Chapter 4: What Eleanor Already Knew
The address Eleanor sent was not a house.
It was a suite on the fourteenth floor of a building downtown, the kind of address that had no name on the directory, only a number.
Simone arrived at ten past nine the next morning.
She had not slept well.
She had not called Daniel back.
The elevator opened directly into a small reception area.
A woman in her sixties sat behind a low desk.
She looked up without smiling.
"Mrs.
Hart."
"Ms.," Simone said.
Old habit.
"Mrs.
Whitfield is expecting you."
Eleanor Whitfield was standing at the window when Simone entered.
She was a tall woman, composed in the way that comes from decades of practice, not from ease.
She wore a grey suit and no jewelry except a single thin watch.
She did not turn around immediately.
Simone stopped in the center of the room.
"You wanted to see me."
Eleanor turned then.
She looked at Simone the way a person looks at a problem they have already partially solved.
"Sit down," Eleanor said.
"I'd rather stand."
Eleanor considered this.
Then she sat down herself, behind a clean desk, and gestured to the chair across from her.
"Suit yourself," she said.
"I'll keep it brief."
She opened a folder on the desk and turned it so Simone could read it.
Simone stepped forward despite herself and looked down.
It was a financial disclosure.
Names, dates, account numbers.
Simone recognized Daniel Marsh's firm letterhead at the top.
She recognized some of the figures.
She did not recognize where several of them were going.
"What is this?" she said.
"Payments," Eleanor said.
"From Daniel Marsh's personal account to a holding company registered in your name.
Beginning approximately eight months ago."
Simone's eyes moved across the page.
"That's not my company."
"The registration uses your maiden name and your mother's address in Connecticut," Eleanor said.
"It is very carefully yours."
"I didn't open any company."
"No," Eleanor said.
"Daniel did.
On your behalf.
Without your knowledge." She paused.
"Which is either very good for you, or very bad for you, depending on what a judge decides to believe."
Simone straightened up.
Her voice, when she found it, was flat.
"You're saying my own lawyer was stealing from Calvin.
And routing it through an account in my name."
"Routing approximately two hundred and thirty thousand dollars," Eleanor said.
"Over seven months."
The room was very quiet.
"Why are you showing me this?" Simone said.
"Why not go directly to the police?"
Eleanor folded her hands on the desk.
"Because Calvin asked me to show you first."
Simone looked at her.
"He wanted you to understand," Eleanor said, "that he has known about this for four months.
He has documentation.
His attorneys have documentation.
The moment you filed those divorce papers, he had everything he needed to take this to the financial crimes division and name you as a co-conspirator."
Simone felt something cold move through her chest.
"He could have done that last night," she said.
"Yes," Eleanor said.
"He could have."
"But he didn't."
"No," Eleanor said.
She closed the folder.
"He didn't."
She looked at Simone steadily.
"My son," Eleanor said, "is not the man you decided he was."
Simone said nothing.
Outside the window, the city moved below them, ordinary and indifferent.
"What does he want?" Simone asked.
Eleanor was quiet for a moment.
"That," she said, "is not a question I can answer for him."
She stood, picked up the folder, and held it out across the desk.
May you like
"But he'd like you to have a copy of this before you speak to Daniel Marsh again."
Simone took it.
