The Bequest

by Nancy Boyarsky

  The reporter also had found a woman she’d gone to college with—someone Nicole didn’t even remember. She described Nicole as “a wonderful person, funny, bright, and genuinely nice.” Finally, they’d interviewed Brad, her ex-husband. Seeing his name made her stomach knot. But, as she read it, this part of the story surprised and saddened her: “Nicole is incapable of what the papers were suggesting,” said Graves. “She’d never take advantage of someone to get money, much less kill anyone. She just isn’t made that way. The worst mistake I ever made was not fighting harder to keep her. I screwed up, and the worst thing that came of it was losing Nicole.”

  Next to the story was a photo of her, one she’d never seen before. Brad must have given it to the paper. It showed Nicole playing with his niece when she was small. She was smiling into the little girl’s face, and the child was smiling back. She felt tears well up. She’d never go back to Brad, didn’t even want to talk to him—he’d messed up their lives and their finances pretty badly. But she did appreciate his good word. And, as for the reporter, Albee, she felt like sending him a thank-you note.

  Around 2:00 p.m., she received a call from Freeman. “The coroner is releasing Mr. Blair’s body. You mentioned that your law firm would take care of the arrangements.” He gave her the number of the coroner’s office, and she sent a memo to the partners. Then, after double-checking with Di Angelo, she arranged for a funeral home to pick up Blair’s body from the morgue.

  Nicole chose a place in Culver City, because it was the closest to the firm. She explained to the undertaker what Robert had requested in his final instructions, a small nondenominational service with a closed casket.

  “You can’t put an announcement in the paper or let any word of the funeral slip out,” she said. “It would attract a crowd of curiosity seekers and the media. He had no family, so the event will be strictly people from the office. We’ll need a small room, one that would fit about…” She paused to think about it, “twenty to twenty-five people.” The date was set for Wednesday, two days away. She sent Breanna with the company’s credit card to choose a coffin and make arrangements, explaining once again that, under no circumstances, should anyone outside the firm hear about it. She’d just settled at her desk again when she remembered her dinner date with Josh. He was at work and probably hadn’t seen the day’s news. With a sinking heart, she realized she couldn’t possibly go to his house. The paparazzi would be even more intent on following her, and she didn’t want them to find out about Josh. The “love triangle” headline would morph into something worse. She could imagine how it would make her look. And she couldn’t inflict this misery on Josh.

  She started to call him on her cell. Then, remembering it had been hacked, used her office phone instead.

  “Hi,” he said. “Only three hours and,” he paused, apparently checking his watch, “thirty-three minutes until I see you. I can’t wait.”

  “I’m really sorry, Josh, but I can’t make it,” Nicole said. “Look at the latest on XHN and you’ll see why. Robert Blair left me money, rather a lot of it. Believe me, I don’t want it. He was a nut job. The tabloids found out about the inheritance and some other stuff. So now the whole hornets’ nest is back on my doorstep. If I come to your place, they’re sure to follow. I can’t drag you into this mess—for both our sakes.”

  “Why don’t I drive out there and pick you up? You can arrange for the building to let me into the garage, and I’ll meet you there. The press won’t know my car.”

  “I really want to see you,” she said. “But it’s just not going to happen tonight. I’m sorry.”

  He tried to persuade her, and she had to keep repeating the same thing. “You don’t want to get mixed up in this. I can’t let you.” At last he seemed to realize that she wasn’t going to change her mind. “Look,” he said, before they hung up, “call me later, OK?”

  Nicole said she would and added, “Promise me you won’t believe everything you read in those stories.”

  As soon as she hung up, the phone rang again. This time it was Detective Miller. Before she had a chance to tell him to call Sue, he said, “Listen, I know your attorney told you not to talk to me. But I’m calling about something completely different. We’re looking at the money in this murder case. We have reason to believe someone Blair was doing business with had him killed. We’re hoping you can help us figure out who it might be. Maybe he told you something you don’t even realize is important.”

