by Jack Parker
"Where? And what did you find?" Meredith asked with sudden interest.
"Oh, nothing much, just Robbie's hand-written Will," Shawna said.
"At Loretta's house!" Gracie practically crowed.
"Really! How'd you mange that?"
"Karen told me that Jason first claimed to have the Will, then changed his story and said he didn't. It occurred to me that Loretta was the type who might take it so we went over with a story about looking at photos to get to know the family better and made excuses to look around."
"Stirring up shit," Meredith muttered.
"Oh, and she's got a bunch of your brother's picture albums," Gracie continued. "She said she took 'em so Robbie couldn't have them and that she was going to give them to you but when I offered to do that she said she'd take care of it later."
"I'll have to pay a call on her." Meredith's eyes showed a hint of fire.
"The Will's in the nightstand in her bedroom," Shawna told her. "Take it and you can tell Ken you'd found it hidden in the albums."
"Ken told me it was an illegal search, so he can't get a warrant for the Will," Gracie said contritely.
"I don't give a damn about the Will!" Meredith said hotly. "Let 'em fight over the money amongst themselves, I couldn't care less. But I want those albums."
"But the Will leaves everything to Jason," Gracie said pleadingly. "It could be his motive to kill his mother, or Charlie, Loretta or Ashley's motive to kill him."
"Except that it's only dated a couple weeks before Robbie's death," Shawna said. "So Jason might not have known she'd left everything to him. And we don't know if the others knew about the change so it's really hard to tell what it might mean."
Meredith's face had a thoughtful look. "I can tell you what it doesn't mean. Loretta didn't try to kill her brother."
"Why, because she's got plenty of money already?" Shawna asked.
"Nope. Because she'd have burned that will and flushed the ashes if she were guilty, leaving no clue, no association whatsoever to any inheritance. She's smart enough to think of that, even if she wasn't after the money."
"I hadn't thought of that," Gracie admitted. "It makes perfect sense, too. That woman ought to have been on the stage! I can't decide if she took it to cover for one brother, or help the other get his fair inheritance."
"I doubt she really cares about either," Meredith said. "More likely she took it because she could, and knew it would create drama."
The three women sat there looking at each other, not knowing what to say. They all knew they could continue speculating, but they hadn't enough evidence to back up any theory.
Shawna brightened. "Gracie, tell her about your trip to see Connie Canardi."
"John's Trustee? Why'd you go see her?" Meredith asked.
"Just to see what she'd say," Gracie replied. "I didn't learn much at all that would really be of any help, just that she said she'd given Robbie the copy of your brother's Will a couple of days before he died. She emphasized the word 'copy'. Oh, and that she hadn't written a Will for Robbie, but we know that now."
"Speaking of Wills, I talked to John's preacher the other day," Meredith said. She laughed gently. "The man said that John told him the church would be remembered in his Will, but he wasn't surprised to find out differently."
"Did he leave anything to the church in the copy of the Will that Robbie came up with?"
"Not a word," Meredith said. "He was getting forgetful, maybe he never made the change. Did Ms. Canardi say anything about the Trust?"
"Not really. She said Robbie didn't ask for her services in probating the Estate. She didn't know whether Robbie knew she wasn't practicing law anymore or just thought it might be a conflict of interest."
"Robbie can't corroborate that now," Meredith remarked.
"No, and personally I don't think that happened," Gracie told her.
"Because Loretta's right and Ms. Canardi is embezzling from the Trust?"
"Maybe," Gracie allowed.
"She'd have to put the money back and juggle the books to hide it now, since the court is looking into the Trust," Shawna said.
"Cook the books," Meredith corrected.
"I think she planned to embezzle, maybe even take all the money," Gracie said. "But she was smart enough not to do it yet."
Meredith gestured for her to continue.
"Until your lawyer started asking questions and the Trust papers were posted online as part of the probate case, no one had a copy," Gracie began. "Ms. Canardi lied to you about being a secondary beneficiary, and I'll bet she was surprised when you asked, because you weren't supposed to know that Trust even existed."
