Chapter 20 #2
“Yes, I did,” Rachel said icily. “Not that it mattered to me. Personally, I thought Cecilia was wrong. Lis, I’m sure I would have convinced Richard to give you what you were owed, if he’d ever have listened to me.”
“So, we can conclude that it was common knowledge within the family that Richard stood to inherit the bulk of Cecilia’s estate.
This will be key to understanding Richard’s death.
But trying to figure out Cecilia’s death, and how it might have related to money, threw us for a loop.
To all outward appearances, Cecilia’s death seemed to be a natural one.
But coming right on the heels of Richard’s, it was hard to believe that explanation.
Especially with Cecilia’s fortune providing such a ripe motive for killing her.
The question is, if everybody knew that Richard was the primary heir, with Richard dead before his mother, who was next in line to inherit? ”
“You didn’t ask me if I knew Richard was the primary heir,” Denise piped up, “but I did, and I know the answer to this one, too.”
“Okay, who was it?”
“If Richard predeceased Cecilia, Wiley would inherit,” Denise said, casting a reproachful look toward the piano. “Which means he had a motive to kill her, too!”
I smiled indulgently. “I suppose you’re right that he could be construed as having motives to kill Richard, Tawny, and Cecilia. I’m not saying that he did. Rachel, did you know that Wiley was the secondary heir?”
“Yes, I did,” she said, narrowing her eyes in his direction. “It does seem awfully convenient that Cecilia should drop dead and ensure his inheritance the moment Richard was out of the way.”
“Ignoring that for the moment,” I said, “we now know that it was also common knowledge in the family that Wiley was Cecilia’s secondary heir, if Richard should die before her.
Brad,” I said, looking to the lawyer, “not to steal your thunder too much for the will reading, but is Wiley still Cecilia’s secondary heir? ”
Brad pretended to hem and haw for a moment, then, with a dry chuckle, said, “No.”
There were multiple gasps.
“No,” I agreed. “He’s not. I knew that. The morning before she died, Cecilia executed a new will, for which I was one of the witnesses. We’ll get to the will later, but Ricky will confirm that, unlike all of you, I can keep a secret.”
“Yes, he can,” Ricky said. “It’s a little annoying, to be honest.”
“I didn’t even tell you about the old will, did I?”
“No. I assumed—logically, I thought—that Richard and Lis both stood to inherit, and that if Richard died before Cecilia, it would all go to Lis. Which led me to suspect Lis for a while. I’m sorry,” he said, addressing her table.
“If that means I’m not a suspect anymore, I forgive you,” Lis said with a sad little laugh.
“Anyway,” I said, “trying to connect Cecilia’s death to the money led us down some dead ends. There’s a good reason for that.
“We still haven’t gotten to Tawny’s death—was she a victim of sex or money?
And, more to the point, which one of you was she a victim of?
Because Tawny was clearly murdered. According to the medical examiner, she had been savagely hit on the head with something heavy, and if that hadn’t killed her, the fire would have.
And, Ricky and I, too, were left to burn alive, probably for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, though the killer might have also seen it as an opportunity to frame us for her death, however weakly. ”
“Yeah, Wiley, it was weak,” Rachel jeered.
I ignored her. “But before we can answer that, we have to establish how many murders there actually were. I believe I know the answer, and I believe the number was almost higher. Neither Richard’s nor Cecilia’s deaths were ever investigated as murders.
The police didn’t seem to know what we did, though, about anyone being in the room with Richard when he fell.
Did you know anything about that, Deputy? ”
Deputy Duncan’s braid, finished off today with a mustard yellow bow to complement her green uniform jacket, swung back and forth under her broad-brimmed hat as she shook her head. “Negative. You didn’t say anything about it, though,” she said reproachfully.
“That’s true,” I conceded. “We did tell you about the other strange thing, which we discovered with Erik’s help: the rug from Richard and Rachel’s suite was missing.
We also told you—or, at least, intended to tell you—that we found the rug, down on the beach, far below the balconies of the inn. Did you get that information, Deputy?”
“No,” she said, the braid shaking again.
“No. I’m not entirely surprised. Tawny volunteered to call in that we’d found the rug, and I admit, I was careless in making sure that she had; the fact that she didn’t further suggests that she didn’t want to call attention to the fact that she’d been in the room with Richard, or to what they were doing in there.
