Generous Death

by Nancy Pickard

  Before Arnie Culverson died, the assets of The Foundation had a current market value of $12 million. That sounds like a lot of money, I know, but the $12 million itself wasn’t ours to spend. That was the principal; we could only spend the income it generated from interest, dividends and rents.

  Because of a sluggish economy, that yearly income had been declining every year for several years. And thanks to inflation, the money we earned didn’t buy nearly as much as it used to. We could no longer support the town’s charities in the style they deserved. And we weren’t the sort of town to ask for more government help than necessary.

  So we needed more private money for The Foundation—a lot of it, soon.

  When I heard about Arnie’s death, I knew The Foundation’s net worth would jump to about $20 million because he was leaving all his money to us. Bless his heart. Under the terms of his bequest, most of the money would be channeled through The Foundation to the Martha Paul; the rest we could spread around to other charities that desperately needed help.

  Arnie’s money meant a lot more than nice little improvements to nice little do-gooders. To the museum and to some other nonprofit organizations, it meant survival.

  But Arnold P. Culverson was not only a very rich man, he was also a nice old guy of whom I was quite fond. So I attended the visitation at the funeral home the night after he died as a friend as well as the representative of the beneficiary. It helped me feel less like a vulture hovering over the spoils, though I was sure I wasn’t going to look less like one to Arnie’s relatives. The truth is that The Foundation was getting all his money not only because he loved the town, but also because he hated his relatives. They, in turn, hated The Foundation, and I wasn’t all too sure how they felt about me, its executive director. If I hadn’t really liked Arnie, I don’t think I would have gone.

  That night as I crunched over the snow and gravel in the parking lot at the Harbor Lights Funeral Home (an unfortunate name for a mortuary, if you consider the popular old song, “I see the harbor lights, they only tell me that you’re leaving …”), I was thinking fondly of Arnie’s shiny bald head. I’m fairly tall for a woman and Arnie kept getting shorter as he got older. He liked to ask me if I could see my reflection in his pate. “Your boyfriends only brush their hair so they’ll look nice for you,” he’d tease with that gentle smile that barely raised the corners of his wide mouth. “But me, I get a wax and polish. Did I miss any places, Jenny? Do you see any dull spots?”

  There weren’t any dull spots in Arnie’s whole being. He vibrated with good humor and life. He never walked but always raced about with short little steps that made it appear as if his knees were perpetually bent and his feet in’ constant motion. “Aren’t I a paradox?” he mused one time when we were discussing what The Foundation would do with the funds he was leaving us. “Here I am, this hyperactive old fart who can’t sit still, and yet I have a passion for Chinese furniture. Me, I like something that represents all that is cool and calm and meditative! Can you beat human nature, Jenny?”

  No, I couldn’t beat it, but I was going to miss his highly individualistic and lovably human nature. I walked slowly up the wide stone steps to the front door of the funeral home, stamping snow off my boots as I went.

  “Hi, Jenny.” It was Stan Pittman, the son of the owner of Harbor Lights. He stood just inside the door to welcome visitors and help them with their coats and galoshes. “Coming to the Culverson visitation?” he asked me, a little shyly, and I felt sorry for him. Stan’s not really cut out for the funeral business, but that’s just going to be his tough luck, I suppose, since he’s the only heir to seven generations of undertakers. Like most New England towns, this one is lousy with descendants of “fine old” families. Most of them, however, have inherited only their distinguished names, and that won’t pay the rent.

  “Hello, Stanley.” I patted down the collar of my acceptably conservative camel’s hair coat. Like a banker or a funeral director, I have to dress to fit other people’s image of my role. Given my druthers, I’d trade in all the beige and gray for red and purple. “Which room is it?”

  “The Chapel of Quiet Blessings,” he said and blushed furiously, as would I if I had to say things like that. He stuck out a friendly but awkward hand. I think we were both surprised to discover that the cold fingers I placed in his palm were trembling. He was too well trained and basically sweet to comment, but I’m sure he noticed the tears that had sprung to my eyes.

