Terry laughed derisively.
“What?” I asked.
“That’s not what Smith got,” she said. “The examining coroner was Tom Fierro. Do you know about him?” I shook my head. “He’s the guy they discovered with the suitcases of money under his bed. My dad used to talk about him and said that Tom was everyone’s favorite coroner. When you bought him, he stayed bought.”
“Do you think he was paid off?”
She sighed eloquently. “Of course I do, but who am I going to ask about it?” She gathered up the papers and stacked them neatly. “What’s our next move?”
“All this means something,” I mused, “and if I just sat still long enough it would come to me. But I can’t sit still. These calls to Napa,” I said, lifting the phone bills. “Maybe Hugh said something to his father that could help us. That’s where I’m going. You work on finding out more about John Smith. He may hold the key.”
“I don’t know,” she said, “I think there are too many doors for just one key. Stay in touch.”
The street sign was so discreetly placed that I missed it the first time and drove on until I found myself at a dead end. I turned around and drove slowly until I saw that the narrow opening between clumps of dusty bushes was, in fact, a road; a back road off a back road at the edge of Napa’s suburban sprawl.
It was one of those luminescent autumn days. The sky was radiantly blue and the air was warm and sultry. You drank rather than breathed it. At my right, a white picket fence appeared and beyond it, orchards and pasture. These gave way to a large, formal lawn, arbors, tennis courts, and a rose garden, looking for all the world like the grounds of a country club.
Only there was no one around.
I looked over to my left and saw a white antebellum mansion shimmering like a mirage in the heat of the day. Smaller bungalows surrounded it at a respectful distance, each in the shade of its own great oak. One or two people moved slowly down a walk between the big house and one of the smaller ones. I turned into a circular driveway and drove up to a parking lot at the side of the house. I got out of my car and went up the steps of the great house, crossed the veranda and touched the doorbell.
Above the bell was a small brass plate with the word “Silverwood” etched into it.
A husky young man dressed in orderly’s white appeared at the door. “May I help you?”
“I’ve come to see Mr. Nicholas Paris,” I said, extracting a business card from my breast pocket and handing it to him.
He studied it.
“Are you expected?”
“I was his late son’s lawyer,” I replied. “He’ll know who I am.”
The attendant looked at me and then opened the door. I stood in a massive foyer. There was a small table off the side of the staircase where he had been sitting. He went to the table, picked up the phone and dialed three numbers.
“There’s a lawyer out here to see one of the patients.” He paused. “Okay, clients, then. Anyway, he’s out here now.” He hung up and said, “Have a seat,” gesturing me to a sofa against the wall beneath a portrait of a seventeenth-century gentleman. I sat down. The attendant went back to his book, something called The Other David. The house was still, but the air was nervous.
“Where are the patients?” I asked.
“Everyone takes a nap after lunch,” he replied, looking up, “just like kindergarten.”
“You a nurse?”
“Do I look like a nurse?” His muscles bulged against his white uniform. “I keep people out there,” he gestured to the door, “from getting in and people in here from getting out.”
“Nice work if you can get it,” I observed.
He grunted and went back to his book.
A moment later, a short, bald man stepped into the foyer from a room off the side. He wore a white doctor’s coat over a pale blue shirt and a red knit tie. He looked like an aging preppie and I was willing to bet that he wore argyle socks. The attendant handed him my business card.
“Mr. Rios,” he said, “I’m Dr. Phillips, the director. Why don’t we step into the visitor’s lounge?”
I followed him into the room from which he had emerged. It was a long, narrow rectangle, paneled in dark wood, furnished in stiff-backed Victorian chairs and couches clustered in little groups around coffee tables. The view from the windows was of a rose garden. A dozen long-stemmed red roses had been stiffly arranged in a vase on the mantel of the fireplace. A grandfather clock ticked away in a corner. Except for us, the room was deserted.
Phillips lowered himself in a wing chair and I sat across from him. The little table between us held a decanter filled with syrupy brown fluid and surrounded by small wine glasses. He poured two drinks. I lifted a glass and sniffed, discreetly. Cream sherry. I sipped, crossing my legs at my ankles like a gentleman.
“Now, then, Mr. Rios, what can we,” he said, using the imperial, medical we, “do for you?”
“I represent the estate of Hugh Paris, the son of one of your patients — “
“Clients,” he cautioned.
“Clients,” I agreed. “At any rate, Hugh Paris died rather — suddenly, and there are some problems with the will I believe I could clear up by speaking to his father, Nicholas.”
Phillips shook his head. “That’s quite impossible. You must know that Nicholas Paris is incompetent.”
“Doctor, that’s a legal conclusion, not a medical diagnosis. I was told he has moments of lucidity.”
“Far and few between,” Phillips said, dismissively. “Perhaps if you told me what you need, I could help you.”
“All right,” I said. “I drafted Hugh Paris’s will which, as it happens, made certain bequests that violate the rule in Shelley’s case, rendering the document ineffective. I had hoped that Mr. Paris, as his son’s intestate heir, would agree to certain modifications that would affect the testator’s intent, at least as to those bequests which do not directly concern his interests in the estate.”
Phillips’s eyes had glazed over at the first mention of the word will. He now bestirred himself and said, “I see.”
“Then you understand my problem,” I plunged on, “I am responsible for drafting errors in Hugh’s will. There’s some question of malpractice — “
Phillips perked up. “Malpractice?” He was now on comfortable ground. “I sympathize, of course, but Mr. Paris is hardly in any condition to discuss such intricate legal matters.”
“I only need ten minutes with him,” I said.
“Really,” Phillips said, lighting a cigarette, “you don’t understand. Mr. Paris is not lucid.”
I could tell our interview was coming to an end.
I tried another tack. “But he’s being treated.”
Phillips lifted an eyebrow. “We can do very little of that in Mr. Paris’s case. We try to make him comfortable and see that he poses no danger to himself or others.”
“Is he violent?”
“Not very.”
“Drugs?”
“The law permits it.”
“You know, doctor,” I said, “even those who cannot be reached by treatment can sometimes be reached by subpoena.”
Phillips sat up. “What are you talking about?”
“A probate hearing, with all the trimmings. You might be called to testify to Paris’s present mental condition and the type of care he’s received here. It might even be necessary to subpoena his medical records. I understand he’s been here for nearly twenty years. That’s a long time, doctor, time enough to turn even a genius into a vegetable with the right kind of — treatment.”
Phillips fought to keep his composure.
“I could have you thrown out,” he said softly.
“And I’ll be back with the marshal and a bushel of subpoenas.”
In an even softer voice he asked, “What is it you want?”
“I want to make sure he’s too crazy to sue me.”
