by Jessica Beck
“Your siblings walked in with me,” Mick said.
“I’m talking about the first time, before they got on the scene.” It was clear Kathleen didn’t appreciate his sarcasm.
“Like I told them, I came by and found the door open and the lights on. Don’t blame me if his assistant left the place wide open.”
I spoke up. “We just left Robin. She claimed that she saw someone creeping around the office outside just before she left.”
“Well, it wasn’t me,” Mick said.
Kathleen stared at him a moment, and then she ordered, “Stand up.”
“I told you, my leg is cramping.”
“I don’t really care at the moment. Do as I say.” She was using her sheriff’s voice, one that commanded instant obedience.
Mick did as he was told, and she knelt down and studied his shoes. “You picked up some mulch on them. Did you realize that?”
Mick shrugged. “After I saw the place was open, I walked around the perimeter to make sure whoever had been in there was gone.”
“You’ve got a story for everything, don’t you?” she asked him gravely.
“No stories; just the truth. Now can I sit back down?”
“Fine,” she said.
I had to hand it to my sister. I hadn’t even considered checking the man’s shoes for dirt or mulch. If he’d been the one creeping around the office, of course his shoes would have picked up something from outside. It made me aware yet again that Kathleen was good at what she did. “So, you claim when you arrived that the place was open, so you just walked inside after making sure no one was here. Why were you here in the first place? You have no right to be here.”
“As difficult as it is to think about at the moment, I have to consider my future. With Timothy gone, our father’s estate is in limbo. For that matter, so is his. I’m his only living relative, which means that this will all be mine anyway, so how could I not have the right to be here?”
“Do you have a will to that effect in that folder?” Kathleen asked.
“I’m not sure yet.”
“Hand it over and let me see for myself,” she commanded, and after a moment’s pause, Mick did as she asked.
Kathleen looked through the papers, and then she frowned at Mick. “All I can find here is your father’s will. Where is Timothy’s?”
“I couldn’t find it,” he grumbled. “I know state law, though. If he died without one, then I get it all.”
“I’m not ready to concede that he didn’t have a will of his own,” Kathleen said. She turned to Annie and me and asked, “Do you have Robin’s phone number?”
Annie nodded.
“Call her and ask her about Timothy’s will. If anyone would know about it, it would be her.”
I heard Annie have a brief conversation with Robin, and after she hung up, she said, “Robin said it was in the lower locked file cabinet drawer in the closet.”
“There’s a cabinet in the closet?” Mick asked, clearly peeved that he’d missed it before.
“Apparently,” Kathleen said as she got up and moved to the closet behind Timothy’s desk. “Did she happen to say where the key was?”
“It’s in the top part that’s unlocked, filed under the Ks for key,” Annie told her.
Kathleen shook her head as she retrieved it. “Cute.” After the lower cabinet drawer was unlocked, she made quick work of digging out Timothy’s will.
“What does it say?” Mick asked eagerly. “He left it all to me, didn’t he?”
“Hold your horses,” Kathleen said as she leafed through the document.
“He was my brother. I have a right to know!” Mick demanded.
“Settle down,” Kathleen said. “I’m looking.”
“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” Annie said to him fiercely. “Timothy couldn’t stand you, with good reason, from what I’ve heard.”
“What, did your boyfriend whine to you about his older brother picking on him when he was a kid?” Mick asked sarcastically. “That’s what older brothers do.”
“Even with the matches and lighter fluid?” she asked him shrilly. “Is that normal in your mind as well?”
Mick shook his head. “Timmy overreacted. He always did that. It wasn’t as bad as he probably made it sound.”
“I find that hard to believe,” I said coldly.
“Great. Now it’s three against one. I’m not going to dignify your comments with a response, since you’ve already tried me and found me guilty. Why let the facts get in the way of a good story?”
“So, you’re denying that you tormented him when you were kids?” Annie asked.
“Maybe we didn’t get along, but we were still family,” Mick said. “Besides, all of that happened when we were kids. We were both grown men, and we put our differences behind us when our father died. You do that when there’s no one left in your family but the two of you. Sure, I made some mistakes when we were younger, but I apologized for them, and we got beyond it.”
“It’s awfully convenient that Timothy isn’t around to corroborate that, isn’t it?” I asked him.
Mick shrugged. “I don’t see how it’s any of your business, anyway. I should ask, what were you two doing here? You didn’t have any more right to be here than I was. Less, if you ask me.”
“We were doing a favor for a friend,” Annie said.
“Sure. I bet you were.”
“Would you three please pipe down for one minute?” Kathleen asked us.
We all grew quiet as she continued to flip through the will. After a few more moments, she said, “I’m no lawyer, but according to this, Timothy left everything he owned to one person.”
“I knew it!” Mick crowed. “He was looking out for his older brother in the end after all.”
