Foxy Roxy Part 2

"Is she all right?"

"Of course she's not all right! She's been in a coma!"

"Is she conscious?" Henry asked.

"How else would she be saying she wants to see you?"

Henry had noticed that Dorothy's coma seemed to come and go depending on what channel the television in her room was tuned to. In the back of his mind lurked the suspicion that Dorothy wasn't comatose at all, just biding her time while forming more Byzantine plans.

"Has she been listening to Fox News as I requested, Sharlane?"

A short silence, then an exasperated sigh. "I can stand only so much of that bulls.h.i.t. And I didn't want her hearing any local news either, you know? First the fire at her house, and now her son. We heard about Mr. Julius just an hour ago. Did you?"

"Yes."

"d.a.m.n shame him dying before his mama."

"Yes, a tragedy."

Henry kept his voice pitched professionally. Even the sudden death of Julius Hyde should not rock the estate's attorney.

"I sure won't miss him sneaking around here," Sharlane said. "But there's no sense her learning about her son getting shot if she can't do nothing about it. So I changed over to SOAPnet."

"You probably did the right thing, Sharlane."

"Thank you." Then Sharlane's defensive shield snapped back into place. "You get yourself over here p.r.o.nto, slick. You know how impatient she is."

Henry did indeed. He drove to the nursing home in record time and found Dorothy Hyde sitting up in the bed in her private room. Fresh flowers stood on a table, as Henry had ordered. Civilities must be observed. An antique rug lay on the linoleum floor beside the defibrillator. Keeping his client alive as well as happy was Henry's priority.

And tonight, he hoped the news of her son's demise would not necessitate the use of the defibrillator.

"I want champagne," she said as soon as she saw him in his evening clothes. "That silly nurse thinks it will interfere with my medications. Why does she imagine I'm asking for some, if not to interfere with all these d.a.m.n medications?"

"Mrs. Hyde, it's a pleasure to see you looking so well."

The old woman's arthritis-deformed hand traveled instinctively to her hair, which was snow white and flowed around the shoulders of her embroidered nightgown. "You're a silver-tongued devil, Henry. All my granddaughters say so. You're not trying to marry any of them, are you?"

Of course Henry had thought of marrying into the Hyde family, but all of Dorothy's anorexic granddaughters were obsessed with shopping or obscure subjects that bored him silly. None of them could possibly be worth the thirty million that came along with her. No, Henry had better plans in mind.

He placed the day's Wall Street Journal on Dorothy Hyde's bedside table. Then he set his briefcase on the edge of her bed and popped the latches. "I didn't bring champagne. Considering the season, I thought you might prefer a nice Pinot Noir."

He drew the bottle from the case and showed her the label. His selection had come from her very own cellar, which Henry kept fully stocked and rotated to avoid any wine aging past its prime. It was one of many responsibilities he took very seriously.

Dorothy wore a set of gold-rimmed gla.s.ses on a chain around her neck, and she lifted the lenses to her eyes to read the label.

"Chilean! Have you been speculating on my behalf again, Henry?" She tapped the bottle with one long, gnarled finger. "This is the primary reason I keep you on retainer, you know. Your good taste in wine."

"Thank you, Mrs. Hyde. May I pour?"

She handed him a plastic cup from the bedside table and sat back against her pillows to watch as he managed the cork. "What have I missed?" she asked. "Everybody here is tippy-toeing around like somebody died. Are you going to break the bad news, or do I have to hire myself another attorney?"

"Can't we just be happy you're so alert?" Henry asked.

He found himself surprisingly pleased, in fact, to see Dorothy's pert face and b.u.t.ton blue eyes glaring at him with such vitality. She had aristocratic features-a long nose and pointed chin carved out of alabaster skin-but the sharpness of her gaze was anything but refined. And several weeks of deep sleep seemed to have invigorated her.

"Who's gone?" she demanded. "One of my daughters? It's Patricia, isn't it? She drinks too much. I told her time and time again-"

"It's not Patricia."

"Who, then?"

Henry pa.s.sed the wine into Dorothy's hand, careful to support it until he was sure her grip was strong enough to hold the cup. "I'm sorry to tell you, Mrs. Hyde, that Julius has pa.s.sed away."

"Julius! Finally got himself shot by a jealous husband, did he?" Her voice remained gruff, but Dorothy suddenly appeared to need a sip of wine. She swallowed carefully, then rested her head against the pillow and looked at the ceiling. "He was a sweet boy, my Julius. In his middle years, I thought he might enjoy collecting something or running the family foundation. But, no."

