Never Tease a Siamese: A Leigh Koslow Mystery (7 page)

The lawyer nodded slowly, not bothering to conceal his disdain. "I myself personally prepared this testament quite recently. I will admit that its terms are a bit unusual, but rest assured that Mrs. Murchison was in perfectly sound mind at the time, and that she followed all the necessary legal steps in altering her previous testament."

"Now, what do you mean by 'previous testament?'" the young man on the couch asked loudly, puffing out his chest with importance. This presented a challenge, since the severely wrinkled suit he was wearing was so small that it held his shoulders like a straight jacket. The suit's equally missized pantlegs ended somewhere in his mid-calf region, revealing worn tube socks and a heavily scuffed pair of loafers. But by far the most striking part of the ensemble was his belt—a wide plastic device laden with pounds of key rings, tools, and beeper-type appliances. "I know she had one with Lang and Madia a while back," he said authoritatively.

The attorney's voice was mild, but he looked down at the other man as if he were something on the bottom of a shoe. "As we have already discussed at length, Mr. Murchison, your mother was in the habit of updating her testament rather regularly. And though her business interests remain with Lang and Madia, she had chosen relatively recently to move her personal affairs to my firm."

Adith sniggered. "She wanted a little more action, that's why. You think this guy's a dud…Those other stiff-necks have all got one foot in the coffin."

Leigh tried not to smile.

"Don't believe me, do you?" the older woman continued. "Lilah carried on with every one of her chauffeurs, didn't you know? My friend Virginia's brother-in-law Milton got a job doing her gardening and when he wouldn't play footsie with her she canned his behind, she did." Adith gave a wink and a knowing nod. "She
lived for it
." She raised her chin superiorly. "That's what they say, anyway."

Struggling to maintain her composure, Leigh quietly shushed her companion, having the odd feeling that if she didn't, they were both going to wind up in detention. She tried hard to concentrate on the attorney's ramblings, but she had never had much patience with legalese, and Mr. Sheridan seemed consumed with pressing home the concept, particularly to the charming young couple on the couch, that nobody was getting
anything
yet.

By the time he cleared his throat and began reading the actual document in his hand, an elderly woman in an armchair at his left had dozed off.

"Firstly," the lawyer read, "I would like to reward my most trusted employees for their years of faithful service. To Peggy Linney, I leave—" Mr. Sheridan paused, then bent down to nudge the sleeping woman awake. "To Peggy Linney," he repeated with irritation, "my most devoted housekeeper, I leave a trust, in addition to her existing pension, which will be used to provide her with room and board in a very comfortable independent-living facility for the rest of her days, with the proviso that none of her wretched, money-grubbing relatives be allowed to move in with her or mooch off of her in any way."

Leigh had to snigger a little herself, not at the words, but at the lawyer's efforts to pronounce them with dignity. Peggy Linney smiled broadly for a moment, then closed her eyes again.

"And to my most faithful chauffeurs…"

Adith gave Leigh a giant wink and delivered a sharp elbow-jab to her ribs. "Told you so!"

The lawyer read off a long list of personal items and nest eggs to be split among a half-dozen men, then bequeathed smaller parcels of money to several other employees, including Nikki. Leigh noted that of the dozen or so people in the room, only the young couple had not yet been mentioned. Were Lilah's son and daughter-in-law her only relatives?

"As for the Murchison residence—" the lawyer raised his voice, and several attendees, most notably Adith Rhodis and the girl with the green lips, sat up at attention. "It is my desire that the house be used to maintain my precious cats in the level of comfort to which they have been accustomed. Toward this end, I would ask that Nikki Loomis continue to reside in the house and care for my pets as long as she so desires, knowing that doing so will earn her her current salary, with regular increases, until such time as all the cats have passed on. I do not wish that anyone else be allowed to reside in my house; however, Jared Loomis may continue to occupy the garage apartment as long as his sister remains in my employ. Should—"

The lawyer was interrupted by the younger Mrs. Murchison, who bounced off the couch spewing a steady stream of vulgarity. "The
cats.
The
CATS
? This is
m
y house!" she screamed at the attorney. "I want it. I've always wanted it. Dean said I could have it!"

