Last to die
Page 16
“Ms. Fenning,” said Rudsky, “I have here a report on the results of your polygraph examination.”
Kelsey looked away from the screen and asked Jack, “She took a polygraph?”
“Evidently,” said Jack.
On tape, Rudsky’s voice continued, “The results are interesting, to say the least. Your response to one question, in particular, showed obvious signs of deception.”
“I don’t understand how that could be.”
“Let’s explore that, shall we? The question was this: Have you ever cheated on your husband? Your answer was no.”
“That’s right.”
“You were lying, weren’t you?”
Jack watched the tape carefully. Sally seemed to be struggling as she blinked twice and said, “I can explain.”
“Please do,” said Rudsky.
“It happened before we were married.”
Rudsky’s sarcastic chuckle caused a crackle in the speakers. “How do you cheat on your husband before you’re even married?”
“Mike and I dated exclusively for two years. A few months before our wedding, we had an argument and broke up. I was devastated. I leaned on someone who I thought was a friend, and he…I made a mistake. It wasn’t technically cheating, because Mike and I weren’t married. We weren’t even dating at that particular moment. But in my heart, I felt like a cheater. So I wasn’t lying when I answered ‘No’ to the lie detector question. But I felt like I was lying, so I’m sure that’s what the machine picked up.”
There was silence again, as if Rudsky were trying to make her squirm. Finally, the follow-up question came, “Do you really expect me to believe that?”
“It’s the truth.”
“I’m beginning to wonder if anything you’ve said so far is the truth.”
She tightened her mouth, seemingly defensive. “What do you mean?”
“You claim there was a stalker.”
“There was.”
“But you can’t tell us what he looks like.”
“No.”
“You can’t tell us what he sounds like.”
“No.”
“You can’t tell us anything about him, except that he ‘could be anybody.’”
“I wish I could tell you more.”
“And this started how long before your daughter was murdered?”
“Several months.”
“But you never told the police anything about a stalker until after your daughter was murdered.”
“Calling the police would only have infuriated him.”
“You didn’t even tell your husband.”
“I thought he would make me quit my job, which we couldn’t afford. And I didn’t want him to haul off and do something stupid, like buy a gun. I didn’t want a gun in the house with a four-year-old child.”
“Let’s stop the lies, all right, Ms. Fenning?”
Jack moved closer to the screen, sensing that the prosecutor was moving in for the kill. Sally was getting emotional, the strain of Rudsky’s accusatory tone having taken an obvious toll.
“I’m not lying,” she said, her voice quaking.
“The real reason you didn’t tell your husband about the stalker is that you were afraid he’d think you were cheating on him again.”
“That’s crazy.”
“You were cheating on him again, weren’t you? That’s why you didn’t tell the police you were being stalked.”
“You’re so wrong.”
“That’s why you didn’t tell your husband you were being stalked.”
“Not true.”
“What happened, Sally? You wouldn’t leave your husband, and your boyfriend got mad?”
“No.”
“So mad that he started stalking you?”
“No.”
“So mad that he killed your daughter?”
“No, no!”
Sally was practically in tears. No one offered her a tissue. She dabbed her eye with her sleeve.
“Come clean, Sally. The truth has already come out in your polygraph. There were signs of deception on one other answer you gave.”
“Which one?”
“You answered no to the following question: Do you know who killed your daughter?”
Her mouth fell open. “You think I was lying about that?”
“It’s right here in the examiner’s report. Your response shows signs of deception.”
“Then the machine is wrong,” she said.
“Or you’re lying,” said Rudsky.
Sally looked stunned, as if she could barely speak: “Are you suggesting that I’m covering for the man who killed my own daughter?”
“Let me tell you exactly what I’m saying.”
Jack watched as Rudsky’s hand suddenly reached for the video camera. With the push of a button, the screen went black.
“There’s no more?” said Kelsey.
“Try fast forwarding a few frames.”
She hit the button on the machine, but the tape was blank.
“Looks like that’s the end of it,” said Kelsey. “Though figuratively speaking, I’m definitely starting to get the picture.”
“Me, too,” said Jack in a hollow voice. “And it isn’t very pretty.”
Twenty-six
Kelsey had an afternoon class, so Jack drove her to the University of Miami law school. They rode in silence most of the way, listening to the radio. According to “News at the Top of the Hour,” a suspected terrorist was detained at the Port of Miami and would face deportation.
“Ooooh,” said Kelsey, a tinge of sarcasm in her voice. “Deportation. Now they’re really getting tough.”
“Yeah,” said Jack, scoffing. “You’d think they’d caught a puppy peeing on the rug. ‘Bad terrorist. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Now go back to your training camp and don’t come out until you’ve learned how to sneak into this country properly.’”
She offered a little nervous laughter that was symptomatic of the times, and then they continued in silence down fraternity row, past the fields of suntanned and shirtless college boys playing flag football. It was as if they both needed a little time to absorb the videotape. Not until Jack pulled into the drop-off circle in front of the law library and shifted into Park did they seem ready to talk about what was really on their minds.
