When the Sun Goes Down

by Gwynne Forster

Genres: Mystery; International Crime & Mystery

Synopsis

Winner of a Romantic Times Career Achievement Award, Gwynne Forster was elected into the Affaire de Coeur Hall of Fame for her acclaimed body of work. Her talent for laying bare the complexities of human relationships is evident in this emotional tale of siblings discovering what it means to be a family. After millionaire widower Leon Farrell dies, his three grown children are dismayed that their father’s will cannot be found. As tensions rise, they must learn to come together—or face being torn apart for good.

Release date: March 1, 2012

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

The biting cold and harsh January wind stung Gunther Farrell’s face and whitened the surface of St. John’s Lane, which led to and from St. John’s Cemetery just outside of Ellicott City, Maryland. Gunther glanced back over his left shoulder at the sound of rocky soil hitting the wooden box. The wind brought tears to his eyes, but he refused to shed them. His father didn’t deserve his tears, and not even the wind could make him do the old man the honor of crying at his demise. Not much of his heart was in that hole, but he knew that his sister, who was younger as well as softer and less judgmental than he, was despondent over their father’s death. He slung an arm across her shoulder and tugged her close to him, protecting her as he’d done since they lost their mother when he was fifteen and she was nearing her thirteenth birthday.

“Where are you going, Edgar?” he called to his older brother. “Don’t you think you should ride back to the house with Shirley and me?”

Edgar hopped onto the back of a friend’s Harley and hooked the helmet under his chin. “Look, I participated in this charade because you and Shirley begged me to be here, but it’s enough for me. I’m outta here.”

“You could at least go back to the house along with us,” Shirley said.

“I’ll see you there,” Edgar said. “By the way, brother. Did Donald Riggs mention when he’s reading the will? You’d think he’d tell me something, since I’m the oldest.”

“He hasn’t mentioned it to me,” Gunther said.

“Me neither,” Shirley assured him.

Edgar’s friend revved the big Harley, and a minute later, dust obscured the speeding vehicle.

Gunther and Shirley got into the backseat of the rented limousine that would take them to their father’s house. Neither of them lived in the family home, so the place would now be home to Edgar alone. After waiting for their older brother for more than an hour, Gunther locked the house and took Shirley with him to his duplex condominium.

“I’m going back to Fort Lauderdale in a couple of days,” Shirley told Gunther later as they sat in his living room sipping vodka and tonic. “My cruise leaves for the Mediterranean on Friday.”

“I wish you could stay until we settle Father’s estate. I’d bet my life it’ll be complicated.”

“Tell me about it,” Shirley said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he left everything he had to somebody’s puppy.”

Gunther rested his glass on the coffee table, got up, and walked over to the window. The grim weather further darkened his spirit. “Father didn’t understand that you and I succeeded beyond what he had a right to expect, considering that we did it on our own with absolutely no help from him,” Gunther said. “He never seemed to appreciate that when I was nine years old, I got up at five o’clock every morning in order to deliver papers before going to school and that I worked every afternoon after school. In spite of that, I earned a scholarship to college, worked my way through, and got an MBA.”

“It maddened him that you didn’t join the fat cats on Wall Street.”

“I wanted to develop computer software for games and puzzles and to design games. He said that was nothing and that I should be ashamed. Now I’m doing that. I make a good living, and I can’t wait to get to work every morning.”

“We’re both lucky, Gunther. I wanted to travel, and I have a job as director of public relations for a major cruise line. I could live on a ship if I wanted to. Incidentally, do you think it’s odd that Riggs hasn’t mentioned the reading of the will?”

“I hadn’t thought of it until Edgar mentioned it. Father used to say regularly that when the sun went down on his life, we’d all three come apart like balloons with holes punched in them. So I suspect he’s done his best to ensure that his prophecy comes true.” He looked at his watch. “I wonder where Edgar went when he left the cemetery.”

Shirley sipped the last of her drink. “Who knows? I wish he weren’t so angry at everybody and everything.”

Gunther got up the next morning, cooked breakfast for Shirley and himself, and sat down to eat. He’d done well for himself. At the age of thirty-four, he owned a company that created and published computer games and puzzles, and he owned an attractive condominium—more like a town house—in a modern building and upscale neighborhood. And moreover, he had substantial savings.

“Edgar’s smart,” he said to Shirley, “but he wants everything the easy way. One day, that’s going to get him into serious trouble.”

