4 A Dead Mother

by Anna Celeste Burke

  “Jessica, slow down. What’s wrong? It’s not your mother, is it? You’re as pale as a ghost?”

  “My mother, oh no, thank goodness! I’m being haunted by some dark spirit, I can tell you that.” Speaking of ghosts, Kim suddenly appeared at my side. She held out that cup of coffee.

  “I’m not sure she needs more coffee,” Amy said.

  “It’s going to be a long afternoon,” Kim replied. She was right. I took the cup she offered and took another sip.

  “I can finish inputting the edits to the prenup, Jessica. When the Komodo dragon and black mamba arrive, I’ll explain you had an emergency. I’ll encourage them to sit, read through the document, and ask questions. If they’re not simple questions I can answer, I’ll write them down for you. You can call them later.”

  “Thanks, Kim. That ought to work. If they give you any grief, tell them they’ll be charged at your rate and not mine today.”

  “Will do.”

  “You only have one other appointment after that since you were expecting to get to the Eisenhower Medical Center by three o’clock.” I looked at the time on my phone. It was almost eleven-thirty.

  “If I leave now, ditch my 12:30 and 1:30 appointments, surely I can get to Eisenhower by three.” Amy shrugged. Kim was stony faced, but there was doubt in her eyes. “Bernadette’s going to be there with Mom. I’ll call her if I’m going to be late.” I tossed back the rest of the coffee like a cowboy knocking back a shot of whiskey.

  “Bye. Thanks.” I almost ran down the stairs from my office, not wanting to wait for an elevator. I was only one floor up anyway, but that didn’t always stop me from calling the elevator to fetch me. Ten minutes later, I pulled up on a quiet residential street behind Rikki Haven’s car. A rescue vehicle was still in the driveway. CSI investigators were parked on the opposite side of the street not far from the Coroner’s van. A few neighbors stood out in their yards watching the action. Not that there was much going on out on the street now.

  When I walked in, Rikki motioned to me and I followed her into Lucy Daniels’ den that was near the front door. From the entry, I could see into an open living room and dining room. Gloved CSIs were moving around in a room where it was obvious there’d been a fight. EMTs may have taken Lucy Daniels to the ER, but Susan Whitaker remained. In a body bag used to preserve evidence, the deceased woman had been placed on a gurney awaiting transport to the coroner’s office.

  “We’ve got Leslie Windsor in the morning room off the kitchen. If you want to have a look around first, you can, but your client is waiting. The CSIs have already checked her hands and found gunpowder residue. That’s not surprising since she told the first officer who arrived on the scene that she’d fired a gun taken from the dead woman.”

  “You can find out if that gun’s registered to Susan Whitaker, can’t you?”

  “Sure. At this point, we only have a sketchy idea about what went on before the first responders showed up. I’d like to hear Leslie Windsor’s story too.”

  “If I can, I’d like to have a few minutes alone with my client. I’d like to ask her a few questions before deciding whether she’s in good enough shape to tell you what happened this morning in a coherent way.”

  “She’s claiming she and Lucy Daniels are victims. They fought back and killed Susan Whitaker in self-defense. I don’t know why she’s not jumping at the chance to tell us all about it. I’d also prefer to hear her version of the story before we pick up Matthew Whitaker and bring him in for questioning. She told the uniformed officers that the dead woman and her son killed her mother. Why wouldn’t she want to share how she came up with that news with us, too?”

  I simply shrugged. Unwavering in my request, I stood there waiting for the detective to agree to my terms. Finally, she yielded.

  “I’d rather have your client functional and cooperative than dippy or difficult.”

  “I’m sure she’s as eager as you are to bring this miserable situation to a close. More so if she can tie the Whitakers to her mother’s death. It certainly fits what you initially described as a likely scenario surrounding Beverly Windsor’s death, doesn’t it? Susan Whitaker, a brunette with red fingernails in the backseat, and her son at the wheel. Plus, you’ve got footage of their car on that road at the time of her murder. It’s too bad you’re not going to get physical evidence from the Chevy Impala. You’ve got enough to book Matthew Whitaker on suspicion of murder, no matter what else Leslie Windsor tells you.”

