I had composed the text, kept it simple. Name, dates of birth and death denoting an incredibly long life, a quote from Lord Byron. Because he’d sired a genius and was as good a poet as any.
I knew it was love and I felt it was glory.
And that was that.
“Good cause,” I told Robin. “Also, there’s seeing you in that red dress.”
She said, “What makes you think I’ll wear the red dress?”
“Why not?”
She laughed. “Why not, indeed. I do look hot in it.”
The party had been postponed several times, held up for months as Thalia’s estate was fine-toothed by the IRS and the state Franchise Tax Board. Every charity listed in the will vetted repeatedly and repetitively, in the hope of finding something unkosher and open to confiscation.
Ricki Sylvester had done a fine job as an estate lawyer but her implication in the murders gave both agencies an additional excuse to comb the will for symptoms of impropriety. Then there was the matter of Sylvester’s will and her instruction that both documents needed to be considered as “an entity.” After that, meetings, memos, a whole bunch of head-scratching at progressively higher levels of government authority.
I knew nothing about the logjam, was enjoying a bottle from the case of Chivas Blue that Milo had sent me right after closing the case, when Ruben Eagle called.
I’d held on to Milo’s gift card. Inscribed Early Christmas.
With him, it never stops.
Ruben’s call was about getting a neuropsych referral for a child with hard-to-categorize seizure disorder. I gave three names of great people, then asked how it felt to be well funded.
He said, “Not yet.”
“What’s holding it up?”
“No idea.”
I phoned the hospital’s chief lawyer for development, gave him a rundown of the Drancy robbery and the likely illegal federal confiscation of privately owned bijoux.
“That might be something I can use,” he said. “I assume you don’t want to be quoted.”
“Good guess.”
“Hmm... well I’m not sure how I can use it... but thanks.”
Two weeks later, the funds were released in full. Including the spinel, which sold to a gem broker in Atlanta for forty-five hundred dollars.
What happened to it after that, I have no idea.
Same for whether or not my call actually had anything to do with freeing Thalia’s estate.
What I did know was that Phil Duke, claiming he’d never fired a weapon in his life and that Henry Bakstrom had shot Gerard Waters and been shot, in turn, by Deandra Demarest, had been allowed to plead down to voluntary manslaughter.
Eighteen-year sentence. At his age, that could turn out to be life.
His sole request: a prison “where they have a theater program.”
Robin and I arrived at the party ten minutes late.
Cake, soda pop, bottled water for the virtuous, everything set up in a room near the hospital chapel.
Ruben Eagle, a fine doctor and sterling human being, was no orator. But what his speech lacked in dynamism it made up for in sincerity. His eyes moistened as he held up the giant check facsimile created by the hospital’s public relations office. Impressive thing, full of zeros, Thalia’s signature a faithful reproduction.
Ruben spoke a little longer than he needed to, informing the audience — members of the hospital board, development honchos, the pediatricians who worked for him, residents and fellows not on call, a few med school deans, Robin, Milo, and myself — what a blessing Thalia had been for the department. How that blessing would grow in years to come. How this changed so much.
Several children — long-healed patients — had also been invited, along with their parents. Personalizing the good works the Outpatient Division did every day. They stood to the side, intimidated by suits and white coats.
But two of the kids, a boy and a girl, got to hold the giant check and a second girl was in charge of hoisting an enlarged photo of Thalia.
Black-and-white image, shot at Perino’s.
Leroy Hoke and Jack McCandless. A Martini glass cropped out, leaving the unlined, bright-eyed pixie face of a beautiful, happy young woman.