Inheritance (25 page)

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art III

Chapter 11

THE lawyer's name was Ansel Rollins. Rail-thin, with pale eyes, long jowls, and a few strands of hair across his smoodi brow, he was the father of one of Laura's classmates at the university, and as firmly a part of Old Boston society as Felix's lawyer. Carver Cheyne. "I know Carver and I understand him," Rollins told Laura and Clay as they sat at a round table in his air conditioned office. "A fine attorney. We don't know, of course, what kind of a case they think they have, but we do have a chance. Of course, they would not even start this fight if you could find the letter you say Mr. Salinger wrote: it would prove he knew what he wanted long before he had his stroke; it would establish irrefutably that you are entitled to this inheritance. ..."

**I can't get back in the house," Laura said.

**Well." He pursed his lips. "Everyone knew how close the two of you were ... we certainly have a chance."

Otherwise, Laura thought, you wouldn't have taken the case on contingency; working for nothing in the expectation of getting a third of what we win.

Rollins squared his yellow legal pad in front of him. **We have several decisions to make. First, we will of course request a jury trial."

"We're entitled to a jury," Clay said heatedly.

**Indeed. But you could waive it if you wished, in favor of a hearing by a judge. It would probably occur sooner and take

Judith Michael

less time than a jury trial but"—he surveyed Laura*s face—^'*a jury would be more responsive to a beautiful young woman in distress than a judge sitting alone in his courtroom."

"How long must we wait?" Laura asked.

"Six months to a year— ''

"What?" Clay was on his feet. "Laura gets cheated out of her inheritance and nobody does anything for a fucking year?"

"We win be doing a great deal," said Rollins. "Do please sit down, young man. I cannot speed the wheels of justice, try as I might."

Clay sat, and for the rest of the afternoon they went over and over the past five years. Laura and Clay told Rollins everything—but left out Ben. They had decided that together. Clay had been vehement about it. "He'd ruin us; he*d ruin our chances. We're okay now; nobody can prove we robbed them— "*

"We didn't rob them!" Laura had exclaimed.

"Ben might say we did, to cover his ass. And they already think it. I just don't want him here! Keep him out of it!"

Laura, more quietly, had agreed. Telling about Ben would be admitting to another five-year lie, making them seem even more untrustworthy. So they kept Ben out of it while revealing everything else.

Rollins pursed his lips as they talked. "I see a number of dangers," he murmured, making notes. "But if we're prepared for them ... All right," he concluded. "I'll call you soon and we'll plan the next step. I can reach you at this number, in Philadelphia?"

"No." Laura wrote on his legal pad. "We'll be here after tomorrow."

"Damton's," he read. "Jay's Landing, New York. Dam-ton'sr'

"A resort. We'll be there for a while, anyway. But we'll come to Boston whenever you need us; we'll do whatever has to be done. And we'll wait as long as we have to, but I hope you'll try to speed it up; it's very important to me."

"Money always is," he said cfcyly.

"I'm not talking about money." Fm talking about revenge. And getting back what Owen gave me. And fighting, to help me forget Fve lost a family, and what I thought was love.

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"What's our chances?" Clay asked bluntly as they shook hands.

"Fair to good," Rollins replied. "Assuming of course, that everyone manages to keep calm."

"Cold son of a bitch," Clay muttered as they left the office. He repeated it in the restaurant where they had lunch before leaving the city. "Cold son of a bitch. He doesn't have anything at stake."

"A lot of money," Laura said absently. Her thoughts were racing, from ftiry at Felix, to a hollow sense of loss over Owen and Paul, to uncertainty about the ftiture. She knew, whatever Rollins said, that the trial was a long shot and that she had to make plans for afterwards.

Looking out the window beside their booth, she saw her ghostly image in the glass. I forgot makeup, she thought, and I need a haircut. And Rosa would tell me to sit straight. But Rosa was gone.

Her breath came faster, as if she'd been running; she was knotted up inside with anger and hurt. There was too much to think about all at once, too much to sort out, and no time to do it. They had to be on the move; they had to earn a living. I wish I had a quiet minute, she thought; I wish I could wipe everything out and start ft^sh and know what's ahead of me.

/ wish I was somebody else.

Abruptly, she stood up. "I'll be right back," she told Qay and went to the powder room at the back of the restaurant.

For a moment she stood before the mirror, looking at herself. Then she took a small scissors from the manicure kit in her purse and started cutting her hair. She chopped and hacked, a few strands at a time. The ends were uneven, and the more she tried to even it the more ragged it became. But as it grew shorter it became more curly until finally she was left with a C2^ of springy hair with small ends protruding like tiny antennae. Her face looked smaller, her cheekbones higher, her eyes enormous.

Clay was paying the waiter when she rejoined him, and his mouth fell open. "What the hell did you do to yourself? Christ, I hardly recognized you."

"Good. I don't want to look the same.

"You were prettier before.'

UlC SOIUC "

»»

Judith Michael.

She shrugged.

As they drove away and headed north out of the city, he said, trying to sound casual, "Rollins said you'd need to be beautiful and pathetic on the witness stand."

"I'll be whatever I am. They'll beUeve me or they won't."

"Laura." Worriedly, he peered at her. "You're not giving up,are you?"

"No.'*

He was silent as he negotiated a traffic circle. "You'll be fine," he said, as much to himself as to her. "You'll be great."

She did not answer. How stupid, she thought, to try to change anything by cutting my hair. I have to change the way I think and feel and remember. Looking different doesn't mean anything; being different does.

She pushed her thoughts ahead, and tried to picture Kelly and John Darnton. She had never met them except over the telephone, but they had offered her a place to stay when she had called the week before, in desperation.

