Chapter 6: The First Offer
Gerald set the phone on the desk between us and pressed speaker.
"Gerald." The voice on the line was clipped, professional, the kind of voice that charged four hundred dollars an hour and wanted you to know it.
"Martin Hale, representing Richard and Paul Whitmore.
I trust you've had a chance to review the situation."
"I have," Gerald said.
"I believe you've met my colleague Diane Chu."
A brief pause.
"I wasn't aware Ms.
Chu was involved."
"She is now," Diane said.
"Good morning, Martin."
Another pause — shorter, recalibrated.
"Good morning.
I'll get to the point.
My clients are prepared to offer a settlement that avoids litigation entirely.
One-time payment of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Ms.
Mercer, in exchange for a full release of any claim against the Whitmore estate."
I looked at Diane.
She was writing something on her legal pad.
She didn't look up.
"That's your opening offer," she said.
It wasn't a question.
"It's a generous offer given the circumstances," Hale said.
"The marriage was three weeks long.
There is significant evidence that Ms.
Mercer had no meaningful relationship with the deceased—"
"There is significant evidence of the opposite," Diane said.
"Two years of documented daily contact, a legal marriage entered into willingly by both parties, a witnessed and notarized letter from the deceased outlining his intentions in detail, an independent psychiatric evaluation confirming his full cognitive capacity at the time of the marriage, and multiple witnesses who can speak to the nature of the relationship." She finally looked up from her pad.
"One hundred and fifty thousand dollars is not a serious number, Martin.
Call us back when your clients are ready to have a real conversation."
Silence on the line.
"Ms.
Mercer." Richard's voice came through — he had been on the call the whole time, listening.
"I want to speak to you directly."
Diane put her hand flat on the desk.
A small, clear gesture: wait.
I waited.
"My brother was sick," Richard said.
His voice had changed — softer now, almost reasonable.
"He wasn't in his right mind for a long time.
I know you may have believed you were helping him.
I'm not saying your intentions were bad.
But you have to understand that what he did — using you like this — it wasn't fair to you either.
You deserve better than being pulled into a family dispute you never asked for."
The room was very quiet.
"He told me you'd say something like that," I said.
A beat of silence.
"Excuse me?"
"In the letter.
He wrote that you would try to make me feel like a victim.
That you'd tell me I was being used and that walking away was the kind thing to do." I kept my voice level.
"He knew you, Richard."
Nothing from the line for a long moment.
"Whatever he wrote," Richard said, and the softness was gone now, "is the work of a man who spent the last decade on the street and the last month in a hospice.
No jury is going to look at that letter and see a sound mind."
"Then we'll let a jury decide," Diane said.
"Gerald will be in touch."
She reached over and ended the call.
The office was quiet again.
Gerald was looking at his hands.
Diane was capping her pen.
"He was rattled," she said.
"The part about the letter — he didn't expect that."
"He'll come back harder," Gerald said.
"Yes." Diane looked at me.
"How are you doing?"
"He called his own brother unstable," I said.
"A man who d*ed three weeks ago.
On a phone call with his widow."
"Yes," Diane said again.
She didn't add anything to it.
She didn't need to.
Gerald's assistant knocked and opened the door.
"I'm sorry to interrupt.
There's a woman downstairs asking for Ms.
Mercer.
She says her name is Ellen.
She says she was a nurse at the hospice facility."
I looked at Gerald.
"Lawrence's witness list," he said quietly.
"There was a seventh name.
I didn't include it because I hadn't been able to reach her." He stood up.
"Send her up," he told his assistant.
The door closed.
May you like
Diane picked up her pen again.
"Let's hear what she has to say."
