What Happens in Paradise(29)

The youngest agent—a baby-faced ginger—pokes his head into the kitchen. “Nothing in the master bed or bath,” he says. He eyes the tray of sandwiches. “Are those for everyone?”

“Help yourself,” Irene says. Then she thinks of something! A hiding place! She looks at Beckett, who is reviewing his notes as he eats his ham and cheese.

No, she won’t tell them. Maybe they’ll find it. Maybe they won’t.

Irene wonders if this investigation can work both ways. “I called my real estate contact in St. John to request a death certificate.” She blows across the surface of her tea. “My family attorney here says that until I produce it, Russ is technically still alive.” She pauses, waiting for a reaction, but none comes. “Which would be quite something, because we’ve already scattered the ashes. Or what we thought were Russ’s ashes. I never saw the body and I wasn’t consulted about the cremation until after it was a done deal. Is there any chance…I mean, do you think my husband might still be alive?”

Beckett stands up to secure the door to the hallway and then the door to the dining room. “You’ve been very accommodating,” he says. “And we appreciate it. I’m sure you realize that we’re here because we have reason to believe your husband had illegal business dealings. The one thing I can assure you”—Agent Beckett holds Irene’s gaze—“is that your husband is dead.”

“He is,” Irene says. Yes, he is, she knows this. She has been processing this news for over two weeks. And yet hearing Beckett say the words comes as a fresh shock. Irene’s eyes sting with tears. The dreams were just that—dreams—but Irene must have been hanging on to a thread of hope. None of this added up. From the beginning, it felt like a hoax. The person who told Irene that Russ was dead—Marilyn Monroe—wasn’t someone Irene had ever met face to face. Paulette had been professional to the point of seeming insensitive, nearly as if she was just going through the motions because she knew Russ would turn up eventually. “You’re sure?”

“Yes,” Beckett says. He must have definitive proof, Irene thinks, but he isn’t sharing it. “We’re going to need your cell phone and your computer. They’ll both be returned to you.”

“Yes, of course,” Irene says. She pulls her cell phone out of her purse just as it lights up and starts chiming with a call from Lydia. Of course it’s Lydia. Irene hits Decline and hands it over. She nods at her laptop on the desk in the corner. “When you say my husband had illegal business dealings, you mean Ascension had illegal business dealings, right? Todd Croft had illegal business dealings. I can tell you right now that Russ just wasn’t the kind of person who would—” She notices the expression on Agent Beckett’s face and stops talking. Russ wasn’t the kind of person who would…what? Have a mistress, a secret daughter, and a nine-bedroom villa down in the Caribbean? It’s pretty clear that Irene doesn’t know what kind of person Russ was. She is as clueless as Ruth Madoff was. Irene remembers back when that news story broke. She had thought, Of course the wife knew her husband was running a bazillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. How could she not know? But now that Irene is in a similar situation, she’s certain Mrs. Madoff had no idea what was going on. She probably spent all her time at the club lunching with her friends and meeting with her personal shopper. And if Ruth Madoff—or Irene—had asked her husband questions about his business, who’s to say either woman would have been told the truth?

Irene, for one, hadn’t asked any questions. She had happily accepted the money Russ deposited into her renovation account and turned her attention to wallpaper and crown molding. “Are you looking for Todd Croft?”

Barely a nod from Beckett. “Not at liberty to say.”

Yes; the answer was yes. “He’s drinking a daiquiri on some remote island without a name,” Irene says.

“That actually happens less than one would imagine,” Beckett says. “Men like Todd Croft can’t just drop out of society. They’re too power hungry.” Beckett pops the last bite of sandwich into his mouth and polishes off his tea. “Don’t worry. He’ll turn up.”

“I did learn two things on my own,” Irene says, “that you might find helpful.” She’s hesitant to hand over what she knows, but Russ’s words have taken root inside of her. Irene is the only person I trust to do the right thing. He probably meant the right thing for Rosie and Maia but he most certainly also meant the right thing morally, which was to cooperate with the FBI, tell the truth, preserve her own integrity, protect the boys. “We have a bank account at Federal Republic. I have a statement I can give you. And the teller informed me that Russ made the last two deposits of seventy-five hundred dollars apiece…in cash.” Irene searches Agent Beckett’s face to see if this news startles him as much as it startled her, but he doesn’t even blink. Of course, he’s in the FBI. He has seen…Irene can’t even imagine what. “And I asked my attorney, Ed, Edward Sorley, to find the account that Russ used to pay for this house when we bought it. He has a copy of a cashier’s check drawn on a bank—MGST or something like that—in the Cayman Islands.”

Agent Beckett’s left eyebrow lifts a fraction of an inch. “Sounds about right,” he says. “Would you give me Mr. Sorley’s contact information, please?”