4 A Dead Mother

by Anna Celeste Burke

  “We’ll listen to you, Leslie, but you’ve got to put the gun down first. Let it drop and then you can take as long as you need to explain.” Leslie stared at me and at the men with guns. Anger drained from her and the arm that held the gun dropped to her side. She swayed on her feet as though she might swoon. The gun slid from her hand and landed on the ground.

  Peter rushed to secure the gun. One of the uniformed officers ran from inside the house and knelt beside Donald Herndon who moved when the officer spoke to him. Using his shoulder mic, the officer called for EMTs already waiting out in front of the house. Rikki and I joined Leslie.

  “Leslie Windsor, I’m arresting you for the murder of Beverly Windsor and the attempted murder of Donald Herndon…” When Rikki had finished reciting her rights to her, I cautioned Leslie not to say anything more to the police until her lawyer arrived. She was going to need a skilled defense attorney like Paul Worthington now for sure.

  “I’m too tired to talk now anyway,” she said and would have collapsed except that Rikki and I each reached out and grabbed an arm.

  “EMTs, over here,” Rikki shouted. Leslie sank down onto the patio and passed out.

  “Leslie, talk to me. What did you do? Did you take something? Leslie…”

  Rikki reached out and took my arm, dragging me away from her to make room for the EMT. Leslie was motionless as a medic worked on her. I couldn’t bear to watch, fearful that Leslie and her mother were going to spend time together out here in the desert after all.

  Epilogue

  I vowed tonight would be fun! Our last Cat Pack get-together had been one of those dismal debriefings with a detective after a funeral. It was almost three months since that awful scene at Beverly Windsor’s house. There had been two more funerals in the days that followed. Matthew Whitaker buried his mother, Susan Whittaker, and Leslie Windsor’s family buried her next to Beverly. A sad testimony to how wrong things can go between a mother and daughter.

  My mother got good news. Her chemoradiation treatments were done and she successfully completed a ninety-day stint at the rehab clinic. She lost weight and hair, but those were temporary side effects. Her spirits were good, and she spoke about her future in an upbeat way.

  The clinic recommended another ninety days of treatment focused on relapse prevention. Mom agreed to that, but at a location in Nice closer to where Giovanni was trying to wind down his career as he’d promised. Last week, as we said goodbye, I hung onto her. My angsty, fearful side always thinking the worst—that I’d never see her again. To assuage that fear, I agreed to celebrate her birthday with her on the French Riviera. Poodle welcome, since I’m now Anastasia’s permanent doggie-mommy.

  The anniversary of the date I’d filed for divorce came and went in March. Amid the funerals, and faced with my mother’s treatment, I didn’t feel much like partying, so I’d put it off. Not to mention that I was swamped with work. That included a host of legal issues surrounding the settlement of Beverly Windsor and Leslie Windsor’s estates. With David Madison’s help, we’d finally sorted it all out. Some of the funds have yet to be repatriated, but we’re working on it.

  There had been several stunning revelations as more of the facts surrounding Beverly Windsor’s murder came to light. The money that had begun to disappear from Beverly Windsor’s accounts had been Cedric Baumgartner’s doing. Despite pretending to me that she didn’t know much about him or his affair with her mother, Leslie Windsor had Cedric Baumgartner in the crosshairs as a target of her growing vengefulness. I doubt she knew he was already stealing money from her mother or he might not have lived long enough for the Feds to arrest him. Leslie had lied to me, again and again in the days that followed her mother’s murder.

  As Beverly Windsor had become more deeply involved with the louse, her daughter had begun to snoop. She’d discovered the same things we had—his sketchy past, affiliation with the dubious investment company, The Alpha Advantage, and that apparently fraudulent investment “opportunity” he’d pitched to her mother. That’s when Leslie had decided to intervene.

  Leslie had gone to her mother and presented the information to her, which had set off a battle between them about men. For a short time, they agreed to disagree. Beverly Windsor wasn’t pleased with Leslie’s choice of men either and they’d gotten into a serious mother-daughter spat that had left them both shaken.

