Fall from Grace (17 page)

“You wouldn’t, Doctor. That much I can tell you.”

Quiet, Zell gazed out the window, watching the hotel doorman hail a taxi. “Your father had a very strong idea of himself,” he said at last. “Maybe, as you suggest, he lost his powers of reason. But it’s at least as likely that the last months of his life—Carla Pacelli, the will, his haste to finish a book, even his final moments—had to do with how he accommodated his self-concept to the reality of imminent death.” Zell paused, then concluded simply, “Your father finally met something he couldn’t beat. But that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t die trying.”

Eight

A bumpy flight later, at twelve fifteen, Adam entered the law office of Ted Seeley on Main Street in Vineyard Haven. Unlike Edgartown, this had always been a place for working people, full-time residents of the island, and taking an office here seemed a shrewd choice for a newly arrived practitioner. But the office itself, on the second floor above a defunct restaurant, suggested a threadbare practice—the reception area was cramped, with cheap furniture and cheaper wood paneling; a fiftyish receptionist perched by a phone that did not ring; a cubbyhole where a younger woman perused a paltry selection of legal documents; and a closed door, slightly warped, behind which Ben’s lawyer was doing something or nothing. Adam tried to imagine seeing the office through his father’s eyes.

The receptionist buzzed Seeley. When he burst through the door with an aura of energy and goodwill, Adam formed a first impression—a slight, thirtyish man with flaxen hair, a too-eager smile, and small, calculating eyes. Adam sensed his calculations were short-term. From Seeley’s offices, the wolf was pawing the door.

Seeley gave him a firm handshake. “Great to meet you, Adam. Can I get you some coffee?”

The fervor of this greeting, Adam thought, was pitched too high: no doubt this man was chary of the missing son who, in the words of his father’s will, “had the courage to hate,” and whose mother Seeley had helped to disinherit. “No, thanks,” Adam said coolly. “Let’s get to it. Do you have the time sheets I requested?”

Seeley’s smile faded. He ushered Adam into his office, shut the door behind him, motioned Adam to a wing chair with faded upholstery, and handed him a pile of documents purporting to show the time spent preparing Benjamin Blaine’s last will. Adam took brief stock of the windowless office, the shelves holding treatises on the staples of a small-town general practice: divorce, real estate, wills and trusts. Then he perused the lists of activities—client meetings, document review, legal research, drafting, execution—Seeley had undertaken to cement Clarice’s ruin. The name Carla Pacelli appeared nowhere.

Looking up, Adam asked, “Is this everything?”

“Absolutely.” Seeley fidgeted in his chair. “You had questions about the will?”

Adam considered his aims in coming here. One was to gauge Seeley’s skills as a lawyer, another to determine the facts behind the will, still another to determine how formidable Seeley might be in opposing his mother’s challenge. None required excessive courtesy. “A few,” he answered. “You took the gifts to Carla Pacelli and Jenny Leigh out of the estate and put them into trusts. Aren’t there questions under Sullivan v. Burkin about whether such a trust is valid? And, if it isn’t, whether this device exposes the gifts to massive estate tax?”

As Adam had intended, Seeley looked surprised. In a different tone, he said, “I took Sullivan into account. I believe the will and trusts can hold up.”

Adam remained expressionless. “Then you’ve tried this before.”

“Not personally, no.”

“Can I ask how many wills you’ve drafted?”

“A few.”

“More than one?”

“I haven’t counted,” Seeley replied, then leaned forward to fix Adam with a look of deep sincerity. “I did my best to carry out your dad’s wishes. Whatever his reason for these bequests, or for choosing me as his lawyer, I was honored to represent him. From all I knew of him, and all that I experienced, Benjamin Blaine was a truly great man.”

“He certainly left a hole,” Adam replied. “Including in my mother’s finances. You’re aware that Matthew Thomson was his lawyer for almost forty years.”

“He told me that.” Seeley’s tone grew firmer. “Obviously, someone helped him draft his prior will, and the postnuptial agreement with your mother.”

“Did he tell you why he’d decided to change lawyers?”

Seeley’s face closed. Cautiously, he said, “I think we’re getting into areas covered by the attorney–client privilege.”

“I’m sure we are,” Adam went on. “Just as I’m sure that as executor, I stand in my father’s place. I’m not only the son of a great man but effectively your client. Given that my father is dead, I’m the Blaine you have to please.”

