John Gapper - A Fatal Debt

“Like I said, it was stupid. You’re so vulnerable on Wall Street, all these men thinking you’re just a woman so you don’t deserve to have your job. If anyone had found out about us, that would’ve been it for my career-sleeping with my boss. I came to my senses one day and took another job. It was almost over by then.”

“Why did it end?”

She half smiled, as if mocking my innocence. “It was just an affair, nothing more. We were both consenting adults. He didn’t want to wreck his marriage and I had to move on. We shouldn’t have got carried away.”

“Are you still in touch with him?”

“We haven’t seen each other since I left.”

Her gaze was unblinking. If Anna hadn’t told me about her visiting East Hampton and seeing them together with her holding his head in her hands, I don’t think I’d have known that Lauren was lying. I didn’t envy the bankers who had to negotiate with her-she didn’t give anything away. Over her shoulder, my clock showed six p.m., and although I yearned to press her further, another patient was waiting.

“Our time’s up, I think,” I said.

At night, when I heard the sirens crossing the city and I’d turned from one side to the other in an effort to fall asleep, I thought about Anna. I’d called her several times since she’d walked away from me, leaving messages on her cellphone, but had gotten nothing in return.

I willed there to be an innocent explanation so we could return to the state in which we’d existed before, but I couldn’t convince myself. I thought of what Nora had told me the first time I’d seen them together, with her arm draped around Anna’s shoulders: I can’t tell you how much I rely on her .

When I’d met Anna, she’d seemed young and innocent, hardly a part of the Shapiros’ world. But she was Nora’s confidante and Harry’s protector. She’d said she didn’t like him, but she’d driven Lauren to him and kept their rendezvous secret from Nora. She’d served him no matter what she’d thought of him. Now that the Shapiros were under threat, I wondered how far Anna would go-or had gone-to shield them.

My name’s like me. One big muddle , she’d told me. That was the image she projected of herself, just a yoga waif picked up by Nora who would soon be on her way. It was an affectation, I’d come to realize. Anna was the organized one. Nora had been scared to enter her own kitchen, but Anna made sure there was food in the fridge. She’d arranged for their East Hampton house to be redecorated to cover up the killing. She knew everything about their lives, was privy to their secrets. I was Harry’s psych, but she knew what he’d hidden.

That Friday, I drove out of the city toward her with an object sitting on my dashboard. It was the glove she’d left behind when she’d abandoned me. I took the I-495 through Queens, past the ruined remnants of the World’s Fair, driving until the buildings by the road petered out into a line of trees. The only landmarks out there were the strange objects sticking out of the woods: two white water towers and a cellphone mast disguised as a gigantic tree. It hung above the green horizon, a white stick with dark metal branches spaced at unnaturally perfect intervals.

There was a truck outside the Shapiros’ house, and when I walked to the rear and looked through the conservatory windows, I saw two workmen standing on ladders, roller-brushing the ceiling with white paint. Anna was at the far end, dressed in overalls with her hair pinned up, pointing something out. I watched for a minute before she looked up and saw me. As she did, her face stiffened and she stared at me as if I were an enemy who was about to invade. She walked into the kitchen, and as I came around the side of the house, she opened the door and stood silently.

“You left this behind,” I said, holding out her glove.

She frowned at me. “If you’ve driven all this way, you can come in for a minute,” she said, taking it from me.

Inside, she poured me coffee from a French press and perched on a chair as I sipped it, which seemed as far as she was prepared to go by way of hospitality. The silence lengthened and she glanced around distractedly, as if my presence made her jumpy. When I’d first come to the Shapiros’ house, it had reminded me of a fairy-tale cottage, but now it felt like a sinister place, marked irrevocably by a murder that had sapped the energy of its occupants. Anna looked no better than Nora when I’d last visited-just as pale, with dull eyes.

“You know who attacked me, don’t you,” I said.

The question instantly enraged her, as if she were already on edge and it took only a small provocation to send her over the edge.

“How would I know? I told you to leave me alone,” she shouted.

She threw her glove at my feet and walked into the living room, slamming the door closed. As I followed, the door handle struck my knuckles, making me shake my hand and cry out-an appeal for mercy that she ignored. As I emerged into the living room, the workmen had looked up at the commotion.

It was already hard to remember what the room had been like before. The sofas and furniture had gone the way of the geometric rug. Even the doors to the conservatory had been removed and replacements fitted. The men had painted the walls in a delicate pale blue, erasing the previous colors. Anna wasn’t there and one of the men shrugged at me, as if to indicate that he knew all about furious women. He pointed silently to a door on the far side of the room. I walked along the hallway and saw that the door to Nora’s study was open. Anna was by the window overlooking the drive to the bay side, with her back to me.

“Remember in the car, when you drove me to the city, that first day?” I said. “You told me you were too honest for your own good. You said you’d always got into trouble for trying to tell the truth. What happened to that?”

She didn’t speak, so I carried on talking. I felt my anger and bewilderment at how she’d behaved toward me bubbling up, and my voice starting to crack. “You’re so honest, are you? It doesn’t seem like that to me. You just want to keep Harry’s secrets.”

I was shouting now, but her back was still facing me. I walked across and pulled at her shoulder, but she shrugged my hand off as if she couldn’t bear my touch.

“Yeah, you know what?” she said. “I do my job, and my job means I know stuff about people who employ me, even if sometimes it’s not nice. Why don’t you do your job? Why pick on me?”

She paced across the room toward Nora’s desk, and her words were spoken standing by it. As I looked at her, I was distracted from her face by the sight of a metal plate embedded into the wall by her left shoulder. It was Nora’s safe, where she’d told me she had placed Harry’s gun for safety. I stared until Anna glanced behind her.

“You know how to open it,” I said. “Don’t you?”

She stared at me contemptuously for a few seconds, then swiveled and put her hand up to the dial. She spun the wheel to the left and right four times, then placed her hand on the brass lever and pulled open the door. Inside were some jewelry boxes and a stack of papers. On top of them, I saw the glint of the nickel Beretta: Nora had told the truth.

“Satisfied? Happy now?” she said bitterly, then shut the safe door and walked out. When I got back to the living room, she was standing in the middle of the floor, beckoning to me. Her face was stiff and hostile.

“Come here,” she said, and I walked slowly, one pace at a time, across the wooden boards toward her. “A little further.… Stop there.”

I was close to her, and the man who’d given me directions was standing on a ladder a few feet to my left, painting a cornice silently, as if willing himself to be invisible. Anna ignored him as she spoke.