by Madyson Grey
She carried everything downstairs, making several trips to get it all. Then Lena helped her carry her things out to her apartment. Lena’s apartment was just a small one bedroom, but Victoria figured she could sleep on the sofa if she needed to. When she was ready to go, she hugged Lena and thanked her for being there for her.
I’ve always been here for you, my precious one, Lena thought. And I always will be.
Chapter Fifteen
Victoria took her father’s car and headed for the police station. It was a nice car, a Chrysler 300. According to the will, it was to be sold and the money divided between her and Marian. She decided that while she was out, she would stop by a couple of car lots to get it appraised. If it weren’t too much, maybe she would give Marian her half of the money and keep the car.
At the police station, she asked to see the officer who had filed the report of her father’s death. He was on a break right then, but his partner was there, so she talked with him. His name was Lieutenant Robert Taylor. He took her into a small room where they could talk. She showed him the photo that showed the ring on the desk and explained that her dad would have never allowed a ring like that on his desk. She also asked if the mug had been there when they entered the room. She showed him what she thought was the first photo, which clearly showed the desk, but no mug was on it.
Lieutenant Taylor studied the photos for a minute or two. He told her he did not remember there ever being a mug on the desk. In fact, he was certain it wasn’t there. Victoria asked if there had been an autopsy. No, he said, no autopsy is generally done in cases of suicide. He asked why she wanted to know.
Victoria sat for a moment organizing her thoughts. A terrible suspicion had been growing in her mind for the past couple of days but she had been trying to repress it. Now she could no longer.
“Are you absolutely certain that my father died from the gunshot wound inflicted by his own hand?” she asked.
Lieutenant Taylor studied the woman’s face in front of him. He could see pain etched on her young features. He had dealt with enough murders and suicides to recognize the signs of disbelief that a loved one could actually take their own life. So he chose his words carefully and tactfully.
“We found the gun in his hand, gunpowder residue on his hand, and no sign of anyone else in the room. The house had not been broken into. There was no evidence of robbery. There was a suicide note. The coroner who handled the body told us that the cause of death was from the gunshot wound. There was no evidence to suggest anything else.”
“But what if there was something else? Someone else?” Victoria persisted. “I realize that I probably watch too much TV, but that ring on the desk is an anomaly to me. My father would not set a mug on his desk like that. He always used a coaster. That’s a very expensive mahogany desk, and Daddy took very particular care of it. The other thing that I found that is odd is an empty prescription bottle for Tylenol 3s in the medicine chest in my parents’ bedroom.
“Then both last night and this morning my mother had a screaming fit at me and said that my father ‘got what he deserved’. That he ‘deserved to die’.” She made quotation marks in the air with her fingers. “Isn’t that an odd thing to say about someone who has committed suicide?”
Lieutenant Taylor pondered what Victoria had just said. She had a point, he had to admit. These were all things that he and his partner wouldn’t have been aware of; wouldn’t have known to look for.
“How did you find the empty pill bottle?” he asked.
“When my mother had her meltdown this morning, the housekeeper called for an ambulance. The EMTs had to sedate her to calm her down. They carried her upstairs to her bedroom and then asked me if she had any other types of sedatives in the house, in case I needed them for her for later. I looked in the medicine chest there in the master bathroom. That’s when I found the empty bottle.”
“Did you remove it?” the officer asked.
“No. I wished later that I had of, though,” she said.
“It’s best that you didn’t,” he said. “Did you touch it?”
“Yes, I picked it up to see if there were any pills in it.”
“And it was empty.”
“Yes. The EMTs could confirm what I’ve just told you,” she said.
Lieutenant Taylor jotted down a few notes on his pad, noting what she had told him. He asked her for her contact information and jotted it down, too. Just then, the reporting officer entered the room. Lieutenant Taylor introduced him to Victoria.
“Lieutenant Rogers, this is Victoria Thornton. She is the daughter of David Thornton, the suicide victim we handled last week.”
“Oh, yes. Miss Thornton.” Lieutenant Rogers offered his hand for her to shake, which she accepted. “I’m so sorry for your loss. What can I do for you?”
“I was just telling Lieutenant Taylor that I have discovered some things surrounding my father’s death that I find just don’t jive. Do you want him to fill you in, or do you want me to tell you?”
“Let me hear it from you, please.”
Lieutenant Rogers settled himself in a chair across the small desk from Victoria. She pushed the police photos across the desk for him to look at, and explained what he should be looking for. He confirmed that there was no mug on the desk when they arrived. She told about finding the empty Tylenol 3 bottle in the medicine chest, and about her mother’s meltdown, and her strange words about her father getting what he deserved.
Lieutenant Rogers agreed that that was an odd statement in light of a suicide. He also understood why she was questioning the ring on the desk. But then he asked her how she saw the situation.
“Well, I am still trying to put it all together in my mind,” she started hesitantly. “I don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle in place. But here’s a possible scenario.”