"True, but we've been through all that. John was mad at me and didn't tell me about it," Meredith agreed.
"I know, but now I wonder if we got that part right. Maybe your brother was okay with you getting a share of whatever was left over after his wife's death, thinking that it wouldn't happen for many years yet and she'd have spent most of the money. Especially since he couldn't change the Trust. But asking his lawyer to lie would be asking her to do something illegal. What if Ms. Canardi made that decision on her own?"
"So she could get my fifth?" Meredith asked, clearly unconvinced.
"None of the documents were filed with the County Clerk," Gracie said. "So there was no real proof that there was a mortgage or a Trust. No one knew exactly how the Trust was set up, except that supposedly Robbie was the main beneficiary. Your brother's Estate has to be settled before Robbie could get any money from the Trust."
Shawna took up the tale. "Canardi could put Robbie off for a long time, refusing to take phone calls and throwing away letters. If Robbie got insistent, Canardi could demand a bunch of paperwork be filled out, and take her sweet time dealing with them."
"Drawing things out all the while hoping Robbie would die?" Meredith asked with a laugh.
"Exactly," Gracie said, nodding. "If that didn't happen, then the Trustee would fork over as little money as possible."
"And when Robbie went along with the plan and did die?"
"She'd tell Robbie's heirs that the remains of the Trust went to you," Shawna said.
Meredith guffawed as she saw the plot. "And tell me it went to Robbie's heirs! That is, if I even called. I figured I'd never know when Robbie died, anyway. So Ms. Canardi would end up with all the money in the Trust fund, and nobody would ever know. Less risky than just plain stealing, and she'd probably get more that way, too."
"I think she needs the money, too," Gracie said. "She doesn't have a secretary but pretends she does, and her office is full of antique furniture that she refinishes herself to make it look good, and I saw stacks of unopened mail."
"Full of bills, no doubt," Meredith said.
"And letters from Robbie Redmond," Gracie said. "If she knew she had to finish the probate first, why was Robbie writing to Canardi?"
CHAPTER 81
Tuesday
"All this stuff about copies of Wills bothers me," Shawna remarked.
"What do you mean?" Meredith asked.
"Robbie claimed to have only a copy of your brother's Will, but she herself had a hand-written Will without any copies, at least that we know of. There's a connection here somewhere, but I can't think what it might be."
"We already went over the idea that Robbie wasn't about to pay a lawyer to write up a Will to begin with, much less pay over and over again when she got into a tiff with one or the other of her kids," Gracie said.
Meredith laughed. "Right! If she really did change her Will every time she got pissed at one of them, or wanted to use inheritance as an inducement to do something questionable she'd have had to keep a lawyer on retainer! So she made holographic Wills and didn't bother to make copies, so what?"
Gracie frowned in thought, holding up one finger in a silent plea to let her think. Finally she said, "What's the point of making a copy of a Will, if the courts won't accept it?"
"To let your family know what it says, even maybe that
you have a Will," Meredith shrugged.
"But if you know you've put your Will in a safe place and told your family where it is, then there's no need for a copy," Gracie went on.
"Well, yeah," Meredith and Shawna said at the same time.
"What if John made a new Will – a holographic Will. He either told Robbie where it was, or she figured it out."
"He gave it to Connie Canardi to keep," Shawna suggested.
"Or maybe he thought that would be rude since he didn't have her write it, so he put it in his safe," Meredith said. "Maybe that's really why she went to Fred's the day she took the checkbook. The safe was in Fred's garage, too. And I'll bet that Robbie had made it her business to find out the combination a long time ago."
"Robbie didn't like what it said," Gracie theorized. She pointed to Meredith. "You just told us that the preacher claimed your brother would put the church in his Will. What if he left everything to the church?"
