Pro Bono

Chapter 27

27

W arren opened the door of Vesper Ellis’s house with the key she had given him on the day when the locks had been replaced. “Hello!” he called. “I’m back.”

He saw her appear at the second-floor railing above the staircase wearing a white terry cloth robe. She waved. “Hi, Charlie.” She turned and disappeared.

He climbed the stairs two at a time, and continued across the hall to the bedroom. “What have you been up to? Have you heard from my mother?”

“She hasn’t called. You’d probably have better luck calling her a little later, when it’s getting closer to dinner time in the Eastern time zone and she’s back at her hotel.”

“And to what do we owe this?” He gestured at the bathrobe.

“I did some yard work all morning, and then I was taking care of a bunch of business papers and things, and then I realized that what I wanted next was to take a bath. That was where you came in. How is your day going?”

“I was downtown in court most of this afternoon. The judge in my mother’s case ruled that the marriage between Daniel Webster Rickenger and my mother was a real marriage that was binding on him even though he used a false name. I had submitted the license and a lot of photographs from the big wedding they had. I also submitted a lot of transfers as proof that the money they lived on came from her. I had interior and backyard photographs from different years, and papers showing that the house they lived in was the one she and my father had bought. I even had some business letters Rickenger sent referring to them as Mr. and Mrs. Stone.”

“So you legally proved the late Mack Stone was the same man as this Rickenger guy?”

“Several times in different ways. The photographs of him were the same, as were the fingerprints from the old papers, the new papers, and the wrecked BMW. The medical examiner in Nevada and the police both had records of the prints taken from the body. He was also wearing the wedding ring when he died.”

“Does this end it?”

“It essentially ends the part about the bank accounts in this state, and maybe any others we find that were turned over to other state governments. The evidence is so overwhelming we could do it all over again once a week. All that’s left is going to be financial instruments like stocks and bonds. I don’t know what that’s going to be like. That’s for another day.”

“She’ll be glad to hear it. She wants to have as little to do with this as possible. What’s next on your schedule?”

“I have no plans.”

“Then you can share the bathtub with me. It’s nice and hot.”

Peter couldn’t help feeling a bit uncomfortable. The lake was in a forest of tall pines, and the road was narrow and thinly traveled. That was good, but there were other houses only a couple miles from this area, along the crestline of the Sierra Nevadas—not as many as there were around Lake Tahoe, but enough. He didn’t want any of the people in those houses to take notice of his visiting relatives, so he had told them different times to arrive. One car on that road was just some tourist who took a wrong turn. Two at once was a parade.

He sat at the window where he could see the road starting at around ten A.M. The first one to arrive was May, of course. She had decided that it was necessary to transport her 125-pound body and a carry-on bag in a full-size SUV rental with oversize knobby tires designed for driving off-road. He was relieved when he saw Rose show up at quarter to four in a rented compact Mazda. He had Rose pull around the side of the house where her car would be obscured by the porch. He had gotten into May’s SUV himself and parked it behind his boathouse where its fat-assed gaudiness couldn’t be seen from the road.

He had already prepared the lake side of the house to host his sisters. He had restocked the bar on the side of the great room. He had groupings of three chairs, each arranged in desirable places—the big porch overlooking the lake, inside in front of the two-story window, and on one end of the long dining room table. Wherever they felt like sitting to confer, he had it ready. He had been careful to discourage pairs of people sitting without the third, because opportunities like this seemed to enable secret deals and conspiracies. The history of the Rickenger family did not inspire trust.

Peter concentrated on showing each sister to the bedroom suite he had chosen for her and keeping the alcohol and snacks plentiful and in plain sight. He didn’t give any signal to either that it was time to begin the meeting. Peter felt nothing but dread about it, and he knew that there were more demanding personalities present than his. Let them decide when they wanted to take up the business.

Beginning in late afternoon the siblings sat on the porch, looked at the lake and the peaks, made drinks, and lied to each other. He knew that everyone had, over the course of their careers, made money. Their parents had prepared all of them for a life of taking what they wanted. They were all quick to see vulnerabilities and quick to exploit them. He was sure they all had enough to be considered prosperous, but these rare meetings were reunions, a chance to give the other Rickengers the impression that you were richer, smarter, and better than they were.

