“I keep thinking it’s not real,” she said, her voice small and brittle.“He was here this morning.He kissed the kids goodbye.I went to church with them.He said he’d catch up later, but… he never came home.”
Kate sat opposite her.“Mrs.Brennan, I know this is difficult, but can you tell us if your husband had any enemies?Anyone angry with him?”
Belinda gave a soft, humourless laugh.“Angry?In finance?That’s like asking if the ocean’s wet.But enemies?No.People envied him, yes.Hated him, maybe, certainly hated the world he represented.”
“What world was that?”
“Banking doesn’t produce or create anything.You don’t finish a hard day at the bank with anything in your hand.Even the money is notional: close a deal worth sixty billion dollars, that doesn’t mean there’s some room full of stuffed mail-sacks somewhere, does it?People don’t trust it.They can’t.And the rewards for doing it… they’re out of proportion to the work put in.”
“Are they?”Marcus asked.“I hear he worked very long hours.”
“My husband worked eighty, ninety hours a week, but he wasn’t carrying bricks up a ladder, or digging coal out of the ground.He moved figures on a computer screen. Compare that to a nurse in the emergency room, or a fire-fighter… even the clerk at Kroger’s, and it’s just not fair.I actually think that’s why my husband worked the hours he did.He needed to prove to the world that he deserved the salary, because ultimately, he felt that he didn’t.And it seems like someone else thought that, too.”
Kate and Marcus exchanged a quick glance. Mrs.Brennan made sense, but her tone was high and close to shouting, her words stumbling into one another like drunks in a storm.
“My husband was demanding,” she continued after a pause.“With everyone.Including himself.But this world doesn’t deal with resentment through blood.If you want revenge, you short someone’s stock.You hit their wallets, not their bodies.”
Marcus raised an eyebrow.“You seem very sure.”
“I’ve lived it for fifteen years, Detective.Greed doesn’t need a knife.”
Kate studied her.“Did he seem different lately?Stressed?Paranoid?”
Belinda hesitated.“He was tired.But Nate was always tired.I did notice he’d stopped sleeping at home some nights.Said it was easier to work late than commute.I thought nothing of it.”
“Was there anyone new in his life?”
“A new assistant.Male, mid-twenties, smart, very… intense.Tyler something.I can’t remember the surname.”
Kate made a note.“We’ll find him.”
Belinda dabbed her eyes.“If you do, tell him… tell him I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
She met Kate’s gaze, steady now.“For him.He spent more time with my husband than I did.”
***
They rode the elevator down in silence, broken only by the sound of Kate crunching a tic-tac.Torres’s jaw was working too, like she was chewing on a thought.
“Something about her?”Marcus asked.
“She’s sharp,” said Kate.“Too sharp for the performance she’s putting on.Either she’s hiding something, or she’s already figured out more than she’s saying.And what was that weird shit about the assistant?That wasnotnormal.”
Torres shrugged.“Shock, maybe?People come out with crazy stuff.I had to break the news to this rich old lady in Queens once.Husband flattened by a runaway school bus.She says, ‘Why did he waste thirty dollars getting his shoes re-soled?’”
“I take your point.But all the same, keep her close.”
“We will.You two got a place to stay?”
“Not yet,” Marcus said.“We were gonna grab a hotel near the precinct.”
Torres made a face.“They're all rammed to the roof: Democrat convention and the Manhattan Film Festival.Here's an idea.My Mom's out in Astoria.She's got a self-contained apartment at the side of the house, a good hot shower, and two beds.Decent coffee, no rats, hundred twenty a night."
Marcus looked at Kate, Kate looked at Torres; everyone liked how easy it was.
As they stepped out into the lobby, Kate’s phone buzzed — a text from Winters.Updates.Hourly.
