“Let me guess—Charlaine Harris.”
She nodded and looked pleased that I’d made the connection.
Having established a bond of sorts, I put as much friendliness as I could manage into my voice. “Tell me, Charlaine, is Mr. Featherstone really on the premises this morning? I mean, I’d understand if he didn’t come in every day. He’s getting on in years, after all.”
Her gaze was wary but there was a hint of apology in her voice. “Well, yes. He is. All the partners and associates are here today. They’re in a staff meeting, just as they are every Monday morning. Mr. Featherstone never misses one. It’s just . . . well, I guess you’ve noticed that he’s been avoiding taking your calls.”
“Oh, I noticed, all right. That’s why I’m prepared to wait right here until he’s free, and this time I won’t accept Mr. Coleman as a substitute. It’s very important that I speak with Mr. Featherstone and only Mr. Featherstone.”
She tugged nervously at a loose strand of hair, obviously regretting that she’d said as much as she had. “There’s no telling how long the meeting will last, and he has a busy schedule for the rest of the day. Wouldn’t it be better if you just came back on Wednesday, when you already have an appointment to meet with him?”
“I don’t think so.” The way things had been going, it seemed more than likely that Featherstone would wait until the last minute and then cancel.
I didn’t blame Charlaine. Somewhere along the line it had probably been drilled into her that she should be pleasant to the general public at all times, but that it was also her job to protect her employers from unwanted visitors.
That said, I know that secretaries, receptionists, and clerks hold the real power in any office. It was a good bet that Charlaine knew much more about the lawyers she worked for than any of those men realized. If I took the right approach with her, who knew what interesting details she might let slip? The trick was to bide my time.
“I’ll wait as long as necessary,” I said, and took a seat.
I’d come prepared. Opening my tote, I had only to choose between a hardcover edition of the newest J. D. Robb thriller and my tablet, which contained hundreds of books, both fiction and nonfiction, many of which I had not yet read. I’d also packed a small bottle of water, a packet of crackers, and an apple.
The first hour passed fairly quickly. Ms. Robb is a superb storyteller.
At the ninety-minute mark, I got up to stretch and wandered back to the receptionist’s desk. I bestowed my best grandmotherly smile on her. “Have you worked here long, dear?”
Charlaine smiled back. “Just over three years.”
“Good benefits?”
“Not bad. And the partners are easy to get along with.”
“What about the associates? I’ve met Jason Coleman.”
Just the tiniest bit of pink crept into her cheeks. “He’s very nice. Polite. I’ve worked in places where the bosses treat their office staff like dirt. I’m very fortunate to have been hired by Featherstone, De Vane, Doherty, Sanchez, and Schiller.”
And you’d like to keep your job, I thought. So you’re leery of any questions that imply criticism of any of the lawyers working here.
I can be flexible. I switched gears and instead asked about the history of the law firm. “Did Mr. Featherstone found it?”
“Oh, no. His father did.”
“That must have been a long time ago.”
“That’s Conrad Featherstone’s photo on the wall.” She pointed to a large portrait hanging behind her desk. “He died in 1975.”
Studying the photograph, I could see the family resemblance. “Was the firm called Featherstone and Featherstone back then, or maybe Featherstone and Son?” I winced as I proposed the latter. It sounded more like the name of a livery stable or a hardware store.
“To start with it was Featherstone, Darden, and Grenoble,” Charlaine said.
Although this line of questioning didn’t seem to be taking me anywhere useful, my curiosity bump is a big one. Out of sheer nosiness, I asked, “Who were Darden and Grenoble?”
“Mr. Darden was a pretty famous trial lawyer, but he died when he was only fifty.”
“How sad. Did he leave heirs to follow in his footsteps?”
She shook her head. “The two remaining partners split his share of the firm.”
“What happened to Grenoble?”
“He’s dead, too.” The pink came back into her cheeks.
“No heirs?”
“Well . . .”
