Clamour of Crows

by Ray Merritt

  She then took me on a tour.

  The downstairs consisted of a large living room adjacent to a modern eat-in kitchen. In the living room, she had installed two temporary desks with phones and Internet access, as well as a printer. The remainder of the first floor was separated by a hall and consisted of Ben’s library and his bedroom. The second floor held two additional bedrooms. One was hers and the other was utilized most nights by Ben’s driver. Terry advised that everyone referred to him as Viggie. The third floor, she noted, was Ben’s son’s domain. In the back there was a beautiful garden that separated the townhouse from a 200-year-old carriage house. That was where Terry and her assistants worked. It also housed Ben’s personal files.

  This would be our digs for the duration of this project. Decorated in a cozy English country style, the house exuded warmth. Dark mahogany-walled rooms populated by charming, compatible art and artifacts were made inviting by the presence of overstuffed chairs and couches.

  It could not be more commodious. And fitting.

  It was truly hobbit-like.

  Ben’s library was the centerpiece. It had floor-to-ceiling bookcases on two sides. There were hundreds of books carefully arranged on those shelves. A quick perusal showed they were mostly children’s literature. Mark Twain’s works, C. S. Lewis’s Narnia series, Saint-Exupéry’s books, and Collodi’s Pinocchio were the ones I recognized.

  A large Edwardian pedestaled partner’s desk, with a well-scuffed green leather writing surface, occupied the center of the room.

  It was there Terry suggested I work.

  She guided me to the middle shelf behind the desk where Ben’s rare books were housed behind glass. There, bound in its original green cloth with blue lettering, was a first edition of The Hobbit, along with a first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The latter, she informed me proudly, was acquired by Ben at auction for $1.6 million. As if to justify this extravagance, she quickly pointed out that only twenty-two remained in existence and that this one was Lewis Carroll’s own personal copy. The Hobbit original, she noted as an afterthought, cost only $35,000—a steal in view of the fact that another original-edition copy had recently sold in London at auction for $120,000. Pretty impressive for a book that went on to sell more than 100 million copies. The fourteen books in the Wizard of Oz series came from Ben’s grandfather.

  I made a mental note to tell Drew and Frank that these books were out of bounds. I had already ordered copies of annotated versions of each to be delivered here and Terry advised that they had in fact arrived.

  They would be required reading.

  Terry, in almost reverential tones, went on to explain that Ben’s great-great-uncle was the creator of the Oz series. His parents were proud of the success of their paternal ancestor and made Oz a big part of Ben’s life.

  Terry excused herself as the phone rang.

  I could visualize Big Ben indulging his hobby here, with a fire roaring and Argos at his feet. I had a feeling that being here would give us a better sense of Ben than anything we could glean from our upcoming interviews. This space I was sure was his safe harbor from the storms that were besetting him and perhaps it was here that he hid the secrets and mysteries he spoke of in his letter.

  From the history that Terry gave me, I surmised that Ben, as an only child, had endured a cloistered youth, spending much time at home. He found his excitement and inventiveness in the imagined company of Alice, Dorothy, Bilbo, and Frodo.

  Terry returned to advise that Viggie had just called and he would be here soon with the two associates. I quickly explained what we were up to, noting that she and Viggie would be an important part of our team since they were so close to Ben and were both signatories on his letter.

  I reminded her to call me Tuck.

  Terry then paused, as if calling up some internal energy. “Oh . . . Tuck, there is something I think you should know. Viggie is my adopted son. It’s not really a secret, but Ben and I thought it best not to publicize it. A close friend of Ben’s—an Italian who was Ben’s European banker—asked him to bring his nephew to America. The child’s family had suffered a violent death and the boy had started falling in with a bad lot. Ben couldn’t refuse and he brought Viggie here. I had no children so I agreed to take him in. Later I formally adopted him so he could stay in this country. When he was eighteen, he went to work for Ben and has been his bodyguard and driver ever since. They truly love each other.”

