Authors: Gwynne Forster

When the Sun Goes Down (27 page)

BOOK: When the Sun Goes Down

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“Thank you. By the way, Cory Benjamin was taken with you.”

She spun around. “
He was?
He sure poleaxed me. Is he married?”

“Hmm. No, he isn’t. He’s a widower, and he has two little boys, four and six years old.”

“Can I meet him?”

“That’s what he asked me in respect to you. You bet you can. He’s a fine man. Straight as the crow flies.”

“If he goes to church, too, he’s for me.”

Laughter poured out of Gunther. “If he doesn’t, I bet he’ll start.”

“Where’s Shirley? Didn’t she come home along with you?”

“I dropped her off at the library. She should be here any minute.”

Frieda thought about that for a while. The library had closed at four-thirty, a little over two hours earlier. Was Shirley reacting to the news she got in the lawyer’s office?
Lord, please don’t let me have to deal with attitude after things went so well this morning,
Frieda said to herself as she started down the stairs.
I declare you just can’t depend on nothing.

“By the way,” he called. “Riggs made arrangements for the tests.”

She turned and went back to him. “We can get it tomorrow morning. I’ll take you.”

“Thanks. Coreen said she’d mail my birth certificate to Mr. Riggs.”

His look censured her. “
Who
said that?”

“Uh ... Mom.”

“That’s better. It won’t hurt, and after a while, saying it will feel great.”

Frieda tilted her head to the side and looked hard at Gunther. “I always hated people telling me what to do, but the way you put things ... Well, I don’t. I guess the difference is that it’s coming from my brother, and I always wanted a brother. Lord, my life is changing so fast it’s making me dizzy.”

Frieda needn’t have worried about Shirley, who had no concern at present other than what to do about Carson. If she walked away from him, she would be miserably unhappy indefinitely. She loved him, and she had believed he loved her. If she confronted him about not having told her he’d found the will, not to speak of the shock she got about Frieda and Coreen, he’d feel as if she had attacked him unfairly, and he’d act accordingly. Shouldn’t she expect his unfailing loyalty? Sipping her third cup of Starbucks coffee, she glanced out the window, saw that darkness had set in, put on her coat, and got up to leave. Her cell phone rang.

“Hello.”

“This is Edgar. Where did Carson find that will?”

“I have no idea. He has yet to tell me that he found it.”

“You want me to believe that? He’s your lackey.”

“Edgar, if you have nothing else to talk about, please hang up.”

“What have you got to be upset about? At least you’re getting your share. Father took care of his bastard child and her mother. He had some nerve telling me how to live. Frieda Davis is my sister! Damn! The whole thing makes me sick to my stomach. Do you know where Carson is?”

“He’s in Atlanta,” she said with a weariness in her voice that reached Edgar though the wires.

“Hey. No point in being depressed. You should be in my shoes. I got debts over my head and no way to pay ’em. I didn’t want to put any long-distance calls on my cell, but I gotta talk to Carson.”

“I’d better get on home,” she said. “It’s dark.”

“Don’t let it drag you. He’s not worth it. For all you know, he and Riggs are in cahoots to steal part of Father’s property. Something’s not right here, and I mean to find out what it is.”

“Don’t get yourself into a mess over this, Edgar. Carson is honest. I’d swear to it in court.”

She heard him pull air through his teeth as if disgusted. “Oh, you’d go to bat for him, even though he didn’t tell you he’d found the will? That’s the least he should have done, not to mention he should have told me.”

One more thing for Edgar to gripe about,
she said to herself. To him, she said, “Considering the provisions of the will, it shouldn’t surprise you that he decided just to give it to Mr. Riggs.”

“You don’t say. Well, it wouldn’t hurt you to take your own counsel. Be seeing you.” He hung up.

When Carson’s cell phone rang, he looked at the caller ID, saw that it was Edgar, and swore an epithet. He didn’t care to talk with Edgar Farrell, but he certainly wouldn’t shrink from it. “Montgomery speaking.”

“This is Edgar Farrell. What do you have to say for yourself? You broke our contract, and I’ve got a mind to sue you.”

“Go ahead. After I read that will, I knew that if you got your hands on it, you would destroy it. Further, since you weren’t going to fulfill the terms of the will, you wouldn’t get your inheritance, and I wouldn’t get paid. Right? I decided that giving it to the executor of the estate was the right and legal thing to do. Shirley is probably mad as hell at me right now, but I did what I knew was right and fair.”

