by S A Jacobs
“Like I said, this will is almost one hundred years old, and as near as I can tell, I am certainly not related to this Ida lady. I understand this is a big deal for you, but can we please discuss my relation to this all?”
He sat down and offered me a look of surprise. “You are an interesting man, Mr. Bauer.”
“How so?” I asked even more perplexed.
“Well, most people in a situation like this, especially people your age, would be fighting to know what they are getting out of the deal. How much money? How much after taxes? But you, your first question is why. Let me tell you what I know and understand of these matters while my staff brings in dinner. Then, we can discuss the legalities over dinner.”
He took a long drink of his champagne as he gazed around his office. There was a slight smile on his face.
“I imagine you don’t know much about the Muller Mansfeld family, correct?” he continued.
I thought for a moment. The names were slightly familiar to me, but I couldn’t place them. I shrugged my shoulders.
“I’m not surprised. I’m afraid their names were not entered into history in the manner anyone would have expected.”
He paused, leaned forward in his chair, and stared directly at me.
“Let’s start by talking about Ida. After all, it is her estate you are inheriting.”
He leaned back in his chair and relaxed a bit, lightly swirling the champagne in his glass. I glanced over at Katherine. She was also giving Lutz her complete attention. I nodded to Lutz in agreement for him to continue.
“Ida was the youngest daughter of the newspaper mogul Fredrick Mansfeld of New York. Ida married a man named Samuel Muller. Samuel was the only son of his father, who was in many ways the quintessential railroad tycoon of his day. When the two married, it was a big deal. The combination of the richest families in the country. They were constantly in the spotlight. Of course, it didn’t help that they were both rather eccentric. Think of them as the Kardashian family of the 1900’s. If they went to dinner, it was in the paper. While their public personas were well documented, their private lives were almost completely unknown.”
Lutz paused for a moment to let that information sink in before continuing.
“What we do know is that they didn’t live happily ever after. They resided in a massive mansion downtown until they commissioned Villa Ortenberg — the estate you just inherited. It was there that they were going to raise their children, away from the city and the spotlight in the very private estate. When built, the Villa was opulent, comparable only to estates held by people like the Vanderbilts. At this time, Ida was the richest woman in the country. Once the estate was completed, things took a turn. They had four children, three of whom survived to adulthood, but a year after the youngest child was born, Ida left the country. She disappeared from public life for nearly ten years.
“Upon her return, she and Samuel divorced. Following the divorce, she lived an isolated existence locked in her city mansion until the day she died. Upon her death, her personal effects were auctioned off and the mansion in the city was sold. All this while the villa sat empty.
“That just about covers the documented history. Now, let me explain part of the story that I personally know a bit more about.”
He stood up and began walking through his office. He gestured to a large picture above the conference table.
“You see this photo?” Without waiting for an answer, he continued. “This is my great-grandfather, and here on his desk, this document.”
He pointed to a paper on the desk in the photo.
“This is Ida’s will. The photo was taken just after signing it. You see, my great-grandfather had been her companion. She helped fund the opening of this firm. Now many said that the two were more than associates, although I have seen no indication of that type of relationship myself.
“At any rate, she wrote this will with his help a few years before her passing. Given the size of her estate, the will was a large undertaking, but the will was not exactly normal. Most would have expected to see her leave her estate to her children. Or maybe even donate it as her father would have done. But no. Her children amongst others were awarded an insignificant amount while the lion’s share of her estate was left to you.
“Not to an heir of family blood, but you specifically at a specific time. Do you understand what I am saying, James?”
“I’m afraid I don’t,” I confessed, letting out a deep breath.
He walked back to his desk and sat down eyeing the papers on his desk.
“Mr. Bauer, her will specifically states that her estate is to be given to one Mr. James William Bauer, born on August 31, 1994, and is to be bestowed upon him following his 25th birthday. Mind you, this was written by her and recorded in 1927.”
I sat there in Mr. Lutz’s office unable to form a thought. Was he really telling me that, according to this will, she knew I was to be born? Like she was telling the future or something? There had to be an explanation.
Then, I realized what was going on. This was some prank. Surely there was a camera hidden somewhere. Some old friend from school or something would be jumping through the door at any moment.
I drank the entire glass of champagne in one gulp. I was hoping that the alcohol would help me make sense of it all or at least wake me up from this dream. I looked around the room until I noticed that Mr. Lutz and Katherine were staring at me.
“So, you are telling me that I am the next Jesus Christ as foretold by this woman? And you are what — the wise man? I would have guessed a shepherd, but I don’t see any sheep.”
Lutz leaned back in his seat. His demeanor changed. He looked mad. Well, maybe not mad; frustrated perhaps. I couldn’t tell. My head was starting to ache.
“Mr. Bauer, this is no joke!”
“And why should I believe that?” Now, I was getting mad.
Lutz stood up and walked to his bookcase. His finger slowly moved across the shelf as if he was searching for one specific book. Finally, he removed one. After a few moments of silently flipping through it, he dropped it on the desk in front of me.
