When the Sun Goes Down

by Gwynne Forster

  “Hi,” Frieda said. “That’s the first time I ever heard you say anything that even a child could see was stupid. Soon as I get some of that inheritance, you and me gon’ spend a week in Italy. I don’t want to stay away from work too long, ’cause a lot of people looking for jobs. The good thing is I got some more real nice blood kin; I know who my daddy was, even though he wasn’t all that great; and I’m finally gon’ get me a little piece of property.”

  Mirna stared at her and shook her head as if puzzled. “And you telling the truth, too. You ain’t never gon’ change as long as you live.”

  Frieda released a throaty laugh. “Good thing you qualified it, ’cause everybody changes soon as they dead. Is Mr... . Is Gunther home?”

  “He upstairs. Go on up.”

  “But—”

  “You his sister. Miss Shirley would go up without thinking about it.”

  “But, Mirna, she lives here.”

  “Girl, don’t get on my last nerve.”

  “Oh, all right.” But she couldn’t do it, so she went to the bottom of the stairs and called him. “Can I come up, or are you busy?”

  “Hi. Come on up. I’m in my office.” She walked up, turned left at the top, and went to his office, where he sat at the computer.

  He turned off the computer, got a bottle of tawny port out of a cabinet, and poured two drinks. “I was hoping you’d decide to come. I want to talk with you as brother to sister.” She wasn’t sure she was ready for that. He raised his glass and waited until she did the same. “Welcome to the family. I want you to know that I’m proud to be your brother. After what you’ve told me about your life, what you’ve gone through and the battles you fought and won, I truly admire you.”

  She could hardly believe her ears. “Thank you. I’m not a crybaby, but if I’m not careful, I’m gonna be gushing.”

  “I think you should reflect on your relations with your mother. I watched you with her today, and I saw that you care deeply for her. Don’t you know that?”

  “I like her a lot.”

  “No. You care deeply for her, so stop punishing her and call her ‘Mother.’ ”

  She glared at him but was immediately chastened by his stern look. “Is that what I’m doing? Yes, I feel a lot for her. I think I’ve been fighting it, but somehow she gets to me. And after hearing what my father wrote in that will, I have to admit I don’t know what I would have done if I’d suffered a rape and then gone through the horror she lived for the next nine months. She said her aunt didn’t even offer her an aspirin when she was in labor and that she gave birth on a tiny cot that had an inch-thick mattress, the cot she’d slept on during her stay with her aunt. The woman treated her worse than some people treated their slaves.”

  “Some women put their unwanted babies in the dump,” he said. “She didn’t do that, and it isn’t her fault that your adoptive father proved to be depraved.”

  “I know, and I shamed myself long ago for blaming her.”

  “Good. The other thing I want to say is this: If you have any problems with Edgar, let me know. Don’t think you can handle it. I know how desperate he can get. Tell me immediately, and I’ll take care of it.”

  “Thanks. You have no idea how much I respect you,” she said. “If I ever have any children, which doesn’t seem likely, I’m going to teach them to be just like you. I’d better go see if I can help Mirna,” she said, suddenly embarrassed.

  “Thank you. By the way, Cory Benjamin was taken with you.”

  She spun around. “He was? He sure poleaxed me. Is he married?”

  “Hmm. No, he isn’t. He’s a widower, and he has two little boys, four and six years old.”

  “Can I meet him?”

  “That’s what he asked me in respect to you. You bet you can. He’s a fine man. Straight as the crow flies.”

  “If he goes to church, too, he’s for me.”

  Laughter poured out of Gunther. “If he doesn’t, I bet he’ll start.”

  “Where’s Shirley? Didn’t she come home along with you?”

  “I dropped her off at the library. She should be here any minute.”

  Frieda thought about that for a while. The library had closed at four-thirty, a little over two hours earlier. Was Shirley reacting to the news she got in the lawyer’s office? Lord, please don’t let me have to deal with attitude after things went so well this morning, Frieda said to herself as she started down the stairs. I declare you just can’t depend on nothing.

