Bernie had to stop herself from rolling her eyes.She really will use any excuse to bring him up.If nobody stopped Celeste, it would be nothing but Harry, Harry, Harry, for the next hour, and Bernie wouldn’t be able to make a gracious exit. She wasn’t falling for this trap.
“Let’s keep him alive in that memory,” Bernie said, already on her feet and shaking cracker dust from her lap. “I promise I’ll think of him next time I have a glass of my favourite Syrah.” She fixed Celeste with her best smile (modelled after Twyla fromSchitt’s Creek) and raised her sparkling water in a toast. “To Harry. I wish this were wine, but duty calls. Back-to-back surgeries tomorrow.”
Bernie made the goodbye round as quickly as she could, dropping a breezy kiss on each cheek. When she got to Marta, she couldn’t help herself, she had to play a little. “This colouris alook, girl.” It could have been a compliment. She reached a hand behind Marta’s neck and yanked once, hard. “Got it! You forgot to take the tag off.” Bernie instantly felt much better, the soft snap of plastic releasing the pressure that had been building with every unearned slice of flattery she’d been forced to serve Celeste.
As Bernie walked out of the living room, she heard Celeste start another sentence with “Harry used to . . .” She pulled a face in the privacy of the front hallway as she let herself out. Celeste could be fun when she was in the mood to let loose, but a few too many glasses of wine and it was only a matter of time before she was whining about her dead husband. When Harry had passed, Bernie initially had some patience for Celeste’s desire to talk about him; after all, Bernie worked with him at Sunnyvale and knew him relatively well. But it was time for Celeste to move on. It had been more than two years since he’d died, but sometimes you’d think it had only been two weeks. Every time they got together, it was the same: “Harry used to do this” and “Harry used to do that”—it was such a downer.Harry used to do a lot of things that you don’t know about.
As she closed her own front door behind her, Bernie sighed in relief at the quiet that greeted her. The twins were with Steven this week and she was off work for the next three days—a dream combo. She always tried to schedule it this way, and didn’t understand why the other parents she worked with were so desperate to sync all their own days off with weekends and school vacations. But she’d learned long ago that her opinions on this matter did not conform to the norm, and she was smart enough not to voice her real feelings. Bernie used an image of the twins as the lock screen on her phone (she set a monthly alarm to remind herself to update the photo), and told anyone who asked that losing out on time with her kids was the hardest part of the divorce.
Bernie made her way to the kitchen and removed the bottle of Veuve that was waiting for her in the fridge. The coke had worn off, and she felt like she could use a drink to relax. Selecting the tall-stemmed flute that her housekeeper had thoughtfully chilled in the freezer, Bernie glugged a generous pour into her glass then took it upstairs.
The best part of her bedroom was a spacious walk-in closet (her first apartment in New York had been only a little bigger), which was a major selling point when she and Steven bought the place. The fact that the window in the walk-in offered a perfect angle into Imogen and Mark’s bedroom was a definite bonus. Most nights, when she wasn’t on shift at Sunnyvale, Bernie spent a few minutes peering into her neighbours’ lives. It baffled her that they never thought to close their curtains, but then again, they probably didn’t realize they were on display. On more than one occasion, Bernie had seen them having sex when they left the lights on. It was better than a nature documentary. The first time it happened, she wondered if she’d get turned on by watching them, and how she’d feel about it if she did, but she didn’t even get a tingle. For Bernie, watching provided a different kind of satisfaction, one even better than sex.
As she entered her walk-in closet, Bernie flicked off the overhead light and sank into her easy chair. The room was all soft greys in the dark, illuminated only by the hazy moon. Imogen had left the lights on in the bedroom and Bernie could see the wreckage clearly; a tornado of clothing had torn across the bed and debris was strewn all over the carpet. The sloppiness of the space stood in stark contrast to the try-hard perfectionism of the downstairs rooms, which Bernie knew had been decorated with the heavy assistance of a professional.
Savouring the sizzle of cold bubbles on her tongue, Bernie idly dipped a hand into her treasure bowl, situated in its usual spot on the table beside her chair. She fingered a platinum ring, stroked a fluffball key chain, then took out a purple vibrator and buzzed it on her palm for a moment before turning it back off. The treasure bowl itself was a coup, one Bernie was quite proud of. She had been forced to accompany the twins to a birthday last year because she screwed up and gave their nanny the day off. The party was total chaos—a militia of four-year-old boys running around with water pistols—so Bernie slipped into the host’s study for a moment of peace. On the bookshelf, she spotted a white ceramic bowl with speckles of red glaze. It was the easiest thing in the world to stash her prize in the IKEA tote she’d used to transport the birthday gifts.
