Foxy Roxy (3 page)

He stayed on the estate thanks to the largesse of his only client, Dorothy Richardson-Hyde, the ninety-two-year-old matriarch of the Hyde family. Conveniently for Henry, Dorothy spent most of her time in a coma in a nursing home, regaining consciousness only now and then to assure her family that the well-being of Hilltop should be entrusted to her lawyer, Henry Paxton, Esq., who didn’t mind dirtying his hands.

The rest of the family resented the arrangement, though, and Henry frequently uncovered evidence of their Machiavellian plots to get him kicked off the premises.

But so far, he’d hung on.

On this Friday evening in October, he had dressed himself for a gala at the nearby country club. Many members brought along their daughters for such evenings—young women who had long, suntanned legs and seemed to be studying art history at European graduate schools. None of the young ladies hung out in sports bars. They were all beautiful, and they were gracious—if a little unimaginative—when bestowing their sexual favors. But it was their parents whose faces lit up when Henry arrived in his evening clothes—a young, eligible, and presumably successful young man who would provide well-behaved grandchildren and vote Republican when the time was right. For the moment, Henry was very popular at the country club.

Upon returning home late that night, he stripped off his dinner jacket. As he unfastened the cuffs on his crisp shirt sleeves, he almost heard the voice of his ex-wife, Pamela.

“You look smooth, Henry.”

He smiled at his reflection. Perhaps the compliment hadn’t been given with sincerity at the time—Pamela had decided to leave him after a series of mistakes including a drunken kiss he’d shared with her best friend, Nikki Viets—but Henry appreciated the word. Smooth. If anything, he endeavored to be smooth in everything he did. Even the less than savory duties.

The phone rang, interrupting the admiration of his reflection.

By habit, he checked the caller ID.

Fair Weather Village. The nursing home where his benefactress currently resided.

Henry winced.

For years, he had braced himself for this phone call. Eventually, Dorothy was going to slip gently into that good night, and the estate would pass into the hands of her moneygrubbing heirs. When that happened, Henry would be tossed out of his happy home. Of course, even if other plans failed to project him into the financial stratosphere, his legal fee for the estate work was going to be enough to buy himself a beach condo in the Caribbean as well as a ski house in Vail—perhaps with one of the long-legged art history students in tow by then—but Henry would be sorry to leave Hilltop.

With regret, he thumbed Tiger Woods off the plasma TV, then sat down in an armchair and picked up the phone. He adjusted his voice to sound both somber and crisply efficient. “Henry Paxton.”

“Paxton? You need to get your ass over here to Fair Weather.”

He recognized the foghorn bellow of that awful woman in charge of Dorothy’s care. One-handed, he opened a fresh can of cashews. “Sharlane? What’s going on?”

“Mrs. Hyde’s awake, that’s what’s goin’ on. And she wants you here on the double.”

“Is she all right?”

“Of course she’s not all right! She’s been in a coma!”

“Is she conscious?” Henry asked.

“How else would she be saying she wants to see you?”

Henry had noticed that Dorothy’s coma seemed to come and go depending on what channel the television in her room was tuned to. In the back of his mind lurked the suspicion that Dorothy wasn’t comatose at all, just biding her time while forming more Byzantine plans.

“Has she been listening to Fox News as I requested, Sharlane?”

A short silence, then an exasperated sigh. “I can stand only so much of that bullshit. And I didn’t want her hearing any local news either, you know? First the fire at her house, and now her son. We heard about Mr. Julius just an hour ago. Did you?”

“Yes.”

“Damn shame him dying before his mama.”

“Yes, a tragedy.”

Henry kept his voice pitched professionally. Even the sudden death of Julius Hyde should not rock the estate’s attorney.

“I sure won’t miss him sneaking around here,” Sharlane said. “But there’s no sense her learning about her son getting shot if she can’t do nothing about it. So I changed over to SOAPnet.”

“You probably did the right thing, Sharlane.”

“Thank you.” Then Sharlane’s defensive shield snapped back into place. “You get yourself over here pronto, slick. You know how impatient she is.”

Henry did indeed. He drove to the nursing home in record time and found Dorothy Hyde sitting up in the bed in her private room. Fresh flowers stood on a table, as Henry had ordered. Civilities must be observed. An antique rug lay on the linoleum floor beside the defibrillator. Keeping his client alive as well as happy was Henry’s priority.

