by Jack Parker
Just then the door opened and Ms Canardi said, "I guess you can come in, now." Her high-pitched voice sounded irritated, as if she'd hoped Gracie would have disappeared and had now resigned herself to dealing with her after all.
CHAPTER 77
Monday
Gracie turned around to see a stick-figure of a woman, all long arms and legs, with the wild carrot-colored hair that Meredith had described. "Hello, Ms. Canardi. My name is Gracie Greene. You used to work with my father, Charles."
The woman's expression remained blank for a minute as her brain processed the name. Then she said, "Ah, yes, Charles Greene. And you're his daughter? My deepest sympathies to you on his death."
Gracie pasted a sad look on her face. There was much truth in that look, although enough time had passed that she didn't feel the pain quite as often as she once had. "Thank you. He left a Trust, and that's why I'm here." She changed her expression to a confidential one. "I'm not at all sure the Trustee is giving me all the money he should be. I brought a copy with me; I thought maybe if you looked it over…"
Canardi smiled brightly, her dark beady eyes glittering with the thought of collecting a Trustee's fees. "Of course my dear, please come into my office." She gestured gallantly and stepped aside to allow her entry.
The office looked like an extension of the reception area, filled with antique furniture and potted plants. It was such a masculine room that Gracie expected to smell cigar smoke. Cubaños, a gift from her father; he had loved to give them away as if the expensive and illegal items were the least of what he could offer a prospective partner. She could picture her Dad sitting in that chair smoking while the two worked on some scheme together.
She took the large over-stuffed chair in front of the desk and put the copy of her Trust on the desk. "This is my senior year and you just can't imagine how many events there will be; dates, parties, plays, senior trip, that kind of thing. And they all cost money; not to mention I'll need new dresses for them all. And accessories, gifts – oh, and the yearbook! Mr. Michaels is such a stuffy man, I don't think he understands just how much I'll need for it all." She stopped more because she'd run out of breath than anything else, having prepared her speech over the last few days.
"Stan Michaels?" Canardi asked.
"Yes ma'am, that's his name."
Canardi made a creaking sound that appeared to be her idea of a dry chuckle. "I very much doubt he was ever young, so of course he wouldn't understand."
Gracie's laugh was genuine. She'd been prepared to dislike this woman and here she was cracking jokes. Funny jokes, at that. "You know him?" she asked.
Canardi winked at her. "All lawyers know each other. We've got a Secret Handshake to identify ourselves."
Gracie giggled at the mental picture. "Then you understand what I need."
Canardi picked up the papers and looked at her over the top of them. "I should tell you that I'm not practicing law any longer, but I still know what I'm doing and anyone can be named Trustee. Just give me a few minutes to look this over. Have a cookie while you're waiting. White chocolate and Macadamia nut today." She pointed to a covered glass dish on the corner of the desk.
Gracie looked at it oddly, thinking more about Macadamia nuts and allergies than anything else.
"It's called a cake stand, Miss Greene. It's a relic of a gentler era; that one belonged to my great-grandmother."
"Oh, it's beautiful," was all Gracie could think of to say. To cover her lapse she changed the subject. "I called several times to make an appointment, but never heard back. So I took a chance and just came on in. I hope that's all right."
"I've been having trouble with my answering machine," she said. "And my secretary's been out sick. You're lucky you caught me at the office."
"When I saw your door closed I thought maybe I'd interrupted another client." The one due at 3:30, she thought to herself.
"I did have an appointment, but it was a no-show," she said.
Gracie nodded acceptance of the woman's excuses while privately thinking that, like Jason Wheeler and his mother's Will, she'd embroidered her response. She lifted the heavy cut-glass lid and took three cookies. Munching them, she looked around the room as the woman studied the Trust papers. The furniture in here seemed to be in better shape, though she could see signs of wear and tear; scratches in the wood, worn fabric, and of course dust on the fake plants. There was a missing button on the left sleeve of the woman's suit coat.
