The Heir Hunter

by Chris Larsgaard

  “So I’m a missing family member,” she said, nodding intently. “And I didn’t even know it.”

  “Technically I suppose estranged is a better word. My latest research leads me to believe that you can become our client. Based on the findings of an investigation we’ve conducted, I think you may be entitled to a sum of assets from an estate.”

  “Sounds good to me.” She crossed her arms. “So you actually do this for a living?”

  “Yes, I do,” he replied with a smile. He had heard that question so many times.

  “I’m jealous,” she said with feeling. “You mean you can actually make a living doing this?”

  “If you’re willing to work hard. I admit my business is different, but it’s completely legitimate. We’re a licensed private investigation firm which has been working with estates for twelve years now. I’ve brought a list of professional references as well as examples of work my company’s done for other clients.”

  “Good. I’ll need to see all that.” She swept a stray hair from her face and leaned forward. “So what about my inheritance? Come on—enough buildup. You’re on the clock here.”

  “Sure. Miss Von Rohr, there’s just one aspect of my business I do need to explain before I tell you about the inheritance. My company earns its money when a person agrees to become our client. All this means is that they sign an agreement which assigns to my company a fee—called a finder’s fee—which is a percentage of the assets we’ve told you about. By being a client, you pay no out-of-pocket fees whatsoever. Merchant and Associates pays all legal fees related to obtaining the assets. Our compensation is received directly from the estate. You never have to come up with a penny. Due to the fact that my company does need to guarantee its fee, the sources of the assets are not revealed until after the client signs our contract.”

  “So you don’t tell me until I sign, huh? I don’t know. I mean, I understand contingency fees, but I’m not too wild about signing anything blindly. I’ll need to look over all your materials before I commit to anything.”

  “I understand,” said Nick, hiding his disappointment. “How would you feel about signing a contract like this if you determined it was legitimate?”

  “I probably would,” she said, with a less than convincing shrug. “If I’m entitled, I’m entitled, right? What percent are you asking for?”

  Nick considered it momentarily. He had been hoping for a quick close, but his client hadn’t been as easygoing as he would have hoped. Alex had been right with her attorney comment.

  “My partner and I think twenty-five percent is fair,” he said.

  She nodded, her reaction to the number unreadable. “I’d like to see the contract, if I may.”

  Nick handed it over to her and held his breath. Jessica brought her legs up off the floor, curling them into her seat as she read the contract. He watched her as she read. This was very appropriate. The most attractive heir he had ever met signs the most beautiful contract he had ever written. He felt as if every nerve in his body were tingling. He licked his lower lip quickly. The boys at General Inquiry would die when they heard. They would have to carry old man Castleton out on a stretcher. Hell, they would need a forklift for that job.

  “Pretty basic,” she said, handing him back the paper. “So what kind of assets are you talking about here?”

  “Mostly bank accounts, but we’re also looking at some real estate and other personal property.”

  “Really.” She was silent for a moment. “What if I told you that I may already know whose estate this is?”

  “Do you?” asked Nick, trying to remain poker-faced.

  “I think I’ve got a hunch. You kind of tipped me off when you asked if I was the daughter of Monica Holtzman. This has to be coming from my mother’s side of the family. Am I right so far?”

  Nick winced inside. She was right, and getting warmer by the second.

  “I bet you this is coming from my mother’s brother, Ludwig,” she said, staring at him. “Is it?”

  Nick hesitated. Clients had correctly guessed the source of inheritances before, and he had usually handled it one way: full disclosure. With the proverbial cat now out of the bag, he could only be hurt trying to hold on to nonexistent leverage. But his hidden ace was still intact. With Ludwig Holtzmann’s hidden identity, the advantage was still his. Unless she already knew, she would never guess Holtzmann and Gerald Jacobs were one and the same.

  “I’ll be honest,” he said. “Yes, it is. It’s coming from your Uncle Ludwig.”

