Saltwater in the Bluegrass (25 page)

“Second, Douglas: I am leaving you my one thousand, five hundred acres in the northern Uinta Mountains near the East Fork of the Black Bear River in northern Utah, along with my hunting lodge, including my four wheelers and guns. Good hunting and go bag a beast.

“To Milford, I am leaving you my twenty-five percent in the I & L. I hope you enjoy the racetrack and remember me when they play “My Old Kentucky Home” on Derby Day.

“To Charlie, my brother: I leave you my one point two million shares of General Electric stock. That should take care of your gambling needs for the next twenty-five years. I also hope you find someone out there to make you happy. Love you, bro.

“To Lamar Jr., my son: Dear son, I am sorry I will not be around for this week’s golf game or any other tee times. I guess I have hit the ball into a pot bunker that is too deep to chip out of. I have a personal letter for you to read that John will give you when you leave. I have made you, with John Reynolds’s help, the only recipient of my Ingram stock. I figure it is worth, in today’s market, around seven hundred and fifty million dollars. Spend it wisely, son, and remember your mother’s wish. Continue to walk with the Lord and remember, son, those were her wishes before she died.

“Now, if my records are
correct, the only two people that should be left in the room are Katherine and Kristina, along with you and your people administering the will and all the lawyers that these two women probably brought with them. Just for a laugh, per my instructions in the will, Katherine and Kristina have to sit in this room alone together for thirty minutes before we proceed with the final portion of the will.”

Once again John shut the file and ordered, “Everyone in the room out except Katherine and Kristina. There are refreshments next door in the lounge. Ladies, we will be back in thirty minutes. Enjoy.”

On that, everyone was directed to leave the room.

Katherine was beside herself. “I do not have time for this foolishness.”

“Lighten up,” Kristina said. “You will get what is coming to you soon enough.”

“And what is that suppose to mean?” Katherine asked loudly. Time flies when you are having fun, and before the two ladies killed each other, the doors opened and the entourage walked back in.

“Let us get started,” John Reynolds said as he opened the will and began to read.

“Kristina, you will receive five million dollars now and twenty-five million dollars in five years if you are still playing the grieving widow and have not yet remarried. After that, it’s up to you. But for now you are in a holding pattern, and I hope I have given you a headache the size of Texas to go along with those beautiful greenishblue eyes of yours.

“Katherine, my dear, dear sister, now that you have sat here and waited all this time, I guess it is your turn. I guess that you are still sitting there wondering what it is that I am going to give you.

“Well, if I am dead, you probably had something to do with it, and because of that alone I am going to give you what you have been giving me for as long as I can remember. I’m giving you nothing but grief.

“Good bye, Katherine.”

Kristina was now on her
way
to financial independence. She walked out of the law offices of Reynolds, Reynolds, Burton & Young with a grin that would cause any band to stop playing. She could not help it; it was the way she was.

She walked past the young receptionist sitting in the hallway tied to her desk for the next twenty years and said, “You have a nice day now, you hear?”

Kristina waited with her entourage of steroid induced beefcakes next to the elevator until the light finally came on and the door opened.

Her life had just opened up. She was now one of the few, the proud, the rich, and no one, not even Katherine Ingram, was ever going to change this piece of news. Kristina had played the game as well as anyone had ever played it. The life sentence of five to twentyfive in millions was worth staying single for the next five. As for now, it was party time “Kristina Style.” Her first stop was to call Sally Cartwright and set up lunch. Together they were going to set Louisville on its ear.

Charlie had other ideas. He had already talked with his financial guru, wired two checks to cover the markers that were still out on him in casinos around the world, bought a new set of matching Ferraris—one blue and one black—down at Louisville Motors and Sports Classics on Broadway, and called Jenny Jenkins to make plans for later in the evening.

Other pieces of the puzzle would eventually find their way into his abundant lifestyle as needed. He was not overwhelmed, more along the lines of whelmed, as he had gone from filthy rich to obscenely rich in a few short hours.

