The Process Server

  Burton pulled up to the house at 6:45 p.m. His parents were seated on the porch, reading their books.

  “Ma, Pa,” he said, after parking the SUV behind their hybrid and silently cursing Delphinium’s lack of political correctness.

  His dad got up and came down the porch stairs to meet him. “Hello boy. Still driving the Planet Smasher, I see.”

  Burton said a silent prayer to a higher power. “As I’ve explained before, Pa, Delphinium purchased the SUV. I wanted …”

  “Well, doesn’t much matter now, does it?” his father said, attempting to be gracious but instead sounding dismissive. “Anyway, let me go get that chair. Margy, talk to your son for a minute.”

  When he’d gone inside, Burton’s mother said, “Don’t worry about your father. He knows your heart’s in the right place, son.”

  “Ma…”

  “Yes, son?”

  “Ma, you know how I told you Howard Ash is about as bad as you might expect?”

  “I believe you said he was the human personification of a crocodile suit, or some such thing. It was at Julia Wells’ engagement party last year, when he was standing across the room looking menacing. You’d been drinking that funny cola punch with your friend Stuart.”

  “Long Island Tea, Ma.”

  She harrumphed. “Long Island Tea, my eye. I’ve had every type of tea there is in Long Island and none of them would make Julia’s fiancée dance naked in the Nepaug River. Be darn funny if they did, though.”

  Burton got her back on track. “Anyway, he called a special meeting today and announced he’s planning to leave me his majority share of the company.”

  Margy Trimble was a sensible woman, but that left her a little flatfooted, and she was silent for a moment. “Come again, son? Not quite sure I caught that.”

  “He said he wants to keep it in the family, and I’m married to Delphinium.”

  Margy tilted her head slightly. “Are you quite sure he meant the whole company, dear?”

  Burton shrugged. “It wasn’t even a little nebulous, Ma. He promoted me to senior partner, he gave me the corner office, he tripled my salary, and then to top it off, he said he’s retiring later this year and wants me to take over the place.”

  Margy wasn’t sure what to say to that. Burton was a good boy and had become a good man, but his temperament had always seemed better suited to the family business, or something a little less opportunist than finance – like, perhaps, running a grocery store or teaching poetry at community college. He’d really only become uptight to rebel, after all.

  “Really? Well. I suppose that’s good then. I mean, this is something you want, right son?”

  It sounded like a question but Burton suspected it was a challenge, motherly concern that he might be about to ally himself with the wrong crowd.

  “I really don’t know. I mean, on the face of it, sure. But …”

  “Seems a bit odd, doesn’t it, son?”

  Burton nodded. “Truthfully, I have no idea what he’s up to. You met the man, albeit only briefly. He has the humanity of a fish stick.”

  “Quite true, dear. Reminded me of your great uncle Carter, the one who died in Vietnam charging the North’s lines. Absolutely mad, Carter was. They suspect his own boys shot him in the back, rather than follow him on one more sortie.”

  “So what should I do, Ma? I’ve been with the firm for 10 years. I don’t want to just resign. And it’s not easy walking into the same level job somewhere else. I don’t have the most … well, the most ‘aggressive’ profile.”

  “That sounds like a good thing for an accountant, Burton. Heaven knows you don’t want some stockbroker running things. I’d think there are other firms who could use a level-headed young man such as you.”

  Mother and father had both taken to using ‘stockbroker’ as a pejorative to commonly describe anyone greedy and self-interested, after several older members of their circle of friends lost their investments in the ‘08 financial meltdown, caused by unregulated trading of bad debt on Wall Street.

  It didn’t strike Burton as particularly fair to people like Stuart, who had been a broker for several years. But he had to admit it wasn’t a hard stance to understand, given the sight of the brokers at the pub each day, mowing down their Red Bull lunches with all the gastronomic appreciation of rats in a grain elevator.

  “Well, all right, I suppose I could flee if necessary, I’ll give you that, Ma. But that still doesn’t explain what in the world he’s up to. Leaves me feeling sort of like a scuba diver being circled by a curious shark.”

  “Hmmm,” said mother. “I’m not sure ‘curious’ is apt, dear: I think he’s already decided how he’s going to eat you.”

  Just then, Arthur reappeared with the chair. Its lines were clean, and Nakashima’s shop had bevelled the inch-thin armrests every-so-slightly to flatten them out. The upholstery looked original and the patina was secure, deep and rich.

  “$300?” said Burton. “My spider-sense…”

  “Your spider-sense hasn’t run an antique shop for three decades, Burton. Your mother knows Nakashima. If your mother says it’s a Nakashima, that’s what I expect Grayson will say as well. Of course, there’s always the odd Stickley that can trip you up …”

  Mother’s head drooped in resignation for a moment, waiting for the umpteenth iteration of the Stickley story. “Yes dear, Burton knows the Stickley story. We do not have to hear it for the… what is it Burton…?”

  “1,465th time, or thereabouts.”

  “Exactly.”

  “All right, all right,” Arthur said. “I didn’t mean to tread on anyone’s loafers, Margy. It’s just that it’s not every day you see an early Stickley table at a Fire Department rummage sale for basically nothing and decide not to buy it. It’s an odd decision, when you’re standing there actually pondering whether it’s a Stickley. That’s all.”

  Burton’s mother looked at him despairingly as he loaded the chair into the back of the SUV. “You see, Burton? You see the level of depraved vindictiveness our marriage has fallen prey to over 43 years? Anyway, tell your father about work.”

  So he did, and Arthur was just as perplexed as the pair of them. “Strange fella, that Ash. Didn’t much like the man, Margy, you know that. Not Ridgefield people, that’s for sure. Got the sense he was the type who’d kick a puppy if no one was around.”

  She agreed. “I was saying he reminded me of Carter, dear.”

  His father nodded knowingly and took a few firm pulls off his unlit pipe.

  Burton nodded. “Yah, that’s about the size of it, pop.” He walked around to the driver’s side. “Have you called Grayson about the chair already?”

  “Yes, yes, he’s expecting you tomorrow lunch-ish,” Margy said, “Now Burton, you leave poor Grayson alone when you go over there. All of that bragging masks a terrible lack of self-confidence, I think. Besides, you married the girl of his dreams. I doubt he’ll ever be even remotely civil towards you.”

  He sighed and replied, “Leave him alone, ma? I’ve tried to be patient with the man but there’s no reasoning with him. He taunts me at every opportunity, and flirts with my wife. Quite frankly, I’d like to thump him.”

  Margy repressed the urge to smile. Burton didn’t have a violent particle in his body and she rather suspected she could whip both the Trimble men with one hand tied behind her back, but she kept it to herself. “Oh, be nice, Burton. I rather suspect he wishes he was you.”

  What an odd idea, Burton thought as he got into the SUV. He waived to them both and – with a look of derision from father on starting up the Planet Smasher – headed back onto the road to Danbury.

  PREVIEW: Enjoy the prologue of “Vendetta in Valencia,” a Max Castillo mystery: