Rumpelstiltskin

6

Although I’d promised to call Anthony Konig as soon as I decided what to do with the information he’d given me about Vicky’s father, I didn’t talk to him again till Thursday afternoon, after I’d concluded my one o’clock meeting with Gerald Bannister, the delinquent gall-bladder patient. I was, in fact, just about to dial the 504 New Orleans area code when Cynthia buzzed to say Konig was waiting on three. I punched the lighted button in the base of the phone.

“Hello, Mr. Konig,” I said.

“You promised you’d call.”

“I’m sorry, things got a bit hectic around here yesterday. Where are you now?”

“Still at the Breakwater, looks like I’ll be here through the weekend at least. I’ve got to see about ordering a stone for Vicky, and I want to make some sort of arrangement with a florist, get fresh flowers put on the grave every now and then. Have you checked those banks yet?”

“Yes, sir, someone in the office did. Vicky had a checking account and a small savings account at Calusa First, but no safe-deposit box.”

“How about the other banks in town?”

“Nothing at any of them.”

“So we still don’t know, am I right? About a will, I mean.”

“That’s right. But I’ll keep checking with Probate, you needn’t...”

“I think you ought to go see Vicky’s father.”

“What for?”

“If anyone’d know about a will she left, it’d be Dwayne.”

“What’s the rush, Mr. Konig?”

I was thinking the man’s daughter had been kidnapped, most probably by the same person who’d killed his former wife, and all he was worried about was a will which — if it existed — might name him as guardian of whatever his daughter would inherit. It seemed to me that Anthony Konig should have been less concerned about his daughter’s goddamn property and more concerned about her safety.

“I like to get all my ducks in a row,” he said.

“Why don’t we first get Allison back,” I said. “Then we can start worrying about...”

“Well, that’s just the point. When we do get her back, I want to know where I stand. If I’m her designated guardian...”

“Mr. Konig, forgive me, but I’m sorry I even mentioned that possibility. If there is a will, and if you are the named guardian, there’ll be plenty of time to do what needs to be done later. In the meantime...”

“I’d like you to go see Dwayne,” he said.

I said nothing.

“Mr. Hope?”

“I hear you, Mr. Konig.”

“Will you go see him?”

“If you feel it’s that important.”

“It’d set my mind at ease. And while you’re there, you might fish around a little, see if it isn’t true what I told you.”

“I’d rather not do that.”

“Well, then just find out whether there’s a will or not. I’ve got nothing personal to gain by this, Mr. Hope, I hope you realize that. I don’t imagine I’d have free hand as guardian to do whatever I wanted to do with Allison’s property...”

“As a matter of fact, you wouldn’t. The court would require a very strict accounting.”

“Which is what I thought. But I’d sure as hell hate to think Vicky may’ve named her father as guardian. So if you could find out for me whether he knows about any will, I’d appreciate it.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

“Thank you,” he said, and hung up.

He had not told me where I could find Dwayne Miller. I buzzed Cynthia, asked her to get me Detective Bloom at the Public Safety Building, and then slipped the signed Bannister notes into a manila envelope, marked it Bannister-Ungerman Notes, and tossed it into the basket with the rest of the material awaiting filing. Cynthia got back to me almost at once.

“Detective Bloom on four,” she said.

I picked up the receiver.

“Hello,” I said, “how are you?”

“Hungry,” he said.

“Hungry?”

“I went to see my doctor last Saturday, the yearly checkup, you know? He told me I’m fifteen pounds overweight, my blood pressure is one-twenty over ninety-four, and my cholesterol level is three-seventeen. All right, anything over two-eighty for the cholesterol is supposed to be bad, and anything over one-twenty over ninety for the blood pressure bothers him. So he’s got me on a fat-free, salt-free diet, and I’m starving to death. You know what I had for lunch? Fruit salad, cottage cheese, and a slice of protein bread without butter. I’m six feet three inches tall, and I weigh two hundred and twenty. Does that sound fat to you?”

“Well, I really don’t...”

