Chapter Twelve
San Diego PD, San Diego, California
Wednesday, January 11, 8:20 a.m.
Connor’s expression was concerned when she sat at her desk. He rolled his chair closer. “You okay?”
“Not really.” She told him what Navarro had shared, gratified when his face reddened with fury.
“Sonofa bitch . That was a righteous collar. Drummond needs to rot in prison for the rest of his fuckin’ life. And now he’s trying to weasel out of it? We can’t let him do that to Rita.”
Connor and his now-retired former partner had investigated Drummond for murder and made the arrest. He had a right to be angry.
He didn’t even know about Drummond sexually assaulting Rita. The only other people outside the family who knew, other than Rita’s therapist, were Sam and Navarro.
Sam had also respected Rita’s decision.
Kit wasn’t sure if Navarro even remembered Rita’s quietly spoken words about her assault by Drummond. It had been a confusing, terrifying scene the night Rita had been saved from a different monster, a serial killer who’d gone after Rita simply to hurt Kit. Navarro had been in shock that night and had taken leave soon after. That had been nine months ago and all of them had been picking up the pieces of their lives.
Rita included.
Which is why Drummond needs to be put away forever.
Kit forced herself to focus. “Let’s figure out how Drummond could have learned of Munro’s crimes, assuming that’s what he wants to sell us in return for his freedom.”
Connor frowned. “What if Drummond knows about crimes we haven’t uncovered yet?”
“I don’t know,” Kit admitted. “But this calls for a brainstorming session.” She waved over Marshall and Ashton. “Hey, guys?”
The two detectives were just as angry when Kit told them about Drummond, and even angrier when she explained that the man had already tried to intimidate poor Rita out of testifying.
“Let’s go back to the whiteboard,” Marshall said. “We don’t know much about Drummond, but we gathered a lot of information on Munro that hasn’t been important up till now. Let’s see if any of it can help.”
They filed to the conference room, Kit hesitating at the door. “I need to call my father. You guys go on in and get started. I’ll join you in a few.”
Connor squeezed her shoulder. “Let me know if you need extra security at the farm. I know a few people.”
“I will. Thank you.” She waited until she was alone in the hall before dialing her father’s number. She thought she’d have to leave a message when the phone rang and rang, but he finally picked up.
“Kit?” His voice sounded hollow and there was a cacophony of barking dogs in the background. He’d gone to the shelter to pick up their new dog.
She’d hoped she could catch him at home, but this would have to do.
“Can you go somewhere quiet, Pop? This is important and I need you to hear me.”
“Give me a minute.” The barking dogs gradually quieted until they were replaced with the sounds of traffic. He’d gone outside. “What is it, Kit?”
“Okay, so I need you to be calm.”
“I’m always calm.”
He was not always calm. Not when it came to the safety of his children. This she knew from experience.
“Christopher Drummond called the DA’s office. He claims to have information on Brooks Munro and wants all charges dropped in exchange.”
Harlan drew a deep breath, then let it out. “You won’t let that happen.” The surety in his tone made Kit’s chest grow tight with a combination of gratitude and anxiety.
Her father believed in her. But that was so much responsibility.
“I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that man goes to prison forever. But for the moment, he’s out on bail and can say and do what he pleases. We need to let Rita know, but I don’t want her to be afraid.”
“She’s gonna be afraid, Kit.”
“I know. I hate it, but I know. I don’t want her to hear about this from anyone but us. Can you go to her? Tell her in person?”
“Of course I will. Has Drummond done a press conference or anything? Will it be online?”
“To my knowledge he has not.”
“Then I have enough time to sign the papers for the dog.”
That made Kit smile. “I think you do. Thanks for getting them a dog, Pop.”
“He’s a sweet thing. Giant schnauzer mixed with mastiff.”
Kit blinked. “Whoa. That’s a big boy.”
“He will be. He’s still young, but he has paws the size of dinner plates. Come by when you can and meet him. I brought Snickerdoodle with me today, and they get along like gangbusters.”
Well, that was a relief. “Does he have a name?”
“Well, his former owners called him Killer, but I think the girls will want to rename him.”
