The Secret Keeper Read online

  Jonathan’s brief but glowing physical description hadn’t done Mel justice. If he ever decided to hang up his airline steward’s uniform, he could instantly get a job as resident hunk on any soap opera on TV.

  He was about Jonathan’s height and build, with a cover-model face and the kind of light-blue eyes that, in my single days, would have made me melt. (Okay, so they still made me thaw a little.) He was wearing a bright-blue sport shirt, white chinos, and dark brown loafers, all of which did nothing to lessen his overall sex appeal. I also caught the slight scent of a cologne I’d given Jonathan for our anniversary and which always drove me to distraction. It took quite a bit of will power to push my libido back into its little box and close the lid.

  “Come in,” I said, a little unnecessarily, extending my hand.

  His grip was strong and warm, and the thaw factor rose by several degrees. Whatever American was paying him wasn’t enough. But then I realized that, as Clarence Bement’s grandson, he probably didn’t need the money.

  I showed him to a chair in front of my desk.

  “Coffee?” I asked, having just made a fresh pot in anticipation.

  “No, thanks,” he said. His voice would make a great topping for an ice-cream sundae, I decided. “I had a late breakfast.” And again, while most straights probably wouldn’t immediately pick up on it, if I had my eyes closed and heard his voice across a crowded room, I’d have known he was gay. It’s a gift we have.

  I moved around to my chair and sat down.

  “So what can I do for you, Mr. Fowler?” I always used a client’s last name until otherwise advised.

  “It’s Mel…Mr. Hardesty,” he said, grinning. Nice grin.

  “Fair enough,” I replied, returning the grin and noticing the lid had come off of my libido box. I forced it back in. “And it’s Dick.”

  “See? We’re making progress already.”

  “I must admit I was a little surprised to get your call.”

  He sat back in his chair. “You shouldn’t be. Grandpa B became really very fond of Jonathan in the short time he knew him, and Jonathan talked about you several times. He’s very proud of you, and you’re really lucky to have him.”

  “Believe me, I know,” I said. “But why do you suppose your grandfather would have mentioned all this to you?”

  “Well, at first I thought it was just his casual way of letting me know he knew I’m gay—we’d never talked about it, but how could he not know? Anyway, because he knew Jonathan was, he was probably just letting me know he was okay with it.”

  He smiled, and I realized I’d been staring at him. He was truly hot.

  Hardesty! a chorus of my mind-voices cautioned in unison.

  “Your grandfather sounds like he was pretty sharp, even at ninety,” I said, pulling myself back to the moment.

  “Oh, he was! Which is one of the reasons I’m here.”

  “So, what can I do for you, Mel?” I repeated.

  “You can find who killed him.”

  “Have you talked to the police?”

  “Briefly. They seem pretty convinced it was suicide. When I tried to tell them Grandpa B would never do that, they were very nice but pointed out that reaction is pretty standard in families of people who kill themselves.”

  “Okay,” I said, as conversationally as I could manage. “And what makes you think his death was not a suicide?” I did not want to tell him that I’d already checked with the police regarding Jonathan’s theory.

  “Because I know my grandfather, and I know he simply would not willingly cut his life short by so much as a minute.”

  “But being confined to a wheelchair after his fall must have been really hard on him. And I understand a close friend had just died. Perhaps he was more depressed than he let you know?”

  “Of course he was depressed; who wouldn’t be? But it was precisely because he knew his time was limited that made every day even more precious to him. He read, he loved music and his garden and his other hobbies—none of that changed after his fall.”

  “Do you have any idea who would have wanted to kill him, or why?” Again, I knew full well that whenever a millionaire dies under suspicious circumstances, the why is often obvious.

  He gave me a wry smile. “We can start with my family,” he said. “Or, more specifically, my uncle Richard’s side of the family. They define the term ‘money-grubbers.’ They were constantly hounding Grandpa B for money for one thing or another. They never let up, until toward the end he’d finally had enough and turned off the tap.”

