Dance for the Dead jw-2

by Thomas Perry

  She started slowly and easily in the cold dawn air and gradually lengthened her strides as her body warmed and her muscles relaxed. She ran down to the river and along the open grassy strip toward the south. Deganawida was alive this morning with people just up and driving along Niagara Street toward their jobs, the men's hair wet from their showers and plastered to their heads, the children dressed in their second-heaviest coats already, their mothers hustling them down the sidewalk and making sure they were at least pointed in the direction of the school when they started off. She ran up as far as the Grand Island bridge and then turned back. The run home would give her just the right stretch of time to shower, change, and eat before the library opened.

  Inside the library she walked to the desk and collected all of the past month's issues of the Los Angeles Times, then hid in the small room in the corner surrounded by the reference books that nobody ever used unless they wanted to settle a bet, and sat down to read. The first one that caught her eye was two days old.

  INVESTIGATION OF COURTHOUSE DEATHS IS INCONCLUSIVE

  van nuys - In the latest development in the strange saga of Timothy Phillips, kidnap victim and heir to a San Francisco fortune, an L.A. Police spokesman conceded today that the investigation has so far produced no charges against anyone. The bizarre events at the Van Nuys courthouse which caused the deaths of two persons and the arrests of five others last month are still under investigation, said Captain Daniel Brice. Details are still sketchy, but the police have put together this much of the puzzle: Just as the courts began session on the morning of the 15th, attorney Dennis Morgan, 38, of Washington, D.C. stopped his car in front of the courthouse to let off his eight-year-old client, Timothy Phillips, and Mona Turley, 29, the woman posing as Phillips's mother. The rented car then apparently slipped into reverse and slammed into an oncoming vehicle. Driver Harold Kern, 23, and passenger James Curtain, 26, both of Los Angeles, suffered minor injuries, but Morgan was (See Inconclusive, A 29)

  Jane impatiently searched page 29 and found the rest of the article in the lower left corner.

  pronounced dead at the scene.

  Kern and Curtain ran into the courthouse, apparently seeking assistance for Morgan. Mona Turley, police theorize, may have believed the two men were pursuing her with hostile intent. A struggle ensued, in which numerous bystanders took sides. The confrontation erupted into a fight in a fifth-floor hallway, where bailiffs in a nearby courtroom responded to the disturbance.

  Arrested with Curtain and Kern were Roscoe Hull, 22, Max Corto, 28, both of Burbank, and Colleen Ma-honey, 29, of Orlando, Florida.

  After police restored order, the body of Mona Turley was discovered at the bottom of a stairwell, an apparent victim of a fall from an upper floor. Police sources confirm that a maze of conflicting allegations have been made, but eyewitnesses have established that none of the five persons arrested could have left the hallway once the fighting began.

  Captain Brice explained that in the absence of evidence that any of the combatants had ever met the deceased, had any motive to harm her, or were in the stairwell at the time of her death, they could not be considered suspects. He said that foul play has not been ruled out, but that Turley might have been overcome with anxiety or remorse because of possible kidnapping charges and taken her own life.

  Jane sat and stared at the orderly rows of thick volumes on the shelves in front of her. They had killed Mona, but the best she could do was to go into court as Colleen Mahoney, lie and say she saw them, then watch twenty witnesses parade to the stand and say she was wrong. The ones who had been in the car had certainly broken Dennis's neck with a choke-hold after the crash, but she hadn't seen that either.

  If the police hadn't found a connection between any of them and the Timothy Phillips case, then they were hired hands. No doubt the police and the F.B.I, were quietly looking for Colleen Mahoney, but there was no reason to let them find her. She was finished.

  She looked through the newspapers for more articles about Timothy Phillips. Finally she found one that was only a day old.

  HOFFEN-BAYNE NOT SUSPECTED OF WRONGDOING, D.A. SAYS

  A spokesman for the District Attorney's office issued a statement today denying rumors that Hoffen-Bayne Financial, Inc. is under suspicion of attempting to defraud kidnapped heir Timothy Phillips of the multimillion-dollar estate of his late grandmother.

