This Thing of Darkness (25 page)

“What can I do for you, Mr. Verne?”

“Sorry. Yes, it's George Verne. I've just had a very unsettling visitor. It didn't seem worth a 911 call, but I did want to get a police opinion.”

Green sat down and snatched a piece of paper from the pile on his desk. A memo from Devine. He flipped it over to its blank side, pen poised. “What visitor?”

“David Rosenthal, Sam's son. Very irate, very threatening.”

“Threatening what? Physical violence?”

“Well, no. Lawsuits. But have you seen the man? He's built like a lumberjack. He's got at least an eight-inch advantage on me.”

“Where is he now?”

“Gone. Stormed out. Broke the window on my office door when he slammed it.”

“Did he say he'd be back?”

“Oh, yes. In an hour, once I'd had time to consider his proposal and to locate the information he wanted about the will.”

Green glanced at his watch. Eleven o'clock. In the chaos of yesterday evening, he'd lost track of David Rosenthal. The man had stayed around to give his report to the police and had even shown up at the Heart Institute to find out how Sullivan was doing, revealing a more empathetic side than Green had suspected. However, at some point in the long evening vigil, he had slipped away before Green had even thought to ask where he was staying.

Green clawed back in his memory to his meeting with the man just before the accident. There were still questions he wanted to ask, not the least of which were when had he arrived in town and what had he been doing last Saturday night between midnight and four a.m.

“I'm going to send a cruiser over immediately, Mr. Verne—”

“Then you consider him dangerous as well?”

“Just a precaution. I don't know him. But I'm also on my way over there myself. You can fill me in on the whole story once I get there.”

Green took his own Subaru, planning to go home afterwards, and drove quickly east along the Queensway to Vanier. Like most police officers, he knew every shabby corner of the old neighbourhood, where legitimate businesses and the working poor struggled for dominance amid the drug dens and flophouses. As he turned onto the side street listed on Verne's business card, he spotted a cruiser parked conspicuously outside a three-storey house. The red brick was blackened with age, but the green paint on the double entrance doors was fresh. A row of rusty brass buzzers lined the wall beside the door. He stopped by the cruiser, leaned in the window and introduced himself. The patrols snapped alert.

“Pull around the corner a little more out of sight. I don't want to spook this individual.”

Once the officers had complied, Green squeezed around the overgrown cedars blocking half the walkway and rang the bell beside Verne's name. The names on the other buzzers gave little hint as to their business. AMX Ltée., B.P. Père et Fils... As he waited, Green scanned the building, which was more invincible than it first appeared. It was guarded by a well-known alarm company and appeared to have sensors on the windows and doors. The door had a peephole and deadbolt.

Eventually he heard the sound of a cane thumping along the floor inside, followed by prolonged wheezing on the other side of the door, presumably while Verne sized him up through the peephole. Finally, the deadbolt clicked and the door swung open. Verne peered out, alarm racing across his face.

“Where is the cruiser? It was here a moment ago.”

“Around the corner. You're safe.”

Verne turned and began the slow process of returning to his office without another word. The outer reception area was little more than a walk-in closet with a desk, a computer, a full wall of filing cabinets, and two small chairs which evidently served as a waiting room. The furniture, Green noticed, was mostly grey metal government surplus.

They passed through the broken office door into a slightly larger room beyond. Glass crunched underfoot, and Verne scowled. “He's going to pay for that. For the clean-up as well. Obviously I can't do it.”

Verne's office was a curious mixture of old elegance and new functionality. A carved oak desk and leather swivel chair sat in front of the window, and a wall of built-in bookcases contained a lifetime of leather-bound law books. A network of stainless steel railings ran from the door to his desk and along the length of the bookcases. Green understood their purpose when Verne hooked his cane on the coat rack behind the door and held the rail to traverse the room to his desk.

He smiled thinly as he eased into his chair. “It works.”

Green chose one of the two client chairs opposite him. “Now maybe you should start at the beginning, Mr. Verne. From your first moment of contact with David Rosenthal.”

“I had some warning. I was at my desk catching up on paperwork. I live just upstairs, although few know it.” He twisted and pointed to the wall of books. “Behind there is an elevator that leads up to my flat on the second floor. It's not much, but over the years I have remodelled it to suit my needs. I own this whole building, you see, although few people know that either.”

Green thought of the minutes ticking away before Rosenthal's return. “So you were in the office here, catching up on paperwork.”

“And I got a phone call from Elliot Solquist, a colleague who'd drawn up Sam's earlier will. He was the original executor of the estate, so he'd initiated a will search as the first step in that process. That turned up my later will, of course. Therefore, when David Rosenthal arrived at his office this morning, he had to tell him there was a new will.” Verne paused to catch his breath, wheezing into the silence.

Green tried not to drum his fingers. “How did he take it?”

“Extremely poorly. He demanded to know who I was, what kind of practice I had, what mental state his father had been in. To which Elliot replied that he hadn't laid eyes on Sam Rosenthal since he'd handled some property transactions for him nine years ago, at which time he'd seemed of perfectly sound mind. David didn't let him off easily. He implied that Elliot knew the contents of the new will and had deliberately kept them from him. When that didn't fly, he implied that Elliot must have been incompetent, since Sam hadn't asked him to handle the new will.”

“Why didn't Sam use him for the new will?”

