Sins and Needles (10 page)

“What about her?”

“There's a policeman who thinks she might be…” Lucille hesitated, as if the notion were too mind-boggling to be expressed in mere words. She took a breath and said in a low voice, “A murderer.”

“Jan? Oh, no, you must be mistaken.”

Lucille shook her blond curls. “No, I'm not mistaken. Jan told me her very own self. I knew she was upset about something while we were shopping in here yesterday, and she finally told me that a police investigator came by and talked to her. She wouldn't say what was said, but she talked to a lawyer last night, and he told her not to talk to that policeman anymore without his being there to hold her hand.”

“Oh, dear. It's gone that far?”

“What do you mean, ‘gone that far'? Were you expecting this?”

“Not exactly. But that police investigator came in here yesterday and bought a set of double-zero steel knitting needles. Jan said the other night that the medical examiner found a nail or pin in her great-aunt Edyth's skull. And Jan knits with needles that thin.”

Lucille's blue eyes widened. “You don't think—”

“No, I don't. I know Jan, and I can't imagine her doing such a terrible thing.”

“I can't, either. Can you help?”

“I can try.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Lucille asked.

“Will you answer just one question first?”

“Of course, if I can.”

“How sure are you that you're related to Jan?”

A
TTORNEY
Marcia Weiner was a little uncomfortable with this whole situation. First of all, her client had been murdered. That had never happened before, to her or any of the other lawyers in the firm—well, Janice had her suspicions about poor Mr. Wilson, but nothing was ever proved. In the Hanraty case, unfortunately, there was no doubt at all.

Worse, it seemed likely that the murderer was a member of the family. And Marcia, as executor—excuse me,
executrix
—of Edyth Hanraty's will, had to deal with them. It was very uncomfortable, trying to answer questions and make pleasant conversation with any member of a group of people when one of them might be a murderer.

Otherwise, the family was a respectable one, middle and upper-middle class, its members citizens of good reputation. She had met some of them, notably Susan McConnell and Jan Henderson, in person. Edyth Hanraty spoke of the other members of her extended family often enough that Marcia felt she knew them.

To make sure of the relationships, she began to sketch out a family tree.

Edyth, of course, had no direct survivors. Her sister, Alice, and Alice's husband, John, both deceased, had two surviving children. The older was Susan McConnell, a trim little widow still active in her midsixties. She had two adult children: Jason, a twice-divorced attorney whose sweet, shy manners belied a lecherous eye; and Jan, an RN married to a pediatrician. Jason was childless; Jan had two sons, Reese, a junior in college, and Ronnie, still in high school.

Susan had a brother, Stewart—how fortunate that this family mostly followed a charming custom of giving their children names that began with the same letter! Alice's Susan and Stewart, Susan's Jan and Jason, Jan's Reese and Ron. Stewart was an exception. About ten years younger than Susan, he was the sort of lazy, charming ne'er-do-well that tail-end boy babies inevitably become—according to Miss Hanraty, who was enormously prejudiced against the male sex, with a particular dislike for this specimen. Stewart was married to a high school principal named Terri, and they had four daughters: Mary Katherine, called Katie, twenty-one, married, and pregnant; Alexandra, called Lexie, nineteen, a freshman at the University of Minnesota; Bernadette, called Bernie, sixteen and a genius at science, taking college-level classes in high school; and Cecilia, called CeeCee, a cute and funny fourteen.

Edyth Hanraty was born in an era when women were considered to need a man to complete them and to take care of them, but she had flouted convention and remained defiantly single all her life—even long after the necessity to be defiant was gone. She declared that no woman should ever find herself dependent on a man and decided her fortune would enrich only women. She made a will that left most of her considerable fortune to the University of Minnesota to set up a scholarship program for female students majoring in business. The rest was to be divided equally among the female children of her sister, Alice, and their female descendants.

That meant, out of all those people, only Susan McConnell and her daughter, Jan Henderson, were heirs.

This was, Marcia privately opined, grossly unfair. Katie, Lexie, Bernie, and CeeCee were left out, and they were not only female, they were the members of the family who were most in need of a windfall. As Edyth had loved to point out, Stewart's many business schemes had never panned out, and Marcia knew a high school principal's salary only went so far. But while dictating the terms of her will, Miss Hanraty had declared that Terri had made her bed by marrying the feckless Stewart and must lie in it, along with her daughters.