  "The rumor has no merit," said Deputy D.A. Kyle Ambrose. "All you have to do is read the conditions of the trust. If Mr. Phillips were deceased, Hoffen-Bayne did not stand to benefit. All the money was to be donated to charities. I'm convinced that they filed to have the child declared dead because it was the proper procedure under the trust instructions, and consistent with the behavior of a good corporate citizen. There's very little benefit to society from having vast fortunes tied up in trusts with no beneficiaries. The intent of the grandmother was to provide for her grandson, not to build a perpetually-growing pyramid of unused money." Ambrose noted that Hoffen-Bayne had reason to be delighted with the news that Timothy Phillips had been found. "If the estate went to charities, the company would have lost large annual fees as trustee and executor, which now legally must continue until the boy reaches eighteen, and could continue as long as he wishes."

  Jane read the article twice. Dennis had been certain that the men who were after Timmy had been hired by Hoffen-Bayne. Dennis was a lawyer, and there had been something in the documents that had convinced him that Hoffen-Bayne had a rational reason for doing it. But the Los Angeles D.A.'s office was full of lawyers, criminal lawyers at that. Were they just convinced that companies like Hoffen-Bayne weren't in the business of killing their clients?

  She tried to look at it in a logical way. Hoffen-Bayne had chosen this time to have Timmy declared dead. If they were capable of murder, they could have waited until they had actually killed him, left his body where it would be found, and let the coroner do the paperwork. Or they could have waited and filed the papers at the best possible time for them. No, she had to assume that they had already waited, and that this was the perfect time. There was nothing external to make them do it now. There were ten more years until Timmy could take control of the money and fire them, ten more years of the "large annual fee" the D.A. had mentioned.

  Jane stood up, walked out to the librarian's counter, and caught Amy Folliger's eye. "Can I make a couple of copies on the machine?"

  "Sure," said Amy. "A dime a copy. But I'm afraid you'll have to sign this sheet," she added apologetically. "It relieves the library of liability if you violate a copyright."

  Jane glanced at the papers on the clipboard. The first page was a summary of the copyright law of 1978. She signed the second page and handed it back.

  "Sorry," said Amy. "Did you ever wonder how we ever got to this point?"

  "What point?"

  Amy's big eyes widened behind the silver-framed glasses that Jane had never seen her wear except on duty at the library. "Where everything is lawyers. Of course they get to write the laws. Did you ever hear of a lawyer missing the chance to give himself perpetual fees?"

  "Once or twice," said Jane. "Maybe if we all behave ourselves for a hundred years, they'll go away." She copied the articles, then walked to the newspaper rack and carefully replaced the stack of L.A. Times.

  Jane put the copies into her purse and walked out of the library. As she approached her car, she composed the note that she would write to Karen the lawyer to explain what was bothering her, but it didn't feel right. What was bothering her was that she wanted to know now.

  Jane passed the telephone booth beside the building and then walked back to it. She dialed the number and said to the secretary who answered, "This is Jane White-field. She knows me. Tell her I'm going to fax something to her."

  "Would you like an appointment for a consultation or - "

  "No, thanks," she said. "She can call me." Jane hung up and walked up Main Street to the little stationery store that Dick Herman had run for the last few years s
ince his father retired. The growing collection of signs in the window announced there were post office boxes, copiers, and a fax service now.

  When she had sent the clippings Jane drove home, walked inside, and heard the telephone ringing. She closed the door and hurried to the phone. Maybe Carey wasn't with the great diagnostician. She snatched up the receiver just as her answering machine started. "You have reached - " said the recording, and clicked off. "Hello?"

  "Hi, Jane." It was Karen's voice. The last time Jane had heard it Karen had wondered aloud - in a purely speculative way - whether there was any way to protect a witness who had just saved a client of hers. "I got your message. But what is it?"

