The Weekenders (22 page)

“I don't actually know what happened,” Riley said.

“Maybe you need to ask your husband,” she suggested.

“I'd love to, but unfortunately, that's no longer possible,” Riley said. “He's dead.”

“Oh, my,” the clerk said, sucking in her breath. “Bless your heart.”

*   *   *

The white brick building on Catawba Street had a portable sign on wheels—the kind usually seen at clearance and going-out-of-business sales.

BALDWIN COMMUNITY BANK. ASK US ABOUT FREE CHECKING!

Riley pushed through the plate-glass door. She was standing in a largish room with four bank tellers lined up at high counters across the back of the room. Painters were busily coating the walls with an unobtrusive shade of pinkish beige. There was an unoccupied reception desk to the right of the door, with a young woman standing beside it.

“Can I help you?” the receptionist asked automatically. And then—“Oh, Riley! Hi. How nice to see you.”

For a moment, Riley couldn't place how she knew the speaker. Her face was familiar. She was in her early thirties, with long blond hair worn in a tight bun. Attractive, in a crisply professional way, she was dressed in the kind of dark blue blazer they probably handed out in banking school.

“Hello,” Riley replied politely.

The young woman's face flushed. “It's me, Melody. From the island?”

Of course. Melody Zimmerman, or as Parrish called her, Belle Isle Barbie's bestie.

“Of course! So sorry,” Riley said. “I guess I'm not used to seeing you anyplace but the island. And I wasn't expecting to see somebody I know here, at this bank.”

Melody stood and clasped Riley's hands in hers. “Are you all right? I heard the terrible news about Wendell.” Her voice oozed concern. “Is there anything at all I can do for you? I did drop a plate of my brownies by your mother's house yesterday, but she said you weren't up to seeing company.”

“That was kind of you,” Riley said automatically. “Everybody on the island has been so thoughtful. I'm okay, I guess. Sort of numb.”

Melody clutched her hand. “What does the sheriff say, about, you know, what happened?”

“The coroner says it was a blow to the back of the head,” she said, her voice steely, hoping that would shut down Melody's questions.

“Oh. I guess he must have fallen. Such a tragic accident.”

“Actually, they don't think it was an accident at all.”

The color drained from Melody's face, and she hurriedly changed her line of questions. “What brings you to the bank today?” she asked.

The last person Riley wanted to confide in about her foreclosure issues was Andrea Payne's best friend.

“Well, it's, uh, sort of confidential,” she said. “Just some things to do with Wendell's estate. Is there a bank officer I could speak to?”

Melody smiled. “You probably haven't heard, but I've actually just been named senior vice president here. I'm thrilled, of course.”

She looked around the room and whispered, “Unfortunately, our new management team didn't retain very many of the former Coastal Carolina employees.”

“Congratulations, Melody. That's wonderful. Um, do you think I could talk to the bank manager, or whoever is in charge?”

“Afraid not. The manager's at an all-day meeting off-site. You sure there's nothing I can help you with? Since the changeover, I'm the employee with the most seniority.” She looked around the room and pointed at a glassed-in cubicle. “We could just slip right into my new office and chat in private if you like.”

Riley felt her resistance ebbing. She didn't actually dislike Melody Zimmerman, because she didn't know her well enough to have formed a real opinion.

“I guess that would be all right,” Riley said.

*   *   *

Melody sat behind a desk with a brass nameplate, which she promptly placed facedown on the desktop. “Mr. Gardiner was let go when the new team took over,” she explained. “Such a sweet man. Now, how can I help?”

Riley folded her hands in her lap. “I'm sure you've heard all the talk. My house—the house on Sand Dollar Lane—somehow, through some kind of mix-up, it's been foreclosed upon. Maggy and I have been staying with my mother at Shutters. And the thing is—I've just come from the courthouse, and the foreclosure notice says this bank—or rather, the bank this bank used to be, is the mortgage holder and that the house is going to be sold at auction next week.”