Marcia had privately hoped for a change in Miss Hanraty's heart when Katie got a degree in business. And Miss Hanraty
had
been delighted—but then Katie married Perry Frazier right after graduation and, worse, got pregnant on her honeymoon. Even Katie's earnest desire to go back to school for her MBA had not re-softened Miss Hanraty's heart.

“Ruined! Ruined!” scolded Miss Hanraty, “She'll never get her MBA, not with a baby to raise! The best we can hope for is that Bernie doesn't follow her example!”

Three months later, Edyth Hanraty had been found dead in her bed. Marcia had been shocked to learn the death was not natural, that someone had managed to insert a thin knitting needle into her brain while she slept.

Marcia's mind went off on a tangent. How was that possible? Surely she would have wakened and struggled! But Edyth had been found in a peaceful pose by her great-niece, Jan, and might have gone quietly to her grave had not a mortician felt something while he was poking around, arranging her hair.

Now that the funeral was over and the family was starting to make inquiries—Jan had called, and so had Stewart—she decided it was time to call a family meeting.

One thing Marcia was grateful for—when it came time to select a law firm to work for, she had chosen Bailey, Farwell, and Winston. Mainly it was for the same reason Edyth had called on it to represent her: all its attorneys and support staff were female. Marcia was no longer the ardent feminist she had been back when her law degree was new, but she still enjoyed working in an all-female atmosphere. Yet there had been other pleasures she'd discovered after joining the firm, not least of which was an efficient staff. All Marcia had to do was tell her secretary she wanted a two-hour meeting with Edyth Hanraty's family as soon as possible. Her secretary checked Marcia's schedule and began making phone calls. By the close of next day, the meeting was set for two days later, in the big conference room, beginning at ten a.m.

So this was the day. And while Edyth's will had been both interesting and distressing to draw up, it was going to be merely distressing to talk to the family about it.

But Marcia had been in the law business for a long time; she had been in distressing situations before without letting it show. Her job was to follow her client's instructions, not to divert or second-guess them.

The meeting was held in Conference Room A. It was painted a rich cream with a cream carpet, dark green drapes on the one big window and matching green leather cushions on the chairs. The table was some exotic wood with a distressed and bleached finish coated with plastic to make it smooth again. Thermos jugs and porcelain cups with the firm's logo on them waited on a sideboard.

“Anyone who wants coffee will find it here,” said Marcia, pouring a cup for herself.

Stewart took a cup, ostentatiously putting an envelope of imitation sugar in it and stirring piously as he went halfway down the far side of the table and sat next to his wife with her cup of plain black coffee. Susan took a cup, and so did Jan—who doctored hers with real sugar and cream.

When everyone was seated, Marcia rose from the head of the table to speak. “This is a sad occasion. My client, Edyth Hanraty, is dead, and we are about to begin the process of distributing her estate in accordance with her wishes, which were expressed in a will signed five years, three months, and seven days ago. I have asked you to this meeting to discuss that will and what it means to each of you.”

She opened her attaché case and lifted out a legal-size document, its pages stapled at the top to a blue back. “This is the original copy of the will. If anyone feels a need to read it, it is here for that purpose, and I have photocopies of it for anyone who wants one.”

Jan raised a hand, and so did Stewart. The others shook their heads, if tentatively. Marcia suspected some would ask for a copy later.

“Rather than read the whole thing, how about I outline the contents pertinent to you all?”

The family sighed lightly, relieved not to have to listen to yards of legal language, and settled back to hear Marcia's synopsis.

Marcia began, “Edyth Hanraty gave instructions that her estate was to be liquidated and the proceeds divided after her bills were paid. I have only begun the search for assets and liabilities. However, the estate is likely to total at least fifteen and possibly as much as twenty-two million dollars.”

The listeners could not help brightening at this.

