Judith Krantz (54 page)

He pushed his glasses down from his nose and looked from one to another of them, noticing the expressions of undisguised impatience on Valerie’s and Fernanda’s faces, and paused a moment before going on, speaking in the slow and distinct voice of someone who intends to make himself plain under any and all circumstances.

“Now, young ladies, there are several bequests of cash, primarily to Susie Dominguez, who has cooked for you for many years, and to each of the vaqueros who have worked for your father much of their lives. These are very generous, but not surprisingly so, considering their length of service to the Kilkullen family. However, none of these bequests are significant in the context of the estate, and I will read them to you later.

“What you young ladies are anxious to learn, I should imagine, is the disposition of the residue of the estate, which consists of a savings account in the San Clemente Bank and the sixty-four thousand acres of land known as the Kilkullen Ranch.”

Henry White scrutinized all three of them from under his wrinkled lids. Only Jazz returned his look in a friendly way. She knew that her father had regarded Henry White as a most trustworthy friend, she had met him a number of times when her father happened to take her with him on his visits to the bank, and in spite of Henry White’s dry manner, she was fully aware of his real sadness at Mike Kilkullen’s death. Finally he began to read from the document he held in his hand.

“ ‘In the absence of a male heir, I, Michael Hugh Kilkullen, leave the money in my savings account in the San Clemente Bank, to be put into a trust to pay for the upkeep of our family home, the Hacienda Valencia. My daughter Juanita Isabella Kilkullen is to decide how this money should be spent.

“ ‘I leave the Hacienda Valencia, designated a California Historical Landmark, all of its contents, the entire area of the driveway from the road to the hacienda, all the gardens that surround the hacienda, the stables, the outbuildings, and the archives of photographs taken by my grandfather, Hugh Kilkullen, solely and unconditionally to my daughter Juanita Isabella Kilkullen. The Hacienda Valencia has always been her home, and I know that neither of my other daughters regards it as such.’ ”

“That’s indecent!” Valerie interrupted explosively. “How could he decide that I wouldn’t want to have a place in California? Or Fernanda? That couldn’t be more unfair!”

“Valerie, could I ask you to reserve your comments till later?” Mr. White said severely.

“It’s an absolute disgrace, and I won’t put up—”

“Val, shut up. I want to hear the rest of the will,” Fernanda said, tapping her sister sharply on her knee.

“To continue,” Mr. White said, looking reprovingly at the paper he held.

“ ‘In the absence of a male heir, I leave all of the remaining land, known as the Kilkullen Ranch, in three equal parts to my three daughters, Juanita Isabella Kilkullen, Fernanda Kilkullen and Valerie Kilkullen. I hope, trust and believe that my daughters will possess the ability to do the proper thing with this inheritance.’ ”

The old man stopped reading and put the document down on his desk. The three women waited for him to resume. He looked calmly from one to the other and finally broke his silence.

“That’s all.”

“All?” Valerie asked suspiciously. “As simple as that?”

“As simple as that. Aside from the bequests I mentioned earlier,” Mr. White assured her, “you have just heard the contents of the entire will of your father, Michael Kilkullen. He told me, when he wrote this will, that he had been as fair to his children as he knew how to be, and the rest was up to you. Ha! I
hope that you will be equal to the task. Now I will read you the individual bequests to his employees.”

Valerie stood up abruptly, a victorious expression dawning on her face, replacing the rage that she had shown when she heard that Jazz alone owned the hacienda. Now that she understood that she had, at last, inherited a third of the ranch, her words rushed out imperiously. “Could you send all that to me and my sister in a letter, Mr. White? We’re both pressed for time, and we don’t need to know the details of these small bequests right now, do we?” Fernanda also stood up and both of them, without ceremony, started toward the door of the office.

“One minute, young ladies,” Henry White said sharply. “The two of you come back and sit down. I’m by no means finished.”

Valerie spun around. “Is there some law that says that we have to sit through the reading of all the other bequests?”

“No, this has nothing to do with those bequests. There is one more piece of information that I should give you at this time, so that you’ll be able to understand the position in which you now find yourselves. In the case of a will like your father’s, which was made without naming executors—which, again, was against my advice—there will have to be a special administrator appointed as soon as possible until a permanent administrator is named.”

