When the Sun Goes Down

by Gwynne Forster

  After the show, he put his hand in his pocket and fished out eleven dollars and forty-three cents. Twenty-four hours earlier, he’d had seven hundred dollars. He swore aloud. Something had to give.

  Chapter Two

  Carson Montgomery had no intention of becoming involved in a fight over a will. Neither he nor his detectives had time for the shenanigans of which siblings were capable. He telephoned Gunther Farrell.

  “Good morning, Mr. Farrell, this is Detective Carson Montgomery. Edgar Farrell has asked me to find his father’s will, but as you and your sister are also beneficiaries, I’d like to know where you stand in this.”

  “Thanks for calling. I certainly approve of any legal steps to locate that will, and I’d like to meet you, if you have time. What about fifteen minutes this afternoon?”

  “Would you care to meet for a short lunch?” Carson asked.

  “I’m on York, not far from Madison.”

  “I’m on Calvert, about five blocks from you. What do you say we meet at the Frigate? Would twelve-fifteen suit you?”

  Gunther looked at his watch. “I can do that. Twelve-fifteen it is. First to get there takes a table.”

  “Right.”

  Carson hung up. From that short conversation, he had a sense that Gunther Farrell was an honorable man and that, in some ways, he towered above his brother. He especially appreciated that Gunther wanted to meet him, obviously in order to appraise him as a person. He wanted the same advantage in respect to Gunther.

  Minutes before twelve-fifteen, he entered the Frigate, a landmark seafood restaurant, and while he stood at the maître d’s desk, Gunther walked up and asked for him. They shook hands, and the maître d’ led them to a corner table.

  “Thank you for meeting me,” Gunther said, and Carson laughed inwardly. The man was set to have the conversation go his way, but he’d see about that.

  “It’s advantageous for me, too,” Carson said. “I like to know who I’m dealing with, and I can’t make that assessment over the phone. I confess that your brother didn’t make the best impression on me.”

  “Desperate people rarely represent themselves well,” Gunther said, to which Carson raised an eyebrow. “Edgar thinks he lives on his own terms, because he knows that as long as he has that guitar and ten healthy fingers, he can make a living. He’s an excellent guitarist, and that’s all he seems to care about. He told me how he expects to pay you, and I offered to split that with him. Our father was a rich man who cared little for anything other than his money and property. If you get six percent of a share, you’ll get a bundle.”

  “What about your sister? Where is she, and how will she react to this plan?”

  “Our sister is the youngest of the three, and if Edgar and I both agree on a thing, she most often accepts it. She’s a public relations officer on a cruise ship that’s currently docked in Nice.” He seemed to study Carson. Then he said, “This is a clever thing Edgar’s done. I hope you’ll agree to take the job.”

  “I’m accustomed to looking for people and for clues to problems. This will be a challenge, but it definitely will not be boring. I’ll phone Edgar and write out a contract for him.” He looked up at the waiter, whose face bore an expression of exasperation. “I’ll have a big bowl of New England clam chowder and a Caesar salad.”

  “I’ll have the same,” Gunther said.

  “What do you do for a living?” Carson asked Gunther.

  “I own a software company that designs, produces, and distributes intelligent computer games and puzzles for all ages.”

  “How does one get into that?” Carson asked him.

  “I’ve been doing games and puzzles since I was nine or ten. My father hated it, and when I began doing it for a living after having gotten an MBA, my father all but disowned me. He wanted me to join the Wall Street fat cats and get rich. But since I got through college and graduate school with almost no help from him, I figured I could do as I pleased.”

  “I’m beginning to understand why Edgar thinks you don’t care about your father’s will.”

  Gunther lifted his right shoulder in a quick shrug. “Of course I care. But if it’s never found, I won’t lose a minute of sleep. For Edgar, it’s a lifeline.”

  They finished lunch, walked out together, and shook hands. “I’m glad I met you,” Carson said. “I’d certainly like to see who your sister more closely resembles in personality and outlook, you or your brother.”

