by Dave Daren
The Burke home was a white two-story modern in a cul-de-sac that featured views of the surrounding hills and a plethora of those tall, skinny cypress trees that show up in every photo that’s ever been taken of the Tuscan countryside. I parked on the street and made my way past a matched set of square planters bearing overflowing lavender plants and a random piece of granite that probably had some sort of sculptural purpose, but really just looked like someone had forgotten to move it when the house was finished.
Gloria pulled the door open before I had a chance to ring the bell. She was dressed in a flowing aqua blue maxi dress that was a little too fitted to be a muumuu, but still loose enough to qualify as relaxing-at-home-wear.
“Vincent,” Gloria declared. “You must have made good time.”
“Thank you for seeing me tonight,” I said.
“It was easier for me,” Gloria said as she moved back inside, leaving the door open for me to follow or stay.
I stepped inside and closed the front door as she marched across the foyer toward a short hallway. The interior was white, from floors to walls to overhead light. That theme continued down the short hallway to the kitchen, where Gloria stood by one of the counters with a glass of red wine in one hand and the TV remote in the other. At least there was color here, pops of blue and a soft gray on the furniture fabric, and a swirling oil painting that featured more blue with brush strokes of red and gold.
Gloria turned the TV off and turned to face me. She watched me for a moment and then offered me a glass of wine by tilting her head toward the bottle that stood open nearby.
“I’ll hold off,” I replied politely. “I still have a long drive after this.”
“Smart man,” Gloria noted. “They’ve been setting up a sobriety check down near the boulevard most nights. I know a few people who’ve been caught.”
“You mentioned that someone from the FBI went through Matthew’s office,” I said.
“That was about a year after he was lost,” Gloria replied. “Albert had been going over the accounts and found what he called ‘discrepancies’, which he reported to someone. Didn’t even bother to tell me about it. I have to wait until two men claiming to be from the FBI turn up on my doorstep, demanding to see Matthew’s office.”
“Did they have a warrant?” I asked.
“Of course they did,” she sighed. “One of them spent hours in there, making a mess out of everything while the other one kept me out here and asked me questions about Matthew. It took me two days to put everything back, and I’m still not sure if it’s the way Matthew left it.”
“Why haven’t you cleaned out the office?” I pressed.
Gloria set her glass down on the counter and twirled it. She watched the dark red liquid slosh inside the glass for a moment and then looked back at me.
“Because that would be admitting that he was gone,” she said quietly. “The only things in there are the will, the trust documents, our insurance contracts, and the like. Things I wouldn’t need to touch while he’s alive. If I pull those out, if I try to access those accounts, it means he really is gone.”
“Something you’ve been fighting until Geoffrey came along,” I added.
“Yes,” she admitted. “Geoffrey changed everything. I don’t know if that would have been true two years ago, but today, I feel like I want to move forward.”
“I can understand,” I assured her. “It’s not always easy to leave it behind you, especially a death that’s so sudden and unexpected.”
“That’s just it,” she agreed. “It was just so sudden. One minute, we’re just an ordinary family, doing ordinary things, and then suddenly someone from the Coast Guard is telling you that they found the boat, and he wasn’t on it. And then, as if that wasn’t horrifying enough, two men from the FBI appear and pull apart the one room that was truly just Matthew’s.”
“Why don’t you show me his office now?” I suggested.
“Yes, all right,” she said.
She led me past the all-white family room, complete with white leather sofa and matching chairs and even a t.v. with a white frame, down another short hallway to a slightly off-white door. She opened it and stepped aside so I could enter.
Matthew’s office looked like it had been lifted from another house entirely. There were dark wood floors, walls painted navy blue, a mahogany desk, built-in shelves packed with books and knick knacks, and one of those faux globes that’s really a bar.
“Take your time,” Gloria said. “Do whatever you need to do tonight. I have to drive to Santa Barbara tomorrow for a conference.”