  “Which is why we’re trying to find him. Audrey Atkins gave us a different name for the woman who placed that call from Figaro’s, remember?”

  “Yes, Suzanne, as I recall. Susan Whitaker didn’t seem worried about what name she used with the DMV for the Mercedes she drove, why not tell Audrey Atkins her name was Suzanne?”

  “Could be,” Rikki said, biting her bottom lip. “If Lucy Daniels told you the truth, Susan Whitaker hated dogs. That fits with the images we have of the female intruder at Beverly Windsor’s house on the nanny cam.”

  “Do you have those DNA tests back yet?”

  “No. That would be a big help in tying the woman to one or both of the crime scenes involving Beverly Windsor.” The detective frowned and shook her head as if saying no to some inner thought.

  “What’s bothering you about the prospect that Susan and her son killed Beverly Windsor?”

  “What’s the motive? If it was money, she and Matthew had access to Beverly’s house—why not clean her out? Go talk to your client and see if she’ll tell you that much.” Rikki moved toward the door to Lucy Daniels’ den.

  “Okay, I hear you. Maybe Leslie can help us with a motive,” I replied following her to the door.

  “One more thing,” she said, pausing in true Columbo fashion. I do mean fashion since not only was she using the TV detective’s catch phrase, but her pantsuit du jour could have been cut from remnants of the old trench coat he wore.

  “What?” I asked.

  “It’s not directly relevant, but we’ve picked up Cedric Baumgartner. He was boarding a jet for La Guardia, booked on through to Heathrow when some Feds snatched him. We got a courtesy call in exchange for information about Beverly’s laptop. They want it.”

  “Why?”

  “Your friend Peter can explain it to you better than I can since he’s the one who told us about what he found. Maybe he’s the one who tipped off the Feds, too. He’s got connections, doesn’t he?” I nodded, but didn’t say anything, as I inched closer to where the detective stood, eager to get to my client.

  “When he turned that laptop over to us as you told him to do, he said someone had rigged Beverly’s computer with malware or spyware or something like that. That made it easy to hack her accounts. Whoever was behind that had started to help themselves to the money in them.”

  “She must have discovered something was wrong and shipped her laptop off to David Madison. I’m not sure why she decided to send it to him unless she had also made a connection to that screwy investment business.”

  “Or to the same screwy person. Someone had to get close enough to introduce that software onto her computer. Peter said it would have been easy enough to do using a jump drive and wouldn’t have taken long. I doubt Ms. Windsor was tech savvy enough to detect the malicious software, but she might have spotted Cedric Baumgartner messing with the laptop, and then put two and two together when money went missing.”

  “Illegally transferring funds is going to be big trouble in addition to whatever penalties he and his associates face for fudging numbers and peddling a bogus investment fund. Have Cedric Baumgartner’s ‘cast-offs’ also found money missing from their accounts?”

  “I plan to ask them, if we don’t have more dead bodies—sorry—dead somebodies turn up right away. The Feds are in this now, but we need to know what’s going on before we can be sure David Madison’s out of danger. We’re still holding him in protective custody.”

  “If there’s evidence on it of illegal money transfers, that c
ould explain why they hunted Madison down to retrieve the laptop. I’m not sure how they figured out Beverly Windsor had sent it to David or who warned him by leaving a note at his condo telling him to run.”

  “The mystery continues. He’s lucky you all got there when you did. I doubt the shooters would have tried to worm their way into that cabin with cookies and a poodle. Go talk to your client.”

  When I joined Leslie where she was sitting at a table off the large open kitchen, an EMT was standing nearby. Leslie Windsor’s face was a mess. Scratches, a fat lip, and a big lump on her forehead indicated she’d been in a fight. Her arm had long scratches on it, too. There was blood on her shirt and a bandage over her nose.”

  “Is her nose broken?” I asked the EMT.

