by Edie Claire
The younger woman reached the parlor, then turned. "Look, Koslow junior. In case you haven’t noticed, Ms. Lilah wasn’t the Avon Lady. Hardly anybody ever comes in this house except staff, and there aren’t many of them. Nobody’s going to want anything that cat ate, believe me." She stooped over to fluff a pillow, which in her case meant beating it squarely with a fist. Her eyes turned suddenly hostile. "Nobody'd better smoke."
Leigh clenched her teeth, not the least bit swayed by her hostess's pragmatism. She was sure that Ricky Rhodis had been after the cat. "Are you sure that no one else has been here?"
The personal assistant’s eyes widened, and she stopped in mid fluff, her face darkening. "Why, that—" The list of foul adjectives that followed was interrupted by the sound of a ringing doorbell, and Leigh, who had been standing by in rapt anticipation of an upcoming noun, let out an anguished groan as Nikki jumped to answer it.
"Mr. Sheridan," Nikki said roughly, struggling to make her tone sound polite again. "I'm glad you're here first. Is there anything I'm supposed to do for this, other than point to chairs?"
William Sheridan, an impeccably groomed, dour man in his late forties, answered without a smile. "No, just a place to sit is fine, thank you. But I do need to talk to you privately for a moment." He turned to Leigh. "If you'll excuse us?"
"Oh," she replied awkwardly. "Of course. We'll just go—" She looked over her shoulder, but Adith was nowhere in sight. "Get a drink," she finished sheepishly, stepping backwards.
"More news about the crash?" Nikki was asking the lawyer as Leigh retreated. She couldn’t hear his answer, but she wanted to. She also wanted to know who Nikki had remembered had been in the house. But first she had to figure out where the heck Adith had gotten to.
She walked back through the hallway to the kitchen, and was disturbed to find it empty. She was even more disturbed to find the family room and the library empty as well. Because, since Adith couldn't possibly have strolled through the parlor or dining room without running into Nikki and the lawyer, that pretty much ruled out the whole ground floor. She returned to the foyer and looked nervously up the stairs. Adith wouldn't just start prowling around the bedrooms, would she?
Her rhetorical question was answered by a small triangular head, which poked its way through the stair railing and peered at her with twinkling blue eyes. Another suddenly appeared on top of the newel post at the landing, its angular jaw dropping with a resentful cry. Leigh's spirits plummeted. Not only was Adith upstairs, she was accidentally letting the cats out.
The doorbell rang again, and Leigh headed up the steps in haste. She certainly hoped there was a back way to the kitchen—or she and her accomplice were busted for sure. Scooping up one cat under each arm, she headed off down the upstairs hallway. "Adith!" she whispered harshly, unable to hear even herself over the loud mews of the remaining prisoners. "Where are you?"
She couldn’t help noting the original works of art she was passing by on either side of the corridor—all of which were dark, dreary renditions of hunting expeditions. The late Albert’s taste, she hoped. No self-respecting cat-lover would approve of cruelty to foxes. Unless….
Stop that! She shook the hideous images from her head again and paused at each closed door to listen, but heard only mewling and a few ineffectual scratches. She was about to begin opening doors randomly—and taking chances on additional escapees—when Adith popped out of a second stairwell in front of her.
"Three floors!" the older woman announced proudly. "I found old Albert's office, too. Did you know he met President Eisenhower?"
"We've got to get back to the kitchen. Now," Leigh ordered. She held up her arms to display her feline passengers, which were no longer enjoying the ride. "Where did these two come from? We've got to put them back."
Adith looked at the Siamese with a wrinkled nose. "Evil-looking things, if you ask me. Too skinny. Now, my Pansy—"
"Mrs. Rhodis," Leigh interrupted intently, "Which door did they come out of? Quick!"
"Her bedroom," the older woman answered with a sly smile. "It's this way. Nice, but could use some curtains. Never been into mauve, myself."
After a complicated maneuver involving six human limbs and a pocketbook, the cats were finally returned to their prison, and Leigh and Adith were able to slip safely back into the kitchen through the rear staircase. They had not been there twenty seconds when Nikki appeared.