  “Beverly Windsor was right to be concerned about Donald Herndon. In the end, he turned out to be more desperate than she or Leslie realized. All Leslie Windsor needed in her life was a troubled man fueling the resentment toward her mother,” Rikki Havens had said sitting with us on a lovely desert evening months ago. That night, the Cat Pack had dropped by to offer support after Bernadette and I had attended Leslie’s funeral, and braced ourselves for news about the case. Caterers had brought food. I’d broken out a few bottles of wine from the stash I’d claimed after my marriage to Jim went up in smoke. An idyllic setting, except that the topics of discussion were anger, fraud, greed, and murder.

  “Donald Herndon wasn’t initially on our list of suspects which, as you all know was a long one. We first contacted him because Leslie named him as the person who could supply her with an alibi. Jessica, when you told us that he and Beverly didn’t get along, we dug a little deeper into his background. While Leslie Windsor was sitting pretty, financially, her beau was in deep trouble. Bad investments, two ex-wives, kids in college, and his property mortgaged to the hilt, he was running out of options to stay afloat. Marrying his wealthy boss would have solved his problems.”

  “Killing Beverly Windsor wasn’t part of his plan, was it?” Laura asked.

  “Not as far as we can tell, but as a cop, even when you catch a bad guy in the act, you’re always settling for half-truths.”

  “Why would he or Leslie have wanted to kill anyone? Leslie was old enough and rich enough to marry without her mother’s permission,” Kim asked.

  “That’s true, which is one reason we didn’t focus on Leslie as a suspect early on. In many ways, Cedric Baumgartner was a more likely candidate as Beverly’s killer. Since Leslie can’t tell us, my guess is she was having trouble making up her mind about Donald Herndon and he decided to drive a wedge between Leslie and her mother.”

  “If Leslie came to the same conclusion, that could explain why she shot him,” I said. “Does that mean he was pressuring Leslie to marry him?”

  “I’d say so. He didn’t put it that way, but he did say he was sick and tired of Beverly Windsor meddling in their personal lives. He’d found another job, hoping that would give Beverly one less reason to object to marrying her daughter. That still didn’t satisfy Leslie’s ‘overbearing mother’ as he called Beverly.”

  “If Donald took a job elsewhere that would have made life easier for Leslie, too. Marrying a subordinate isn’t looked on favorably in the corporate world. Maybe that’s why she hesitated, and it wasn’t about her mother at all.” As I spoke, I was unable to avoid reflecting on the fact that Paul and I were in a similar situation. In my case, that was only one factor in my indecision about what to do about Paul or Frank or inviting any other man into my life in an intimate way. “I’ll bet it was more complicated than that for Leslie given how mixed up she must have been to go off the deep end.”

  “Most of the master and mistress of the universe stuff that goes on among the one percent is beyond me, but I can understand the concerns about romance in the workplace. Hanky-panky between bosses and their subordinates is frowned on in my line of work, too. Besides her entanglement with Donald Herndon, Leslie’s job as CEO was a stressful one, and the company was floundering a bit. She’d even considered stepping down and taking an early retirement. That’s hearsay, rather than anything ever put into writing.” Rikki shrugged.

  “Leslie must have found it galling to have her mother cuddling up with Cedric Baumgartner while opposing her romance with Donald Herndon,” Jerry commented.

  “Yes, and Donald Herndon admits he pointed that out to Les
lie. He also claims he’s the one who first made the case that the ‘old gal,’ as he called Beverly Windsor, wasn’t all there anymore. He suggested that Leslie needed to get control of her mother’s finances.”

  “Imagine that—what a hero,” Kim suggested.

  “It sounds like Leslie Windsor got on board with the idea that her mother was losing it when Beverly told Leslie that Cedric Baumgartner was getting a divorce and he’d be free to marry again. That news provoked a second loud discussion about the men in their lives. She confronted her mother and accused her of being out of her mind to consider marriage to that crook and threatened legal action against her.”

  “Ah, yes, and Leslie wanted to invoke her right to act as the agent on her mother’s behalf using that Durable Power of Attorney already on file at our office,” I said. “Those had to be the shouting matches Barbara Stoddard overheard.”