“Spare me. Where’d you find that will? I scoured that house and every centimeter of Father’s room and office. He must have had a secret hiding place.”

“I found it in the den. You needn’t worry about the payment. Riggs said that the estate will pay for the recovery of the will.”

“In the den, eh?” He hung up.

Carson thought for a minute. “I’ve just made an enormous mistake. Edgar will tear up the room until he finds that panel. Two days later, he’ll probably have spent or gambled away the money in that envelope and whatever he gets from hocking those antique vases.” As a precaution, he called Riggs.

“Carson here. I wouldn’t be surprised if Edgar took an ax and hacked up that room until he finds that false wall. I didn’t count the money, but I’d guess he’d find fifty to a hundred thousand dollars in that envelope. There are other valuable things there, including some antique vases and his father’s robot collection.”

“Thanks for telling me. If he doesn’t find it tonight or early tomorrow morning, he’ll be out of luck. I’ll take my accountant over there and an independent appraiser and have everything catalogued. Spoken with Shirley yet?”

“No, but I hope to within the next hour.”

“I wish you luck.”

“Thanks. I’m going to need it.”

Carson hung up, walked around his hotel room, moving things from one place to another, stared out the window at the cars speeding along the highway, turned on the television, and immediately flipped it off. He decided he’d better eat before calling Shirley, because he might not feel like it after talking with her. He dialed room service and ordered a steak dinner. But as soon as he hung up, he didn’t want it. So he called back, canceled it, and ordered a hamburger and a can of beer.

“What the hell!” he said aloud, and dialed Shirley’s cell phone number.

“This is Carson. You were going to return my call day before yesterday. What happened?”

“What happened? Is that a serious question?”

“Shirley, if you’ve got something on your mind, let’s have it. Where do we stand?”

“Perhaps I should ask you, Carson. I would have expected you to at least tell me that you had found the will, but no; you let me get a shock. No, several shocks. As close as you and I were”—he flinched at the reference to the past—“couldn’t you have warned me that I was about to get the surprise of my life?”

“Had I warned you, I would also have had to warn Edgar and Gunther. I told you I was reluctant to get involved with a client, which you are, because you’re behaving that way now. My reputation as an honorable man is just as important to me as what’s said of my skills as a detective, and I am not ever going to compromise my integrity and my honor. Edgar offered me a ridiculous deal if I would discard the will in the event that I found it and it was unfavorable to him.”

He ignored her gasp and continued to talk. “You’ve led me to believe that your well-being did not depend on the provision set forth in that will, and you’ve showed relatively little interest in it. Yet, you’re suggesting that because I love you, I should have done the unscrupulous thing of giving you an advantage over your brothers and Miss Davis. If you’re sticking with that position, I’ve made a gargantuan error.”

“What are you saying?”

He heard the catch in her voice and knew her anger was at war with her feelings for him. If she hurt, he couldn’t help it; his own pain nearly brought tears to his eyes. “I’m not saying anything. I’ve said my piece. It’s your turn.”

“I ... uh ... I can’t talk about it now. I’ve got as much on my plate as I can handle, not the least of which is an older sister who I barely know.”

He ignored her words and stuck to the subject. “Call me when you can talk about it, but don’t take too long. Be seeing you.” He hung up. If there was anything he couldn’t handle, it was empty words. He called the restaurant, canceled the room service order, put on his jacket and coat, and left the hotel. Maybe if he walked long enough, he’d get hungry.

He wrapped up his case shortly before noon the next morning, but if he’d wanted to rejoice in a job well done, Donald Riggs’s telephone call deprived him of the chance.

“What’s up, man?” he asked when he saw Riggs’s number on his cell phone’s caller ID.

“Edgar found that secret panel. Did you say you found the will inside a robot?”

Carson leaned against the hood of his dark blue BMW. He was not going to like what he heard next. “So I did. There were dozens of robots there, all kinds of animals, plastic and wooden. The wooden robots were handmade, and I suspect Leon made them, because I found the sketches.”

Riggs’s labored sigh reached Carson through the phone. “The place is a mess, and there isn’t a robot in sight.”

“He told me that those robots were junk. I’m sure he took that money.”

“Nope. Poetic justice. He overlooked seventy-seven thousand dollars and took the robots, which he will have to hustle to sell and which aren’t likely to net him as much. He also overlooked these beautiful old vases and some fine wood carvings. Well, we’ll finish the inventory, and I’ll have to figure out whether to indict him, get an estimate and deduct that from his inheritance, or what.”

