The Best of Sisters in Crime (8 page)

“His will? He
called you about a will?”

“Yes.”

“But he and
Stephanie had already made their wills. Danny Goldstein drew them up.” That
made sense, as Gary had dated his holograph. Danny had been at Boalt with Gary
and me. I wondered briefly if it hurt Ellen to be reminded that all Gary’s
classmates had gone on to become lawyers just like their parents would have
wanted.

A fresh-faced
nurse popped in and took a look at Laurie. “How’s our girl?”

“Like a
different baby.”

The nurse smiled.
“She sure is. We were really worried for a while there.” But the smile faded
almost instantly. “It’s so sad. I never saw a more devoted mother. Laurie never
needed us at all—Stephanie was her nurse. One of the best I ever saw.”

“I didn’t know
Stephanie was a nurse.” The last I’d heard she was working part-time for a
caterer, trying to make up her mind whether to go to chef’s school. Stephanie
had a strong personality, but she wasn’t much more career-minded than Gary was.
Motherhood, everyone seemed to think, had been her true calling.

“She didn’t have
any training—she was just good with infants. You should have seen the way she’d
sit and rock that child for hours, Laurie having diarrhea so bad she hardly had
any skin on her little butt, crying her little heart out. She must have been in
agony like you and I couldn’t imagine. But finally Stephanie would get her to
sleep. Nobody else could.”

“Nobody else
could breast-feed her,” I said, thinking surely I’d hit on the source of
Stephanie’s amazing talent.

“Stephanie
couldn’t, either. Didn’t have enough milk.” The nurse shrugged. “Anyone can
give a bottle. It wasn’t that.”

When she left, I
said, “I’d better go. Can I do anything for you?”

Ellen thought a
minute. “You know what you could do? Will you be going by Gary’s again?”

“I’d be glad to.”

“You could take
some of Stephanie’s clothes and things. They’re going to let Laurie out in a
day or two and there’s so much stuff here.” She looked exasperated.

Glad to help, I
gathered up clothes and began to fold them. Ellen found a canvas carryall of
Stephanie’s to pack them in. Zipping it open, I saw a bit of white powder in
the bottom, and my stomach flopped over. I couldn’t get the notion of drugs out
of my mind. Gary had had a “premonition” of death, the kind you might get if
you burned someone and they threatened you—and now I was looking at white
powder.

I found some
plastic bags in a drawer that had probably once been used to transport diapers
or formula, and lined the bottom of the carryall with them, to keep the powder
from sticking to Stephanie’s clothes.

But instead of
going to Gary’s, I dropped in at my parents’ house in San Rafael. It was about
four o’clock and I had some phoning to do before five.

“Darling!” said
Mom. “Isn’t it awful about poor Gary Wilder?”

Mom had always
liked Gary. She had a soft spot for ne’er-do-wells, as I knew only too well.
She was the main reason Kruzick was currently ruining my life. The person for
whom she hadn’t a minute was the one I preferred most—the blue-eyed and dashing
Mr. Rob Burns, star reporter for the San Francisco
Chronicle.

Using the phone
in my dad’s study, Rob was the very person I rang up. His business was asking
questions that were none of his business, and I had a few for him to ask.

Quickly
explaining the will, the odd phone call to Michael, and the white powder, I had
him hooked. He smelled the same rat I smelled, and more important, he smelled a
story.

While he made
his calls I phoned Danny Goldstein. “Becky baby.”

“Don’t call me
that.”

“Terrible about
Gary, isn’t it? Makes you
think,
man.”

“Terrible about
Stephanie too.”

“I don’t know.
She pussy-whipped him.”

“She was better
than Melissa.”

Danny laughed
unkindly, brayed you could even say. Everyone knew Gary had left me for
Melissa, who was twenty-two and a cutesy-wootsy doll-baby who couldn’t be
trusted to go to the store for a six-pack. Naturally everyone thought I had
Gary pussy-whipped when the truth was, he wouldn’t brush his teeth without
asking my advice about it. He was a man desperate for a woman to run his life,
and I was relieved to be rid of the job.

