by Sandra Balzo
‘Glaser safety slugs. They’re frangible, meaning no penetration of walls and such.’
‘But they will “penetrate” people.’
Big smile. ‘And devastatingly.’
Lovely.
The front door cracked open and Officer Fearon stepped out onto the porch.
‘Hey, Gary,’ Joy called cheerfully.
AnnaLise scowled at her armed-and-dangerous friend before gesturing to the second cruiser. ‘Your relief has arrived, I see. I imagine you’ll be glad to go home and get some sleep.’
‘I will that,’ Fearon said, blinking in the bright sunlight. ‘Though with us shorthanded, there’s no rest for the weary.’
‘Hopefully that’ll be true of the wicked as well.’ Coy Pitchford had emerged right after him.
‘Our temporary chief is looking at you,’ Joy whispered to AnnaLise.
‘He is not.’ AnnaLise elbowed her friend.
Joy sidestepped, nearly knocking into Fearon as he trotted down the steps and flashed her a quick smile before continuing to his car.
‘Who’s not?’ Coy asked. The officer’s eyes narrowed, but whether that was because of the bright sun or suspicion, AnnaLise couldn’t decide.
She did decide, however, to put her cards on the table. Better AnnaLise know now where she stood with the Sutherton police. ‘Joy felt you were referring to me when you said “wicked.”’
‘Stoolie,’ Joy Tamarack muttered under her breath.
AnnaLise ignored her. ‘Coy, straight up and straight out. Am I a suspect in Dickens’ death?’
Coy, who seemed to have picked up a bit more swagger during the prior twenty-four hours, pulled at his shirt collar thoughtfully. ‘Well, now, I wouldn’t say exactly that. We’re investigating all sorts of possibilities. And the county, when they get here, will be—’
‘Any update on when they’re expected?’ AnnaLise asked. She wasn’t sure if the arrival of the sheriff’s department would improve matters or not, but they would certainly move things along. Despite the fact that it had been only a single day since the discovery of Dickens Hart’s body, it felt like she’d been sinking in quicksand ever since.
‘… what with the holiday,’ Coy was saying. ‘To make matters worse, there was a twenty-car pile-up on the highway this morning.’
‘Where at?’ AnnaLise asked, unconsciously echoing rhythms of speech that had faded during her time away.
‘Down by Tuckerville, where the fog sits some mornings,’ Coy said. ‘And a bad one it was, too.’
‘Coy?’ Charity was in the doorway with a cellphone in one hand and her notebook in the other. ‘Still nothing on the chef.’
‘But Sheree told us Debbie left the inn yesterday morning,’ said AnnaLise. ‘Shouldn’t somebody have—’
Now Coy interrupted her. ‘You’ve been down to the inn, AnnaLise?’
‘Yes, Joy needed to get … something from her room there.’
Mercifully, Joy didn’t pull out that ‘something’ for display.
‘As to the chef,’ Charity said, consulting her notebook as she stepped out to join them. ‘I don’t suppose you remember the rest of that phone number you saw?’
‘Afraid not,’ AnnaLise said.
‘What good would it do anyway?’ Joy asked. ‘If this Debbie’s a killer, she’s certainly not going to answer her cellphone.’
‘You’d be surprised,’ Coy said. ‘Most criminals don’t have lots of smarts. Especially ones who act in haste and then react in panic.’
‘Is that what you assume happened?’ AnnaLise asked.
‘I don’t assume anything,’ Coy said, hooking a thumb in the leather super-structure of his holster rig.
‘Seems like a crime of opportunity,’ Joy said. ‘Dickens pissed somebody off and they took that opportunity to smack him one.’
‘At least one,’ Coy said with a poker face.
‘So you got the autopsy results?’ AnnaLise asked.
She expected him to prevaricate with technical terms or outright refuse to answer, but he nodded. ‘Just the preliminary, but no surprises. Cause of death was blunt-force trauma.’
‘No drugs involved?’ AnnaLise was thinking about both the kind you smoked and the kind you dissolved in some unsuspecting person’s drink.
Coy cocked his head. ‘Now why would you ask that?’
AnnaLise didn’t bring up the weed, lest Coy wanted to know where it had gone. ‘As I told Charity last night, I saw something granular in the bottom of the wine glass Morris bagged upstairs.’
