The Long Road Home (10 page)

AT PRECISELY FOUR O’CLOCK, Nora sat across the bare mahogany dining table from C.W., her ankles together, her back straight, and her hands tightly folded atop a neat pile of papers. If she was going to work successfully with Mr. Walker, he had to first understand that she was capable and up to the job. She had a college degree in business, had spent childhood summers on a dairy farm, was eager to learn, and had bound less energy. There was no reason on earth why she couldn’t make a go of it here in Vermont.

No reason other than money, of course.

She looked across the table at C.W. and wondered how she was ever going to manage working with such a quixotic personality. One minute he seemed almost kind, the next he was critical—and it seemed to her that he was especially critical of her. What had she done to make him feel that way about her? If she was going to fit in here, she had to be one of the guys, like Esther.

C.W.’s long fingers began to tap impatiently upon the table.
Okay, Mr. Walker, she thought, clearing her throat. I’m just as eager to end this meeting as you are.

“I intend to be frank with you, Mr. Walker,” she began, hoping she sounded professional. She didn’t realize that to him she sounded more like an arrogant housewife giving orders to the gardener.

He bristled and shifted in his seat.

She fiddled with the corner of a paper.

“I have a net worth statement from Mike’s lawyers,” she continued steadily, “but I would like to verify it with your figures. I’m not sure I trust theirs.”

He found that very interesting. “I can get that for you.”

“Thank you. Next, I need a budget.”

“Uh-huh.”

They were both on their best behavior. Nora felt relieved. So far so good. She decided to dive right in. Taking a deep breath, she reviewed her numerous lists.

“In order to do that, I need a complete farm inventory, the variable and fixed costs, receipts, and,” she added, stressing the syllable, “your projections for next year’s budget. A profit and loss statement is necessary too.” She looked up. “Can you get that for me?”

He hunched forward and she sensed he was hiding a grin of amusement. “Yes,” he replied in a mildly condescending voice. “Usually this is gathered at the year’s end.”

The subtle tease in his voice reminded her of his arrogance the first night she met him. Nora twisted her pencil in her fingers.

“Not this year,” she snapped back.

C.W.’s face hardened as he sat back in his chair.

Nora sat forward in hers. She coupled her hands and leaned forward. “Look, Mr. Walker. I’m aware that we got off on the
wrong foot. Somehow, I don’t know why, you got the wrong idea about me and my intentions here.”

She searched his face for some change but found none. Yet she knew she had his complete attention. “I was sincere when I said this isn’t just a vacation home anymore. This place means everything to me.” She flattened her hands on the table and took a deep breath. “I apologize for the inconvenience you’ve suffered and my earlier harsh words.”

C.W. considered her words for what seemed an eternity. She’d never known a man to be silent for so long. Nora pinkened but stared him down, matching his silence with stubbornness.

“Mrs. MacKenzie,” he said, his face grave and his voice low, “I assure you, there is nothing you need apologize to me for. Ever. It is I who should apologize to you.”

Nora slowly leaned back in her chair and dropped her hands in her lap. Her lips parted slightly. C.W. had turned the tables. She’d never expected him to apologize to her.

“Let’s call it even.” Nora was sincere.

“All right,” he said, easing into a wry smile. “As for your other requests, I can get that information for you. But all that will take some time. Seth’s records are filed, shall we say, creatively.”

“I understand.”

“Since we’re being frank here, Mrs. MacKenzie, let me say that I don’t understand. It isn’t gossip to know that you’re loaded. Why are you so worried about money? Things have muddled along on this place for years. A check here to cover expenses, a write-off there.” His tone spoke volumes.

Nora tightened her lips. She hadn’t anticipated this question, at least not so soon. The hardwood of her chair was suddenly very uncomfortable.

“Well, you see, Mike, that is, my husband had some
outstanding debts that still need to be settled. Until then, the banks have put me on a restricted allowance.”

His face skewered. “A restricted allowance? Just how restricted?”

Now it was Nora’s turn to bristle. “Let’s just say things will be tight for a while.” She wasn’t about to confide all her financial details.

“Well,” he said, slightly lifting his shoulders. “Banks can be like that.”