Dean Murchison rose slowly, the seams in his pants visibly straining. "Now, look, dude," he said calmly, more as if addressing an errant child than an attorney, "That's just wrong. This house belonged to my old man. When my mother died it was supposed to come to me."

The lawyer, who had faced the woman's onslaught without visible reaction,  adjusted his tie. "If you would allow me to finish, Mr. Murchison?" he said coolly.

Nikki Loomis cleared her throat, shifting in her own seat just enough to flex her biceps in Dean's direction. He looked at her with contempt, but nonetheless took hold of his wife's arm and pulled her back down to the couch. "Let's hear the rest of it, Rochelle, honey," he soothed, loud enough for the cats upstairs to hear.

The lawyer continued. "As I was reading, Mrs. Murchison states: Should Ms. Loomis choose to leave my employ, or should she not abide by the terms I have set forth, she will be replaced by a like employee, to be hired by Randall Koslow, DVM."

Leigh's ears perked.

"Inasmuch as Randall Koslow has provided my pets with top-notch health care for over thirty years now, and given that he is undoubtedly the only truly honest and dedicated man that I know, I ask that he oversee the care of my pets indefinitely, on the terms of a generous retainer as outlined below."

The lawyer paused, explaining to Leigh that the will then went on at great length about the disposition of each and every cat, and that he would share the details with her father at a later date. The gist of it, she gathered, was that in exchange for a handsome but not excessive amount of money, her father was now the godfather of twenty-three Siamese. "In addition," Mr. Sheridan continued, "I am bequeathing a total of $500,000 to the feline charity or charities of Dr. Koslow's choice."

Rochelle exploded for a second time. She maligned the good name of the Murchison Siamese—and cats in general—for several ear-shattering moments before her husband finally clapped a hand over her mouth. "Half a
million
," he bellowed, struggling to keep Rochelle down, "to
cat
charities?"

The lawyer puffed up his own chest. "Mr. Murchison, sir, I ask that you and your wife please restrain yourselves. If you cannot, I'm afraid we will have to end the reading."

"Ouch!" Dean screamed in pain as Rochelle bit his hand, but he managed to pull her into his lap and hold her with a wrestler's grip. He wasn't a big guy, but weighing in at about a hundred pounds, his female opponent was mostly fingernails. Once her arms were safely pinned, he slapped a conciliatory kiss on the back of her neck and glared at the attorney. "We're fine. Now tell us about the rest of the money."

The lawyer eyed Rochelle warily, as if judging the distance between her thick heels and his kneecap. She sat quietly now, lips pouting, but her eyes still flashed fire. The attorney took a step backward, then cleared his throat and launched into a long laundry list of holdings and securities. As soon as things got boring, Adith leaned into Leigh's side. "Whoowie!" she whispered heavily. "Half a million clams. Do you suppose he could send some of that to
dog
charities?"

"All of the aforementioned assets," the lawyer said meaningfully, waking everyone up again, "I leave to my one and only blood heir."

The words had barely left the attorney's mouth before Dean and Rochelle Murchison ejected themselves from the couch, hugging each other in mid air. "Damn that old witch!" the young man yelled. "I knew she wouldn't do it!"

"Oh, baby!" Rochelle screeched. Her frizzy hair bobbed a good foot as she jumped, and her heels clanked like boulders on the hardwood floor. "We'll buy another house. A
bigger
house!"

Mr. Sheridan watched them for a moment before interrupting, his dour expression turning even more grim. "Excuse me," he then said firmly, but I am afraid you have misinterpreted the testament. Would you sit again, please?"

The couple stopped bouncing, but made no move to sit. The attorney continued reading anyway.

