The Lucky One

by Caroline Overington

  ‘It’s his style,’ said Alexa with a shrug. She kept reading.

  Harry’s post continued:

  So the first person we’re going to be hearing from is the district attorney, Kate Baldwin, who I’m calling Fast Kate, because you should see her shoes …

  Fast Kate rose. Everyone did, as the judge arrived. It was another woman, Teresa Cox, who hadn’t been on the bench much more than twelve months, having literally crossed a side street from her former law office to take up the position.

  Judge Cox flapped her robes and settled herself into a high-backed leather chair, saying, ‘All right, then. Where is our jury?’

  A court officer bowed his head and opened a side door. The jury filed in. Six men and six women, all of them Paso locals, four of them Hispanic, one of them Asian, the rest white, and most of them middle-aged.

  ‘There’s nobody Owen’s age,’ said Mack.

  ‘No. But I watched some of the jury selection,’ said Alexa, ‘and seven of them have elderly parents. And three of those have dementia.’

  ‘Is that good for the prosecution or bad for the prosecution?’ said Mack.

  ‘I guess it depends,’ said Alexa, ‘on whether they’re ever tempted to knock them off.’

  Fast Kate in her flash flat-soled shoes waited for the jury to settle before beginning her pitch to them: Owen James Alden-Stowe III was, she said, an elder statesman in the town of Paso; a truly great American, in terms of his service to the community and in Korea; a devoted husband to his late wife, Nell; a father and a grandfather. And he had been murdered.

  One of the jurors – a grey-haired woman with tight gold rings on six of her ten fingers – looked over at Jesalyn and her co-conspirator in the dock, and shook her head, ruefully.

  ‘At the root of this crime is money,’ continued Kate, as she strode the floor in her wide-legged, pin-striped pants, ‘but I should warn you all at the outset that this case is not a slam-dunk.’

  Mack, in the audience, grimaced.

  ‘It’s a good case. A solid case. But it’s still mainly a circumstantial case,’ Kate continued. ‘It’s a case that makes sense. And you – all of you in our jury – are people with good sense. So I think you’ll find the right verdict.’

  The jurors looked pleased.

  ‘We have a tape that we intend to show you,’ she continued, ‘that will remove any doubts that you might have about the rest of our case. But we’ll get to that later. For now, I’d like to call my first witness: Caroline Moyes.’

  An official at the back of the courtroom opened the back door, and Caroline Moyes, blonde head bowed, made her way through to the witness box.

  Harry Prior bowed his head too and tapped madly on his screen:

  Ooooh, ladies and gentlemen, we’re in luck. Our first witness is the SoulCycle blonde from the East Coast! Some of you will remember her as the one who came to town to convince the city officials to let Pinkhound buy the Alden-Stowe Estate in the first place. She’s the one who made all the promises about the ground water and the oaks, not to mention the cemetery!! If you don’t know her, you know the type. Born in Westchester. Four years of prep school. Then to Brown. Then to law school. Internship with some law firm in Manhattan. Then she makes her big mistake: moving to LA to work for the Pinkhound billionaires! Trading the Big Apple for some rooftop entertaining, a fire pit and a communal pool! Should have stayed on the East Coast, sweetie!

  Mack watched as Caroline settled into the witness chair. She seemed strained, which didn’t surprise Mack. He’d interviewed Caroline twice, while putting his brief of evidence together for Kate Baldwin. She’d had a tough couple of months. She’d been fired from Pinkhound for being the person who tipped them into the whole mess. She’d had to move out of the apartment she loved in Silver Lake, since she could hardly go on living there. So now she was between jobs and between apartments, and she was back in Paso – a place she’d vowed she never wanted to see again – giving testimony in the case of a man whose rotting body had been found in a cemetery.

  Following Caroline into the courtroom was her lawyer. Mack and plenty of others did a double-take. They could have been the same person. Both had blonde bobs, skirts to the knee, no stockings, tanned limbs and simple jewellery.

  ‘Twins?’ murmured Alexa.

  ‘Must be,’ said Mack.