I smiled encouragingly at her.
Charlaine lowered her voice. “Mr. Grenoble’s share went to Mr. Conrad Featherstone, but it was understood that Mr. Featherstone would hire Mr. Grenoble’s grandson as an associate as soon as he graduated from law school.”
“And that would be?”
Her blush forewarned me of her answer: “Mr. Coleman. He doesn’t make a big deal about it, of course, but it’s pretty certain that he’ll be made a partner before too much longer.”
I was surprised he hadn’t already been offered a partnership, but the more relevant point in Charlaine’s story was that Leland Featherstone’s father and Jason Coleman’s maternal grandfather had been practicing law at the time of Rosanna Swarthout’s murder.
I wasn’t certain exactly what that signified, but I had a feeling it was important. I hoped it meant that good old Leland had access to Swarthout family papers from the time before Tessa owned the farm, documents like her father’s will, and Rosanna’s, and even, perhaps, an inventory of the contents of the house.
I returned to my chair and my book. I looked up only once while I waited, when I sensed someone watching me. Charlaine was busy with a phone call and I didn’t see anyone else. I shrugged off the feeling. Either I’d imagined the sensation of being stared at or whoever had come out of one of the offices to take a look at me had gone away again before I lifted my head. Several hallways branched off from the reception area. Someone could have ducked down one of them and been out of sight in an instant.
Chapter Thirty
Another quarter of an hour passed before I was finally shown into Leland Featherstone’s office.
“I’m rather busy today, Ms. Lincoln,” he said without looking up from the papers on his desk. “Can we keep this short?”
He didn’t invite me to sit but I took the client chair opposite him anyway. After I placed my tote carefully beside it, I fixed him with a hard stare. He didn’t look at all well. His complexion was a pastier white than I remembered and his shoulders were hunched in a way that made me think he had a tension headache.
“You’re a difficult man to get hold of, Mr. Featherstone. I find that surprising, given how considerate you were when we first met. Why, you even took time out of your busy day to personally escort me to the Swarthout farm.”
Abandoning all pretense of work, he sat up straighter in his chair. His hands rested lightly on the edge of the desk. No nervous fiddling with paperclips for our Mr. Featherstone!
“What is it you want, Ms. Lincoln?”
“Answers. The fastest way to get rid of me is to provide them.”
He gestured for me to proceed.
“Let me backtrack. You already know that the diaries I’m supposed to edit were not sitting right out in the open ready to be collected. When I had searched the entire house for them with no success, I began to wonder if someone had taken them, perhaps someone who would benefit by my failure to meet the conditions of Tessa’s bequest. That’s one reason I was anxious to speak with you. I want to know the identity of her residuary heir.”
“You think that person stole the diaries?” His astonishment seemed genuine. “I think it highly unlikely.”
“Why? Who inherits if I don’t?”
“I’m not at—”
“—liberty to say,” I finished for him. “Why not? Was that specified in Tessa’s will?”
“No, but—”
“Is the other party also your client? If so, that strikes me as a po
tential conflict of interest, Mr. Featherstone.”
“The person in question is not a client of this firm.”
That was progress. We weren’t talking about a corporation or a charity. “What makes you so certain this person wouldn’t try to prevent me from finding the diaries?”
“The residuary heir is not even aware that he’s in line to inherit.”
He, I thought. More progress. “Does he have knowledge of the existence of the diaries? Or of the fact that I have a deadline to edit and publish them?”
“My young associate, Mr. Coleman, and I are the only people who are aware of your obligations. And anyone you may have told, of course.” He sounded testy, and impatient to be rid of me, but I wasn’t finished with him yet.
“Why did you try to hide the reason Tessa and Estelle left their home?”
“I hid nothing.”
Definitely testy!
“You withheld information. You didn’t say a word about Rosanna Swarthout’s murder, and you can’t tell me you weren’t aware of it. How old were you at the time? Eighteen? Nineteen?”
