“Forty-eight hours or more. It’s a standard provision, in case both spouses die in the same plane crash, for instance, and exact times of death can’t be fixed.”
“Since John Briar did in fact predecease his wife by a little more than forty-eight hours, his estate became hers?”
“That’s correct.”
“Whom did Amalia Briar name as her heirs?”
“In the event John predeceased Amalia by forty-eight hours or more, her will named Corey Lyle sole beneficiary.”
“Was Corey Lyle aware of this fact?”
“Oh, yes. Yes, indeed.” Felix Logan’s eyes rested, silently accusatory, on the defendant. “Amalia Briar asked me to show Corey Lyle her will.”
“Did she tell you why?”
“So Corey Lyle could establish a tax-exempt foundation and avoid inheritance taxes.”
Corey Lyle gazed at the witness with serene detachment. A sad smile touched the line of his mouth. It was as though his face was saying,
I know your pain, brother
.
I share it.
“Was Corey Lyle aware of the forty-eight-hour provision in John Briar’s will?”
Felix Logan nodded. “He asked about the forty-eight-hour provision in Amalia’s will, and I explained that both wills contained it.”
At 3:30
P.M.
, on Madison and 64th, a dozen women waited outside the iron gate of the ivy-covered nineteenth-century mansion that housed the École Française.
Sitting in a double-parked blue Pontiac across the avenue, motor idling, a man watched them.
A small blue van drew up to the entrance. A short woman in black stepped briskly down from the driver’s seat and unlocked the gates. Waif-thin, with a giant gray coiffure, she had the posture of a lamppost.
She climbed back into the van and drove into the small cobblestoned courtyard. The doors of the van flew open and a dozen children hit the cobblestones running, screaming, pushing, jumping.
The women surged through the gate, plucked their charges from the swarm, hurried them homeward. In sixty seconds only two people remained: the little gray-haired lady, frowning at her watch, and an eleven-year-old boy.
The boy pulled a rubber ball from his back pocket. He spat on the ball, kneaded it in his palms, and hurled it at the limestone wall.
The man watched: his mind registered the pattern of the boy’s leaps into the air. There was something irresistible about a boy who knew his own strengths.
In the street, a truck backfired. The boy turned. He gazed out through the iron pickets. His eyes looked directly at the man in the Pontiac.
The man gave a just-between-us wave.
The boy covered his uncertainty with a smile and looked away.
The man’s adrenaline was break-dancing in his veins.
Now
, he decided.
The light was against him, but there was a break in traffic. He stepped out of the Pontiac. In ten quick strides he crossed the avenue and entered the courtyard. “Mademoiselle.”
The old woman looked over at him.
He flashed a daddy smile. “I’ve come to pick up Toby.”
Suspicion rippled out from the old woman’s eyes. “I have no authorization,” she snapped with a hint of a French accent.
“His mother gave me a note.” The man reached into the pocket of his raincoat and handed her the note.
The old woman studied it. Studied the man with the shaved head and the brown eyes and the small gold ring in his left ear. “Toby, you are to go with your father.”
“Since John Briar allegedly predeceased his wife by forty-eight hours”—Dotson Elihu’s tone was almost mocking in its skepticism—“his estate went in its entirety to her?”
Felix Logan nodded. “That’s correct.”
“But if Amalia Briar had
predeceased
her husband, her estate would have gone in its entirety to him?”
“Again, provided he survived her by at least forty-eight hours.”
Elihu stepped closer to the witness box. “But in the event John Briar
survived
his wife—to whom did he then bequeath his estate?”
“To his son.”
Elihu nodded slowly. “Then Corey Lyle’s alleged motive depends on John Briar dying forty-eight hours before his wife. Otherwise the combined estates pass to Jack Briar. Leaving Dr. Lyle with no motive and the state with no case.”
“Objection. Argumentative.”
“Sustained.”
Elihu walked four careful steps away from the witness box. He turned. “We know a murderer cannot legally profit by his crime. So if Corey Lyle is found guilty—who inherits the combined estates?”
“Jack Briar inherits.”
Elihu’s tone became accusatorial. “In other words,
Jack Briar’s sole hope of getting the inheritance is for the state to win this case
?”
The witness looked toward the prosecutor. She made no move to object. “That’s correct.”
“Have you ever been in the employ of Jack Briar?”
