Well Bred and Dead

by Catherine O'Connell

  Ethan continued. “So Norbert made me an offer, that in exchange for putting me and the inheritance together, he’d get half. Which would have been perfectly fine with me except for one problem. In order for me to claim the money I would have to prove I was Daniel Kehoe. How could I possibly explain who I had become instead? A naturalized citizen named Ethan Campbell? I believe I was more terrified that night than the night the real Ethan died. And what made matters worse was that I had been right all along! I was extraordinary. Now I was to be denied my birthright because of an accident in the past.

  “I decided to play it safe, and insisted I had no idea who Daniel Kehoe was. Norbert shrugged and acted like he accepted my denial. The next thing I knew he was holding a gun on me. He forced me into the bedroom and made me sit on the bed.

  “‘What could you possibly get by killing me?’ I asked him.

  “And his answer was, ‘I’ll say I’m you, that’s what, and I’ll get the money.’

  “‘You don’t understand, you can’t get away with it,’ I told him, but he refused to listen. I jumped up and grabbed for the gun. We struggled and it went off. Norbert fell onto the bed. I stepped back in horror. He was dead and I was right back in Morristown, South Carolina, standing over a dead body that I would take the blame for.”

  Wondering if anyone had heard the shot, Ethan went to his front door and put an ear to it, listening for any changes in the rhythm of the building. Thankfully there was rap music blasting in the hall and he hoped it was loud enough to cover the sound of the gunshot. He waited a long time, and when thirty minutes passed with no knock at his door, he decided the shot had gone unnoticed. Feeling he had bought some time, he paced back and forth around the piles of paper in his living room, thinking over his options.

  “Number one, I could call the police and explain his death was an accident. But even if they believed me, they would most likely do some investigating into me. That could be a real problem. Or number two, I could do what I had done thirty-four years ago in Morristown, grab a new identity and run. This was the more appealing of the two. Only this time I would bury Daniel Kehoe and Ethan Campbell for good. I would leave the birth certificates my mother had given me along with Ethan’s identification.

  “Since my twin was wearing a tropical weight suit, I had to undress him. No one would believe I would wear a light suit like that in March. I put the bloody clothes into a grocery bag and called you. I had to make sure you’d come to check on me. I needed someone to identify that body as me before it decomposed. That’s why I made up the story about the bad reaction to my new medication. You were just heading out to the opera as I recall.”

  “Have you any idea how much guilt I suffered thinking I cut you short when you were suicidal?”

  “I apologize for that, Pauline. But I’m sure you can understand that I had to do it.” He paused to gather his thoughts and continued. “I grabbed my prescriptions and left the apartment. I had found my brother’s wallet and hotel key in his pockets, so I figured I’d be safe in his hotel room. When I got there I changed into his clothes. They were a perfect fit. Except it was obvious he never visited Chicago in March. On top of the bloody tropical suit I had to throw out, everything in his suitcase was summer wear. He must have thought we actually have spring here.”

  He laughed a merry lighthearted chortle at his joke and continued. “So there I was, standing in front of a mirror in a Hawaiian shirt and yellow slacks wondering if I could really walk outside in them, when someone knocked at the door. I didn’t even draw a breath hoping whoever it was would go away. But the knocking didn’t stop. It got louder until I was ready to crawl under the bed to hide. Then someone shouted, ‘C’mon Norbert, we know you’re in there. Open this door before we fucking kick it in.’

  “At that point I resigned myself to fate and opened the door. There were two men standing in the hall. One seemed quite agitated, the other calm. They pushed me back into the room. The agitated one swore ‘You cheating bastard. Did you think we wouldn’t find you here? If you think you’re going to claim jump on us, you’ve got another thing coming. Now where’s that brother of yours?’

  And that was Ethan’s first introduction to Todd Matthews and Terrance Sullivan, or whatever their real names were. As he stood silently trembling in front of them, they continued haranguing him about finding his brother. He began to realize they were no great friends of the dead man, merely interested in something involving a great deal of money.