"Welcome back," she said coarsely, picking up the two liters. "Would you mind grabbing some glasses and bringing them into the dining room? Mr. Sheridan's getting ready to start."
Chapter 5
Leigh and Adith were obliged to sit on a stiff-backed settee at the back of the parlor, which was fine by both. Not only did it offer an excellent view of the beneficiaries, but its proximity to Mrs. Murchison's antique roll-top desk allowed Adith to examine the latter's cubby holes with impunity.
"I cannot state emphatically enough," the attorney began, casting a stern glance over the assembly, "that the will I am about to read is not yet being probated. No action will be taken with regard to the deceased's estate until a certificate of death has been issued. Is that clear?"
He looked directly at a young woman on the couch to his right, who had been twittering noisily into the ear of the young man beside her. She was wearing tight jeans and an even tighter Lynyrd Skynyrd tank top, but it was her algae-green lipstick that demanded the most attention. "Oh, right. Whatever," she said with a plastic smile.
The lawyer nodded slowly, not bothering to conceal his disdain. "I myself personally prepared this testament quite recently. I will admit that its terms are a bit unusual, but rest assured that Mrs. Murchison was in perfectly sound mind at the time, and that she followed all the necessary legal steps in altering her previous testament."
"Now, what do you mean by 'previous testament?'" the young man on the couch asked loudly, puffing out his chest with importance. This presented a challenge, since the severely wrinkled suit he was wearing was so small that it held his shoulders like a straight jacket. The suit's equally missized pantlegs ended somewhere in his mid-calf region, revealing worn tube socks and a heavily scuffed pair of loafers. But by far the most striking part of the ensemble was his belt—a wide plastic device laden with pounds of key rings, tools, and beeper-type appliances. "I know she had one with Lang and Madia a while back," he said authoritatively.
The attorney's voice was mild, but he looked down at the other man as if he were something on the bottom of a shoe. "As we have already discussed at length, Mr. Murchison, your mother was in the habit of updating her testament rather regularly. And though her business interests remain with Lang and Madia, she had chosen relatively recently to move her personal affairs to my firm."
Adith sniggered. "She wanted a little more action, that's why. You think this guy's a dud…Those other stiff-necks have all got one foot in the coffin."
Leigh tried not to smile.
"Don't believe me, do you?" the older woman continued. "Lilah carried on with every one of her chauffeurs, didn't you know? My friend Virginia's brother-in-law Milton got a job doing her gardening and when he wouldn't play footsie with her she canned his behind, she did." Adith gave a wink and a knowing nod. "She lived for it." She raised her chin superiorly. "That's what they say, anyway."
Struggling to maintain her composure, Leigh quietly shushed her companion, having the odd feeling that if she didn't, they were both going to wind up in detention. She tried hard to concentrate on the attorney's ramblings, but she had never had much patience with legalese, and Mr. Sheridan seemed consumed with pressing home the concept, particularly to the charming young couple on the couch, that nobody was getting anything yet.
By the time he cleared his throat and began reading the actual document in his hand, an elderly woman in an armchair at his left had dozed off.
"Firstly," the lawyer read, "I would like to reward my most trusted employees for their years of faithful service. To Peggy Linney, I leave—" Mr. Sher
idan paused, then bent down to nudge the sleeping woman awake. "To Peggy Linney," he repeated with irritation, "my most devoted housekeeper, I leave a trust, in addition to her existing pension, which will be used to provide her with room and board in a very comfortable independent-living facility for the rest of her days, with the proviso that none of her wretched, money-grubbing relatives be allowed to move in with her or mooch off of her in any way."
Leigh had to snigger a little herself, not at the words, but at the lawyer's efforts to pronounce them with dignity. Peggy Linney smiled broadly for a moment, then closed her eyes again.
"And to my most faithful chauffeurs…"
Adith gave Leigh a giant wink and delivered a sharp elbow-jab to her ribs. "Told you so!"
The lawyer read off a long list of personal items and nest eggs to be split among a half-dozen men, then bequeathed smaller parcels of money to several other employees, including Nikki. Leigh noted that of the dozen or so people in the room, only the young couple had not yet been mentioned. Were Lilah's son and daughter-in-law her only relatives?