  She repeated, word for word, what Sue had told her to say.

  “Yes, yes,” he said, impatiently. “But that was when you might have been considered a suspect. That’s not what we’re talking about here. You’re no longer a suspect. You’re a witness. You see the difference?”

  “I’m sorry but you’ll have to talk to Sue.”

  “Don’t you want to help us find the person who killed your friend?” he said.

  What she really wanted to say was that Robert was no friend of hers. Instead she repeated what she’d just said.

  “All right,” he said. “If that’s the way you want to play it.” It sounded like a threat. He hung up without saying goodbye. Another blow fell at 3:00 p.m., when Kevin Di Angelo called her in to see him. To her surprise, all four of the firm’s senior partners were sitting on the couches in Di Angelo’s large corner office. She’d had very little contact with any of them except for Di Angelo. There was Richard Bascomb, a bespectacled professorial-looking man, who always wore a bow tie. On the other couch was Rex Smith, a polite and soft-spoken man who was the firm’s point man on tax loopholes. Next to him was Jonathan Rice. Rice was a white-haired, unmade-bed of a man, whose scruffy appearance belied the fact that he was a major behind-the-scenes political force, one of the city’s most powerful kingmakers. He rarely came into the office except when he had an appointment to meet with his single client, the billionaire financier and philanthropist, Ernest Pizer. Pizer’s name was on museums, hospitals, theaters, and at least one building on every college campus in L.A.

  Looking at the lineup, Nicole had the feeling she was about to be fired, or perhaps something worse, although she couldn’t imagine what. She felt a little faint.

  “I’m really sorry, Nicole, but we’ve talked it over, and we have to insist you take time off—a few weeks at least. With pay, of course. The media presence, as I’m sure you’re aware, has become unmanageable. We have to let it run its course. These idiots will get tired of hounding you and move on. Once the story dies down, you can come back.”

  She was quiet, thinking it over. Maybe they weren’t going to fire her this minute. They might be planning to wait until later and tell her not to bother coming back. As she thought about it, she realized she didn’t really care. Di Angelo was right, of course. Under the present circumstances, work had become impossible. Just getting into the building and out again was physically and mentally exhausting.

  Di Angelo mistook her silence for hesitation. “You can use the time to get out of town. You won’t want to fly a commercial airline, of course, but we have an agreement with a private airline at Santa Monica Airport. You can go somewhere on the firm’s dime. I know, why don’t you fly to Hawaii? Soak up a little sun. Or go to London, or even Majorca, if you prefer.”

  The reference made her cringe. He’d been reading the tabloids.

  “Thank you for being so considerate,” she managed to say. “You’re right. Things are completely out of control. I’d welcome some peace and quiet.”

  “The attorney we’ve hired for you—Sue Price, is it?—will take care of the details, expenses, and the like.”

  The four partners stood. Di Angelo came over to shake her hand, while the other three, being more restrained, nodded in her direction.

  “Oh, and why don’t you use the executive elevator to avoid—um—unwanted attention. It goes directly to the garage.”

  “I left my car with the valet,” she said. “Even if I have them bring it to me in the garage, the paparazzi are going to recognize it th
e minute I drive out.”

  “Take one of our loaner cars. Get your things, then come back and let Mindy know I told you to use our elevator. She can take you there. After you’ve left—let’s say an hour from now—I’ll have someone go downstairs and let the media know you’ve taken a leave of absence. Hopefully, they’ll go away.”

  Nicole went back to her office to arrange for the loaner car. Then she got her purse, as well as the tote bag with Robert’s envelope, and returned to Di Angelo’s outer office. She explained to Mindy what he’d said about the elevator. She made it a point to give Mindy as little information as possible. Hearing what Nicole had to say, Mindy forced her little rosebud mouth into a smile and said, “Well, we’re really going to miss you around here, Nicole.”

  I’ll bet, thought Nicole. Who else could possibly furnish you with such juicy gossip?

