Too Far Under (31 page)

It was a dreary day—cold and rainy—just like
the weather for funerals in the movies. As I drove across town to
the imposing Baptist church east of Boulder where the ceremony was
to be held, I thought about Vernon and Glenna. Would she inherit in
a big way from his estate? They weren’t married, so she wasn’t
automatically entitled to anything by law. From what Tim had said
about her, it was highly likely that she had manipulated him into
putting her into his will for a big chunk. Did she push him down
the stairs to hasten that inheritance along? A horrible thought,
but Shane and Lacey seemed to think it was possible.

I was so angry at that point that I almost
missed the turn to get to the church parking lot. I hate the idea
of someone taking advantage of an elderly person and I hate even
more the idea that she might get away with it. If Glenna had been
ripping Vernon off, we needed to find a way to show her up for the
manipulative fraud that she was.

The parking lot was already two-thirds full
when I pulled in. I followed the crowd to the front of the
building, where we filed in to the solemn strains of an organ
playing “Shall We Gather at the River.” The music calmed my mood
and pulled me into the moment. I chose a seat in a back pew and
looked around. The church was nearly full, lots of grey-haired men
in suits and older women in dark dresses. At the front of the
church, slightly to the left of the aisle, sat a substantial copper
casket topped with a colorful flower spray of roses, carnations,
delphinium, daisies and freesia. On the right of the aisle a
lectern was flanked by two large standing baskets of white mums and
lilies.

Funerals remind me that life is a short ride.
As I sat there waiting for the service to begin, I thought about
the way we move through life pretending to ourselves that we have
all the time we need. And then it’s over. There’s so much I haven’t
done—never been married, never had children, never been to Europe,
never took piano lessons, never hiked Colorado’s highest peaks. The
list could go on and on. I resolved to take some time soon to
re-evaluate my priorities.

I looked down at the printed program an usher
had handed me on my way in. The cover had a picture of Vernon and
his dates of birth and death. By my quick subtraction, he was
seventy-eight when he died. In his obituary inside, I read that he
was a graduate of Harvard Law School and had been a practicing
attorney in Boulder for fifty years, as well as a city
commissioner, community activist and a major player in local
citizen environmental groups.

He was predeceased by his wife Ruth and only
child Mirabel. I remembered that Elisa had told me Ruth was from a
very wealthy cattle-ranching family. That’s where Mirabel’s money
came from. According to Boulder gossip—and Elisa—Mirabel’s
grandparents had set up trust funds in their wills for both their
daughter Ruth and their granddaughter Mirabel. The grandparents
died when Mirabel was young, so she started getting trust fund
income when she was eighteen. When Mirabel’s mother Ruth died
suddenly of a heart attack two years ago, the principal remaining
in her trust was divided equally between Vernon and Mirabel. I
didn’t know how much that was, but I knew Mirabel had millions and
I assumed Vernon did as well.

And now maybe Glenna would be a millionaire.
Thinking of Glenna, there she was wearing a smashing black suit
with jeweled cuffs and leading the family processional down the
aisle. She walked alone, weeping copiously and wiping her eyes with
a lacey black handkerchief. Either she was truly grieving or she
was an excellent actress.

Behind her were Derrick and Judith, followed
by Shane, and then a middle-aged couple I’d never seen before. But
Lacey and Angelica weren’t part of the group. Alarm bells rang in
my head as I scanned the crowd. Could something have happened to
them on their trip to the mountains? I couldn’t imagine Derrick
walking calmly down the church aisle if Lacey and Angelica were in
trouble. Maybe they didn’t want to be in the public eye with their
grief and were watching from some secluded spot in the church.

The minister came out from a side door and
motioned to Glenna who started the service by reading the
twenty-third psalm. She stopped crying before she stepped up to the
lectern and her voice was clear and still as she began, “The Lord
is my shepherd; I shall not want.”

I listened and tried to keep thoughts of
Lacey and Angelica out of my mind. Following the scripture reading
a soloist sang “Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling.” Next a local
attorney who had served with Vernon on the city commission
delivered the eulogy. He spoke of “Vern,” his long-time friend and
colleague as a good noble man who lived for bettering the
community. He praised Vern’s high moral and ethical standards and
reminisced about his many passions and successes.

