I was grateful to find a captive audience in my three friends, and after gathering my thoughts, I was ready to explain my reasoning in this most baffling case, and how I’d finally decided that the three murders that had recently been committed—and the two historical ones—were all linked, and had been committed by the same man.
“So Tilton Bond was a former employee of the bank?” asked Brutus, trying to wrap his head around this surprising fact.
“Indeed he was,” I said. “His real name is Ernest Sarisky, and he was one of those invisible people you find in every company. It was actually Chase who put me on the right track, when he admitted he didn’t recognize a colleague of his when we were doing those house-to-house interviews the other day. But even invisible people have their hopes and dreams, even if nobody notices them or pays them any attention, and Ernest’s hopes and dreams were one day to be like his boss, Clive Atcheson. He’d long harbored a powerful resentment toward Clive. Or perhaps pathological jealousy would be a better term to describe his feelings toward the bank’s popular branch manager. And it’s not difficult to see why: Clive Atcheson was everything that Ernest was not: he was wealthy, handsome, had a wonderful family, and was well-liked by all. Ernest, on the other hand, was eking out a meagerexistence on a modest salary, had never been able to attract the attention of a woman, and was a miserable, lonely and bitter man.”
“Not really a fun guy, was he?” said Dooley.
“No, Dooley, he certainly was not,” I agreed.
“He must have felt really bad,” said Harriet, “with nobody noticing him and all. I can imagine how he must have suffered.”
It was clear she felt for Ernest. Then of course Harriet would also suffer tremendously if no one noticed her, so she could relate to the man’s torment.
“But that all changed the day he woke up with an exciting idea. He was going to steal Clive’s perfect life: his money, his family—everything. It was a crazy idea, but he was fed up with being a nobody, and put a plan in motion to become a somebody, whatever it took.”
“And it took a lot of bloodshed,” said Dooley quietly.
“So Clive Atcheson never escaped to Mexico?” asked Brutus. “With five million?”
“No, he didn’t,” I said. “We now know that Clive Atcheson, and his secretary Janice Schiller, were killed on the same day the bank was robbed.” Ernest was fully cooperating with the police, and they now had a pretty good idea about what happened. After taking the money from the vault, he forced Clive and Janice Schiller at gunpoint into a boat he’d rented under an alias, and once they were out on the open ocean, he killed them both and dumped their bodies overboard.
“But what happened to Ernest?” asked Harriet. “How did he explain his sudden disappearance?”
“After the robbery, justifiably there was a lot of confusion. Ernest simply quit his job, announced that he was moving out of state to be closer to his aging parents, and that was it. Nobody cared and nobody asked any questions. He was the invisible man, remember?”
“But in actual fact he changed his name and moved to Hampton Cove?”
“Not immediately. First he needed to wait and see what Rosa would do. He assumed she wouldn’t want to stay in Wilmington, to avoid the scandal and the gossip, and he was right. He’d planted certain evidence to make it look as if Clive and Janice were having an affair—love letters, doctored photos and hotel room bookings—and that they planned to head across the border after the heist. So Rosa changed her identity, moved to Hampton Cove and started a new life.”
“And then suddenly Tilton Bond entered the scene,” said Harriet.
“Indeed. Ernest, having assumed a new identity, ‘accidentally’ ran into Rosa in town, and started pursuing her with a vigor that must have left her breathless. And for a woman whose husband had betrayed her as she thought Clive had done, being courted like that must have felt very comforting.She quickly confided in Tilton, and soon he became her confidant. Her rock. Let’s not forget that she was vulnerable after Clive’s alleged betrayal.”
“A position Tilton had put her in.”
“But didn’t she recognize him from the bank?” asked Brutus. “They must have met at office parties, right?”
“Oh, no doubt they had, but like I said, Tilton had been one of those people nobody pays any attention to. He could just as well not have been there. And also, he’d changed his appearance. He used to be a man with a receding hairline and a weak chin, but now he had a full crop of hair and a fashionable beard. He’d been overweight, but now he was athletic, taking full benefit of his gym membership. In other words: a changed man.”
“A millionaire!” said Dooley.
“Wealth lends a person a certain aura. And it was this aura that surrounded Tilton.”
“Okay, so why did he kill that poor woman on the beach?” asked Harriet.
“Josslyn Aldridge wasn’t just any woman. She was an ex-colleague of his. It hadn’t hit me when I studied the pictures of Rosa and her husband, but when I looked at them again, there he was, Tilton Bond. In the background, hardly noticeable. I thought he was looking at Janice in that picture, but in actual fact he was looking at Rosa. But then I also noticed Josslyn. And when you look closely, you can see that Josslyn has the same look in her eyes that Tilton had. But where Tilton is looking at Rosa, she is actually looking at Tilton.”
“She was in love with him?” asked Harriet.
“She was. Even invisible people have people who are in love with them, only they’re too obsessed with the ones they can’t have to notice. But Josslyn wanted him just as much as he wanted Rosa. And so all these many years later, when she bumped into him, she immediately recognized him as her old colleague Ernest. And of course he couldn’t have that. She would have jeopardized everything he’d worked so hard to achieve.”
“Everything he’d killed to achieve, you mean,” Brutus grunted.
“So he killed Josslyn? Just like that?” asked Dooley.
“Yes, he did. He arranged to meet her that evening on the beach, and killed her. Josslyn must have been so happy—so thrilled to finally meet him again—the colleague she’d loved from afar all those years. She didn’t have a clue her fate was sealed the moment he laid eyes on her and saw that she recognized him. He then made it look like a mugging by grabbing her purse, removing her wallet and dumping her purse in the sand.”
“So what about the blackmailer?” asked Harriet. “Why did he kill him?”
“Willie Dornhauser had seen Chase’s appeal for witnesses in Josslyn’s mugging, and had googled Josslyn. I think he must have hit on the same picture I saw, and immediately recognized Rosa. He then did some digging, and discovered that Rosa’s husband was actually the infamous Clive Atcheson,who’d absconded with five million dollars, and figured here was an opportunity to make some money.”
“So he put the squeeze on Rosa,” said Brutus, nodding.
“Only Tilton realized that if this guy had discovered his wife’s true identity, it was only a matter of time before he put two and two together, and discovered his identity as well. So the night the money was to change hands, Tilton was also in the park, watching and waiting. And when Willie showed up, he followed him home and killed him on the spot.”
“But why didn’t he take the money?” asked Harriet.
“I think Edwardo showed up and Tilton had to flee the scene before he could search the house. And in a way, that actually worked out even better for him, since Edwardo took the money, and in the process set himself up as the perfect suspect.”
“He was very lucky,” said Dooley.
“He was, until Todd started digging into his past life, and discovering certain things.”
“Todd found out who he really was?” asked Harriet.
I nodded.“Todd had also seen Chase’s appeal.”
“Looks like that appeal made a big difference!” said Dooley.