Dance for the Dead (16 page)

She had been running at night
through the woods, trying to make it to the river. She must have been
a child, because her parents were with her. There was something big
and dark and ferocious chasing them, but she wasn’t able to
catch a glimpse of it through the trees. Every time she tried to look
over her shoulder it seemed to be closer, but she could only discern
a shadow that blotted out some of the stars, or see branches shaking
as it trampled through a thicket.

She walked to the middle of the
living room and cleared her mind while she began the one hundred and
twenty-eight movements of Tai Chi, one flowing into the next without
interruption. She decided her muscles weren’t as sore as they
had been yesterday. Maybe Carey’s liniment had worked after all
– or something else had. Her body borrowed part of her
consciousness as it had learned to do through long years to move
through positions with names like “Grasp Sparrow’s Tail”
and “Cross Hands and Carry Tiger to Mountain,” and ended
as it had begun, almost floating. Then she slipped on a sweat suit,
hung her house key on a chain around her neck, went down the front
steps, and began to run.

She started slowly and easily in
the cold dawn air and gradually lengthened her strides as her body
warmed and her muscles relaxed. She ran down to the river and along
the open grassy strip toward the south. Deganawida was alive this
morning with people just up and driving along Niagara Street toward
their jobs, the men’s hair wet from their showers and plastered
to their heads, the children dressed in their second-heaviest coats
already, their mothers hustling them down the sidewalk and making
sure they were at least pointed in the direction of the school when
they started off. She ran up as far as the Grand Island bridge and
then turned back. The run home would give her just the right stretch
of time to shower, change, and eat before the library opened.

Inside the library she walked to
the desk and collected all of the past month’s issues of the
Los Angeles Times,
then hid in the small room in the corner
surrounded by the reference books that nobody ever used unless they
wanted to settle a bet, and sat down to read. The first one that
caught her eye was two days old.

INVESTIGATION OF COURTHOUSE
DEATHS IS INCONCLUSIVE

van nuys – In the latest
development in the strange saga of Timothy Phillips, kidnap victim
and heir to a San Francisco fortune, an L.A. Police spokesman
conceded today that the investigation has so far produced no charges
against anyone. The bizarre events at the Van Nuys courthouse which
caused the deaths of two persons and the arrests of five others last
month are still under investigation, said Captain Daniel Brice.
Details are still sketchy, but the police have put together this much
of the puzzle: Just as the courts began session on the morning of the
15th, attorney Dennis Morgan, 38, of Washington, D.C. stopped his car
in front of the courthouse to let off his eight-year-old client,
Timothy Phillips, and Mona Turley, 29, the woman posing as Phillips’s
mother. The rented car then apparently slipped into reverse and
slammed into an oncoming vehicle. Driver Harold Kern, 23, and
passenger James Curtain, 26, both of Los Angeles, suffered minor
injuries, but Morgan was (See
Inconclusive,
A 29)

Jane impatiently searched page
29 and found the rest of the article in the lower left corner.

pronounced dead at the scene.

Kern and Curtain ran into the
courthouse, apparently seeking assistance for Morgan. Mona Turley,
police theorize, may have believed the two men were pursuing her with
hostile intent. A struggle ensued, in which numerous bystanders took
sides. The confrontation erupted into a fight in a fifth-floor
hallway, where bailiffs in a nearby courtroom responded to the
disturbance.

Arrested with Curtain and Kern
were Roscoe Hull, 22, Max Corto, 28, both of Burbank, and Colleen
Ma-honey, 29, of Orlando, Florida.

After police restored order, the
body of Mona Turley was discovered at the bottom of a stairwell, an
apparent victim of a fall from an upper floor. Police sources confirm
that a maze of conflicting allegations have been made, but
eyewitnesses have established that none of the five persons arrested
could have left the hallway once the fighting began.

Captain Brice explained that in
the absence of evidence that any of the combatants had ever met the
deceased, had any motive to harm her, or were in the stairwell at the
time of her death, they could not be considered suspects. He said
that foul play has not been ruled out, but that Turley might have
been overcome with anxiety or remorse because of possible kidnapping
charges and taken her own life.

