But if the deaths were murder-suicide, normal went out the window. The law assumed the killer died first. So when it came to distributing the estate, the scenario went like this:
If Claude killed Martha, then turned the gun on himself, the law figured Claude died first and Martha was his beneficiary. Since Martha was also dead, her beneficiaries would get the money from Claude’s life insurance policy — plus the payout from Martha’s life-insurance policy. And if Martha killed Claude, then herself, the law said she died first and Claude inherited. So Claude’s beneficiaries would get the money from Martha’s insurance — and Claude’s insurance money, too.
It was a lot of money. No wonder the beneficiaries were fighting. The winners got all the slices in the big, juicy pie.
“Why don’t these people just split the money four ways?” I asked.
Wilcoxin’s pained expression told me I didn’t know all the nuances of the insurance biz. Maybe not, but I knew about greed.
“It’s not that simple.”
I smiled. “No, I suppose not. It never is, where money is involved.”
“There’s going to be a hearing in a couple of weeks,” he said. “The court may rule on which of the Terrells died first based on the existing evidence. Or that the estate can be divided evenly. But until that happens, my company has to make a good-faith effort to determine who gets the money.”
“Why can’t the medical examiner make that call?”
“He can place time of death to the hour, but not the minute. He says they died too close together for him to be sure.”
“Suicide note? Gunshot residue? Fingerprints? Weapon position?”
Wilcoxin pressed his hands to his temples. “No suicide note. Gunshot residue on the right hands of both decedents. Prints of both decedents on the weapon, which was registered to Claude and usually kept in a locked drawer in his nightstand. The gun was found under the table in the breakfast nook. Odd place for it to wind up, given the position of the bodies.”
“I have to hand it to you, Mr. Wilcoxin. This one is a stinker.”
“Will you take the case?” he asked, naked pleading in his voice.
By now I was thoroughly hooked. So I might as well follow the line and see where it led. “All right. I can’t promise anything. But I’ll give it my best...”
I almost said “shot” but caught myself in time.
“I’ll need the police report, autopsy results, and lab analysis. You have crime-scene photos?”
He nodded, looking queasy. “They’re awfully grim.”
“They usually are. Right now I want a look at the report.”
He handed the report across the desk. I began to read.
The Terrells became the late Terrells on a Friday in May, courtesy of bullets in their brains — one each. Housecleaner Estrellita Mejia arrived at approximately one o’clock that afternoon. She opened the front door with her key, went back to the kitchen, and found two bloody corpses on the floor. She ran screaming into the street, alerting a gardener working at a nearby house. He summoned police with his cell phone.
Initially the Alameda Police Department viewed the slayings as a home-invasion robbery gone bad. But nothing had been taken. Claude’s wallet, full of cash and credit cards, was on his dresser. Martha’s baubles were still in her jewelry case. The purported burglars ignored a cabinet full of valuable silver. That pretty much eliminated the robbery theory.
On the surface, it did look like a murder-suicide. Did Claude kill Martha and then turn the gun on himself? Or did Martha kill Claude, then take her own life? And why the hell hadn’t one of them left a note detailing all the whys and wherefores?
I looked up at Wilcoxin. “No reason?”
He shook his head, his voice edged with frustration. “Out of the goddamn blue. The cops talked to family, friends, business associates, neighbors, anyone, anywhere, who might have known or met the Terrells. There’s no apparent reason why Claude would kill Martha, then kill himself. Or vice versa. They were both in excellent health. They had no money problems. From all reports they were a happy, loving couple.”
Happy, loving couples don’t usually blow each other’s brains out. So maybe the Terrells weren’t as happy and loving as everyone thought. Or maybe something else was going on here.
“I’d like to take a look at the house.”
Wilcoxin pulled open a desk drawer, fished out a brass key on a metal ring, and handed it to me. “The house is vacant, can’t be sold until the estate is sorted out.”
I fingered the cardboard tag with the Terrells’ name and address printed in black ink. “Who else has keys?”
“All four heirs.”
That didn’t sound like a good idea to me. He noticed my raised eyebrows. “The Terrells gave each of their children keys when they bought the house.”
“The heirs have access to the property?”
“After the police took down the crime-scene tape, the lawyers let them remove personal belongings — family photos, clothing, things like that.”
“What about everything else, like jewelry, and Martha’s silver? I assume they’re not still at the house.”
“The lawyers put all the rest, except the furniture, in storage. It’ll stay there until the lawyers figure out who gets what. The wills are more complicated, but that’s the attorneys’ battle. My battle... My concern is who gets the money from the insurance policies.”
“Does the housecleaner still have a key?”
Wilcoxin shook his head. “That’s hers.”
“Any of the neighbors have keys?”
“Not to my knowledge,” he said. “I’ll give you the code for the alarm system.”
I left with Wilcoxin’s headache. I spent the rest of that Friday afternoon in my Oakland office, examining the Terrell file and making some notes of my own.
Saturday morning I drove to Alameda. The Terrells had lived at the end of a wide, tree-lined street in a part of town known as the Gold Coast, full of solid old homes. I’d grown up in a Victorian house nearby. The street, like others in this section, dead-ended at the lagoon which had once been the shore of San Francisco Bay, until the late 1950s when developers had filled in a portion of the bay to create the area called South Shore.
The Terrells’ house was a two-story stucco that looked as though it dated to the nineteen thirties. I parked in the double driveway and let myself in the front door. After deactivating the security system, I stood in the entryway for a moment, getting my bearings, waiting for... What? Vibrations, maybe, or feelings. I’ve felt it at other crime scenes. I felt it here.
The investigators had long since located and removed any physical evidence. The gore had been scrubbed away. Drapes covered the windows and there was dust on the nearby stair rail. The house had that air of disuse a place gets when there’s no one home for a long time. It had been closed up since the Terrells’ deaths, while the heirs and their lawyers duked it out over who got what.
In the living room to my left, a sofa faced an empty fireplace. Heavy chairs surrounded a long table in the dining room. A cabinet with empty glass shelves stood against the wall.
Upstairs, I found a large master suite with a bathroom, and three smaller bedrooms sharing another bathroom. Closets, drawers, and cupboards were empty, stripped bare. There wasn’t much left in the Terrell house, just furniture, which, along with the house itself, was awaiting disposition.
I went back downstairs. A small room off the dining room had served as Claude’s office. Behind this, separated from the kitchen by a counter, was a family room. It had once been furnished, according to the photographs in the file, with a sofa, several reclining chairs, a large-screen TV, and other entertainment appliances. Now all the electronic toys were gone.