A Relatively Small Sum of Money
 by Kent Westmoreland
A Burleigh Drummond Mystery

"That isn’t really what I do." I scrutinized Raymond Lowe’s Tulane Law degree and shook my head disapprovingly.
"You have a private investigator’s license. That gives you the credentials to make your inquiries quasi-official and maintain a blanket of legal confidentiality." Lowe scratched his round, oily nose.
I was licensed to pry, but managing the indiscretions of the New Orleans aristocracy was a more accurate job description.
"Now tell me again what you want me to do."
"I want you to look for a possible heir to the estate of Ben Alsmith. The value of the estate is around a quarter of a million dollars and has been willed to the New Orleans Museum of Art. Considering the museum has a twenty-three million dollar endowment, it’s a relatively small amount of money." He smiled the plastic grin of a Halloween mask. "But every little bit helps."
In a perverse way Lowe was correct. A quarter of a million dollars wouldn’t mean much to the museum. Judging from his corner office in the city’s most prestigious law firm, it shouldn’t mean much to him. But most people would have a different point of view.
"Tell me about this possible heir."
"There’s speculation of an illegitimate daughter who, if existed, disappeared about twenty-three years ago. I don’t want the rumor to come back and bite the firm. Here’s what I have." He handed me a brown envelope with a sheet of paper and a photograph.
According to Lowe’s rather sparse documentation, about twenty-five years before Marie McTrey had given birth to a daughter named Susan. Ben Alsmith had been named as a potential father. Apparently, no legal ruling had been made concerning paternity. The mother had died twenty-three years ago and no records of what happened to the daughter were found. The most recent information was that a Susan McTrey worked in the French Quarter. 
The faded color photograph was of a girl who appeared to be three years old. The little girl looked like a Goldilocks doll. Finger-curls the color of mid-morning sunbeams. Cheeks the color of the first peach of spring. Saucer-size eyes that had the brilliant, yet vacant, look of glass.
"You’re not giving me much information to work with."
"I know. This account was turned over to me when Alsmith’s original attorney retired. The file is shockingly incomplete. It’s difficult to believe that a partner in this firm could be so sloppy."
I had worked with the retired partner; I found Lowe’s statement impossible to believe.
The attorney added something quite odd: "Find the heir, but don’t kill yourself doing it."
"I require payment up front." Lawyers and doctors, two types who don’t like to settle up after the job is done.
"That’s not the way this firm does business."
"It’s the way I do business." I yawned. "And you called me."
He mentioned a reasonable amount. Since I didn’t care for his attitude, I told him to add thirty-five percent. If he refused, I didn’t care; I didn’t need his money.
"That’s considerably above the standard rate." the attorney squealed.
"You get what you pay for." I use clichés at every opportunity.
He picked up his phone. "Pick up the check in the accounting office on your way out."
Any of the authentic private investigators in town would be less expensive and more qualified for this job. I was intrigued as to why Lowe wanted me and why he was willing to overpay.
"I’ll get on this immediately." I opened the office door. "Well, actually, after I leave your bank."
*****
The bank envelope, overstuffed with twenties, rested uncomfortably inside my jacket pocket. I adjusted the unsightly bulge as I parked my Porsche 911 outside Wicked Step-Sister’s Shoes on Royal Street. The dashboard clock displayed a pale-blue 5:58. 
Finding where Susan McTrey currently lived in New Orleans wasn’t a Herculean task. I contacted an occasional girlfriend who worked at the local utility company. After negotiating a mutually agreeable arrangement, I learned that a Susan McTrey worked in the French Quarter shoe store and lived in the Lower Garden District on the oft mispronounced Melpomene Street. An interesting, but possibly meaningless, fact was that this was her first local utility account. This was work for a law clerk, not an over-priced fixer.
A trick phone call had verified that the blonde working the counter called herself Susan McTrey and that the store would close at six PM. My plan was to follow Ms. McTrey to wherever she would go and make contact. Hardly conventional procedure, but I’ve never been one to follow rules. 
The blonde locked the door and shook her moneymaker down Royal Street in a fashion that made me suspect Ms. McTrey was more than a shop-girl. She stopped at Cool Boy’s Midnight Lounge on upper Bourbon Street, a small dark place people go not to be seen. 
From the doorway I watched as she took a stool at the bar and ordered a drink made with Absolut vodka. She had the face of a wandering angel and a body designed to lure ships into rock. Even in the dim bar her eyes shimmered like high-quality emeralds under jewelry store lighting. I wondered how I could have missed a woman like her in a city as small as New Orleans.
I moved next to her and ordered my standard Bombay Sapphire and tonic. Like Lowe’s documentation had said, she appeared to be twenty-five, making her about three years younger than me. She glanced at me and I smiled; she reciprocated. I noticed a wedding ring set on her right hand; I used it as an opening.