  “By the way,” he called. “Riggs made arrangements for the tests.”

  She turned and went back to him. “We can get it tomorrow morning. I’ll take you.”

  “Thanks. Coreen said she’d mail my birth certificate to Mr. Riggs.”

  His look censured her. “Who said that?”

  “Uh ... Mom.”

  “That’s better. It won’t hurt, and after a while, saying it will feel great.”

  Frieda tilted her head to the side and looked hard at Gunther. “I always hated people telling me what to do, but the way you put things ... Well, I don’t. I guess the difference is that it’s coming from my brother, and I always wanted a brother. Lord, my life is changing so fast it’s making me dizzy.”

  Frieda needn’t have worried about Shirley, who had no concern at present other than what to do about Carson. If she walked away from him, she would be miserably unhappy indefinitely. She loved him, and she had believed he loved her. If she confronted him about not having told her he’d found the will, not to speak of the shock she got about Frieda and Coreen, he’d feel as if she had attacked him unfairly, and he’d act accordingly. Shouldn’t she expect his unfailing loyalty? Sipping her third cup of Starbucks coffee, she glanced out the window, saw that darkness had set in, put on her coat, and got up to leave. Her cell phone rang.

  “Hello.”

  “This is Edgar. Where did Carson find that will?”

  “I have no idea. He has yet to tell me that he found it.”

  “You want me to believe that? He’s your lackey.”

  “Edgar, if you have nothing else to talk about, please hang up.”

  “What have you got to be upset about? At least you’re getting your share. Father took care of his bastard child and her mother. He had some nerve telling me how to live. Frieda Davis is my sister! Damn! The whole thing makes me sick to my stomach. Do you know where Carson is?”

  “He’s in Atlanta,” she said with a weariness in her voice that reached Edgar though the wires.

  “Hey. No point in being depressed. You should be in my shoes. I got debts over my head and no way to pay ’em. I didn’t want to put any long-distance calls on my cell, but I gotta talk to Carson.”

  “I’d better get on home,” she said. “It’s dark.”

  “Don’t let it drag you. He’s not worth it. For all you know, he and Riggs are in cahoots to steal part of Father’s property. Something’s not right here, and I mean to find out what it is.”

  “Don’t get yourself into a mess over this, Edgar. Carson is honest. I’d swear to it in court.”

  She heard him pull air through his teeth as if disgusted. “Oh, you’d go to bat for him, even though he didn’t tell you he’d found the will? That’s the least he should have done, not to mention he should have told me.”

  One more thing for Edgar to gripe about, she said to herself. To him, she said, “Considering the provisions of the will, it shouldn’t surprise you that he decided just to give it to Mr. Riggs.”

  “You don’t say. Well, it wouldn’t hurt you to take your own counsel. Be seeing you.” He hung up.

  When Carson’s cell phone rang, he looked at the caller ID, saw that it was Edgar, and swore an epithet. He didn’t care to talk with Edgar Farrell, but he certainly wouldn’t shrink from it. “Montgomery speaking.”

  “This is Edgar Farrell. What do you have to say for yourself? You broke our contract, and I’ve got a mind to sue you.”

  “Go ahead. After I read that will, I knew that if you
got your hands on it, you would destroy it. Further, since you weren’t going to fulfill the terms of the will, you wouldn’t get your inheritance, and I wouldn’t get paid. Right? I decided that giving it to the executor of the estate was the right and legal thing to do. Shirley is probably mad as hell at me right now, but I did what I knew was right and fair.”

  “Spare me. Where’d you find that will? I scoured that house and every centimeter of Father’s room and office. He must have had a secret hiding place.”

  “I found it in the den. You needn’t worry about the payment. Riggs said that the estate will pay for the recovery of the will.”

  “In the den, eh?” He hung up.

  Carson thought for a minute. “I’ve just made an enormous mistake. Edgar will tear up the room until he finds that panel. Two days later, he’ll probably have spent or gambled away the money in that envelope and whatever he gets from hocking those antique vases.” As a precaution, he called Riggs.