  Mindy got up and motioned for Nicole to follow. They walked down the corridor toward the executive elevator, Mindy leading the way. She was plump and given to wearing tight dresses that emphasized her many curves. Today she was wearing a print jersey knockoff of the classic Diane Von Furstenberg wrap-around. The gently draped folds of the skirt swung as she walked. The floor-to-ceiling windows to their right gave a startlingly clear view of the Century Plaza Hotel across the street and the city stretched out behind it. The day was sunny, the sky bright blue, and the air so clear they could see the snow-capped San Gabriel Mountains miles to the east.

  They both stopped when they saw who had just pressed the elevator’s button and was waiting for it to arrive. It was Rice’s billionaire client, Ernest Pizer. Nicole had never seen him in person but recognized him from pictures in the paper and on the news. He was roly-poly and bald with a fringe of white hair. With a white mustache and beard, he would have made a perfect Santa Claus. What surprised her was that he was short, not much taller than she.

  Mindy grabbed Nicole’s arm and stopped. “Let’s wait,” she said in a whisper. Her meaning was clear. Nicole, a lowly office worker, couldn’t possibly ride the elevator with the likes of Ernest Pizer.

  But Pizer had other ideas. He looked at Nicole and said in a kind voice, “Well, what are you waiting for young lady? Why don’t you ride down with me and keep a lonely old man company?” Behind his glasses, his eyes twinkled, and he smiled.

  Nicole smiled back and stepped forward to wait with him.

  Mindy, her behind swaying in rhythm to her walk, departed back along the hall. When the elevator came, Nicole and Pizer got in. It started down, in smooth, almost silent motion.

  “I know who you are,” he said, matter-of-factly. “All that news coverage?” He shook his head. “What a mess this unfortunate event has made for you. You have my condolences. I’ve worked all my life to keep that mob away from me. I have any number of media representatives, media consultants. They’re not much help. Once something goes viral…” He shook his head. “Dreadful, just dreadful.”

  “It really is,” she agreed. “But eventually it will stop, and I’ll get my life back.”

  He looked at her and said, “I certainly hope so.” But the smile had disappeared, and his expression had soured, as if he thought it unlikely that this would turn out well. A moment later, the door opened at the garage level, and they both got out. Pizer nodded toward her, “Goodbye, young lady,” he said. “And good luck.”

  Eleven

  Nicole headed directly for the garage manager’s office to claim her loaner car. As she stood, waiting for the valet to deliver the vehicle, she wondered about Pizer, what sort of person he was. In the elevator, he’d seemed kind, even empathetic.

  Then she recalled Robert telling her about Pizer’s various marriages, prenups, and divorces. His original wife, long gone, had been replaced by a series of trophy wives. A couple of years ago Robert had told her that Wife Number One had reemerged to demand more money. When she came into the office to negotiate, she’d called Pizer “a crooked old mobster,” before her lawyer, Rice, and Rick Sargosian had hustled her into a conference room and shut the door. She’d gotten her settlement, Robert had said, “a big one.”

  Thinking of Pizer’s billions, Nicole felt that few became that rich without hurting a lot of other people on the way. And that most of the big donors to charity were not contributing in order to “give back” or “make the world a better place” as they were fond of saying, but to satisfy the needs of their own egos. Thinking it over, she realized that was a pretty broad generalization. There had to be some exceptions.

  The media didn’t recognize her in the company’s loaner car, and she drove home unimpeded. She was planning to pack enough clothes for a couple of weeks, although she had no plan, no idea where she was going. Staying with her sister was out of the question. Now that she was sure the media had hacked her phone, it would be easy for them to figure out where Stephanie lived. She called Steph daily. All the paparazzi would need was a reverse phone directory. Child’s play. They’d camp outside Steph’s apartment, disrupt her life, and infuriate her neighbors.

