“Mac figured being retired didn’t mean just waiting to die. He was going to spend some of his money his way and have fun. Which is where I got lucky. I was a marginal delinquent and potential dropout, but he thought I was educable. He offered to take me in and give me all the education I could handle. My dad threatened to beat me stupid if I didn’t try it. So I did. Katherine was six, just graduating from nannies to governesses.”
“Where’s your dad now?”
“Died two years later. He’d been drinking himself to death for years. My mother died in a fall down stairs at a house where she was babysitting, when I was nine.”
“What about Michael J. — Mac?”
“Inoperable cancer.”
They had come to the garage. It had only three cars in it: Katherine’s Corvette, Mac’s old blue Camaro, and Tom’s Accord, a college graduation present from Mac. The Chrysler Imperial was still at the front door waiting for someone to tuck it in for the night.
She climbed into the Accord. He studied her face through the open window for a long time.
He said abruptly, “He was getting dependant on painkillers. He decided that was no way to live, so he wrote Charles a note and checked himself out. I found him when I went to his room to see if he was coming down to breakfast. Charles suppressed the note, and Mac’s doctor certified death by natural causes instead of an overdose of sleeping pills and good brandy. Everyone knew he’d left most of his money to Katherine, so when you show up three days later, suspicions break out in a rash: you’re part of a plot to raid Mac’s estate.”
He left her window and walked around the car and got in beside her.
Shannon said, “Because I look like her.”
“Enough like her to be her twin.”
She let out a dispirited breath. Tom started the car, eased it forward on the driveway and toward the front gate.
Shannon said, “They couldn’t maybe think it’s just a coincidence, huh?”
5
It was after dark when he got back. He found Charles, Katherine, and Alan Scherer still in the library, Katherine still in her riding togs and fingering a glass of white wine. Alan had a fresh beer at his elbow.
“Learn anything?” Charles asked.
“She works at Needham’s Flower Shop and Nursery in Malibu,” Tom said. “She ran away from home at sixteen, keeps in touch with her mother but doesn’t let her know where she is. And she sticks to her story: she never knew Michael J. McCauley, just got the letter and came here and got dumped on. She thinks her resemblance to Katherine is a coincidence, someone noticed it and sent the letter as a practical joke.”
“Do you think Mac wrote it?”
“No idea. Ask the experts.”
“Let’s keep this in the family for now,” Charles said.
“One interesting item: Shannon’s birth date. December thirteenth, nineteen seventy-three — the day after Katherine’s.”
A protesting sound came from Katherine’s throat. The stem of her wineglass snapped loudly. Her hands flew apart and wine spilled. The pieces of the glass thudded to the carpet.
She stood up slowly, looking down at the drenched jodhpurs, face dismissive, fastidious. The Ice Princess was in control again but her voice was brittle.
“Ring for Felipe, please, Daddy. I’ll want another glass.”
“Go change those clothes,” her father said.
“Just when everything’s getting so interesting?” She sat down again. “Tell Tom about the new will.”
Tom’s eyebrows lifted.
Charles sighed heavily, pushed the bell at the side of the desk, then picked up the document in front of him and dropped it back onto the blotter.
“Almost identical with the old one,” he said. “Same lump sum bequests to Tom and a few others. Only difference is that the first one left the major part of his estate to Katherine — not a fortune but still a fair amount of change — and this one divides it equally among ‘any surviving issue of my son, Charles Gordon McCauley.’ Which suggests I fathered more than one child. Which I certainly did not.”
“You didn’t draw this one up?” Tom asked Alan.
“No,” Alan said. “He went to a law firm in Beverly Hills. I guess he knew what he was going to do and didn’t want to clutter up his last days with unpleasantness. The new will’s dated two days before he died, the day before the letter to Shannon Fargo. He had the law firm mail me a copy.”
“I guess he got Shannon here to make sure somebody took the new will seriously,” Tom said.
“What d’you mean, ‘seriously’?” Katherine said angrily. “You think my father’s lying? That old fool loathed his own family and wanted to stir up trouble.”
A discreet knock on the door. Felipe came in. Katherine pointed to the broken glass and ordered another wine. Felipe picked up the pieces and left without a word.
“I suspect,” Tom said reasonably, “that Mac saw Shannon and learned who she was and wanted the possibility of a second granddaughter looked into.”
“How would you go about it?” Charles asked.
“I’d rather not. I’d have to pry my way into people’s lives and privacies.”
“For Christ’s sake, Tom, you’ve got a law degree,” Charles snapped. “In a few weeks the bar results will come out and you’ll be a lawyer. A bit late to get so thin-skinned. Don’t you owe this family something?”
“What I owe is to Mac. It’s a debt beyond repaying.”
There, he’d said it — put years of throttled resentment into words. Charles’s face closed like a fist. But Alan Scherer smiled easily.
“Lighten up, you guys.” He made a friendly gesture. “I think Tom’s right — if Mac did write that letter. Let’s assume he did. Yes, he’d have wanted Shannon’s background checked. If she turns out not to be a McCauley, Mac’s wish will have been fulfilled. The change in the will will have no practical value.”
Alan looked pleased with himself. Tom sighed.
“In other words,” he said slowly, “I should do the background check as a small payment on my debt to Mac.”
Alan grinned.
Tom said, “We all know you’re a world-class negotiator.”
“Besides,” Alan continued, “I think you’d be concerned for Shannon’s feelings, and wouldn’t be hell-bent to prove something against her.”
“Remember she hasn’t claimed to be a McCauley.”
“Yet,” Charles said heavily.
The discreet knock again. Felipe came in with a glass of white wine on a tray. He put the glass down on the table beside Katherine and went away.
Charles went on, “When’s the other shoe going to drop?” Katherine sipped her wine, watching her father. “When it does, I want to be ready, so I’m not buying into the benevolent explanations I’ve been hearing. Let’s satisfy my cautious nature and learn Fargo’s true parentage, which is all we need. Can you buy into that, Tom?”
Tom shrugged. “I guess so.”
Katherine said suddenly, “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe that my own father, who is perfectly capable of giving orders, should have to justify and wheedle to get someone to do something he should be eager to do. Mac’s dead, Tom. What d’you think you are, a family member?”