“Yes,” Melody said sadly. “I am aware. Very regrettable.”

“Regrettable? This is a disaster. Wendell never said anything to me about taking out another mortgage.”

“Maybe he forgot to mention it to you? I know lots of stay-at-home moms don't much bother themselves with family finances.”

Riley felt her face growing hot with anger and embarrassment. She hated the condescending way some professional women treated women who'd left the workforce—as though they'd surrendered their brains and talent when they'd hung up their panty hose and company parking passes. Even more, she hated the way she allowed herself to feel intimidated by the opposing side in the ongoing mommy wars.

“Apparently, there was quite a lot about our finances I wasn't privy to. If you must know, Wendell and I were separated. We'd planned to tell Maggy on Friday, after we got to the island. This whole thing—it came out of nowhere.”

Melody sighed. “So, you weren't aware of any of Wendell's financial difficulties?”

“As I said, we hadn't really lived together in several months,” Riley said through clenched teeth. “He was obsessed with getting the development on the north end of the island going, and I knew there were problems. But he never, ever told me he'd taken out a new loan on the Belle Isle house. He must have known I'd fight him on that. And especially not for two million, which is absurd.”

“Absurd?” Melody cocked her head. “You're just being modest. That house is amazing, I mean, from the outside.”

“Maybe so, but the original loan was only for four hundred thousand. After my dad died, we agreed to pay off the mortgage with part of my inheritance.”

Melody gave her that patronizing smile again. “Since the recession ended, property values on the island have soared. Which is good news for your family, right? I can't remember the exact figure, but I'm pretty sure our loan appraisal came in at just over two million.”

“You knew about the mortgage?”

“Yes.”

Riley stared at her. “Why? Why did he refinance the house? What did he do with all that money? And why didn't he tell me? It was
our
house. My father gave us that lot as an anniversary gift!”

Melody shrugged. “I'm sorry, Riley, but this was a business deal. We never discussed his personal life or the state of his marriage. Wendell happened to mention at a Kiwanis meeting that he was looking to raise some capital for the north end project, and he was thinking about refinancing the Sand Dollar Lane house. He asked me about our interest rates, which were favorable, so we did the loan. I think he liked the idea of dealing with a local bank, instead of some big, faceless entity in Charlotte.”

“He had no right!” Riley cried. “This can't even be legal.” She twisted around in her chair so she was facing the lobby. “I need to see the manager. You people can't auction off my house. You just can't.”

Melody shrugged. “Even if he were in the office, Mr. Shumway would tell you the same thing I just did. Wendell took out the loan, then defaulted. We met with him to try and work out terms for him to meet his obligations, but it never happened, so the foreclosure process went forward. Wendell was aware of all of this. And if you must know, his obligations to the bank were much more extensive than just your house.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Riley demanded.

“I'm really not at liberty to say,” Melody replied. “Banking confidentiality laws, you know. In fact, I've probably already told you more than I should have, just out of respect for our friendship.”

She stood up and smoothed her skirt. “If you like, I can give Mr. Shumway your phone number and ask him to give you a call.” She stood by the doorway to the office and gestured toward the lobby. “I'm really very sorry, Riley. Truly.”

 

24

Riley sat in her car outside the Wells Fargo branch office and tried to calm her shattered nerves. She'd left Shutters that morning determined to unsnarl the snafu surrounding the foreclosure of her home, but nothing had gone as she'd planned. Tears stung her eyes, and her head throbbed so badly she felt nauseous. She closed her eyes and tried to remember meditation techniques from a long-ago yoga class.

“Think of your happy place,” the teacher had instructed in her soothing, low whispers. “Picture yourself there and let your troubles and stresses trickle away like raindrops on the petal of a flower.”

Happy place? Her happy place had been Belle Isle. Now when she tried to visualize herself there all she could see were storm clouds overhead and the boldface type on the foreclosure notice tacked to her front door.

