Big Summer(89)

“I—yes, I’d heard about that, too.”

“Twenty million dollars,” Detective McMichaels said. His tone was dry, almost expressionless. He could have been telling me Drue was set to inherit a piece of furniture, or a vintage fur coat, instead of an eight-figure payday. “This was from her mother’s side of the family, the Lathrops. According to the terms of the trust, she got the first ten million upon marriage or turning thirty; the balance after the birth of her first child, or her thirty-fifth birthday, whichever came first.” He touched his earlobe, rubbing the dimpled scar where an earring had once been.

“That’s a lot of money.”

“It is that.” Pushing himself away from the desk, he took a slow stroll around the room, stopping to examine a “Visit Paris” poster that featured a stylized drawing of the Eiffel Tower beneath a full moon.

“So who benefits?” he asked, with his back to me. “Her husband looked like an obvious choice. If she died after they were married, without a will, he’d get it all. Except Drue had already transferred two million dollars into his corporate account. Why would he kill the goose that was laying the golden eggs?”

“Good question,” I said.

“Her father was another possibility,” he continued. “He was shouting at her the night of her death. Multiple witnesses heard him yelling, accusing her and her mom of trying to bankrupt him. Only Drue had moved five million bucks into the family business’s coffers the month before. Just enough to cover the interest on their loans for the next month.” He left the Eiffel Tower poster and began to examine one that showed the cathedral of Notre Dame. “Dad’s out. Husband’s out. Who does that leave me with?” he asked.

I kept quiet, wondering if he expected me to raise my hand.

“I mentioned that Stuart Lowe would inherit everything if she didn’t have a will. But she did. Turns out, her lawyers insisted. Before she got all that trust-fund money, she had to make arrangements for where it would go, in the unlikely event that something happened to her. Good thing, too. Because, six months later, something did. And here we are.”

“Here we are,” I echoed.

McMichaels tilted his head. “Any guesses for me?”

“No.”

He curved his lips into a joyless, unpleasant smile. “Aw, c’mon! Give me a guess. People tell me that you’re a smart girl. And you knew her. Maybe better than anyone.” He walked toward me until he was close enough for me to smell his aftershave, all citrus and musk. “Take a guess.” I could smell coffee on his breath, could see threads of red in the whites of his eyes. “Tell me what you think the will said. Tell me who benefits.”

“Maybe some other boyfriend?”

He shook his head. I tried to remember what I’d overheard back on the Cape.

“Or a charity?”

That didn’t even merit a response.

“Her mother? Her brother?”

He shook his head. “She left her jewelry to her mother. The brother’s got a trust of his own. So who got money?”

I tried to make myself look surprised. “Me?”

“Ding ding ding!” He pointed. “Give the lady a prize! Better yet, give her half a million dollars.”

I felt dizzy. “I didn’t know,” I said, which was most of a lie. “Drue never told me.” That, at least, was true.

“I wonder,” McMichaels said in a musing voice. “I do wonder about that. And here’s another headline.” He pulled out his phone, looked down at the screen, and read, “I, Drummond Cavanaugh Lowe, do devise and bequeath to any person past the age of majority confirmed as the child of Robert John Cavanaugh by Quest Diagnostics or its equivalent in DNA testing, one-tenth of my estate entire.” He pocketed his phone and looked at me. “Did you know that Emma Vincent was Robert Cavanaugh’s natural child?”

“I… I… her mother may have mentioned something about that,” I stammered.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “The real question is, did Emma know? Not about her father—she knew about him, for sure—but about the money.”

“How could she? Unless Drue told her. And I don’t think they ever met.” I wasn’t thinking about Emma; I was thinking about Nick. According to Barbara Vincent, Nick’s mother had never told anyone who the father of her baby was. But how many secrets stayed secret forever? The Outer Cape’s like a small town, I remembered Nick saying. People talk.

“By the way,” said the detective, his voice very casual, “did you ever find that fellow you met the night of the party?” He looked at me, pinning me with his gaze.

I felt sure he already knew the answer, but I spoke up anyhow. “His name is Nick, but not Andros. Nick Carvalho.” I decided not to complicate things by mentioning that Nick was also Robert Cavanaugh’s child. Or that his mother was Christina Killian, who had been murdered in the house where Drue had died. Or that Nick was also in New York, probably just down the hall from our classroom.

The detective gave a single, slow nod. “Christina Killian’s boy.” When he turned around to look at another poster, I could see the back of his neck flushed a dark, angry red. “I swear, that woman is haunting me from beyond the grave.” He paced to the front of the room and back again. “You know, the police back then interviewed all the men she’d been with. They never found out who her baby-daddy was.” He turned to me. “I’ve got a pretty good guess now. Trouble is, I’ve got another dead girl on my hands. And here I am, paying three hundred dollars a night for a hotel room the size of my closet where the bed’s a futon on the floor.” He shook his head in disgust.