Clouds without Rain (17 page)

“Few bishops bother anymore,” Cal said.

“I’m trying for something better, Cal. But there’s a more immediate problem, Professor. Cal and I have been wondering what to do about our eight families. Dozers and dump trucks are going to show up at one of those farms one day, and then we’ll have to know what to do.”

“How many options do you really have?” Branden asked.

Weaver asked, “Have you had a chance to talk to that lawyer?”

“I’ll try tomorrow. After my appointment at the bank.”

Weaver sighed, looking resigned to the worst. “Jobs in town are out of the question,” he said.

“Is there nothing else?” Cal asked.

“You could fight the eviction in court. Get an injunction,” Branden said.

Weaver shook his head. “We’ve got a collection started among the families of the district to see if we can buy land hereabouts for the men to farm.”

“Is there that much land for sale?” Cal asked.

Weaver leaned over on his elbows and shook his head again, eyes cast down at his feet. “Can you drive me up to Cleveland, tomorrow, Cal?”

Cal answered, “Yes,” with hesitation.

Weaver stared at his Sunday brogans for a moment and said, “I’ve sent out a dozen or so letters to settlements in other states.”

Cal shifted forward on the bench. “Moving?” he asked.

“Maybe Holmes County is no good for us anymore,” Weaver said. “Land values too high. Too much development.”

“That’s a lot of people to move,” Cal said.

“I have to preserve the old ways, Cal.”

“What about a good old-fashioned protest?” Cal offered.

Weaver seemed puzzled.

“You know. A sit-in. Lie down in front of the dozers. Something like that.”

“Resist the developers?” Weaver asked.

“Yes,” Branden said. “Make it difficult for them to develop the land.”

“If we did that, there would be a confrontation,” Weaver said. “That’s not the Amish way. It violates the
Ordnung.
If people are bent on harming us, we avoid them. No, I am still figuring you can get something from your lawyer.”

“What are you going to do in the meantime?” Cal asked.

“Only one thing we can do, Cal. You and I are going to pay a visit tomorrow to the offices of Holmes Estates.”

“I thought you didn’t want a confrontation,” Cal said.

“There is nothing in the
Ordnung
that forbids good horse trading,” Weaver answered wryly.

23

Monday, August 14
9:55 A.M.

 

 

BRANDEN arrived five minutes early for his appointment with the new trustee of J. R. Weaver’s estate and sat in the second-floor hallway of the bank, two doors down from Britta Sommers’s empty office. At precisely 10:00 A.M., the secretary lifted the phone, announced the professor, listened briefly, and then escorted Branden into Ted Brownell’s small room. Brownell appeared young, maybe thirty-five, and sat in a worn gray suit behind a desk cluttered with loose papers and colored file folders.

Branden stepped forward, offered his hand, and said, “Ted, it’s been a long time. How are you doing?”

“Nice to see you again, Professor,” Brownell said formally.

“You graduated maybe fifteen years ago, Ted. I think it’s about time you called me Mike.”

Brownell shifted uneasily on his feet and said, “Oh, I could never do that, Professor.”

“What was my nickname then?”

“Sir?”

“I get a new nickname from the history majors every few years. What was it when you came through?”

“I don’t know, Professor.”

“Sure you do, Ted. These days it’s Doc. I’m sure you must have had one too. About that time it was Getty, I think. Because I started teaching that course on Gettysburg.”

Brownell’s cheeks flushed a bright rose, as did the tops of his ears. He said, “I don’t know, Professor,” but was altogether unable to mask the smile that formed on his lips.

Branden eyed him mischievously for a few seconds, laughed, and said, “Anyway, please call me Mike.”

“OK, Professor.”

Branden took a seat at the side of Brownell’s desk and laid his right forearm along the top edge of the desk. Leaning forward casually, he said, “I understand Britta Sommers transferred John Weaver’s trust to you.”

Brownell stretched his arms out to indicate all of the papers and folders on the desktop. “I’ve only now started going through the thing. Sommers was very thorough, it seems, and meticulous.”

“What all have you got there, Ted?” Branden asked.

