Suspicion of Guilt (43 page)

Lauren turned her eyes toward Gail.

Gail said, 'Tell him to go to the probate judge before it's too late. Alan knows the judge. They're friends. This can be handled without publicity."

A long moment passed, then Lauren slowly smiled. "You think we're lovers."

"I know he's in love with you."

"Poor Alan."

"And you care for him," Gail said.

"So I should tell him to go to the judge. What a neat way to win your case."

"No. I'm trying to help you. You didn't do anything except find the notary."

Lauren leaned to tap ashes into a coffee cup. "Alan told me she fell off her balcony last week."

"Yes. They say it was an accident. I'm not sure."

"Well, I didn't push her."

"I know that, Lauren. Look. Tell Alan to take responsibility for what he did. He doesn't have to bring you into it. Whoever else was involved—" Gail waited, then said, "It's going to blow up, Lauren. I'm not sure how yet, but it will. Get out if you can."

A long moment passed. Lauren drew on her cigarette. "Is it true, about Irving and Jessica, what they said? Maybe it's a lie. Maybe you're lying to me."

"Oh, God."

"Or maybe you're a real pal after all. Maybe. Trying to save me from"—she circled a hand in the air—"something. Don't worry about the election. I withdrew my name yesterday. I'm off the ballot."

"You didn't have to do that."

"Doesn't matter."

"I'm sorry. I hate this. What do you want, Lauren? I can't drop the case. I was working on a settlement, but I don't see the point of settling anymore. Not when I can prove the will was forged."

A haze of smoke drifted around Lauren's head.

"Can I open a window?" Gail asked. "It's warm in here."

"I'll do it." At the sliding door Lauren fumbled with the lock. A wind came through and lifted the hair at her cheek and pressed the satin robe against her thighs. She stood motionless for a moment, holding back the curtain. "Look, the sun's finally out." She laughed. "Is it nearly sundown already? Or is the sun on the wrong side of the sky?"

Gail pressed her fingertips into her forehead. "Fine. Forget going to the judge. When it comes up for trial, I won't put you on the stand. After I finish with Alan, I won't need you."

Lauren let the curtain fall and the room dimmed. Laughing softly, she walked back to where Gail sat and hugged her around the neck with one arm. "You're sweet. You are."

"And you're drunk, Lauren. I shouldn't be discussing this with you at all."

Lauren rested her cheek for a moment on the top of Gail's head. "I can't do what you want. I can't."

"Don't lie for him!"

She laughed, sinking onto the ottoman again. "You don't see it, do you? Sweet dunce. It wasn't Alan. It was me."

"You."

"He's bleeding already. He's bleeding and he doesn't know I did it to him."

Gail took a long breath. "What did you do?"

"I was very bad." She smiled, pushing a hand back through her hair. "Alan says he remembers Althea coming to the office on August third. She did come in, but for something else. I was there. Alan was asleep with a hangover, as I told you. That was true. I had to wake him up. But there was no will. He thinks he did her will, but he doesn't remember. He thinks he screwed it up because he was drunk. He thinks I've been trying to cover for him."

Gail waited, knowing what was coming next.

"After Althea died—five days after—I rewrote her will on our word processor and Rudy signed Althea's name. Then I took it to Jessica's house. Irving was there. They signed as witnesses. That's what I did."

"And the notary?"

"Rudy knew Carla Napolitano from some business or other. He paid her five thousand dollars. That was awfully generous of him." Lauren rested her face in her hand, and the cigarette smoke curled upward.

"What are you going to do?" Gail asked.

"I do not fucking know."

"You have to tell Alan."

She nodded.

After a minute, Gail said, "Can I help?"

"No."

They sat without speaking for a while. "How did Jessica and Irving get into this?"

"Rudy talked to them. They knew each other."

"Knew them how?"

"He just knew them. I don't know." Lauren leaned over to crush out her cigarette. "I am sure Patrick Norris is a wonderful guy, if you have him for a client, Gail, but really. To give him all that money. And the Tillett house too. Althea said she would leave it to Rudy and Monica. Rudy told me they talked about it before she died."

Gail said, "Did she tell him she had destroyed her will?"

