I compliment him on the majestic beauty of his home, and he tells me that it’s his ‘Nobel prize.’
“You won a Nobel Prize? In what field was it?”
“No, no, Mister Sharp, I didn’t win any prize, but we call it that because we owe it all to Alfred Bernhard Nobel, the man who the prize is named after.”
Berland walks over to his library and motions for me to follow him. Inside the book-lined and richly oak-paneled room, he directs my attention to a large hand-written parchment document kept inside a glass case.
“This is a replica of the last will and testament of Nobel, executed in November of 1895, in which he directed that his entire estate be invested, with the interest to be distributed each year to leaders in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature and Peace, or what his will referred to as the ‘fraternity between nations.’
“Nobel didn’t make any provisions for the category in which my wife and I made our modest fortune, but he made his fortune by inventing some new explosives, and he patented dynamite in 1867. Our family built a large fireworks display organization using explosives, so we decided to dedicate this room to Alfred. Without his pioneering work in our field, we wouldn’t be where we are today.”
I hold back on mentioning that millions of people might also still be alive if Nobel hadn’t done his groundbreaking work with explosives. My restraint is admirable. Usually I just blurt things out and spend hours later on asking myself why I said that. This time I keep my cool and let him continue.
“What I want to talk to you about is another will: My wife’s. Eaton married our daughter Nancy, our only child. My wife’s will leaves all of her estate to Nancy, as does mine, with one exception - unless Nancy pre-deceases either one of us. In that instance, the remainder goes to the surviving spouse, which would be me.
“Now I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. This isn’t all about my wanting to get the money from my wife’s will. We don’t have any other children and there are no grandchildren. I have plenty of money, and if I do actually get any money as a result of her death, it’s all earmarked for her favorite charities. She would have wanted it that way.”
“Mister Berland, if you aren’t interested in any financial gain, then why are we having this conversation?”
He hesitates for a second or two, and then with a very serious expression, continues on. “It’s not who I want to get the money, it’s who I don’t want to get it.
“Because Eaton and Nancy didn’t have any children, Nancy’s will leaves everything to that rotten husband of hers. With Nancy dead too, Eaton will wind up with everything… and I have a terrible feeling about him… always did, from the first day that I met him.”
“What can I do for you Mister Berland? I’ve already told you that I’m no expert in the area of Wills.”
“I’m not looking for a Wills expert, I’m looking for a smart fellow who can figure out how to stop Eaton from getting all my wife and daughter’s money.”
“Let me get this straight. If your wife died first, then everything she has goes to your daughter Nancy, which would now go to Eaton. But on the other hand, if your daughter died before your wife did, then your wife’s estate goes to you, instead of to Eaton. Have I got it right?”
He tells me that I’m correct. I can’t make any promises to him, so I ask him for a copy of his wife’s Will and tell him I’ll look into it. He lets me know that Eaton stands to get at least two million dollars from the Wills, and if I can figure out a way to stop him there will be a five percent bonus in it for me. He also offers to pay all my expenses plus an hourly rate for my work, win or lose.
This sounds interesting, but I really don’t know that much about the law in this field. When I was going to law school, the Bar exam was based on fourteen subjects and you were required to answer questions on ten of them. The four that were considered optional were Wills, Trusts, Estate & Gift Tax, and Community Property.
Like many of the other students attending our unaccredited evening law school, we felt that a diploma from what we nicknamed the ‘Betty Crocker College of Law’ probably wouldn’t get us into some large established law firm that specialized in the four optional subjects. We tried to cut down on our study load by becoming what were referred to as the ‘big tenners,’ a group of students going into the Bar exam knowing that we’d have to answer all the other questions, with no options.
As a result, I’ve never been involved in a Will contest, never prepared a Trust Agreement, make every effort to avoid Taxation issues, and wouldn’t touch a domestic relations matter for any amount of money. I’m quite happy leaving all of that fascinating work to the Harvard grads. But now, I’m being dragged into a Will contest.
If my interpretation of the Wills are correct, all I have to do is show that Nancy Eaton died before her mother did. If I can do that, then the proceeds from Mrs. Berland’s estate will go to her surviving husband, instead of to Eaton.
No problem. The car was destroyed, the bodies were cremated, and all I have to do is figure out which one of them died first in the same auto accident. No sense calling in Jack B. or Victor on this case – I need the Amazing Kreskin.
All I have to work with are some photos taken by the police accident investigation team. I’m sure that Victor will be happy to get an assignment from me to perform two autopsies from pictures of dead bodies. I call Jack B. and tell him to get all the pictures and reports on the accident that he can. I also put a call in to Snell’s office because his crew was interested in the type of explosives used on that Suburban. From what Vaughn explained to me, there’s always a ‘signature’ left behind by the bomb-maker. I don’t know exactly what that means, but the explosives people say that a signature can lead them to the bad guy, so they must mean some style of bomb-making that’s recognizable to the trained eye.
