Inheritance

by Judith Michael

  For

  Ruth Barnard

  with admiration and love

  *

  art I

  Chapter 1

  LAURA and Paul made the bed together, laughing as they raced to see whose side would be finished first. "I'll never leam," Paul sighed in mock resignation when he lost. "Women were bom to make beds; men were bom to lie in them."

  "They were bom to lie about them," Laura retorted. "When we're married, you'll be amazed how fast you learn all kinds of things."

  "I'm fast at the important ones," he said, "like falling in

  love with you."

  She laughed, loving the way his smile and glance embraced her, the deepening of his voice when he spoke only to her, the memory of his hand on her breast when she had awakened that moming and they had moved into each other's amis, wami and half asleep, closer and closer until he was inside her and they had begun another day joined together, just as they planned to be joined as husband and wife for the rest of their

  lives.

  But then her eyes grew somber. "How can we be so happy? It isn't right to be laughing and doing everything the way we always have, when Owen isn't here. And won't be, ever again. And he won't see us married, and he wanted to so

  much."

  Paul knotted his tie and pulled on his suit jacket, glancing in the mirror as he ran a hand over his unruly black hair. "He

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  knew we were getting married; that was what he cared about." He put his arms around Laura and held her to him. "And you know he hated fancy parties and ceremonies."

  "He wouldn't have hated our wedding," Laura said. "Oh, Paul, I can't bear it that he's gone!"

  "I know." Paul lay his cheek on her hair, picturing the proud head and piercing eyes of Owen Salinger, his great-uncle and his very good friend. "And you're right, he would have loved our wedding, because he loved you and thought the smartest thing I ever did was agree with him." He held Laura away from him, searching her eyes for what she was feeling. Her slender face, with high cheekbones and wide, generous mouth, was somber in thought, as if frozen in time by a painter who had caught her arresting beauty but could only hint at the changing expressions that made her vivid face come alive with joy or sorrow^,warmth or coldness, pleasure or dismissal. And no painter could capture the elusiveness that made everyone, even Paul, wonder if they really knew her or could keep her close, or her biting wit that contrasted so in-triguingly with her innocence, making others remember her unpredictability long after they had forgotten the exact chestnut of her hair, ghnting red in the sun, or the precise dark blue of her wide, clear eyes.

  Paul brushed back the tendrils of hair that curled along her cheeks. "You're so pale, my love. Are you worried about this afternoon? Or is it just your suit? Do you have to wear black? We're not going to a ftmeral, after all; we're only going to Owen's house to listen to Parkinson read his will."

  "It's what I feel like wearing," Laura said. "A will reading is like a second funeral, isn't it? We keep slamming shut the doors of Owen's life." She slipped out of his arms. "Shouldn't we go?"

  "Yes." He locked the door of his ^artment, and they walked down the two flights of stairs to the tiny lobby. Boston's August heat rose to meet them in shimmering waves that made trees and gardens ripple like reflections in a pond. Children danced on the grass, dreamlike in the white-hot sun, and sailboats on the Charles were like white birds, dipping and swooping above cool splashing waves.

  "I'd forgotten how hot it gets," Paul murmured, pulling off

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  his jacket. "Strange, isn*t it, to be thinking about Owen here, in the city, when he'd never spend August anywhere but the Cape?" They reached his car and he turned on the air conditioning as they drove away. "My God, I miss him. Almost three weeks already, but I keep thinking I'll see him for dinner and hear him tell me again what I ought to be doing with my life."

  Laura sat close to him and he held her hand as he drove beneath the arching trees along Commonwealth Avenue. "If I didn't have you," he said quietly, "I'd feel as if the center of my world was gone."

  "And so would I." She twined her fingers in his, responding to the pressure of his thigh against hers, his shoulder against hers, the strength and desire that flowed between them whenever they touched. It was the same wherever they were, whatever they did: the rest of the world would disappear, leaving them alone with the love and passion that had grown steadily ever since the day, two years before, when he had finally noticed her.

