“Yes.” Ellie paused to run her hand across her face. “When I look back on it all, I still can’t believe that I was so naive about everything. Me! Who writes murder mysteries!
“So, anyway, what Jessie surmised and later proved was that Martin, on his attorney’s advice, gave that money to a friend of his to hold for him. I told you that it wasn’t illegal for him to take that money from me, as, by law, it was considered as much his as mine. But, during the divorce, Martin had to sign a document swearing that he had no hidden money, so his attorney told him to hand the money over to someone else before he signed the paper.
“But even though Martin didn’t have this money in his possession, he still had control of it and he used a hundred and fifty thousand dollars of it to bribe the judge.
“What?” Leslie said, eyes wide. “Martin bribed the judge?”
“Yes and no,” Ellie said. “It was Jessie who figured it out. He was puzzled by what I told him. He said that no one believed anyone in a courtroom and no one cared whether or not my ex had been the so-called manager of my career. Jessie asked me hundreds of questions, and I can tell you that it was difficult for him to get answers out of me because I could never get past the idea that the judge believed Martin.”
“But it was only money,” Leslie said.
“Yes. It was only money. After I went back to court, this time with Jessie, he told me what had happened. Martin had gone into private chambers with the judge and a court stenographer, and told the judge that he was going to give a hundred and fifty thousand dollars to his reelection fund. After Martin made this offer, the judge told Martin that he was sure that Martin had been the man behind my career and the judge didn’t see why a man of Martin’s obvious talents shouldn’t be allowed to continue to control my books forever. After all, the judge said that he wasn’t at all sure that I was a sane woman.”
“Did you say that there was a court stenographer there?”
“Yes. In a way, everything was being done legally.”
“I take it the money didn’t go to the campaign fund?”
“No. And Jessie knew that it wouldn’t. Since everything was so well documented, it was an easy matter to compare dates of when the hundred and fifty was given to the judge and see that he never deposited it.”
“And Jessie got this information?” Leslie asked, eyes wide.
“Yes, and Jessie used it to change everything. On the day that I was to appear in court, Jessie wrote a note—and he still won’t tell me what he wrote—and had it delivered to the judge in his chambers. Ten minutes later, the judge asked to see Jessie. An hour later, Jessie walked out and we went into the courtroom.”
“Then what happened?”
Leaning back on her arms, Ellie smiled, closing her eyes for a moment in delicious memory. “You should have seen Martin’s face! When we walked into the courtroom, he was smug, smirking at me, knowing that he was going to be given one hundred percent control of all my books—or else I was going to agree to anything to retain control. But three hours later, he walked out with a face black with rage. Everything had been split fifty-fifty, as it should have been.”
“And here’s an irony. Since Martin had spent most of what I’d earned on what he told the judge was his own ‘personal property,’ in the end, he owed me money.”
“And what about your house and your books?”
“The house was sold and I was given half the proceeds. And there was never any question that he’d be given control of my books, or that he’d receive any money that I would earn in the future.”
“This time, he didn’t get the house and you the payments.”
“No!”
When Leslie didn’t say anything more, Ellie stood up and yawned. “So that’s it. I finally found out why Martin was believed and I wasn’t.”
“And it’s freed you, hasn’t it?” Leslie said, standing also.
“Yes. It never was the money; it was the injustice that broke me.”
On impulse, Leslie hugged Ellie, then pulled away. “So what happened to Martin?”
“Bankruptcy. And he had to go to work,” Ellie said with a smile.
“Work? Support himself?” Leslie said, then they both laughed. “What happened to the money he turned over to his friend?”
Ellie smiled. “Jessie figured out that Martin’s lawyer probably knew where that was so during the lunch break, he had a talk with the lawyer. After lunch Martin’s lawyer submitted a copy of a bank statement to the court showing that Martin had quite a bit hidden away so I was awarded half of it.”
For a moment Ellie closed her eyes, then opened them and looked at Leslie. “The first time around I had all that money taken away from me, but I learned that I could do without it. And the second time the money seemed somehow dirty to me. I didn’t want to touch it. I gave every penny of it to help abused children.”
For a moment the two women were silent, then they smiled at each other, then they laughed. Then, as though they’d been cued, they once again did the little dance that they had performed in the restaurant. And when they finally went to bed, they were still laughing.
And now Ellie was flying home to Woody’s ranch, where they now lived, home to her husband, Jessie, and to her toddler son, a child she had memories of but whom she’d never seen in person, the idea of which made her laugh. She’d purchased three nylon duffle bags to carry all the toys and clothes that she was taking back with her as gifts to Jessie and Nate, Valerie and Woody, and their son, Mark.