E is for Evidence (9 page)

The hard-packed dirt just in front of me was as littered with shells as a battlefield. I saved my brass, collecting the casings after each firing, tucking them neatly back into the Styrofoam brick that cradled the live rounds.

By 3:15 I was cold, and most of my ammunition was gone. I can't claim that my little semiautomatic is wildly accurate at twenty-five yards, but at least I was feeling connected to the process again.

 

 

 

 

 

At 3:55, I was turning into the circular drive to the Wood family home, located on seven acres of land that sat on the bluffs overlooking the Pacific. Their fortunes on the rise, they'd moved since I'd last visited. This house was enormous, done in a French Baroque style—a two-story central structure flanked by two prominent tower wings. The stucco exterior was as smooth and white as frosting on a wedding cake, roofline and windows edged with plaster garlands, rosettes, and shell motifs that might have been piped out of a pastry tube. A brick walk led from the driveway around to the seaward-facing front of the house and up two steps to a wide uncovered brick porch. A series of arched French doors spanned the facade, which curved outward around a conservatory on one end and a gazebo on the other. A heavy black woman in a white uniform admitted me. I followed
her, like a stray pup, across a foyer tiled in black and white marble squares.

“Mrs. Wood asked if you'd wait in the morning room,” the maid said, without pausing for a reply. She departed on thick crepe soles that made no sound on the polished parquet floors.

Oh, sure, I thought, that's where I usually hang out at my place . . . the morning room, where else?

The walls were apricot, the ceiling a high dome of white. Large Boston ferns were arranged on stands between high curving windows through which light streamed. The furniture was French Provincial; round table, six chairs with cane backs. The circle of Persian carpeting was a pale blend of peach and green. I stood at one of the windows, looking out at the rolling sweep of the grounds (which is what rich people call their yards). The C-shape of the room cupped a view of the ocean in its lower curve and a view of the mountains in its hook so that the windows formed a cyclorama. Sky and sea, pines, a pie wedge of city, clouds spilling down the distant mountainside . . . all of it was perfectly framed, wheeling gulls picked out in white against the dark hills to the north.

What I love about the rich is the silence they live in—the sheer magnitude of space. Money buys light and high ceilings, six windows where one might actually do. There was no dust, no streaks on the glass, no scuff marks on the slender bowed legs of the matching
French Provincial chairs. I heard a whisper of sound, and the maid returned with a rolling serving cart, loaded with a silver tea service, a plate of assorted tea sandwiches, and pastries the cook had probably whipped up that day.

“Mrs. Wood will be right with you,” she said to me.

“Thanks,” I said. “Uh, is there a lavatory close by?”

“Bathroom” seemed like too crude a term.

“Yes, ma'am. Turn left into the foyer. Then it's the first door on the left.”

I tiptoed to the loo and locked myself in, staring at my reflection in the mirror with despair. Of course, I was dressed wrong. I never could guess right when it came to clothes. I'd gone to the Edgewater Hotel in my all-purpose dress to eat lunch with Ashley, who'd worn an outfit suitable for bagging game. Now I had down-dressed to the point where I looked like a bum. I didn't know what I'd been thinking of. I knew the Woods had money. I'd just forgotten how much. The trouble with me is I have no class. I was raised in a two-bedroom stucco bungalow, maybe eight hundred and fifty square feet of space, if you counted the little screened-in utility porch. The yard was a tatty fringe of crabgrass surrounded by the kind of white picket fence you bought in sections and stuck in the ground where you would. My aunt's notion of “day-core” was a pink plastic flamingo standing on one foot, which I'd thought was pretty classy shit until I was twelve.

I blocked the bathroom out of my visual field, but not before I got a glimpse of marble, pale-blue porcelain, and gold-plated hardware. A shallow dish held six robin's-egg-sized ovals of soap that had never been touched before by human hands. I peed and then just ran my hands under the water and shook them off, not wanting to soil anything. The terry hand towels looked as though they'd just had the price tags removed from the rims. There were four guest towels laid out beside the basin like big decorative paper napkins, but I was way too smart to fall for that trick. Where would I put a used one afterward—in the trash? These people didn't make trash. I finished drying my hands on the backside of my jeans and returned to the morning room feeling damp around the rear. I didn't dare sit down.