  It’s too gorgeous! And they have perfect styling,’ typed Harry. ‘That’s all I’m saying. These ladies have perfect, perfect styling.

  Kate took Caroline briskly through the evidence, starting with how she had first met Jesalyn.

  ‘You are a lawyer who deals mainly in land acquisition, is that right?’

  ‘I am a lawyer. I’m not currently employed,’ said Caroline.

  ‘No. I see that,’ said Kate, looking down at the notes in a ring binder. ‘But during the relevant period, you were employed by the Pinkhound Company?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And they brought you to the West Coast to search for land to expand their agricultural operations?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And, if I have this right, you met Jesalyn Alden-Stowe in Hollywood, is that right?’

  ‘Yes. In Silver Lake.’

  ‘Mrs Alden-Stowe came to see you about wanting to sell her family property?’

  ‘Well, no. That’s not right. It just happened that we ended up living in the same apartment complex. Jesalyn – Mrs Alden-Stowe – was already living there when I moved in. But the apartment complex was small. About twenty apartments, grouped around a pool. We’d bump into each other, collecting the mail in the foyer, or at the farmers’ market on California Avenue.’

  Kate had her fingers up and open, like a tall spider, on the open pages of the binder.

  ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘We were both out by the pool one day. Jesalyn had these amazing sunglasses. Cat-eyed, with polka dots. I complimented her on them. She thanked me. We got talking. I guess we hit it off. I remember being surprised when she said she’d been married, and she was widowed with a teenage daughter because she looked like she was in her thirties.’

  Jesalyn, in her jumpsuit, raised her face slightly, apparently pleased.

  ‘She told me she’d been left in a difficult spot when she became widowed,’ Caroline continued. ‘She’d moved to the Alden-Stowe Estate when she got married. Then when her husband died, she’d had to leave penniless, because the estate was owned by a Trust, and she couldn’t force them to sell it.’

  ‘Okay. And what else did she tell you?’ asked Kate.

  ‘That she had never given up the idea that she might one day be able to force the sale. And she said that she had an ace up her sleeve.’

  ‘An ace?’

  ‘That’s what she said.’

  ‘Did she tell you what the ace was?’

  ‘She did not.’

  ‘And she told you all this without knowing the business you were in?’

  ‘I’m not sure if it was before or after. But she would have known fairly quickly what kind of business I was in,’ said Caroline, smooth brow furrowing a little as she tried to remember. ‘I’m pretty sure I told her that I’d moved from the East Coast because the company I worked for was looking to acquire land in California and that’s when she told me that she owned a big estate. Or else she told me about the estate and then I told her about the business I was in.’

  ‘Well, nothing turns on it,’ said Kate, more to the jury than to anyone else. ‘The main point is, the two of you, by the pool, began talking about the Alden-Stowe Estate, and whether it could ever be sold?’

  ‘Yes. She asked me what kind of land Pinkhound bought. I told her, the Pinkhound Company had all kinds of holdings. Cattle in New Mexico. Timber in Oregon. And I’d been brought to California to identify failed ranches or even old wineries that Pinkhound could replant with peaches or pistachios. Large-scale. And, yes, I remember now, that’s when she said: “I wish I could sell my estate.”’

  ‘My estate? Those wer
e the words she used?’

  ‘Yes, “my estate”. And she told me about it: where it was, and so forth. And I was wary because California has a whole lot of rules about what you can and can’t do on land that is close to the ocean, or affected by drought. For example, Pinkhound had only just recovered from the purchase of twenty acres of beachfront property in Malibu where they ran into the California Coastal Act, section 30211, which prohibited any interference with the public’s right of access. From what Jesalyn was saying, her estate had sea views, but at a distance, and it was drought affected, and there were thousands of oak trees. But Jesalyn asked me to at least look at it on Google Maps,’ said Caroline, ‘so we pulled it up on my screen by the pool that day and I guess I was intrigued.’

  ‘And that’s when you arranged to go for a visit?’ said Kate.

  ‘No. I did my homework first. I needed to know about the soil up there. It’s limestone, with plenty of clay. Most of you probably know that.’