  When Nicole reached her building, a mob of paparazzi was already in front, waiting for her. She wondered if the partners had wasted any time telling them she was leaving the office. Probably not, judging by the gathering of TV vans and cameras. She’d left her garage door opener in her car, so using the building’s underground parking was out of the question. She parked on the street and got out, making sure to bring her purse and tote bag with her. Leaving anything, even a grocery bag, in a parked car was an invitation to the paparazzi, not to mention thieves, who specialized in smash and grab “retrieval.”

  She walked through the crowd, ignoring questions, and went into the building without even attempting to disguise her displeasure or tell them to call Sue. A couple of men with cameras rushed her as she opened the door, as if they planned to push past her into the lobby, but she was quicker than they were. She closed the door, and it locked before they could get there.

  She took the elevator to the second floor, opened the door of her condo, and quickly stepped back. The place had been torn apart; everything was on the floor. Even the cushions on her couch had been slit open, and some of the foam filling was falling out. She quickly checked the second bedroom, where she kept her computer. It was gone. Luckily, her important files were backed up on the cloud––not that she had anything crucial on her computer, but it did have her address book, email, and other items that would have taken a lot of work to reassemble.

  In her bedroom, the drawers and closets were all open, her clothes scattered on the floor. The mattress had been pulled off the bed and was tipped on its side, leaning against the box springs. The chair to her vanity table was upside down. She righted it and sat down, trying to collect her thoughts.

  Finally, she picked up her purse, got out her phone, and called 911. Then she called Sue.

  “How dreadful,” Sue said. “When the police leave, pack a few things and come to my office. It doesn’t matter if reporters follow you. They already know I’m your attorney, and it’s not hard to figure out where my office is. Once you get here, I should be able to sneak you out of the building without anyone following us.

  By now Nicole could hear police sirens. She was thinking of how thrilled the horde outside would be with this new development. Their immediate hope, of course, would be that she was being arrested. But a break-in would satisfy some of their blood lust, provide another day’s headlines, and stir up speculation about what the burglar had been after.

  This break-in was another sign that Detective Miller had been right. Whoever had killed Robert and trashed his house was now targeting her. She thought of the man who’d tried to run her down with his car and attempted to force her into a head-on collision. It was all tied together.

  The intercom rang: It was the police. She buzzed them into the building. Once inside the condo, they wandered around looking at the mess.

  A cop with a goatee and a beer belly seemed to be in charge. He introduced himself as Sergeant Gibbs. When sh
e identified herself, she could tell from his expression that he recognized her name. He picked up the remains of the sofa cushions and asked her to have a seat while he called headquarters. When he was done with his call, he said, “Is anything missing?”

  “So far the only thing I’ve noticed is that my computer is gone. I’ll know more when I sort through this mess.”

  “When did it happen?

  “I stayed at my sister’s last night and went directly to work from there. So it could have been any time since noon yesterday.”

  The cop nodded. “Has the building got surveillance?”

  It did. She gave them the phone number of the property management firm used by the condo association. The firm took care of security. When Sergeant Gibbs was done with his questions, he told her that he and his partner would wait with her until Detective Miller arrived. Headquarters had notified Miller about the break-in, since she was involved in a case he was handling.

  She explained that she was packing up so she could stay somewhere else for a few days. The policeman seemed to think this was a good idea.

  She started picking up clothes to take, folding them neatly and placing them in a suitcase. She had just finished packing when the buzzer from the front door sounded. She went to the intercom: It was Detective Miller.

  After he arrived at her door, she let him in, and the two uniformed cops left.

  Looking around at the mess, Miller said, “Well, you’re a real magnet for trouble, Ms. Graves. Anything missing?”

  “So far, I think it’s just my computer.”

  “What’s on it? You work from home?”

  “Well, yes, sometimes. I work for a law firm, and things do come up after hours. All of my work-related stuff has encrypted passwords. But you’re right; I’ll have to let the firm know the computer was stolen.”

  He didn’t seem much interested, instead making a tour through her condo, emerging back in the living room “So, this must have happened in the last twenty-four hours, right? You stayed with your sister last night.”