecting in college,” I reply.
“Remember?
He kept this one on his desk.
The best ones are the lion and the jackal—they’re here somewhere, too—shelf in the living room, I think?”

Bobby halts his game of catch to look at me, brows knit, genuinely confused.
“Inkwell collection.
In college.
When I was busy collecting tequila bottles.
How did we not know he was gay?”

I begin to pick at my nails again, finally tearing off the offending bit of skin on my thumb.
The area begins to bleed and I blot at the tiny bead of red with the bottom of my shirt.
“Probably because I’m a lousy reporter.”

Before Bobby can disagree, Teddy materializes behind us, scooping up the inkwell and placing it back on the desk.
“Are you making her feel bad again, cock-muppet?”
He cuffs Bobby lightly on the back of the head.

“I wasn’t!
I swear!”
he protests, holding up his arms to protect himself.

“I thought you’d be with Sars,” Teddy says.

“I took the morning shift.
She’s
going to be there this evening,” I say, not wanting to use her actual name.
Even now, Sars is helping to manage Kitty and me, advising each of us where to be when so that we may avoid each other.
This isn’t fair.
Our stupid feud should be the last thing on her mind.

Teddy perches on the edge of the desk, clean-shaven with closely cropped hair, clad in a sharply creased pair of khakis, a crisp, pale yellow oxford, a summer-weight blue blazer, and loafers so shiny they glow.
He’s quite the contrast to shaggy Bobby in his faded cargo shorts, Tevas, and D
ÍA DE LAS
M
UERTOS
T-shirt.
“So, why are you a lousy reporter, Pulitzer Prize–nominated Jack Jordan?”

While I explain what’s transpired, we gravitate out of the crowded office nook, resituating ourselves in the seating area of the little apartment.
Teddy and I sit at opposite ends of the gracious old Chesterfield, while Bobby opts for a wingback out of striking distance.
All the cats immediately swarm me, settling in my lap and around my shoulders.
Tomba-Cat purrs against my ear so loudly that I have to strain to hear conversation.

“Not to be morbid, but it sounds like Trip died at just the right time,” Teddy says.
“And there’s poor Sars, holding the bag.
Does Simon believe investors will go after her?
Even though she’s not part of the company?
Didn’t Madoff’s wife lose everything?”

My heart begins to pound in my chest.
“Say that again.”

“Madoff’s wife lost everything?”

I stand and the cats go spilling off my lap.
The boys dart away in all directions as I begin to pace.
“No.
You said Trip died at just the right time.
He died at just the right time.
How can I be so blind?”

“Hereditary astigmatism?”
Bobby volunteers.

“That’s a rhetorical statement, you ass-jacket,” Teddy says.

“You’re a rhetorical statement,” Bobby replies, picking up a pillow and hugging it into his chest.

I walk back and forth behind the sofa as I work everything through.
“Why didn’t this occur to me sooner?
Rescuers didn’t find the whole jet, just an easily identifiable tail piece, complete with registration numbers, part of a wing, a couple of seats, and a few other floating artifacts.
Where’s the oil slick?
Where are the bodies?
Why wasn’t his usual pilot flying the plane?
How does no one else have questions?
This strikes me as,
‘Here’s a simple answer for a complex question, move along, nothing else to see.’
”

Teddy narrows his gaze.
“Are you saying . . . ?”

“Exactly,” I reply.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Could he be that insidious?”
Teddy asks, more to himself than to anyone else.
“Would he go that far?”

I reply, “People aren’t always rational when it comes to money.
Remember that story I wrote about the Taliban commander who turned himself in for the hundred-dollar reward?”

Teddy muses, “You almost had to feel sorry for the guy, right?
There he was, pointing at his W
ANTED
poster, saying,
‘I am him!
Please to give me my reward now!’
and then didn’t understand why he was being dragged off in cuffs.”

Bobby’s eyes dart back and forth as we talk, tennis match–style.

“Do
not
feel pity.
That guy plotted two separate attacks against Afghan security forces.
Spend five minutes with the wounded in the med center at the Ramstein Air Base and any compassion you feel for that piece of garbage will disappear right quick,” I snap.

Teddy quickly backtracks.
“Whoa, of course, Jack.
I’m sorry.
Didn’t mean to sound insensitive.
But I follow your point—people will always surprise you in what they’re willing to do with enough cash on the line.”