Jane sat and stared at the
orderly rows of thick volumes on the shelves in front of her. They
had killed Mona, but the best she could do was to go into court as
Colleen Mahoney, lie and say she saw them, then watch twenty
witnesses parade to the stand and say she was wrong. The ones who had
been in the car had certainly broken Dennis’s neck with a
choke-hold after the crash, but she hadn’t seen that either.

If the police hadn’t found
a connection between any of them and the Timothy Phillips case, then
they were hired hands. No doubt the police and the F.B.I, were
quietly looking for Colleen Mahoney, but there was no reason to let
them find her. She was finished.

She looked through the
newspapers for more articles about Timothy Phillips. Finally she
found one that was only a day old.

HOFFEN-BAYNE NOT SUSPECTED OF
WRONGDOING, D.A. SAYS

A spokesman for the District
Attorney’s office issued a statement today denying rumors that
Hoffen-Bayne Financial, Inc. is under suspicion of attempting to
defraud kidnapped heir Timothy Phillips of the multimillion-dollar
estate of his late grandmother.

“The rumor has no merit,”
said Deputy D.A. Kyle Ambrose. “All you have to do is read the
conditions of the trust. If Mr. Phillips were deceased, Hoffen-Bayne
did not stand to benefit. All the money was to be donated to
charities. I’m convinced that they filed to have the child
declared dead because it was the proper procedure under the trust
instructions, and consistent with the behavior of a good corporate
citizen. There’s very little benefit to society from having
vast fortunes tied up in trusts with no beneficiaries. The intent of
the grandmother was to provide for her grandson, not to build a
perpetually-growing pyramid of unused money.” Ambrose noted
that Hoffen-Bayne had reason to be delighted with the news that
Timothy Phillips had been found. “If the estate went to
charities, the company would have lost large annual fees as trustee
and executor, which now legally must continue until the boy reaches
eighteen, and could continue as long as he wishes.”

Jane read the article twice.
Dennis had been certain that the men who were after Timmy had been
hired by Hoffen-Bayne. Dennis was a lawyer, and there had been
something in the documents that had convinced him that Hoffen-Bayne
had a rational reason for doing it. But the Los Angeles D.A.’s
office was full of lawyers, criminal lawyers at that. Were they just
convinced that companies like Hoffen-Bayne weren’t in the
business of killing their clients?

She tried to look at it in a
logical way. Hoffen-Bayne had chosen this time to have Timmy declared
dead. If they were capable of murder, they could have waited until
they had actually killed him, left his body where it would be found,
and let the coroner do the paperwork. Or they could have waited and
filed the papers at the best possible time for them. No, she had to
assume that they had already waited, and that this was the perfect
time. There was nothing external to make them do it now. There were
ten more years until Timmy could take control of the money and fire
them, ten more years of the “large annual fee” the D.A.
had mentioned.

Jane stood up, walked out to the
librarian’s counter, and caught Amy Folliger’s eye. “Can
I make a couple of copies on the machine?”

“Sure,”
said Amy. “A dime a copy. But
I’m afraid you’ll have to sign this sheet,” she
added apologetically. “It relieves the library of liability if
you violate a copyright.”

Jane glanced at the papers on
the clipboard. The first page was a summary of the copyright law of
1978. She signed the second page and handed it back.

“Sorry,” said Amy.
“Did you ever wonder how we ever got to this point?”

“What point?”

Amy’s
big eyes widened behind the silver-framed glasses that Jane had never
seen her wear except on duty at the library. “Where everything
is lawyers. Of course they get to write the laws. Did you ever hear
of a lawyer missing the chance to give himself perpetual fees?”

“Once
or twice,” said Jane. “Maybe if we all behave ourselves
for a hundred years, they’ll go away.” She copied the
articles, then walked to the newspaper rack and carefully replaced
the stack of
L.A. Times.

Jane put the copies into her
purse and walked out of the library. As she approached her car, she
composed the note that she would write to Karen the lawyer to explain
what was bothering her, but it didn’t feel right. What was
bothering her was that she wanted to know now.

