The driveway ended in a circle that surrounded a fountain. He parked behind a Lexus SUV.
Clad in limestone, the Beaux Arts mansion combined elements of Georgian and French Renaissance styles. Broad steps led up to a portico, where a man in a dark suit waited.
With thinning gray hair, the pink face of an aging cupid, and pale-blue eyes, Gilbert Gurion might have passed for a volunteer with the local historical society, a docent waiting to conduct an informed tour of this storied residence. His handshake was firm but not aggressive.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Thorne. I genuinely am an admirer of your writing.”
“Thank you, Mr. Gurion. However, considering that pounding out stories is the only thing that I can do at all, I think I should be able to do it better. And please call me David.”
“I’m Gilbert. Gil to friends.” His tentative smile and a subtle beseeching quality in his stare suggested that in his youth he had been shy, perhaps painfully so, and had worked hard to overcome a natural reserve. “Whatever your intent—and I’m not asking you to spell it out—I hope you might indeed write about Ephraim and dear Renata. They were kind and gentle and blindingly intelligent. It’s terrible, what happened here. They were only forty-four. High school sweethearts married twenty-four years, born poor and made their way to the top with sheer brainpower.”
David knew only what little he’d read on the internet, but he didn’t want Gurion to think his interest was related to anything other than the tragic story of the Zabdis. “I never know that I’m committed to a subject until interest becomes obsession. But the material in this case is undeniably gripping and the Zabdis are the most sympathetic of figures.” He admired the magnificent facade of the house. “You said on the phone that the place is as they left it, as it was when they . . . died.”
“Except for the master bedroom and bath, nothing inside has been touched. The gruesome nature of the double homicide, not a single suspect yet identified, the mystery of how the killers gained entrance when there was a security system worthy of Fort Knox, how the security-camera archives could have been wiped clean—all that makes the place impossible to sell for the time being.”
“The heirs must be frustrated.”
“There aren’t any. Ephraim and Renata weren’t able to have children, and they took good care of family and friends while alive. Their fortune—every dime, including this property—has passed to their tax-free charitable foundation.”
David turned to survey the sweeping lawns and gardens and stately oaks. But for birdsong, the quiet was such that this might have been an English manor house on hundreds of acres rather than just five. “Then no one stood to gain financially from their death. Except perhaps the directors of the foundation.”
“Out of respect for Ephraim and Renata, we serve without compensation, and we’re not reimbursed for expenses.”
“I intended no offense,” David said.
Gurion smiled and nodded. “None taken. Many foundations with multibillion-dollar endowments do indeed attract those who’re greedy but not industrious enough to earn their own fortune—or political types who’re eager to spend it all on utopian schemes that ensure dystopia. The Zabdi Foundation is different.”
“What’s its mission?”
With what might have been pride in the vision of his deceased friends, yet speaking more softly and breaking eye contact, as if he wished to avoid giving the impression that he deserved credit for serving as a director, Gurion said, “It provides free medical care to children with cancer and other potentially mortal illnesses, as well as funding development of technologically advanced options to complement traditional treatments. Currently, the Zabdi Foundation pays for the care of four hundred and thirty-six young patients of all races and creeds. It’s a blessing . . . really amazing to be part of it.”
Having once engaged in deceit that would haunt him all the days of his life, David had an ear for deception and an eye for its many telltales. Gurion’s self-effacement seemed genuine, a modesty that was uncommon among those with his achievements.
“We could liquidate the antiques, the collections,” the lawyer said, “but dealers would push prices up by touting the connection to the murders. That’s the sorry kind of world we live in now. Valuable provenance can include being associated with horror. We just can’t do that to Ephraim and Renata. We’ll wait a year or two. There’s so much violence these days, so much for the media to sensationalize, that even cases as awful as this one are soon old news that no one cares about, the injustice accepted and the victims forgotten.”