Sufficient Ransom (29 page)

Suddenly, Ann heard raised voices. A man and a woman’s. And crying. She froze. She hated to intrude... More crying. And shouting. A second male voice. She wondered if she should knock on the door and ask Diane about Chet, or if she should just leave.

The door to Diane’s place opened and a woman came running out. She was followed by a man. They stopped short when they saw Ann. The woman was plainly dressed and slightly overweight. Her hair was pulled into a tight bun on the top of her head. Her homely face glistened with tears. She looked at Ann with fear in her eyes.

The man, also overweight, in jeans and a tee shirt, looked over his shoulder at Diane’s open doorway, then back at Ann. He too looked confused and a little afraid.

The woman pulled at the man’s sleeve. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go.” They turned and hurried down the stairs.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Ann called after them. “I was just looking for my friend, Chet. He lives—”

Below, a car door opened and slammed shut. A car engine started. A flash of lights, wheels on pavement, and the pair were off.

Chet appeared in the doorway of Diane’s townhouse. Light reflecting off his glasses made it hard to see his eyes. “Ann?” he said. “What’re you doing here?”

“I uh. I uh was worried about you. You didn’t show up for coffee. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Chet stepped onto the deck toward her. “Sorry. I forgot all about it.” He looked out at the darkened parking lot and back at Ann. “How long have you been out here?”

“I just got here,” Ann said. “Sorry if I scared your friends. They seemed pretty upset.”

Ann wondered why Chet didn’t invite her in. A telephone rang. She could hear Diane answering. The phone to her ear, Diane shut the front door leaving Chet and Ann in darkness.
What’s up with these two?

Ann tried to explain her presence. “After what happened to Nora... I uh. I didn’t want to take any chances.”

Chet kept looking away at the parking lot. He seemed to be thinking of something else.

“I better be going now,” Ann said.

He didn’t try to stop her. “I’ll call you, Ann.”

She noted, with a touch of frustration, that Chet hadn’t thanked her for checking on him.

7:45 P.M
.

W
hen Ann returned home she found Kika and Richard in the kitchen, drinking beer. An empty pizza carton sat in the garbage bin along with four empty cans. Ann was surprised that she felt neither jealousy nor resentment at seeing her husband in the company of a beautiful woman.

Ann opened the refrigerator and peered in. Though it had been days since she had anything substantial to eat, she wasn’t hungry. “Any beer left?”

“Bottom shelf,” Richard said.

She poured herself a glass of Coors Light and joined Richard and Kika at the table. She addressed Kika. “What brings you here?”

Kika shrugged. “I was feeling a little lonely. I dropped by to see if you two wanted to get a bite to eat.”

Ann glanced at her husband as she sipped her drink. He looked dejected. “I just came from Chet’s.”

Richard’s eyes simmered with sudden anger.

“Before you get upset,” Ann cautioned, “let me tell you what happened.” She told about her odd encounter with the pastor.

“What do you expect?” Richard said when she was finished. “Chet’s just being the asshole that he is. You think he’s your friend? He doesn’t give a shit about you, Ann.”

Ann bit down on her lip. There was no use talking to her husband about Chet. Richard’s prejudice against the pastor was clouding his judgment.

Richard was on a roll. “I’m not the only one who thinks that son-of-a-bitch is up to no good.”

Ann shot her husband an angry look. “What’re you talking about?”

Slouched in his seat, Richard’s words were slightly slurred. “Tom Long’s been asking a lot of questions about dear old Chet.”

The detective had asked Ann a few things about the pastor, but nothing out of the ordinary. “What kind of questions?”

“What things were
really
like between him and Nora,” Richard said.

Kika’s voice was conciliatory. “Please,” she said. “Let’s talk about something else. This whole Chet business just makes everyone mad.”

Eager to talk about her son, Ann turned to the social worker. “So Kika, do you think there’s a connection between Travis and Nora?”

“Richard and I were just talking about that,” Kika said.

Ann cast a furtive glance at her husband. Dark stubble on his face added to his brooding expression. Her voice was softer. “What did you conclude?”

