4 A Dead Mother

by Anna Celeste Burke

  “Okay. He must be a liar, too, like his mother. Who knows what story he’ll tell? We can keep this short, can’t we? No questions, either. I feel like I need to lie down.”

  “After that hit on the head, it’s probably a good idea for you to stay awake. You shouldn’t be alone, either. Alexis is having chemoradiation treatment this afternoon or I’d take you home and stay with you.”

  “I can call Donald if Detective Havens doesn’t decide to arrest me.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “She doesn’t like me. I could tell that the minute she walked in. I heard her make a comment about hair-pulling among nasty rich women that turned into a bloodbath. Susan was always grasping for money. Lucy’s practice is doing well, but she’s not rich. That leaves me as the nasty rich woman in the room.”

  “I’m sorry she said that, but I wouldn’t take it personally. The detective’s no fan of wealth and privilege out here in our little valley. That’s not about you per se, nor can she use that as a reason to arrest you.”

  “Let’s get this over with, okay? May I call Donald?”

  “Go ahead. I’ll tell Rikki I told you to do it. Have him bring you a t-shirt or something to put on so you can get out of the one you have on.”

  “Sure. Someone already told me they want this one. My pants and shoes, too. I left my gym bag at his place. He can bring it to me.”

  “Good idea. I’m going to tell the detective we’re ready for her now.” Leslie nodded, pulled her phone out of a purse hanging on the back of her chair. That wasn’t true. What did that even mean—ready for her? What better idea was there than to ‘get this over with’ as Leslie had suggested.

  I did my best to avoid the gross scene in the living room. Susan Whitaker’s body was gone, now, but the place was a wreck. Probably not as bad as the disaster left behind at Jim’s house, but a woman dead and another hanging on for dear life more than made up for that for anyone keeping score on a calamity rating scale.

  At least this investigation appeared to be on the fast track to closure, unlike the one Jim had been involved in that had already dragged on for weeks. That wasn’t unusual for murder investigations. Fighting over the relevance and admissibility of evidence, disputes about chain of custody and other procedural matters, discussions about plea deals, hearings, and the actual trial often turned weeks into months or even years.

  That’s especially true with the “he said-she said” dispute at the center of an incident like the one that had occurred at Jim’s home. Or where a case is swamped with suspects, multiple crime scenes, and scads of evidence, like the three-ring circus surrounding the murder of Beverly Windsor. Maybe Matthew Whitaker would turn himself in and throw himself on the mercy of the court. If he was a skilled liar, he might be able to pin the murder of Beverly Windsor on his dead mother even if he had done more than drive that Chevy Impala.

  34 Why She Died

  “What are you doing here, Detective?” I whispered my question since Rikki Havens and I were standing near the back of a crowd gathered around Beverly Windsor’s gravesite. I’d stepped away from Leslie Windsor who still bore some of the signs of her narrow escape from death at the hands of Susan Whitaker. Donald Herndon was at her side, almost propping her up as far as I could see.

  “I wanted to see who would turn up for this event.” Her eyes scanned the crowd. Apparently, she’d brought along a couple of uniformed officers. They stood watch on opposite sides of the crowd.

  “Who, as in Matthew Whitaker?” Susan’s son, Matthew Whitaker, was still at large. The detective nodded and then took a few steps back, farther away from the mourners who had come to pay their respects to Beverly and offer condolences to Leslie. Rikki had on yet another pantsuit, dressier and in black, it didn’t immediately scream “detective.”

  “I also wanted to see how Leslie Windsor was holding up. That was quite a story she had to tell us. It’s hard to believe anyone as screwy as Susan Whitaker could have put as much of her plan into action as she did, but what do I know?”

  “At least you retrieved evidence from the gun Susan Whitaker brought to Lucy Daniels’ home that links it to Beverly Windsor’s death.” Someone must have wiped that gun down after it had been used to bludgeon Beverly Windsor to death, but a little blood had seeped into the crevices around the trigger mechanism. “That bolsters Leslie’s story.”