  “Carson here. I wouldn’t be surprised if Edgar took an ax and hacked up that room until he finds that false wall. I didn’t count the money, but I’d guess he’d find fifty to a hundred thousand dollars in that envelope. There are other valuable things there, including some antique vases and his father’s robot collection.”

  “Thanks for telling me. If he doesn’t find it tonight or early tomorrow morning, he’ll be out of luck. I’ll take my accountant over there and an independent appraiser and have everything catalogued. Spoken with Shirley yet?”

  “No, but I hope to within the next hour.”

  “I wish you luck.”

  “Thanks. I’m going to need it.”

  Carson hung up, walked around his hotel room, moving things from one place to another, stared out the window at the cars speeding along the highway, turned on the television, and immediately flipped it off. He decided he’d better eat before calling Shirley, because he might not feel like it after talking with her. He dialed room service and ordered a steak dinner. But as soon as he hung up, he didn’t want it. So he called back, canceled it, and ordered a hamburger and a can of beer.

  “What the hell!” he said aloud, and dialed Shirley’s cell phone number.

  “This is Carson. You were going to return my call day before yesterday. What happened?”

  “What happened? Is that a serious question?”

  “Shirley, if you’ve got something on your mind, let’s have it. Where do we stand?”

  “Perhaps I should ask you, Carson. I would have expected you to at least tell me that you had found the will, but no; you let me get a shock. No, several shocks. As close as you and I were”—he flinched at the reference to the past—“couldn’t you have warned me that I was about to get the surprise of my life?”

  “Had I warned you, I would also have had to warn Edgar and Gunther. I told you I was reluctant to get involved with a client, which you are, because you’re behaving that way now. My reputation as an honorable man is just as important to me as what’s said of my skills as a detective, and I am not ever going to compromise my integrity and my honor. Edgar offered me a ridiculous deal if I would discard the will in the event that I found it and it was unfavorable to him.”

  He ignored her gasp and continued to talk. “You’ve led me to believe that your well-being did not depend on the provision set forth in that will, and you’ve showed relatively little interest in it. Yet, you’re suggesting that because I love you, I should have done the unscrupulous thing of giving you an advantage over your brothers and Miss Davis. If you’re sticking with that position, I’ve made a gargantuan error.”

  “What are you saying?”

  He heard the catch in her voice and knew her anger was at war with her feelings for him. If she hurt, he couldn’t help it; his own pain nearly brought tears to his eyes. “I’m not saying anything. I’ve said my piece. It’s your turn.”

  “I ... uh ... I can’t talk about it now. I’ve got as much on my plate as I can handle, not the least of which is an older sister who I barely know.”

  He ignored her words and stuck to the subject. “Call me when you can talk about it, but don’t take too long. Be seeing you.” He hung up. If there was anything he couldn’t handle, it was empty words. He called the restaurant, canceled the room service order, put on his jacket and coat, and left the hotel. Maybe if he walked long enough, he’d get hungry.

  He wrapped up his case shortly before noon the next morning, but if he’d wanted to rejoice in a job well done, Donald Riggs’s telephone call deprived him of the chance.

  “What’s up, man?” he asked when he saw Riggs’s number on his cell phone’s caller ID.

  “Edgar found that secret panel. Did you say you found the will inside a robot?”

  Carson leaned against the hood of his dark blue BMW. He was not going to like what he heard next. “So I did. There were dozens of robots there, all kinds of animals, plastic and wooden. The wooden robots were handmade, and I suspect Leon made them, because I found the sketches.”

  Riggs’s labored sigh reached Carson through the phone. “The place is a mess, and there isn’t a robot in sight.”

  “He told me that those robots were junk. I’m sure he took that money.”

  “Nope. Poetic justice. He overlooked seventy-seven thousand dollars and took the robots, which he will have to hustle to sell and which aren’t likely to net him as much. He also overlooked these beautiful old vases and some fine wood carvings. Well, we’ll finish the inventory, and I’ll have to figure out whether to indict him, get an estimate and deduct that from his inheritance, or what.”