‘The glass AnnaLise said was hers,’ Charity added for Coy’s benefit, putting away her cellphone and taking out a pen.
‘The one I assumed was mine, since it was empty. But as I told you, Charity, and Joy can corroborate,’ the police reporter hooked a finger toward her friend, ‘there was no sediment in the wine either of us was drinking.’
Seeming to be confused, Joy cleared her throat. ‘No. I mean, yes, there was no sediment. And given the way AnnaLise was guzzling, I’m sure there wasn’t a drop left.’
Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but AnnaLise would take it. ‘If that was my glass, somebody added something to it. The other option is that it was the full glass I’d brought in for Hart, and there was something already in it.’
Charity was shaking her head. ‘Nothing in that wine, or the bottle either. As for the victim, the preliminary labs are clean of everything but alcohol and the prescription drugs we’ve accounted for.’
‘Do you think you’ve given our suspects enough information?’ Coy snapped.
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Charity said, turning on him. ‘We need information, which means interviewing instead of you walking around as the cock of the roost, buffing your own badge until the county gets here.’
But Joy had gasped. ‘We’re both suspects?’
Coy grinned. ‘Not so much you.’
‘Hey, Joy’s the ex-wife,’ AnnaLise protested, her misery yearning for a little company. ‘And we have another one of them around here, too, someplace. Not to mention a chronologically tiered array of gold-diggers-cum-potential heirs.’
‘Fine way to talk about your houseguests,’ Patrick Hoag said with a smile as he rounded the corner from the side of the house. ‘Can I be of help in any way?’
‘Please,’ AnnaLise said, honestly glad to see an attorney, any attorney. ‘Patrick, tell Coy that other people were here Wednesday night who could gain from Hart’s death.’
‘Did you draft Mr Hart’s will?’ Charity asked the lawyer.
‘Estate plan, actually.’
‘Wait a minute. You can’t ask him about that,’ Joy said.
‘Will you let the man speak,’ AnnaLise hissed to Joy. ‘Whose side are you on, anyway?’
‘His client is dead,’ Coy said. ‘Besides, we can get—’
Patrick Hoag held up his hands. ‘I’m happy to tell you what’s in the plan. I don’t have a copy with me, obviously, but Bacchus may know where Dickens had one that’s conveniently accessible. If not, Bacchus will certainly have his own as Dickens Hart’s executor.’
AnnaLise felt a seismic shift ripple from her feet through the ground beneath them. ‘Boozer is Dickens’ executor?’
‘See?’ Joy glared at Coy. ‘Another suspect.’
‘Dickens’ estate plan is exceptionally straight forward,’ Patrick said. ‘Other than an annual stipend to Bacchus, everything goes to AnnaLise as Hart’s acknowledged daughter.’
Everybody looked at her.
‘What about the other heirs?’ AnnaLise asked between gritted teeth.
‘Ach, that’s true, isn’t it?’ Coy said, scratching his head. ‘That’s why everybody’s here in the first place.’
‘Yes,’ said AnnaLise. ‘Tell them, Patrick.’
‘They aren’t “heirs,” as such. At least, not yet. No recognition in the will. Nor were they legitimatized by Hart before—’
‘Neither am I,’ AnnaLise exploded. Honest to God, the welcomed ‘mouthpiece’
was becoming absolutely obtuse. ‘Eddie, Tyler and me – all illegitimate.’
‘If you’d let me explain what I mean by “legitimatized—” Patrick tried, but Charity interrupted.
‘Do these other – call them “potential heirs” – have proof?’ she asked.
‘Not yet.’ AnnaLise knew she was throwing her potential half-brothers under the bus to join Joy, but at this point she didn’t care.
Twelve weeks ago, she’d been a fatherless child minding her own business, scratching out a living by covering the crime beat for a Wisconsin newspaper. Now she was a purported heiress and perhaps the central suspect in a homicide. Three guesses on which she’d have preferred.
‘But,’ AnnaLise continued, ‘all they’ll need is Hart’s DNA. Seems like they could get that from the coroner.’ She was looking toward Charity for support.
The officer shrugged. ‘I suppose. Probably need a court order.’
‘Even if they can’t get that,’ Joy said, ‘there’s plenty of DNA around this place. Starting with the mirror above his bed.’
