Faithless in Death (In Death, #52)(75)

“Yes, I do.”

“And what does she say to me, my own sister, in front of my beautiful wife and boys? She tells me my marriage isn’t recognized and my children aren’t legitimate. Until I restore order to my life, she won’t see or speak to me again. That she’ll pray I find my way back.”

“I’m very sorry.”

“I took my family home, and that’s been that. I don’t know how that son of a bitch turned my sister into that person I met in Bozeman. I never told my parents about it, they had heartbreak enough. I’d appreciate if you’d honor that.”

“Yes, sir. She would have had children herself at that time.”

“Two boys, another on the way. My wife said how hard it must be to have three kids so close together, and that’s maybe why she looked so sickly and tired out.”

“Would you remember what year this was?”

“Happens I do—or can figure—since you ask. Our oldest had his third birthday right before we went to Bozeman. So that would’ve been November of ’35 … Why?”

“Just a detail. I realize these questions are personal,” she began.

“You aim to tie that son of a bitching Wilkey to some crime in New York City? Put his ass in prison?”

Though Eve chose her words carefully, she kept her eyes directly on his. “I’m pursuing all avenues in my investigation.”

His jaw loosened as he nodded. “Yep, yep, I got a cousin who’s a sheriff around these parts. I know the lingo well enough. There’s a chance of it, ask away.”

“Did or does your sister have money of her own? I mean hers to access?”

“She had access to her college money when she took off with that son of a bitch, and she yanked it out before we could do a damn thing about that. Then what does she do? I still pray she wasn’t in her right mind.”

Heat rolled into his face, fired in his eyes. “She has a lawyer contact our folks. She was to get a share of the ranch when she turned twenty-five, and a bigger share when they pass. The lawyer said she wanted the cash equivalent now. They said no, and the next thing you know she’s suing ’em for it.”

His jaw didn’t tighten again, but he looked away, took several seconds to gather himself.

“They were going to fight it, but it ripped them to pieces. Tore the heart right out of them. Their own child doing that, for money. They settled it. Wasn’t going to give them the share she’d’ve gotten when they were in the ground, fuckers—Sorry.”

“Mr. Charles, I’ve rarely heard the term used more accurately.”

“Appreciate it. They offered five and a half million, and she took it. She’s never once come to see them, written to them, called them, their own baby girl. Not once in all these years. I don’t know what that man does, Miz Dallas, but he turned my sister into something she wasn’t. He does that to people.”

“That he does, Mr. Charles.”

“Is my sister … is she in trouble, too?”

“I don’t think she’s involved in the matter I’m investigating. I appreciate, very much, your taking the time to answer my questions.”

“If you have any more, would you come back to me, and not my parents? They’re feisty enough, but they’re getting up there. And this is a hole in their heart. Their girl gone, grandkids they’ve never met. It’s a hole.”

“If there’s anything else, I’ll come to you. I won’t contact them.”

“Thanks for that. I gotta get on. But hey, do you know that New York cop they made that clone vid about?”

“Actually, I … Yes.”

“Sure hope you’re as good as she was in the vid and nail that son of a bitch’s ass to a splintery wall.”

Peabody stopped working when Eve clicked off. “You let him get away with calling you Miz, not just because you didn’t want to interrupt the flow, but because, jeez, who wouldn’t feel for that guy? For his family.”

“Just another reason I want to nail Wilkey’s ass to a splintery wall. She was pregnant, and there’s no offspring on record of that year or the next. Or until Mirium Wilkey in March of ’37. So either she miscarried or had a stillbirth, or the child died. And I’m betting that happened with her more than once.”

“Kids guarantee the future.”

“And he’d want a lot of guarantees.”

She turned back to her screen.

“Why isn’t the daughter married to some rich dude by now?” Eve wondered.

The click that Yancy’s arrival interrupted clicked again.

She started her next run.





16


Money, Eve thought as she began looking more deeply into Mir-ium Wilkey’s background and data. Was it all about money? Always a core motive for murder.

She’d lived most of her life without it, or with just enough to get through. She’d gone hungry as a child, yes, but that had been a result of cruelty and neglect. She’d never developed a thirst for wealth.

But that didn’t mean she couldn’t understand it, and its sometimes lethal power.

Roarke had the thirst, and most of it a result of the cruelty and neglect in his own childhood. He’d stolen to survive, then to quench the thirst. But rather than being driven by that lethal power, he’d held the wheel.