A Class Action (15 page)

*****

Chapter 9

Indovine’s office is calling. “Hello Peter, this is Charles.” This is a good sign. We’re back on a first-name basis, which probably means he wants something from me.

“
What can I do for you today Charles?”

“
You know, in addition to insuring the dealership, Uniman also covers many of the employees… including the general manager.”

“
Yeah, I know. His wife was insured with Uniman. You already told me he put a claim in for his wife’s death. Was it a big one?”

“
Only if you think a million dollars is big.” Yes, a million dollars is a big amount, but twenty years from now people will probably laugh at the fact that someone killed for such a paltry sum. Other than see people use an old dial telephone and drive old cars, the thing that really amuses me about the old black-and-white movies is the sums of money that were motives for crime. It was quite common to see a cop suspect a husband of killing his wife or partner to collect on a five thousand dollar insurance policy.

“
Okay Charles, it’s big. What do you want me to do, talk him out of it?”

“
If there’s anything you find in your investigation that connects him to that fellow charged with planting the bomb, we’d like to know about it.”

“
Why certainly, Charles, but if I remember correctly, you’re already paying me to clear that guy. If I do my job correctly, then he beats the murder rap and that means there’s nothing that Eaton could have done with him to cause his wife’s death. Uniman will have to pay the claim, unless I find some other information that will defeat it.”

“
Peter, are you working on another angle?”

“
Angles are my life Charles. I love angles. I can look into it, but if I save Uniman the million dollars on that life insurance claim, I want my usual ten percent reward… and as usual, I’ll make sure that you get all the credit for it. Do we have a deal? Because if we do, I’ll expect to have you fax me a memo, just to keep everyone honest… and Charles…”

“
Yes, Peter, what else?’

“
The reward will not be set off by any fees paid to me along the way for my investigative work or expenses. I get paid whether I crack the case or not.”

As usual, there was nothing but a grunt on the other end of the line – but also as usual, a hard copy of the grumbling acceptance just came in on the fax machine.

Jack B. reports that he’s got just about every minute of the day accounted for from the time of the first Suburban explosion to the time that Eaton’s wife flipped herself off of Mulholland Drive, and her old man couldn’t have tampered with any of those vehicles. Jack tells me what a dedicated manager the guy is. For the past couple of months he’s been working late and closing the place up.

“
Jack, do you know anything about his whereabouts after the dealership closes for the day?”

“
Why, do you think he’s fooling around?”

“
I don’t know. I’m just curious about where he goes at night.”

Jack is a thorough investigator. He realizes that if the dealership’s locked up for the night, there’s no way that Eaton can get to the vehicles waiting there for the next day’s service, but he still asks around about Eaton’s evening activities – and the answers aren’t very promising for our case. After work each night Eaton goes straight home, where he stays all evening, unless going out to the market for some desserts for the family. I ask Jack where Eaton lives and learn that it’s at least a half-hour away from the dealership.

This is not going to be easy. My main suspect was nowhere near the Suburbans that exploded. The only guy who worked on them was my client Joe Morgan, yet Eaton’s wife and mother-in-law are killed in a mysterious accident. What’s wrong with this picture?

I’m getting a little discouraged, but there’s still a lot of information out there that I’m waiting for. Maybe something interesting will turn up. While I’m pondering all this, the phone rings. It’s Myra, and she’s got some results back in on the dead body found in Stuart’s trunk. Running him through the Criminal Identification System, he came up with a rap sheet. He’s a safe cracker. After doing several years in the penitentiary for that skill, he’s been keeping his nose clean, and his parole officer was completely surprised when he learned of the guy’s fate.

I was right. Something interesting did turn up. I call Jack B. and tell him to find out about our safecracking friend – who he hung out with, how he cracked safes, and anything else that we might be able to use. There’s no good reason for a dead safecracker to be found in Stuart’s trunk. I’m sure he didn’t commit suicide there, so someone had to help him find his final resting place. I call Stuart to try and find out exactly where that car was from the moment it was delivered to him. He checks his records and tells me exactly what I don’t want to hear. “Pete, that car was delivered to my garage and sat here for two days until I drove it to your boat that afternoon.”