Seeley placed his palms flat on the desk. “What he said,” he answered stiffly, “and what I told the police, is that he wanted to start fresh. New estate plan, new lawyer. Then he told me what he wanted.”

“The validity of which depends on the postnup. Did you call Matthew Thomson for insight into whether it would hold up?”

Once again, Seeley looked off-balance. Crossing his arms, he said, “I told your father that your mom was certain to challenge the will, and that I wanted Matthew’s advice. He instructed me not to contact anyone and said that it was my job to make this will ironclad. He wasn’t the kind of man you challenge.”

“Did he also mention that he was dying?”

Seeley stared at him. “Of what?”

“Brain cancer.” Adam waved at the time sheets. “According to these, he came to you four months ago with cancer eating his brain. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

“About what?”

“Whether this will was my father speaking or the cancer. Or, for that matter, Carla Pacelli.”

Seeley sat straighter. “I only met your father three times, the last when he signed the will and trust documents. But he seemed sharp, determined, and very clear on what he wanted and who he meant to benefit. I didn’t know he was dying, and he sure as hell didn’t seem deranged. So my job as a lawyer was to make his will stand up in court. Period.”

“Was anyone with him at these meetings?”

Seeley fidgeted with his pen. “Do you mean Carla Pacelli?”

Adam shrugged. “Or Jenny Leigh.”

“Neither.”

“Did you ever speak to Carla or Jenny?”

“No.” Seeley seemed to have recovered his poise. “In fact, your father instructed me not to tell any of the beneficiaries that he was leaving them money. First and foremost, that meant Carla Pacelli.”

Surprised, Adam said sharply, “That makes no sense to me. Why would he keep a bequest worth at least ten million dollars secret from his mistress?”

“I don’t know that he did,” Seeley said slowly. “All I can tell you is that he made a joke of it with me. Something about liking it when women loved him for himself.”

What must have happened came to Adam suddenly—if everyone thought the gift to Carla was a surprise, her hand in seeking Ben Blaine’s money would remain hidden. Someone—maybe Carla, maybe his father—had been more clever than Seeley knew. “So much to love,” Adam said. “So many to love him. Did he explain why he was showering his largesse on these two women?”

“No.” Seeley’s shrug came with a knowing look. “I live here, so I’d started hearing rumors about him and Carla. But that was all. Other than that he wanted to make her his principal beneficiary, he never said a word about her—not their relationship or why he was leaving her money. Zero.”

“Did he ever say she’d asked for anything?”

“Never.” Seeley paused. “In the will he gives the reasons for his bequest to Jenny: to help her succeed as a writer. He even had me put in that sentence about you. But all he did was leave Carla millions of dollars. He never said why, and I never asked.” He smiled sheepishly. “I mean, that would have been a stupid question, right—a woman who looks like that? With all respect to your mother.”

“In other words,” Adam said evenly, “you figured the privilege of sleeping with Carla Pacelli was worth millions of dollars. Sounds reasonable to me. Especially given my father’s scant experience with women.”

“Maybe he’d lost his mind, all right? I know you’d like to think so. But he didn’t seem like a man who’d be led around by anyone or anything—including his own dick, if you’ll excuse my frankness. So maybe it’s possible your father really loved her.”

“That would be a novelty,” Adam replied. “Didn’t you think his bequest to me—‘To Adam, who has the courage to hate’—was also a little bizarre?”

Seeley seemed to consider this. Then he said, “Only until I met you.”

“Meaning . . .”

“That you seem so much like him.” Seeley paused. “You did hate your father, didn’t you? And you impress me as a very determined man.”

Seeley was sharper than Adam had thought. Softly, he replied, “You have no idea.”

For a moment, Seeley looked away. “While we’re on the subject,” Adam continued, “why did he leave me an album of old photographs from Southeast Asia? He must have had a reason, however strange.”

In profile, Seeley nodded. “I assume so. But he never said.”

Adam waited for the lawyer to meet his eyes again. “So let’s sum this up,” he said succinctly. “My father canned his longtime lawyer, changed his will entirely, disinherited his wife and oldest son, gave millions to his thirtysomething girlfriend, and left me—who despised him—a hundred thousand dollars and a bunch of yellowed photographs of a trip I wasn’t alive for and don’t give a damn about. But none of that struck you as peculiar.”

