Paul Robertson - The Heir

“This is not public yet,” I said. “Don’t talk about it, okay?”

“Who would I talk to?” The kid must have some friends.

“If someone calls. A reporter maybe. Just hang up and call me.”

“Okay.”

“That’s Rule 86-don’t talk to anyone about it.”

I left Eric to the hamburger Rosita had fixed for him and went back to my office, and dialed.

“Yes, honey?”

“Pamela,” I said. “Would you please pay Eric’s bills for me?”

“I’ll do it this afternoon. Do I still have access to the personal expenses account?”

“I think so. Thank you very much.”

Twenty minutes later Katie had changed into a somber dress and her pearls, and we were waving good-bye as Motorcycle Man shattered the peace of our neighbors. Then we were on the roads I knew so well, away from the city and down the coast. It wasn’t that I had driven them with such frequency, but rather with such portent. It had been the Road to Melvin. What was this the road to now?

My card still worked at the gate, of course. We circled around the front lawn and into the courtyard, the endless brick walls surrounding us. The wings on either side were two stories, and the monolithic mass in front was three. Forty-eight windows looked down on us as we stepped out of the car. I used to count them every time I came home from boarding school.

Angela was expecting us. We were shown in to a feathery front parlor that Melvin had never used. It had always been hers. The rest of the house hadn’t changed, but it had the feeling of a corpse at a viewing-the soul was gone. Angela had some of that feeling about her, too.

She watched me with her wide eyes, her fluffy lashes flittering about them. We smiled and exchanged just a few pleasantries, but she knew there had to be something unpleasant lurking. And Katie was looking at me.

“Angela,” I said. “I’m sorry, but I have some bad news.”

“I was afraid it must be,” she whispered.

“The police believe that Melvin’s death wasn’t an accident.”

Little tears glistened under the lashes, but not surprise. “Oh dear. I was so hoping it would just be over.” She sighed. “When you called, I knew what you were going to say.”

Well, it wasn’t the same thing everyone else had said. “You suspected?”

She smiled, so sadly. “He had always been afraid that this might happen.”

“He said that?” I had never before spoken abruptly to Angela, for fear of something breaking.

“No. But Emmanuel, the gardener, was really a bodyguard. Melvin never told anyone, but I knew.”

Emmanuel had been there for years. “Did you have any idea who he was worried about?”

“No. And I wouldn’t have asked, of course.”

Of course. Poor Angela. Mr. Wilcox of the morbid mustache was going to give her a hard time. But she could defend herself.

She was not interested in brake fluid or other details, so I asked if I could look around a little. I left her and Katie to talk while I went on a nostalgia trip.

To me, the house had been an official place, for the formal occasions and staged events that made up our family relations. I found it uninteresting. I stood in the echoing foyer with the stairs on either wall. I wandered the halls, looked into the vast ballroom that he had never once used. Then I came to his office-a room of wood paneling and deep carpet, shelves lined with books he had never read. The walls were hung with original paintings, lesser known works by American luminists-cragged mountains by Kensett, storm-swept seas by Lane. A huge antique globe on a stand and his massive antique desk and wooden armchair sat before a wide window.

Later, Katie and Angela found me sitting at the desk, looking through drawers. It was a little awkward, but I apologized.

“I should have asked,” I said.

“No, no,” Angela mewed. “It’s right for you to be here. This is your place now.”

“I’ll need to come back and go through his papers,” I said. I’d found a few of the details that Fred had mentioned concerning Melvin’s contract business with the state-the ‘other legal framework’ that I should be thankful was already in place for me. It was going to take a while to go through these drawers, and I didn’t know where else he might have papers stashed.

But it had been something else I was looking for. There was a beautiful picture of Angela on the desk, but I’d wanted to see what he had of his first wife, and I’d found nothing, and nothing of his sons. I guess I hadn’t really expected any, so I didn’t know why it hurt. Maybe I felt he owed me something for what I was going through.

We left the house in a different confusion than we’d come.

“A penny for your thoughts.” Stately Boyer Manor was fading into the distance behind us.

“I don’t want more money,” I said.

“What should I offer you?” Katie said.

“No. I mean that’s my thoughts. You owe me a penny.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” Some stretches of the road were tawdry with old gas stations, run-down diners, and tacky souvenir shops. These were in contrast with the stretches that were tawdry with new gas stations, plastic fast-food restaurants, and bland strip shopping centers. “I’ll think of something else to give you.”

“I don’t want anything.”

“Are you being surly?”

“Half.”

She took note of the clenched jaw and pursed lips. “What’s the other half?”

“That bothered me, Katie.”

“Being at the house?”

“It made me feel like I was Melvin.”

“What does that mean, anyway?”

“It means doing things that I never thought I’d do. I’m violating something inside myself.”

“What have you done?”

“I’m having a feud with the governor.”

“I’ve never liked him.” We were passing through farms and villages now-much more scenic than the coast.

“I’m starting to dislike him a lot more,” I said. “And when you’re Melvin, you don’t just dislike a governor. You do something about it.”

“What do you do?”

“That’s what the world is wondering.”

“So. Have you come up with some type of plan?” Fred was set very far back in his chair, at as great a distance from me and my recklessness as he could get.

“Yes, some type of one.”

“What type?”

I laughed at the richness of his disdain. “And you still want to negotiate with the terrorists?”

“He is a governor, not a terrorist.”

“Explain the difference.”

He shook his head. “Tell me what you’ve thought of.”

“The governor is corrupt. I’ll expose him.”

Fred blinked. “A good deal of his corruption has been as your partner.”

“Not my partner.”

“With the Boyer businesses. You know what I mean.”

“But not with me.”

His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I was in Melvin’s office this afternoon. I have enough evidence to sink Bright and half his administration with him.”

Fred’s mouth was open, but it took a while for words to come out.

“Of course you do.” He could have added “you idiot,” but it was there without being spoken. “You can’t use any of it.”

“I can.”

“You’ll destroy your own businesses.”

“No. Somebody on my side will take the fall-whoever deserves it. I’ve been looking through Melvin’s papers and I’m starting to figure out who that is. But of the two biggest crooks, one is in the governor’s mansion, and the other is in his heavenly mansion.”

Fred Spellman was reeling. “This would destroy your father’s reputation.”

“Where he is, he doesn’t need it.”

I had managed to disgust Fred, although there was also admiration in his look. “Where did you get this idea?”