Stone sighed. “Must we?”
“I don’t want details, just an overview. Vance Calder was very rich, wasn’t he?”
“Vance, who was much older than Arrington but looked wonderful, had had a fifty-year career in Hollywood, and he was, financially, very astute. From his first film he waived salary in favor of a percentage of the gross receipts of his films, and he invested in Centurion stock. Some
times, when the studio was having cash flow problems, he took stock in lieu of his percentage. Over the years, he became the largest single stockholder in Centurion Studios, and he also invested in California real estate, which brought him handsome returns.”
“I’ve heard that his estate was worth something in the region of two billion dollars?”
“You said you didn’t want details.”
“Sorry. It was during those years that Vance acquired the land in Bel-Air where the new hotel is being built?”
“Yes. First, he bought an old house there and redid it, then, as his neighbors aged or just moved, he acquired adjoining properties.”
“So Arrington inherited Vance’s estate, and you inherited Arrington’s estate? Thus avoiding inheritance taxes in both cases?”
“I made it clear to Arrington that I was uninterested in her money,” Stone said. “In fact, I declined to participate in any of her decisions about her bequests. She worked with another attorney to draw up her will, and I was given a sealed copy, which was not opened until after her death. She left the great bulk of her estate to Peter, in trust, and a lesser share to me. Arrington died in a year during which, due to some congressional anomaly, estate taxes were suspended. I have made it a rule not to spend any of her money on myself, and I have willed my estate to Peter in its entirety, except for a few bequests.”
“That’s abstemious of you.”
“I have funds of my own that are sufficient to my needs.”
“And now The Arrington is about to open. Did you name it that?”
“Arrington had thought of calling it Casa Calder, after Vance, but after her death, the new name was suggested to me, and it seemed to fit. I understand you’re covering the grand opening for Vanity Fair?”
“Yes, I’ll be there with a team of photographers. It will be well covered.”
“Centurion is doing a lot of filming, too. It should all be very exciting.”
“You don’t really sound very excited about it,” Kelli said.
“I have mixed emotions,” Stone said, “and I expect they will remain mixed.”
“Stone, do you feel any guilt about your inheritance from Arrington?”
Stone shrugged. “I didn’t do anything to deserve it.”
“From what I’ve learned during my research, you did very well by Arrington after Vance’s death: after you became her attorney, you helped her save Centurion from a rapacious property developer. You and your law firm took over her affairs and increased her wealth, and you saved her millions on the purchase of the Virginia land where she built her house. Surely it was natural of her to want to leave you a part of her estate, even if you hadn’t married, and as her husband, there was nothing out of the ordinary about inheriting from her.”
Stone shrugged again. “That’s all very logical, and I suppose it should make me feel better about it, but . . .”
“I’m sorry,” Kelli said, “I won’t go any further with that.”
“Thank you.”
“There is a rumor I’d like you to address, though.”
“What sort of rumor?”
“That you were married previously to a woman who has now been hospitalized for some years, but somehow, the marriage records went away.”
“Funny, I hadn’t heard that,” Stone replied. He knew it, but he hadn’t heard it.
“So you deny that?”
“Unless you have something more than a rumor for evidence, why should I bother?”