Death Benefits

by Michael A. Kahn

  “You’re not one of his biggest fans.”

  “He moved into Mr. Anderson’s office the day after the funeral. Couldn’t wait to get in there, Rachel. He was horning in before anyone even knew that Mr. Anderson was dead.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “On the second day after Mr. Anderson disappeared, I found Reed in that office going through Mr. Anderson’s papers. He told me—ordered me—to bring in Mr. Anderson’s calendar.”

  “Why?”

  “He said he had to make sure that Mr. Anderson didn’t have any important meetings scheduled. For the next week or so, all mail addressed to Mr. Anderson had to go to Reed. Same reason. ‘A law firm is like a Broadway play,’ he told me. ‘The show must go on.’”

  “He’s probably right.”

  She sighed. “I know. I guess that’s the kind of man you want to have in charge of things. It was the coldness that got me so upset.”

  “Does he still get all of Mr. Anderson’s mail?”

  “No. That stopped after a couple weeks.”

  “What happens now?”

  “I forward the client correspondence to the attorneys assigned to the matters. All the rest—the personal bills, periodicals, junk mail—I’ve been saving it in a box near my desk. I guess I should be shipping it out to Mrs. Anderson pretty soon.”

  “Tell me about Stoddard Anderson,” I asked. “What was he like to work for?”

  “Oh, it was very exciting sometimes. He knew a lot of really important people. You wouldn’t believe some of the names on my Rolodex. I used to place calls to senators, to the governor, the mayor, you name it. I bet there’ve been ten times at least that I picked up the phone and the girl on the other end said, ‘This is the White House calling for Mr. Anderson.’ Can you believe it?” She placed her hand on her chest. “Let me tell you, first time that happened this was one South County girl you could have knocked over with a feather.”

  I smiled, studying her. Age seems to enhance the beauty of some women in their forties, as if experience or wisdom somehow adds that last clarifying touch. Not so for Nancy Winslow. Her two most striking features—thick red hair and dark green eyes—remained strong, but twenty extra pounds and the steady pull of gravity had blurred what must have once been cover-of-Vogue beauty.

  “What kind of things did you do for him?” I asked her.

  “The usual. Took dictation, kept track of his schedules, set up appointments, set up meetings. That kind of stuff. I screened all of his incoming calls, placed all of his outgoing calls. Of course, there was always his filing to keep up with.” She shook her head in wonder. “Let me tell you, that man used to get mail by the truckload.”

  She didn’t recall anything unusual about his business travel during the last several months. He had made several trips to Chicago for meetings at the main office of Abbott & Windsor. As for other trips, she promised to get me his travel logs.

  “What was he like?” I asked. “Was he cheerful, friendly, aloof?”

  Nancy pressed her index finger against her chin as she thought it over. “I liked him okay,” she finally said. “He was kind of formal with me. Proper. Like, I always called him Mr. Anderson. He was different in real life than he was on the phone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was always upbeat on the phone, real charming—like a game show host. But when he hung up, that personality would vanish, just like that.” She snapped her fingers. “He wouldn’t get mean or anything. He’d just get real businesslike, real serious. He was—well, he was a boss.”

  “How about the last week?” I asked. “Did you notice anything different?”

  “He seemed—well, sort of moody,” she said.

  “How so?”

  “Sort of out of it. Ordinarily, he’d be on the phone almost eight hours straight. Some days that phone never stopped ringing. He’d get fifty calls a day. But those last couple days he had me hold all of his calls. All of them.”

  “What was he doing?”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes he had the door closed. When it was closed he was sometimes on the phone. I could tell because his line lit up on my phone. That was odd, too. He usually didn’t place his own calls.”

  “And when he wasn’t on the phone?”

  “I don’t know. When the door was open, he’d either be sitting at his desk doodling or staring out the window.”-

  “Did you ask him if anything was wrong?”

  She shrugged. “Mr. Anderson didn’t have personal conversations with me.”

