Page 144

“This is the day after we had the milk and cookies!”

The squeaks were coming from below, in the garage. And as with the police in the Poe story, Pelley didn’t seem to hear them. But he was an old guy, and maybe on the deaf side.

“Was it, now?”

“Yes, and some nice conversation.” I wasn’t going to tell him that Allie had sent Jake and Joe into Greg’s study to play, and I’d later found the wicker basket of cat toys overturned. That was the last thing I was going to tell this sharp-eyed (but possibly dull-eared) man. Nor would I tell him that I had conversed, more or less, with the twins myself. Hello, Jake. Hello, Joe, what do you know?

It had been a harmless nod to an old lady’s wistful fantasy. So I’d thought, but who knows when you open the door to a haunting? Or how?

“Go on and read the rest.”

I did. It was brief and informal.

This is my last will and testament, revoking all previous wills. Which is silly, because in my case there are no others. I am sound of mind if a little less so in body. I leave this house, my bank account at First Sun Trust, my investment account with Building the Future LLC, and all other worldly possessions to VICTOR TRENTON, currently living at 1567 Rattlesnake Road. My lawyer, who I didn’t consult when I wrote this, is Nathan Rutherford in Palm Village.

Signed,

Alita Marie Bell

There was another signature below it, in a different hand: Roberto M. Garcia, Witness.

I forgot about the squeaking from the garage (or maybe it stopped). I read her death-letter—nothing else to call it—over again. A third time. Then I slid Pelley’s phone back across the table, a little harder than I had to. He blocked it like a hockey puck with one tanned and wrinkled hand.

“That’s crazy.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”

“I only met her twice. Three times, if you count finding her dead.”

“No idea why she’d leave you everything?”

“No. And hey, that… that note… will never stand up in court. I’d say her relatives would go nuclear, but they won’t have to because I won’t contest it.”

“Roberto Garcia owns Plant World. They did her groundskeeping.”

“Yes, I’ve seen their trucks in her driveway.”

“Bobby G has also been around here for donkey’s years. If he says he saw her write that—and I have spoken to him and he says yeah, he did, although she held her hand over it when he signed so he didn’t know what was in it—then I gotta believe it.”

“Doesn’t change anything.” My words came out okay, but my whole face felt numb, as if I’d been shot up with Novocain. The oddest thing. “This lawyer will get in touch with her relatives, and—”

“I also talked to Nate Rutherford. Known him—”

“Donkey’s years, I’m sure. You’ve been busy, Deputy Pelley.”

“I get around,” he said, and not without satisfaction. “He’s been Mrs. Bell’s lawyer for…” He seemed to consider donkey’s years and decided it should be put to bed. “… for decades. He pretty much took over her affairs after Mrs. Bell’s husband and boys died. She was what they call prostrate with grief. And you know what? He says she doesn’t have any relatives.”

“Everybody has relatives. Donna—my late wife—claimed that her family went back to Mary Stuart, also known as Mary, Queen of—”

“Queen of Scots, I did go to school once upon a time, Mr. Trenton, back when all the phones had dials and cars came without seatbelts. I asked Nate how much the lady’s estate might total up to and he declined to say. But considering the property—bay to Gulf, very fine—I’d guess quite a tasty chunk of change.”

I got up, rinsed my coffee cup, and filled it with water. Giving myself time to think. Also listening for the stroller, but that was quiet.

I came back to the table and sat down. “Are you seriously suggesting that I somehow coerced the lady into writing a jackleg will… and then… what? Killed her?”

The eyes, boring into mine. “I think you just suggested that, Mr. Trenton. But since you have… did you?”

“Good Christ, no! I talked to her twice! I indulged her little fantasy! Then I found her dead! Of a heart attack, most likely—she told me she had arrhythmia.”