Paul Robertson: The Heir

I fell asleep, and Eric sat by me through the whole night.

In the morning, Eric was still there, the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes.

The second thing I saw was a dead caterpillar. No… it was Detective Wilcox’s lip.

And he was so sorry for the misunderstanding. Oh, how sorry he was.

The wretched man was treading eggshells on top of eggshells. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men weren’t going to save more than a third of the careers in the Division of State Police, and I, Jason Boyer, was the king.

Would I mind just a few questions? A couple things he hoped to clear up. They had a good idea of how three of the murders had been committed. Nathan Kern was singing like a canary, trying to nurture any mercy in his captors. Wilcox wanted to describe the whole thing, to see if I had any additions or corrections. It had been such a misunderstanding. And had he mentioned how sorry he was?

I sent him out of the room while I freshened up, and when I was ready, I allowed him to begin.

Melvin had told Nathan months ago that he was changing his will. He had not said why. At first Nathan had graciously accepted the decision. As time passed, though, he couldn’t. He tried to persuade Melvin to keep the arrangements as they had been. Melvin refused to discuss the matter. Nathan apologized, but he had pushed a little too hard.

Melvin’s confidence in his director had been shaken.

I saw how it was, and Wilcox guessed at it, too. Even if Nathan hadn’t recognized how deeply the money had him hooked, Melvin saw it right away. The less trusting Melvin became, the more frantic Nathan acted.

He realized his days might be numbered at the foundation, and he couldn’t bear the thought of a less elegant lifestyle. So he’d opened a bank account in Zurich and started juggling the budget.

He was not very good at crime, whereas Melvin was an expert. Though he did not think Nathan was dangerous, his notes about the foundation were clear-he was getting very upset with his director. The police had found the whole stack of papers in Nathan’s basement.

“This was… after… Melvin said… he was… changing… his will.” The contraption on my jaw was getting real old.

“That’s right,” Wilcox said. “As far as we can tell from your father’s papers and the bank records, none of this was part of the original reason he decided to change his will.”

Then Melvin died. Nathan claimed no part of that. He didn’t know how to drain a brake line, or even that a car had such a thing.

Nathan hadn’t known that Melvin had uncovered the embezzling. After Nathan had talked to Angela about being on the board, she had looked at Melvin’s papers. She didn’t understand them, except that something was making Melvin angry. She wrote Nathan the letter to say she would have nothing to do with the foundation.

He called her but she was even more determined. She told him she’d call me and tell me to fire him. She’d show me the notes.

“She called… me,” I said. “She… only said… she wouldn’t… be… on the board.”

“And then you called Kern. That’s when he knew she hadn’t tattled on him. Could she have been blackmailing him?”

“She didn’t… like… black. Only… pink.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’d… have to… know her.”

“I’ve talked with other people who knew her,”Wilcox said. “She was apparently eccentric, if that’s what you mean.”

Nathan flew to Washington, but then he drove back to meet with her. He asked to see her privately. But he quickly saw that she was irrational, that his position was threatened, even hopeless. And Angela, helpless fool, had her gun out for protection. How easily he took it and used it. He had the letter she’d sent and saw how it could be made into a suicide note.

It had all been so quick, so natural. It hadn’t been planned-it was self-defense. So much was at stake. After he killed her, he took the incriminating files from Melvin’s office.

The suicide facade fell through very quickly. He realized it wasn’t going to be so easy.

Then Clinton Grainger called. He’d seen copies of the notes, delivered earlier by his agent who had broken into Melvin’s office. He could tell they would be worth something against me, and he wanted to see if he could blackmail Nathan onto his side.

I’d called Nathan the afternoon before I met Grainger at the hotel and told him about the meeting. He had hardly a qualm at that point. He bought his own gun that afternoon. He called Clinton and said he wanted a meeting that night, which they arranged for the hotel after our meeting.

And all the while Nathan was working on me, trying to convince me how terrible the money was, how I needed to get rid of it. It was all about to fall into his lap when Katie got in the way.

She was the one who could stop my plan, so she had to be stopped herself. He tried to think how he could stop the divorce or talk her out of her lawsuits and obstruction. But he knew there was only one way.

Then, in my office that afternoon, I’d walked right in with my gun in my hand. I’d set it on the sofa. I’d looked so dazed, he realized I might not even know I had it. He slid a cushion over it. I was clueless.

In those few seconds he’d made his plan to kill Katie-and perhaps get me accused of it by using my gun. It would jeopardize my ability to transfer the money to the foundation, but it would also give the police a suspect. Nathan was getting very worried they would find Melvin’s papers in Grainger’s office, or that Angela or Grainger had talked to someone else. There were too many loose ends.

So he went to see her that evening.

“What… did she… say… to him?”

“He claims she wasn’t open to changing her mind.”

“He’s… lying.”

“How do you know?”

“She… let him… in.”

Wilcox considered. “You might be right. It would look a lot worse if he’d killed her even though she was willing to back down on the divorce. It would prove premeditation. And he hadn’t expected you to show up just minutes later.”

I was tired of talking. And living, too. I closed my eyes. She really hadn’t had to die. I wanted to die.

I didn’t feel like telling Wilcox where I’d been, which frustrated him. But he was in no position to push. And I’d thought of one other thing.

“Airport. JFK.”

“In New York?”

I nodded. “Car. I rented.”

“The white Mercury.”

“Thousand dollars… in it. I don’t want it back.”

“Right. It’s evidence. I’ll make sure it doesn’t disappear. We’ll put it in the widows’ and orphans’ fund. One more question,” he said. “Any idea why your father wanted to change his will in the first place?”

“No.”

If only I did.

“Wow.” Eric had heard the whole thing. “Everybody is so…” He didn’t know what word to use.

“Evil.” Or whatever. “It’s the money.”

He was getting it. “That’s what you kept saying.”

“I… hoped… Nathan could… help me.”

“And then you found out he was the killer.”

“I hoped… he knew… something stronger… than the money.”

“And he didn’t. That’s why you tried to jump off the building.”

“Yes.”

He was using brain cells he never had before. “So… I guess that means you didn’t find anything.”

“No.”

“What are you going to do when you get out of the hospital?”

“Don’t know.” This thing would be on my jaw for a month. Another reason to not live that long.

“And… Jason… what about…”

“Melvin.”

“Yeah. So, did Nathan Kern kill him? Or else, who did?”