The stabbing pain at the base of her skull was nearly unbearable. She found a packet of aspirin in her purse and dry-swallowed both of them, and then forced herself to go inside the bank to delve further into whatever “financial difficulties” her late husband had created for his family.

*   *   *

Half an hour later she stumbled out of the bank, too stunned and shaken to do anything more than collapse into the driver's seat of her car.

The clerk had been as polite and as helpful as a clerk in a small-town branch of a banking behemoth could be. It wasn't her fault that the news was devastating.

The joint checking account she and Wendell shared held only a few thousand dollars, which wasn't unusual. But when she'd asked about their savings and investment accounts, the teller had tapped a few keys and frowned.

“I'm sorry, Mrs. Griggs, but it looks like that account was closed last April.”

She'd stood at the counter, her spine rigid, staring at the teller until the poor man had looked away, embarrassed for her.

“Maybe … maybe my husband opened another account? I mean, another kind of account?” She rattled off her social security number and date of birth, and Wendell's social security number, too.

He tapped the keyboard and shook his head. “Nothing.”

Her mouth was so dry she could barely croak out the next question. “My trust fund?”

He nodded, tapped a few more keys, and a printer on the counter spat out a slip of paper with the balance.

“No.” Riley stared down at it, and then looked up. “This can't be right. Eighteen hundred dollars and forty-seven cents?” She repeated her social security number but the bottom line was clear.

Wendell had looted the trust fund left to her by her grandfather and father, to the tune of six million dollars. And change.

The clerk looked over her shoulder at the next customer, willing her to move her miserable self away. “Anything else?”

“No,” she'd mumbled. “Nothing else.”

*   *   *

She'd driven straight back to the Baldwin Community Bank. Melody Zimmerman had emerged from her glass cubicle as soon as she saw Riley enter the lobby.

“Are you all right?” Melody took one look at Riley's face and quickly took her by the arm and led her to a sofa in the corner of the lobby. “I'm going to get you some coffee,” Melody said.

“No,” Riley said. “No coffee. I've just come from Wells Fargo. Wendell … he closed our savings and investment accounts there, last April. And my trust fund … did he transfer the money to this bank?”

Melody bit her lip and looked away. “Look,” she said, her voice low. “If it were up to me, I'd happily give you that information right now. But I can't. It's against the law.”

“But it's my money,” Riley croaked. “He's my husband.”

“I realize that,” Melody said. “There are all kinds of banking confidentiality laws in play here. Without the proper documentation, I can't tell you anything about Wendell's accounts with us.”

“What kind of documentation?”

“His death certificate, to start with.”

“I don't have one yet,” Riley said.

“I can't help you without that, Riley,” Melody said.

*   *   *

The five-minute-warning horn sounded just as Riley boarded the 4 p.m. ferry back to Belle Isle. She hurried toward the upper deck, hoping to find a quiet place to digest the barrage of bad news she'd encountered, and was surprised to see Parrish sitting there, leafing through a magazine.

“Hey,” she said. “If I'd known you were going to town, we could have gone in together,” Parrish said. “What's up?”

“The sheriff called first thing this morning and wanted to ask me some more questions. About Wendell. The last thing I wanted was him showing up at Shutters with Mama hanging around listening, and Maggy right upstairs. So I agreed to meet him for breakfast at Onnalee's.”

“What did he want to know? Did he have any news about the investigation?”

“I need a drink,” Riley said abruptly. “You want anything?”

“Nothing,” Parrish said. “I'll save our spot.”

Ten minutes later, Riley was back with a plastic cup full of white wine. She took a sip and wrinkled her nose, but took another sip, and then another.

“Okay,” she said finally. “The sheriff asked me a bunch of stuff about when the last time was that I'd seen Wendell, and why I thought somebody would want to kill him.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him I thought it had something to do with money. And the business. At the time, I had no grasp of just how bad things have gotten.” Riley stared into the plastic cup, then dumped it over the side. “This stuff is too gross, even for me.”