“The will is now a matter of public record,” Miss Attinger said, “so you can come down here anytime you want to look at it.”
“Do you think you could read it to me on the phone?” Carella asked.
“Well...” she said.
“This is a homicide I’m working,” he said, forgiving himself the lie. In his own mind, he had already begun classifying it as a homicide. “You’d save me a lot of time.”
“I’ve only scanned it,” Miss Attinger said. “Without going into detail, I think I can tell you the will leaves everything to a man named Louis Kern.”
“As sole beneficiary?”
“Yes.”
“Any alternate beneficiaries.”
“Kern’s wife and two children.”
“Who filed the will, would you know?”
“Someone named Charles Weber, I’m assuming he’s an attorney. The will’s in a blue legal binder, and the name of the firm on the binder is Weber, Herzog, and Llewellyn. That’s a double L in—”
“Herzog, did you say?”
“What?”
“Is one of the partners named Herzog?”
“Yes, Herzog.”
“Can you spell that for me, please?”
“H-E-R, Z-O-G,” Miss Attinger said.
“Is there an address?”
“There is an address. 847 Hall Avenue, here in Isola.”
“Thank you kindly,” Carella said.
“No trouble at all,” Miss Attinger said, and hung up.
The law offices of Weber, Herzog, and Llewellyn were on the twenty-eighth floor of a building in the heart of midtown Isola. The building was delightfully cool inside, its windows sealed shut, the entire forty-two-floor structure air-conditioned from top to bottom. This was very convenient when there were no power failures. It became inconvenient only when the electric company experienced an overload at any of the upstate plants servicing the city, a common occurrence during the dog days of summer. Whenever that happened, it was impossible to open any of the windows, and the building became a forty-two-story steam bath. It was also somewhat difficult to commit suicide by defenestration in the edifice at 847 Hall.
Carella had called Charles Weber at a little past ten, and was told the busy lawyer could spare only a half hour before lunch that day. When Carella arrived, Weber was with a client. He did not buzz his secretary and ask her to show Carella in until almost a quarter to eleven. He was a portly man, in his early fifties, Carella guessed, with graying brown hair and penetrating blue eyes. He was wearing a pale-blue tropical that matched the color of his eyes, a darker-blue silk tie fronting his white shirt. The monogrammed initials C.P.W., in navy against the white, peeked from under the left-hand lapel of his suit jacket. He sat behind a large, uncluttered desk in a vast two-window office overlooking both the avenue and the western end of Grover Park, smiled pleasantly, glanced at his watch to remind Carella that this would have to be brief, and then said, “What can I do for you, Mr. Carella?”
“Mr. Weber, I’m investigating the apparent suicide of Jeremiah Newman, and I understand—”
“Apparent?” Weber said.
“Yes, sir, apparent.”
“It was my understanding that he’d died of an overdose of barbiturates.”
“Yes, that’s true, sir. But the case hasn’t yet been officially closed out as a suicide.”
“I see.”
“Mr. Weber, I understand you filed his will with Probate yesterday.”
“I did.
“Were you the attorney who prepared the will?”
“I was.”
“If I’m correct, the will leaves everything to a man named Louis Kern?”
“It does.”
“Who is Mr. Kern, sir?”
“The owner of the Kern Gallery.”
“An art gallery?”
“A very important and influential one.”
“Where?”
“Here in the city. Right up the street, in fact.”
“Can you tell me how much Mr. Kern stands to inherit?”
“I don’t believe I’m obliged to do that, Mr. Carella.”
“I already know Mr. Newman inherited several million dollars’ worth of paintings when his father died. That was only two years ago. Can I safely assume...?”
“I don’t want to be difficult,” Weber said, and smiled. “I think you can assume, if you wish, that the estate is worth at least two million dollars, yes.”
“And Mr. Newman left all that to Louis Kern.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Why? I don’t understand your question, Mr. Carella. A man is certainly entitled to decide upon his own beneficiary.”
“To the exclusion of his wife? Or his mother? Or his brother?”
“His wife is adequately taken care of in an insurance policy.”
“What’s the face amount of the policy?”
“A hundred thousand dollars.”
“So he left a hundred thousand to his wife and in excess of two million to a stranger.”
“Mr. Kern isn’t what you would call a stranger. When Lawrence Newman was alive, he exhibited all his work at the Kern Gallery. It was Mr. Kern, in fact, who appraised the paintings after he died, and later handled the sale of them for Jerry.”
“So Jerry was grateful, naturally.”
“Yes.”
“To the tune of two million dollars.”
“We only prepared the will,” Weber said. “We had nothing to do with any of its directives. Mr. Newman chose his own beneficiaries. We executed the will as per his wishes. I wasn’t pleased with what he asked us to do, but—”
“Why not?”
“Well, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the statutes regarding inheritance in this state...”
“No, I’m not.”
“I’ll explain them to you as simply as I did to Mr. Newman. In this state, if a man changes his will to exclude his wife, she’s still entitled to a share of his estate not less than it would have been if he’d died intestate. Intestate means—”
“Yes, without leaving a will.”
“Exactly. In other words, even if he changed his will to exclude her, she’d still be entitled to half his estate if she chose to assert her right of election.”
“And you explained all this to Mr. Newman?”
“Yes.”
“What was his reaction?”
“He seemed intent on a punitive course of action.”
“Punitive?”
“Yes. He insisted on eliminating her as beneficiary of his will. Considering his vehemence on the subject, I suggested an alternate possibility.”
“And what was that?”
“A circumventive maneuver, if you will. A minimum amount could have been settled on his wife to satisfy her elective right. If her share of the estate would have come to more than twenty-five hundred dollars — as of course it would have, in this case — then it would have been within the law for him to have left her twenty-five hundred in cash, with half the remainder of the estate put in trust for her and providing an income for life.”
“But he chose not to accept this alternative.”
“He said he didn’t want to leave her a penny. He told me he’d have to take his chances on her not asserting election. He insisted that his entire estate go to Louis Kern.”
“And that’s the way you drew the will.”
“That’s the way I drew it. A lawyer’s responsibility is to advise. A client, of course, isn’t obligated to accept the advice. I believe he made a mistake. Under my suggested alternative, she’d have got only the same half she’ll now get if she asserts her elective right. Besides, it would have been more in keeping with the punitive action he had in mind.”