Suddenly Martin Scroggins stopped toying with his crust of toast. He stared at her for a moment to see if she was being serious. “You don’t mean three acres.”
Tess looked befuddled. “Of course that’s what I mean.”
“Tessie,” said Martin Scroggins, “your father bought land from his neighbor in nineteen seventy-one. The neighbor was a speculator who’d gotten in enormous trouble and needed liquidity.” Then he stopped and said, “Surely you know all about this!”
Tess Binder leaned forward in her chair and said, “Martin, this is the first I’ve ever been told about an additional land purchase.”
Scroggins was unraveling. He looked from one to the other and back again. “But … but I don’t understand!” he said. “I assumed … no, I was told! I distinctly remember that I was told by Warner Stillwell during a telephone conversation that you were aware your dad’s liquid assets were used to buy the land. It was such an incredible bargain. A steal, really. He said that he and you and your father had discussed it!”
“How … much … land … did my father buy with those monies?” Tess demanded.
They even talked different, Winnie thought: those monies.
The old lawyer’s voice was suddenly weak. He said, “Why, half a section. Three hundred and twenty acres. But Tessie … how could you not know?”
“You never told me!”
Winnie discovered that he was leaning forward himself, staring at the unblinking sky-blue eyes of Martin Scroggins, looking for a hint of duplicity, but seeing none.
“Tessie, I’ve been in practice for forty-seven years,” the lawyer said. “I would never withhold any part of a transaction from a party who …”
“Why didn’t you send a copy of the deed with my copy of the will when Daddy died?” Tess pressed ever forward while the old lawyer retreated.
“It was there, Tess! After the estate closed and I recorded the probate decree, I sent the decree to Warner. And a copy to you! My God, Tess, could my secretary have …”
Then he stopped and Winnie knew he was thinking: my secretary! That bitch! What? How?
“I got the copy of the trust and the will,” Tess said. “There was no copy of a decree in there describing the assets.”
“I can’t explain this!” the lawyer said, and when he raised the cup to his lips, his long bony hand was trembling. “I assure you that Warner told me you knew all about the decision to buy the land. After all, it’ll revert to you someday. Why would Warner tell me that? I don’t understand! I’ve got to phone him!”
“I take it that Daddy himself never told you I was aware of the purchase of hundreds of acres?”
Scroggins paused and Winnie saw Tess watching the lawyer very closely. Finally the lawyer said, “He may have. I can almost remember discussing it with Conrad on the phone. But I can distinctly remember discussing it with Warner.”
“But you can’t say for sure that Daddy told you?”
“No, I can’t, but I have a feeling he must have.”
She seemed to relax a bit. She leaned back in her chair and lit a cigarette. Martin Scroggins continued to stare and shake his head in disbelief.
“So,” he said, “until this meeting you thought you were only going to inherit the house and a few acres of grove?”
“That’s right,” Tess Binder said. “That’s exactly right.”
“I must contact Warner Stillwell immediately!” Martin Scroggins said.
Tess leaned forward so suddenly she bumped the table and the coffee spilled. “No, you mustn’t!” she said. “This is something that … well, it’s a family matter and I have to sort it out.”
“But I was your father’s attorney! And I feel as though I’m your attorney even though I’ve never represented you directly. My God, Tess, you were unaware of the dimensions of your future inheritance, and I feel responsible! I’ve got to find out how it happened. How you wouldn’t have received your copy of the recorded deed. I mailed it to you, let me see, a very short time after your father died.”
Tess asked, “In the same envelope as the will and the trust?”
He thought for a moment and said, “No, a bit later. I think. But you see, I assumed, I mean, I’d been told you knew all about the land purchase!”
“I’m not blaming you, Martin,” Tess said. “I’m not blaming anyone. I just want to sort this out myself and I don’t want you to get involved. Not yet. After I make an inquiry, then you can help me.”
“Yes, of course, I’ll help,” he said. “But Warner told me you knew about the land!”
“Yes, well, maybe both he and Daddy assumed the other one told me. Perhaps it was all a big mistake. Perhaps your letter with the copy of the deed was lost by the postman. We have so many new carriers these days.”