  Kate smiled, as did some court-watchers.

  ‘I also checked out the neighbours. Mr Don Burnbank, who had been running cattle next door for something like forty-two years. Was he the type to object to a new development? And I looked at other people who were doing well with new businesses, like the successful new winery – Patrick the Llama – on the opposite side of the Chimney Rock Road. Would they support us? And in the end, I came to the conclusion this was exactly the sort of place Pinkhound was looking for.’

  Kate looked up from her binder.

  ‘And you told Jesalyn that?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And did she ask about price?’

  ‘She did, and I told her, based on comparable sales, at least ten million.’

  Harry Prior, tapping on his screen in the side row of press seats, wrote: $$$$$$$!!!!!!!

  ‘And what did she say?’ said Kate.

  ‘She looked off into the distance, like that was a dazzling amount. Which I guess is what most people in her position would do,’ said Caroline. ‘And then she repeated what she’d said earlier about having an ace up her sleeve.’

  ‘Still without telling you what it was?’

  ‘That’s right. She never told me what it was.’

  ‘But she arranged to take you up there?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Caroline. ‘It took a few weeks – maybe three weeks? – but eventually, quite excitedly, she told me that she had arranged to go up there. It was to be her first visit in years. She was taking her daughter, Eden. Her sister-in-law, Fiona, and her family, would meet them there, and the idea was I’d come up and inspect the property, and if we could all come to terms maybe there would be a sale.’

  ‘But there would be conditions?’

  ‘Oh yes, and we expected that,’ said Caroline. ‘We – meaning Pinkhound – knew before we even arrived on the estate that we’d have to agree to a range of conditions about the oaks and the water. The cemetery was unexpected. But as I understood it, Pinkhound was happy to protect the cemetery, too. That’s what they told me, anyway. Agree to whatever you have to agree to, and we’ll worry about it later.’

  Harry Prior, on his screen, tapped out: Pinkhound’s lawyer just said: Whatever it takes to get the land and then they do what they want!

  ‘The more delicate matter was Mr Owen Alden-Stowe,’ Caroline continued then stopped.

  ‘Go on,’ urged Kate. ‘What about Mr Alden-Stowe?’

  ‘Well, he was old, and from what I understood he was in ill-health but he was still living there.’

  ‘But he wasn’t part of the decision-making?’

  ‘No. From what I was told, Mr Alden-Stowe had had a stroke after his wife died, after which power of attorney had been given to his son, Jack. Then, when Jack died, power of attorney passed to his sister Fiona – Mrs McBride.’

  ‘All right. And just to be absolutely clear for the jury, Owen had put the estate into a trust and it couldn’t be sold without the agreement of all the beneficiaries?’

  ‘Yes, and the beneficiaries were Owen Alden-Stowe’s direct descendants: so Jesalyn, by virtue of her marriage to Jack; and their daughter Eden; and Fiona and Tim, by virtue of his marriage to her, and their sons, Fletcher and Austin. They – all the adults, anyway – had to agree, but from what Jesalyn had told me, Fiona had until that point been unwilling to sell.’

  ‘Do you know why?’

  ‘Yes. Because her father was still living there. He’d lived there all his life. He didn’t want to go into care. He wanted to die on his estate.’

  ‘And to be clear, did you meet Mr Alden-Stowe when you went up there?’

  ‘No. He was hidden away, upstairs.’

  Kate paused in her questioning. Her pause allowed for a dramatic moment to build.

  ‘So that’s quite a problem you’ve suddenly got.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ said Caroline, confused.

  ‘You’ve found the perfect property and a family suddenly willing to sell. But there’s an old man living there and he wants to die there.’

  ‘Oh, I see what you mean,’ said Caroline. ‘But that was fine. He was eighty-three years old and in poor health. I don’t want to sound awful but that was the truth of it.’

  ‘So you were happy to wait?’

  ‘Not happy. That’s not the right word. But we were prepared to wait, yes. The main thing was to get the deal done. The Alden-Stowe Estate … well, it was exactly the kind of property we – Pinkhound – were in the business of acquiring and if it took a few years to settle that was no big problem. But never, never, never, not in a million years did I think they’d try to bring it forward.’

