Once the will was admitted for probate, the question became: Who would serve as the executor or the administrator? The will named Simon as the executor, but that did not seem feasible. An administrator was needed, and Simon argued that Clement Gelly should be appointed. Clement took the stand and agreed to continue with the estate.
Teddy Hammer wanted Jerry Korsak to have the job and to control the estate’s affairs. However, he was afraid to put him on the stand. At that point, Simon would be allowed to grill him, and the results would likely be disastrous.
Teddy said, “Your Honor, we have confidence in Mr. Gelly and will agree to his appointment as administrator. The much larger issue is the validity of this will. We plan to file an objection to it and demand a trial.”
“On what grounds?” Judge Pointer asked.
“On the grounds of undue influence. Ms. Barnett was under the complete control of Mr. Latch when she signed her will. At trial we plan to prove that at the time it was drafted, Mr. Latch was laboring under the false assumption that his client was quite wealthy. The language of the will gives him extraordinary power, along with the opportunity to earn substantial fees for representing not only her estate, but also the trust it created. He was after her money, Your Honor, plain and simple.”
The last thing Simon wanted at that point in his life was to sit through another trial, especially one where he was the sole target. And he would not sit through the will contest. He really didn’t care who got the money or how much was actually out there.
He managed to mute Teddy Hammer and tune out everyone else. For a moment he was pleased to be making his exit, albeit a rather unexpected one, from the legal profession. The lawyers — they do go on and on.
Let the vultures fight over Eleanor’s remains.
Chapter 58
The airtight conviction of Simon Latch began to crack late one summer night in Raymond’s office. Cigar smoke boiled from the open windows. His staff was long gone. Soft bluegrass echoed through the speakers. It was almost 10 P.M. and Raymond was reading the latest decisions from the state supreme court, a boring habit he had not broken in almost fifty years. He still loved the law and kept abreast of its changes.
He heard a knock at the front door. Normally, he would have ignored it and waited for the person to go away, but for some reason he was curious. Something told him to check it out. With a cigar in his mouth and a drink in his hand, he waddled to the front and opened the door. Standing there was a young lady he recognized from somewhere but couldn’t immediately place.
“Good evening, ma’am,” he said, always the gentleman, especially around women.
“I’m Loretta Goodwin, a nurse at the hospital. We met at the trial last month.”
His plans to shoo away the visitor changed quickly. “Of course, of course. Please come in.”
Hit with the aromas of smoke and bourbon, Loretta stood her ground. “No, I’ll just be a minute. I’m trying to get in touch with Simon Latch, but he won’t answer his phone and I have no idea where he is.”
Raymond knew immediately that something was up. “Well, I’m sure I can find him. Is this about his trial?”
She glanced around, hesitated, and answered the question with her eyes. “I need to talk to him.”
“Okay. I’m happy to make contact, but he’ll want to know what’s up. For a lot of reasons, he stays buried in his office these days. Talks to very few people.”
She was nervous and uncertain. Raymond said, “Look, if it’s about his case, we don’t have time to play games. If it’s not about his case, he has no interest.”
“It’s about Ms. Barnett.”
“Come in and have a seat. I’ll call Simon.”
Fifteen minutes later, Simon appeared. His shirt was damp with sweat and he said he’d been out for a long walk. Always after dark.
Loretta was uncomfortable, but also resolved. She began by saying to Simon, “When we met in the hospital last December, I already knew who you were. Several years ago my uncle had a boundary dispute with a neighbor. We live out in Beeno, a whole slew of Goodwins out there. Kind of a clannish bunch. Anyway, my uncle hired you to represent him and you got things settled in a proper way without charging a lot of money. He had good things to say about you. It’s not easy hiring a lawyer when you don’t know much about the law and don’t know how much it’ll cost. So, anyway, I knew who you were when you came to take care of Ms. Barnett. We, the staff, were suspicious when you got her to sign those papers while she was in bad shape, but we were surprised when they accused you of the poisoning. We figured the police knew what they were doing.”
“Who is ‘we’?” Simon asked.
“The staff, everyone around the patient. As you know, a lot of people come and go at all hours.”
“I tried to sleep there one night. Impossible.”
“By the time the trial was over, we assumed the police and prosecutor got things right. We talked about how sad it all was, nice lady, our patient, being killed like that, and you, a nice lawyer, guilty of it. But I always had a nagging doubt. Something told me it was somebody else.”
A long pause. Finally, Raymond asked, “Was it somebody else?”
“I don’t know. But there’s a guy.”
She talked about him for a long time without giving a name. He was an X-ray technician who’d been at the hospital for a couple years. There were three technicians in his group and they worked all wings of the hospital, so he was not limited to the third floor where Eleanor was a patient. He was thoroughly nondescript, the kind of person you would never notice in any situation. Said little, not the least outgoing, wouldn’t speak unless spoken to, sort of edgy though. Since the nurses and their assistants routinely gossiped about everyone else who roamed the halls, they had mentioned him a few times. He was single and got pretty low marks on personality, even lower on good looks. But, she now remembered three events that might be relevant.
One day in the lounge the staff was lunching on free pizza from a local restaurant. About a dozen were there in a relaxed atmosphere. This guy was on the fringe, eating, listening, saying nothing. It was the week before the trial and the gossip centered around nothing else. The mood was clearly against Simon Latch. Everyone was buying the same greedy-lawyer narrative that had been plastered in the newspapers the previous weeks. They had a mock verdict, with each person allowed to chime in. Most voted for guilt. A couple were undecided. This guy wouldn’t say, but it was clear, at least to Loretta, that he didn’t think Simon was guilty. Throughout the discussion she noticed him several times, always shaking his head and rolling his eyes.
She flashed back to Christmas, when Ms. Barnett was a patient and not doing well. Loretta saw the guy leave her room late one afternoon, all alone and carrying nothing. She checked the charts and saw that the patient had not had an X-ray in three days. There was no reason whatsoever for this guy to be in her room. It was unusual, though not that suspicious.
Then, a week or so after the trial, some of the boys from the hospital were in a bar late on a Friday night, drinking beer. Saturday was an off day, and they decided to break bad. The guy was with them, though he rarely hung out with anyone at the hospital. The bar closed, they were still thirsty, and they ended up at the apartment of one of the male ER nurses. The beer was losing its effect so they switched to vodka shots. Somehow thallium became the topic and they talked about the poisoning of Ms. Barnett. The guy knew a lot about various poisons, their prevalence, legalities, histories, and effects on human bodies. He claimed that thallium was not that difficult to find. At some hazy point in the early hours of Saturday, a bag of pills hit the table and was passed around. Bennies, Mollies, mud, cubes, who knew what else? There was also cocaine, and someone said something like “Gee, hope it’s not thallium we’re snorting.” As the hell-raisers began passing out, someone heard the guy say, “I promise you that lawyer didn’t poison the old gal,” or something to that effect.