And tonight, he hoped the news of her son’s demise would not necessitate the use of the defibrillator.

“I want champagne,” she said as soon as she saw him in his evening clothes. “That silly nurse thinks it will interfere with my medications. Why does she imagine I’m asking for some, if not to interfere with all these damn medications?”

“Mrs. Hyde, it’s a pleasure to see you looking so well.”

The old woman’s arthritis-deformed hand traveled instinctively to her hair, which was snow white and flowed around the shoulders of her embroidered nightgown. “You’re a silver-tongued devil, Henry. All my granddaughters say so. You’re not trying to marry any of them, are you?”

Of course Henry had thought of marrying into the Hyde family, but all of Dorothy’s anorexic granddaughters were obsessed with shopping or obscure subjects that bored him silly. None of them could possibly be worth the thirty million that came along with her. No, Henry had better plans in mind.

He placed the day’s
Wall Street Journal
on Dorothy Hyde’s bedside table. Then he set his briefcase on the edge of her bed and popped the latches. “I didn’t bring champagne. Considering the season, I thought you might prefer a nice Pinot Noir.”

He drew the bottle from the case and showed her the label. His selection had come from her very own cellar, which Henry kept fully stocked and rotated to avoid any wine aging past its prime. It was one of many responsibilities he took very seriously.

Dorothy wore a set of gold-rimmed glasses on a chain around her neck, and she lifted the lenses to her eyes to read the label.

“Chilean! Have you been speculating on my behalf again, Henry?” She tapped the bottle with one long, gnarled finger. “This is the primary reason I keep you on retainer, you know. Your good taste in wine.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hyde. May I pour?”

She handed him a plastic cup from the bedside table and sat back against her pillows to watch as he managed the cork. “What have I missed?” she asked. “Everybody here is tippy-toeing around like somebody died. Are you going to break the bad news, or do I have to hire myself another attorney?”

“Can’t we just be happy you’re so alert?” Henry asked.

He found himself surprisingly pleased, in fact, to see Dorothy’s pert face and button blue eyes glaring at him with such vitality. She had aristocratic features—a long nose and pointed chin carved out of alabaster skin—but the sharpness of her gaze was anything but refined. And several weeks of deep sleep seemed to have invigorated her.

“Who’s gone?” she demanded. “One of my daughters? It’s Patricia, isn’t it? She drinks too much. I told her time and time again—”

“It’s not Patricia.”

“Who, then?”

Henry passed the wine into Dorothy’s hand, careful to support it until he was sure her grip was strong enough to hold the cup. “I’m sorry to tell you, Mrs. Hyde, that Julius has passed away.”

“Julius! Finally got himself shot by a jealous husband, did he?” Her voice remained gruff, but Dorothy suddenly appeared to need a sip of wine. She swallowed carefully, then rested her head against the pillow and looked at the ceiling. “He was a sweet boy, my Julius. In his middle years, I thought he might enjoy collecting something or running the family foundation. But, no.”

Julius’s only interest in the family foundation, Henry suspected, had been how quickly it might be dismantled upon his mother’s death.

“And then he started marrying over and over. That was the beginning of the end for him. The start of his debaucheries. Who was the lucky wife when the music stopped? Who gets a whopping share of my assets?”

“Monica.”

“Oh, yes. The philanthropy queen. She was trying to polish up his image, last I heard, by being charitable with my money.” Dorothy sat straight again. “Has he been buried yet? There was no awful press, was there?”

Henry cleared his throat. “We’ll have little control over that, I’m sorry to say. The circumstances—”

“Good heavens, he didn’t really get himself shot, did he?”

“He did,” Henry replied solemnly. “It happened earlier this evening. Just a few hours ago. Someone shot him, and he died instantly. He didn’t suffer, Mrs. Hyde.”

It took a moment for Dorothy to absorb that information. Then she pierced Henry with those rheumy but intelligent blue eyes. “Were his brothers both accounted for at the time?”

“I don’t know if either of your younger sons were even in town tonight. They’re often away on—well, business.”

“My business,” Dorothy said. “What about the police investigation?”

“It won’t be pretty. Of late, there’s been an unfortunate amount of media attention focused on Julius’s personal life. But it will die down. It’s football season, you know. The Steelers have a shot at the playoffs.”