  I wasn’t crying over Stan’s inherited problems. I was sentimentally hoping that in the years to come I would spend Arnie Culverson’s money well, in ways that would have pleased and amused him when he was alive.

  “Damn it,” I said to Stan, making him acutely uncomfortable. “Why did he have to go and commit suicide? It makes me feel so sad, as if I didn’t really know him at all.”

  “I know what you mean,” said a whispery male voice behind me. It was Edwin Ottilini, senior surviving partner of Owens, Owens & Ottilini, and attorney to anybody who was anybody in Port Frederick. He reached out to help me with my coat. For a crazy moment, I thought he and Stan were going to fight for it; I felt like the rope in a tug-of-war.

  “Thank you, gentlemen.” I stepped safely away from them during an instant when they paused to regroup their combative forces. Quickly, defensively, I slipped out of my trusty camel’s hair and draped it over my arm. Even then, a spirit of competitiveness reigned, as both men grabbed for it.

  Stan, obviously desperate to maintain his firm’s reputation for gracious hospitality, finally won the battle with a decisive jerk that tested the fabric and my shoulder socket.

  “Sorry, Jenny,” he said miserably, and trotted away with his prize to hang it up for me.

  Edwin Ottilini, that ancient and tough old lawyer, winked at me and allowed as how there might be something to be said for women’s liberation. We walked together toward the Chapel of Quiet Blessings.

  “Are you going to open the door for me?” I asked him. He threw me a sharp, curious look.

  “Of course. It’s reflexive with my generation, like going to war and saving money. Why?”

  “Because if you are, let’s get it over with before Stan gets back and the two of you kill me with more courtesy.”

  He laughed quietly, appreciatively. Everything about him was quiet, from the dry, wry humor to the gray pinstripes on the fine black suits he habitually wore. He was a modulated man; if there was any Italian fire left in his thin blood, it did not often flame in public. His power, too, was quiet. Like many great lawyers, he gave the impression of knowing everything, telling nothing.

  Edwin Ottilini was, of course, Arnie’s attorney.

  We paused before the closed double doors of the Chapel of Q.B. He didn’t say why he suddenly seemed loath to enter it, but I knew why I was. I didn’t want to face that comforting room with its cheerful lamps shining in the gray, drained, made-up face of death. I didn’t feel like smiling and being tactful; rather, I felt an atavistic urge to keen.

  “I liked him, Mr. Ottilini.”

  “I liked him, too, Miss Cain.”

  “I suppose everybody’s saying it, but I really can’t believe he killed himself. I know his heart was bad; I know his doctors didn’t give him long. But suicide? Arnie never took the easy way out of anything!”

  “Maybe for him this was not the easy way.”

  “I suppose. But think of all his plans for the museum and The Foundation …”

  The old lawyer cleared his throat.

  “Mr. Ottilini,” I said, “before we go in there, I want to ask you something.” His silence was full of waiting. “Have you set the date for the reading of the will? I’ll want to put it on my calendar.”

  He gazed at me for a long, steady and rather unfathomable moment. I thought, as I often do in my frequent dealings with lawyers, how cautious they are in all things.

  “Miss Cain, there is no need for a representative of The Foundation to attend the reading of the will.”


  “It’s no bother.”

  “You misunderstand, my dear,” he said patiently. “There is, I’m afraid, a new will of which you are evidently not cognizant. Under the terms of this latest document, it is Mr. Culverson’s daughter who will receive the entire bequest. There will be nothing for The Foundation.”

  “What!” He must have considered it a rhetorical question, because he didn’t volunteer further information.

  It was just as well that he opened the door for me. I no longer had the strength to open it for myself.

  Chapter 3

  Once within, Mr. Ottilini favored me with an inscrutable if rather sad smile and glided silently off across the plush carpet to greet the other mourners. The Chapel of Q.B.—which was really just a big sitting room—looked like a convention of his clients and my potential donors. The rich and powerful of Port Frederick always turn out in force to pay last respects to one of their own. Arnie lay—still for once—in an open and opulent casket at the far end of the room. I said a silent hello to him but didn’t—couldn’t—move that way yet.

