FORGET ME NOT (Mark Kane Mysteries Book One)

by John Hemmings

  “Anyway the simplest thing will be to ask her,” I said. “She’s living in Concord and I’m driving up there to see her tomorrow. It’s the birthplace of Ralph Waldo Emerson.”

  “Is it?” Lucy said. But at least she didn’t say: “Who’s he?”

  “He was a thinker,” I said, “and a pretty good all-round guy by all accounts. Amongst many of his astute aphorisms was this: ‘The only way to have a friend is to be one’.”

  “Sounds like a smart cookie,” Lucy said over her shoulder while she was washing the dishes. “Have you spoken to Susan yet?”

  “Yes, I told her that I was acting on behalf of the estate and needed to clarify a few matters with her. She doesn’t know the real reason I want to see her, so I shall have to box clever. Of course, if everything is above board then it’ll be plain sailing.”

  “That’s a mixed metaphor.”

  “I know,” I said, “and all the better for it in my opinion.”

  “She may be a hot number,” Lucy said, “and if she’s on the level you might be able to woo her and get your hands on some of Gloria’s estate.”

  Lucy’s look of mock seriousness failed to mask her amusement at such a prospect. Lucy and I aren’t in a relationship and we never have been. She’s my friend and my employee. Well, mine and six others who share the downtown office. She answers the phone, takes messages and receives documents and so on. We’ve got a conference room which is available to all of us but I have never used. It’s a sensible way of cutting overheads and the address is intended to give our clients the impression of success. As well as deciding where I lived and dictating the minutiae of my life in various other ways (called ‘suggestions’ by Lucy) she had also decided a long while back that we would be ‘friends with benefits’. I thought she’d invented the term herself but apparently she stole if from a movie. It allowed for occasional, or sometimes frequent, intimacy between us she had explained to me, but not monogamy. Either of us (by which I think she meant herself, mainly) was permitted to see whomever we liked with no need to mention it; but if one of us (meaning her mainly I think) got seriously involved with someone else then we had to tell. Tell what, to whom and how much I wasn’t sure because the situation had so far not materialized; or if it had she hadn’t told me. There was no intimacy tonight, however, just a microwave dinner and the opportunity for me to use Lucy as a sounding board.

  “Joking aside,” I said, “I’m concerned about the will itself.”

  “But you haven’t seen it yet, have you?”

  “No, not yet; and I didn’t want to go into details about the will with Philips until I’ve at least had a chance to investigate Susan’s background. I know the will was made after the onset of Gloria’s dementia, because Susan made her first appearance a year or so after Gloria was hospitalized for a broken leg, which is when Greg first noticed that something was wrong. Of course, the first meeting must have been preceded by other contact such as telephone calls, letters, emails; that sort of thing. But it seems inconceivable that Gloria would have made Susan the major beneficiary of her will until she had at least got to know her better, so it’s likely that the will was written sometime later, after Gloria started to show obvious signs of dementia.”

  I ran through the matters that had gone through my mind after leaving Philips’ house; the possibility of forgery, duress, and lack of mental capacity. Lucy was in the kitchen tidying up. She likes tidying up. It’s a kind of therapy for her. She likes tidying up my place even more than she likes tidying up her own place, which is fine by me.

  “As far as I’m concerned,” said Lucy, as she scraped what was left of our meal into the trash can, “the strangest thing is the amount of the bequest. Why would she leave such a large portion of her estate to Susan when she had two other children and a husband too?”

  “I agree, particularly in view of the fact that by all accounts the inter-family relationship was very good; and it’s also puzzling why Gloria would not have discussed the matter with Greg. They were very close, you know.”

  “Something’s definitely not right,” Lucy said, as she came back into the living room and plonked herself down on the sofa next to me, tucking her feet beneath her. “Even if Susan really is Gloria’s daughter there must have been some kind of manipulation by her.”

  Well, all women are manipulative, I thought, but I didn’t dare say so, particularly as I wasn’t even in my own home.

  “Duress seems unlikely though, because the will had to be witnessed,” I said. “I don’t know yet who the witnesses were, but obviously Susan couldn’t be one or she would be unable to benefit from the will. I also don’t know where the signing took place. It could have been at home, in which case Susan could conceivably have been present, but it’s difficult to see how she could have exerted any undue influence in the presence of the witnesses.”

  “It seems most likely to me,” Lucy said, “that Gloria wasn’t fully compos mentis when she signed. And that could be why she never mentioned it to her husband, because maybe she forgot she’d done it. That’s one of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s isn’t it, forgetfulness?”

  “I don’t remember,” I said. Lucy gave me a withering look. “No, seriously, you may well be right; which means the will might not be valid even if no undue pressure was brought to bear, in which case Susan’s blood relationship with Gloria might not matter at all.”

  It was food for thought, but the actual food having been eaten I decided to head home, which involved a journey of about two or three hundred feet.