Julius's only interest in the family foundation, Henry suspected, had been how quickly it might be dismantled upon his mother's death.

"And then he started marrying over and over. That was the beginning of the end for him. The start of his debaucheries. Who was the lucky wife when the music stopped? Who gets a whopping share of my a.s.sets?"

"Monica."

"Oh, yes. The philanthropy queen. She was trying to polish up his image, last I heard, by being charitable with my money." Dorothy sat straight again. "Has he been buried yet? There was no awful press, was there?"

Henry cleared his throat. "We'll have little control over that, I'm sorry to say. The circ.u.mstances-"

"Good heavens, he didn't really get himself shot, did he?"

"He did," Henry replied solemnly. "It happened earlier this evening. Just a few hours ago. Someone shot him, and he died instantly. He didn't suffer, Mrs. Hyde."

It took a moment for Dorothy to absorb that information. Then she pierced Henry with those rheumy but intelligent blue eyes. "Were his brothers both accounted for at the time?"

"I don't know if either of your younger sons were even in town tonight. They're often away on-well, business."

"My business," Dorothy said. "What about the police investigation?"

"It won't be pretty. Of late, there's been an unfortunate amount of media attention focused on Julius's personal life. But it will die down. It's football season, you know. The Steelers have a shot at the playoffs."

"Where did it happen?"

Gently, Henry said, "Julius was shot on the grounds of your Pittsburgh home. And there's more bad news where the house is concerned, I'm afraid. A few weeks ago, it was destroyed by fire."

"A fire!" Dorothy immediately forgot about her son's demise. Aghast, she cried, "You say it was destroyed?"

"Essentially, yes. Julius's attorneys have been handling the insurance issues and so forth. The property will probably be sold to one of the nearby universities for a campus expansion. I thought you'd find that a suitable use for the land, so I didn't object to the plan."

She waved off the subject with one hand. "The house was a hideous pile of bricks. It's the contents that matter! What about the paintings? They're gone? The Van Gogh? The Pollock?"

Henry concealed a smile, pleased to have antic.i.p.ated Dorothy's certain interest in the most valuable works of art. "The Van Gogh was rescued with minimal damage and it can be restored. Monica had the presence of mind to carry it out of the fire herself. It's with a gentleman in New York right now. Monica directed the firefighters to rescue all the important pieces. The Pollock, I understand, was moved to Julius's home in Palm Beach last year. Monica's idea, too."

Dorothy snorted. "That Monica still fancies herself an expert in art, doesn't she? After a few years of working as some curator's secretary? Well, the Pollock doesn't belong in Florida, for G.o.d's sake. Any fool can see that."

Henry decided not to go into the details of Monica's current situation. Not yet. He said, "A few lesser paintings were saved, and some gla.s.s. Unfortunately, quite a few pieces of furniture were lost, along with rugs, a pair of Audubon prints, and a small watercolor of boats, artist unknown."

"The so-called artist was my father. It had sentimental value, nothing more. And the furniture was insured. I never cared much about furniture. At least the Van Gogh and Pollock are safe." Dorothy shot another sharp glance up at Henry. "I never liked the Pollock much, but it was a good investment. On my death, it's supposed to go to the Metropolitan. It's my farewell gesture to the art world. You'll remember that, Henry?"

"Of course, Mrs. Hyde."

"I never liked the Metropolitan. Too political." She folded her slender hands on her lap, fingers touching-her usual gesture before getting down to business. "I suppose you'd better file an injunction or whatever you call it. Stop the distribution of Julius's will, please, Henry. I don't want anyone inside or outside the family poking their noses into that doc.u.ment until I have a grasp of the situation. Heaven only knows what nonsense Julius promised the various women in his life. His ego got the better of him in the last few years, didn't it?"

It was Henry's private opinion that Julius suffered from the Prince Charles syndrome-waiting for his mother to kick the bucket so he could live his life. Julius had lost sight of his priorities during the waiting game. But he said, "I'll take care of the injunction immediately."

"Good. And get me a copy of his will from his lawyers, will you?"

"That might be tricky."

"Tricky is what you're good at, Henry. Surely you play golf with the right person?"

"Well..."

"Excellent. Now, what about my Achilles?"

Henry hesitated. "Your...?"

"My statue. We found it in Greece fifty-no, sixty years ago. My husband was an amateur archaeologist, you know. Well, he was drinking gin on the terrace of our Greek getaway place while locals dug us a new well in the backyard. And guess what the diggers uncovered?" She smiled at the memory. "We had quite a time getting it out of the country. I borrowed my cousin's yacht, but never mind that now. Where is it?"