“Five years ago Jack—Mr. Briar—asked me to handle the closing on his co-op.”
“Have you ever been in the employ of the defendant?”
“Of course not.”
“Have you ever drawn up any legal document for the defendant?”
The witness placed a hand on the railing. A jeweled cuff link winked. “No.”
“Have you ever drawn up any legal document for the defendant’s signature?”
“At the request of Amalia Briar, I—”
“Just answer the question. Yes or no?”
“Yes, but—”
“What was the document?”
“Incorporation papers for a tax-exempt foundation.”
“And was this foundation the entity that Amalia Briar named sole heir?”
“Yes.”
“So, technically, she didn’t leave her fortune to the defendant—but to a legal entity devised by you.”
“Technically, yes. But the defendant would still—”
“But in drawing up those papers you also represented the defendant, so by testifying against him today aren’t you breaching legal ethics?”
“The law’s clear on that point—”
“Yes or no, please.”
“No. He’s not my client.”
“Your Honor.” Elihu’s voice curled with disgust. “I have no further questions of this witness.”
Judge Bernheim asked if the People wished to redirect.
Tess diAngeli strode to the stand. “Who controls the foundation to which Amalia Briar left her fortune and her husband’s?”
“The defendant controls it.”
“Did the defendant ever engage your services or pay you any salary or fee for any service?”
“Never.”
“So there’s no way in which he could be legally considered a client?”
“No way at all.”
“Are there any instances in which client-attorney privilege does not apply?”
“It doesn’t apply when the attorney knows his client intends to commit a crime.”
“No further questions.”
Dotson Elihu rose. “Mr. Logan, have you ever been charged with a felony?”
The witness’s lips drew tight. “Like many lawyers, I’ve been frivolously charged.”
“With what?”
“Malfeasance.”
“Malfeasance—that means a crime against a client, such as conflict of interest or deception or theft?”
“It can cover those acts, but it also covers far less serious acts. It’s a very common charge brought by disgruntled clients.”
“And doubtless you have many of those?”
“Objection.”
“Sustained.”
Elihu seemed pleased as he ambled back to the defense table. “No further questions.”
Cardozo lifted the receiver and once again tapped in the number of the École Française. This time a woman’s voice answered. “’Allo?”
“Ms. de Gramont? It’s Vince Cardozo again from the Twenty-second Precinct. I have a question about the man who was watching Toby Talbot from that blue car. Could you see his left ear? Did you happen to notice if he was wearing an earring?”
“No, but I saw his left ear this afternoon when he picked up Toby, and he was wearing one.”
Cardozo jerked forward in his swivel chair. “He picked Toby up this afternoon?”
“Right after the school excursion. It turns out he’s Catch Talbot—Toby’s father.”
“Did he show you any kind of identification?”
“He gave me a note from Mrs. Talbot authorizing him to take Toby.”
“Ms. de Gramont, this is very important. Do you still have that note?”
Mademoiselle Josette de Gramont opened the drawer of her mahogany desk. She took out a sheet of stationery the color of crème brûlée and handed it across the desktop.
Cardozo held it by the corner. The note was dated today, September 21. The handwriting was a mix of loops and detached vertical strokes.
Dear Mademoiselle: This is to inform you that Toby’s father, Catch Talbot, has my authorization to pick up Toby after today’s school excursion and bring him home. With many thanks, Kyra Talbot.
“Is this Mrs. Talbot’s handwriting?”
“As nearly as I could tell. If you’d like to judge for yourself …” Mademoiselle de Gramont went to a file cabinet and pulled out Kyra Talbot’s application to enroll her son in the École.
Cardozo studied the loops and strokes. He was no expert, but they seemed to match the note. “Why was this note necessary? Isn’t Toby a little old to have to be picked up from school?”
“Yes, but his mother was strict on the point. Either she or the au pair dropped him off and picked him up. I don’t know why, but those were her instructions.”
“Who picked Toby up this last week?”
“The au pair. Except for Friday. Friday a man by the name of La Plata picked Toby up. He said he was the doorman.”
“And did he have a note from Mrs. Talbot?”
Mademoiselle de Gramont handed Cardozo a second sheet of stationery. The paper and the handwriting matched the first.