Winnie pitied the old man. He’d lost his aplomb completely. The lawyer looked at Winnie and said, “How could it be a mistake?”
Tess turned to Winnie and said, “Well, Win, I think we should let Martin get to his office, shouldn’t we?”
Martin Scroggins was shaking his head and muttering when Tess leaned over and kissed his cheek. He stood up reflexively and Winnie put out his hand. The lawyer’s palm was damp.
“Could I just ask one question?” Winnie asked.
“Yes, of course,” Martin Scroggins said.
“How much is the place worth now?”
“Well, I wouldn’t know,” the lawyer said. “You’ll have to ask a broker out in La Quinta.”
“Any idea at all?”
“No,” said Martin Scroggins, “except that Conrad believed that with P.G.A. West having put in such a big development out there, the entire area was going to boom. He’d heard rumors of a big new airport and believed that with half a section he could find an eager developer, easily. That’s land for a few hundred condos and an eighteen-hole golf course, which is what Conrad had in mind.”
“So, he didn’t give you a round number?”
“No, but it’s one of the last choice areas reasonably close to Palm Springs. I believe he’d tested the water with a developer from Rancho Mirage and turned down fifty-five thousand.”
Winnie said, “For all that land?”
“Fifty-five thousand an acre,” said the lawyer.
Winnie said, “Fifty-five …” It stopped him cold. “That’s too many zeros for me! The Japs didn’t send that many zeros to Pearl Harbor!”
“By the time it becomes Tessie’s it’ll be worth twenty to thirty million,” said the lawyer. “There can only be one other explanation for all this …” He hesitated, glancing at Winnie again.
“We’ve gone this far, Martin,” she said, “so speak your mind.”
“It might be that your father thought you still weren’t ready. I mean … well, three marriages? A life that’s been …”
“Unproductive?”
“Yes, you know how he … doted on you.”
“Not from my point of view. I paid a price, being his only child.”
“Well, it might be that he and Warner decided you shouldn’t know about the extent of your father’s estate. That it’d be better for you to think your inheritance would be a more modest one.”
“That doesn’t explain Warner’s failure to notify me after Daddy’s death, does it? And the fact that the copy of the land deed never arrived in my hands.”
“I simply cannot explain that part of it,” the lawyer said.
Neither spoke until they were halfway to Linda Isle in Tess’s car. Then Winnie said, “I think we jist found a motive for what’s been going on.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Warner didn’t plan to live out his days in Daddy’s refuge. Warner must have other ideas, connected somehow with Hack Starkey.”
“I’ll tell you one thing, lady,” Winnie said. “I’d work partners with you anytime. I’ve seen veteran detectives do a lot worse in an interrogation. That old man’s scared you’ll slap a malpractice lawsuit on him.”
“I just hope he keeps his mouth shut,” she s
aid. “I want you to tell me what to do about Mister Warner Stillwell.”
“I don’t think that lawyer’s gonna blab anything to anybody,” said Winnie. “He’s glad you’re not mad at him. Far as you’re concerned he’ll be quiet as a snowfall.”
When they were near Tess’s club, Winnie looked at his watch and said, “Think it’s late enough for a drink?”
Tess kept her eyes on the road and said, “Whatever you say, old son.”
“Might help me to relax and think clearer. A beer maybe.”
“Or two?”
Winnie said, “You don’t think I’m an alcoholic, do you?”
“Don’t get paranoid. There’s a big difference between a heavy drinker and an alcoholic.”
“Sure, it’s when booze starts swinging a wrecking ball at your life.”
“Right,” Tess said, glancing at him. Not with disapproval, he was sure of it.
The valet-parking kid who took Tess’s Mercedes nodded at Winnie in recognition. He was starting to feel part of it all: The Golden Orange!
