Death by Surprise Page 5

  “I see. In that event, Edmond, I imagine you will be pleased to know that I do intend to vote to dissolve the trust.”

  He managed to disguise better than Travis his quick intake of breath but his tone told me so much more than he intended.

  “Good. That will be . . . very helpful to me. I appreciate your frankness, K.C. I will see you this afternoon, then.”

  If there had been a fabulous investment opportunity awaiting him, he would have been happy at my agreement, but his voice was tired and strained. He didn’t want to dissolve the trust, but, for some dark and urgent reason, it was imperative to Edmond that he have access to a very great deal of money.

  I stared at the phone for a long moment after he hung up. I had, earlier in the morning, considered sending Pat to pick up the report on Francine Boutelle. I would take a look at it, snatch a few minutes after the meeting at Kenneth’s and before the dinner at Mother’s. I changed my mind. I yanked my legal pad to me and began swiftly one word, one sentence, one paragraph after another, to finish the brief for Amundsen vs. The City of La Luz. It would be good enough, had to be good enough. It was, abruptly, very important to me to find out now, as soon as possible, every last thing I could about Francine Boutelle. I didn’t like the way she was leaning on the Carlisles. I didn’t like what was happening to Priscilla and Travis and Edmond. And me.

  Priscilla was scared silly. Travis, foolish, foppish, good-natured Travis, was desperately worried. Edmond was a cornered man. And I had my own fears.

  I met Pamela Reeves in a back booth at the Blue Grotto. As the cocktail waitress brought our Margaritas, Pamela handed me a yellow file folder and sat back with a tired sigh.

  “If you weren’t such a good customer, I wouldn’t have managed it. I’m going to go home now and sleep for three days.”

  I scanned the dossier.

  BOUTELLE, FRANCINE EMILY. B. Feb. 3, 1954, Venice, Ca. Parents, John Edward and Katharine Celeste Boutelle. Parents divorced (date as yet not obtained). Reared by mother who worked in a VandeKamp’s Bakery. Graduated Venice High School, June 18, 1971. Waitress at Forsby’s in Hollywood, 1972–75. Graduated UCLA, BA in journalism, 1975. Aspiring starlet. Francine worked on a Long Beach paper for three years, joined an LA paper in 1978. In February of 1980, she started to work as a cocktail waitress at the Cocoa Butter in downtown LA.

  “That’s odd,” I murmured. “Hey, Pamela, why the switch from a newspaper to a cocktail joint?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’m still trying to find out.”

  “She told me she was working for Inside Out. What’s the deal?”

  “She is, sort of. I called Inside Out, pretended I was looking for a job. They didn’t have any openings. Then I asked about my old friend, Francine Boutelle. This editor was a little snippy about it, said Boutelle was doing an article on assignment but she was not a regular staff member.”

  So Boutelle was using the Carlisles to get started with Inside Out.

  “How about men?”

  Pamela shrugged. “Here in La Luz or earlier?”

  “Both.”

  “There are only so many hours in the day.”

  “Start with La Luz.”

  “So far, that’s all I’ve had a chance to really check out. She has a nosy neighbor, a Mrs. Collins. She allows that Francine has a beau, but she’s never really seen him. Just glimpses of a dark topcoat and the sounds of a man talking.”

  “That’s interesting,” I said quickly. “Find out more, if you can. Francine’s only been in town six weeks. Is it someone she’s met in that time or did she know somebody here before she came?”

  Pamela frowned. “It’s tough, looking here, K.C. She doesn’t have friends or co-workers I can get close to and pump.”

  “Do the best you can.”

  “I’m pretty sure of one thing, she’s never been married and nobody mentions a particular man when I ask about her.”

  I frowned. “Maybe she’s a lesbian.”

  Pamela looked at me thoughtfully. “Maybe, but I don’t think so. I spent five hours with her in the bar at Nightingale’s Saturday night and I never got a hint of anything like that.”

  I tapped the dossier. “Is that how you found out most of this?”

  “Mostly from talking to her.”

  “Five hours?” I repeated.

