“Poochie, something you said earlier this morning struck me as a bit peculiar. Mr. Tolliver was missing, and at that point we were operating under the assumption that he’d skipped town.”
“You were operating under that assumption. I never was, as you and Bement will recall.”
“She’s right,” Bement acknowledged, hands gripping his coffee cup.
“I asked you if any works of art were missing,” Des went on. “You insisted that Tolly would never take anything of yours. I believe you said, ‘There would be no point in it.’ What did you mean by that? Have you made specific provisions for him in your will?”
“I don’t wish to discuss it,” Poochie said dismissively. “Ask Glynis.”
“Poochie did amend her last will and testament in November to provide for Mr. Tolliver,” Glynis offered guardedly.
“Provide for him how?”
“Poochie, you’re under no legal obligation to answer this,” Glynis advised her. “The contents of your will are confidential.”
“Lady, we will be right back here in an hour with a warrant and you know it,” Yolie huffed at the lawyer. “Right now, all you’re doing is impeding an investigation into two murders.”
“Two murders?” Poochie gaped at them in astonishment. “But I thought… you told me Tolly swallowed poison.”
“We believe he was struck on the head and forced to drink it,” Des said.
“Oh, I am so relieved to hear that.” Poochie’s blue eyes puddled with tears. “Not that I mean to suggest I’m happy Tolly was murdered. I simply refused to believe he was despondent. He was happy with me.”
“Of course he was.” Claudia reached a hand out to her mother’s. Poochie instinctively pulled away. Claudia’s face tightened, a mask of anguish.
Poochie was unaware of it. Or appeared to be. She got up and went back to the counter and began greasing the two loaf pans with a stick of butter. “Four Chimneys is for my children,” she said in a firm voice. “Father wanted it that way. The house and the land will be theirs. Likewise my stock holdings. Poor Peter’s as well. But I did what I could do for Tolly. And there you have it.”
Des shook her head at her. “How did you do what you could for him?”
“Why, by leaving him the contents of the house, of course. Those are mine to distribute as I choose, and I chose to leave them to Tolly.”
Des’s jaw dropped in disbelief.
Soave looked at her blank-faced, still not grasping the hugeness of this.
“She left him her art collection, Rico,” Des explained.
“And do not overlook the furniture,” Claudia added in a muted voice. “Some of those antiques are priceless.”
“You knew about this?” Des asked her.
“Of course she did,” Poochie said. “Both of my children did.”
Eric had nothing to say. Just lurked there by the back door like an impatient kid who couldn’t wait to go play ball with his friends.
“I wanted them to understand how much Tolly meant to me,” Poochie explained.
“Tolly told me about it himself,” Claudia said quietly. “He hoped it would bring the two of us closer together, I believe he said. I just thought he was lording it over me.”
“You had no cause to feel that way,” Poochie chided her.
“Well, I’m sorry, Mummy.”
“And what did you think?” Soave asked Eric.
“About what?” The farmer’s attention seemed elsewhere.
“Poochie leaving Tolly her art collection,” Danielle said in a patient voice.
“A bunch of meaningless adornment,” Eric responded, shrugging his shoulders. “Who cares?”
“Know what strikes me as odd?” Soave said. “Mr. Tolliver made zero mention of this when we interviewed him. All he did was cry poverty.”
“Because he was afraid you’d think exactly what you’re thinking, Lieutenant,” Poochie said. “That he was nothing more than an aging gold digger. I told him to hell with what other people think. But Tolly was terribly sensitive. Surely you can understand that.”
“I guess. Only, why didn’t you tell us?”
Glynis answered, “We complied with you fully yesterday, Lieutenant. We granted you access to Peter Mosher’s last will and testament. We answered your questions regarding the estate of John J. Meier. My client’s own bequests were outside the scope of your inquiry.”
“Damn, lady,” Yolie fumed. “If you weren’t being such a nit-picky lawyer that man might still be alive. Don’t you get that?”
“I was doing my job.”
“Girl to girl, your job stinks!”
