A Will To Murder (32 page)

“Yes,” Rose said sadly.

“After learning her father had disinherited her, Jac remembered she was still in her aunt’s will.  She called Irv that day and explained her new plan to kill Katherine.  After Katherine’s death, Jac called Irv again and said her aunt’s estate had to go through probate court before she would receive any cash from it.  Irv became suspicious that she was trying to dodge him and demanded his money quickly.”

“That was the whole point to killing Father and Aunt Katy?” said Rose, staring at the rug, “To pay off a stupid ninety thousand dollar debt?  I can’t believe it.”

“How did Jac and Willowby manage it?” Armagnac asked.  

“Willowby had been having an affair with Jac, and she had promised to divorce her husband and marry him.  Of course, if Jac had inherited, your chauffeur would have become quite a rich man.”

Boyle made a dying fish noise at the thought of Willowby becoming his brother-in-law.  Rose bit her knuckles.

“Willowby’s been cooperating as part of his plea bargain,” the lawyer said.  “Jac admits nothing.  We think Willowby installed the CD player before he left on vacation.  The day after your father died, Heydrick, who was out mowing, noticed some smoke coming from behind a knoll.  He found a pile of partially burned papers with the flames guttering out and saw Willowby running towards the carriage house.  Your gardener knew about the chauffeur’s affair with Jac and became suspicious.  Heydrick found the still-undamaged CD case and inserts and removed them, then used a pocket lighter to get the fire going again to cover his theft.  Then he hid himself.  Willowby returned with some lighter fluid, apparently after realizing he needed a hotter fire.  He added the fluid and stayed to break up the ashes.  

“Unfortunately, Heydrick didn’t tell the police.  Your gardener has been in jail, and he was afraid the police would accuse
him
of installing that CD player inside the Mercedes-Knight.  I also suspect he did not find your father’s demise very regrettable.

“Heydrick intended to hide the CD case in his work shed, but needed to buy a padlock for the building.  He didn’t want to use the carriage house as a temporary hiding place because Willowby lived there too, so he left it in the attic.  Heydrick felt it would be safe, since practically no one ever went up there.  Thus it stunned him to see Arthur in the attic window just as the gardener was returning from buying the padlock.  Heydrick ran up the back stairs and retrieved the case, then locked it inside the shed.  

“We think the CD was Willowby’s inspiration, for your sister called the idea ‘idiotic’ when the police questioned her.  The chauffeur was noncommital.  Escott thinks that the CD was a try-it-and-see attempt, with others to follow if this one failed.  After James died in the car, Willowby entered the Chichiteaux Bagel Shop to call an ambulance, and tossed the remote he had used for the player into a trash can there.  His fingerprints weren’t on the remote since he was wearing motoring gloves.

“As for your aunt, her death was a dreadful mistake.  Jac didn’t know that James had left the money to Katherine in a trust, drawn up so Jac couldn’t inherit any of it even  after Katherine's death.”

Rose sobbed softly.  “What about Colette, Lance, and Richie?” she asked when she recovered herself.  “She couldn’t have killed them.”

“She did,” replied Hamilton bluntly.  “First, I need to describe how your aunt died, because it explains Colette’s death, and ultimately Lance’s.  Jac decoyed Sheila out of the kitchen by telling the cook to buy some strawberries, then dropped some sodium cyanide powder in a bottle of dandelion wine.  Irv had given her the cyanide.”  

Rose let out a sickly gasp.  Armagnac almost made a remark about her abominable dandelion wine, but thought better of it.

“Because Katherine was the only one who ever drank Mrs. Cummings’ brews, Jac knew this was a clever way to poison her victim.  After Katherine died, Jac stole downstairs in the night to retrieve the wine bottle.  But she didn’t notice Colette sleeping on the couch.  When Jac picked the bottle off the tea cart, she made a noise and Colette woke and saw her.  Ms. Wiley asked what she was doing.  Flustered, Jac replied, ‘Getting a nightcap.’

“Colette probably believed this, but your sister knew that Colette could incriminate her--if the cyanide and the dandelion wine were found together inside your aunt’s stomach.”