“Jack, what do you think happened when Rudsky turned off that camera?”
“I’m sure he threatened her. Obstruction of justice, accessory after the fact to murder, and anything else he could think of.”
“Right. He threatened to throw her in jail unless…unless what?”
“Unless she told him who killed her daughter.”
“That’s where it all falls apart in my view. Maybe it’s because I’m a mother, but it’s hard for me to accept that Sally would have refused to identify the man who killed her child, no matter how torrid the love affair. Assuming there even was a love affair.”
“What about Susan Smith?”
“Who?”
“The married woman from South Carolina who locked her two sons in her car and sent them to the bottom of a lake so that she would be childless and more appealing to her lover.”
“Do you honestly think Sally Fenning was anywhere near that extreme?”
“If Tatum Knight is to be believed, she was extreme enough to hire someone to kill her.”
“That was five years after her daughter was brutally murdered. You’re talking about a whole different time of her life. Before a tragedy like that, she was probably an entirely different woman.”
Jack glanced out the window, thinking. “That’s a valid point. But there are other reasons for Sally to have refused to identify her killer, reasons other than a sick sense of love.”
“Such as?”
“She might have been afraid to identify him. Like you said, he’d stabbed her already, murdered her daughter. Maybe she feared he would come back to finish the job.”
“Is that what Rudsky was driving at in the videotape?” asked Kelsey.
Kelsey shook her head and said, “If she was in fact covering up for her lover, then Sally was truly despicable.”
“Anyone would agree on that point. But if Rudsky had it all wrong-if she wasn’t covering up for anybody, and if she wasn’t even having an affair-then Sally was maligned in a way no mother should ever be maligned.”
“And if Deirdre Meadows was intent upon repeating those same accusations in her book, she was just as guilty as the prosecutor.”
“Which might explain why they both ended up on Sally’s list of beneficiaries. Her list of mortal enemies.”
Silence fell between them. Kelsey checked her watch, gauging her time till class started. “So where does this lead us?” she asked.
“It all comes back to the same question. Were they her enemies because their vicious accusations were false? Or because they exposed the ugly truth?”
“How do you suppose we get an answer to that?”
“The only way I know. Keep digging.”
Kelsey waved to three women walking past the car. Classmates, Jack presumed. “I’d better get going,” she said. “Call me if there’s anything more I can do.”
“I will. Actually, I’ll probably see you tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow night?”
“Yeah, when I pick up Nate. I promised to take him for pizza at the Big Cheese on Friday.”
She clunked her head like a dunce. “I’m sorry. I forgot to tell you. My mother invited him over to the condo for some kind of grandkids shuffleboard marathon or something.”
“Boy, is that going to cost you.”
“Oh yes. Big time.” She gave a little laugh, then cut her eyes and said, “I guess that means you’re free tomorrow night, huh?”
“Evidently.”
“So…”
“So what?”
She flashed a thin, mischievous smile. “Why don’t we do dinner?”
“You mean without Nate?”
“Yes, a date.”
Jack’s mouth opened, but his words were on a few-second delay.
“Something wrong?” asked Kelsey. “You suddenly look as if I just asked you to be the food tester for Saddam Hussein.”
“This just takes you and me to another level.”
“That’s sort of the idea.”
“And it probably would be a great idea, under different circumstances. But I thought we had sort of an unspoken understanding that this is something we’d never do. For Nate’s sake.”
“I thought the same thing, until you started teasing me at Just Books. You seemed so amused by the fact that I’d somehow given Martin the impression that we were dating. It got me to thinking, maybe it’s not such a crazy notion.”
Jack took a breath. He recalled the conversation, and he’d regretted it. At the time it had seemed innocent enough, just a divorced guy with wounded self-esteem having a little flirtatious banter with an attractive young woman. He hadn’t expected it to go anywhere, but in hindsight he could see where she might have misread it. “Kelsey, look, I’m sorry.”
“Just hear me out on this, okay? With most guys I date, being a single mom is a liability. First, we have to get to like each other, and then I have to hope he likes my son. You’re the opposite. Here’s this great guy who totally adores my son. And I’m not supposed to date you because-because why?”
“Because if it doesn’t work out…”
“I’m tired of living my life that way, Jack, afraid of what’s not going to work out. What if it does work out?”
Jack considered it, allowed himself the luxury of thinking that he wasn’t forever resigned to carrying around the battle scars of his divorce. “I can’t deny that I’ve wondered about it. In the abstract, anyway.”
“One date. We don’t even have to tell Nate about it. If it doesn’t feel right, we promise to be grown-ups about it and go back to where we were. Deal?”
He smiled tentatively, just enough to give her an opening. She took his hand and shook on behalf of both of them.
“Where do you want to go?” he asked.
“You pick. I like surprises.”
“Works for me.”
“Yes, I do. But we’ll get past that.”
“No, I meant the surprise thing works for me. I wasn’t trying to pull a power play by reminding you that you work for-”
She put her finger to his lips, shushing him. “I know what you meant. Now stop being such a doofus, or I might change my mind and let you kill another Friday night with your buddy Theo.” She smiled and got out of the car, then gave a little wink and closed the door.