  “‘Aren’t you going to fucking say anything?’ Terrance asked me.

  “Having no idea what to do outside pleading amnesia, I finally said, ‘I’m sorry, gentlemen, I seem to be having a memory problem.’ The moment the words crossed my lips, I knew I had made a mistake. In my nervousness, I had completely forgotten that my brother had a Southern accent. They both stared at me dumbfounded.

  “Then Terrance said, ‘Who are you?’

  “Suddenly, Pauline, I was just too tired to fake it anymore. I’d been faking it for too many years. I had reached the end of the road. Resigning myself to the fact that I would most likely go to jail, I told them about the accidental shooting in my apartment.

  “At first I was sure they were going to pick up the phone and call the police, but instead Todd started ranting about how much they had put into finding me, that I had inherited a fortune and I was damn well going to collect it. They wanted their finder’s fee. Then I heard the sum involved for the first time. Thirty-three million dollars? Could it be possible?”

  It was more than possible they assured him. It was then Ethan set his mind to work, thinking of how he could get his hands on his birthright without going to prison. And an idea came to him in a flash of brilliance. He would bequeath the money to someone else and come back to get it at a later date.

  “Why me?” I asked, remembering my jubilance the day I learned of the inheritance.

  “Pauline, you were the ideal candidate. Don’t you see it? It’s because of you and what you did that I’m standing here today.”

  He was right. I was the ideal candidate, and I played right into their hands. After the three of them worked out their plan, Ethan wrote out a will and went back to his local currency exchange to have it notarized. Thinking it too dangerous to go back to his apartment, he dropped the will into the neighborhood mailbox and it found its way to me two days later. Ethan couldn’t very well remain in Chicago, so he flew to Miami under his new name to wait things out. It wasn’t difficult to pass himself off as his twin since he not only had Norbert’s identification, but his brother had conveniently left his unfinished autobiography laying on the kitchen table. Terrance went on to London to meet up with me. And Mr. Matthews in turn followed me to Boston and Rochester. Each time, they moved me in the direction they needed like a lowly pawn in a chess game.

  “Ethan,” I asked. “Don’t you have the slightest remorse over what you’ve done to me? How manipulative it was to let Terrance play with my feelings like that?”

  “Another apology to offer you, Pauline. We needed Sean out of the way. You having a boyfriend could only cause complications. Besides, Terrance had to keep prodding you. We needed you to draw the attention of Holstein so you could collect the money.” Ethan yawned widely as he finished his confession. “Now you know it all. I’ve got to get some sleep. Tomorrow’s a big day.”

  “Wait, just one more question, Ethan. What makes you think after the money’s been transferred they won’t kill you and cheat you out of it?”

  “Oh, I’ve already thought that one out, Pauline. The money is going to a joint account in my name and Mr. Sullivan’s name. It’s set up that both parties need to be present to make any withdrawals.”

  His eyes began to flutter, and he turned on his side in the chaise. In what seemed like a matter of seconds, he was asleep. I, however, lay there wide awake, a victim of my own curiosity and stupid luck. Ethan slept an untroubled sleep, each exhale marked by a slight whistle, while I thought about how my dreams had once again
been shattered.

  How simple and foolproof Ethan had made things for himself. He and his partners would appear at the bank, withdraw their certified checks and disperse to the ends of the earth. I wondered where Ethan would go. Somewhere warm most certainly. He never cared much for the cold. He would moan and complain during Chicago’s winter, saying the years in Puerto Rico had thinned his blood. One time his whining got so bad I asked him why he didn’t just move someplace warmer. “For the life of me, Pauline, I have no idea,” he answered and then added, “I guess I had to come someplace miserable to write.”

  But what was to happen if he were to see someone from his former life, Marjorie Wilcock on vacation in Belize, Sunny in Cabo, Sandy St. Clair just about anywhere within range of the Hatteras? The odds of such an encounter were high based on all the connections he had made in his life as Ethan Campbell, and the high profile places he would undoubtedly visit. But if he encountered anyone on some far away island who knew him as Ethan Campbell, he would simply say, “Oh, no, fair lady. My name is Norbert whatever his new last name was and I’m from Miami. My entire life. You must be mistaken.”