  Pamela smiled wryly. “She likes to drink. I thought maybe I could really get her started the way she was lapping up the Scotch, but I would guess she’s been drinking a lot for a long time. She talked, yeah, but there was nothing maudlin, nothing to really give her away.”

  I looked down at the folder. I had her birth date and where she had gone to school. Swell. I needed more than that. A lot more.

  “How do you size her up?”

  The answer came back like a ball off the wall. “Smart. Tough. Absolutely ruthless.”

  That was my appraisal, too. Unfortunately.

  “No chinks?”

  “None apparent.” Pamela frowned. “I don’t know, though I think . . .” She paused, rubbed the rim of her glass. “I don’t know for sure, K.C., I can’t swear to it, but I think she’s really hot for some guy. This was toward the end. Lord, it must have been almost two in the morning. It was the last gig. You know. Nightingale’s runs to jazz combos with female blues singers. This was a really good one and she spent a lot of time with ‘My Man’ and ‘Summertime’, stuff like that. Francine got started on a kind of diatribe about being poor and making it all by yourself without anybody to give a bloody damn and how you have to be tough to do it. I kind of faded out, I mean, I’ve heard the working girl makes good story before, and by the time I tuned back in, the tenor of it had changed. She was intense, really soft-throated and husky, saying it could be fantastic if the right two people got together, that they could make anything happen, anything. I don’t know whether she was thinking about what she wanted to have happen or whether she had already teamed up with Mr. Fantastic. I was a little fuddled at that point. Believe me, I didn’t sit around in bars drinking double Scotches until I took up this PI business. Whether she was dreaming or glorying, I just don’t know. At the very start of the evening, I bumped her elbow, you know, spilled her drink, and offered to buy her another. That’s one way to get to talking to someone at a bar. Anyway, it worked and we commiserated about being two working girls out in the big city with nobody to buy our drinks. You have to understand that this was all spread out over several hours. We did have some gents join us at one time or another, but, and this seems significant to me, she wasn’t really on the prowl for some guy to take her home. At the same time, like I told you, there wasn’t any hint that she was interested in me. So, it makes you think. Maybe she’s some important guy’s girl friend and he had to be home with the momma-hubby on Saturday night. Anyway, for what it’s worth, I think she’s really into something with somebody.”

  It did interest me. Sex, money, and pride rule the world.

  “Okay, Pamela. Find him.”

  Pamela clutched her head. “My big mouth. What about my three days’ sleep?”

  “Some other week,” I replied unfeelingly. “Keep after it for me, Pamela.” I studied Francine’s job list. “Find out why she ended up in a club again.”

  Pamela finished her Margarita. “It will cost a lot.”

  “I don’t care what it costs.”

  Pamela looked at me curiously, but she didn’t say anything. It was pretty obvious that this wasn’t just another job to me.

  It wasn’t. Not by a long shot. I could tell Grace and Priscilla not to worry, just to tell me all about it and let me handle it because I couldn’t imagine that either of them would have anything really serious to fear from Boutelle’s revelations, no matter how unpleasant. I didn’t feel that way about my own secret. I couldn’t bear to have everyone know about Sheila and me. I couldn’t bear it.

  But how, I agonized, could Francine Boutelle know what really happened to Sheila? Only Sheila and I were there. Only the two of us.

&
nbsp; I bought Pamela the best lunch in the house. Usually, I love to eat at the Blue Grotto but I wasn’t hungry and I glanced again and again at the typed report as if I might find something there, anything, that would give me some leverage on Francine Boutelle.

  Back in my office, I tried to concentrate on my work, and I did finish a new will for the Frankfurts and the adoption papers on the Morrison baby, but it was automatic, only the surface of my mind engaged.

  I was really thinking about Francine Boutelle and her manuscript. Was it a blind? Was she really writing on the Carlisles or was that just a clever way of phrasing a blackmail demand? Putting some teeth in her request?

  I doodled on a legal pad, a five followed by a line of fat round zeroes.