Presently, Ash appeared with Mrs. Wood holding on to her arm. The woman walked slowly, with a halting gait, as if she'd been forced to ambulate with a pair of swim fins for shoes. I was startled to realize she must be in her early seventies, which meant that she'd had her children rather late. Seventy isn't that old out here. People in California seem to age at a different rate than the rest of the country. Maybe it's the passion for diet and exercise, maybe the popularity of cosmetic surgery. Or maybe we're afflicted with such a horror of aging that we've halted the process psychically. Mrs. Wood apparently hadn't developed
the knack. The years had knocked her flat, leaving her knees weak and her hands atremble, a phenomenon that seemed to cause her bitter amusement. She appeared to watch her own progress as if she were having an out-of-body experience.

“Hello, Kinsey. It's been a long time,” she said. She lifted her face to mine at that point, her gaze dark and snappish. Whatever energy had been drained from her limbs was being concentrated now in her eyes. She had high cheekbones and a strong chin. The skin hung from her face like tissue-thin kid leather, lined and seamed, yellowing with the years like a pair of cotillion gloves. Like Ashley, she was big: wide through the shoulders, thick through the waist. Like Ash, too, she might have been a redhead in her youth. Now her hair was a soft puff of white, gathered on top and secured by a series of tortoiseshell combs. Her clothes were beautifully made—a softly draped kimono of navy silk over a dark red silk wraparound dress. Ashley helped her into a chair, pulling the tea cart within range so her mother could supervise the pouring of tea.

Ash glanced over at me. “Would you prefer sherry? The tea is Earl Grey.”

“Tea's fine.”

Ash poured three cups of tea while Helen selected a little plate of cookies and finger sandwiches for each of us. White bread spread with butter, sprigs of watercress
peeping out. Wheat bread with curried chicken salad. Rye layered with herbed cream cheese and lox. There was something about the ritual attention to detail that made me realize neither of them cared what I was wearing or whether my social status was equivalent to theirs.

Ashley flashed me a smile when she handed me my tea. “Mother and I live for this,” she said, dimples appearing.

“Oh, yes,” Helen said, with a smile. “Food is my last great vice and I intend to sin incessantly as long as my palate holds out.”

We munched and sipped tea and laughed and chatted about old times. Helen told me that both she and Woody had sprung from the commonplace. His father had owned a hardware store in town for years. Her father was a stone-mason. Each had inherited a modest sum which they'd pooled to form Wood/Warren sometime in the forties. The money they'd amassed was all fun and games as far as they were concerned. Woody was dead serious about the running of the company, but the profits had seemed like a happy accident. Helen said he'd carried nearly two million dollars' worth of life insurance on himself, considering it a hot joke as it was the only investment he knew of with a guaranteed payoff.

At 5:00, Ash excused herself, leaving the two of us alone.

Helen's manner became brisk. “Now tell me about this business with Lance.”

I brought her up-to-date. Ash had apparently filled her in, but Helen wanted to hear it all again from me.

“I want you to work for me,” she said promptly when I finished.

“I can't do that, Helen. For starters, my attorney doesn't want me anywhere near Lance, and I certainly can't accept employment from the Wood family. It already looks like I'm being paid off.”

“I want to know who's behind this,” she said.

“So do I. But suppose it turns out to be one of you. I don't mean to offend, but we can't rule that out.”

“Then we'd have to put a stop to it. I don't like under-handed dealings, especially when people outside the company are affected. Will you keep me informed?”

“If it's practical, of course. I'm willing to share anything I find. For once, I don't have a client to protect.”

“Tell me how I can help.”

“Fill me in on the details of Woody's will, if that's not too personal. How was his estate divided? Who controls the company?”

