Perri O'Shaughnessy - Unlucky in Law

She picked up the Monte Rosa file. The estate had been probated ten years before. Nina leafed through the paperwork. “Why put this one in the safe?” she asked. “He’s got three diamond necklaces. Maybe he’s still looking for the heirs?” She went to the inventory of the estate.

Funny. The necklaces she found nestled in their boxes did not exist on the inventory.

“Klaus?”

Head on the desk, Klaus snored lightly. Nina didn’t have the heart to awaken him and ask for his thoughts. She looked again at the inventory and at the box labeled “Monte Rosa.”

She turned to the Matter of Egler, a conservatorship for an elderly lady. Her daughter had taken over her possessions. Reading the list of items carefully, Nina looked again at the box of gold coins and diamond rings marked “Egler.”

No match. The items in the box weren’t listed in the inventory in the probate file. Puzzled, Nina closed that file. Klaus stirred, and Nina heard the sound of Alan’s Ferrari pulling up outside. He would find them here, and she no longer cared.

She touched the superb egg again. Fantastic. Why hadn’t it been listed on the inventory in the Zhukovsky probate? A dreadful realization spread like a cancer into her brain, making linkages, expanding and tying up loose ends, and making her hold her head as a jabbing headache took over.

“It’s late,” Alan said. In spite of being rousted from bed, he wore dark slacks and a Burberry trench coat. He looked prepared to take a meeting. His chin was dark, though, and his eyes…

“Oh, Alan,” Nina said. “Isn’t it beautiful? I can almost understand.”

Alan glanced at his peacefully sleeping boss. Dropping to the floor beside Nina, Alan picked up the egg and caressed it. “It’s really something, isn’t it?”

“It’s-historic, Alan. It could have been Christina’s proof.”

“But it’s mine, mine for twenty-four years. Adverse possession.”

“You kept it here in the safe?”

“A good spot, don’t you think? I loved having my clients sitting right on top of it. And I could look at it now and then.” He admired it. “When I listed Constantin’s assets for probate, I found it in the false bottom of a dresser drawer. I could never have afforded it myself. It’s worth millions.”

“Does this mean-was Constantin…”

Alan shrugged. “Who knows? Who cares? The Soviet Union didn’t care. Constantin didn’t want it known, or he would have made it known.”

“Christina cared.”

“Silly woman. Another Anastasia. Doomed for a rout. Who would believe her? She could hardly keep her hair combed, no offense.”

Nina pushed at wisps. “What about Mrs. Monte Rosa’s children?”

“My God, you know everything?”

“It’s a huge embezzlement, Alan.”

“And too late to fix now.”

“You’ve damaged the firm, maybe irreparably.”

“No, you did that by finding out.”

For the first time, Nina felt afraid, in the presence of a murderer. “What about Klaus?” she asked, hesitant. “This could kill him.”

“You brought us here tonight, Nina. The egg was- I never intended to sell it. I just wanted to have it.”

“Well, our client suffered because of it.”

“How would it have helped your defense? Knowing about the egg?” Alan said. “Clue me in, Nina.” He cast a wondering look through his eyeglasses.

“If I’d known you committed the murder, I could have defended Stefan better,” Nina said.

Alan closed his eyes as if to obliterate the idea.

“Alan, why did you bury her in her father’s grave?”

“Oh, it’s a long sad story, Nina, and it’s late.”

“Please. Tell me.”

“Nothing’s going to help me. There’s no excuse. None. But I’ll make a deal with you,” Alan said. “I explain and then you give me a couple of hours to leave town.”

“You’ll be caught.”

“I won’t.”

Maybe he wouldn’t be caught, but by now she wanted to see Alan arrested. She shrugged. “Go ahead.”

Alan smiled from one side of his mouth, as if he was well aware that she wasn’t making any deal with him about anything. “I followed Gabe Wyatt that night,” he said, “thinking I’d have to do something. He wanted to resurrect this old business. Somebody, somewhere was bound to figure out what I’d done if he managed to reopen the probate. I found myself outside of Christina’s apartment, and I heard an argument. She threw a glass at him. He ran out.

“I knocked, telling her I was her father’s lawyer who had come on urgent business. She was cleaning up the broken glass she had thrown at Gabe. At first, she was very reluctant but she vaguely remembered me, and I spend all my time persuading people to do things they don’t want to do, don’t I?”

Nina had no answer for him.

“I told her there might be more money coming and she should let me in. I told her that Gabe had come to see me and that he was her half-brother. I tried to convince her to drop this insane dream about resurrecting some bullshit Russian monarchy. I warned her of the danger. I told her fame attracted craziness.

“She was irrational. She said I was lying about Gabe. She told me that at that very moment, someone was digging up the remains of her father, and that those remains would prove she was no crackpot, but was a Romanov.

“I panicked. You’ve known me for a long time, Nina. I’ll bet you didn’t expect me to panic.” He picked up the egg and stroked the side with his finger.

That was all he had to say about strangling Christina Zhukovsky.

“I wasn’t sure where to put her. In the ocean? Bodies come in on the tide. In a ditch somewhere? Hikers would find her. I remembered her saying someone was digging up her father’s grave that night. I thought-what a perfect place. The cemetery was less than a mile from her apartment. I’d been to the funeral and thought I could find the grave. The soil would be loose, and an empty coffin waited for her there.”

“Oh, Alan.”

“I waited until whoever was digging up the grave could finish. I wanted to feel sure nobody official took note of the event, so I hid Christina’s body in the trunk of my car until it was almost morning. Then I went to the cemetery. It was a hell of a job. I was surprised at how hard the soil was. I never even made it down to Constantin’s coffin.

“I love this office,” Alan said, his eyes roving around, stopping on his paintings, his plants, his barrister’s case with old leather volumes of California cases. “I love being a lawyer. It’s just that in my work you come across things that other people won’t miss, beautiful things. I hardly ever sold things, Nina. I only stole a few times, precious things that nobody else would miss. I mean, it’s been twenty-five years! Nobody cared about having that egg, except me.”

“And then Gabe came.”

“He probably wanted to screw Christina and Alex. His motives were selfish, like mine. He told me Christina was going to send out some kind of press release announcing she was the heir to the throne of the Romanovs. He just wouldn’t quit, and she seemed just as determined. I didn’t think I could handle the scrutiny. The estate would be reopened.”

“So you decided to kill Christina and implicate Gabe.”

“I never decided to kill her. It just happened. And then I thought Gabe would be arrested, not his brother. Stefan ran into some bad luck there.”

“It just happened?”

“I was excited, not thinking too straight. I went in to tell her she was a fool,” Alan said. “My fingers went around her neck. In a way she committed suicide. The Romanov heir? She was a nobody who got carried away wanting to be somebody.”

Nina breathed fast. She got up, but Alan held her wrist. “Now give me my chance,” he said. “Your client got his acquittal.”