Getting Old Can Kill You (22 page)

He finally says, almost tearfully, but regaining his professional demeanor, “Knowing I was going to be traveling, I have provided the name and phone number for you of the estate lawyer who drew up the will. He can handle any questions you have for me. He can file the death certificate with the probate court. And of course, he can reach me if necessary.”

“Very thoughtful of you,” Morrie says.

He hands us each a copy of the will.

I want to leap up in shock, but I hold myself back. What? I can’t believe what I’m reading. I have to reread it twice before it sinks in. Joyce Steiner left everything in the world she owns to Arlene Simon!

The three of us exchange amazed glances. The date of the will was a month ago.

Kenneth says, “I must explain. I’ve known all these years that Joyce was searching for a dear old friend. I was quite surprised when she came in and told me she’d found her at last and this was her wish. To make up to her for a mistake she made years ago. I asked her if she was sure she wanted to do this; she was originally intending to donate everything to her favorite charity. Her comment was that the charity is fine without her contribution. Giving to her dear old friend would make Joyce very happy. It seemed quite important to her.”

Jack and I look at each other. Unbelievable!

Morrie continues reading slowly and carefully. He, too, is totally amazed.

Jack speaks. “There is a list of her holdings?”

“Yes, of course. The money accrued on the house just sold in Sunrise Key. The money from the sale of her Jaguar, as well. The yacht. All her stocks and bonds. Her property investments. Her assets as an interior designer. She was a shrewd businesswoman. Mrs. Simon will be a very wealthy lady.” He smiles. “Won’t that be a wonderful surprise for her?”

I can’t stand it. I lose my cool. I have to know. “How much is all that worth?”

He studies another sheet on the desk. “My balance sheet totals Mrs. Steiner’s assets to $11 million, to round it out.”

Ohmigod!

Kenneth stands and starts moving us to the door. “I really must get cracking here. Lots of odds and ends to take care of.” He shakes his head, still pondering the incredible. “Murdered. Poor dear Joyce.”

We all three get up. Even Morrie is stunned. Who knows from that kind of money!

On the way home I keep hearing those numbers in my head. We’re quiet for a while, dumbfounded. Then I cry out, “Somebody say something! I can’t stand it!”

I turn to Morrie. I can’t hold back my thoughts. “You know what he didn’t say to you? What everybody always says—you’ll find the killer, won’t you?”

Jack asks Morrie, “Do we tell Arlene?”

“No.”

Morrie has two things to say. “First I need to find out whether Arlene knew about the will. That she’s the beneficiary. Talk about motive. Eleven million motives.”

I can’t bear to even think what the other is.

“And?” Jack asks. The suspense is excruciating.

Morrie states for me what he’s sure Jack knows, “The law says, and I’m paraphrasing it, a convicted felon may not gain profit from his or her crime.”

“The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away,” Jack says softly.

E
vvie and I wait in my car, which is in a shady spot in the jail parking lot. The day has the kind of heat that makes you want to never leave your air-conditioned home. But Arlene is expecting us and every visit is so important to her. The AC in the car will have to do. We’re a little early and have to wait until it’s the exact moment until they open the doors. We are killing time with the help of a thermos of iced tea and a couple of cookies.

Evvie is still reeling from the news about the will. “Eleven million. She could build her own city. She could give jobs to hundreds of people just on the interest alone. She could build a world-class hospital—”

I interrupt her. “Enough already with your list of fantasies. I can’t stand what we’re doing here today.”

Evvie comments, “I still think Morrie was some chicken, leaving it to us to draw it out of her.”

“He chose us rather than him having to interrogate and intimidate her. He knew we’d be kind.”

“It was bad enough to have to reveal the Valium. What if she did know about the will? I feel like a Judas already.”

“To add to your Bible metaphor, if she did know it, it will be like handing him Arlene’s head on a platter.

“I can’t stand it that we’ll be helping the prosecution.”

Evvie, the movie critic says, “I’m trying to remember that picture we saw when the comic was being helped by friends and they just kept making things worse. He kept saying, ‘Don’t help me. Don’t help me.’ It was very funny.”

“I don’t remember and this isn’t funny.”

“I’m just trying to lighten the mood.”

I feel bad about not having shared this incredible piece of news about the will with the girls, but we’re not allowed to tell them. Morrie has instructed us not to give out that information and we keep our promise.

“You know they wouldn’t be able to keep that a secret anyway,” Evvie says, reading what’s on my mind as usual. “It’s just too big. It will ooze out of one of them some way. Even I can barely stop saying it. Eleven million. Eleven million.”

“Please let it happen that Arlene does not know about the will.”

The entrance line is starting to move. We close our thermoses and whisk the cookie crumbs off our skirts. The jail has a dress code. Very bland outfits only.

We brace ourselves as we climb out into the stifling humidity.

Of course Arlene is very happy to see us. She thanks Evvie for coming also. Unlike anyone else, Arlene has put on some makeup. To cheer herself up. Or, as she told me, a habit. A need not to give in to the depression around her. Evvie looks around the room, taking it all in the way I did the first time I came. Glancing at the other visitors. Feeling what it must be like to be a prisoner in this place. Seeing the desperation. The tears. One could almost smell the fear.

We exchange glances. Arlene doesn’t belong here.