Derrick told an amusing family story about
Vernon teaching the grandchildren to ski, and Shane told one about
how he taught his grandfather to use the internet. They both
thanked him for all he had done for their family. Friends and
colleagues who had worked with Vernon over the years talked about
how he had attended countless community meetings negotiating and
debating long into the night, how he possessed unique skills to
organize people with broad viewpoints, and how he often served as
the cool head to heated opinions.

It was good to hear these fond remembrances
of Vernon with no mention of his recent memory problems or heavy
drinking. He truly had been a distinguished attorney, held in high
esteem for his contributions to the community.

Glenna came back to the lectern to invite us
all to stay for refreshments, and take time to mingle and share our
remembrances of Vern. The pallbearers escorted the casket up the
aisle; family members followed and then the rest of us began to
exit, row by row. Since I was at the back, I was one of the last to
move out into the lobby.

I followed the crowd down the hall into a
large airy room where long tables held fruit and cheese trays,
coffee, tea and juice. Shane was standing alone on the far side of
the room, Blackberry in hand, typing madly with both thumbs. I made
my way over and stood in front of him until he looked up. “I didn’t
see Lacey or Angelica,” I said. “Are they here?”

“No,” he said, looking back at his Blackberry
to check an email message.

“I’m surprised they would miss the funeral,”
I said. “Has something happened to them?”

He continued typing. “No, they’re fine.”

“So where are they? I need to talk to
Lacey.”

“They’re stuck in the mountains somewhere.
You can call Lacey on her cell.”

I was getting sick of his aloof attitude. Was
he deliberately withholding information to annoy me? I had no
patience for his passive-aggressive behavior, so I walked away—back
across the room out to the hall, took a quick trip to the ladies
room and then walked down the hall a ways to a small quiet Sunday
School room. I took out my cell phone, which I had turned off
during the service. As soon as I turned it on, I saw that I had a
missed call from Lacey. She’d left a voice mail, but all it said
was, “Call me. It’s important.”

I was just about to call her back when I
heard raised voices coming from slightly further down the hall. I
peeked out the door and saw Derrick, Shane and Glenna facing each
other in what looked like a stormy exchange. They seemed too
involved in their confrontation to notice me, so I stayed just
inside the doorway and listened.

“That’s not acceptable, Glenna,” Derrick said
angrily. “We have a right to look through Vernon’s office to see
whether he made a new will for Mirabel.”

“No you don’t,” Glenna said. “Vernon left me
his house and all its contents. If you want an inventory of what’s
in the house, you can call the attorney who is handling Vern’s
estate. Here’s his card.”

“You bitch,” Shane said bitterly. “You may
have fooled Grandad but we know what you are. You took advantage of
an old man’s weakness to get him to write you into his will and
then you pushed him down the stairs so you could get the money
faster.”

Wow, that was getting right to the point.
Apparently Shane didn’t feel constrained to wait for evidence, a
coroner’s report or a police investigation.

“That’s enough, Shane,” Derrick said, putting
his hand on Shane’s shoulder. “Making accusations won’t get you
anywhere. Let’s talk to the lawyer.”

Glenna ignored Derrick’s attempt to tamp down
the fire. “I’m sick of your bullshit, Shane,” she said vehemently.
“You’re way more desperate for money than I am. Vern always said
you can be a very pushy kid when you want something. Maybe you
pushed your mother under the water in her hot tub so you could
inherit and maybe you got so angry you pushed Vern down the stairs
when he didn’t come up with her new will like you wanted him
to.”

Whoa, this was getting down and dirty. Part
of me wanted to get out of there, but the other part felt rooted to
the spot. Suddenly my phone rang. I stuck it in my pocket and
dashed down the hall away from the fighting family, hoping the
ringing hadn’t drawn their attention to me. There was no way I
wanted to have to explain why I was standing there eavesdropping on
their argument. I didn’t look back to see whether they had noticed
me, just headed for the front door and ran out through the rain to
my car.

The call was Lacey again but I didn’t pick up
soon enough to get it. When I called her back, she sounded ticked
off. “I’ve been trying to reach you all morning,” she complained.
“Where are you?”