“Look, Donald. It’s none of my business. You know he’s never going to work at any job for a year. So the robots will be all the inheritance he gets. I wouldn’t indict him, though you have to get the agreement of his siblings.”

Donald Riggs’s calls to Edgar went unanswered until three days later. “Hello, Farrell speaking.”

“Edgar, this is Donald Riggs. I don’t suppose you’re prepared to return those robots that you took from your father’s closet? They belonged equally to the four of you.”

“Too damned bad. I sold ’em last night to somebody in Baltimore. He came and got them this morning and paid me in cash. Six hours from now, I’ll be on a plane to Ghana. I got a buddy over there. This place sucks.”

“I guess you’d like to know that I found an envelope containing seventy-seven thousand dollars on the second shelf in that closet. God doesn’t love that kind of beha—” Edgar had hung up. Riggs called Gunther and told him of Edgar’s plan to leave for Ghana.

Gunther telephoned his older brother, thinking that Riggs couldn’t have heard Edgar correctly. His fingers shook as he dialed the number. “Hello.”

“Hi, Edgar. This is Gunther. What’s this about—”

Edgar interrupted him. “Hello, brother. I know Riggs called you. You got your share, you and your
two
sisters. I’m never going to get anything else from that old man, so I’m heading out of here. Come to Ghana if you want to see me again.”

“What’s your address there?”

“You don’t need it. If I want company, I’ll write.”

“What about your motorcycle?”

“It’s going on the plane with me as freight. See you.” He hung up.

“I sure as hell hope they don’t have gambling joints over there,” Gunther said to himself. “This is going to hurt and hurt badly, but right now, I can’t digest it.”

Chapter Fourteen

That morning, Gunther arrived at his office before seven o’clock. He’d skipped breakfast rather than deal with Shirley’s lackluster demeanor and her disinterest in anyone and everything around her. He had tried to reason with her and to make her understand that her misery sprang from her own unwillingness to accept the truth and to acknowledge that Carson had behaved fairly and honorably with respect to that will.

“It’s time I put a pantry in here,” he said to himself after removing two Styrofoam cups of coffee from a brown paper bag. “Furnishing coffee for the people who work for me is the least I can do.” He heard steps and walked out to the hallway.

“Why are you here so early?” he asked Cory Benjamin. “It’s barely seven o’clock.”

“I like working when I’m here alone, when I can’t hear a sound. That’s when the ideas flow, and I can concentrate. I’m surprised to see you here so early.”

He told Cory about the will and the reactions of his siblings to its provisions. “And can you beat this? I’m thirty-four years old, and I’ve just learned that I have an older sister who I didn’t know about until an hour before I introduced you to her. It blows my mind. Shirley is depressed, but not about our sister. She’s concerned about something else. Edgar’s way of dealing with this and with that will is about as much as I can take. I could have begun the day as usual with Shirley and played misery loves company, but that’s not my style. So I skipped breakfast. Problem with that is I’m beginning to get hungry.”

Cory seemed in deep thought. “Miss Davis is your older sister? Do you think you’re going to like her?”

Gunther told Cory how he met Frieda. “I liked her a lot, and I admired her attitude toward her work, and her thoroughness, competence, and all-around professionalism. She’s a wonderful person. I’ve written two recommendations for her, not knowing that I was helping my sister. It’s strange. I doubt I’ll ever see Edgar again, and I feel that I’ve lost my brother, but I gained a sister. Somehow that blunts the pain of losing Edgar.”

Cory ran the fingers of his left hand over his tight curls and gave the floor a gentle kick. “She made a strong impression on me.”

“I know. And she told me she’d like to meet you in more favorable circumstances. When she asked me about your status, I told her that you’re a widower with two little boys.”

Cory’s head jerked up. “What did she say to that?”

Gunther could feel his face creasing into a broad grin. “She said something like, ‘If he goes to church, he’s for me.’”

The sparkle in Cory’s eyes betrayed his delight in hearing that she liked him, but his next words were those of a man both modest and cautious. “Do you think she’d mind if you gave me her phone number?”

“I don’t think so. She’s had a difficult life, betrayed by those she depended on. I doubt she’ll trust easily.”

“She’ll understand decency and sincerity,” Cory said, “and I won’t ask for more.”

“My blessings to you both,” Gunther said, making it clear that he would be happy if the two of them developed a meaningful relationship.

