Silver Girl (43 page)

They had left Samantha at the club. Freddy had been fuming. Meredith had said,
Come on now, Fred. She’s a big girl. She can take care of herself.

What an idiot Meredith had been!

Was the summer of 2004 when the nickname had surfaced? At some point, Freddy had started calling Samantha “Champ,” a shortened form of her maiden name, Champion. Meredith had noticed the sudden use of the nickname, and she thought,
Hmmm, I wonder what precipitated that?
But she’d never asked. Samantha was a part of their lives; after the decorating was done, she became their lifestyle consultant. She was always around—in their homes, in Fred’s office, on the phone. Meredith had assumed the nickname came about organically from some conversation between Freddy and Samantha.

Does the word “champ” mean anything to you?

When had they met for this affair? And where? Six and a half years. Safe to say they had met hundreds of times then, right? But in Meredith’s mind, Freddy had spent every night in bed beside her. He had been in bed by nine thirty, asleep by ten, awake by five, in his home office until six thirty when he left for the office-office. Had Meredith and Freddy spent nights apart from each other? Well, yes: Freddy had to travel. He went to London to do business with the office there, and that was where he’d gotten his suits tailored. Had Samantha met him in London? It would be safe to say yes. She had probably introduced Freddy to the tailor whose name he would not disclose. That tailor probably thought Samantha was Freddy’s wife. There were times when Meredith was in Palm Beach when Freddy had to fly back to New York. Lots of times—especially in recent years. Had he seen Samantha then? Yes; of course, the answer was yes. Where did they meet? (Why did Meredith have to know this? Why torture herself with the details? What did it matter now?) Did they meet at a hotel? If so, which hotel? Did they meet in Ridgewood? Certainly not. Did they meet in Meredith and Freddy’s apartment? Did they have sex in Meredith and Freddy’s
bed?
Meredith could see how awful and insidious this was going to get.

Did they rendezvous on the yacht
Bebe?
There had been plenty of times when Freddy had flown to “check out” one problem or another with
Bebe—
when the yacht was in the Mediterranean, and when she was in Newport or Bermuda. But
Bebe
had a crew and a captain. If Freddy had been on board with Samantha, certain people would have known about it.

So certain people knew about it. Billy, their captain knew, and Cameron, the first mate knew. They were complicit.

Samantha said she’d always wanted to see their property in Cap d’Antibes, but this may have been a smoke screen. She may have been quite familiar with the property.

As Meredith awoke from her stupor—someone was calling to her from the bottom of a deep hole, or she was the one in the deep hole and someone was calling to her from the top—she flashed on the photograph that Samantha had selected for Freddy’s office. A photograph of Malacca, in Malaysia. As far as Meredith knew, Freddy had never been to Malaysia; he’d never been to Asia at all, except for his trip to Hong Kong before they were engaged. Or was Meredith wrong about that? Had Freddy and Samantha been to this place, Malacca, together? The photograph had been hanging right behind Freddy’s desk. What had hung there previously? Meredith tried to think. Another photograph.

Toby had her by the shoulder. The room was dark; there was a light on in the hallway behind him and she could see the outline of Connie standing there.

“What time is it?” Meredith asked.

“Nine o’clock,” Toby said. “At night. You slept all day.”

Meredith was relieved. It was nighttime. She could go back to sleep. She closed her eyes. But the dark was terrifying. She was unmoored, in danger of floating away. She opened her eyes.

“Toby?” she whispered.

“Yes?”

She wanted to ask him something, but she didn’t have to. She already knew the answer. Veronica’s funeral had been in July of 2004. Meredith had been on Long Island, and Freddy had arranged for a helicopter to take Meredith to New York and then a private car to drive her down to Villanova. Meredith had asked Freddy to come with her. And what had he said? “I never met the woman, Meredith. This is your chance to be with Connie. Go be with Connie. I’ll stay here and hold down the fort.”

Hold down the fort?

“Never mind,” Meredith said to Toby now.

Meredith felt Toby staring at her, then he retreated to the hallway and pulled the door closed.

Meredith awoke in the morning, dying of thirst. She slipped downstairs to the kitchen and poured herself a tall glass of ice water. She drank deeply and thought about how there were times when you were just grateful for cold, clean water, and this was one of those times.