“My doctor says I’m overweight. He says at my age all of this can be a problem — the extra pounds, the high blood pressure, the cholesterol. I’m forty-six, does that sound ancient to you?”

“Well, no, it doesn’t.”

“He said I can either start dieting or else stop buying long-play records. That was supposed to be a joke, he’s a very comical man, my doctor. So I’m eating fruit and cottage cheese for lunch, like some blue-haired old lady in Garden City. What can I do for you, Matthew?”

“Couple of things you should know,” I said, and I filled him in on what both Anthony Konig and Melanie Simms had told me after Vicky’s funeral yesterday.

“We got suspects coming out of the woodwork, huh?” Bloom said.

“It would appear that way.”

“So the old man is rich, huh?”

“Orange groves, motels, securities, and cash. Yes, I would say he’s moderately wealthy.”

“What’s an orange grove in Manakawa County worth?”

“I have a client with a hundred and four acres there, and he’s priced them at a little under a million.”

“And Miller’s got himself four hundred acres, huh?”

“That’s right.”

“So why was his daughter living in a crumby little development house out there on Citrus Lane?”

“Good question.”

“Looks to me like he disinherited her while she was still alive. What about this Jim Sherman? He seemed gay to me. Is he gay?”

“That’s the rumor.”

“Doesn’t matter to me either way,” Bloom said, “except as it might apply to the case. Said she was going to be dead, huh?”

“That’s what Melanie told me.”

“Could’ve meant he was going to fire her if she didn’t pull the crowds in.”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll talk to him, thanks. Few things you might like to know. Are you interested in any of this shit?”

“Yes, I am.”

“I thought you might be. First, I called this guy who used to be lead guitarist with the group, the one up in El Dorado. He was playing a wedding job Sunday night, give me the couple’s name, couldn’t possibly have been down here putting the blocks to Vicky, so that lets him out. Next I called this guy on the Cape, the one who used to play bass with the group. A kid answered the phone, cutest little thing, must’ve been seven or eight years old, told me her Mommy was out shopping and her Daddy was out tuning. I gave her my name and number, but that was a lost cause, she kept calling me Mr. Boom. How do you like that? Mr. Boom. I’ll try him again in a little while, on the off chance he was down here in Calusa Sunday night beating Vicky Miller to death.”

“Did the airlines...”

“Nothing for a George Krantz. Not from Boston, where he would’ve most likely caught a flight, nor from anywhere else near the Cape either. But who knows, he might’ve driven down. I can’t get a line on this Sadowsky character, the drummer, who was living in New York the last time Marshall heard from him. Checked all the directories, got a call in to the N.Y.P.D. right now, maybe they’ll give it the old college try for a former Nassau County cop. I’ve been calling every hotel and motel in town, trying to locate Marshall, see if he can give me a little more information on the guy, what he looks like and so on, but he’s nowhere in sight. I figure he must’ve headed back for Georgia already. He said he worked as a disc jockey up there someplace, didn’t he?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Right. He also said he borrowed that boat he was on from somebody named Jerry Cooper in Islamorada. That’s a man, I asked him if it was a man, do you remember?”

“I remember.”

“Well, there’s no Jerry Cooper listed in Islamorada. That may not mean anything, lots of people have unlisted phones. But his alibi’s still wide open, far as I’m concerned, so I’m eager to talk to him on several counts. What I did, I located an outfit in Skokie, Illinois, that puts out a publication called Spot Radio Rates and Data, it’s mostly for people in the advertising business, tells them how much a commercial costs on any radio station in the country. Lists all the stations in all the states. I just got off the phone with them, they’ll be Xeroxing the listings for Georgia and sending them to me by Express Mail. I hope there aren’t too many damn stations there, because I plan to have my people calling each and every one of them. Provided the feds don’t object, those bastards. Where’s Skokie anyway? Are you familiar with Illinois?”

“I’m originally from Chicago.”

“So where’s Skokie?”

“Just outside of Chicago, actually. Very close to Evanston, where I went to law school.”

“Well, I hope I get that stuff by tomorrow. I’d like to talk to Marshall again if I can locate him, ask him about this Sadowsky guy, and find out about that boat. You think Konig might know what station he works at up there?”