"No. I wish she had. He and Monica went looking for it, and it wasn't there. God, they were frantic! Then the housekeeper said Althea had burned it. So they had to turn around and tell her 'No, no, we found it, it's here.' She believed them."

Lauren laughed, then picked up her glass and stared down into it. The ice cubes slid. "Rudy told me Althea asked him to make a list of their mother's things. She said he and Monica could take them, then she would change her will and leave them the house. But she never made a new will. Althea." Lauren laughed again. "God save us from clients like Althea."

"And so Rudy did the will for her. With your help."

Lauren leaned forward on crossed arms as though she ached. "It was the right thing, wasn't it? I told myself that. I'm a lawyer. I could make something happen that
should
have happened. Make it come out right. Don't throw stones. You would have lied to save my sorry ass."

Gail asked, "Why did you do it?"

Lauren looked toward the sliver of light that fell in through the curtains at the open door.

"Lauren?"

"Stupidest reason in the world. I was in love."

The ways of love. Very strange. Rudy Tillett was not what he had seemed either. Then Gail said, "Do you think it's possible that Rudy could have killed Althea when he found out she had changed her mind?"

Lauren's eyes fell closed, the short blond lashes and fragile, fatigue-pink lids. "I have considered that. He first mentioned forgery a month before she died. He wanted to know whether she kept her wills in our office, and I said no. And he said what if. What if. It would be so easy. And then—she tripped and fell down her stairs. I didn't think about it, until the police said someone had pushed her." Lauren pressed her forehead into her hands and softly moaned. "I didn't want to ask him. I didn't want to know."

"You were too much in love with him."

The slender hands came down from her face. "Rudy?"

"You said—"

A soft laugh. "No. Not Rudy."

It took Gail a moment. Then she understood.

Still smiling, Lauren leaned to brush a bit of carpet fuzz off her foot. "Oh, you didn't suspect I was one of
those,
did you?'

Gail let out a breath. "No, but—I don't care."

"What a surprise. Even to me. Perfectly normal life— husband, a child, a career. Friends. But it's so empty. It feels so ... flat. As if you're walking around dead, or in a dream, pretending. And then suddenly, suddenly—you're alive. Everything you touch or taste or hear, it's alive and real and so are you. And you know it could kill you, but you can't stop. Your husband suspected an affair, but never
this,
and he's oh-so-nice about it, and you part so amicably. Then he tells your daughter you are sick, twisted, and she can't bear to be around you anymore.

"My short, happy life." Lauren lifted her eyes. "Have you ever loved so deeply that if that person walked out of your life, you would want to die? Have you?"

Gail said, "I don't know."

"You would know. You would know that, if it happened."

Lauren's lips trembled, and she bit them fiercely. "Monica isn't the type to sneak around, but she did, for me. For a while. Then she got tired of it. Last year we were together again, and it was lovely for a few weeks. Then we split up, then back together. I have never been so wretched. She asked me to do this for her. I did it."

"She used you."

"Maybe. I don't want to think that. Rudy talked her into it. She does whatever he tells her. In the end, I couldn't compete. Not that it matters. So. That's that." She shook another cigarette out of the pack.

"Is it over?" Gail asked.

"It? Is it over?" Lauren smiled. "I am forty-two years old and I am walking around with a gaping, bleeding hole in my chest."

Gail took her hand and held it tightly. "Lauren. People go through these things."

"Yes. It's a fad, in fact. Everybody's doing it now. It's in, it's cool." She pulled her hand away.

"That's not what I meant," Gail said. "People have tragic love affairs. They survive them."

Lauren only looked at her.

'Talk to your daughter. She's old enough to understand. You aren't alone. There are groups, people you could—"

"Gail, why don't you just go?"

After a few seconds Gail stood up, her head ringing with confusion. 'Tell me you won't do anything stupid."

"What, kill myself? No. I've already done that."

Gail stood by her car for a while in the parking lot watching the sun turn into an orange flare in the tangled branches of a black olive tree. She drove a few blocks and parked on the street across from the Mayfair Hotel and went inside and got some quarters at the cashier's desk.

The pay phone was in a quiet, paneled nook off the lobby, with an upholstered chair. Classical music was playing. She called Phyllis and said she would be home soon.

