by Edie Claire
He shook his head firmly, making his blond curls gyrate. "Mrs. Murchison never goes anywhere without Mrs. Wiggs. Mrs. Murchison went out of town. Mrs. Wiggs went out of town. Mrs. Wiggs came back. Mrs. Murchison came back."
"Have you seen Mrs. Murchison?"
The curls shook again. "I don’t disturb Mrs. Murchison, Leigh Koslow."
Leigh felt Nancy’s presence behind her. "We’ll have to talk to Nikki," the other woman said quietly. "Jared," she asked, "Is Mrs. Wiggs still at home?"
"Mrs. Wiggs gone this morning, Nancy Johnson," he answered. "Mrs. Murchison gone this morning. I have to sweep."
And with that summary dismissal, he ambled off toward the bathroom.
***
"So what do you think, Dad?" Leigh asked, more than a little annoyed at their sudden audience. She had relayed Jared’s story while Randall was scanning a fecal slide at the microscope, and instantly Jeanine, Marcia, and Michelle had materialized in the vicinity.
"I think, he said finally, rolling back his stool and pitching the slide in the sink, "that I’m about to be late for an appointment." He rose, maneuvered through the throng of women, and made haste for the basement stairs.
"Do you think Mrs. Murchison’s been hiding out?" Marcia asked when Randall had gone, her eyes wide. "Because I can see her doing that. You know, just to see how everybody reacted."
"That’s sick," Jeanine the all-knowing offered.
"She is sick!" Marcia’s hip-twin, Michelle, chimed in. "Everyone knows that. I’ll bet she’s not dead after all. Nobody that evil ever dies."
"That’s ridiculous," Jeanine snapped. Her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh, my God! I bet she’s been the one threatening everybody."
The short silence that followed was ended by a chuckle from Nora, the only one of the staff who still seemed to find humor in the situation. "Yeah, I think she and Freddie Kruger are setting us up," she said lightly, dropping two capillary tubes into the centrifuge. "I wondered what the hell that chainsaw was doing in the autoclave."
"She’s kidding!" Jeanine yelled quickly, forestalling imminent screams from Marcia and Michelle. She then turned back on Nora with venom. "Will you be serious, please?"
"I’m the only one who is," Nora protested. "I heard what Leigh just said, but none of us had any reason to think Mrs. Murchison was alive until today. Why would she threaten us to keep quiet about something we didn’t even know yet?"
"She could have guessed we would find out!" Marcia squealed, "because of Jared!"
"Or what if," Michelle squealed, "Doctor Koslow has known all along? What if they were in this together?"
All heads turned toward the basement doorway, and the inevitable screams erupted.
"Stop it!" Leigh broke in this time, her hands over her ears. She’d been trying to sit back and studiously listen to her suspects babble, but enough was enough. "You’re being completely ridiculous. You’ve all worked with my dad for years. Does he seem like a criminal mastermind? Does he seem like the sort of person who would waste valuable clinic time helping some crackpot socialite torture her relatives for kicks? Does he?"
There was no answer.
"Of course not," she continued. "But he is the kind of person who would fire his employees for standing around screaming instead of taking care of the animals."
On that rather unkind note, she stomped off angrily to the basement herself, muttering uncharitable comments with every step. Her dad in cahoots with Lilah Murchison to fake her death. Please. The man couldn’t sit through a complete episode of Quincy.
"Dad?" she exclaimed, surprised to find his white lab coat replaced with a sport jacket. "Where are you going?"
"The attorney’s." His tone indicated clearly that he saw the errand as a drudgery. "I’ve got to get the details about Mrs. Murchison’s cats."
Her eyebrows arched. "I’m coming with you, then."
He threw her a tired look. "That’s hardly necessary. This meeting is only about the cats." He cleared his throat. "Frankly, I’m a little concerned about your level of involvement in all this. Vandalism and threats are police business." He paused ever so slightly. "Isn’t Warren home yet?"