Connie appeared in the kitchen, floating like a ghost or an angel in a white nightgown and robe. Meredith figured that Dan must be upstairs.

Connie hugged Meredith.

“Oh,” Connie said. “I’m sorry.” She pulled away. She had tears in her eyes. “I am so, so sorry.”

Meredith nodded. It hurt to move her head. Everything hurt. She hadn’t thought that anything could hurt again after what she’d been through, but yes, this hurt. This hurt differently. God, she couldn’t believe she was even thinking this: it hurt worse.

Connie said, “You slept for nearly twenty-four hours.”

Meredith exhaled. She said, “I took three of your Ativan.”

Connie hugged her again. “Oh, honey.”

“I think maybe you’d better hide the rest of the pills. It did occur to me to take them all.”

“Okay,” Connie said. “Okay.”

“I thought you’d be mad,” Meredith said. “I snooped around your bathroom when I first got here. I’ve snuck five Ativan altogether and two Ambien. I stole them.”

“I don’t care about the pills,” Connie said. “I care about you.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Meredith said.

“What do you want to do?” Connie asked.

Meredith pulled away and eyed her friend. “I want to talk to Fred.”

“Oh, honey, you’re kidding.”

“I’m not kidding. That’s all I want. I don’t want to read about their love affair in her book. I want to hear about it from my husband. I want him to confess to me. I want to hear the truth from him.”

“What makes you think Freddy would tell you the truth?” Connie said.

Meredith had no answer for this.

A little while later, both Toby and Dan came downstairs. Connie made coffee. Meredith thought, miraculously, that the coffee smelled good. She was back to counting each small blessing: cold water, hot coffee with real cream and plenty of sugar.

Dan and Toby were concerned about the practical problem they faced.

“The reporters are still out there,” Toby said. “In fact, they seem to have multiplied overnight.”

Dan looked at Meredith apologetically. “I called Ed Kapenash yesterday morning, and by noon, the reporters were all gone. We could have gotten you out of here for a little while. But now they’re back. I could call Eddie again, but…”

“Or we could try Bud Attatash,” Toby said. “He seems like the type of guy who owns a shotgun and isn’t afraid to use it.”

“It’s okay,” Meredith said. She was embarrassed that Dan had to ask personal favors from the chief of police on her behalf. She sat down at the table with her coffee. Three months ago, she had been all alone. Now she had friends. She had a team. She added this to her list of things to be grateful for. “I’m going to enjoy this coffee, and then I have some phone calls to make.”

“I’ll make French toast,” Connie said.

Upstairs, in the privacy of her bedroom—balcony doors still shut tight—Meredith called Dev at the office, while praying a Hail Mary.

The receptionist answered, and Meredith said, “This is Mrs. Delinn, calling for Devon Kasper.”

And to Meredith’s shock, the receptionist said, “Absolutely, Mrs. Delinn. Let me get him for you.”

Dev came to the phone. “Holy shit, Meredith.”

“I know.”

“Once you gave me the name, the Feds did the rest. It was all right there. All over his date book, his planner…”

“Stop,” Meredith said. “I didn’t know they were having an affair.”

“What?”

“I knew that ‘champ’ was Samantha. That was what Freddy called her. But I didn’t know they were sleeping together.”

“Meredith.”

“Devon,” Meredith said. “I didn’t know that my husband and Samantha Deuce were having an affair.”

There was silence. Then Dev said, “Okay, I believe you.”

“Thank you.” She sighed. “There are reporters all over the front lawn.”

“Good,” Dev said. “You should make a statement.”

“No,” Meredith said.

“Meredith,” Dev said gently. “This could help you.”

“The fact that my husband was betraying me, not honoring our vows,
for six and a half years,
could help me? I can see you know nothing about marriage. I can see you know
nothing
about the human heart.”

Dev, wisely, changed tactics. “The information about the star was good information.”

“Did you find the account?” Meredith asked. “Did you find Thad Orlo?”

“The Feds are still working on it,” Dev said. “I can’t tell you what they’ve uncovered.”

“Even though it was my information to begin with?” Meredith said.

“Even though,” Dev said. He paused. “Do you think this Champion woman knew what was going on with Fred and the business?”