Richard crushed his empty beer can and let it fall to the table. Tin hitting wood made a soft clinking sound. He said, “There seems to be a pattern somewhere in this.”

“What do you mean?” Ann asked.

Richard straightened his back and placed his elbows on the table. “I’m not sure.”

Kika spoke. “We were just saying that Nora knew something about Travis and was—”

Ann finished her thought. “—killed for it.”

Her husband nodded his agreement.

As they were getting ready for bed, Richard turned to Ann, “Sorry for being such a jerk tonight.”

Ann placed her hand on her husband’s cheek. “It’s okay.”

“Annie, how much do you know about Nora?”

She moved to the bed and folded the bedspread back. “What do you mean?”

“Her early life. When she was married. What her husband was like. That sort of thing.”

“Well. Nora came from a wealthy family. She went to UCSD and got a degree in geography. Her husband, Peter, came from money too. He was a successful attorney with a big practice.”

Richard sat on the bed, his back against the headboard. “Geography? That’s different.”

“Nora had planned to travel the world,” Ann said, her voice sad.

“Did she?” Richard asked.

Ann joined her husband on the bed. “She did, with her husband.”

“And she lived in Mexico,” Richard said.

“She moved there after college and stayed for several years.”

“You said she had a daughter who died in Mexico.” Richard’s voice dropped. “Losing a child’s a terrible thing.”

Ann buried her face in his shoulder. “I know things have been crazy between us. Don’t ever forget that I love you, Richard. No matter what happens.”

Her husband held her close. After a long silence he said, “Didn’t Chet live in Mexico too?”

“It was Pastor Todd,” Ann said. “He was a missionary there, a long time ago.”

C
HAPTER
24

Sunday, October 28

9:30 A.M
.

T
wenty-six days after Travis disappeared and five days since Nora was murdered, the Olsons were summoned to the office of Mr. Bone, the attorney who was handling Nora March’s estate. The authenticity of the will found in Nora’s safe had been confirmed. The document was to be read to the beneficiaries.

Seated around the long conference table in the attorney’s art deco offices, Ann held tightly to Richard’s hand. Across the table, Tom Long greeted them with a quiet hello. Law enforcement, Ann noted, would naturally want to be present at the reading of a murder victim’s will. She tried to ignore her own discomfort in the presence of the others in the room—most of them strangers who kept sneaking looks at her—by concentrating her attention on the sparkling view of San Diego bay and the Coronado Bridge seventeen stories below.

When Chet entered the room and patted her arm in greeting, Ann returned his apologetic smile with a slight one of her own. She was still annoyed with the pastor for the way he treated her the night she was worried about him.

Mr. Bone, a lean man of middle age with a grim mouth and kind eyes, entered the room and started the meeting. After announcing a list of small bequests to various San Diego charities, Mr. Bone turned to Ann and Richard. “To Mrs. Olson,” the attorney said, his voice business-like. “Nora March has bequeathed the sum of five million dollars to fund a new museum of classically inspired art. The details of which I will provide, in a separate meeting, at your convenience.”

Nora had remembered Ann’s desire to have her own museum. Her eyes filling, Ann focused her attention on the attorney who was now addressing Chet. Later, she would think of her friend and her generous gift. That Nora would leave the bulk of her estate to her only living child seemed all but certain. Large sums of money could never erase the pain of a loved one’s death. But Ann imagined that it could ease it somewhat, especially for someone like Chet, who always seemed to need money for his church.

“Chet March,” Mr. Bone announced. “Your mother, Nora March, has bestowed for your personal use the sum of one million dollars in cash. If any part of these monies is used to benefit New Way Evangelical Church the inheritance is void.”

The wide eyes around table confirmed that Ann wasn’t the only one who was shocked.

Chet stared straight ahead apparently unsure how to react. Ann knew the pastor well enough to see that he was hurt and angry. When Chet noticed that the others were waiting for him to say something, he shrugged. “It is what it is.”