Leigh couldn’t help but smile. He and her mother had both thought that marrying a man as responsible and mild-mannered as Warren would somehow magically convince her that cross-stitching and Tupperware parties were primo entertainment. They had been sorely disappointed. (Not that she had anything against Tupperware. Some of the best meals she had ever eaten had come in Tupperware. But she hadn’t cooked them.)
"He came home last night," she answered. "And I’m not just amusing myself by asking all these questions. I’m looking out for the clinic and I’m looking out for you. Whether you like it or not, Lilah Murchison has dragged you into her affairs up to your eyeballs. And ignoring all the warning signs won’t make them go away." She grinned. "That’s a quote from you, by the way: Cancer Lecture #36."
Randall’s brow wrinkled. "I repeat: this is a police matter."
Her expression turned serious. "Dad, I happen to know a little about how the police work, okay? The Avalon PD are good people, but they’re plenty busy with actual crimes that have already been committed. They don’t have time to chase down leads on a bunch of strange things about Lilah Murchison’s will that don’t add up. As far as they’re concerned, that’s soap opera stuff.
"But I have this feeling—" she began tentatively, "that Peggy Linney didn’t die of natural causes. Don’t ask me for proof because there isn’t any. But if I’m right, it means that someone out there wants Mrs. Murchison’s money badly enough to kill for it."
She took a deep breath. She hadn’t told him half of what she had learned since waking up that morning, and it had been a very long day. She hadn’t told anybody everything—but she would tell Warren and Maura tonight. Among the three of them, she felt sure they could make sense of it. Particularly if they had just a few more pieces of the puzzle—several of which she felt sure she could wrangle out of Mrs. Murchison’s lawyer.
"I just need to go with you to see Sheridan," she pleaded. "I need to ask him a few things, and then I’m going to run it all by Maura. I believe there’s a real possibility that Lilah Murchison was not on that plane. And if she’s alive, it will nip all these threats right in the bud. Wouldn’t that be worth the effort?"
Randall threw her a long, hard look. When he spoke, his voice was sober. "Jared is certain he’s seen Mrs. Wiggs since the plane crash?"
She nodded.
"Jared knows those Siamese," he commented, almost too low to be heard. "Nikki Loomis said that a witness watched Mrs. Murchison get on that plane with a cat, but I suppose they could have gotten off at the last minute."
Leigh smiled broadly. "My thoughts exactly."
***
"Just let Sheridan do his spiel with me first," Randall had instructed. "Then you can pester the man."
Leigh had readily agreed, although now she was regretting her acquiescence. Not only was the list of specific instructions for the Murchison cats endless, but the chairs in the attorney’s stark office were distinctly uncomfortable. She supposed they were artistic, given their curving chrome side arms and solid black sling seats. But she had never been one to suffer for the sake of art, and her spine felt ready to snap.
The lawyer droned on and on, evidently believing that pronouncing words like "part" and "presume" with extra syllables would increase his billable hours. Leigh picked up bits and pieces of Mrs. Murchison’s instructions, such as the fact that some of the younger cats were to be offered for sale. But the majority appeared to be set for life in the otherwise lifeless Ben Avon mansion. She also picked up on the fact that Lilah seemed to have no qualms about saddling Randall with an unreasonable number of pesky duties—assuming that his "generous retainer" would make all well.
The woman was a real piece of work.
By the time Sheridan had finished his drawling explanation of her father’s obligations, Leigh had almost dozed off. It was th
e words "Is there anything else I can do for you," that roused her.
"As a matter of fact, yes," she answered, attempting to uncoil her damaged spine. She had planned the order of her questions from most to least pressing, certain that the by-the-book counselor would clam up on her eventually. "I suppose you’ve heard by now of Peggy Linney’s unfortunate passing?"
Sheridan nodded expressionlessly.
"I visited her the afternoon before she died," Leigh began. "She told me you had been there earlier."
"Oh?" Sheridan’s voice could not have sounded more disinterested as he restacked the huge sheaf of papers on his desk.
