Tillie, as he called her only in private, arrived each morning promptly at eight, not a minute before, and left each afternoon at five, not a minute after. Depending on how the day was going, she took a flexible hour for lunch to run errands but never to eat, or so she said. Simon admired her for establishing boundaries. She refused to work on weekends, regardless of the urgency, though, truthfully, few of the “open” files on his desk could be considered urgent. She refused to take calls after hours, even from him. She was off on all the federal holidays and planned her summer vacations, ten full working days, in January.

  To distance himself from her X-ray vision and constant eavesdropping, and also to prepare for the inevitable showdown with Paula, Simon was creating his own secret world. He was practically living upstairs in The Closet, which he kept locked at all times. If Tillie knew he spent most nights there, she had yet to mention it. He assumed, though, that she knew. She was a massive sponge when it came to gossip. There was a sisterhood amongst the legal secretaries and court clerks in town, and virtually nothing escaped their scrutiny.

  He had a post office box in a small town eight miles away and a secret checking account in a small branch bank not far from it. He had a credit card with a $10,000 limit and a small balance, that Paula knew nothing about. A year earlier he had purchased an inexpensive laptop and set up an anonymous email address that only a professional could trace. He used it to place bets occasionally.

  At the moment he was using it to track Buddy the stockbroker, who’d worked for Appletree in Atlanta. Netty was correct—Appletree had long since disappeared after having been bought or merged with a regional brokerage firm from Florida, which had then flamed out in bankruptcy and indictments only to be scooped up by a large California discount broker who sold it to a private equity firm in New York who loaded it with debt, almost causing another bankruptcy, before it was sold to a bank in Texas that then sold it to a bank in Atlanta. After numerous name changes and different addresses, it, whatever it was, was now back home. There was no sign of anyone named Buddy. Evidently, he was just one of many casualties of the slick maneuvers perfected by the money runners.

  Simon wasted three hours wading through this debris and had nothing to show for it. Reluctantly, he called Spade, a local character who could always find the money. Spade’s background was shadier than anyone Simon had ever met. He was an unindicted felon, an unlicensed operator on all fronts, a Houdini-like character who lived in the shadows. He had no office, no website, no business cards, no phone number that was available to the public. If asked by the right people he would say that he was either an investigator or a forensic accountant, but then he studiously avoided the right people. Spade made his money in big divorce cases where the wife’s lawyers were hot on the trail of hubby’s hidden cash. He could dig more dirt out of the internet than anyone in the business.

  “This better be good,” he growled as if highly irritated.

  “And good afternoon to you, Spade,” Simon said. “Sounds like you’re having a great day.”

  “Does it really matter to you?”

  “Of course it does. I think about you all the time.”

  “Lawyers and their lies.”

  Simon quickly recalled that every conversation with Spade began and ended with insults.

  “Right. Look, I’ll buy you a beer tonight at Chub’s.”

  “I can buy my own beer, thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. Need to have a chat and as always I can’t do it over the phone. Not worried about mine but I assume yours is bugged by some branch of the government, maybe even a foreign power.”

  “Or an ex-wife.”

  “Them too. Meet me around ten tonight at Chub’s?”

  “If I don’t get busy. Duke’s at Georgia Tech tonight, giving eleven. I see something closer. I’ll take Tech for five.”

  Simon chewed on it for a second and said, “That’s a bad bet. Duke’s number two in the country and Tech has a losing record.”

  “You trying to tell me something I don’t know?”

  “Five hundred, right? Not five grand.”

  Spade was a high roller who was known to bet big. Simon’s max was $500 for any game. “Hundred,” he grunted, as if someone really was listening.

  “That’s an easy one.”

  “Put up or shut up.”

  “I’m in. See you at ten and we’ll watch the game.”

  * * *

  Spade was never on time. When he arrived at ten-thirty, Georgia Tech was up by fourteen and Duke couldn’t make a free throw. Chub’s had no shortage of dark corners where gamblers and crooks held muted conversations as they drank and watched the widescreens in the distance. Simon had ordered two draft beers, and onion rings for Spade, who was between wives and not eating well. He sat down and the beers arrived. He took a long gulp, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and said, “I thought you stayed away from divorces.”

  “I always try to but it’s not a divorce. My client is eighty-plus, single, no kids, says she’s got a lot of money. Wants a simple will but things might get complicated.”

  “Who gets the money?”

  “Not sure. First, I need to make sure she’s got it.”

  Spade shrugged as if it would not be a problem. “I’m listening.”

  “She claims her departed husband loaded up with a pile of stock in Coke and Wal-Mart. Sixteen mil or so. Hoarded the stock and then died suddenly. He has two sons by a first wife, both trouble, or so she says, and they don’t know about his assets. No one knows. The old guy was a miser and they lived quietly.”

  “She’s eighty?”

  “At least.”

  “Is she cute?”

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  Spade laughed and took another slug of beer. “Keep going.”

  “The trail is pretty cold. She says he dealt with a brokerage firm in Atlanta called Appletree. I dug around, found nothing. It merged here and there and disappeared. She doesn’t want me asking questions about her portfolio.”

