The Miser

by Dell Shannon

Genres: Mystery; Police Procedurals; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

Old Vandeveer is an odd client for the famous Jesse Falkenstein; dressed head to toe in shabby clothes it seems like he can hardly afford Jesse's standard fee to draw up a will. But when he and his wife are murdered a few weeks later, Falkenstein is launched on an intricate search for a fortune the old man has hidden away. The miser's long-suffering daughter is the immediate suspect, but in an effort to clear her name, Jesse discovers a tale of sharp business deals, blackmail, pornography, a questionable legal marriage and murder. 'My favourite American crime-writer' New York Herald Tribune

Release date: July 14, 2014

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 240

Sample

Jesse had seen the old man only once, and that had been six and a half years ago. That had been in the rather dingy old office out on Vine Street, with Miss Williams
ineffectually pottering around pretending to be a legal secretary; and in those days he had sometimes taken Saturday morning appointments, still building a practice. It had been a Saturday morning
he had seen Jan Vanderveer.

When Miss Williams had peered into his office and said, “The eleven o’clock appointment’s here, Mr. Falkenstein,” he had gotten up automatically to welcome the new
client. In the little anteroom was a tall old man and a youngish woman.

The old man stood up promptly; the woman half-rose and he turned on her peremptorily. “You just wait, Dulcie.”

“Yes, Papa.” She was perhaps in her early thirties, a plumpish brown-haired young woman, round-faced, nondescript.

The old man came into the office and sat down abruptly in the client’s chair. He was tall and gaunt, once a powerful man but stooped a little with age; he had a keen hawk-nosed face, and
his voice was sharp and sure. He was shabbily dressed in an old-fashioned gray suit with a vest, his shirt collar frayed. He regarded Jesse sardonically and said, “I’ll bet you’ll
never guess why I picked you. Haven’t had any dealings with a lawyer in years. Tried nine of ’em, see? Your gal quoted me the lowest price—thirty-five dollars to make a
will.”

Jesse returned the sardonic grin. “That’s for a simple straightforward will, Mr. Vanderveer. Anything complicated, it might be more.”

“Better not be—I got the firm quote. It’ll be simple, all right.” Vanderveer scowled and passed a hand over his largely bald head. “Howie said I ought to have a
will, and he’s right, but dammit, it’s hell to know what to do. It is hell to get old, and nobody sensible to leave it to. If the wife had ever had a boy—but she never, just the
two girls, and women are all fools about money. Hen-brained, the lot of them. I want it all left in trust, only thing to do, dammit.”

Jesse prepared to take notes. “Damn it,” said Vanderveer, interrupting his first question querulously, “it wouldn’t make sense, appoint Howie—partners for
thirty-seven years we were, but he’s only five years younger than me. If he and Flo had ever had a boy—but they never had any at all. I don’t trust banks more than halfway, but I
know Semons at Security, he’s an honest man and only forty-odd. Thought about it, and I guess that’s the only thing to do. Everything in trust, that branch of
Security-Pacific—Hollywood Boulevard.” He sounded dissatisfied. He told Jesse the names of the legatees absently: his wife, Myra, his daughter Dulcie.

“You mentioned another daughter, Mr. Vanderveer?”

“Marcia. Hah. She needn’t expect anything, running off with that damn lah-de-dah college professor. She’s provided for—made her own bed.”

Jesse regarded him soberly. “I’d advise you to leave her a token legacy at least,” he said. “If you pass her over entirely, it could be grounds to contest the
will—a direct blood heir.” People did come all sorts.

“Hah!” said Vanderveer with a rather wolfish grin. “Marcia’d know better than that. But come to think”—he gnawed at a thumbnail
thoughtfully—“could be that damn prissy professor might not. You think so, hah? Leave her a hundred dollars and it’d have to stand? All right, make it like that.”

Jesse got the name, Mrs. Marcia Coleman, an address in Claremont. The Vanderveer address was on Kingsley in Hollywood. “And a list of the property—exactly what does it consist
of?”

“None of your damned business,” said Vanderveer testily. “You just put down, ‘everything of which I die possessed’—that’s the legal phrase, isn’t
it? Good enough?” Jesse admitted it would be legal, if not altogether desirable. “All right, you put it down like that. And that’s all.” His thin lips worked a little.
“Hell to get old,” he muttered. “Never made a will before, but Howie said I ought not to leave it. Otherwise the state taking a piece—damn government.”

