Chapter 58
“Can you do me a favor?” Traci asked Whelan as she pulled the golf cart into her driveway. “I need to shower off really fast before my lawyer gets here.”
“And you need me to scrub your back?”
“Not today,” she said, laughing at the hopeful expression on his face. “But if you’ll unload the golf cart and put everything in the garage, that would be great.”
“Consider it done,” Whelan said.
When she emerged from the shower dressed in jeans and a T-shirt with her hair still damp, she found him standing in the kitchen, still bare-chested, with a beach towel slung around his hips. He was unloading the remnants of their picnic from the cooler.
“Just take the rest of that home with you,” she told him.
“Even the brownies?”
“Maybe leave me just one?”
“You got it. I hosed off the beach chairs and umbrella and stashed them in the garage. I also tried to bribe Lola with a treat, but I think she’s still highly suspicious of me.”
“I’ll have a talk with her,” she promised, walking him to the front door with cooler in hand.
“Thanks for today. It was everything I didn’t know I needed.”
“Any time. In fact…”
The doorbell rang, and through the glass sidelights she saw Andy Plankenhorn standing on her doorstep. He was dressed in baggy knee-length shorts, a golf shirt, black knee socks, and white tennis shoes. He was carrying a battered leather briefcase.
“Call me later, okay?” Whelan said. “I want to hear everything.”
She opened the door. “Oh, Andy. Hi.”
The older man looked her visitor up and down with a bemused expression. “Hello, there.”
Traci felt herself blushing. “This is my friend Whelan. We’re just back from the beach.”
“I see that,” Plankenhorn said, his eyes twinkling. He put out his hand to shake and Whelan took it. “Andy Plankenhorn. Attorney-at-law.”
“Pleasure to meet you, sir.”
Whelan leaned over, kissed Traci on the cheek, and strolled out of the house.
Andy turned to watch him go. “He seems like a nice young fella…”
“Come on in,” Traci said, her blush deepening. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Nothing, thanks.”
She led him into the dining room and he placed the briefcase on the chair next to him, extracting a manila file folder, which he set on the table.
He removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, then wiped the smudged lenses on the hem of his shirt. “What I’m about to tell you could be construed, by some, as an ethical violation that could be grounds for my disbarment. However, after long consideration, and consultation this morning with a younger, sharper legal mind, I have concluded that your late father-in-law engaged in such an egregious criminal act that I can no longer remain silent.”
“Andy?” Traci said, alarmed. “What are we talking about? I don’t want you getting in trouble.”
He smiled. “My dear, I am eighty-one years old. It is past time for me to do the right thing.”
“I understand,” Traci said. “I think.”
He opened the file folder and handed her a printout of Fred’s recently amended will.
Andy pointed at the front sheet. “You can see I’ve highlighted in yellow the most important paragraph in this document here.”
“He leaves the bulk of his estate to his surviving heirs, right?”
“Correct. His home, investments, personal property, et cetera. Some of your mother-in-law’s jewelry was to be left to Parrish, but sadly, with her death, that’s a moot point.”
“Okay,” Traci said, waiting for Plankenhorn to get to the point.
He tapped the highlighted paragraph with his index finger. “This is where things get very interesting. This lawyer’s work product contains some fatal flaws. In fact, this is such sloppy work that if I were this man’s law school professor, I’d give him a big fat F in trusts and wills.”
Get to the point,she wanted to scream, but instead she just smiled patiently.
“Fortunately for you, I believe that this will ultimately work in your favor.”
“How so?”
“Two words. ‘Surviving heirs.’”
“That’s Ric, right? He gets the gold mine, and I get the shaft.”
“No.” The older man’s gaze was fixed on hers. “There actually is another heir. Someone neither Ric nor this lawyer knew existed.”
“What? Are you telling me Ric had another child?”
“Not Ric. His father. Fred Senior has another child. A daughter, in fact.”
For a moment she was too stunned to speak. “Are you sure? I mean, how is this possible? And how do you know about this secret daughter?”
Andy stared down at his hands. When he looked up, his expression was somber. “Twenty-one years ago, Fred came to me and swore me to secrecy. Then he confessed that he’d fathered a child with a young woman. He claimed it was an accident, a one-time thing, and that the woman, whom he termed ‘a little gold-digger,’ deliberately got pregnant in order to trap him into making her a financial settlement.”
“This is unbelievable,” Traci said. “Where is this daughter now?”
“I’ll get to that. Fred being Fred, he demanded the young woman provide proof that he was the father. The paternity tests confirmed her claim. Shortly after this daughter’s birth, Fred had me draw up a legal document. He agreed to pay for the young woman’s college education and to pay off the mortgage on the mother’s home. In addition, there was a one-time fifty-thousand-dollar settlement, which was to be used for the child’s maintenance. In return, the young woman had to sign a nondisclosure agreement.”
“And he never saw his own daughter?”
“Not to my knowledge,” Plankenhorn said. “I didn’t meet the mother myself, until she came to my office to sign the paperwork, which is when she told me her side of the story. She was young and na?ve. I’ve always felt badly that she didn’t have adequate legal counsel, but I told myself that I had a fiduciary responsibility to my client. Going along with Fred, being a party to that shameful act, remains the biggest regret of my legal career.”
Traci looked the older man squarely in the face. “And yet, you remained friends. And stayed on as the family’s attorney.”
“I kept doing business with him, yes. But the friendship ended. When I told Georgia what Fred had done, not naming names, of course, she was furious—gave me a tongue-lashing and said she never wanted to see him again. Helen was incredibly hurt. She and Georgia had been dear friends.”
Traci got up and paced around the dining room. “Are you going to tell me who the young woman is? And the identity of her daughter?”
“I’m going to let her tell you herself. She’s waiting, out in my car.”
He picked up his phone and tapped a number on his contact list. “It’s time,” he said.