  “Nothing’s broken, but she had a bloody nose when we arrived. She’s got a loose tooth, abrasions on her arms as you can see, and a nasty lump where she says the dead woman hit her with the butt of the gun before she wrestled it away from her. Considering the shape in which we found the other two women, your client’s the lucky one.”

  “She’s well enough to talk then?”

  “Yes. If I were her, I’d let us transport her to the hospital for a more thorough check—x-rays or a scan to make sure she doesn’t have a skull fracture. Maybe even an overnight stay, so they can keep an eye on her. That’s her call.”

  “What do you say, Leslie?” I asked as I settled into a chair next to her.

  ““No hospital. I just want to go home to LA as soon as I can.”

  “You can’t drive that far without some rest first,” I said, hoping to figure out how bad off she was. Her comment about going to LA hadn’t reassured me that she was thinking straight.

  “I know. It’s just wishful thinking, isn’t it? I’ve got to get through Mom’s funeral on Saturday. There’s no point in leaving town until that’s over. No hospital,” she said, speaking to the EMT once again. He looked at me before making a move.

  “I guess you can go,” I said. “If she takes a turn for the worse or changes her mind, I’ll drive her to the ER.” The EMT nodded and picked up his kit.

  “Keep using the ice,” he said. Leslie nodded and put an ice pack on the lump above her eye. “I left a list of symptoms that ought to get you, or anyone else with her, to take her to the ER—ASAP!” I glanced at that list and pulled it closer to me.

  “Got it,” I said as the EMT left us alone.

  “I’d like you to talk me through the incident, start to finish, before you give a statement to the detective.” Leslie nodded.

  “I’ll try. Some of it happened so fast, I’m not sure I can remember who did what. I guess I should have taken Peter up on his offer to provide me with a driver or a personal bodyguard, huh?” I nodded, even though I was surprised she hadn’t already done it. We’d talk about that some other time rather than go off on a tangent now.

  “Do your best to describe what took place this morning. You can fill in or change details later.”

  “Lucy Daniels called me. She said she’d found papers at the clinic that Mom must have left behind on her last visit with Anastasia.”

  That’s strange, I thought since the vet had made no mention of that when I’d brought the dog in recently. Maybe she didn’t feel it was a matter for anyone other than a family member.

  “What papers?” I asked.

  “She didn’t say. ‘Private and important’ was all she told me. I thanked her and said I’d come by and pick them up some time this week. She insisted it had to be right away. The documents were too sensitive, and she didn’t feel comfortable leaving them at her office, so she’d brought them home. Hanging onto them there made her uncomfortable, too, so I agreed to come get them.”

  For a second, I flashed on my conversation with David Madison about the documents he’d been eager to get out of his possession. I couldn’t imagine Beverly leaving documents related to a possible fraudulent financial matter lying around. Not at the vet’s office or in any other public place.

  “When was that?”

  “Around nine. I was still trying to figure out what I had to get done today. That’s one reason I didn’t want to rush right over and pick them up. Besides, how important could the papers be if they’d been missing for days or weeks already?” I nodded as I examined the distraught woman. The jacket she must have had on when she arrived was slung over her shoulders now.

  “I didn’t understand why at the time, but Lucy was clearly upset when she called me. When I got here, I found out why. Lucy let me in and shut the door. That’s when Susan Whitaker stepped from the living room pointing a gun at me.”

  “Why?”

  “This is so horrible. The woman had to be deranged, although she wasn’t even very emotional at first. When I asked her what this was all about, she answered me in this customer service ‘how may I help you?’ ‘have a nice day’ voice. She was saying the most insane things in this matter of fact way. ‘What this is about is keeping your end of our bargain.’ I had no idea what she meant by that. I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out how this could have turned out as it has.”

  “How what turned out in what way?” I asked, speaking calmly to the woman who was becoming more upset. I still didn’t understand what she was telling me.

  “She claimed she killed Mom as a favor to me and it was time for me to return the favor. ‘Matty and I killed Beverly for you,’ were her exact words.” Leslie stared at me, although I had the feeling she was looking through me or past me. “Somehow, she got the idea into her head that Mom stood in the way of my marriage to Matthew.”

