Frozen Assets Read online

  I searched my memory wondering if there was a hunting season on that I’d forgotten. Couldn’t think of any. I looked sideways at where he was. Still there.

  Why would someone dressed and armed like a special forces commando be in MY woods, watching me? Cowardice reigned, and I said "C’mon Holy Wah, break’s over, let’s keep going," and pushed off. The back of my neck prickled and I knew this guy was watching me. I just hoped he wasn’t considering using me for target practice. I skied away from him, hoping he thought I hadn’t seen him. This would be the perfect place to off somebody and get away with it. (okay, so I read too many thrillers and crime novels, so sue me.)

  After ten minutes, I stopped again to let my wobbly knees take a break and let my heart stop pounding. With all the workout it had been getting lately, I had to conclude my heart was in excellent condition, because if I had any sort of heart problem I’d probably have already keeled over dead.

  I could hear nothing, see nothing. Hopefully this meant he hadn’t followed me. I had to pee in the worst way so we headed for home. I kept looking over my shoulder and stopping to listen. I was so glad to see my house emerge from the trees I almost tripped over my skis hurrying the last hundred yards or so. As I removed my skis, I felt like kissing the deck.

  But I didn’t. It was cold enough that if I had, I’d probably still be trying to get my lips unstuck.

  At around three that afternoon, the phone rang. It was the annoying real estate salesman.

  "If you’re going to be home, Miz Meagher (Meeger again, the twerp - didn’t he listen to anything I said the last time?) I’d like to come out and discuss something with you."

  I reiterated that I wasn’t interested, but he assured me he only wanted five minutes, so I relented. I’m definitely going to have to reanimate Ms. Bitch Lawyer for occasions like this.

  True to his word, he only took five minutes. His client, he said earnestly, was upping the offer by twenty-five thousand dollars. I said no thanks. He did his best, tried every trick in the real estate salesman "How To Sell a Tough Client" manual. I told him I wasn’t interested, and even if I were interested, I wouldn’t sell to someone I didn’t know.

  He finally gave up and minced his way back to his car. I couldn’t help but think that he was way out of place in this man’s man neck of the woods, with his prissiness and light-in-the-loafers walk. The strange part is that he is one of the U.P.’s top real estate salesmen. Go figure.

  You can find out just about anything on the internet.

  That evening Cal came over bearing a nice bottle of wine and a pot of killer pasta. He’s a far better cook than I am, and he loves trying out his creations on me. Over spaghetti with vegetables and alfredo sauce and my contribution, a green salad - can’t go wrong with a prepackaged salad - Cal asked me about my day. I told him about the second visit from Mr Wilson, and my second refusal of his client’s more than generous offer.

  Cal looked mystified. "So why didn’t you take the offer? For that kind of money, you could easily get another place, more land, maybe waterfront."

  I shook my head. "I don’t know, Cal. I love the place, and I’ve put so much of myself into it. And then there’s that stubborn streak I have, of not wanting to go where I’m pushed. I know that’s a lot of money, but if I’ve learned only one thing in this life, it’s that there are more important things than money, especially when you already have enough for the basics and a bit more."

  He shrugged. "It’s your decision, but you might want to step back and look at it a little more. You never know, you might change your mind." He is SO male sometimes. "So how about the rest of your day?"

  I hesitated, wondering if I should tell him about Mr. Ghost. He furrowed his brow.

  "Something going on I should know about?" He looked so concerned I couldn’t help myself.

  "I think someone is stalking me." His eyes widened, and he made a "tell me all" gesture with his fingers.

  I told him the whole story, and didn’t minimize the abject terror I felt at the sight of this guy. "There’s not supposed to be anybody around here in the winter, and he looked like he was on winter maneuvers or something military. Even his weapon was gunked up with something so it wouldn’t reflect light. Do we know anything about who owns the property around me? If it’s some legitimate thing, why wouldn’t he give me the courtesy of a heads-up in case I encountered somebody in my woods? Do you suppose it’s related to those bodies–"

  Cal put up both hands, palms out. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on there. Let’s think this out. Got a plat book?"