“I know. And it worries me.”

He reached for the phone that hung on the kitchen wall. “I’d better call Riggs. He hasn’t said a word to us, and that’s not normal. He’s been Father’s lawyer for at least twenty years, and he’s probably executor of the will. He ought to tell us something about this.” He dialed the number.

“Hello, Mr. Riggs, this is Gunther Farrell. When are you scheduling a reading of Father’s will?”

“How are you, Gunther? My condolences to you and to Edgar and Shirley. There’s a problem. I know Leon had a will that was properly executed, because it was witnessed and notarized in my presence, but he did not leave a copy with me. He also didn’t tell me where he put it. So we’ll have to find it.”

“You can’t be serious! He could have put it under a can in the garage, for heaven’s sake.”

“Yes. And he was capable of doing precisely that. I had a call from Edgar, and when I told him I don’t know where the will is, he said he’s going to court and have his father declared intestate.”

Gunther flexed the fingers of his left hand in an effort to beat back the rising anger and stress. “Can he do that?”

“I’m way ahead of him. I’ve obtained an injunction forbidding the disposal of the estate for one year unless the will is located within that time. Leon gave me an affidavit naming me as executor of his estate, but without a will, my hands are tied.”

Sensing trouble with Edgar, Gunther asked Riggs, “What can we do in the meantime? I’m not depending on anything from my father and neither is Shirley, but Edgar is always flat broke, so he’ll trash the place looking for that will.”

“He can do that, because he lives there. You and your sister can do the same, but you can get a restraining order to prevent him from disposing of anything that belonged to your father.”

Gunther thanked Riggs, hung up, and related the lawyer’s remarks to Shirley.

“Father must be somewhere laughing,” Shirley said in a disparaging voice.

“I notice you didn’t say he was looking down.”

“Trust me, I’m not feeling that generous. We’ve got to get hold of Edgar. Knowing how he loves money and how much he hates working for it, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did something illegal, thinking we wouldn’t prosecute him.”

“Yeah,” Gunther said. He didn’t trust Edgar. He got up and dialed the phone number at the family home.

“Hello.”

“Hello, Edgar. Shirley and I waited for you more than an hour last evening. Sorry we missed you. I see you’ve spoken with Riggs.”

“Yeah, man. That joker’s talking nonsense. I’m no fool. I bet he knows exactly where that will is. Damned if he’s gonna cheat me out of my inheritance.”

“Slow down, Edgar. Donald Riggs is not going to ruin his life and lose his ability to practice law over an estate as small as the one Father left us. And I’m warning you, if you sell one pair of socks from that house, you’ll be breaking the law, and I will see to it that you suffer the consequences.”

“How will I be breaking the law?”

Surely Edgar wasn’t going to play games with him. Edgar knew he wouldn’t be fooled by any phony display of innocence. “Because I will have a one-year restraining order against you,” he told him. “Every toothpick in that place belongs to the three of us. Find the will, and we take what Father left us.”

“Suppose there isn’t a will anywhere.”

“There is, because Riggs said he helped Father construct it and was present when witnesses signed it and a notary notarized it.”

“Oh, crap. That’s all I need! Now I have to wait a year, a whole bloody year to get myself straight. Man, I’m in debt over my head. You wouldn’t have a couple of thousand, would you?”

Gunther’s hand gripped the receiver. He hadn’t expected it, but he should have known it was coming. “Edgar, I have a firm policy that I apply to everybody. I do not borrow money, and I do not lend it. And especially not to anyone who already owes me. Period.”

“Why didn’t I know that? And you also never wear your baseball cap turned backward. Pardon me for asking.”

Gunther looked down at Shirley. “Damned if Edgar didn’t hang up on me.”

A quick frown slid over her face, and she patted his hand, eager for peace as usual. “I know it’s hard to love Edgar sometimes,” she said, “but he’s our brother.”

“Yeah. And if you told him how much like Father he is in some ways, he’d be ready to wipe the floor with you. He’s as self-centered as a person can be.”

An hour later, the veracity of Gunther’s statement was fully demonstrated. Donald Riggs looked Edgar in the eye. “Are you suggesting that I mortgage your father’s estate for fifty thousand dollars, give the money to you, and you will relinquish further claim to it? Ten percent for me. Is that what you’re asking? How do you know it’s worth fifty thousand or that it isn’t already mortgaged?”

