James Grippando - Last to die

Theo was reclining in the passenger seat, his feet up on the dash, fanning himself with a folded newspaper. “You know, I think this is actually going to work.”

Jack was inspecting an air filter, blowing out the dirt. “How would you know? You haven’t lifted a finger all day.”

“I’m not talking about the Rover. I’m talking about this chapalo.”

“Your what?”

He raised the bottle and said, “It’s a millet beer my buddies from Belgium gave me. They said it would cure my hangover.”

“You think drinking more alcohol is the way to recover from drinking too much alcohol?”

“It’s not just alcohol. It’s pimenté, the way the Ivorians drink it. They add hot peppers to give it extra kick. All I know is that it’s kicking the crap out of my hangover.”

“Brilliant,” said Jack. “Next time I overeat, I’ll go stuff myself with a cheeseburger pimenté.

“Mmm. That sounds pretty good.”

Jack shut the hood, walked around to the driver’s side, and leaned into the open window. They were parked in the alley beside their hotel, taking advantage of the very limited shade of the two-story building. Jack asked, “Has your head stopped throbbing long enough for you to think about Alan Sirap?”

Theo sipped his beer and made a face, as if suffering from brief pimenté overload. “Doesn’t make no sense.”

“You mean Sally naming him as the sixth beneficiary?”

“This is the guy who stabbed Sally and killed her daughter. And Rene says her sister wanted to fly back to Miami and meet him? That’s what don’t make no sense.”

“Well, Rene talked her out of that. She realized how dangerous it could be.”

“Or how pointless it could be.”

“How’s that?” asked Jack.

“I’m thinking maybe the reason Sally wasn’t afraid to meet him is that she was convinced he wasn’t the man who killed her daughter.”

“So, you’re saying she was trying to prove a negative?”

“Huh?”

“The only reason she wanted to meet with the stalker was to rule him out as a possible suspect in the murder of her daughter.”

“Possible, ain’t it?” said Theo.

“Yeah. It’s also possible that she knew exactly how dangerous he was, but she wasn’t afraid of dying. Just like she wasn’t afraid to die two years later when she tried to hire your brother to shoot her.”

Theo squinted. The sun had moved just enough to create an annoying glare across the top of the windshield. “Either way, I guess she hated this Mr. Sirap as much as the other heirs.”

“Of course,” said Jack. “It was the stalking that led to the prosecutor’s accusation that Sally was trying to cover up for the man who killed her daughter.”

“Okay. That means five of the six heirs are connected to Sally’s past life. Which leaves a big question about my brother: What’s Tatum’s connection?”

Jack looked away, then back. “Maybe he’s the guy who made her whole scheme possible. She rewarded him for killing her.”

“No, no, doesn’t fit. She didn’t leave this money to reward anybody. She was trying to punish people. The only reason for her to punish Tatum is not because he made her scheme possible by killing her, but because he almost made her plan impossible. He refused to kill her.”

“But think about it. Doesn’t it make it more of a punishment for the other five if she makes Tatum Knight the sixth beneficiary?”

“She don’t need Tatum for that. She’s already got Alan Sirap, or whatever his real name is. Why would she need two-”

Jack waited for his friend to finish, and then he realized why he’d stopped. “Two killers? Is that what you were going to say?”

Theo chugged his beer, then threw the bottle out the open window. It smashed against the brick wall. “Was you who said it, not me,” he said angrily.

“Theo, come on.”

“Come on nothin’. I didn’t come all the way over here to prove my brother was guilty. It’d be nice if you could just pretend for ten minutes that you think he’s innocent.”

“I’m not-”

Theo got out and walked toward the hotel. Jack followed him inside, but Theo continued straight through the lobby and into the restaurant, probably for a replacement bottle of chapalo. Rene was at the front desk, checking out.

“What’s wrong with him?” she asked.

“Bad case of pissed-off pimenté.” Jack grabbed her suitcase and said, “We can load up.”

He led her outside and put her suitcase in back. She took shotgun, and Jack sat behind the wheel. Even with the windows open, there was no breeze to cut the mid-afternoon sun. The simple act of carrying her bag to the car had caused Jack to break a sweat.

Rene was checking her reflection in the rearview mirror, putting up her hair for the long and hot ride ahead of them. Jack averted his eyes when she caught him staring, though she didn’t seem to mind the attention.

With a bobby pin in her mouth she asked, “When are you going to get around to asking me?”

“Asking you what?”

“The question that must be on your mind: Why didn’t Sally leave one red cent of her forty-six million dollars to her darling sister, Rene?”

Jack removed his dusty Australian-style hat and wiped the sweat from the back of his neck with a bandanna. “That’s definitely near the top of my list.”

“What are you waiting for?”

“Honestly, my plan was to give it a day or two, get to know you a little, so I could tell if you were lying or not. Then I was going to ask.”

She cut her eyes and said, “You think you’re going to get to know me that well, do you?”

“No, I wasn’t implying-I’m a pretty quick study, is what I’m trying to say.”

She seemed amused by his embarrassment. She took his hand and said, “Put your finger right here, would you, please?”

Jack pressed his finger to the center of a long, twisted braid at the back of her head. Rene tied it all together with a colorful piece of rope, the kind he’d seen African women selling on the streets of Korhogo. In seconds, she’d completely transformed her look, and somehow it came as no surprise to Jack that she was just as striking with all that hair tucked up under her hat.

She looked at Jack and asked, “Should I tell you now?”

“Tell me what?”

“About me and Sally. And her will.”

“Now’s good.”

“You sure? I can wait, if you think you’ll be a better judge of my truth telling after we’ve bounced all the way back to Korhogo together.”

She was clearly poking fun at his “plan.” He said, “I’ll assume the risk. Go ahead.”

She took a breath, adopting a more serious air. “Truth is, Sally and I had a little falling out.”

“How little?”

“Actually, not so little. We were barely speaking to each other after she left Africa.”

“What happened?”

“Things were great while she was here. Everybody at Children First loved her. Two sisters working side by side for a good cause, fighting against the use of children as slave labor in the cocoa fields. I was truly sad when she decided to leave, and I thought I understood. Till about two months later. That’s when I found out Sally was getting married.”

“To her millionaire husband.”

“Not just any millionaire. Sally’s mega-millionaire actually owns a cocoa plantation that hires child slaves.”

“I had no idea,” he said, shaking his head. “Wow. You must have felt totally betrayed.”

“I was furious.”

“Are you still?”

“In hindsight, I realize that Sally was so screwed up over the murder of her daughter. Like I said before, she tried everything from working for charity to marrying for money. Nothing made her happy.”