Finished with the cookies, and feeling guilty at the thought of taking more, she got up and wandered around. This gave her an opportunity to sneak a peek at the computer monitor on the desk; the softly undulating graphics of a screen-saver showed that this one was hooked up and working. She turned her attention to the bookcase, pretending to read the titles.
"If you will excuse me for just a minute, I need to go check on something," Canardi said. "The relevant book is in the outer office."
Gracie turned to look at her. "Sure, go right ahead."
The woman left and Gracie turned to the cake stand, grabbing another cookie and eating it in two bites. This time she was standing behind the desk and so saw it from the woman's viewpoint. Cookies within easy reach, file folders stacked neatly, ubiquitous yellow legal pad and pens. She bumped the mouse to clear the screen-saver; instead of a half-finished oil or gas lease she found a game of Solitaire. Canardi had lost.
There was a trash can under the desk, and it looked awfully full. "Doesn't she even bother to throw away the trash?" Gracie muttered. Remembering the pile of mail on the outer desk she squatted down to have a look. Empty envelopes, sales circulars, a few notes scribbled on the yellow paper and…near the bottom another unopened letter from Robbie Redmond! It was dark under the desk and she couldn't make out the cancellation date.
Just then she heard footsteps in the outer office. Regretfully she dropped the letter back into the can, stood up and lifted the lid of the cake stand.
"As I thought, that phrasing doesn't present an issue," Canardi said from behind her.
Gracie, lid in hand, whirled around in feigned surprise, making sure to whack the edge of the monitor as she moved. Good! Maybe that will explain the screen-saver not running, she thought. Aloud she said, "Oh, Ms. Canardi, you startled me!"
She produced that odd chuckle again. "Take as many as you like; no sense in letting them get stale."
"Thanks!" she said, taking a handful and moving out of the woman's way.
Canardi sat down and began looking through the Trust papers again.
Gracie wandered to the other side of the room thinking she'd managed to get away with her little deception. Canardi clearly had a thing about antiques and, though not her style, they were lovely. Idly she opened a small door on the large buffet set against one wall to find it full of highball glasses. Another door hid half a dozen bottles of liquor. "It's a bar!" she said aloud.
Ms. Canardi looked up and smiled. "Yes, I repurposed it. Not much call for china and silver in here, but some clients feel the need of a good stiff drink during a consultation." She made that creaking laugh again. "To tell you the truth, sometimes I do myself after they've gone."
"You did this yourself?" she asked, impressed.
Canardi waved her hand to encompass the room. "I refinished all the furniture in here. It's my hobby, and my passion. To take a battered old piece and breathe new life into it is truly a labor of love. To restore it to its former glory, make it beautiful again, and then put it to use is both humbling and exciting. I can enjoy the splendor of the piece and feel proud of my work."
She's positively gushing, Gracie thought. She ran her hand over the top of the buffet. "You've done a beautiful job on this, it's so smooth."
"Thank you. Most people think the secret is in the sanding process; that you have to sand and sand and sand again. And that's true, you do. But the real secret is the Tung oil."
"Tongue oil?" Gracie asked, sticking her own tongue out slightly in demonstration.
"T-u-n
-g," Canardi said pedantically. "It's used in wood finishing. You hand rub it in, going over the same area again and again. It needs to dry for a day or so, then you put on another coat. It takes several coats, and a lot of rubbing, to produce a smooth, glossy finish. That piece came out particularly nicely."
"It sure did," she agreed. "Did it belong to your great-grandmother too?"
"No, I bought that one at a garage sale, if you can believe that. Now, let me get back to your Trust. If you don't mind my asking, why did you choose this particular time to ask about it?"
Gracie returned to her chair, alert to the need to make delicately suggestive remarks. "The Redmond family mentioned you; you know Mrs. Redmond died week before last."
"Ah, yes, poor woman," she said. "They must've told you that I am John Redmond's Trustee."
Gracie just nodded.