“I should think so. Be careful, Pop. Love you.”
“Love you too, Kitty-Cat. See you later.”
“If Rita needs me, I’ll take off and come home.”
“I know you will. I’ll get the dog and then I’ll take Rita out of school, just for today. Bye, honey.”
Kit slid her phone back into her pocket. At least Rita’s new dog would inspire confidence.
The three men looked up when she came in.
“Well?” Connor asked. “What did your father say?”
“Pop’s going to take her out of school to tell her. He’s just picking up their new gigantic dog from the shelter, so hopefully that will help soothe some of her fear.” She sat next to Connor and began to scan all the papers on the table. “Where are we?”
“We’ve got all the background on Munro that Marshall and Ashton pulled together.” Connor nodded to the two detectives on the other side of the table. “There’s a lot of information here. I pulled up my report on the Christopher Drummond investigation.”
“So we cross-reference Munro’s life against Drummond’s and see where they intersect.” She pointed to the papers on the table. “May I?”
“Of course,” Marshall said. “We gathered so much information, we’re having trouble seeing the forest for the trees, if you know what I mean.”
“I know exactly what you mean.” Kit began sorting the pages into piles. “We have Munro’s personal life—Wilhelmina, his house, his missing Ferrari, his lawyer, his doctor, his accountant. We should definitely talk to his accountant. We need a warrant for Munro’s books.” She put those pages aside. “And this pile can be his council life—the threatening emails and his donor list.” She stopped to review the names of the donors to Munro’s campaign fund. “Do we know who any of these people are? I only recognize a name or two.”
Connor took the page from her hands. “I know about ten of them. They’re all members of the country club where my folks have a membership.”
Kit looked over his arm to the list of names. “Is Drummond on there?”
“He wouldn’t be,” Connor said. “He wouldn’t contribute to another politician’s campaign, would he?”
“Actually, he is on there,” Marshall said. “Go back to last year. He gave the max, as did his wife. Not a whole lot, considering how rich Drummond is, but he did contribute to Munro.”
“Did Munro contribute to Drummond’s campaign?” Kit asked.
“Let me check. I think we got a list of Drummond’s donors too, when we were looking at him for the murder of Maria Mendoza.” Connor swiped and tapped the screen of his phone until he found the file he was looking for. “No, he didn’t.”
“That might not be weird in their world,” Kit said, “but it feels weird to me. Can I see the list again?” Connor passed it over and Kit studied each name. “I recognize at least fifteen names, now that I’m really looking at them. They’re all heads of companies around the city. I’ve seen articles about them over the years. I don’t think I’ve met any of them, though.” She stopped, her eyes frozen to a single name. “Tamsin Kavanaugh contributed to Munro’s campaign.”
“She did,” Ashton said. “Why is that important?”
“Well, she gave the max. As did her mother and her father.” She looked up at the three detectives. “First of all, reporters aren’t supposed to be affiliated with any political party. That she was sleeping with Munro was bad, but she could claim that she wasn’t and nobody could prove otherwise unless they took photos of the two of them in bed.”
Connor shuddered. “Gee, thanks for that mental image.”
“You’re welcome,” Kit said, not missing a beat. “But this here, this is a documented paper trail. She shouldn’t have been donating anything to any candidate. She could get fired from her job with the online newspaper.”
“Didn’t think about that,” Marshall muttered, sounding embarrassed. “Is there a second point to follow the first?”
Kit nodded. “Yep. Her parents are dead. Have been for twenty years, if she didn’t lie to me about that.”
Ashton frowned. “Why would she tell you that?”
“She interviewed me three years ago, when I was new to Homicide and had solved a cold case. She was trying to make me feel all chummy with her, like, ‘Your sister was brutally murdered and my parents are dead, too. See, we’re the same!’?” Kit scowled. “Spoiler alert: we are not the same.”
“She donated to Munro two years ago, so after she told you that.” Marshall was typing on his laptop. “She didn’t lie about it. Her parents are dead. She donated a couple thousand of her own money, but gave two-thirds of that in her dead parents’ names? Why would she do that?”