  “I’m sure she gets a monthly statement.”

  “I’m sure she does but she ain’t showing it to me. That’s why I’m suspicious. That plus the fact that I’ve never had a client with such assets.”

  “Bank?”

  “Security Trust, down the street, but just for the small stuff. She draws two thousand a month in Social Security, lives off it. Drives a Lincoln that was built in the last century. House is worth around three hundred thousand max, no mortgage. Claims the old guy hated debt. A Depression boy.”

  “I’ve met a few of those. Kinda refreshing, you know?”

  The onion rings arrived and Spade dug in. With three minutes to go Duke cut the lead to seven. Chomping away, Spade said, “Duke is Duke. Can’t ever count ’em out.”

  “Yeah, but you got eighteen points to play with.” Simon handed over a folded sheet of paper. “Her full name, same for him. Just the basics. Like I said, I didn’t find much. Harry died here about ten years ago, but there’s no record of probate. Kinda strange, don’t you think?”

  “Very strange, especially if he had a big estate. Maybe he was still a resident of Georgia. I’ll check him out.”

  “And for your labors?”

  “Five hundred, cash of course.”

  Simon wanted an onion ring but suddenly had a knot in his stomach. Duke hit two straight 3-pointers and Tech’s lead was gone.

  Spade said, “So, if the old gal is really loaded, who gets the money?”

  “We’re working on that.”

  “Just curious.”

  Duke was fouling and Tech was making free throws. As his bet slipped away, Simon went to the bar for two more beers. With ten seconds to go, and with Tech up by four, Spade held out an empty hand and said, “Five, please.”

  Simon handed him the cash.

  Chapter 6

  Professional duties returned and required Simon’s presence in the courtroom down the street. It was a docket call, an antiquated waste of time wherein most of the town’s lawyers gathered in front of an old judge who could barely turn on a computer and dickered about the scheduling of trials for cases that should never have been filed.

  As they waited for the judge, the lawyers mingled and gossiped and tried to look important before the crowd of spectators and litigants. They were allowed to drink coffee in the courtroom, but not eat the doughnuts one of the clerks had, for some reason, placed on the stenographer’s table.

  Simon went out of his way to engage Wally Thackerman in a pleasant conversation about a new shopping center one of Wally’s clients was planning. As he chatted on, Simon feigned interest in the shopping center while thinking of nothing but the outrageous last will and testament Wally had written for himself and convinced Eleanor Barnett to sign two months earlier.

  That he, Simon, was drafting one very similar did not seem relevant.

  What will Wally do when she dies and he sprints to the courthouse to probate his version of Eleanor’s last will and testament, only to learn almost immediately that it had just been renounced and held void by a subsequent one prepared by Simon F. Latch, Attorney and Counselor at Law? It was not a pleasant thought.

  Wally rattled on about his shopping center. The breathtaking news was that an exciting new chain of sandwich shops from California was near a deal on a long-term lease, one that would certainly attract other classy tenants.

  The problem was that Eleanor had no idea what to do with her fortune and needed serious advice, wisdom she was not getting from anyone else. Someone, and certainly not the windbag going on about avocado hoagies, had to help her. There was no one but Simon.

  Mercifully, His Honor rallied long enough to make his appearance and get settled behind his bench. Simon managed to extricate himself from Wally’s deal-making and took a seat at one of the counsel tables. Salmon Subs? Didn’t exactly make your mouth water. Simon shuddered with the thought that some of Eleanor’s money might get invested in such ventures. Wally had a reputation for getting tangled up in bad deals.

  The judge picked up some papers, frowned, and said good morning. He went through his tired old routine of thanking the lawyers for being such good lawyers and thanking the clerks, and so on. He read the name of the first case and said the trial would start in an hour. He droned on.

  Simon nodded off but caught himself. His mind came back to life when he tried to visualize a hot will contest in that very courtroom. He became dizzy at the visual of him sitting at counsel table being gawked at by everyone else—jurors, lawyers, clerks, spectators—all convinced that he had been caught red-handed trying to con an old woman out of her money.

  That, of course, would not be true, since the old woman still had her money up until the moment she died, but nonetheless, the case would quickly devolve into a public relations nightmare for Simon. With time, he could endure the nightmare and eventually survive it, if, of course, he had control of the money.

  There were too many bad scenarios.

  * * *

  Spade was only fifteen minutes late. Simon was at the bar hovering over a video poker screen and glancing occasionally at a basketball game that held little interest. He ordered two beers and some onion rings and they retired to the same dark corner as the night before.

  “Who you got?” Spade asked, nodding at a widescreen above the bar.

  “Neither. Tulsa versus Tulane. Not exactly life-or-death.”

  “So you only play the teams you like. That’s a bad strategy.”

  “Thanks for the advice. About Eleanor Barnett.”

  “Some progress. Harry Korsak checks out. Born in 1941 in Knoxville, married Betsy in 1965, had two sons, Clyde and Jerry. Betsy died in 1981 and he married Eleanor Barnett in 1989. For decades he worked for Coke, first in a warehouse then got promoted to a district sales job. As such, he qualified for the company’s profit-sharing and began buying stock. Retired in 2002, croaked four years later.” Spade stopped long enough to take a gulp of beer and wipe his mouth with a sleeve.