“You also believe it’s possible?”
I confirm.

Bobby throws his arms wide, which causes his pillow to fall and almost knock over a vase on the coffee table, which Teddy quickly rights.
“What the hell are you guys saying?
Like the crash didn’t really happen?
Like Trip somehow faked it all?
Come on!
This is real life, not the movies!”

“Bob, you never believe that anyone could have a darker side or base motives.
I wish I had your optimism about human nature, but I’ve seen people at their worst,” I say.
“He had the means and the motive.”

Bobby’s cheeks begin to redden.
“Uh-uh.
No.
That’s the kind of crazy conspiracy talk you hear on late-night AM radio.
Not finding a whole plane doesn’t mean shit.
Water recovery can take a lot of time depending on tide and wind.
Lindy and I went diving in Belize once and the barrier reef really messes with how everything flows.
We were swept so far off course that we almost didn’t get back to the boat and she was an expert.
No.
I don’t buy it.
They found the black box—the plane clearly crashed.
Don’t make it all worse by disrespecting the dude’s memory.
Uncool.”
He eases forward to retrieve his pillow.
“Major league uncool.”

Dad always said Bobby’s patented refusal to see the worst in anyone is both his greatest blessing as well as his biggest liability.
“Still,” I insist.
“Consider the ramifications if the plane
didn’t really crash
?
What if Trip knew he was under SEC investigation and he somehow made it
seem
like there was an accident?”

Teddy’s wheels are turning, too.
“Like John Burney writ large?”

“Bingo,” I say.

“Writ
what
?”
Bobby says, clearly frustrated with both of us.
“Explain, ’cause you sound nuts.”

“John Burney was a prominent businessman who’d fallen on hard times back in the seventies,” I tell him.
“Somewhere in Alabama, I believe.
No, Arkansas.
Not important.
Anyway, his company had gone under and he was facing lawsuits, financial ruin imminent.
One night, he was involved in a car accident on a bridge.
Instead of waiting for help to arrive, he climbed over the railing, dropped into the water, and swam away.
The police, and everyone else, assumed he was dead, his body having floated down the river.”

Bobby flashes a victorious grin.
“Tides, man, I’m telling ya.”

“Bobby, she just said he swam away and he was fine,” Teddy said.

I don’t want to upset Bobby any more than he already is, but I need Ted’s help to piece this puzzle together.
“Burney basically bolted and created a whole new life for himself in Florida.
Even remarried and had kids under an assumed name.
Neither his first wife nor business partners had any knowledge of this, so they filed for and collected his insurance.
Seemed like the perfect crime.”

Teddy jumps in to add, “Except it wasn’t.
That dumb bastard ended up coming back to Arkansas to visit his father and he was found out.
A judge allowed his beneficiaries to keep the money on a technicality—something about the settlement being fairly disbursed.
Of course, Burney’s insurance company turned around and sued him.”

While Bobby remains upset and unconvinced, Teddy and I gather steam.
We were an unbeatable team when we’d play two on two against John and Bobby as kids.
While the twins were more proficient in hoops than Teddy or me, he and I always won because we mastered the art of unspoken communication.
With one look, we could anticipate any move the other would make.

I say, “Wait, there was a man in Indiana who did the same thing not too long ago.”
I quickly Google the information to confirm.
“Yes!
Marcus Schrenker!
I knew this scenario seemed familiar.
Same situation as what could have happened with Trip, right down to this guy being an investment advisor.
He was in financial trouble, so he crashed his single-engine Piper Meridian and made it look like an accident.
He even sent distress calls to air traffic control about a broken windshield and bleeding face.”

Bobby clutches his pillow ever tighter.

“Terry and I saw that story on
20/20
,” Teddy says.
“The difference between Schrenker and Burney is that Schrenker’s crime was premeditated, whereas Burney capitalized on a happy accident.
Schrenker was quickly found out and caught because he did a shit job of covering his tracks.
Like, there was no blood in the plane or around in the field where it went down.
The windshield was intact, too, suspicious given the distress call.
However, if he had more means, more time to plan, and an aquatic crash instead of terrestrial?
Wouldn’t have been so easy to spot the fraud.”