As usual, he heard it all but didn’t take it very seriously. If your whole life was dedicated to getting other people’s money, you cared about money and thought about it and worried about it all the time. Peter had been just like them until one day something had happened to him. It was as though a circuit breaker clicked. It was right after the construction people had finished building this house and had driven away for good. He had suddenly realized he had enough money.

For a while he wondered if it meant he was dying. He waited, but didn’t die, because the event wasn’t medical. It was mathematical. He had paid for the house and had no more desire to go anywhere else. He realized that he could afford to live the way he did now until he was well over a hundred, a point he would almost certainly not reach. That day he stopped taking any risks to get more. He stopped caring about money, then stopped thinking about it. The way he thought about this transformation was that he had been cured of being Peter.

As he could have predicted, the one who began the money talk was May. She said, “Let’s see if we’ve got all the facts about Daniel’s money now. I brought with me my correspondence with the Arizona Department of Revenue.”

“Correspondence?” Rose said, “Isn’t it just one letter?”

“No,” May said. “It’s been nearly a month since they got in touch with me. I felt I had to begin finding out what the procedures are, and make their office aware that we’re the heirs. I didn’t want some deadline to pass before we even knew there was one.”

Rose said, “Did you give them all our names as the heirs?”

“Well, no. I didn’t feel I had the right to do that. They already had my name, probably because I live in their state, so I gave them nothing and got some information. Want to hear it?”

Rose said, “Uh-huh.”

“They work out of a place on West Monroe Street in Phoenix called the State of Arizona Unclaimed Property Office. They have a website that tells you all about the process. If you’re claiming property of someone who is deceased, just having the same name gets you nowhere. You’ve got to have evidence that you’re now the owner. They also warn you that the process can take up to a hundred and twenty days before you get the money. If there are stocks, it takes an extra thirty days.”

“What is there?” Rose asked.

“They won’t tell you. You have to tell them.”

“Anybody have any actual information?” Rose said.

Peter said, “I do.”

May said, “What is it?”

“I got a notice from the California State Controller’s Office about two weeks after the Arizona people contacted May. I was pretty angry to learn that our brother Dan had used my name for some purpose of his own all those years ago, and compromised my safety. I did what May did, and let them know I was planning to claim what Dan left behind.”

“Interesting that you never mentioned it to me,” May said. “I told both of you right away when I got my letter.”

“You knew Dan was hanging around in California for years until he died,” Rose said. “That’s probably the place where most of his money is.”

Peter said, “Well, I’m pretty sure none of this matters anyway.”

“Why not?” May said.

“The only reason they got in touch in the first place was that somebody else had just filed papers to claim the money. That made them search the records for the first time in fourteen years, and they found that he had signed something with his real name once and offered my house as collateral, probably in some deal. Now that everything is computerized, it surfaced.”

“What a disloyal bastard he was. What about the other claim?”

Peter went inside to the tall wooden desk on the far side of the great room, lowered the front to turn it into a writing surface, and then opened a drawer above the cubbyholes and pulled out a paper. His sisters sat on the porch and watched him through the big window. He emerged and read aloud from the paper. “On July 18, the Superior Court of the County of Los Angeles determined in conformity with the laws of the State of California that the late Daniel Rickenger, a resident of the state, was married at the time of his death to the former Linda Warren Stone, now Linda Warren. She is the sole heir to his estate.”

May shot up from her chair so fast that it looked to Peter as though both her feet actually left the ground. “Shit!” she shouted. “Shit shit shit!” Her graceful hands were clenched into sharp little fists.

“It looks like this was a waste of time,” Rose said.

“There’s got to be a way around this,” May said.

Rose said, “No, if there was a woman he was still married to when he died, and she didn’t consent in writing to his leaving his money to somebody else, there’s no contest in California. It’s hers. I’ve used that one twice myself.”

May said, “That explains something, anyway.”