Leigh soothed the qualm of conscience she always got when lying to decent people (Dean and Rochelle notwithstanding) by reminding herself of the beauty of vague pronouns. Peggy Linney had not said squat about Sheridan, but Maura had, and Maura was female.
The next moves would be a bit trickier. "She seemed healthy enough when I saw her. I just wondered if she had seemed all right to you."
Sheridan’s brow creased a bit. "I noticed nothing out of the ordinary in regards to her appearance, Ms. Koslow. If you’re wondering about the nature of my business with her, however, I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss it."
Yikes. This would be harder than she thought. She supposed that if she could fool the man into thinking that Peggy Linney had already told her the reason for the visit, she might be able to bluff him into offering more. But if her blind guess missed its mark, he would know she was lying. And that would definitely put the kibosh on questions two and three.
"I’m not asking out of idle curiosity, Mr. Sheridan," she responded as sweetly as possible. "Are you aware of the threats that have been made against my father’s staff?"
As she delivered a brief summary, she tried to judge from his expression how much of the story he already knew. It was a difficult task. Evidently, Impassiveness 201 was a class Sheridan had aced at law school.
"So you see," she concluded. "I think it’s important that you share the identity of Mrs. Murchison’s biological heir with the Avalon PD. It could be very important to their investigation."
Sheridan frowned. "I’m sure that if that’s true, the police department would have contacted me personally. In any event, I would have to tell them the same thing I’m going to tell you. I have no idea who Mrs. Murchison’s primary beneficiary is."
Leigh gnashed her teeth as inconspicuously as possible. This was not going well. "Oh?" she responded.
"I believe I made that clear at the will reading," Sheridan offered peevishly. He then launched into a statement he appeared to have long-since memorized. "The identity of the beneficiary was intentionally concealed by Mrs. Murchison. At such time as that individual provides 'sufficient and compelling’ proof of his or her identity, then I am, in the presence of certain named witnesses, to open a sealed document which is currently being maintained under lock and key. It is my understanding that that document will settle the matter. If, however, sufficient proof of a biological heir is not presented within five years of the date the will is probated, the document is to be destroyed."
The lawyer then leaned back, drumming his fingers impatiently on the desk top. "Any more questions?"
Leigh’s smile was now openly saccharin. She had a hard time liking people who charged by the hour to cop an attitude. "Just two. What happens if Mrs. Murchison’s body is never recovered?"
"Then her beneficiaries could either wait seven years for a certificate of death to be issued, or take the matter to court," Sheridan answered. "Either way, the process will not be rapid."
"I see. And what if Lilah Murchison got off that plane before it ever left the gate, and was now back in town sneaking around and spying on the fallout?"
Sheridan’s colossally bored eyes suddenly piqued with interest. "You have evidence of that?"
Obviously not. She considered telling him the truth, but decided against it. No one unfamiliar with Jared’s gifts could be expected to take his story seriously. "Enough to take to the police," she hedged. She would take it to a county detective—tonight, hopefully. "We have reason to believe she’s been back at the mansion, as recently as last night."
The lawyer looked at her another moment, then shrugged. "It would certainly make my job easier." He rose to dismiss them, and his mouth curled into something that was probably as close to a smile as his face ever got. "If the old girl does turn up," he said as he shook Randall’s hand, "You tell her I’m raising my fees."
Chapter 13
Leigh paused on the sidewalk along California Avenue to covet another homeowner’s stand of Dutch tulips. There had been tulips at her house, too—until Bambi’s evil twin had chomped them all off at ground level. Pittsburgh’s spoiled suburban deer had the size of ponies, the appetites of goats, and the unmitigated gall of cockroaches. Once they mastered crossing roads and avoiding the color orange after Thanksgiving, the state would be theirs.
A footstep crunched behind her, and she looked over her shoulder expecting to see a more hurried pedestrian she could politely let pass. But there was no one in sight.
Unconcerned, she began once more walking toward the clinic. It was only eight blocks or so from the attorney’s office to her car, and she felt she needed the exercise, and the time to think.