He frowned. “I don’t see the relevance—”
“My point is that you must have known about the murder right after it happened, even if you weren’t personally acquainted with the family. The story was in all the newspapers. It was probably a nine-days’ wonder at the time.”
His bushy white eyebrows all but knit themselves together as he glowered at me. I didn’t blink. The staring contest continued for a solid minute—one of those minutes that feel like hours—before he apparently decided it would be easier to humor me than continue to stall.
“I believe I was about fifteen. Perhaps sixteen.”
I did a quick mental calculation. I’d had him pegged at somewhere in his early eighties, but if he’d been no more than sixteen at the time of the murder, that made him a mere seventy-eight to my seventy-one. He hadn’t aged nearly as well as I had.
“Were you personally acquainted with Rosanna Swarthout?” I asked.
“No, I was not.”
“Did this law firm represent her?”
“My father dealt with the Swarthout family’s legal business, but Rosanna died long before I passed the bar and joined the firm. I was never privy to the details.”
“So he’d have handled Tessa’s father’s will as well as her stepmother’s?”
“I assume so.”
“Do you have copies? Was there an inventory made of the contents of the house during probate?”
He glowered at me. “I am not at liberty to share any such documents.”
I can recognize a brick wall when I run into one. I changed tactics. “Had you met either Tessa or Estelle before their stepmother was murdered?”
Featherstone managed a sickly smile. “I believe you missed your calling, Ms. Lincoln. You would have had a successful career as a prosecutor.”
“Thank you. I think. But compliments won’t get you out of answering my question.”
My calling had been to teach at the junior high school level. I fixed my patented teacher glare on him, the one guaranteed to wring a confession out of the most recalcitrant of fourteen-year-olds.
“I knew who they were,” he admitted, “but what teenage boy pays any attention to a couple of middle-aged women? I was preoccupied with school and sports and girls my own age.”
“Surely the murder of one of your father’s clients must have caught your attention.”
“I suppose it did, but you can scarcely expect me to remember much about it after all this time.” He fell silent for a long moment. “I know your reputation, Ms. Lincoln, but I very much doubt you’re going to solve Rosanna Swarthout’s murder. You’d do better to focus on finding those diaries.”
“As it happens, I’ve already found one of them, or rather I found a journal written by Estelle Swarthout. From the things she wrote, it’s clear she did not get along with her stepmother.”
This news left Featherstone gobsmacked. No other word can describe his reaction. I’d literally surprised the breath out of him. He excused himself and went into an adjoining half-bath. The sound of a faucet being turned on suggested that he needed a drink of water as well as a few seconds to collect himself. When he returned and resumed his seat, he looked steadier.
“I assume Estelle did not leave behind a written confession?” There was a strong undercurrent of sarcasm in his tone.
“Well, no, but—”
“When was this diary written?”
“The last entry was dated a month before the murder.”
He looked thoughtful. “You say you’ve only located one diary?”
I nodded. “I’m still looking.”
“Do you believe she wrote more at a later date?”
I hesitated. There had been blank pages at the end of the journal I’d found. Any others Estelle might have kept had most likely been written earlier, but I couldn’t be sure of that.
“I have no idea.”
Featherstone frowned. “Assuming you do find more, Ms. Lincoln, I’d advise you to be very careful in your editing. You don’t want to go casting aspersions on innocent parties. From what little I can recall of the case, neither Tessa nor her sister were implicated in Rosanna Swarthout’s murder.”
“They alibied each other,” I admitted, “but what if they were lying when they said they’d gone to the movies together?”
He scoffed at the idea. “Tessa and Estelle Swarthout were well-brought-up young ladies. Women of that generation simply did not commit murder, and Estelle would most certainly not have killed a member of her own family.”
I found Leland Featherstone’s statement surprisingly naïve for a lawyer. Surely he recalled what another well-brought-up young lady named Lizzie Borden allegedly did to her stepmother. True, Lizzie was acquitted and set free, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t guilty.