  She nodded, satisfied with her deduction. Nick remained silent as he focused on her. She was very attractive, but beyond that he was having a difficult time getting a good read on her. She was obviously very sharp, a client who would not be led by the nose to the dotted line. Something about her almost seemed a bit arrogant, but maybe she had just had a rough day at the office.

  “I’ve found that your uncle was a pretty mysterious person,” he said, hoping the comment would open her up.

  “That could be,” she replied. She paused, then suddenly rose to her feet. “I really need to get going. Tell you what—leave all your documents and testimonies and I’ll give it all a good look. I do need to be somewhere, so if you’ll excuse me . . .”

  Nick was feeling very uneasy now. He scratched the back of his neck and tried to recover. He had dealt with plenty of heirs who didn’t immediately sign, but this one was acting strangely. The conversation had ended too abruptly.

  “I think I should let you know that it’s a substantial amount of money we’re talking about here.”

  “All the more reason for me to think about this.”

  “Miss Von Rohr, I apologize, but I’m a bit confused. I’ve done some research into your uncle and found—”

  “Look,” she said, rather abruptly. “You seem like an honest guy. I know this is your job, and I respect that, but there’s nothing I can do for you right now. Let me call you in a few days, okay? I promise I will.” She reached for a ring of keys. “I really have to get going now.”

  Nick began gathering his papers together. He had a dozen questions, and a dozen more after that, but he saw that he wasn’t going to get his chance to ask them. He closed his portfolio and stood. She was by the door, waiting for him.

  At the bottom of her porch stairs, he waited for her to lock the front door. He had to try one last time.

  “Jessica, I respect your feelings on this, but I have to ask out of curiosity: What did you know about your uncle? Is there anything at all you can tell me about him?”

  She walked down the steps and made her way quickly over the front lawn toward her driveway. Her hand was up, palm out, as if she was fending him off.

  “Maybe later. I’ve got your card, okay?”

  She entered the Saab. Nick stood for a moment, his mind flooded with questions, before slowly walking back to his car. He watched her reverse into the street and drive off before he started the ignition.

  With the disclosure came silence. The client’s face went blank. He sat in a motionless stupor, unable to react. Finally a laugh came, a quick, nervous snort that built on itself and became a rhythmic chuckle. He looked down at the scuffed Formica surface of the kitchen table and shook his head.

  “Yeah, right. Whatever you say.”

  Matthew Von Rohr’s skepticism wasn’t surprising. Alex smiled at him and dabbed sweat from her forehead. The combination of her euphoria and the one-hundred-degree Sacramento heat was making it hard to think straight.

  “I’ve got the documentation to prove it, Matt.”

  She reached for the copy of the probate file and found the appropriate section. Matt Von Rohr inched his chair closer to hers. Their knees touched. Alex put the papers down in front of him and placed her fingertip on the number.

  His jaw fell open. He gripped the papers roughly and shot to his feet. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “Jesus Christ. You aren’t kidding. . ..” His expression now was utter shock. He seemed to sway a bit before settling
back down in his seat. He stared at her, his face as dazed as a happy drunk. “This can’t be right. There’s no way this can be right.”

  “It’s hard for me to believe too, Matt. It’s all true, though. Congratulations.”

  Von Rohr placed his hands on the side of his head and gave a bewildered smile. Then he turned his head to the ceiling and let out a whoop that echoed throughout the tiny apartment. Alex broke into a smile and used every ounce of strength to prevent herself from doing the exact same thing.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” he yelled happily.

  “About four weeks and it’s all yours.”

  She was being attacked now. He launched himself to her and grabbed her in a joyous embrace.

  “Oh my God!” he shouted in her ear. “Oh my God!” He pulled back, still holding her shoulders. “An hour ago I was arguing with the caterer over sixty bucks. Sixty bucks!”

  “I’m happy for you,” said Alex, smiling. “Your fiancée’s going to faint.”

  “Faint? She’s gonna die! Twenty-two million!”

  “One-third, Matt—remember. Your sister and brother are entitled to their portions too. Your share comes to roughly seven point four million, minus our fee, of course.”