  Her voice trailed off as her eyes got misty.

  “Both of us will miss him terribly. We will help you in any way we can.”

  “I appreciate that, Terry, and I know this has to be very hard on you.”

  Life for everyone touched by Ben’s death was going to be very different and, for some, the future was going to be daunting. Terry was just beginning to process that.

  She still spoke of Ben in the present tense.

  14

  The assistants arrived wearing their traditional associate armor—earnest looks, attentive ears, and proper decorum—which almost covered their understandable sense of unease.

  Both would soon be approaching their half-life in the Firm—that point when an associate has enough experience to know whether to move on or stay the course.

  The rigors of life as a young lawyer in a Wall Street firm like Winston Barr & Trombley are hard to sustain. Impossible demands are put on young cogs, as they are called by unsympathetic partners who secretly envy their drive, intelligence, and energy.

  Advancement within the Firm is like an insidious form of mountain climbing: step-by-step doggedness until you reach the first plateau—partnership—and then without much respite you start up all over again. And those who precede you often plug up the footholds on their way up so the Sherpas won’t surpass them. Unfairly, associates are often viewed as overpaid, arrogant, pampered, and cutthroat. That is an outsider’s view—probably popularized by Shakespeare.

  People tend to hate all lawyers except their own.

  My associates were fairly stereotypical. Drew Benson got her undergraduate degree from Barnard College, and her law degree from NYU. Charlotte said she was extremely smart. Her annual reviews, which Charlotte shared with me, noted “relentless drive,” “stellar academics,” “good instincts,” “prioritized,” and “New York moxie.”

  Good traits for this assignment.

  An added plus, I noticed immediately, was her embracing empathy. She wasn’t a “looker” in the traditional sense; she was a bit too zaftig for that. However, her eyes and her eruptive laughter sealed the deal for me. With her black hornrimmed glasses and her tousled hair, she seemed intent on cultivating an aura of benign neglect. If she was trying to be retro-chic, it was lost on me.

  Frank Dixon was Drew’s polar opposite. He was tall, with an athlete’s body, and was a double-ivy—Yale undergraduate, Harvard Law. Vigorously metro in his dress and demeanor, he seemed quite self-assured. He was properly reticent and spoke little, deferring to Drew when it came to polite palaver. Eventually he did thaw a bit and told me that his friends call him “Dixie.”

  Here we were—the five of us, Drew, Dixie, Terry, Viggie, and myself—setting off to solve a potential crime. Throw Nip—our Scooby-Doo—into the mix and the analogy is complete.

  After a quick site tour, we settled into the library where I laid out our endeavor. I started by giving them each a folder with the prec letter, Ben’s Will, and his prenup.

  “The first thing I suggest is that you read the prec letter. Let me try to set this assignment in perspective. Ben wanted to put his life in order. That seems clear from the prec letter. As I am sure you know, this type of testamentary letter is not that uncommon. The more common ones designate who is to get what bauble. Others are used to clear up some of the ambiguities in relationships and express emotions in ways not appropriate in Wills. This one, however, goes much further. Ben intimates that perhaps someone might try to end his life before he could accomplish some unstated goals. He set forth all this in
a letter to his executor—a clever ploy on his part. I suspect he knew that his suspicions would be kept confidential, and that Evan and the Firm would look into these accusations thoroughly and discreetly. A private investigative agency might well have succumbed to the lucre that would flow from leaking details to the press and would be insensitive to the attorney-client relationship issue. So that task has devolved to us. Our client is Ben’s estate, as I view it, but we are expected to report to the Firm’s Executive Committee.

  “A word of caution: What we learn here stays here. This letter and its potential import might involve sex, drugs, infidelity, suicide, corporate intrigue, family struggles, and perhaps even murder, not to mention the impact our findings might have on the distribution of two billion dollars. This I promise you is very heady stuff. Not your standard law firm fare. So as juicy as this may be, do NOT share this with your friends. Zip it up!”