Connor’s eyes narrowed. “I wonder if the payment was the original entrée into Munro’s orbit. Remember that Veronica tried to shake down Sam for an appointment with Munro.”
“You’re right,” Kit said. “I wonder if the rest of these people also paid for appointments. Ash, can you write that question on the whiteboard since you’re closest?”
“His handwriting sucks,” Marshall said. “I’ll do it.”
“My handwriting is fine,” Ashton said. “I just pretend it’s not because those dry-erase markers give me headaches.”
Kevin Marshall gave his partner the evil eye. “You suck.”
“It’s fair,” Ashton said amiably. “But I don’t have a headache now.”
Kit chuckled. “Thank you, Kevin, for writing that down. Okay, back to this list. The names I recognized are those of rich dudes who own companies. They might be the country club names you know, Connor. Let’s ID each name and figure out their relationship to Munro. But first, I want to sort the rest of these records. So we have his personal life, his council life, and…” She studied the next pages in the stack. “His social life, I think. There’s his golf membership…”
“Member ships ,” Marshall corrected. “Munro belonged to six golf clubs and three country clubs around the city. Plus you’ll find records of his vacations to play golf in Palm Springs, Pebble Beach, and Half Moon Bay.”
Connor whistled. “Munro was spending a fortune on golf.”
Ashton huffed. “He recently bought a custom-made set of clubs for almost eight grand.”
Kit blinked. “For golf clubs ? Damn, I will never understand rich people.”
Connor shrugged. “Mine were much cheaper, if it makes you feel better.” Then he frowned. “Wait a minute. Drummond had fancy golf clubs, too. I remember searching his golf bag, among all his other things, when we arrested him. They might have even played together. I wonder where Drummond was a member.”
“Will a country club tell us who’s a member?” Kit asked.
“It’s unlikely without a warrant,” Connor said. “They like to keep their membership roster private. But I bet my mom would know.”
“Can you call her?” Kit asked.
“Sure.” Connor tapped his phone, then put it on the table, with the speaker on. His screen said Mama .
“Aw,” Marshall said. “He calls her Mama.”
“Leave him alone,” Kit said. “His mom’s nice.”
“What happened with Connor, then?” Ashton asked, but he was teasing.
“Hello, Connor,” his mother said. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
Connor laughed. “I am at work, Mom. You’re on speaker. I’m with Kit and two other detectives, Marshall and Ashton.”
“Are those their first or last names?” his mother asked tartly.
Marshall chuckled. “Kevin Marshall and my partner Alf Ashton,” he said. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs.Robinson.”
“Call me Susan, please. Now, what can I do for you this morning? More gossip? Because that is totally my jam.”
Kit’s lips twitched at Susan’s enthusiasm. “Yes, ma’am. We were hoping you could tell us which of the country clubs Christopher Drummond is a member of.”
Susan sighed heavily. “Ours, unfortunately. The man is a pig. Which is mean to pigs. We thought so even before Connor arrested him for murder.”
Kit glanced at Connor. “You didn’t know Drummond was a member of your own country club?”
“It’s not mine,” Connor said. “It’s my parents’.”
“Connor hasn’t been in a long while,” Susan said. “Maybe just to play squash.”
“I play squash at the athletic club, Mom, not the country club.”
“Well, those are clearly different places,” Ashton said dryly.
Connor flipped him the bird and continued. “So…how did I not know that Drummond was a member of your club, Mom? You never mentioned it when I was investigating him.”
“You didn’t ask. I figured it had come up in your investigation and you already knew. You know I’d never interfere in your work. But when you ask…well, that’s different.”
“What can you tell us about Christopher Drummond, ma’am?” Kit asked.
“He’s always been an impossible chauvinist pig. That he killed that poor woman was not a surprise. Everyone knew he had a terrible temper. My husband and I avoided him like the plague.”
“That was probably smart, ma’am,” Kit said. “How long has he been a member?”
“Oh my. For ten years or more. Mostly played golf.” She paused, then said, “Is this to do with your current investigation, Connor?”
