The Testament (38 page)

Josh was astounded by the adventure. He wanted to apologize for sending Nate into such a treacherous place, but the excursion had obviously been exciting. The alligators grew as the narrative continued. The lone anaconda, sunning by the river, was joined by another that swam near their boat.

Nate described the Indians, their nakedness and bland food and languid lives, the chief and his refusal to let them leave.

And Rachel. At that point in the debriefing, Josh took his legal pad and began writing notes. Nate portrayed her in great detail, from her soft slow voice to her sandals and hiking boots. Her hut and medicine bag, Lako and his limp, and the way the Indians looked at her when she walked by. He told the story of the child who died from the snakebite. He relayed what little of her history she’d given him.

With the precision of a courtroom veteran, Nate covered everything about Rachel that he’d gathered on his visit. He used her exact words when talking about the money and the paperwork. He remembered her comment about how primitive Troy’s handwritten will looked.

Nate recounted what little he remembered of their retreat from the Pantanal. And he downplayed the horror of dengue fever. He had survived, and that in itself surprised him.

A maid brought soup and hot tea for lunch. “Here’s where we are,” Josh said after a few spoonfuls. “If she rejects the gift under Troy’s will, then the money remains in his estate. If, however, the will is found to be invalid for any reason, then there is no will.”

“How can the will be invalid? They had psychiatrists talking to him minutes before he jumped.”

“Now there are more psychiatrists, well paid and with different opinions. It’ll get messy. All of his prior wills were shredded. If it’s one day found that he died with no valid will, then his children, all seven of them, will share equally in his estate. Since
Rachel doesn’t want a share, then hers will be divided by the other six.”

“Those fools will get a billion dollars each.”

“Something like that.”

“What are the chances of striking down his will?”

“Not good. I’d rather have our case than theirs, but things can change.”

Nate walked around the room, nibbling on a saltine, weighing the issues. “Why fight for the validity of the will if Rachel declines everything?”

“Three reasons,” Josh said quickly. As usual, he had analyzed everything from all possible angles. There was a master plan, and it would be revealed to Nate piece by piece. “First, and most important, my client prepared a valid will. It gave away his assets exactly as he wanted. I, as his lawyer, have no choice but to fight to protect the integrity of the will. Second, I know how Mr. Phelan felt about his children. He was horrified that they would somehow get their hands on his money. I share his feelings about them, and I shudder to think what would happen if they got a billion each. Third, there’s always a chance Rachel will change her mind.”

“Don’t count on it.”

“Look, Nate, she’s only human. She has those papers with her. She’ll wait a few days and start to think about them. Maybe thoughts of wealth have never entered her mind, but at some point she has to think of all the good things she could do with the money. Did you explain trusts and charitable foundations to her?”

“I barely know what those are myself, Josh. I was a litigator, remember?”

“We’re gonna fight to protect Mr. Phelan’s will, Nate. Problem is, the biggest seat at the table is empty. Rachel needs representation.”

“No she doesn’t. She’s oblivious.”

“The litigation can’t proceed until she has a lawyer.”

Nate was no match for the master strategist. The black hole opened from nowhere, and he was already falling into it. He closed his eyes and said, “You must be kidding.”

“No. And we can’t delay much longer. Troy died a month ago. Judge Wycliff is desperate to know the whereabouts of Rachel Lane. Six lawsuits have been filed contesting the will, and there’s a lot of pressure behind them. Everything gets reported in the papers. If we give any hint that Rachel plans to decline the bequest, then we lose control. The Phelan heirs and their lawyers go crazy. The Judge suddenly loses interest in upholding Troy’s last testament.”

“So I’m her lawyer?”

“There’s no way around it, Nate. If you’re quitting, that’s fine, but you have to take one last case. Just sit at the table and protect her interests. We’ll do the heavy lifting.”

“But there’s a conflict. I’m a partner in your firm.”

“It’s a minor conflict because our interests are the same. We—the estate and Rachel—have the same goal of protecting the will. We sit at the same table. And technically, we can claim you left the firm last August.”

“There’s a lot of truth in that.”