She first of all described her mother’s reaction to her father selling out his apparently failing business, then her discovery of bank statements showing large sums of money being withdrawn, and the whole story there. All of which led up to why she suspected her mother of foul play. She described how desperate her mother was for her to “get the goods” on Rafael Rivera and force him to return the company, and how futile that seemed to her, because she could find no evidence of anything but a legal sale.
Then she told what she thought might have happened.
“It’s barely possible that my mother could have taken those Tylenols and ground them up and put them in some kind of drink. I thought about coffee, and then figured the caffeine would counteract the codeine, so it must have been tea or cocoa or even milk. Anything. She took it in to him to drink. How the mug got set down on the desk, I haven’t figured out. But I know that Daddy would have used a coaster.
“Anyway, then she went to her luncheon. By the time she arrived home, Daddy was dead from the overdose of codeine. So she put on gloves, took his gun, put it in his hand and pulled the trigger. Then she threw the gloves away and called you.”
“It’s a logical scenario,” Lieutenant Rogers admitted. “How do you explain the suicide note?”
“That I can’t yet,” Victoria admitted. “I’ve racked my brain about it, too. It is Daddy’s handwriting, no doubt.”
“Do you actually think that your mother is capable of murder?” Lieutenant Taylor asked.
“If you had seen her this morning, you might be inclined to think so,” Victoria said. “She was completely hysterical. And screaming horrible things about Daddy, me, and the housekeeper.”
“What was she saying about your father?”
“That he had no right to sell her company.” Victoria emphasized the word “her.”
“It never was her company. It was Daddy’s. Of course he supported the household completely. And he and Mother live very well. She had no complaints until he sold the company here recently. Then she just went ballistic and demanded that I go after the new owner and find out how he cheated Daddy out of the business and get it back from him. Which of course, I
have no idea how to go about. I have seen the man. He’s a very nice man. In fact I have gone out with him twice now, at my mother’s urging, just to find out what I could. All I can find out is that the sale documents look perfectly legal to me.”
“You’ve seen them?” the officer asked.
“They’re right here,” she said, pulling them out of the folder.
The two officers looked over the documents and agreed that everything looked all right to them.
“The only thing out of the ordinary,” Victoria told them, “is the selling price. Daddy’s business was worth probably ten times what he got for it. Now I know that the buyer had to pay off his outstanding debts, which would naturally lower the selling price. However, the debts listed only amount to between three and four million. Which, in the grand scheme of things, isn’t that much. I mean, it’s a lot of money, but not for the kind of money that business makes.”
“May we make copies of these documents?” Lieutenant Taylor asked.
“Sure,” Victoria said. “Oh, and something else that has me totally baffled. Why in the world did Rafael Rivera, the new owner, list me as a beneficiary of his accounts, just like I was on Daddy’s?”
The two men looked at her and at each other, then just shrugged and said they couldn’t imagine either. She’d have to ask the new owner that question. Rogers went to make the copies while Taylor stayed with her. When the lieutenant returned, he gave her the originals back again and told her that if she came up with any more questions, she was welcome to come back and talk with them.
Back in the car again, she felt as if the policemen didn’t take her seriously. They were polite and sympathetic, but didn’t seem as eager to investigate the death further like she wanted them to. She knew that the key may lie with the suicide note. If she could figure that one out, maybe then they’d do some digging of their own.
After leaving the police station, she stopped at several car lots to ask what the car might be worth. She stopped at both used car lots and the Chrysler dealership. She asked for the estimates in writing. Then she stopped at a burger joint for some lunch. While there, she texted Rafael to tell him how much she had enjoyed the art show. She really wanted to know if he was going to see her that day, but she couldn’t ask him. She just couldn’t.
He texted back to say how much he had enjoyed it, too, and was she free again this afternoon. Of course she was. That was what she wanted to hear. When he asked if three o’clock was all right, she said yes, but don’t come to the house. She told him she would meet him in the parking lot of his building. He asked if anything was wrong. She just said that she’d tell him when they were together.
It was noon by this time, so she called Lena to tell her she wouldn’t be home for lunch and made sure that Marian was still out. Then she drove to the office of her parents’ primary care physician. She had known Dr. Stevens her whole life. She hoped she could get in to see him and tell him about her mother’s meltdown. She hoped he would give her a prescription for something she could give her mother if she needed to.
As luck would have it, Dr. Stevens had a cancellation and welcomed her into his office. After a bit of small talk, and the doctor offering his condolences, she told him why she was there. As she recounted her mother’s actions, and the EMTs treatment, he grew alarmed.
“She should be hospitalized today,” he said. “She could become dangerous. I know your mother about as well as anyone does, I suppose. I have to admit that this doesn’t shock me. I’m mildly surprised, and very sorry, but I’m not shocked. With your consent, I’ll make arrangements to have her picked up in an ambulance and hospitalized right now.”
“Oh, yes, please,” Victoria begged, her eyes shining with tears. “I’m afraid to go back home, but I’m afraid to leave Lena home alone with her. I know she’s my mother, and all, but we’ve never had a really good relationship. I’ve always been somewhat afraid of her. Well, of her tirades anyway.”
Dr. Stevens patted her shoulder and said, “I completely understand. Let me make a couple of phone calls, and then I’ll go with you to your home and be there when the ambulance arrives.”