  “Anything else odd that last week?”

  She mulled it over. “Now that you mention it, yeah. Little things. He had this strict rule that if a lawyer was out of the office, he had to tell his secretary exactly where he was going and where he could be reached at all times. But a couple times that last week Mr. Anderson just up and walked out of the office without telling anyone where he was going. That was odd. You know what else? He didn’t do his time sheets for the last three days.”

  “That was unusual for him?”

  “Oh, yes. Definitely. That’s another rule at Abbott and Windsor. Attorneys have to hand in their time sheets every day, no exceptions. If you’re more than two days late, you get fined twenty dollars a day. Mr. Anderson really enforced that rule. Since he was managing partner, he made sure he did his own daily. But that last week, well, he didn’t do any. None. I asked him one of those days if he had his time sheets for me, ’cause it just really wasn’t like him.”

  “What did he say?”

  She shrugged. “He mumbled something about how he’d get around to it.”

  “He’d never done that before?”

  “No, I take that back. Once. About five months ago, there was about a one-week gap in his time sheets. I asked him about it back then. He told me to bill the whole week to vacation. Which was odd, since he was in the office some of those days.”

  “How about the day he disappeared. What was he like that morning?”

  She shook her head sadly. “He was in his office with the door closed when I arrived that morning. He made at least one phone call, ’cause I remember his phone light lit up around ten o’clock.”

  “Just one call?”

  “I think so. At least I didn’t notice any others. Of course, I was holding all his incoming calls. He didn’t take any of them. Anyway, around eleven-fifteen I knocked on the door and opened it to remind him of his lunch date at the St. Louis Club. He was standing at the window, just staring out at the Old Courthouse. I had to say his name three times before he turned around. ‘Mr. Anderson—Mr. Anderson—MR. ANDERSON.’ I told him about his lunch appointment but he just kind of stared at me, or through me. So I repeated it to make sure he heard.”

  “What did he do?” I asked.

  “Just turned back to the window. He was leaning his head against the window when I closed the door. I felt real bad for him. I figured he must have heard some bad news or something. He really seemed kind of—well, stunned.”

  “What happened next?”

  “He walked out of his office about twenty minutes later. I was sitting at my terminal when he walked past. He was gone for maybe five minutes before I realized he’d left without his suit jacket on. I went into his office and found it still hanging on the hook in back of his door. Well, that was a problem.”

  “Why?”

  “His lunch meeting was at the St. Louis Club. You have to wear a jacket out there or they won’t let you in. So I got the firm’s messenger and gave him the jacket and told him to race like the devil out to Clayton to give it to Mr. Anderson. Then I called the club to tell them that Mr. Anderson had forgotten his jacket but that we were sending it out by messenger. I first started to worry when our messenger reached the club before Mr. Anderson. But then I thought that maybe he remembered about his jacket on his way to the club and had turn
ed back to the office to get it. I stayed by my phone through lunch, waiting to hear from my boss.” She sighed. “I never heard from him. Ever.” She shook her head, her eyes watering. “God, it seems so stupid.”

  “What does?”

  “That damn jacket. I’m telling you, I was in a panic. I was worried sick about that stupid jacket. He obviously couldn’t have cared less about it.”

  I waited as she pulled a Kleenex out of the box on my desk and blew her nose.

  “Did you handle his bank accounts?” I asked. Many older partners have their secretaries handle routine deposits and withdrawals. Some have their secretaries write checks and pay all their personal bills, from credit cards to home mortgage payments.

  “Mrs. Anderson handled their personal bills. I kept track of his bank statements, deposited his draw checks, and moved money from one account to another when he told me to. I didn’t write any checks.”

  She recalled that he had cashed in several large certificates of deposit back in January and February because of some capital calls on two of his real estate limited partnerships, but told me that Reed St. Germain would be a better source of information about Stoddard Anderson’s financial conditions. “He’s handling Mr. Anderson’s estate,” she said. “He had me turn over all the bank statements, checkbooks, and other stuff.”