  They seemed to get the message.

  “The letter that Ben left is full of flourishes that make it difficult to decipher. It is filled with references to the works of three writers of children’s classics. The first is Tolkien, who, as you know, wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Both his stories feature a community of little creatures called hobbits. In both tales, the heroes—Bilbo and Frodo—leave the comforts of home at the request of a wizard to help some elves gain a treasure that is rightfully theirs. That is a gross simplification, but you get the drift.”

  Both associates nodded, tentatively.

  “Two other children’s classics are frequently referred to in the letter. One is the Wizard of Oz series that L. Frank Baum created. I found out that the author was Ben’s ancestor. The other works Ben cites are by Lewis Carroll, in particular his Alice books.

  “I have copies of the annotated versions of Carroll’s, Baum’s, and Tolkien’s principal works for both of you to take home. It’s quite a load. Reading them is your second assignment.”

  They gave each other quizzical glances.

  They were already bonding.

  “Let me give you some help with Ben’s letter. You will see that he includes a few phrases in Tolkien rune—an alphabet that Tolkien created to use in his stories like a secret code. I have translated them for you with the help of Google. First is the title—‘My Legacy.’ The second says, ‘It is my love for Belladonna that sustains me.’ The last rune decodes as, ‘My nightshade has saved me more than once.’ They baffle me. I’ve no clue what they refer to, nor do I know the significance of the symbol that appears between them.”

  My associates were multitasking, writing notes and reading the letter at the same time. To be merciful, I paused for several moments.

  “A few other comments. The ‘black menace’ could refer to Ben’s cancer. ‘Roäc’ is the chief of all ravens and serves as a messenger in The Hobbit. Some more. ‘Kerberos’ is the god Hades’s three-headed dog in Greek mythology. It’s ‘Cerberus’ in Latin. Namárië, according to Google, is a Tolkien poem written in Quenya, another language that he constructed. Best I can figure out, it means ‘fare well.’ The rest of the allusions must have some meaning and that’s for us to discover.

  “Now the cast of human characters: Maude is Ben’s first wife. She died many years ago. Tremaine is his current wife. Peter Abelard is her confidant and the executive director of the Baum Foundation. Kati Krkavec was Ben’s mistress. She was with him in his suite when he died. Luc is Mr. Grogaman, the recently installed interim CEO of Ozone—Ben’s former chief operating officer and the head of ClearAire, Ozone’s military contracts division. Belladonna, which I suspect is Italian or Latin for ‘pretty lady,’ may in fact not refer to a person but rather to an herb—Atropa belladonna. Hard to tell.

  “Well, that’s enough for now. I suggest we retire to our desks. I’ll check on lunch with Terry and we’ll reconvene when it’s ready.”

  Before I did that, though, I went back to the library, closed the door, and spent a few minutes taking stock. I hadn’t slept well. Not that I ever did. Worse than usual, though. This matter was daunting. The possibilities kept rattling around in my head like balls in an arcade game.

  15

  Terry was busy at work in the kitchen. She had just finished watering a massive amaryllis plant that was the kitchen’s centerpiece. She told me it was her favorite flower and that Ben had given her one thirty years ago. Since then she had never been without. She had already prepared a feast that even hobbits, well known for their epicurean conceits, would have approved of—a large sandwich selection and a medley of mixed veggies, with sides of homemade potato salad and coleslaw. Quintessential comfort foods. She even had root beer and cream soda.

  She had set the table outside in the small yard that separated the main house from the carriage house. That space had been turned into a country garden, complete with a pergola, covered with clinging roses that had long since lost their blooms. Nonetheless the unusually warm autumn day made eating outside a special treat.

  “Terry, before you serve this feast, I’d like to ask you a few questions. You know what our assignment is, I assume.”