“There!” he exclaimed. “Read it for yourself if you don’t believe me!”
I looked briefly at the page. I really didn’t care to read it at all, but the names caught my eye. Samuel Muller and Ida Mansfeld. I stopped and looked up at Lutz.
“What is this?” I asked skeptically.
“This is the legal precedent set by this very will. While I understand how this sounds ridiculous, it is very real.” He began to pace. “As one could imagine, Ida’s former husband and her kids weren’t happy when they learned that most of her estate was to be given to someone who didn’t exist and most likely never would. Naturally, they contested. They contested the will any way they could. Even to the point of stating that she was mentally unstable at the time the will was written. The newspapers, of course, had a field day with it. But my great-grandfather fought it tooth and nail. In the end, the precedent was set. Her will was to be executed to the letter, up until your birth date. If you were not born on that day, the remainder of the estate is to be given to the heirs of her children.
“I remember the day you were born. The partners in the firm had all placed bets on whether it would happen. My father’s office had become a command center; he had tasked all the secretaries along with some temporary employees to call every hospital trying to find out if you were born. Of course, only a few here understood why we were doing this. I’m sure most here assumed my father had gone crazy. Then it happened. We got word that a birth certificate was filed for you, ending decades of speculation.”
We all sat there in silence. No one knew how to respond or what to say. The silence was broken by the sound of his office doors opening. I turned to see three men in tuxedos walk in. Without delay, they walked to the conference table and started setting up dinner.
Lutz stood up and walked around his desk and came up behind Katherine and me and leaned in-between our t
wo chairs.
“So, you see Mr. Bauer, this is not a joke. What it is, I cannot fully explain or understand. But it is real. Now, let us eat. There is plenty to discuss on the more practical side of this.”
For the next couple hours, we dined and discussed the more real matters of the estate. Well, Lutz discussed anyway. I remained mostly silent aside from nodding my head. Katherine also stayed quiet but appeared to be as engaged in the conversation as I was.
From what I understood, the estate was mine. In the years following Ida’s death, the estate remained fully staffed and cared for. As years went on, the staff dwindled. The concept of working on a house with no apparent owner caused people to leave. Not wanting to invest time into managing the staff, the law firm decided to use the remaining money to secure the house. However, the security was minimal. It consisted of some chains set up around the entrances and boards to secure the windows and doors. As it was told to me, the house was in dire need of repair. Time and the harsh Chicago weather had taken its toll, and currently, the house was far from being in habitable condition.
Prior to tonight, the law firm had diligently gathered quotes to restore the estate. Lutz mentioned that should I choose to keep the estate, it would be in my best interest to pursue having it listed with the National Register of Historic Places. While that would restrict some of the restoration options I had, it would also provide me with substantial property tax breaks.
Following the dinner, Mr. Lutz suggested that we formally sign the necessary paperwork. We went back to his desk as he retrieved the documents.
“Katherine, I trust you have the envelope?” he asked.
Katherine opened her purse, retrieved a yellowed envelope. She looked up at me. There was a noticeable change in her demeanor. Her brazen confidence was gone. Her wide eyes showed me a vulnerability she had kept hidden before that moment. She looked back at the envelope. Her hands delicately traced the outline of the wax seal as she silently bit her lower lip. She took a deep breath and handed it to me. I studied it for a moment before looking back at her. She forced a smile, but it looked more like she was about to cry. There was clearly something very important to her about this envelope.
“Here it is,” she said. “Just as it was handed to my great-great-grandfather by Ida.”
“Much of what I have heard tonight is new information. I know that my great-great grandfather was employed by Ida at the Villa and entrusted by her to carry out this request. While you have described the impact this case had within this law firm, it pales in comparison to just how important it was to my family that this get carried out. I don’t know what’s in that envelope, but I know that ensuring you got it tonight was the sole mission of my family for the past 90 years.”
“James, I would be a liar if I said I do not want to know what’s in that envelope,” Mr. Lutz said eyeing the envelope. “However, regarding privacy, I feel it only best that you open that in your own time.”
I nodded in agreement and put the envelope in my bag.
“Please take a few moments to read through these documents,” Lutz said as he slid a few documents across his desk to me along with a pen. “I’m sure you will find them to be straight forward. They simply outline that you have received the envelope as described in the will and that you will be receiving ownership of the estate and the trust.”
I leaned forward and scanned the documents. There was a little tab on each with an arrow pointing to the line for me to sign. The first document was all related to the envelope, which I signed and returned. The next detailed the estate and the trust. As my eyes read through it they stopped when I got to the dollar amount of the trust. In a moment of shock, the papers dropped out of my hand.
"Twenty-five million dollars!” I shouted. “Is this real?”
“It is very real, James.” Lutz assured me.