  I looked dumbly at him for a moment until my brain kicked in. A plat book would show who owns the property abutting mine and maybe give us some ideas about what in bloody HELL was going on. I went over to my bookshelf and started looking for the plat book.

  Iron County puts out a plat book every couple of years, and sells copies to hunters, mainly, looking for land owned by the state or by timber companies, which are unlikely to object to hunters trespassing on their property. Individual property owners get a bit testy when hunters, especially the city variety, think they can shoot at anything, anywhere. The book is always a little behind, since many parcels of property in the county change hands every year as the value of property continues to soar and more locals sell out to Boomers looking to retire up north. But it’s a pretty good way to figure out whether or not you’ll get shot at if you set foot onto the property.

  Cal and I found the page with my parcel on it, and we got out a magnifying glass so we could read the minuscule print. "True North Enterprises, Inc. Well, that tells us a lot. I guess tomorrow I’ll have to go down to the Register of Deeds and see if I can figure out who the principals are." Cal, ever the policeman, loves problem solving, especially a mystery. Even a seemingly trivial one. I could see the wheels turning as he churned all the known facts in his head. I knew that at some point he would have an "aHA!" moment and something would fall into place. But right now, he was still accumulating facts to add to the mix.

  15

  I’m walking down the courthouse steps, chatting with Celia Bradley. She’s thanking me for doing such a wonderful job in getting her a decent settlement and custody of her two children, and for helping her get a personal protection order against her violent and abusive husband, when I see something in my peripheral vision. I turn my head slightly, and see to my horror that Gary Bradley is coming toward us with a huge knife. In slow motion he leaps the bushes growing along the sides of the steps and I watch helplessly, unable to move, as he stabs viciously at Celia. I watch in horror as he slashes the knife across her throat and the crimson fountain sprays all over me. I might as well be shrinkwrapped, because even as he comes toward me, screaming incoherent obscenities at me, I am powerless to run, to scream, to move. As he brings the knife upward in a movement which should bring it under my ribs and into my heart, I break free of the paralysis and turn to run. A searing pain blossoms in my side and I falter. I do not stop. I cannot stop. I cannot hear anything or see anything except where I am putting my feet. Sheer terror and adrenaline keep me running at my limit. I hear him coming after me, loud, thudding footsteps. I hear shouting and see blurry figures rushing toward me. Another agony erupts in my shoulder and suddenly an arm goes around my neck and I can run no longer. I see the bloody knife blade descending toward my face, my throat, and I know I am done. There is no time for struggle, for regrets, or even to pray. I know I am dead.

  I wake up with the shot that blew away Bradley’s head echoing in my mind . I am dripping with sweat and still panting with panic as I become oriented and realize that I am safe in my own bed, and that Gary Bradley has been dead for almost ten years.

  I get up and go to the kitchen. I rummage under the sink until I find, way in the back behind numerous cleaning products, the bottle of brandy I keep there. Hands shaking, I pour myself two fingers and down it in three swallows, followed by a glass of water. My heart has almost returned to its normal rhythm by the time
I can feel the warmth of the brandy spreading throughout my body. I pour myself another, and then another.

  It has been almost a year since I last had this particular nightmare, and despite the brandy, my mind returns to the scenario, as if by reviewing it I can somehow change events.

  Celia and Gary Bradley had been married seven years when she came to my office the first time. She had just come from the courthouse, where she had received a personal protection order forbidding her husband from having any contact with her until the hearing in two weeks. My assistant, Myrna, ushered her into my office, then brought in a carafe of fresh coffee on a silver tray, along with sugar, sugar substitute, real cream, and powdered creamer. While Celia and I sipped our coffee, Celia told me an all-too-frequent tale of a fairytale wedding, the way he soon started asserting control over everything she did – the clothes she wore, the way she cut her hair, the color of lipstick and nail polish she used. At first she thought it was sweet, but as it became oppressive, she began to rebel. Although he earned a huge salary and bonuses at the law firm where he was a partner, he gave her a small allowance, never enough that she could do or buy anything he had not approved of. The first time he struck her was when she refused to wear the dress he had chosen for her to wear to a company party. She told me that she realized how unhealthy the situation was after she and a friend had seen the movie "Sleeping With the Enemy."

