It was a well-rehearsed little oration, and it convinced no one. Nate let it slide. It was five o'clock, Friday afternoon, and he was tired of fighting.

As he left the city and fought the heavy traffic on Interstate 95 to Baltimore, his thoughts were on the Phelan heirs. He had pried into their lives, to the point of embarrassment. He felt sympathy for them, for the way they were raised, for the values they were never taught, for their hollow lives revolving around nothing but money.

But Nate was convinced that Troy knew exactly what he was doing when he scrawled his testament. Serious money in the hands of his children would cause unmitigated chaos and untold misery. He left his fortune to Rachel, who had no interest in it. He excluded the others, whose lives were consumed by it.

Nate was determined to uphold the validity of Troy's last testament. But he was also very much aware that the final distribution of the estate would not be determined by anyone in the northern hemisphere.

It was late when he arrived in St. Michaels, and as he passed Trinity Church he wanted to stop, go inside, kneel and pray, and ask God to forgive him for the sins of the week. Confession and a hot bath were needed after five days of depositions.

FORTY-SIX.

A HARRIED big-city professional, Nate had never been introduced to the ritual of sitting. Phil, on the other hand, was an accomplished practitioner. When a parishioner was ill, he was expected to visit and sit with the family. If there was a death, he would sit with the widow. If a neighbor stopped by, regardless of the time, he and Laura would sit and chat. Sometimes they practiced the art by themselves, on the porch, in the swing, alone. Two elderly gentlemen in his congregation expected Phil to stop by once a week and simply sit for an hour while they dozed by the fire. Conversation was nice, but not required. It was perfectly fine to just sit and enjoy the stillness.

But Nate caught on quickly. He sat with Phil on the front steps of the Stafford cottage, both men wearing heavy sweaters and gloves, and sipping hot cocoa Nate had prepared in the microwave. They gazed at the bay before them, at the harbor and the choppy waters be-yond. Conversation crept up occasionally, but there was a lot of silence. Phil knew his friend had suffered a bad week. By now, Nate had told him most of the details of the Phelan mess. Theirs was a confidential relationship.

“I'm planning a road trip,” Nate announced quietly. “Wanna come?”

“To where?”

“I need to see my kids. I have two younger ones, Austin and Angela, in Salem, Oregon. I'll probably go there first. My older son is a grad student at Northwestern in Evanston, and I have a daughter in Pittsburgh. It'll be a nice little tour.”

“How long?”

“There's no rush. A couple of weeks. I'm driving.”

“When did you see them last?”

“It's been over a year since I've seen Daniel and Kait-lin, the two from my first marriage. I took the two younger ones to an Orioles game last July. I got drunk and didn't remember driving back to Arlington.”

“Do you miss them?”

“Sure, I guess. Truth is, I never spent much time with them. I know so little about them.”

“You were working hard.”

“I was, and I was drinking even harder. I was never at home. On those rare occasions when I could take off, I would go to Vegas with the boys, or golfing or deep-sea fishing in the Bahamas. I never took the kids.”

“You can't change that.”

“No, I can't. Why don't you come with me? We could talk for hours.”

“Thanks, but I can't leave. I've finally built some momentum in the basement. I'd hate to lose it.”

Nate had seen the basement earlier in the day. There was evidence of momentum.

Phil's only child was a twenty-something drifter who'd flunked out of college and fled to the West Coast. Laura had let it slip that they had no idea where the kid was. He hadn't called home in over a year.

“Do you expect the trip to be successful?” Phil asked.

“I'm not sure what to expect. I want to hug my kids and apologize for being such a lousy father, but I'm not sure how that's supposed to help them now.”

“I wouldn't do that. They know you've been a lousy father. Flogging yourself won't help. But it's important to be there, to take the first step in building new relationships.”

“I was such a miserable failure for my kids.”

“You can't beat yourself up, Nate. You're allowed to forget the past. God certainly has. Paul murdered Christians before he became one, and he didn't flail himself for what he'd been before. Everything is forgiven. Show your kids what you are now.”

A small fishing boat backed away from the harbor, and turned into the bay. It was the only blip on their screen, and they watched with rapt attention. Nate thought of Jevy and Welly, back on the river now, guiding a chalana loaded with produce and wares, the steady knock of the diesel pushing them deep into the Pantanal. Jevy would have the wheel, Welly would be strumming his guitar. All the world was at peace.

Later, long after Phil had gone home, Nate huddled by the fire and began another letter to Rachel. It was his third. He dated it Saturday, February 22. “Dear Rachel,” he began. “I have just spent a very unpleasant week with your brothers and sisters.”

He talked about them, beginning with Troy Junior and ending three pages later with Ramble. He was honest about their shortcomings and the damage they would inflict on themselves and others if they got the money. And he was sympathetic too.

He was sending a check to World Tribes for five thousand dollars for a boat, a motor, and medical supplies. There was plenty more if she needed. The interest on her fortune was about two million dollars a day, he informed her, so a lot of good things could be done with the money.

HARK GETTYS and his conspirators at law blundered badly when they terminated the services of Drs. Flowe, Zadel, and Theishen. The lawyers had rebuked the doctors, offended them, and caused irreparable damage.

