“He said you were quite a baseball player.”
“Prep school and in college,” Romstead replied.
“Professional, too, I understand.”
“I only lasted one season; I couldn’t hit big-league pitching. It was a way to get through school, but I couldn’t see minor-league ball as a career.”
“You put yourself through college?”
“Not entirely. I had a jock scholarship and worked summers, but he sent me money and would have sent more, but I didn’t need it.”
“You’re in his will, of course. Or have you seen a copy of it?”
“No. I didn’t even know he had one.” Romstead paused and then went on musingly. “I guess the reason I’ve never thought about it is that I must’ve always assumed he’d outlive me. I know that sounds crazy as hell—”
“No. Not to anybody who knew him. You haven’t seen his place, of course?”
“No. I didn’t even know about it until last night. And now I’ve just found out he had an apartment in San Francisco.”
Bolling nodded. “He rented it about five months ago. I tried to talk him out of it, but he insisted.”
“But why?”
“Why did I advise against it, you mean? On account of taxes.”
“No, I mean the whole bit. Why did he retire here, and buy a place, and then rent an apartment there?”
“There were several reasons, actually, but the primary one, of course, was taxes. It’s easy to get to San Francisco, which he loved, but still not in California, which he detested. But the sad truth is he was bored here, and he spent more and more time in San Francisco, going over for the opera, concerts, plays, and so on, always having to get confirmed hotel reservations each time, so he decided to rent the apartment. He said that as long as his voting residence was here and he owned property here and only spent a total of a couple of months a year in San Francisco, California could go to hell for its income and inheritance taxes. He was a very stubborn man, and beyond a point there was no use arguing with him.”
“But why this obsession with taxes? Would it have made that much difference?”
“Well, considerable. Your father’s income was in excess of fifty thousand a year, from his retirement pay and his securities. A lot of it was political bias, however; he loathed the whole idea of the welfare state, Social Security, unemployment benefits, the welfare rolls, and so on. He was a very charming and talented man, but politically he was somewhere off to the right of the Hapsburgs and Plantagenets.”
“And it’s true, then? He was a millionaire?”
“Oh, yes. His net worth was considerably over a million.”
“Well, you don’t believe that crap of Brubaker’s, do you, that he was mixed up in the drug racket?”
“No,” Bolling said. “Of course not. He said he made it in the stock market, and I see no reason to doubt it.” He reached into a drawer for a document bound in blue paper and set it before him. “I won’t bother to read you all this at the moment because a good deal of it is meaningless now until somebody finds out what happened to that two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.” He glanced up. “Brubaker told you about it?”
Romstead nodded. “But why do you think he drew it out in cash? And what did he do with it?”
“I couldn’t even guess,” Bolling replied. “I’ve been racking my brains for ten days, and I get absolutely nowhere. It was a stupid thing to do, and your father was far from a stupid man. But what we’re concerned with right here is that there are two immediate effects regarding the will, and one of them, I’m sorry to say, is very bad news for you. If that money is never recovered, you bear the whole loss.”
“How’s that?” Romstead asked.
“All the other bequests were fixed sums, and you were to get the residue of the estate.”
Romstead tried to think of something to say, but there didn’t appear to be anything. There was a moment of silence, and then Bolling asked, “You understand what I’m saying?”
“Oh— Sure. I guess I was just savoring the moment. How many other people have lost a quarter million dollars in a few seconds?”
There was admiration in Bolling’s smile and shake of the head. “Well, I’m glad you don’t shatter easily.”
“Oh, it’s not all that heroic,” Romstead protested. “You might say I didn’t have it long enough to get attached to it.”
“Our only hope is that it may be recovered yet.”
“Could he have deposited it in another bank? Or stashed it in a safe-deposit box?”
“No. We’ve exhausted that possibility—with help from the police, of course. We’ve checked every bank chain in California and Nevada and even furnished a description just in case he used another name for some unknown reason. Not a trace.”
“Doesn’t look very promising,” Romstead said. “But what was the other effect you referred to?”
“On probating the will and settling the estate. The whole thing’s at a standstill, for the reason that we don’t know how much the estate is.”
“I see what you mean. For federal tax purposes?”
“Sure. It would make a big difference. And the tax people don’t accept figures like give-or-take-a-quarter-million-dollars. As far as they’re concerned, the last person to have possession of that money was your father, and if that wasn’t the case, it’s up to him—or us, that is—to prove otherwise. If he bought something with it, whatever he bought has to be appraised and the arrived-at value added to the tax-liable value of the estate. If it was stolen from him between the time he drew it out and the time he died, that might change the picture, but we’d have to prove it was stolen, and when, where, and by whom, and if we were in a position to do all that, we could probably recover it anyway.
“Practically all of your father’s worth is in securities; the only real property he owned is his place here, which consists of ten acres, the dwelling and other structures, and furnishings. Total assessed value, about seventy-five thousand dollars. You inherit that, along with the car, plus whatever’s left after taxes, bequests to the San Francisco Opera Association, the San Francisco Symphony, and three women in Europe and the Far East that I gather are old girlfriends. If the other money’s never recovered, but is still taxed, that’ll be roughly eighty thousand.
“So as it stands now, you’ll get a little over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars instead of the four hundred thousand dollars it would have been.”
Romstead nodded. “Well, that’s considerably better than a kick in the ass with a frozen boot. I didn’t expect anything.” He went on. “But about that money—how’d he draw it out? He surely didn’t keep anything like that in a checking account?”
“Oh, no. He asked his broker to sell securities in that amount and deposit the proceeds in the bank.”
“In person or over the phone?”
“On the phone.”
“What day was this?”
“July sixth, I think—just a minute.” Bolling pressed a lever and spoke into the intercom. “Rita, will you bring me that file on Captain Romstead?”
The gray-haired, rather matronly secretary came in with a file folder and went back out, closing the door. Bolling consulted some of the papers in it. “His brokers are a small firm, Winegaard and Stevens; it was Winegaard who handled his business. Your father called him just at seven A.M. on Thursday, July sixth—that’s local time, of course, which would be the opening of the New York Stock Exchange. He read him a list of securities to sell and asked him to deposit the proceeds in his checking account at the Northern California First National Bank, which is practically next door on Montgomery Street. He said to sell it all at the market opening and to expedite the deal as much as he could; he needed the money not later than the following Wednesday, which would be the twelfth. The deposit would still have to clear, of course, before it could be drawn on.”