Chapter Twenty-Three
SEVERAL WEEKS HAVE passed since that fateful day Greg died at sea. They are well into autumn, and the days and nights are cooler, energizing.
Ted left his job some time ago, in fact, on the day that he’d been visited at the office by John Burnley.
Now all his mornings are given over to leisure.
He’s in the kitchen, making a caffe latte, glancing at a luxury car magazine.
He is thinking about how enormously wealthy they will be, thanks to their initiative, their boldness.
He’d found out what he was made of. He has no regrets.
He no longer lies awake at night worrying about the future, or about what his wife thinks of him.
He tells himself that she doesn’t see him as a disappointment.
She sees him as a problem solver. He will be able to provide her with anything she wants.
They haven’t heard anything from Special Agent Ramirez in weeks.
Ramirez had shaken Jill with his insinuations, sticking his nose into their lives, but he seems to have given up and gone away.
He can’t prove anything, and Ramirez knows it.
He suspects, but that’s all. Ted thinks he’s moved on to something else.
Perhaps he has already closed the case and hasn’t had the courtesy to tell them.
What a prick. Ted realizes they haven’t received the accident report yet either but brushes the thought aside.
Yesterday he and Jill had visited the attorneys for an update. They assured him that work on the estate was going well, but it would still be many months before it was complete. They estimated it would be next summer before he came into his money. That’s fine. He can wait.
It’s Tuesday, and Jill has gone off to work at the gallery. She still loves her job, but these days, she’s working less, three days a week, taking Mondays and now Fridays off. She has become herself again, and it’s a relief.
Ramirez is just a bad memory. They’ve put it behind them. Jill’s looking forward to spending some of the money that will be coming to them. He’d caught her walking around the brownstone one day recently, looking at it as if she were thinking of redecorating.
‘You’re not planning on making any changes to the house?’ he asked her.
‘No. Not really. I just think we could use a really striking painting, there, on that wall,’ she said, pointing at the empty space above the first-floor landing. ‘I’ve started keeping an eye open for something that might suit,’ she told him. ‘Something dramatic. And expensive.’
He smiled indulgently and kissed her forehead. He was happy to support her love of art. He liked to see her making plans, to see her happy.
He doesn’t miss his job. He enjoys getting up every day and having his time to himself.
But it’s time he found something productive to do with it.
He’s looking into various board positions that he might take on, that might interest him, do some good, and not be too much of a drag.
The opera, perhaps. The New York Public Library.
He’s had a few invitations. Today, though, is a beautiful October day.
Perhaps they should get a dog, he thinks, now that he’s home more.
It’s an idea. Lots of people in Brooklyn have dogs, and there’s the Promenade close by, and Brooklyn Bridge Park.
But dogs must be walked in all weather. Maybe he shouldn’t be too hasty.
And what would they do with a dog when they wanted to travel? It would be an inconvenience.
He grabs a light jacket, steps outside, and locks the brownstone behind him.
He has some errands to run in Manhattan and a hankering to go to Central Park.
He hops on the subway at Clark Street, gets off at Columbus Circle.
As he climbs the steps out of the subway and heads toward the park, he finds himself thinking about where they might go on holiday.
Jill is still keen on a vacation property in France, and they have been browsing online.
Perhaps it’s time to get more serious about it and talk to a real estate agent.
It takes time to find the ideal property.
Life is good. Life is actually perfect. He had to kill his brother to get it, but it was absolutely worth it.
He doesn’t miss his brother at all. Which reminds him, he really must start planning some sort of memorial service for him.
People expect it. Ted doesn’t relish going through old family photos to put on display for people to remember Greg by.
It’s funny, he didn’t mind pushing him off the boat and sailing away, but the idea of hosting a memorial is somehow daunting. He keeps putting it off.
He reaches the ornamental pond in the park known as the Model Boat Pond and slowly walks along its perimeter.
He used to come here and sail toy boats with Greg when they were small, with their father.
He stops and looks out over the water. He remembers how competitive they were, even then.
But he won, in the end. He can’t help smiling.
He’s standing still, staring out at the pond, lost in pleasant reverie, when he hears a familiar voice beside him.
‘Ted, what a nice surprise.’
Ted starts and turns. It’s John Burnley, and it’s not a nice surprise at all.
John Burnley enjoys the discomfiture on Ted Westcott’s face.
It actually gives him an odd sort of pleasure to see others’ discomfort, even distress.
He guesses that makes him some kind of sociopath.
Not that he cares. He knows he’s different from other people.
But not from everyone. There are lots of people like him; he’s met some of them.
He thinks there are quite a few people like him in New York City.