“How long will you be gone?” I asked as I sat in the ergonomically correct desk chair and randomly opened a drawer.
“Two days,” Gloria replied. “I don’t like these things, but I get my continuing education credits and a chance to pass out my card.”
“So it’s not a total loss,” I remarked as I pulled out a stack of file folders and started to glance through them.
“I suppose not,” Gloria said.
She still hadn’t moved from the doorway and she watched me carefully as I perused the files. I hadn’t found anything obviously related to Durango Investments, but that wasn’t really a surprise if the FBI had already been through here. I was about to suggest that I would come find Gloria when I was done when the front door slammed.
“Perrin!” Gloria called out in an exasperated voice. “How many times have I told you not to slam that door?”
“Sorry, Mom,” a pretty voice with a definite SoCal accent replied. “I just didn’t want to catch you and Geoffrey off guard. Hey, why are you in dad’s office?”
“You know Geoffrey isn’t here yet,” Gloria retorted. “His therapy session runs late tonight. And I’m not in the office, Mr. Creed is.”
“Who?” the pleasant voice asked as it came to a halt outside the office door.
“My new attorney,” Gloria sighed. “He’s agreed to help me with the declaration of death.”
“Oh, you found another old codger to do your bidding,” the voice laughed.
“Perrin!” Gloria reprimanded as the owner of the voice peered inside the office.
“You’re not old,” she said accusingly.
“And I don’t think I’m a codger,” I replied.
Perrin grinned at me and then stepped all the way into the office. She was in her early twenties, tall and lithe, and wearing a sundress that showed off a real suntan and a lovely pair of breasts. I had no problem picturing her on a surfboard or a few other places I shouldn’t have been picturing her. Her golden brown hair had been pulled back into a ponytail though a few wisps still hung loosely around her heart-shaped face. Her cornflower blue eyes glittered with amusement as she sized me up.
“I apologize, Vincent,” Gloria sniffed. “She was raised to have better manners but sometimes she forgets how to act.”
“Oh, mom,” Perrin protested as she rolled her eyes.
“It’s all right,” I quickly replied. “I imagine most people picture old codger when you say lawyer.”
“Except on t.v.,” Perrin pointed out. “Then it’s just a bunch of good looking studs. Sort of like you.”
“Perrin!” Gloria huffed in a decidedly more angry voice.
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t say I looked like Matlock,” I said with a grin.
“Who?” Perrin asked innocently, though I could tell from the glimmer in her eye that she understood the reference perfectly.
“We’ll leave you to go through the files,” Gloria declared as she latched onto her daughter’s arm. “We’ll be in the kitchen.”
“See you later, Vincent,” Perrin added as her mother dragged her from the room.
I took a moment to clear Perrin’s image from my mind and then went back to the files. As I had expected, there wasn’t anything related to Durango Investments here, but I did find the documents for the trust that Matthew had set up. Tucked behind that were statements from several accounts that were managed by the trust. I di
d a quick calculation in my head and realized that there were several million dollars just sitting there. I did a slow whistle and rechecked my figures. Matthew had been doing well, but I didn’t think he had done that well. I reviewed the trust and discovered that Gloria and Perrin wouldn’t receive a dime until Matthew died. Yet another good reason to have the court declare him dead.
I took some photos of the documents, which I sent to Sofia, and then moved on to the next item. Near the bottom of the stack I found two insurance policies on Matthew, both worth well north of five million dollars. Each. I was surprised the insurance companies hadn’t decided to protest Gloria’s filing as well.
I took more pictures of the insurance documents and a few other items I found related to Matthew’s accounts, and then put everything back in the desk in the same order I had found them. Once I was finished with the desk, I prowled around the office, checking out the contents of the bookshelves and anything else that looked interesting.
Matthew had a huge collection of books on various mathematical theories and an equally vast collection of baseball-related books, both fiction and nonfiction. In between was a hodge-podge of mysteries, thrillers, science fiction, and even a few old dungeons and dragons style books that were probably left over from his high school days.