“Where did it happen?”

Gently, Henry said, “Julius was shot on the grounds of your Pittsburgh home. And there’s more bad news where the house is concerned, I’m afraid. A few weeks ago, it was destroyed by fire.”

“A fire!” Dorothy immediately forgot about her son’s demise. Aghast, she cried, “You say it was destroyed?”

“Essentially, yes. Julius’s attorneys have been handling the insurance issues and so forth. The property will probably be sold to one of the nearby universities for a campus expansion. I thought you’d find that a suitable use for the land, so I didn’t object to the plan.”

She waved off the subject with one hand. “The house was a hideous pile of bricks. It’s the contents that matter! What about the paintings? They’re gone? The Van Gogh? The Pollock?”

Henry concealed a smile, pleased to have anticipated Dorothy’s certain interest in the most valuable works of art. “The Van Gogh was rescued with minimal damage and it can be restored. Monica had the presence of mind to carry it out of the fire herself. It’s with a gentleman in New York right now. Monica directed the firefighters to rescue all the important pieces. The Pollock, I understand, was moved to Julius’s home in Palm Beach last year. Monica’s idea, too.”

Dorothy snorted. “That Monica still fancies herself an expert in art, doesn’t she? After a few years of working as some curator’s secretary? Well, the Pollock doesn’t belong in Florida, for God’s sake. Any fool can see that.”

Henry decided not to go into the details of Monica’s current situation. Not yet. He said, “A few lesser paintings were saved, and some glass. Unfortunately, quite a few pieces of furniture were lost, along with rugs, a pair of Audubon prints, and a small watercolor of boats, artist unknown.”

“The so-called artist was my father. It had sentimental value, nothing more. And the furniture was insured. I never cared much about furniture. At least the Van Gogh and Pollock are safe.” Dorothy shot another sharp glance up at Henry. “I never liked the Pollock much, but it was a good investment. On my death, it’s supposed to go to the Metropolitan. It’s my farewell gesture to the art world. You’ll remember that, Henry?”

“Of course, Mrs. Hyde.”

“I never liked the Metropolitan. Too political.” She folded her slender hands on her lap, fingers touching—her usual gesture before getting down to business. “I suppose you’d better file an injunction or whatever you call it. Stop the distribution of Julius’s will, please, Henry. I don’t want anyone inside or outside the family poking their noses into that document until I have a grasp of the situation. Heaven only knows what nonsense Julius promised the various women in his life. His ego got the better of him in the last few years, didn’t it?”

It was Henry’s private opinion that Julius suffered from the Prince Charles syndrome—waiting for his mother to kick the bucket so he could live his life. Julius had lost sight of his priorities during the waiting game. But he said, “I’ll take care of the injunction immediately.”

“Good. And get me a copy of his will from his lawyers, will you?”

“That might be tricky.”

“Tricky is what you’re good at, Henry. Surely you play golf with the right person?”

“Well…”

“Excellent. Now, what about my Achilles?”

Henry hesitated. “Your…?”

“My statue. We found it in Greece fifty—no, sixty years ago. My husband was an amateur archaeologist, you know. Well, he was drinking gin on the terrace of our Greek getaway place while locals dug us a new well in the backyard. And guess what the diggers uncovered?” She smiled at the memory. “We had quite a time getting it out of the country. I borrowed my cousin’s yacht, but never mind that now. Where is it?”

“Your statue,” Henry said.

“Yes, damn it, the marble sculpture of Achilles. It was in the garden. None of my offspring would appreciate him, so I parked him out by the pool where they wouldn’t take any notice. If I’d placed him on a plinth under some fancy lights, they’d have figured out he was priceless. So that’s why he’s been standing in the garden all these years—right under their silly noses.”

“A statue by the pool,” Henry said. “How clever of you, Mrs. Hyde.”

“Except my granddaughter Arden, of course. She’d have figured it out. Which is why I began sending her all over the world when she was a girl. Got her a passport when she was twelve, and she never looked back. It was a good excuse to get her away from her mother, too, the pill popper.” Dorothy skewered him with a look that had certainly caused many an investment adviser to squirm. “You’re keeping tabs on all my valuables, aren’t you, Henry?”