Tonight the class was discussing the case of the pretermitted heir—the biological child who wasn’t mentioned in the will of a wealthy woman named Florence Connaught, who had passed away in Florida in 1980.
Nina, sitting toward the back, doodled into her notebook. Crosses. Ocean waves. Wiped-out surfers.
A sad attack. They came two or three times a day.
She was floating like flotsam in the flux, and her friend Lacey was sitting right beside her, worrying about her.
Maybe a leave of absence would have been better. She couldn’t concentrate tonight, even with the professor’s slide show and his jokes and Lacey’s concerned looks and hand pats.
“Talk about a dysfunctional family,” Cerruti said. “Look at this guy. Meet Herb Connaught.” A huge, goofy fellow in a wifebeater, at a barbecue, appeared on the screen. “Herb was born stupid, shallow, and in need of lots of chemicals. He put his parents through quite a few challenges: the DUI on his sixteenth birthday in the car his father had given him that day, the cocaine bust, the marriage to a woman twice his age.
“Herb never cottoned to the idea of working for a living. He knew his parents were well-off and he expected to be supported for the rest of his life. His father went along with that, and many were the excuses he dreamed up—Herb was dyslexic, he had attention deficit disorder, he couldn’t handle stress—for many years Herb’s father kept Herb’s shrinks in fine brandy.
“Then easygoing Mr. Connaught passed on, and Herb and his mother took a look at each other. Florence pursed her lips—here’s a photo of her—and said, ‘Herbie, get a job, because I’ll have a new husband in six months.’
“And lo and behold, she did marry a man, who soon after was diagnosed with a fast-developing case of muscular dystrophy. He became wheelchairbound within a year. The year after that, Mrs. Connaught caught a cold that turned into pneumonia and she also passed away.”
Professor Cerruti snapped his fingers. “Like that, Herb, age thirty-three, was an orphan. He was making porn films out of a cheap apartment in Hollywood and owed a lot of money to several dangerous creditors. He had not had any contact with his scandalized mother for two years.
“At the funeral, Herb and his mother’s husband had an altercation over the burial arrangements. There was some pushing and shoving—funerals are not always entirely sane events.
“A week later, Florence’s most recent will was filed with the probate court by her second husband.” A slide of the will went up. Wow! It was handwritten! Nina had never seen a handwritten will before. “She left everything to her husband. And lo and behold again, there was no mention of Herb in the will. Herb was prominent only by his absence.”
The class laughed appreciatively.
“So Herb went to a probate lawyer. And what advice did he receive? Ms. Reilly?”
Bad luck! Lacey’s concerned eyes said. But Nina had read the case.
“First, the lawyer confirmed that the will omitted Herb entirely,” she said.
“A faithful reflection of his mother’s mind, no doubt.”
Laughter.
“But that wasn’t the first thing he confirmed, was it, Ms. Reilly?”
“Well, he confirmed that the will was entirely handwritten.”
Cerruti nodded and said, “Yes, it’s a strange and archaic thing, but in California you can still write out a legal will entirely in your own handwriting, leave it unwitnessed, leave out all sorts of boilerplate, and it’s valid. It’s called a holographic will, and all you need to do is state your intention to dispose of your estate, say where you want it to go, date it, and sign it. No need for Dewey Cheatham and Howe in there, right?”
“Wrong,” said Nina. The professor gave her a nod.
“Well, Ms. Reilly?”
“Since she had no legal advice, she didn’t know about the doctrine of the pretermitted heir.”
“Who would?” said Cerruti. “Originally, the idea was to take care of heirs who were accidentally omitted from the will, especially illegitimate children, but soon enough it applied to heirs the decedent might have wanted to omit and failed to mention. So put it in a nutshell for us, please, Ms. Reilly. What happened to Herb after his mother ignored him in her will?”