“Look, man, that house is worth at least two hundred grand, maybe twice that much.”

Donald leaned forward and spoke through clenched teeth, using every bit of willpower he could muster to refrain from expelling Edgar bodily from his office. “If you think I’ll ruin my life in a shaky deal with you, you’re dumber than I thought.”

Edgar rose to his full height of five feet ten inches and glowered at Riggs. “Nobody calls me dumb, man. My frigging daddy didn’t even do that. I’ll see you around.”

Donald shook his head, bemused. “At times like this, I’m glad my wife and I don’t have any children,” he said aloud, and began to map a strategy for finding the will. He couldn’t check safe-deposit boxes until he got a copy of the death certificate, and that would take another couple of days. He phoned his wife and told her of his conversation with Edgar.

He could almost hear her yawning. “Honey, I thought you told me Edgar’s father didn’t think he was worth the energy it took to beget him. Don’t you get mixed up with that boy. Betty Lou’s gon’ drop by around noon, and we’ll work on the blankets we’re making for the homeless. Let me tell you, Bobbie Dean pitched a hissy fit this morning ’bout something or other. You could hear her all over the neighborhood. I declare, Bobbie Dean’s so unladylike.”

“I’ll try to get home early, and maybe we can go see a movie.”

“Honey, you’re the sweetest man.”

He hung up. Whenever he needed relief from stress, he called his wife. She had a way of belittling the biggest problem and making him believe it wasn’t as important as he thought. With the kooks he had to deal with every day, having her was a true blessing. And he was going to need more than one blessing if he was to get the Farrell estate settled. How could one man sire sons as different as Gunther and Edgar? A half-laugh slipped out of him. How could kids remain sane with parents as different as Leon and Catherine Farrell? He let out a long and labored sigh. Finding that will would mean taking his time from other, more urgent cases, but he’d do the best he could.

In the meantime, Gunther arrived at a similar decision, more for Shirley than for himself. “I’m going to take the day off from the office,” he told his sister. “If we don’t locate that will within a year, the state will take what it wants and stipulate who gets what part of the rest. I have to look for that will.”

“Where will you start? Since I’m here, I can help.”

“Let’s go over to the house and start looking there. By now, Edgar’s probably wrecked the place.”

They searched for hours until, exhausted, Gunther threw his hands up. “I’ve lived this long and this well without access to Father’s money, and I am not going to exercise myself about that will a minute longer.”

“That makes two of us,” Shirley said. “Father should have been ashamed of himself for doing such a thing. Let Edgar and the state of Maryland sweat over it.”

“Anyway, I want to get out of here,” Gunther said. “He’s been gone only a week, and already this place has a stale, musky odor.”

“Yeah. Sort of like decaying mushrooms. Edgar should open some windows.”

Edgar roared up on his Harley as Gunther and Shirley were about to get into Gunther’s car. “Any luck?” he asked, his piercing gaze pinned on Gunther.

“Nothing,” Gunther replied, “and we’ve been here for more than four hours. I can’t imagine where he put it. I never thought Father was devious, but what else would you call this? He wouldn’t spend a penny to execute a will and then destroy it. So he hid it somewhere. Good luck trying to find it.”

Edgar stared at Gunther. “You’re giving up? You’re not going to try again? Man, you can’t do that. I need the money. I quit my two-bit job the day the old man died, figuring I’d come into some money. This is terrible. It’s the pits.”

“For goodness’ sake, don’t get twisted out of shape,” Gunther said. “You don’t have to pay rent as long as you stay here, because the estate should pay for the upkeep of the house, and you get a monthly check from Mom’s will. So what’s the urgency?”

“Look here. Get off your damned high horse. I got debts, and a lot of ’em.”

Gunther resisted shrugging his shoulder, because he really did care deeply for his brother, but he knew from experience that if he tried to help Edgar, he’d go right down with him. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “Stay in touch.”

Three days later, Gunther drove Shirley to the Baltimore / Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, where he parked and handed her bags to a porter. “I want you to stop fretting about Edgar and that will. He’s the oldest, and he should be leading us. If he’s broke, it’s because he spends his income on weed and gambling.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Yes, I do, and quitting his job was the most stupid thing he could have done. He’s a first-rate guitarist, but how many places are there around here for even the best jazz musician to work?”

“Can’t he work in Baltimore?”