  “True. That and the fact we were finally able to get DNA from the fingernail tangled in Beverly Windsor’s hair that’s a match to Susan Whitaker’s. That would be enough for most any jury to convict the woman if she were still alive. I’m surprised we didn’t find more in her past that gave her away as a person who’d concoct a murder pact out of thin air. Especially since none of the players—perps or victims—were truly strangers if she stole the plot from that old movie.”

  “I’ve run into my share of bad guys who pass as good guys until they’re found out in some startling display of malice. When Lucy Daniels comes to, she’ll have her version of events to share with you.”

  “If she comes to…” Rikki cautioned. A wave of déjà vu hit me. Paul had uttered the same words when Marty Hargreaves was comatose after the beating he’d taken. He’d been in worse shape than Lucy Daniels, though.

  “She’s got a very good chance of pulling through, according to my friend who’s a nurse at the hospital.” Laura had brought me that news a couple of days ago when we’d gone to lunch. We’d had a long talk about mothers and the tragedies that befall them.

  That included Laura’s story of her mother’s battle with cancer—“Maddie’s Project,” as she’d called it. I’d been so self-centered when Laura and I first met as teens that I only vaguely recalled Maddie Powers showing up at parties wearing a wig. Hearing her family’s story gave me a new understanding of how Laura had become such a caring, responsible person at a young age, and why she’d chosen nursing as a career.

  “Who knows what condition she’ll be in? The kind of head injury she suffered often damages memory and other brain functions.” Rikki sighed loudly. “Lucy Daniels’ house was trashed. In a way, I’m surprised it wasn’t in worse shape. Why didn’t one of those women run for it? I know she had a gun, but it was two against one. If Lucy was shot after that fight started, how come she wasn’t lying on the debris in that room? How did those bits and pieces end up scattered on top of her?” She shook her head. “Cops are pathologically suspicious. Don’t listen to me.”

  As she made that statement, the ceremony ended. I took my leave of the detective and tried to get close enough to Leslie to ask if she needed anything or wanted to change our plans for tomorrow. Maybe I was hoping she would. I was going to return Anastasia to her.

  We’d agreed to meet at her mother’s house where I’d left the portable dog kennel when I’d picked the poodle up. Leslie planned to use it to transport the dog back to LA. She said it would be safer than allowing Anastasia to roam free in the car. Safer for whom? I’d wondered if Leslie hadn’t conquered her fear of dogs even with Matthew Whitaker’s help.

  Paul Worthington was speaking to her when I worked my way to the front of the queue of well-wishers. Leslie’s movements were robotic. Her face almost expressionless as she struggled to smile in response to the kind words Paul offered. When Paul spotted me, he had no trouble smiling. Leslie noticed. Her manner shifted in a way I couldn’t discern. Just for a moment and then she was an alabaster statue once again.

  “Is there anything I can do for you, Leslie?” I asked.

  “No. Not unless your detective friend wants to put me through ringer later today, then you can call her off. I could use a few hours to recover from putting my mother in the ground.” The last few words of that sentence were spoken so quietly they were almost inaudible. “I have Paul on standby if Detective Havens has more questions. My statement is all she gets.” I glanced at her and then at Paul. Two statues now.

  Had I been fired? Did Leslie have reason to suspect she might need the help of a defense attorney? If sh
e did, Paul was a far better choice to represent her than me.

  “There’s no one better if you need a defense attorney, that’s for sure,” I said.

  “I’m sure it won’t come to that,” Paul added. “In the meantime, there’s no one better than Jessica to wrap up the matters still pending regarding your mother’s estate.”

  “The sooner the better,” she replied. Her hand shook. The handkerchief that dangled from it swayed slightly. Donald Herndon must have noticed. He reached out and grasped her elbow to steady her.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Leslie.” She nodded. I guess that meant our plans were still on.

  “Call me if you need me,” Paul said. Then he turned to me. “Where are you parked? I’ll walk you to your car.” I pointed to the place where my Bimmer was sandwiched into a line of cars parked along a narrow, windy drive in Desert Memorial Cemetery.

