Chapter 12

                                    

                                              
Copyright (c) 2015 Phyllis Zimbler Miller
                          
All rights reserved.
                          
     All day Monday at work had been a marathon writing session with all the World's business reporters assigned to various aspects of the financial crisis.  While stories on the paper's website could be updated at any time, 6 p.m. was the deadline for anything appearing in the paper edition the next morning.  

                          
     At 6:01 Rebecca checked on the market symbols on Helene's note, having postponed that task from last night until today.  All S&Ls and all in LA.
                          
     Then she checked what had happened to these four in this current financial crisis.  Not unexpectedly they had all taken a considerable beating.  But Helene had written down these stock prices before the panicked sell-off.  So what happened to them today couldn't be connected to Helene's notes. 
                          
     So what did Helene's notes mean? 
                          
***
                          
         Lawrence Hampton paced the wood parquet floor of the small study located next to the front door of his house.  He had come home early from the office after the market had closed in New York and holed himself in the study, even refusing the dinner Maria had offered to serve him there.
                          
         A light tap at his door halted him in mid-step.  Glancing at the German grandfather's clock on the wall, he saw it was 7 pm.  Josephine must be home.
                          
         "Come in," he said.
                          
         She entered, looking elegant as always, her figure showing no effects of having had a baby 10 months earlier.  Exercising at home with a private trainer could do wonders for one's figure, but it also required a hell of a lot of money.  But then it required a hell of a lot of money to keep up the style of living they both enjoyed.
                          
         And now the financial crisis could put a serious crimp into his plans.
                          
         He glanced at Josephine's face.  He wasn't about to let her know his worries.  He'd think of a way out; he always had before.
                          
         "Hello, darling," she said, offering him a glass of wine she held in her right hand.  Her left hand held another glass, which she raised to clink against the rim of the glass he accepted from her.
                          
         "Here's to the unexpected," she said, then added, "May it all end up alright."
                          
         He watched her drop into the loveseat in one corner of the room.  He certainly wouldn't discuss with her the newly revised profit projections of his residential real estate development company that had gone public only a heady five months earlier.
                          
         "What a day!" she said.  "The bank was chaotic.  Even some of our oldest trust department clientele called to ask about the safety of their invested funds.  It reminded me of the story of Chicken Little crying the sky is falling."
                          
         She paused, clearly waiting for him to reply.  
                          
         Instead he slouched down next to her on the loveseat and said, "It has been quite a day, hasn't it?"
                          
         "Then drink up," she said.  "We might as well feel no pain."
                          
***
                          
         Four hours later Josephine returned to her husband's study.  Although Lawrence may have thought she was keeping up with him on the glasses of wine he consumed, she had been purposely staying sober.
                          
     Now that she had tucked Lawrence into bed and stopped off to give David a kiss in his crib, she had a job to do.  Not a very pleasant job, but one which had to be done.  One which, she knew, Lawrence wouldn't think to do himself but would be glad that someone else had taken it upon herself to carry out.
                          
     She didn't even bother to sit down in front of Lawrence's computer because she knew he believed these documents too sensitive to be entrusted to a device whose deleted files could be retrieved by forensic experts.  
                          
     Instead she used the key taken from his key ring to open the file drawer of his desk.  Sorting through the different file folders, all labeled with abbreviations, she pulled out the one she wanted.  Then she fed the contents into the home shredder next to his desk.  
                          
     In minutes the machine completed its required task.
                          
***
                          
         Pamela Tannenbaum sat in front of her home computer uploading the thumb drive she had brought from work.  Normally she didn't bring work home with her, but today was an unusual day.
                          
         She had stayed late at the office trying to make sense of the day's events when the phones, which had rung all day, finally stopped.  Some of her clients had called her truly nasty names as if she should have foreseen the financial crisis and gotten them to sell their stocks before the runoff.  
                          
         How could she have known -- even with the slight fears she had expressed to Dorothy only last week -- when some of the most prestigious soothsayers in the field had continued to predict a rosy picture?
                          
         Now at 11 p.m. Pamela gulped from the oversized wine glass she had repeatedly replenished.  Her head throbbed, but whether from the wine or the stress of the day she couldn't say.
                          
         What was she going to do tomorrow?  Even if, and that was a big if, things didn't get any worse, even if they got somewhat better?
                          
         As she clicked open some of the files she had uploaded, she thought about the losses people had sustained today.  What would it mean to them?
                          
         Would there be some people for whom this meant such a massive loss of income that they would be tempted to commit suicide, leaping out of office buildings, as did some people in the crash of 1929?  Or would it only mean perhaps having to sell their seconds homes in the desert, cancel their winter vacation trips to Hawaii, stop shopping so exclusively on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills?
                          
         Pamela shook her head -- she was being spiteful.  No matter what, she was responsible for these people's money.  And now where was the money?    
                          
         She flicked off her computer.
                          
     She needed sleep.  She needed enough energy to get through tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.  And she had a very early meeting tomorrow morning.
                          
         She walked into the adjoining master bath, for once not noticing the expensive Kohler fixtures she had chosen only a year ago when she had completely remodeled her house.  And as she reached for the aspirin bottle, she didn't even have the customary twinge of anguish because Neil's toothbrush was not there besides her own.  
                          
         Having washed down the aspirin with the wine, she reached for the bottle of sleeping pills she kept stuck in the back of the drawer for use only when absolutely necessary.
                          
         As she did so she thought she heard a noise coming from the kitchen.  A pinprick of fear spurted through her sloshed mind.  Then she calmed down.  Surely it was only the refrigerator's automatic ice dispenser making more ice.
                          
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SINK LIKE A STONE is the second Rebecca Stone mystery novel.  The first, CAST THE FIRST STONE, is available on Amazon as are two Rebecca Stone mystery short stories in TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE.  See www.amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller