by Madyson Grey
“I learned several important things today.”
She paused to turn off the burner and pour the hot water over the tea bag in her cup.
“Well, out with it.”
“I learned that the mid-month withdrawals were made in person in the bank and that a second person was always with Daddy when he made them. And that the funds were immediately redeposited into this other person’s account. And I learned that Daddy was always very happy during those transactions, showing no signs of duress or forced compliance. I also learned that the first of the month withdrawals were also immediately made to another account within the bank and that he wasn’t nearly as jovial when making those transactions.”
With her back to her mother, she didn’t see the odd expression that flitted briefly across her face, but was quickly concealed. She stirred honey into her tea, and then let it set to steep while she turned to face her mother. She was rather surprised that her mother hadn’t reacted to her revelation.
“I also learned from the police report that you stated that you weren’t home, that Lena was out grocery shopping, and that Daddy was home alone when … when … he … uh … died.”
She couldn’t make herself say the words, “killed himself.”
“I saw the alleged suicide note for the first time.”
“I’m truly sorry that you had to see that, Vicky,” her mother said, putting her hand on Victoria’s shoulder.
“I also learned that Rafael is an art lover like I am. And that his father committed suicide also. And that he had a hardscrabble life growing up. And that he worked very hard to climb the corporate ladder. I just find it very hard to believe that he has done anything wrong, Mother. I just don’t see it anywhere. I’ll admit, the selling price of the company is extremely low. However, he also had to pay off the company’s outstanding debts, which took some off the selling price.”
“Now you’re letting your feelings get in the way of the facts. I warned you about that. You must stay focused. You must. You must find that weak spot in this Romeo of yours, that crack in his shining armor that will let you get a knife blade in. Then twist it until he confesses what he did to coerce your father into giving him the company. Then we can bring in the lawyers to sue him and make him return the business.”
Marian’s voice increased in volume and pitch until she was nearly shrieking on the last sentence.
“You get over this schoolgirl crush of yours and go after this, this thief. This creep. Do you hear me, Victoria Lynn Thornton? You will bring this scum down or else!”
Victoria just stood there, sipping her tea, watching this woman go from rational to insane. When Marian started shaking her fist in Victoria’s face, she became a bit alarmed. The old fear of her mother’s tirades reared its ugly head again. She could almost feel the sting of a slap on her face from the many times her mother had slapped her when she would go on one of her tirades. She used to wonder why her daddy stayed with her mother. But now she realized that Marian only erupted like that when her daddy was gone. Well, except for the time when she announced that she was going to Washington for college.
Marian would yell and rant and rave when David was around, but she never laid a hand on Victoria unless he was gone. Then her attacks would be especially vicious. She often wondered why her mother seemed to despise her so. Other mothers loved their children. Lena loved her. Daddy loved her. Why not Mother?
Without responding, she took her cup of tea and left the kitchen to go to her room.
“Do not walk away from me, young lady,” Marian commanded.
Victoria’s pause was barely perceptible before she continued on walking toward the stairs.
“We are not finished yet, Victoria.”
“I am finished, Mother. I will not try to talk to you when you are acting like this,” Victoria said calmly as she continued walking.
“Get back here!” Marian screamed.
Victoria started up the stairs. She heard her mother’s footsteps following her. She picked up her pace a bit. So did her mother. Trying not to spill her tea, Victoria hurried even faster and gained the top of the stairs. Her bedroom was the first door on the left at the top of the stairs. She rushed in and shut the door behind her, wishing there was a lock on it. Before she could grab a chair to shove under the handle, Marian burst into the room. Fury distorted her once-beautiful features into evil.
Victoria backed herself toward the opposite wall. Marian advanced on her screaming curses, the likes of which Victoria had never heard come from her mother’s lips. She was becoming truly frightened. She’d been scared of her mother many times when she was a child, but this time was different. She wasn’t a child, and her mother had completely lost it. Call 911, she thought. But her cell phone was in her purse still slung over her shoulder. No way could she pull it out in time.
“You will take that piece of scum down and you will get my company back and you will do it soon,” she screamed. “That company is mine and I want it and I want it now. Your father had no right to sell it out from under me. He deserved to die for cheating me out of what was rightfully mine.” Her tirade was liberally peppered with profanities that burned Victoria’s ears.
She had been raised to not use bad language. She was taught that only uneducated people have to resort to profanity because they aren’t smart enough to know and use properly descriptive words. And ladies never use bad language, no matter what. So listening to what came out of her mother’s mouth was not only scary, it was totally shocking.
“What do you mean, your company?” Victoria asked calmly.
She hoped that her calm demeanor would calm Marian down. It didn’t.
“That company was my income. Our income. Without that company, what am I supposed to live on? David had no right to sell it. He didn’t even consult me. He just sold it right out from under me. How am I going to live? How am I going to be able to face anyone? He had no right to sell. No right, I tell you! No right!”
Marian’s voice took on an even higher-pitched shriek that before. Her face was red from screaming, and she was trembling all over.
“I’m glad he’s dead! He got what he deserved. He had no right to sell. No right!”