“Why?” Fernanda demanded.

“The Kilkullen Ranch is a going business. There must be a caretaker to ensure that expenses are met. For example, many dozens of people work on the ranch, and there is a considerable payroll to be met; various bills have to be taken care of on a weekly or monthly basis; there is the question of the citrus and truck farmers who pay rent to the estate, and then, of course, there is the problem of how best to dispose of the cows, most of whom are in calf, as well as the herd of bulls. Don’t forget, young ladies, I was your father’s banker for many years, and there’s nothing wrong with my memory.”

“Who … who appoints this special administrator?” Jazz felt bewildered. Four thousand head of cattle, thousands of calves to be born, hundreds of bulls—there must be a million details she had never thought about that were involved in running the ranch.

“The Orange County Superior Court. Normally I would expect them to appoint someone from the trust department of a bank that has experience in the ranching business, Wells Fargo, for instance.”

“So some stranger from a bank …?” Jazz asked.

“Exactly. Unless, of course, one of you should petition the court to become the administrator herself, and the others agree.”

Jazz glanced at Fernanda and Valerie and saw that they were as negative about such a suggestion as she was. All three of them shook their heads.

“I think you’ve made a wise decision. It’s a complicated job. Of course, this special administrator is not empowered to sell any of the assets of the estate. However, all three of you must agree on the appointment. It should only be a matter of a few days.”

Henry White sat back in his chair. “You’re all free to leave now.”

“Jazz, I hope you don’t mind our taking up room in your grand old Historical Landmark for one more night,” Valerie said, piercingly spiteful at the injustice of being cut out of the hacienda. “We’ll pack up ourselves and the children and be out of your hair first thing tomorrow morning, won’t we, Fernanda?”

“For God’s sake, Valerie, you’re all more than welcome to stay as long as you like! You know that perfectly well!” Jazz cried.

“I wouldn’t dream of it. We’ll be a great deal more comfortable at the Ritz in Laguna Niguel anyway, until this administrator business is settled.”

As Valerie and Fernanda clattered down the stairs, they exchanged rapid, short phrases uttered in low, excited voices that Jazz was glad she couldn’t overhear. She sat still, humiliated for them, knowing that old Mr. White was far too shrewd not to have
noticed the instant glee, the greedy, grabby, almost out-of-control avariciousness that she had seen so clearly on their faces, replacing the conventionally sad faces that they had worn for several days.

“Well, Jazz, my dear, you don’t seem to be in as much of a hurry as your sisters. I’m glad for that. There were a few other things I wanted to say before they left, meditations of the voice of experience you might call it, but I didn’t feel it was advisable or even possible—ha!—to detain them any longer.”

“I’d be interested in listening to the voice of experience,” Jazz said gravely. Fernanda and Valerie had not even thanked Henry White for his services.

“I hope you and your sisters are aware what a responsibility this inheritance will be,” Henry White said. “I’m sorry they felt that they had to leave so quickly. I knew them as children, of course, but only slightly. I knew their mother well. She and my son, the Governor, and my daughter-in-law are still close friends. They might, it seems to me, have taken a minute to acknowledge that.”

“I’m sure they didn’t mean to be so abrupt,” Jazz said. “Valerie was upset about the hacienda.”

“That’s as may be. One-third of the Kilkullen Ranch is a princely inheritance. My own impression was that they were each in a hurry to broadcast the news,” he said with a sharp look at Jazz.

“Or pack,” she said disgustedly. Trust Valerie to act as if she were being put out in the snow with a babe in her arms.

“It was only due to my constant, nagging insistence that this will was made at all. Your father was a man who denied his own mortality. Like many men, even many of the very same lawyers he mistrusted, Mike Kilkullen had no intention of ever dying. He rejected the thought of how best to dispose of his ranch, because he couldn’t bring himself to consider that a day would come when he was no longer in control. This will is a hasty will, made by a man who wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. It is a will that makes the implicit assumption that you and
your sisters will get together and agree on how to proceed with the division of the estate.”

