Sleight of Hand (11 page)

Chapter 20

Sonia Carrolton looked very much like the photographs Barbara had seen of her sister, Connie. A physical description of one would have fit the other, five foot five, one hundred thirty pounds, fit, blond hair, brown eyes. Next to Adele in her peasant skirt and overblouse, Sonia appeared even smaller than she was.

Her voice was low pitched with the accent that Barbara thought of as Southern aristocratic, and was pure Virginian.

After the introductions Adele said, "Sorry if we've kept you waiting. I thought we should get a bite to eat and let Sonia relax a little." It was a few minutes after two.

Sonia had spent several hours sorting through her sister's possessions.

"Forget it," Barbara said, but she wished she had stopped for a sandwich. "Please, make yourselves comfortable." She motioned toward the clients' chairs and took her own chair behind her desk. "What can I do for you, Ms. Carrolton?" she asked when they were all seated.

"I want to retain you to be in charge of an investigation into the death of my sister,"

Sonia said.

"You know I'm already involved in the case concerning the murder of Jay Wilkins?"

"Yes. Adele told me. She told me a lot about you, Ms. Holloway I don't see how this could interfere with your defense in that matter." She drew in her breath. "I can't very well oversee a private investigation from three thousand miles away. I need someone to represent me here. Someone who knows good investigators, who can direct them, assess their reports and keep me informed."

Barbara studied her thoughtfully. She was drawn and looked very tired, but she also looked angry. And Adele was furious. Everything about her posture, the set of her mouth, the way she was watching Barbara so intently, attested to her fury.

"You're not satisfied that the police are doing their own thorough investigation?"

Barbara asked.

"Not at all. There are two possible scenarios that they are considering. One is that my sister was so despondent that she was suicidal. In that one, they say she packed her bag and told Jay she was planning to visit me. They say that possibly at one time Connie really intended to fly east, but she changed her mind. She asked someone to meet her at the airport and give her a ride to the coast. Maybe the friend has a cabin over there where Connie asked to remain for a few days. Then, at the coast, she either fell into the ocean accidentally, or else she deliberately threw herself in. The friend, they think, is too fearful of being involved to come forward."

Although Soma's voice shook a little as she talked, she maintained her composure.

"The other scenario?" Barbara asked.

"I suggested that perhaps she was never taken to the airport in the first place, and they said they had considered it, and investigated Jay thoroughly as a matter of routine, and ruled him out as a possible suspect. And no one else had the opportunity. No one had a motive. She had no enemies."

"They chose the easy way out," Adele said furiously.

Sonia glanced at her and said, "Please, let me."

Adele leaned back in her chair.

"They had one of the investigators talk to me, report what they had learned, what Jay had told them." She told it briefly and succinctly.

The investigators were satisfied that Connie had slept in her own bed on Friday night, and that she had showered on Saturday morning. She had bought a ticket to Roanoke on the Internet. Her husband had taken her to the Portland airport on Saturday, April 19, and she got out of the car and was walking toward the entrance when he left. He never saw her again. His movements were all accounted for from that moment until Monday night.

"They said he called many people using his cell phone asking about her, including me on Sunday night and again early Monday morning. They said she died between Saturday and Monday." This time when her voice faltered, she stopped speaking.

Barbara nodded. "Ms. Carrolton, why do you rule out the possibility of either suicide or an accident?"

"We, that is my family, were taught from childhood that there are certain moral codes that we must adhere to. We were taught that suicide is a mortal sin, excusable only in the event of a terminal illness with intolerable pain and suffering. I believe in those codes and so did Connie. At one time she wanted to die, during the months following the deaths of David and Steve, but it was passive waiting. She made no move toward it. She called me in late March and she was not suicidal then. And she would not have fallen into the sea. She was a mountain climber, athletic as a girl, and an athletic woman. It is inconceivable that she might have fallen into the sea."