  “And how did they react to that?”

  “I think you can guess. They were furious but didn’t dare let it show because they were afraid they’d be cut out of his will.”

  I thought for a moment before saying, “And are they that demanding with your grandmother? She’s still alive, I assume?”

  He shook his head. “Oh, yes, very much so. But it wouldn’t have done them any good. They all inherited the spending gene from her. She’s been living in Europe—she has a little pièd-a-terre, as she calls it, in San Remo on the Italian Riviera—for years, and hasn’t been back to the States in ages, so I’m the only one in the family who has a chance to see her every now and then.

  “She’s had four wealthy husbands since she divorced Grandpa B, and ran through every penny she got from them. Her fourth husband left her the villa she lives in, and an annuity that allows her to live comfortably but not lavishly. She guards it carefully. And when she dies, the annuity stops. So, there is no reason to try to dun her for money she doesn’t have. At least, that’s her story, and she’s sticking to it.

  “She’s in her mid-eighties now, and when I have a flight to Europe; she’ll sometimes come up to Paris or down to Rome for dinner with me, but I generally try to avoid it since the only thing she talks about is how Grandpa B did her wrong. She didn’t come to his funeral.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “So tell me more about your family.” I already had gathered they were not the Cleavers.

  “Think The Psychiatrists’ Handbook of Dysfunctions,” he said. “We’re all in there somewhere, on both sides of the family. But I’m worried that if anyone were looking for suspects, the first person they’d zoom in on is my mother. She’s schizophrenic and has been in and out of hospitals for years. We’re pretty close when she’s on her meds, but like a lot of schizophrenics, as soon as she starts feeling better she thinks she doesn’t need them anymore and ends up back in the hospital.

  “Whenever she was off her meds, she was convinced Grandpa B hated her and was hiring people to kill her. I suppose that’s a leftover reaction from the garbage my grandmother fed her after she and Grandpa B got divorced.”

  “And was she on her medication at the time your grandfather died?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ve been working a lot lately, so I hadn’t talked to her for several days before it happened, and I was in London when I heard he’d died.”

  “So you don’t know where your mother was at the time?”

  He shook his head. “No. She usually locks herself in her apartment and won’t answer the door or the phone. But her word alone wouldn’t tend to hold much weight as an alibi if she needed one. Anyway, I know she could never kill anyone no matter what her mental state was.” He paused, looked at me, and grinned. “See what I mean about dysfunctions?”

  “I think I’m getting the picture,” I said. “But I gather there’s more.”

  He nodded. “Oh, yeah. My sister Pat is a librarian at Mountjoy College in Carrington. I love her dearly, but she’s borderline autistic and pretty much a recluse when she’s not working, although, other than being painfully quiet and shy, she’s a sweetheart. She loved Grandpa B almost as much as I did but had a harder time showing it.”

  “And your dad?”

  He took a deep breath. “Oh, Dad’s okay. Like Pat, he never says much about anything. His accounting firm handles the family money, and it isn’t easy. Dad’s own family was poor as church mice, an
d I think that’s helped him to be a better financial manager for the family. When you’ve always had more money than you know what to do with, you have no idea how hard it is for those who don’t. God knows Uncle Richard and his kids haven’t a clue. I don’t think even Grandpa B really realized it. He had always supported a few major charities, but it was Dad who encouraged him to expand the scope and amount of his donations.”

  “It must have been a little hard for someone who came from a nonwealthy background to fit into a really rich family,” I observed.

  “Probably harder than he’d ever admit. I don’t mean to sound unkind when I say that one reason I think he’s stayed with Mom all these years is because handling the family money is the vast bulk of his business. He might have felt that, if he were to divorce Mom, Grandpa B would look for another accountant. I’m sure that wouldn’t have been the case, but I can’t say I really blame Dad for having it in the back of his mind. The Bements don’t do divorce gracefully. He’s devoted his entire career to watching over Bement money, and I don’t know if he’d be able to start over if he lost the accounts.”