Rounding out the space on the shelves was a baseball signed by the 1988 Los Angeles Dodgers and a signed photo of Wayne Gretzky. His more current additions included a basketball signed by Kobe Bryant and a framed picture that looked like the celebration that erupted when the Lakers won the 2010 championship. It wasn’t a professional shot so my guess was that Matthew had been there and taken this picture himself. Pricey seats, judging by the angle of the photo.
There was nothing else of interest in the office, so I found my way back to the kitchen. Perrin was chopping up an assortment of vegetables while her mother watched. Gloria was still reprimanding her for what she had said to me, but Perrin had clearly tuned her out. She was quietly humming a tune I recognized but couldn’t quite place as she kept her eyes firmly locked on the broccoli she was attacking.
“Did you find anything?” Gloria asked as she spotted me.
“Nothing about his business,” I replied.
“You know, they never did return any of the files they took,” Gloria griped.
“Did they take a lot?” I asked.
“A few,” Gloria sighed. “I have that receipt they gave me around here somewhere.”
“There’s no computer in there,” I noted. “Did they take that as well?”
“They took his desktop,” Perrin replied. “He had a laptop, too, but it wasn’t in his office. It might have been at Durango or he might have had it on the boat.”
“He took his laptop on the boat?” I asked in surprise.
“When we were going to Mexico,” Perrin remarked while Gloria scowled at her. “And sometimes he would type up reports while we were supposed to be out fishing. He said it was the only place where he could think straight.”
“But the Coast Guard would have found it if he’d taken it on the boat that day,” I pointed out.
“Maybe,” Perrin said with a shrug as she glanced at her mother.
It was Gloria’s turn to roll her eyes.
“We never saw the laptop again,” Gloria declared. “I just assumed it was at his office in Glendale, since that’s where he usually kept it.”
“Except on weekends,” Perrin added. “He usually brought it home on weekends.”
“Yes, fine, except on weekends,” Gloria admitted grudgingly.
“If you find that receipt, that would be helpful,” I stated. “It would help me draft our document request.”
“I’ll see if I can find it,” Gloria sighed, “but I’m not making any promises.”
She tottered off toward the back of the house, leaving me with Perrin and her knife. The broccoli was looking like a pile of green slivers before she finally put the blade down and looked at me.
“So do you still live here?” I asked.
“No,” she said as she shook her head. “I’ve got a place of my own, but mom insists on having dinner at least once a week. Lucky you, tonight’s the night since she’s got the conference in Santa Barbara tomorrow.”
“So what do you think of your mom’s decision to have your father declared dead?” I prodded.
“It’s what she wants to do,” Perrin hedged. “She’s got it in her head that she wants to marry Geoffrey.”
“You don’t sound very enthusiastic about the prospect,” I noted.
“Geoffrey’s okay, I guess.”
“That was even less convincing,” I teased.
“Look, mom likes him, for some reason,” Perrin replied. “And after everything she’s done for me, it’s hard for me to tell her she can’t do something that will make her happy.”
“But you wish she wouldn’t,” I said. “Do you mind if I ask why?”
“Geoffrey’s a creep,” Perrin stated. “The way he hangs around and sticks his nose in where it doesn’t belong. It’s like he’s just decided to take over the role of husband and father, and we’re supposed to go along with it.”
“Can you give me an example?” I asked.
“Last month, I went to Las Vegas with some of my friends,” Perrin replied. “It was a bachelorette party, but we weren’t doing anything wild. Mostly, it was just eating a lot and going to all the different spas. I’d told mom I was going, like, ages ago, but then Geoffrey turned up a couple of nights before I was supposed to leave and tries to tell me that I can’t go. Doesn’t want me getting into trouble, he says. As if I’m not an adult who can figure out when to stop drinking.”
