To the Stars -- and Beyond. Damien Broderick

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СКАЧАТЬ put a hand on the window, as if to ward off an evil spirit. “You decapitated my sister?” she asked softly.

      “It’s quite common, Ms. Packard. The expense for preserving the head is a fifth of that for the entire body. Over half our clients choose this option. The others have specific medical problems they wish to have solved when the technology is available in the future. It would seem your sister didn’t have such a problem.”

      “Only a massive cerebral hemorrhage,” said Blanche. “All right, I want to speak to one or more of the physicians who attended my sister, and find out what’s going on here. This entire thing smells foul to me.”

      “If you leave your number, someone will call you and hopefully explain things better than I have.”

      Blanche gave him her card. “It had better be tonight, or we’ll be talking about this in a court of law.”

      “I’ll forward this card right away, and tell them your concerns,” said the receptionist.

      Blanche turned her back on him and marched away fuming, swinging her arms. She was dressed expensively in white pants suit and black tie, and looked important. She was a handsome woman, looking perhaps fifty, even forty, yet she had recently turned seventy-six. She pulled out her cell phone, and spoke a number. Waited, one foot tapping the floor.

      “Arthur Winslow, please,” she said, and waited again, then, “Arthur, this is Blanche. I’m here at Advanced Technologies, and I’ve just been told I can’t see my sister because you’ve had her decapitated. Now what are you up to, you miserable little worm?”

      She waited a moment, then punched the phone off in a fury.

      Arthur had hung up on her.

      * * * *

      “There’s a conspiracy here, Randal, and I expect you to unravel it.”

      Randal Haug, Blanche’s expensive attorney and longtime friend of her late husband Ralph, leaned over his expansive desk to study the document there, and thumped it with a finger.

      “Nothing,” he said. “Not one red cent. The last version I saw had you down for over two million in stocks and property alone. What happened between you and Helen?”

      Blanche’s fingers twisted together in her lap. “I don’t know. We saw a lot of each other until a few years ago. I think it started when Fred died. Helen was a recluse for months after that, but Arthur was there to comfort her. Dear Arthur, her baby-boy. Fred didn’t leave him a dime; it all went to Helen. Even then, she designated a portion of the estate for me; we’d talked about establishing a foundation to support local performing arts. I know Arthur opposed that. I heard him say so. The man is a financier, an accountant. He exists solely in his left brain.”

      “You think Arthur has manipulated his mother into changing her will?”

      “I do.”

      “For what purpose? The bulk of the estate was left to him in the older version of the will, and he’s an independently wealthy man without it. You don’t need the money. Ralph left you, what, twenty-five million? Fifty? I can’t recall now.”

      Blanche’s voice rose in pitch. “It’s not the money, Randal. Not money for me, that is, but Helen and I had a foundation planned, and suddenly I’ll have to do it alone while that son of hers puts all her money back into the company that has mutilated her for no reason. Cost, indeed! My sister would never have allowed her head to be removed and her body destroyed just to save a measly hundred thousand each year. They say it’s in her contract, then tell me I can’t see the thing to verify it. There’s something sinister about this, Randal, and I want you to get to the bottom of it! I’m thinking of filing a Wrongful Death suit against both the company and Arthur Winslow. Murder would be harder to prove.”

      “You’re not serious,” said Randal.

      “I have inside sources. As of last Tuesday, Arthur owns twenty percent of Advanced Technologies. The buy he made Tuesday had to come from his inheritance; my sources can list the stocks he traded. We can link them to Helen’s holdings. We have a motive, Randal. The method is harder to prove.”

      Randal seemed suddenly interested, and drummed the fingers of his right hand on the desktop, then pointed at Blanche and said, “I can write that in a way to force a Show Cause Hearing before a judge. But if I get one, will you accept the judgment? If it goes against you, will you drop all of this? Helen was also my friend, Blanche, and I think she’d be very unhappy with me for dragging her son into court. Arthur has always struck me as being smart and hard-working. I don’t think he’d do what you’re suggesting here. He could just be making what he considers to be a wise investment with his inheritance. You have no physical evidence for anything else.”

      “You’re not being supportive, Randal,” said Blanche softly. “You’ve been my lawyer for years, but that can end right now.”

      Randal didn’t even flinch. “It will end right now if you don’t answer my question. Will you accept any judgment of a Show Cause Hearing? If not, then find yourself another lawyer.”

      Blanche glared at him. She did not like being pressured by hired help, but she needed the man. “If I’m convinced my sister wasn’t murdered, I’ll not press for anything beyond the judgment of a hearing,” she said.

      “Good,” said Randal, then closed the file on his desk and gently hammered on it with a fist. “Let’s go to court.”

      * * * *

      The call came late at night, when Blanche was preparing for bed. The kitchen help had left for the night, and Paula had retired to her basement bedroom after leaving a warm brandy and a cookie on the nightstand for her mistress. So when the telephone rang, Blanche picked it up quickly so Paula would not be awakened.

      It was Arthur Winslow.

      “I was served with a summons this afternoon. Wrongful Death? Have you totally lost your mind?”

      “It’s only a hearing, Arthur,” said Blanche. “There are questions to be answered before I proceed with further litigation.”

      “For what? This is all about mom’s will, isn’t it? All the money you have, and you’re greedy for more. That’s why mom cut you out of it in the first place. You don’t need more!”

      “It isn’t about money,” said Blanche. “My sister died under mysterious circumstances, and I want them explained.”

      “You’re nuts! Paranoid! Do you know what this hearing can do to my business if it gets into the papers?”

      “That’s nonsense. I’m just trying to—”

      “You’ve always been a greedy bitch. Mom told me so. You were always after her to finance your social butterfly events, even when dad was alive. He went along with it. Well, I don’t. You badgered mom for money when she was alive, and now you’re doing it when she’s dead. Finance your own social status, and leave us alone!”

      The cell phone clicked in Blanche’s ear.

      “That’s not fair,” she said, but Arthur was gone.

      * * * *

      A Show Cause Hearing was СКАЧАТЬ