  “But I used to know someone who looked exactly like you,” the other party would say to which Ethan would reply, “Yes, I’ve heard that before. I was adopted so I don’t know my biological family. Perhaps I have an unknown sibling out there—maybe even a twin.” And then he most likely would buy whomever a bottle of chilled Taittinger in exchange for tidbits of gossip about the world he had left.

  There would be no reason to doubt his story, after all everyone knew that Ethan Campbell had committed suicide. No one in the world would know the truth except for his partners in crime…and me.

  For the first time since our domain had been invaded, Fleur emerged from her hiding place beneath the bed. She gave the sleeping Ethan a wary look and then wandered off, to the kitchen no doubt. She returned and mewed, a demand for her already tardy dinner. Ethan’s eyes remained shut.

  “Ethan, wake up. Wake up.”

  He grumbled in his sleep. “What?”

  “It’s Fleur. She needs to be fed. She hasn’t had her dinner yet.”

  He opened a sly eye and glared at me. “She’ll be fine until morning.” He settled himself back into sleep.

  “Heartless,” I said to him, a mother suffering the pain of her hungry child. My cat meant more to me than any person. I patted the bed, and she hopped up and curled up next to me protectively. In the tumultuous years since Henry’s death, this little creature had been the only consistent thing in my life. As I lay there stroking her, the true cruelty of these men dawned on me. Despite his small stature, Ethan had grand desires. Nothing stood in the way of him getting what he wanted.

  My insomniac eyes went back to him snoring softly on the chaise, the cashmere throw tucked under his neck, his knees drawn up toward his chin. He looked so comically small compared to Terrance who had dwarfed the piece of furniture, his large feet hanging over the edge, his broad shoulders filling it from armrest to armrest. But though there was a great difference in their physical statures, there was a sameness to them that couldn’t be denied, their single-mindedness in their pursuit of my money.

  I called to mind an expression Sean sometimes used when imitating one of his more colorful customers. ‘If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you,’ he’d say gruffly. Ethan had told me. For the first time, it occurred to me how dire my straits were, that in the morning after making the transfer, I could be a dead woman.

  35

  On the Morrow

  Dawn came all too quickly, the gradations of color visible through the crack of my bedroom drapes as the sky changed from murky gray to dusty rose. In no time at all, I would be transferring my fortune into an abyss, and then…who knew. I scanned my room in the dim glow of the floor lamp that had been left on all night, the scattered piles of clothing on the rug reminders of the extended trip I was never to take, the shards of glass from my Lalique cat sharp reminders of love that never existed. I turned my eyes back to the crack in the drapes and kept them there as the dusty rose turned to the color of a robin’s egg. It appeared it was going to be a lovely day.

  Lying there, trying to squeeze the last minutes from the night, I contemplated my life which I was beginning to see as worthless. Aside from my cat, I was leaving nothing behind, no offspring, no legacy, no accomplishment people might remember me by. My life could be summed up as a string of fine meals, travels, society functions, biting talk, and a closet overflowing with clothes and shoes. Somehow, I should have come to more than this. Perhaps Terrance had been right. Maybe I was shallow.

  “Good morning, my dear. I hope you slept well.”

  Ethan’s melodious voice was startling. I looked over to see him watching me, as he probably had been for some time. The very sight of him sickened me now, the vulgarity of his skin, the miserly wisp of mustache above his rail of a lip, his yellow teeth and black beady eyes. I felt the sting of true hatred, without doubt the largest emotion I had ever experienced in my life.

  “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”

  “Don’t be absurd, Pauline. I’m not going to do you any harm. As soon as I get the money, we will be out of your hair and you’re free to live your life as you please. You must believe me.”

  “I would like to believe you, Ethan, but by your own admission, your track record hasn’t exactly been sterling.”