  “Look, Donald. It’s none of my business. You know he’s never going to work at any job for a year. So the robots will be all the inheritance he gets. I wouldn’t indict him, though you have to get the agreement of his siblings.”

  Donald Riggs’s calls to Edgar went unanswered until three days later. “Hello, Farrell speaking.”

  “Edgar, this is Donald Riggs. I don’t suppose you’re prepared to return those robots that you took from your father’s closet? They belonged equally to the four of you.”

  “Too damned bad. I sold ’em last night to somebody in Baltimore. He came and got them this morning and paid me in cash. Six hours from now, I’ll be on a plane to Ghana. I got a buddy over there. This place sucks.”

  “I guess you’d like to know that I found an envelope containing seventy-seven thousand dollars on the second shelf in that closet. God doesn’t love that kind of beha—” Edgar had hung up. Riggs called Gunther and told him of Edgar’s plan to leave for Ghana.

  Gunther telephoned his older brother, thinking that Riggs couldn’t have heard Edgar correctly. His fingers shook as he dialed the number. “Hello.”

  “Hi, Edgar. This is Gunther. What’s this about—”

  Edgar interrupted him. “Hello, brother. I know Riggs called you. You got your share, you and your two sisters. I’m never going to get anything else from that old man, so I’m heading out of here. Come to Ghana if you want to see me again.”

  “What’s your address there?”

  “You don’t need it. If I want company, I’ll write.”

  “What about your motorcycle?”

  “It’s going on the plane with me as freight. See you.” He hung up.

  “I sure as hell hope they don’t have gambling joints over there,” Gunther said to himself. “This is going to hurt and hurt badly, but right now, I can’t digest it.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  That morning, Gunther arrived at his office before seven o’clock. He’d skipped breakfast rather than deal with Shirley’s lackluster demeanor and her disinterest in anyone and everything around her. He had tried to reason with her and to make her understand that her misery sprang from her own unwillingness to accept the truth and to acknowledge that Carson had behaved fairly and honorably with respect to that will.

  “It’s time I put a pantry in here,” he said to himself after removing two Styrofoam cups of coffee from a brown paper ba
g. “Furnishing coffee for the people who work for me is the least I can do.” He heard steps and walked out to the hallway.

  “Why are you here so early?” he asked Cory Benjamin. “It’s barely seven o’clock.”

  “I like working when I’m here alone, when I can’t hear a sound. That’s when the ideas flow, and I can concentrate. I’m surprised to see you here so early.”

  He told Cory about the will and the reactions of his siblings to its provisions. “And can you beat this? I’m thirty-four years old, and I’ve just learned that I have an older sister who I didn’t know about until an hour before I introduced you to her. It blows my mind. Shirley is depressed, but not about our sister. She’s concerned about something else. Edgar’s way of dealing with this and with that will is about as much as I can take. I could have begun the day as usual with Shirley and played misery loves company, but that’s not my style. So I skipped breakfast. Problem with that is I’m beginning to get hungry.”

  Cory seemed in deep thought. “Miss Davis is your older sister? Do you think you’re going to like her?”

  Gunther told Cory how he met Frieda. “I liked her a lot, and I admired her attitude toward her work, and her thoroughness, competence, and all-around professionalism. She’s a wonderful person. I’ve written two recommendations for her, not knowing that I was helping my sister. It’s strange. I doubt I’ll ever see Edgar again, and I feel that I’ve lost my brother, but I gained a sister. Somehow that blunts the pain of losing Edgar.”

  Cory ran the fingers of his left hand over his tight curls and gave the floor a gentle kick. “She made a strong impression on me.”

  “I know. And she told me she’d like to meet you in more favorable circumstances. When she asked me about your status, I told her that you’re a widower with two little boys.”

  Cory’s head jerked up. “What did she say to that?”