27. Eternity
Nadia
The Riggs boys owned a lake.
The Bohannans occupied a bona fide compound on a lake.
Their lake was probably ten of Riggs’s. It was huge, and they didn’t own it.
But they did inhabit some impressive properties at one end of it.
As we drove up, Riggs told me Delphine and Cade occupied the main house. Cade’s daughter, Celeste (who was at the first marathon screening of season one of OMitB, something that had started at six that morning), lived in a smaller pad close to it. And Jace and Jess occupied cabins across from each other a ways up each side of the lake.
Upon entering, I discovered the interior of Cade and Delphine’s house was impressive, and attractive, if not as interesting and eccentric as Riggs’s house.
Though their view of that lake was smack-you-back spectacular.
Delphine moved off to make us coffees as Cade led us to his office.
It, too, was impressive. And unlike the rest of the house, which was gorgeous, but gender neutral, this space was entirely masculine.
I’d had the opportunity to do a full-house tour of Riggs’s place, and he had an office too.
However, unlike the rest it (I’d learned he’d somehow miraculously and painstakingly renovated it in only three years between jobs, commissions, having Ledger and having a good time), his office was a small, dark, cramped, untidy room at the very back of the level where the kitchen and dining room were.
The level above it angled to the north west and into the slope. It held Ledger’s room, which had a three-quarter bath attached to it.
Or, if I’d figured out how Lincoln had crafted it, his daughter’s room.
This I guessed because opposite that were two smaller bedrooms that shared a Jack and Jill suite (for Lincoln’s boys).
And pushing deeper into the earth of the natural slope, the guest room with en suite that I officially still occupied, but unofficially had only briefly occupied.
The kitchen/dining room level didn’t dive as deeply into the slope, but it also included a very large room that held a pool table and a very fancy, full wet bar.
Riggs’s bedroom was mostly a level all its own. Though some of it was built over the living room, most of it jutted off over the lakeside of the house.
So, yes.
Eccentric.
We settled in Cade’s office, and I figured Cade had shared what he had to say already with Delphine, because he launched right in before she returned with coffee.
He started by putting his hand on an enormous pile of papers and folders resting on his desk that had to be at least ten inches tall before he shared, “Harry gave me copies of everything he could pull on the entire Whitaker mess, including the local and Seattle case files, court documents and depositions. And I’ve spent the last four days reading through them.”
My goodness.
That was a lot of work.
Cade took his hand from the pile. “Now, you can guess I have experience with twins, and because I had my own and do what I do, I researched the various phenomena about them. But that isn’t fresh research, and I didn’t have time to dive back into it.”
“Right,” Riggs said when Cade paused.
“Saying that,” Cade continued, “got firsthand knowledge of the link they share. They communicate intuitively in ways we don’t. They have an uncanny sync. They also feel each other’s emotions, and sometimes even physical pain. Last, they have a closeness where, in major life events, for them it doesn’t feel like they’ve fully experienced it unless they either experience it with the other, or until they share with the other that it happened.”
Riggs and I nodded.
This was common knowledge with twins, except that last, which I found intriguing.
“That said, they are each their own man with their own thoughts, opinions and personalities,” Cade shared. “They are not one person split in two. They’re two distinct people who look the same.”
More nodding from me, not Riggs.
Cade kept at it.
“From what I could tell, this was the same with Roosevelt and Lincoln. But it was the way in which they were brought up that Roosevelt became the dominant of the two.”
“What does that mean?” Riggs asked.
“It means, he was a clear favorite of their parents. It’s like the Carpenters’ experience.”
Now, he’d lost me.
Fortunately, he kept talking.
“The Carpenter family thought Richard was the prodigy. As such, the entirety of that family shifted all their attention to Richard. When it emerged that it was Karen who had the singular talent, they couldn’t adjust.”
Oh.
He was talking about the Carpenters musical group, fronted by Karen’s extraordinary voice, backed by Richard’s not-as-extraordinary, but still skillful talent at a keyboard.
I was again following him.
“This caused some dysfunction with that family, but with Roosevelt and Lincoln, Roosevelt actually was the prodigy. As twins, and this is a guess, Roosevelt couldn’t abide being singled out as a favorite because he had the double issue of feeling that awkwardness, at the same time, feeling his brother’s pain at not being the same. And just to say, that’s vice versa for Lincoln. My further guess is, this was the primary reason Roosevelt left home in Seattle as soon as he could and came to MP to forge his own path. It was also why he looked after his brother in the many ways he did, along with shaping the man he became, solitary, except for the bond with his brother, and not big on attention.”