“I was at your grandfather’s funeral, so I
had my phone turned off. Shane said you and Angelica got stuck in
the mountains and couldn’t make it. What happened?”

“We had the worst luck,” she wailed. “October
in the mountains. I should have checked the forecast, but I had so
much on my mind, I forgot. I can’t believe we missed Grandad’s
funeral.” Lacey was crying and I heard Angelica in the background
trying to soothe her.

“Lacey, I’m sure you did your best to get
here. Your grandfather would understand. Do you want to tell me
what happened?”

“We started back from Aspen late yesterday
afternoon, but we ran into a monster snowstorm. The driving was
getting pretty hairy, so I decided to stop at a motel in Dillon. I
figured we’d get up early and easily make it to the funeral, but
when we got up we heard that a truck had jackknifed on the highway
and the road was closed.”

“Have they gotten the road open yet?”

“Yes, they opened it about half an hour ago,
but it was too late to make the funeral by then. We’re on our way
down now and we should be in Boulder in about an hour. We have to
talk to you as soon as we get there. It’s really urgent. Can we
come right to your office?”

“For sure I’d rather talk to you in person,
instead of talking on the phone while you’re driving down a snowy
mountain highway,” I said, “but you know I can’t have Angelica in
my office.”

“It’s sunny up here this morning and the snow
is mostly melted now. Also, Angelica is holding the phone for me,
so no worries about the driving.” She had started speaking calmly
but her voice began to rise as she went on. “But we have to meet
with you. We need help and you’re the only one who will understand.
This is beyond urgent! No one will ever know Angelica has been at
your office.”

“Can you tell me what’s so urgent?”

“You’re not going to believe this, but Glenna
called me early Saturday morning to tell me she had Mom’s new will.
She said I shouldn’t say anything to anyone else except Angelica,
and I needed to come get it right away. I told her I’d rather tell
Dad and let him get it from her, but she started yelling at me that
if I told Dad or Shane, she’d destroy the will and deny ever
finding it. She sounded so out of control, I didn’t want to argue
with her,” Lacey groaned, sounding a bit out of control herself.
She took a deep breath and continued, “Whatever might happen, I
couldn’t risk losing a new will that contains Mom’s last wishes
about her estate. So we picked it up on our way to Aspen, and
Angelica read it out loud to me on our way up. Mom made some big
changes and we’re not sure what to do about it. That’s what’s so
urgent.”

After what I’d just heard in the angry
exchange among Glenna, Derrick and Shane, I wondered whether Glenna
was manipulating everyone in the Townes family for her own
purposes. On the other hand it was hard to see what Glenna would
have to gain from Mirabel’s will, whether it was the original
version or a new revised one. “Why didn’t she want you to tell your
father or Shane?” I asked. “And now that you have it and she can’t
destroy it, what’s to stop you from giving the new will to your
father or taking it to a lawyer? I think you should let them decide
what should be done. I don’t know anything about wills.”

“We’re not ready to do that yet,” Lacey said,
her voice rising again to almost a shriek. “Angelica and I can’t
agree on what to do with this will.” She gave an exasperated sigh.
“I’ll let her tell you. I think she can explain her point of view
better than I can.”

Angelica came on the phone, speaking
patiently in the deliberate manner of someone who has been
repeatedly misunderstood. “Cleo, it’s Angelica. Let me explain. The
energy surrounding this will is muddy and its provisions are not
harmonious. The universe has arranged for Lacey and me to have
Mom’s new will when other people don’t know about it. I have a
strong feeling that this will doesn’t represent Mom’s true
intentions. Lacey thinks we have to take the will to a lawyer, but
my intuition tells me that bringing out this will may cause great
harm.”

What the heck did that mean? I felt like I
was in over my head again, drowning in complications with two
messed-up kids. My immediate response would be to take the new will
to a lawyer. But Vernon was a lawyer, so he certainly knew what he
should have done. He had done great work for my grandparents and he
had been eulogized as a man of high ethical standards. Why would he
keep the will a secret? Why had he continued to insist that there
was no new will? And if he wasn’t going to report the new will, why
did he keep it? Did he somehow feel that keeping the will secret
was acceptable but that because it was a legal document destroying
it would be going too far? Given that he made the choices that he
did, was Angelica right that the new will was harmful?