Echoes in Death (In Death 44)

Carson went through a side doorway. Wythe leaned back in the big leather chair behind his massive desk, sizing up his visitors.

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He had a scholar’s mane of shining silver hair around a ruddy, lived-in face with sharp, hard blue eyes and a beak of a nose. He wore his lawyerly suit—deep, dark blue with gray chalk stripes—with a precisely knotted red tie and the corner of a red handkerchief peeking out of his breast pocket.

“I knew Anthony for more than twenty-five years,” he said in a voice that seemed to hover on the edge of a boom. “I was just trying to calculate, and I believe I actually liked him about ten days out of that time. That said, I’m appalled by what happened to him, and to his wife.”

Wythe gestured, a flick of his hand, to the visitors’ chairs—leather, the color of port—facing his desk. “You might wonder at a lawyer volunteering that sort of information, but I knew him for nearly a third of my life, have no motive, and was in Miami—a friendly, annual golf tournament—from Thursday until Sunday evening. It’s easy for you to verify.”

“We will, if we find it applicable.”

Carson stepped back in with a tray holding three oversized cups. He served them competently, even as he sent sidelong glances toward the snow falling outside the window wall.

“Now cancel those appointments, Carson, and go home. Then you can cast worried glances out your apartment window instead of out of mine.”

“Yes, sir.” Carson stepped out, shut the doors.

“Why did you dislike Anthony Strazza?” Eve began. “Except for those ten days?”

“The short answer would be: He wasn’t a likable man. Surely someone with your skill and experience has already gleaned that. However, when I broke my leg and shattered my elbow several years ago in a skiing accident, I had myself airlifted to St. Andrew’s, and Anthony’s OR.”

Wythe lifted his arm, bent and unbent his elbow. “Not just good as new, better than. Same with the leg. I’d like to inquire about Daphne. I’ll need to speak with her before long, as the trustee and executor of Anthony’s estate.”

“She’s in good condition at this point, under a doctor’s care. I can tell you she has no desire to go back to her residence.”

“Understandable.”

“She’ll be clear to leave the hospital by tomorrow or the day after. At that time she’ll require funds.”

“Require funds?”

“She indicated she has none.”

“But…” He caught himself, sipped his latte. “I see. I can, of course, authorize that.”

“Why do you suppose Mrs. Strazza finds herself without the means to pay for a hotel, or whatever medical expenses she’s incurred over her insurance?”

“I can’t speak to how Anthony set up his household finances, Lieutenant.”

“But as his lawyer, the trustee and executor of his estate, you can speak to the terms of his will and his wife’s inheritance.”

“If she’s close to being released from the hospital, she should be well enough to speak with me.”

“I can clear that from my end, but you’d have to go through her doctors. Physically she’s improving. She’s young, healthy, and—though her injuries and trauma were severe—she’s gotten excellent care.”

“Anthony may be dead, but there remains a matter of privilege and confidentiality. And I have a responsibility to look out for the welfare of his surviving spouse as well as his estate.”

Eve’s gaze remained as cool and direct as his. “We can sit here and talk about privilege and court orders while the person who killed your client, beat and raped his wife is snuggled in somewhere planning who he’s going after next. We can keep doing that while the traumatized spouse of said client adds to her current anxiety as she is apparently without funds, resources, or a credit line. Or we can cut through it.”

Wythe frowned, drummed his fingers, then rose, walked over to a small putting green on the side of the room. “Do you play?”

“No,” Eve said. Peabody shook her head.

“Helps me think.” He sank a ball, scooped it out, set it back on the narrow green, sank it again. “I’m going to give you some broad strokes,” he said. “Some, we’ll say, hypotheticals. Clients who come to me for estate planning generally have complex finances, so the paperwork is rarely simple and straightforward. Still, some want just that.”

He walked back to his desk, picked up his latte. “You’ll also have those who, sometimes for spite, sometimes for good reasons, wish to disinherit a family member, or set aside that inheritance with restrictions. Some wish to leave the bulk of their estate to an organization or a charity. It might be, we’ll say, the hospital where they’ve been attached for a number of years, and the bequest might be on the terms it’s used for a specific purpose, with specific naming instructions from the benefactor.”

“I see.”