  A smile played around Gunther’s lips. “Shirley is her own independent self. She loves us, but she does not walk our walk. You may want to interview her, since each of us has a take on Father and the sort of person he was. I hope to hear from you.”

  “You will indeed.” Carson rushed back to his office and jotted down some notes on his conversation with Gunther. He drafted a contract, phoned Edgar, and read it to him.

  “Just remember this one thing,” Edgar said. “I’m the one you report to. I expect you’ll talk with Shirley and Gunther all you need to, but I’m the one you report to.”

  “I have no problem with that,” Carson said, “so long as it’s agreed that you’re responsible for payment.”

  He hung up, gave the contract to his secretary for typing, and looked up Leon Farrell on the Internet. He discovered that the man earned a fortune speculating in real estate and was known for his scroogelike reputation. At his funeral, only his children, his lawyer, and the preacher and paid pallbearers were present. Carson phoned Gunther, got his father’s address, and contacted the builder of the family home for the house plans. He needed to know every niche in that house and any other of Farrell’s properties, such as vacation homes, automobiles, boats, garages, and the like.

  Two days later, Edgar signed the contract and gave Carson his first interview. “Man, how long is this going to take?” Edgar asked him. “I need the bread, man.”

  “If you read the fine print on the second page of that contract, you’ll see that I made provisions for harassment. If you do that, I can tear up the contract. And I will do it. I’m not begging for work. You got that?”

  “Yeah. I got it, but that will ain’t gonna walk up to you and say, ‘Hello, Mr. Montgomery. Here I am.’”

  “No kidding? And to think I’d planned to get a can of beer, go to your place, sit in front of the TV, and wait for the damned thing to drop in my lap. Look here, Mr. Farrell. You take care of your business and stay out of mine. And if you want to sound clever, try it on somebody else. As far as I’m concerned, that comment was childish. Send my secretary a list of your father’s properties. I’m going to examine every one of them.”

  “Right. I didn’t mean to pull your chain, man, but this has been going on too long, and if we don’t find it by mid-January, the state takes over, siphons off as much as it wants, and then decides of the little that’s left who gets what and what goes where.”

  “Okay. Just send me that list.” He hung up. If he let Edgar Farrell work his nerves, he’d quit the job before he started. He hoped Shirley wasn’t frantic about the will. The last thing he needed was a woman plaguing him 24/7.

  Back in his office, Gunther worked on a computer game in which a mouse tried to teach neighboring cats about the unhappy lives of mice that lived in constant dread of their cat neighbors. After watching a group of preschool children terrorize a playmate, he’d designed the game as a teaching vehicle about the effects of cruelty.

  “When am I getting a chance to try out that game on my Effie?” Medford, one of his assistants, asked him. “I have a feeling she’ll love it.”

  “Maybe. How old is Effie?”

  “She’s four, and practically everything she sees excites her. She’s pretty good at the computer. She reads, writes, counts, and, man, does she love to sing.”

  Gunther stopped working as a thought struck him. “Bring her in tomorrow. I’d like to get her reaction to this.”

  Medford’s lower jaw dropped. “You’ll pay Effie to have fun with that game?”

  “How wi
ll I know kids will love it if I don’t test it? I’ll pay her twelve-fifty an hour.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned. You wouldn’t need her for the whole day, would you?” He held up both hands, palms out. “Just kidding. My wife would take my hide off.”

  “Call for you on line three, Gunther,” his other assistant said.

  He lifted the receiver and pushed the button. “Farrell speaking.”

  “Honey, this is Lissa.” He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. As if he didn’t know her voice. “Any more news about the will, honey? I mean ... did they find it yet?”

  He was unprepared for the burst of anger that seemed almost to consume him. “Who do you mean by ‘they’?” he asked her. “I haven’t been looking for it.”

