"James C. Glass - Helen's Last Will" - читать интересную книгу автора (Glass James C)

HELEN’S LAST WILL
by James C. Glass

****

In future legal proceedings, the first crucial question may be, “Who
goes there?”

The lobby of Advanced Technologies was steel struts and white
polymer panels reaching toward a high vaulted ceiling of clear glass. The
receptionist and an armed guard sat in a glass-enclosed booth on an
otherwise vast but empty floor of black marble. Both looked up as Blanche
approached the booth.

“May I help you, madam?” asked the receptionist, a blond, pretty man
in his twenties.

“I wish to see the body of my sister,” said Blanche. “She was interred
here last Thursday.”

The young man smiled, fingers poised over a keyboard. “Name?”

“Helen Charlston Winslow. Age eighty-four. I believe the
arrangements were made by Arthur Winslow, her son. It was all quite
sudden, and I wasn’t notified.”

“Are you a relative?”

“Her sister, Blanche Charlston Packard.” Blanche sniffed and slid her
national identity card under a partially opened window in the booth. The man
looked at it, then at something on his computer screen.

“Helen Winslow, yes. She was brought here directly from her home.
Arthur Winslow attended her admission to verify identity.”

Blanche managed a sob. “I talked to her personal physician, and he
didn’t even know she’d been ill. I’m wondering why he wasn’t called in or at
least notified when she died.”

The man gave her a sympathetic smile. “We have a staff of twenty
physicians, madam. Three attended your sister and pronounced her dead
at twenty forty-five. Cause of death was a massive cerebral hemorrhage.”
He turned back to his computer screen and studied it.
 “Your sister had a long-term contract with us. Everything was done
according to her specifications.”

“Yes, of course. I knew she was an investor in your firm. When may I
view her body?”

The young man’s eyes wandered from hers. “Ah—that won’t be