  No, the manuscript must be real. She was freelancing it to Inside Out, so she must intend to come up with a story. How would she handle it? Would she delete the spicy bits for those who paid? It would be something like that. Even if everyone anted up, she would still owe the magazine a story. That wouldn’t be hard to write, however. There was certainly plenty to say about the Carlisles, even without the more lurid passages on everyone’s personal lives. Wouldn’t the managing editor wonder, though? Inside Out liked scandal, thrived on it. How could Francine explain an innocuous article? Of course, she could claim she hadn’t found out anything really racy. The magazine was based in LA so the editor wouldn’t have any local knowledge. She could still rag the family hard about its money and extravagances.

  I didn’t give a damn what she wrote about us in that vein, but I was going to keep her from opening up the hidden seams, if I could. And I wasn’t going to see any of us pay her a penny.

  Wasn’t I? Just how did I think I could prevent it?

  I could threaten her with libel suits. But that was revenge, not prevention, and likely would come to little anyway. Truth is still a defense in libel. Of course, she could be in trouble on the basis of malice if everyone testified that she had attempted blackmail. But would they? In any event, I didn’t want recompense. I wanted to prevent publication.

  By the time I arrived at Kenneth’s office for the meeting of the Cochran-Carlisle beneficiaries, I had some ideas. Nothing foolproof, but a couple of them merited consideration.

  Kenneth’s receptionist couldn’t quite disguise her curiosity. “Yes, Miss Carlisle, Mr. Carlisle is expecting you. Please go to the main conference room.”

  “And that is?” I asked gently.

  “Oh, I thought you’d probably . . . that is, excuse me, it’s the fourth door on the right. Everyone else is there.”

  I had realized I was running a little late. I wondered how much of it was my disinclination to come at all. I found the proper door and, as I opened it, I saw the receptionist craning her head to watch. It must be causing quite a bit of interest among the help, this gathering of the Carlisle clan.

  The men rose as I stepped inside. This was my first visit to Kenneth’s conference room and it was a sight truly to delight the heart of an Establishment lawyer. A massive mahogany table with inlaid copper panels offered seats for twelve. Heavy red velvet drapes framed the windows. The walls were paneled in oak. Real oak, not pressed plastic. It was ponderous, sumptuous, and probably quite soothing to corporate clients.

  I nodded to the chorus of hellos and slipped into an empty chair. We hardy band of Carlisles did not, of course, nearly fill the twelve seats. We looked rather a small group in that proud room.

  Kenneth sat at the head of the table. “Now that K.C. is here, we can get under way.”

  So I wasn’t to be Katharine Cecilia. That showed, perhaps, the stress on Kenneth, that he had reverted to our childhood relationship. It was the first time he had called me K.C. since our quarrel over my use of the initials in my professional listing.

  He began to describe, in an incredibly boring fashion, the formation of the Carlisle fortune and the creation of the trust. Instead of listening, I looked at old K.C.’s descendants.

  Edmond sat to Kenneth’s right. Edmond is fair, with thinning blond hair. His pale complexion emphasizes the lines that bracket his eyes and mouth. He stared down at a legal pad, his mouth a grim straight line.

  Priscilla sat to Kenneth’s left. She wore a mauve suede jacket and her hair looked like waves of honey. She was absolutely stunning. Until, I thought unkindly, she spoke. She turned just then and looked down the table toward me and once again the appeal in her eyes was so strong that it shocked me.

  I gave a tiny, almost indiscernible nod and her whole body relaxed.

  Travis saw it, of course. Travis is the kind of man who never misses a nuance. His lively malicious green eyes looked at me inquiringly. I smiled blandly and turned my face toward Kenneth, cupping my chin in my hands and feigning fascination in the recital of facts and figures. Mostly figures. My God, we were rich. Or were going to be after the vote.

  Kenneth paused. He stared down at the thick sheaf of papers. He has a classically handsome face, broad and sturdy with a bold nose and dark blue eyes. His hair is blond, like most of the Carlisles, but his is thick and curly, which makes him look younger than he is. He didn’t look especially young today, the skin beside his mouth pinched and white. Abruptly, he closed the folder and looked around the table.