It would be a very simple will. Jesse told him it would be ready to sign on Monday. Vanderveer was annoyed at the delay, and had it pointed out to him that it was noon on Saturday and
Jesse’s secretary had other work to do. He got up stiffly and Jesse escorted him out. In the front office he said, “Say, one o’clock on Monday, we’ll have it ready for you
to sign.”

“If that’s the best you can do,” said Vanderveer sourly.

The young woman spoke up placatingly. “I can’t take a day off to drive you, Papa. Mr. Klein’s expecting some important calls on Monday—you could take the bus.”

Vanderveer said grudgingly, “Will say you’re a conscientious gal—’s right, when you’re working for a man, got to give full value.” He gave Jesse a rather
baleful stare. “The damn D.M.V. took away my license last month—said I couldn’t pass the eye test. Damn nuisance—been driving sixty years without any trouble. All right.
Monday.” He stalked out, the young woman pattering after him, and Jesse went back to his desk to start drafting the simple will. People did come all sorts; but Mr. Vanderveer struck him as
the prototype of the fellow of whom it was said, if he couldn’t take it with him he wasn’t going. Except that that was beyond the control of a mere mortal.

Vanderveer came in that Monday, read over the formal phrases carefully, and carefully signed the will in the large childish scrawl of the uneducated men unaccustomed to penmanship—Jan
Willem Vanderveer. Jesse said routinely, “It ought to go in your safe-deposit box, if you have one—or if you prefer you can leave it with me.”

Vanderveer ruminated. “I suppose you might as well keep it,” he said. “Less trouble. All right.” He handed the pages back and stood up.

Jesse had never seen the man again after he shuffled out of the office that day. And a good deal of water had flowed under the bridge since then. He and Nell had been married, and eighteen
months ago David Andrew had been born. They had met that old reprobate Edgar Walters, who had died last year and left Jesse quite a respectable amount of money. And Nell had found the sprawling old
house on an acre of ground up Coldwater Canyon Drive, and had been amusing herself remodeling and redecorating. These days Jesse was established in the new, larger office in the new building on
Wilshire Boulevard, and pampered by his extremely efficient twin secretaries, Jean and Jimmy (Jamesina) Gordon. Clients and cases had come and gone, some dull and some interesting, and in his
office safe reposed the wills of a few other clients who preferred the lawyer to have custody; and the name of Jan Vanderveer had faded from his mind.

Until last Monday when Jean had briefed him on the various appointments for the coming week and mentioned it. “The earliest I could fit him in was at three on Friday, there’s that
divorce hearing, and the Saunders’ damage suit—you’ll probably be in court on that up to Thursday.”

“Vanderveer,” said Jesse reflectively.

“He wouldn’t say what it was about.”

Jesse vaguely remembered the old fellow, wondering if it was the same one, and forgot about it. As he had expected, they had to postpone the court date on the Lenhoff
divorce—Lenhoff’s attorney was being sticky about the settlement. He was pleasantly surprised when the damage suit went to the jury early on Thursday afternoon—he had rather
expected it to trail over into Friday.

As it was, he found himself at loose ends after lunch on Friday, with only one appointment—another client who wanted a divorce— at four-thirty, after Vanderveer. He was studying the
latest counteroffer of Lenhoff’s attorney—dammit, the man was worth five or six million, and Rose Lenhoff had put up with his drinking, womanizing, and physical abuse for twenty years,
he wasn’t going to fob her off with token alimony if Jesse could help it—when William DeWitt came in. He looked wet and annoyed. Southern California was evidently going to have another
early wet year; at the end of October the second rainstorm had arrived yesterday, and it was drizzling again today. DeWitt, as tall and dark and lean as Jesse, divested himself of his raincoat and
dumped an account book on Jesse’s desk.

“Go through the motions,” said Jesse, eying it. “There’s never anything in it, William. Very modest little operation, yours is.”

“Have to abide by the law,” said DeWitt grumpily. He had finally severed professional connections with the Parapsychology Foundation and formed his own psychic research association;
with some personal wealth and a few solid backers, he was happily engaged in, as he put it, redoing the basic research of a hundred years ago, with a couple of fairly gifted psychics; and Jesse had
taken on the official job of treasurer. To maintain nonprofit status, the financial reports had to be made, but there was little work to it, the sums involved minuscule. Jesse shoved the account
book to one side of his desk, and DeWitt sat down and lit a cigarette.

“People,” he said. “People! I have had it with this Finch woman. Dammit, I’m sorry for her, but why do these people have to come wasting our time? Well, I can’t say
that exactly—”

“What about her?” asked Jesse. “You haven’t mentioned that one before.”