“Banks nothing,” she said with unexpected vehemence. “One bank—one man—by the name of Charles Blair. He’s responsible for this.”

C.W. almost reeled back from the shock. “Charles Blair? Did what?”

“I don’t know exactly but I intend to find out, and when I do—” Nora immediately clammed up. She waved her hand, as if to brush away any further thoughts or comments about the disagreeable subject. That was her past. Now she had her future to think about.

For the next half hour, she discussed in her best business tone the groundwork for her eight-week plan: what she needed to learn and what he could help her with. She ended her presentation with a brief plea for his cooperation, knowing she needed all the help she could get.

While he seemed willing enough, his replies were mono syllabic or mere nods of the head, as though he was preoccupied with some other problem. And when she concluded, he grabbed his coat and darted for the door like a schoolboy after the three o’clock bell.

Well, she thought with disappointment as she watched him hike down the mountain road at a clipped pace. What more could she expect? He was, after all, just drifting by.

There was nothing drifting about the way C.W. headed for a telephone. Thoughts were churning full speed in his head, propelling his long legs faster and faster down the mountain to the Johnston house.

Charles Blair connected to MacKenzie’s downfall? What the hell? He did no such thing! Why would she say that? It was too easy to write it off as mindless chatter. She was too sure—too angry—for that, and there was nothing mindless about Nora MacKenzie. He had been impressed with her long tables of figures and her ease with banking terms.

What the bloody hell, he repeated.

When he arrived at the Johnston’s pale green house, he knocked, called, then sighed in relief that no one was home. They’d opened the house to him from the day he arrived: the Johnstons were like family now. He met with Seth and the boys here daily, and Esther had simply assumed he’d be at the family table for meals, a hospitality he was careful not to abuse. He was aware the extended family couldn’t easily absorb the burden of another mouth to feed.

Entering the house uninvited was never considered an intrusion. Today, however, he felt out of place. The task at hand made him a stranger. He walked straight to the phone that would connect him to a world he’d fled ten months ago. He stared at it, but could not touch it.

Sticking his hands in his pockets, he rocked on his heels while he reviewed his conversation with Nora. MacKenzie’s widow was clear that Charles Blair was connected to her financial troubles. C.W. stared out the window. Charles Blair. Charles Blair was another man. He no longer felt akin to the name or the lifestyle of the prominent banker.

The distant perspective helped. A man named MacKenzie had chosen to kill himself before a man named Blair.
For months he’d asked himself why? To be honest, he never seriously pursued it. It had always been too painful. He’d procrastinated. Now, however, Nora’s presence set the clock ticking.

C.W. reached out again for the phone. His hand shook, like he needed a drink. That sordid image set his mouth in a grim line. Hard memories spawned determination that spurred him to action. Grabbing the phone, he quickly dialed a New York number. As the phone rang he took deep, cleansing breaths, mentally shifting gears. Within seconds, he heard Sidney Teller’s crisp, Boston accent excitedly tell the operator he’d accept the charges.

“Charles! My God, Charles…I’d begun to think you were dead. Where the hell have you been for ten months? Not a word. Not a word!”

C.W. paused, cupping the telephone receiver, and looked around the living room. It was five o’clock and Seth and the kids would be returning from the fields within the hour. Satisfied he was out of earshot, C.W. lowered his mouth to the telephone.

“Why were you worried? I told you I’d be gone for an extended leave. I left the bank in your hands—good hands, I hope.”

“Oh yes, certainly,” sputtered Sidney as he tried to recollect his poise. “But damn it all, Charles. At the very least I expected a postcard from some Tahitian island.”

C.W. smiled and sensed his brother-in-law’s relief over the miles. “I’m all right, really. I needed the time to sort things out.”

He was grateful Sidney had the grace not to press.

“How’s my sister?” C.W. asked.

“You know Cornelia,” Sidney replied. “She takes care of herself.”

Sidney’s reply disturbed C.W., but at the moment, he had business to address.

“Tell me, Sid. In a nutshell, what’s going on with the MacKenzie estate?”

He heard Sidney’s sigh over the wire. “For God’s sake, Charles. Aren’t you done beating that dead horse? Let it go.”

C.W. resented the bitterness he heard in Sidney’s voice.