“Yes, Mom. And you can say we’re investigating Brooks Munro. Everyone knows. Why did you ask?”
“Because they used to play golf together, Munro and Drummond. And then they had some kind of falling-out. This was maybe four years ago—after Munro married Wilhelmina. Munro and Drummond wouldn’t speak to each other. Drummond stopped coming to the club as often—which everyone was pleased by—and Munro joined somewhere else.”
“Two somewhere elses,” Kit said. “He was a member of three country clubs.”
“Probably so he could schmooze,” Susan said. “Munro was a thoroughly unpleasant man if you looked really hard, but on the surface, he had a lot of charisma. Even I thought he was a nice guy for a while. But I realized that he was just a blowhard and everyone knew he cheated on his wife. If you’re looking for information, try his admin assistant. She was definitely doing him.”
“Mom!” Connor said, shocked.
“I didn’t say she was eff ing him, Connor. Give me a little credit for decorum.”
“We know about Veronica,” Kit said. “Was there anyone else he was intimately involved with?”
“Of course,” Susan said. “The man could not keep his pants zipped. Give me a minute to think of the names of some of the women.” Susan was quiet for a moment. “There were several, but the ones I remember were Estelle White, Juanita Young, and Trisha Finnegan. Two of them were divorced already. Trisha Finnegan’s husband divorced her soon after her affair with Munro.”
“Is there a reason you remember them specifically?” Connor asked.
Susan made a hesitant sound. “I got the impression that none of the three women actually wanted to be with Munro. I didn’t know them well, but that was the gossip around the club. Maybe they were lured by his money. I don’t know. But none of them seemed happy. Maybe they can tell you more about him.”
“When was this, ma’am?” Marshall asked.
“At least two years ago.”
“Thank you, Susan,” Kit said. “You’ve been a huge help. Can you keep this conversation under your hat?”
“Of course. Give my love to CeCe, Connor. We’re grilling steaks on Saturday. Be here at five, please.”
“Yes, Mom.”
Susan made kissing noises. “Bye, now.”
Wincing, Connor ended the call and seemed to brace himself for the teasing. Instead, Marshall and Ashton only smiled.
“Your mom seems nice,” Marshall said, taking the donor list back from Kit.
“And she approves of your girlfriend,” Ashton added. “Good for you. My mother hated my girlfriend. Still does and we’ve been married for twenty-five years.”
Kit chuckled. “So. Now we know Munro is an even bigger asshole than before.”
“Hold on.” Marshall frowned. “The three women he had affairs with are all on his list of campaign contributions, including the one who got divorced from her husband. They donated after he had affairs with them.”
“Blackmail?” Kit asked.
“It’s a place to start,” Marshall agreed. “Although the two divorced women shouldn’t have cared who found out they were sleeping with him. The married woman, yes, but not the divorced women. I wonder if Munro knew something else.”
“I wonder if that’s what Drummond knows,” Connor said.
“I hope so,” Kit said fiercely. “I’ll be so happy to shove his kind offer down his fucking throat.”
“We’re right there with you,” Marshall said. “What next?”
Kit sighed. “Let’s find out who on Munro’s donor list are also members of one of his country clubs. For now we’ll focus on the one Connor’s folks are members of, since that’s where Christopher Drummond went, too. We definitely want to talk to the three women who had affairs with Munro. And I guess we need to add Tamsin Kavanaugh to that list, too.” Kit scowled. “I hate that woman.”
“We’ll take Kavanaugh,” Ashton offered. “We want you to solve this case so we get your mother’s cupcakes. If you get put on leave for breaking Tamsin Kavanaugh’s nose, we don’t get sweets.”
Kit laughed. “Thanks, guys. Let’s get busy.”
Del Mar, San Diego, California
Wednesday, January 11, 10:00 a.m.
“Thank you for agreeing to see us, ma’am,” Kit said as she and Connor sat on Trisha Finnegan’s living room sofa.
The woman who’d had an affair with Brooks Munro was in her late fifties with a severe platinum-blond bob. She also resembled Wilhelmina. And Veronica. It seemed that Munro had a type.