“You’d have to ask her that,” Meredith said. She wondered how she would feel if it turned out that Samantha
had
known about the Ponzi scheme. Would Meredith feel betrayed? Would Freddy have shared his biggest secret with Samantha, but not with his wife? Then again, wasn’t
not
knowing its own kind of gift? But Meredith was the one who had lost everything. Samantha was still out walking around, still running a decorating business, still driving her children to Little League and dance, still cozy at home with her underwhelming husband, her community, and her friends. Samantha Deuce wasn’t under investigation, her home wasn’t being vandalized, she wasn’t being stalked. She might be now, with this admission. Samantha must have had no choice. The Feds must have had ironclad evidence; they must have had phone records or eight-by-ten glossies or a video. Or, perhaps, Samantha had been so overwhelmed by her love for Fred that she decided to talk. Or an $8 million book deal sounded good.

“There’s something else I want to tell you about,” Meredith said. “There’s a framed photograph in Freddy’s office. It’s a street scene in an Asian city. Freddy said the city is called Malacca. It’s in Malaysia. It’s the cultural capital of Malaysia.”

“And this is relevant because…”

“Because to my knowledge, Freddy has never been to Malacca. Or Malaysia at all. And yet this was a photograph that Samantha bought for Fred’s office. The invoice came after he went to jail: twelve hundred dollars. Freddy hung the photograph right behind his desk.” At that instant, Meredith remembered. The street scene in Malacca had replaced a grainy photograph of Freddy with his brother, David: the two of them bare chested in cutoff shorts, standing in front of a Pontiac
GTO
that David had restored. It was the only surviving picture of the two brothers together, and Freddy had replaced it with Malacca? “This photograph had a secret meaning for Freddy, I think. I’m sure of it now.”

“Like it was a place he trysted with the Deuce woman?” Dev said.

“Just find the photograph,” Meredith said.

“Okay. I’ll do that. Your instincts are good.”

“And Dev?”

“Yes.”

There was one last thing. The most important, vital thing. But she was having a hard time thinking of how to ask.

“I need to talk to Fred.”

“Fred,” Dev said flatly.

“I need to talk to him,” Meredith said. “About this and about other things. Can I call him, or do I have to travel to Butner?”

“Traveling to Butner would be a waste of your time,” Dev said.

Part of her was relieved to hear this. The thought of leaving Nantucket was debilitating enough. She couldn’t imagine traveling to North Carolina in the brutal heat of August, or of suffering the dust and filth and indignity in order to visit the prison’s most infamous inmate. There would be reporters everywhere like buzzards on fresh roadkill.

“Really?” she said. “A waste?”

“There’s been no change in his demeanor,” Dev said. “He won’t speak to anyone. Not even the priest. It’s unclear if he
can’t
speak or if he’s choosing not to speak.”

“He might choose to speak to me, though,” Meredith said. “Right?”

“He might,” Dev said. “But it’s a gamble.”

“Can I call him?” Meredith asked.

“He’s permitted one phone call a week.”

Meredith swallowed. “Has he…? Has he taken any other phone calls?” What she wanted to know was if Freddy had talked to Samantha.

“No,” Dev said. “No phone calls. He speaks to no one.”

“Can you help me set up a phone call?” Meredith asked.

Dev sighed. It was the sigh of a much older man. Meredith was aging him. “I can try. Do you want me to try? Really, Meredith?”

“Really,” Meredith said.

“Okay,” Dev said. “I’ll contact the prison and see what I can do.”

“Thank you,” Meredith said. “It’s important to me.”

“Make a statement, Meredith,” Dev said. “Save yourself.”

She had spent the whole summer wondering how to save herself, and now, she found, she didn’t care.
Goddamn you, Freddy!
she thought (zillionth and seventh). She didn’t care if she lived or died; she didn’t care if she was dragged off to prison. She would, like Fred, fold herself into an origami beetle. She wouldn’t speak to another human being as long as she lived.

And was that what Fred had wanted all along? Had he meant for them to be ruined together? Had he asked her to transfer the $15 million so that she would go to prison?

Save herself? For what?

Brilliant and talented. That girl owns my heart.

Mommy, watch me!

Sail on Silvergirl. Sail on by. Your time has come to shine. All your dreams are on their way.