  “Sure, sure—plenty to go around.” He turned and pulled the refrigerator door open. “We need a beer. We’re gonna have ourselves a cold one right now, Alex. Jesus Christ!”

  Alex didn’t argue. If this didn’t call for a drink, nothing did.

  Von Rohr flipped the top off and placed a Heineken in front of her. He extended his bottle to her, his face radiant.

  “To Alex . . . Alex Marina . . . Is that right?”

  “Moreno.”

  “To Alex Moreno. The first woman to ever change my life—for the better!” He brought the bottle to his lips but stopped himself. “No, wait! To Gerald Jacobs!” He thrust his bottle to the ceiling. “Rest in peace, Uncle Gerald, you old buzzard! Whoever the hell you were!”

  They clinked bottles. Alex filled her mouth with cold beer and smiled. Thirty percent of Matt Von Rohr’s one-third cut was about 2.2 million. Two point two million! And Nick had undoubtedly doubled that figure with the sister. They had done it!

  “Jamie’s gonna die, Alex. She’s going to absolutely die when I tell her.”

  “When’s the wedding?”

  “End of next month.”

  “Well, it’s going to be a wonderful honeymoon.”

  “You’re telling me. We’d planned on going to Hawaii but that almost seems kinda cheesy now.”

  “Hey, might as well make it Paris or Rome.”

  Von Rohr took a gulp of beer and shook his head, still in a daze. He sat next to her, placing his hand on her leg and rubbing it a bit.

  “I’m in shock. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  Alex smiled as she removed his hand. She took another swallow of beer as her mind traveled back to New York, to a dark room with torn furniture and a small, blurry-screened television. One month, two months max, she was going to buy her mother a new home, a home far from the dirt and grime of the barrio. Once they tended to the loose ends of the Jacobs case, it was as good as done.

  “So you guys haven’t contacted Jess yet?”

  “My partner’s in Des Moines right now,” she replied. “You think your sister will go along with this?”

  “Oh man, why wouldn’t she? Jess is all right—kind of an intense person sometimes—but I don’t think your partner will have any major problems with her. She’s an attorney, so she’ll probably have a few more questions than I did.”

  Alex nodded. She wanted to bypass the next topic but knew it was unavoidable. “Matt, there is of course a chance that she won’t sign our contract. There might even be a chance that she could try to go around us and claim the money on her own—”

  “I don’t think she’d cheat you guys, Alex. How could she if she doesn’t know where the money is?”

  “Well,” said Alex, hesitating slightly, “she might call you.”

  Matt Von Rohr laughed. “I see what you’re getting at. Don’t worry about that. First, I don’t think she would call me. We’re really not that close to begin with. Second, even if she did, I think it would be wrong to cheat you guys after your hard work. I wouldn’t tell her anything, Alex.”

  “Will that cause a problem between you two?”

  “I can handle Jess,” he replied with a wink.

  Alex smiled and relaxed. “How much did you know about your uncle, Matt?”

  “Nothing,” he replied. “I knew my mother had a brother in Germany, but she never talked about him, and I never cared enough to ask. I always thought he died years ago. What have you found out about him?”

  “Almost nothing. We have no idea how he made his money or why he changed his identity. His death certificate says he was a glassworker, but there’s obviously more to it than that. Luckily for the sake of the inheritance, all we need for the court is to prove the genealogy, and that’s all taken care of.”

  “Who cares who he was?” replied Von Rohr, grinning. “Whatever he did to make that cash, God bless him.” He guzzled his beer and headed for the refrigerator.

  “What about your brother? Is there anything you know that could help us track him down?”

  The topic of his brother seemed to subdue him a bit. Von Rohr returned to the table with a full green bottle and sat.

  “I wish I did, Alex. It’s been about seventeen years since I spoke with Tim. We’ve thought about hiring a PI to look for him, but somehow—I don’t know—we just never got around to it. It just seemed so hopeless.”

