Bitter Business

show of interrupting what he was doing on my account. Ken was one of those partners who have been with the firm so long that they actually believed their comer offices imbued them with sovereignty. All those old guys are the same with their acres of calf-bound law books and their monster views. They drive me crazy.
    “Did your secretary deliver the copy of Dagny Cavanaugh’s will that I gave her?” he asked.
    “Yes, she did. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I was wondering if you knew what was behind Dagny’s decision to name her brother Eugene executor of her estate?”
    “As you say, he was her brother,” Kurlander replied, playing coy.
    “I know. But I’d have thought that Philip would be the more obvious brother to choose. After all, we’re talking about managing a considerable number of assets, not the least of which are the shares in Superior Plating. Assuming that Dagny believed it likely that she would survive her father, Philip is the only other family member that has the financial skills for the job. And if I know you, Ken, you laid that out pretty straight with her. So the question remains—why didn’t she choose Philip?”
    “Eugene’s wife, Vy, took care of Claire from the time she was an infant so that Dagny could go back to work. Claire is exactly the same age as Vy and Eugene’s oldest daughter, Mary Beth. From what I gather, the two girls are almost like sisters. In Dagny’s mind there was never any question that Eugene and Vy would be named Claire’s guardians.”
    “I understand,” I replied, wondering whether Kurlander was being deliberately obtuse. “That’s not what’s bothering me. Let me put it another way. Dagny Cavanaugh was the chief financial officer of a large manufacturing company. In short, exactly the sort of person you’d expect to be a very savvy testamentary planner. So why did she leave control over her only daughter’s financial future to the least educated, and arguably least capable member of her family? Why not give guardianship to Eugene and Vy, but name Philip executor?”
    “Dagny and I did discuss that possibility at length, but in the end she decided against it.”
    “Was she afraid that there would be friction between Eugene and Philip over what was best for Claire?”
    “There is always that danger when one person has the authority to make decisions about matters of travel and education and someone else controls the money, but that wasn’t the overriding concern.”
    “What was?”
    Kurlander clasped his hands together and leaned forward across the polished surface of his desk. “Dagny did not want her brother Philip to control that many shares of Superior Plating stock, even temporarily,” he breathed confidentially. “She was afraid that if her father died and left his shares divided among his four children, and then she passed away before Claire turned eighteen, Philip would have effective control of fifty percent of the shares if he were Claire’s trustee.”
    “And she felt that would make him too powerful in the company?”
    “She feared that Philip would make any kind of deal he could with either of the surviving siblings in order to gain complete control of the company—even if it meant not acting in Claire’s best interest.”
    I thanked Ken for his time and walked slowly back to my own office. The Medicis, I reflected, did not live in a world more filled with intrigue.
     

15
     
    It was an awkward group that gathered in the passenger lounge of the executive terminal at Midway Airport. Earlier in the day Jack and Peaches had taken the Superior Plating jet to accompany Dagny’s body to Tall Pines. Jack had chartered a plane to take the rest of the family down, and confronted with the Cavanaughs en masse, I was sorry I wasn’t flying alone on some anonymous, commercial flight.
    Philip’s wife, Sally, acted as self-appointed hostess, making introductions and filling me in on the details of the travel arrangements. We were, she pointedly explained, still waiting for Lydia and her family. From her tone of voice it was clear that waiting for Lydia was something at which the rest of the Cavanaugh clan had a great deal of practice.
    Sally Cavanaugh was everything that Elliott had said— a stem, large-knuckled woman with parade-ground posture and disciplined hair. Looking at her, I couldn’t decide which was more incredible—that Philip had waited until meeting Cecilia Dobson to seek the comforts of another woman,