Insatiable Appetites (5 page)

Eduardo struggled a little to speak but finally said, “I am not well. I will die soon.”

“That is in God’s hands,” the cardinal said.

“You may think so,” Eduardo replied. He motioned to Stone to approach, and the others stood back a little to allow him near the old man. He raised a hand and beckoned Stone closer. “Everything is in order,” he whispered. “It’s all in my safe.”

Stone wanted to ask him the combination but thought better of it.

“Papa!” Mary Ann said. “Speak to me, tell me what you want.”

“You must ask Stone,” Eduardo said, then he closed his eyes and his head fell to one side. Next to the bed, a machine that had been beeping now emitted a steady electronic tone, and wavy lines indicating heartbeat and respiration flattened.

“Save him!” Mary Ann said to the doctor.

“Your father signed a do-not-resuscitate order last year,” the man said. “There is nothing more I can do for him.”

Mary Ann burst into tears, and the nurse led her to a chair.

Stone left the bedside to those attending Eduardo’s remains. He took Pietro, who was weeping quietly, aside. “I’m sorry for your loss, Pietro,” he said. “Now you must give me all the keys to Eduardo’s study.”

Pietro beckoned for Stone to follow and led him into a large dressing room, which could have accommodated the stock of a small men’s clothing store. Suits, jackets, trousers, and shirts filled it, in neat rows. Pietro went to the top drawer of a built-in dresser, opened it, and handed Stone a bunch of keys on a ring, then he removed a similar ring from his own pocket and handed those over, too. “That is all the keys to the house,” he said. “I will need to lock up tonight.”

“Thank you, Pietro,” Stone said, and pocketed the keys.

Stone went back into the bedroom, approached Mary Ann, who had stopped weeping and was simply staring into the middle distance. “He was a wonderful man,” Stone said. “I’ll miss him.”

He went to the doctor and said quietly, “I am the attorney for the estate. Please give Ms. Bianchi the death certificate.”

He turned toward Mary Ann. “Please excuse us.” He beckoned to Herbie to follow and left the room.

Stone got out his iPhone and took photographs of the pictures in the hallway, then he went from room to room, peeking in and photographing still more art. Finally, he led Herbie downstairs to the study and closed the doors behind him.

Herbie sank into a chair. “That was dramatic,” he said. “What did Eduardo say to you?”

“He said, ‘Everything is in order. It’s all in my safe.’”

Stone walked to the bookcase Mary Ann had indicated and found a concealed latch that opened it. A double-doored safe, perhaps five feet wide and eight feet tall, occupied the space behind it.

“You want me to get us a safecracker?” Herbie asked.

Stone thought about that and remembered something. He went to the safe, spun the dial, then started turning it back and forth.

“So you’re a safecracker now?” Herbie asked.

Stone tried the safe’s wheel, but it did not budge. He spun the dial again, and tried it again, this time turning the dial in the opposite direction. He took hold of the wheel and turned it. “Voilà,” he said.

“How the hell did you do that?” Herbie asked.

“Eduardo sent me a note with the combination included. He just neglected to say in which direction to start.” He closed the door and relocked it, then closed the bookcase.

“Don’t you want to see what’s inside?”

“Not yet,” Stone replied, returning to the desk. “I’d rather do it when Mary Ann isn’t around.” He sat down and looked through the items she had been removing from the drawers when he had arrived. There was a checkbook showing a balance of more than $150,000, a desk diary and an address book, a gold pocket watch, a gold cigarette case, and a gold Dunhill lighter.

“I didn’t realize Eduardo smoked,” Herbie said.

“I think he must have quit a long time ago,” Stone replied, “but he didn’t throw away these elegant accoutrements. I want you to call the office and ask Bill Eggers’s assistant to recommend someone to come in and catalog everything in the house. Have them start first thing tomorrow morning.”

Herbie got out his phone and made the call.

The door opened and Mary Ann entered. “I’ve spoken to the cardinal. There will be a high mass said at St. Patrick’s Cathedral a week from today at two PM,” she said. “I have other arrangements to make, so I will return to my office in the city and make them there. Please begin your work here.”

“Mary Ann,” Stone said, “I’m getting everyone together for dinner at my house tonight at seven. We’d be delighted if you would join us.”

“I’m not sure Dino and his wife would enjoy that, but I’ll come if I can. May we leave it that way?”

“Of course. It will be very casual.”

She nodded and left, closing the door behind her.

Herbie closed his phone. “Eggers’s guy is on it. He’ll have a team here tomorrow. Shall we take a look in the safe?”

“Give Mary Ann a few minutes to clear the house,” Stone said, “then we’ll open it.”

They heard a car door slam and the sound of the vehicle driving away. Stone went to the bookcase, released the catch, and opened it. He entered the combination, spun the wheel, and opened both doors of the safe.

“Very neat,” he said. There were shelves and drawers filled with files and a case containing a watch winder behind a glass door. The watches were slowly rotating. On a shelf at waist height was a row of red envelopes, perhaps a dozen of them. “Get a legal pad and let’s start making a list of the contents,” he said to Herbie, who complied.

