Page 175 of Dead Man's List

Connor’s brows lifted. “Why do you sound like that?”

“Because I’m embarrassed. You will be, too. Wilhelmina took it. She found it before we got to Munro’s house the night we did the notification.”

Connor’s mouth fell open. “Wilhelmina? What the fuck?” He winced. “Sorry, Mom.”

“It’s okay,” Susan said, looking equally shocked. “Wilhelmina stole from Brooks Munro? What the fuck?”

Connor choked and his mother just patted his hand.

“CSU did a scan of Munro’s floor and found a very well-concealed safe under the hardwood floorboards. Remember we thought it didn’t look like Veronica had searched his home office? She confirmed that she’d left it a mess when I talked to her yesterday. However, when Wilhelmina was cleaning up the mess, she found the lever that popped up a board, revealing the safe. The combination was Veronica’s birthday. So Wilhelmina more than ‘suspected’ that Munro and Veronica were intimately involved when she talked to us that first night. She outright knew they’d been having an affair for years. We think she guessed that Munro would choose a combination that was related to Veronica.”

“But why?” Susan asked. “Were her millions not enough?”

Kit shook her head. “She doesn’t have millions. Not anymore. Wilhelmina’s lawyer for the family trust fought hard for a fewdays to keep from sharing her financial statements, but Marshall and Ashton were finally able to get the warrant. Remember the little sculpture in Wilhelmina’s rental condo? The one you thought was worth twenty-five grand?”

“Yes,” Connor said. “And was I right?”

“About that, yeah. But remember how I contacted the condo’s owner to ask about it when we were driving back to the station after talking to Wilhelmina, and I had to leave a message? The owner finally called me back, but I wasn’t in the office, so the call was routed to Kevin Marshall. Turns out, the sculpture didnotbelong to the condo owner. He said he’d seen it in Munro’s house when he’d visited Wilhelmina there. She’d told him that her husband had bought the sculpture, that it was Munro’s.”

“So, that she’d taken property from the house was cause for suspicion,” Connor said slowly.

Kit nodded. “Exactly. The theft, plus the fact that she’d lived with a blackmailer, indicated that she might have had motive to kill Munro as well, but it was the theft that tipped the scales in our favor. Marshall and Ashton got the financial report right about the same time that you were getting shot. Turns out that Wilhelmina’s dead broke.”

“What?” Susan gasped.

Kit nodded. “Looks like Munro took a lot of Wilhelmina’s money and some bad investments ate the rest. So we got a warrant for the condo she’s renting and we hit the jackpot. Seems Wilhelmina had stolen a fair amount of the artwork he’d owned, mostly items that were small enough to transport in the trunk of her rental car. She’d already filled it up before we arrived last Saturday night.”

“How much did she get from Munro’s safe?” Connor asked.

“Over six million dollars, all in fifties, all nonsequential,” Kit said. “Munro apparently didn’t believe in banks, on or offshore.Wilhelmina had it packed in suitcases when we arrived at the condo with our warrant. You remember when I pointed out that fifty on the floor in her rental?”

“She said she’d given it to Rafferty for groceries.”

“She lied. That was part of the haul. She and Rafferty had been counting the cash when we knocked on her door.”

“Wow.” Connor shook his head. “I guess she can argue that the artwork was jointly hers since they were married. Or she thought they were.”

“Well, Laura Letterman isn’t letting Wilhelmina get away with anything. She’s filed on behalf of Veronica to get it all back. But neither of them will get to keep any of it. It’s all going to go into a victims’ fund. Not everyone Munro victimized were people who had done blackmail-worthy things. Some were people he’d forced to donate to his campaign in exchange for meetings with him.”

“What an asshole,” Susan said, and Connor choked again.

“Mom.”

Susan just patted his hand. Her smile was bright, but it seemed fragile. Brittle even. Seeing her son nearly die had shaken her, understandably. She wasn’t okay, either. But she would be.

“What about the hit man?” Connor asked. “The real one, not the undercover cop.”

“He’s gone,” Kit said. “He crossed the border into Mexico about a week before Munro was killed. For now, he’s in the wind. But we did find Veronica’s bank account. Walter Grossman’s, too. Both in the Caymans. But most of their money was in a safe in Veronica’s house there. Veronica kept an accounting of the cash she collected from victims and doled out to Munro, and he in turn to Grossman. Her having an affair with Grossman meant Veronica was sharing the numbers, so he knew exactly what he was owed. For what it was worth, the three seemed to be honest with each other.”

“How nice,” Connor said sarcastically.

Kit grinned. “The ledger she kept was in her safe, along with the cash. The police in George Town had to get a warrant to search and then find a safe cracker. They just let us know about that money two days ago, but everything was out of control and Navarro didn’t see the message until yesterday.” She paused, going through the list of debrief items in her mind. “Oh. We checked the guard shack’s security feed and found a motorcyclist driving out of Munro’s community early Wednesday morning, then back on Wednesday afternoon. The times lined up with when Shoemaker’s school was in session. We figure he used the trailer to transport both the Ferrari and the motorcycle out of Munro’s neighborhood. The guard noted the motorcycle’s reentry in his logbook on Wednesday afternoon, said the guy claimed to be with Norton Landscaping and had come to help his partner clean up after he’d been working all day.” She sighed. “After the guard had seen him at least twice that day, I guess Shoemaker figured he was a major loose end.”

“And Munro’s list?” Connor asked quietly.

“Haven’t found it yet,” Kit said with a frustrated sigh. “CSU has searched the Suburban, that horrible cabin, and some of Shoemaker’s house. The house will take longer to search because it’s so immense, so we still might find it.”

“Could he have buried it outside the cabin?” Connor asked.