  Chapter Six

  Susan

  The journey to Concord was dull and uneventful. The weather had changed completely and the entire trip was under heavy cloud and through driving rain. The wipers valiantly slapped and sloshed against the windscreen trying to give me something to look at. In the interest of punctuality I had set off early. I had arranged to see Susan at her workplace which was a restaurant just off the main street. It was either that or wait until late evening, which I didn’t want to do, or wait until she was off on Saturday which, given my retainer, I couldn’t afford to do. After leaving Philips house yesterday I had waited for him to confirm my instructions from Gloria’s attorney and then I had some new business cards printed while I waited. My new cards proclaimed that I was a ‘Probate Consultant’, which I imagined would sound a lot less intimidating than private investigator. I was like a chameleon; I had more business descriptions on my cards than most people had cards. I didn’t want Susan to know that I had any special concerns or suspicions about her. Instead I hoped to pass my visit off as something strictly routine. I’d be polite and congenial and yet cunning. I’d be crafty Kane today.

  Susan had told me that she got a forty five minute break at one thirty. I arrived well ahead of time, despite the weather, and found a parking space nearby. I replayed in my head the conversation I’d had with Lucy the previous evening and wondered if Susan herself had given any thought to these matters. I wondered too what her reaction had been to her potential windfall. I didn’t know whether she was aware of it before Gloria’s death or only after the will was disclosed. I knew from Philips that she was single and living on a moderately low income. At least that’s what he had been told. If so, it was unlikely that she had consulted an attorney about the will, and that would make things easier for me. I had been mentally rehearsing my approach to questioning Susan during the drive but, as in all cases, when interviewing someone it’s important to have a flexible game plan. Years ago I’d known an attorney who worked his butt off preparing cross-examination of witnesses but had little success. He would actually make a numbered list not only of the questions he would ask but also the order in which he would ask them. This approach was fundamentally flawed, because you should never second guess. You must never assume that the answer you are going to get is the one you want or expect. I certainly had no idea what answers I was going to get from Susan.

  I went into the restaurant promptly at one thirty and asked for Susan Gr
anger. She was in the rest room and would be right out. I hadn’t seen a photograph or had anything but the vaguest description of her. When she emerged I saw a plain-looking woman who might be attractive for her age with some properly applied makeup and decent clothes, but then again she might not. She was of medium height but skinny, which gave the impression that she was taller than she actually was. She had no discernible curves, and reminded me of an old song by Tom Paxton about a woman with legs so thin she looked like a sparrow with a figure that stuck to the straight and narrow. She was dressed in blue jeans and a T-shirt. She might have been any age between forty and forty five. She came straight over and introduced herself, since she was expecting me and I was probably the only person in the place that she didn’t already know. Or maybe I was the only person who even faintly resembled a probate consultant.

  “Mr. Kane? I’m Susan Granger. Thanks for dropping by. I’ve only got a little over half an hour but I hope that’s long enough for me to tell you what you need to know. We can either take a booth here or there’s a place on the corner which is quiet. I’ll need to eat while we talk if you don’t mind.”

  I said that would be fine and settled for a table where she worked so that I wouldn’t have to venture out in the rain again, so she slid and I squeezed myself into a booth by the window. I gave her one of my new cards which she glanced at and then slipped it in her jeans’ pocket. She didn’t place an order, but a plate bearing a burger and fries was placed in front of her by another waitress. I settled for a soda.

  “Well it’s a pleasure to meet you Susan. As I told you over the phone I’m retained by the estate’s executors in relation to the probate of Gloria Philips’ will. It’s my job to gather all the relevant information about the beneficiaries and generally smooth the way to a speedy conclusion of the probate process. I have to say that I haven’t seen a copy of the will yet, but I understand you are the major beneficiary of Gloria’s estate.”

  “I know. How long do you think it will take?”

  “That depends on a number of factors which I’m here to discuss with you now. Certain things can complicate or prolong the process, so I have to prepare you for that. I’ve got a check list here which I can run through with you.”

  I pulled out a spiral notebook in which I’d written some racing tips, but since she was sitting opposite me she couldn’t see what I had written down.

  “Now the first thing that can delay probate is if the will is contested.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, suppose one of the other beneficiaries thinks he or she wasn’t getting a fair share of the estate then that person may apply to have the will set aside, declared void. Depending on the nature of the complaint, if indeed there is a complaint, it could delay the granting of probate for a considerable time.”

  “What sort of complaint?” Susan put down her half-eaten burger on the plate and looked at me. She appeared slightly uncomfortable.

  “First, that the will itself isn’t genuine; second, that the testator, that’s Gloria, wasn’t of sound mind when she made the will and third, that the witnesses who purported to sign actually didn’t do so at the time and place recorded on the will. Those are the main potential obstacles to a speedy grant of probate. They’re just examples of course.”

  Susan frowned. “Is somebody contesting the will then?”

  “Not that I’m aware of at the moment; I’ve only just been instructed to deal with this matter and I haven’t seen the other potential beneficiaries yet, except for Mr. Philips of course who is both a beneficiary and also one of the two executors. The other executor is Gloria’s attorney. Now I’ve come to see you first because you probably don’t have anyone else to advise you, such as an attorney.”

  “I didn’t know I needed one. How much would that cost?”