There was not an overabundance of differences between the two, except he now cared just a little less about the hassles coming his way. The typical method would have been to smile and nod gracefully as he worked the wealth, meeting and greeting people, but Charlie was above that. He was euphoric, anxious, and giddy, and he planned greater things than talking to just anyone.

It was obvious who was driving Charlie’s bus. With an I-can-doanything attitude, he was on his way to becoming a better, more selective, friendlier drunk, and this time it would be with an attitude that mattered.

Both his parents were dead. All his brothers and sisters were dead except Katherine and Beth Ann, who was still in prison, and Charlie had no strings to tie him to Louisville any longer.

Still, Charlie was going to spend the next few weeks here, see the Bluegrass Stakes and the Kentucky Derby, spend a few nights with Jenny, and then leave this state of mind forever. His ties to Ingram Mansion were soon to be severed.

He was enamored by the thought that people would now see him as something much better and different, as if he worked in the largest candy store in town and his parents were the owners.

Lamar Jr. was now completely alone.
He had read the letter his father had left for him, and for the first time realized that he had now been left with a great deal of responsibilities. His father had entrusted him with all of the Ingram stock he had controlled.

Lamar Jr. made his way
down through the high rise and out into the parking structure. It was about the same time that a bus load of kids were getting off the bus and walking across the street to visit the Louisville Museum of Art. Lamar Jr. was, for a moment, taken back by the enthusiasm the kids had and how happy they seemed with their carefree attitudes.

Lamar Jr. had lost his dad. He had also lost his mom. He had now, within the flash of a few moments, read documents that had also just cost him what was left of his youth and the calmness he had always felt in his life.

He searched through the moments and felt as though he had no one left. No one left who would ever really care about him. No one who would love him unconditionally without thinking it might somehow be tied to the money and status he now had in the community. The amount of the inheritance was overwhelming, and the thought that his father had given it to him was great, but the feeling of happiness was once again eclipsed by the sadness that he felt about being all alone. As he reached for the car door, he found himself feeling sorry for himself. How could he be so obtuse and transparent? He suddenly remembered that he still had one solid source of stability in his life. He had his grandmother. He had the strength of his father and mother through her.

He knew she would guide him and see that the path he took was one his father would be proud of. Yes, Lamar Jr. had found his grandmother. He had found her, and no one else in the family knew about it.

Elizabeth Ingram was still alive. She had not died in the sailing accident years back like everyone thought. As far as Lamar Jr. was concerned, only he knew about her existence, and he was not about to allow her confidence in him to be diminished in any way. Lamar Jr. had gone to school at Country Day Academy back in the 1990s. He started as the school’s shortstop his sophomore, junior, and senior years for the baseball team.

In his junior and senior year, he had made all district, and in his senior year, he had been elected to the All County Team for helping his team to the state finals, where they came up one run short against the overpowering Bishop David High School team.

During the playoffs of his senior year, Lamar Jr. had noticed an elderly woman with glasses and a cane in the stands. She had been watching his team play. She was paying especially close attention to him as he took the field or when he was batting, but then after the game she was gone. He had not given it much more thought after that. He had too many other things to be concerned with—girls, school work, dating, drinking.

One afternoon, late in his senior season, as his team was once again getting ready for the state tournament, Lamar Jr. noticed the same elderly lady that had been in the stands the previous season. After the game, Lamar Jr. watched as she left.

With the instincts that his family had always used, especially his aunt Katherine, he noted the license plate number of the car the old woman had driven away in. With help from a couple of his close friends, he broke into the database of the Motor Vehicle Department’s mainframe and found the address that corresponded with the registration for the license plate.

With a little luck, some ingenuity, and a reason inside of him that Lamar Jr. still did not understand, he was compelled to find out who this lady was and why she had continued to show up at his baseball games, why she kept looking at him so intensely and smiled whenever their eyes met. What was it that she wanted?