Friday night with Theo, he thought, trying not to enjoy the view too much as he watched Kelsey walk to class.
That works for me, too.
Miguel Rios fumbled for the key to his front door. He’d enjoyed one too many margaritas with dinner and didn’t realize how strong they were until it was too late. His girlfriend had offered to drive him home and spend the night, but he’d nixed that plan. She’d been coming on way too strong ever since he’d told her that he was in the running for a forty-six-million-dollar inheritance, apparently not the least bit bothered that the money would come from his ex-wife.
On the fourth try, he found the lock, turned the key, and pushed the door open. The mailbox was right beneath the porch light, and it was stuffed with at least two days’ deliveries. He grabbed a handful and went inside. His legs were tired from pedaling all day, one of the drawbacks of being a bicycle cop. He plopped in the recliner, put his feet up, switched on the television with the remote, and sifted through the stack of mail. He put the junk aside and opened a letter with no return address.
Inside was a typewritten note on a single sheet of paper. It was addressed to no one in particular, just a general salutation, “To my fellow beneficiaries.” The message read:
This is not a threat. I am simply sharing information with the rest of you. All of the beneficiaries under Sally Fenning’s will are in grave danger. I mean all of us, including me. I wish I could say more, but all I can say is this: If you choose to stay in this game, be careful. Be extremely careful. Please take this very seriously.
The letter wasn’t signed, but there was a typed name at the bottom. Miguel read it, then picked up the phone and dialed his lawyer. He was routed to voice mail, with a cheery instruction from Parker Aimes’s secretary to speak clearly after the tone.
“This is Miguel Rios calling about the Sally Fenning estate. I wanted to let you know about a letter I received in the mail. It’s from Alan Sirap. The sixth beneficiary.”
Twenty-seven
It was time to find out more about Alan Sirap.
Jack had received a phone call from Tatum on Thursday night, and by mid-morning Friday, Jack had confirmed that all five of the other beneficiaries had received the same letter. Still, no one seemed to know who Mr. Sirap was, or at the very least they were unwilling to share what they knew. Jack set up a lunch meeting with Vivien Grasso. As the lawyer who had drafted Sally’s will and as personal representative of her estate, Vivien was charged with the responsibility of locating all the heirs. In light of the latest letter, Jack wanted an update on how the search for Alan Sirap was going.
“This is one strange letter,” said Vivien. Jack had shown her Tatum’s copy, and she’d read it quickly.
Jack looked up from his menu, which he was only pretending to read. Old Lisbon was his favorite Portuguese restaurant in Miami, and for lunch he always ordered the house specialty, grilled squid and french fries. It wasn’t for everybody, but it was definitely for anybody who was tired of the typical calamari à la Friday ’s-breaded, deep-fried, and drowning in enough marinara sauce to make a hockey puck taste good.
“Strange is one word for it,” said Jack. “Scary comes to mind as well.”
She smiled wryly and handed back the letter. “Come now, Jack. Something tells me that your client doesn’t scare easily.”
“I have a feeling yours didn’t either.”
“Sally had a rough life. But yes, she was pretty tough, too.”
“How well did you really know her?”
“How well do we know any of our clients?”
“Some better than others.”
Vivien squeezed a wedge of lemon into her iced tea. “I deal with very wealthy clients. Most of them guard their privacy rather fiercely. Sally was no different.”
“So what you’re saying is-”
“I knew her well enough to draft her will. That’s what I’m saying.”
A waiter brought them fresh baked bread and a dish of olive oil for dipping. Jack tore off a chunk but kept talking. “Vivien, you’ve known my father for years. You’ve known me almost as long. So you know I’m on the level when I tell you that anything you say here is just between you, me, and the grilled squid, right?”
“Oh boy. Here it comes.”
Jack smiled a little, then turned serious. “Was it Sally Fenning’s intention to construct some sick game of survival of the greediest?”
She drummed her nails on the table, as if debating how to answer-or perhaps whether to answer.
“I’m not trying to put you in a bad spot,” said Jack. “But some weird stuff is happening.”
“It’s okay. To be honest, the last thing I want is for you or, worse, your father to think that I would allow myself to be part of a bloody vengeance campaign. So let me put it this way. I concede that drafting Sally’s will so that everything goes to the survivor of six potential heirs is certainly unorthodox. But I never imagined that threats and bodily injury were part of Sally’s plan.”
“Then what was her plan?”
“This is the way I understood it. For Sally, there was no bright side to money. When she needed it, she didn’t have it. When she had it, she wasn’t happy.”
“That much I seem to have figured out.”
“As far as she was concerned, money was a curse. So she decided that when she died, she’d share the curse with people she didn’t like. The way we structured her will, each of Sally’s heirs would live their whole life thinking they were just a heartbeat away from inheriting forty-six million dollars. But only one of them would ever see the money-and by the time they got it, he or she would probably be too old to enjoy it. It was vindictive, but it wasn’t criminal.”