  “So that’s it. I have, as I explained, divided the shares of stock in the various companies absolutely equally. Each beneficiary will receive precisely the same amount. I have, in addition, worked out the most feasible tax plan. The upshot of it is, each of us will come out with about three and a quarter million.”

  It was very quiet. No one spoke or moved.

  Kenneth looked at Priscilla. “Do I have a motion to dissolve?”

  Priscilla nodded and I remembered that, presumably, it was she who had engineered this meeting.

  “I move that the Cochran-Carlisle Trust be dissolved in accordance with the proposals Kenneth has made.” She said it by rote.

  Travis seconded the motion almost before she finished speaking.

  The ayes went around the table and then it was my turn. I looked at them, my brothers and cousins, at their guarded faces and worried eyes, and I wanted to cry out, “Wait a minute, why are we doing this? Why are we letting a cheap little bitch off the LA streets lean on us? We’re Carlisles, we can handle her. If we don’t want this vote, if it’s wrong and foolish, let’s fight.”

  But the vote was already stacked. I knew that. I knew, too, that if I broke it out into the open, I would be standing naked by myself. Those closed desperate faces told me that.

  Did I want to talk about Sheila? Would I ever be willing to talk about Sheila?

  So, after a long pause, a pause during which they all turned to look at me, as if I were some curious, perhaps threatening, stranger, I said, “Aye,” and the voting went on.

  It came out 5–0 and we were instant millionaires.

  I didn’t hear a single cheer.

  Amanda opened the front door at Mother’s.

  “Miss K.C., oh, honey, it’s so good to see you. It’s been so long,” and she beamed at me.

  I reached out and took her work-worn hands. “Mandy, you look so pretty.”

  If possible, her smile widened. For an instant, a wonderful timeless instant, we stood there, loving each other, secure in an insecure world.

  I did love Amanda. And I knew that she loved me. Her love had made my childhood bearable. Oh, my father cared, in his distant and aloof fashion. He had, as I grew older, admired me, seen in my mind his own incisive intellect. But Sheila was my mother’s favorite. Always. Even after she died. It was then that Amanda salvaged me, saved me from the grey and icy limbo that my life became.

  “I want you to come into town,” I said abruptly, “next week. We will have lunch. And visit. You can tell me all about Rudolph and his family.”

  Rudolph was Amanda’s son and she was so proud of him. Rightly so. With Dad’s help, he had gone to college and then to medical school and he was now a general practitioner in La Luz.

  Amand
a had grown up when blacks rode the backs of buses, when most colleges were barred to them. To have a son who had not only finished college but become a doctor . . . her life was complete. She said that to me one day, so simply and directly. I had scolded her a little. “Don’t be silly, Amanda. You are going to live to be an old, old lady. Until I’m an old lady, too, and I shall come to visit you and we will talk about the impossible world and all the changes we’ve seen, as old ladies do.”

  She had smiled, but a little uncertainly. True, she loved me, but she didn’t always understand me. “Miss K.C., you do talk nonsense, don’t you?”

  Now she stood in Mother’s foyer, holding my hands, smiling at me. Her grey uniform was spotless as always, but she was beginning to look old, her once-wiry black hair almost totally white, her plump face thinned, her shoulders bowed.

  I frowned. Amanda was too old for this kind of evening. My God, all of us were coming. That meant dinner for . . . I counted them up in my mind . . . dinner for nine. I heard the chatter of voices, light and deep, and the chink of glasses from the drawing room. Mother, of course, still had a drawing room.

  “Amanda, who’s helping you tonight?”

  She looked a little surprised. “Jason. He’s going to wait tables.”

  Jason was her cousin and almost as old as she.

  Dinner for nine and all the cooking and cleaning up that would entail.

  “I’ll bet you’ve been working since early this morning.”

  For just an instant, her shoulders sagged, then she said quickly, “It’s all right, Miss K.C. And it’s so nice to have everyone home again, even if it’s only for a little while.”