The child of young hippies who had met and married on the closing day of Woodstock 1969, Ethan grew up being bounced around communes across the continental US as well as two kibbutzes in Israel, one near the Golan. The Bergs were all about free love, sharing everything they owned with their neighbours and keeping a very open relationship. Ethan grew into a young man who joined the Young Republicans at age ten, took up tennis and golf at fourteen, and received early admission to Brown — much to his parents shock and horror. Not understanding their son, but loving him nonetheless, they scrimped and saved every shekel they could, so that Ethan would not be drowning in debt when he graduated from college. Their hope that Ethan would grow to help the underprivileged was stunted when he graduated from Stanford and informed his parents that he planned on becoming a Securities and M&A attorney. Ethan joined a blue-chip firm in the Silicon Valley, and, within five years, was named the youngest equity partner in the firm’s history.
I’ve managed to resist Ethan mostly because we have different priorities — he hardly seems interested in settling down. He’s also never shown any interest in me, despite Coco’s insistence that he’s very much in love with me. Ethan has always played the role of my protective older brother rather than interested potential paramour.
Much to Coco’s dismay, Ethan and I never dated. My trend of dating the wrong men continued with my notorious affair with Professor Blake Hart — a relationship that almost cost me my friendship with Ethan in particular. He said it was self-destructive and a reflection of my issues with Armand.
In my last year of law school, Mavis, McLeish, Meinsdorf and Mooring LLP came calling. I answered. They had the best Estates and Trusts department in New York and I knew it was where I had to work. Accepting the job meant my first physical separation from Ethan and Coco in eight years.
It took me those eight years and the loss of my career and love life to come back, but I was glad to be reuniting with my best friends.
CHAPTER 5
Purgatory
I enjoyed a double Valium and vodka for breakfast, having never been a fan of flying, but my dark sunglasses masked the deep circles under my eyes. I tried to make myself as comfortable as possible in the cushy first class seat. I listened to my iPod, drowning out the noise of people searching for their seats, and hoped the spot beside me would stay empty so I could stretch out and remain comatose for the duration of the flight.
Feeling parched, I buzzed the flight attendant. No show. I hit the buzzer again. Seven clicks later, a disgruntled flight attendant stood before me.
“Vodka tonic on the rocks. And keep 'em coming,” I said, not looking up.
“Excuse me, miss, the inflight service has not yet started,” she told me, her blonde head bobbing with every angry syllable. “So please stop buzzing us until everyone has been seated.”
“I need another drink,” I said flatly. “I’m owed complimentary champagne.”
“It’s 6:45 a.m. You’ll just have to wait,” she said.
“First class passengers don’t have to wait,” I slurred, the Valium bringing out my worst. Perhaps I’d been too hasty in refusing my mother’s offer to have a private jet pick me up.
“Then how about you dig into your carry-on bar,” the flight attendant said stiffly, eyeing my half-open purse and the several empty shot-sized vodka bottles beside it. “Your little friends will have to tide you over until we’ve reached our cruising altitude.
“And please remove your bag from the empty seat. This flight has been oversold and someone will be sitting here.”
I watched the flight attendant wiggle her way past the passengers in the aisle. Even unemployment seemed preferable to that heinous pencil skirt.
“Hiya,” a high-pitched voice came suddenly from the seat next to me. I jumped — rather high, actually, for a person with a double dose of sedatives coursing through her veins. “It’s my lucky day. I was almost bumped off of the flight, but because of an airline error I got upgraded to first class for free!”
I turned around to find a petite blonde, probably in her late teens or early twenties, vibrating excitedly. I looked back toward the window to avoid any further engagement.
“I’ve never been to LA before,” she said with nervous excitement. “It’s all so awesome!”
The faint sound of safety instructions echoed overhead as Kanye’s “Gold Digger” blared in my ears. I felt a sharp tap on my shoulder. My young neighbour pointed to the aisle, where the blonde flight attendant stood with her arms crossed.