"Your statue," Henry said.

"Yes, d.a.m.n it, the marble sculpture of Achilles. It was in the garden. None of my offspring would appreciate him, so I parked him out by the pool where they wouldn't take any notice. If I'd placed him on a plinth under some fancy lights, they'd have figured out he was priceless. So that's why he's been standing in the garden all these years-right under their silly noses."

"A statue by the pool," Henry said. "How clever of you, Mrs. Hyde."

"Except my granddaughter Arden, of course. She'd have figured it out. Which is why I began sending her all over the world when she was a girl. Got her a pa.s.sport when she was twelve, and she never looked back. It was a good excuse to get her away from her mother, too, the pill popper." Dorothy skewered him with a look that had certainly caused many an investment adviser to squirm. "You're keeping tabs on all my valuables, aren't you, Henry?"

"I don't believe I've ever seen a statue noted on any of your lists, Mrs.-"

"For heaven's sake, do I need to tell you every d.a.m.n detail?"

"No, but-"

"It's an antiquity, Henry! Probably worth fifty million dollars by now. That is, unless the Greeks start yammering about his return like he's one of the Elgin Marbles. He's my favorite piece in the whole collection. I want to know where he is."

"I'll look into it immediately."

"Good," said Dorothy. "Because I can find another lawyer, Henry. But there's only one Achilles."

"Yes, ma'am."

3.

Arden Hyde took off her sungla.s.ses to evaluate her appearance in a mirror in a women's bathroom at Frankfurt airport. Bloodshot eyes? Nothing new. Gorgeous black Italian sweater with Dior ruffled tank underneath? Appropriate for stylish transatlantic travel to a funeral. Complexion? She peered closer at her face and shuddered. Best not to overa.n.a.lyze. But her family was going to take one look and think she was ready for the coffin, not her uncle Julius.

In preparation for reentry into family life, Arden scrounged in the bottom of her bag and came up with a handful of pills. Her fingers hovered over a slightly linty collection of pharmaceuticals. Maybe half a Xanax? An Ambien, too, of course. She could always pop something else in the air for added serenity, if needed. She gulped them dry, ignoring the American mother scrubbing her grubby child's hands in the adjacent sink and giving her a disapproving frown in the mirror.

Instead of acknowledging the disapproval-there would be plenty more of that soon enough-Arden dug into her bag and found her ticket. She congratulated herself for snaking the last first-cla.s.s upgrade. Served Hadrian right for schmoozing in the lounge instead of dropping by the check-in desk for himself.

Her boss, art dealer Hadrian Sloan-Whitaker, made it his business to troll airport lounges for possible celebrity clients. But he was going to sulk in coach the whole way home on this trip.

Technically, though, Arden reminded herself, Hadrian hadn't been her boss since a rather hideous scene in Florence.

"We're supposed to sell art to museums," Hadrian had roared at her on the steps of an inst.i.tution where a nearly done deal had gone woefully awry. "Not convince the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds to sue us!"

"It was the right thing to do," Arden replied. At the time, she was under the influence of a Tylenol PM with a gla.s.s of white wine, so she kept her calm in the face of his rage. "The provenance makes it clear that our client's n.a.z.i uncle stole that triptych out of a Latvian church."

"We don't know that!"

"Oh, Hadrian. We both read the research. Don't we have enough money without aiding and abetting war criminals?"

"Some of us," Hadrian said, swelling up like a toad, "don't live on trust funds, Miss Hyde. And we need to put food on the table. You're fired."

Hadrian's idea of putting food on the table meant fois gras at starred restaurants. So he wasn't exactly hurting, either.

In the airport bathroom, Arden's cell phone rang. She carried it out into the concourse because who really wants to listen to toilets flushing on the phone?

Arden checked the screen.

And, despite the fact that the Xanax hadn't kicked in yet, she took the call.

"Daddy?"

"Arden, I have bad news."

"I've seen CNN, Daddy. I heard about Uncle Julius." She'd watched a whole report on a television in a convenient airport bar, and even now her throat closed with grief. She clutched the tiny phone with both hands. "Are you all right?"

"Of course I'm all right!"

Quentin Hyde's voice sounded bl.u.s.tery. Arden knew her father liked to think of himself as the family's commander in chief, a captain of industry who showed no weakness-a gruff, heartless businessman who slew the bulls and bears of Wall Street. Even the death of his elder brother would make no dent in his emotional armor.

"Are you on your way home?" he barked long-distance.

"I'm getting on the plane any minute."