  “What? But how can we plan on building a new home and doing all the things we want to do if you don’t find the will? I want a big wedding, and—”

  It was too much. He interrupted her. “Why do you think we’re getting married, Lissa? I have never mentioned marriage to you. We are not engaged because I have never asked you to marry me, and you have no right to assume that we’re getting married. If you think I can be railroaded into it, think again.” There! He’d told her, and he should have done it the first time she tried that trick.

  “But we’ve been going together over eight months, and I haven’t been seeing anyone else. How can you do this?”

  “Hold on, Lissa. Did I ever ask you not to see any other man?”

  “No, but you took up my time. Every day is important to me. I’m forty-four years old, and—”

  He nearly swallowed his tongue. That had definitely been a slip. “Forty-four? But you told me you were thirty.” He took a deep breath and exhaled it. “I’m sorry, Lissa, but we’d better call this off right now. I’ve been concerned that each time we’ve had even the smallest confrontation, you solved it by seducing me. At first, I liked it. But you made a habit of it, and I began to resent being manipulated. Sex should be an expression either of need or of love. Where I stand, it’s not for problem-solving and certainly not for controlling another person. It’s been nice knowing you, and I do wish you the best.”

  Relief flooded his whole being. He hung up and returned to the game of mice and cats, whistling as he worked, and the pieces began to fall into place.

  “I think I’ve got it,” he said to Medford several hours later. “If you don’t want to bring Effie here, I could drop by your place with a copy of the game for an hour or so this afternoon.”

  Medford seemed to ponder the alternatives. “I’d like to have you come home with me, but if Effie sees that game this evening, she’ll be uncontrollable for the rest of the night.”

  The following morning, Medford arrived with his daughter, and she hardly needed Gunther’s instructions. He watched, fascinated, as she took to the game as if it were her idea. After testing it and the instructions he had to write for it, he wrote a check for twenty-five dollars and handed it to Effie.

  “Give that to your father,” he said, and thanked her for the visit. When Effie didn’t want to stop playing, he knew he’d hit the jackpot with that game, and he could hardly contain his elation. He’d published only a few games so far, compared to the number of games on the market, and he took pride in their quality and popularity. Some of his competitors had offered to buy him out, and one had attempted to purchase the building in which he had his business. But the building’s owner had refused to sell, and he was grateful for that. This time, he was going to publish and distribute Mice and Cats himself, and the vultures and thieves wouldn’t have a chance at it.

  Gunther was still buoyed by his vision of the future when he received a call from Shirley. “I’ve got two weeks’ shore leave,” she told him. “Can I hang out with you, or will that louse up things with you and Lissa?”

  “Lissa’s history. When will you get here?”

  “Hallelujah. We dock in Fort Lauderdale tomorrow morning. I’ll go home, check things out, and see you day after tomorrow. I hope to sleep indefinitely. How’re things? Did Edgar hire a detective yet?”

  “Yeah, I met him, and I think he’s first class ... at least as a man. We’ll see about his detective skills. He’ll want to interview you.”

  “Fine with me. We can talk about it when I see you. I have this weird feeling that things are going too smoothly. It isn’t like Edgar to be so low-key about a thing that’s so important to him.”

  “You’re right. That hadn’t occurred to me.”

  “I keep telling you I’m smart. See you in a couple of days. Love you.”

  “Love you, too. Bye for now.”

  Gunther hoped that Shirley hadn’t had one of her premonitions. She believed so strongly in them that it wouldn’t surprise him if she had based her decision to take two weeks’ leave on what she called a premonition and which he considered a hunch.

  Gunther hadn’t guessed correctly, but he wasn’t wrong, either. Shirley didn’t believe Edgar to be capable of genteel behavior about anything relating to money. To her mind, there’d be a storm between her brothers, and she meant to do what she could to lessen its force. In her Fort Lauderdale apartment, Shirley packed what she’d need for two weeks, phoned for a taxi, and was soon en route to Ellicott City.

  Gunther met her at the Baltimore / Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.

  “Hey. You look great,” he said. “I must be in the wrong profession.”

  “It’s breathing that fresh, clean sea air. My lungs appreciate it, and my skin loves it.”

  “Tell me about it!”