Again, this tracked.
Delphine came in with four coffee mugs hooked precariously in her fingers, and seeing this, Cade got up immediately to help her dole them out.
Once we had our mugs, she sat on the side of his desk next to where he sat in his chair, and he idly wrapped his fingers around her thigh.
Man, they were cute together.
Cade went back to it.
“I’ll share this is entirely theoretical, but with the way Roosevelt and Lincoln grew up, and Roosevelt’s protectiveness of his brother, I think this formed an unusual bond. Particularly when Sarah came into their lives.”
Now we were getting to the good stuff.
Cade kept going.
“In their depositions, the Whitaker parents reported that Roosevelt always had a thing for writing. And they had evidence to that effect. The guy started writing essays and short stories when he was thirteen and had finished his first book by seventeen. This is an explanation why they got published so young. He’d already spent years honing his craft.”
I hadn’t thought about how young he had to have been to have that many books published by the time he died, but he’d only been forty-three when that happened.
So that was astonishing.
Cade continued, “In depositions taken from the different editors the men had, it was shared, on the first three books, they definitely worked together. Roosevelt plotted and wrote the action-driven narrative. Lincoln was responsible for the snappy dialogue and interpersonal relationships. However, two things happened. One, the series became popular for its action, not its relationships. And two, Roosevelt learned as he went along how to cover the things Lincoln did. Future books were more action focused, and the editors said that Lincoln contributed very little to all of them, except to do a final pass-through after Roosevelt wrote the book, making tweaks. From book four onward, he acted as more of an editor, not a writer.”
Riggs and I looked at each other because we’d already heard word of this, though it was fascinating to have it confirmed.
Cade carried on speaking.
“Sarah arrives on the scene, and in her parents’ deposition, everything that has anything to do with the brothers and Sarah, they refer to the brothers in plural. She met them. She became involved with them. The sister reported that Sarah actually met Roosevelt first, but he quickly introduced her to his brother.”
“Is that significant?” I asked, thinking that they were twins, so it wouldn’t be.
“It is, if my theory is correct, and Sarah and Lincoln had an open marriage, with the third member of that situation being Roosevelt,” Cade answered.
“Fuck,” Riggs grunted.
“Holy shit,” I whispered.
“Oh yeah,” Delphine murmured before taking a sip of coffee.
“So you’re saying you think Lincoln knew about them?” Riggs queried.
“Knew. And outwardly approved,” Cade said.
“Outwardly?” Riggs pressed.
“He built a house where he couldn’t see his brother’s cabin. This tells me he didn’t want to know. That makes sense. It also doesn’t. Because, if I’m reading between the lines, it was less an open marriage and more a brother-husbands type of deal. They were all one family. They had joint bank accounts. They built a trust that covered their assets like they were one unit. They frequently spent time together. They shared all holidays together, including with the kids when they came along. And considering publishing contracts from the third set of books, this being book seven and on, no longer included Lincoln’s name at all, Roosevelt was providing for what he considered his entire family. Not his brother and his wife. His family.”
“This is totally wild, and it also makes total sense,” I stated.
Cade aimed a small smile at me.
“Now, there are things that put a wrench in this theory,” he allowed. “We’ll start with Roosevelt living a quiet life and not being one to toss his money around. Lincoln was the opposite. Roosevelt stayed in MP. Lincoln and Sarah went back and forth. This kind of thing can cause some friction and doesn’t relate. But all families have friction. I think it’s a stretch, because your brother likes his dose of city living, he takes the woman you share with him, you get fed up with it, get in his face, and he’s moved to murder. I think it’s even a stretch that it’s clear Roosevelt didn’t want to sell the rights for motion pictures even for the first three books, because he knew if they took off, the writing was on the wall, and it’d have an effect on his life he wouldn’t want, so Lincoln killed him and his wife because he was ticked about that. I think families have these differences and disputes. I think they also get over them or figure out a compromise. But in both instances, if you’re pissed at your brother, you kill your brother. You don’t also kill your wife.”