  "Did you read the articles?" said Jane.

  "The second woman - I take it that was you?"

  "You don't want to know."

  "It's okay. Attorney-client privilege."

  "I'm not a client."

  "If you're in trouble you are."

  "I'm not," said Jane. "I just need advice. How are they stealing the money?"

  "I don't have the slightest idea," said Karen. "If it were obvious, I certainly wouldn't be the only one who could figure it out. Without reading the documents that established the trust I'd only be guessing anyway."

  "All right," said Jane. "Let me fish, then. What's the statute of limitations on stealing money from a trust fund?"

  "That's breach of trust as a fiduciary. Here it's four years. I'd have to look up California."

  "Suppose they robbed Timmy the day the old lady died. They have Timmy declared dead and it's over? Nobody can do anything?"

  "No," said Karen. "He's a minor, right? The statute time doesn't start running until he's eighteen, when the money goes to him. If he doesn't spot it after four years, they're in the clear, as long as they didn't do anything worse."

  "What if he were dead?"

  "Then the next heir gets the money - presumably some adult - and the clock starts again. Who is it?"

  Jane was silent for a minute. "The charities," she said. "That's it, isn't it?"

  "That's what?"

  "That's the answer. That's why they wanted Timmy dead - legally or really. So that the heir isn't a person."

  "I'm not sure I follow that."

  "Timmy's grandmother set up this trust fund. It was supposed to go to her son. The son died. The next beneficiary was her infant grandson. That's Timmy. There weren't any other relatives, or if there were, Grandma wasn't interested. The D.A. mentioned it in that article. The money goes to charities."

  "It can't be that. Charities aren't generally run by stupid people. They receive bequests all the time, and their counsel are very sophisticated about making sure they get what the benefactor wanted them to. The charity is a corporation, and that's like a person in law. The charity would have four years before the statute time ran. The lawyers would go over the will and the trust papers the day they heard about it."

  "No," said Jane. "The trust doesn't go to the charities. Only the money does."

  Karen was silent for the space of an indrawn breath. "Oh, no," she said. "You're telling me the old lady didn't specify the charities?"

  "Nobody has ever mentioned any," said Jane. "And Dennis - another lawyer who did read the papers - said it was just 'charities.' He was sure they were going to steal the money, but he didn't say how."

  Karen's voice sounded tired, but she spoke quickly, as though she were reading something that was printed inside her eyelids. "Then I can think of a lot of ways to do it. Here's the simplest. Timmy becomes deceased - either in fact or in law - and they get a death certificate. They then disperse the money to a charity of their choice, or even of their own making, which kicks most of the money back in some way: ghost salaries and services, paid directorships, whatever."

  "Is that the way you would do it?"

  Karen's voice was a monotone. "Thank you very much."

  "You know what I mean. Is it the smartest way? They picked this time to have Timmy declared dead. They could have waited forever. There must be a reason why they did it now."

  "What I just told you is the dumb way. The smartest way is always to stay as close to legality as possible. If they were sole trustee and executor, they could have been draining the fund since it was started. They could set enormous fees, charge all sorts of costs to the trust, and cook the books a little here and there to show losing investments. They wouldn't steal it all. They would leave a substantial sum in there. How much is there?"

  "I don't know. I get the impression it's tens of millions, maybe hundreds."

  "Okay. Say it's a hundred million. They could get away with four or five percent a year as trustee and executor. They could also do virtually anything with the principal. There are written guidelines in every state I know of, but they're broad, and they're open to interpretation. They could invest in their friend's chinchilla ranch and have their friend go bankrupt, if nobody knew the connection. If they were smart enough to steal it slowly and vary the investments to make it look inconclusive, they could do a lot."

  "Inconclusive?"

  "You know. The trust has lots of stock in fifteen hundred companies, twenty million in federal bonds and a five-million-dollar write-off on the chinchilla ranch, and it's tough to prove they were anything but mistaken on the issue of chinchilla futures. Not dishonest."