“Maybe. He wants me to go see Vicky’s father, by the way. Would you have any...”

“What for?”

“He wants to know if Vicky left a will, figures Miller might know.”

“Oh? Why does he want to know about a will?”

“He’s dying to know if he’s been named guardian of Allison’s property.”

“Tell him he has.”

“I’m sorry, what did you... ?”

“Tell him he’s been named guardian of her property.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve got the will right here,” Bloom said. “We found it in a shoebox on the top shelf of her bedroom closet.”

The will was one of those stationery-store things that could be bought over the counter for fifteen cents plus tax. It was folded in three, the way most legal documents are; all it lacked was a blue binder. On the front, printed in Old English script lettering, was the word and beneath that “of” and then a printed line above which Vicky had hand-lettered her name, At the bottom of the page the same Old English script announced three blank spaces headed but none of those spaces were filled in. I unfolded the document.

The will itself was a combination of the printed form and the handwritten words Victoria had filled in:

That was the end of what Vicky had handwritten on the page. The rest, again, was a combination of the form’s printed type and the words Vicky had filled in. A name leaped out of the page at me:

I turned the page over.

The document was dated the fourth day of January, signed by Vicky, and witnessed by people I guessed were the babysitter’s mother and father, an Albert Whitlaw and a Dorothy Whitlaw, who gave their addresses as 1122 Citrus Lane.

I sat alone in Bloom’s office, and read the will a second time. Vicky had written it, or at least dated it, on the fourth of January, which was a week before she’d opened at the Greenery. She had written her letter to Konig on the seventh, advising him that he should contact Matthew Hope in the event of her death, a not unreasonable suggestion since she had already named me as executor of her will. It was entirely possible that Konig had possessed no prior knowledge of the will, or of the fact that Vicky had left to him a quarter of the accumulated income and principal of a trust in which, presumably, she was named beneficiary. On the other hand, it was also possible that Konig had known about the will all along, had perhaps even discussed it with Vicky after he’d received her letter and before her death. This would have accounted for his eagerness to have me locate the will now. I had no idea how much money was in that trust, but people have been known to commit murder for pennies.

The door to the outer office opened, and Bloom’s cholesterolladen bulk filled the doorframe. Beyond the door, two federal agents in identical blue suits were sitting at the same desk, talking on separate telephones. Bloom closed the door behind him, shutting them from view.

“Tweedledum and Tweedledee,” he said, pulling a face. “They’re running this place like a bookie’s wire room, on the phone day and night. Wait’ll the city gets the bill for all those long distance calls. Think it’ll stand up?” he asked, nodding toward the will.

“Well... maybe not all of it. She must’ve had some kind of advice before she wrote it, or else she looked at someone else’s will as a model, had it properly witnessed, all that. But I wouldn’t go spending my share of that trust money if I were Konig.”

“Why not?”

“I’m assuming the trust hasn’t kicked out yet. If it had...”

“Kicked out?”

“Terminated. If it had, if Vicky was already in possession of the accumulated income and principal, she wouldn’t have made reference to the trust at all. Her bequest would have been covered by the ‘real and personal property’ in the first clause.”

“She wasn’t a lawyer, you know.”

“Granted. But I think I’m fairly safe in assuming the termination date would have been sometime after she wrote this will. And that’s where the problem may arise. For both Konig and his daughter.”

“How so?”

“I don’t know the terms of the trust agreement. I do know that unless the grantor...”

“Miller.”

“According to this, yes. ‘A trust created by my father Dwayne Robert Miller in the year 1965.’”

“Think it actually exists?”

“I would guess so. But unless it makes specific provision for Vicky to appoint alternate beneficiaries in the event of her death... well, I just don’t know. I’d have to see the instrument. It’s safe to say that the grantor or settlor of a trust — the man creating it — is the only one who can decide when and how the income and principal are to be distributed. Unless the power of appointment is there.”

“We’re talking about millions here, you know.”

“How do you figure that?”

“The orange groves alone, from what you told me, could be worth at least four million.”