  “Well, I see no reason why we shouldn’t be able to find him. If he’s . . .”

  “Alive,” finished Von Rohr. He picked at the label on his beer bottle. “I’ve wondered that myself. Tim was the crazy one in the family. Wild friends, drugs, drinking—you name it. You’d think you’d be safe from that crap out in Iowa. Not quite. Tim tried to straighten up when he was eighteen by running off and joining the Navy. That was seventeen years ago. I haven’t heard a thing since.”

  “Were you close growing up?”

  “Yeah, I always thought so. Hell, we were brothers, you know? It’s not like we ever had any serious fights or anything, at least nothing beyond the normal kid stuff.” He looked down. “You see, this is why I wonder if he’s alive. I just can’t believe he would disappear like that. Not even a phone call.”

  “Do you know where he was based in the Navy?”

  “San Diego, I think.”

  “How about his ship assignment?”

  “That I don’t know.”

  The tape machine on the table clicked off. Alex found a new tape, placed it in the machine, and pressed Record.

  “We have access to some good military databases that could turn up something. You said Tim was born in Ames, Iowa, right?”

  “Right. We all were.”

  “We’ll need to order his birth certificate as well as your own to present to the court. We have your approval to do that?”

  “Oh yeah. Jess’s too, I’m sure.”

  “Great. Matt”—she extended her hand—“thank you, it’s been fun. I’ll let you make that phone call to your fiancée in private now. I’ll be meeting with my partner and planning our strategy on finding your brother. I want you to call me if any questions come up.”

  “I appreciate it, Alex.” He took her hand once more. “Thanks again. Do me a favor—let me know what you find on Tim. Even if it’s bad. I want to know.”

  “I sure will.”

  They said goodbye. When Alex reached the sidewalk, she jogged to her car.

  In the terminal of Des Moines International, travelers met and parted like ants in the frantic ritual of air travel. Nick ignored the crowd as he made his way through to Gate 42. The seats were half full, a few dozen loners sitting by themselves. Nick found an isolated row, dropped his garment bag, and sat. He was an hour early for the flight, and he had bought the latest U.S. News to kill time.
He knew the latest problems in Iraq and the most recent sex scandal on the Hill wouldn’t be enough to divert his attention. His mind was on Gerald Jacobs. That was the only story he was interested in knowing.

  He kept thinking of Jessica Von Rohr. She had said nothing about her uncle, but her entire manner suggested that she knew something. He wanted to sit down with her and try to get some answers, but if the day’s meeting was indicative of her normal attitude, he saw little chance in that. He wondered if she would even sign the contract. At least they wouldn’t have to bother with the FBI if she didn’t, but at this point that was small consolation.

  He glanced at his watch and groaned. An hour until he was out of there. He needed desperately to get out of Des Moines and get back home. He preferred to forget about these last several days, if it was actually possible to forget. Maybe he needed to take that long-overdue vacation. Head down to Mexico and drown himself in tequila and sun. He would make his plane reservation as soon as he got home.

  His cell phone rang, and he seriously considered not answering. But he had to talk to Alex about it eventually.

  “He signed, Nick! We’ve got a client!”

  “He . . . did?” asked Nick, dropping the magazine between his feet.

  “Thirty percent. He loved me! Thanked me a hundred times. He was a great guy.”

  “He signed,” muttered Nick.

  “What about you? You sign Jessica yet?”

  He paused and took a deep breath. “There was a problem, Alex. She wouldn’t play ball. Things went okay but she decided she needed to think it over.”

  “Oh God,” she said, her voice thick with disgust. “I can’t believe it. What was her problem?”

  “I don’t know. It was tough to get a feel for her, Alex. I really have no clue which way she’ll go.”

  “Probably try to cheat us. Attorneys! What did I tell you? I knew she’d analyze it to death.”

  “You were right. She basically guessed that it was coming from her uncle. She’ll never be able to trace it to Gerald Jacobs, though. Unless she goes to Matt Von Rohr.”