Kristina and Sally
were starting their early afternoon off frolicking at the club. Both women lay motionless, comfortably in the nude on their flat stomachs. Each cushioned by the softness of the white, steam-pressed robes they had been wearing, robes complementary of the club, robes that were now dangling off to the sides of each table.

Each of the women had started her morning in different ways. Kristina had become independently richer with the passing of her late husband and the reading of his will. Sally had begun her morning in a shop-till-you-drop frenzy at Dawahares’s yearly fur sale. Both women were becoming seduced by the ambience of their pleasures. They were lying in the spa while two men performed Swedish massage treatments on them and low-volume music was piped in through the speakers.

Kristina and Sally had, in emblematic fashion, started their massage therapy with Salt Glo exfoliation and then an aroma wrap in lavender and chamomile. Even with the exemplary performance Kristina was getting from her boy toy as he tantalized her flesh with his long muscular fingers, she knew Lamar had loved her. That much she knew. She could not help but lie there thinking about him and what they had shared together, even if the life together had been short lived. Kristina had already had enough of Katherine. She was sure of this. If she got the chance, she would try to drive Katherine and her holier-than-thou attitude over the edge. For now, she would wait. She would relax. Later, she had to come up with a plan that would work to her benefit.

“What a better way?” she laughed, as she turned to Sally. Sally turned and looked at Kristina, “What?”

“I’ve got it.”

“What?”

“I know how to drive Katherine crazy.”

“You do?” Sally asked.

“It’s perfect. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it earlier. What better than to buy the suite that’s located just below her, the suite that is currently up for sale, the one on the sixteenth floor of the Ingram Towers? I could move in right below the queen. That would screw with her head. I could buy it. I could keep an eye on her, instead of the other way around.”

Kristina and Sally lay there laughing. Kristina and Katherine could become building compoddras, sister tenant dwellers of the east side. Kristina looked at Sally. “Who knows, maybe Katherine and I can meet in the elevator and invite each other over for drinks. Not.”

It was time for another drink and to make plans for their fun ahead. Both girls decided it was time to get up from the cushioned spa tables and work their way over to the club bar.

Neither of the two women seemed concerned about the massage therapist seeing them naked. Every part of them was bought and paid for. Both Kristina and Sally thought of it as their tip for a job well done. Once they dressed and left the spa area, they gingerly walked into the large, semi-dark lounge area.

Four older, less-managed women were over in the corner playing a game of rook. Several groups of men were drinking and adding up their scores from the eighteen holes they had just played.

“Bartender, set us up,” Sally said to the bartender. Kristina and Sally were now being watched by all the older men in the room. It wasn’t often the club had beautiful, young, unescorted women in the lodge area.

“We’re here till the cows come home guys, so don’t break your putters looking too hard,” Sally said.

Then she turned back to the bar. “Bartender, where are those drinks we ordered?”

Thomas, Douglas, and their
wives
were headed south, out of Louisville—down Cane Run Road—on their way to Mike Linnig’s Restaurant for catfish, frog legs, onion rings, and turtle soup. It was Douglas’s turn to pick the restaurant. He was after food he just couldn’t get in Paris: Hush Puppies and turtle soup. He was sick of European fish-n-chips, sick of the baskets they came in and sick of the snobby waiters that served them. He wanted real, honest-togoodness, pond-raised, country fried catfish with a bucket full of tarter sauce and a waiter with southern hospitality, not someone with an attitude.

River food, that is what he wanted, and he was going to get it, food that was two steps above chitlins and mountain oysters. In his words, it was “Some of Louisville’s finest cuisine.”

To Douglas’s wife, it was nothing but bait food. Not very good bait food at that, but she always went along with her husband on his many adventures. That’s why he loved her. She had found out long ago, being married to an avid hunter and fisherman, that attitude plays a big part of roughing it, especially when you are outnumbered by people born with a bad case of southern comfort. Also, most of the time you are way too far from the grocery store to walk or hitch a ride. Besides, right now she could eat a fish sandwich with coleslaw and fries and be very content till it was suppertime and her turn to pick.