Madeline Carter - 01 - Mad Money (21 page)

We made small talk for a few minutes while
her coffee was being made. It was a strain, because we didn’t have
much in common. And neither of us seemed quite prepared to face
what we
did
have in common straight on. Yet. And so we
talked about the success of the luncheon — which, she said, had
gone very well and raised a lot of money for a good cause. And we
talked about the ineptitude of the press who had, she said,
nonetheless given her a good in to plug her mother’s pet charity.
When her coffee came (she plowed the foam heart under without even
a glance) she seemed to feel it was time to get down to
business.

“Ernest has talked about you, you know.”

“He has?” Even though she’d said it the
other night, I was surprised.

“That’s why your name was familiar when we
met. And your face. I’ve seen pictures of you. In an album.” That
surprised me, as well. I wracked my brain.

“The rowing club parties?” It was the only
possibility. Ernie had been a rower in college and I’d accompanied
him to a few rowing club functions early in our relationship. These
were the only photos I would imagine would still be around of the
two of us: he would have had other reasons to keep them.

“He has special memories of you,” she said,
nodding. It was a pretty odd revelation, I thought, coming as it
did from the wife of a kidnapped man to one of his
ex-girlfriends.

I didn’t say anything. There was no way I’d
tell her I had fond memories of him: I didn’t. Instead, I settled
on: “How long have you two been married?”

“Five years.”

“Kids?”

“None,” she cast her eyes down momentarily
and I couldn’t read her. “Not yet, but we’ve been discussing it.”
Another sign of the void between us: in her world marriage was
obligatory — part of the natural progression — and children a
matter for negotiation. Me? I’d been married for about a minute
about ten years earlier, but stockbrokers make understandably
terrible wives. It had been a disaster I didn’t think I’d be
repeating. And the idea of children — that is to say
my
having children — was, if not downright repellant, so absurd an
idea I couldn’t even get my mind around it. I mean, where would I
put them? I barely had room for a borrowed dog.

Arianna watched me appraisingly for a while:
sipping her coffee, nibbling her biscotti. Then she surprised me:
she’d clearly had enough small talk. “Look Madeline,” her voice was
as calm and direct as when she’d been talking about her car and the
luncheon. “I saw the videotapes on television this morning.”

Candor continued to strike me as the way to
go, despite my sudden terror that police cruisers were, even now,
poised to descend on our quiet coffee klatch.

“I didn’t have anything to do with the
kidnapping.”

“I know,” Arianna said, looking away. “I
know you didn’t. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”

These two sentences seemed oxymoronic to me:
they canceled each other out. First, how did she know I hadn’t had
anything to do with it? From her perspective, you’d think I’d look
like a pretty good candidate. Second, why would that make her want
to talk to me? Then a light dawned. “You know something,” I said.
It was a statement, not a question.

She shrugged. An elegant gesture. “That’s
not important. What
is
important, is what you know.”

“Me? You already said you know I didn’t
kidnap him.”

“That’s not what I mean,” she looked at me
searchingly, as though deciding what she should say. Or how much.
“Let’s put it this way, just between the two of us — and honestly —
when was the last time you saw Ernest? Besides the other
night.”

I had to think for a minute because,
although with Ernie it hadn’t been a fizzle — more like a final
eruption — it was long enough ago that it felt like ancient
history. “It must be twelve, no, thirteen, years ago now. In May.
Late May.” Who am I kidding? That
is
ancient history.

“Thirteen years ago,” she repeated
needlessly. And though her tone sounded flat, uninflected, I could
hear the disbelief in it.

“Yes. When we broke up. I haven’t seen him
since.”

“I see,” her friendly —
breezy
— tone
hadn’t altered, and yet the temperature seemed to have dropped
about ten degrees. “Thirteen years ago. And we just happen to run
into you at a nightclub. And then you show up at his new office on
the very day he happens to have been kidnapped. After more than a
dozen years?”

