"Let's talk about your money," he said with a smile. "You're thirty years old. Nine years ago you received five million dollars, didn't you?"
"I did."
"How much of it is left?"
She struggled with the answer for a long time. The answer was not so simple. Cody had made a lot of money. They had invested some, spent a lot, it was all co-mingled, so you couldn't just look at their balance sheet and say there was X amount left from the five million. Nate gave her the rope, and she slowly hung herself.
"How much money do you and your husband have today in your checking accounts?" he asked.
"I'd have to look."
"Guess, please. Just give me an estimate."
"Sixty thousand dollars."
"How much real estate do you own?"
"Just our home."
"What is the value of your home?"
"I'd have to get it appraised."
"Guess, please. Just a ballpark figure."
"Three hundred thousand."
"And how much is your mortgage?"
"Two hundred thousand."
"What is the approximate value of your portfolio?"
She scribbled some notes and closed her eyes. "Approximately two hundred thousand dollars."
"Any other significant assets?"
"Not really."
Nate did his own calculations. "So in nine years, your five million dollars has been reduced to something in the range of three hundred to four hundred thousand dollars. Am I correct?"
"Surely not. I mean, it seems so low."
"So tell us again how you were going to pay for this new home?"
"Through Cody's work."
"What about your dead father's estate? Ever think about that?"
"Maybe a little."
"Now you've been sued by the seller of the house, haven't you?"
"Yes, and we've countersued. There are a lot of issues."
She was shifty and dishonest, glib and quick with the half-truth. Nate thought she might be the most dangerous Phelan yet. They walked through Cody's ventures, and it was quickly apparent where the money had gone. He'd lost a million gambling on copper futures in 1992. He'd put half a million into "Snow-Packed Chickens," and lost it all. An indoor worm farm in Georgia took six hundred thousand dollars when a heat wave cooked the bait.
They were two immature kids living a pampered life with someone else's money, and dreaming of the big score.
Near the end of her deposition, with Nate still feeding her all the rope she wanted, she testified with a straight face that her involvement in the will contest had nothing to do with money. She loved her father deeply, and he loved her, and if he'd had his right mind he would have taken care of his children in his will. To give it all to a stranger was strong evidence of his illness. She was there fighting to protect the reputation of her father.
It was a well-rehearsed little oration, and it convinced no one. Nate let it slide. It was five o'clock, Friday afternoon, and he was tired of fighting.
As he left the city and fought the heavy traffic on Interstate 95 to Baltimore, his thoughts were on the Phelan heirs. He had pried into their lives, to the point of embarrassment. He felt sympathy for them, for the way they were raised, for the values they were never taught, for their hollow lives revolving around nothing but money.
But Nate was convinced that Troy knew exactly what he was doing when he scrawled his testament. Serious money in the hands of his children would cause unmitigated chaos and untold misery. He left his fortune to Rachel, who had no interest in it. He excluded the others, whose lives were consumed by it.
Nate was determined to uphold the validity of Troy's last testament. But he was also very much aware that the final distribution of the estate would not be determined by anyone in the northern hemisphere.
It was late when he arrived in St. Michaels, and as he passed Trinity Church he wanted to stop, go inside, kneel and pray, and ask God to forgive him for the sins of the week. Confession and a hot bath were needed after five days of depositions.
Chapter Forty-Six
A HARRIED big-city professional, Nate had never been introduced to the ritual of sitting. Phil, on the other hand, was an accomplished practitioner. When a parishioner was ill, he was expected to visit and sit with the family. If there was a death, he would sit with the widow. If a neighbor stopped by, regardless of the time, he and Laura would sit and chat. Sometimes they practiced the art by themselves, on the porch, in the swing, alone. Two elderly gentlemen in his congregation expected Phil to stop by once a week and simply sit for an hour while they dozed by the fire. Conversation was nice, but not required. It was perfectly fine to just sit and enjoy the stillness.
But Nate caught on quickly. He sat with Phil on the front steps of the Stafford cottage, both men wearing heavy sweaters and gloves, and sipping hot cocoa Nate had prepared in the microwave. They gazed at the bay before them, at the harbor and the choppy waters be-yond. Conversation crept up occasionally, but there was a lot of silence. Phil knew his friend had suffered a bad week. By now, Nate had told him most of the details of the Phelan mess. Theirs was a confidential relationship.
"I'm planning a road trip," Nate announced quietly. "Wanna come?"
"To where?"
"I need to see my kids. I have two younger ones, Austin and Angela, in Salem, Oregon. I'll probably go there first. My older son is a grad student at Northwestern in Evanston, and I have a daughter in Pittsburgh. It'll be a nice little tour."
"How long?"
"There's no rush. A couple of weeks. I'm driving."
"When did you see them last?"
"It's been over a year since I've seen Daniel and Kait-lin, the two from my first marriage. I took the two younger ones to an Orioles game last July. I got drunk and didn't remember driving back to Arlington."
"Do you miss them?"
"Sure, I guess. Truth is, I never spent much time with them. I know so little about them."
"You were working hard."
"I was, and I was drinking even harder. I was never at home. On those rare occasions when I could take off, I would go to Vegas with the boys, or golfing or deep-sea fishing in the Bahamas. I never took the kids."
"You can't change that."
"No, I can't. Why don't you come with me? We could talk for hours."
"Thanks, but I can't leave. I've finally built some momentum in the basement. I'd hate to lose it."
Nate had seen the basement earlier in the day. There was evidence of momentum.
Phil's only child was a twenty-something drifter who'd flunked out of college and fled to the West Coast. Laura had let it slip that they had no idea where the kid was. He hadn't called home in over a year.
"Do you expect the trip to be successful?" Phil asked.
"I'm not sure what to expect. I want to hug my kids and apologize for being such a lousy father, but I'm not sure how that's supposed to help them now."
"I wouldn't do that. They know you've been a lousy father. Flogging yourself won't help. But it's important to be there, to take the first step in building new relationships."
"I was such a miserable failure for my kids."
"You can't beat yourself up, Nate. You're allowed to forget the past. God certainly has. Paul murdered Christians before he became one, and he didn't flail himself for what he'd been before. Everything is forgiven. Show your kids what you are now."
A small fishing boat backed away from the harbor, and turned into the bay. It was the only blip on their screen, and they watched with rapt attention. Nate thought of Jevy and Welly, back on the river now, guiding a chalana loaded with produce and wares, the steady knock of the diesel pushing them deep into the Pantanal. Jevy would have the wheel, Welly would be strumming his guitar. All the world was at peace.