  “During the last couple weeks of his life,” I said, reaching for my legal pad, “was he working on anything unusual?”

  She frowned in thought and then shook her head. She recalled no new clients or unusual matters.

  “Do any clients stand out in your memory?”

  “Three.”

  “Who?”

  “They’re all regular clients of the firm. And they stand out because of the people involved. Especially the Missing Link.” She gave a shiver of disgust.

  “The Missing Link?”

  “Salvatore Donalli. President of Donalli Construction Company.”

  “He’s the Missing Link?”

  “Yes. The most disgusting man I’ve ever met. I always felt like washing my phone whenever I got a call from him. Do you know what he once did? He made his secretary give him a blow job, and then, while that poor girl was down on her knees with his thing in her mouth, he called Mr. Anderson and told him.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  She shook her head. “I was in Mr. Anderson’s office once taking dictation when Donalli called. Mr. Anderson put him on the speaker phone but forgot to tell him I was in the room. ‘What’s up, Sal?’ Mr. Anderson asked him. ‘My cock,’ he says. ‘In Lurleen’s mouth. She gives the best head in town.’ And then that disgusting man made Lurleen say hello to Mr. Anderson. Well, by then Mr. Anderson had him off the speaker box.”

  “Was he upset?”

  “Upset? Mr. Anderson was furious, what with me being in the room and hearing it. He really let that horrible man have it.”

  I had jotted down: Salvatore Donalli—Donalli Construction Co.—Missing Link. “And you say Mr. Anderson was in contact with this man before he died.”

  She nodded. “Oh, yes. A lot.”

  I groaned. “It sounds like I may need to meet the Missing Link.”

  “Then put on an extra pair of pantyhose before you go over there.”

  “And keep my mouth closed.”

  “Or get your teeth sharpened.”

  We both laughed.

  “Who were the other two clients?”

  “Albert Weidemeir. He’s okay.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “He works for the Sewer District. Mr. Anderson represents—represented—the Metropolitan Sewer District. Albert is some sort of accountant over there. He works in the controller’s office. He’s real quiet. Kind of dull. Your basic civil servant model, if you know what I mean. In the whole time I’ve known him, he’s only told me one off-color joke.”

  “What was it?”

  “He called for Mr. Anderson last Halloween. I remember because I told him I wouldn’t put the call through until he told me a dirty joke. You know, trick or treat. Well, he hemmed and hawed for a while, and then finally he asks if I know what the Sewer District’s motto is.”

  “What’s the answer?”

  Nancy smiled. “Your shit is our bread and butter.”

  “Cute…I guess.”

  “From Albert Weidemeir? My God, I almost fell over in hysterics. It’s the funniest thing that man ever said to me.”

  “Tell me more about him.”

  “Albert’s real straight, real serious. But nice. Every once in a while he’ll ask about my boys when he calls.”

  “You mean the two redheads in the picture by your PC?” I asked.

  “Right.” She gave me a look of surprise. “You’re observant.”

  “Part of the job,” I said with a shrug.

  I had noticed a photograph of two adolescent boys, both with red hair, pinned to the wall of Nancy’s secretarial station. I had also noticed that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. I knew the type. Over the years I’ve represented one or two Nancy Winslows in divorce proceedings, and several others in court battles with their ex-husbands over missed alimony and child-support payments. Somehow these women manage to raise their children on their own, feed them and clothe them and nourish them on meager salaries, with no help—financial, emotional, or otherwise—from the creeps who had long since abandoned them. The Nancy Winslows of this world have their own wing in the Rachel Gold hall of fame.

  “So I can reach this Albert Weidemeir at the Sewer District?” I asked, jotting it down.

  “Right. The main office. I’ll get you his phone number.”

  “Thanks. Who’s the third client?”

  “Remy Panzer. He owns the Panzer Gallery.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A weird art gallery in the Central West End.”

