The Testament (43 page)

“It’s a lawyer’s car, leased of course because I couldn’t afford to pay cash for it. Eight hundred bucks a month.”

“Sorry.”

“I’d love to unload it and get me a nice little Blazer or something.”

Route 33 narrowed as they left town, and they were soon winding along the bay.

________

HE WAS in bed when the phone rang, but not asleep. Sleep was an hour away. It was only ten, but his body was still accustomed to the routine of Walnut Hill, his trip south notwithstanding. And at times he felt some residual fatigue from the dengue.

It was difficult to believe that for most of his professional life he often worked until nine or ten at night, then had dinner in a bar and drinks until one. He grew weary just thinking about it.

Since the phone seldom rang, he grabbed it quickly, certain it was trouble. A female voice said, “Nate O’Riley, please.”

“This is Nate O’Riley.”

“Good evening, sir. My name is Neva Collier, and I received a letter from you for our friend in Brazil.”

The covers flew off as Nate jumped from the bed. “Yes! You got my letter?”

“We did. I read it this morning, and I will send Rachel’s letter to her.”

“Wonderful. How does she get mail?”

“I send it to Corumbá, at certain times of the year.”

“Thank you. I’d like to write her again.”

“That’s fine, but please don’t put her name on the envelopes.”

It occurred to Nate that it was nine o’clock in Houston. She was calling from home, and this seemed more than odd. The voice was pleasant enough, but tentative.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“No, except that no one here knows who she is. No one but me. Now with your involvement, there are two people in the world who know where she is and who she is.”

“She swore me to secrecy.”

“Was she difficult to find?”

“You could say that. I wouldn’t worry about others finding her.”

“But how did you do it?”

“Her father did it. You know about Troy Phelan?”

“Yes. I’m clipping news stories.”

“Before he left this world, he tracked her to the Pantanal. I have no idea how he did it.”

“He had the means.”

“Yes he did. We knew generally where she was, and I went down there, hired a guide, got lost, and found her. Do you know her well?”

“I’m not sure anyone knows Rachel well. I speak to her once a year in August, from Corumbá. She tried a furlough five years ago, and I had lunch with her one day. But no, I don’t know her that well.”

“Have you heard from her recently?”

“No.”

Rachel had been in Corumbá two weeks earlier. He knew this for a fact because she had come to the hospital. She had spoken to him, touched him, and then vanished along with his fevers. But she hadn’t called the home office? How strange.

“She is doing well,” he said. “Very much at home with her people.”

“Why did you track her down?”

“Someone had to. Do you understand what her father did?”

“I’m trying to.”

“Someone had to notify Rachel, and it had to be a lawyer. I just happened to be the only one in our firm with nothing better to do.”

“And now you’re representing her?”

“You are paying attention, aren’t you?”

“We may have more than a passing interest. She is one of us, and she is, shall we say, out of the loop.”

“That would be an understatement.”

“What does she plan to do about her father’s estate?”

Nate rubbed his eyes and paused to slow the conversation. The nice lady on the other end was stepping over the line. He doubted if she realized it. “I don’t want to be rude, Ms. Collier, but I can’t discuss with you things Rachel and I talked about pertaining to her father’s estate.”

“Of course not. I wasn’t trying to pry. It’s just that I’m not sure what World Tribes should do at this point.”

“Nothing. You have no involvement unless Rachel asks you to step in.”

“I see. So I’ll just follow events in the newspapers.”

“I’m sure the proceedings will be well documented.”

“You mentioned certain things she needs down there.”

Nate told her the story of the little girl who died because Rachel had no antivenin. “She can’t find enough medical supplies in Corumbá. I’d love to send her whatever she needs.”

“Thank you. Send the money to my attention at World Tribes, and I’ll make sure she gets the supplies. We have four thousand Rachels around the world, and our budgets get stretched.”

“Are the others as remarkable as Rachel?”

“Yes. They are chosen by God.”

They agreed to keep in touch. Nate could send all the letters he wanted. Neva would ship them to Corumbá. If either one heard from Rachel, he or she would call the other.