"You always have a place with us," Kelly had said witiiout hesitation. "You didn't think I'd say no, did you? My God, lady, you sent us the Countess Irinia and a trainload of rich friends for a whole week—you practically saved our sunmier —and you think I'd say no? I wouldn't turn you down for anything you asked! I'd probably give you the place, if you asked for it!'*

So they were still having trouble, Laura thought as she and Clay drove across the Massachusetts state line into New Hampshire and she began to look at the scenery. Until now, she had been careful not to look too closely at the forests and meadows, the marshes, the ponds with flocks of birds darting above them, because everything reminded her of long rides with Paul through just such countryside, but when the highway began to follow the Merrimack River, she looked up and let herself enjoy it. There were no memories in New Hampshire, nor in Vermont, and by the time they were driving through Montpelier, past its vast granite quarry, she and Clay were talking about the landscape, the neat houses and white New England churches behind long low walls of tightly fitted rocks that early settlers had cleared ftx)m the stubborn New England soil, and about Damton's. "I'm not sure how success-

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fill they are," Laura said. "The countess told me she was very pleased, so it's far from shabby, but I have a feeling they really stretched themselves to impress her. I hope we can help them."

"Fuck it, we could have been millionaires, and instead we're on our way to rescue some people on the brink of bankruptcy."

She broke into laughter. *They're not on the brink, and they're the ones rescuing us, not the other way around."

"And we still have a chance to be millionaires. Right?"

"I don't know." She looked away from him, amused but a little troubled by his casual assumption that her inheritance would be his, too. She was glad it was his turn to drive; she could look at the Green Mountains that had suddenly risen up to surround them, as lush and bright as their name. They were her first mountains and she stared at their massive beauty, mesmerized by the way they enfolded the road and the car, making the rest of the world seem distant and unreal. A person could forget everything here, she thought, but Clay brought her back by pulling over beside a small lake in Water-bury.

"Your turn," he said. "Fm going to take a nap."

So she found Damton's by herself, turning south at Burlington to follow the shore of Lake Champlain until she came to the small town of Jay's Landing, and the causeway Kelly had described, leading to the island. No guest cars were allowed on the island—"But you can drive over," Kelly had said. "Unload your luggage and let us make you welcome."

That was what greeted Laura when she drove up: Kelly's welcome. She rushed from the lodge and gave Laura a hug that made her breathless, then stood back, grinning, her red cheeks crinkling in her fair face.

Laura smiled back. Everyone, she would discover, smiled at Kelly Damton, unable to resist the warmth of her black eyes, the halo of her long black hair that defied comb and brush to fly out in all directions, and her vigorous carrying voice that announced her arrival before she herself appeared. She was taller than Laura, and broader, and twice her age, but her exuberance made her seem younger, especially beside Laura's reticence.

Judith Michael

"Hi," she said to Clay, who had emerged from the car. "Did your sister do all the driving?"

"Why should she? I drove my share."

"Good. We need a chauffeur. We don't allow guests to drive on the island, so we have a bunch of very classy vintage cars and we drive everybody to our golf course on the mainland and wherever else they want to go. Sound interesting?**

'*God, it sounds terrific."

"I thought it might. Come on."

She had taken charge, and Laura watched with gratitude as she led Qay to the double row of garages behind the main lodge and introduced him to the head chauffeur. Clay was so young in so many ways; even working in Philadelphia hadn't seemed to make him grow up. Perhaps Kelly and John would find a way to help him get past his boyishness, as charming as it often was.

Alone, she walked up a small incline to get her bearings. Damton's main lodge, a sprawling two-story white building with red shutters and a red roof, straddled a gentle rise at the far end of its own island, outlined against the deep blue of Lake Champlain and the pine-covered slopes of the Adiron-dacks in the distance. A pine forest covered much of the island itself, crisscrossed by horseback and walking trails, the trees giving way to a sweeping lawn in front of the lodge, tennis courts at the side, an outdoor pool to match the indoor one used mostly in winter, croquet and badminton fields, and a long flagstone walk leading to the marina and docks.

In the midst of one of the busiest resort areas in the country, Damton's island was serene, wooded and beautiful. And the forests and beaches reminded Laura vividly of Osterville, on Cape Cod.

"Give a boy a bunch of cars and he's happy for a day," Kelly said, joining her. She gave Laura a sharp look. '^What's wrong? Memories? I never asked why you wanted to come up here. Somebody died? Or betrayed you? Or kicked you out?"

All of the above. "Kelly, do you mind if I don't talk about it yetr'

"You don't ever have to talk about it. Come on and get settled. I fixed up a couple of spare rooms for the two of you; you even have your own sitting room. Dinner's in an hour.

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And by the way," she added casually, "I've done a fair bit of haircutting in my time."

Laura's hand went to her short, ragged hair. "It looks terrible, doesn't it?"

"Mostly amateurish." Kelly ran her blunt fingers through it. "It's not beyond repair. Maybe after dinner we'll give it some loving care."

"TTiank you," Laura said. "Loving care would be wonderful."

That night Kelly trimmed her hair, helped her make the beds in the two tiny rooms, joined by a small sitting room, at the back of the lodge, and hung clothes in the closet as Laura unpacked. "Nice," she said, fingering the cashmere sweaters, silk blouses, and challis skirts Owen had insisted she buy. "I still have some of these left over from the days when I bought clothes instead of spending everything my parents left me on this lodge."

"But you're doing well here," Laura said, somewhere between a statement and a question.

"Surviving. Do you want some brandy? John was in such a hurry to get to the mainland we didn't offer you an after-dinner drink."

Laura shook her head. "It would knock me out. I haven't been sleeping too well."