She didn't let him down. "Kathy West."

Frannie said, "So Kathy controls the appointment of the contract."

Glitsky nodded all around. "And it goes to Bayshore. Except of course if the murder of Bayshore's lobbyist makes her decide to rethink her priorities."

"It would explain her personal interest," Hardy said, "and going outside of channels, wouldn't it?"

"That thought," Glitsky said, "did occur to me."

₁₀

Paul Hanover's first wife, Theresa, was a dominating and still very handsome woman of seventy-four years. Good cheekbones and a face-lift kept the lines from her face, and her confident carriage and stylish clothes made her appear more like a sister than the mother of her three adult children in the room. She had taken pride of place in the large and comfortable reading chair with ottoman by the picture window as she looked around her family, gathered in her son's now-crowded living room.

Will, finally back from his fishing trip, sat noticeably apart from Catherine over by the fireplace, while his wife kept flitting in and out of the kitchen as she did (to avoid mother-in-law interaction, Theresa always felt), supplying drinks, coffee and dessert. Carlos and Mary Rodman sat together holding hands on the couch. Beth and Aaron Jacobs took the folding chairs that Catherine had set up next to one another just to Theresa's right,

and she could hear them discussing their eldest daughter Sophie's schoolwork, as usual.

Theresa thought they should have called this family meeting at her daughter Mary's home, which was much larger. At least there they could have all eaten at the same table instead of catch-as-catch-can wherever there was a flat surface-kitchen counter, breakfast nook, dining room table-anywhere big enough to accommodate a chair and a dinner plate. Theresa almost wound up in the living room with a TV tray, and would have if Beth hadn't noticed and given up her own place in the dining room.

Still, the catered (though self-serve) dinner in the smallish house had been agreeable enough, considering that Catherine had organized it. It was better than most of her other efforts with the family. Now the older kids had vanished on their Friday night out while the younger ones had been banished upstairs with a video.

Catherine brought out a piece of cherry pie and gave it to Carlos, then sat in the chair she'd pulled around to the kitchen entrance, apart from all of them, as always. Gradually, the hum of conversation died away, and Theresa cleared her throat, a signal that she was going to take the floor. "I didn't think it would be like this," she said. "I never wanted anything like this to happen."

Next to her, Beth reached out and took her hand. "We know you didn't, Mom. Nobody thinks anything like that."

"Still, I think it's important that I say it. It's no secret I had some bitter words with your father about…" She exhaled heavily. "About his responsibilities to all of his grandchildren. You all know how he felt."

Will had come forward in his chair, elbows on his knees. "He didn't think he owed them anything, Mom. Or us, either. He'd made it on his own and we should all do the same. That's just who he was and how he thought."

"Okay," Mary Rodman said. The youngest of Paul and Theresa's three children, she had been crying off and on since she'd learned of her father's death. Her eyes were red and swollen. "But giving it all to her… "

"We don't know for sure that he was going to do that," Will said.

"Yes, we do," Catherine snapped at him. "He told me explicitly when I went there…"

"Hold it, hold it, hold it." Aaron, an attorney in jacket and tie, put his hands out in front of him. "That whole question is moot now. She's dead. The question is what he did with his will. Catherine. When you talked to him Wednesday, did he tell you he'd already changed it?"

"No. But he'd made the decision. He was coy about whether he'd already done it."

Theresa asked. "But he didn't say he hadn't done it, either, did he?"

"He said he had scheduled a meeting with his partner-what's his name…"

"Bob Townshend," her husband said.

"Right. Bob. They had an appointment for next week, to talk over some of the issues, he said. He just kept saying that the main thing was that he was going to marry her. He loved her. She loved him."

A chorus of muttered negative reaction stopped her. When it died down, she went on. "Whether or not we believed any of it, of what they had together, he told me we weren't going to talk him out of it, or into some kind of prenup, either. And when he married her, she would become his heir. She'd had a very hard life, and he was going to make it up to her. We buzzards could stop circling. That's really all he said."

This brought more tears to Mary's eyes. "Did he really say that?" She looked around at her family. "But he was our dad, you guys. It wasn't all about his money."

Theresa wasn't having that. "Your children, my grandchildren, deserve that money more than Missy did, Mary, even if you didn't care about it." She threw her imperious gaze around the room, daring anyone to contradict her. "All of your children, my grandchildren," she repeated, "absolutely deserve the benefit of his wealth- for college, or medical care if any of them get really sick. Or housing. If they need a down payment on their first home, who's going to be able to help them?"

Into the small silence, Beth said, "So we still don't know?"

"Not until we see the will, we don't," Will said.

"In the meantime," Theresa said, "I think for my grandchildren's sake that it's critical, absolutely critical, that we consider possible scenarios and come to unanimous agreement about our response to each of them."

"Well," Aaron the lawyer spoke up. "It's pretty straightforward, Theresa, really. If Paul didn't change his will yet in favor of Missy, then the last we heard the estate goes in equal thirds to the three kids. Anybody have an estimate of what ballpark we're talking about?"

Catherine Hanover spoke up. "Fourteen million dollars."

Beth snorted. "Is that before or after the renovation?"

"That's as of Wednesday, so after."

Carlos sat forward on the couch, looked across to Catherine. "It sounds like you two had a pretty substantive talk."

Catherine gave him a flat look. "I was motivated," she said, then turned quickly to her other brother-in-law. "You were outlining options, Aaron. First was thirds to the three kids, if nothing had changed. But what if he'd already rewritten it in favor of Missy?"

"Well, then we don't know for sure until we see it, but I'd say the most likely scenario is that he'd just move her up in front of the kids. His kids, not the grandkids. In which case the secondary beneficiaries would be Will, Beth and Mary anyway, and everything would go back to being the same as it was before he met Missy. That's assuming they died at the same time, Paul and Missy."

"But what if he died first?" Mary asked.

Aaron shook his head. "That won't be an issue, even if the coroner concludes that one of them killed the other, which I gather they've ruled out."

But Mary wasn't convinced. "How can you know it won't be a problem, Aaron? What if, just hypothetically, she lived after he did, even for a minute, then wouldn't her heirs inherit?"

"No, because Paul never would have left his will vague on that point. Any good estate lawyer-and fourteen mil buys good help, trust me-covers it. Usually it's ninety days."

"What is?" his wife asked.

Aaron sighed. "The amount of time a beneficiary- Missy-needs to survive after Paul before her heirs get the inheritance."

"Who are they anyway?" Will asked. "Her heirs?"

Everybody looked at each other, and then Aaron said, "I don't think anybody knows, but I promise it won't be an issue."