“That’s right, but...”

“So even forgetting the motels and the rest of the shit, Konig’s share would come to a flat million. That’s a nice piece of change.”

“Provided all that property is part of the trust.”

“What do you mean?”

“We don’t know what Miller put into that trust. The principal could have been a worthless gold mine in the Yukon, and the income on it over the years could have amounted to zero.”

“I’m betting all the other stuff is in it.”

“Not according to Konig. He says Miller put all of Vicky’s earnings into his own bank account.”

“That’s Konig’s story, but what’s Miller’s? I sure would love to have a look at that trust instrument. Is there any way I can get my hands on it?”

“You can ask for a court order, can’t you?”

“On what grounds?”

“You’re investigating a homicide...”

“Sure, and a million bucks is motive enough for murder, isn’t it?”

“Exactly.”

“But will a judge see it that way?” Bloom shook his head. “I doubt it. He’ll want to know how I can assume motive if I don’t yet know what the trust says. I’ll explain that I won’t know what the trust says until I have access to the instrument itself. He’ll say, ‘You have no reasonable cause, petition denied,’ and that’ll be that.”

“Want me to take a shot at it?”

“How would you do any better?”

“My client’s named in a will that refers back to a trust. It’s reasonable to assume his inheritance may depend upon the provisions of that trust.”

“Mm,” Bloom said.

“What’s Miller’s address?”

“He’s on Manakawa Farms Road. You take the first left after you pass the City Limits sign. That’s at the stop light on 41 — where you’d ordinarily take a right to go to the beach, okay? He’s, oh, five or six miles outside of town.”

“Left at the stop light,” I said. “Manakawa Farms Road.”

“Yeah, he’s got a mailbox painted guess what color?”

“Any name on it?”

“Just numbers. Three-twenty-four. Think you’ll learn anything?”

“It’s worth a try,” I said.

If you follow Route 41 south out of Calusa, you should arrive in Manakawa a half-hour later. Manakawa is only seventeen miles away, but during the season it might just as well be seventeen hundred; it took me the better part of an hour to get to the outskirts of town, and then another twenty minutes to locate Miller’s orange groves out on Manakawa Farms Road, near the construction in progress for the proposed Interstate. I might have missed the mailbox painted in bright orange with the numerals 324 on it in black, and the narrow dirt access road leading into the property, had I not been alerted by miles and miles of orange trees planted in neatly spaced rows. The temperature the night before had risen to a comparatively sweltering thirty-four degrees (a little over one degree Celsius, which damn system we will never get used to here in America), but the smudge pots were still standing under the trees, ready to be ignited in the event of another sudden freeze.

A half-dozen cement-block buildings painted white formed a sprawling architectural complex at the farthest end of the access road. I parked the Ghia alongside a pickup truck painted orange and lettered in black with the words MILLER GROVES. Three long low steps led to a screened-in porch attached to the largest building. I opened the screen door and crossed the porch to a wooden door that opened into the building proper. A young girl in her twenties was sitting behind a desk, typing and chewing gum. She looked up as I came into the room.

“Hi,” she said.

“I’m Matthew Hope,” I said, “I’m looking for Mr. Miller.”

“Out in the groves just now,” she said. “Want to have a seat?”

“How long will he be, do you know?”

“Checking to see was there any damage last night,” she said. “Shouldn’t be too much longer, he’s been out there quite a while now.”

“I guess I’ll wait outside,” I said. “Get a little sun.”

“You’ll get the sun and the cold both,” she said.

“Little warmer than yesterday, though.”

“Not much. Supposed to get only to the high fifties. That ain’t so warm at all.”

“Well,” I said, “think how bad it is anyplace else.”

“That’s for sure,” she said.

I nodded pleasantly and then went outside again, wondering as I crossed the screened-in porch just how long it had been since I’d gone native. Think how bad it is anyplace else. Jesus! In the distance another orange-colored pickup truck was coming up a dirt road that ran between the trees, raising a great cloud of dust behind it. I leaned on the fender of the Ghia and waited.