"Isn’t your wedding ring on the wrong hand?"
She turned her head toward me and squinted her emerald eyes. "I’m married to the wrong man."
"So you expect Mr. Right to show up here?"
She smiled like a banker foreclosing a mortgage. "Well, tall, dark and almost-handsome, are you just making small talk or are you inquiring for yourself?"
"Too early to tell." 
She tossed her hair back. "I’ll quit talking like Barbara Stanwyck if you stop acting like Alan Ladd."
I spoke in a deep rasp. "What’s in it for me?"
"I’ll continue talking to you."
"It’s a deal." I clinked my glass against hers. "So are you really married?"
She looked at the rings. "No. These belonged to my mother." An interesting fact.
I took her fingers and admired the rings. 
"So who are you waiting for? Your boyfriend?"
"Let’s just say he’s a business associate who’d like to mix business and pleasure."
"Any chance of that happening?"
"No way. He’s too greasy."
Like her I couldn’t mix business with pleasure. At that point. "Are you a native or a transplant?"
"I’ve been in New Orleans long enough." She crossed her magnificent legs. "How about you?"
A hand slapped my back and a male voice said: "Burleigh Drummond. This isn’t one of your usual watering holes."
The voice belonged to a client whose indiscretions helped keep my coffers full. He leered over my shoulder at Ms. McTrey and spoke in a voice too loud. "Hubba, hubba. That’s a sweet piece you’re shooting for. If you can’t pull it off, send her over to the old pro."
The emerald-eyed blonde jumped off the stool and scrambled toward the front door. I guess she decided not to wait for her greasy business associate.
"Was it something I said?" my client shouted after her.
So much for non-conventional tactics. 
*****
In New Orleans, the most accurate source of information is gossip. And I know many ways to get it. In this case, my method was simple. I strolled down Octavia Street where Alsmith had lived and noted which houses had someone peeking at the stranger roaming the street. Then I knocked on those doors and told them who I was and what I wanted. Honesty really is the best policy. 
Mrs. Weinstein waddled into her parlor shaking a sterling silver tray of jasmine tea. I offered to help.
"Young man, I’m not so old and decrepit that I can’t properly entertain guests." She gingerly lowered the tray to a marble-topped table.
The bank envelope filled with twenties pressed against my chest; I leaned forward to reduce the pressure as Mrs. Weinstein filled antique china cups. "Mr. Drummond, so what do you want to know about Ben Alsmith?" 
I explained that a rumor existed of an illegitimate daughter who might be heir to the Alsmith estate.
"Ben and his wife, Effie, never had any children. Effie hated sex; she thought it unhygienic." A mischievous grin crawled across her lined face. "Sex isn’t worth a tinker’s damn unless it’s dirty. After Effie died, Ben became quite the rounder."
"He saw a lot of ladies?"
"And young ones, too." She cackled. "But they were mostly white trash and an occasional Negro woman."
"Why do you think that was?
"After nearly thirty years of Miss Too-Fancy-For-Her-Own-Pants, he probably wanted to wear dungarees." Mrs. Weinstein winked. "Can’t say that I blame him. I like to feel the dirt between my toes on occasion."
"Do you know if any of these women got pregnant?"
She patted her mouth with a yellowed linen napkin. "Charming young man, you must take me for some kind of nosey parker."
I stammered.
She grinned and said: "For someone who’s supposed to be a professional snoop, you aren’t too smart. You need to talk to someone who would be privy to what happened inside the house."
No point in arguing with someone who’s right. "Did Alsmith have a housekeeper?"
"Maybe you’re not so dumb after all." She gave me the name.
*****
"I clean up the dirt, I don’t spread it around. Especially to some smooth talking white boy who don’t talk half as smooth as he thinks," Luella Johnson said from behind her freshly painted screen door. Two huge young men stood behind her. Their size of their muscles intimidated me.
I pulled a folded fifty from my pocket.
"You think a piddling amount of money like that going make me put Mr. Alsmith’s business in the street?" 
I would have pulled out two more fifties, but I didn’t think she was trying to up the price. So I explained again that I was just trying to find out if an heir existed to Alsmith’s estate.
"You best get off my porch before I have my grandsons stuff you in the tailpipe of that fancy car."
I thanked her and headed toward the Porsche.
"I’ll tell you like I told that lawyer-man, you don’t care about that little girl. You ain’t going to do nothing to help her. And I ain’t going to tell you nothing about her, either."
I turned and walked back toward Mrs. Johnson’s porch. "A lawyer talked to you about this? Who was he?"
The door opened and the towering grandsons hit the porch. A smarter man would have made haste to his car; I pulled the Goldilocks photograph from my pocket. "This little girl?"
The smaller grandson rammed his palm in my chest; I stumbled. When I regained my balance, I moved toward the house. Both grandsons folded their fists into large eggplants. 