“You can’t be serious!” Victoria exclaimed. “What do you mean he got what he deserved? And he had every right to sell his own company. Your name was nowhere on the business. It wasn’t your company. It was his. Daddy worked day and night to build up that company. He could do anything he very well pleased with it. He could have literally given it away if he’d wanted to.”
Victoria was getting a little hot under the collar herself by now. Nobody, but nobody, put down her daddy and got away with it.
“You get out of my room and go to bed. We’ll talk about this in the morning when you’ve calmed down,” Victoria said, walking toward her mother.
“This is my house, you little twit,” Marian yelled. “I only let you come because David was your father. You can just get out yourself.”
“I’m not going anywhere tonight, Marian,” Victoria said firmly. “This is my room. In fact, the house is half mine. It’s in Daddy’s will. So I’m not going anywhere. At least not tonight. Now please leave.”
Victoria put her hands on Marian’s shoulders, intending to turn her around and guide her to the door. But Marian knocked Victoria’s hands down.
“Don’t you touch me, you little slut. That Rivera thief gets you in his bed and next thing I know, you turn against me, your own mother.”
Before she could stop herself, or even think about what she was doing, Victoria slapped her mother’s face. Just like she’d been slapped so many times through the years.
“Don’t ever, ever talk to me that way again. You don’t have a clue. Now get out of my room. And stay out.”
Victoria was so angry that she almost missed the look of pure shock on Marian’s face when she slapped her. But it seemed to do the trick. Marian turned quietly and left the room. Victoria hurriedly took the chair from her childhoo
d desk and shoved it under the door handle to barricade the door. She was trembling now herself. She didn’t know whether or not to be sorry for slapping her mother. It was a very disrespectful thing to do. She had never been disrespectful to her mother before. Any time either of her parents even thought she was being disrespectful she was immediately called on it.
However, it had worked to shut her up and get her out of the bedroom. So she tried not to feel guilty. Victoria slowly undressed and got into the shower. What a terrible way to ruin such a blissfully happy day. She wondered if she should consider leaving. Either go back to Seattle, or just go to a hotel for a few more weeks? She’d have to see what happened come morning.
There were beginning to be some things that just didn’t jive, and she wanted to try to get to the bottom of them. For instance: her mother’s comments about her father getting what he deserved. How is suicide “getting what one deserves?” Suicide is done by the person, not to the person. Then there was the mystery of why Rafael had listed her as a beneficiary on his business accounts. She had intended to ask him about that this evening, but she’d gotten so wrapped up in the art show that she forgot all about it.
Then there was the odd statement that he had made. Something about there being hurdles to cross. Impossible barriers. Fight the world rather than each other. What did he know that she didn’t about animosity between her mother and him?
And, not to be forgotten, the mystery of the regular cash withdrawals. Who was the mystery person who accompanied Daddy to the bank each month? The person to who he so cheerfully gave twenty-five g’s every month. And who got the other cash each month? The one to whom he gave grudgingly? There were too many unanswered questions to leave town yet. She may have to leave the house, but she wouldn’t leave town. Not just yet.
She put on her sleepwear and climbed into bed. She brought with her the stack of papers she’d collected that day. She wished she had another cup of tea, but she was afraid to go downstairs and make another cup. One encounter with her mother that night was more than enough. She leafed through the stack, skimming each sheet briefly, until she came to the will. She laid the rest of the papers down on the bed beside her and read through the will carefully, word for legal word.
After one set aside all the mumbo jumbo, what it all seemed to boil down to was that the house was half Marian’s and half Victoria’s, to either be kept in both names, or to be sold and the money divided equally. The money in one account was Marian’s; the money in another account was Victoria’s. An assortment of stocks and bonds was to be divided 70/30, with Marian getting the larger share. David’s car was to be sold with the money split equally. Victoria was to have some of his personal effects and mementos for herself, as well as some family photographs of David’s family—parents, grandparents, and so forth. It all looked pretty straightforward.
The money left to Marian could support her in a comfortable lifestyle for the rest of her life, if she used it wisely. Trouble was, she’d never used money wisely in her entire life. Her lifestyle would be demoted to a very comfortable one, rather than an extravagant one such as she was used to, and therein laid the problem. Marian couldn’t bear the thought of losing her so-called station in life. Her membership at the exclusive Beverly Hills country club, or the myriad of other social circles in which she ran. Victoria’s inheritance was more than enough to keep her comfortable the rest of her life, whether she kept working or not.
Now, here was another mystery. Why had David told Marian that he was broke and had to sell the business, when he just left several million dollars to his wife and daughter? Did this money come from the sale of the company? Or was David not being as honest with Marian as he had always taught Victoria to be?
She laid aside the will and picked up the police report. There were death scene photographs that she hadn’t taken the time earlier to thoroughly examine. She read through the report again. It, too, seemed quite simple and straightforward. The police answered Marian’s call at around three-thirty on the afternoon of June 20, 2016. They found David Thornton deceased in his chair, slumped over his desk, with his .22-caliber pistol still clutched in his right hand. There were powder burns on his hand, as would be expected.