Dwayne Miller was wearing a ten-gallon straw hat, a blue denim jacket, blue jeans, and brown cowboy boots with white leather insets. He seemed taller than I remembered him, but perhaps that was an illusion caused by the high crown of the hat. He saw me from the cab of the truck, but made no sign of acknowledgment as he cut the engine, opened the door, and climbed down. He was looking at the ground as he came toward the porch.

“Mr. Miller?” I said, and he glanced up. “Matthew Hope, I was at the funeral yesterday.”

He studied my face. His eyes were as intensely dark as his daughter’s had been, a brown almost the color of coal. His brows were as black as the sideburns showing beneath the brim of the hat. His nose qualified him at once for a member of the pig family, bulbous and somewhat tip-tilted, with overlarge nostrils.

“I don’t remember you,” he said.

“I was with Detective Bloom.”

He kept studying me. “What is it you want?” he asked.

“I was a friend of Vicky’s.”

“So?”

“I’m an attorney,” I said.

“Her attorney?”

“No, but...”

“Then what do you want here? Mr. Hope, is it? What do you want here, Mr. Hope? This is a place of business. We grow oranges and we sell ’em by the bushel. Did y’wish to buy some oranges, Mr. Hope?”

His tone was broadly sarcastic, his eyes burning with what seemed unwarranted animosity. I did not know the man, this was our first meeting; I could not imagine why he was being so rude.

“Tony phoned a little while ago,” he said, “told me you might be stopping by.”

“Ah.”

“Told him there wasn’t no damn will I knew of, said his lawyer would be stopping by to ask me about it, anyway. I’m telling you the same thing, Mr. Hope. There wasn’t no will.”

“How do you know?”

“Vicky would’ve told me. I saw her Thursday night, she’da mentioned it then.”

“Why then, Mr. Miller?”

“’Cause it was plain to see she was worried to death about something. Knew what was coming, you ask me. Could see it plain as day on her face. Fear. Like when she was a little girl and it thundered and lightened. D’run under the bed, lay there facedown with her eyes shut, her hands clasped behind her head, sobbing and trembling. Same thing last Thursday night. Not crying or shaking, not anything like that, no, but this fear on her face when we were talking about the opening. I warned her against it, warned her myself, but she wouldn’t listen.”

“What’d you say to her, Mr. Miller?”

“Told her she was makin a mistake, openin at that little dive out there on Stone Crab. She was a star! A star don’t go singin in a goddamn bar’s part of a restaurant! I warned her. Told her I’d disown her if she went ahead with it. Wouldn’t listen. Stubborn damn little bitch, same as when she was little. Coulda killed her sometimes. Just like her mother. Stubborn as a mule.”

“What’d you have in mind, Mr. Miller?”

“I don’t follow you,” he said.

“When you told her you’d disown her?”

“I don’t see as that’s any of your business, is it?”

“Were you thinking of the trust?”

His eyes opened wide. He stared at me speechlessly for several moments, trying to decide whether I was bluffing. He must have figured at last that I did in fact know about the trust and there’d be no point denying its existence.

“Couldn’t have had it changed, anyway,” he said, “it’s an irrevocable trust. But she didn’t know that. I was jess tryin to scare her is all, put a little pressure on her. How’d you know about it?”

“Her will,” I said. “It refers back to the trust.”

“Thought you didn’t know if there was a will or not.”

“I didn’t say that, Mr. Miller.”

“Tony damn well said it.”

“Was Vicky in fact the beneficiary of that trust?”

“The trust is none of your business,” Miller said, and took off his hat, and wiped the sweatband with his handkerchief. His hair, I noticed, was going gray on top. He looked suddenly much older. He put the hat on his head again, returned the handkerchief to the back pocket of his jeans, looked me dead in the eye, and said, “Let me make something clear, Mr. Hope. I don’t own nothin in my own name ’cept my house. Everything else — the groves, the motels I got on the Trail, the securities — all of it’s owned by the trust. Vicky was only nineteen when she got started in the music business, hit it big when she had no more sense about money than a toad. Just like her mother. I set up that trust to protect her, make sure she wouldn’t end up like some of them other rock stars, you know the ones I mean, poppin pills and killin themselves or else enterin their middle years without a pot to piss in. Your average life of a rock star is maybe four or five years, Mr. Hope, six or seven if they’re lucky. I didn’t want my little girl endin up in the shithouse when she got to be in her thirties. Now that’s all you need to know.”