Arlene blurts out her news. “They were trying to set a court date for as soon as possible. But at the arraignment, Hy’s lawyer friend got a continuance so he’ll have more time to prepare.”

Evvie comments, “Well, that’s good.”

Arlene isn’t happy. “Maybe yes, maybe no. Sometimes it could take months. I don’t know how much more I can stand living like this.”

I feel bad for her. We’re all a long way from being able to raise the bail money. She looks thinner. Her cheeks have become hollow. She probably isn’t eating much.

Evvie says, changing the subject, “Sorry I didn’t meet your kids. I guess they had to go home.”

Arlene tears up. “It will be hard for them. Worrying from far away, not knowing what’s really going on.”

Arlene, also wanting not to stay on that topic, asks for some new gossip, so we cheer her up as best we can.

Evvie reports, “Since Hy put together the tailgate sales, everyone’s been coming up to say good things to him. That swelled head of his will be ten times bigger by the time this is over—”

Evvie stops short at the expression on Arlene’s face.

“That was insensitive of me. I meant by the time you get out of here. And I know you will.”

But Arlene manages a smile. “It’s all right, dear. I know things will turn out well because so many people are sending out prayers for me.”

I’m very aware of the short time we have left before the buzzer rings us out. I have no choice. I grit my teeth and dive in.

“We had a meeting with Joyce’s business manager. Joyce left a will.”

Arlene shrugs. “Yes, oh, that. I remember in one of her wild raving night sessions she told me she left everything to me in her will. I laughed out loud. Sure. That’ll be the day. But then right after it, that crazy woman said I’d never get to spend it.”

Evvie gasps.

I sigh. She did know. God help her. But what about that last remark? “Did she say why you wouldn’t get to spend it?”

“No, I ignored it, as I did every other mad thing she told me. As if I could believe she even had eleven million dollars.”

I hear Evvie next to me groan.

Arlene knew about it and, unhappy spy that I am, I must report it to Morrie.

But Arlene continues. “In front of everyone she pretends she loves me. Then she comes to me at night and screams at me. What kind of madness is that? Another time she was blaming me for her marriage failing. How was I supposed to do that? And frankly, as far as I’m concerned, she and Edward deserved each other.”

She stops to drink water from her plastic cup. I pity this poor woman with no one to talk to in this awful place.

“Another nutty thing she did. I was trying to clean up the mess I made in the kitchen that awful day and who should come in? The damn troublemaker said she wanted some of the pie to eat. What nerve! I practically threw it at her. Joyce got me so distraught again. I never did finish cleaning up.”

Evvie and I exchange glances. Joyce took the pie up to her apartment. Not Arlene.

I ask her another question. “Why did you go down to Joyce’s apartment the night she died?”

Arlene reaches for a tissue in her pocket. She clenches it, almost ripping it. “Because I was stupid. I knew better than to believe her, but she said she gave up. She was leaving. She’d found another apartment. She wanted to say goodbye in person because she would be gone by tomorrow.”

How sinister. She knew she’d be dead by the next day.

“But of course it was another of her lies. I only stayed a few minutes.”

And Joyce got her to conveniently leave her fingerprints on a glass of water.

The warning bell rings. Five minutes left. Arlene talks faster.

“I keep asking myself why. What’s the point? You know, I sit in that cell for hours, what else is there to do but think and think. I look back and go over our friendship. In my mind, as I was growing up, I thought we both felt the same about each other, but it really wasn’t that way at all.

“She always wanted what I had. If I ordered the chocolate milkshake and she the vanilla, she’d say she changed her mind and wanted my chocolate. And she did that with clothes, jewelry, anything I had. And I always gave in to her. It was the same with boyfriends.

“After she’d seduce the guy I was dating and take him away, she’d drop him. Then she’d always announce she never liked him anyway.

“Why was I so surprised when she went after Edward? I bet she tried before we were married and was annoyed she didn’t succeed.”

The room is empty. A guard is coming toward us.

Arlene stands up and speaks faster.

“Even when we were very young her parents both worked, so she had the key to their apartment. We’d play in her room—fantasy games with our dolls. She always had to be the princess and I’d have to be her maid.”

The guard reaches us. We are out of time. She takes turns hugging each of us, holding on tightly.

As the guard leads her away, she calls out one last question, “Why won’t the police believe me?”

A
rlene’s question had me in tears. Even though Evvie, Jack, and I have tried to convince Morrie, he still holds firm. Where’s our proof? We are now determined, even desperate, to convince Morrie, and therefore the police, about the utter improbability that Arlene could have committed this crime.

I called him for an appointment as soon as we returned from the jail and begged him to make it soon. He agreed to meet us the next day when he could fit us in. In the very late afternoon. I was on pins and needles waiting. I gathered Evvie and all the girls together.

Morrie has agreed to hear us out one more time, which is kind of him. He’s willing to listen to our thinking and feelings on the subject. He doesn’t expect that he’ll change his mind but out of respect, he’s here. We are going to present this case from Arlene’s point of view.

We meet in our living room armed with pizzas and drinks. The girls are on their best behavior. I’m now part of Morrie’s family, but he is still a cop, after all. Even though the girls do know there’s a will, they have accepted our instructions to not ask about it.

I feel strangely optimistic. I sense we are getting close, but to what I don’t know.