"Leave him be. I’ll talk to him." Mrs. Johnson walked onto the porch. "I think you might be alright." 
Her grandsons stood around; I assumed in case she changed her mind again. 
"Thank you. Is this Alsmith’s daughter?"
Mrs. Johnson lifted the photo from my fingers. "This poor little girl ought never been born."
"Do you know where I can find her?"
"I knew where she was dropped off twenty-three years ago."
*****
The anachronistically named New Orleans Home for the Incurable hid on a forgotten street between Audubon Park and the Mississippi River. In previous centuries, it had been a plantation home. For the most of this century, it had been a place where people bundled their problems and dropped them off on the doorstep. 
"This institution subsists on federal, state and city funds, Mr. Drummond. Occasionally, we get a contribution from private organizations and citizens, but overall we’re the kind place no one wants to believe exists." Dr. Majorie Wirthmore was about fifty, but appeared two decades tireder. "My salary for running this place is token; I work two ER shifts a week so I can drive a ten-year old Pontiac."
Dr. Wirthmore wasn’t complaining; she was just giving me the facts.
I handed her the Goldilocks photo. "Does this mean anything to you?"
She glanced at the photo, then looked at her medical degree. "Susan McTrey. I was doing my residency when her mother brought her in. Made up like this and dressed in blue gingham. Dressing the little girl up like a doll was the only way the mother could cope. Her mother was young, early twenties. Back then it wasn’t chic to have a child out of wedlock. And the girl suffering from Teks-Bellina Syndrome made the situation unfathomable to her mother."
I expressed my ignorance about the disease.
"It’s rare genetic disorder. The body has no sensation or control from the cheeks down, but the brain is fully functional. The body’s immune system begins a slow decline until it virtually vanishes. The cruelest aspect is that the victim lives anywhere from twenty to thirty years."
"Is the girl still alive?"
Dr. Wirthmore nodded.
"May I see her?"
"You don’t want to."
The doctor led me from her office to the female wing of the Home. A vague odor slipped into my nostrils and developed into a putrid stench as we got closer to the wing. 
"After a few years you get used to it." 
The female wing was an exponential checkerboard of hospital beds so close together that walking space barely existed. Susan had been isolated behind a thin plastic curtain because she had pneumonia. An orderly sat next to the curtain chuckling at the wit of Archie, Veronica and Jughead.
Susan’s arms rested on top of her blanket; they had shrunk to the diameter of a commercial broomstick. Her once golden hair looked like rotting straw. The smell of piss and shit shrouded the bed.
"If I didn’t hate this place so much, I’d leave," Dr. Wirthmore said.
She jerked the comic book from the orderly and slapped him with it. "You worthless baboon. You let her lie in this mess while you’re reading a comic book. Clock out and don’t come back."
The doctor slid out of her lab coat and pointed to me. "Take off your jacket and roll up your sleeves. You’re helping." 
We cleaned, diapered and dressed Susan in a smock. Then we walked back to the doctor’s office. 
"Mr. Drummond, do you know the difference between you and most of the patients here?"
"Luck at the moment of conception?"
"You have a realistic comprehension of the universe."
I asked what she knew about Susan.
"Her mother and father checked her in twenty-three years ago. They visited regularly for about six months, then stopped. I never knew why."
"Her mother died about that time. Tell me about the father."
After she finished, I said: "I think we can help each other." I gave her the details.
The doctor responded: "Proving paternity is not really my business, but I will, if you guarantee Susan will benefit from the Alsmith estate?"
"You have my word."
"Some people would say what you’re proposing is unethical."
"Unethical is such a relative term."
*****
Two pair of feet echoed on the outside steps, then the stoop. I looked out the fourteen-foot window of the empty apartment. A driver’s license flipped between my fingers. A man said something and a woman giggled. I had hoped she’d come home alone. It’s always better with two.
The front door opened and she walked in; the man followed. He was bigger than I would have liked. I stood and held my arms out. "At last, I’ve found you, darling. It’s time to come back home."
The guy stood gap-mouthed. She said: "What are you doing here?"
"Our children need their ma and pa. Let’s stick together." I somehow managed to keep a straight face.
"What’s going on here?" the big guy said, but he really didn’t sound like someone who wanted to get involved.
"You’ve moved our wedding rings to the other hand. Oh my God."
The guy glanced at her right hand and left without speaking. Good thing -- I couldn’t have continued without laughing.
"If you don’t hit the road, I’m calling the cops," she said with the confidence of the young Joan Crawford.
I picked up the phone, pressed a nine, then a one and looked at the driver’s license. "Should I tell the police that I’ve broken into the apartment of Susan McTrey or Mary Seay from Shreveport?"
