Avery turned and recommenced scrubbing the shelves built at the side of the brick fireplace. She spoke to the wall. “The thing is…Well, in an odd sort of way, what Luke said didn’t come as a total surprise to me.”
Kate stared at her mother’s back. “I don’t understand.”
“After the initial shock of Ron’s disappearance wore off, I was never as sure as everyone else that he was dead. I know his…other wife in Wyoming never doubted that he’d been murdered. But I…wondered.”
“What are you telling me, Mom?” Kate forced herself not to shout as she struggled to keep her anger with Luke separate from the surprise caused by her mother’s admission. “Why aren’t you sure Dad was…is dead? The police seemed pretty certain of what happened that night in Miami.”
“Yes, I know, but the penthouse was mortgaged, you see.”
“You’re going to have to spell that out more clearly, Mom. What has a mortgage on the penthouse got to do with Dad’s death?”
“What happened to the money?” Avery asked. “That’s what I kept asking myself after the initial shock wore off. Where is it?”
“Where is what money, Mom?” Kate was beginning to worry that her mother was losing it. Normally the most precise of women, right now Avery was making no sense at all.
“The money Ron raised with the mortgage,” Avery explained. “We owned the penthouse free and clear, I’m sure of it. It’s true that I never paid close attention to Ron’s business deals—there were so many of them—but I was quite well-informed about our personal finances.” Her voice flattened. “Or, to be more accurate, I was well informed about those parts of our personal finances that Ron felt safe to share with me.”
Which left out a hell of a lot, Kate reflected grimly, given that her father had been supporting another entire family in Wyoming that neither she nor her mother had known anything about until Ron Raven was officially declared missing.
“There could be a dozen reasons why Dad needed cash,” she pointed out. “Hundreds, in fact, given that he lied to both of us all the time. We haven’t the faintest clue what was going on with his finances, or any other part of his life, if you get right down to it.” After months of coming to terms with her father’s betrayal, Kate managed to state the sordid truth without being overwhelmed by bitterness.
“That’s true,” her mother conceded. “But Ron never expressed any need to mortgage the penthouse in the twenty years since we bought it. Why, two months before he disappeared, did he suddenly decide to take out a three-million-dollar loan? We weren’t facing any unexpected expenses, and it’s inconsistent with the way he’d handled our personal finances for the entire time we were together.”
“Because he didn’t consult you about the mortgage, you mean?”
Avery nodded. “In retrospect, I understand he wasn’t really asking for my opinion when we discussed our personal finances, but he at least went through the motions. I had the illusion we were making decisions together, even if the reality was otherwise. But Ron never breathed a word about the mortgage on the penthouse. I only found out it existed after he’d disappeared. Why?”
It seemed to Kate that her mother was placing too much emphasis on a relatively trivial part of the myriad deceptions Ron Raven had perpetrated on them both. The penthouse mortgage might be the only financial deception Avery had uncovered to this point. That didn’t mean it was the only deception Ron had engaged in, not by a long shot.
“Perhaps Dad wanted to put extra capital into his business?” she suggested. “Have you talked to Uncle Paul about it? That must be the answer, Mom. Raven Enterprises needed an infusion of cash for some reason, and Dad raised the money by taking out a mortgage on the penthouse.”
“I’ve talked to my brother about the mortgage several times and he insists there was no three-million-dollar infusion of cash into Raven Enterprises. Besides, he says the business was in great shape, although the legal difficulties since Ron’s disappearance have created problems for Paul going forward, which is why he hasn’t been able to give me any cash from the business while we’re waiting for the wills to be probated. The lawyers are controlling everything. However, according to Paul, at the time Ron disappeared there would have been no reason at all for your father to seek extra business capital.”
“So how does Uncle Paul explain the mortgage on your home?”
“Well, he doesn’t, of course. But you know my brother. He’s a Southern gentleman of the old school and he’s secretly convinced I’ll get brain fever and go into a decline if he discusses money and finance with me. Paul insists the penthouse was always mortgaged and Ron simply refinanced at a better rate. He claims the documents I found weren’t a new mortgage. They were refinancing papers that just happened to be signed a couple of months before your father disappeared.”
“If Uncle Paul says there was no three-million-dollar payment into Raven Enterprises, then he must be right,” Kate said. “He was Dad’s business partner, after all. But that doesn’t mean you’re wrong about the mortgage on the penthouse. It just suggests Dad invested the three million elsewhere.”
She needed to have a come-to-Jesus talk with her uncle, Kate reflected. Paul had been wise to protect his sister from unnecessary worries about finances in the immediate turmoil following Ron’s disappearance and the discovery of his bigamy. However, six months had passed and it wasn’t sensible for Paul to continue shielding her mother from every harsh reality. God knew, with all the details of their private lives that had been blazoned across the nation’s TV screens, it was almost comic for her uncle to adhere to the quaint, 1950s custom of protecting the womenfolk from a clear understanding of their own financial situation.
“You’re right,” Avery said. “Ron must have invested the money elsewhere, because I’m sure there was no mortgage on the penthouse until very recently. But arguing with your uncle is so exhausting I just gave up.” She looked chagrined by the admission, as well as the implicit criticism of her elder brother, mild as it was. “I’d have to search through boxes and boxes of papers to confirm my belief, and there’s always seemed so many other, more useful ways to employ my time….”
“You’re right. There were. There’s no reason to sound guilty, Mom. Dad’s financial affairs are one giant mess. Trying to pick apart one tiny thread of the muddle makes no sense. Between us and the family in Wyoming, we have what seems like a thousand lawyers and accountants already poking around in Dad’s finances. You’re smart to leave them to it and get on with your life.”
“Maybe, except that once I’d talked with Luke this morning, it began to seem as if I might have been right to suspect the mortgage on the penthouse was significant.”
“I’m not following, Mom. Why does it matter? Except that you’re potentially three million dollars worse off, of course. But even if the penthouse had been free of all mortgages, wouldn’t the proceeds from the sale have gone into probate, anyway?”
“I expect so, since nobody can decide which of Ron’s wills is valid, if any. But if your father isn’t dead…if he’s alive…doesn’t it strike you that there might be a connection between the sudden three-million-dollar mortgage on our penthouse and his disappearance?”
The meaning of Avery’s comment hit Kate with the force of a physical blow. “Are you suggesting…” She needed to swallow before she could finish her question. “Are you suggesting that Dad mortgaged the penthouse so that he would have money to finance his disappearance?”
“Well, it certainly seems a possibility, wouldn’t you say? I’ve…wondered about that over the past few months.”
“If he’s alive, I guess it’s a possibility.” Kate’s mouth felt dry and her stomach tightened in a sickly knot. “I just don’t see any reason to believe he’s alive.”
“Luke