“Mr. Miller,” I said, “Vicky’s will leaves the trust principal and income three-quarters to Allison and one-quarter to Vicky’s former husband, Anthony...”

“Don’t make me laugh,” Miller said.

“I didn’t write the will, she did.”

“How can she give away what’s in a trust she didn’t make? You’re a lawyer, ain’t you? You know damn well the man creating the trust is the only one can decide how and when the income and principal’s to be distributed.”

“She was beneficiary of the trust, wasn’t she?”

“Of course she was. But...”

“Well, if the trust had already terminated, the principal would be hers to do with as she...”

“It hasn’t terminated.”

“When does it terminate?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“If it terminated before her death, it’s very much my business. Your daughter has settled a quarter of the principal on Anthony Konig. That means if the money was already hers, a quarter of it...”

“Are you trying to steal all this for your client?” Miller asked, opening his arms wide to encompass the acres and acres of orange trees. “What I worked my life buildin for the time Vicky got old enough to manage it herself?” He shook his head. “Ain’t no way you’re goin to do that, mister.”

“I’m not claiming Mr. Konig has the right to anything just yet...”

“Oh, just yet, huh? When do you plan to make such a claim, Mr. Hope?”

“After I see that trust instrument. And then only if...”

“Be a cold day in hell when you do that, mister.”

“If the trust was in fact terminated before your daughter wrote her will...”

“It wasn’t, I told you.”

“Or if provision was made in the trust for her to designate alternate beneficiaries...”

“There’s no such provision.”

“How can I know that for sure unless I see the instrument itself?”

“You take my word for it.”

“Where a quarter of the principal and income is concerned? There’s no way I could do that and still remain faithful to my client’s interests.”

“Then you can go straight to hell, Mr. Hope, because that trust is none of your damn business, and you ain’t going to see it, period.”

“A judge may disagree with you.”

“What?”

“My client is named in a will that refers back to that trust. I can file suit to recover...”

“There’s no court in the world would listen to...”

“Yes, there is, Mr. Miller. It’s called the Calusa County Circuit Court, and that’s where I’d go to ask for a declaratory judgment determining my client’s rights in connection with that trust. At the same time, I’d serve you with a request for production, demanding inspection and copying of the trust instrument.”

“No court would grant you that.”

“I don’t need a court to grant it. Upon commencement of my action, I can make my request without leave of the court.”

“Then you just go do that, Mr. Hope.”

“Your attorney may not want me to go to all that trouble, Mr. Miller. Are you sure you don’t want to talk to him first?”

“You go talk to him yourself, you feel like making a long-distance call. Man who drew the trust papers was David Haythorn, in N’Orleans, where we were livin at the time. You want his phone number, too?”

“I can find it, thanks. Good day, Mr. Miller.”

He did not answer. He went up onto the porch instead, and slammed the screen door behind him.

Before leaving the office, I’d asked Cynthia to call the Herald-Tribune for a copy of last Saturday’s paper, the one carrying Jean Riverton’s review on Vicky’s opening the night before. It was waiting on my desk when I got back, together with a list of people who’d called while I was out. I glanced briefly at the list, and then scanned the index on the front page of the paper. The review was on page twelve of Section E. It read:

I closed the newspaper.

I had never read a more devastating review from Jean Riverton — or, come to think of it, anyone — in my entire life. I could understand why she might have felt Vicky shouldn’t have invaded turf sacred to many of Calusa’s pentagenarians, but Jesus, did she have to rip her to shreds besides? I remembered the conversation Melanie Simms had overheard, and I wondered now if the token insertion of a few rock-and-roll numbers might have satisfied Jean’s raging indignation. I doubted it. One thing was certain: Jim Sherman had been right on target when he’d objected to Vicky’s choice of material, and I suspected he would not have waited very long before telling her she was through at the Greenery. Was that actually what he’d meant when he’d said, “Lady, you are dead”? I could not imagine him engaged in the sort of brute violence that had killed her. But on the other hand, a negative Jean Riverton review had been known to close the bravest of endeavors. I remembered the handful of people in the lounge on the night I’d been there. A great big bundle of money was invested in the Greenery, and if all of it went down the drain because Vicky’s appearance there had given the place a bad name—

I didn’t want to think about it; that was Bloom’s job.