“You have no call to speak to me that way, Sergeant,” Glynis responded coldly. “It’s highly unprofessional, and I resent it. Lieutenant, I do not care for the adversarial tone this conversation is taking.”
“Duly noted. Can we please move on?”
Glynis continued to glare at Yolie.
“I’m no art expert, Mrs. Vickers,” Soave said. “Can you give us a ballpark figure on how much your collection is worth?”
“Why, I would have no idea. I’ve never placed a dollar value on it. That’s not what art is about, is it, Des?”
“Poochie, I’m afraid that’s very much what it’s about right now.”
“Well, that’s just fine then,” the grand old lady declared. “If you people insist upon being so vulgar I shall be in the conservatory with my plants and other living things.”
“Mummy, please don’t go,” Claudia protested.
But Poochie had already barged out of the kitchen, leaving them and her unfinished gingerbread behind.
“If she’s gone, I’m gone.” Eric flung open the back door. “Come on, hon.”
Danielle got up from the table and followed him, mustering an apologetic glance at Des.
“I’ve got to open up the shop,” Bement said as he, too, headed out.
Only Glynis and Claudia remained there at the table.
“In response to your question, Lieutenant,” Glynis said crisply, “the value of Poochie’s art collection has been placed at one hundred million dollars. And that is a very, very conservative estimate, considering the prices that modern pieces have been fetching at auction lately. It could easily be worth four or five times that much. A representative of Sotheby’s phones me regularly to convey how anxious they are to get their hands on it.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Soave said to her. “You’re telling us that the ‘contents’ are worth more than the house, the land, the stock and everything else put together, am I right?”
“Unquestionably,” Glynis confirmed.
“So this explains it,” Des said to Claudia. “Why you’ve been so anxious to gain power of attorney over your mother’s business affairs.”
“I was concerned,” Claudia conceded coolly. “And why not? Some of those pieces belong in a museum. There’s no telling what Tolly might have done with them. If she wanted to leave the man a chunk of money, fine. But the family’s art collection? I couldn’t accept that. Because I love my mother and I’m worried about her.” Claudia trailed off, her eyes cast down at the table. “Is that so hard to believe?”
“Not at all. You’re not the only one who’s worried.”
“Meaning what, Des?” Glynis asked, frowning at her.
“Would you ladies please excuse us?” Des was already on her way out the back door. “We’ll be leaving you now.”
“Certainly,” said Glynis, saving one final glare for Yolie.
“That blonde ball of fluff better hope she never tangles with me again,” Yolie growled as Des led them across the courtyard toward their Crown Vics. “I will kick her skinny pink ass.”
“Don’t mess with Glynis, girl. She’s got major juice.”
“Not to mention some shifty moves,” said Soave. “Yesterday she fails to disclose Guy Tolliver’s huge windfall on a technicality. Today the man turns up dead. Was she just doing her job, like she said, or was she doing a job on us? How d
o we know she’s not a part of this thing herself?”
“We don’t know, Rico,” Des acknowledged as they arrived at their cars. She leaned against hers, gazing up at the magnificent brick hugeness of Four Chimneys. “What we do know is someone is after the grand prize—this place and all that comes with it. A calculated, systematic master plan is taking shape. And they aren’t done yet. There’s still one more step. Mighty big one, too.”
“The old lady,” Yolie said in a hushed voice.
“You think her life is in danger?” Soave asked.
“I know it, Rico,” Des said. “Poochie’s bound to be their next target. They won’t have everything they want until she’s dead, too. And these are not patient people.”
“We’re putting an armed guard on her right now,” Soave said with grim determination. “She needs protection around the clock.”
“I’m guessing she won’t like the idea much,” Yolie said.
“Count on it,” Des agreed. “But if she wants to stay alive, she’ll do what we tell her.”
“We can keep her safe, Des,” Soave promised. “But you’ve got to help us out here. Haven’t you got any idea who we’re after?”