“He was awarded half his mother’s estate at the succeeding trial. The probate court followed the well-established rule that, in the absence of a specific statement in the will that Florence wanted Herb to take nothing from her estate, Herb would receive what he would have received if Florence had made no will at all.”
“But how could that be?” Cerruti said in mock horror. “She had told both her husband and Herb that she didn’t want Herb to inherit anything.”
“The language specifically omitting Herb had to be in the will, and nothing she said outside the writing of the will could be considered.”
“But it was only a technicality! We knew what her intentions were!”
“I guess that’s why people who love technicalities go into probate law,” Nina said.
Cerruti smiled. “Yes, those pesky technicalities. Listen up, class, because I’m now going to tell you the secret of practicing law successfully. It’s this: Never, never forget the technicalities. When you take a new case, check the other side’s compliance with the technicalities first. Always start there. A case you can’t win may become an easy win because a crucial boring detail was overlooked.
“Now here’s a slide from one of Herb’s movies. He used up his inheritance making several porn classics.” The class stiffened.
On the screen a grotesquely enlarged, jointed portion of the human body suddenly appeared. Impossible to tell which part. The students craned their necks to make it out.
After a minute, Cerruti said, “Actually, that’s my elbow. Sorry, best I could do.”
Nina’s cell phone rang at the break. “I was wondering how you’re doing,” Jack said. “Made it to class?”
“Yes, but I think I’ll leave early. I just feel—I don’t know—”
“I’m still at the office.”
“At nine o’clock? What have you got tomorrow?”
“A preliminary hearing that’s gonna blow up if I don’t put a lot of work in tonight.”
“Can I stop by?”
“Stop by the office? Sure, you need to talk?”
“It’s not that. I have a bad feeling, Jack. That Wu is going to get away with what he did to my mother.”
Jack said in a soothing tone, “We don’t know what happened yet, Nina.”
“And we never will. I’m so angry all of a sudden, Jack. First I just felt sad. Now—” She felt herself choking up.
“Come on by. I should be up to par for the prelim by the time you get here.”
The downstairs offices were dark, but Jack’s light was on. Nina dragged herself up the front steps and he let her in. He had a concerned expression. “You don’t look good,” he said. They went into Jack’s office and sat down across from each other in his client chairs. Jack didn’t represent his best self either in sweatpants and a gray T-shirt, almost half of it wet.
“Sweat,” he admitted, smiling, noticing her reaction. “Disgusting, isn’t it? I lifted weights tonight at the gym, then came straight here feeling buff and strong and ready to beat all bastards with a tire iron. It’s all about balance, right?”
“I wouldn’t know. My balance is so far off right now I feel like I’m about to hit the sidewalk.”
“That’s natural.”
“I don’t get it, Jack. Why would Dr. Wu kill my mother, if her case against him was no good? He had to keep a low profile. All he’s gotten out of these murders is bad publicity—he closed his office today, before the state regulators closed it down for him. What are the police missing? My prof tonight was talking about paying attention to the details. I’m gonna work on this myself, Jack. Nail him.”
“How?”
“Start by going through the file. Look for some small detail that would explain all this. All my medical research is in there, not
es from Remy’s interview with my mother, Mom’s journal, the claim letter, any correspondence with Richard—”
“Sure, take a look at it.” Jack looked at her. “What, you’re gonna do this now? It’s late. You have to be exhausted.”
“It’s amazing what a double espresso at six p.m. can do.”
Jack ran fingers through his hair. “Go home, look at it tomorrow.”
“I have no time tomorrow. Bob’s with the babysitter for another couple of hours tonight. I’m going to find out why Wu did this. I thought solving murders was all forensics and police procedure, Jack, but this is about why. This is about motive.”
He leaned over and rubbed her jeans-covered knee, an unexpected gesture that felt natural. He got up from his chair with a peculiar look on his face and put out his hands and took hers and drew her up so they were standing facing each other. His arms went around her and he gave her a long, tight hug. “Sorry about everything, honey,” he said.
