‘Does Cindy’s death benefit Kendall?’ she asked again, casually.
‘No way. That’s not the way it works.’ Feinstein had got more of a grip on himself now, had become the lawyer again. ‘Anything Cindy owned when she died will form part of her own estate.’
‘Will that go to her parents? They’re out in Milwaukee somewhere, aren’t they?’
‘They may well be, but as far as Cindy was concerned they could stay and rot there. I have the last will and testament of Mrs Cindy Nancy Robyn Nathan right here in the office, and her family are not mentioned at all.’
Feinstein leaned back in his chair, sensing Lorraine’s acute interest in what he was saying. He permitted himself a leisurely pause and a further pull on his cigar. ‘She left everything to the House of Nirvana Spiritual Center, some fucking bunch of freaks.’ God, Lorraine thought, that was unexpected. ‘Fortunately,’ Feinstein said, with a self-satisfied smile, ‘the tax-saving clause prevents them getting more than her pantyhose. They won’t get a cent of Harry’s estate.’
‘What do you mean?’ Lorraine said. ‘Cindy didn’t tell me anything about the Nathans’ tax affairs.’
‘It’s a pretty standard thing on a large estate that will attract a lot of taxes, particularly when the beneficiaries are all relatively young and in good shape. All of Harry Nathan’s beneficiaries had to survive him by sixty days before the various gifts to them took effect. Otherwise, in the situation we have here, for example, we would be paying tax once on the estate when it passed to Cindy, then again virtually immediately when it passed to her heirs.’
The intercom buzzed again, and Feinstein screamed into it, ‘Pamela, I said no calls — I MEAN NO CALLS.’
‘Since Cindy didn’t live for sixty days, it doesn’t go to her heirs,’ Lorraine said. ‘So who gets it?’
‘The residuary legatee,’ Feinstein said.
‘Who is?’ Lorraine said, wanting to slap him. Lawyers: what a fucking pompous self-important bunch of creeps, she thought. Feinstein got up, turned aside to relight the thick cigar, then turned back to her as he drew on it, surrounding himself in a swirl of blue smoke.
‘Sonja Nathan.’
‘Sonja?’ Lorraine said. ‘She’ll do a bit better now than the couple of keepsakes Cindy said she was going to get.’
‘That would indeed have been pretty much the position if Cindy hadn’t died,’ Feinstein went on, in professorial mode. ‘Nathan’s big assets were the house, his holding in Maximedia, his art collection and his half of the art gallery. There were no substantial cash assets at all — or, at least, not in any accounts I knew about.’ His eyes narrowed with rage at this reminder of Harry Nathan’s perfidy. ‘The will disposed of all of those to Cindy and Kendall, and Sonja would have got anything else not specifically mentioned. He had a substantial film library, for example, at his office, which would have gone to her.’
Lorraine’s mind was racing: she had largely discounted the possibility of Sonja Nathan’s involvement in her husband’s death, but this certainly gave her a motive. True, she had had to kill two people to collect under Harry’s will, but if she had been prepared to kill once, why not twice? She had certainly been expert in covering her tracks — maybe used a professional hitman — as Lorraine had found nothing to connect Sonja with either of the two deaths. However, none of that was Feinstein’s business, and she tried to disguise what she was thinking by changing the subject to more mundane matters.
‘By the way, I promised Jose and Juana I would mention this matter of the savings Nathan took off them and their back salary. It looks like they should contact Sonja,’ she said, but the phone on the desk blinked again, and this time Feinstein, still on his feet, marched to the door and yanked it open.
‘Pamela, what the fuck are you doing out there?’ he shouted.
Lorraine heard whispers passing between Feinstein and his secretary before the attorney walked out, leaving the door ajar. He returned almost immediately. ‘She’s dead.’
Lorraine stood up.
‘Kendall Nathan’s dead.’
Burton looked up from reading the file on Lorraine Page to see Jim Sharkey outside the office door.
‘Is it the autopsy on Cindy Nathan?’ Burton asked.
Sharkey came in with some photographs and put them down on the lieutenant’s desk. ‘These are morgue shots. Hard to tell who it is, but it’s Kendall Nathan. Last night. Initial view is she was trying to torch the gallery and it backfired. Her hair caught light and...’
‘Dear God,’ Burton said, looking at the charred form. If Kendall had killed Cindy as, he had to admit, Lorraine had largely convinced him was likely, and possibly Nathan too, she had certainly got her just deserts.
‘Yeah, pretty horrific way to die. Place went up like a bonfire — lot of white spirit, plus all the canvases, the wooden frames... No one could do anything.’ Sharkey went on to tell Burton that there was an eyewitness, the owner of a shop that shared a back alley with the gallery workshop, who had seen Kendall enter the building and had raised the alarm when he saw the smoke.
Burton’s phone rang, and he picked it up; the receptionist told him that a Mrs Page was on the line. He asked the girl to take a message as he was in a meeting. He replaced the phone. ‘What about Cindy Nathan?’ he asked again.
Sharkey shrugged. It was still only nine thirty and nothing had come in as yet. Burton rocked back in his chair, and told Sharkey to see what he could do to hurry things up, while his eyes moved back involuntarily to the grotesque photographs of Kendall Nathan’s corpse. Well, he figured, there was no more potent motive force to set off a chain of destruction than the cocktail of greed, hatred and lust that had seemed to surround Harry Nathan. Either Cindy or Kendall had killed Nathan, Kendall had killed Cindy, and now Kendall, too, was dead. The nest of vipers had consumed itself, and he was glad to close the Nathan case for good. The evidence could go back to the family now, he thought, recalling the hours of sickening videotapes he had made sure that no one but himself saw, and made a mental note to call Feinstein to find out who was now the legal owner of Harry Nathan’s estate.
Decker jumped as Lorraine banged into the office. ‘Do I have a lot to tell you, darling,’ she said, tossing a rustling deli bag full of wrapped packages onto his desk. ‘Did you eat?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I was waiting for you. God, I’m hungry. What did Feinstein want?’ He went into the kitchen for plates.
When he came back, she said, ‘Cindy was right about the art scam. Feinstein bought over two million dollars’ worth of paintings from Harry Nathan and Kendall and they’ve turned out to be fakes. He wants us to try to trace either the original paintings or the proceeds of sale.’ Lorraine opened a tub of artichoke salad and scooped some into her mouth before continuing. ‘Cindy also wrote stuff about killing herself to Feinstein and a whole bunch of other people — which fits in with what I thought about the note. I had Kendall pretty much down for having killed her, but — you won’t believe this — Kendall Nathan died too last night.’
‘Ding dong, the witch is dead,’ Decker said ironically, arranging bread, bresaola and salad on a serving platter. ‘What happened to her?’
‘The gallery caught fire and she went up in smoke. That’s all Feinstein’s assistant knew.’ Lorraine tore off another hunk of bread, assembled herself a rapid sandwich and began to eat.