“So when Colette asked for a vaporizer, Jac saw how to kill her.  Your sister put some cyanide powder in the vaporizer, filled a plastic watering pitcher part way with water, then added lemon juice to the water.  Unknowingly, Colette poured the mixture into the cyanide.  The acid in the lemon juice wasn’t very strong, but there was enough of a chemical reaction that Colette got a dose of cyanide gas right up the breathing tube she was using.  She could not have escaped the room because Jac had locked the door.  The chemical reaction weakened after the potency of the acid declined, and the vaporizer stopped working after the water level dropped below the heating element.  Jac put on a gas mask Irv had given her, and went back into Colette’s room to open the windows.  After draining the vaporizer in the third floor bathroom, she rinsed it out thoroughly, added more water to it, and put it back inside Colette’s room.  Then she spritzed the room with some of Colette’s potpourri spray to cover any smell.  Later, Jac drove off into the woods and threw the vaporizer away, along with the dandelion wine.  No one was on the third floor that night to hear any outcry except Jac’s children, and Jac had ordered them to ignore any noises they heard.  Lance was off at a bar, and Mrs. Marshpool was staying in Armagnac’s room.”  

“I could have prevented Colette’s death,” said Mrs. Marshpool harshly, “if I’d had my keys.”  The housekeeper gave Bert a venomous look.  

Bert stayed silent.  After taking the keys from Mrs. Marshpool, he had given them to the one person he was positive would not return them to the housekeeper--Jac.  Cummings swallowed.  He decided he would never, ever, tell anyone about this.  But he was afraid Mrs. Marshpool had already guessed.  

“What about Lance?” Rose asked weakly.  

“Before she died, Colette told her brother that she’d seen Jac retrieve the bottle, and Lance stupidly mentioned it to Jac.  On the night after Colette’s death, I understand a ruckus took place here just as everyone was going to bed.  Am I correct?”

“Something of the sort,” Armagnac answered stiffly.

“Briarly said Lance chased Richie and herself up the stairs, and Jac followed.  Lance said, ‘Are you crazy or something?  What are you prowling around in the middle of the night for?  My sister saw you.  What are you up to?’”  

The lawyer sighed.  “Lance was drunk.  I doubt he understood how Mrs. Salisbury would react.”  

“Goddamn!” Bert yelled.  “That’s not possible!  Jac came downstairs laughing!  Not like she had another murder to commit.”

“She’s like my grandfather Hiram,” said Armagnac, “and he was one tough son of a bitch.”

“Army!” Rose exclaimed.

“Don’t pretend he was a sweet guy, dammit.”

Rose did not reply.  After a pause, Hamilton spoke again.  “According to Briarly, Jac said something about how Lance needed some comfort.  Then she opened her dressing gown and rubbed up against him.  Briarly wasn’t sure what was happening, as she could only see her mother from the back, but she said Lance just stared blankly.  Then Jac closed her gown and went downstairs.  Briarly said Lance seemed dazed, and went off to his bedroom.  The children did not discuss the incident.  Mrs. Salisbury had sealed her kids’ lips about Mom’s activities long ago, it seems.

“Anyhow, Jac seduced Lance by the end of the next day.  Then she told her husband about it, boasting to Phil about Lance’s sexual prowess and sneering, ‘You wouldn’t dare shoot him, you’re not man enough’.  Phil went out and bought a gun exactly as Jac had been hoping.  She seems able to manipulate her husband quite deftly.  However, he balked at killing Lance, and when he did, Jac shot Lance herself.  Then she tried to frame Phil.”

“Jesus,” said Bert slowly.  “I’m having a hard time believing this.  That’s really evil.”

“It’s not true!” cried Rose.  “Willowby must have shot Lance.  After all, he was a rival for my sister.  And,” she continued shakily, “there was no way she killed Richie.”  

The lawyer looked at her soberly.  “Ma’am, all the evidence implicates her in Lance’s death, not Willowby.  To return to his death, just before Jac shot him, she scouted to see where everyone was.  She listened at your bedroom door, Mr. Boyle, and realized that neither you nor Mrs. Marshpool were in a position to respond quickly.”

The housekeeper gave a twitch, and Armagnac’s gaze dropped to the carpet.

“The Cummingses were in Chichiteaux, and Mr. Maxwell and Mr. Smith had gone for a walk.  Sheila was in the kitchen.  Phil was smoking in the basement, Heydrick was outside gardening, and Willowby was in the carriage house.  The only two near Lance were Richie and Briarly, and Jac had told them not to open their bedroom doors.