Peter appeared between them. “Another drink, May? How about you, Rose?”

The women ignored him. “Explains what, May?” Rose said.

“Why you slept with so many old men. I guess now we know what that was about.”

Rose’s smile was steely. “What was it about, May? It was about forty-six million dollars, give or take. And it wasn’t a lot of work, either. When they’re old, you’re not expected to take part in threesomes or organize swaps or go jogging with them. You should have tried it while you still could.”

Peter said, “Since we’re together all at once, we should consider everything we now know and think of an alternative. It doesn’t sound as though this woman Linda Warren has remarried in seventeen years, since she was called Linda Warren before she married Daniel and is now too.”

Rose said, “Is her brush with Daniel long enough ago to make her lonely for male companionship again? Is she healthy? How old? What if she were to die, for instance? Would that mean the whole question of inheritance goes back to a clean slate, or are there a half dozen contingent heirs?”

May said, “Even if none of those avenues is a winner, I wonder if after she has the money in her possession, will she get careless with it? Lots of people who won some lottery a year ago are broke.”

Rose said, “We could use Peter as front man. The strong, silent type who lives smack in the middle of nature. He’s probably better bait at fifty-five than he was at twenty-five.”

Peter said, “I’m not interested in telling lies to one of our brother’s discarded women.”

“Exactly,” May said. “There’s nobody a discarded woman will be drawn to like a handsome man who’s not interested in talking to her.”

“Forget it,” Peter said. “I’m perfectly content where I am.”

May said, “Let’s stop wasting our time arguing about what the plan is until we know what the situation really is. We should sit down tomorrow morning in front of laptops and phones and find out everything about this woman—her finances, real estate, cars, living relatives, and anything else that comes up. Maybe, as Peter says, there’s no way. If so, we will have wasted one day in his pleasant forest retreat together. We’ll go home and sleep better than if we just let it go.”

“Sounds good,” Rose said. “I’ll take that drink now, Peter.”

“Me first,” May said. “I need it for my headache.”

In the morning, Warren heard the familiar ring somewhere in the distance and felt his new smart watch vibrating. He looked at it. Who the —he was already on his feet and picking up the phone when he saw the number and tapped it with his finger. “Hi, Mom.”

He heard her voice. “Hi, Charlie. Oh, I just noticed the time. It’s three hours earlier there, but seven is not that early. Of course, with the number of times you woke me up when I was in Hawaii, it could be justice.”

“Well, I am awake now.” He went into the bathroom, closed the door, and said, “How are you? Is everything all right?”

“Sort of. I’m in Maine walking on the beach. I’ve got a room in a big old hotel full of ghosts, and I’m feeling like one of them. The water is frigid, the wind feels like it wants to pull the hair out of my head, and I’m getting ready to pack my bags. I got a call last night from Glen and Vivian Nostrand. You remember them?”

“Your tenants at the house.”

“Well, they got word from their agents that the television show they’ve been working on the last few years is going to be canceled. They both miss England, so they began putting out feelers with friends at home in London, thinking maybe someone might be involved in a new project, and if not that, at least they’d put the word out that they were going to be free soon. It turns out they were ‘at liberty’ for about the first ten seconds of their first call. So they’re moving out of the house at the end of the month when the show wraps and then they’ll get on a plane.”

“Do you want me to get a broker to advertise the house?”

“No, actually. I’m thinking about taking the house off the rental market and moving back in for a while. I’d rather spend next winter in LA than any of the other places I’ve been lately.”

“It’s not going to be claustrophobic?”

“You know, that’s an odd thing. Since you managed to track down the late Mack Stone, a lot of those feelings have kind of faded. It’s like old business has been settled. When Glen and Vivian made me think about the place last night, I realized that I was thinking about it as the place where your father and I, and then the three of us, lived, not the place where I got hurt and humiliated and robbed. The good old memories were still there, but the bad ones weren’t anymore. Besides, since you and Vesper are there, I might get to see you once in a while.”

“I think that’s a good idea. You said something about packing. Have you made a reservation?”

“Yes. I’ll be flying into LAX on Thursday at three twenty. American Airlines.”

