Laughing Heirs (A Robin Starling Courtroom Mystery)

by Michael Monhollon

  “I don’t have anemia.”

  “You might develop anemia if you don’t eat red meat.”

  “Not today, okay? You two have fun.”

  Paul gave the elevator a sad look as we went by it, but we took the stairs down.

  “It’s just one floor,” I said. “And it’s been doing you good. You look like you’ve lost weight in the past month or so.”

  We emerged into the cold sunshine of a February day, and I sneezed.

  “Sun feels good,” Paul said.

  “Gesundheit to you, too. So have you?”

  “Have I what?”

  “Lost weight.” I took his hand and swung it between us as we walked.

  “Maybe a pound or two.”

  “Well, you’re looking good.”

  He didn’t quite purr as we walked along, but he did smile with the smugness of a big tomcat.

  I usually have a salad with a little deli chicken for dinner, which gives me license to order the occasional burger and fries. That’s my position anyway. I did forgo the cheese, if you’re counting calories for me. Paul ordered a burger without cheese, too, which was unprecedented, and without a bun, which was stupefying.

  “No cheese, no bun, no Coke?” I said as we carried our food to a table.

  “You’re drinking water, too,” he said.

  “I always drink water. You drink Coke—and sometimes beer, if it’s Friday.”

  “I’ve been taking the stairs, making a few positive dietary changes.”

  I took a bite of my burger. “How much weight have you lost really?” I said around the mouthful.

  “Owmuwaitwilly?” he said. He cut his bunless burger with a knife and fork and took a bite.

  I swallowed. “Come on. I didn’t sound that bad.”

  He grinned.

  “So?”

  “I don’t know. Ten, fifteen pounds.”

  I frowned. “In how long? A month?”

  “Or so. I try not to obsess about it.”

  “That’s too fast.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Oz.”

  “You do look better, though. Leaner, almost fit.”

  “Higher praise.”

  “Well…”

  “I know. I’ve got a way to go. Tell me about this new case you’ve got. When I stuck my head in Brooke's office, she said it was something involving her brother.”

  “Actually, it involves her brother’s girlfriend, or the woman he’d like to be his girlfriend. It doesn’t look like it will be much, really. Her uncle died, she’s a beneficiary, and there may be a little wrangling over the estate. A lawyer named Rupert Propst is handling the probate. I thought I might ask your friend Mike about him, see if he knows him at least by reputation. You still hang out with Mike, don’t you?”

  “Sure. Not as much as before I met you.”

  “That makes me feel kinda guilty.”

  “Mike’s doing okay.”

  “Well, at some point I’d like to talk to him. I’ve never done probate.”

  “He’d be pleased to help you. He’s a big admirer.”

  “Of me? Mike?”

  “Of course. You’ve been in the paper, you know. And I’ve sung your praises a bit.”

  The photo that had accompanied the last newspaper article made me look like a longtime inmate in a woman’s prison. It took me a while to recognize the outfit I was wearing, but when I did, I got rid of it. “I really don’t like being in the paper.”

  “Oh, come on, the picture wasn’t that bad—” He’d heard me complain about the photograph before. “—and how else are you going to build your business?”

  “I know, I know. But picture aside, the article made me out to be some kind of super lawyer.”

  “And that’s bad?”

  “It can be. Eventually, I’ll be going into court without my superpower.”

  He put down his fork and laced his fingers in front of him. “I don’t think I’ve heard about your superpower.”

  “People look at my sweet face and my blonde hair, and they think I’m like that blonde who came across some tracks while hiking in the woods.”

  “What blonde is that?” He picked up his water cup.

  “She was trying to figure out what kind of animal made the tracks when the train hit her.”

  He sucked water down the wrong pipe and choked on it.

  “When people underestimate you, you don’t have to be as good,” I said.

  “You don’t have to worry. People will always underestimate you, because nobody can be as good as you are.”

  “Wow. You do see some prospect of sexual favors.”