Sheridan had offered precious little new information, but at least she did have a better handle on the situation with the will. Mrs. Murchison had gone to great lengths to do one of two things: offer a real biological child the opportunity to choose between anonymity and riches, or drive Dean to distraction. Either way, Lilah had led her adopted son to believe she would die soon—probably in an effort to control him. Could she possibly see surviving a fatal plane crash as a fortuitous opportunity to test the true devotion of her nearest and dearest?
If so, she had undoubtedly been disappointed. And when would the game end? The woman couldn’t go sneaking in and out of her house forever. Even if the entrances were well-concealed with shrubbery, Nikki lived in the house too, and despite her dedication to the job Leigh doubted the forthright personal assistant would comply indefinitely with such nonsense.
Another footstep crunched, and this time Leigh saw a flash of olive-green dodge behind a brick garden wall.
Don’t panic. A kid is just toying with your mind, she told herself. A kid in army fatigues.
She took a deep breath and continued. It was broad daylight on a late April afternoon. She could see at least three other people out within a few hundred yards or so. What could happen?
She kept walking at a normal pace, and though she didn’t hear any more footsteps, the little hairs on the back of her neck seemed quite certain she was still being followed. Creepy, yes, she assured herself. But not dangerous.
At the turn-off to the clinic, she decided to try a little maneuver of her own. As soon as she was no longer visible around the corner, she hustled in between two parked cars and crouched low. If somebody was following her, they were about to make a mistake.
She had only to wait a few seconds before her pursuer slinked hesitantly out from behind a tree trunk and looked down the street in confusion.
Leigh sighed out loud. She should have known. There were only three things in the world that shade of green. Militia gear, bathroom fixtures in trailers, and a thirty-year old polyester skort set worn by Adith Rhodis.
"I’m here!" she shouted, standing up. "Where did you think I was going?"
The septuagenarian looked appropriately sheepish. "Oh….um, hi, honey! Where’re you headed?"
Leigh approached her with a stern expression. "If that’s all you wanted to know, why didn’t you just ask me? I could know karate, you know."
Adith smirked. "But you don’t, do you?"
"That’s beside the point. Why are you following me?"
The older woman shuffled her feet. "I wanted to know where you were going."
Leigh waited.
"Oh, all right!" Adith spluttered. Her teenaged eyes brimmed wi
th defiance, but after a few seconds, she had morphed into the picture of innocence. "I’ve been calling your place all day. I even left one of those messages, and you haven’t answered it."
"I have a job."
"I called there, too. They said you were out and they didn’t expect you till tomorrow, so finally I went down to the clinic to ask your daddy where you were and they told me you’d both gone to see the lawyer fellow."
Adith took a breath, and Leigh cut in. "What was so important you had to track me down right away? Did something happen?"
"That’s what I want to ask you!" Adith said with frustration. "You’re supposed to keep me updated. The girls are getting restless, you know."
Leigh’s eyebrows rose. She didn’t know who "the girls" were, but if the rest of them were as relentless as Adith, she was in trouble. In Avalon, the street value on Lilah Murchison’s dirt was higher than heroin.
"I followed you to the lawyer’s," Adith continued with defiance, a hand planted on each hip. "And when your daddy drove off without you I figured maybe you found out who the real heir was and you were going to pay them a visit. So I figured, since you don’t seem to want to tell me anything, I’d just follow you and see for myself." She straightened her spine and smoothed out the skort. "So sue me."
Leigh couldn’t help but smile. "I haven’t been avoiding you on purpose," she said apologetically. "It’s just been a very busy day. At lunch, I—"
"Uh huh," Adith said impatiently, grabbing her by the arm and steering her down the street. "Just get to the good stuff, okay, honey? Time’s wasting."
***
Gray clouds muscled their way across the river, the ominous tone of the thunder that rumbled down from them being surpassed only by the grumbling of Leigh’s own stomach. She had been dishing a judiciously edited script of her adventures to Adith in the parking lot of the Koslow Animal Clinic for a full half hour, and both her watch and her blood sugar told her it was time to head home to Warren’s promised Mexican tamale bake.