“Nadia’s friend in Chicago read through some of this stuff, and the Whitaker parents say that last part was getting heated,” Riggs remarked.
“That’s what they say. And yes, it was under oath. But Roosevelt communicated copiously with his parents, at their instigation, because again, he was the favorite. A lot of it was through email, and they have a good deal of evidence to present about the majority of their claims, but nothing to back that particular assertion up. They swore to that testimony, but I think they’re lying or reading things in a way that would skew the estate in their favor.”
“So Roosevelt and Lincoln both shared Sarah from the beginning, and there’s no beef about the books, which means Lincoln has no reason to kill them,” Riggs broke it down.
Cade nodded. “Exactly.”
“So who killed them?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Cade said. “And the answer to that question lies at the end of a variety of thorny paths. Starting with her parents, who are intensely, religiously conservative. If they were aware of this situation, and from what I can tell by the unnecessarily vitriolic way they refer to the brothers, it’s a good bet they were, they could have motive. It’s thin, but it could be the sister, because the Whitaker men weren’t only rich and talented and both known to be good, dependable men, they were good-looking and fit, and it might be a sibling rivalry gig. It could be some unknown, but that wouldn’t explain why Lincoln took the fall for them.”
He drew in a breath and finished his litany of suspects.
“It could also be one of the kids, for two reasons. One, if they’re aware of this situation and aren’t the only ones who were, and they got teased or bullied about it in school. Though it’s important to note, it’s never been brought to light in thousands of pages of reports, motions and filings, it’s my theory. Or more likely, two, because not all of them are of Lincoln’s seed.”
“Holy shit!” I cried.
“Oh yeah,” Delphine repeated.
“What’s your take on that?” Riggs queried.
“If I was forced to provide a report on this, I’d land on the fact that the oldest son is Roosevelt’s, the younger two are Lincoln’s, those kids knew that, and the younger two felt some sense of vulnerability or misguided loyalty, because Roosevelt was the breadwinner, and even that Sarah preferred him to Lincoln.”
“Did Sarah prefer Roosevelt?” Delphine asked, showing that Cade hadn’t told her that part.
He looked to her. “My theory has not even been hinted at in a foot-high stack of papers, but from reading between the lines, it seems this is the case. Both younger kids state as often as they were given the opportunity that their mom hung out ‘all the time’ with their uncle, thus underlining Lincoln’s supposed actions. That said, even the older boy doesn’t dispute this, but instead, corroborates it.”
“That could be a motive for murder,” Riggs commented.
“Yeah, it can,” Cade agreed. “What supports Lincoln doing it is his wife’s supposed preference, and the manner in which your house is situated, or if I’m dead wrong, and they were simply cheating. It could be, though, that he was just giving them privacy, because if his house is like that, the cabin is too. It could have been an agreement. The brothers give each other privacy in their living spaces with Sarah. Where I’m stuck is on the overkill of the fire, specifically the wetting down of the area around it. Something, although there wasn’t much to go on in Dern’s file, but even so, it seemed skewed.”
“Skewed?” I asked.
“From the photos, there was evidence of water everywhere, but specifically, between the stables and the cabin,” Cade told me. “That was drenched. Like he really didn’t want the cabin to catch fire. And that was Roosevelt’s place, so if Lincoln killed Roosevelt in a moment of jealous rage, that doesn’t make any sense.”
It really didn’t.
“But overall,” Cade kept at it, “there simply was no reason for the overkill of the fire. There are many incidences of people behaving in all manners when they’re in a heightened emotional state, and these states can last a long time, in extreme cases, even days. But if you’re in a heightened emotional state, you might set a barn ablaze for indiscriminate reasons. You don’t guard against a fire spreading. That takes thought, consideration, an understanding of and follow-through to avoid consequences.”
Cade shook his head and carried on.
“From what I read about him, Lincoln had not once in his life acted in what could be considered a blatantly irrational manner. All three of his kids testify they loved him deeply. He was reportedly good-natured and social. He had a lot of friends. He was thought of highly. He was the face of the duo, would go on book tours and speak to thousands of people and sign thousands of books. Yes, I could see him flipping his shit if he caught his wife with his twin brother. And yes, I could see when he came back to himself he’d be filled with remorse and turn himself in. But the fire? That’s sketchy.”
“Okay, so if it’s Lincoln’s kids, they were in Seattle and not old enough to make their way to MP on their own,” I pointed out.