Both acknowledged the sad truth. Josh sipped his tea, his eyes never leaving Nate. “At some point we go to Wycliff and tell him that you found Rachel, that she plans to make no appearance at this time, that she’s not sure what to do, but that she wants you to protect her interests.”

“Then we’ll be lying to the Judge.”

“It’s a small lie, Nate, and he’ll thank us for it later. He’s anxious to start proceedings, but he can’t until he hears from Rachel. If you’re her lawyer, the war begins. I’ll do the lying.”

“So I’m a one-man office working on my last case.”

“Right.”

“I’m leaving town, Josh. I’m not staying.” Nate said this, then he laughed. “Where would I stay?”

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

“I have an idea.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“Take my cottage on Chesapeake Bay. We don’t use it in the wintertime. It’s at St. Michaels, two hours away. You can drive in when you’re needed, and stay here. Again, Nate, we’ll do the work.”

Nate studied the bookshelves for a while. Twenty-four hours earlier he’d been eating a sandwich on a park bench in Corumbá, watching the pedestrians and waiting for Rachel to appear. He had vowed to never again voluntarily step into a courtroom.

But he grudgingly admitted that the plan had its strong points. He certainly couldn’t imagine a better client. The case would never go to trial. And with the money at stake he could at least earn a living for a few months.

Josh finished his soup and moved to the next item on the list. “I propose a fee of ten thousand dollars a month.”

“That’s generous, Josh.”

“I think we can squeeze it from the old man’s estate. With no overhead, it’ll get you back on your feet.”

“Until …”

“Right, until we settle with the IRS.”

“Any word from the Judge?”

“I call him occasionally. We had lunch last week.”

“So he’s your buddy?”

“We’ve known each other for a long time. Forget jail, Nate. The government will settle for a big fine and a five-year suspension of your law license.”

“They can have my law license.”

“Not yet. We need it for one more case.”

“How long will the government wait?”

“A year. It’s not a priority.”

“Thanks, Josh.” Nate was tired again. The all-night flight, the ravages of the jungle, the mental jousting with Josh. He wanted a warm soft bed in a dark room.

THIRTY-NINE
_____________

A
t six Sunday morning, Nate finished another hot shower, his third in twenty-four hours, and began making plans for a quick departure. One night in the city, and he was anxious to leave. The cottage on the bay was calling him. D.C. had been his home for twenty-six years, and since the decision to leave had been made, he was eager to move on.

With no address, moving was easy. He found Josh in the basement, at his desk, on the phone with a client in Thailand. As Nate listened to one-half of the conversation about natural gas deposits, he was quite happy to be leaving the practice of law. Josh was twelve years older, a very rich man, and his idea of fun was to be at his desk at six-thirty on a Sunday morning. Don’t let it happen to me, Nate said to himself, but he knew it wouldn’t. If he went back to the office, he would return to the grind. Four rehabs meant a fifth was somewhere down the road. He wasn’t as strong as Josh. He’d be dead in ten years.

There was an element of excitement in walking away. Suing
doctors was a nasty business, one he could do without. Nor would he miss the stress of a high-powered office. He’d had his career, his triumphs. Success had brought him nothing but misery; he couldn’t handle it. Success had thrown him in the gutter.

Now that the horror of jail had been removed, he could enjoy a new life.

He left with a trunkload of clothes, leaving the rest in a box in Josh’s garage. The snow had stopped, but the plows were still catching up. The streets were slick, and after two blocks it occurred to Nate that he had not held the wheel of a car in over five months. There was no traffic, though, and he crept along Wisconsin into Chevy Chase, then onto the Beltway where the ice and snow had been cleared.

Alone, in his own fine car, he began to feel like an American again. He thought of Jevy in his loud, dangerous Ford truck, and wondered how long he would last on the Beltway. And he thought of Welly, a kid so poor his family owned no car. Nate planned to write letters in the days to come, and he would send one to his buddies in Corumbá.

The phone caught his attention. He picked it up; it appeared to be working. Of course Josh had made sure the bills were paid. He called Sergio at home, and they talked for twenty minutes. He got scolded for not calling sooner. Sergio had been worried. He explained the situation with telephone service in the Pantanal. Things were going in a different direction, there were some unknowns, but his adventure was continuing. He was leaving the profession and avoiding jail.