"She was so looking forward to being able to draw against the Trust funds. She was in a bad way since John died and Uncle Sam stopped sending his Social Security checks."
"How dare he," Gracie remarked. How to ask about the court hearing? She needn't have worried.
"Then there was that unpleasantness over the validity of the Trust. As I explained to the detective the other day I had allowed my bar license to expire shortly after I took on John Redmond as a client, so I couldn't offer my services to his widow for the probate. Oddly enough, she didn't ask. Perhaps she thought it might be a conflict of interest. But she must've been worried sick that that ungrateful sister might get half of the money – I have little doubt that that contributed to her death. The anxiety wore her down and worsened her health. She wasn't young, you know."
"I'm sure you're right," Gracie said. The newspapers hadn't picked up on the story (or they hadn't considered the suspicious death sensational enough) so Canardi might well not know about the allergic reaction. Given that, and the fact that she would have no way to know Robbie wanted the Trust declared invalid, her answer made a lot of sense. She let her expression brighten. "Hey, they did mention that they haven't yet found Mrs. Redmond's Will – do you have it by any chance?"
"I do not," Canardi said. "All I had was a copy of John's Will, and I gave her that months ago. I told her at the time that it wouldn't do her any good, and sure enough, the court wouldn't accept it. Now that she had to split the Estate with that greedy sister she needed to be able to rely on the Trust even more."
"The family said something about her having to wait for John's probate to be finished before she could get the money."
"Yes, that's right. I told Mrs. Redmond that when I gave her the copy of the Will. I also reminded her that her husband had charged me with ensuring that her living expenses would be taken care of."
"Meaning that you couldn't just hand out money like candy?" Gracie asked.
Canardi's smile was predatory. "Which isn't the case in your situation, young lady. Your father made no such request of me!" She quickly flipped through the pages of Gracie's Trust, running a finger along a line of text here and there, then looked up at her. "I see nothing in here that precludes your getting the funds you need."
"Oh, good!" Gracie said enthusiastically.
"I'll get started on the paperwork to change the Trustee, and you can come in later in the week to sign it."
Gracie hadn't anticipated that! "Oh, I'm afraid I'm really busy the rest of the week. How about I give you a call next week?" The woman couldn't do anything without her signature, could she?
"That will be fine."
Gracie shook the woman's hand and walked out of the office. She couldn't resist a glance at the stack of mail on the empty outer desk but, feeling the woman's eyes on her back, she walked on. The receptionist had just hung up the phone as Gracie walked by her desk.
"Ms. Canardi must've given you good news; you've got a spring in your step now," the young woman commented.
Gracie smiled at her and said, "Yes, I got at least some of the answers I was looking for." She snapped her fingers. "But you know, there is one thing you could help me with. Ms. Canardi said she's had trouble with her answering machine and I forgot to ask if there's another number I could call."
The other woman shook her head. "She's just got the one phone, as far as I know. She only rents space in the building; she's not a part of the group so I don't answer her phone."
"What about her secretary's line?" Gracie asked.
The receptionist laughed. "Oh, she doesn't have a secretary." She beckoned Gracie to come closer. In a low voice she said, "I don't think she gets enough business to afford one."
Gracie nodded. "Thanks for your help. And I hope you find something great at the boutique!"
CHAPTER 78
Monday
"It's just like old times," Gracie said. "The Gang sitting around trying to figure out what happened and whodunit."
Clarissa put a large plate of fresh cut fruit on the dining room table and then sat down. "Does that mean I'm part of the gang, or do I have to go through some kind of secret initiation first?" She smiled broadly.
"Gosh no, Mrs. Wilson," Kelly said. "You were the first member, you've been helping Gracie longer than we have."
Cheryl stood up and headed toward the kitchen muttering something about wanting chocolate syrup.
"Oh, darn!" Clarissa said. "I pictured meeting in the cemetery at midnight and swearing a blood oath or something."
"But you're already my blood, or rather I'm your blood," Gracie said, laughing.