She would do, Barbara thought then. Sonia looked soft and easy, but her low lilting voice and charming accent were misleading, she had steel inside, showing in her eyes, in her every utterance. "I'll do what you ask," she said. "Did the police give you the autopsy report?" Sonia said no. "All right. I'll need a letter authorizing me to receive any documents you're entitled to, any reports, and so forth. It's a power of attorney concerning this matter. We'll have to have your signature notarized. I'll call my secretary to come in to do that. Will you be up to more questions? An hour or longer possibly?"

"Of course," Sonia said. "Thank you, Ms. Holloway"

"You have to understand that if in time I see myself on a collision course with the defense of my client, I will have to withdraw to avoid a conflict of interest." Sonia nodded. "All right, I'll call my secretary and prepare the letter."

Barbara wrote the letter and made the call. "While we're waiting, you might as well let go," she said to Adele. "What's got you so pumped up?"

Adele was more than ready. "That scumbag Jay told the cops that I had Connie under my thumb, under my control. He told them I made her give up her medication and that she spent her nights pacing and crying because she couldn't sleep. She wanted her medicine back because she couldn't stand being so depressed all the time, but she was afraid of me! He said she told him it was too hard to keep trying to put on a brave front, but I said it was the only way to deal with depression. If he was in any shape to take it, I'd sue the bastard for defamation or something, if I didn't haul off and shoot him first."

"Did they tell you that?" Barbara asked Sonia.

"Yes. I told them I didn't believe it, and they said everyone they had talked to except Adele agreed that she was suicidal. And," she added slowly, "they found a letter on the computer that they interpret as a suicide note. They gave me a copy."

"May I see it?"

Sonia took a manila envelope from her purse, withdrew a letter and handed it to Barbara. "I also have a copy of her will," she said. "I haven't read it, but her attorney told me the terms." She cast a swift glance at Adele.

"Maybe I should take a little walk," Adele said.

After a perceptible hesitation, Sonia shook her head. "You might as well hear the rest of it." She put the will on the table. "Apparently Connie went to her former attorney in February to discuss a new will. He had urged her to do so soon after the accident, but she simply couldn't cope with it. He said that a year ago, Jay Wilkins's attorney got in touch with him to inform him that he now represented Connie. He sent a copy of a new will that she had signed. In that will her entire estate was bequeathed to her husband, Jay Wilkins. No bequests to charities, no mention of family, nothing else.

At that time Mr. Konig destroyed Connie's old will. He said that was customary."

Adele made a low throat sound that could have been a curse.

Sonia ignored her, and kept her gaze on Barbara. "When the attorney mentioned the new will in February, Connie had no memory of it." She closed her eyes briefly and drew in a long breath. Her voice was steady when she continued a moment later.

"That day they hammered out a draft will that Connie signed before she left the office. The attorney advised her to do so." Again she paused, then she tapped the will on the table. "This is what they came up with. One half of her estate was to go to her husband, the other half to be divided among Eve and Eric Wilkins and her Virginia family. She restored the various charitable bequests she had designated previously."

"How much money are we talking about?" Barbara asked.

"About eight million dollars."

Barbara nodded, and Sonia went on in a lower tone. "The will was finalized in March. Connie signed it, and that was that. But in early April she returned to the attorney with handwritten notes about further changes she wanted. He had her sign the notes while she was there. She said she realized that she had not provided sufficiently for her stepdaughter, and wanted to set up a trust exactly like the one she and David had set up for their son, Steven, years before.

"He asked if she still had a copy of the trust they had established before, and she said she was sure she did. It would expedite things if she found it and they used that as a model, he suggested, and she told him she would look through the boxes of papers in her possession and they left it at that. She never got back to him," Sonia said faintly.

"That was it, handwritten notes?" Barbara asked.

She nodded. "Connie didn't realize that he had destroyed the old will when Mr.

Berman sent him a copy of the new one. Apparently she assumed that he still had it and it would be a simple matter to change a few details and be done with it."

