Pro Bono

Chapter 28

28

M aureen Abbot looked through her oversize sunglasses across the giant swimming pool at the two women walking out from under the veranda roof of the main clubhouse carrying tall glasses with umbrellas in them. She stood up and waved, and both their sets of sunglasses turned toward her. Their steps took on momentum and purpose. They were making their way to the row of lounge chairs where Maureen and her old friend were taking refuge from the sun under a big umbrella.

Maureen stood when they arrived and said, “Hi, girls. Linda Warren, this is Mary and this is Wendy. Linda’s an old friend, just moved back here from Maui.”

Linda stood too and shook their hands. All the women smiled and said set formulas with “pleased,” “pleasure,” “nice,” in them, and the two new women moved one long chair closer and sat.

Linda decided they were probably actresses who no longer worked, but had married men who didn’t require much of their time. They appeared to both be in their late thirties or early forties, had enviable figures and pretty faces, and were expertly made-up, but they were inches too short to be models.

Wendy and Mary were immediately interested in Linda, wanted to hear about the tragedy at Lahaina, then about her life, friends, and family, her impressions of the places where she had lived. They told her things about themselves too, and gave the impression that they were pleasant companions who were always interested in social events or excursions. After about an hour Wendy and Mary said they had to move on. They had to catch a plane to Las Vegas because they had dinner reservations and tickets to a concert afterward.

When the two women left in a Mercedes, they drove for about a mile before they reverted to being May and Rose, née Rickenger. While Rose drove, May watched the street behind them to be sure that none of the cars back there were ones she had seen in the lot at the club, or anywhere. They had to be sure that nobody who knew them as Wendy and Mary would see them doing anything inconsistent with Mary and Wendy. Mary and Wendy had said they were going to be heading for the airport because Rose and May were going to catch flights home.

“What do you think of her?” Rose said.

“It’s too early to tell,” May said. “She’s got some money, and I remember that when Dan died, the newspapers said he was traveling really fast, like he was in a big hurry.”

“Meaning he believed he was on the verge of getting arrested,” Rose said.

“Probably,” May said. “The point is, when you have to make that quick an exit, it’s almost impossible you’ve got everything. He may have left some of her money.”

“He wasn’t stupid enough to risk getting stopped for a speeding ticket for no reason, so you’re probably right.” Rose paused. “You don’t think she’s already been given the money from the banks, do you?”

“It’s only been a couple months since the state sent the first letter. And say she did get a pile of money. It wouldn’t retroactively change the way she lived. She’s been drifting for, like, ten years, and most people can’t do that. You also have to remember that he wouldn’t have been with her at all if she didn’t have anything to steal.”

“Do you think there’s a way to get what he had and hers too?”

May chuckled. “Remember what Mother always said when it was time to pack the car. ‘It’s the piggy who stays too long at the trough who gets butchered.’ I think what the states are holding is likely to be plenty. It would be everything he had in any bank anywhere in the country, not just what he took from her. Getting that and then sticking around to pull a second scam would be pushing our luck.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Rose said.

“I know I am,” May said. She knew that Rose was certain to be thinking about how to pull the second scam by herself, because that was what she had been thinking about too.

“I’m tired, but I’d better get back tonight, or Dale will be pestering the women in his Chicago office. Do you think the next time should be in a week or two?”

“About then, but we might need to set aside a few days, because these early meetings should look like they’re all just chance. I’ll call you.”

Rose drove to LAX, returned the car, and waited with May, whose flight to Phoenix left first. Then she caught her own flight to O’Hare.

The next time they happened to be in the club at the same time as Linda Warren was in early morning a week and a half later. They found her in the women’s gym, finishing a workout on an elliptical trainer. They greeted each other warmly but very briefly, and then she went to work exercising with kettle bells. Mary and Wendy were at first unsure about what to do next because they hadn’t dressed or prepared for this, but then Mary stepped up on a treadmill and brought it up to a trot. That left Wendy to go into the locker room to get a massage. Afterward she happened to step into the shower when Linda went in, and they greeted each other again. Linda seemed to have formed a routine—aerobics, hand weights. After a quick shower she put on a bathing suit and went outside to swim lengths in the big pool.

All three met again afterward in the shaded patio area outside of the dining room and had lunch together. Wendy and Mary were both expert at giving impressions rather than information. Linda had become comfortable forming friendly relationships through years of talking with people she met in each of the cities where she had lived. She was clearly a person who didn’t mind being alone, but she was also open to the right approach.

For the next few days Wendy and Mary showed up early at the club and performed variations on the ritual that Linda followed. This was not a strain for them. They had both made careers out of drawing the attention of men who were placed on the planet to be lured by women like them, and that had meant working to enhance and maintain their bodies with constant exercise and dieting.

After three more weeks, Mary and Wendy had become fixtures in Linda’s second life in Los Angeles. The three went to the beach together, hiked in Griffith Park and on some of the trails in the hills, went to dinner at good restaurants. Linda learned from the two women that they had both divorced men who had been forced by California law to split the family assets evenly. Both husbands had immediately married the women they had been cheating with, and had subsequently become richer than they’d been at the time of the divorces. Mary said she was glad, because she hadn’t wanted to feel sorry for that rat, and Wendy laughed and agreed. They were similarly philosophical and good-natured about nearly every topic. They had both married again, this time to men they considered improvements over the last ones.

Charlie Warren and Vesper Ellis were at Charlie’s place. They had been out to dinner, and he was picking up some fresh clothes for the week’s work and checking his mail on their way back to Vesper’s house. When he heard the burner phone in his right coat pocket buzz, he was startled. He looked at the display expecting to see a wrong number, but the name was “2.” He swept the green oval aside and said, “Hi.”

The voice was Copes’s. “Hi, Charlie. We’ve been keeping an eye on your mother. There’s only one thing, but we think it’s worth mentioning. She’s been going to a country club in the morning with a gym bag kind of thing that has a shoulder strap. She stays about three hours, from around nine, goes inside to work out, then goes outside for a swim, eats lunch, and then drives home.”

“Yep,” Charlie said. “She told me pretty much the same thing.”

“Did she tell you she’s got some new friends?”

“Just that she’s met a few people that she likes. Not much about who they are or anything. What’s up? Has she met a man or something?”

“Not that we know of. What we’ve seen is women. There are a lot of people you see once in a while, only a few you see every day. There are two women in particular who come together most days, and they walk around looking in the main building first, and then outdoors by the pool, on the patios, at the putting green, and so on. Every time they come, they seem to get together with your mother.”

“Is there something that I should worry about?”

“Not that I know of. We just wanted you to know we’re living up to our agreement and keeping our eyes open.”

“Thank you,” Warren said. “I appreciate it.”

“Just remember us on payday.”