The reception room of the law office was decorated in cold hard edges of glass and lacquer. Old copies of Newsweek and Architectural Digest were scattered across the table tops. I couldn’t even bring myself to look at them. I sat as still as I could in the seat, my right leg jumping up and down at about two hundred beats per minute. I counted the rhythmic movement of my limb until I finally lost count. My anxiety had produced a twisted braid of thoughts in my brain and I was no longer able to separate any of them.
“Mrs. Weichmann? Mr. McBride will see you now. Go straight down this hallway, last office on the left.” The receptionist pointed over her shoulder and went back to typing.
The last office on the left was empty so I was forced to wait again, this time in a padded chair. Mr. McBride blew past me several minutes later and deposited himself behind his enormous mahogany desk.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Weichmann.” He appeared to be in his late fifties. His gray hair was frizzy and disheveled, his manner harried. The surface in front of him was completely littered with papers, some hanging off the end and some already on the floor. I was beginning to think that this man had no idea what he was doing. “Your husband’s will,” he said, more to himself than to me.
“Mr. McBride, I’m confused. Are you sure you don’t have the wrong person?” I squirmed around in my chair to calm my nerves.
He smiled and his entire face changed. His brown eyes smiled with his mouth and became open and friendly. Dimples appeared in his large round cheeks. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Weichmann. Let me first start by offering my sympathies for your loss. I knew Nick as a teenager, and I was very upset when…”
“You knew Nick?” I blurted.
He nodded. “His father was a partner here. Bradford and I knew each other well.” He looked down at the documents in front of him. “This is a very strange case, but let me try to explain it to you the best I can.” He paused and looked up. “For starters, Weichmann wasn’t Nick’s given name. It was Whitfield. His father, Bradford Whitfield, was a fairly wealthy man.” I must have been looking at him like he was crazy because he stopped talking for a moment. “That’s why I wanted you to come down here. This isn’t the kind of thing I’d discuss on the phone. I know this is a lot for you understand, just bear with me.” He stopped and shifted in his chair. “His father left some of his holdings in trust for Nick when he passed away. The terms of the will were such that he could’ve had access to the money at any time. He chose not to do that. He refused to touch one penny and left it in trust. I called him a couple of years ago and told him that he had to make out a will or we’d all be in a bind if something were to happen to him…”
“You called him?” I felt as if I were sitting through a play of some sort. This was happening to someone else.
He nodded and then paused. “We’ve been in touch on and off since he left; less so over the past few years. It took a little digging to find him, actually, but we did. He came down and signed his will. We spent some time together, went to a baseball game and then he was gone, but let me get back to the terms of the will. Nick named you as sole beneficiary with some stipulations.”
I searched my memory for a time when Nick went away. The only thing I could come up with was an architecture conference two years ago in Chicago. Or I thought he went to Chicago. “Stipulations? How much money are we talking about?”
His hands, which had been folded, opened up in front of him. “It’s really hard to say. I don’t have those exact figures. Much of the money has been invested in limited partnerships, stocks, bonds, real estate. It’s complicated. If you pressed me for a figure, and you are entitled to know, I’d have to say his personal assets are somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen million dollars. In addition, he had a comprehensive life insurance policy that he took out when he came down here. It was based on the total net worth of the trust and the premiums were taken from the trust. That alone is worth nearly five million dollars. You again are the sole beneficiary. Now the stipulations.” He paused. I suddenly felt light headed and leaned forward putting my face in my hands. “Mrs. Weichmann?”
I pushed myself upward. “Call me Mackenzie, please.” I hesitated, collecting my thoughts. “Do you know that Nick and I had nothing? We had nothing during the four years of our marriage. Most of our fights were about money. Our mortgage was sky high because we put so little money down. We had nothing but bills. Why didn’t he tell me about this money? Why’d he change his name?” I stood up and paced. I was so angry at that moment I wasn’t sure what I would do. “We were fighting about God damned fucking money when we had the accident. Do you know that?” I screamed. “Why didn’t he tell me about this?” I realized that maybe I had been shouting a little too loudly when I saw Mr. McBride push back in his chair.
“I can’t answer for Nick’s motivations, Mackenzie. I want you to understand the stipulations in this will. Please sit down.” I took a deep breath and obeyed. “Now, according to this document, you will receive a lump sum of five million dollars. Plus you’ll receive the money from his life insurance policy. That money is yours. The rest of the estate will remain intact. You can have access to five percent of the principle per year plus all the interest on investments, more if you petition the estate. And it is also stipulated that you make up a will immediately if you don’t already have one.”
“A will? Why?” I asked. “Is this mob money or something? Is my life at risk somehow if I take it? Was he in the witness protection program? What?”
Mr. McBride shoved his chair back and stood up. He pushed his glasses up onto his nose and shifted in his wingtips. “Mackenzie, make out a will, take the money, go back to Maine and try to get on with your life.”
“No, there’s something wrong in all of this. I can feel it. You’re not telling me the whole story.” I stared up into his eyes. “What is it?”
His gaze didn’t leave my face, but his voice was flat and emotionless. “There is another potential claimant to the money should you fail to comply with the stipulations.”
My curiosity jumped a notch and mixed with annoyance. “Another relative?”
He put his head down and shuffled the papers in front of him. “Yes.”
“Who?”
His eyes darted about, not resting on any particular thing. “Nick’s mother. But Nick’s will was written in such a way that she will have difficulty trying to contest this…”
Once they know that I am gone, they will come after you. His mother? The mother he had told me died of ovarian cancer fifteen years ago.
I had a queasy feeling in my stomach and I thought I might throw up. “Do you happen to know anyone named James that was connected to Nick?” I ventured.
I watched his expression carefully as my words came out, but there was only a tiny flicker behind the brown eyes.
“James?” He shrugged. “It’s a fairly common name. There are at least two associates here named James.” He stared directly at me, unblinking. “Do you have a last name?”
Don’t trust any of them. “No. No, I don’t. I was going through some papers and I thought that maybe it was a high school friend? I wanted to let him know of Nick’s passing.”
Mr. McBride furrowed his brow; the gray head shook from side to side. After several more minutes of pointless conversation, I forced myself up onto rubbery legs. I had to get out of the room; my head was spinning and I was afraid I was going to pass out.
“Mackenzie, you really need to make out a will in the event that something happens to you…” His deep voice sounded behind me.