Now, the bowl held all of Bernie’s secret treasures. Her trophies, you could say. Although most of the items belonged to the living.
4
FILTHY FUNDSS1E01: OFFSHORE AND OFFSIDE
LEO:Welcome to Season One ofFilthy Funds! I’m Leo Tremblay, and I’m joined by my co-host, the ever-scheme-y, oh-so-dreamy Ms. Claudia LeBlanc.
CLAUDIA:Bonjour! Thrilled to be here with you, Leo. We’re two finance nerds with a passion for true crime, and we’ve decided to merge our interests and make some magic. Because what the worldreallyneeds is another podcast.
LEO:We’re going to talk dirty to you—dirty money that is—and show you that these supposedly “bloodless” white-collar crimes have more than a hint of iron in them. It’s “accrual” world out there, girl!
CLAUDIA:Okay, love it, but some of your accounting puns simply donotwork in an audio medium. For our inaugural season ofFilthy Funds, we’ve prepared a deep dive into the murky world of offshore banking!
LEO:Do the wordsPandora,Paradise, andPanamamean anything to you? If not, they will soon! More broadly, we’ll be talking secrecy jurisdictions, shell companies, citizenship-for-purchase schemes, and shadow banks.
CLAUDIA:Now obviously this all sounds juicy to me, but I’ve also been known to write letters to the editor of theFinancial Postin my free time. So let’s touch down on a few non-financial crimes to give the listeners a flavour of how important it can be to follow the money. And I can’t think of a better example than one of the most high-profile cold cases of the last decade . . . I’m referring, of course, to the Billionaire Murders. In December 2017, Barry and Honey Sherman were found dead in their multi-million-dollar home in Toronto and, years later, the case remains unsolved.
LEO:I’ve been obsessed with theStar’s coverage of this investigation! If you’re not familiar with the case, what you need to know is that Barry Sherman made his billions in the pharmaceutical industry, and his financial dealings were, suffice to say, complex. It’s recently been revealed that police were not given access to any information regarding Sherman’s offshore holdings in the Bahamas. There was approximately two billion dollars sheltered in tax havens! Now, there’s nothing linking the murders to these offshore dealings . . . but then again, how could the police make such a link when they weren’t even aware of this potential lead?
CLAUDIA:That’s the thing about offshore banking: There’s so much that’s hidden . . . Hidden is kind of the whole point. Ooh, Leo, do you rememberThe Jinxdocumentary about Robert Durst?
LEO:Of course! A sociopathic icon. “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.”
CLAUDIA:In an investigative series,The Washington Postreported that convicted murderer Robert Durst had stashed his money in Belize. And he wasn’t alone! The article named numerous other criminals who made use of this famous tax haven, including mob associates and sex offenders.
LEO:And yes, sure, there are some legitimate uses of offshore banking structures—like, let’s say, a pop star is buying a house and wants to keep her purchase private so she doesn’t have rabid fans showing up at her new address—but I would argue that the vast majority of offshore activity is about tax evasion at best, and truly nefarious purposes at worst.
CLAUDIA:Everything from hiding the plundered riches of corrupt officials, to money laundering for the mob, to financing terrorist organizations.
LEO:All this, and so much more, on Season One ofFilthy Funds!
5
IMOGEN
Imogen scraped herself off the bathroom floor, flushed the toilet, and winced at her reflection in the mirror. Her right eye was red—blown-out blood vessels from the force of her purge. She was very glad she had the house to herself as she stumbled into the kitchen to pour herself a G and T and grab a sleeve of saltine crackers to eat in bed. Upstairs, she stripped out of her clothes, collapsed onto her mattress, and created a nest out of her duvet and pillows.
A thought filtered in through the alcohol haze: Whoever had sent the photos to the digital frame must have left a trail; she’d be able to see the email address or phone number they’d been sent from. Imogen tapped into the app on her phone, then clicked around until she found what she was looking for. Three photos, all sent at 9:23 p.m. (smack dab in the middle of book club), all from an unfamiliar Gmail address. Imogen opened her email and found an unread message, sent from that same unfamiliar address. The subject line read Bad girl.
Imogen clicked it open so fast she spilled her drink on the sheets.You’ve been up to no good haven’t you, babe?It was unsigned. Part of her wanted to delete the message and pretend she’d never seen it. She could block the sender. Smash the digital frame. But that wouldn’t solve anything. Before she could stop herself, she found herself tapping out a reply.Who is this? Maybe you think you saw something, but you didn’t.