  "So then what?"

  "They do it a few more times over the years, always making sure that the proportions are right - nine winners, one loser. They're stealing a lot, but some of it is hidden by the fact that most investments are making money. You have to remember that even the good investments go up and down too, so the bad ones are hard to spot. When they've got all they can, they call it quits."

  "How do they call it quits?"

  "They fulfill the terms of the trust - that is, they disperse the money to charities. Only now it's not a hundred million. It's twenty million."

  "And nobody notices that eighty million is gone?"

  "If the trust doesn't change hands, nobody looks. If you have twenty million, you can create quite a splash in the world of charity. You don't write a twenty-million-dollar check to the United Way and close the books."

  "What do you do?"

  "You divide it into ten-thousand-dollar tidbits and dole it out. Now you have two thousand checks from the Agnes Phillips Trust, which nobody ever heard of. Each year, you send four hundred different charities all over the country ten thousand dollars each. That's more than one a day. You do it for five years. The first year, when the Children's Fund of Kankakee gets a check from the Agnes Phillips Trust, what does it do?"

  "You've got me."

  "It sends a thank-you note. They're not going to demand an audit of the trust that sent them ten grand. It would never occur to them, and if it did, they couldn't make it stick. They're not heirs named in a will. They're a charity that got a big check at the discretion of the people who sent it. They're grateful. They have no idea of the size of the trust, and they hope they'll get another check next year so they can help more children."

  "So at the end of five years, the money is all gone, and the statute of limitations has run on the eighty million they stole?"

  "If they get only five percent return on the money while they dole it out, they get a couple of extra years. What's working most in their favor is that during all that time - figure eight years - nobody is asking any questions. That's the main thing. If at the end of that time there's a full-scale audit, the auditors won't be able to find a single instance of mistaken judgment that isn't at least eight years old, and no theft at all. As long as it's more than four since the payout began, nothing much matters."

  "So what do I do now?"

  "I'll tell you one thing I'd do. I'd make sure Timothy Phillips isn't alone much. None of this works if the heir is alive."

  10

  Jane went to the pay telephone at a market a few miles from her house, dialed Los Angeles Information to get the number of the Superior Court in Van Nuys, then asked to be
transferred to Judge Kramer's office. It was still early in the morning in California and Judge Kramer's secretary sounded irritable and sleepy. "Judge Kramer's chambers."

  Jane said, "Could you please tell him it's Colleen?" The last name he had given her had slipped her mind.

  "One moment. I'll see if he can be disturbed."

  The name came back to her. "Mahoney."

  "Pardon me?"

  "Colleen Mahoney."

  Jane's mind could see the secretary pushing the hold button, walking to the big oak door, giving a perfunctory knock, and walking into the dim room with the horizontal blinds. She allowed a few seconds for the secretary to tell him, but before she expected him to remember and pick up, he was on the line. "Judge Kramer."

  "Hello, Judge," she said. "Remember me?"

  "Yes. This is an unexpected pleasure," he said. "At least I hope it is."

  "I found out something that you need to know."

  "What is it?"

  "Well, I read that the D.A. has taken a look at Timmy's trust and said Hoffen-Bayne couldn't be anything but honest. He missed something."

  "What did he miss?"

  Jane spoke with a quiet urgency. "If Timmy was dead, the trust was to go to charities, so the D.A. assumed everything had to be okay. But in the trust Grandma didn't say, 'If Timmy dies, dissolve the trust right away and divide its assets among the following charities,' or 'Let the trust continue forever and the income go to the following charities.' She simply said, 'Give it away.' So there was no specific organization named in the trust who could demand the right to see the books."

  "You're saying that someone at Hoffen-Bayne planned to plunder the trust fund, give the residue to charities, and nobody would be the wiser?" he asked. "I don't see how they could imagine they would get away with it."