"As for the Murchison residence—" the lawyer raised his voice, and several attendees, most notably Adith Rhodis and the girl with the green lips, sat up at attention. "It is my desire that the house be used to maintain my precious cats in the level of comfort to which they have been accustomed. Toward this end, I would ask that Nikki Loomis continue to reside in the house and care for my pets as long as she so desires, knowing that doing so will earn her her current salary, with regular increases, until such time as all the cats have passed on. I do not wish that anyone else be allowed to reside in my house; however, Jared Loomis may continue to occupy the garage apartment as long as his sister remains in my employ. Should—"
The lawyer was interrupted by the younger Mrs. Murchison, who bounced off the couch spewing a steady stream of vulgarity. "The cats. The CATS? This is my house!" she screamed at the attorney. "I want it. I've always wanted it. Dean said I could have it!"
Dean Murchison rose slowly, the seams in his pants visibly straining. "Now, look, dude," he said calmly, more as if addressing an errant child than an attorney, "That's just wrong. This house belonged to my old man. When my mother died it was supposed to come to me."
The lawyer, who had faced the woman's onslaught without visible reaction, adjusted his tie. "If you would allow me to finish, Mr. Murchison?" he said coolly.
Nikki Loomis cleared her throat, shifting in her own seat just enough to flex her biceps in Dean's direction. He looked at her with contempt, but nonetheless took hold of his wife's arm and pulled her back down to the couch. "Let's hear the rest of it, Rochelle, honey," he soothed, loud enough for the cats upstairs to hear.
The lawyer continued. "As I was reading, Mrs. Murchison states: Should Ms. Loomis choose to leave my employ, or should she not abide by the terms I have set forth, she will be replaced by a like employee, to be hired by Randall Koslow, DVM."
Leigh's ears perked.
"Inasmuch as Randall Koslow has provided my pets with top-notch health care for over thirty years now, and given that he is undoubtedly the only truly honest and dedicated man that I know, I ask that he oversee the care of my pets indefinitely, on the terms of a generous retainer as outlined below."
The lawyer paused, explaining to Leigh that the will then went on at great length about the disposition of each and every cat, and that he would share the details with her father at a later date. The gist of it, she gathered, was that in exchange for a handsome but not excessive amount of money, her father was now the godfather of twenty-three Siamese. "In addition," Mr. Sheridan continued, "I am bequeathing a total of $500,000 to the feline charity or charities of Dr. Koslow's choice."
Rochelle exploded for a second time. She maligned the good name of the Murchison Siamese—and cats in general—for several ear-shattering moments before her husband finally clapped a hand over her mouth. "Half a million," he bellowed, struggling to keep Rochelle down, "to cat charities?"
The lawyer puffed up his own chest. "Mr. Murchison, sir, I ask that you and your wife please restrain yourselves. If you cannot, I'm afraid we will have to end the reading."
"Ouch!" Dean screamed in pain as Rochelle bit his hand, but he managed to pull her into his lap and hold her with a wrestler's grip. He wasn't a big guy, but weighing in at about a hundred pounds, his female opponent was mostly fingernails. Once her arms were safely pinned, he slapped a conciliatory kiss on the back of her neck and glared at the attorney. "We're fine. Now tell us about the rest of the money."
The lawyer eyed Rochelle warily, as if judging the distance between her thick heels and his kneecap. She sat quietly now, lips pouting, but her eyes still flashed fire. The attorney took a step backward, then cleared his throat and launched into a long laundry list of holdings and securities. As soon as things got boring, Adith leaned into Leigh's side. "Whoowie!" she whispered heavily. "Half a million clams. Do you suppose he could send some of that to dog charities?"
"All of the aforementioned assets," the lawyer said meaningfully, waking everyone up again, "I leave to my one and only blood heir."
The words had barely left the attorney's mouth before Dean and Rochelle Murchison ejected themselves from the couch, hugging each other in mid air. "Damn that old witch!" the young man yelled. "I knew she wouldn't do it!"