I think we can reconstruct what they were doing, but it’s a fair bit of guesswork.
Though I think there is someone here who knows.
Wiley, you seemed insistent that you knew how Richard had died, and when I asked you how the rug factored in, you said I’d have to ask someone else.
I think that someone else was Tawny, and that she’d told you what happened. See how I do.”
“Sure,” said Wiley, still leaning one elbow on the piano keys, his chin in his hand.
“I said that money was an important factor in how Richard died. Tawny said that they were desperate for money, and she suggested that they were planning a way to get it when Richard died. Wiley, you said repeatedly that Richard was throwing the rug over the side of the balcony, lost his balance, and fell. Let’s assume that’s true.
What about the rug? As ridiculous as it sounds—they said they were desperate—I suspect that Richard and Tawny were rehearsing a plan to kill Cecilia to get to Richard’s inheritance, with the rolled-up rug standing in for Cecilia.
In which case, Richard was not murdered, though if he’d lived, Cecilia might have been. ”
“Or she might have been murdered sooner,” Ricky chimed in.
“Right. What about Richard and Tawny’s intended victim, who did in fact die the very next day?
There seemed to be no shortage of people with possible motives to kill Cecilia, but did anyone actually do it?
For Cecilia, we can probably trust the medical examiner’s preliminary verdict, which says …
no, she was not murdered, either. She died of a heart attack, likely brought on by a combination of the stress of Richard’s death and a vigorous massage. ”
“You mean … she died of a broken heart,” Mary Alice gasped, putting a hand to her chest. “Like Debbie Reynolds.”
“You could say that,” I said, “though she might have been less brokenhearted if she’d known what Richard was up to when he died.
Which leaves us with Tawny. She was at the center of our story about sex, having an affair with Richard and becoming pregnant by him, apparently planning to leave Wiley and start a family with Richard.
She intersects with our story about money, too; she and Richard planned to kill Cecilia for the inheritance.
And that’s not entirely the end of her involvement with the money story.
With Richard dead, if she managed to stay with Wiley, she still stood to benefit from Cecilia’s money—at least, as far as the family knew. ”
“And even if you divorced her after inheriting, you might have to split some of the money with her,” Denise said, again looking over to Wiley at the piano. “Either way, she knew her bread had been good and buttered.”
“That raises a good question,” I said. “Did Tawny know, after her plot with Richard had failed, that she still potentially stood to gain from Cecilia’s death? We know Wiley’s status as secondary heir was common knowledge within the family, but, Wiley, did Tawny know?”
“No,” he said softly. “I never told her. It was such a remote possibility anyway, and she was so impulsive. It just seemed better for her not to know.”
“You probably felt vindicated after you found out what she and Richard had been up to. Did I get it right?”
“Pretty much.” He nodded.
“And when did you find out about their plan?”
“The morning after Cecilia died. Yesterday morning, I guess. Seems longer ago. She was terrified that someone would somehow think she had done something, since she and Richard had been thinking about doing it.”
“She gave you a lot to think about over the last couple of days, didn’t she?” I said gently.
Wiley laughed ruefully. “Yes, she did. And I didn’t react well to most of it, in the moment.”
“You really scared her.”
“I know I did,” he admitted. “I scared myself. I went looking for her after she left last night, on the beach, but of course I didn’t find her.”
“What had you decided to do?”
His face was back in his hands, but his voice drifted out to us.
“It’s so stupid, but I’d decided to raise the kid with her.
Or to try, anyway. Maybe it wouldn’t have worked.
Maybe we would have split up—it probably would have been better if we did split up.
But she wanted it so badly, and I decided I wanted to try.
I was going to try. …” His voice trailed off as his shoulders heaved with a sob.
“Oh, come on,” Rachel said, rising to her feet. “Give it a rest. You killed her so you wouldn’t have to share the money with that tramp and Richard’s bastard! Alone on the beach—great alibi!”
“No, Rachel, it’s not a great alibi,” I conceded.
“But he wasn’t alone on the beach—that is to say, I can corroborate his story.
So can Erik. Erik gave him the flashlight, and I saw its beam on the beach when we were going up to the lighthouse.
I suppose he could have faked all of that, but I know that Wiley didn’t kill Tawny. I know that you did.”