“Can I help you?” I asked, removing an earphone.
“You were told to turn off all listening devices and to remove earpieces until we have taken off and reached our cruising altitude,” the flight attendant said pointedly.
“Well, you failed to mention that in our earlier chat when you refused to get my drink,” I said, smiling sarcastically. “Look, this isn’t my first time on an airplane. I know what to do if we go down.”
“If you don’t like my service, miss, I have no qualms asking our friendly air marshal to assist me” she warned. “Or to kick you off the flight.”
“Look, lady, I’ve just been dumped, quit my job, and now am going home to live with my parents for the first time in almost a decade. So please excuse my attitude if it’s caused you any trouble. I am a lawyer, though, and I do know my rights; being a demanding bitch doesn’t warrant the threat of the air marshal.
“Now, I see that the seatbelt sign is off, meaning that we’re in your favourite place — cruising altitude. So, please, be a dear and bring me a glass of champagne. And, while you’re at it, bring one for my new friend too. Wait, on second thought, bring us the bottle. I think it’s going to be a very long flight.”
The flight attendant stormed off, high heels clacking angrily. My blonde neighbour remained stiff and silent.
“Sorry about that,” I said, trying to bring my tone down to a gentler one. “But my life is a bit of a mess.”
“It’s ok,” she said. “Is what you said all true?”
“Yup.”
“I’m so sorry. Here I was all happy-go-lucky and here you were trying to have some peace and quiet as you wallowed in your misery,” she said. The flight attendant returned and put the open bottle of Moët and two flutes down in front of me before disappearing.
“No worries. Now, if you’ll just enjoy the champagne and inflight movie quietly, we will get along fine,” I said as I tried to return to the state of drug-induced numbness. “Pour me a glass first though if you don’t mind.”
“Sure. I’m Esty, by the way,” she said, sticking out a hand.
“Joely,” I replied, passing Esty’s hand and instead reaching for the full glass on her tray table. As I took the glass, I saw her boarding pass poking out from the seat pocket — Esty Baxter. I sipped the champagne and tried to figure out how I knew her name.
“Sorry to bug you, but I can’t get this movie working. Could you please help me?” Esty asked, fiddling with the inflight entertainment system. “I just don’t want to call that flight attendant back.”
“Sure,” I said, removing my earphones. As I toyed with the system, my eyes drifted again to the name on her boarding pass — why was it so familiar?
“Thanks, Joely. I’m sorry that I’m so giddy. I’m actually heading to LA for the second round of auditions for a reality show for singer/songwriters. It could be my big break into the music business,” Esty babbled breathlessly. With a heaving breath in, she continued, “Are you from LA originally? Wait. You said you’re going home. Silly me. I don’t know anyone in LA except some of the other contestants.”
“Well, it sounds like your whole world is shiny and ahead of you, while mine is long behind me,” I said, grumpy. “There — it should work now. Just don’t keep touching the screen.”
“Can I ask what happened to you? I mean, beyond losing your job and everything,” Esty stared up at me hopefully. I tried to silence her with a brooding stare. “I don’t mean to be nosy, but I
know a little bit about rebuilding life from disaster. I can tell you that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.”
“The light at the end of my tunnel is a prescription-happy psychoanalyst who’s already waiting for me in LA. You can save your sob story for someone else,” I said.
“Listen, I lost my parents as a little kid and grew up basically alone, with no family. I was sent to live with my crazy aunt when I was five, but she shipped me off to boarding school, so I basically raised myself,” Esty said, persistent. “I loved my aunt, because she was the only real family I had. She took care of me financially, too, but she died this past year and now I have to get by on my own. At least you have family to go back to.”
“The family I’m going back to isn’t so great either. Please, Esty, just let me enjoy some quiet time,” I begged.
“Just one last question,” Esty steamrolled on. “What was your job?”
“I was a lawyer.”
“Well, you’re even better off than you thought. You have an education! You have a degree to fall back on. I have a guitar. The best I could do with my life was become a waitress. It’s not as though we had the money for university,” Esty went on, and I found myself listening.