  At that moment Terrance chose to enter the room, his curls damp and coiled in upon themselves from his shower. He was wearing a terry cloth bathrobe from one of the guest bathrooms. It was too small for him, the sleeves barely clearing his elbows. Fleur climbed to all fours and hissed, the hair on the back of her neck rising. She leapt from the bed and bolted past him down the hall.

  “I see my cat has good taste,” I said.

  “And a good morning to you too, Mrs. Cook,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind that I used your shower.”

  “Would it make a difference if I did?” I hissed just like my cat. I turned toward Ethan. “I don’t suppose I might be able to use my own facilities.”

  “Of course.” He reddened with embarrassment. “Terrance, would you take her to the bathroom?”

  Terrance unlocked the handcuff, and my hand fell free. It was so swollen and numb it felt as though it was no longer connected to me. I rubbed at the mean red mark encircling my wrist, at the same time opening and closing my fingers to get the circulation going. I swung myself out of bed and stood in front of him defiantly.

  “You’re not thinking of coming in with me.”

  “I’m going to stand outside the door and you have exactly sixty seconds,” he said.

  “I beg your pardon, but what can any woman accomplish in sixty seconds? The equipment is not the same as yours in case you didn’t know.”

  “Just do it or I will be in there with you. And don’t even think about locking the door.”

  I went into the bathroom and slowly closed the door. The moment it clicked shut I flew to the vanity and opened the top drawer, counting backward from sixty as I perused its contents for anything I might be able to use in self-defense. Unfortunately, I owned no discreet der-ringer or pearl-handled switchblade. I settled upon my nail scissors and a pair of tweezers and quickly secreted them into my trouser pocket. I opened the next drawer down, searching for anything else that might come in useful, and my eyes settled on a plastic bottle of nail polish remover.

  “Thirty seconds,” Terrance called from outside the door. I picked up the nail polish remover and stuffed it into my bra. The shape was cumbersome and it stuck out like a third breast. I could hear the heathen bastard calling out “fifteen seconds,” and with no better solution coming to mind, I turned the bottle sideways and pressed it under my left bosom. It was awkward and the plastic was cold, but the bottle was camouflaged beneath the drape of my pullover.

  “Five seconds.”

  I unzipped my pants and was seated upon the throne when he burst through the door.


  “I beg your pardon,” I hissed, holding my hands in front of my private area. “I believe I warned you this would take longer than sixty seconds.”

  “You have thirty more seconds to wipe your ass and get outside or I’m coming back in to do it for you. Got it?”

  He disappeared once again behind the closed door. I did as I was instructed and reassembled my clothes. The moment I pushed the flush, he reappeared and took me roughly by the arm.

  “Let’s go.”

  “May I at least wash my hands?”

  “No. You can wash them all you want when we are finished here.”

  “You are an ill-mannered pig. I don’t know what I ever saw in you.”

  Ethan was waiting in my office, and now I saw what had been in the brown box Terrance had carried in the day before. There was a fax machine set up on my desk.

  “It’s showtime,” he said, smiling.

  I shook my head. “No it’s not. I’ve changed my mind. Ethan, you can expose yourself as alive and I don’t really care. I’m not transferring the money.”

  Then Mr. Matthews walked in carrying a struggling Fleur in his arms. He handed her over to Terrance who held her by the scruff of her neck and took her small head in one of his powerful hands.

  “What a beautiful cat,” he said. As I watched him warily, he wrapped his thumb and middle finger around her throat. “I could snap her neck like that, you know.”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  “I would.”

  Looking at my beloved pet held so vulnerably in his cruel hand, I realized I was beat.

  “All right, all right. Don’t hurt her. Now tell me what to do.”

  After being given explicit instructions, I phoned James Slattery’s office. My young broker took my call immediately, answering in the jocund manner of one who is making more money than he ever truly expected to in his life. I am quite certain I put a rather large clink in his bonhomie when I announced what I wanted.