  “I assume so. Donald told us Leslie objected to her mother desecrating her father’s legacy by sharing his hard-earned money with a gigolo. Her mother told her it was none of Leslie’s business who she married. Leslie was furious, too, that her mother accused her of being greedy since her father had left money in a trust for her when he died, and she earned plenty of money as a CEO. I don’t quite understand what all that trust stuff means, but Leslie Windsor was loaded.”

  “It was money put aside for her by her father. There might have been a few strings attached that limited her access to the money until she reached a certain age or status in life. As Beverly pointed out, Leslie had already inherited her share of the ‘legacy’ her father left behind,” I offered. “Leslie disagreed about what she regarded as her share, I guess.”

  “Yes, and it got worse. Donald Herndon said Leslie was livid when Beverly Windsor threatened to change her will and cut her out.”

  “Ouch!” Tommy said. “That had to hurt on so many levels.”

  “Her feelings of rejection were about more than the money I bet,” Betsy commented. “It sounds like Leslie Windsor had some deep, unresolved confusion about love and money.”

  “I agree. It’s too bad neither of them sought professional help for the trouble their relationship was in,” I said.

  “Leslie sought help all right. She’d lined up a group of helpful staff members at a clinic in Mexico. They’d agreed to take her mother into seclusion before she could marry Cedric Baumgartner, terminate the power of attorney already on file, or change her will.”

  “Good grief! Leslie’s the one who’d lost her mind if she imagined that would stand up in court. Leslie told me she already had a shrink. Didn’t her therapist notice that she was in trouble?” I asked.

  “Probably not. It sounds like she had a shrink whose primary treatment approach was to load her up on a ton of drugs, given the way she ended it all.” Betsy was obviously upset given her role as a social work administrator in the mental health care system.

  “Oh yes. Her medicine cabinet was a mini-pharmacy, and there were several empty bottles in the kitchen where she’d washed them down with single malt scotch. That ‘cocktail’ killed her.” As Rikki spoke, I shuddered at another reminder of how close my mother had come to ending up like Leslie Windsor. The doctors had resuscitated Leslie when she went into cardiac arrest in the ER, but to no avail.

  “The drugs she took could also have created problems for her while she was using them. Drugs that stop pain, ease anxiety and depression, or help you sleep can mess with your thinking and judgment. For some people drugs intended to sedate you do the opposite and increase aggression. I’m not saying the drugs caused her bad judgment and violence. They could have been a contributing factor, though. The benefits of psychoactive drugs are one of those ‘half-truths.’ Mental health treatment providers, like cops, deal with them all the time, too,” Betsy said.

  “Leslie never gave me a reason to believe she was in such trouble. The conflict with her mother must have turned into a crisis about the time I took off and left them both without much of an option to turn to me for counsel.” I’d grieved about that since the confrontation at Beverly’s home. I sighed heavily as I shared those unhappy thoughts aloud. How had I missed so much?

  “You represented both women. I doubt either one regarded you as a neutral party,” Laura asserted.

  “That’s a good point. If you’re blaming yourself, Jessica, you can stop. CEOs don’t go around announcing to the world that they have mental health issues. And, violence is the most difficult behavior to predict. Even psychiatrists testifying to the possibility of a criminal committing further acts of violence are no better at predicting those acts than anyone else. The best predictor of violence is a history of violent behavior and it doesn’t appear that Leslie Windsor had ever committed a violent act. Nor had she attempted suicide. I don’t know what diagnosis she was given that earned her all the drugs, but people with mental illness are more likely to be victims of crimes than to commit them.”

  “I hear what you’re saying, Betsy. It’s always easier to figure out whodunit than why. Motive’s even harder to fathom when the result is so horrifically destructive. How did the Whitakers get involved in this?”

  “Matthew Whitaker says Leslie Windsor paid them to help her get Beverly into their car that morning. Leslie and her mother weren’t on speaking terms, so she had Susan Whitaker call Beverly Windsor from Figaro’s using the phone in Audrey Atkins’ office. Susan had registered for the CV/Link breakfast meeting as Suzanne Turner, and the manager remembered her as Suzanne. When Beverly took that call, Susan Whitaker told her that Matthew had gone to pick up Anastasia for a training session, found her limping, and needed to take her to the vet. He couldn’t get her in to see Lucy Daniels, so he was going to an animal hospital, and wanted Anastasia’s records which Beverly always kept with her.”