  “Correlation does not imply causation,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I think you’re great and I see a prospect of sexual favors, not necessarily because I see a prospect of sexual favors. There doesn’t have to be a causal relationship.”

  “Ah.” In college I majored in English literature. Economics—Paul had double-majored in economics and political science—was evidently a whole other subject.

  The day had turned colder. I had already told Paul about Robert Walsh drowning in his nephew’s hot tub and what little I knew about Whitney Foster, so we walked pretty much in silence, each of us hunched against the cold. We stopped on the bricks outside the plate-glass windows of the Ironfronts, an office building that dated back almost to the Civil War. It was a cool old building to office in.

  “I guess I’ll leave you here,” he said. “I’ve got a conference call in about twenty minutes.” Paul was a bank examiner for the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, which was several blocks away in a twenty-four-story building next to the James River.

  “I’m going to Robert’s funeral. It’s at Saint Stephens.”

  “Why would you go to his funeral?”

  I shrugged. “I was invited.”

  “You’re not thinking Mr. Walsh had help drowning, are you?”

  “No reason to. It’s really just that I don’t have much else to work on right now.” I had hung out my shingle only a couple of months ago after being fired from the law firm of Northrup, Hambrick and Larsen.

  “Be nice if this turned into another big, fat murder case, especially since it sounds like there’s a hefty estate involved that can pay the legal bill.”

  “There’s no point in getting pigeonholed. Most of my experience has been on the civil side of the docket anyway.”

  “There just don’t seem to be a lot in the way of legal fees on the civil side of this particular case.”

  I gave him a wry smile. “Too true,” I said.

  Chapter 3

  I was late to the funeral. I parked near the far end of the narrow lot and walked down the sidewalk, which the sunlight patterned with the bare-limbed shadows of the leafless trees. I snagged an order of service as I entered the sanctuary, thinking I would slip into a back pew, but all the back pews were occupied. I kept walking forward as the video slideshow of photographs came to a close and the music ended abruptly. An old man stepped to the podium and coughed to clear his throat. Despite his lined face, he had broad shoulders, a big, square head, and a neck like a tree trunk growing up out of his shirt collar.

  There were plenty of places to sit, but none of them on the aisle. “Excuse me,” I said to an elderly couple and slid past them. I sat, and the old man at the podium coughed again.

  He read, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed in us.” My cheeks still felt hot with embarrassment, and I took a few deep breaths as he continued, “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God—and not only the creation, but we ourselves groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” His voice cracked a few times, and when he finished he remained at the podium, staring over our heads, his tears running down crease
s in his face so deep they might have been channels carved for the purpose. I had to look away.

  Flower arrangements lined the front of the church, the casket there in the midst of them, its lid standing open. I was close enough that I could see a little of the waxy-faced man lying peacefully in repose. At the podium a younger man in a white robe replaced the old man. His role, evidently, was to tell a few stories about the deceased, and he told them well, though it sounded like he’d gotten the stories second-hand. I thought the old man might have done better if he could have kept from choking on his grief.

  Brian Marshall was sitting just two rows in front of me beside a young woman with a mass of extremely curly, dirty-blonde hair drawn back into a pony tail. Whitney Foster, I guessed. She was wearing glasses with rose-colored frames and had a nice profile, though her mascara was smeared, and there was too much of it.

  I wanted to turn in my seat to look around at some of the other funeral-goers, but I restrained myself. There was more scripture and a congregational hymn, but no more reminiscences of Robert Walsh, secondhand or otherwise. After about thirty minutes, the young woman I’d taken to be Whitney Foster went forward and sang “We’ll Meet Again.” The order of service confirmed her identity. She had a low, rich voice and a polished enough delivery that I thought she must sing in a choir somewhere.

  At the end of the service, we exited past the open casket. Robert Walsh had been a spare man with thinning white hair and a beak of a nose. I hadn’t been at an open-casket funeral since my grandfather’s death when I was seven, and I felt a shiver work its way up my spine and along my arms as I walked past the casket.