“It looks like the usual records. Stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. Papers of incorporation. Partnerships. A will. Some very current listings of his land holdings, including a recent sale—quite large, really—and estimates of net worth over the years. That sort of thing.”

“What’s in the will, Ted?”

“I can’t tell you that, Professor. It hasn’t all been executed, yet. Weaver’s lawyer is working through it, and I’m supposed to get the figures to him this week.”

“Do you think his lawyer could tell me about the will? What’s his name?”

“Henry DiSalvo, and I doubt it. There’s a provision that makes the will public only after a certain period of time has elapsed.”

“I know DiSalvo,” Branden said, casually. “How much time before he announces the will?”

“Professor, I really can’t say.”

Branden noticed an uneasiness in Brownell’s voice and changed the subject, trying a different tack. “You went to grad school, didn’t you, Ted?”

“I took an M.B.A. at Miami University. Then Capital University Law School.”

“You’ve done well.”

“I should have practiced law, Professor. Banks don’t pay very much,” Brownell said, fingering the lapel on his well-worn suit.

Branden let a moment pass, and then Brownell said, “You know, I saw Weaver the day he died.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Yes. He was here to go over some new papers that morning. His last land sale. He and his lawyer had all the work done, and Weaver wanted copies of all the deeds and papers put into his file, here. He did everything that way, it seems, and now I’ve got a desk full of documents to go through.”

“Any idea how much he was worth?” Branden asked, nonchalantly.

“Couldn’t say. Wouldn’t be able to tell you anyway. It’s all going to come out when his will is read.”

“At the right time?” Branden said.

“And with the right people present,” Brownell answered. “Look, Professor. If you want to get the details on the last big sell-off, they’ll have it all down at the map office. Or it might have gotten to the auditor by now. The recorder will have it in a few days at the most, and it’ll be public record, then. Probably is now, anyway.”

“Oh, I can wait, Ted. I was just hoping you could give me some of the details.”

Brownell gave an apologetic shrug of his shoulders.

“Maybe Britta Sommers’s end of it, then?” Branden asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Like how much Sommers had mixed in with Weaver’s business.”

“She shouldn’t have any,” Brownell said and sat up straighter. His eyes focused more sharply on Branden.

Branden remembered the notations on the numerous files Weaver had kept at his home, indicating a small percentage had gone to Sommers from many of his deals. Discreetly, he said, “Nothing with Sommers?”

Sternly, Brownell said, “It’s bank policy. Trust officers are not to involve themselves in the business affairs of their clients. She could have lost her job.”

Branden said, “I don’t suppose she has come in recently?”

“We don’t expect her. Tuesday last week was her last day on the job.”

Outside, Branden walked north on Clay Street. He was troubled by the revelation that Britta Sommers had rounded off the crisp edges of professional ethics, according to Brownell. He cut across the lawn in front of the courthouse and took Monroe to the county recorder’s offices. Distracted, he barely greeted the two ladies at the front counter. At the computer terminal in the back of the room, he punched mechanically on the keyboard and immediately found a string of entries recording land transactions between Holmes Estates, and Weaver and Sommers. The numbers added up in his mind with a strange sedating effect, so that eventually the millions seemed like trivial sums to him. So that the magnitude of the land sales no longer astonished him. And he realized that there might very well be a good reason why Britta Sommers would leave town so suddenly.

24

Monday, August 14
11:30 A.M.

 

 

HENRY DiSalvo’s one-room law office was on the second floor of an old downtown building. The only indication of its location was faded brown lettering on a narrow, street-level door. Branden pushed through the door and climbed the staircase to the second floor. He knocked on the door at the top of the steps and walked into the office. DiSalvo sat with his back to the door, typing steadily on the keys of an outmoded computer. He turned around, saw the professor, and rose to shake hands.

“Mike,” DiSalvo said. “Good to see you.”

“Henry,” Branden said, and glanced around the old-fashioned office, little changed from the days when DiSalvo had managed young Branden’s finances after his parents’ fatal car crash.