But still,
Melissa had hurt my pride. I thought Gary’s choosing her meant he’d grown up
and no longer needed me. It was a short-lived maturity, however—within two
years Stephanie had appeared on the scene. I might not see it exactly the way
Danny did, but I had to admit that if he’d had any balls, she was the one to
bust them.

“I hear
motherhood mellowed her,” I said.

“Yeah, she was
born for it. Always worrying was the kid too hot, too cold, too hungry—one of
those poo-poo moms.”

“Huh?”

“You know. Does
the kid want to go poo-poo? Did the kid already go poo-poo? Does it go poo-poo
enough? Does it go poo-poo too much? Is it going poo-poo
right now
? She could discuss color and
consistency through a whole dinner party, salmon mousse to kiwi tart.”

I laughed. Who
didn’t know the type? “Say, listen, Danny,” I said. “Did you know Laurie’s been
in the hospital?”

“Yeah. Marina,
my wife, went to see Stephanie—tried to get her to go out and get some air
while she took care of the baby, but Stephanie wouldn’t budge.”

“I hear you drew
up Gary’s and Stephanie’s wills.”

“Yeah. God, I
never thought—poor little Laurie. They asked Gary’s sister to be her
guardian—he hated his brother and Stephanie was an only child.”

“Guess what?
Gary made another will just before he died, naming the brother as Laurie’s
guardian.”

“I don’t believe
it.”

“Believe it. I’ll
send you a copy.”

“There’s going
to be a hell of a court fight.”

I wasn’t so sure
about that. The court, of course, wouldn’t be bound by either parent’s
nomination. Since Stephanie’s will nominated Jeri as guardian, she and Michael
might choose to fight it out, but given Michael’s apparent hesitation to take
Laurie, I wasn’t sure there’d be any argument at all.

“Danny,” I said,
“you were seeing a lot of him, right?”

“Yeah. We played
racquetball.”

“Was he dealing
coke? Or something else?”

“Gary? No way.
You can’t be a dealer and be as broke as he was.”

The phone rang
almost the minute I hung up. Rob had finished a round of calls to what he
called “his law-enforcement sources.” He’d learned that Gary’s brakes hadn’t
been tampered with, handily blowing my murder theory.

Or seemingly
blowing it. Something was still very wrong, and I wasn’t giving up till I knew
what the powder was. Mom asked me to dinner, but I headed back to the city— Rob
had said he could get someone to run an analysis that night.

It was raining
again by the time I’d dropped the stuff off, refused Rob’s dinner invitation
(that was two) and gone home to solitude and split pea soup that I make up in
advance and keep in the freezer for nights like this. It was the second night
after Gary’s death; the first night I’d needed to reassure myself I was still
alive. Now I needed to mourn. I didn’t plan anything fancy like sackcloth and
ashes, just a quiet night home with a book, free to let my mind wander and my
eyes fill up from time to time.

But first I had
a message from Michael Wilder. He wanted to talk. He felt awful calling me like
this, but there was no one in his family he felt he could talk to. Couldn’t we
meet for coffee or something?

Sure we could—at
my house. Not even for Gary’s brother was I going out in the rain again.

After the soup I
showered and changed into jeans. Michael arrived in wool slacks and a sport
coat—not even in repose, apparently, did he drop the stuffy act. Maybe life
with Laurie would loosen him up. I asked if he’d thought any more about being
her guardian.

It flustered
him. “Not really,” he said, and didn’t meet my eyes.

“I found out the
original wills named Jeri as guardian. If Stephanie didn’t make a last-minute
one, too, hers will still be in effect. Meaning Jeri could fight you if you
decide you want Laurie.”

“I can’t even
imagine being a father,” he said. “But Gary must have had a good reason—” he
broke off. “Poor little kid. A week ago everyone thought
she
was the one who was going to die.”