September 20. Dear Mademoiselle: Mr. Joseph La Plata, our doorman, has my authorization to pick up Toby after school today and bring him home. With many thanks, Kyra Talbot.
Cardozo frowned. “Was there an envelope with either of these notes?”
“There was with Mr. Talbot’s.” She handed him an envelope addressed with the single word
Mademoiselle
. “He was a gentleman.”
“Had you ever met him before today?”
She reflected. “I met him once before—six years ago, when Toby enrolled.”
“How is it you didn’t recognize him last Wednesday?”
“He was too far away.”
Cardozo studied the envelope. The return address was engraved across the flap:
APT 11
-E, 118 EAST
81
ST STREET, NEW YORK, N.Y. 10028. There was no sender’s name. The trademark
TIFFANY & CO. MAKERS NEW YORK
was embossed under the flap.
“I’d like to keep these notes and the envelope,” he said.
“I’ll have to make copies.”
She switched on the Xerox machine and made copies and gave him back the originals.
“By any chance,” Cardozo said, “did you happen to notice the color of Catch Talbot’s eyes?”
“I couldn’t help but notice. They were deep brown.”
Cardozo stepped through the door of 118 East 81st Street. The small lobby was lined with smoked mirrors and corn plants potted in copper tubs.
A doorman moved forward to intercept him. “Help you?”
Cardozo flipped his wallet open to the gold shield. “I’d like to have a word with Kyra Talbot.”
“Kyra Talbot? Never heard of her.”
“She lives in Eleven-E.”
“No, she doesn’t, not in this building. Sure you want 118? Because Eleven-E is Anne Bingham.” He pointed to the tenant directory on the wall.
Anne Bingham 11-E
.
Cardozo took the envelope from his pocket and checked the address. He frowned. “Could you buzz Ms. Bingham for me?”
The doorman pushed an intercom button. No one answered.
“Could you give me her phone number?” Cardozo said.
Cardozo went to the pay phone on the corner of Lexington and dialed Anne Bingham’s number. After two rings an answering machine unleashed a stream of synthesizer baroque. “Hi. You’ve reached the office of Ding-a-ling Music, Anne Bingham, CEO.” The voice was young and perky, with an appealing musical lilt. “If you’d care to leave a message at the beep, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. That’s a promise. Thanks.”
Beep.
“Lieutenant Vince Cardozo, Twenty-second Precinct. I’d appreciate hearing from you as soon as you get this message.” He left his number and broke the connection. Fishing another quarter out of his pocket, he dialed the École Française.
“’Allo?”
“Ms. de Gramont, Vince Cardozo again. There seems to be a mix-up. The address on that note isn’t Kyra Talbot’s. It’s the home of Anne Bingham. You wouldn’t happen to know that name?”
“Bingham? No, I’m sorry. We have no Bingham at the École.”
“Do you have Kyra Talbot’s home address?”
“Just a moment.” There was a silence. And then: “Six Barrow Street. Do you want her phone number?”
Cardozo swung the glass door open and stepped into a marble lobby hung with monster orchid paintings. Muzak sprayed down from ceiling speakers like a fine mist of pesticide.
A tall doorman with a veneered smile stepped from behind a desk. The name
Louis
was stitched in purple script on a uniform that could have been designed by a Costa Rican dictator’s mistress. “Sir?”
Cardozo showed his shield. “Did Catch Talbot bring Toby home about an hour ago?”
“Catch Talbot?”
“His father.”
“I don’t know any father.”
“A big man with a shaved head. Could be wearing an earring in his left ear.”
“Never seen anyone like that around here. Anyway, Toby left last night.”
“Left? Where did he go?”
“He didn’t say.” Louis shrugged. “He took a load of packages and suitcases in a taxi.”
“Do me a favor. Would you buzz Toby’s apartment?”
“Glad to, but no one’s home.” Louis went to the switchboard and buzzed 9-H. No answer. “Haven’t seen Mrs. Talbot or Juliana for two or three days.” He buzzed again. “Sorry.”
Feet propped on the open desk drawer, Cardozo flipped open his notebook and reviewed his information on the man who may have been the last person to see Britta Bailey alive.
Tall. Heavy. Shaved head. Photographing children from illegally parked American-make blue car. Brown eyes. Ring in left ear. Corduroy trousers, raincoat. Well-spoken. Uses name Catch Talbot. May be Toby T.’s father.