Jane passed the telephone booth
beside the building and then walked back to it. She dialed the number
and said to the secretary who answered, “This is Jane
White-field. She knows me. Tell her I’m going to fax something
to her.”

“Would you like an
appointment for a consultation or – ”

“No, thanks,” she
said. “She can call me.” Jane hung up and walked up Main
Street to the little stationery store that Dick Herman had run for
the last few years since his father retired. The growing collection
of signs in the window announced there were post office boxes,
copiers, and a fax service now.

When she had sent the clippings
Jane drove home, walked inside, and heard the telephone ringing. She
closed the door and hurried to the phone. Maybe Carey wasn’t
with the great diagnostician. She snatched up the receiver just as
her answering machine started. “You have reached – ”
said the recording, and clicked off. “Hello?”

“Hi,
Jane.” It was Karen’s voice. The last time Jane had heard
it Karen had wondered aloud – in a purely speculative way –
whether there was any way to protect a witness who had just saved a
client of hers. “I got your message. But what is it?”

“Did you read the
articles?” said Jane.

“The second woman –
I take it that was you?”

“You don’t want to
know.”

“It’s okay.
Attorney-client privilege.”

“I’m not a client.”

“If you’re in
trouble you are.”

“I’m not,”
said Jane. “I just need advice. How are they stealing the
money?”

“I don’t have the
slightest idea,” said Karen. “If it were obvious, I
certainly wouldn’t be the only one who could figure it out.
Without reading the documents that established the trust I’d
only be guessing anyway.”

“All right,” said
Jane. “Let me fish, then. What’s the statute of
limitations on stealing money from a trust fund?”

“That’s breach of
trust as a fiduciary. Here it’s four years. I’d have to
look up California.”

“Suppose they robbed Timmy
the day the old lady died. They have Timmy declared dead and it’s
over? Nobody can do anything?”

“No,” said Karen.
“He’s a minor, right? The statute time doesn’t
start running until he’s eighteen, when the money goes to him.
If he doesn’t spot it after four years, they’re in the
clear, as long as they didn’t do anything worse.”

“What if he were dead?”

“Then the next heir gets
the money – presumably some adult – and the clock starts
again. Who is it?”

Jane was silent for a minute.
“The charities,” she said. “That’s it, isn’t
it?”

“That’s what?”

“That’s the answer.
That’s why they wanted Timmy dead – legally or really. So
that the heir isn’t a person.”

“I’m not sure I
follow that.”

“Timmy’s grandmother
set up this trust fund. It was supposed to go to her son. The son
died. The next beneficiary was her infant grandson. That’s
Timmy. There weren’t any other relatives, or if there were,
Grandma wasn’t interested. The D.A. mentioned it in that
article. The money goes to charities.”

“It can’t be that.
Charities aren’t generally run by stupid people. They receive
bequests all the time, and their counsel are very sophisticated about
making sure they get what the benefactor wanted them to. The charity
is a corporation, and that’s like a person in law. The charity
would have four years before the statute time ran. The lawyers would
go over the will and the trust papers the day they heard about it.”

“No,” said Jane.
“The trust doesn’t go to the charities. Only the money
does.”

Karen was silent for the space
of an indrawn breath. “Oh, no,” she said. “You’re
telling me the old lady didn’t specify the charities?”

“Nobody has ever mentioned
any,” said Jane. “And Dennis – another lawyer who
did read the papers – said it was just ‘charities.’
He was sure they were going to steal the money, but he didn’t
say how.”

Karen’s voice sounded
tired, but she spoke quickly, as though she were reading something
that was printed inside her eyelids. “Then I can think of a lot
of ways to do it. Here’s the simplest. Timmy becomes deceased –
either in fact or in law – and they get a death certificate.
They then disperse the money to a charity of their choice, or even of
their own making, which kicks most of the money back in some way:
ghost salaries and services, paid directorships, whatever.”

“Is that the way you would
do it?”

Karen’s voice was a
monotone. “Thank you very much.”

“You know what I mean. Is
it the smartest way? They picked this time to have Timmy declared
dead. They could have waited forever. There must be a reason why they
did it now.”