Meredith realized her mouth was hanging open in surprise, and shut it with an effort of will. "That makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. John thought the Trust would take care of his wife's living expenses and decided she didn't need whatever was left over. He was angry with me, and didn't want me to inherit either. It wouldn't surprise me that he left the Estate proper to his church." She chucked ruefully. "That would neatly kill three birds with one stone."
"Keep Robbie from spending it all, teach you a lesson, and know that the money would go to helping others," Shawna ticked the points off as she spoke.
"If that was so, we all know what happened to that Will," Meredith stated.
"She'd have – how did you put it a few minutes ago? Burned it and flushed the ashes," Gracie said. "No evidence, no proof."
"I hate to say it, but couldn't she have done the same thing if Canardi wrote up the new Will?" Shawna asked. The other two turned to look at her in irritation.
"Let's think this through logically," Meredith suggested. "We start with the one fact we know – that Robbie didn't have the original Will as of the start of the probate."
"But the lady Trustee told Gracie that she'd only given Robbie a copy," Shawna protested.
"She could've lied," Gracie waved off the statement.
"If she were really planning to embezzle, she most certainly would've lied," Meredith said. "She wouldn't want any undue attention to fall on her for any reason lest someone started asking questions about the Trust."
"Even now it would be easier for her to lie for pretty much the same reason," Gracie said. "Which means we will probably never know if Robbie ever had John's original Will."
"Let's say Robbie did get the original from Canardi," Meredith continued. "She'd taken John's checkbook and thought she could quietly close out the accounts and be done with it, so she destroyed the Will."
"And then found out that she had to probate the Estate to get to the Trust money," Shawna took up the tale.
"Surely she'd have coughed up the original after the court refused to take the copy," Gracie said. "If she still had it, I mean."
Meredith shook a finger at them to make her point. "But that doesn't have to be the only way the original Will was lost. Let's not get so caught up in bashing Robbie that we overlook other options. Even if Robbie does make a good target."
"Like what?" Shawna asked.
"John's memory wasn't terribly good the last few years," Meredith reminded them. "He might've put the Will in the safe at the office, then one day he opened the safe for something and saw the Will. Perhaps he didn't realize what it was and threw it in the trash."
"Seeing it could've reminded him that he wanted to change it, so he laid it on his desk," Gracie said. "He intended to call Ms. Canardi but got sidetracked, or maybe she didn't take his call right then; or maybe he knew she wasn't practicing anymore and he'd have to find a new lawyer. Over the next few days he piled other papers on top of it and forgot about it again."
Meredith shook her head firmly. "Don't be thinking it's still sitting on his desk! I spent an hour on the phone talking to Fred not long after John's death; he was cleaning stuff out of John's desk as we talked. I could hear him shuffling papers and he'd make comments about the things he found. I remember we both laughed at all the political propaganda; he was an ardent supporter of his party. Oh, and he asked me if I wanted a few of the things he found. I'm sure he would've mentioned it if he'd found John's Will."
"Sure," Shawna agreed. "But I think I see where Gracie was going with that. Sometime later John decided to clean his desk and grabbed up that stack of papers and tossed them. He didn't realize the Will was in there."
Meredith nodded. "Could've happened just that way. Maybe it was in with the political junk!"
"Cheryl's the one who's always talking about her relatives," Shawna began. "But I've got relatives too. My great aunt has lots of problems remembering things. She'll walk out of the bathroom with the faucet still gushing, or let a pot of soup boil dry on the stove. If you ask her, she'll swear she remembers turning off the water or stove. What if John told himself he was going to have the Will changed, and having thought about it he thought he'd really done it?"
"The next time he uncovered the Will he just knew he didn't need it anymore," Gracie said. She shook her head. "It's so sad that peoples' minds go like that. Okay, we've made several reasonable cases for John destroying the Will accidentally. Could he have done it on purpose, knowing full well what he was doing?"
"There are only two reasons he would have done that," Meredith said. "One, he either knew, or thought he knew, who would inherit if he died intestate, and he was happy with that. Two, he made out a new Will."