"Do you know what terms she was talking about?"

Sonia nodded. She swallowed hard, then said, "She wanted to put one half of her estate, but not less than four million, in the trust fund to provide for her stepdaughter for the rest of her life, and the other half was to be divided four ways among the stepchildren, Jay and her Virginia family."

This time Adele erupted. "Jesus! Eight million, slashed to four million, then less than one million!"

Both Sonia and Barbara gave her sharp looks, and she said doggedly, "And then it would have been zip. She was going to dump him within the next six months. I saw the signs. It was coming."

"Cork it!" Barbara said sharply. She looked at Sonia. "What else did her attorney say?"

"He knew I was going out to the house to see about her personal effects. He had suggested it, in fact. He told me to concentrate on documents, anything to substantiate what she had written, referring to the old trust fund. He said if we could back up her written notes, he would defend them as a codicil in probate court."

"And did you?"

"No. There wasn't a scrap of paper, no old cards, no notes, no old e-mails, nothing.

We corresponded a lot about the trust at the time. They were modeling theirs on the one we established for our own children fifteen years ago, but there wasn't anything." She leaned forward and her face flushed. "In early April she had boxes of papers, this morning nothing! She always kept everything, exactly the same as I did.

We all do. We're pack rats, my whole family. We keep every card, everything. And there wasn't a scrap."

"Do you know if Connie told Jay what she was doing?" Barbara asked before Sonia could continue.

"She would have told him. She's... she was so honest it wouldn't have occurred to her to keep it from him. Besides, he changed his will at about the same time she did, in March. She must have made him do that, or at least talked him into it. Eric told Konig that Jay's original will left one thousand dollars to each of his children, the rest to that distant relative. He changed his to reflect hers. Half to her, the other half divided three ways." She took a deep breath, then said clearly, "That distant relative is named as the main beneficiary in the event of Connie's death preceding Jay's."

Abruptly Sonia stood up and leaned against the desk, her hands white from clutching it. "If Jay Wilkins is the heir to her estate, my sister's money will go to some distant relative of his that no one ever heard of before! She intended to help that child, her stepdaughter, exactly the way she would have provided for her own child!"

Adele looked ready to explode, her face was fiery red, and a vein was throbbing in her temple. "Just hold it," Barbara snapped at her. "Let me think a minute." She waved Sonia down, and leaned back with her eyes closed. Then she said, "Ms.

Carrolton, you say you had a great deal of correspondence about the trust years ago. When you go home, find everything you can to support what your sister intended. If a handwritten codicil is backed up with anything to substantiate it, the probate court will have to consider it. There's no guarantee how they will decide the issue, but they will need more than a few notes. The immediate family's demands will carry more weight than a distant relative's, especially if you can document her intentions from the past and she referred specifically to the past."

Sonia nodded and sank back down into her chair. Barbara picked up the computer-generated letter she had referred to and scanned it. It was less than half a page of printout.

I can't take it much longer. Please, God, how much longer must I endure?

Pretending, always pretending. J tries so hard to help, but it's no use. He doesn't understand. Adele doesn't understand. No one does. I hate being alive. I don't want to live. I'm ready

There was no salutation, no end punctuation, and although the lines had no printed date, someone had penciled in a date, March 27.

"I can see why they interpreted it as a suicide note," Barbara said. "While we're waiting for my secretary, I'd like to take your statement about the phone call Jay Wilkins made to you back in April. Maria can notarize your signature when she gets here. I'd also like a statement from your brother about the call Jay made to him later that day. It should be notarized, too." Sonia nodded.

Barbara was still at her computer keying in the statement when Maria arrived. She finished it, Sonia read it over and signed it, and Maria notarized it and the power of attorney.

Maria made copies of the will and the note, and started a pot of coffee. "Just in case you want it later," she said.

After Maria left, Barbara motioned toward the sofa and upholstered chairs, and they all moved across the room. "You mentioned that your sister called you in March,"