“That’s right, she only showed up about three weeks back. Yesterday was her third session with Cora—no, fourth.” Cora Delaney was one of the psychics working with him.
“And an intelligent woman, too—she’s a lawyer in Santa Monica—but the absolute materialist. She’s lost a daughter—only child, girl in the teens, hit-run by a
drunk driver—and she’s divorced, alone, it hit her hard. She—”

“Wants some communication, proof the daughter’s still there somewhere. Haven’t any of your tame psychics brought anything through?”

“Dammit, it’s never one hundred percent evidential—or seldom, as we both know. But both Cora and Wanda have given her some good solid stuff, better than you often get. An
unusual pet name, childhood memories, a couple of dogs they’d had—what I’d call pretty evidential. And the damn woman—first she’s in floods of tears, darling Lottie,
and next minute it’s no, I can’t believe it, it’s just telepathy, she’s reading my mind—”

“People,” said Jesse. “As if telepathy was all that common or easy. Makes you tired.”

“At least we’ve got the records for the files,” said DeWitt. “But it’s annoying. Puts the medium off some. I brought along the transcript of yesterday’s
session, in case you’re interested—really quite evidential when you analyze it—” He brought out an untidy bundle of typescript. Miss Duffy’s copy from the tapes was
impeccable, but DeWitt would cram it into his pockets instead of a briefcase. Jesse eyed it dubiously and said he’d look it over when he had time.

After half an hour or so DeWitt said he had an appointment with a psychologist at UCLA, and reluctantly took himself off into the rain. Jesse looked over those figures again, told Jean to get
him Lenhoff’s attorney, and spent forty minutes arguing with him, getting a few grudging concessions. When he put the phone down he glanced at the clock; it was twenty past three. He got up
and looked out into the front office.

“Didn’t we have somebody coming in at three?”

“Mr. Vanderveer,” said Jimmy. “I wish people would be punctual—it throws all the routine out.”

Jesse sat thinking about the Lenhoff settlement, and an unspecified time later Jean looked in and said, “He hasn’t shown up yet. Should I call to remind him?”

“Who?” asked Jesse.

“Mr. Vanderveer,” said Jean patiently. “It’s a quarter of four, and sometimes people do forget appointments.”

“Oh—yes, you’d better, I suppose,” said Jesse absently.

She went away, and past the open door he heard her on the phone. Presently her voice went up in excitement. “Oh, yes, sir. Yes, sir, I see. . . . It’s Mr. J. D. Falkenstein, Wilshire
Boulevard, and of course— Oh, yes, sir, I’ll tell him. . . . Jimmy! You’ll never guess—” They both appeared at the office door, and Jean said, “Oh, Mr.
Falkenstein—he’s been murdered! That Mr. Vanderveer. That was a police officer answered the phone, and he said Mr. Vanderveer had been killed yesterday, and the police will want to talk
to you. Of all things!”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Jesse mildly. But of course the crime rate was up, and a lot of innocent citizens were getting killed these days, with the violent ones running
around loose. At that moment he wasn’t greatly concerned over the murder; what entered his mind was that will. “It was Jan Vanderveer? Jan Willem?”

“Yes, that was the name—”

“And when he made the appointment, he didn’t say why he wanted to see me? Well, I don’t suppose it matters now. But dammit, it’ll be some more paper work. We’ve got
his will on file. I’ll have to see the family, set up a date with the IRS and so forth, get the thing into probate.” He felt the first stirrings of curiosity as to how the old man had
gotten himself killed. “Murder?”

“That’s what the officer said.”

“Be damned,” said Jesse again.

There wasn’t anything more he could do on the Lenhoff thing today; he’d have to talk to Rose Lenhoff tomorrow, or, no, Monday, see how she felt about the latest offer. He had three
divorce hearings set for next week, and there should be a court date set for that other damage suit, the Osborne thing, any day—that was going to occupy some time. It couldn’t be
helped. He could probably get some information about Vanderveer from Clock. He looked at his watch and decided he might as well go home, and left the Gordons chattering about the murder.

The new house was on a street called Paradise Lane, up Coldwater Canyon, and it was farther to drive from his office. The street was isolated, with only two other houses on it a distance away
from the big old two-story house at the dead end. The house was on an acre of ground, with a chain-link fence all around it; Nell, expecting him home, had left the gate open, which meant that
Athelstane was in. Jesse drove through the gate, got out and shut it, parked the Mercedes in the garage next to Nell’s, and went in the back door to the generous old-fashioned service
porch.

David Andrew, having mastered the art of walking six months ago, these days usually proceeded at a run; he came pounding across the kitchen excitedly. “Daddy! Kitten!” He hurled
himself at Jesse. “Kitten!”