“I wish I did, Rico. But I’m still a million miles from nowhere, and getting more damned frustrated by the—”
Her cell phone rang. She glanced down at the home screen. It was Mitch. She took his call.
“Your troubles are over, Master Sergeant,” he said to her excitedly. “I’ve just figured out how we can blow this whole thing wide open.”
CHAPTER 21
“KIND OF BUSY HERE,” Des said back to him over the cell phone.
“That’s what I figured,” Mitch responded as he sat behind the wheel of his truck, sipping hot coffee. “But I need face time with you. I’m parked out on Route 156 about a hundred yards from the driveway.” He and a crush of TV news vans. “I tried to get inside, but the trooper told me to am-scray. And it’s been a long time since I’ve heard anyone use pig latin, let me tell you.”
“Mitch, I can’t give you any time right—”
“Wait, have you guys figured out yet that Poochie’s the next victim?”
Silence from her end. Until she said, “We’re putting a twenty-four-hour guard on her.”
“No, you don’t want to do that. This is what I need to see you about. I have fresh doughnuts.”
“Mitch, I can’t just pick up and… did you get any jelly?”
“Do I know you or do I know you?”
He heard her sigh. “Okay, the trooper will let you through. I’ll met you at the fork.”
Eric’s fragrant sheep farm seemed uncommonly peaceful in the morning sunlight after the hubbub down at the road. It was so quiet Mitch could hear the bleating of the denizens as he waited there.
It took Des ten minutes to stride her way down the private drive to him, looking ultra-stressed. When the master sergeant was tightly coiled she developed a yen for jelly doughnuts. Absolutely her only junk food vice—unless you classified carrot sticks as junk food, and Mitch did.
She hopped in next to him and lunged for a football-sized jelly doughnut, attacking it ravenously. “Tell me how you figured out that Poochie is next in line. I’m a trained homicide investigator and I just got there. What makes you so damned smart?”
“I watched a great deal of Larry, Moe and Curly in my formative years. And I know how you can cut through all of the procedure and nail your killers. In movie parlance, it’s known as cutting to the chase.”
“That’s funny, we call it that in real life, too.”
“Okay, now you’re being pointy.”
Des stuffed the last of the doughnut in her mouth, dabbing at her face with a napkin. “Mitch, tell me why we don’t want to put a guard on Poochie.”
“Because if she has police protection then she’ll never be attacked.”
“Well, yeah, that’s kind of the whole idea.”
“No, it’s not. You have a golden opportunity here to smoke them out. But our killers have to think she’s alone in the house when she calls them up. Otherwise, they won’t come over.”
“Slow down. Who is she calling?”
“We’ll get to that in a minute.”
“Keep talking.” She reached for another doughnut.
“You set up a video camera in Poochie’s parlor. Wire the whole room for visuals and sound. Then, at your behest, Poochie calls up the suspects and says, ‘I know it’s you. We need to talk about this. Please come over right now.’ And so they do. Meanwhile, you’re in the next room watching the whole thing on the monitor. She gets them to incriminate themselves on tape. And you swoop down on them and, bam, case closed.” It occurred to Mitch that Des had not stopped staring at him for the longest time. “Okay, I know exactly what you’re going to say next.”
“No, I really don’t think you do.”
“It smacks of entrapment, right? I’m well aware of that particular problem, and I have a way around it—Soave’s on board from the get-go. He can run it by the district prosecutor. Get proper au-thorization for the video camera. It’ll all be aboveboard.” Mitch dug a cinnamon cruller out of the bag and bit into it. “I’m done. Say what you were going to say.”
“First of all, it’s not my case. Second of all, no. Third of all, that’s not a plan—it’s a Hail Mary pass from the last reel of one of your dumb-assed old Saint movies.”
“The Saint movies were not dumb-assed. And it so happens the police were happy for Simon Templar’s help. Especially when George Sanders played him. He was a highly undervalued leading man.”
“Mitch, there is absolutely no way any of this can happen.”
“Sure it can. You own Soave.”
“Tawny owns him. I just rent him out by the day.”
“You think he won’t go for it?”