“
Stu, how come you picked that particular one to drive that day?”

“
Simple. I had about seven vehicles in the garage. I went to each one and turned on the ignition. The one with the most gas in the tank is the one I used… and you know how much I rely on a dependable gas gauge.”

I know that Stuart didn’t dump that body in his own trunk, so if what he says is correct, it means that the body was already in the trunk when the car was delivered to him. I’ve already met the guy he bought those cars from, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he were the one who killed the safecracker. After all, if I had to vote for anyone who might be acquainted with a person who breaks into other people’s safes, it would have to be Billy Z.

Jack B. still hasn’t come back with scheduling for the car carriers, but now there’s only one of them that I’m really interested in.

The phone rings. It’s a number I don’t recognize on my caller ID.

“
Peter Sharp here. What can I do for you?”

“
Mister Sharp, I’d like to make an appointment to talk to you. I’m not looking for anything free… I’ll pay you to meet with me.”

“
Okay, let’s not get carried away. First of all, why don’t you give me some idea of what you’d like to talk to me about, because if it’s not in a field of law that I’m familiar with, maybe we can both save a lot of time and I can refer you to some other attorney.”

“
It’s concerning the probate of a will.”

“
Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of. All right, I’m going to give you the telephone number of the County of Los Angeles’ Attorney Referral Service. You just tell them that it’s a probate matter and give them your zip code, and they’ll give you at least two or three telephone numbers of attorneys in your area who specialize in that sort of thing, so you won’t have to travel too far.”

“
Mister Sharp, my name is James Berland. My wife was Ralph Eaton’s mother-in-law and she died in a car crash, along with our daughter.”

Wow! Talk about being surprised. Maybe next time I get a phone call from someone I don’t know, I’ll let him talk for a few minutes before trying to palm him off onto someone else. I tell Mister Berland that even though I’m no expert in the field of Wills, I’ll be glad to meet with him – and there will be no charge for the consultation. He doesn’t drive anymore, so I get his address and make an appointment to stop by and see him in an hour. He lives out in Hidden Hills, a gated community in the West San Fernando Valley. He’ll leave my name with the entry gate’s security guard.

I have to check the piece of paper at least twice to make sure I’ve got the correct address written down, because this place looks like Hefner’s Playboy mansion. It’s an all brick Tudor style of architecture that’s probably at least six thousand square feet. I pull up the hill and into the huge circular driveway that can easily park six or seven cars. The inside is just as impressive with high, beamed ceilings, leaded glass windows, and beautiful hardwood peg and groove floors. If Mister Berland ever decides to move out, I’m sure he can rent the place out as a church.

I compliment him on the majestic beauty of his home, and he tells me that it’s his ‘Nobel prize.’

“
You won a Nobel Prize? In what field was it?”

“
No, no, Mister Sharp, I didn’t win any prize, but we call it that because we owe it all to Alfred Bernhard Nobel, the man who the prize is named after.”

Berland walks over to his library and motions for me to follow him. Inside the book-lined and richly oak-paneled room, he directs my attention to a large hand-written parchment document kept inside a glass case.

“
This is a replica of the last will and testament of Nobel, executed in November of 1895, in which he directed that his entire estate be invested, with the interest to be distributed each year to leaders in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature and Peace, or what his will referred to as the ‘fraternity between nations.’

“
Nobel didn’t make any provisions for the category in which my wife and I made our modest fortune, but he made his fortune by inventing some new explosives, and he patented dynamite in 1867. Our family built a large fireworks display organization using explosives, so we decided to dedicate this room to Alfred. Without his pioneering work in our field, we wouldn’t be where we are today.”

