John Saul (8 page)

But
.

The word hung in the air between them. MaryAnne waited for him to finish his sentence. When he didn’t, she turned in her seat to look more directly at him. “Mr. Hawkins, is there something you’re not telling me?”

The lawyer’s eyes remained steady on the road ahead as they began climbing up into the Sawtooth Mountains. “Whenever there are two deaths this close together, and a lot of money is involved, there are going to be questions, Mrs. Carpenter.”

“But who—” And then, unbidden, a thought came into her mind. “You can’t be talking about Joey, can you?” she demanded. “My God, he’s just a little boy!”

“He wouldn’t be the first thirteen-year-old to have killed his parents,” Charley Hawkins replied. Then, catching a glimpse of MaryAnne Carpenter’s suddenly ashen face out of the corner of his eye, he hastened to try to soften his words. “I’m afraid the police don’t have any choice but to look at the situation with Joey, Mrs. Carpenter. That’s not to say anyone seriously thinks the boy had anything to do with it, but unfortunately, when two parents die the way Ted and Audrey did, you have to look at the son. Too often these days, that’s the way it turns out.”

“But Joey was crazy about his parents!” MaryAnne protested.

When Charley Hawkins’s expression hardened slightly and he made no reply at all, she pressed harder. “There wasn’t a problem, was there?”

“Depends on what you mean by a problem,” the attorney hedged. “Joey’s just starting into his teens, and that always means some kind of problem, doesn’t it?” He glanced over at her, smiling with more confidence than he actually felt. “He’s a teenage boy, Mrs. Carpenter. Things aren’t always great with teenage boys, especially when you’re their parents. Now, I don’t want you to start worrying,” he added quickly. “All I’m trying to tell you is that I suspect the police
are going to want to talk to Joey again, if for no other reason than to make sure he’s told them everything. There might be something he doesn’t even know he knows—something he saw or heard that might be a clue. So just don’t be surprised if someone comes to talk to Joey, that’s all.”

“I see,” MaryAnne breathed, easing herself back against the heavily cushioned seat. “But it seems so—I don’t know—so
farfetched
, I guess.”

Charley Hawkins offered her a faint smile. “And it probably is, when you get right down to it. Anyway, there are a lot of other things you and I need to talk about, and I’m not much of a man for putting things off. I assume you know you’re Joey’s guardian.”

MaryAnne nodded. “Audrey and I made an agreement years ago. She didn’t have anyone else, and I couldn’t think of anyone but her taking care of my kids, so we did it. But of course, I never really thought it would ever happen.”

“No one ever does, Mrs. Carpenter,” the lawyer agreed. “But at least you and Audrey talked about it, and Ted and Audrey put it in writing. And a lot more, too.”

His last words were said in a tone that left an uneasy feeling in MaryAnne’s stomach. All through the flight out from Newark, she had sat staring out the window of the airplane, doing her best not to think at all. And she certainly hadn’t thought about what was going to happen once she got to Sugarloaf. Had she assumed she could just help get Joey through his parents’ funeral, pack his clothes, and take him back to New Jersey?

She hadn’t even bothered to think about the ranch, or Ted’s company, or any of the other details of his and Audrey’s complicated lives. But from the way Charley Hawkins had just spoken, apparently Audrey and Ted had thought about it all. When she finally replied to his last statement, she chose her words carefully. “I assume the estate is complicated, and from what you just said, I’m beginning to suspect I must be the executor, too.”

“Not quite,” Charley Hawkins corrected her. “I’m the executor, which means I’m the one who will be dealing with all the paperwork. You’re the trustee.”

MaryAnne turned to gaze at him blankly. “The trustee?” she repeated. “I thought I was Joey’s guardian.”

Hawkins turned to smile at her, and she thought she detected just the faintest tinge of sympathy in his slate-gray eyes. “Oh, you are. But when an estate is the size of Ted and Audrey Wilkenson’s, and the main heir is a minor, things get complicated. It was not sufficient simply to make you the boy’s guardian, they also made you the trustee of his estate.”

“Dear God.” MaryAnne suddenly thought of the company in California in which Ted still had a major interest. “What does that mean?”

“Well, for one thing, it means you and I are going to be doing a lot of business together. Ted and Audrey and I became good friends almost the minute they arrived in this area, and they knew that if anything ever happened to them, you were going to need help.”

