Chapter 22 #2
“Walter said as much. He was troubled over the whole thing. He didn’t say outright that someone had killed you, but I’m sure that’s what he thought.”
“I imagine he’s not the only one, but what could anyone do about it? Anyway, we had a hidden key on the back porch, so I let myself in. I’d lost my phone in the blast, but I used my iPad to call my uncle.”
“The former FBI agent.”
He nodded. “Then I grabbed the cash I kept stashed in the garage and hid back in the shed until dark. My uncle drove all day and picked me up late that night. I told him everything that had happened and what I suspected.”
“Why didn’t you just go to the police?”
“And tell them what? I had no proof of anything. My boat sank and anything that might have been evidence was carried away by the tide. The lab had already told us they were weeks, maybe a month out on getting those tests on Dora done. I thought the best thing to do was let Eleanor think I was dead until the lab results came back. And if they proved what I thought, I’d go to the police then.
I didn’t think Dora would pass the next day. ”
“Maybe your death was too much of a strain,” Mildred said.
“Maybe. And that thought still makes me sick. I hate thinking that my waiting might have sent her to an early grave.”
Mildred reached over and squeezed his hand. “You’re not to blame for any of this. You were doing the best you could. Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.”
“She’s right,” I said. “And for all you know, Eleanor ramped up the poisoning after you died, figuring your death could easily explain the quick decline. Regardless, those lab tests prove that Dora was probably well beyond the point of saving. I hate to say it, but even if she’d lived, it would have been in extreme pain. ”
“So death was a mercy?” he asked.
“At that point, maybe. So what did you do after your uncle picked you up?”
“I contacted Mildred that next morning and laid it all out for her. That’s when she told me Dora had passed that morning.
I couldn’t believe it. Everything had been for nothing.
I hadn’t been able to save her. When I told my uncle what I suspected, he wanted me to go to the police right then with everything. ”
“But you didn’t want to.”
“No. I still didn’t have any proof.”
“And you both wanted Eleanor to pay,” I said.
They glanced at each other, then nodded.
“Yes, we did,” Mildred said. “So we cooked up a plan. I was going to head to Louisiana and see if I could get proof of what Eleanor had done. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I knew the only way I’d be able to catch her slipping was to be on-site.”
“So Jasper had his uncle help him acquire a fake passport and you had your back surgery done here in Costa Rica. You did a great job of faking your disability, but then I guess you had years of real-life experience. I bought it right there until the end.”
“What gave me away?”
“The trophy.”
“Huh?”
“Jasper’s trophy that looked like a carburetor.
It was on that shelf in the garage with the microwave part I took down for Ida Belle.
We opened that box first and Ida Belle told me what it was.
But when Gertie took pictures the next morning for your attorney, that box was gone.
I just didn’t realize it until later. That trophy was heavy and on a shelf you needed a ladder to get to.
There’s no way someone with a condition as bad as yours could have managed it.
And since we didn’t leave until midnight and came back early that morning, there was no way anyone else handled it for you. ”
I shrugged. “And why would you even want the trophy unless Jasper was still alive?”
Jasper shook his head. “I told you to leave that thing.”
“I wanted you to have something you were proud of,” Mildred said. “Something you’d earned that Eleanor couldn’t take away.”
Jasper reached over and took her hand. “I have you.”
Mildred sniffed.
“Since the door to the garage was open, I heard you and Ida Belle talking about the trophy. I didn’t even realize it was up there, but once I did, I just couldn’t live with myself, leaving it behind. Guess I should have left the empty box up there.”
I shrugged. “I still would have gotten around to it eventually. So when you were past the critical healing for your back,” I continued, “you called Eleanor and convinced her to let you move back home because of your claimed health issues.”
“You’re right except the convincing part. Eleanor jumped to offer me a place.”
I sighed as the pieces came together. “Because she wanted you out of the way as well.”
Mildred nodded. “I think she figured that if I came down with the same mysterious illness as our mother that everyone would think it was genetic.”
“That’s a big risk—so much death in one family at the same time.”
“I think Eleanor was too far gone at that point to weigh the risks. She wanted Zion all to herself and her moral compass—assuming she ever had one—was completely gone.”
“And she didn’t want either you or your mother draining even a small part of the estate because she needed it to keep Zion on the line.” I shook my head. “I wish I could say I understand but the truth is, I just don’t.”
“I don’t think decent people can ever understand something like that,” Mildred said.
“I assume you never acquired the evidence you wanted before it all fell apart.”
“Yes and no. I had the water in the fridge in my office tested. It had high levels of metal in it.”
“But you hadn’t been drinking it.”
“No. The bottles looked fine, but I didn’t trust anything that Eleanor had access to. I kept my own stash and just dumped a bottle or two out every day so she’d think I was drinking it.”
“So if you had the proof, why didn’t you expose her?”
“Because I got those results the day after she killed herself. I drank tap water at home and we both drank the coffee and tea. I never drank anything she poured that I didn’t see it happening, so there was no opportunity for her to get to me at home. I even had a tube of toothpaste hidden away.”
“I still haven’t quite wrapped my mind around why she killed herself,” I said. “I didn’t know her, but with what I do know, I find it hard to believe she had any remorse.”
“Maybe the drugs Zion or Kim gave her brought it all on her,” Jasper said.
“Perhaps,” I said, looking straight at Mildred.
“So much death and destruction in her wake. Maybe it all finally hit home. Everything she’d done and then finding out that Zion had been playing her the entire time.
Maybe it all slammed into her like a freight train, and it was too much to live with. ”
Mildred looked straight back at me, never wavering. “Maybe it was.”
I nodded and rose. “Well, now that I have my answers, I guess I’ll head back to Sinful.”
Mildred and Jasper gave each other nervous glances.
“Are you going to tell Carter?” she asked.
“Tell him what? That you’re finally living the life you deserve? That Jasper opted to stay away from a woman who tried to kill him? What good would that do? There’s no sense burdening Carter with knowledge he can’t do anything about.”
I looked at Jasper. “Do you plan on letting people back home know that you’re still alive?”
Jasper stared down at the table before looking back up and shaking his head.
“I don’t have any family left to speak of, except my uncle.
He knows the score and has no issue with the way I want to leave things.
And I’m sad to say that I had more acquaintances than friends.
Eleanor made it hard on people to hang around.
She wasn’t a pleasant woman and I wasn’t the type to push back.
I know that makes me a coward, and I’m sorry good people like Walter are troubled over my passing, but the truth is, I wasn’t close enough to any of them for it to bother them for long. ”
I gave him a nod. “I’ll tell Ida Belle and Gertie, of course. But they’ll take it to the grave.”
“I know they will,” Mildred said. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate everything you did.
If you hadn’t pushed the issue on Zion, Carter would have been forced to close the file on Eleanor’s death right away and that man would have continued to scam women indefinitely.
But I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you from the beginning. ”
I shrugged. “Everyone is hiding something. The thing I have to figure out is whether or not their secrets matter to my investigation. In the case of taking Zion down, they ultimately didn’t. I hope you and Jasper have a happy life here.”
Mildred gave me an enthusiastic hug, and I could tell she would be crying before I ever stepped off the porch. Jasper grasped my hand, then gave me an awkward pat on the shoulder before thanking me.
Then I headed back to Sinful for a long conversation with Ida Belle and Gertie.