Verne raised his palms to gesture eloquently around the room. “Do I look like part of the establishment or the circles Sam Rosenthal would have moved in? Elliot and he had been long-time friends and colleagues. In the old days Sam often testified for clients of Solquist's firm. I, on the other hand, have a reputation for my
pro bono
work on behalf of the disabled. In fact, I first met Sam when he brought a young patient in to see me who wanted to contest a declaration of mental incapacity. It didn't proceed, but I think Sam was impressed by my counsel. He wanted anonymity to make these bequests without questions being asked or objections raised. He did tell me that many of his colleagues hadn't approved of his new approach to treatment. I assumed Elliot fell into that category.”

Green nodded. He knew Elliot Solquist by reputation as a senior partner in one of the most influential, politically connected firms in the city. Not exactly the underdog's lawyer. “Did Mr. Solquist feel threatened at any point in this morning's meeting with David?”

Verne chuckled. “Elliot doesn't feel threatened. He possesses a state-of-the-art security system and a direct line to the police chief himself. But he is aware of my more pedestrian circumstances, and David was pretty heated after fifteen minutes of Elliot's legendary stonewalling. Hence he phoned to warn me. When David arrived, I had the general gist of the will ready for him.”

Verne's levity faded, and he had to stop again to catch his breath. “To say he was angry is to understate the case. He was incandescent. This was a man clearly used to getting his own way and quite prepared to terrorize those who stand in his way. A bully of the first order. He didn't even try to use charm or diplomacy. He walked in here, took one look around, and asked how the hell his father had even found me. That did not dispose me kindly towards him. I told him that my health required me to operate on a modest, part-time basis, but it by no means affected my faculties nor my acumen as an attorney. On the contrary, I told him, his father was obviously aware of my advocacy work for the disabled and had chosen me to help him implement his wishes.”

“And he threatened you with lawsuits? Claiming what— undue influence?”

“Not then. Not yet. He wanted to know the contents of the will, when it was made and what his father's state of mind had been at the time. From his questions, I suspected he hadn't had contact with his father in years but was wondering whether his father was depressed or senile. Whether, living alone and missing his wife, he'd become needy, so that his judgment was impaired and easily manipulated by clever con men.”

“Meaning you?”

Verne chuckled again, causing a coughing fit. Spittle formed at the corner of his mouth, which he wiped away with a stained handkerchief. When he had spent himself, he draped over his desk and dragged air into his lungs. “He said he certainly intended to look into the charitable causes that I represent, to see whether any of them benefited from the new will. All to be part of his lawsuit, I imagine. But first he'll contest the will.”

“Using Elliot Solquist?”

“Elliot turned him down. Conflict of interest, the sly old bugger. But David wasn't content just to go after me. Until this point he'd primarily acted like an abrasive bully. Now he wanted the names and addresses of the new beneficiaries.”

“The six patients?”

Verne nodded. “He intends to prove they unduly influenced his father and took advantage of his vulnerability. A psychopathic individual, for example, who was faking mental illness for his own purposes.”

“Some would argue that the psychopath is mentally ill.”

“But not someone who is treatable by conventional methods. Not someone that Sam Rosenthal would have undertaken to help. But David was convinced that his father had been conned by a psychopath into giving half a million dollars to himself and to other needy sufferers.”

Green leaned forward and looked at him keenly. “You discussed this will with Sam. You helped him draft it, perhaps even chose the amounts and the beneficiaries.”

Verne looked affronted. “Not those. We decided on six, and Sam came up with the names.”

“Did you ever sense he was being influenced by someone? That maybe he was depressed and wasn't thinking straight?”

Verne whipped his head back and forth, his jowls jiggling. “Sam was adamant that he owed it to these people because his poor treatment advice had cost them in health, happiness and life success. I wanted him to choose more than six. I've seen what a sudden, huge financial windfall like a legal settlement or a lottery win can do to a person used to barely scraping by. But Sam wanted the half million each. That's ten years of an ordinary man's annual salary, he said. Ten years that he'd deprived them of. He was very rational, Inspector Green.”

“And you told this to David Rosenthal?”

“I did. He still wanted names and addresses. I told him— and I was cognizant of the fact that he was much larger than me and incensed, but I knew Sam would not want them bullied—that since he was not the beneficiary of the will, he had no automatic right to the knowledge of its contents.”

“And he's given you one hour to reconsider and provide him with the names.”

“That's right.” Verne glanced up at the antique Roman numeral clock that hung over the door. “A time limit that expired five minutes ago, I note.”

“Perhaps he's consulting other counsel.”

The phone on Verne's desk rang, a shrill old-fashioned ring that made Green jump in his seat. Verne lifted the receiver, spoke, listened, and shot Green a knowing look. “My decision remains the same, Mr. Rosenthal. My advice is to retain counsel in order to examine your options.” With that, the old lawyer hung up and gave Green a satisfied smile. “The crisis has been averted. He spotted your police cruiser around the corner and decided not to come up.”

“Did he sound calmer?”

“I suspect David Rosenthal doesn't calm easily. He'll be on the lookout for another way to get hold of those names. My worry is that there could be a copy of Sam's will in his apartment somewhere.”

Green hurried down into the street and around the corner to the cruiser. “Did you see anyone approach the premises a few minutes ago? A tall man, maybe?”

The constable in the driver's seat looked up from his coffee thermos and glanced at his partner questioningly. They shook their heads in unison. “No one's come near since you went in, sir.”

“Did anyone drive by?”

“A few vehicles. Cars, couple of vans, a pick-up.”

“And a delivery truck,” his partner added.

“A plain white van?”