noticed the fire in the grate this afternoon, at first we thought
the entire set of folders had been destroyed. Then we realized
there weren’t enough ashes. So what else had to go? The
phrase
when it comes to murder. It dawned on me that the real
financial records had been burned, as op-
posed to the fraudulent ones that Leon had been forced to
make public.”
“Good grief.” Ava had paled and was holding her head.
“How did Frank think he could get away with it?”
Judith uttered a bitter little laugh. “Frank thought he could
get away with anything. His corner office mentality made
him believe he was different from other people, that he was
above the law, that he could do anything he wanted because
he was a CEO. Oh, I realize not all powerful people go on
a homicide spree. But they kill in other ways—they demean
their subordinates, they stifle them, they control them—and
often, they fire them. You can destroy other human beings
without violence. In the isolated corner office, someone like
Frank becomes so disassociated that he lives in a different
world, a false world where the only values are the ones he
makes up.”
Renie nodded slowly in agreement. “Not only that, but
he’d invested his entire life in OTIOSE. Oh, he may have
had a boat and played golf, but those were just extensions
of his executive persona. Unlike other people—like my husband and my cousin’s husband—he had nothing outside of
his exalted position. He was a shell of a man, hollow inside,
and incapable of living anywhere but in the corporate world.
When reality touched him in the form of retirement, he went
over the edge. As my psychologist husband would say, Frank
Killegrew…went nuts.”
“My God!” Ava clapped a hand to her cheek. “Will I be
like that? Am I already there?”
“Let’s hope not,” said Renie. “You’re still young. This
weekend, you’ve seen how corporate thinking can cause total
devastation. Follow Margo’s example—get out before it’s
too late.”
Ava didn’t respond. She seemed to sink into deep thought,
her eyes on the brightly striped rug beneath her feet.
“My cousin’s right,” Judith chimed in. “It was too late for
Nadia, which is why she killed herself. She had nothing
but Frank—and OTIOSE. That was her family, her gang,
where she belonged. She was utterly devoted to him, as much
as any wife is to a husband. In fact, she acted just like an
old-fashioned wife, waiting on him, fetching and carrying,
soothing, selfless. If his horrible schemes were uncovered—as
Nadia knew they would be—he’d face disgrace and ruin.