“Jac was in her nylons, partially to quiet the noise of her footsteps, and partially to support her excuse of ‘being napping’ while Lance was shot.  She had the gun inside her purse, and she donned a pair of surgical gloves.  Lance was lifting weights with his bedroom door open, his back towards her.  Jac shot him in the head, dropped the gun inside her purse, and stripped the gloves off while running down the hall.  She went down the back stairs to her bedroom, and since her room is right next to the back landing, and yours, Mr. Armagnac, is at the opposite end of that floor, it would have taken a few moments for you and Mrs. Marshpool to don bathrobes, go down the hall, and turn the corner.  Jac had enough time to run undetected into her room.  Once there, she tossed her purse on the floor, partially closed her door, but kept hold of the handle.  Then she mused her hair and waited.  When she heard you two approach, she opened the door as if she had just risen and shouted, ‘What the hell was that?’

“After the body was found, Jac said she would call the police.  That was her excuse to get away from you.  First, she stopped by her bedroom and fetched her purse.  Then she went into the bathroom, weighed down the surgical gloves with a lipstick inside each, and flushed them down the toilet.  Everyone must have been so preoccupied with Lance that no one noticed the sound of a toilet flushing, if they could hear it at all.  Mrs. Salisbury, I’m afraid, boasted of having practiced this disposal technique to Willowby.  Then she washed her hands and arms of any gunpowder residue and dried them on a towel.

“She put her purse back in her bedroom, and called the police.  Escott said they received a second call about ten minutes after the first one.  The gap wasn’t significant enough to have alerted them.”

Bert interrupted.  “What about the gun?  You’re not telling me she called the cops with the gun still in her purse?”  Cummings was dumbfounded.

“So it seems,” the lawyer said.  “Your sister-in-law appears to be fearless.  I believe Mr. Maxwell suggested you all go down to the living room, and there Jac asked about her kids.  If Richie and Briarly had been with the rest of you, she undoubtedly would have produced another excuse to slip away again.  She returned to her bedroom for her purse and shoes, and went up to the attic to place the gun there.  She lifted it out of her purse with a pair of kleenex layered on top of each other, dropped the tissue that had touched the gun into a corner, and simply disposed of the other in a trash on her return.  Briarly said she heard her mother’s heals clicking rapidly on the wooden stairs.  Phil, of course, guessed whose gun had killed Lance, and knowing his own fingerprints were on it, panicked and fled the house.  He didn’t know who had shot Lance, and didn’t suspect his wife.

“I’m sure Jac was annoyed and contemptuous when the police didn’t find the gun immediately.  I suspect their failure convinced her that she could get away with another murder.  Nevertheless, she made a mistake.  After they arrested her at the racetrack, the investigators found gunpowder residue on the lining inside her purse.  Jac hadn’t thought of that.”

“What about Richie’s death?” Armagnac asked.  Rose turned away.

“With the statements of Briarly and Willowby, we have some idea of how he died.  Jac still needed to get some money fast, so she ordered her children to steal Arthur’s penny.”

“You mean Arthur wasn’t kidding?” said Bert.  

“No.  But her children failed, so Jac had to try something else.  So she killed Richie.”  

“No,” Rose moaned.  “I can’t believe my sister murdered her own son.”

“Ma’am, the police have discovered a life insurance policy for Richie.  The amount pays his parents one hundred thousand dollars, and it was taken out only two months before James Boyle’s death.  Apparently she was considering this method to cure her financial problems even then.  She took out another policy at the same time--for Briarly.  Phil also had a policy on himself, taken out soon after his marriage.  That one was for a million dollars.”

Cautiously, Bert asked, “Why do you think it was Richie, instead or Briarly or Phil?”

“Mr. Salisbury was the breadwinner,” Hamilton reminded him.  “As for Briarly, she was more obedient than her brother and had long ago assumed many of her mother’s household chores.  In that respect she must have been more valuable to her mother than Richie.

“On the morning the boy died, Jac told her son, ‘You come with me.  I need to return this wrench to Willowby, and I also need to do some shopping.  I’ll leave you at Rollingwood while I’m getting the shower cap and other things.’  Briarly said the wrench was huge, and that her mother donned a pair of surgical gloves before she picked it up.  Neither child asked why.”  

Rose shuddered.

“After reaching Rollingwood, Jac told Richie to get some toy soldiers from his bedroom and the two went up to the observation deck.  They climbed over the railing, and worked their way to the edge of the roof.  Jac was still holding the wrench.  The view from the roof would have shown her whether anyone was watching, and she hit Richie a violent blow on the head.”

Rose began to weep.  Bert and Armagnac looked somber.  The housekeeper’s lips tightened.