With the exception of the name of Tessa’s residuary heir, I was no longer sure Featherstone knew more than he’d already revealed. His insincere smile and condescending tone of voice annoyed me, but they weren’t proof he was hiding anything.
I stood and stooped to scoop up my tote. “I’ll be going now. Thank you for your time.”
He rose, ever the old-fashioned gentleman. Despite his age and the earlier suggestion of ill health, he held himself ramrod straight, shoulders squared, and offered me his hand. “Good day to you, Ms. Lincoln. I trust you’ll notify me if you discover another diary.”
“Count on it, Mr. Featherstone.”
Our physical contact was limited to the merest brush of skin to skin, but even that much left me feeling chilled. His fingers were so cold they felt like icicles. If he didn’t have some underlying illness, then my visit had shaken him more than he wanted to let on.
As I drove home from Monticello, I wondered just how involved Leland Featherstone’s father had been with his clients. Was it possible Conrad had helped the Swarthout sisters cover up a crime? His son might not know all the details, but he might have his suspicions. If so, the last thing he’d ever do was share them with me.
Chapter Thirty-one
My visit to the lawyer had relieved my mind on one score. If the residuary heir was unaware that he was in line to inherit, it followed that he didn’t know I had to find and edit two or more diaries before I could claim the property. That being the case, he couldn’t have looked for, let alone found, another diary. At least one more existed and it was still somewhere in the house, just waiting to be discovered.
As for the cold case, it was more of a puzzle to be solved than a cause for immediate action. The remaining diary or diaries might or might not contain clues. I doubted they’d provide enough information for an arrest, even in the unlikely event that the killer was still alive.
The following morning, I edited a manuscript for a paying client and then proofread the text of Estelle’s journal. After lunch, I intended to sit down with pen and paper and figure out the best way to proceed with the task Tessa Swarthout had se
t for me, but when I headed downstairs to make myself a sandwich, I found Calpurnia sitting in my tiny foyer and staring fixedly at the closed and locked front door. Instinctively, I spoke in a whisper.
“What is it, Cal? Is someone out there?”
My first thought was that a stray had come up onto the porch. Dogs don’t usually run loose in Lenape Hollow, but there are plenty of people who think it’s cruel to confine their cats to the house. A strange animal in the vicinity would certainly account for my cat’s odd behavior, although how she’d know one was there when there was no window in the door eluded me. I peered cautiously through the peephole. As far as I could tell, there was neither man nor beast on the other side.
I started to open the door to make certain of it, then hesitated. It was unusual for Calpurnia to go on alert. Like the miners who kept one eye on the canary in the coal mine, I was well aware that she could function as an efficient early-warning system. It was to my advantage to pay attention.
Slipping past Cal, I went into the living room and peeked around the edge of the drapes shielding the picture window. I didn’t expect to see anything and had to suppress a gasp when I spotted Bella Trent. She was sitting in one of the wicker chairs on my front porch.
I stepped quickly back out of sight.
After a moment, I looked again. She hadn’t seen me. Although she was facing me head-on, her eyes were closed, as if she’d fallen asleep waiting for me to show up. I had no idea how long she’d been there, but she’d had time to make herself comfortable. She’d borrowed one of the small, soft pillows piled at one end of the matching sofa and placed it between her head and the high back of her chair.
If she’d knocked or rung my doorbell, I hadn’t heard the sound. As I often do when I want to concentrate on my work, I’d removed my hearing aids. Anything less than the fire alarm going off or a cat leaping into my lap would have failed to attract my attention.
Bella did not look as if she intended to leave anytime soon. This was a fine kettle of fish! Short of having the woman arrested for trespassing—a step I was loath to take since she wasn’t a real threat, just an annoyance—I couldn’t think of any way to get rid of her. Until she went away voluntarily, I was trapped in my own home.
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