Gunther worked well that morning, and he could thank his intense concentration for his need to banish the pain of Edgar’s leaving. His design of spacewalkers in the shape of classical nutcrackers hadn’t satisfied him, so he’d trashed it and begun working on a family of cartoonlike characters who, with eagle eyes and falconlike wings, descended on Earth whenever they observed from their perches in outer space a need to settle earthly disputes. Riggs’s phone call interrupted his progress.

“Hello, Donald. Any news about the tests?” he asked.

“That and other things. When is a good time to get all of you here? We don’t need Mrs. Treadwell. I’ll send her a cashier’s check, but I do need to see you, Frieda, and Shirley. If Edgar comes back here and does as the will stipulates, he’ll have to abide by whatever decisions the three of you make.”

“Mondays and Tuesdays are usually best for Shirley. She’s at my place now, but she’s leaving today.”

“Unless Frieda can’t make it, we’ll meet here at my office next Monday. I’ll phone her and Shirley now.”

“Is that your cell phone ringing, ma’am?” the taxi driver asked Shirley shortly after she got into his cab for the trip to BWI airport. She’d heard the phone, but knowing that it wouldn’t be Carson, she hadn’t bothered to answer it. She took it from her pocketbook and saw Riggs’s number in the caller ID screen.

“Hello, Mr. Riggs.”

“How are you, Shirley? Can you be in my office Monday morning at nine o’clock? I want to settle your father’s estate.”

“But Edgar isn’t here.”

“I’m aware of that. There are decisions to be made, and according to accepted practice, the majority rule. Edgar isn’t here, so he’d be the minority. See you Monday morning.”

“All right. Thanks.” She hung up thinking that he hadn’t given her an alternative. She couldn’t blame the man if he’d had enough of dealings concerning that will. What had caused her father to write a will, have it properly executed, and then hide it, knowing that with or without it, his death would adversely affect his children and their relationships with each other?

He was not innocent in this,
she thought.
That will aired his dirty linen, and after being honest when writing it, he decided he didn’t want us to know what an awful person he’d been in his youth. I deserve whatever he left to me, but considering how he let me struggle unnecessarily to get through school, I do not thank him.

She settled back in her seat, anticipating the long ride to the airport. How she longed to talk with Carson and to be with him, but she knew that the next move was hers, and she couldn’t force herself to make it. She’d been comfortable staying in Gunther’s apartment, but her presence there had to inconvenience him, because he hadn’t once brought Caroline home with him. After the first of the year, she’d find a house or a condo. Maybe that would make it easier for her and Carson to mend their relationship.

Her mind traveled back over the days since the reading of her father’s will. How easily she had accepted Frieda as her sister. Maybe it was because her father wouldn’t give a penny to anyone who didn’t truly deserve it. Or maybe because Frieda had cared for Gunther so lovingly when she was his nurse. The night after the reading of the will when Frieda stayed with Gunther and her, they’d had a wonderful time exchanging tales of their childhood. And all the while, she’d kept thinking that Edgar would have been a misfit there.

At the airport, she paid the driver and was soon on her way to Fort Lauderdale with the memories of her happiness there with Carson weighing upon her.

She went straight to the ship, checked into her stateroom, and called Frieda. “Nurse Davis speaking. How may I help you?”

“Hi, sis. This is Shirley. I just—”

Frieda interrupted her. “It had better be Shirley. If I get another surprise sister, I may not be able to stand it.” Laughter poured out of her. “How are you? And where are you?”

She loved Frieda’s deep, throaty laugh. “I’m on the ship. I just checked in. Did Riggs ask you to be at his office Monday morning?”

“Yeah, but he didn’t tell me the outcome of that test Gunther and I took.”

“Did you ask him?”

“You bet I did, but he said the three of us would get that information together. My boss said I can have Monday off, but I gotta be at work Tuesday. Do you think Edgar really went to Africa and won’t come back here?”

Shirley released a heavy sigh. “Unfortunately, Gunther’s right about that. I hate to think of it.”

“Me too. He got on my last nerve, but I’d be happier if I thought he was having a good life. I hear tell just about everybody over there in Africa is poor, so what’s he gon’ do?”

“A lot of Africans are living well, Frieda, but unless Edgar is very fortunate, I doubt he’ll be in that class.”

“Well, worrying don’t do a bit of good. I’m gon’ say a few prayers for him and trust the good Lord to do the rest. Stress over something I can’t help is definitely not in my DNA.”

“Frieda, you’re precious. I’m going to try and follow your example. See you Monday.”