The uneasy feeling in MaryAnne’s stomach jelled into fear. “Just exactly what kind of help are you talking about, Mr. Hawkins?”

“Managing a fortune. And in the business Ted was in, they don’t come small. As of this morning, Joey is a very wealthy young man. And you are a rather wealthy woman.”

“Me?” MaryAnne asked, still dazed by the implications of what Charley Hawkins had just revealed. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.…”

“It’s pretty simple, really,” the lawyer explained. “They decided that given the size of the estate, and the problems concomitant to raising the heir of the estate—that’s legal jargon for Joey—the position of guardian should not be without compensation. It was put on a sliding scale, decreasing according to the age Joey had reached in the event he was orphaned. The sum they decided upon was one percent of the estate—”

“One percent!” MaryAnne exclaimed. “But that could be hundreds of thousands of dollars! It’s crazy!”

“It’s not crazy, MaryAnne,” Charley Hawkins replied quietly. “When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. It makes the guardian—you, Mrs. Carpenter—independently wealthy. A precaution, you might say, against Joey being resented
for his wealth. It also prevents Joey from attempting to control you by holding money over your head.”

“Good Lord,” MaryAnne breathed. “How much is it?”

“A lot more than you’re thinking,” Hawkins replied. “Because it’s actually one percent of the total for every year remaining until Joey’s twenty-first birthday. Which means that your share is eight percent of the total.”

MaryAnne felt a strange numbness forming in her body. “It’s not possible,” she breathed. “It’s just not possible!”

Charley Hawkins chuckled hollowly. “Just be glad you were in New Jersey last night. If you’d been here, I’m afraid you’d be very high on my list of suspects.”

MaryAnne gasped and turned pale. “You don’t think—”

“A joke, MaryAnne,” the lawyer told her quickly. “It was only a joke!”

“My God, everything’s changed!” MaryAnne exclaimed as they drove through Sugarloaf on the way up to El Monte Ranch. The village was at least twice the size she remembered it from her single visit eight years before, although if she’d had to identify which buildings were new and which were original, she wouldn’t have been able to, so perfectly had the recent structures been blended with the old.

“New money coming in,” Charley Hawkins commented. “So far, we’re managing to keep the flavor of the place, but it seems like a new developer comes in every week. I’m spending most of my time these days fighting off challenges to our zoning restrictions. And now,” he added grimly, “I’ve lost my strongest ally. If Ted hadn’t died …” He was silent a moment, then shrugged. “I guess we’ll figure out a way to get by without him, won’t we? Since we don’t seem to have a choice.”

They made the rest of the drive up to the ranch in silence, but MaryAnne was relieved, once they left the town behind, to see that the valley seemed much the same as she recalled. At last they pulled through the gate to El Monte, and up the narrow, curved drive to the front of the big, lodgelike house.

Bigger, MaryAnne realized, than she’d remembered it.

She had just stepped out of the car and started toward the
front steps when the door opened and Joey burst out, charging across the broad porch, taking the three steps in one leap and throwing himself on MaryAnne.

“Aunt MaryAnne? What are we going to do? Mom and Dad are—” His words died on his lips, and MaryAnne hugged him close.

“It’s going to be all right, Joey,” she said softly, stroking his hair. “I’m here now, and it’s going to be all right.”

The boy gazed up at her, his eyes fearful. “Are you going to take care of me?” he asked.

“Of course I’m going to take care of you,” MaryAnne reassured him. “That’s why I’m here.” She gently led him back into the house, with Charley Hawkins following behind with her suitcase. Standing in the doorway was a small friendly-featured woman in her mid-thirties, clad in jeans and a plaid shirt, looking as tired as MaryAnne felt.

“I’m Gillie Martin,” the woman said, offering MaryAnne her hand. “My husband’s the senior deputy out here, and I came up with him last night when”—her eyes shifted to Joey for an instant, and she shook her head sadly—“when I heard about Audrey,” she finished uncomfortably. “If there’s anything I can do for you, you call me anytime. There’s plenty of food in the kitchen—people have been dropping by all day—and I went ahead and got one of the guest rooms ready for you.” She flushed slightly. “I hope that’s all right.”