While they were still at the yacht club, during a silence when Martin Scroggins had been devouring his breakfast, Winnie had been eavesdropping on a foursome at the next table, discussing a Los Angeles Times story about the scientific world going coconuts over the claims of the Yank and the Brit who had either achieved cold fusion, or confusion, with less energy than it took to run their experiment. But if others in The Golden Orange were excited about science attempting to approximate the Promethean gift of fire, at Tess’s club events of greater significance to hot mommas were being breathlessly bandied about. A certain pair of houses had sold! Corky Peebles was practically hyperventilating when she spotted Winnie and Tess on the patio at a white table under an umbrella. Corky blazed a silicone trail across the deck, wearing a halter top, with breasts out to here, and shorts with a glittery blue anchor on each buttock. Every head in the place turned on its axis when she jiggled by.
“Did you hear!” she cried. “The house across from Margie’s is in escrow for nearly seven mil! That tops the price for John Wayne’s place!”
“No, I hadn’t heard,” Tess said.
“But that’s nothing!” Corky breathed. “The other one? The big one, sold to some …” When she thought about the ramifications of the buyer—F.F.H. rich—she said, “… some Oriental gentleman for, are you ready? Fifteen million!”
“Truly unbelievable,” Tess said, trying to look unimpressed, but Winnie could see that she was. And why not, he was!
Tess said to Winnie, “It’s a nineteen-thousand-square-foot house with underground parking for nine cars.”
“And a twelve-thousand-bottle wine cellar,” Corky added.
“And a three-thousand-foot master bedroom,” said Tess.
“And it’s got what they call poured-in-place concrete construction,” Corky said to Winnie, eyes alight. “With steel I-beam construction. It can take a hit of eleven on the Richter scale!”
“If the next is an eleven, that guy’s gonna be king a the coast,” Winnie said, and Corky’s eyes went even wider.
“That’s right!” she said. “You’re absolutely right!”
She wiggled her fingers then, and jetted back to the hot mommas on the other side of the patio, leaving a vapor of wrinkle cream in her wake.
“She’s now finding out if the gentleman’s married,” Tess said to Winnie, “and whether he likes round-eyed women, and if there’s anything new out of Cal Tech regarding earthquake predictions. If the big one comes and he’s the only rich man left she’ll get him if she has to ride it out on a rubber dinghy.”
“I’m starting to like her,” Winnie said, trying not to gulp his beer. “She’s got more moves than Bekins Van Lines.”
Tess said, “Don’t get too comfortable around here with the likes of Corky. I don’t get the ranch until Warner dies. Could be ten years. Maybe fifteen.”
Winnie said, “Whaddaya mean by getting comfortable?”
“I’m not planning on letting you get away from me,” she said. “But you’ll have to wait a long time till I can afford a waterfront villa.”
Winnie gaped. She was barely smiling. She was gazing at him with gray pebble irises behind rose-tinted lenses. Wearing her white dress. The goddamn white dress!
“What’s the matter, love?” she asked.
Winnie realized that his mouth was hanging open. He snapped his jaws shut and said, “I guess I looked like a stroke victim, huh? One a those guys with his mouth frozen open like he’s gonna laugh but it never comes? I guess I looked like that, huh?”
“Something wrong?”
He didn’t mention the white dress. It made him feel dizzy to think about it. He wanted it to go away. That maddening sensation of déjà vu, something just beyond a curtain of white linen. Then it was all gone.
“Maybe it’s what you said. Something made me drift. Becalmed. No wind for my sails. A sailor in irons.”
“Why?”
“Hearing you even suggest you’re gonna hang in there with a guy like me? I mean, you might think you know what you’re doing, but …”
Then Tess Binder leaned forward in her chair and touched his hand the way she’d touched Martin Scroggins’s hand. She said, “Win, when I make up my mind about something, I always know exactly what I’m doing.”
She leaned even closer and kissed him. When she pulled back he glanced over at the hot mommas, at Corky Peebles, who saw the kiss and turned to her tablemates to whisper.
Winnie said, “Corky’s looking at me, thinking, a house jist sold for fifteen mil and Tess’s playing kissy face with a guy that wears sneakers a Shanghai longshoreman wouldn’t be caught dead in.”
When Winnie excused himself to go to the restroom, Corky Peebles scurried back to Tess’s table.
“You just got to tell me!” Corky demanded. “Why him?”
Tess blew a cloud of smoke in Corky’s direction and smiled mysteriously, saying nothing.
