Deadly Cross (Alex Cross #28)(54)

“And you know what’s even better?” Ned asked as he parked the rental, the front tires rubbing and squealing.

“We get to take a shower?”

“Nah,” he said, gesturing across the street at a garish red neon sign. “Rib joint.”





CHAPTER 60





AFTER A SHOWER, AN OUTSTANDING baby-back-rib dinner, and a fitful night of sleep, Mahoney and I were at the door of the state court clerk in Montgomery ten minutes before the office opened, drinking coffee.

“No word on the federal order?” I asked as he checked his phone.

“It’s all been filed,” Ned said. “Just has to get under Judge Adams’s nose.”

I wondered what we’d find in Kay’s medical files, what other dark secrets the socialite might have been hiding. She’d led multiple lives, I decided. That was certain. And within each life, she wore many, many masks.

“I made the right call not reporting that we were shot at and almost run down by a truck,” Mahoney said.

I nodded. “At least until we know the lay of the land and who’s on our side.”

A worker opened the doors at precisely 8:30 a.m. We went to Leroy Wolf, the clerk himself, presented our credentials, and asked to see the probate files on Kay Sutter Willingham.

He peered at us through reading glasses for a moment and then typed on his keyboard and hit Enter. “Sealed twelve days ago,” he said, turning the screen in our direction.

I leaned forward. “Is there a time stamp on that? What exact time was it sealed?”

Wolf frowned and typed again. “Four thirty p.m.”

“Eight and a half hours after I was on the scene in the schoolyard,” I said to Ned.

“At whose request was probate sealed?” he asked.

Wolf studied his screen and then smiled. “The late Justice Richard Fortier of the Alabama Supreme Court.”

“A state supreme court justice sealed it and then died?” Mahoney said.

“No, Justice Fortier was elevated to the high court early last year,” Wolf said. “He wrote this order six years ago to go into effect upon notice of Kay Willingham’s death. He had a heart attack March of last year, not six weeks into his term on the bench. But his seal stands.”

I thought we were at an impasse until Mahoney said, “That seal includes the latest documents, right? As in the most recent last will and testament?”

“That’s correct.”

“But not old wills. They’re considered null and void and therefore not sealed.”

“That’s true,” Wolf said. “But as a policy, we discard and expunge legal documents that are no longer in effect.”

“But as a practice, people are lazy,” Mahoney said. “Especially state employees.”

Wolf slowly turned his head to look at him. “I’m trying to be nice and helpful here.”

“And I appreciate it, and I would be even more appreciative if you’d look for earlier filings of Kay Willingham’s last will and testament. And any other file with her name on it.”

Wolf sighed, typed, looked at the screen, and said, “Well, lazy or not, there are too many filings here to be easily printed out.”

“Give us an index,” I said. “We’ll be selective.”

Within thirty seconds we were looking at a three-page list of documents filed in Alabama’s state court with Kay’s name on them. The first and latest was her sealed probate file. Others had to do with the death and burial of her mother.

The eighth on the list was a revised will filed twenty months ago, which we asked Wolf to print. As those pages piled up, we continued down the index list and found a land title transfer of eighty acres from Kay Willingham to Althea Lincoln. It was dated five years ago.

“Althea,” I said, remembering the framed photograph in Kay’s house of the two young girls embracing after a swim. “That was her childhood friend.”

“Check this, Alex,” Mahoney said, looking up from the pages of the old will. “Kay’s got elaborate plans for her funeral here. Bible readings. Music. A letter to be read. Reference to an obituary already being written.”

“That goes against what Vice President Willingham told us about not wanting a ceremony or memorial.”

“Unless she changed her plans for her funeral along with her plans for the plantation,” Mahoney said, reading on. “Okay, here’s the language regarding the land in the twenty-month-old will: ‘Upon my death, the lands of Sutter plantation will be sold to the highest bidder and the proceeds distributed to charities listed in appendix A.’ ”

“But again, that will is null and void,” Wolf said.

“Here’s another from five years ago,” Mahoney said, looking at the index.

To the clerk’s annoyance, it too had not been expunged, and he printed it.

Ned went straight to the disposition of the land and found, as I’d remembered, that it was to be given to the state as a park and the grounds restored so people would understand the entire story of the Sutter plantation.

The clerk said, “And the three wills prior to that one have indeed been expunged.”

“Do you have appendix A from the twenty-month-old will?” I asked Mahoney. “The list of charities that were supposed to get the money?”