DiSalvo himself had aged markedly in recent years, Branden noted, and what hair remained was white. His tattered suit hinted of an impoverished state, though in fact he was one of the wealthiest men in Millersburg. His office was spartan in appointments, cluttered everywhere with papers, folders, and briefs. An odd assortment of gray metal desks, in a style popular in the fifties, stood along the walls. The floor was of dark wood, the finish worn through in patches. There were no rugs or carpeting, and dust bunnies had gathered in the corners and under furniture. The frames of the photos, plaques, and diplomas were dusty on the top edges, and some hung crooked on the wall. A small window air conditioner rattled and hummed near the floor, at the bottom of one of the tall, street-side windows. Most of the drapes were pulled closed against the sun, and with only the desk lamp burning next to DiSalvo’s computer, dusk seemed to have fallen in the room.

DiSalvo came around his desk, moved a stack of papers and books from a chair in front, and offered Branden a seat. As he walked to the other side of his desk and sat down, he asked, “Is your parents’ trust still producing for you?”

“Very well, Henry. You did an excellent job.”

“A tragedy, how your parents died,” DiSalvo reflected. “I hope the money has been a help to you over the years.”

“It was a great help at first, in graduate school and later. Now, I let it accumulate and pay a secretary out of the proceeds.”

“Secretaries!” DiSalvo exclaimed. “By the time I explain to them what I want, I could have done it myself.”

“I’ve got a good one, Henry, and I suspect you could find one, too,” Branden said gently, smiling.

DiSalvo smiled back and then laughed outright. “Not at my age,” he said. “But I doubt you came here to harass me about my personality.”

“I need to talk to you about J. R. Weaver’s will. His recent land deals, too.”

“You’re mixed up in that?” DiSalvo asked.

“Helping the sheriff.”

“How is he?”

“Not good. Still at the Akron burn unit. I’m going up there again tonight.”

“Let me know,” DiSalvo said. “As far as Weaver goes, I really can’t discuss it now. How about Wednesday morning?” DiSalvo turned the pages of his desk calendar and held a pen ready to ink in an appointment.

Branden said, “Fine. Eleven A.M. suits me.”

DiSalvo wrote on his calendar and nodded.

Branden rose and said, “Can you tell me anything about his will?”

“Not really,” DiSalvo said, seated. “It can’t be disclosed as yet.”

“Why?”

“A certain provision says I’m to hold it until specific conditions have been met. I can’t file it until then.”

“Rather strange,” Branden commented.

“Oh, it won’t be long, Mike. Just a few more days.”

Branden said, “I’ll see you Wednesday,” and moved toward the door. With his hand on the knob, he turned back to DiSalvo and asked, “Do you know anything about Britta Sommers’s business dealings with Weaver?”

“No,” DiSalvo said. “And if I did, I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“Why not?”

“She served as his trustee. There’d be ethical problems.”

“She’s missing, Henry. You know her house was torched last Thursday.”

DiSalvo nodded, frowned, and rubbed nervously at the back of his head. “She did sell some land in Weaver’s last deal. A parallel transaction. Nothing that could be construed as improper.”

“Is that land deal final?”

“All the ink is dry, if that’s what you mean. The papers have been filed.”

“Any chance of reversing the deal?”

“No.”

Branden thanked him and let himself out. Once down to the street, he decided to visit Bobby Newell and walked the three hot and noisy blocks to the jail. Ellie Troyer sent him through to the sheriff’s office, and Branden found the captain in uniform, standing with a large mug of coffee at one of the tall office windows facing the square.

Newell turned from the window, and before Branden could say anything, barked, “Arden Dobrowski has filed charges against you, Professor.”

Branden laughed and said, “What charges?”

“Says you hit him.”

“The man deserved it, Bobby,” Branden scoffed.

“Wouldn’t surprise me, but he’s filed charges.”

“Is he pressing those charges?”

“Not at the moment, but he’s coming in this afternoon to talk about it, and you had best be hoping I’ll be able to talk him down.”

“Can’t be bothered,” Branden said and sat casually in a chair next to Robertson’s cherry desk.

Newell parked his muscular frame on the corner of the desk near Branden and said, “I think you ought to back out of the Weaver/Sommers case for a while. She’s still missing. We’ve tried to find her, but she’s left town or something.”