"Ooh, I think it sounds cool," Shawna piped up. "Then we'd all be your kids."
Clarissa took Shawna's hand and reached across the table to put her other hand on Gracie's left and Kelly's right hands. She squeezed gently. "Consider it done."
Cheryl came in carrying the bottle of Hershey's and rushed over to grab both Clarissa and Shawna's hands. "What's done? What are we doing?"
"You're now all officially my children," Clarissa said cheerfully. "And I'm a member of Gracie's Gang!"
Cheryl threw her arms around Clarissa's shoulders, nearly beaning Shawna with the syrup bottle. "Thanks! And congratulations."
The group disentangled and Cheryl sat down and began liberally coating her fruit with chocolate.
Clarissa held out a piece of cantaloupe and Cheryl squirted syrup on it. Clarissa took a bite and made a face of surprised pleasure. "So, Gracie, what did you find out from Ms. Canardi?" she asked.
"First of all she was downright eager to take over as Trustee of my Trust," she said, laughing.
"Does she get paid to do that?" Shawna asked.
"Sure," Clarissa and Gracie said in unison.
"She's getting $150 a month to do it for John's Trust," Gracie added.
"What's she have to do that she gets a hundred and fifty dollars?" Kelly asked.
"In that case it's the difficult and time-consuming work of depositing one check in the bank each month," Gracie said sarcastically.
"Maybe I should be a lawyer," Shawna remarked.
"Well, she has to keep records, provide annual reports, and pay taxes too," Clarissa said.
"She does?" Gracie asked. "What's there to pay taxes on? Didn't someone already pay taxes on the money that went into the Trust?"
"Interest," Cheryl said. "Or short and long term gains on stocks if she invested the money."
"Do you even know what that means?" Shawna asked snidely.
Cheryl grinned. "Not really, but I've heard Dad talk about it. Sounds good, doesn't it?"
"Didn't you say the Trust funds came from a mortgage?" Clarissa asked. At Gracie's nod she continued. "Each mortgage payment consists of both principal and interest, so yes, she'd have to file a tax return for the interest. Gracie, you didn't really ask her to change Trustees did you?"
Gracie shook her head. "Nah, she just sort of assumed that's what I wanted. I'm supposed to call her back but I won't. In fact, I doubt she'd get the message anyway. I told her I'd tried to call several times and she said she'd been having trouble with her answering machine."
; "Who uses answering machines?" Cheryl asked in a contemptuous tone.
"She does," Gracie replied. "Hey – what's a 'IBM PS/2"?
"Some kind of computer," Kelly said.
"Yeah, an old one," Cheryl explained. "Old enough that it probably uses Windows 3.1. Certainly not XP or Windows 7, much less 8."
The rest of the group looked confused at the technical jargon.
"Whatever," Gracie said. "But it probably wouldn't run current software, right?"
Cheryl made an indecisive face. "Old versions, maybe. But it wouldn't interface with anything current. Why? She have one of those too?"
"Yep," Gracie answered. "And a flat screen monitor with a big scratch. I didn't see any cords so I don't think it was hooked up."
"What's your point, Gracie?" Shawna asked.
"My point is, I don't think she makes very much money in her new line of work, and I'm guessing she quit her law practice because that wasn't going well either," Gracie said. "The old computer stuff was on a reception desk; I think it was just there to look like she had a secretary or receptionist or whatever. The receptionist for the other lawyers in the building said she didn't have one. And the furniture was all antiques, except they'd seen better days."
"Isn't that the description of an antique?" Kelly asked, laughing.
Everyone chuckled in response.
"'Antique' just means 'old', not necessarily valuable," Clarissa said. "A piece can be in awful condition, or the finish could be cracked, or maybe it's still in really good shape. It's still an antique."
"She said her hobby was restoring antiques," Gracie said. "She gave me this lecture on how you hand rub the wood with Tung oil. She was really into it." She mimed tediously rubbing the same spot repeatedly.
