Black Dog

Fifty-Nine

Stone read the will aloud. It was very similar to what he had dictated for Annetta’s will, mentioning some small bequests, except for the last paragraph:

Stone turned to Joan. “Do you see what that makes you?”

“Lucky?”

“No, a target.”

Joan thought about that for a moment. “Oh, shit,” she said finally.

“Of course, that’s if this will stands up to a great deal of scrutiny. Geoffrey, do you recognize this handwriting?”

“Yes,” Geoffrey replied. “It’s Mr. Edwin Sr.’s. Not a doubt.”

“You know,” Joan said to Stone, “before I came to work for you, I worked for a few months as Eddie Sr.’s secretary, while he was looking for someone permanent. I saw his handwriting every day, and that’s it.”

“It’s the Palmer Method,” Stone said. “My mother used it, too. She tried to teach it to me, but I didn’t have the fine-motor skills to execute it, nor the patience to stick with it.”

“Tsk, tsk,” Joan said, wagging a finger.

“What does Eddie Jr.’s handwriting look like?”

“I don’t recall ever having seen anything he wrote,” Joan said. “He wouldn’t even send Annetta a postcard from summer camp.”

“All right,” Stone said. “Thank you, Geoffrey. You two may resume whatever you were doing. We may need your testimony at some later time.”

Geoffrey began to leave, taking the maid with him.

“Oh, Geoffrey.” Stone called him back in.

“Yes, sir?”

“Do you recognize the handwriting of the three witnesses to the will?”

“No, sir. Two are before my time and are now dead. The other got fired for drinking on the job, and nobody knows where she went.” He left the room.

“Now, Joan,” Stone said. “You have two very important jobs: one, you have to find some very good samples of Eddie Jr.’s handwriting, the more recent, the better; two, you have to find some other samples of Eddie Sr.’s handwriting, several of them.”

Joan opened a file drawer in the desk and removed a file marked correspondence. “There you go on number two,” Joan said. She continued rifling through all the other drawers while Stone read the file she had given him.

“Nothing here,” she said. “Let me check in the secretary’s office.” She got up and went into a small room behind her.

Stone compared the handwriting in Eddie Sr.’s letters to that in the will. He found nothing to make him question the will.

Joan came back with another file. “Bingo! Eddie Sr. kept half a dozen letters that Eddie Jr. wrote him over a period of years, from about age fourteen to twenty-one, all of them begging for money.”

Stone read through the file. Eddie Jr., it seemed, had also been schooled in the Palmer Method, though his execution of it was uneven in quality. It did improve, though, as he matured.

Stone called Dino.

“Bacchetti.”

“It’s Stone.”

“No kidding?”

“I need a handwriting expert. Do you know one?”

“Yeah,” Dino said. “She was my secretary when I was running the detective squad at the Nineteenth Precinct.”

“You had a secretary?”

“When I became a lieutenant and a squad commander — after you left. This girl was so great, she left her job and went to study handwriting with some guy at CCNY.”

“Name and phone number, please?”

“The secretary or the guy?”

“The secretary.”

“That’s good because I don’t know the guy. She’s Clarissa Onofrio.” He gave Stone the number. “What’s this about?”

“I’ve got what may be a fake will on my hands.”

“Big Eddie’s?”

“Yes.”

“He was a sly fox,” Dino said. “See ya.”

Stone dialed the number.

“Analysis, Inc.,” a female voice said.

“May I speak with Clarissa Onofrio?”

“Who’s calling?”

“Stone Barrington, of the firm of Woodman & Weld.”

“Oh, I know you. You were Dino’s buddy.”

“Still am,” Stone said. “Dino recommended you for a handwriting analysis job.”

“It’s what I do,” she said.

“Where are you located?”

“Lexington and Sixty-Fifth,” she said.

He gave her the address of Joan’s house.

“What time?”

“Fifteen minutes ago,” Stone replied.

“I’ll take a cab.”

“Add it to your bill.”

Clarissa was a classic Italian female, but prettier than most. She looked around her. “This is some place,” she said.

“Yes, it is,” Stone agreed. “I want to show you a will and some other handwriting samples that might relate to it.” He gave her some gloves, but she fished her own from her handbag. “Standard equipment,” she said.

He handed her the will.

“Just a second,” she said, before looking at it. “Am I defending or attacking this will?”

“Does it matter?”

“It could,” she said.

“I just want to know if the guy who wrote it is the same person who wrote these other letters.” He handed her Eddie Sr.’s correspondence file.

She switched on the lamp near her chair and read the will. “Very nice,” she said. “An excellent example of the Palmer Method.”

“Please look at the other letters in this file,” Stone said.

She read through half a dozen. “Very interesting,” she said.

“I’m glad they’re interesting,” Stone said. “But did the same man write both the will and these letters?”

“I’ll tell you this,” she said. “I’d rather defend this will in court than attack it.”

Stone’s heart sank.