“Under the terms of the will, 65 percent of the net money realized is to go to the University of Minnesota to establish a full business scholarship for one or two women a year.” She took out a yellow tablet on which she had written some figures. “That will likely mean a scholarship fund of somewhere between almost ten and a little over fourteen million dollars. Of the rest, she has left three hundred thousand to her church, a hundred thousand to various charities, and minor bequests to her housekeeper and her veterinarian. The ‘rest and residue,' as they say—somewhere between four and eight million—is to be divided equally among the living descendants in the female line of her sister, Alice O'Neil.” Marcia looked up from her notes. “That is, to Susan McConnell and Susan's daughter, Jan Henderson.”

“No codicil?” asked Stewart.

Marcia blinked at this legal term. “I beg your pardon?”

“I'd been talking to her the last few months of her life,” explained Stewart, “and I thought I had her convinced to leave a little something to my daughters. She didn't even need to write a whole new will, I told her; all she had to do was make a codicil, a kind of amendment.”

Marcia shook her head. “I'm afraid she never mentioned that to me.”

Stewart sat back glumly. “Oh. Well, I hoped she would. I know she was particularly fond of Katie, here.” He gestured at his daughter, who blushed faintly.

“Oh, Daddy, I hope you didn't bother her too much about that,” she said. “She gave up on me when I married Perry—and I put the cap on it by getting pregnant on our honeymoon.” A young man, who might be handsome once he finished growing into his nose, took her hand. She looked at him, a warm smile forming. “I was sorry to disappoint Aunt Edyth, but we're doing just fine without any help from her.”

“Still,” said Stewart, “I think another thing we're all aware of is how unfair this will is. Surely, now that the money is going into Jan's and Susan's hands,” he said, “they can correct this injustice by redistributing the money.”

“The estate is far from being closed, Mr. O'Neil,” said Marcia, “so I don't think it appropriate at this stage to talk about what is to be done with any monies your sister or niece might end up with.”

Terri O'Neil, Stewart's wife, said mildly, “Of course, you're right. Stew, would you please let Ms. Weiner finish telling us what we need to know?” Terri was a stick-thin woman, not tall, but her experience as principal of a public school gave her an unmistakable authority; and though her tone was pleasant, Stewart immediately sank back in his chair with a shrug that dismissed the whole matter.

But then, perhaps feeling the censorious thoughts directed at Stewart, Terri spoke to the whole table. “I'm sure you all understand Stewart's anxiety about this. We're all agreed that Aunt Edyth's will was grossly unfair to the girls.”

The girls, all four of them, squirmed uncomfortably in their chairs along one side of the table. There was a similarity of delicate features among them, though their hair ranged from flaming red (Katie) to pale blond (CeeCee). They had their mother's slender build but their father's light coloring.

CeeCee said abruptly, “I don't want any of the smelly old woman's money.”

“Hush, CeeCee,” said her mother.

“But I mean it! I
don't
want it!”

“Be happy then!” snapped Bernie. “Because I don't see anyone at this table offering you any!”

Susan turned to Marcia. “Is it possible Aunt Edyth wrote one of those codicils all by herself?”

“It's possible, but I don't think so. I feel I was entirely in her confidence, and I would have been pleased to do that for her, or even draw up a new will.”

Stewart said, “How long will this search for assets take? Not long, right? From what I know of her, I'm sure she kept very careful records.”

“She did. She had a wonderful head for business,” said Marcia, nodding. “But some of the assets need to be valued. The house, for example. It's a beautiful example of the Craftsman style, and in a prime location. I've been in it twice, and it seemed to be very carefully kept up.”

“Yes, it was,” said Stewart, sitting forward again. “I was out there just a couple of days before she died. That house is in perfect condition, inside and out.” He smiled around the table. “And it's full of antiques.” He raised and lowered his eyebrows at them, as if sharing a jolly piece of gossip.

Marcia said, “It does contain some interesting things. Was Miss Hanraty a collector?”

“Yes,” Susan said, “she had exquisite taste in antiques. She was buying them when I was a child. I remember watching her bid once by telephone. She would say ‘thirty-five' and ‘thirty-seven,' and I was dancing with excitement. Only afterwards did I learn she meant thirty-five and thirty-seven thousand dollars. I was quite shocked that someone would spend that much money over the telephone.” She smiled at the memory.

“She had many years and all the money in the world to indulge in her passion,” said Stewart. “Our grandparents were collectors, too. The house is full of top-drawer things.”