“So if someone hurt your sister, who else would it be?”
She didn’t even pause. “Meghan White.”
“Because she wanted Jeff for herself?” Laurie asked.
Charlotte shook her head. “I think that happened after the fact, or maybe it was an added benefit. If Meghan did it, it was because of Ladyform.”
Laurie was confused. “I thought Meghan was already a lawyer by then. She was working for your family’s company?”
“No, but the two of them had a major blowup right before we all flew down for the wedding. We were still in the transition then, trying to convince Dad that we could be more than the tried-and-true granny-panty company. Amanda launched a breakthrough workout line called X-Dream: high-end exercise clothing with room for cell phones, iPods, all the gadgets we want with us but don’t want to hold while we’re exercising. Until then, the best you could get was a loose pocket, where your phone bounced around as you ran.”
“I remember that!” Laurie exclaimed. Greg had bought a sports top for her right before he died. It was her favorite running shirt because she couldn’t even feel her iPod zipped into the fabric. “What does it have to do with Meghan?”
“When she saw the clothing in stores, she showed up here, screaming at Amanda for stealing her idea. It was so loud that people could hear it all the way down the hall.”
“That seems bizarre,” Laurie said. “Meghan’s an immigration lawyer. What was she going to do with an idea about workout clothes?”
“Nothing, of course, but that didn’t keep her from wanting a piece of the pie. The X-Dream line was huge for us. I could go back and show you the spike in our sales and you’ll see: we literally made millions. Amanda was nervous enough that she asked our corporate counsel to prepare for a potential lawsuit.”
“So was it in fact Meghan’s idea?”
“Only if you call two college girls saying they wished their phones didn’t bounce off the treadmills at the gym an idea. The real work is the execution. We actually hired an engineer with NASA experience to find the exact right way to keep everything snug and safe but still accessible. If Meghan played any role at all, it was simply identifying the need for the product-something thousands of people had probably done by then.”
“So was Meghan still angry at Amanda by the time you were down in Florida?”
“She certainly wasn’t acting like it, but anyone can compose themselves for a few days. All I know is that Amanda only quieted Meghan down by telling her no one would ever believe her. She even went so far as to warn her that as a young lawyer, she could ruin her career by filing frivolous litigation.”
“Wow,” Laurie said. “I didn’t know your sister, but that sounds pretty cutthroat, especially toward her best friend. And just before the wedding.”
“As I said, by the time she disappeared, Amanda was no pushover. Sometimes I wonder how well I really knew her.”
26
Laurie found herself whispering as though she were in a library. “Your office is never this quiet,” she said to Alex, who was seated next to her.
Alex shared office space with five other attorneys each of whom had his own administrative assistant and shared with them a pool of eight paralegals and six investigators. “And I would never leave someone waiting this long.”
Laurie looked over to the gum-chewing receptionist to make sure she hadn’t heard the comment. “Don’t forget that we’re here, hat in hand, begging for help he’s not obligated to provide. We don’t want to offend the man.”
The man in question was Mitchell Lands, Esq. Laurie was enjoying the absolute silence of the sole practitioner’s office, and she was savoring the excuse to read the trashy celebrity magazine she’d found on the coffee table.
Alex was not so patient. “If I were a paying client, I would have walked out ten minutes ago.”
“Be careful, Alex. Stress is bad for you. I might tell Ramon that you need some more yoga in your life.”
Ramon was Alex’s butler. Alex had made numerous attempts to find an alternative title: assistant, house manager, scheduler. But Ramon had finally won the battle. He was a butler. In addition to running errands and preparing meals, Alex’s live-in helper also had come to care for Alex like a son. When he learned recently that Alex’s blood pressure was on the borderline of high, he had reduced the sodium and red meat in Alex’s diet. But when Ramon had tried to enroll Alex for weekly “stress-reduction” yoga sessions, Alex had put his foot down.
“Just in the knick of time,” Alex muttered, as they saw a door open.
“My girl said that you’re here about Amanda Pierce’s will.” Mitchell Lands was a short man with unruly gray hair and glasses that were much too large for his face. Laurie felt herself blinking in shock that anyone still referred to his assistant as “my girl.”
Alex jumped in before she could say anything to start an argument. She, after all, had been the one to warn him that they were here asking for a favor. “We already have considerable information from Amanda’s family,” Alex said, “but we can still use your help.”
They had a copy of both the will and the prenuptial agreement between Amanda and Jeff. According to Alex, the prenuptial agreement was one of the least generous among standard terms for such documents. According to Sandra, Walter Pierce insisted on it to ensure that Jeff could not possibly assert any claims to the family company.
But the will was another question. Amanda had left her modest personal belongings and checking and savings accounts to her one niece at the time-Henry’s daughter, Sandra-but bequeathed the entirety of her trust fund to Jeff.
“Did it strike you as unusual,” Laurie asked, “that she’d leave so much money to her fiancé before they were actually married?”
Lands smiled. “I want to help you. Amanda was a lovely woman. But I’ve got attorney-client privilege to worry about.”
“Of course,” Laurie said, realizing she probably should have left the questioning of another lawyer to Alex. “Not as to Amanda specifically, but is it unusual for an unmarried person to name a fiancé in the will?”
“Good job presenting the question,” Lands said. “No, at least not where the individual’s other family members have significant assets, and where the couple is about to be married and have no children yet. I think I can safely add that it’s especially common for fiancés to revise their wills as a way to make up for a prenuptial agreement that their family is insisting upon. Parents tend to care about prenups, but never imagine that their children will ever predecease them. If you know all the terms of Amanda’s will and prenup, I’m not sure how much more I can add.”
“What we really want to know,” Laurie said, “is whether Jeff knew about the terms of Amanda’s will prior to her disappearance.”
Obviously Jeff knew about the prenuptial agreement, Laurie thought, as he was a party to it and had signed off on it. But it was possible that he had no idea until after he returned from the Grand Victoria that Amanda had also written a will, naming him as the primary beneficiary. The inheritance wasn’t a motive for murder if he didn’t know about it.
Alex had been the one to notice that Amanda’s will was signed on the same date as the couple had signed the prenuptial agreement. Now Alex pointed out that fact to Lands.
“My guess is that they came here together to sign,” Alex said. “If you went over the terms of Amanda’s will in front of Mr. Hunter, then attorney-client privilege wouldn’t apply. Amanda was the client, not Jeff.”
“Very clever,” Lands said. “And, yes, that’s precisely what happened. Amanda was quite comfortable speaking about these matters in front of Jeff. Not that I’m an expert in such things, but they seemed very much in love. You don’t really think he killed her, do you?”