“But you did go,” I noted.
“Only because mom came in and told Geoffrey that it was okay, she’d already talked to me,” Perrin sighed. “He finally backed off, but then he tried calling me while I was there. He kept dialling until I finally took his call. I had to tell him everything I’d done up to that point just to get him off the phone.”
“That does sound a little extreme,” I agreed.
“And last year, mom was in a fender bender,” Perrin continued. “When Geoffrey got to the hospital, he lied and said they were married so they would let him back into the ER.”
“Well, I don’t think he’d be the first person to do that,” I pointed out.
“Yes, but then he filled out all the forms for her, dug through her purse to find her insurance card, and even talked with the doctor about her injuries,” Perrin replied. “And no one bothered to tell me that she’d even had an accident until I came over for dinner the next day, and mom’s sitting on the couch with her leg in a cast.”
“Then how do you know--” I started to ask.
“I took my mom for a follow-up exam,” Perrin snapped. “It was the same doctor who saw her in the ER. He asked how Mister Burke was doing. When they took mom to do an x-ray, I cornered the doctor’s transcriptionist and asked if she had been there. She’s the one that told me.”
“It sounds presumptuous,” I admitted. “But why creepy?”
“That’s just the vibe I get from him,” Perrin replied. “He’s always watching us when he’s around, especially if there are other people nearby. But he stays in the background and won’t talk to anyone on his own. These days I just try to avoid him as much as possible. I’ve got it down to just doing the dinner thing with the two of them now.”
“I guess you really miss your dad right now,” I suggested.
“Yeah, well,” Perrin sighed. After a moment, she added, “I just wish dad would come back.”
“You don’t think he’s dead?” I asked in surprise.
“No, I don’t,” she said firmly.
“But why?” I demanded.
Perrin merely shrugged and picked up a head of cabbage that had been sitting next to the chopping board. She started dicing up the cabbage with the same enthusiasm she’d had when she demolished the broccoli.
When Perrin refused to say an
ything else, I started to wander around the nearby area. It was an open floor plan, with kitchen flowing into dining space and living room. It was still heavy on the white theme, including the family photos that were scattered around the room. There was only one color photo, of a very young Perrin grinning happily at the camera while she enjoyed a very large ice-cream cone.
As I looked closer at the photos, I noticed that there were plenty of shots of Perrin and Gloria, and even a few more recent photos of Gloria with a man, probably Geoffrey. But there weren’t any shots of Matthew, which seemed odd given Gloria’s reluctance to alter his old office. Although, I quickly realized, all of the family photos in there had been of Perrin and Gloria as well, and none of Matthew. I’d just assumed that he’d kept photos of the two people he loved the most, but now it looked like something more was at play.
“Do you still have any photos of your father?” I asked as I returned to the kitchen.
Perrin glanced toward the living room and scowled.
“I think I’ve got some in my old room,” she said.
“Did your mom toss the photos of him?” I pressed.
“She was angry when he first disappeared,” Perrin replied. “I came home from school one day to find that she’d replaced a lot of our old family photos. I don’t know what she did with them. I had stacks of photos saved to my cloud, though, from the days when I wanted to be a professional photographer. I printed up new ones to keep in my room.”
“Would you mind giving me one?” I asked. “Or emailing me a few?”
“I think I could manage that,” Perrin said with a grin. She looked me over and added, “Is there anything else I could get you?”
“Well,” I drawled as I glanced toward her breasts again, “I might have to get back to you on that.”
“Don’t take too long,” Perrin said mischievously, “Geoffrey’s disapproving self will be here soon, and I’ll have to go back to playing little miss Sunday school.”
“That is disappointing,” I moaned. “I’ve always been more of a Saturday night kind of guy myself.”
“You and me both,” Perrin laughed.
“You and me both what?” Gloria asked as she stepped into the kitchen. She had an official looking receipt in one hand and an empty wine glass in the other.