“We have no practice in agreeing,” Jazz said. “You may have noticed that.”

“I was aware that might be the case.” He studied her astutely. “I was his banker through the period of your father’s first marriage, of his divorce and of his remarriage to your mother. I know that your sisters have been brought up on the East Coast, that they have made their lives on the East Coast, that they will have no interest in the ranch except to sell it as quickly as possible.”

“But—” Jazz started to speak out, but suddenly found that she couldn’t collect her mind. Her violent grief robbed her of any clarity of thought. She struggled to find words.

“Yes?” Mr. White asked, sitting patiently back in his chair.

“It’s just that—you make it sound almost as if—as if the ranch
had already been sold
—so quickly, just like that.” Jazz snapped her fingers with a sound of finality. “It’s everything my father lived to prevent—and now—going, going, gone! Sold. It seems so heartless, so … cut-and-dried, as if he’d lived for nothing, as if now … now that he’s not … here, nobody has anything to say about it.”

She hadn’t begun to realize fully that her father was dead, Jazz thought, and she hadn’t had time to mourn him, yet this wise old man had already taken it for granted that her father’s ranch, a hundred square miles, land that had belonged to the Kilkullens, and the Valencias before them, for seven generations, was in the hands of unknowns. How Mike Kilkullen would have raged at such an idea. No wonder he fought the process of making a will, no wonder he couldn’t endure thinking about a time when he would no longer be able to protect his property.

“Instead of a stranger, couldn’t the Cow Boss, Casey Nelson, be appointed as special administrator?” Jazz asked. “Wouldn’t that be the logical choice?”

“I don’t know, Jazz. It would depend on the court. It would depend on your sisters’ agreement. And it would depend on his willingness to take on the job. In any case, we are talking about a temporary appointment. The real aim of the court is to find an administrator, technically called an ‘Administrator with Will Annexed,’ who can negotiate the sale and division of the estate. The court will make every attempt to do this as quickly as possible, within six weeks to two months.”

“Oh, why didn’t my father leave the whole ranch to the state as a park? Isn’t that what he should have done, damn it?” Jazz cried with her whole heart.

Henry White cocked his head in surprise. He considered Jazz’s words for a minute.

“Certainly that would have solved a lot of problems. Ha! But it would have disinherited his children. Few men do that, unless they have a very good reason.”

“But I wish he had!”

Henry White permitted himself a smile. “Jazz, my dear, if I may give you a piece of advice—?”

“Yes?”

“Get a lawyer, Jazz. A good one.”

“Casey, I just can’t get my mind around it,” Jazz said in bewilderment. “I’m trying, but I can’t. I understood the words Mr. White used, but I can’t make myself accept them. I feel as if I’ve been pulled off my feet by a giant, turned upside down, whirled around the giant’s head, and shaken up and down like a rag doll until I’ve lost all sense of direction. I’m … reeling.”

Jazz slumped in a chair by Casey’s bed in the hospital, a forlorn figure, her gilded surfaces all dulled and tarnished. The golden topaz glint of her eyes had turned the color of smoke, her skin was paler than he’d ever seen it, her hair fell with unusual lifelessness and docility around her face, its color more tortoise-shell than golden brown. She wore gray flannel trousers
and an ancient gray turtleneck sweater he’d never seen before.

“These have been the worst days of your life,” he said gently. “You can’t expect to absorb everything all at once.”

“Casey, today I felt … as if I’d lost Dad all over again. When I realized that the sale of the ranch was just a question of time—oh, Casey, I’d never faced that before. I can’t stand to think about the future any more than Dad did. When my mother died, I had to believe he was immortal, because if he weren’t I would have truly been an orphan, truly been alone.” Jazz spoke in a toneless reverie of lament.

“When I grew up, I was still convinced that my father was immortal. And nothing Dad ever did made him seem less … eternal. He didn’t believe it any more than I did.” She shook her head and seemed to shake herself away from her anguished dream with an effort of will.

“Can you imagine my father leaving his will with a man as old as Mr. White?” Jazz asked. “It must have been his way of making a will without admitting it to himself.” She spoke as much to herself as to Casey.