A flash of irritation crossed her face. “That was the only thing we argued about. He was determined to leave the business to Lance, which I didn't disagree with in principle. Of all the children, Lance seemed to be the best qualified to carry on once his father was
gone. But I felt Woody should have given him the clout to go with it. Woody wouldn't do it. He absolutely refused to give him control.”

“Meaning what?”

“Fifty-one percent of the stock, that's what. I said, ‘Why give him the position if you won't give him the power to go along with it? Let the boy run it his way, for God's sake, you old goat!' But Woody wouldn't hear of it. Wouldn't even
consider
the possibility. I was livid, but that old fool wouldn't budge. Lord, he could be stubborn when he made his mind up.”

“What was he so worried about?”

“He was afraid Lance would run the business into the ground. Lance's judgment
is
sometimes faulty. I'd be the first to admit it. He doesn't seem to have a feel for the market like Woody did. He doesn't have the relationships with suppliers or customers, not to mention employees. Lance is impetuous and he has very grandiose schemes that never quite pan out. He's better now, but those last few years before Woody died, Lance would go off on a tear, all obsessed with some muddleheaded idea he'd got hold of. While Woody was alive, he could rein him in, but he was petrified that Lance would make a disastrous mistake.”

“Why leave him the company in the first place? Why not put someone he trusted at the helm?”

“I suggested that myself, but he wouldn't hear of it. It had to be one of the boys, and Lance was the logical choice. Bass was . . . well, you know Bass. He had no desire to follow in Woody's footsteps unless they led straight to the bank.”

“What about Ebony? Ash mentioned she was interested.”

“I suppose she was, but by the time Woody made out this last will of his, she was off in Europe and showed no signs of coming back.”

“How was the stock divided?”

“Lance has forty-eight percent. I have nine, our attorney has three percent, and Ebony, Olive, Ash, and Bass each have ten.”

“An odd division, isn't it?”

“It's set up so Lance can't act alone. To make up a majority, he has to persuade at least one of us that what he's proposing makes good business sense. For the most part he's free to do as he sees fit, but we can always rally and outvote him in a pinch.”

“That must drive him crazy.”

“Oh, he hates it, but I must say I begin to see Woody's point. Lance is young yet and he's not that experienced. Let him get a few years under his belt and then we'll see how things stand.”

“Then the situation could change?”

“Well, yes, depending on what happens to my
shares when I die. Woody left that entirely up to me. All I have to do is leave three shares to Lance. That would make him a majority stockholder. No one could touch him.”

“Sounds like the stuff of which soap operas are made.”

“I can wield power like a man if it comes to that. Next to eating, it's what I enjoy best.” She glanced at the watch that was pinned to her dress, then reached over to the wall and pressed a button that apparently signaled the maid somewhere in the house. “Time for my swim. Would you care to join me? We have extra suits and I'd enjoy the company. I can still do a mile, but it bores me to death.”

“Maybe another time. I tend to be a land animal, given my choice.” I got up and shook her hand. “Tea was lovely. Thanks for the invitation.”

“Come again, any time. Meanwhile, I'll see that Ebony and Olive give you any information you need.”

“I'd appreciate that. I'll see myself out.”

As I moved toward the foyer, the maid was returning with a portable wheelchair.

Behind her the front door opened, and Ebony came in. I hadn't seen her since I was seventeen. She must have been twenty-five then, which seemed very mature and sophisticated to me. She still had the power to intimidate. She was tall, rail-thin, high
cheekbones, dark-red lipstick. Her hair was jet-black and pulled back dramatically, worn with a bow at her neck. She'd gone to Europe originally as a fashion model and she still walked like she was whipping down a runway. She'd been at Cal Poly for two years, had quit, had tried photography, dance, design school, and free-lance journalism before she turned to modeling. She'd been married maybe six years to a man whose name had recently been linked with Princess Caroline of Monaco. As far as I knew, Ebony had no children and, at forty, seemed an unlikely prospect for motherhood.

She paused when she caught sight of me, and for a moment I wasn't sure if she remembered who I was. She flicked me a chill smile and continued toward the stairs.

“Hello, Kinsey. Come upstairs. I think we should talk.”