The parade is in just a few days. Jack B. has come through again with a copy of the complete police file on the accident that killed Mrs. Eaton and her mother. There were plenty of photos to see. The investigators are under the impression that as the Suburban smashed through the flimsy guardrail, both driver and passenger airbags deployed. They estimate that Nancy was tossed clear about half way down. Her mother was strapped in, so she rode all the way down in the vehicle.
It originally looked like an accident with no foul play suspected, so the overworked coroner’s department didn’t do any autopsies, especially in the absence of any request for one from the accident investigation detail.
Nowhere in the report is there any statement as to an opinion of which victim died first. Facts like that don’t come into play in an accident investigation unless there’s a suspicion that a driver was dead at the time of the accident, and they didn’t think that was the case here.
This means I’m back at square one, with no way to help Berland with his wife’s estate and no way in sight to pin anything on Eaton, notwithstanding his incriminating statements made to me in my car while the kid was listening in.
About the only thing I’ve got going for me right now is that Joe Morgan will be released after the parade, and if Myra can’t make a case against him for planting the bombs, then he’s only facing a larceny charge for the bribes. Unfortunately, Uniman’s insurance company will still be on the hook for the exploding Suburbans, because if Joe didn’t do it, any competent plaintiff’s trial lawyer should be able to convince a jury that the dirty work was done at the dealership – either by Joe Morgan or by someone else with the access and know-how.
With no other ideas on hand, I guess it’s time to try some long shots. Before starting his own private autopsy business, Victor was a lab tech and worked with Crime Scene Investigation units. One of his many duties required him to dust for fingerprints. After calling Stuart and learning where the damaged Camry is having its front-end damage repaired, I call Victor and ask him to please go over there and dust the rear of the car for prints. Whoever put the safecracker’s body in there might have left something we can use. I also s
end him one of those gaudy, shiny business cards handed to me by Billy Z. There should be a good thumbprint on there that we can use. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find Billy’s prints on the trunk or on something of the safecracker’s, like his wristwatch, belt, or anything else that Victor can lift a print off of.
The thing that really bothers me is that Eaton probably killed his wife and her mother, and he’s going to get away with it. Looking at the big picture, it’s an old scheme. Cover up one crime with some others. If my hunch is correct, the first two exploding Suburbans were a combination of experiments with the explosions and incidents to point the finger of guilt at Joe Morgan. If Eaton was behind everything, the main idea was to kill his wife and mother-in-law. That’s not brilliant, it’s been tried over and over again. The only difference in this case is that he may not get caught.
I can’t go to Myra with my suspicions, because even if she agrees that it might be possible, there’s nothing she can do without some evidence. She always was a stickler for detail.
Wait a minute. Something just occurred to me. I was afraid that a good plaintiff’s lawyer could convince a jury that the sabotage on those Suburbans was done at the dealership by either Joe or someone else with access, so why don’t I try to find out who else could have had the access.
I call Snell and make arrangements to visit with my client in the Federal hoosegow.
Joe isn’t in a great mood, but he knows that he might be getting out after the parade, so his spirits aren’t too low. The main thrust of my questions to him concerns who else but him could have possibly gotten to all three of those Suburbans while they were in the dealership for service. His answer isn’t very encouraging. Whichever Suburban was being serviced was exclusively in his own service bay while he worked on it. No one else could have gotten to it because he rarely left the bay for more than a few minutes each day for a toilet break. He even sat there during lunchtime eating sandwiches that he brought in. If he didn’t finish servicing a vehicle during the daytime, it would be locked up in his service bay overnight and he would complete the work the next morning. The dealership gave out free loan cars, so the customers never minded leaving their vehicles overnight for service.
I only have one other question for him. “Is it possible for someone to have gotten in there after hours and done something to a vehicle in your service bay?”
This one stops him for a minute. The average person probably would simply answer ‘no way,’ but Joe Morgan isn’t the average person, he’s a former Navy Seal who could probably have pulled off exactly what I was suggesting. At first he’s momentarily taken aback at my question.
“Wait a minute, are you suggesting that I snuck back in there at night and rigged those trucks?”
“No, no Joe, I’m not suggesting that and neither is the prosecution. If you wanted to do something to those vehicles it would have been too easy for you to do it during the daytime. Nobody watches your work, so you could have done anything you wanted. There’s no reason for you to pull a dumb stunt like coming back at night. What I want to know is if anyone else could have done it.”
He thinks about it for a while. “Sure, I guess it’s possible. After all, it’s only a car dealership, not some secret government installation. They’ve got a fence around the service area, but anyone with some training could’ve gotten over it and into my service bay. Do you have someone in mind?”
“I don’t know yet. Are there any security cameras in place there?”
“Yeah, they cover all parts of the outside fence. There are also some motion sensors, so if anyone tries to go over the fence, the floodlights will go on.”
“Okay, lets say they didn’t go over the fence. Any other way in?”