An involuntary ‘Eeeuw,’ from Charity, but Coy and Patrick seemed rather impressed.
AnnaLise, for her part, turned to Joy. ‘There’s no mirror above the bed. I was wondering about that, because it sure seemed in character.’
‘It was up there in my day,’ Joy said. ‘The old man must have redecorated.’
Well, that was a kick in the DNA, AnnaLise thought, then rallied. ‘Just a hair or toothbrush would probably suffice, right, Patrick?’
But the lawyer was holding up his hands again. ‘Let’s step back and take this one issue at a time. First of all, in North Carolina, an illegitimate child has the same rights to inherit property from his or her mother and the mother’s family as any other child.’
‘Only seems fair,’ Charity said, nodding.
‘On the other hand,’ Patrick went on, ‘an illegitimate child does not have a right to inherit from his or her putative birth father—’
Joy interrupted with, ‘“Putative,” like we’re going to jail the guy?’
‘No.’ It was obvious that Patrick Hoag was not lightly suffering the intrusion on his mini-lesson about the law. ‘The word here is “putative,” as in alleged or supposed birth father, not “punitive,” as in punishing someone.’
‘Too bad,’ said Joy, disappointment the major tone in her voice. ‘The “putative birth father” should probably have at least one nut cut—’
‘Joy?’ AnnaLise said, sensing her friend knew full well what ‘putative’ meant, but couldn’t resist sniping anywhere that Dickens Hart was concerned, even now. ‘Please?’
Her friend shrugged unhappily, but didn’t continue.
‘As I was saying,’ Patrick said, his eyes brooking no further comments, ‘the illegitimate child has no right of inheritance from a putative father who dies intestate, unless …’
AnnaLise said a little prayer that Joy wouldn’t pun ‘intestate’ with the testicle she evidently wanted as her ounce – or two – of flesh.
‘… at least one of the following pertains.’ Hoag cleared his throat and wiggled his fingers as though warming up for a piano recital. ‘First,’ raising his index finger in the air, ‘the putative father has legally been declared the child’s actual father – which includes, by the way, the mother and putative father marrying after the birth of the child.’
Joy seemed like she just couldn’t help herself. ‘But that never happened here with any of them.’
‘Correct.’ Patrick drove on. ‘Or, second—’ His middle finger rose at its natural angle to near his index one.
AnnaLise shot a glance at Joy, who seemed ready to burst with some allusion to the middle finger’s other meaning. But Joy managed to restrain herself, and AnnaLise mouthed a silent thank you.
‘The putative father has acknowledged the child as his own in a written document, signed before the proper official and filed in the proper court, at the proper time.’
‘And Hart did neither your “first” nor “second”?’ asked Charity.
‘Except the second for AnnaLise,’ Patrick said, obviously pleased to have a parrot-apprentice to balance out the heckling crow.
‘And now never can,’ said Coy. ‘Given the man’s dead.’
Eyes turned again toward AnnaLise, who was thinking furiously before saying, ‘But Hart didn’t die intestate.’
Coy blinked. ‘What?’
‘Patrick said that an illegitimate child doesn’t have the right to inherit from his or her intestate father. Dickens didn’t die intestate. He had a will.’ She turned to the lawyer. ‘Or, as you called it, an estate plan.’
‘Oh, very good,’ Patrick said, pantomiming applause toward AnnaLise. ‘A man can, indeed, put an illegitimate child in his will. In fact, Dickens did exactly that with you, AnnaLise, as well as acknowledging you legally – thereby legitimatizing you – as in my second option.’ He wiggled his middle finger.
‘But AnnaLise’s status aside,’ Charity said, ‘you’re still saying Dickens Hart did none of these things to recognize the other potential heirs, correct?’
‘Yes. But only as far as it goes,’ Patrick said.
‘Why didn’t you explain all this at Thanksgiving dinner yesterday?’ Joy demanded. ‘When everybody was up in arms about DNA and all.’
‘AnnaLise was so adamant about recognizing the other heirs, I thought it had become a moot point.’
‘What do you mean?’ Coy looked like he was trying to follow, if lagging a bit.
Hoag drew in a deep, oratorical breath. ‘AnnaLise said at dinner yesterday that she didn’t want the fact that Dickens had died to prevent Eddie Boccaccio and Tyler Puckett from inheriting, should they be able to prove their parentage.’