Or maybe he chose women who looked like Veronica to assuage his guilt for cheating on her to get ahead in life. They might never know.
Trisha folded her perfectly manicured hands in her lap. “How can I help you?”
Her voice was steady, but her body language screamed anxiety.
Kit smiled, trying to relax her. “This is going to be an awkward subject, but we’re investigating the murder of Brooks Munro and—”
“And you want to know if we had an affair,” Trisha finished grimly. “If you call a one-night stand an affair, then yes. We did. If I could go back in time, I’d change everything about that night, but I can’t.”
“Just once?” Kit asked, surprised.
“Not the way you heard it, I know.” Trisha wrung her hands absently. “I was the topic of a lot of gossip at the country club.” She eyed Connor warily. “I know your mother, Detective. She was kind to me after Munro.”
“She was the one who suggested we speak with you,” Connor confessed. “She seemed to think that you didn’t want to be with Munro.”
“Because I didn’t,” the woman said through clenched teeth. “He was a monster.”
“What can you tell us, ma’am?” Kit asked, trying to be gentle. This woman seemed emotionally brittle.
Trisha stared down at her hands. “My husband and I were separated. I was at the bar at the country club that night, drinking too much. Munro seemed to care, like he wanted to listen.” She exhaled heavily. “The next thing I knew I was waking up in my own bed and he was in the shower. We’d had sex, that much was clear, but I didn’t remember anything about it.”
“Do you think he drugged you?” Connor asked.
“I know he did,” Trisha said with a bitter laugh. “He told me that he did.”
Bold, Kit thought. “Did he blackmail you, ma’am?”
“Yes, but not because we had sex. My husband had his next wife all lined up by then, so he didn’t care what I did or who I did it with. We had no prenup. I was always going to get half of our assets, so there was no reason for Munro to do…what he did. It wasn’t like Munro telling my husband we had a one-night stand was going to make me get less money.”
“But it wasn’t just a one-night stand. Munro raped you,” Kit murmured, realizing how Trisha had glossed over that fact.
Trisha jerked a nod. “Yeah, I guess he did.”
“If it wasn’t the sex, then what did he blackmail you about?” Kit asked.
Trisha closed her eyes. “When Munro contacted me later to give me the terms of the blackmail, he told me that I was a ‘very chatty drunk.’ I’d told him a secret I’d been holding on to for sixteen years, at that point. No one knew. No one. But all of a sudden Munro knew and that’s why I paid him to keep quiet.”
Kit wanted to ask what that secret was, but she felt like she was treading on thin ice with this woman. One wrong question and Trisha Finnegan would fall apart. “You donated to his campaign.”
Trisha laughed again, the sound more hysterical than it had been before. “I did. That was how he started getting money from me. The first payment was to his reelection fund. He shouldn’t have had one because he couldn’t run again. He’d just been reelected to his second term. I told him this because, contrary to how it might seem at the moment, I’m not stupid.”
Trisha was a retired schoolteacher. She’d won awards for exemplary teaching twenty years before. “You’re far from stupid,” Kit said.
“Thank you.”
“What did Munro say when you told him that he shouldn’t have a reelection fund?” Connor asked. “Because we’ve been wondering about that.”
“He said he was going to run for state senate and to just donate the money without arguing or he’d tell my husband.”
“Did it stop there?” Kit asked.
“No. It went on another three months.”
Kit tensed. This could be what they needed to know. “How did he contact you?”
“Texts to a burner phone, supplied by him.”
Kit nodded. “How did you make the payments?”
“Put the cash in a locker at the bus station the first time. Then at the gym another time. The third—and last—time, it was at a train station.”
So the location did vary, Kit thought. Veronica hadn’t lied about that. “The gym? Which gym?” Because that was weird. If Veronica was picking up the money, that meant she’d have to have access to the gym’s locker room, which meant she was a member of that gym, too.
“The Beachside Athletic Club. That was a last-minute change. I was supposed to use the train station that time, but I was contacted and told to use my gym locker instead. That I should give them the combination to my lock. So I did.”
That was the same gym Connor went to. Where he played squash, of all things.