“Yeah, but they’d have to go through the main new car showroom, and that would require a set of keys to the whole place – and only three people have those keys - the dealership’s owner, the general manager, and his assistant, and forget about them making copies for anyone else. The locks are all special and the keys can’t be duplicated by anyone but the lock manufacturer, who won’t do that without written authorization from the dealership owner.”
Jack B. now has another assignment. I want to know where the assistant manager and dealership owner spent the few days during those three Suburban explosions, especially where they were each evening. If Joe didn’t tamper with those vehicles during the day, then there’s only one other possibility, and it had to be an inside job at night. From what I’ve heard, they sober up the owner of the dealership about once every month and bring him in to do a television commercial about the sales incentive du jour. I can’t imagine any motive he could possibly have for rigging those cars or causing any injuries.
This assistant manager doesn’t particularly care for Eaton and the feeling is obviously mutual, so he’s a possible suspect too, but it’s still not enough of a motive to kill Eaton’s wife. The death of Nancy Eaton wouldn’t get him a promotion or put any money in his pocket, so why do it? It couldn’t have been a work for hire if there was bad blood between him and Eaton, so I might as well rule him out of the suspect pool.
By process of elimination, all roads lead to Eaton. I feel his guilt in my bones, but don’t have the slightest idea how to prove it. The clock is ticking on this matter. If I don’t come up with anything soon, the insurance company will have to pay Eaton a million for his wife’s death, and the probate court will give him another two million for his mother-in-law’s estate. With three million in his pocket, I have a strong feeling that he’ll be giving up his day job.
*****
Chapter 10
Reports are being prepared now on a daily basis. Jack B. has tracked down the car-carrier’s central dispatch office and is now waiting for information on if and where that truck stopped on its way to deliver those five vehicles to Stuart, one of which contained the dead body in the trunk.
Victor dusted the entire rear area of the Camry that the dead body was found in and all the prints that he lifted are sent to AFIS, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System that’s mentioned so often on television CSI shows.
Mister Berland executed the proper release forms and our office has requested medical records for both his wife and daughter.
I’ve got complete files on the three Suburbans that exploded. The first two were towed back to the dealership, where Joe Morgan went through them thoroughly. Explosive expert Vaughn is examining the Suburban that went off of Mulholland Drive, and per my instructions will be closely scrutinizing the braking system and right front caliper.
Victor is inspecting all the crime scene photos of the crash, trying to find some way to determine which passenger died first.
While all of this is going on, Indovine’s office keeps sending me memos warning me that Uniman Insurance is facing a deadline soon. If I don’t come up with some justifiable reason for them to stall, they’ll have to pay out on Ralph Eaton’s claim for his wife’s million-dollar policy.
The United States Government has no idea how busy I am, because they’ve obviously decided to interrupt my deep thoughts with their colorful Fourth of July Parade. The kid invited a whole gang over to watch it on our huge flat-panel plasma screen television set. Olive decided that the traffic would be too heavy, so she and Vinnie joined Stuart and Jack B., so we can all see the parade together and then have our own patriotic feast, all delivered and served by the Asian boys. To my pleasant surprise, Myra decides to grace us with her presence and Victor drove in from Pasadena too.
If you’ve seen one patriotic parade, you’ve seen them all. A cynic might describe this one as looking a lot like the annual Rose Parade, with military displays of troops in dress uniforms, the Marine Marching Band, the Blue Angels doing low-altitude fly-bys, and most interestingly the three-color red, white, and blue bubble-topped Hummer, containing the President of the United States.
When the Hummer appears, Olive grabs my sleeve and exclaims gleefully, “see? I told you so!” That reminds me to call her asid
e later and try to find out where or who she got her classified information from.
I have to admit that the parade is a splendid display of what our country is supposed to stand for. After dinner, we all go out onto the aft sundeck and watch the annual fireworks display that the Marina del Rey Chamber of Commerce puts on from nine to nine-fifteen every July Fourth evening. It elicits the usual ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ as the explosives go off up in the air.
There aren’t too many places for guests to park their cars when visiting the Marina. The big public lot across the street is often almost completely filled by the valet car-parkers from the adjacent Cheesecake Factory, a local restaurant that was packed from the day it opened.
On the two big tourist days of the year, when people come to see the Christmas Boat Parade Day and July the Fourth fireworks, the local Sheriff patrols ease off on their strict enforcement rules and allow cars to be parked up and down the side streets that lead to the boat basins, where more than seven thousand vessels are berthed in the water. We’ve got the country’s largest private yacht anchorage here.
The extra traffic load means that there is absolutely no driving out of the Marina until after ten those two evenings, so we were fortunate to have a group of people together who all knew each other for some time and enjoy brisk conversation. The kid talks to everyone but me. The dog hides during the fifteen-minute fireworks display, giving me a mean look afterward for not offering a lap he can cower upon. I try to make up for it by taking him for a brief walk, so I guess we’re okay with each other now. He loves crowds, because hundreds of new people pet him as he walks by. When one person sees a stranger stroking his head, all the others nearby take it as a signal that he likes it, so he gets his quota of head-rubbing for the next few months filled.
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