“What’s wrong
with her—besides diarrhea?” I realized I hadn’t had the nerve to ask either of
the grandmothers because I knew exactly what would happen—I’d get details that
would give
me
symptoms, and two
hours later, maybe three or four, I’d be backing toward the door, nodding, with
a glazed look on my face, watching matriarchal jaws continue to work.

But Michael only
grimaced. “That’s all I know about— just life-threatening diarrhea.”

“Life-threatening?”’

“Without an IV,
a dehydrated baby can die in fifteen minutes. Just ask my mother.” He shrugged.
“Anyway, the doctors talked about electrolyte abnormalities, whatever they may
be, and did every test in the book. But the only thing they found was what they
called ‘high serum sodium levels.’” He shrugged again, as if to shake something
off. “Don’t ask—especially don’t ask my mom or Stephanie’s.”

We both laughed.
I realized Michael had good reasons for finding sudden parenthood a bit on the
daunting side.

I got us some
wine and when I came back, he’d turned deadly serious. “Rebecca, something
weird happened today. Look what I found.” He held out a paper signed by Gary
and headed “Beneficiary Designation.”

“Know what that
is?”

I shook my head.

“I used to be in
insurance—as did my little brother. It’s the form you use to change your life
insurance beneficiary.”

The form was
dated December 16. the day before Gary’s death. Michael had been named
beneficiary and Laurie contingent beneficiary. Michael said, “Pretty weird,
huh?”

I nodded.

“I also found
both Gary’s and Stephanie’s policies—each for half a million dollars and each
naming the other as beneficiary, with Laurie as contingent. For some reason,
Gary went to see his insurance agent the day before he died and changed his.
What do you make of it?”

I didn’t at all
like what I made of it. “It goes with the will,” I said. “He named you as
Laurie’s guardian, so he must have wanted to make sure you could afford to take
care of her.”

“I could afford
it. For Christ’s sake!”

“He must have
wanted to compensate you.” I stopped for a minute. “It might be his way of
saying thanks.”

“You’re avoiding
the subject, aren’t you?”

I was. “You mean
it would have made more sense to leave the money to Laurie directly.”

“Yes. Unless he’d
provided for her some other way.”

“Stephanie had
money.”

“I don’t think
Gary knew how much, though.”

I took a sip of
wine and thought about it, or rather thought about ways to talk about it,
because it was beginning to look very ugly. “You’re saying you think,” I said
carefully, “that he knew she was going to inherit the half million from
Stephanie’s policy. Because she was going to die and he was the beneficiary,
and he was going to die and his new will left his own property to Laurie.”

Michael was
blunt: “It looks like murder-suicide, doesn’t it?”

I said, “Yeah,”
unable to say any more.

Michael took me
over ground I’d already mentally covered: “He decided to do it in a hurry,
probably because it was raining so hard—an accident in the rain would be much
more plausible. He made the arrangements. Then he called me and muttered about
a premonition, to give himself some sort of feeble motive for suddenly getting
his affairs in order; he may have said the same thing to other people as well.
Finally he pretended to be drunk, made a big show of almost having an accident
on the way to the hospital, picked up Stephanie, and drove her over a cliff.”

Still putting
things together, I mumbled, “You couldn’t really be sure you’d die going over
just any cliff. You’d have to pick the right cliff, wouldn’t you?” And then I
said, “I wonder if the insurance company will figure it out.”

“Oh, who cares!
He probably expected they would but wanted to make the gesture. And he knew I
didn’t need the money. That’s not the point. The point is why?” He stood up and
ran his fingers through his hair, working off excess energy. “Why kill himself,
Rebecca? And why take Stephanie with him?”

“I don’t know,”
I said. But I hadn’t a doubt that that was what he’d done. There was another
why—why make Michael Laurie’s guardian? Why not his sister as originally
planned?