  “Weird?”

  “I’ve never actually been there, but it has to be. Anything Remy Panzer owns has to be weird.”

  “What’s the story with Remy?”

  “Well, for starters he’s what you might call a little light in the loafers.”

  “Huh?”

  “You know, sugar in his gas tank.”

  “Gay?”

  “Definitely. Although I really don’t mind that part. Panzer’s just plain weird. Dresses weird, talks weird, walks weird. He gives me the willies.”

  I added Remy Panzer to my list. “This sounds like a fun group: the Missing Link, a boring civil servant, and a cast member from the Addams Family.”

  I asked her about Stoddard Anderson’s mail, especially whether he received anything unusual toward the end. She didn’t recall anything out of the ordinary.

  I checked my watch. It was later than I thought. I was supposed to meet with Dottie Anderson, his widow, in fifteen minutes out in Clayton. I asked Nancy if she could drop off the box of correspondence in my office before she went home, along with his appointment calendar. “Also,” I added, “could you have Reed St. Germain add to his list of documents the latest summary of the financial condition of Stoddard Anderson’s estate.”

  “Sure thing,” she said as we both stood up. “You know, for what’s it’s worth, Rachel, Mr. Anderson really did seem out of it those last couple days. He’d always kept a pretty tight grip on himself, but I could tell he was struggling with something. Whatever it was, it was really driving him crazy.”

  Chapter Six

  The Anderson home is on a quiet street in the City of Clayton, which is an affluent older suburb of St. Louis. As I got out of my car, I felt as if I had been whisked back to a Golden Books neighborhood from the 1950s. The massive trees along the street formed a green canopy of shade overhead. Sunlight filtered through gaps in the leaves—dozens of slanted yellow columns. A child’s bicycle was on its side on the sidewalk across the street. I could h
ear the distant growl of a lawn mower and the closer ring of an ice cream truck, perhaps a block over. A dog barked. A little girl pedaled down a driveway on her tricycle and then turned and pedaled back out of sight. Four houses down, on the lawn near the sidewalk, was a child’s table with a handmade LEMONADE FOR SALE sign taped to the front. The proprietor was nowhere in sight. Perhaps he was taking a nap.

  There was a dreamlike feel to the scene. I half expected to see the Pevely milk truck from my childhood come around the corner, trailing a pack of chasing kids—the boys wearing cowboy hats, me with my wild curls and torn Keds—shouting at the milkman for chunks of ice. Closing my eyes, I conjured up one of those big chunks of ice—sharp edges, cold to the tongue, harder than a diamond.

  The Anderson house fit right in. It was a red brick house, circa 1900, with black shutters, a gray slate roof, three chimneys, and two dormers. There were several window air-conditioning units, and all were humming away. A huge oak tree stood in the center of the lawn, casting shade over the entire house.

  The doorbell set off chimes inside. A few moments later my newest client opened the door.

  “You must be Rachel,” she said with a friendly smile. “Please come in, dear.”

  Like her neighborhood and her house, Dottie Anderson looked as if she had been beamed down from the Golden Books childhood. Specifically, she looked like the neighborhood grandmother—the one who gave out homemade brownies on Halloween and was always setting out a plate of warm sugar cookies for the kids on the block who came to visit her. She was even wearing an apron.

  “These cookies are delicious,” I said as she poured me a cup of tea.

  “Thank you, dear. Would you care for a lemon slice with your tea?”

  “No, thanks.”

  We talked generally for a while. I explained my assignment and the scope of my investigation. She listened quietly, nodding occasionally.

  Dottie Anderson did not seem the woman most likely to celebrate a thirty-second wedding anniversary with Stoddard Anderson. At best, she was the one discarded after twenty-five years for the “trophy wife.” She was overweight, plain, and shy. Her faded shirtwaist dress with a pleated bodice made her look older than she was. The smudge of flour on her nose seemed the final touch.