She took a huge breath and let it go, relaxing her body for the first time since her mother’s death. What a relief, being hugged like this. She could feel his warm core, as if a little sun burned in there.
He released her.
“Thanks,” she said. “You know I have a crush on you.”
“This isn’t about a crush. It’s about you being too lonely, with too many cares right now. Please go home.”
“Will you come home with me tonight? Stay?” Nina cursed the smallness of her voice, how fragile she sounded. She heard that midnight-dreamy flaw rising up in her, the one that fell back on men, back on sex, for comfort. But there he stood, so male, so stable, so damned attractive. She imagined herself inhaling him, taking him in. She imagined herself taken care of.
“Oh, Nina—”
“You asked what I needed.” She heard how she sounded, husky, shaky, even lustful.
He looked at her for what seemed like a long time. “I can arrange a potluck, a babysitter, a driver. But, honey, I’m not over Remy.”
She hit the chair behind her, on wheels, which skidded across the floor as she walked away.
In her office across the hall, she got her computer going, then slammed the keys until she heard the door closing behind Jack.
She indulged herself in naming him awful things, the least of which were idiot and dork.
Later, she was alone in the Pohlmann office. She went back to Astrid’s file cabinet in the reception area, turned on all the lights, and hunted for the file.
CHAPTER 41
NINA DID NOT FIND THE VIRGINIA REILLY FILE AMONG Remy’s files, which were admirably thin, like Remy. As she had said she would, Remy had pared things down to the basics. Nina also found nothing about the case in Astrid’s main file system, and by then she had two paper cuts, both painful.
Okay, they had closed the file. That meant she had to go up to the attic.
Up there, thick, dusty, decrepit dead files reposed. To access them, you had to lower a stairway, climb through a trapdoor, and not be severely allergic to dust mites.
Nina took a flashlight along, although, as she remembered, a single lightbulb dangled up there, illuminating the files almost no one ever touched. You had to keep them forever, as the rules of the state Bar regarding the number of years they had to be maintained seemed to change every year.
The ladder staircase came down creakily and seemed sturdy enough.
She had just made herself into a complete fool, even though Jack would forgive her. She loathed herself, not for wanting him, but for coming out with it and getting shot down. She did not have a hard shell. No, she had a thin one, sensitive to touch, easy to break.
Damn!
So she said, then stepped onto the rough floorboards of the attic.
Although the space below always seemed crowded, the attic stretched unimpeded throughout the whole building, with shelves stuffed with yellow folders that seemed to take all the air out of the place. The low ceiling added to her discomfort. Many boxes full of files were directly in front of her, set on the floor by someone reaching up from the staircase who hadn’t bothered to take a step up there. Loose files were piled on top of the file cases.
Who puts this stuff up here? The perp was probably Astrid, solid-seeming, on board. Maybe this represented the place where Astrid played out her small resentments, filing A’s beside D’s without apparent reason, or maybe she planted files from the seventies close by those of the eighties. Maybe Astrid enjoyed imagining the descendants of the current staff flummoxed, because who wouldn’t be, given this chaos.
Nina dug in, grim.
No file, at least she couldn’t find it under all the obvious initial letters. She sneezed and decided to pack it in.
At the top of the staircase, she hesitated. She heard something. A creaking, rattling, as in a horror movie—something there behind her—
She stopped breathing. Before she had time to assimilate that somebody else was in the attic, she found herself falling, falling—
She landed hard at the bottom of the staircase, confused. She looked up and saw nothing, no one. Blood trickled down one corner of her head. She looked at it on her hand, bright red, nasty.
Like a white cloud over a black night sky, a shadow shifted above her.
Dazed, not thinking, she grabbed the rope that pulled up the staircase and pulled hard. Up it went. Bang! It closed up in the ceiling.
She ran.
Holding a hand over the bleeding place on her head, she ran out the front door, found her way down the bumpy cement steps, and stumbled toward the gas station on the corner.