  “Mr. Trombley told me that a team of lawyers would be conducting a discreet investigation into Ben’s death to confirm that it was accidental or unavoidable.”

  I suppressed a smile.

  Evan was being his controlling self. To the extent that this was a contest, he would want to set the rules, pick the sides, referee the game, and decide the outcome.

  Senior partners are like that.

  “Well . . . we are approaching this matter with an open mind. The key to our inquiry is the Precatory Letter that you, I assume, typed as well as witnessed. We will be interviewing all those involved, at least to the extent that they are willing to cooperate. You can play an important role in this, as can Viggie. For starters, could you tell me what led up to the letter?”

  “Tuck, as I told you this morning, Ben was the most important person in my life and my son’s, so you can count on us. As to the letter, Ben had been brooding about matters relating to his business and his personal affairs for some time. They seemed to be more pressing of late. These were in addition to his concerns about his health . . . and his son’s health. Before he dictated the letter, he spent a lot of time drafting it. Once it was finished, he burned all of his drafts. To be candid, he seemed to take a lot of pleasure in the process. Ben always loved mysteries, word games, puzzles . . . things like that. Also, he had recently become quite agitated. I overheard several very heated phone conversations over the last several months. He had even taken to closing his study door so I could not make out what was said. That was not like Ben. He was always very open and easygoing . . . until recently.”

  “Whom were the conversations with?”

  “I don’t recall them all, but some were with Mrs. Baum, others were with Mr. Grogaman and his assistants, and with Ben’s lady friend. Oh . . . and he had several with his daughter’s friend, Eloise. Another I remember was with Mr. Abelard. Ben was swearing. That was not like him.”

  “Did you find his letter unusual?”

  “No, not really. Ben loved to write with a flourish. He loved to play with words and he loved riddles. He fancied himself a bit of a philosopher. He felt strongly about life. I think he wanted to create a document that summed up his imagination and his beliefs. You know, deep down, he was a fabulist. He really believed that one could communicate with animals and that spirits are real. He just couldn’t quite convince those of us around him to embrace his beliefs . . . at least not completely. I must admit I loved to listen to him when he got going. He had a touch of the preacher in him.”

  The warmth she had for Ben was palpable.

  “Do you think it possible that someone would harm him?” I asked.

  “I just don’t know. It’s the one part of the letter that really bothered me. I tried to ask him about it, but he wouldn’t talk about it.”

  “What about drugs?”

  That brought her up abruptly. “Ben never was a drug ad
dict! I can assure you of that! But he was an adventurer—a bit of an aging hippie. I’m sure he experimented with some recreational drugs on occasion.”

  I sensed that I had gone far enough for today so I eased up. “

  Well, I was impressed with your typing of the runes.”

  “Oh, don’t be!” she laughed. “Ben had a typewriter especially altered to put Tolkien’s Quenya alphabet where the capital letters normally are. We had fun with that.”

  “One other thing. What was that symbol all about?”

  Terry’s head snapped back, almost imperceptibly. “Ah . . . don’t really know. Obviously he added that himself afterward. Ben fancied himself the artist.”

  She then turned back to the food.

  I helped her bring lunch out to the serving table and then summoned my lieges. When they arrived the table was set. Viggie had already taken his sandwich and the cannoli that was laid out especially for him and was making his exit, nodding with practiced deference.

  Lunch for lawyers is normally done alone at one’s desk. The days of martini matinee tastings have passed. Client lunches have long been out of vogue. It was hard for clients to digest food at the rates their lawyers were charging, especially knowing that, in addition, their meal would find its way into their bills as a disbursement.

  So lunch outside in a private garden, eating food that was not prepared the night before, and that was served on something other than wax paper, was a special treat. Our break was spent exchanging irrelevancies as a way for us to get more familiar. We adjourned after Terry steadfastly resisted our offers to help clean up.

  16

  Back in the library, which had quickly become our war room, I began our next debriefing—Ben’s Will.