  “What’s that about? Did Detective Havens contact her without telling me?” I asked as soon as we were far enough away not to be overheard.

  “No. Leslie’s spooked. I haven’t spoken to Detective Havens yet, but Leslie said she was still asking about motive and opportunity after that terrifying situation at Lucy Daniels’ house. The detective pulled Donald Herndon in for another chat about how he and Leslie got along with her mother. And, she asked him again about Leslie’s whereabouts when her mother was killed even though he’d already given her that information.”

  “I can understand how Leslie could find that disturbing. Rikki Havens is still on the case, there’s no doubt about that. She’s not going to give it rest until she catches up with Matthew Whitaker and wheedles some version of the same story out of him that she got from Leslie about Susan Whitaker’s sudden onset of madness. Or until Lucy Daniels wakes up and does the same.”

  “That’s typical of the police. It ain’t over until they get a confession or a jury says it’s over. Sometimes not even then. I’ll try to explain that to Leslie once I’ve had a chance to speak to the good detective myself. Maybe all the trauma is just catching up with Leslie and she’s swimming for her life in a vat of paranoia. You know how that can happen.”

  “Unfortunately, I do. I can’t visit my mother without fearing she’s lying to me—by omission if not in an out and out attempt to mislead me. She looked so bad on Monday afternoon, I went directly to her doctor and asked if she was keeping anything from me.”

  “Was she?”

  “No. It was just a bad reaction on my part to taking a dip in that pool of paranoia. That’s where I’m heading next. To the rehab clinic—for another dip! I’m so grateful Mom’s alive, though. I shouldn’t be complaining.” As I said that, I gazed at the idyllic surroundings. “You’d think this was a lovely park rather than a graveyard, wouldn’t you?”

  “It’s comforting and bolsters the idea that ‘rest in peace’ means something. Would Alexis mind if I stopped by to say hello? Is she seeing visitors other than family members?”

  “My mother would never object to a visit from a charming, handsome gentleman caller.” That had come out flirtier than I’d intended. I tried to move on. “I’ll call and give her warning so she can primp a little if that’s okay with you.”

  “I’m sure she doesn’t need to do that. She’s her daughter’s mother—always lovely no matter what.” A little shiver went through me hearing those words. As we reached my car, I looked around hoping the ugly truth of our surroundings would rid me of the fantasies swirling around in my head. Standing not far from a funeral site on several acres of ground memorializing the dead wasn’t what you’d call a romantic setting. That brought me to my senses.

  “What’s that?”

  I got a jolt of another kind when I tried to answer Paul’s question. A business-sized envelope had been tucked under one of the windshield wipers on my car.

  “If I had to guess, I’d say someone has left me a message to back off or butt out, probably with an ‘or else’ tacked onto the end of the command.” Paul did a quick walk around my car.

  “It doesn’t appear anyone’s scraped or dented your car, so it’s not likely someone left you their insurance or contact information.” It was his turn to check out our surroundings. “We’re in luck. That’s Detective Havens, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” I replied. “Hang on. I’ll call her.” She was within shouting range, but it seemed wrong to disturb the peace like that.

  “Hello.”

  “Rikki, stop, will you! Look around. I’m waving at you.” As soon as she spotted me, she headed my way.

  “Another good-looking man in your company. Do you collect them or something?” She asked huffing and puffing as she hustled toward us.

  “I’ll introduce you to Paul Worthington. He’s going to represent Leslie Windsor if your investigation winds back around to her again.” She was closing the distance between us quickly as she spoke.

  “Isn’t he the big shot defending your ex-husband?”

  “Yes, and my boss.”

  “Sounds complicated. You do lead an interesting life.”

  “Too interesting, perhaps, depending on what’s been left on my windshield. Have you got latex gloves on you?”

  “Good grief. George Hernandez was right. You are a calamity magnet.” Moments later, Rikki reached us. I introduced her to Paul and she shook hands before slipping on a pair of gloves.