The police had questioned Marian and Lena and a couple of their closest neighbors. Marian and Lena were both gone at the time. Lena was grocery shopping, which the police were able to verify because Lena always patronized a small neighborhood grocery when she only needed a few things, like bread and milk. So the clerk was able to remember her being there, and the receipt was date and time stamped. Lena was at her country club luncheon, which everyone there could attest to.
None of the neighbors remembered seeing or hearing anything. The Thornton mansion was set back off the street far enough and behind a four-foot brick wall and wrought iron gates that it was easy for cars to come and go from the house without being noticed. Every other house in the neighborhood was similarly laid out, so unless two people happened to be leaving their driveways at the same time, or someone happened to be out for a stroll, no one would notice anything.
The coroner put the time of death at around two o’clock. That meant that since Marian had arrived at the luncheon on time at one and didn’t leave until after the raffle at two-thirty, and Lena’s grocery receipt was time-stamped two-fifteen, neither of them could have been home at the time of death.
She shuffled the papers to get to the photos. They were very hard to look at. The first photo showed the whole room from the doorway. She could see her dad slumped with his head down on the desk. From that distance it merely looked like he was napping. Another photo was a close-up of his head, showing the exit wound. Another showed him from the other angle, where one could see the pistol in his hand and the pool of blood under and around his head.
Victoria looked at all the photos carefully. Then she got up and retrieved a small magnifying glass from her desk drawer. Getting back into bed, she picked up the photos and examined them again, this time with the aid of the magnifier. She had no idea what she was looking for, but she would know it when she saw it. If she saw it. She’d watched enough cop and crime scene investigator shows on TV over the years to know that telling details weren’t always noticed the first time around.
There it was! The anomaly in the photos. A faint ring on the polished wood desk. Just the size of a coffee mug. Daddy never allowed liquid spills on his polished mahogany desk. What would a cup of presumably coffee have been doing on Daddy’s desk? He hadn’t used a coaster, or else the ring wouldn’t be there. Victoria leaned back against her pillows for a moment, pondering the implications. Then she continued examining the other photos. The ring actually showed up in a couple of them, under the magnifying glass. But the mug was not in any of the shots. Not even the one taken from the doorway, which she assumed was the first one taken. Indeed. She saw that the photos were also date and time stamped, and the one from the doorway was the first one in the sequence.
She again looked at all the photos. There was no mention in the report about a coffee mug having been on the desk or removed from the desk. The other desktop things were itemized: organizer caddy with pens, paper clips, etc.; cordless phone; cell phone; family photograph; antique globe; computer; legal pad; suicide note. That was about it. That was what would have been on Daddy’s desk.
So many unanswered questions. She decided that she would go back to the police station tomorrow and ask to see the officer who made the report. She would ask him about the coffee mug. She would first go into the office to see if the ring was still there. Slipping the papers all back into the manila folder, she got up and tucked it under the mattress. Then she lay down and tried to go to sleep.
Chapter Fourteen
After sleep had eluded her for an hour, she turned on the TV hoping that it would help her to doze off. It must have, because the next thing she knew it was five-thirty and the sun was streaming through her bedroom window. Thankful for a good night’s sleep, she stretched, yawned, and then go
t up. After dressing and doing her hair and make-up, Victoria made her way downstairs to the kitchen.
She doubted that her mother would be awake yet. Marian was not much of a morning person, although she didn’t sleep late either. She was usually up and about by seven or seven-thirty, but it was only six-fifteen now. Victoria figured she had time for a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal before having to face Marian again. She hoped that a night’s sleep had calmed Marian down.
Lena was already in the kitchen when Victoria walked in.
“Good morning, Lena,” she said softly.
Although her parents’ bedroom was on the second floor and half a house away, she wanted to take no chances on waking her mother too early.
“Good morning, Vicky,” Lena replied. “Sleep well?”
“Yeah, once I finally got to sleep.”
“Did you have a nice time with Rafael?”
“Fabulous. Just fabulous. The art show was amazing, Lena. And guess what? Rafael loves art, too. Almost as much as I do. He doesn’t have the knowledge I do, but he has the feel, the heart for it. Which far outweighs book learning.”
“Wonderful!” Lena said smiling. “I know what your mother thinks of him, but I have seen nothing but a dashingly handsome, polite young man.”
“Yeah, I know. Me, too. Lena,” she paused. “I think I’m falling in love with him.”
Victoria glowed as she said the words, so Lena had no doubts about her sincerity.
“Oh, honey, that’s wonderful! Just be careful. You know your mother.”
“Oh, boy, do I! By the way, did you hear her screaming at me last night?”
“I thought I did once, but when I turned down the TV to listen, I couldn’t hear it again.”
“That’s probably when she chased me upstairs,” Victoria said.
“Did she hurt you?” Lena asked, alarmed.
“No, but she was screaming loud enough to wake the dead.”
Victoria winced as she said that phrase. She wished her daddy could be wakened from the dead.