For a moment, Seeley took him in. “Maybe it’s not what I’d have done, or you’d have done. But I’ve got no doubt whatsoever that Benjamin Blaine knew exactly what he was doing.”

A few hours ago, Adam realized, Dr. Lee Zell had spoken of his father in almost the same words. “Anyhow,” Seeley continued, “he signed those documents in the presence of two witnesses—my receptionist and my legal assistant, who doubles as my wife. You can step outside and talk to them both. They can tell you what he was like.”

“Not really.”

“They can for the purposes of the will. They spent a half hour with your dad, waiting for the accountant next door to free up and notarize his signature. He was completely charming—telling stories about the places he’d been and the people he’d met. All of us found him fascinating—”

“And sober?”

“Definitely. His speech was clear, and so were his eyes. He seemed like a man taking a weight off his shoulders. Settling your affairs can do that for you. Especially if you’re dying—”

“And screwing your wife in the bargain,” Adam cut in. “Your obligation wasn’t just to him, but to draft a will that acknowledges her interests under the law. Sullivan suggests that you didn’t, and the postnup is shaky at best. Surely you told him that.”

A feral look flickered through Seeley’s eyes. “You’re questioning my integrity as well as my competence as a lawyer. That cuts pretty close to the bone, all right? You can think whatever you want—about him or about me. But there’s no way you’ll ever prove your father had lost it.

“I did what my client wished. Now it’s your turn. You’re the executor of his estate, not your mother’s lawyer. If you’re pissed off about this will, blame him; if you’re pissed she signed the postnup, blame her. Frankly, signing it was crazier than anything your father did. I don’t have a clue why she would have, or any obligation to find out. So ask her—better yet, let her lawyer ask her.” Abruptly, Seeley tempered his voice. “Sorry if I went off on you. I know this is emotional, okay? But you can’t stay as Ben’s executor and try to undermine his estate plan. When he signed that will three months ago, under the law he was as sane as you or me. Understand me?”

Adam stared at him. Should he try to waive the privilege to help his mother, Adam now knew, Seeley would make a formidable witness against her. “Well enough,” he answered. “Including the things you don’t yet understand.”

Adam got up and left, feeling Seeley’s look of doubt follow him out the door.

Nine

On the sidewalk, Adam paused to gaze at the waterfront—in high school, his point of embarkation for athletic contests on the mainland—taking in the sailboats at mooring as they bobbed in the water, the three-decker ferry from Woods Hole laboring toward the cement and steel pier. Then he drove the length of the island to a white frame house overlooking Menemsha Harbor.

Charlie Glazer sat on the porch. Standing, he greeted Adam warmly, his smile filled with pleasure and curiosity. An eminent psychiatrist who also taught at Harvard, Glazer had spent all sixty-nine summers of his life on Martha’s Vineyard. For fifty of those he had known Benjamin Blaine from the cycle of sailing, fly-fishing, and socializing in which both men partook. In Adam’s life between fifteen and twenty-three, Charlie had been an amiable presence, chiefly because of his dogged but fruitless efforts to best Ben Blaine in the summer races on Menemsha Pond. Glazer was a bright-eyed man with white hair and mustache: instead of the mandarin gravity common to his profession, he combined a certain restless energy with an air of sweet-natured good humor that at times concealed the tough-minded psychoanalyst beneath. Adam had always liked him.

As they renewed their acquaintance, Glazer recounted his last and most vivid memory of Adam. “The racing season of 2001,” he said. “You against your father—I’d never seen anything so intense as that last race. Then you just disappeared. All of us wondered why, and Ben would never discuss it.”

Once again, Adam felt the familiar stab of pain and loss. “Then I should honor his wishes.”

Glazer tilted his head. “Nonetheless, he seems to have brought you back.”

Adam nodded. “Ostensibly, to carry out a will that destroys my mother’s life. I’m trying to figure out if he had the mental capacity to do that, or to resist pressure from this actress. So far I’m not having much luck.”

Glazer gazed past him, seemingly absorbed in the waters of Menemsha Pond, sparkling with afternoon sun. At length, he said, “Armchair psychiatry is an iffy exercise. Ben was never a patient of mine or, I’d have to guess, anyone’s—the last thing he’d have wanted is to let anyone pierce that carapace of confidence and swagger.” He turned to Adam. “So I can’t say anything about his last six months. But whenever I looked at him, I imagined a deeply frightened man peering back. I’d guess fear was at the heart of everything Ben did.”