  “Why would she say such a thing?”

  “I asked her the same question. That’s when she started to get angry. She said she overheard us one day when she came with Matthew to pick up Anastasia. Matthew had told her no one was home, so she let herself in and got as far as the foyer when she heard voices. Mom and I were in the kitchen having a disagreement about men.”

  “A loud one?” I asked, wondering if this was one of the incidents Barbara Stoddard had reported to Rikki Havens.

  “Yes. That must be why we didn’t hear her come into the house. Mom was objecting to my becoming seriously involved with a younger man with whom I had a business relationship.” Leslie made eye contact with me. “I told Susan that wasn’t about Matthew, it was about Donald—Donald Herndon.”

  “What did Susan say?”

  “She said I was lying. She heard what I said when Mom promised to make it her business to keep me from ruining my personal and professional life until she took her last dying breath.”

  “What did Susan think she heard?”

  “My horrid reply. She got it right. It must be where she got the idea I wanted Mom dead. I was so angry with Mom that I screamed, ‘Let’s hope that’s not long then’, or something mean and stupid like that. Like a twelve-year-old shouting ‘I hate you and wish you were dead.’ That’s how I felt. Mom was treating me like a child, so I reacted like one.” I stared at Leslie Windsor, trying to picture her shrieking at her mother like a raging ‘tween or teen. She’d always appeared to be the very model of the competent, take-charge, in-control career woman to me.

  “That was no excuse for my behavior. I apologized to Mom, but Susan must have left by then. She and Matthew never showed up that day. They called a few minutes later to say they couldn’t keep their appointment. Mom was so dragged out by our fight she didn’t object.”

  “How did Susan and her son get the idea that if she took care of the person in your life giving you grief, you’d reciprocate?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she’s watched that Strangers on a Train movie too many times. When I suggested that to the police officer, he looked at me like I was crazy.”

  “Susan Whitaker never said anything to you about it before today?”

  “No, not directly anyway. Matthew griped about not feeling welcome at the clinic once Lucy Daniels joined the practice and claimed that’s why he quit. It never occurred to me he wanted to
kill her. What Susan said today is that Lucy stole the veterinary practice right out from under her son’s nose. When Lucy denied that, Susan snapped. She smacked Lucy with a piece of driftwood from a display on the coffee table. When I stepped toward her, Susan hit me across the nose. I was dazed. I’m pretty sure that’s when she scratched me with those long nails, too. When I tried to get the piece of wood away from her, she hit me again but with the gun. Lucy went after her and Susan shot her. I picked up some object—I’m not even sure what. I used it to hit her on the arm and knocked the gun from her hand. We both went after it. I grabbed it and shot her.” Leslie trembled. I encouraged her to take a sip of water, but said nothing.

  What could I say in response to such an ordeal? None of it made a bit of sense. Susan Whitaker must have had a psychotic break or suffered from a delusion with that “I’ll kill yours if you kill mine” bit. What about Matthew, though? Had he shared that delusion with his mother or just taken advantage of the opportunity to seek revenge on Lucy Daniels? Why kill Beverly Windsor?

  “Leslie, did Matthew Whitaker believe you were going to marry him?”

  “He claimed he was in love with me, but I never took him seriously. I thought it was a line—something he said to all the women in his life. He was a younger version of Cedric Baumgartner, Jessica.”

  “Did he know about Donald Herndon?” Leslie paused, blinked a couple of times, and then responded.

  “It’s possible. Donald and I have been careful in LA, but I’ve often spent the night at his house out here in the desert. I guess Matthew could have figured it out. Why would it matter since we never made a commitment not to see other people? Matthew was involved with other women.”

  “How do you feel about giving a statement to Detective Havens? I’ll ask her to hold off for a few days before you sign off on anything in writing. She needs to hear what went on today. Your story will give the police a better idea about how to interview Matthew Whitaker once they pick him up.”