Back in bed, Nate replayed the phone call. The things that weren’t said were amazing. Rachel had just learned from him that her father had died and left her one of the world’s great fortunes. She then sneaked into Corumbá because she knew from Lako that Nate was very ill. And then she left, without calling anyone at World Tribes to discuss the money.

When he left her on the riverbank, he was convinced that she had no interest in the money. Now he was convinced even more.

FORTY-FOUR
_____________

T
he deposition derby began on Monday, February 17, in a long bare room in the Fairfax County Courthouse. It was a witness room, but Judge Wycliff had pulled strings and reserved it for the last two weeks of the month. At least fifteen people were scheduled to be deposed, and the lawyers had been unable to agree on places and times. Wycliff had intervened. The depositions would be taken in an orderly fashion, one after the other, hour after hour, day after day, until finished. Such a marathon was rare, but then, so were the stakes. The lawyers had shown an amazing ability to clear their calendars for the discovery phase of the Phelan matter. Trials had been postponed; other depositions wiggled out of; important deadlines delayed yet again; briefs shoved off on other partners; vacations happily put off until summer. Associates were sent to handle lesser chores. Nothing was as important as the Phelan mess.

For Nate, the prospect of spending two weeks in a room
crowded with lawyers, grilling witnesses, was a misery just short of hell itself.

If his client didn’t want the money, why should he care who got it?

His attitude changed somewhat when he met the Phelan heirs.

The first deponent was Mr. Troy Phelan, Jr. The court reporter swore him to honesty, but with his shifty eyes and reddened cheeks, he lost credibility within seconds of being seated at the head of the table. A video camera at the other end zoomed in on his face.

Josh’s staff had prepared hundreds of questions for Nate to hammer him with. The work and research had been done by a half-dozen associates, people Nate would never meet. But he could’ve handled it himself, off the cuff, with no preparation whatsoever. It was just a deposition, a fishing trip, and Nate had been there a thousand times.

Nate introduced himself to Troy Junior, who gave him a nervous smile, much like the inmate looking at the executioner. “This is not going to be painful, is it?” he seemed to ask.

“Are you currently under the influence of any illegal drugs, prescription drugs, or alcohol?” Nate began pleasantly, and this rankled the Phelan lawyers on the other side of the table. Only Hark understood. He had taken almost as many depositions as Nate O’Riley.

The smile vanished. “I am not,” Troy Junior snapped. His head was pounding from a hangover, but he was currently sober.

“And you understand that you have just sworn to tell the truth?”

“Yes.”

“Do you understand what perjury is?”

“I certainly do.”

“Which one is your lawyer?” Nate asked, waving at the crowd opposite.

“Hark Gettys.”

The arrogance of Mr. O’Riley rankled the attorneys again, this time Hark included. Nate hadn’t bothered to learn which lawyers were attached to which client. His disdain for the entire group was offensive.

Within the first two minutes, Nate had established a nasty tone for the day. There was little doubt that he distrusted Troy Junior immensely, and perhaps the guy was under the influence. It was an old trick.

“How many wives have you had?”

“How many have you had?” Junior shot back, then looked at his lawyer for approval. Hark was studying a sheet of paper.

Nate kept his cool. Who knew what the Phelan lawyers had been saying behind his back? He did not care.

“Let me explain something to you, Mr. Phelan,” Nate said without the slightest irritation. “I will go over this very slowly, so listen carefully. I am the lawyer, you are the witness. Do you follow me so far?”

Troy Junior slowly nodded.

“I ask the questions, you give the answers. Do you understand that?”

The witness nodded again.

“You don’t ask questions, and I don’t give answers. Understand?”

“Yep.”

“Now, I don’t think you’ll have trouble with the answers if you’ll pay attention to the questions. Okay?”

Junior nodded again.

“Are you still confused?”

“Nope.”

“Good. If you get confused again, please feel free to consult with your attorney. Am I getting through?”

“I understand.”

