trust fund that Honor Newlin had set up for her daughter. He yanked it out and flopped it on top of the stack. It wasn't long, maybe five pages, and its terms reiterated the fifty million Paige was set to receive, in scheduled increments. But there was one sentence that had caught his attention. Davis ran a finger down the smooth page until he found it: 'In the event that Paige Newlin shall die before receipt of any portion of her inheritance under the terms of this trust, the remaining amount shall revert to her surviving parents
Davis read it over and over. It was too good to be true. Follow the money, stupid! Under the mother's will, when the mother dies, the kid inherits. But under the terms of the trust, if the daughter died before she could inherit, the fifty million went to the surviving parent. In this scenario, that would be Jack Newlin. It didn't sound like the Honor Newlin that Videon had described, but she must never have thought it would happen.
Davis sat up in his chair, his foot wiggling with nervous energy. So the only way Newlin could get the wife's money was to kill the wife, then the kid. Then all of it, read all of it, comes to him. Davis clapped a palm to his forehead at the thought. Could Newlin have planned it this way? He'd have to! You'd have to be an estates expert to rig this result, will-to-trust. Fifty mil! God, this case was fun!
Davis grabbed the phone and his thoughts didn't break stride. Newlin was out on bail at the time the shooting occurred. Perfect! Motive plus opportunity! It had to be Newlin in the ski mask!
The phone rang on the other end and as soon as a voice picked up, Davis said, 'Gimme the Chief.'
51
'Oh Deo! Oh Deo!' Vita DiNunzio sobbed. She reached for her daughter the moment she got in the door, and Mary regretted instantly that she'd brought everybody here. The DiNunzio kitchen couldn't fit Mary, Paige, Jack, and Brinkley, in addition to her parents, shamelessly hysterical that their daughter had been shot at. Having a weeping mother wrapped around her waist wasn't a good look for Mary.
'Let's all calm down,' Mary said, giving her mother a final hug and gentling her into a chair. Fresh coffee percolated on the stove and its aroma filled the kitchen. The table had been set with two mismatched cups and saucers. Her parents were just about to down their thirty-fifth cup of coffee before her mother went to bed. In the morning they would discuss why they couldn't sleep. 'Everything's fine now. We're safe.'
'Completely safe,' Jack added, but her mother's lips trembled at the sight of Jack's swollen cheekbone.
'Oh Deo,' her mother moaned. She took off her thick glasses, set them on the table, and dropped her small face into a knobby hand. Even her silver hair, teased into curls, swoops, and swishes, drooped sideways, listing like the top of a souffle. Mary wondered if they had smelling salts. For hair.
'Mom, it's fine' she said, patting her mother's hand. 'We're all fine. Me and Paige, we're fine. Fine, fine, fine. We even have a detective here to protect us.' Mary handed her mother her thick glasses and made her slip them on, then gestured to Brinkley. 'Look. See. Exhibit A. A real detective.'
'A detective?' her mother said. She wiped her eyes with a napkin, leaving a reddish streak on her parchment-thin skin. Her eyes were as round as milky brown marbles behind the lenses, emphasizing their utter lack of guile, and Mary had to smile. If her mother was surprised at having a black man in her kitchen, it didn't show. They used to have her father's black crew home for lunch all the time, to the neighbors' disapproval. 'You a detective, with the police?'
'Yes,' Brinkley answered succinctly, from against the wall, and Mary's eyes flared at him with significance.
'Maybe you could elaborate. Detective,' she prodded.
Jack laughed. 'Reg, tell Mrs DiNunzio how safe we all are because you're here.'
'Yes, well.' Brinkley's head bent to fit under the low ceiling and his arm cracked the Easter palm behind the switch plates. 'You don't have anything to worry about, Mrs DiNunzio. I have a gun.'
'A gun? Oh Dear her mother wailed, and her father hovered. He kneaded her shoulders through her housedress until she got used to the notion of a Clock in a house with twenty-five crucifixes, two statues of the Virgin Mary, and a candle for emergency novenas. 'A gun!'
'Coffee anyone?' Mary asked airily, and bustled over to the stove and grabbed the pot. She was just about to go for the cups when Jack opened the cabinet, grabbed a bunch, and began setting them on the table with a happy clatter. How could she have ever thought him a murderer? He reminded her so much of her father, who was still consoling her mother as she segued into Act III of La Traviata. Soon the wheezing would start. 'Dad, I'm sorry about this, but would you mind going up-and taking Mom with you?' Before her hair explodes. 'We need to talk some business, and it might upset her.' Call me crazy.
'Yes, good, no problem, Maria,' her father said, his own tears subsiding.
'Thanks, really, Dad. Here, Mom.' Mary set the coffee
down and helped her father ease her mother up from the chair. Everyone said their good-byes as Mary and her father walked her mother out of the kitchen, through the dining room, and to the stairwell in the living room, with only slightly less effort than Christ bearing the Cross through the streets of Jerusalem. And after Vita DiNunzio was safely tucked in bed, with her husband at her side, Mary gave them both a kiss good night and fetched them their bedtime cup of coffee.
When Mary came back downstairs, Jack was enveloping Paige in a huge hug in the warm kitchen, his face buried in her glossy hair. 'Thank God,' he said, and Paige broke the embrace, standing away from him.
Thank Mary, too. Dad. She really did save my life.'
Jack looked over Paige's shoulder. He grinned with relief, his blue eyes frankly grateful. 'Thank you, Mary,' he said, advancing a step.
Mary stiffened, though there was a table between them. She didn't want him to hug her, did she? Yes. No. Of course not. In the kitchen, where her husband used to? She picked up the coffee and poured a cup for Brinkley, then went around the table until there were four steaming cups and nobody could ever sleep again. 'No problem. I saved myself, too. So it wasn't so unselfish. Why don't you sit down?'
Paige looked between them. That's not true, Dad.'
'Everybody sit down,' Mary said, waving her off, and pulled out a chair. Installed behind her aromatic cup of coffee, she felt safe and happy again and decided to attribute it to land memory and not Jack Newlin, who she was happy/sad to want to hug/not hug. It confused her. 'We have a lot of catching up to do. Jack, let's begin at the beginning. You did not kill your wife.'
'No, I didn't.' Jack looked relieved to say it aloud, and Mary warmed to finally hear her suspicion confirmed. 'I confessed because I thought Paige had killed her.'
Paige looked grave behind her untouched cup. 'I'm sorry, Dad. I shouldn't have lied to you about Trevor.'
'Let's not talk about that now,' Jack said quickly. 'Let's hold the tears and I'm sorrys and get to the facts. Trevor killed your mother, didn't he?'
'Yes, we were high, at least I was. He told me I did it, so I thought I did it. I do remember picking up the knife, but I don't think I did anything with it. What I remember next was that it was in my hand, all bloody, and she was dead. But I don't think I killed her. I was angry at her, but I don't think I could ever do that.' Paige told the story about her confession to Captain Walsh and the discovery that she had no bruising.
'And Trevor was arrested on drug charges,' Mary said, but Brinkley was nodding as if he knew it. 'Captain Walsh told us he was free on bail, so we think that it was him in the ski mask.' Mary looked at Brinkley. Thank you for the hint about the earring back and DNA test, by the way. It helped us figure out that Trevor was the one.'