"Unfortunately, it so happens that my true heir is not the boy I raised as my son, Dean Murchison. To that ungrateful little leech, I leave an annual stipend of $25,000, with regular increases, which, when combined with a decent salary, should leave him reasonably comfortable. He should be glad he lived the life of luxury as long as he did, and take to heart the fact that if he'd been a little more appreciative, I might have overlooked his lack of my own genes.

"As it stands, my blood heir will inherit the lion's share without qualification, provided that proper identification is presented as described herein within five years of the date of my demise."

The room was deathly quiet, other than the slight wheezing sound of Adith’s breathing. Dean and Rochelle had both turned white. The lawyer's face, in contrast, was quite red, and he eyed them both with a healthy dose of apprehension. Nikki stood up.

"I don't believe it," Peggy Linney said quietly.

"
True
heir?" One of the ex-cooks piped up. "I don't get it. What does she mean?"

The lawyer's face got redder. "It appears that Mrs. Murchison gave birth to a child who was not Dean Murchison, and that she wishes her blood relative to inherit. I'm afraid the will does not go into particulars about how or why this is the case."

"Who's the real father, then?" demanded a husky, gray-haired ex-chauffeur. "Does he get anything?"

"Yeah, how old is the kid?" demanded another, younger one.

"Gentlemen, please," the attorney pleaded. "I'm afraid I simply don't have the answers you're looking for. I was Mrs. Murchison's attorney, not her personal confidant. Besides which, I must strongly caution you that until we have a legal certificate of death—"

His last words were drowned out in the clatter as nearly everyone present jumped up and began chattering excitedly. Dean and Rochelle, still on their feet, remained standing like statues.

"Do you have any idea what this means?" Adith twittered, her eyes blazing. "Lilah Murchison has another child out there—a very rich child. Who could it be? Oh my, and when could she have had him? She was so very thin…" She rose and took a step toward the door, turning when she realized Leigh wasn't following. "Well, come on, honey! I need to get to a phone. The girls are going to
die
. This'll even shake up Bud! Did you know Lilah winked at him once?"

Leigh took her companion by the arm and sat the older woman back down. The uncomfortable feeling that had been brewing in her stomach ever since she read the message on the rock had just graduated into an ulcer.
If the truth comes out, I'll kill you.
Maybe the two acts of vandalism weren’t related, but she couldn’t help wondering if "the truth" wasn’t at that moment traveling somewhere in Number One Son’s intestines. "Mrs. Rhodis," she asked intently, "how well did you know Lilah Murchison?"

"Oh, honey," Adith said with a chuckle. "That woman hasn't talked to the likes of me since the moon landing. But I used to know her. Back when she was Lilah Beemish—Avalon's own town tramp. My little cousin Laverne and her used to hang out some, but my aunt put a stop to that. 'Them Beemishes are nothing but trash,' she'd say."

A trashy woman with at least one big secret,
Leigh thought nervously. She knew the black-widow stories as well as anybody—three husbands, three suspicious deaths. The first one Lilah had married quite young, and supposedly just to get out of town. But the marriage had ended prematurely in a bizarre car crash, and she had limped back into town a penniless widow. The second husband and source of her current wealth she had pursued quite shamelessly—much to the chagrin of his well-connected wife, whom he had coldly cast aside. That husband had died of a heart attack, which to the locals meant poisoning. The last marriage was to Albert Murchison, Dean’s presumed father, who had died in his sleep—a.k.a., a well-placed pillow.

Leigh had never really believed that any of the men were murdered. "Adith," she asked, "Mrs. Murchison was no spring chicken when Dean was born, was she?"

"Lord, no, honey," Adith answered gaily. "She was forty if she was a day. But Albert desperately wanted a son, and time was running out."

"How old was he?"

She whistled. "Oh, almost seventy, I'd say. It was a miracle Dean was ever conceived."

"Well, apparently he wasn't," Leigh answered dryly. She looked up to see if the lawyer planned on continuing, but found him hemmed in by a pack of agitated beneficiaries.

She thought for a moment. "Was Lilah the maternal type?"

Adith raised an eyebrow, then burst out laughing.