  ‘Honest to God, it was exactly what happened to me, except that in the movie she went ahead and wore the dress. I came out of that movie gasping for air, wondering where I would find the courage to do what that woman did."

  She had borne the abuse through the births of her two children. Where her husband appeared to the world to be a devoted husband and father, at home he was a tyrant. When he knocked their three-year-old across the living room into the wall because the child had begun crying during a ball game Gary was watching, Celia had had enough. While he was at work she took the checkbook he kept hidden – or so he thought – from her, and emptied the single account they held jointly, a remnant from early in their marriage. She opened an account in her sole name, then took her two children and only the possessions they could carry in suitcases, to the women’s shelter, where the shelter director took her to the courthouse to obtain the protection order. She then called my office for a consultation.

  He was furious, as expected, especially when she wouldn’t answer the cell phone he had given her so he could keep track of her, and was arrested after he pounded on the door of her friend – the only friend he had allowed her to have – demanding that she produce his wife. He bonded out, and immediately violated a bond provision that he have no contact with Celia, who, thinking she was safe, had turned her phone back on, only to find over a dozen messages he had left, threatening to take the children away and never let her see them, to find her and teach her a lesson, and, finally, to track her to the ends of the earth and kill her. This time the judge made him sit five days in jail before he could bond out again.

  While he was residing as a guest of the city, I rushed through the divorce complaint and temporary custody order, and as he was collecting his personal items from the desk officer, he was served with the paperwork. This time he was icy calm, said "thank you" to the server, and walked out of the station. The desk officer testified at Gary’s trial for murder and attempted murder, that the guy gave him cold shivers. "I think I liked him better when he was hollering and screaming, at least you knew what he was up to."

  Celia stayed at the shelter during the six-month waiting period, thereby keeping herself and her small children safe from Gary’s rages. Neither of us figured he would try anything during the two-day divorce trial, since everyone entering the courthouse has to go through an airport-type scanner manned by four or more burly law officers. During the trial he maintained a calm demeanor, probably coached at length by his lawyer, Jason Doakes. You’ve probably seen him as one of the many talking heads on TV, expounding about some celebrity trial or another. Not someone the average citizen could afford to hire for an hour, much less a two-day trial. But Gary had, as I found out later, a ton of money which he and Doakes did their best to keep from sharing with Celia. They tried to paint Celia as mentally unbalanced, an unfit mother, and a spendthrift, but our evidence in the form of mental health experts, jail and police records and bank records pretty well put paid to those ideas.

  Ultimately, Celia was awarded half the marital assets - at least the ones we could find - which were substantial, a healthy chunk of alimony, and sole physical custody of the children. Gary was awarded supervised visitation at a Center which specializes in visitation cases involving hostile parents. He was royally pissed, but stayed calm in the courtroom.

  It was a beautiful, sunny April day, about three in the afternoon and the sun felt wonderful on my face after two days in a windowless courtroom, not to mention the week of evening trial prep sessions. As we walked down the marble steps of the courthouse, Celia was chattering away about all the plans she had for herself and the children. "I’m going to get a house in the suburbs, and then enroll in the community college. I want to be an elementary teacher, I just love kids and I think I’d be –"

  Her future planning ended suddenly with the plunge of a knife blade. My future, spinning out of control like a speeding car on black ice, skidded, as it were, off into the barrow pit.