Stone started at the left end and removed an envelope. “Last Will and Testament of Eduardo Bianchi,” he read aloud, then he returned the envelope to the shelf. He went through the rest of the envelopes: half a dozen of them contained codicils to the will; the others contained up-to-date financial documents: brokerage account statements, a deed to the house, and a financial statement among them.

“The man had an orderly mind,” Herbie said, noting each on his pad.

“It looks to me as though Eduardo was preparing to die,” Stone said. He took the last envelope from the shelf. “This is addressed to me,” he said. He sat down at Eduardo’s desk, broke the red wax seal, and removed some sheets of paper. “There’s a letter,” Stone said. He read it aloud.

Stone couldn’t speak for a moment.

“Shall I ask Pietro to collect the garbage bags?” Herbie asked.

Stone nodded, and Herbie left the room, giving him time to compose himself. Stone took some deep breaths and reflected on the many lunches he had enjoyed with Eduardo, how the man had offered the chapel in his house for Stone’s marriage to Arrington, and arranged for the mayor of New York to perform the ceremony, not to mention the reception that followed.

Herbie returned. “There were only three bags of trash. I emptied them all and found nothing of any import.”

“Let’s continue cataloging the contents of the safe,” Stone said.

They worked through the day, stopping only for the sandwiches Pietro thoughtfully brought to the study.

“That’s everything in the safe,” Stone said, returning the last item to its place.

“Shall we read the will?” Herbie asked.

“I think I will reserve that for dinner tonight,” Stone said. “His family will all be there, except for Dolce.” He made a mental note to discuss her condition with Mary Ann when he saw her. He took the will and the codicils, put them into his briefcase, and snapped it shut. Pietro appeared as if summoned.

“We’re done for the day, Pietro,” Stone said, handing him his keys to the house. “I’ve removed the key to the study, and I’ll lock up. Tomorrow morning several people will arrive to catalog everything in the house. Please do whatever you can to make their work easier, and, perhaps give them some lunch. It may take them a week or two. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Of course, Mr. Barrington,” Pietro said, then left.

Stone closed the safe and spun the wheel, then picked up his briefcase and locked the side door to the study. He stepped into the hall and locked that door, too. As he turned to leave he stopped; six men in black suits were carrying a coffin down the stairs. He and Herbie followed them outside and waited until they had put the coffin into a hearse and driven away.

Fred had returned for them and drove them back to the city.

•   •   •

Early that evening everyone gathered: Peter and Hattie, Ben and Tessa, Dino and Viv. Fred made drinks for everyone.

“How did it go today?” Dino asked.

“Very well. Eduardo saw it coming—he had put his affairs into perfect order. By the way, I invited Mary Ann to dinner, but I’m not sure she’s coming.”

“Yeah, well, okay,” Dino said. “I’ll prepare Viv, just in case.”

Then Fred showed in Mary Ann, and it was Stone’s job to introduce her to Vivian Bacchetti. That went more smoothly than he could have hoped. They were called to dinner.

After they had dined, Stone put his briefcase on the dining table and opened it. He handed Mary Ann the envelope addressed to her and waited for her to read it. She nodded.

“I thought this might be a good time to read the will,” Stone said, “since everyone concerned is here.” He broke the seal on the envelope and read the will, which was mercifully brief.

Eduardo had left his house and most of its contents to a foundation already set up, with the proviso that any of his descendants and their families could live there, paying a modest rent. He bequeathed each of his descendants twelve pieces of art from his collection: they would draw lots for the order of choosing. The rest he left to several museums.

His liquid assets, after taxes and certain bequests in codicils, would be divided equally among his two daughters and his grandson, this in addition to trusts already set up for them and funded. Then came the codicils: he left generous sums to Pietro and his secretary, Angelina, and to his household staff. To Stone’s surprise, another codicil left the Modigliani portrait to Stone and the two similar paintings, the Picasso and the Braque, to Herbie Fisher. The codicil was signed and witnessed on the afternoon of the day they had lunched there.

“And that’s it,” Stone said. He raised his glass. “I give you a toast: the memory of Eduardo Bianchi, who none of us who knew him will ever forget.”

Everyone drank, then they chatted for a while and took their leave.

Stone saw Mary Ann to the door, where her car awaited.

“I’m relieved to have you as co-executor,” she said. “I worried about the responsibility.”

“I’m very happy to help,” Stone said.

“And thank you for tonight. You’ve relieved some of the family tension, I think.”

And then she was gone, and Stone went to bed. He had a long day ahead the following day. But he had forgotten to ask her about Dolce.

Dolce Bianchi used a medium brush to fill in the colors of the sketch she had drawn on the canvas. She was working in a former storeroom of the convent that she had been given as a studio when she had begun to paint again, after neglecting art for a long time. The light was good, and she had accumulated a collection of her canvases, some of which were hung in the dining hall. There was a rap on wood, and Dolce turned to find a novitiate standing in the open doorway.