  ‘“They” being …?’

  But the lawyer representing Jesalyn – it was Mr Weymouth from Walsh and Weymouth, conducting only the third criminal trial of his life – jumped to his feet, saying: ‘Objection!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Caroline, ‘I just meant, if they did this for us—’

  ‘Objection!’ Mr Weymouth shouted again.

  Kate smiled encouragingly.

  ‘Let me see if I can help,’ she said. ‘I think what you’re trying to say is that you didn’t ask anyone to hurry up the conditions under which you could take over?’

  ‘Objection!’ said Mr Weymouth. ‘That is clearly putting words straight into the witness’s mouth!’

  ‘Then let me try again,’ said Kate. ‘Did you ask anyone on the estate to hurry along the death of Owen Alden-Stowe?’

  ‘No,’ said Caroline, firmly. ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘But at the same time, you didn’t ask what this ace was that Jesalyn had up her sleeve?’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ conceded Caroline. ‘She never told me what that ace was. And when I found out, well, I was as shocked as anyone.’

  * * *

  Kate called Fiona McBride to the witness box. Harry Prior, watching from his side pew, jumped onto his screen. Well, here she is, he tapped, gleefully. The dutiful daughter, robbed of everything!

  Mack, still sitting in a near-back row, looked across as Alexa showed him those words on the screen.

  ‘Like I said, he’s a jackass,’ he said.

  Fiona did not look at Jesalyn as she settled into the witness box. She did not look at anyone beyond her husband, Tim, in the public gallery. She wore dark slacks with a blouse and a dark cardigan and her usual nest of hair.

  ‘Thank you for coming to see us today,’ said Kate.

  Fiona grimaced. They both knew she did not have a choice.

  ‘For the benefit of the jury, could you confirm your name for us?’

  ‘Fiona Ellen Alden-Stowe McBride.’

  ‘And again, for the jury, you were raised on the Alden-Stowe Estate?’

  ‘Yes, in Alden Castle.’

  ‘And you left the estate when you married Tim McBride?’

  Fiona looked into the courtroom, where Tim was sitting, smiling encouragingly.

  ‘That’s correct. Tim is from the Bay Area. He had a business there when we met. Car sales, so that is wher
e we settled.’

  ‘And you have two sons, Fletcher McBride and Austin McBride?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘But no grandchildren?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Fiona, as some in the audience smiled.

  ‘All right,’ said Kate, as if getting down to business. ‘And just so everybody understands, there was only one main house on the estate when you were born? And that was Alden Castle? And it wasn’t until many years later that your sister-in-law, Jesalyn, built a second house, known as the Glass Pavilion?’

  ‘That’s right. She borrowed heavily. I didn’t think that should have been allowed but Jack was alive then, and he had my father’s power of attorney, and he approved it.’

  Jesalyn, the accused in the dock, rolled her still-pretty eyes.

  ‘All right,’ said Kate. ‘Now, to go back a step, you were raised in Alden Castle, and lived there until you got married … but as I understand it, you recently moved back to the estate?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Fiona. She was sitting very upright, turning three gold bracelets on her dark-haired arm. ‘I came home to take care of my father.’

  Harry Prior tapped into his feed: Take THAT Jesalyn!

  ‘I wanted to come back after my brother died,’ Fiona continued, ‘but my boys were still in high school and Tim’s business had hit a rough patch. And Dad was in fairly good health. He was forgetful but not wandering. He wasn’t incapacitated. And then Penelope offered to move in.’

  ‘Penelope being Mrs Penelope Sidwell?’

  ‘Yes. She’d lived in a cottage on our estate for years. Decades ago. Mainly to help Mom. She nursed my mother and acted as the housekeeper. And she stayed on the estate after my mother died.’

  ‘Helping your father?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Although, to be clear, Jack was still alive then, and married to Jesalyn?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then Jack died … but Jesalyn was still living in the pavilion?’

  ‘She was. But it wasn’t her job to take care of my father.’