For a minute or so she sat with her eyes closed. She lifted a quarter to the slot and dropped it in, then dialed.

After four rings, Anthony's answering machine came on.

She started to hang up, but didn't, and said, "This is Gail. I'd like to talk to you, so ... please call me."

She hung up.

Then dialed again, waiting through the same message.

"Anthony, it's me. Gail. I guess you know that. Anyway. This morning ... I'm sure you are monumentally angry. Which I don't blame you for. You probably don't want to talk to me at all. If you were home—I'm glad you're not, in a way, because you can't hang up, can you?"

She took a ragged breath. "I think ... I was so afraid of losing you that I pushed you away, so it wouldn't hurt as bad when you finally decided to leave anyway. Does that make sense? I never thought you would stay. But at the same time, I wanted you to. I was waiting for you to rescue me ... and you didn't. I mean, what about happily-ever-afters?"

Gail laughed a little, turning aside to wipe her fingers under her nose. "It is funny. I never wanted to be weak that way. To be rescued. All that romantic shit. It's the worst sort of lie."

The silver edge of the pay phone was cool under her forehead. "I've been thinking about what what you said this morning, that you—that you love me ... with all your heart—"

She laughed again, her voice thick. "You know, that was pretty romantic. It was lovely. I've never said anything like that to you, have I? Not really. Not like that." She closed her eyes. "This can't be all. Things don't ... end like this."

There was a beep, then silence, then a dial tone.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Paul Robineau invited Gail to the partners' dining room for lunch the next day. He wanted to know what was up with the Norris case, now that Irving Adler, a witness to the will, had died of a heart attack.

There were a dozen or so Hartwell Black lawyers there, plus their guests, doing the bump and grind of schmoozing and deal-making. Forrest Putney, filling his pipe, presided over a table for eight by the windows. Maxine Canady, tax genius, resplendent in a cherry red suit, was listening to Cy Mackey tell a joke to a director of First Union Bank. The egos in the room gave off a kind of erotic perfume, like musk in a locker room at halftime, the players bleeding a little but ready to go out and slam somebody into the ground at the whistle.

At a table in one of the far comers, Gail talked and Robineau ate his veal chop and looked at the comings and goings with a neutral stare. He could be pleased or pissed, it would be hard to say from a distance. Up close, Gail thought he might swoon over what she was telling him—Lauren Son-tag printing out the fake will at Weissman's office, Rudy signing Althea's name, Jessica and Irving adding theirs as witnesses, five grand paid to the notary.

Gail thought Robineau must already have computed the attorneys' fees: ten percent on twenty-eight million dollars, plus costs. . . .
      

He picked up his iced tea glass without looking at it. "You're certain Alan Weissman had nothing to do with the forgery?"

"Only in trying to protect Lauren Sontag."

He tipped back his glass and took a swallow, then wiped a napkin across his mouth. "I still don't understand her motivation."

"She wasn't specific," Gail said carefully. "I was lucky to get what I did."

"Will she be prosecuted?"

"I doubt it. If the State Attorney's Office doesn't ask, I won't tell them. Lauren dropped out of the judge's race. That's enough damage."

"Unreal," he said.

"I'm going to let it sit over the weekend to see what Lauren might do on her own. Then we'll decide what the next step is."

Robineau gave her a quizzical glance. "What do you mean, next step? Contact Ted Mercer. He's got the probate now. Tell him it's over. No discount-rate settlement, no trial. He hears this, he's going to shit in his drawers. He's ours."

Gail shook her head. "Let's take it slow, Paul. Lauren Son-tag hasn't given a statement. As far as I know, I'm the only one she's told. She could change her mind."

"Is it likely?"

She took some time answering. "Probably not."

"Okay, then. You handle it, but for God's sake, don't let her backslide." Robineau rattled the ice in his glass, took a swallow, then asked, "What's the deal in probate? When the will is tossed out, is Ehringer out as personal representative?"

"Right. The judge would have to appoint somebody else."

"Patrick Norris. He's the only heir." Robineau smiled, no doubt joyous about the prospect of snatching the probate out of Ted Mercer's office. Mercer had been a real bastard in the settlement conference two days ago with Howard Odell and Ehringer's Palm Beach counsel.