Chapter 6: Gerald Foss Remembers Everything
Gerald Foss arrived at his office at eight forty-five the following morning, which was his habit of forty years.
He was a tall man, thin in the way of someone who had once been heavier, with careful eyes and the kind of stillness that comes from spending a lifetime knowing other people's secrets.
He unlocked his office door and found Patricia Hale already inside, seated across from his desk, with Rose and Arthur on either side of her.
He stopped in the doorway.
"Gerald," Patricia said pleasantly.
"Close the door, please."
He closed it.
He did not sit down immediately.
He looked at each of them in turn, and something in his expression confirmed what Patricia had said the night before.
He was a careful man.
He already understood why they were there.
He sat down.
"I am going to assume," he said, "that this is about the Calloway matter."
"It is," Patricia said.
"And I am going to assume that Diane's letter has finally surfaced."
"Along with two recorded telephone conversations," Patricia said.
"In which Diane describes the arrangement in considerable detail.
Including your role in it."
Foss placed both hands flat on his desk.
He looked at Rose.
"You have her eyes," he said.
"Eleanor's eyes.
I noticed it the moment I walked in."
"Mr.
Foss," Rose said, "I am not interested in what you noticed.
I am interested in what you did."
He was quiet for a moment.
Outside, a bus went past.
The sound of the city going about its morning.
"I drew up a document in the spring of the year you were born," he said.
"It was presented to me as a routine estate planning matter.
A consolidation of inheritance rights within the family line.
I was told the secondary heir had not survived." He paused.
"I did not ask enough questions.
I told myself it was not my place to ask questions.
I was wrong."
"That document," Patricia said, "effectively removed Rose from the inheritance before she was old enough to know she existed.
We will need the original."
"I have it," Foss said.
Nobody had expected it to be that simple.
Rose looked at Patricia.
Patricia's expression did not change.
"You kept it," Arthur said.
"I keep everything," Foss said.
He opened his bottom desk drawer and produced a manila folder, aged at the edges, the label written in a hand that was younger and steadier than his current one.
He set it on the desk but did not push it forward.
"Before I give you this, I want something understood."
"Speak," Patricia said.
"I did not know the child was alive," he said.
"I was told she had not survived.
If I had known —" He stopped.
Started again.
"I am not asking for forgiveness.
I am asking for the record to reflect that I was deceived as well."
"The record," Patricia said, "will reflect the facts.
Whether those facts are kind to you depends on how fully you cooperate from this point forward."
Foss pushed the folder across the desk.
Patricia opened it, scanned the first page, and nodded once.
"We will also need a sworn statement," she said.
"Detailing everything Diane told you at the time and everything you have understood since."
"I will give you one," Foss said.
He looked at Rose again.
"I am sorry.
I know that is worth very little to you."
"It is worth something," Rose said.
She was surprised to find she meant it.
"Not everything.
But something."
Patricia gathered the folder and stood.
"We will send a paralegal this afternoon with the statement for your signature.
Do not contact Victoria Whitmore before you sign it.
Do not contact anyone connected to her."
Foss nodded.
He looked like a man who had been carrying something for a very long time and had just set it down, and was not yet sure whether the relief was real or whether his legs would hold.
They were in the elevator when Rose's phone rang.
The number was Eleanor's home line.
"Eleanor?" Rose answered.
It was not Eleanor.
It was the housekeeper, Margaret, and her voice was wrong — too fast, too high, the careful composure of thirty years of service cracked straight down the middle.
"Miss Rose," she said.
"You need to come now.
Victoria is here.
She came with two men and she is telling Mrs.
Calloway that she is having her assessed.
She is saying Mrs.
Calloway is not mentally fit to make decisions." A sharp breath.
"She brought paperwork."
Rose was already moving toward the lobby door.
"Do not let them take her anywhere," she said.
"Margaret, do you hear me?
Do not let them move her from that house."
"I am trying," Margaret said.
"But Miss Victoria says she has a doctor's order."
Patricia was already on her phone before Rose reached the street.
"I need an emergency injunction," she said into it.
"Right now.
May you like
Yes.
I will explain in the car."