“My parents had no real money to speak of, so my aunt took care of things. But she died before we could discuss college applications. So don’t complain. I’ve been living like a nomad for the last eight months since I graduated from high school.”
“Oh, shit!” I breathed, eyes darting in furious thought. I knew why her name was familiar. Esty was the long lost niece of Ivana Iretzski, the dead woman at the heart of my former firm’s new estate case. She was the heiress no one could locate. I tuned out of Esty’s rambling and tried to recall the details of the Iretzski file …
My old firm’s client, Mandy “Morphine Queen” Chalmers, was slated to be the newest member of New York’s nouveau riche upper class — a parting gift from Ivana Iretzski, who allegedly left the nurse her $1 billion estate as a thank you. Iretzski’s 500-acre waterfront property in South Hampton was the estate’s biggest asset, now entitled to Mandy. Ivana had been approached by numerous developers to sell her valuable property, but turned them down repeatedly. As her Alzheimer’s progressed, however, Ivana became more vulnerable to the subversive tactics of real estate magnates — including Ty Sumner Sr., one of New York’s wealthiest land developers — trying to get their hands on her land. The disease, coupled with a diagnosis of colon cancer, all but eliminated Ivana’s testamentary abilities. Mandy, the live-in nurse at Ivana’s home, hired her boyfriend Ty Sumner Jr. as a groundskeeper for the property. Ty Sumner Jr. also happened to be the son of the New York land developer, but conveniently changed his last name to Summer when he interviewed for the job.
Before she died, Ivana executed two wills and one codicil. The first will seemed to have been properly revoked by a subsequent holographic codicil — a document handwritten in the absence of a witness. The crux of this case was between the codicil and the second will; however, it was being contested by the beneficiaries of the first will on the basis that Mandy Chalmers had committed fraud, and no one could locate Esty Baxter, the beneficiary under the codicil. Ivana’s second will gifted the land, valued at around $800 million, to Mandy and the remaining $200 million to various charities.
The codicil was simple and to the point, typical of Ivana’s nature. It read:
To my lovely little niece Esty Baxter, the only relative of mine worthy of walking this fine earth with me. I give you everything I have: all of my land, money, jewels, cars, and investments. It’s all yours, darling. You are the closest I ever came to being a mother, despite never having an inclination to be one. I always thought fondly of you and hoped you would turn out to be a star. While you failed to come back home from boarding school to care for me, you never took a dime from me — the only pure heart in this family. (I was able to cover your schooling costs using the proceeds from your deadbeat hippie parents’ pot farm. Who knew it would be worth so much?) For that, you deserve it all! Enjoy and congrats, toots, you’ve won the lottery.
The second will was made using a fill-in-the-blanks will kit in which Ivana named her bank as the executor of her estate and bequeathed all of her assets, including the land, less money to charity, to Mandy. However, the typewritten line in the second will stating that all prior wills and codicils were revoked had been scratched out and initialled by Mandy, creating confusion as to whether any valid will existed. Mandy had informed Skeet and John that she accidentally scratched that part out because she thought that, if she left it in, the second will would be invalidated. Skeet and John advised that they would argue that she had done this in error.
Several other issues complicated the will’s execution. Bequeathing all of Ivana’s estate to Mandy Chalmers, the old woman’s nurse, raised legal eyebrows, because Mandy was in a position to exert undue influence over Ivana. Mandy was responsible for Ivana’s morphine drip. Mandy and the land developer Mr. Sumner Sr. also witnessed the execution of the second will — a huge legal no-no because a will’s beneficiary cannot be witness to its lawful execution. My head was swirling.