This sounded thin, even to me. “Exactly. And
you sound as though you doubt it. Though you didn’t sound as though
you doubted the fact that I had nothing to do with the
kidnapping.”

She met my eyes — a chilling, blue gaze —
and just looked at me. I couldn’t quite gauge what she was looking
for. An ally or an alibi? Someone reasonably unconnected from the
situation to talk to? At length, she said: “I
know
you
didn’t have anything to do with kidnapping him. At least, I
think
I know. Because I think he did it himself.”

Did it himself
, my brain repeated
stupidly. Did what himself? “Do you mean you think he kidnapped
himself?”

She nodded.

“But why?”

“Why do you think, Madeline? Money.”

I thought about Ernie’s track record as a
hard hitting CEO. And I looked at this beautiful woman across from
me: the expensive manicure, the perfectly coifed hair, the designer
clothes, the Boxster glinting at the curb outside the cafe. Miss
Daughter-of-the-champion-of-feeding-the-hungry. She seemed
made
of money. I knew only too well, however, that looks can
be deceiving. In more ways than one. And yet, what I knew about
Ernie made me think there would be more.

“If what you’re saying is true, it wouldn’t
just be about money, would it?”

She looked at me, but might as well have
been looking through me. “Is anything ever just about money?” And
then, thoughtfully, as though aware of the contradiction, “is
anything ever about anything else?” She shrugged, “If you’re asking
if he
needed
money for anything, I’d say no. Not that I was
aware of, anyway. Langton offered him a very good package to come
out here and he’s done quite well by the companies he’s worked for
in the past,” I knew all of this. And what I hadn’t known, I’d
surmised. I’d just thought that, maybe, there’d be something. What
that something might be, I wasn’t exactly sure.

“But you said you thought he was doing it
for money.”

“I did, yes. But I didn’t mean because he
needed
money. No drug problem, no gambling debts — that I’ve
ever been aware of — no actual need, if you follow what I’m
saying.”

“I think I do. What you’re saying is he
wants money... for the sake of money.”

She nodded. Sighed. “To see who can make the
biggest pile.”

What Arianna was saying was so on target —
so along the lines of what I’d been thinking — I was somewhat
suspicious. Though I wasn’t exactly sure why. Despite the fact that
I had once known her husband — in the biblical sense — I was a
complete stranger to this woman. And I couldn’t quite see her
motivation for telling me as much as she had.

“Do you know where he is?” I asked.

She shook her head, no. “I don’t know
anything. Not really.” She looked suddenly more vulnerable, as
though she’d been at her best to try and catch me at something and,
having failed, she was letting her guard down, perhaps having
determined it was unnecessary.

“Tell me what you do know,” I said to her.
And this suddenly seemed important. “Tell me why you think
this.”

This time she didn’t hesitate very long
before speaking. “We moved out here about a month ago, in
anticipation of Ernest beginning to work with Langton. At first
we’d thought I would stay in Connecticut and Ernest would commute.
Then, he talked me in to coming out here with him. He said that it
could be an adventure for us. Something different. So we rented a
house here in Brentwood, thinking we’d wait to buy until after we
got to know the city and what area we liked best or if we even
liked it at all.”

I listened carefully as she spoke and I
heard the things she was saying, but I could tell there was a lot
she wasn’t saying, as well.

“Everything was fine — normal, for us —
until about a week after we got out here. Then Ernie started acting
strangely. Phone calls he’d have to take in the other room —
something he never did before — and sudden dinner and lunch
appointments... there was more and more stress on him and less and
less time for... well... me.

“I could live with that. He’s a busy man and
I knew what I was getting into when I married him. But it got
worse. In days that I’d thought we’d spend together, buying things
for the house and getting settled in, he was spending more and more
time away from home, even though he wasn’t having to go to the
office yet. And then I found this,” she rummaged quickly in her
purse — Hermes, I noted, and not the sort to brook much rummaging —
and produced a business card, which she passed to me.