“Why, Tess?” Corky cried, her power bob bouncing in frustration. “I mean, sure, he’s sorta Our Gang cute, but he couldn’t get mugged in Harlem!”
“Maybe he’s a superb lover,” Tess said, broadening the smile that was driving Corky mad.
“Puh-leeese!” Corky cried. “How could anybody in the whole wide world even attempt to reach orgasm with a guy that wears a Timex watch?”
When Winnie returned Corky waved bye-bye and wriggled away.
Tess said to Winnie, “Want to talk about more ordinary things? Like murder?”
“Sure,” he said. “You and me, that makes me start to sweat, and think about an old song I don’t understand. Murder, that I can understand.”
Tess lit a cigarette and said, “Okay, here’s how I see it: Warner waited a discreet period of time, eight months after Daddy died. Now he wants to sell the ranch and go back to Portofino or wherever. But he can’t. He can only live in it. Unless I die.”
“Wait a minute, Tess,” Winnie said. “Start at the beginning. Your dad bought that land without you knowing. Must a cost him a few million, four or five maybe. So your father didn’t blow his money. He invested most of it but jist didn’t tell you.”
She puffed on a cigarette, looking toward the main channel beside the club. Except that her view was blocked by a large yacht fisher, custom built in Australia and said to have cost its owner three million dollars. And there were other more expensive yachts blocking the view from where they sat on the club patio.
Winnie followed her eyes and thought, That is the view here. Landlocked yachts. The ultimate in conspicuous consumption. The water itself is set decoration!
Finally she said, “Yes, of course. From the beginning, here’s how I explain it: Warner told Daddy that he’d discussed the land purchase with me. Daddy assumed that I knew all about it.”
“Something that important? Doesn’t wash,” Winnie said. “He’d talk it over with you himself, your father.”
“Remember, I told you that Warner was the dominant one i
n their relationship? Besides, Daddy had something more pressing on his mind.”
“What could be more pressing?”
“Maybe he was preoccupied with the HIV virus. He could’ve known about it for years.”
Winnie thought a while and said, “That could obsess a guy for sure, but dumping all that cash in a huge land purchase? Naw, he’d tell you if he wanted you to know.”
“Okay then, goddamnit! Martin Scroggins was right! Daddy and Warner decided that I shouldn’t know. That I was too … immature, and always had been. And when my marriage to Ralph Cunningham failed, as Daddy knew it would, then he’d tell me all about it. Then he’d tell me I wouldn’t be a pauper after he was gone. That I’d be well provided for.”
“Yeah, I’d call that well provided for,” Winnie agreed.
“He probably developed symptoms last year. And he started thinking about it: AIDS. The dreadful agony. The … the humiliation of it. He couldn’t see any way out except to take his gun and go back to where he’d been happiest, back here where he’d been a husband and a father …”
Tess stopped then and sniffled. Winnie waited a moment and said, “Okay, that scenario I can almost buy. A guy like your old man, living all those years in a closet …”
“He thought he was closeted. Of course, everyone knew.”
“Yeah, well, he had to get outta this world right away. I can see that part. And he figured after he was dead Warner’d let you know about the land. About how you’d be rich in a few years after Warner was gone.”
“Don’t count on a few years, old son,” Tess said. “Warner is an amazing physical specimen for a man of seventy-two.”
“Yeah, but you said he’s probably got the virus, if not AIDS itself. Otherwise, how would your dad …”
Tess’s chin trembled, so Winnie stopped right there. He signaled to the waitress. When she came over he looked at his watch and said, “I’ll have a vodka on the rocks. Polish if you got it. It’s late enough.”
Tess at last addressed the painful subject. “Okay, let’s assume that Daddy got the virus but Warner doesn’t have it. Or, let’s say they both have it but Warner’s optimistic. Maybe he believes in that Tijuana AIDS clinic that claims to have a handle on it. Or he thinks a cure’s on the way. He always was more of an optimist than Daddy. Let’s assume he isn’t about to kill himself. On the contrary, he’s going to enjoy life. He wants to try to spend those millions in the years he has left. Now, go with that one.”
Golden Orange Page 18