“I’ll be there.”

“That’s very nice of you. I’ll call you when I get there. Bye.”

He looked at the phone and thought about his mother. He had just heard good news. She had spent the years since he’d gone to law school moving from one part of the country to another, like a person trying out each of the spots that other people said were the best. It was as though she thought happiness lived in a particular place, and she needed to find it. Now she was coming back to Los Angeles, returning to what he considered to be the real world. He should be thinking of this as a breakthrough, but maybe it was just another phase of the illusion. He stepped out of the bathroom back into the bedroom.

“Who was that?” Vesper was lying on the bed with her arm propping her head up.

“My mother. She says the tenants in the house here are going back to England, and she’s coming on Thursday, apparently to go to the house and take a fresh look at it. She’s thinking about moving in herself.”

“You don’t seem taken with the idea,” she said. “She’s great—friendly, cheerful, loving, and never bothers you, that I’ve seen.”

“All true,” he said. “But this feels a little bit off. She’s refused to live in that place for at least ten years. I can’t help thinking there could be something else.”

“Do you think she’s sick or something?”

“I don’t know if this is anything, and if it is, then it would probably be my own tendency to see a silver lining and just think it arrived ahead of the cloud.”

“Let’s act on what we know,” she said. “Which, by the way, is all good.”

“You’re right,” he said.

She got up from the bed and went into the bathroom, and he walked to the closest suite, where he had taken to keeping some of his clothes. He showered, shaved, dressed, and then went downstairs, where Vesper had begun to make their breakfast. She said, “Martha called. She said you weren’t answering, and so she said she’d leave a message on your voicemail.”

He found the message and tapped his finger on it. “Charlie, the last of the answers to our inquiries to the state abandoned assets offices came in. The ones who have Rickenger money are California, Arizona, Nevada, and New York. Arizona, Nevada, and New York are accepting California’s determination that the marriage was valid and in effect the day he died. The weird thing is that there were other claimants, and they’re named Rickenger.”

Vesper said, “That is weird. I mean, the man was a thief, right? Aren’t there legal implications to trying to claim money that’s stolen?”

Charlie said, “I hope so. But it’s possible that in practice the only punishment for making a false claim is not having the claim validated. It would be hard for the state to prove that any claimant except my mother knew the money had been stolen.”

When they had finished their breakfast, Charlie went to the guest room upstairs, unplugged the number three burner cell phone, and pressed the number one icon. The phone rang and then Minkeagan’s voice said, “Number One.”

“Hi, it’s me. Daniel Rickenger left money that was confiscated by the states of California, Arizona, Nevada, and New York. No other states. If I remember correctly, we didn’t know about New York or Nevada, so he must have left the paperwork in safe deposit boxes in those places. That’s good news. By now the states confiscated everything he had deposited. The money should come through. It’s pretty much a sure thing now that they’ve accepted the marriage.”

“Is this just a progress report or do you want something?”

“I want something.”

“What is it?”

“We just found out that my mother is coming into town on a flight from Maine to LAX on Thursday. We also found out that there were some claims to the abandoned money made by people named Rickenger.”

“You want us to watch your mother. Why should we?”

“Because on the day we made our deal, you agreed to help as needed. My mother is that jerk’s heir. In other words, she’s the beneficiary, but hasn’t inherited yet. If something were to happen to her before she does, I’m not sure of the legal consequences, but it would at least add years to the payout process for you.”

“What do you want us to do?”

“I don’t need you to watch my mother all the time. Just be aware of roughly what she’s doing. Check her surroundings to be sure nobody is stalking her. I’ll be doing the same.”

“All right. We’ll do it.”

On Thursday afternoon when he was at the airport picking up his mother, Charlie spotted Minkeagan and Copes in different places. Copes was in a car in the short-term parking structure across from the American Airlines terminal. Minkeagan was sitting in the coffee shop that arriving passengers passed on their way to the baggage claim.

Linda Warren didn’t appear to notice either man. She was too interested in talking with Charlie and Vesper, who had come to pick her up at the airport and take her to Vesper’s house to spend the first few nights while she waited for her tenants, Glen and Vivian, to clear out of the Warren family home.