Lutz spent the next few minutes outlining exactly where all the money was and what it amounted to. The final amount of the trust was indeed twenty-five million dollars. However, based upon the stipulations of the will, this amount was separated into two different trusts. The first one was mine to do whatever I wanted with. It amounted to two-point-four million dollars. The other trust, containing most of the money, was set up for me to fund the restoration of the estate.
I was in a state of shock. I couldn’t even fathom dollar amounts that huge. After reviewing the document again with Lutz, I signed my name. With one simple signature, I had become a millionaire.
3
At the conclusion of the meeting with Lutz, I was given a list of next steps to take. This suited me. There was so much information given out through that meeting that I needed to wrap my head around everything and put in some due diligence. I was still trying to just get over the shock that I was now a millionaire.
After exchanging some pleasantries and setting up upcoming meetings, I was free to go. Katherine and I left together and stepped into the elevator that would take us back to the real world I knew.
I looked at her in the elevator as if for the first time. She had a natural beauty. The way her hair set on her delicate shoulders, the way she carried herself, the way she bit her lower lip in concentration. She was striking. That was when I realized I was staring at her and she was looking back at me with a playful grin. Our eyes met and locked on to one another’s. Her eyes were an incredible, silver blue. Not blue like most blue eyes; hers were lighter, whiter and they seemed to just pierce through me.
“Katherine?” I stammered. “So, this envelope was passed down from your great-great-grandfather?”
“Yeah. It sat in a safe at our house forever until, I guess, we realized it was actually time for it to be delivered. My great-great-grandfather was a butler at the villa, and before Ida left, she gave this to him to pass along. I never really got to know all the details, my mom would know far more about it. But this letter was something of a family legacy for us.”
“Oh, that’s right, your mother. He mentioned she is sick. Is she alright?”
Her face turned sullen a bit as I mentioned it. It was at that moment the elevator dinged and the doors opened to the lobby of the building.
She started to walk out into the empty lobby, and then she turned to face me. “No, she isn’t well. She has been battling cancer for quite some time, I’m afraid.”
“I am very sorry to hear that. Please give her my best wishes.”
I didn’t want her to walk away. I wanted to come up with some way to keep this conversation moving. She had captivated me and I couldn’t just let her walk away.
“Is there anything I could do to help out?”
She paused and looked at me as if she was trying to read me. Then there was a hint of something more in her eyes, like a spark. She bit her lip again and smiled with an expression of hopefulness.
“Actually, there is something you could help with.”
I waited for her to continue, giving her a nod and a smile.
“Well, I know this might sound odd,” she paused and chuckled slightly. “I take that back, after what we heard upstairs, I don’t know that anything could sound odd anymore. Anyway, could you, at some point, visit my mother? This whole thing has been part of our family for so long, I am sure it would mean the world to her to see firsthand the closure of it all.”
“I’d be more than happy to! Besides, that means you would have to give me your phone number.” Shit, I thought. She was just talking about her dying mom and I was turning it into some stupid pick up line. “I’m sorry. I was just trying to lighten the mood a little. This whole thing has my head spinning a bit.”
To my surprise, she chuckled even more. I guess it was not quite as stupid as I’d thought.
We walked out the revolving doors, onto the sidewalk, and across the street to the river walk. Despite how hot the day had been, there was a cool breeze coming off the river. We walked up to the wall and leaned against it. I felt the warmth of the concrete on my back. I could not stop thinking about how striking she was, how
she looked under the yellow light of the street lights, how her hair tossed slightly with the breeze.
“I was serious though,” I said. “I would love to be able to come see your mom.”
“She would love that.” Her expression softened. “So you really walked into that office tonight without having a clue about any of this?”
“Yeah, prior to tonight all I really knew was that I got contacted about some inheritance.”
“I can’t imagine how shocking this all is. It’s a little hard for me to relate since this has been so much a part of my family all my life. Most people I know don’t even know the name of their great-grandparents. Yet I grew up hearing constantly about my great-great-grandfather and this mission we had.”
“Hey look, this has been a crazy night. You wanna go get a drink somewhere?”
She shot me a surprised look.
“I mean sorry,” I said not even waiting for her response. “I’m sure you have a boyfriend or husband or whatever to get back to.”
“What? No…I just…” She trailed off.
“Look, I get it. Can’t blame me for trying.”
She hit me on the shoulder. “Would you stop! I’d love to get a drink. It’s just, with my mom and everything, I haven’t really gone out in a long time and the last thing I expected out of this night was to be going out for a drink with someone.”
“Well, let’s keep it low key,” I offered. “Some place we can grab a drink and just hang out for a bit.”
“Yeah, I’d like that. Where are we going?”
“I don’t have a clue. I couldn’t even name a place to get a drink around here. But if we start walking, we are bound to run into something.”
We ended up finding a small bar. It was quiet and dark. We found a table and ordered a couple of beers. There, I felt like we were the only people on the planet. The conversation was easy. Most dates I’d been on had felt like job interviews. This was relaxed. The conversation just happened. Talking with her felt more like reconnecting with an old childhood friend than a date.