“Oh, my Lord, not now, Davy. Later.” Of all the nursery rhymes Nell recited and sang to him, David Andrew had seized upon the three little kittens and their mittens as his all-time
favorite and demanded repetition endlessly.

Nell straightened from the kitchen table and came to kiss him, his lovely Nell with her bright brown hair in its usual fat chignon on her neck, her cheeks a little flushed from the oven heat.
“For once,” she said, “he’s not talking about those kittens. You’ll never believe it, Jesse, but I’ve discovered Athelstane’s secret.”

They had moved in a month ago, and it was only last weekend that Jesse had finished shelving all the books and stereo records. Gradually they were settling in, and Nell had
nearly stopped changing furniture around in the living room.

At first, when Athelstane, the mastiff, had taken to vanishing for hours at a time, they had supposed he was simply investigating his new domain. There was lawn and shrubbery at the front of the
house, a good-sized covered patio, and a little more lawn at the back; but a good half acre there had been left wild, with a tall old stand of eucalyptus trees, a place any dog might spend time
investigating. But Athelstane was a people-oriented dog, and when he continued to disappear for most of every afternoon, they had begun to be curious.

This afternoon it hadn’t started raining until about one-thirty, and Nell had gone out after lunch, while Davy napped, to plant some bulbs she’d brought home yesterday. She was on
her knees, working assiduously with a trowel, at the edge of the eucalyptus grove, when in the silence up here on the hill away from the city she heard Athelstane grunting. When Athelstane was
feeling particularly happy and contented, he emitted soft little whuffles; and somewhere there in among the trees he was telling the world he was happy. Amused, Nell got up stealthily and began
tracking him. Stepping softly, she followed the whuffles in the tall underbrush; and when she spotted him, for a moment she didn’t believe what she saw.

Athelstane, for all his huge size and heft, was something of a retiring personality. He was scared to death of the Clocks’ black Peke, Sally; he had never been on terms of friendship with
another dog. But here he was now—Nell peered incredulously—uttering little pleased rumblings, and lovingly licking something between his enormous front paws. The brush was thick; Nell
stepped closer, wondering if he could have caught and killed something—there’d be gophers up here, mice—and then suddenly she burst out laughing.

Athelstane had evidently made a friend. The object between his paws was, incredibly, a cat—by the glimpse she had, a Siamese cat, blissfully snuggled up against the great brindle chest. At
her burst of laughter, the cat leaped convulsively and shot away under the trees, and Athelstane looked aggrieved.

“The big baby,” said Nell now, telling Jesse about it. “You can’t imagine how funny it looked. Quite a handsome Siamese from the little look I had, it must belong to
someone around, one of the houses down the hill.” Athelstane had pressed up to welcome Jesse, who pulled his ears fondly.

“Never know what the monster’ll think of next. Queer, all right.”

“Kittens!” said Davy insistently. “Fee kittens.” He tugged at Jesse’s trousers.

“Later on, Davy. Before bed.”

“We’ve got time for a leisurely drink before dinner, after I get him to bed,” said Nell. “Come on, big boy.”

They had the leisurely drink, and dinner, and it was eight-thirty when Jesse settled at the desk in his study and picked up the phone. Just as he’d promised himself, in this house there
was a comfortable chair beside every phone. He leaned back comfortably in the high-backed desk chair and dialed, and in a moment his little sister Fran answered.

“So you’re feeling better?” asked Jesse.

“I’m always all right by evening,” said Fran crossly. “It’s the damned morning sickness—everybody says I should have been over it months ago, but the doctor
says it’s just my metabolism or something and not to worry. So easy for him to say. The longer this goes on, the more I’m thinking this is going to be an only child.”

Jesse laughed. “Wait till it’s here.”

“I can hardly wait. Two more months to go! And I look worse than I feel.” Of course Fran was normally svelte and slim and fashionable, and she didn’t appreciate maternity
clothes.

“Is Andrew home?”

“I’ll get him.” And a minute later the deep rough voice of Sergeant Clock, LAPD, Hollywood Precinct, replaced hers.

“That damn doctor,” it said. “I’m worried about Fran, Jesse. She’s feeling like hell, this damned morning sickness or whatever, and that doctor—”

“Now, Andrew. He’s supposed to be one of the best around, I suppose he knows what he’s doing. Preserve patience and keep the fingers firmly crossed. I want to know something
about a homicide. It’s your beat”—the Vanderveer address was Kingsley Drive—“so you probably know something about it. One Jan Vanderveer.”

“Oh, that,” said Clock. “What’s your int. . .