When he’d first met Ted, in their early twenties, when they were both selling securities on Wall Street, John had him pegged right off.
Rich kid, good family, good education. Like most of them there.
Brought up with a silver spoon in his mouth.
He’d been jealous – not of him, but of his advantages.
Ted was soft, spoiled, didn’t like to work particularly hard.
He was happy to coast through life. He was able to coast through life.
He wasn’t hungry, like John was. Ted had never been hungry.
But people change. Maybe Ted had worked up an appetite over the years.
Maybe he had pushed his brother off that boat.
John had avidly followed the story in the news.
He could imagine how it might have gone, and he imagined it quite differently from how Ted and his wife told it.
He’d started to wonder if he was wrong about Ted being soft and lazy, and whether he’d actually murdered his brother.
If so, hat’s off to him, John thought. If only he’d had a rich brother like that – he’d have done the same thing.
John realized it just might have been the perfect murder.
What a nice coincidence to run into him here.
Now he looks at Ted’s wary expression and laughs. ‘What’s the matter? Not happy to see me?’
‘You startled me, that’s all,’ Ted says.
‘Not at work today?’ he asks, observing the jeans, the casual jacket. He himself is wearing a sharp suit. Then he adds, ‘Oh – you probably don’t work any more, do you? Not since your ship came in, so to speak.’
Ted stares at him. ‘Have you been following me?’
‘No, why would you think that?’ he replies. ‘It’s lunchtime. I work just over there.’ He points vaguely in the direction of Fifth Avenue.
‘No, you don’t,’ Ted says boldly.
John studies him for a moment. So, Ted has grown a pair. He would never have stood up to him when they were younger. Young Ted was intimidated by him. ‘Have you been doing your homework, Ted?’
For a moment the two men study each other in a standoff.
Ted says, ‘You reached out when you heard I might be inheriting from my brother. You asked me for money. I was warned about people like you. So yes, I’ve done my homework.’
‘People like me?’
‘People that come around when you’ve come into money, asking for loans, offering great business opportunities.’ Ted says business opportunities as if it has quotes around it.
He smiles at him. ‘It was in the news, Ted. You were a prospect, nothing more. You know how it is.’ He reaches into his pocket for his pack of cigarettes.
He pulls one out, places it between his lips, and lights it with a gold lighter that he pulls from his other pocket.
It glints in the sun. John admires it. He says, holding it up, ‘Isn’t it a beauty?
I didn’t inherit it from my father, though. I bought it.’
‘You’ve had some ups and downs,’ Ted says.
‘Haven’t we all,’ he agrees pleasantly.
‘You’ve done time in prison for white-collar crime. For fraud.’ Ted says it with distaste, looking down his nose at him.
‘Oh, it wasn’t so bad,’ he responds casually. ‘It was only two years, and you learn a lot in prison.’
Ted stares back at him. ‘Well – I don’t think I’ll be doing any business with you,’ he says shortly.
John grins. ‘Oh, you never know,’ he says, drawing deeply on his cigarette, filling his lungs, and then coolly blowing out the smoke.
Ted turns and walks away. John watches Ted’s retreating back thoughtfully, smoking his cigarette.
That evening, Lara arrives at Jill and Ted’s place and rings the bell. She and Ben have just returned from a three-week vacation in Greece, and she and Jill need to catch up. Ted is out at a charity event. Lara’s holding a nice bottle of Chablis.
The door opens. Lara holds up the bottle and grins.
They settle in the front room after Jill fetches wineglasses and arranges some cheeses and crackers on a plate. It’s getting chilly in the evenings and there’s a fire burning in the fireplace. Lara asks, ‘How are you?’
‘Good! Really good, actually,’ Jill says, looking relaxed, like her old self.
‘How’s Ted doing?’ Lara asks. ‘What’s he up to these days?’
‘He’s still thinking about what he wants to do next.’
Lara pours them each a generous glass of Chablis. ‘And what about you? Are you going to stay at the gallery?’
‘For now,’ Jill says. ‘But I’m thinking I might actually want to start my own gallery some day.’
Lara says, ‘Well, you could do that now, couldn’t you?’
They chat for a while about the pros and cons of Jill leaving Clives and opening her own gallery, and how exciting it would be. They talk about Greece. They drink the entire bottle of wine.
Eventually, she asks, ‘Have you heard anything more from that guy Ramirez?’
‘No, not a thing,’ Jill says.
‘That’s good,’ Lara says. She lowers her voice to a more intimate register. ‘You know, if you ever need to talk about it, you can talk to me, Jill. You know that, right?’
Jill seems suddenly wary. ‘I’m fine, really.’