  "So would I," she said again. Because even though she had her brother Clay, and Paul's family, who had taken her in four years ago, when she was eighteen, and made her feel like one of them, it was Owen, the head of the family, who had adored her and who had been the adored center of her life, until she met Paul. Then she had clung to both of them. And now, when she still felt young and unsure of herself and hadn't yet begun the things Owen wanted her to do . . . now he was gone and there was only Paul to take care of her.

  "Do you think we'll be there long?" she asked Paul. She didn't want to go at all. She didn't want to see everyone gathered in Owen's house where she had lived so happily—and still lived, though she had spent most of her time with Paul since Owen died—and hear the family lawyer read Owen's words when what she longed to hear was Owen's voice. She didn't want to hear Owen's sons Felix and Asa talk about finally being free to do what they wanted with the empire their father had built with love and pride, when their plans were so different from the ones Owen had been sharing with her for the past years, up to the time of his stroke.

  "Not long," Paul said, turning up Beacon Hill and finding a

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  parking place near Owen's enormous comer town house. "It's mostly a formality. Felix and Asa get the remaining stock in the company that Owen had held, the girls will get enough to make them happy, and I'll get a token because he loved me even though he laiew I preferred a camera to a high-level job in his hotel empire. Half an hour, probably, for Paikinson to read the whole thing." Standing beside the car, he took Laura's hand again. "I'm sorry you have to go through it, but since Paikinson specifically asked for you— "

  "It's all right," Laura said, but she was knotting up inside as they climbed the steps to the front door that had been hers for four years, to the rooms where she had lived as Owen's friend, nurse, protegee, and, finally, as close to a granddaughter as anyone could be.

  When the butler opened the door she looked automatically across the marble foyer at the branching staircase, almost ex-pectmg to see Owen Salinger descending the stairs at his dignified pace—ruddy, healthy, his bushy eyebrows and drooping mustache like flying buttresses as he sent orders, opinions, and declarations to every comer of his house. Her eyes filled with tears. He had been so courtly, commanding, and overwhelming, she couldn't imagine a world without him. Where could she go without missing him?

  You'll always miss him. But get today over with and get on with your life. That's what Owen would say. And he'd be right. He was always right.

  She looked up at Paul. "Let's get away from here when this is over."

  "Good idea," he said, and smiled at her, relieved that her sombemess was lifting. It had seemed exaggerated from the beginning, making her appear worried, almost fearful, instead of mourS^, as he would have expected. One of her moods, he thought, and reminded himself of how alone she'd been when Owen first paid attention to her and gave her the kind of enveloping love he bestowed on only a chosen few. "Relax," he said as they went in. "I'm here. We're together."

  His hand held hers tightly and they went into the library where the Salinger family had already assembled, crowded together on leather couches and armchairs, the younger great-granddaughters perched on ottomans or sitting cross-legge
d on

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  the Tabriz rugs Owen and Iris had collected in their travels. At the far end of the room, near the mahogany and marble fireplace, Laura saw Clay talking to Allison and Thad, and she smiled at him, thanking him silently for taking time from his job in Philadelphia to be near her for the will reading.

  Behind the massive library table Elwin Parkinson, Owen's lawyer, sat with Felix and Asa Salinger, Owen's sons, the heirs to his empire and his fortune. Paul shook hands with them, paused to greet his parents, and then he and Laura went to a far comer, standing before a leaded glass window set in a book-lined wall. He put his arm around her; she was trembling, and he kissed die top of her head lightly as Parkinson began to speak.

  "I have before me the last will and testament of Owen Salinger, dated three years ago this month. The non-family members are named first. Heading the list is a bequest of five hundred thousand dollars to Rosa Curren who, in Owen's words, 'kept my house and my family for fifty years and sustained me through the daiicest years after my beloved Iris died.'

  "There are smaller bequests," Parkinson went on, "to several of the longtime employees and concierges of the Salinger Hotels; various gardeners, barbers, and tailors; the captain of a sailboat in the Caribbean; a salesman at a boot shop in Cambridge; and sundry others I will not take the time to list. There are also sizable bequests to organizations which Owen held dear, foremost among them the Boston Art Museum, the Boston Symphony, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, but also including the Foxy Theater Troupe of Cambridge, the Wellfleet Oysters, and the Cape Cod Mermaids."