"To the church?" Shawna inquired.
"Could be," Meredith agreed. "Or to the political party, or a charity maybe."
Gracie smiled kindly. "He could've forgiven you and left everything to you."
"I rather think he'd have told me if that were the case," Meredith said stiffly.
"My point is, he could've left his Estate to anyone, or any organization, or any combination of the above. We'll probably never know because you can bet Robbie would've destroyed it."
"And any copies, too," Shawna said. "Of course, if he hand-wrote the Will there wouldn't be copies."
"Hey, if he couldn't get hold of Ms. Canardi maybe he went to some other lawyer," Gracie suggested. "He could've just picked one out of the phonebook, or asked a friend for a recommendation, who knows? He just wanted the Will done quickly."
"There must be hundreds of lawyers in this town," Meredith sighed. "We could hardly call all of them to ask."
"You'd think they'd have contacted the family when he died," Shawna commented.
"There wouldn't be any point if they only had a copy," Meredith pointed out. "They would assume that John still had the original Will."
Gracie sighed. "So we're really right back where we started. John's original Will doubtless no longer exists and we can't even necessarily blame it on Robbie."
Gracie looked around the dining room, her gaze falling on the two paper grocery bags that Meredith had brought home from Robbie's house. "Meredith, have you gone through those sacks yet?"
The teacher eyed the bags remorsefully, and sighed. "Not really. I've been too upset about being accused of killing the widow to get to that. I'm sure it will be an emotional experience, and I'm not sure I'm ready. I did pull out a box of photos and flip through them the other day. They were pictures of trips John and Robbie took together; I'll give most of 'em back to her kids as I don't really want pictures of her."
Gracie nodded acceptance of that. "Do you mind if Shawna and I go through them now?"
Meredith looked a bit unsure. "Well, no, I guess not. I tell you what; I really need to change my nail polish, it's getting chipped and besides I want to wear a different color tomorrow. How about I sit here and do that while you two look through things."
Gracie understood that this was a way for the teacher to see some of what was in those bags without having to concent
rate, which might lessen her emotional state. She remembered her own turmoil while watching the slideshow made for her father's funeral: good memories, funny memories, and bad memories all rolled together. While Meredith went to collect her manicure supplies Gracie went to the kitchen and poured them all a glass of water, and even managed to find a bag of cookies in the pantry.
Upon her return to the dining room Meredith eyed the meager treats. "Thanks, Gracie. I should've offered something when we got here."
"No problem," Gracie said. "I thought we should have a little fun."
Meredith began taking off her nail polish, the sharp odor of the remover drifting down the table. Shawna hefted one of the bags onto the table, laying it on its side between herself and Gracie so they could both pull out the contents. She reached inside and pulled out a thick pile of papers, flipping through them to see what they said.
"These look like printouts of e-mails," Shawna announced. She picked one page up, holding it for the others to see a picture of John Wayne in full cowboy regalia standing in front of a giant American flag.
Meredith glanced up from filing a nail. "What's it say underneath?"
"Now why the Hell should I have to press 1 for English?" Shawna read, doing a corny imitation of the actor's voice.
Meredith couldn't help herself; she burst out laughing. "Oh, that is so like John," she said. "I can see why he kept that. Are they all jokes?"
Shawna looked at a few more pages. "Nope, they just look like regular e-mails. Sam G., Bill H., Larry C., Ione B., Carl S. – do you recognize any of the names?"
"They're friends of John's. Ione's a distant cousin, though I've never met her. Set all that aside, and I'll read through them later," Meredith said.
Meanwhile Gracie had opened a paper envelope full of photos. She turned one toward the teacher. "Is this Jonathan when he was little?"
Meredith gave her nail a couple more swipes of the file, then looked up to see a photo of a chubby little boy in wet and droopy swim trunks holding a beach ball half his size. "Oh, yes! We had one of those little inflatable pools in the backyard, and Jonathan just loved it," she said with a smile.