  “Did you tell Edgar I was coming? I called him several times, but he didn’t answer his phone.”

  “He might not have paid his phone bill.”

  “Yeah. I keep forgetting that he doesn’t operate like most people. He’s not going to like my staying with you, but as much as I love my brother, I can take just so much of him.”

  “Same here, and it’s a pity.”

  Less than an hour after they walked into Gunther’s apartment, the doorbell rang. Shirley opened the door and stared into the face of an angry Edgar.

  “Where’d you come from?” he asked her. “And where’s Gunther?”

  “What’s the matter, Edgar?”

  “What’s the matter? I knew he couldn’t be trusted. I’m paying Montgomery, and if Mister Big Shot wants to contribute, he can damned well give the money to me. I’m no fool. If he thinks that gives him the right to give Montgomery instructions and to demand his report, he’s lamer than I thought. It was my idea, and I get the guy’s report.”

  “Did this detective tell you that Gunther demanded the report?”

  “He didn’t have to. I know when I’m being screwed.”

  “What’s the problem, Edgar?”

  She wondered how long Gunther had been standing there. Probably long enough to decide how to handle the situation.

  Edgar repeated his accusation. “I’m having none of it. This contract has my name on it and mine only as the employer. Got it?”

  Gunther slouched against the wall. “I don’t know what you’re so upset about. If you want me to take back my offer to split the cost with you, fine. It’ll be that much more for me.”

  Edgar seemed to shake with anger. “What is this? Blackmail? You said you’d split it, and I’m holding you to it.”

  Gunther shrugged first one shoulder and then the other one. “Why doesn’t that surprise me? You coming in, or do you plan to continue standing there in the foyer?”

  “I’ll be watching every move you make, and if you try anything with Montgomery, I’ll be on you like scales on a fish, buddy.”

  Shirley moved forward and rested a hand on Edgar’s shoulder. “But, Edgar, can’t you see that you’re the only one of us who’s strung out about this? You want to start a fight with Gunther, and he only tried to be helpful.”

  “I expected that you’d defend him. But you watch it. Both of you. I hired Montgomery, and from now on, I’m running the show
.” He left without saying good-bye.

  Shirley threw up her hands, exasperated. “The problem is that for Edgar, this is just the beginning of his paranoia about you and that will. Every time he gets in a tizzy because it hasn’t been located, he’ll find a way to lay at least half of the blame on you. Who is this Montgomery fellow? I’d like to meet him.”

  “Of course. I’ll phone him.” Gunther pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed Carson. “This is Gunther Farrell. May I speak with Carson Montgomery?”

  “Just a minute, please,” the voice said.

  “Montgomery speaking. What may I do for you, Mr. Farrell?”

  “My sister’s in town. If you have time, this would be an opportunity to speak with her.”

  “Thank you. Do you have a phone number for her?”

  “She’s staying at my apartment. In fact, she’s here, if you’d like to speak with her.”

  “I would, indeed, if that suits her.”

  Gunther handed Shirley his cell phone.

  “Hello, Mr. Montgomery. I’ll be here for about two weeks. When would it be convenient for us to meet?”

  “I’m anxious to get as much information as possible about your father and his habits. If I don’t find that will day before yesterday, Edgar will have a meltdown. So I’d like us to meet as soon as possible. Tomorrow, if that suits you.”

  “Fine. We could meet for lunch,” she said, “provided that’s convenient.”

  They agreed to meet at the Frigate at twelve-thirty.

  She wore a coral-colored, short-sleeved silk business suit and a matching hat of fine Milan straw. I won’t wear white gloves, she thought, because that would probably make him think I’m a phony. But in that blistering sun, she’d wear her hat. Besides, she knew she looked great in it.

  She arrived at the Frigate on time and followed the maître d’ to Carson’s table. He stood as they approached. Why hadn’t Gunther warned her? Wasn’t it just like a man to overlook things that were important to a woman? He could at least have told her that Carson Montgomery was a humdinger of a man and precisely her type.