“It’s fine,” MaryAnne assured her quickly. “If you’ve been here all night, you must be exhausted. You must want to go home—”

“Not until you’re settled in, and I know you and Joey are going to be all right,” Gillie said in a tone that left no room for argument. “I’ll just call Rick—that’s my husband. He can pick me up.” She smiled warmly. “And I can hold him off for a while. I know he’ll want to talk to you, tell you what happened here. But not today, right?”

MaryAnne nodded gratefully.

The house seemed to fill up with people, and MaryAnne, struggling to fight off the exhaustion of the last twenty-four hours, let herself be taken care of by the throng of neighbors
who had arrived to offer her help with whatever might be necessary for the next few days. By early evening, though, they had begun to disperse, and finally she was at the front porch saying good night to Charley Hawkins.

“You’re sure you feel all right staying here tonight?” he asked. “If you and Joey want to come and stay with me, I’ve got plenty of room. Since Mabel died last year, I’ve just been rattling around like the last bean in the coffee can.”

“Thanks, but we’ll be fine,” MaryAnne replied. “Or as fine as we can be, given the circumstances. But I think tonight Joey and I need to be alone together, if you know what I mean.”

“I do,” Hawkins replied. “If you need anything—anything at all—you just give me a call.” As he started down the steps, a thought that had been flitting through MaryAnne’s mind for the last hour suddenly came to the fore.

“Charley?” The rawboned lawyer paused at the bottom step and glanced back. “I’ve been thinking. Obviously I’m going to have to be here for a while. I wonder if perhaps I shouldn’t have my children come out.”

Charley Hawkins grasped what she was saying. “Just let me know. I’ll arrange for the tickets. And I’ll have a checking account set up for you at the bank tomorrow morning. If you come into the village, just stop in and sign the cards, or I could bring them up for you.”

“I’ll come in,” MaryAnne replied. “And thanks, Charley. I’m very glad that Ted and Audrey chose you to be their attorney.”

A crooked smile creased Charley Hawkins’s cheeks. “And I’m glad they chose you to take care of Joey. Of course, I wasn’t too worried. One thing about Ted and Audrey—they were never wrong about people. Have a good night.”

When he was gone, MaryAnne closed the door behind her, then leaned against it for a moment, finally releasing the steel grip with which she’d held her emotions in check. For a moment she felt as if she might faint, but then her strength came back to her, and she went upstairs to check
on Joey. He was stretched out on his bed, fully dressed, his big dog lying beside him.

“Joey?” MaryAnne said, stepping into the room. “Are you asleep?” There was no reply from the boy, so she went over to the bed, pulled the large Pendleton blanket at its foot up to cover him, then leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Take care of him, Storm,” she whispered as she switched off the light. “He needs you right now.”

Almost as if he understood her words, the big dog thumped his tail on the bed and pressed closer to his master.

Leaving the door ajar, MaryAnne went back downstairs and began wandering through the rooms on the lower floor. In the den, her eyes came to rest on a double silver frame that held pictures of Audrey and Ted, and she made no attempt to wipe the tears that began to run down her cheeks.

Finally she settled herself at Audrey’s desk, picked up the phone, and dialed her own number in New Jersey. On the third ring, Alan picked up.

“It’s MaryAnne,” she said. “I wanted to let the kids know I got here all right.”

“I’ll tell them,” Alan replied. There was an uncomfortable silence, their quarrel that morning still fresh in both their minds. Then Alan spoke again. “Are you okay?”

“Considering the circumstances, I suppose I’m all right,” MaryAnne replied. She hesitated, then went on. “But I’m going to have to be here for a while, and I think maybe you should bring the kids out.”

She heard a dark chuckle from her husband. “Right,” he said. “I’ll
just
call the travel agent and order up some tickets. First-class. Jesus, MaryAnne, we barely have enough money to live on, and you want me to fly us all out to Idaho for a couple of days?”

“Alan, I’ve got some money,” MaryAnne began, but before she could go on, her husband interrupted her.

“You’re kidding! You mean you’ve been whining at me about money every month for the last year, and you’ve been
saving
it? What the hell is going on with you? You’ve been acting like you were at the poorhouse door!”

His words froze MaryAnne. Should she tell him what
had happened, what the terms of Ted and Audrey’s wills were?

And then she remembered Eileen Chandler.

I’ll never be able to trust him, she thought. If I tell him about the money now, I’ll never be able to trust him again. I’ll never know if he wants to come back to me, or just to the money.