Eighteen
Ever since that grandiose party at Graham Wiffel’s estate, Catherine had been consumed with worry over security issues. Wiffel
certainly took it seriously. Had that Crane guy following him everywhere he went, even if he seemed wrong for the part, too
ordinary. Someone you’d have a hard time picking out of a crowd.
What troubled Catherine most was her husband’s story about that armed man in Ohio. What if that security guard hadn’t been
there? Brent would have surrendered his sample case, but the man might have shot him anyway. Brent continued to insist it
was no big deal, that she was overreacting.
“Never tell a woman she’s overreacting,” Catherine had said.
What had not troubled Catherine to a great degree were Evelyn Corby’s insinuations that Wiffel-Smith was up to no good, deliberately
ignoring signs its painkiller was doing more harm than good. All drugs, Catherine rationalized, posed risks if not used responsibly.
Brent hoped installing a home security system would allay his wife’s fears. A central monitoring center would be alerted any
time, day or night, should someone break into the house once the system was engaged. Sensors on all the doors and windows.
Motion detectors inside and out. A keypad just inside the front and back doors, and one up in their bedroom.
Brent showed Catherine how to set the alarm for when she was in the house alone.
He went outside and waited for her to do it, then opened the front door.
A deafening siren immediately began to whoop.
Seconds later, their landline phone was ringing.
Catherine ran to answer it while Brent entered in the code to cancel the alarm.
Catherine explained they’d opened the door, forgetting the alarm had been set.
Provided a password to satisfy the monitoring agent.
“You see?” Brent had said. “You’re safe.”
But Catherine’s anxiety persisted.
One day, she noticed the same car kept driving by the house. She phoned her husband at work.
“It’s been by three times now. Going real slow.”
“Who’s driving?”
“Just some guy. He’s the only one in the car. I’m at the window now. Every time he goes by he looks at the house. What should
I do? Should I call the police? Oh, he’s coming back!”
“What’s happening?”
“He’s slowing down . . . slowing. He’s stopped! He’s getting out of the car!”
“Jesus,” Brent said. “What’s he—”
“Oh,” Catherine said. “Never mind.”
“What is it? What’s happening?”
“He’s delivering a pizza, to the Mordens.” The people who lived across from them. “You can’t see their house number from the
street.”
That night, clearing the table after dinner in the kitchen, Brent attempted to make light of what had happened. “But what
if it hadn’t been a pizza delivery?” Catherine asked. “What if it had been someone who wanted to break in?”
“You had the alarm on, didn’t you?”
“I don’t care. He could kick the door in.” She paused, then said, “We should have a gun.”
Brent didn’t need a second to consider the suggestion. “No.”
“And not just one. Two. One for me at home and one for you on the road. If you’d had one with you that night, when that man
wanted what was in your briefcase, you wouldn’t have needed that security guard.”
Brent needed no time to think about this. “No,” he said again. “And I can’t take a gun with me when I’m flying.”
“Can’t you check it?”
“Forget it.”
“We can at least talk about it.”
“I don’t need to. I don’t want to take one with me and I don’t want one in the house. What if one of the boys found it, started
playing with it? You know how many people get shot in their own home by accident, or use a gun to commit suicide?”
“We’d have to be careful,” Catherine conceded. “I’m not an idiot. But I am the one who’s left alone when you’re out there putting the squeeze on doctors. I’m the one who hears a bump in the night
and wonders whether someone’s trying to break in.”
“That’s what the alarm is for.”
“What if someone snuck into the house before I set it?”
Reece wandered into the kitchen. “What are you guys fighting about?”
“Nothing,” Catherine said quickly.
Brent said, “Go watch TV.”
Later that week, Catherine came to a decision. She did not need her husband’s permission. Her security, her need to feel safe,
was her business and no one else’s. And if Brent wasn’t going to help her with this, she’d find someone who would.
She made a call to the Wiffel-Smith offices, identified herself by name, said she was the spouse of one of the company’s top
salespeople. If it’s possible, she said, she would like to be put through to a man named Crane, whom she had met at Graham
Wiffel’s party.
“Yes,” said the woman on reception, “that would be Dalton Crane. Just one moment please.”
A moment later, an extension was answered. “Crane,” he said.
She introduced herself. “Mr. Crane, we met, but didn’t actually speak, the other evening, when Mr. Wiffel was chatting with
my husband. At the party on Georgian Bay.”
“I remember,” he said. “And please call me Dalton.”
“The reason I’m calling, and I hope this doesn’t sound silly, but—”
“No, please, there are no silly questions,” he said patiently.
“Mr. Wiffel has helped so many people’s lives, helped them cope with pain they thought they could never deal with, and that’s
made him a very popular man, a public figure, and I know that can bring a lot of unexpected, negative attention. For him,
and for those who work for him.”
“Very true.”
“Brent, my husband, he highlighted some of the risks out there for a man like Mr. Wiffel, and even Brent has had people threaten
him when he was on the road.” Catherine’s voice grew shaky. “There was an incident where a man threatened him with a gun outside
a clinic. If there hadn’t been a security guard there I hate to think what might have happened.”