  I stood by the door, weak kneed and wishing I could fade into the tasteful floral wallpaper while I digested the horrid implications of the lawyer’s bombshell. Instead, I was faced immediately with the two people I least wanted to see at that moment.

  “Mother, it’s Jennifer Cain.” The forty-two-year old son that Arnie called “that worthless-good-for-nothing” turned his mean little smile on me. It was hard to imagine short, squat Arnie as his father, hut the resemblance to his elegantly thin mother was unmistakable, right down to their matching smiles. My assistant director claimed they could pass for brother and sister—with the face (and other) lifts that makes Mrs. Culverson look so much younger and with the general air of dissipation that makes Franklin look so much older, they meet in the middle somewhere around fifty-three.

  “Ah, Jennifer, dear, so nice of you to come to the visitation,” cooed Marvalene Culverson. “Could it be that you were truly fond of Arnold? Or maybe you don’t know about the new will?”

  Having already been struck dumb by Mr. Ottilini, I just looked at her. There’s really no answer to that kind of nastiness anyway, except perhaps “up yours,” and my position does not permit me such gratifying liberties.

  “I think she knows, Mother. That’s why she looks so pale and wan. Feeling pale and wan, Jenny? Really, I wouldn’t if I were you; it doesn’t go well with your makeup.”

  I gathered what little was left of my wits.

  “I liked your father very much, Franklin. I’m sorry, he’s dead.”

  “Oh, so are we, dear.” Mrs. Culverson reached out a sleek claw to pat my arm. “Particularly since he chose such an embarrassing way to do the deed. We’re just awfully sorry he’s dead. At least while he was alive we had some access to his money. You know, of course, who he left it to?”

  “Your daughter, I understand.”

  “Then you understand more than I do.” With which cryptic and angry remark she turned her back on me and stomped off to charm her other guests, leaving me alone with Franklin. Marvalene has family money of her own on which I knew she could probably support herself, Franklin and one or two top-name designers. My heart did not bleed for her.

  “My sister’s here,” Franklin informed me. I couldn’t tell if his cold tone was intended for her or me. Not even bothering with the pretense of courtesy, he pointed a long finger at a woman about my age seated near the open casket. Even though Ginger Culverson’s head was lowered so I couldn’t see her face, it was obvious that she’d been the child who had inherited Arnie’s genes. I’d never seen her before. She’d been sent to boarding schools as a child and later she dropped out of Radcliffe to join a Marxist commune someplace in Idaho. Arnie rarely mentioned her, and then only with bitterness. He called her “the kid who ran away from everything.”

  But I was beginning to see that beneath that parental anger had been undying love. Or why else would he so impulsively have left all his money to her? It was impulsive, wasn’t it? Surely he didn’t string us along, knowing all the while he would leave it to her? I couldn’t believe I was that wrong about him.

  “I’d like to meet her.”

  “Really? My, you are the polite one, Jenny. But then I suppose you have to think of the future of The Foundation, don’t you? Maybe if you insinuate yourself with her, my sister will leave you everything my father didn’t.” He glanced with malicious pleasure from my aghast expression to his sister’s downcast head. “I don’t know though, she looks goddamn healthy to me. You may have to wait a while for her to kick off. We’ll all have to wait a while longer, I fear.”

  He swiveled his thin face back to me.

  “You think I’m despicable, don’t you, darling, now tell the truth.” He was playing the brittle sophisticate to a degree that set my teeth on edge. But Franklin didn’t anger or shock me as his mother did; he only filled me with pity. I’ve known him all my life; there’s a lot about Franklin to feel sorry for.

  “My opinion of you is no lower than your opinion of yourself,” I said.

  He gave me a furious, terrified look before he quickly controlled his expression.