  “Well hopefully you won’t need one; hopefully the will won’t be contested and everything will go forward without a hitch, but my job is to anticipate any possible problems so that they can be ironed out as soon as possible. You see anybody can contest a will, not only the beneficiaries but even people who think they should have been included but weren’t. So it’s best to be prepared for that possibility, otherwise a considerable delay might occur later. Do you understand?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “Now I understand that you are Gloria’s natural daughter. Just in case anybody should dispute that you are the beneficiary referred to in the will it’s best to get that fact established right away, so in your own interests I would like you to provide me with whatever documents you have in your possession relevant to that; for example your amended birth certificate, details of the agency that handled your adoption, the address of your adoptive parents, your social security number and so on. I don’t suppose you have access to all those things at the moment so you will need time to gather them together and then I will arrange for certified copies to be made.”

  “Can’t all that wait to see if anyone objects?”

  “Well yes, if you like; but as I told you it’s a case of the sooner the better really.”

  “I’ve got a copy of my amended birth certificate but I don’t have the original. It shows my adoptive parents in place of my real parents, and the time and place where I was born − Hollister, near San Francisco.”

  “A certified copy will be fine. How about your social security card?”

  “Will a photocopy do?”

  “I’m sure it will. And your identity card?”

  “Okay.”

  Now can you give me details of the adoption agency?”

  “I haven’t a clue. I didn’t even know I was adopted until I was sixteen.”

  “How about your parent’s address?”

  “Both my parents are dead.”

  “I’m sorry. When did that happen?”

  “When I was eighteen.”

  “Do you mean that they died at the same time as each other?”

  She hesitated, and then said: “Yes, they were in a plane crash.”

  “I’m sorry to open old wounds but when and where did this happen?”

  “Where? Idaho. My father was a salesman and he was at a convention there with my mother. My father sold aircraft components. It was a light aircraft of some sort and everyone on board was killed.”

  “Whereabouts in Idaho?”

  “One of those small towns; I don’t remember now – it was a long time ago.”

  “And when did that tragic event occur?”

  “In 1989; in the fall. I don’t remember the exact date – it was a long time ago.”

  “Did you tell Gloria about this?”

  “Yes. That’s why she wanted to help me. She felt guilty for abandoning me, and when she found out about my parents, I mean my adoptive parents, she said she would help me. I didn’t know she was going to leave me a lot of money though.”

  “Did you know about the will before she died?”

  “No. I was told by Gloria’s attorney. Bill something or other.”

  “So you weren’t present when the will was drawn up, or witnessed?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry to have had to bring all this up. Just one more thing though if you don’t mind?”

  “Okay.”

  “Can you tell me the names of your adoptive parents?”

  “Richard and Joyce.”

  “And where are they buried or interred?”

  “Nowhere, as far as I know.”

  “Why is that?”

  “There wasn’t anything left to bury.”

  I looked up at her. Her face had a strangely enigmatic expression. She looked slightly embarrassed too, and lowered her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “That must have sounded awful. I didn’t mean it that way. Here’s the thing. Richard and Joyce weren’t demonstrative parents; I mean emotionally. They were perfectly kind to me and everything but my childhood lacked the kind of warmth and closeness that I saw with other families. When I learned I was adopted I
thought that was the reason. I wasn’t their blood. I’m much older now and I don’t think that was the reason. I think it’s just how they were. But after I discovered the truth I felt differently towards them. I mean I felt released from them in a way. We didn’t have any major arguments or anything, and I was grateful that they’d given me a home but there was a distance between us. I moved out when I was seventeen. I’ve pretty much looked after myself since then.”

  “So you were no longer in the family home when the tragedy happened?”

  “Right. But I was still in contact with them then. I had nothing to do with the arrangements were made for their funeral, or service of remembrance or whatever though; that was all handled by their respective family members. Their parents were still alive and they had siblings. I only remember that I was told when the memorial service would be, or remembrance service I think it was called. But I didn’t go. You probably think that I should have gone to pay my respects, but I’m not religious. I believe that when people die that’s it. Finito. I can’t see any point in paying respects to people who wouldn’t even know you were there. It’s pointless.”

  “Have you kept in touch with any of your extended family – I mean any relatives of your late parents?”

  “No. Since they died I’ve had no contact at all with the family. I haven’t the faintest idea where any of them might be.”

  I needed to be careful. I didn’t want to probe too much because I didn’t want to alert her to the fact that Greg was already nursing misgivings about her identity. If she got wind of the fact that she was already under suspicion there was nothing to prevent her suddenly deciding to take a vacation. That would put an effective end to any further investigation.

  I decided to leave further discussion about her background for the time being. I’d wait until she provided the documents I’d asked for. But Susan’s face still wore a slightly mysterious expression which was puzzling in its inscrutability. She alternately bit her upper lip and then the lower one, then the upper one again. It was as if she was ruminating over what she had told me and was wondering whether she’d said too much or too little. It was only an impression that I had, but after almost fifteen years in the game I had learned to trust my instincts, and I instinctively didn’t believe she’d been truthful to me.