I picked up the phone and began doing my job.

Directory Assistance for New Orleans gave me a listing for a David Haythorn at One Shell Square. It was close to five o’clock when I dialed his number. I told the woman who answered the phone that I was calling long distance, and she put me right through.

“Mr. Haythorn,” I said, “this is Matthew Hope, I’m an attorney here in Calusa, I wonder if I may prevail upon your time for a few minutes.”

“Yes?” he said, cautiously.

“I’m representing a man named Anthony Konig...”

“Oh, yes,” he said.

“Sir?”

“I didn’t place your name for a moment. Dwayne Miller said I might be expecting a call from you.”

“Yes, sir, I saw him just a little while ago.”

“So he told me.”

“Then you know what this is about.”

“More or less.”

“And I needn’t bother filling you in.”

“It’s about the trust, as I understand.”

“Yes, sir.”

“As it might concern your client.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“I told Mr. Miller we had nothing to hide here, and that I’d have no objection to discussing the provisions of the trust with you. That seemed to me the only way of satisfying you that your client would have no claim to the principal or accumulated income now that Miss Miller is dead.”

“I’m making no such claim yet, sir.”

“Well, from what I understand, you were waving lawsuits in my client’s face, and threatening to...”

“Only if I couldn’t gain access to the trust instrument in any other way.”

“You can have access anytime you like. We have nothing to hide here.”

“Mr. Miller told me that his daughter was beneficiary of the trust...”

“Well, I don’t wish to discuss that on the phone, Mr. Hope.”

“He’s already told me this, it isn’t something I’m trying to...”

“I still would rather not discuss it.”

“Assuming she was beneficiary...”

“Mr. Hope, really, this isn’t something easily discussed on the telephone.”

“Why not?”

“A trust is a complicated thing, as I’m sure you’re aware...”

“Yes, Mr. Haythorn, I’m familiar with trusts.”

“I wouldn’t want any misunderstandings concerning this particular trust. There’s been a murder committed, there’s been a kidnapping, I wouldn’t want the trust misinterpreted as a possible—” He cut himself short.

“A possible what?” I said.

“I would prefer not discussing this on the phone.”

“I wish you could see your way clear to do that, sir.”

“No, I don’t believe that would be in the best interests of my client.”

“It would save me a trip to New Orleans.”

“I’m sure there are flights from Calusa.”

“I’m not sure they’re all that frequent.”

“I have no other suggestion to make.”

“Other than my coming to New Orleans, is that it?”

“That’s it, Mr. Hope.”

“You’re making this difficult for me, Mr. Haythorn, and I’m wondering why.”

“As I told you earlier, we have nothing to hide here. But if you want to see the trust instrument, it’ll have to be here in my office.”

“I’ll be there tomorrow,” I said. “Let me call you back as soon as I’ve checked the flight schedules.”

“Fine, I’ll expect your call,” he said. “I’ll be here another hour or so.”

The moment I hung up, I remembered that I had to pick up Joanna after school tomorrow. I wondered how she might react to a trip to New Orleans for the weekend. Knowing my daughter, I guessed she would be ecstatic about the idea. I checked my calendar. I had a closing at ten tomorrow, and a lunch date at noon. Joanna did not get out of school until three-fifteen, provided she didn’t have Choir or Soccer or something. I buzzed Cynthia and asked her to check the airline schedules to New Orleans, reminding her of my various commitments, and she got back ten minutes later to report that my best bet would be National’s 127 out of Calusa at 3:10 P.M., connecting with National’s 25 out of Miami, arriving in New Orleans at 6:08. I told her to book two coach seats, and then I called St. Mark’s and asked to talk to Joanna’s adviser there. The woman’s name was Isabel Reed. She sounded harried and a trifle annoyed that I was detaining her from an imminent departure for a gallery opening. I explained that I would be taking my daughter to New Orleans with me over the weekend, but that it would entail catching a three-ten flight, which meant I would have to take her out of school at least an hour before then so that we could—

“Why don’t you take a later flight?” Miss Reed asked.

