Tod Goldberg - The fix

Over a dozen other framed items lay beneath one of the picture windows atop a white sheet.

Cricket stepped into the room and set a platter of cheese and crackers on the coffee table and then sort of stared at us, like she wasn't sure what she was supposed to do, which was probably the case.

"Sam tells me you have a problem," I said, because I was already starting to feel depressed about this whole situation that was about to be presented and I didn't even know what it was. Something about a six-million-dollar home up for auction and suspiciously missing most of its furniture tends to get me down. Plus, I had the general sense that every moment I wasn't figuring out the Natalya situation was another moment the target on my back got a little larger.

Cricket sat down on the ottoman and stifled a laugh as she sunk into it. "Do you know what this ottoman is worth?"

Sam leaned forward and touched the fabric. "What do you call that?"

"Chenille," she said.

"Very nice," he said. "I'd say a grand."

"I think it was a rhetorical question," I said.

"No," she said, "I'm done with rhetorical questions. I'm hoping to just get a decent appraisal. You two seem just as qualified as anyone else. Everyone seems to want a little less for good work these days."

"Looks like fine Italian craftsmanship to me," Sam said. "I'd give you fifteen hundred dollars for it."

"Sold," she said. "I'll take cash."

"I'm a little short," Sam said, and the way things were going, it didn't seem like this was going to be one of those jobs that would change my financial profile, either.

"Yes, well," she said and then made a sweep of her hand across the room and her eyes started to well up.

Crying women have never been my forte, nor furniture, so I said, "Cricket, I don't mean to be rude here, and I appreciate the cheese and crackers and the emotional vulnerability, but could we jump to the part where you just start talking about things directly? I'm sort of a no-metaphor guy."

Sam shot me a look that I ignored. It was probably meant to convey disappointment.

"I'm sorry, but this is all very embarrassing. I don't know where to start."

"Why not try the beginning?" I said. "But skip over the bits you don't think I'll care about."

Cricket smoothed out an imaginary wrinkle on her shirt and smiled faintly at me, which made me feel bad about being short, but the problem with most people is that they could work out most of their problems if they didn't spend so much time qualifying their lives. Give me an assignment, let me fix it and we'll go from there.

"My late husband, Scott O'Connor," Cricket said, pointing to the older man in the photos, "was a very wealthy man, but not an exceptionally good man, I'm afraid. He bought and sold companies for a living, just like his father had done, and his grandfather, too. I was under the impression that we had a very strong marriage, that I was the love of his life and that he cherished our son above all things. When he died from a heart attack a little over ten years ago, I learned that he had other women-an uncountable number, it would turn out-and other children, at least nine, though that number tends to fluctuate depending upon the month and the lawsuit. So what was once a great amount of money was significantly less, but more than enough, certainly. Nevertheless, I've spent the better part of the last decade giving away most of the money to charities throughout Miami, trying, not so vainly, to undo some of what I think of as my husband's least admirable traits."

Cricket stood up then and went across the room, picked up a few of the framed items from the sheet and handed them to me. They were certificates of appreciation from organizations like the South Beach AIDS Project, the Homeless Fund and the American Cancer Society.

"You've done good work," I said.

There were also photos of her cozied up with numerous celebrities, including a few fellows who ran for president over the years. In some of the photos, it was hard to tell if she was out on a date and was caught by paparazzi or if she actually was doing good work, though everyone gets to make their own choices about what is and isn't work these days.

"I've tried," Cricket said. "I hate who I found out my husband was, but I still love Scott, the man I was married to, the boy I met in college. I've tried to honor that original emotion, but then everything got fouled up." She went on to explain that her son, Devin, enlisted in the Marines after September eleventh, despite being in his second year at Princeton. "It was foolish," she continued. "I tried to dissuade him from it but he said that he felt useless, that college wasn't for him, which it wasn't. He took that from me, I suppose. But he went and I'm happy to say he was a fine soldier, that he loved what he was doing." Her voice trailed off then into silence.

"I was in Iraq for a little while," I said. "Anyone who went there, who lived even a day, is a better man than anyone walking on South Beach."

"Still," she said, "I'd prefer he was alive."

"How long has it been?" Sam asked.

"Two years last month," she said. Cricket started pacing the length of the room, her story flowing out of her like an avalanche of utter personal misery. It was after Devin died that things really fell apart for Cricket O'Connor, if it's possible to have your life fall apart even more than finding out the man you loved happened to love several other women and a baseball team of children. At first, she was feted in the local press, a minor celebrity for the fact that her son had perished, that her son had even enlisted in the first place, since rare is the warrior who comes from grace, and grace is something Cricket O'Connor possessed in spades. Benefit after benefit called upon Cricket O'Connor to be the face of their own grief and she just kept saying yes, giving money and time and press. And then there were the dates with celebrities.

Meetings with politicians.

A place in society.

Her hair perfect.

Her clothes designer.

Her jewels sparkling on the pages of Haute Living, the society column of the Miami Herald following her every date, South Beach naming her the most eligible woman in the city, and the most giving. Palm Life naming her one of their Fifty Most Beautiful Under Sixty.

"And then I met Dixon Woods," she said.

"Why do I know that name?" I asked.

"He did a little Special Forces time," Sam said. "The Tupac Amaru action in Panama?"

"I wasn't there," I said. "Not technically."

"Neither was he," Sam said. "Not technically. Buddy of mine in the NSA says he was also not technically in Nicaragua, Haiti and Bakino Faso, but that he's technically been in private service since 2002."

Just like every gun with a debt margin they want to work down, though I had a difficult time imagining anyone who'd done the things Dixon Woods was likely to have done somehow ending up in the arms of Cricket O'Connor. I had sensed the difficult part of Cricket O'Connor's life story was just now unfolding.

That and Sam was sort of twitching in his seat.

"Just how did you end up meeting Dixon Woods?" I said.

"On the Internet," she said.

"Pardon me?" I said.

"I'm part of several online support groups for relatives of military dead. One of them is also for singles. He contacted me there."

I already knew where this was headed. The world was simpler when people actually met each other in real life. The old model of getting drunk, dancing and doing things you regretted was a good one.

"You married him and he stole your money."

The color drained from Cricket's face. "How did you know?"

"Because predators can smell the weak even through a computer screen." What I didn't tell her: Because if I'd lived a second longer with my father, if I hadn't gone into the military after high school, I'd probably be doing the same thing as Dixon Woods.