  “I believe we’ve come to what is known as a conversational lull,” he said stiffly. “I suppose it was nice of you to come,” he added by way of farewell as he glided off after his mother.

  I swallowed the bad taste left in my mouth by my own self-righteousness. Franklin might well be a mess, but who was I to tell him so?

  My scowl lifted at the welcome sight of an approaching friend.

  “Hi, Swede,” said Michael Laurence, using the obvious nickname based on my ancestry and appearance. Sometimes he called me Sweedy—but only in private, thank God. He stood in front of me and said, “This may be a stupid question, considering the circumstances, but why the long face?”

  We kissed, circumspectly.

  “I was thinking about power, Michael.”

  “Its uses or abuses?”

  “The way it abuses the person who holds it, if you let it. It seduces you into thinking you have the right—even the duty—to pronounce judgment on everything and everybody.” His eyes said he was seriously listening, a great compliment from a man to a woman. Those eyes are so incongruous—sympathetic puppy dog brown irises set in that patrician face. My secretary says those eyes confuse her, she doesn’t know whether to curtsey to Michael or to scratch behind his ears. I said, “Michael, do you think I’m smug or bossy?”

  “No. I think you’re relatively young to wield the power you do and you’re not completely comfortable with it yet.”

  I must have grimaced.

  “Don’t grimace like that,” he laughed. “You know you wield power in this town. With all that money at your disposal through The Foundation of course you do, everybody knows you do.”

  “Um,” I said, meaning to be wry, “you may have noticed how many more friends I have since I took the job.”

  “Oh come on, Jen. That goes with the territory and you know it. Of course people cozy up to you! If The Foundation can do them some good, they’d be crazy not to. You may call it cynical, but I call it human nature and I don’t see anything so terrible about it. You’d do the same if you were they, and so would I.”

  “You’d never use anybody, Michael.”

  “Oh, Swede.” The gentle eyes were sad and serious. “I don’t know where you got this notion of my sainthood, but I wish you’d drop it. I’m just an ordinary man who happens to be in love with an extraordinary woman.”

  “You only love me for my power,” I teased, trying to keep the mood light and the topic away from that familiar, painful one.

  “No.” As usual, when it came to talking about his feelings for me, he refused to play games. “I love you because you’re’ the smartest, nicest woman I know. Also the sexiest.”

  “Oh, Michael.”

  “Oh, Michael.” Even his mocking was gentle. “Why don’t you ever say, Oh Michael, yes I’ll marry you. I’ll throw away
Port Frederick and The Foundation and run away to your little chateau in the Loire.”

  “I hate it when you make fun of yourself.”

  “Ah! You admit I have a fault! Well, that’s progress, I guess.” There was self-pity in his voice, an unattractive tone I’d only recently begun to hear. We’d dated off and on for a couple of years, always on my terms. Except for a briefly sexy interlude near the beginning, those terms had never got beyond the fondly platonic. The problem was not that I thought of him as saintly, but that he seemed more like a brother than a lover—and therefore untouchable. Still, he persevered with good humor and patience. My secretary thought I was crazy not to love him; she thought he was crazy to keep loving me.

  “You favor the underdog, don’t you, Jenny?” he said. “Well, has it ever occurred to you that I’m the underdog in the fight for your affection?”

  He tried to make a joke of it, but the joke didn’t come off. He only managed to sound melodramatic. I felt embarrassed for him, and uncomfortable. I hoped no one could hear us.

  “Look at me, Jen! Just once, I wish you’d see the man I am instead of your sainted image of me!”

  When he was done emoting, he looked as surprised as I. Suddenly, his grin was self-effacing, and real.

  “Tune in tomorrow,” he said, making me laugh. “Will Jennifer love Michael? Will Michael make an ass of himself? Will Jennifer still go out with Michael on Friday night?”

  “Of course.” It had been a long day and I was suddenly exhausted. “You know, maybe I’m not so smart after all. And maybe I’m not such a great judge of character.” I decided to share with him the news about the will. “I sure missed the boat with Arnie…”