The suggestion only seemed to mystify Corfe further. “How? How could something like that come about?”
“Very easily,” Michelle replied. “Eric owns the patents and leases them to Neurodyne. I checked it out today with Joe Skerrill. It’s the kind of arrangement that you’d expect.” Skerrill was Neurodyne’s corporate attorney. Michelle paused. “But depending on how Eric’s will is set up, if anything should happen to him, all rights could pass automatically to Vanessa. It could be as simple as that.”
Corfe shook his head and waved her away. “No! I can’t buy that. He couldn’t have set it up that way. . . . I mean, Kevin’s his flesh and blood, for heaven’s sake. Vanessa’s not even . . .” He floundered and left it there.
“You mean his will is more likely to name Kevin as the beneficiary?” Michelle supplied.
Corfe looked about as if searching for some other way of putting it, then nodded. “I guess that’s what I mean. Yes.”
“That could be changed,” Michelle said. “In fact, thinking about it, I wonder what it was that Vanessa was trying to get Eric to change, but without being too pushy. What you’d do is,” she spoke slowly and deliberately, sounding every syllable, “have a lawyer draw up a codicil to redirect it in Vanessa’s favor.” Kevin looked up sharply.
“But what good would it do?” Corfe asked her. “If it wasn’t what Eric wanted, he’d simply deny it.”
“If he were there to,” Michelle agreed. “But what if he weren’t?” She met his eyes pointedly, then Kevin’s.
Kevin stared at her disbelievingly. But even as the protest started to form on his lips, other snatches of what they had heard replayed in his mind. If such a document were ever produced in writing, notarized, Eric would be the only one who could contest it. And that was where the words not around to argue suddenly took on their full, ghastly significance. Corfe had seen it too and was looking pale.
“All it would need is a crooked lawyer who could be trusted,” Michelle said.
The implication was inescapable. “Vanessa has known Garsten for years,” Corfe mumbled woodenly. “She introduced him to Eric. He was Jack’s law partner—her first husband.”
Michelle nodded. Her face was grave; her voice became very somber. “Exactly. And look what happened to Jack,” she said.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
It was getting late, and everybody was hungry. A few blocks away was a diner called Chancey’s, that Michelle sometimes used for lunch. She locked up the office, and the three of them left the building together. Since the evening traffic had eased, they decided to take her car, which was in a basement parking slot. They found a table free in a secluded corner, and after they had ordered, Corfe was able to vent some of the feelings that had been smoldering earlier.
“Look, I don’t know if this is the way to be talking in front of Kevin, but it’s something I have to get out. To tell you the truth, I’ve had my doubts about Vanessa for a long time. But I’ve always kept them to myself because . . .” he waved a hand vaguely, “well, you know how it is. When there’s families and friends involved, you don’t go saying things that could start all kinds of bad feelings.”
“I think we’re a bit past the point where much of that matters now, Doug,” Kevin said. He hadn’t contributed very much to the talk since they left Michelle’s office. He was still in a state of self-induced nervous anesthesia, not reacting to what it all meant until his mental shock absorbers had dulled the impact.
“What kind of doubts did you have?” Michelle asked Corfe. “From how far back?”
“All along—ever since I knew them both at Microbotics. She never struck me as the right kind of woman for Eric. . . . Or should I say Eric was never the right kind of man for her?”
“How do you mean?”
Corfe gulped down a swig of coffee and made a face. “She has always struck me as a social climber—you know, a taste for the high life, needing to be seen with the right people. That was what was wrong with Jack. He was okay for her in the early days: made enough bread to get started on, had some good connections. . . .” Corfe shrugged. “But once she got established on her own feet as a scientist, he didn’t have the right image any more.”