Free Innocent Spouse by Carol Ross Joynt Page B

home on weekends. My other girlfriends lived up or down the street or around the corner, but they had husbands and children to tend to and were not available on demand. I would see them for lunch or at children’s parties and the occasional weekend gathering of all the married folks. I didn’t feel it then, but I was already becoming the odd one out: the widow, the business owner, the defendant in a tax fraud case. Most of all the defendant.
    I liked these men and women who were almost all a decade younger than me. Many of the women had come to the hospital and had helped out in the immediate aftermath of Howard’s death, bringing food and flowers to our apartment, inviting Spencer for extra playdates with their children. Their husbands were business owners, developers, lawyers. At one particular dinner party in the suburbs, I sought business advice from some of the men. They spoke the new language I was trying to learn, and I had to learn it fast.
    “Well, Carol, now you know why they called Nathans ‘the Bank of Howard,’ ” said the fellow who owned the linen company that provided Nathans’ napkins, tablecloths, and kitchen uniforms. The men laughed. I didn’t. “Howard did it so smoothly, everybody figured he would get away with it forever.”
    One of the businessmen told me, “Just remember, your lawyers work for you, you don’t work for them. If they aren’t serving you, fire ’em.” He was talking about firing the lawyers and I hadn’t even hired them. I was in so far over my head.
    A chilling encounter with a complete stranger made me fully grasp my vulnerability and see that there was a bull’s-eye on my back. It was at a small neighborhood cocktail party for Anthony Williams, the expected next mayor of Washington. I was invited not as a journalist but as the owner of a prominent small business. Knowing only the hosts, I was a wallflower, but was rescued by an attractive man with European deportment and a distinct appealing accent. “Can we sit somewhere quiet?” he asked, leading me to a sofa in a far corner.
    It was Anthony Lanier, a native of Austria, and a Washington developerwho even I knew was managing impressive makeovers of old buildings in Georgetown’s commercial area, buildings just like mine. The word was he had $800 million investor dollars to play with and that a large chunk came from George Soros, the Hungarian-American businessman and financier worth many millions, even billions.
    Our conversation was all business. He knew more about my building and my landlords than I myself knew, and a fair amount about my predicament, and he made clear that he wanted my building because it was the jewel in the crown, “on the best corner of the most powerful city in the world.” I was intimidated but listened closely.
    “Everybody wants your space,” he said. “They will come at you from every direction. No one thinks you can survive. You are not in a position to trust anyone—your staff, your landlords, your lawyers. The landlords are worried about you, they live entirely off that building, and they will go in another direction if they can, but they don’t move fast, which is in your favor.”
    I sighed. “So, what are you going to do to me?” I asked.
    “I could steamroll you, but I’m not going to,” he said. “Your husband left you in a mess. I want your building but I will try to work with you rather than against you.”
    Anthony was a man of his word and became an invaluable ally. His insider information often scared me out of my wits but it made me stronger and braver as I struggled to get that bull’s-eye off my back.
    T HE YACHT YARD near us on the Chesapeake Bay sent out a periodic newsletter. It was not something I usually read, but when the new issue arrived it got my attention. On the cover was a tribute to Howard. It saluted his sailing skills and commended his attention to detail when he refurbished a boat. At the end it said: “We will always remember his lovely