“How did you manage to stop paying him?” Connor asked.
Another bitter laugh. “My husband finally served me with divorce papers. He cited infidelity, but not with Brooks Munro.”
Kit looked around the room. There were framed photos on nearly every surface—all of the same young man. He looked like Trisha Finnegan and, in the most recent photos, he looked at least eighteen. She played her hunch. “He knew your son wasn’t his biologically.”
Trisha froze, then slumped back into her chair. “I’ve read you two are good detectives. I guess the media was right.”
“It would have been a secret worth paying to keep,” Kit said. “That’s what you told Munro that night?”
“Yes. I don’t know why I did, but I must have. I didn’t want my husband to find out because I was afraid that he’d take it out on Tommy. Which he did. He cut Tommy out of his life, both emotionally and financially, and he’d been the only father Tommy had ever known.”
“Salt in the wound,” Kit said softly. “Munro drugged you, raped you physically, then stole that secret from you against your will.”
Trisha swallowed hard. “Yes. To all that. But I guess I got the last laugh when it came to Brooks Munro. Turns out, my husband had suspected for some time that my son wasn’t his. He had a paternity test done on the sly as he was preparing the divorce papers. He divorced me and my son.”
“How did your son feel about this?” Connor asked.
“He was devastated. Both with my ex-husband for disowning him and with me for lying to him all those years. I didn’t find out I was pregnant until after we got engaged. I didn’t want to believe Tommy wasn’t his son, but as Tommy began to grow, I could see his biological father in his face, his eyes. His mannerisms. Tommy’s biological father was a sweet man who died about five years ago, so Tommy will never know him. He’s angry about that, too. He still speaks to me, but our relationship isn’t the same. But that’s on me, not Munro.”
But the psychological damage from the rape and blackmail had to still be an issue for this woman. “Munro did enough, though.”
Trisha sighed. “Yes, he did.”
“Do you know who killed him?” Connor asked.
“No. If I did, I’d send them a thank-you card. Brooks Munro was a parasite.”
“That seems to be a common opinion,” Kit said. “Do you know if anyone else was being blackmailed?”
“I’ve always assumed so, only because he had the process down to a science. But that’s not the kind of thing one talks about with other people.”
“I suppose not,” Kit said. “What about Juanita Young and Estelle White?”
Trisha shook her head. “I truly don’t know. I did know them a few years ago, but never well. Certainly never well enough to disclose such personal things with them and vice versa. The rumor mill said that they also slept with Munro. I don’t know if he drugged them. You’ll have to ask them. I dropped out of the country club scene after that. I just…couldn’t go back.”
“What are you doing now?” Kit asked, hoping the woman had been able to move forward.
“I was a teacher when I was younger. I loved my job back then, so I volunteer now with the school where I taught, tutoring at-risk kids. I also putter in my garden. I keep to myself, mostly.”
“That’s so nice,” Kit said. “The at-risk kids, I mean. I do not have a green thumb so every garden begs me not to putter.”
Trisha’s smile was tentative. “Thank you. This was easier than I thought it would be. I’ve been expecting you since I read about Munro’s murder. I figured anyone he was blackmailing would be a suspect. Am I a suspect?”
“Did you kill him?” Kit asked seriously.
“No. But when I’m not at the school volunteering, I keep to myself here at home. I have no one to vouch for my whereabouts.”
Kit didn’t think this woman had anything to do with Munro’s death, but she did remember Alicia’s multiple-hands theory. They couldn’t rule Trisha out.
“You’re not a suspect at this time,” Connor said, saving Kit from answering. “But we’re still investigating. If you think of anything that could help us, we’d appreciate it. Like the exact dates and places you made your money drops. It was a while ago, so we probably can’t get security footage of those places anymore, but it’s always worth a try.”
Trisha got a notepad from a drawer in the lamp table beside her and scratched out a list. “It was more than two years ago, so I don’t think these locations will do you any good, but there they are. My day was the second of every month.”
“Your day?” Connor asked.
Trisha shrugged. “That’s what Munro told me. That’s when I figured he was doing this to enough people that he had to assign me my own day.” She filled up a few lines of the notepad, then tore off the page and gave it to Connor.
