“Honestly?” said Fellinger. “He doesn’t have a winning personality but he’s always seemed to be decent and honest. Five years is plenty of time to dig up dirt and, believe me, I dug. So did Earl—fishing around about Ursula. In fact, last year we met for drinks and had a laugh over it. All those hours spent trying to make each other’s clients look bad with zero success.”

“But they kept fighting.”

“Not fighting,” said Fellinger. “What I said, tweaking. Voices were never raised, they just wanted to nip and tuck their finances. To get an accurate accounting.”

Milo said, “If the divorce was resolved, why did Ursula come to see you today?”

“That,” said Fellinger, “brings us right back to the jewelry. Which is probably why I thought about it. Ursula’s got a lot of bling, expensive stuff she’s been buying for years. With divorce issues out of the way, she began thinking about her daughters, wanted to specify who got what. I don’t do that much estate work anymore but I agreed to handle it if it didn’t get too complicated. It turned out to be simple: two girls, fifty-fifty. It made Ursula feel better putting it in writing.”

“Codicil to her will,” said Milo.

Fellinger looked at him. “Did she sense something bad was going to happen? Not that I saw. Just the opposite, she was in a great mood. It’s what affluent people do, Detective. They think about their toys, fine-tune, try to feel in control.”

“Where did the affluence come from?”

“The business she and Richard built together. Import–export.”

“Of what?”

“Cheap crap,” said Fellinger. “Their description, not mine. You know those rubber sandals you get for two bucks in Chinatown? They’d bring them over in pallets from Vietnam at ten cents per unit.”

Milo said, “Nice profit margin.”

“Cost them twenty, twenty-five cents when you factor in shipping and transport, they wholesale out at seventy-five cents to a buck? I’d say that’s a fantastic profit.”

“What was their working arrangement?”

“Ursula did the purchasing. She was familiar with the Far East, her father had been some sort of diplomat. Richard’s the numbers-cruncher, manages the day by day. He’s also done a good job of investing their money.”

“In what?”

“Blue chips, preferred stock, bonds.”

“Conservative.”

“Extremely,” said Fellinger. “There’s also a rental property on the water in Oxnard.”

Milo said, “How large of an estate are we talking about?”

Fellinger’s eyebrows rose again, startled caterpillars. “Does that matter?”

“At this point, sir, everything matters.”

“Well … I suppose you could always access the family court records, numbers have been bandied around for five years.” Fellinger sat back, tented his hands over his firm, round gut. “Last accounting, their total net worth was between fourteen and fifteen million and there’s no debt to speak of.”

Milo whistled.