“I remember.”
“Brent’s installed an alarm system in the house, and I’m grateful for that, I really am, but I don’t think it’s enough. I
want to be able to protect myself.”
“Of course,” he said understandingly.
“Do you know what I’m getting at?” She was reluctant to say out loud what it was she wanted.
“I believe I do.”
Catherine let out a sigh of relief. “I suppose I thought, given your role at the company, you might have some advice where
all this is concerned.”
“You know what I think, Mrs. Chartwell?”
She waited, almost breathless.
“We should meet to discuss this further,” he said. “I hear the concern in your voice.”
“That, well, that’s very kind, but I don’t want to impose.”
“Not at all. My Wiffel-Smith safety and security responsibilities are not limited to Mr. Wiffel. My purview includes staff
and their families when it is deemed necessary.”
“That’s comforting.” And not just his words, she thought. It was how he said them, as though his concern for her welfare was
genuine.
“How would tomorrow morning work? I can come by your house.”
“That . . . that would be perfect. Around ten?”
“Excellent. Until tomorrow then, Mrs. Chartwell.”
“Catherine. Please call me Catherine.”
Crane showed up at ten sharp in a silver Infiniti sedan and suggested they go somewhere for a drink. A little early, he conceded,
for a cocktail or anything along those lines, but maybe a coffee in a private setting? He was a member of the golf and country
club about halfway between Yorkton Hill and Toronto, about a twenty-minute drive.
“Sure,” she said. “We’ve been there a couple of times. For weddings.”
The club had an outdoor patio that overlooked the eighteenth hole. They took over a small table, under the shade of a broad
umbrella, and Catherine apologized for taking Crane away from his work as a uniformed staff member brought a latte for her
and an espresso for him.
“This is part of my job,” he said, looking at her through his thick-rimmed glasses. “Making sure Wiffel-Smith employees, and
their families, feel safe and secure.”
She realized, fairly quickly, that her initial impression of him had been hasty. Maybe it had been the glasses that made her
think of him as a nerd back when she’d met him at the party. But he was not unhandsome. Strong cheekbones, broad shoulders. His hair was thinning but he’d made no pathetic attempts to grow it long at
the sides and do a combover. And sure, he wasn’t six feet tall, but then, Tom Cruise wasn’t either. What really won her over
was his mix of charm and confidence. He carried himself well.
Catherine found herself wanting to know more about him. “Are you married? Children?”
He smiled. “Very briefly. Long ago. Just long enough to have a daughter. Agatha.” He smiled as he said her name. “But I rarely
see her. She lives with her mother. It’s all just as well. The company expects a hundred and ten percent from me. I’m afraid
I’d be a very neglectful husband and father.”
“How long have you been working for Mr. Wiffel?”
“Thirteen years. It’s been quite a ride. The company was immensely successful when I joined, but since then the growth has been exponential.” Another smile. “Everyone’s done very well. Yourselves included. Mr. Wiffel holds your husband in high regard.”
“He’s been very good to us. Brent works so hard, he’s so committed. He’s a real believer in making people’s lives better.”
She paused. “But success sometimes has its . . . I don’t want to say dark side. But it can come with complications.”
“My father used to say, you increase your comforts, you increase your cares. Not that he had many. Comforts, that is. He was
a worker bee.”
“I’m sorry?”
“A cog in the machine. Worked for a huge accounting firm. Midlevel position, a modest salary. A good father, but we weren’t
exactly vacationing in Paris every year. Lost him, and my mother, long ago.”
Catherine cleared her throat, working up to something. “Brent intimated, at the party, that you were probably carrying a gun.”
Crane took a sip of his espresso. “I like to be discreet about such things.”
“Of course, I’m sorry.”
“It’s quite all right. Brent was correct.”
“You feel you need one.”
A slow nod. “I do. Things can happen very quickly. One needs to be ready.”
“I want one,” she said.
Crane said nothing.
“But I haven’t the first idea of how to go about it. I mean, I know there are places where you can go and buy one, but then
aren’t there background checks and waiting periods? And I’d much rather keep this from Brent, if you can understand that.
He’s adamantly opposed to the idea.”
“He’s a wise man,” Crane said. “A gun is a very dangerous thing to have around.”
“I know, but—”
“But your feelings need to be considered as well.” The corner of his mouth went up a notch. “And spouses are entitled to have some secrets from each other.”
Catherine felt she was getting somewhere. “So how would I go about it, if I have those kinds of concerns?”
“Well,” Crane said, picking up a napkin and dabbing the corner of his mouth, “why don’t you leave that with me? But first,
have you ever handled a firearm before?”
“No.”
“Well, it would not be wise for you to acquire one without some basic instruction in that area. It’s not as simple as pulling
a trigger, no matter how easy it might look on TV.”
“Can you recommend someone who could give me those basics?”
Crane smiled. “I believe so.”