Chapter 4 - A Solemn Duty
Jace Carlton had been Roderick Benedict’s attorney for twelve years, and when the call came a little after nine that night, he understood two things almost at once.
The first was that his client was dying. The second was that whatever Roderick wanted done, it would have to be done in a way that no court in the country could later pick apart — because a will that hands eighty-two million dollars to a hospital orderly instead of a lawful widow is a will that will be attacked from every angle, by every expensive litigator the widow can hire, for as long as it takes.
So Jace did not simply show up with a document and a pen. He arrived the next morning with an entourage.
First through the door, at Jace’s side, was a board-certified psychiatrist — a woman with reading glasses on a chain and a manner as calm as still water.
She sent everyone but a nurse out of the room, sat with Roderick for the better part of forty minutes, and asked him a long, patient series of questions: the date, the name of the president, the value of his holdings, the reasons for what he wanted to do, whether anyone had pressured him, whether he understood the consequences for his wife.
Roderick answered all of it, slowly but without a single stumble. When she came out she signed a statement, on the record, attesting that in her professional judgment Roderick Benedict was fully conscious, entirely lucid, and acting of his own free will, under no coercion and no confusion.
Then the witnesses came in. Teresa Pearson, the chief financial officer of Roderick’s company, a sharp, unsentimental woman who had run his numbers for nine years and trusted him more than she trusted most people.
And Seth Coleman, his former business partner, who had built the second plant with him back when they were both younger men with more nerve than sense, and who had wept, briefly and privately, in the hallway before he came in.
A notary set a small camera on a tripod at the foot of the bed and checked the light.
“Whenever you’re ready, Roderick,” Jace said.
Roderick was propped up on pillows, gray but clear-eyed. Brandon stood back against the wall, out of the camera’s frame, looking as though he wanted to be anywhere else and could not make himself leave.
Jace read the schedule of assets aloud, slowly and formally, for the record. “The manufacturing facility in Detroit and all associated equipment and inventory.
The residence in Bethesda. The two condominiums in the city. The vehicles. The investment portfolio. The cash and money-market accounts. Total estimated value, as of the most recent statements, eighty-two point three million dollars.”
“All of it,” Roderick said, and his voice for these words came out stronger than it had in days, as though he had been saving what he had left for exactly this, “is to be placed into a trust, managed by and for the benefit of Brandon Robbins.
My wife, Demi Benedict, is to receive nothing — not one dollar, not one asset, not one keepsake.” He drew a breath. “And there is one more instruction.
On my bedside table there is a recording, made yesterday evening, of my wife describing in her own words how and why she has been poisoning me. Jace has a copy.
If it is shown that Demi contributed to my death — and it will be — that recording is to go directly to the State’s Attorney and to the FBI. I will not have my murder go unanswered because I was too polite to leave the evidence.”
Jace already had the recording. He had listened to it once, alone, in his car in the hospital parking structure, and had sat very still afterward for a long time.
Now he confirmed for the camera that a certified copy had been secured on an encrypted drive, sealed, and logged.
They executed the documents. Roderick signed with a hand that shook so badly Brandon had to look away, but he signed, in full view of the camera, and the witnesses signed, and the notary signed, and it was done.
When the others had filed out to handle the filing, Brandon came to the bedside at last. He had said almost nothing the whole time.
“Mr. Benedict, I—”
“Listen to me.” Roderick caught his wrist. For a dying man the grip was startling, almost fierce. “You’re going to spend the next while thinking you don’t deserve this.
Stop. I didn’t give it to you because you deserve it. I gave it to you because I trust you to carry it. You’re not inheriting a fortune, Brandon. You’re inheriting a duty.
Do you understand the difference?”
Brandon looked at the ruined, determined old man holding his arm, and nodded, because his throat had closed and he could not speak.
May you like
“Good,” Roderick said, and let go, and settled back into the pillows as if that had been the last heavy thing he needed to lift. “Now go take care of your sister.”
Three days later, at dawn, with the rain finally gone and a thin gray light coming up over the harbor, Roderick Benedict died in his sleep.