  “I gather your parents’ marriage was not one made in heaven.”

  Again the wry smile. “Other than the schizophrenia, you mean? Yeah, you might say that. My grandmother was vehemently against the marriage, but she couldn’t do much to stop it. But she never hid her displeasure.”

  “That must have been rough on you and your sister.”

  “Not really. Grandmother sees things the way she wants to see them. Pat and I are our mother’s children as far as she is concerned, not our father’s. And Mom’s schizophrenia has really been tough on Dad, though he tries not to let it show. It’s hard to love someone you don’t know half the time. It’s like tamping a cigarette in an ashtray. Eventually the flame goes out, but a little smoke hangs around. Dealing with Mom’s been hard enough for me and Pat, but I can imagine what it must be like for him. He’s stood by her, even though she moved out on him a year or so ago. He seems a lot happier now.”

  He glanced over at the coffee pot and said, “Maybe I will have a cup of coffee, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sure,” I said, hastily getting up. “Cream—well, the powdered stuff, since I don’t have a refrigerator here—and sugar?”

  “Both.”

  When we had our coffee and I’d sat back down, he picked up his story where he’d left off.

  “So, let’s see…Ah, yes. Uncle Richard’s side—there’s him, his wife Pauline, who died several years ago, and his three kids, George, Alan, and Stuart. They’re all crazy as bedbugs, and they all hate one another. A set of winners if there ever was one. Aunt Pauline was the glue that held them all together, but once she died, that was it.

  “Uncle Richard is Grandma’s favorite, and thanks to her he’s never worked a day in his life. She was hell-bent on seeing that he ‘married well’ and all but arranged his marriage to Pauline, whose family had made a fortune in retail. Aunt Pauline was pretty sensible, and she tried her best not to spoil their kids, but it didn’t work. They all took after Uncle Richard in the firm belief that actually working was beneath them—though frankly, I can’t imagine anyone hiring them even if they did want to work.

  “Uncle Richard is a little too fond of gambling, though he has always managed to keep his head just above water. George is a serious druggie; Alan’s a womanizer who I suspect abuses his wife; and Stuart is, to put it mildly, flat-out strange. He claims to be an inventor, and actually has a couple of patents on worthless gee-gaws. He knows everything there is to know about everything and will not hesitate to tell you so whether you want to know or not. I’m sure Stuart is gay, by the way, not that it matters. He’s so walled into his closet he could never find his way out.

  “I’ve never had much to do with any of them. It’s like a really bad soap opera, and it’s almost like we weren’t related at all. Wishful thinking on my part.” He grinned again.

  “When Pauline died, the boys nearly trampled one another in their rush to spend every cent she left them. I still can’t figure out how they did it, but they managed. The only decent one in Richard’s whole family is Anna, Alan’s daughter. She’s really quite nice. She’s deaf, which probably spared her being too caught up in the family dynamics. The rest of the family all but ignores her, like she’s some kind of freak, and she’s probably just as well off for it.

  “The only time I ever see everyone is when the whole family gets—got—together every year on December fifteenth for Grandpa B’s birthday. They’d spend that one day falling all over one another buttering him up, then ignore him the rest of the year unless they wanted something—which, until recently, he’d almost always give them.

  “Because his birthday was so close to Christmas, that meant they didn’t have to bother actually spending the holiday with him. Most of them would send him a present for Christmas, usually something he either had no use for or already had twenty of. They didn’t care—they figured the old ‘it’s the thought that counts’ would cover it.”

  “I wonder why he put up with it.”

  Cocking his head and raising one eyebrow, he said, “Guilt. I think he felt guilty because he hadn’t been a real part of their lives once Grandma got custody of Mom and Richard in the divorce and did everything she could to turn them and their kids against him. He’s always been more than generous with all of us. At the time of the divorce, he established sizable trust funds for my mother and Uncle Richard. And when each of the grandkids was born, he did the same for us.