The new batch of psychiatrists had the benefit of Snead's newly fabricated testimony upon which to create their opinions. Flowe, Zadel, and Theishen did not. When Nate deposed them Monday, he followed the same script with all three. He began with Zadel, and showed him the video of the examination of Mr. Phelan. He asked him if he had any reason to alter his opinions. Zadel, as expected, said no. The video happened before the suicide. The eight-page affidavit was prepared just hours afterward, at the insistence of Hark and the other Phelan lawyers. Zadel was asked by Nate to read the affidavit to the court reporter.

“Do you have any reason to change any of the opinions set out in that affidavit?” Nate asked.

“I do not,” Zadel said, looking at Hark.

“Today is February twenty-fourth, more than two months after your examination of Mr. Phelan. Is it your opinion today that he had sufficient mental capacity to execute a valid will?”

“It is,” Zadel answered, smiling at Hark.

Flowe and Theishen smiled too, each genuinely happy to turn the screws on the lawyers who'd hired them and fired them. Nate showed each of them the video, asked them the same questions, and received the same answers. Each read his affidavit into the record. They adjourned at four, Monday afternoon.

At eight— thirty sharp, Tuesday morning, Snead was escorted into the room and placed in the chair of honor. He wore a dark suit with a bow tie which gave him a brainy aura that was undeserved. The lawyers had carefully selected his wardrobe. They'd been molding and programming Snead for weeks, and the poor man doubted if he could utter a spontaneous or honest word. Every syllable had to be right. He had to project an air of confidence, yet avoid even the slightest hint of arrogance. He and he alone defined reality, and it was crucial that his stories were believable.

Josh had known Snead for many years. He was a servant whom Mr. Phelan often talked of getting rid of. Of the eleven wills Josh had prepared for Troy Phelan, only one mentioned the name of Malcolm Snead. A gift of a million dollars had been designated for him, a gift revoked months later with yet another will. Mr. Phelan had removed Snead's name precisely because Snead had inquired as to how much he might expect to receive.

Snead had been too preoccupied with the money to suit his master. His name on the witness list for the contestants meant only one thing-money. He was being paid to testify, and Josh knew it. Two weeks of simple surveillance had discovered a new Range Rover, a newly leased condo in a building where the prices started at eighteen hundred dollars a month, and a trip to Rome, first class.

Snead faced the video camera and was somewhat comfortable. He felt as though he'd been looking at one for a year. He'd spent all of Saturday and half of Sunday in Hark's office, getting himself grilled again. He'd watched the videos of himself for hours. He'd written dozens of pages of fiction on the final days of Troy Phelan. He'd rehearsed with Nicolette the bimbo.

Snead was ready. The lawyers had anticipated questions about the money. If asked whether he was being paid to testify, Snead was trained to lie. It was that simple. There was no way around it. Snead had to lie about the half a million bucks already in hand, and he had to lie about the promise of $4.5 million upon settlement or other favorable outcome. He had to lie about the existence of the contract between himself and the lawyers. Since he was lying about Mr. Phelan he could certainly lie about the money.

Nate introduced himself and then asked, quite loudly, “Mr. Snead, how much are you being paid to testify in this case?”

Snead's lawyers thought the question would be, “Are you being paid?” not, “How much?” Snead's rehearsed answer was a simple “No, I certainly am not!” But to the question still ringing around the room he had no quick response. Hesitation sank him. He seemed to gasp as he looked wildly at Hark, whose spine had become rigid and his stare frozen like a deer's.

Snead had been warned that Mr. O'Riley had done his homework and seemed to know everything before he asked the questions. In the long painful seconds that followed, Mr. O'Riley frowned at him, cocked his head sideways, and lifted some papers.

“Come on, Mr. Snead, I know you're being paid. How much?”

Snead cracked his knuckles hard enough to break them. Beads of sweat popped out in the creases of his forehead. “Well, I, uh, I'm not-“

“Come on, Mr. Snead. Did you or did you not purchase a new Range Rover last month?”

“Well, yes, as a matter of-“

“And you leased a two-bedroom condo at Palm Court?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And you just returned from ten days in Rome, didn't you?”

“I did.”

He knew everything! The Phelan lawyers shrank in their seats, each cowering lower, ducking their heads so the ricocheting bullets wouldn't strike them.

“So how much are you being paid?” Nate asked angrily. “Keep in mind you're under oath!”

“Five hundred thousand dollars,” Snead blurted out. Nate stared at him in disbelief, his jaw dropping slowly. Even the court reporter froze.

A couple of the Phelan lawyers managed to exhale, slightly. As horrible as the moment was, it could certainly have been bloodier. What if Snead had panicked even more and confessed to the entire five million?

But it was a very small comfort. At the moment, the news that they had paid a witness a half a million dollars seemed fatal to their cause.

Nate shuffled papers as if he needed some document. The words still echoed through all the ears in the room.

“I take it you have already received.this money?” Nate asked.

Unsure whether he was supposed to lie or go straight, Snead simply said, “Yes.”

On a hunch, Nate asked, “Half a million now, how much later?”

Anxious to begin the lying, Snead answered, “Nothing.” It was a casual denial, one that appeared believable. The other two Phelan lawyers were able to breathe.

“Are you sure about that?” Nate asked. He was fishing. He could ask Snead if he'd been convicted of grave-robbing if he wanted to.