Ann couldn’t help thinking that Chet was acting the part of a swindled victim, not the recipient of a generous legacy.
Victim
. She remembered Nora once saying that her son saw himself that way. Maybe because of the way his father had treated him. “My father,” Chet had once told Ann, “never cared about me. He missed my piano recitals, my tennis matches. Cards I made for his birthday and Father’s Day, I’d find them in the trash with the rest of the household garbage.” His poor relationship with his father was perhaps one of the reasons Chet found
solace in his heavenly father. But then again, Ann mused, it wasn’t as if Chet had been neglected. His mother had given him a lot of love and personal attention; private schools and expensive vacations. Not to mention large sums of money for his church. Chet had lived a life of privilege, but apparently he felt he was owed more.

Ann caught Tom Long looking at Chet critically. Chet’s ungrateful reaction to his mother’s will was indeed surprising. It occurred to Ann that maybe she should pay more attention to what the pastor said and did.

When he had everyone’s attention, Mr. Bone continued. “The remaining portion of Nora March’s estate, in the amount of twenty million dollars, will be held in trust for Mrs. March’s biological daughter.”

Voices rose in indignant confusion. Suddenly, everyone was talking over each other. Ann caught snippets. “Is this a joke? Nora didn’t have a daughter. What could this mean?”

The attorney’s raised hand commanded silence. “If Nora March’s daughter does not claim her inheritance by her fortieth birthday, the trust will be dissolved and the monies donated to the San Diego County Orphanage.”

Chet’s eyes were like burning coals. “What’s the meaning of this? My mother never told me I had a sister.”

If looks could kill
. Ann felt a sudden chill.

Mr. Bone picked up his reading glasses. “Mrs. March’s own words will help you understand,” he said, not unkindly.

Ann wiped her eyes with her crumpled tissue. Nora had held out hope that her daughter had lived, despite all evidence to the contrary. Ann understood her friend’s feelings. She too couldn’t accept that her son might be gone for good. No proof short of holding his….

Richard turned Ann’s chair around and pulled her close. When Ann finally looked up she saw that she and her husband were alone.

“I never got to hold her,”
Nora had said. Would Ann ever hold her son again?

C
HAPTER
25

Monday, October 29

12:30 P.M
.

T
he next day, Chet called Ann and invited her to lunch. “After Todd’s morning sermon, at the coffee shop where I broke our date,” he had said, a little sheepishly. Though Ann would have preferred to spend the rest of the day alone in her room thinking about what to do next, she accepted the invitation. Chet’s reaction to his mother’s will had spooked her. She wanted to understand what was going through his mind.

Now, seated with Chet in a booth at the coffee shop, Ann immediately regretted coming. Chet kept apologizing for his rude treatment of her the night she came to check on him; it was embarrassing. Despite his conciliatory words, Ann noticed that the pastor seemed afraid to look at her. There was a sense of urgency about him, an intensity that hadn’t been there before.

“You’re angry about Nora’s will, aren’t you?” Ann said, hoping Chet would unburden himself so he would feel better, and then she could go home.

He looked sullen. “My mother never did anything for me while she was alive. Why would she in death?”

“She left you a lot of money, Chet.”

“What good does it do me if I can’t spend it on what I want?”

When Chet’s steady gaze settled on her, Ann’s heart skipped a beat. That rapacious look had flitted by again.

The corners of Chet’s mouth turned down in an ugly frown. “And to leave twenty million dollars to a ghost who died long ago. It shows how crazy she was.”

The thought of Nora pining for her daughter all those years wrenched Ann’s heart. It occurred to her that Chet might resent
her
inheritance. When Ann broached the subject, Chet shook his head. “It’s my mother I resent. New Way could have done so much with that money.”

The pastor’s self-absorption was starting to get on Ann’s nerves. “I’m sure the orphanage will put it to great use,” she said.

“And the letters they found,” Chet said. “This guy Chris Fallon or Fuller. Whatever his name is. Makes my mother sound like a tramp. Having a child out of wedlock with some guy off the street.”

Ann was surprised Nora had never revealed to Chet that he’d had a baby half-sister who had died before he was born. And yet for some reason she had told Ann. She felt an urge to comfort the pastor. To tell him that his mother was a good woman and that the money was not important in the scheme of things. But Ann was suddenly afraid. She had never seen her friend so angry.