Sergio never asked about sobriety. Nate certainly sounded clean and strong. He gave him the number at the cottage, and they promised to have lunch soon.

He called his oldest son at Northwestern, in Evanston, and left a message on the recorder. Where would a twenty-three-year-old grad student be at 7 A.M. on a Sunday morning? Not at early mass. Nate didn’t want to know. Whatever his son was doing,
he would never screw up as badly as his father. His daughter was twenty-one, an on-again off-again student at Pitt. Their last conversation had been about tuition, a day before Nate checked into the motel room with a bottle of rum and a sack full of pills.

He couldn’t find her phone number.

Their mother had remarried twice since leaving Nate. She was an unpleasant person whom he called only when absolutely necessary. He would wait a couple of days, then ask her for their daughter’s phone number.

He was determined to make the painful trip west, to Oregon, to at least see his two youngest children. Their mother had remarried too, remarkably to another lawyer, but one who evidently lived a clean life. He would ask them for forgiveness, and try to establish the frail beginnings of a relationship. He wasn’t sure how to do this, but he vowed to try.

In Annapolis, he stopped at a café and had breakfast. He listened to the weather predictions from a group of rowdy regulars in a booth, and he mindlessly scanned the
Post.
From the headlines and late-breaking stories, Nate saw nothing that interested him in the least. The news never changed: trouble in the Middle East, trouble in Ireland; scandals in Congress; the markets were up then down; an oil spill; another AIDS drug; guerrillas killing peasants in Latin America; turmoil in Russia.

His clothes hung loose on him, so he ate three eggs with bacon and biscuits. A shaky consensus emerged from the booth that more snow was on the way.

He crossed the Chesapeake on the Bay Bridge. The highways on the eastern shore had not been plowed well. The Jaguar skidded twice, and he slowed down. The car was a year old, and he couldn’t remember when the lease expired. His secretary had handled the paperwork. He’d picked the color. He decided to get rid of it as soon as possible and find an old four-wheel drive. The fancy lawyer’s car had once seemed so important. Now he had no need for it.

At Easton, he turned onto State Route 33, a road with two inches of loose snow still resting on the blacktop. Nate followed the tracks of other vehicles, and soon passed through sleepy little settlements with harbors filled with sailboats. The shores of the Chesapeake were covered with heavy snow; its waters were deep blue.

St. Michaels had a population of thirteen hundred. Route 33 became Main Street for a few blocks as it ran through the town. There were shops and stores on both sides, old buildings side by side, all well preserved and ready for the postcard.

Nate had heard of St. Michaels all his life. There was a maritime museum, an oyster festival, an active harbor, dozens of quaint little bed-and-breakfasts which attracted city folks for long weekends. He passed the post office and a small church, where the Rector was shoveling snow from the front steps.

The cottage was on Green Street, two blocks off Main, facing north with a view of the harbor. It was Victorian, with twin gables, and a long front porch that wrapped around to the sides. Painted slate blue, with white and yellow trim, the house had snow drifts almost to the front door. The front lawn was small, the driveway under two feet of snow. Nate parked at the curb and fought his way to the porch. He flipped on lights inside as he walked to the rear. In a closet by the back door, he found a plastic shovel.

He spent a wonderful hour cleaning the porch, clearing the drive and sidewalk, working his way back to his car.

Not surprisingly, the house was richly decorated with period pieces, and it was tidy and organized. Josh said a maid came every Wednesday to dust and clean. Mrs. Stafford stayed there for two weeks in the spring and one in the fall. Josh had slept there three nights in the past eighteen months. There were four bedrooms and four baths. Some cottage.

But there was no coffee to be found, and this presented the first emergency of the day. Nate locked the doors and headed for
town. The sidewalks were clear and wet from melting snow. According to the thermometer in the window of the barbershop, the temperature was thirty-five degrees. The shops and stores were closed. Nate studied their windows as he ambled along. Ahead, the church bells began.