Marcia Muller: Trophies And Dead Things

"Is it legal?"

"Yes. It's a holograph, and he did it properly. It's dated three weeks ago."

"And?"

"It's totally different from the first. Cuts out his kids entirely and makes no explanation of why. He leaves his money to be divided equally among four people-and damned if I know who they are, or what they were to him."

Hank handed me the sheet of paper, and I scanned it quickly. From the legal terminology, I gathered that Hilderly had copied it from his original will, changing only the names under the section headed "Specific Bequests." The conditions for the executor and disposal of personal effects were as Hank had described them, but instead of Hilderly's sons, four individuals were to share equally in "all cash, securities, and other financial assets": Jess Goodhue, Thomas Y. Grant, Libby Heikkinen, and David Arlen Taylor. Hilderly did not specify their relationship to him, but he did state that he was making no provision for his former wife and children. The will didn't look as official as the typed copy from All Souls, but if Hank said it was legal, it had to be.

My fingers touched something attached to the other side of the sheet. I turned it over, found one of those yellow stick-on memos. On it Hilderly had written, "Hank: You'll know how to contact Goodhue and Grant, but you'll have to trace Heikkinen and Taylor. Sorry for the inconvenience." I peeled the memo off and handed it to Hank.

He read it and grimaced in annoyance. "Sure, Perry. I've never heard of any of these people!"

"You must know who Jess Goodhue is."

"Why the hell would I?"

"She's a co-anchor on the KSTS evening news."

"You forgot-I don't watch broadcast news."

"Oh, right." For as long as I've known him, Hank has been a news snob; he prefers his information written-in depth, and in quantity. Every day he reads at least five papers: the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the LosAngeles Times. Every week he pores over the newsmagazines, regardless of their political orientation, and when he runs out of those he's likely to be found with his nose stuck in Business Week, Sports Illustrated, or a legal journal. But one place he is never found is in front of the TV at six or eleven in the evening.

"Well," I said, "that's who Jess Goodhue is."

"Tell me more about her."

"She's one of these up-and-coming media stars. Young, in her early to mid twenties. I'm willing to bet that by the time she's thirty she'll be anchoring for one of the networks. You know the type: good-looking, poised, superprofessional."

"I can't imagine Perry even knowing someone like that."

"But he must have. Are you sure you don't know this Thomas Y. Grant? According to Hilderly's note, he assumed you do."

Hank thought for a moment, then snapped his fingers. "Son of a bitch, I bet it is," he said softly.

"Who?"

"Another local attorney." His lip curled slightly, but he didn't elaborate.

I spotted a directory lying on the counter beneath the wall phone. "Heikkinen's not a very common name." I set the will down and went to look under the H' s . "No listing," I said after a few seconds, "but that's not surprising. Just because the first two are local doesn't mean the others have to be. Besides, she might have married and changed her name." I flipped to the Ts. There was more than a page of Taylors, including two with just the initial D and two Davids with no middle initial. "No David Arlen Taylor, either."

"That could be a tough one."

"Not really-the middle name's distinctive." I moved back toward the table. "I suppose this one's going to end up on my desk."

"Unless you want to turn it over to Rae." Rae Kelleher was my rapidly-becoming-indispensable assistant.

"No, I've kind of loaded her down lately. Maybe I'll have her do some of the preliminary work, but I'll handle the rest personally." I didn't want to tell Hank that Rae had become so good at her job I really hadn't had much to do recently. It had taken far too many years for the All Souls partners to give me the go-ahead to hire an assistant, and I wasn't about to sow any seeds of doubt as to the wisdom of that action. I also didn't want to admit that nowadays I had a lot of empty hours that I'd prefer to fill with work, for fear that such a confession would provoke a solicitous-and unwelcome- inquiry about my private life.

"Well, handle it however you want. In the meantime I'll have to stop probate of the other will. And inform Perry's ex-wife that the kids aren't going to inherit." Hank took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "There are times when I hate my work, and this is one of them." Then he stood abruptly, replacing the glasses. "Come on, let's get out of here for a while, have some lunch, clear the cobwebs."

I trailed him to the front door, shrugging off Hilderly's big sweater and grabbing my jacket and bag. On the sidewalk I lengthened my stride to match Hank's. He walked with his head bent, hands shoved in his pockets, obviously preoccupied. I steered him toward Clement. Earlier I'd noticed a dim sum place-the Fook Restaurant, of all things-and now the idea of steamed dumplings and pork buns appealed to me.

As we turned onto Clement, I realized that the fog had lifted, and observed a phenomenon that has always interested me: the line of demarcation between blue and gray sky stopped in the middle of Arguello Boulevard, bisecting the city in a north-south line. To the west, in the largely bland residential avenues that stretch toward the sea, the day would remain overcast; to the east, in such diverse areas as North Beach, downtown, Noe Valley, Hunters Point, and my own little neighborhood near the Glen Park district, the weather would turn sunny. It is a peculiarly San Francisco phenomenon, and one that outsiders have difficulty grasping. As a New York friend once told me, "There's something very odd about a city where people move across town just to get better weather."

Hank seemed oblivious to where we were going, so I steered him into the restaurant. It was noisy and crowded, but we were quickly shown to a table against one of the walls. He blinked and looked around like a rudely awakened sleepwalker as I ordered jasmine tea. The nearby tables- round ones with lazy Susans in their centers-were mainly occupied by Asian families; restaurant employees moved slowly among them, pushing stainless-steel carts loaded with delicacies and hawking their wares in Chinese. When the first cart arrived at our table, I pointed to plates of pork buns and barbecued spareribs. Hank recovered from his preoccupation and gave the nod to shrimp in fluted rice wrappers.

As I picked up my chopsticks I said, "Is Hilderly's ex-wife going to be upset that the kids won't inherit?"

"Hard to say."

"How much is the estate worth?"

"Quite a bit. Perry inherited roughly a quarter of a million dollars some seven, eight years ago. From time to time he'd mention investments to me-mostly conservative stuff like municipal bonds, T-bills, blue chips. But every now and then he'd take a flier on one of the glamour stocks like Genentech. I'd estimate that he was worth at least a million."

"He didn't live like a millionaire."

"Perry wasn't into money. The investing was a game to him, matching his wits against the market. If he made a profit, that was fine, because it would mean there was more to leave to his boys. But he didn't care about it for himself, and he spent very little."

"Well, what about those four people named in the new will? What were they to him, that he'd cut out his own kids and leave them that much money?"

"Damned if I know. He never so much as mentioned a one of them to me. Two of them, he himself didn't know how to contact."