“Baby, we can’t possibly endanger a civilian’s life that way. They could just come right through the door, guns blasting. Meanwhile we’re sitting in the next room going ‘Uh-oh, what just happened?’ Besides, you’re assuming they’ll confess everything in great detail. That’s strictly Hollywood. Out here in the reality-based community the bad guys just deny, deny, deny. Only way we can ever get one to admit he’s done anything is by offering him a deal to rat out his partner. And the only way we can do that is if we know who the hell they are.”
“So let’s use our heads.” Mitch paused to collect his thoughts. “Back story, we’re looking at two families who share a history of hostility and, it now turns out, common blood—in the person of Pete Mosher. Both Poochie Vickers and Milo Kershaw knew about it and kept it to themselves, correct?”
“Correct. Poochie because she was told to by her father. Or so she claims. Milo because he was ashamed that John J. Meier had gotten his mother pregnant.”
“Cut to the present. We have one missing Mercedes Gullwing and two dead guys. One is the very same Pete Mosher, who it turns out was worth a fortune, and the other is Guy Tolliver.”
“Who stood to inherit a fortune,” Des put in. “We just found out that Poochie left him her entire art collection.”
“No way! I mean, that’s good. Now we don’t have to ask ourselves why he died. We know why. Are you still looking for a pair of killers?”
“That’s our working theory.”
“Then let’s put a few potential alliances out there. People who share an interest in what’s been happening. Like Milo and Doug. They were childhood buddies with Pete, right? Doug gave Pete a place to stay. Milo was Pete’s half-brother. Pete was way rich.”
“Milo wasn’t provided for in Pete’s will. Neither man was.”
“Which Milo was bound to resent. Doug, too, maybe.”
“The Jeep…” Des said suddenly. “Doug delivered an old Jeep to Poochie while I was there yesterday. He was around Four Chimneys at the time of Tolly’s death. And he was out in his tow truck when Pete was murdered.”
“Meanwhile, Milo’s also allied by blood to that twosome perennially voted Dor
set’s least likely to succeed…”
“Stevie and Donnie.” Des picked up this ball and ran with it. “Fact: These crimes occurred as soon as they got out of jail. Fact: The Kershaw brothers were supposed to show up for work at Four Chimneys Farm at the same time the Gullwing disappeared and Pete got whacked. Fact: They were on the premises, finishing up work for the day, when Tolly got it. Fact: They’re lying, scummy bad boys.”
“Then we’ve got their sister, Justine, whose boyfriend happens to be the sole living member of Four Chimneys’ gen-next. And therefore has a huge stake in how the financial future shakes out. Bement has a temper, and no one but Justine to vouch for his whereabouts when Pete was murdered.”
“No one to vouch for him period yesterday. He got back from work well within our time frame of when Tolly died. Claims he was home alone at Four Chimneys.”
“And where was Justine?”
“Good question.” She jotted that down in the notepad she kept in the left breast pocket of her jacket. “Let’s look at Poochie’s two heirs, Claudia and Eric.”
“We know they can’t stand each other. We know Claudia’s not getting along with her husband, Mark.”
“And now we know why she’s been trying to seize control of the family purse strings,” Des added. “Because Poochie recently amended her will to leave Tolly her art collection. Which Eric claims he could care less about.”
“I can believe that.” Mitch bit into another doughnut, sorry he’d settled for a half-dozen. “Eric is way too wrapped up in his farm to care about anything else. The man is over-the-top intense about it. And, let’s face it, madness runs in the…” Mitch trailed off, swallowing.
She looked at him. “Were you going somewhere with that?”
“Not really.” His head was suddenly spinning. Something had just clicked. Something he’d forgotten.
“We also have to look at their respective spouses, Mark and Danielle, who may or may not be involved with each other.”
“Mark’s definitely into her,” Mitch said, chewing on his doughnut. “Danielle’s the iffy one. She may be a caring, good-hearted sister-in-law. Or she may be a scheming slut.”
The Sweet Golden Parachute Page 25