“Wonderful. Let’s try it again. How many wives have you had?”

“Two.”

An hour later they finished with his marriages, his children, his divorce. Junior was sweating and wondering how long his deposition would last. The Phelan lawyers were staring blankly at sheets of paper and asking themselves the same thing. Nate, however, had yet to look at the pages of questions prepared for him. He could peel the skin off any witness simply by staring at his eyes and using one question to lead to another. No detail was too small for him to investigate. Where was your first wife’s high school, college, first job? Was it her first marriage? Give us her employment history. Let’s talk about the divorce. How much was your child support? Did you pay all of it?

For the most part it was useless testimony, evoked not for the sake of information, but rather to annoy the witness and put him on notice that the skeletons could be summoned from the closet. He filed the lawsuit. He had to suffer the scrutiny.

His employment history took them to the brink of lunch. He stumbled badly when Nate grilled him about his various jobs for his father’s companies. There were dozens of witnesses who could be called to rebut his version of how useful he’d been. With each job, Nate asked for the names of all his co-workers and supervisors. The trap was laid. Hark saw it coming and called time-out. He stepped into the hall with his client and lectured him about telling the truth.

The afternoon session was brutal. Nate asked about the five million dollars he’d received on his twenty-first birthday, and the entire wall of Phelan lawyers seemed to stiffen.

“That was a long time ago,” Troy Junior said with an air of resignation. After four hours with Nate O’Riley, he knew the next round would be painful.

“Well, let’s try to remember,” Nate said with a smile. He showed no signs of fatigue. In fact, he’d been there so many times he actually seemed anxious to grind through the details.

His acting was superb. He hated being there and tormenting
people he hoped he’d never see again. The more questions Nate asked, the more determined he was to start a new career.

“How was the money given to you?” he asked.

“It was initially placed in an account in a bank.”

“You had access to the account?”

“Yes.”

“Did anyone else have access to the account?”

“No. Just me.”

“How did you get money out of the account?”

“By writing checks.”

And write them he did. His first purchase had been a brand-new Maserati, dark blue. They talked about the damned car for fifteen minutes.

Troy Junior never returned to college after receiving the money, not that any of the schools he’d attended were anxious to have him back. He simply partied, though this came not in the form of a confession. Nate hammered him about his employment from ages twenty-one to thirty, and slowly extricated enough facts to reveal that Troy Junior did not work at all for those nine years. He played golf and rugby, traded cars with gusto, spent a year in the Bahamas and a year in Vail, lived with an amazing assortment of women before finally marrying number one at the age of twenty-nine, and indulged himself in grand style until the money ran out.

Then the prodigal son crawled to his father and asked for a job.

As the afternoon wore on, Nate began to envision the havoc this witness would sow upon himself and those around him if he got his sticky fingers on the Phelan fortune. He would kill himself with the money.

At 4 P.M., Troy Junior asked to be excused for the day. Nate refused. During the break that followed, a note was sent to Judge Wycliff down the hall. While they waited, Nate looked at Josh’s questions for the first time.

The return message instructed that the proceedings keep going.

A week after Troy’s suicide, Josh had hired a security firm to conduct an investigation into the Phelan heirs. The probe was more financial than personal. Nate skimmed the highlights while the witness smoked in the hall.

“What kind of car are you driving now?” Nate asked when they resumed. The exam took yet another direction.

“A Porsche.”

“When did you buy it?”

“I’ve had it awhile.”

“Try to answer the question. When did you buy it?”

“Couple of months ago.”

“Before or after your father’s death?”

“I’m not real sure. Before, I think.”

Nate lifted a sheet of paper. “What day did your father die?”

“Lemme see. It was a Monday, uh, December the ninth, I think.”

“Did you buy the Porsche before or after December the ninth?”

“Like I said, I think it was before.”

“Nope, wrong again. On Tuesday, December tenth, did you go to Irving Motors in Arlington and purchase a black Porsche Carrera Turbo 911 for ninety thousand dollars, give or take?” Nate asked the question while reading from the sheet of paper.