I hold back on mentioning that millions of people might also still be alive if Nobel hadn’t done his groundbreaking work with explosives. My restraint is admirable. Usually I just blurt things out and spend hours later on asking myself why I said that. This time I keep my cool and let him continue.

“
What I want to talk to you about is another will: My wife’s. Eaton married our daughter Nancy, our only child. My wife’s will leaves all of her estate to Nancy, as does mine, with one exception - unless Nancy pre-deceases either one of us. In that instance, the remainder goes to the surviving spouse, which would be me.

“
Now I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. This isn’t all about my wanting to get the money from my wife’s will. We don’t have any other children and there are no grandchildren. I have plenty of money, and if I do actually get any money as a result of her death, it’s all earmarked for her favorite charities. She would have wanted it that way.”

“
Mister Berland, if you aren’t interested in any financial gain, then why are we having this conversation?”

He hesitates for a second or two, and then with a very serious expression, continues on. “It’s not who I want to get the money, it’s who I don’t want to get it.

“
Because Eaton and Nancy didn’t have any children, Nancy’s will leaves everything to that rotten husband of hers. With Nancy dead too, Eaton will wind up with everything… and I have a terrible feeling about him… always did, from the first day that I met him.”

“
What can I do for you Mister Berland? I’ve already told you that I’m no expert in the area of Wills.”

“
I’m not looking for a Wills expert, I’m looking for a smart fellow who can figure out how to stop Eaton from getting all my wife and daughter’s money.”

“
Let me get this straight. If your wife died first, then everything she has goes to your daughter Nancy, which would now go to Eaton. But on the other hand, if your daughter died before your wife did, then your wife’s estate goes to you, instead of to Eaton. Have I got it right?”

He tells me that I’m correct. I can’t make any promises to him, so I ask him for a copy of his wife’s Will and tell him I’ll look into it. He lets me know that Eaton stands to get at least two million dollars from the Wills, and if I can figure out a way to stop him there will be a five percent bonus in it for me. He also offers to pay all my expenses plus an hourly rate for my work, win or lose.

This sounds interesting, but I really don’t know that much about the law in this field. When I was going to law school, the Bar exam was based on fourteen subjects and you were required to answer questions on ten of them. The four that were considered optional were Wills, Trusts, Estate & Gift Tax, and Community Property.

Like many of the other students attending our unaccredited evening law school, we felt that a diploma from what we nicknamed the ‘Betty Crocker College of Law’ probably wouldn’t get us into some large established law firm that specialized in the four optional subjects. We tried to cut down on our study load by becoming what were referred to as the ‘big tenners,’ a group of students going into the Bar exam knowing that we’d have to answer all the other questions, with no options.

As a result, I’ve never been involved in a Will contest, never prepared a Trust Agreement, make every effort to avoid Taxation issues, and wouldn’t touch a domestic relations matter for any amount of money. I’m quite happy leaving all of that fascinating work to the Harvard grads. But now, I’m being dragged into a Will contest.

If my interpretation of the Wills are correct, all I have to do is show that Nancy Eaton died before her mother did. If I can do that, then the proceeds from Mrs. Berland’s estate will go to her surviving husband, instead of to Eaton.

No problem. The car was destroyed, the bodies were cremated, and all I have to do is figure out which one of them died first in the same auto accident. No sense calling in Jack B. or Victor on this case – I need the Amazing Kreskin.

All I have to work with are some photos taken by the police accident investigation team. I’m sure that Victor will be happy to get an assignment from me to perform two autopsies from pictures of dead bodies. I call Jack B. and tell him to get all the pictures and reports on the accident that he can. I also put a call in to Snell’s office because his crew was interested in the type of explosives used on that Suburban. From what Vaughn explained to me, there’s always a ‘signature’ left behind by the bomb-maker. I don’t know exactly what that means, but the explosives people say that a signature can lead them to the bad guy, so they must mean some style of bomb-making that’s recognizable to the trained eye.