“I suppose he can, provided he hasn’t bombed out in every place that employs jazz guitarists. Stop worrying. Mom babied him till he became useless, and now you’re threatening to take up where she left off. He’s thirty-six years old, and if he gets into trouble, he has to be man enough to get out of it.” He hugged her and kissed her cheek. “Call me when you get to Fort Lauderdale.”

Shirley knew that she made too many excuses for Edgar. She’d done it to protect him from their father’s wrath, although she knew he probably deserved whatever Leon Farrell meted out. When their mother died suddenly after falling from a ladder, their father began to ignore them, giving them a home and food and not much else. She and Gunther worked their way through universities with the help of scholarships. Edgar refused to struggle through college, and after he finished high school, he worked for a famed Baltimore musician in exchange for guitar and piano lessons, widening the rift between himself and his father.

She boarded her flight, grabbed one of the flimsy red blankets, wrapped herself in it, and settled in a window seat. As soon as the cabin door closed, she slid down in her seat and went to sleep. Weak coffee, assorted other beverages, and pretzels held no interest for her.

“I hope you’re not planning to sleep all the way to Fort Lauderdale,” a deep baritone voice said, announcing the presence of a seat mate.

She didn’t open her eyes. “If at all possible, I am,” she said, and turned so that she faced the window. In her opinion, if a man traveled alone, he forgot the truth and his principles the minute he stepped on a plane. Besides, she had no intention of spending two hours and forty-seven minutes of her life on a “friendship” that had nowhere to go.

She awoke when the plane touched down at Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport, took out her cell phone, and called Gunther. “Hi. The plane just touched down. Any word from Edgar?”

“None. I will communicate to you whatever happens here as soon as I know it. So don’t tie yourself in a knot over this.”

“I hear you. I’m sailing day after tomorrow, and with almost thirteen hundred people dropping their problems on me, I won’t have time to think about Edgar. I’ll be in touch.”

She found her town house as she’d left it. “This cathedral ceiling is great when I’m not tired,” she said to herself as she climbed the carpeted stairs to her second-floor bedroom. It occurred to her that following a week in wintry weather, the Florida heat immediately depleted her energy. After separating the clothes that would go to the cleaners and those scheduled for the laundry, she changed into a jogging suit and went out to buy milk and a few other essentials.

“Where you headed now?” her next-door neighbor asked as she stepped out of the house. “You sure do lead an exciting life.”

“I suppose some people would call it that, but it’s so stressful that I sometimes have to remind myself to breathe. Mrs. X can’t find her little girl, who walked away while mummy was playing the slot machine. Miss Y ordered breakfast in her room and had to wait a whole twenty minutes for it. Mr. J is furious because he can’t bring onto the ship the case of liquor he bought onshore. Some big shot doesn’t like his seating arrangements for dinner and wants to sit at the captain’s table. But the seats at the captain’s table are all taken. I could keep this up for an hour.”

“Yeah, but it’s still glamorous to me. When are you leaving?”

“Day after tomorrow, but I’ll be on ship from tomorrow evening. I’m not really complaining, because I love my work. Just setting the record straight.”

She completed her shopping and as she returned home, she heard the ringing telephone, dropped the small bag of groceries on the floor, and raced to the phone. “Hello.”

“Hi, sis. This is Edgar.”

“I know. What’s up?” She had an eerie feeling, because Edgar never phoned her and rarely called her “sis.”

“Look, sis. I’m really in an awfully tight spot. I need three grand, and if I don’t get it this week, I’ll be in serious trouble.”

She sat down and took some deep breaths. “I’m not wealthy, Edgar, and my mortgage eats up over a quarter of what I make every month. If I lend you three thousand dollars and if you don’t give it back to me by the end of the month, things will be extremely difficult for me.”

“I’ll give it back to you in two weeks. I swear it. The easiest way will be for you to give me your password.”

She jumped up. He had to be kidding. “Edgar, I said I’d lend you the money. I did not say I’d lost my mind. I wouldn’t have given Father the password to my bank account.”

“But I need the money now.”

“I’ll send it to you by wire and for two weeks only. Get busy and find that will.”

She’d never dreamed that she would speak that way to her older brother, but she suspected that he wouldn’t have sounded so frantic if he didn’t have gambling debts. She hated gambling. On every cruise, one or more passengers on the ship came to her begging for transportation home, having gambled away every cent they had. She went out and wired the money, but she had a feeling that she would never see it again.