  Brian and Whitney were in the foyer. The whites of her eyes were a disconcerting shade of pink that almost matched the frames of her eyeglasses, and her mascara had migrated still further down her cheekbones. Just beyond them were James Jordan and Ray Hernandez, two cops I knew.

  “Hi, Robin,” Brian said to me. “I’d like you to meet Whitney Foster.”

  I smiled at her and took her hand. “Robin Starling,” I said. “You did a beautiful job with your song. It was very touching.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Maybe you could come by the coffee shop about five o’clock or so,” Brian said to me. “Would that work for you?”

  I nodded. “Sure.”

  There were, fortunately, other people who wanted to talk to Whitney, which gave me the opportunity to work my way around her and Brian. Jordan and Hernandez had left the church, but I caught up with them on the sidewalk outside.

  “So did you know Robert Walsh?” I asked after we had shaken hands.

  “Not during his lifetime,” Hernandez said.

  “What causes you to make his acquaintance afterward? Wasn’t the death accidental?”

  Jordan shrugged.

  “Do you know it wasn’t accidental?” I asked.

  “No, we don’t know it. Not at this time.”

  “Suggesting you’re waiting for some tests to come back.”

  The two of them exchanged glances.

  “You give dumb blondes a bad name,” Hernandez said.

  “Sorry. I’ll try harder to live up to the stereotype. I’d assumed Robert Walsh was just an old man who stayed in a hot tub too long and passed out from the heat.” Neither of them responded to the prompt. “Well?”

  “What else do you assume?” Jordan asked.

  “Bruising on the body suggesting his head had been held under water? Somebody’s skin under his fingernails?” There were people exiting the church now, and we moved off the sidewalk to spare them my grisly speculations.

  “How about postmortem abrasions that suggest the body was moved?” Jordan said.

  “Really?”

  He shook his head. “It’s inconclusive. Drowning deaths often are.”

  “So what are you here for?”

  He gave me a lopsided smile, still shaking his head.

  “You’re no help.”

  “What’s your connection to Mr. Walsh?” Hernandez asked me. “Were you his lawyer, or are you representing one of the kids?”

  “Or maybe you go to St. Stephen’s,” Jordan said. “And you go to all the funerals.”

  I smiled. “No.”

  “Which question are you answering?”

  “Take your pick.”

  “I go to St. Bridget, right next door,” Hernandez said.

  “So this is your church?” I asked Jordan, then answered my own question. “No. If it was, you’d know whether or not I was a member.”

  “Jordan’s a Baptist,” Hernandez said. “How about you? What church do you go to?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve never been too comfortable around churches.”

  “Too much of a social atmosphere?” Jordan asked.

  “No, I’m a sociable person.”

  “Too many hypocrites?”

  “No, I’m right at home with hypocrisy. It would be hypocritical not to be.”

  They waited for a fuller explanation, as if any of this was their business. I didn’t have any reason to be close-mouthed with them on this particular subject; it was just my natural inclination.

  “I guess I’m afraid of having an unexpected encounter with God Almighty,” I said finally. “I have the feeling he’d disapprove of me.”

  “We like you,” Hernandez said.

  “Is that the way it works? God likes me, I’m in?”

  “Well, no,” Jordan said. “Everybody falls short. You have to repent.”

  “And change your carnal ways,” Hernandez added.

  What did he know about my carnal ways? I didn’t ask. I said, “That’s just what I need, to turn a corner one Sunday morning and run smack into the creator of the universe, only to find he’s unhappy with the way I do things.”

  “See the woman who just came out?” Hernandez said. “Slender woman with straight blonde hair, wiping at her nose with the handkerchief?”

  “Yeah.”

  “If we’re ready to leave the subject of your spiritual shortcomings,” he said.

  “More than ready.”

