Death Benefits Read Free

of Abbott & Windsor. His widow deserves excellent representation on this matter, and I am determined she will receive it. I know you. I trust you. And I have the utmost confidence you will provide Stoddard Anderson’s widow with excellent representation.”
    â€œI’m flattered.”
    He smiled. “You should be.”
    I mulled it over. “We could become adversaries here.”
    â€œI am well aware of that, Rachel. I included that factor in my selection of counsel. You are trustworthy and discreet. You proved that to me beyond cavil in the way you handled that unfortunate Canaan investigation. You could have turned that into a media carnival. Others might have used it as an opportunity for self-promotion. You did not. Although this matter is far different from the Canaan situation, it could nevertheless present opportunities for attorney grandstanding. You are not a grandstander, Rachel.”
    â€œWhat makes you think that Dottie Anderson will want me to be her lawyer on this?”
    He smiled. “She has already retained you,” he said, removing an envelope from his suit jacket and handing it to me.
    Inside was a letter from Ishmael Richardson to Dottie Anderson, confirming that Rachel Gold was her attorney “with respect to all matters relating to or arising out of that certain life insurance policy bearing the policy number 113-456-89J and issued to Stoddard Anderson by the Mid-Continent Assurance Company of Kansas on or about February 22nd of this year, including without limitation Endorsement No. 4, entitled ‘Accidental Death Benefits Rider A.’” The final paragraph of the letter assured her that Abbott & Windsor would pay “all of Ms. Gold’s fees and expenses in connection with her representation herein.”
    At the bottom of the letter was a place for Dottie Anderson to sign her authorization. She had so signed, in blue ink, in a fat, backward-sloping script.
    ***
    We parted in the lobby of the University Club after Ishmael called Melvin Needlebaum to confirm that I would meet with him later that afternoon.
    I had a court date at 2:00 p.m. On my walk across the Loop to the Federal Courts Building on South Dearborn, I reevaluated my decision.
    I didn’t like insurance law, and I wasn’t crazy about taking on a case that could make me an adversary of Abbott & Windsor, particularly where there was the risk—if it ended up in court—of lots of publicity. No sense biting the hand that pays the fees.
    But taking on the case would give me a chance to spend some time in St. Louis. Although my parents were in Israel for the rest of the summer, my sister and her two children were there. In addition, as I confirmed from the Cardinals’ schedule I pulled from my purse while waiting for the light to change on State and Dearborn, the Redbirds were in town for the entire first week of August. When you live more than two hundred miles from Busch Stadium, you don’t pass up the chance to return to St. Louis during a midsummer home stand.
    Moreover, the case did sound intriguing. Particularly the missing days at the end of Stoddard Anderson’s life. Was he insane? Or just depressed? Where was he those last few days? And what was he up to?

Chapter Two
    Until Abbott & Windsor hired its first Irish Catholic in 1964, the columns of names on the firm’s letterhead looked—at least to those who still pronounced the h in Amherst College or thought squash rackets was a mafia-controlled produce scam—as if some printer’s imp had separated all the surnames from the Christian names, tossed the whole lot into a top hat, and pulled out pairs at random. The letterhead included Hayden James, Sterling Grant, Porter Edwards, Townsend Ward, Emerson Barnes, Rexford Dean, and—centered at the top of the letterhead—the long-dead founding partners, Kendall Abbott and Evans Windsor.
    Patrick Kennedy, the first Irish Catholic, joined the firm in