“One thing I’ve learned in this business,” Cade replied. “If there’s a will, there’s a way.”
“So you think a fifteen and fourteen year old murdered their mother and uncle?” Riggs asked.
“I think it’s a possibility. But I think they’d need help, and it wasn’t the older boy. It could be the grandparents, but they were estranged from them. It could be the aunt, but if it was her, since she’s involved in highly contentious litigation, I would think someone would have turned on somebody by now, or, if I’m correct, at least outed the nature of the marriage. It could be the girl’s boyfriend, who was seventeen.”
“What happened to the boyfriend?” I asked.
Cade shook his head. “Don’t know. He was mentioned in some of Roosevelt’s emails to his parents, and Roosevelt liked him. Thought he was a solid guy. And it was noted in the last email he sent to his folks, which was two days before his death, that the boyfriend was going to be with the other kids when the oldest drove them out for the weekend. After that, I have no clue. Though, she’s unmarried and there’s no mention of her having a current partner, same with the youngest boy. Then again, in this case, they wouldn’t factor.”
“Harry tell you about what we found this morning?” Riggs asked.
Cade took a sip from his own mug while shaking his head.
“Yesterday evening, someone was at the southeast end of my lake, tramping around. Not camping. Not hunting. Just tramping around a big, but not large, though contained location. We think a man and a woman,” Riggs told him.
“The younger brother and sister?” Cade queried.
Whoa!
What?
Why would it be them?
“No clue. But if you’re right, it could be,” Riggs said. “Whoever it was knew of an access road that’s still there, but mostly grown over, and you wouldn’t know it was there unless you knew it was there. It’s my understanding, Roosevelt used that road when he thought it was time to thin out the forest in that area and get some firewood or whatever other shit he got up to in those woods when he didn’t want to hoof it. But it’s been unused since his death.”
“Looking for something?” Cade inquired.
“Was the shotgun found?” Riggs asked.
“Lincoln had it with him when the first responders arrived,” Cade told him.
“Then I don’t know,” Riggs said.
“Is all the money accounted for?” Delphine asked.
“It’s dwindling by the day, because at this juncture, a judge has allowed its use for the children and their schooling, and the oldest boy is now a medical doctor, as well as other living needs, which means they’re also using it for attorneys’ fees, and as you know, this is contentious in the extreme, and motions are filed regularly. But bottom line, yes,” Cade answered.
“So it’s not like there’s buried treasure,” she said.
Cade’s lips twitched in a way I thought this was some kind of private joke before he replied, “Not unless Roosevelt was keeping something from the surviving members of the extended family.”
Which begged a question I hadn’t had the chance to ask yet.
What would someone be out there looking for?
“Did Harry tell you what the Seattle detective said?” Riggs probed.
“Yep,” Cade replied.
“Thoughts on that considering your theory?”
“Yep,” Cade repeated, then launched in. “It was well known that Lincoln was a man who enjoyed the finer things in life. He indulged himself, his wife and his kids. And we’re seeing the results of that last. If I’m correct, and he came home from the fishing trip only to happen onto his two youngest having killed his brother and wife, and he made the split decision to take the fall for them, he had seven very long years to consider that decision. Now, if I’m a kid fucked in the head enough to commit what could only be charged as capital murder against members of my own family, I’d be a little jittery Dad faced the horrors of prison, having time to ruminate on his dead wife and twin brother, doing it with no waterfront view, doing it for me, and knowing what I’d done.”
“So you think they killed him,” I remarked.
Cade nodded. “I think it’s not a coincidence he saw those kids in the days before. And he did not see all his kids together. He visited his oldest son at college, and the younger two together, meeting them wherever they were frittering away his brother’s legacy. And I think whatever happened during that visit scared the absolute fuck out of them, and they moved in. That said, they did that shit by forcing a bottle of arsenic down his throat, so I also believe they were prepared for Dad to get out and see which way it swung.”
Cade took his hand from Delphine’s leg, sat forward and rested his forearms on his desk.
“That cop said he felt Lincoln’s hotel room had been straightened after what could have been a struggle. He was found lying serenely on the bed. Death by arsenic poisoning isn’t pretty and would include seizures, and yet the bedclothes were unperturbed. Outside that, the detective couldn’t put his finger on it, and he had no proof, but in his gut, he thought that room looked wrong. He also noticed bruising around the man’s jaw consistent with someone taking a forceful hold and pushing his head back. Last, as pertains to the scene, there was no suicide note.”
