“Why, what’s happened? What’s going on, Wanda?”
She seemed flustered enough to not wonder why he was on this floor during the workday.
“You haven’t heard? It’s Sara Ewes. Did you know her? I remember she was a mentor to your class of interns.”
“No, not very well,” he lied. “What happened to her?”
“She’s dead.”
He didn’t have to pretend to be surprised. The realization that the message was accurate hit him like an IED. “Dead! What happened?”
“She killed herself, or so I overheard the police saying. Hanged herself.”
Oh my God.
“Folks, if you don’t mind, thanks,” butted in the cop.
Simms took Devine’s arm. “Come on, I can talk on the way.”
She swiped her card through the reader in the elevator car and pushed the button for the ground floor.
“Wait, what floor are you?” she asked. “I can never keep track.”
“I’ll go all the way. I have an errand to run.”
She made a show of hiking her eyebrows. As a rule, death in the building or not, Burners didn’t leave their desks until it was time to slink home and fall asleep for a few pitiful hours before the hamster wheel started to crank again.
“So, about Sara?”
The doors closed and Simms said, “One of the custodians found her in the supply closet this morning hanging from the ceiling. Apparently, she lifted one of the panels, hung a cord around a metal pipe there, and jumped off a chair.”
The person who sent me that note knew all of this. How? And why tell me? “When was she supposed to have done this?”
“Late last night or very, very early this morning. It seems she had on her same clothes from yesterday. I guess they can tell from the condition of the body how long she’d been dead,” she added, turning pale.
“Meaning she never went home?”
“Apparently not.”
He thought about the email. “Did she leave a note?”
“Not that I’ve heard. And she seemed so levelheaded. You probably know she worked in the M and A Division,” she added, referring to Mergers and Acquisitions. “She was really going places. The sky was the limit. Mr. Cowl was her personal mentor.”
“I can’t believe she’s dead.”
“I’ve never even seen a dead body, I mean, not unless it was in a coffin. Have you?”
Devine eyed her and said truthfully, “Never in an office building.”
“Her parents will be an absolute wreck. They live out of the country, so it will take a bit of time for them to get here. And it certainly won’t be a good look for the firm.” She put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, I shouldn’t have said that. I mean, someone has died.”
They reached the ground floor and Simms stepped off. “Aren’t you coming?”
“I forgot I have something to finish up,” said Devine. “I’ll see you later.”
Devine swiped his card in the reader and pushed the button for his floor. He imagined Sara Ewes doing this yesterday and perhaps not knowing it would be the last time she ever would. Or maybe she did know. Suicides were often planned. It certainly sounded like this one had been.
As he shot skyward in the elevator shaft, Devine reflected on the fact that he had not told Simms the truth, since he did know Sara Ewes very well. Given time, they perhaps could have grown to love each other. But it hadn’t turned out that way.
And now Sara Ewes was no more. And he needed to know why.
CHAPTER
4
A CLOUDLESS, STARRY NIGHT AND Travis Devine was mostly unaware of it. He hadn’t really looked at the sky since going to work for Cowl and Comely. He had gone from the office to the subway, taken it to Grand Central, and was now on the evening train heading home. From there he would walk from the station.
On leaving the Cowl Building he had nodded at the night security guard, as he always did. For obvious reasons, he related to men who carried guns. The bulky man usually glanced at the clock behind his desk, nodded back, and gave him a patronizing look as if to say, Really? Seriously? Is this shit really worth it, dude? Come on. How much damn money do you need?
But not tonight. Not after Ewes’s death. They just exchanged somber looks.
On the train Devine had his AirPods in and was half listening to a financial news channel on his phone. Money was already being made and lost overseas in Asian markets that would be officially up and running in about an hour. He would rather be listening to Janis Joplin or AC/DC, but he was now a budding financial whiz with a job to do and a career to build. He had no moments to waste on “Me and Bobby McGee” or “Highway to Hell.” And with the latter, he was probably already on it.