DEATH AND THE MAVEN

NO ONE PAID ANNE SCHEIBER MUCH mind when she was alive. If anyone at all noticed her outside her Manhattan studio apartment, the frugal spinster, a mere five feet tall, was always dressed in the same cheap black coat and hat. She never bought a stick of furniture. She rarely bought a newspaper. But she did read one diligently. Every so often she would venture out to the local library where she could read the Wall Street Journal without paying for it. And on her little noticed journeys outside her apartment, she would also visit her stockbroker. When she died at...