Earnest Pace, because murder is bad for business

Chapter 5

Bob Brown was a man who had grown into his name. As ordinary and unprepossessing in appearance as a person could be, as a kid he was called Shorty Fedwell by his grandpa. His short stature and squarish head topped by a reliable thick shock of hear brushed forward got him the law school nickname Barney Rubble. Bob was not a go getter and preferred not to have to deal with people but he was good with logic and writing heartless documents.

The appointed position of City Trustee had been the perfect bit of luck for a guy who otherwise hadn't very good prospects. Stories are written about attorneys who graduated top of their class and went on to fame and fortune. Bob Graduated at the bottom of his class and took three tries to pass the Bar exam. He was friends with and had dirt on one of those power players from school though who got him the trustee gig. He didn't want fame but he had managed to make a pretty good fortune off of the estates of those whose families had abandoned them.

When the Lamour case came along Bob was well into his fifties and a career bachelor. He had long ago defined himself not by what he achieved but by what he spent. Good suits and new cars went a long way to giving him access to all the short term relationships he wanted. Bob didn't hope for love or loyalty. He had a very short term view of life and was willing to have dinner with most any relatively well put together woman if the prospects of sex after were good. When he had started this strategy it was older women he chased and somewhere along the line the same women had become younger than him, but no matter. As long as they were past their second marriage and insecure about the prospects of a third chance he would give 'em a few weeks of his attention.

There were exceptions of course and one of them was Donna. Donna Ham was his assistant and reliable confidant. There had been a time 25 years before when she was the hot young thing he hired because he figured he would have a shot and indeed he did. Donna was a girl who grew herself up on the streets giving blowjobs in dark corners to secure whatever she needed to get thru that night. Donna had been beaten and raped yet still looked everyone in the eye and flashed a million dollar smile.

She knew just how to play Bob better than he played her and she didn't have to be his girlfriend for long. Knowing he would lose interest fast, putting out was a means to an end for her. Once she was on the inside she had wheedled him into paying for her to go to community college to earn a paralegal certificate. Donna was a smart, hard worker who manipulated Bob without him ever having to admit it. Still all these years later she let him pat her ass and she smiled back when he thought it was the height of compliment.

It was Donna who saw the opportunity for herself in the Lamore estate. At first it was volunteering to take the inventory and clean out the house. Unlike most cases where the few assets to be found were in well documented accounts and the most Donna could pilfer was guns, jewelry and petty cash, Dorothy's house was a chaos of wealth. There were treasures in every cupboard. Uncashed dividend checks, small antiques, collectible coins and fine jewelry were strewn all over the huge house. The home had been as grand as could be some time back in the nineteen thirties and now it was one big rotten filthy mess that needed cleaning out and documenting for the new ward of the court.

Donna skillfully relieved Bob of the need to get his hands dirty. She would inventory the place and manage the cleaners. She was very careful to only take undocumented valuables. She spent hundreds of billable hours over the first few months putting Dorothy's home back into the condition it was always meant to be.

After the home was cleared of filth Donna brought in art experts to appraise the paintings and statues. She brought in other appraisers to detail all of the valuables like Sterling silver, French cameo glass and Tiffany lamps. The Furniture was looked at and the library was studied. Everything of significant value was trucked off to storage by the specialist firm Art Vault. Everything else went off in a Mayflower moving van.

Once the home was completely empty it was professionally restored with hardwood floors buffed and walls repainted. Chandeliers were cleaned, rewired and rehung. A new roof was put on and deferred plumbing repairs made. All of this of course was rubberstamped by a judge at the recommendation of Bob because Donna said it needed doing to maintain the value of the house. Brick work was tuck pointed and of course the overgrown landscaping was put back in order. Everything was paid for by the more than ample resource of the stock and bond portfolio that had been traced down to Dorothy's name by virtue of the decades of unread mail that had been piled in the house. Bob of course earned his customary fees and commissions for managing the estate and they were substantial given the size of the portfolio. But it was Donna who was the real winner.

Besides what she could line her pockets with at the outset, which had been her regular routine in all cases, Donna got the house. As soon as it was back in tip top shape Donna proposed to Bob that she be installed in the house as caretaker to allow for it to be insured and keep an eye on things.

"Everyone knows an abandoned house is a target for all kinds of bad people" she said to Bob the afternoon she talked him into her idea. "Of course it would only be until the property is sold" she said.

She knew this did not need court approval because it was well within his purview as trustee obligated to care for the affairs of his client. Once he said yes, she took it upon herself to go to the moving and storage and select furnishings to be returned to the home after a thorough cleaning and restoration. Again these were all said to be in the best interest of the woman in the care facility because after all they were charged with taking the best care they could of her estate.

After a lengthy selection process, a real estate agent was chosen to market the home. Bob was more than happy to delegate that work to his assistant. Six months later when the over-priced home was still not sold Bob was easily persuaded that it just wasn't the right market for such a home and they should wait until the Spring to maximize return. After another overpriced listing expired the next summer the subject of selling the home never came up again.

Donna understood well the advantages of knowing all the secrets of a man deeply vested in his own schemes and scams. She would listen to his tales of conquest and console him with the occasional hand job. As long as his income was never threatened he would turn a blind eye to her feeding off the dead and dying. They were an old couple now who knew each other's ways well but never spoke openly about the truth of any of it.

Donna moved into the mansion just a few months after the firemen carried Dorothy out. Donna lived there rent free for the next 19 years. Dorothy would never see her home again.