Interesting.
Cade kept at it.
“They found traces of alcohol and a mild sedative in his system. But there were no suspicious prints or DNA found on the scene, and only his fingerprints on the bottle of arsenic. The coroner had no explanation for the bruising on his jaw, but, except for another minor contusion on his shin, there was nothing else on his body to indicate a struggle. And although they didn’t find evidence of him having a sedative in his possession, something he’d take to calm anxiety or the like, it isn’t outlandish to think the guy needed some hooch and a pill to deal with what had become of his life. That said, you can get drink at a bar, you can’t say the same about sedatives. And the tests show the man was definitively, if not significantly, as in, he’d been given Rohypnol, sedated. So how do you take two or three pills in your hotel room, and not have the pack?”
How indeed.
Lord, this was a tangled web.
“This detective was interested enough to actually investigate,” Cade continued, “and all three of the kids, the sister, and all of the parents had alibis. It’s just that the two younger kids’ alibis were each other. That said, the investigator was under pressure to close a case that seemed not to merit resources, so he did as his superiors requested and closed the case.”
God, he was good at this.
A sentiment to be shared.
“You’re crazy good at this,” I announced.
Another smile from Cade.
“You should have seen how closely he pegged Ray Andrews,” Delphine noted.
Cade aimed his current smile Delphine’s way before he kept going.
“What’s of note is that Lincoln’s express wishes while he was in prison, the only word they have from any of the three about how their assets were to be distributed, are why that judge ordered the monies to be used for schooling and living expenses. And the only one of them who went to college was the first one. What’s also of note, is that the oldest is being the least contentious of all those vultures. He simply wants an equitable split between the offspring. He’s repeatedly said that was what his mom, dad and uncle-maybe-dad would have wanted. But he’s not hiding his growing fatigue with these proceedings, to the point that I would be surprised if soon, he didn’t withdraw. Further, he hasn’t had much to do with his brother and sister since well before his father was released from prison. When he went to college a year after the deaths, he got stuck in his studies, and essentially, if not officially, broke ties with all of them.”
“How did Dern’s case file look?” Riggs asked.
“It had Lincoln’s mugshot, prints, his written confession, a report that’s precisely three paragraphs long, a lot of pictures of a burned building, a picture of the shotgun, and a copy of a lot more thorough report from the coroner. And that’s it,” Cade informed him.
“So they didn’t test Lincoln for gunshot residue?” Riggs asked.
“Now why would he do that?” Cade asked sarcastically. “He had a confession, and probably a beer and a game to get back to.”
“Does this mean Harry is going to be up to his neck in shit if that gets out?” Riggs pushed.
Cade shook his head. “Harry, being Harry, has already asked Polly to pull the bigger cases Dern worked on to do an audit, so when this gets out, he’s not blindsided. It still could be an issue. The thing he has going for him is the guy confessed and went down without a whimper. Dern definitely should have done more. They don’t even have notes on an interrogation like they didn’t ask the guy that first question. And they certainly didn’t interview anyone else. If there’s a case that’s going to turn over, this would be the one.”
Cade took another sip then asked his own question. “You worried about those footprints?”
“Nadia and I are going to start tramping around ourselves.”
“I’ll help with that, and Jace and Jess aren’t on an assignment, so I know they’ll be on board to help too. If you don’t mind me making suggestions, give us quadrants, but we concentrate around your house, the cabin, the east side of the lake down to where there was evidence of trespassers. If Roosevelt hid something, he was an outdoorsman, I wouldn’t put it past him putting it on the more remote side of the lake. But it’d be better to concentrate our efforts, then expand.”
“Your help would be appreciated. But, Cade, if someone is actually looking for something, they’ve had fifteen years to find whatever it is, and it obviously hasn’t been found,” Riggs noted.
“And Roosevelt Whitaker was a clever thriller writer,” Cade returned. “If there’s something to be found he didn’t want to be found, it’s probably going to take eternity to find it.”
That meant, whoever was looking had to be found.
And if I understood what Riggs and Cade were talking about, that “whoever” had been looking for fifteen years, they hadn’t found it, but they were definitely in to keep looking.
Well.
Damn.