She cursed and flopped on the sofa. "When I met you at the bar I knew that Lowe’s bullshit plan wouldn’t work. That’s why I left when I heard your name. Lowe told me not to worry. He said you’re an overrated phony who only cares about money. He said overpaying was the signal for you to follow his lead to me and stop there. But I know men and you’re one who does what he wants to do, not what he’s told."
"It’s good to know I’m held in high esteem by such solid citizens." I went back to business. "My phone finger is a little itchy, so tell me about the scheme you and Lowe cooked up before it slips and hits the one key."
She didn’t want to tell me anything, but the threat of the police loosened her tongue. The story was close to what I suspected. Mary was a stripper that Lowe had met when he handled a case in Shreveport. He became obsessed with her and offered her a chance to make some easy money. He told her that no real heir existed, but if she played the role he would pay her a hundred grand. 
"He thought it’d help him slip into my panties. What a laugh."
"I’m going to give you a break. Leave town right now and don’t tell Lowe."
Her Crawford-moxy returned. "You can’t prove shit and Lowe is big time in this town. Why should I be scared of you?"
"Because I know guys I can pay to ruin that gorgeous face and abuse that fabulous body before breaking it in half."
Actually, I don’t know any guys like that, but my delivery was so convincing that she packed a small bag and got into her car. 
*****
I needed an honest judge. Finding one in New Orleans would be a challenge, so I decided to follow the path of least resistance.
Judge Robert Johnson pulled his midnight-blue robe from the closet of his chambers. "I don’t know, Mr. Drummond. You’re asking me to do something highly irregular -- ruling on a probate case where my jurisdiction would be questionable. The executor could challenge my ruling. And it would be unpleasant to have my ruling overturned on appeal."
"He won’t challenge. I guarantee that."
He sat behind his antique mahogany desk. "Why would I want to get involved?"
"To allow the real Susan McTrey to finish out her life in a bleak form of comfort as opposed to dying in a pit that exceeds the imagination of Edgar Allan Poe."
"That’s all very noble, but I need something more." He smiled like a vulture who had just gotten a whiff of fresh carrion.
I templed my fingers. "That law clerk you fired"
Six months before a young male clerk had threatened to press sexual harassment charges against the judge -- until I intervened.
The smile remained. "Mr. Drummond, are you trying to blackmail a judge?" 
"No, I’m bribing one." I threw the bank envelope on his desk.
His honor counted the contents and smiled like the first vulture on the scene.
*****
Lawyer Lowe shouted a twelve-letter word that implied I had an Oedipal relationship. "I told you to follow a lead and report back to me. I didn’t tell you to go off on your own and do my job."
"You said you wanted me to find the heir to the estate." I flipped my palms upward. "It’s a matter of semantics."
"I want the firm’s money back." He slammed a fist against his Chippendale desk; his coffee cup crashed on the hardwood floor.
"Talk to Judge Johnson. He has it."
"I’ll challenge that son-of-a-crooked-bitch’s ruling."
I shook my head and waved my finger in schoolmarm fashion. "And you’ll be disbarred and convicted of fraud. When you’re whiling away five to ten years in prison as bunk candy, your wife will be moving your remaining assets to the Caymans. I’ll see to it personally."
His black wing-tips crunched the broken china.
"The only reason I went to the judge rather than the district attorney is to prevent Susan from spending one more second in that hovel and the estate being held up and perhaps depleted by your legal mechanisms."
"What are you getting out of this?" 
It was nothing he could ever understand, so I let it pass.
"I get it. You’re the administrator of the estate. You son-of-a-bitch. You control the money. You’re the same as me."
I flipped my palms.
*****
Lowe was half-right. As administrator of Susan’s estate I controlled the money. The proceeds from the estate went into a trust that provided care for Susan in a luxury nursing home for the rest of her life. The rest of her life turned out to be three months. Her weakened immune system finally conceded to the pneumonia. 
After Susan’s death, the trust’s purpose changed to upgrade the New Orleans Home for the Incurable. As administrator of the trust, I partnered with Dr. Wirthmore to ascertain that all the funds went for improvements to patient living conditions. 
Two months after Susan’s death, I saw Lowe and his wife in a restaurant. I leaned over and whispered a little secret in his ear: "That girl I found was Susan McTrey, but Ben Alsmith wasn’t her father."
The End

Kent Westmoreland drifted into New Orleans several years ago and immediately immersed himself into the dark underbelly of the city. He has been known to hang out with wise guys, con men, cops, and the occasional local blueblood. His associations with these unsavory types are the basis for his Burleigh Drummond fiction. His critically acclaimed Drummond short stories have appeared in the magazines Blue Murder, Thrilling Detective, and Tangled Web and in the anthologies Best of Blue Murder and Fire to Fly.
His first novel, BARONNE STREET is scheduled for publication in the summer of 2001. The follow-up is in progress.
Kent lives in uptown New Orleans with his wife, Leslie.
Kent's web site is KentWestmoreland.com.