In a pocket, she found money. She inserted coins into a telephone, dialing 911.
“Spell your name and give me your location,” the dispatcher told her.
A patrol car arrived within three minutes. Nina talked rapidly as she led two patrol officers back to the office, letting them in. They insisted she wait outside.
Using the same pay phone she had used to call emergency, she called Harlan Reilly. “I have a babysitter for only fifteen more minutes.”
“Huh?” he said thickly, sounding half-asleep.
“Dad, can you please take care of Bob for me for a few minutes? I won’t be long. I need your help.” She told him in a few words what had happened.
Red lights on the top of the official vehicles whirled. Sirens blared irritatingly, like a flock of dueling birds. Nina pondered whether the people of Carmel got more attention than the people of Monterey because they were richer, then felt guilty for her suspicion, because she needed the police right that second. She needed them to check out the office and who might still lurk in the attic.
Not too many minutes later, after one of the officers tried to convince her to go the ER and she refused, she got her answer.
“Nobody up there,” a guy about her age, late twenties, said.
“I pushed the stairs up. Whoever did this has to up there!”
“There’s a fail-safe mechanism, miss.”
“What?”
“Yep. So no one gets locked in the attic. A lever up there. So people won’t accidentally get locked in.”
“So they got away.”
“Not in the building anymore. Yep.”
“Mr. Pohlmann doesn’t answer his phone.”
“We’ll go over there and tell him. He’s on Peter Pan Road in the Highlands, right?”
After the police cars left and the young policeman had satisfied himself with her statement, Nina found her car and headed home.
Her head had begun to hurt. Her elbow hurt. Driving home, she felt that now familiar fury. Who?
She turned the radio off, following the familiar foggy highway from Carmel to Pacific Grove. Down there somewhere was the vast, dark ocean, but the mist floated in her headlights and she had to slow down. She was starting to feel the bruise on her hip. Her wrist was sore. At least the bleeding on her forehead had stopped.
She found it difficult not to break down now. Her mind replayed the moment when she had tried to t
urn and been pushed.
Wu! He was small but strong-looking.
She steeled herself. She had to evaluate a case now with objectivity, seeking facts. Okay, he must have followed her to the office, waited for Jack to leave, sneaked in through the unlocked door, then saw the staircase and heard her rummaging around up there.
Incredible! He had tried to kill her.
She gave in to a moment of self-pity. She had no one to call. Her mother, Matt—she had to stay away from Jack, it wasn’t fair to him. She had nobody watching her back.
Her father had probably rolled over and snored himself back to the golf-course dream. But the babysitter wouldn’t have left Bob alone.
Pulling up to Aunt Helen’s run-down house, the ocean soft in the distance, she saw Harlan’s newest red Audi, trim and confidence-inducing.
She didn’t have to unlock the door. Angie flung it open. “Oh, Nina,” she murmured warmly, embracing her. “Poor thing.”
Nina wanted to shake her off, but an odd thing happened. She felt herself melting into Angie’s firm arms. Her heart steadied. Her breathing normalized. Hugs again. Good medicine. She felt Angie’s baby bump against her own stomach. She was going to have a sibling. She and Angie would be linked forever.
“Bob’s asleep.”
“He’s—?”
“Fine!” Angie steered her into the living room, which was uncharacteristically lit with candles. A merry fire burned like Christmas in the usually cold hearth.
Angie took Nina’s coat. “You okay?” She touched the place on Nina’s head that had sprouted a bruise. “Harlan’s so worried. He said you sounded really upset.”
Nina pushed her hand back gently. “Beat-up. Just need to sit down.”
“Okay.” Angie stepped into the kitchen. “Ready?”
“Yup,” Harlan’s voice said.
Moments later, he appeared with a huge bowl full of soup, what he used to call accident soup, a mixture of vegetables and cabbage they all loved, including Ginny.
The small dining table held lit candles and a fresh tablecloth.
Show No Fear Page 26