  A rustle of laughter whispered through the room at the reminder of Owen's eccentricities and whimsies when it came to spreading his wealth; the family had long since gotten used to them, sometimes even agreeing with them. Only Felix and Asa were flat-faced; they had never found their father amusing.

  Paridnson pulled a separate document from his briefcase and read from it. " 'Of my thirty percent holdings in Salinger Hotels Incorporated, I leave twenty-eight percent, divided equally, to my sons Felix and Asa—'"

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  "Twenty-eight percent?" Asa sprang to his feet, peering over Parkinson's shoulder. "He owned thirty p-p-percent. We share thirty percent. There was never any question of that." He peered more closely. "What the hell is that you're reading? That's n-n-n-not the will."

  Felix sat in silence, staring at his locked hands as Parkinson cleared his throat and said, "This is a codicil Owen added to his will in July."

  "Last m-m-m-month?" Asa demanded. "After his stroke?"

  Parkinson nodded. "If you will allow me, I should read it in its entirety."

  "If we allow you!" Asa repeated grimly. "Read it!"

  Once again Parkinson cleared his throat. " 'I, Owen Salinger, in full possession of my faculties, dictate this codicil to tfie will I made three years ago. Of my thirty percent holdings in Salinger Hotels Incorporated, I leave twenty-eight percent, divided equally, to my sons Felix and Asa Salinger. And to my most beloved Laura Fairchild, who has brought joy and love to the last years of my life, I leave the remaining two percent of my shares in Salinger Hotels Incorporated, plus one hundred percent of the Owen Salinger Corporation, a separate entity, which owns the four hotels with which I began the Salinger chain sixty years ago, in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington, and also my house and furnishings on Beacon Hill, where she has been living and should continue to live. She will know exactly what to do with her inheritance; she has shared my ideas and helped me make new plans, and I trust her to keep our dream alive and make it flourish.'"

  In the brief, heavy silence that enveloped flie room, Laura's eyes were closed, warm salt tears flowing down her cheeks. Dearest Laura, I've left you a little something in my will. That was all he had said, and she'd thought of money, perhaps enough to buy a sm^ lodge and have something of her own, even when she was married to Paul, where she could put to use everything Owen had taught her about hotels.

  Across the room, she saw Clay's look of excitement; his eyes danced and his lips mouthed, "Wow! You pulled it off!" Shocked and angry, she turned away.

  Paul had followed her look and was watching Clay with a

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  puzzled frown. In the rest of the room voices had risen to a cacophony while Paiidnson banged a brass letter opener against an inkwell, trying to regain control.

  "I w-w-won*t have it!" Asa fumed. "Enough is enough! We've g-g-given her a home for years—^" I "Owen gave her a home," Leni said quietly, but no one paid attention.

  "I think it's lovely," Allison exclaimed. "Laura took care of Grandfather; why shouldn't he give her something if that was what he wanted?"

  "He didn't know what he wanted." Felix's hard-edged words rode over all the voices in the room. He stood, putting a restraining hand on Parkinson's shoulder to keep him silent, and waited for the family to quiet down and give him their attention. They did; they knew it was he, and not Asa, who was the real head of the Salingers now.

  "He didn't know what he wanted," Felix repeated in measured words. "He was a sick old man who was manipulated and terrorized by a greedy, conniving witch and for the entire month after his stroke— "

  "Felix!" Paul's deep voice cut across his uncle's raspy one. "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "You fucking bastard!" Clay bellowed, riding over Paul's words. "Who the fuck do you— *'

  "Keep your mouth shut," Felix snapped and went on, never breaking stride. "—entire month after his stroke was a helpless invalid who could neither move nor speak— **

  "Felix!" Paul said again.