The next night Linda invited Vivian and Glen out to dinner to congratulate them on their new job in England. Part of her motive was her extensive experience of moving from place to place. She knew that by the time a person was this close to moving, groceries were intentionally depleted to nearly nothing, and she wanted to be sure they were well fed.

Within the next few days Linda had begun to reconnect with friends she had seldom seen in recent years. Three of them got together almost immediately and nominated her for membership in their country club. Groups of this sort were something Linda had never joined during her years in Los Angeles, but in some of her other places she had found joining anything was an easy way to meet people, so she kept it in mind.

Part of her time she spent with Vesper. They went for daily walks and took each other to lunch. Vesper drove Linda to visit local places that Linda had missed, or that had changed so radically that they were largely new. Charlie and Vesper had been spending almost every night at Vesper’s house, and after Linda arrived, it was every night.

The day came when the tenants had gone, the cleaning crew that Linda had hired were finished, and it was time to go to the Warren house. The house had been so vacuumed, waxed, polished, and dusted, its windows so thoroughly cleaned, that it seemed to admit more light than ever before. Charlie watched his mother’s eyes and her mouth as she walked from room to room. She looked very alert and attentive, but not unhappy.

When they had been everywhere, she stopped in the middle of the living room. Charlie waited while she gazed at the ceiling.

He said, “Well?”

She said, “She wants a baby.”

“Vesper?” he said. “Are you sure?”

“She told me she ‘loves children.’ But you have to start by loving one. You’ve never seemed to me to have any interest in that. You never seemed to me to want to hold on to any of the women you date very long either, but this time you seem more amenable to it. You’re both in your midthirties. If you don’t want a baby, you should tell her. If you do, it’s beginning to be time.”

“Thank you for telling me.”

“It’s part of the basic service package, and I haven’t done much mothering for a long time.”

“You’ve been fine.”

“Thank you.” She looked out on the back lawn, which was now shaded by trees that were ten years older and much bigger than they were when she had moved out. “I guess I will move in, at least for the fall and winter.”

“Good,” he said. “It will be nice to see you more often.”

Within a week she was settled again in Los Angeles and appeared to be occupied with friends most days and following routines of her own. Charlie had shifted his efforts back to operating his law firm’s core business of estate planning, divorces, and civil suits. At the end of each week, he drove back to his condominium to pick up his mail from the locked mailbox and to check on the place. His refrigerator had nothing in it but drinks and mixers. The cupboards held a lot of condiments, spices, and canned staples. When he was satisfied, he went back out to his car and drove the rest of the way to Vesper Ellis’s house.

One evening they were lying on the bed upstairs in Vesper’s master suite, staring up at the ceiling, only the edges of their little fingers touching. He said, “So where do you think this is going?”

He expected her to say, “Where is what going?” but she didn’t buy herself time to think, so he knew she had already thought. She said, “Life has taught me not to make assumptions about the future or make demands on it. Right now, I’m allowing myself to feel how great it is to be with you doing what I’m doing. I thought about relationships sometimes when I believed that was over for me—I learned more.”

“Like what?”

“I was married for a pretty long time, and I knew that he would love it if I was wilder, freer, but I never tried. I would think, ‘That isn’t me,’ or ‘he’ll think I’m stupid’ or ‘a woman shouldn’t have to do that.’ After he was gone, I wished I had been different, thrown myself into the relationship more. It could have been so much better. I promised myself that if I ever had another chance, I wouldn’t live my life as though I was just a passenger. I would be shameless.” She moved her hand. “I like to think that I am.”

He laughed. “What about the future?”

“I don’t want to talk about that. Right now, I’m feeling better than I remember ever feeling. I’m having fun. I don’t expect it to last forever, or stay the same, or stay at all. I just told you I had learned not to demand that the future come up with some result.”

“There’s nothing wrong with talking about the way you want things to go.”

“Okay. Where I want it to go right now is for you to put your hand on my waist and pull me over on top of you. The next part of the future will take care of itself.”