“I have my reasons for asking,” he replied.

“Hard to say. There is a big mess over his finances. No one is sure even yet how his estate has settled. The whole estate is shrouded with unusual secrecy. Bad loans somewhere, apparently.”

“Not from our bank, I assume.” C.W.’s voice rang with a warning that Sidney didn’t miss.

“Of course not. Your instructions were explicit. No loans to MacKenzie. You called that one right.”

C.W. sensed Sidney’s discomfort on the other end of the line. Sidney was his sister’s husband and his own right-hand man. At the Blair Bank they had been quite a team: Charles Walker Blair was the spearhead, the man of ideas. Sidney Teller was the detail man, his secretary of state. Together, they had brought the Blair Bank to its pinnacle of success.

In the past year, however, everything had changed. C.W. had changed. How much, he wondered, had Sidney changed?

C.W. let the silence linger well into the discomfort zone before quietly asking, “What is it, Sid?”

Another pause, then a clearing of the throat. “On the subject of loans… Something’s wrong at the bank,” he blurted. “I’ve been searching for you for months, but no one can find out where the hell you are. You’d better come back. Right away.”

“What’s wrong, exactly?”

“Some bad loans have been issued. To a number of small firms. It all seemed straightforward on paper,” he said in a rush, “but they’ve all come up short. Smells like shell companies, a front of some kind. And, Agatha’s routing me.”

“What’s she got to do with this?”

“I’m not sure, but she’s on the march, patrolling the rank and file, shooting out memos, holding court at the board meetings.” He paused. “It’s been tough.”

C.W. frowned. That Agatha would force an attack against himself and Sidney was no surprise. His brother-in-law and stepmother despised each other with a deliberateness that C.W. found distasteful. Agatha loathed only one person more than Sidney, and that was him. But he had been able to ignore their personal animosity. It was bad for business.

“Bad loans imply bad judgment,” C.W. replied in a low voice. “Could bring the stock down. The directors will be held responsible.”

“Exactly.”

“Here’s what I want you to do. I want the names of the companies we loaned money to. I want the exact dates. And, I want the names of the officers who issued them.”

“Got it.”

“One more thing,” he added, on a hunch. “Sniff around the MacKenzie estate. Something is off there; I can feel it.” He thought of MacKenzie’s widow. Was that haughtiness he read in her eyes—or fear?

“When will you be home?” Sidney asked. There was no mistaking the urgency in his voice.

C.W. sighed. Home. Where was that? “Soon. I have a commitment to finish up first. In the meantime, don’t let anyone know you talked to me. Keep a low profile but dig around. Find out what’s not being said and report back to me.”

“Sure, Charles. Where can I reach you?”

C.W. smiled. “I’ll call you.”

He hung up the phone but still felt the intangible tie to the bank. Damn this cursed business, he thought. All cuts and stabs. Would he never find a way to free himself of it? Or was he bound to the bank by birth as surely as some monarch to his throne?

No, he thought with cold sureness. He’d come too far to let the machinations of the bank bring him down again. He’d give Sid a few days to dig up some information, then he’d help his brother-in-law formulate an attack. If worse came to worst, he’d head back to New York, if only long enough to throw his support to Sidney and resign from the bank. He wanted out, that much was certain.

C.W. ran his hand through his hair and let out a ragged sigh. Leaning back against the wall, he let his gaze roam the small rooms of the Johnston house. It was a modest house that had seen better days. The walls stooped with age and were covered with faded rose wallpaper. The furniture was sparse and poor, and the sofa’s floral upholstery was worn bare in spots.

Yet, a bright handmade quilt was neatly spread across the fabric, and fall meadow flowers cheered up the dining table. Neat stacks of newspapers and split logs rested beside the warm wood stove. Near the front door, a long line of muddy work boots sat under a large collection of hanging jackets. Closing his eyes, he could still smell the scent of Esther’s coffee and pancake breakfast from the kitchen.

God almighty, he thought, squeezing his closed lids tight. He’d give his fortune for what he found in this small, family home.

In Manhattan, in a tall building of ornate cement, up in the penthouse suite, Agatha Blair was just informed that Charles Blair had placed a phone call to Sidney Teller.