  “I’m always prepared while we’re in the middle of an active investigation.” She slid that envelope out from under the windshield wiper, opened it carefully, and pulled out several sheets of paper. A cryptic note typed in big black capital letters was on the first page.

  WHY SHE DIED

  “Have you seen this?” Rikki asked. Rikki held up a copy of a Durable Financial Power of Attorney form delegating control of Beverly Windsor’s finances.

  “No. She has a valid one on file already. Leslie’s designated as the agent in the event her mother had become disabled or was declared incompetent.”

  “Look who’s designated as the person to act on her behalf in this one.”

  “Cedric Baumgartner, imagine that.” I said.

  “How about this document?” Rikki asked, pulling out another sheet of paper.

  “She never said a word about modifying her will. It could be that’s why she scheduled an appointment with me the week she died.” I shrugged, but I smelled a rat. “I’m certain she would have given me a heads up if she had that kind of business planned for our meeting.”

  “We advise our clients not to use codicils.” Paul was peering at that document.

  “Especially since he’d be entitled to a significant amount of money given that the codicil makes him a co-beneficiary along with Leslie Windsor. That’s no minor modification to Beverly’s will. Too bad whoever put this document together misspelled beneficiary. The correct spelling would add an air of authenticity to it, don’t you think?”

  David Madison’s comments about the sloppiness of the prospectus laying out the terms of the investment fund came back to me. I told Paul and Rikki about that as the needle on the crud-detector in my head moved wildly. It settled well into the red zone reserved for “la crème de la crud.”

  “If the same person or persons cooked up these documents that put together that prospectus, more sloppiness isn’t a surprise, is it? Same culprits. Same MO.”

  “Maybe he thought getting her to sign a Durable Power of Attorney would help him get out of any trouble involving the illegal transfer of funds from Beverly’s accounts.” Neither document has been signed or notarized so they won’t help him, now.”

  “Maybe that’s what got her killed—refusing to sign them.” Rikki noted. “It makes as much sense as that stranger on a train baloney,” the detective snapped.

  “I don’t understand how Susan Whitaker came up with a harebrained ‘you kill mine and I’ll kill yours’ idea as a cover story if she was mixed up in Cedric Baumgartner’s effort to defraud Beverly Windsor.” Paul was obviously confused. “I clearly have lots of catching up to do
if I’m going to be of assistance to my client. There are plenty of culprits in line ahead of Leslie already. I’m not sure why she should be worried that you’re still interested in her as a suspect in her mother’s death. Or that she’s anything other than a victim in that confrontation with Susan Whitaker.”

  “Who do you think left us this little gift?” I asked. We all searched the area around us as if the person who’d left it was going to be waving as I had done to attract Rikki’s attention.

  “My money is on Matthew Whitaker, but I suppose it could be one of Cedric Baumgartner’s women friends or an associate at The Alpha Advantage who’s turned on him.”

  “Whoever left that note just admitted to being involved in a fraud of some kind. Why not report this to someone when it was happening—before Beverly Windsor was killed unless you were in on it?” I could feel my blood boiling and my stomach churning.

  “They could be facing an accessory to murder charge, now. At the time. I doubt anyone figured fraud, if that’s what it was, would end in murder the way it did.”

  “What do you mean, ‘if that’s what it was?’” I asked. “These papers shriek fraud! Beverly Windsor would never have agreed to either idea.”

  “If Beverly Windsor was being pressed to agree to something like this against her will, why wouldn’t she have gone to the authorities? As hard as it is to believe, Baumgartner was getting a divorce, maybe she was going to marry him. These documents wouldn’t be that strange once they were husband and wife.”

  “I hope she wasn’t that foolish. Maybe she was headed in that direction until she discovered money missing from an account.” I explained what I meant by that to Paul. “A sudden change of heart might have unleashed the kind of murderous rage that killed her.”

  “Jerry has relayed news to me, off and on, since the police began treating Leslie’s mother’s death as a homicide. I need to start at the beginning, though, to put all the pieces in context. Especially, if you find a reason to treat our client as anything other than the victim of two horrendous crimes.”