Monday arrived, and once more, the Farrell siblings sat in Donald Riggs’s office awaiting a verdict. “Glad to see everybody’s on time,” Riggs said. “Never waste another person’s time if you can avoid doing so. First, I want to congratulate Frieda on the proof that she is, indeed, Leon Farrell’s daughter. The test produced a ninety-nine-point-nine percent match. Of course, no one here doubted it.” He pointed to the man sitting beside him. “This is Timothy Hall, my accountant.”

Timothy passed out several sheets of computer printouts. “This represents your father’s net worth minus the family home and its contents. If you sell the house and its valuables, you’ll net about six hundred thousand dollars to be divided among you. Excluding the house and what’s in it, each sibling gets one million, three hundred thousand dollars. If Edgar fails to do as the will states, you three will each receive an additional four hundred and thirty-three thousand dollars. The three of you decide what to do with the house and its contents.”

“I’m dumbfounded,” Frieda said. “I thought I was gonna get four or five thousand dollars, and I could hardly wait for
that
. What I’m gon’ do with all that money?”

“When the time comes, you’ll retire in comfort,” Riggs said.

“Well, I tell you this,” she said. “You can bet I won’t die poor, not even if I live to be a hundred. The way I heard it, the postman just rings once, no matter what it said in that movie. I’m gon’ take good care of this blessing.”

“What about the house?” Timothy asked them.

Frieda looked first at Gunther and then at Shirley. “I don’t think we should sell that house as long as there’s a chance Edgar will come back. That’s his home.”

“But it and its contents belong to the four of you,” Timothy said.

It wasn’t his brother, so he could take that position, Frieda thought. Aloud, she said, “Look, I wouldn’t like to come back home and find that I didn’t have a home, not even if I was a millionaire. Besides, you shouldn’t kick a man when he’s down.”

“I can’t insure it if nobody’s living there,” Riggs said, though he didn’t sound very firm about it. “What do you suggest?”

“Frieda has a good point,” Shirley said. She looked at Gunther. “Since we don’t need the money from that house right now, couldn’t we rent it for, say, a year? Fifteen months from now, we’ll know one way or the other.”

“If Donald approves, then I say we do that,” Gunther said, “though I think we ought to store everything that’s really valuable.”

“We’ve had everything appraised,” the accountant said, “so that should be easy.”

Riggs tapped his pen on his desk in a rhythmic fashion. “Darned if you guys aren’t the most agreeable siblings I’ve ever dealt with in money matters. A teacher colleague of my wife’s needs a place, and I can vouch for him. He just got a divorce, and he’s childless.”

Frieda’s cell phone rang. “Hello. Frieda speaking.”

“Hello, Frieda. This is Cory Benjamin. Gunther introduced us a short while back, and I’d like to see you again. He told me you’d be in town this morning, and I’m hoping we can have lunch someplace before you head back to Orlando.”

“Cory ... oh, dear! This is a big surprise. A real whopper. Yes, I’d like that.”

“I’m not too far from that lawyer’s office. What time can I pick you up there?”

“I think we’re about finished. I’ll wait here for you.”

“Great. I’m looking forward to seeing you again.”

She hung up, looked at Gunther, and said, “I think I’m going to faint. Cory Benjamin is taking me to lunch. Thank you for telling him I’d be here. One of these days, I’m gon’ get a chance to do something real nice for you, Gunther. You just wait and see.”

“Don’t mess up like I did,” Shirley said.

“Why can’t you fix it?” Frieda asked her. “Does the guy love you?” Shirley nodded. “Then where’s the problem? Your pride won’t keep you warm at night, but he will. If he hasn’t mistreated you, broken the law, cheated, or been too selfish to tolerate, straighten it out.”

“He isn’t the problem,” Gunther said. “She is, and she hasn’t got a leg to stand on. She’s got a first-class man, and she resents the fact that he wouldn’t abandon his integrity and give her an unfair advantage over her siblings.”

Frieda looked at Shirley with eyes that reflected the tragedies of her life. “When you’ve seen as much of life as I have, you’ll know that a self-respecting brother who’s got what you need and high standards to boot won’t come along many times in your life. If you love him, give him the respect he deserves and tell him you’re ashamed of yourself. ’Cause you ought to be.”

“I’ve been telling her that. Maybe she’ll listen to you. I should be at my office. Frieda, hadn’t you better call your mom and tell her about the tests?”

“You right. I was gon’ do that, and then Cory called. Well ... you know how it is.”

She went into the little reception room, sat down, and dialed Coreen Treadwell’s number. “Hello. Glen Treadwell speaking.”

BOOK: When the Sun Goes Down

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