‘See?’ AnnaLise brightened.
‘Generous,’ Charity said approvingly.
‘Or sly diversion,’ Coy growled. ‘Dickens Hart had already been killed, and she had to know she’d be the obvious suspect.’
‘Hey,’ AnnaLise said, waving her hands. ‘“She” is standing right here. And, besides, didn’t you say just a few minutes ago that I wasn’t necessarily—’
‘Regardless,’ Patrick continued smoothly, ‘I didn’t bother going into all this at the time, because we were all drinking and it’s complex and really had no bearing.’
‘Moot.’ Coy was nodding.
‘Or, at least, not applicable. You see, if AnnaLise wanted to split her inheritance, she certainly remains free to do so.’
‘Thank you,’ said the woman in question.
‘But on Wednesday night when Hart was killed, the others,’ Charity checked her notes again, ‘this Eddie Boccaccio and Tyler Puckett, would have no way of knowing whether she intended to do that?’
Coy, head cocked at a different angle as though he had an infinite number of default settings on the cervical beltway of his spinal column, said, ‘That’s right. Meaning those two boys, at least, had no obvious motive to kill Dickens Hart.’
‘Wait a second,’ from AnnaLise, waving a hand, but nobody paid her any attention.
‘Coy has a point,’ Charity was saying.
‘So what if they didn’t know that AnnaLise intended to share?’ Joy interrupted. ‘They still would have thought they could inherit by proving paternity.’
‘It’s easy to go online and get a quick – if not as complete – answer to the question,’ Patrick pointed out.
‘Leading us to the same conclusion,’ Charity said. ‘If Boccaccio and Puckett did know they couldn’t be legitimized, as you say, once Hart was dead, they had no reason to kill him. Just the opposite, in fact.’
‘He was Dickens Hart, for God’s sake,’ Joy said. ‘There was always a reason to—’
‘Charity’s right,’ Coy said. ‘Smart money would be on killing the man after you were in the will.’
AnnaLise stopped waving.
‘Like Coy was saying,’ Joy tried, ‘Criminals are stupid. Maybe—’
‘If I
might?’ Patrick said it softly, which may have been why people shut up and paid attention to their newfound fount of wisdom.
‘Yes?’ AnnaLise said politely.
‘I wasn’t done with my explanation of the North Carolina General Statutes, concerning succession by, through and from illegitimate children.’
‘By, through and … from?’ Coy quoted back.
‘For our current purposes,’ Patrick continued smoothly, ‘I think it’s best we just stick with “by.”’
‘Good idea, Patrick,’ Charity said. ‘Assuming, that is, it has a bearing on all this. None of us standing here is getting any younger, you know.’
‘I think you’ll agree it does have a bearing, if not a material difference.’
AnnaLise felt her eyes cross and, more like a judge than a suspect, intoned, ‘Proceed. Please.’
‘Now, I’ve already covered the ways a child can be legitimatized prior to the death of the putative father. Shall I recap?’
‘No!’ the assembly chorused.
‘Good. Then I’ll move on to my final point. A section of the statutes stipulates that no action shall be commenced nor judgment entered after the death of the putative father, unless the action is commenced either, one,’ the index finger went up again, ‘prior to the death of the father.’
‘We’ve already gone through this,’ Joy said in an agonized voice.
‘Or two,’ Patrick waggled the middle finger meaningfully, ‘within one year after the death of the putative father.’
AnnaLise, perhaps listening more closely to the lawyer’s analysis, thought she saw where he was headed. ‘So Eddie and Tyler have one year from yesterday to prove they have a right to part of Dickens Hart’s estate?’
‘They do. Of course, there are other considerations, such as when a proceeding for administration of the estate of the putative—’
Charity mercifully interrupted. ‘Is it safe to say, Patrick, that Boccaccio and Puckett can still get something from Hart’s estate, assuming they prove paternity within a year?’
‘And with DNA proof, even longer, beyond three years.’
‘You wanted a reason to kill Hart?’ Joy said, nodding toward Charity. ‘There it is. And it’s every bit as strong as AnnaLise’s.’
‘Well, maybe not quite, but I see your point,’ Charity said, as her smartphone dinged a text message.