  Simon said, “Nice, but how much stock?”

  “I’m getting there. Truth is we can’t know. In 1990, for example, Coke had sixty million common shares outstanding and these were owned by roughly half a million people and entities. Most of it by the big players—mutual funds, hedge funds, retirement funds. They have to report what they own. It’s all public record. For example, the Michigan public employees’ retirement fund, in 1990, owned eight hundred million dollars’ worth of Coke stock.”

  “That’s certainly good to know.”

  “I’m just trying to explain things to you, Latch, and I’m going real slow, okay?”

  The onion rings arrived and Spade began chomping on one. Before swallowing, he continued, “But getting individual names is more difficult, especially when purchased through the company’s stock plan. There is a record of old Harry buying the Coke stock from 1965 until he retired, but no record of how much. And, no record of how much he might have sold along the way.”

  “She says he sold nothing.”

  “And you always believe your client?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so. Think about it, Latch. Today about nine million shares of Coke stock was traded on the Big Board, same yesterday, same tomorrow. It’s virtually impossible to keep up with who owns the stock. Same for Wal-Mart.”

  “How many shares of Wal-Mart were traded?” Simon asked innocently and immediately wished he had not.

  “You gotta computer? If you can turn it on, takes about ten seconds.”

  Simon gave a goofy laugh to deflect his stupidity. He crunched on an onion ring, glanced at the game, and said, “So, we don’t know how much stock she might have.”

  “It would take a subpoena. Here’s the interesting part. That Appletree outfit she mentioned got swallowed several times years ago. What’s left of it is now known as Rumke-Brown, a quiet little money management firm in an unmarked office in Buckhead. Guess who Brown is?”

  “I couldn’t begin to guess.”

  “You could if you tried. Buddy Brown, probably our gal’s longtime manager.”

  “Our gal? You taking an interest?”

  “Maybe, because Buddy and his gang don’t mess with the common folk. Takes twenty-five million to get in the door.”

  “Leave her alone. She’s eighty-five.”

  “I know, means she’ll croak soon and I’ll get a bigger house.”

  “Knock it off, Spade.”

  “I know. She’s all yours.”

  “Can we keep things on a professional level?”

  Spade laughed as if he were joking and took another onion ring. He washed it down with another gulp and said, “They moved here, bought the house at the bottom of the market. Two months after they moved in, Harry had the big one and checked out. At the time he was still a registered voter in Atlanta, where they had lived for a long time. Get this—there was no probate. Kinda unusual for a big estate, right?”

  “I’d say so, but not if all assets were jointly owned.”

  “Exactly. Everything they had was jointly owned, with survivorship rights, so it all passed immediately to Eleanor without the need for probate. Ole Harry was a pretty slick dude. With the full marital deduction and jointly owned assets, he outfoxed the IRS and she got everything.”

  “Sounds like he really wanted to keep things away from his two sons.”

  “And those bloodsucking estate lawyers. No offense.”

  “Of course not.”

  Spade was watching the game and said, “I put a thousand on Tulsa minus eight and they’re losing by twenty. Remember that cash you gave me last night?”

  “It appears to be leaving your wallet. Do we have a next step?”

  “I don’t think so. We could pay a hacker to take a peek at the firm’s books and her account.”

  “That’s a crime.”

  “Tell me about it. I almost got busted three years ago, remember? I used a hacker in Russia who was about to rat me out when somebody got to him first. Ate a bullet. I ain’t going to jail, Latch.”

  “Nor am I. So, it’s fair to say Ms. Barnett is loaded?”

  “I’d bet on it, but I wouldn’t bet the ranch. Too many unknowns. Did dear Harry sell some stock? Did Ms. Barnett? Is she worth a lot less but Buddy watches her money because he’s done it for years? Was she grandfathered in when the firms merged? Safe to say she’s got a lot of stock but who knows how much.”

  “She knows but I doubt she’ll show me a statement. I tried once and got a stiff arm.”

  “Come on, Latch. As charming as you are? Just tell the old gal you can’t represent her if you don’t know her assets.”

  “I’ve tried that.”

  “Want me to talk to her?

  “Hell no!”

  “Just joking, Latch. I’d like the rest of my retainer, gotta pay Chub. Tulsa!”

  “Always a pleasure, Spade.”

  Chapter 7

  Eleanor refused to meet again at Starbucks, said she felt too old there, as if, at the age of eighty-five, there was a place where she might feel young. Simon didn’t argue and suggested they meet in his office at 6 P.M. one afternoon, after an alleged long day in court and clearly after 5 P.M. sharp when Matilda clocked out. Any mention of her was now done so in a manner to convey suspicion. Netty admitted that she really didn’t trust her. Atta girl.

  So far, the last will and testament Simon was contemplating was a complete mystery to his secretary, and it was imperative that it remain so.

  Netty sipped sparkling water and said, “I would really like to get this wrapped up, Simon. It’s weighing on my mind.”