“You’re the first victim we’ve talked to so far,” Kit said.
Trisha put the notepad away and folded her hands again. “Once you identify a bunch of us, we should have a support group.”
Trisha said it lightly, like she was joking, but Kit thought that wasn’t a bad idea.
It might have already happened. Multiple hands might have stabbed Munro. It all fit.
Trisha Finnegan didn’t strike Kit as a person who was angry enough at Munro to stab him, but the man had raped her. Trisha might just be a very good actress.
“That’s not a bad plan,” Kit said, keeping her voice even when she wanted to immediately leave and begin looking for more blackmail victims. “Did you know that Munro had a kind of a dead man’s switch? A list of his victims and their secrets that he’d make public if he died unexpectedly or violently?”
She frowned. “No, I didn’t know that. He never threatened me with that. I always paid him.”
Until she hadn’t, Kit thought. “How did you tell him that your secret was no longer blackmail material?”
“I scheduled an in-person appointment with him, which meant dealing with his admin, who was a real bitch. Sorry.” She grimaced. “This is bringing back a lot of bad memories.”
“What did he say when you told him you were done paying him?” Connor asked.
She stilled, seeming to be thinking. “He didn’t say much of anything. Just…‘Okay.’ But the look he gave me was terrifying. He was so angry. For a minute I thought he had a trapdoor in his office floor and I’d be fed to the sharks. But then he kind of cleared his expression and just said ‘Okay,’ and I left.”
“He didn’t warn you not to tell anyone?”
Trisha shook her head. “I’d already volunteered that I wouldn’t when I was giving my spiel. I’d practiced and practiced it. I was so scared walking into that appointment. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t think he was violent, but I also hadn’t thought he’d blackmail me. I just wanted to get on with my life. Looking back, I must have appeared pretty pathetic. I’d lost a lot of weight and my hair was falling out from the stress. I’d considered…you know. Ending things. Maybe he hoped I’d do myself in and he wouldn’t have to worry about me.”
“Did he ever retaliate in any way?” Kit pressed.
She started to shake her head, then sucked in a breath. “I had a car accident the following week. Hit-and-run driver. My car was totaled and I was badly hurt. I was even in a coma for a few days afterward. I didn’t even think that it could have been Munro’s doing. I was in a bad headspace back then and, honestly, my thinking was not ordered at all. Could that have been Munro’s doing?”
“Possibly. Do you remember what the vehicle that hit you looked like?”
“No, I’m sorry but I don’t. So…this tell-all list Munro supposedly had. Is it real?”
“We think he was killed for it,” Kit said.
“Okay, then. Wow.” Trisha hesitated, then shrugged. “I guess it won’t be the end of the world for me if it’s published. I pretty much cut myself off from the country club crowd, and the kids I tutor would probably think I’m ‘fire’ if they knew I’d once been blackmailed by a guy who was ‘unalived.’?” She used air quotes as she attempted to mimic her students. “What else do you want to know?”
“How much did you pay him?” Kit asked.
“Fifteen thousand dollars after my ‘voluntary contribution.’?” More air quotes. “Five thousand a month for those three months. Paid in fifties. Nonsequential bills.”
“Not a small sum,” Connor said.
“No, but like I said, my husband and I had no prenup. I got fifty percent of our property. It would have been a problem if I’d gone on paying. I can show you the record of my cash withdrawals from those months where I paid Munro. I thought if I ever did fall prey to his trapdoor with the sharks, I wanted to at least leave a paper trail in case someone cared enough to look for me.”
Like Munro had, Kit thought. He’d chosen the joint account for his withdrawal of fifty thousand dollars. He had to have known that Wilhelmina would be informed.
She’d almost forgotten about that.
She wondered why he hadn’t sent some kind of similar message to Veronica. Maybe they had no joint assets.
Something to check.
She glanced at Connor. “Anything else?”
“No, I’m finished.”
Kit rose, Connor alongside her. “Thank you for seeing us, Mrs.Finnegan. Contact us if you remember anything else, even if it seems small.”