  “She’s Macy Buck, Walsh’s therapist. A home health company called Mobilecare sent her to his house two, three times a week.”

  “What kind of help did Mr. Walsh need?”

  Macy was wearing black slacks and a short coat over a white blouse. She was a pale blonde with delicate features and looked like she might be in her mid- to late twenties. Her eyes were clear and, except for the handkerchief she carried, there was no sign she’d been crying.

  “He had a double knee replacement about three months ago,” Hernandez said.

  “Long recovery.” Another group of people came through the door, and Macy stepped toward a sandy-haired man with a conservative haircut, putting a hand to the shoulder of the overcoat he wore over his suit. He gave her a grimace that suggested he didn’t like being touched—not even by an attractive woman like Macy Buck.

  “Jared Walsh,” Jordan said in my ear. “Older nephew.”

  “And executor of the estate,” I said, and Jordan raised his eyebrows.

  Macy turned from Jared to embrace another man who had stopped just outside the church. This one hugged her back.

  Hernandez said, “And here’s Nathan, the younger nephew.” He had long hair worn in a ponytail to expose the shaved sides of an undercut. He wore faded jeans and a black jacket that looked as if it might be silk.

  “Macy really becomes attached to the families of her patients,” I observed.

  “Doesn’t she?” Hernandez said.

  “Nathan looks younger than Jared,” I said. “I understand they’re brothers?”

  “Yes, sons of Robert’s brother Harold,” Hernandez said. “Nathan’s thirty-two, Jared’s forty.”

  “And Whitney?” I said.

  “She your client?” Jordan asked.

  I looked at him, and he shrugged.

  “Twenty-four, daughter of Robert’s sister—Francis, I think.”

  “Thank you.” I squee
zed his arm and drifted away toward Whitney’s cousins and Macy the therapist.

  “I’ll miss him,” Macy was saying to Whitney, who had just come out of the church, removing a pair of sunglasses from a hard case as she blinked in the sunlight. “He was a nice man.”

  “I always found him to be a difficult old man,” Jared said to his brother, making no real effort to keep his voice down. Jennifer couldn’t stand him.”

  Jennifer didn’t seem to like you much, either,” Nathan said uncharitably. His remarks were addressed to his brother, but his gaze had shifted to me, so I stepped forward and extended a hand.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” I said.

  “Jennifer’s Jared’s ex,” Nathan said by way of explanation as he took my hand. “I don’t believe I know you.”

  “Robin Starling. It’s a pretty convoluted connection. My best friend’s brother is dating your cousin Whitney there.”

  Somehow I seemed to have caught everyone’s attention.

  “I didn’t know Robert,” I said, “but I wanted to pay my respects.”

  There’s nothing like a wall of silence to make a person feel unwelcome. Of course, as a trial lawyer, I was used to feeling unwelcome.

  “He was what, eighty or thereabouts?” I said.

  “He was seventy-eight.” Jared said, a bit stiffly.

  I said, “I guess he’d been having trouble with dizzy spells? Occasional faintness? It’s just so sad he was alone when it happened.”

  Jordan and Hernandez had moved to within earshot.

  “Tragic,” Jared said. He looked as if he were trying to crack a walnut with his butt-cheeks.

  “I didn’t even know he used the hot tub,” Nathan volunteered. “I’d have been more worried about him falling into the pool when he came over to help himself to Jared’s tools.”

  I smiled at Jared, though he was the person who seemed least receptive to a smile. “Your yard seems to be full of attractive nuisances.”

  He stared at me.

  “Pool, hot tub, tool shed…”

  “Uncle Robert just held onto Jared’s lawnmower,” Nathan said. “Not that Jared uses it much himself.”

  “Will you for god’s sake shut up?” Jared said, turning on him.

  “Hot tubs can be so dangerous,” I said to the crowd at large, “especially with kids and older folks. I know, seventy-eight’s not so old, but when you’ve had your knees replaced, maybe still on pain meds that are making you loopy…” I shook my head.