“You’re not the person who gets it all,” Kathleen said drily.
“Is it Jenna?” I asked. “Or Robin?”
Kathleen frowned for a second, and then she stared straight at my twin sister. “As a matter of fact, Timothy left it all to you, Annie.”
Chapter 12: Annie
“Me?” I asked incredulously. “You’ve got to be kidding.” I’d been close to Timothy once upon a time, but things had been over between us months ago. “Why would he leave everything to me after we broke up?”
“That’s what I want to know,” Mick said as he reached for the document. “Let me see that!”
He tried to jerk the will from Kathleen’s hands, but he’d grossly underestimated her strength, or her determination to keep control of the document. “Sit down, Mr. Roberts.”
Mick frowned at us all before doing as he’d been told. “I don’t believe it.”
“Do you think I’d make something like that up?” Kathleen asked him. She turned to the main page in question and showed it to him. Mick read it with dismay, and then he slumped back in his seat. “Satisfied now?” she asked him.
“Not even a little bit,” Mick replied, and then he stared hard at me. “What kind of spell did you weave on my little brother, anyway?”
“We were close, but believe me, I’m just as surprised to hear about this as you are.”
“I think I know what might have happened,” Pat chimed in.
“Well, I’d love it if you could explain it to the rest of us,” I said.
“When you two were dating, you were extremely close. It doesn’t surprise me that Timothy named you in his will.”
“But he broke up with me,” I protested. “Why didn’t he change his beneficiary to Jenna?”
“Or me?” Mick added.
I decided to ignore him. “He might have forgotten about it, or he may have left you as his sole beneficiary intentionally. What if he felt so bad about breaking up with you that he didn’t have the heart to ch
ange his will until he was certain that he and Jenna would last? Maybe he had hopes that someday the two of you would get back together.”
Was that possible? Could Pat be right? I had thought at the time we’d been dating that Timothy might have been the one person I could spend the rest of my life with. Had he felt the same way? Could we have gotten back together at a later time? I didn’t know, and now I never would. If we’d had that chance in our future, someone had robbed us both of it. “I just don’t know.”
“It’s not going to stand up in court,” Mick said defiantly. “I’m going to contest it with every penny I have to my name.”
“I was under the impression that you were on the verge of bankruptcy,” Kathleen said quietly. “How are you going to finance this legal challenge of yours?”
“Have you been investigating me?” Mick asked her.
“Of course I’ve been investigating you,” she said. “Your brother died under mysterious circumstances, you two had a long history of conflict, and you happened to be in town at the time it happened. Did you think there was one chance in ten thousand that I wouldn’t consider you a suspect?”
“I didn’t kill my brother,” Mick said.
“So you say,” I said.
“I don’t want to hear another word out of you, lady,” Mick said as he pointed at me.
“As much fun as this has been,” Kathleen said, “I think it’s time we break up this party, don’t you?”
“Fine by me,” Mick said as he stood. “I assume that I’m free to go.”
“For now, but I wouldn’t leave town if I were you,” my older sister told him.
“Believe me, I’m not going anywhere until this mess is straightened out.” He stared at her for a few seconds, and then he reached out his hand. “Just give me my dad’s will back, and then I’ll go.”
“Sorry, but for the moment, I’m hanging onto it myself.”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with my brother’s death,” Mick protested. “You don’t have any right to keep it from me.”
Kathleen wasn’t impressed by his outburst. “That’s yet to be determined.”
“At least let me have a copy of it,” he pled. “Timothy wouldn’t show it to me.”
Kathleen mulled that over, and then she looked at me. “Annie, there’s a copier by Robin’s desk. Would you mind?”
“I’d be happy to,” I said, taking the document from her and walking into the outer office.
While I was waiting for it to warm up, Pat came out and joined me. “You’re going to make a copy for us too, right?”
“Oh, yes. I wonder if Kathleen will let me make one of Timothy’s will as well?”
“Seeing as you’re the only named beneficiary, I think it’s a fair request.”
As I made the copies, one set for Mick and another for us, I said, “I still don’t get it. Could you be right about Timothy hoping that we’d get together again someday?”
“There’s another possibility that I didn’t mention earlier,” Pat said with a frown.
“Because you didn’t want to hurt my feelings, or because you just thought of it?” I asked him.
“A little of both, maybe. What if the version of Timothy’s will Kathleen has isn’t the latest one? Could this have been an older one that Timothy hadn’t gotten around to destroying yet?”
“I don’t know. How can we find something like that out?”
“There’s only one way I can think of. We need to ask Robin,” he said.
“You’re right. If anyone would know, she would be the one.”
“Let’s ask her as soon as we leave here,” Pat suggested.
The copies were finished, and I handed Pat one set as I collected the other, as well as the original documents themselves. “Put those in your back pocket, okay?”
“Will do,” he said with a grin.