  "He could speak!" Laura said. "He talked to me—we talked—"

  "—neither move nor speak intelligibly, and it was obvious to everyone that he had lost his ability to think clearly. And that obvious fact was taken advantage of by this girl, who was only one of his whims until she wormed her way into his life, and then, when he was dying, kept the nurses out of his room so she could be alone widi him and manipulate him into changing his will—^"

  'That's enough," Paul said furiously. "God danm it, Felix, you're mad; what the hell has gotten into you? This is a goddam pack of lies— **

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  **Owen didn't want the nurses!" Laura cried. She had barely heard Paul. "He told me to keep them out!" She shivered with cold; her tears had dried in cold streaks on her cheeks. "He didn't want strangers; he wanted me!"

  "He didn't know what he wanted—^" Felix began for the third time.

  "Shut up!" Paul roared. "Let Elwin finish reading! and by God you'll explain this to me later; you'll apologize to Laura and to the whole family— "

  Ignoring Paul, Felix put his head back, looked down his thin nose, and flung his voice at Laura. "He didn't know anything, did he? He didn't know that you're a criminal with a record, that you have a criminal for a brother, and that you lied to him—you lied to all of us—for four years while we took you in and gave you everything."

  Laura's gasp was like a cloth ripping across the dead silence of the room.

  "Four years," Felix said, his words like hammer blows. "And we all know that four years ago, the summer you and your brother appeared at our door, our house was robbed of an irreplaceable collection of jewelry and— "

  "We didn't have anything to do with that!" Clay shouted.

  Everyone was talking at once, turning to each other in alarm, calling out to Felix to explain what he meant. But Felix spoke directly to Laura. "You don't think we'd believe that! From the evidence I now possess, I have concluded that you came here for one purpose only—to rob us—and then decided to stay when you saw you could wr^ your tentacles around my father, just as you'd done once before with another old man who left you a fortune before he died, and then!"—he shouted above his family's rising clamor, with a glance at Paul—^"then you wrappeid yourself around a young man of wealth, because professional fortune hunters never miss a chance, do they. Miss Fairchild?"

  "I'm not! I
loved Owen!" But the words lacked force; she felt crushed beneath too many accusations. "I love Paul. You have no right to lie—^"

  "Don't you talk to me of right! You came to us with lies; you came to entr^, to ensnare; you wormed your way into our household . . . and you robbed us of my wife's jewels and almost killed my fatherr

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  "It's a goddam lie!" Clay shouted. "We didn't do tfiat job; we changed our— '*

  He stopped, his face deathly pale. Laura, her tears gone, almost numb with cold, felt Paul's arm drop from her shoulder, saw Leni's look of disbelief, and saw Allison—dear Allison who had been so good to her—stare at her in shock and growing anger.

  "K?« changed nothing^'' Felix said with contempt. His eyes had gleamed when Clay blurted his fatal words, but then he masked his triumph and now stood at the table with the look of a remote god. "You're a couple of common criminals, you've never been anything else, and I'm going to see to it that everyone knows it. I'm going to break that codicil in court; I'm going to see to it that you don't get a penny of my father's fortune. You'll leave the way you came, with nothing; you'll leave now, and you'll never have anything to do witii any of us again!"

  Laura put a hand against the windowpane to steady herself. The glass was warm in the sunlight, but nothing could warm the coldness within her. She felt a movement beside her and looked up. Paul had moved away from her; he was looking at her as if he were meeting her for the first time.

  It was all over. The nightmare she had lived with for four years had become real.

  Chapter 2

  / / "T"T looks awfully tough," Clay mumbled as he eyed I the clustered rooftops of the gray shingled Cape Cod J. mansions that were their target. '^Guardhouse, fence, and I saw a dog . . ." He was trying to sound like a cool professional instead of a seventeen-year-old in unfamiliar territory, but his hand was cold as it clasped Laura's. Hers was cold, too, but she looked calm to him; she always seemed more daring and determined than he, but then she was a year older and had already graduated from high school. Moving closer to her in the back seat of the rented car Ben was driving past the Salingers' summer compound, he said, 'I'll bet they have lots of dogs.*'