Thirty minutes later, Victoria and Dr. Stevens walked into the Thornton home. Lena was lying on the entry hall floor unconscious. Marian was nowhere to be found.
Book 2 Sneak Peek
Keep reading for a three chapter preview of Book 2: The Perfect Little Lie.
Chapter 1
Dr. Stevens immediately bent over the unconscious Lena to take her pulse and do a quick check for apparent injuries. There was a large lump on the back of her head that was bleeding some. She had obviously been hit with something. He glanced around and saw a small pewter statue lying on the floor a few feet away. Probably the weapon.
He used his cell phone to call for an ambulance and the police. While he waited he took Lena’s vitals. Her breathing was shallow but regular. Her blood pressure was low and her heartbeat steady. He couldn’t feel any broken bones, but he assumed she might have a cracked skull. He tried to gently rouse her, but she was out cold.
While the doctor was examining Lena, Victoria was searching the house and grounds for her mother. When she could not find her anywhere, she returned to the entryway where Dr. Stevens was waiting with Lena.
“I can’t find her anywhere,” she told the doctor. “Her car is gone, too, so I’m assuming she took it and went somewhere, although I have no idea where.”
“She shouldn’t be driving in her condition,” Dr. Stevens said, stating the obvious.
“No kidding,” Victoria agreed. “I can’t imagine her being alert enough to drive. When I left she was dead to the world.”
The police arrived just ahead of the ambulance. Victoria opened the gate to let them in. One police officer spoke to Dr. Stevens about Lena’s condition while the other one took Victoria’s statement. She gave them a description of Marian and of Marian’s car, but she didn’t know the license plate number.
“If you want to wait a moment, I will go look in the file cabinet in my dad’s office to see if I can find the title to the car, then you can get all the information from it,” she told the officer.
“Sure, I’ll wait,” he said.
She came back several minutes later bearing the car title. The officer copied down the pertinent information from it, then handed it back to her. She laid it on the hall table to put away later. The EMTs were checking Lena over. Victoria recognized them as the same ones who had just been there that morning. They were able to tell the police officers what they had witnessed in Marian’s behavior that morning, and the type and amount of sedative they gave her.
The officer called in the description and license plate number of Marian’s car and told the dispatcher to put out an APB (all-points bulletin) on the car and driver. He told Victoria that he would be in touch with her if her mother were found. She and Dr. Stevens both told the police officers that if or when Marian was picked up, that they should take her directly to the hospital Dr. Stevens had just called regarding her admittance. They agreed to do that, but only after they contacted both Victoria and Dr. Stevens.
The EMTs loaded Lena into the ambulance. Victoria grabbed her purse and got into her dad’s car to follow the ambulance to the hospital. Dr. Stevens rode in the ambulance with Lena. When they arrived at the hospital, he took her right in to an exam room. Victoria was right behind him. Lena had regained consciousness in the ambulance and was able to talk a little. Dr. Stevens immediately ordered x-rays, called the lab to send up a tech to draw blood, and performed a few other checks on her.
“We’ll have to wait on the x-rays of her skull, but other than that, I think she will be all right,” he told Victoria.
Because he was a doctor and had come in with the patient, things happened much faster than they usually do in an emergency room. Just as soon as the phlebotomist finished her blood draw, someone from x-ray was there to wheel Lena to the x-ray suite. Dr. Stevens allowed Victoria to walk with them to the x-ray suite and wait
in an anteroom while the x-rays were taken. Digital x-rays are available to be examined immediately, so there was no waiting for film to be developed.
Dr. Stevens showed Victoria the thin line on the skull that indicated a fracture. Since there was a skull fracture, he ordered an MRI because he wanted to see what was going on inside the brain—if there were any bleeding or swelling. The MRI happened in record time also, and the results showed no brain injury.
At this point, Dr. Stevens made arrangements to check Lena into a hospital room. He wanted to keep her at least over night for observation. Finally, Victoria had a few moments to talk to Lena while they waited for her to be taken to a room for the night.
“Oh, Lena, I’m so sorry this has happened to you,” Victoria said, taking Lena’s hand in her own and pressing it to her cheek. “Can you tell me what Marian did?”
“She came downstairs acting crazier than I have ever seen her before,” Lena said haltingly.
She winced as she spoke and tried to touch her head with her free hand.
“She was yelling for you, and when I told her you were gone, she demanded that I tell her where you went. I told her I didn’t know, just that you said you were going out.”
Lena paused for a moment. It was obvious that it hurt her to talk.
“It’s OK, Lena, you don’t have to talk right now,” Victoria said. “Just rest. You can tell me later.”
“I’m OK,” Lena said weakly. “She was ranting about finding Rafael herself and getting the company back from him, since you are refusing to do it. She said that she would make Rafael pay. She said that you would pay, too, for siding with Rafael against her. When I tried to calm her down, she picked up that little statue David brought back from Thailand and that’s all I remember.”
“That must have been when she hit you with the statue,” Victoria said. “I wonder now if Rafael is in danger. But surely she won’t get past his security guards, will she?”