Back in Timothy’s office, we found Kathleen and Mick standing there in silence. From the look of things, we hadn’t missed anything in our brief absence.
“Here you go,” I said as I handed the one visible copy and the original back to my sister.
“Thanks.” She handed the copy to Mick, who took it and leafed through the pages before saying a word.
“Is this everything?” he asked me.
“Check the page numbers,” I said, insulted that he would imply that I’d shorted him.
He did as I suggested, and thirty seconds later, he nodded. “Okay, I’m satisfied. I still think I should get a copy of Timothy’s will, too. After all, I was his brother.”
“I need to think about that, but you’re free to ask me about it again tomorrow.”
“Fine,” he said and stormed out of the office, though he managed to glare at me once before exiting.
Kathleen let out a long breath. “Not for nothing, but I don’t like that man.”
“Don’t worry. The more you get to know him, the less he grows on you,” I said.
Kathleen held out her hand.
“What?” I asked her as innocently as I could manage.
“Let me have the copy you made for yourself.” How could she have possibly known that Pat and I would want our own copy of the document?
“I don’t have one,” I said, which was strictly the truth, since I’d handed mine over to my brother earlier.
Kathleen didn’t even blink as she pivoted and faced Pat. “Then you’ve got it. There’s no way in the world that I’m ever going to believe that you didn’t make two copies while you were out there.”
Pat didn’t even flinch. He just reached into his back pocket and pulled out the folded document. “I’m happy to turn this over, but what can it hurt if we have one, too?” he asked her softly, not even apologizing for not asking her permission first.
Kathleen tapped the paper in her hand, and then she shrugged. “You’re right. It can’t.” She handed the will back to Pat and said, “Who knows? It might even do you some good.”
“I know I’m probably pushing my luck, but I really would like a copy of Timothy’s will as well,” I said. “Kathleen, if he left everything to me, don’t I have that right?”
“I don’t know about the right, but I’m not going to refuse your request,” she said. Before she handed the will over, she said, “Just make one copy of it, okay?”
“We could always make another copy later,” Pat said with a grin.
“Once you two delinquents are out of my sight, I don’t care what you do.”
“Really?” I asked her happily.
“Strike that. Just make the copy.”
I made the duplicate, just one, and quickly returned the original to Kathleen. Once I gave it to her, I asked, “Are we leaving now, or can we have a look around?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t allow that,” Kathleen said.
“I thought your team had already been through the place?” Pat asked.
“Sure, we looked for the obvious, but it would have been impossible for us to search every piece of paper in this office. I thought we were supposed to be in the modern age of a paperless society. Evidently Timothy didn’t believe in that at all.”
“He stored stuff on zip drives and on the cloud,” I said, remembering Timothy’s lecture on the subject once, “but he also believed in having physical backups too, just in case.”
“In case of what?” Pat asked me.
“World electronic collapse, I suppose,” I said. Something just occurred to me. “Sis, we need a key to lock this place up. You don’t happen to have one on you, do you?”
“No,” Kathleen said glumly. “It appears that I’ll be sticking around after all. Do me a favor and call Robin back. She needs to come down here and lock the place up.”
“Again,” I said.
�
��Or for the first time today,” Kathleen replied. “I couldn’t blame her if she forgot to turn off the lights and lock up after losing her boss early this morning.” Our older sister shook her head. “Has it really just been nineteen hours? I’m not sure this day will ever end.”
I felt real sympathy for her. “Why don’t you go home and get some sleep? Pat and I will hang around and wait for Robin.”
“I really shouldn’t,” she said, though it was clear that was exactly what she wanted and needed to do.
“We won’t cross any lines,” I promised. “Right, Pat?”
“You have our word,” my brother said.
“But you’re going to snoop around a little the second I leave though, aren’t you?”
I bit my lower lip before responding. “If it’s that important to you, we’ll sit quietly in Robin’s office and wait for her there. We promise.”
“That’s right. You can trust us,” Pat echoed.
Kathleen grinned. “Forget it. I know it would drive you both crazy to do it, so I would never ask you to. Fine. Look around. Just try to put everything back where you found it, okay?”
“Okay,” I said.
“Well, go ahead and call her. I’m not going anywhere until I know Robin is on her way.”
I did as I was asked, and Robin agreed to come there immediately. If she was afraid that someone was still following her, or even lurking outside her house, she didn’t show it.
“She’s leaving the house right now,” I said after I hung up.
“Then you have six or seven minutes to snoop around to your hearts’ content,” Kathleen said, grabbing the folder Mick had tried to carry out. “I’ll see you two in the morning. Thanks for calling.”
“Always,” Pat said.
Kathleen just laughed, knowing that we didn’t always do anything, and she drove away.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Pat asked me as soon as Kathleen’s headlights disappeared. “Let’s start hunting for something that might be able to help us. Any ideas about where we should start digging?”