"Oh, baby!" Rochelle screeched. Her frizzy hair bobbed a good foot as she jumped, and her heels clanked like boulders on the hardwood floor. "We'll buy another house. A bigger house!"
Mr. Sheridan watched them for a moment before interrupting, his dour expression turning even more grim. "Excuse me," he then said firmly, but I am afraid you have misinterpreted the testament. Would you sit again, please?"
The couple stopped bouncing, but made no move to sit. The attorney continued reading anyway.
"Unfortunately, it so happens that my true heir is not the boy I raised as my son, Dean Murchison. To that ungrateful little leech, I leave an annual stipend of $25,000, with regular increases, which, when combined with a decent salary, should leave him reasonably comfortable. He should be glad he lived the life of luxury as long as he did, and take to heart the fact that if he'd been a little more appreciative, I might have overlooked his lack of my own genes.
"As it stands, my blood heir will inherit the lion's share without qualification, provided that proper identification is presented as described herein within five years of the date of my demise."
The room was deathly quiet, other than the slight wheezing sound of Adith’s breathing. Dean and Rochelle had both turned white. The lawyer's face, in contrast, was quite red, and he eyed them both with a healthy dose of apprehension. Nikki stood up.
"I don't believe it," Peggy Linney said quietly.
"True heir?" One of the ex-cooks piped up. "I don't get it. What does she mean?"
The lawyer's face got redder. "It appears that Mrs. Murchison gave birth to a child who was not Dean Murchison, and that she wishes her blood relative to inherit. I'm afraid the will does not go into particulars about how or why this is the case."
"Who's the real father, then?" demanded a husky, gray-haired ex-chauffeur. "Does he get anything?"
"Yeah, how old is the kid?" demanded another, younger one.
"Gentlemen, please," the attorney pleaded. "I'm afraid I simply don't have the answers you're looking for. I was Mrs. Murchison's attorney, not her personal confidant. Besides which, I must strongly caution you that until we have a legal certificate of death—"
His last words were drowned out in the clatter as nearly everyone present jumped up and began chattering excitedly. Dean and Rochelle, still on their feet, remained standing like statues.
"Do you have any idea what this means?" Adith twittered, her eyes blazing. "Lilah Murchison has another child out there—a very rich child. Who could it be? Oh my, and when could she have had him? She was so very thin…" She rose and took a step toward the door, turning when she realized Leigh wasn't following. "Well, come on, honey! I
need to get to a phone. The girls are going to die. This'll even shake up Bud! Did you know Lilah winked at him once?"
Leigh took her companion by the arm and sat the older woman back down. The uncomfortable feeling that had been brewing in her stomach ever since she read the message on the rock had just graduated into an ulcer. If the truth comes out, I'll kill you. Maybe the two acts of vandalism weren’t related, but she couldn’t help wondering if "the truth" wasn’t at that moment traveling somewhere in Number One Son’s intestines. "Mrs. Rhodis," she asked intently, "how well did you know Lilah Murchison?"
"Oh, honey," Adith said with a chuckle. "That woman hasn't talked to the likes of me since the moon landing. But I used to know her. Back when she was Lilah Beemish—Avalon's own town tramp. My little cousin Laverne and her used to hang out some, but my aunt put a stop to that. 'Them Beemishes are nothing but trash,' she'd say."
A trashy woman with at least one big secret, Leigh thought nervously. She knew the black-widow stories as well as anybody—three husbands, three suspicious deaths. The first one Lilah had married quite young, and supposedly just to get out of town. But the marriage had ended prematurely in a bizarre car crash, and she had limped back into town a penniless widow. The second husband and source of her current wealth she had pursued quite shamelessly—much to the chagrin of his well-connected wife, whom he had coldly cast aside. That husband had died of a heart attack, which to the locals meant poisoning. The last marriage was to Albert Murchison, Dean’s presumed father, who had died in his sleep—a.k.a., a well-placed pillow.
Leigh had never really believed that any of the men were murdered. "Adith," she asked, "Mrs. Murchison was no spring chicken when Dean was born, was she?"
"Lord, no, honey," Adith answered gaily. "She was forty if she was a day. But Albert desperately wanted a son, and time was running out."