“Paul Westbrook,” I read, “West Trade
Financial.” I struggled to keep my face neutral: not sure how much
to give away. Because, of course, I knew that name. And, having
seen it revealed, something fell into place. Something indefinable
at present, it was true, but it felt like a match of some kind. It
was something I’d have to think about later.

The card was printed on inexpensive stock
and heavily embossed: the type of embossing that’s meant to look
costly but seldom does. The address was in Woodland Hills.

“I did some checking,” I must have covered
my recognition of the name well enough because she didn’t seem to
have noticed. “It’s a small, practically nonexistent investment
firm in the San Fernando Valley. At first I couldn’t imagine why
Ernest would have anything to do with them. Then, after he
disappeared, I found this,” more Hermes rummaging, after which she
produced an envelope which she passed to me and encouraged me to
open.

I did. There were two carefully folded
sheets of lined paper inside, like those torn out of a legal
pad.

The first page was unmistakably Ernie’s
writing. Just seeing his careful handwriting in the dark blue ink
he’d always favored carried me back the dozen years to our little
off-campus apartment: notes on fridges, a birthday card, one
extremely passionate letter avowing his undying affection (he’d
been drunk). All of these things danced quickly through my head
before I managed to focus on context.

There was a doodle of a mountain peak under
a cloudy sky at one corner of the pad. It was funny to think of
Ernie still doodling after all these years, but it also made it
clear, to me anyway, and likely to his wife, that he’d written the
words and done the doodle while talking on the telephone.

There were only two words on the page in
Ernie’s clear hand. At the top of the page, the word:

Westbrook

And, near the bottom:

Arrowheart

The way he’d situated the words made it look
as though something should be between them. Or — and this was quite
possible — he’d doodled these, as well. Parts of unfinished
thoughts while he talked or listened.

The first word obviously related to the name
on the card. “Who’s Arrowheart?” I asked Arianna. She shrugged
elegantly again. “I have no idea. That’s one of the reasons I
wanted to show it to you. I thought it might have meaning.”

I shook my head, even while I wracked my
brain. But no: I was pretty sure I’d never heard of anyone — man or
woman — named Arrowheart. I would have remembered. And she hadn’t
asked me about Westbrook, so I kept my mouth shut.

The second piece of paper looked as though
it had come from the same place as the first, but it would have
been apparent to almost anyone — and certainly to me and Arianna —
that it hadn’t been written by Ernie.

“Ernie didn’t write this.” I said.

She shook her head, no. “The handwriting is
unfamiliar to me.”

Again the lined paper, but this time the
message was even more cryptic than before. At first glance and to
most people, it might have looked like something written in code.
Arianna watched me closely as I studied what was written on the
paper in black ink and in a hand that clearly was not Ernie’s:

2225262728

_____________________________________________

65 1/243 1/23

-2-10-15-15+42

-179.5

+126

= 53.50

The meaning was not instantly clear to me.
Just apparently unrelated numbers that mostly didn’t even add up.
Not a calculation then. But the way the second line was notated, it
could
refer to a stock price. And if the first line
represented dates, then... my face must have registered something
as the notation’s meaning started to become clear — a widening of
my eyes or just a look of sudden and shocked understanding. Arianna
noticed right away.

“You see it.” Not a question.

I nodded. “I... I think so. Do you know what
it is?”

“I think so, too.” I must have looked a
question at her because she said, “I have a financial background.
It’s how Ernest and I met.”

“But it’s crazy,” I said. “It’s beyond
crazy. I can’t imagine Ernie doing something like this. Can
you?”

The shrug again. “I don’t know what to think
anymore,” she said softly. “I just wish he’d told me something.
Anything.” Now it was my turn to watch closely: to gauge the
expressions flitting across her face and calculate their sincerity.
Honestly, though, there wasn’t much to see. Just that cool, clear
profile. Arianna’s was a face that didn’t give much away.

“Did you show this to the police?”

She shook her head: No.

“Why?”