A comparison of the handwriting on Ivana’s codicil and her second will made it clear that the same person did not write both documents. Closer investigation showed the handwriting, including Ivana’s purported signature on the second will, bore similarities to Ivana’s but also closely resembled Mandy’s. With Ivana’s poor cognitive and physical health, it was possible that Ivana had directed Mandy to sign the will as her amanuensis, but Ivana’s medical records undermined Mandy’s assertion that Ivana had testamentary capacity to execute the second will. Acting as an amanuensis meant that Ivana would have placed her hand atop Mandy’s, technically guiding Mandy’s hand to sign for her. Even if Ivana directed Mandy to sign the will as her amanuensis, Ivana, unlike Mandy, never embellished her signature with hearts, as was plainly evident from Ivana’s holographic codicil.
I recalled studying in law school that so long as the amanuensis could prove on a balance of probabilities that they were signing the testator’s name with the testator’s express authority and acted only as a mere instrument for the testator, the signature would be valid. To my knowledge, a court had yet to test whether an amanuensis who used their own personal markings in signing a testator’s name would be deemed to have been acting as a mere instrument. According to the file, Mandy advised the senior partners that she thought she could sign Ivana’s name in any way she wanted, an argument a court might accept, but for Lady Justice to do so she would have to be deaf as well as blind. Even if the heart-dotted i’s on their own did not invalidate Ivana’s purported signature on the second will, the other extenuating circumstances likely would, leading a court to conclude that the second will is a product of fraud. The other explanation is that Mandy wrote the bequests and signed the second will herself, which Esty’s lawyer would have to argue on her behalf.
Based both on the facts and evidence, Mandy Chalmers was up against a solid case of undue influence because as a caregiver for Ivana Iretzski, the very nature of her relationship with the deceased raised the presumption that such influence not only existed, but was exerted by Mandy. The only thing that helped Mandy was that the sole beneficiary to the codicil was missing in action — until now.
If a court found the codicil to be the only valid testamentary document, Esty stood to inherit the entire estate. And she’s sitting right next to me. I sighed dreamily.
“What’s the matter?” Esty asked worriedly, snapping me back to reality.
I stammered for a response. “I just realized that you’re so right, Esty. I have a lot to live for,” I said. “Why don’t you tell me more about your childhood? It sounds like it was really tough.”
“I thought you wanted to go to sleep?” She looked at me expectantly.
“I changed my mind. What good am I doing just wallowing in self-pity?” I said, hoping she’d buy the sudden change in attitude. “When did your a
unt die?”
“Shortly before I graduated from high school,” Esty said, absentmindedly flipping the corners of her inflight magazine. “We had just started to talk about what I would do after graduation. I knew she hoped I would go back to the Hamptons to live with her, but I was ready to launch my musical career.” She sighed. “I know how this sounds. A poor little rich girl chasing her wild dreams. My aunt lived in the Hamptons, but it was her money, not mine. My parents were hippies. Whatever little they had when they died was all that was left to me.”
“But you said that your aunt helped you out financially,” I said.
“She did. I was only five when my parents died, and I remember bits and pieces of our life in communes. So I guess she supplemented whatever they left me because the school she sent me to was pretty expensive,” Esty said, swirling her champagne without taking a sip.
“That was very nice of her,” I offered gently. She looked up at my unexpected encouragement.
“I guess so, but all of that is over. Now I have to make it on my own, and I think this competition is a good start,” Esty said.
“I agree,” I said, smiling lightly at her frankness. “You seem to have luck on your side, so maybe you’ll come out with more than you’re expecting.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Esty said, buoyed. “This might sound forward, but I could actually use a lawyer if this crazy contest goes my way. Would you be interested in representing me?”
“I appreciate the offer, but entertainment law isn’t my area of specialty,” I said before thinking it through.
“Oh. What do you practice?” Esty asked.
“Maybe I was a bit hasty to turn you down. I’ve worked broadly in law, so I actually have expertise in several areas,” I said, scrambling to keep her interested. “Just a sec.” I grabbed a coaster and scribbled out my new LA number.
Esty took the coaster with a smile. “Now that I have legal counsel, I could always use a friend in LA. Maybe we could meet up for drinks or dinner, and you could show me around?”
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