  “The funds for the grandkids didn’t kick in until we turned twenty-five. Though Pat and I have real jobs, so we don’t have to rely on it, The Three Stooges—Richard’s boys—have all been living off of it from the minute they qualified, and especially after they blew what Aunt Pauline left them. But it was never enough. They always wanted more. I really felt sorry for the way the family treated Grandpa B. He didn’t deserve it.”

  “And what about his housekeeper?” I asked.

  “Esmirelda,” he said. “Esmirelda Taft. She’s not a member of the family, but aside from the money, she’s cut from the same cloth. Very efficient in an I, Robot sort of way. Absolutely no personality or sense of humor. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smile.”

  “How long had she been with him?”

  “About ten years, I think. She originally worked for Uncle Richard and Aunt Pauline. Six months after Aunt Pauline died, Grandpa B’s longtime housekeeper retired and moved to be with family in Florida, and Uncle Richard insisted that Esmirelda go work for him, I suspect to keep a close eye on Grandpa B and report everything he did back to Uncle Richard.”

  “Do you know if she’s still looking after the house?”

  He nodded. “Yes, she’s agreed to stay on until it’s decided what to do with the place.”

  “Who is the executor of the will?” I asked.

  “Interesting you should bring that up,” Mel said. “Grandpa B had named his lawyer, Eli Prescott, to handle his affairs, but Mr. Prescott was killed in a car crash less than a week before Grandpa B died. He and Grandpa B were good friends, and his death hit Grandpa B hard.”

  “Hard enough to drive him to suicide?” Jonathan had mentioned the lawyer’s death and its effect on the old man. And I remember Marty’s mentioning there was something about it in the police report on his death.

  Mel shook his head. “No. Grandpa B was both a pragmatist and a realist. He’d lost good friends before. He knew death was a part of life, but he wanted to hold on to life as long as he could.”

  “I’d assume there was an alternate executor to his will?”

  “Yes. Co-alternates: Uncle Richard and my mother.”

  Apparently, my face reflected my thoughts. He paused to take another drink of his coffee, then said, “Yeah, it just gets better and better. And that brings up another issue. A big one.”

  “Which is…?” I asked.

  “I went over to see Grandpa B right after Eli Prescott died—the day I
met Jonathan, as a matter of fact. He was still really upset and was sort of rambling, I’m afraid. But he said something about making a new will, and said I shouldn’t worry. I told him he didn’t owe me anything. He asked me not to say anything about it to anyone, and he didn’t go into detail, but I know he’d been pretty fed up with Richard and his kids for a long time. The thing is, I wasn’t able to tell if he’d already made out a new will, or was planning to do it when Eli died.”

  “So you didn’t tell anyone about it?”

  “No. I did ask my dad if Grandpa B had ever talked to him about a new will, but I didn’t say I knew he had one.

  “Anyway, after Grandpa B died, Andrew Weaver, the lawyer who took over Mr. Prescott’s clients, found an unsigned copy of a new will Mr. Prescott had drawn up, apparently just before he died. Mr. Weaver called my mom and Uncle Richard to see if they knew anything about it, whether Grandpa B had ever signed it, or, if he did, where the signed copies were. Mom didn’t even know there was a new will, and Uncle Richard claimed he didn’t, either, but I wouldn’t believe a word he said.

  “Mr. Weaver said there had to be copies somewhere, since it didn’t appear to be a rough draft, and wills are always drawn up in sets of four. Nobody seems to know what happened to the other copies, or if Grandpa B ever signed it. And then I found out that Mr. Prescott’s home had been burglarized during his funeral! I think the burglary was just a cover-up for looking for the new will.”

  Now, that was an eye-opener. If true, it could suggest Prescott’s fatal accident could have been murder, to hide the fact there was a new will. Whoever did it must have been pretty sure Prescott didn’t have the signed copies with him at the time of his death, because they wouldn’t have risked having the will found in the wreckage. How they might know was another matter. But if that were the case, the funeral would have then provided a perfect time to search Prescott’s home for it.