  “Wow, they knew how much she loved that dog. It’s no wonder she took off so quickly,” Tommy exclaimed.

  “I’m sure that’s why Leslie chose that story to set a trap for her mother, Tommy. I’m surprised Beverly didn’t say something about what was going on to Ruth or just take off to rescue Anastasia,” Jerry added.

  “Susan said it wasn’t an emergency and that they were already on their way with the dog in the car. Of course, when they met Beverly Windsor in the parking lot, she had to know something was up right away since Anastasia was nowhere to be seen, and Leslie was in the backseat with Susan.”

  “With that gun?” Rikki nodded.

  “Yes. At first, Matthew claimed he was shocked that Leslie had a gun. He finally admitted he’d bought the gun off the street at Leslie’s request and she used it to make her mother get into the car ‘without making a scene,’ griping about being forced to use a gun to have a reasonable discussion with her own mother—something like that.”

  “Whoa! She was out of it by then, wasn’t she? Did they notice Beverly had dropped her phone?” Brien asked.

  “Apparently not, since it never came up in our conversation. Matthew said Leslie was out of control all right, and he was afraid she’d use the gun on him or his mother. Anyway, they drove Beverly to her car, picked up her purse, which she promptly emptied onto the ground insisting it was an accident. Leslie did notice the sunglasses sliding away and told them not to worry about it. ‘Where she’s going, she won’t need them.’ That’s when she told her mother she was taking her for a complete psychiatric evaluation. Beverly objected, saying she wasn’t going anywhere for an evaluation that Leslie and Donald had arranged.”

  “Smart lady,” Brien said.

  “Matthew swears Leslie had convinced him and his mother that Beverly would go along with the ‘intervention’ they were staging once they picked her up and Leslie spoke to her. As they pulled out of the parking lot, Beverly was screaming at Leslie that she would never agree to be admitted to a clinic. Leslie was screaming too. She insisted Beverly no longer had any say in the matter, and was going to go to that clinic with her ‘the easy way or the hard way.’ Matthew said he couldn’t believe it when Beverly laughe
d and told Leslie she was the one who needed psychiatric evaluation.”

  “Uh-oh,” Bernadette reacted. She’d been hanging onto every word the detective spoke. “Ay que Dios mio! That’s when she hurt her mother, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Leslie began to beat her, telling her to shut up. Matthew panicked, and turned the wrong way out of the parking lot—up the hill away from town rather than toward downtown Palm Desert. Not that it would have helped to take Beverly to an ER by then.”

  “How did Susan Whitaker’s nail get tangled in Beverly’s hair?”

  “Matthew claims his mother was trying to stop Leslie, wrestled with her, and got hit for her trouble. That’s when the nail and hair transfer must have occurred. Once Leslie had vented her rage, it was her turn to panic, and she ordered Matthew to get Beverly out of the car.”

  “Which is what he did,” Peter said in a somber tone.

  “Yes. Just as we had imagined, he shoved her out of the car and onto the roadside. Leslie was covered in blood. The Whitaker’s Chevy Impala was a mess. Susan Whitaker was sobbing, and Leslie was shaking uncontrollably. They drove to Donald Herndon’s house, pulled into the garage, and sat there for a few minutes until he came out of the house. He took one look and began issuing orders. Donald took Leslie inside, and then came back a few minutes later with cash. He gave it to Matthew and Susan, told them to go home, clean up the car, bury their clothes, and lay low until he or Leslie contacted them again.”

  “What’s incredible to me is that Leslie was able to deal with the authorities a few hours later. She was upset when she called me at my office, but I was convinced that was a natural response to losing her mother. I never suspected for a single minute that she’d been involved, even though family members are always on the list of suspects in a murder investigation.”

  “Well, as I said, we didn’t seriously consider her for very long since she had an alibi and didn’t appear to be on the make for an early inheritance.”