  When I was forty, I was at the top of my game. Managing partner of a 120-lawyer law practice, I made half a million bucks a year plus bonuses. But I worked for it. While my children were small, I worked part-time for the firm where I had been hired as a legal assistant. Once my kids were all in school, I enrolled in the Detroit School of Law, having obtained an undergrad degree before I married. About the time the last kid was about to graduate high school, my husband, Bill, after being a well-respected college teacher for nearly twenty years, decided life was passing him by and wanted a divorce. Before the ink on the divorce decree was dry, he had married one of his students and they moved to Taos, New Mexico to be "artisans" and sell handmade baskets or beads or something. The kids hardly noticed he was gone, but as they’ve matured, they’ve reestablished relationships with him.

  So, no husband to demand my time - again (my first marriage is not something I like to talk about), kids out of the house, I was free to devote my time and energy to climbing the corporate ladder. I took a small detour and married a fellow lawyer, but after a year we agreed that it was a mistake. When I took on the Bradley divorce, I was known throughout the legal community as one of the top ten family lawyers in the area, and I commanded fees that I’m embarrassed to name. And people happily paid what frequently became six-figures.

  I spent nearly a month in the hospital and had several surgeries to repair the damage from the knife and the scar which went from my collarbone almost to my eye, where the knife had sliced as Bradley died. It wasn’t deep, thankfully, but it was bad enough that I didn’t want a Frankenstein scar. Ann Arbor has some really great plastic surgeons.

  I developed a staph infection, a not uncommon occurrence in hospitals, which extended my misery and my hospital stay. When I was finally released I was at loose ends. The firm was anxious to have me back in the saddle - as well they should have, since I was a major rainmaker for them. But somehow it didn’t appeal to me anymore. Maybe coming so close to death made me realize what was important, although if you had asked me, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you exactly what was important. I slid into a deep depression, started drinking too much, and isolated myself. Eventually my kids descended upon me en masse and did what they called an "intervention." Translate that as "drag Mom out against her will to a doctor and get her some antidepressants then kick her in the ass and tell her to get over it."

  It worked.

  Many people think depression is just feeling sorry for oneself. Not even. The closest way I can describe it is to compare it to "The Wizard of Oz" – Kansas is depression, and Oz is a normal, non-depressed state of being. Depressi
on is having your brain tell you that you have nothing to be unhappy about, while the rest of you is saying there’s no reason to take another breath. Depression is waiting for a commuter train, thinking about leaping in front of the engine as is passes, but having that tiny voice of reason remind you of what that would do to the engine driver and onlookers, so you don’t. Depression is not answering the phone, or the door, because it takes too much effort. You get the drift. Depression is definitely not a destination one chooses. Everyone gets depressed at certain times - a death, a severed relationship, a job loss - but they get over it fairly quickly. Those of us who were cursed with certain genetic makeup don’t get over it. Instead, we just keep sliding down, down, down, until we can’t even see the light at the end of the tunnel anymore.

  So I bought stock in the pharmaceutical company that makes the antidepressants which saved me. And got on with my life.

  Of course, I wasn’t sure exactly what shape that life was going to take. I had definitely decided that I did not want to return to the fast-paced, high-stress world of Big Firm law. I had some money in investments - I had made a lot of money for the previous five years, and had squirreled away a respectable chunk of it.

  So I decided to embark on a journey of self-discovery, be a pilgrim, a Dharma Bum a la Jack Kerouac. I sold my expensive home in a very chi-chi neighborhood and purchased a 24-foot motor home. I confess I made sure it had amenities like setups for wireless internet and satellite TV. I intended to live in this glorified tin can for an indefinite period of time, so I figured I’d get it right at the outset. I had the RV people build on a doodad at the rear with a drop-down ramp, sold the Beamer, and bought a moped. Every time I did one of these totally out-of-character things, I laughed with delight. I was turning my back completely on the life I had so carefully constructed and it felt GOOD! Actually I felt a bit naughty - I was almost glad Mom wasn’t around to give me a hard time about it. Dad, on the other hand, would have said "You go girl!" or words to that effect. With their completely opposite life-views, it’s odd how they managed to stay together for over fifty years.