“Because I have an appointment in New Orleans,” I said. I did not yet have an appointment with David Haythorn, and I wasn’t yet sure he’d be willing to see me after such a late arrival, but first things first.

“Why don’t you take a later flight,” Miss Reed said, “and make your appointment for the following day?”

“Because it’s a business appointment, and the following day is Saturday,” I said.

“Oh,” she said.

“I’d like to pick her up at two o’clock,” I said, “perhaps even a little before then, if possible.”

“She has English at two o’clock,” Miss Reed said.

“I’m sure she can make up the class,” I said.

“English is her weakest subject,” Miss Reed said.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but this is urgent.”

“Well,” she said.

“Thank you,” I said.

I next called Haythorn again to tell him I’d be arriving in New Orleans at a little past six tomorrow night, and would appreciate it if he could see me shortly after that. He was, much to my surprise, entirely amenable to meeting with me so late in the day. He said he was staying in town for a dinner engagement, anyway, and would be happy to have me come to his office as soon as I could get there from the airport. I told him I’d be staying at the Saint Louis — which reservation I hadn’t yet made — and that he could reach me there if there was any problem. He anticipated no problems.

Susan seemed to be her usual bitchy self when I called. She told me she was busy packing for her big weekend with Georgie Poole in the Bahamas, and Joanna wasn’t home from school yet because she had Movie Club, and would I please make this brief. I told her I’d be taking Joanna to New Orleans with me tomorrow, and would she mind asking her to pack a bag for the weekend and to take it to school with her in the morning because we’d be going directly from St. Mark’s to the airport.

“Yes, fine,” Susan said, “is that it?”

“Please ask her to pack a dress because we’ll be eating out, and I’d like her to...”

“I’ll ask her to pack a dress.”

“And a raincoat. New Orleans can...”

“A raincoat, yes. Matthew, if you don’t mind, I am trying to...”

“And tell her I’ll pick her up at two o’clock, I have Miss Reed’s permission for her to cut English.”

“English is her weakest subject,” Susan said.

“So I’ve heard. Two o’clock, okay?”

“You’re so fucking irresponsible,” Susan said, and hung up.

Cynthia buzzed me almost the instant I put the phone back on the receiver. “It’s Attorney O’Brien,” she said, “on three.”

I immediately pushed the lighted button in the base of the phone.

“Hello, Dale,” I said.

“Hi,” she said. “I want to take you to dinner tomorrow night. Are you free?”

I am, at the age of thirty-seven, too old not to be startled by today’s liberated women. I had never been invited out to dinner by a female person before. I had been invited in to dinner, where I was served beef Bourguignon and red wine in a candlelit nook off an artsy-craftsy kitchen, but never had I been invited out. Never.

“Matthew?” she said. “Are you there?”

“Yes, I’m... here. Right here,” I said.

“Well, just say yes or no.”

“I’m going to New Orleans tomorrow,” I said.

“Oh, what fun!” she said. “Why don’t I come with you?”

My silence now was almost palpable.

“Matthew?” she said.

“Yes, I’m still here.”

“Would that be all right?”

“Well... my daughter’ll be coming with me,” I said.

“Would she mind?”

“No. I don’t think so, but...”

“Where are you staying?”

“The Saint Louis.”

“Good, I’ll book a room. What flight are we on?”

“Are you serious?”

“Of course, I’m serious. In fact, I’ve been looking for an excuse to get out of this town for a while. What flight are we on?”

“I’ll have my secretary book it for you. And the room, too, if you’re really...”

“I am really,” she said.

“Well, good. Hey, good,” I said, smiling.

“Yeah, good,” Dale said.