Two hours before the Mercury was due to sail for the Mediterranean, Shirley sat at her desk, frantically urging a messenger to get to the boat with the asthma drugs before the ship left shore. Why would a woman with an asthmatic child leave home without his medicine? It should have been the first thing she packed. She sent an officer to the gangplank to make certain that it wasn’t raised before the messenger arrived.

“I sure hope this isn’t an omen,” she said to herself. “I don’t need problems with any more frantic mothers.” She dialed Gunther but didn’t get an answer. The routine lifeboat drills had begun, and she was about to give up hope that the messenger would arrive in time.

She answered her phone. “Public relations, Ms. Farrell speaking.”

“Alphonse here. I have the medicine, and I’ve just given the captain the all clear.”

She let out a long breath of relief. “Thanks. Somebody ought to take that woman in hand. She didn’t want to give up her cruise, so she took a chance that the medicine would get here before the boat left. If it hadn’t, that child could have died. I’ll see how long it is before she comes to ask me if the medicine arrived.” She dialed Gunther again but to no effect and made a mental note to call him the following morning.

At the moment, Gunther had to deal with his own mini-crisis. He sat on a high stool in Crosby’s Bar looking at his girlfriend. She’d had only one sip of that martini, but she was behaving as if she’d drunk two of them.

“You don’t have to do what that lawyer says. Where’s the evidence that your father made him the executor of his estate? A year from now, he could have spent every penny your father left.”

He pushed back his rising anger. “At the age of ten, I went to Donald Riggs to get transportation to school and lunch money when my father conveniently forgot about it. I never knew whether he charged Father for it or took it from his own pocket. I do know that if he wasn’t honest to the marrow of his bones, my father—who counted every penny twice—would not have kept him as his lawyer.”

“How can we get married if you don’t get what’s coming to you? I want us to sell that house and build a modern place.”

“That house belongs to Edgar and Shirley, as well as to me.”

As if aware that she’d made a big error with that comment, she broke her gaze from his, sipped the drink, and looked back at him with slightly lowered lashes. “Honey, you know I’m always thinking about your well-being and what’s due you. I don’t concern myself with anybody else.” She pushed the glass away. “Come on. Let’s go home.”

He assumed that by “home” she meant her apartment, and he knew what that implied.

“I love my apartment,” she said as they entered it, “but I miss the fireplace we had at home. When we build our home, I want fireplaces in the living, family, and dining rooms.” He said nothing, because he knew the house in which she said she grew up, and, to his knowledge, it didn’t have one fireplace.

“Have a seat in the living room,” she said, went to the kitchen and returned with a bottle of pinot grigio, two stem glasses, and a bottle opener. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

He sat there wondering when he had asked her to marry him and couldn’t recall the time. He did know that she had begun mentioning it casually and had gradually spoken of it as if they had a formal agreement. But he hadn’t made up his mind, and until he did and until he asked her in plain English and she agreed, he didn’t consider himself engaged. Minutes later, she returned wearing a red jersey jumpsuit that showed a good deal of her beautiful breasts, and in spite of himself, his mouth began to water.

“Honey, you didn’t open the wine?” she asked in a voice tinged with petulance.

“My mind was on other things.”

“You’re not serious,” she said. “I’ll have to do something about that.” She handed him the bottle opener. He opened the bottle and poured wine into their glasses, all the while thinking how sweet her nipples tasted. He got only a few sips of wine before, without warning, she took his hand, put it into the bodice of her jumpsuit, and rubbed her nipples with it.

“I’ve been thinking about this all day,” she told him, and rubbed his genitals.

“Oh, hell!” he said, capitulating to his rising passion. He pulled one of her breasts from its confines, bent his head, and sucked it into his mouth as she began to stroke him with increasing speed and pressure.

She tugged at his belt, unzipped him, and took him into her mouth. Then, like a satisfied cat that had her mouse, she looked up at him and grinned. “Want some more?” she asked him.

She knew him too well, but he was damned if he’d give her the satisfaction of behaving as if she could do with him as she pleased. He lifted her as he stood, unzipped the jumpsuit, and watched her slither out of it. Then he put her on the sofa and worked her until she clawed and screamed her release, but he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of knowing he enjoyed it and pulled out, flaccid and proud of it.

“What happened there?” she asked him after she collected her wits.

“Look,” he said. “I try to be a gentleman. You wanted i. . .