The Girl at the End of the Line (22 page)

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Authors: Charles Mathes

BOOK: The Girl at the End of the Line
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“She was just gone for a few minutes.”
“I don't think so. Eustace says he saw your car drive off at ten o‘clock, and thought the two of you might be skipping out. He came over, looked through the window and saw you still in bed. Then you called the desk at about eleven-thirty that morning and asked for a later checkout time. You said your sister had gone out, you didn't know where. She didn't come back with your car until after two o'clock.”
“She was just out buying me this watch,” said Molly, holding up her wrist. “It was my birthday.”
“Mazel tov, but it doesn't take fours hours to buy a wristwatch, Miss O'Hara. Look, I know your sister's been through a lot. If Couvertie turns out to be right I doubt that Nell would be held legally responsible, considering all that's happened to her. I'm sure that there are plenty of good lawyers who could—”
“My sister didn't kill anybody,” insisted Molly, though her voice cracked and tears threatened to form in her eyes. “It had to be somebody else. Wasn't there anybody else who knew Jimmy and who didn't have an alibi?”
“Oh, I've got people without alibis coming out the wazoo,” said Glickman. “Dr. George hated Jimmy from childhood. Tuesdays are his days off. Last week he was tooling around the White Mountains without any witnesses. Russell Bowslater didn't like Jimmy, either. He says he was off alone fishing somewhere that morning and of course didn't bring anything home to show for it. Mrs. McCormick, who is probably capable of anything, was out picking up some things for the dinner you all had that night,
leaving poor Mrs. Gale alone in the house except for the cook. Even Troutwig the lawyer won't tell me who he was with that day, claims client-attorney confidence. Now all you have to do is tell me how any of these people stands to profit from Jimmy's death as much as you and your sister do, and we'll be in business.”
They stood in silence for a moment. Fifty yards away the door of Gale Castle opened and an elderly couple came out, giving Molly and Sheriff Glickman a curious look before heading up the drive toward their car.
“I've got to go back inside,” said Molly. “I appreciate how hard you've been working on this, Sheriff Glickman. Thank you.”
Glickman's big hand went to the brim of his hat.
“You're welcome, Miss O'Hara. You are planning to stick around for a while, aren't you?”
“Do I have any choice?”
The tall sheriff shrugged, then reached into his breast pocket and produced a little white card with his phone number, which he handed to her.
“If anything occurs to you,” he said, “if you hear anything or just want to talk, please give me a call.”
“I will.”
He stood by his car and watched Molly walk slowly back to the door of the castle.
It seemed dark inside after the summer sunshine. The living room was large enough not to seem crowded, but there were still a lot of people milling about. The noise of their laughter and conversation was irritating.
Molly suddenly felt trapped. A few days ago the future was a blank book. Now the Gale money, the Gale fortune, the Gale name were like weights strapped to her as she was drawn inexorably down into the whirlpool of Jimmy's murder.
Molly couldn't stop thinking about all Glickman had said.
There were too many threads, too much uncertainty to work it out logically. All the sheriff's theories and methodology meant nothing. You had to trust your instincts in a situation like this, and Molly's whole being told her that Nell couldn't have hidden a gun for seventeen years, much less used it; Nell was innocence itself.
If Nell didn't bring the gun from North Carolina, however, it could only mean that someone from here, from Gale Island, had come down to Pelletreau seventeen years ago, shot Molly's mother, and then returned home. Perhaps it had been Jimmy, but more likely it had been somebody else, somebody who last week had used the gun again.
It all meant that something connected Jimmy and Evangeline O'Hara Cole. But what?
Molly's instincts practically screamed the answer at her. The reason for both deaths was right here in this room—from the walnut Queen Anne chairs to the malachite table ornaments to the gigantic oil painting of strutting peacocks above the fireplace. It was about money. The Gale Money. The grasping fingers of Atherton Gale controlling all of them from the grave. Molly suddenly knew it as certainly as she knew the markings on the bottom of oyster plates.
Nell had gone over to the back window, and was gazing out into the rose garden behind the house. George had joined an elderly couple at the other side of the room, leaving Russell alone on the sofa. Molly walked over and joined him.
“Nice party,” he said contentedly, putting down his empty glass and absently exploring his somewhat hairy ear with a somewhat hairy finger. “Jimmy would have gotten quite a laugh if he had known how many people would turn out to see him off.”
“You didn't like him much, did you?” said Molly.
An image of her mother flashed into Molly's mind. A picture of her in the yard, smiling, happy for a change. And then someone
had just reached out of nowhere and taken her life. Molly's life had stopped that day as surely as had Nell's. And the killer had gotten away with it. Was he here in this room now? Maybe even seated right beside her?
“Jimmy?” asked Russell. “Sure I liked Jimmy, pathetic thing that he was. Man, you should have heard him go on about how screwed up things are in Washington. I'm surprised he hadn't gone off to Idaho and joined one of those militia things or become a talk radio host. The boy was a kook, but funny as hell. Did an imitation of old Troutwig that would have you rolling on the floor.”
“Who do you think killed him?”
“Hard to say,” Russell declared, picking up his empty drink and examining the ice cubes. “Hard to say.”
“Somebody told me that if we hadn't turned up, the Gale Trust would have gone to charity,” said Molly.
“That's right.”
“Would you have gotten any? Your charity, I mean.”
“Cancer Answer? No, Atherton was too much of a bastard to let my little outfit get any. Not that we couldn't have used it, mind you. Can't have too much money for cancer, you know, millions of people depend on it. Doctors. Nurses. Hospitals. Insurance companies. Medical products people. Get-well-card manufacturers. If they ever find a cure for our friend the Big C, the unemployment rate will probably go up six points. Hey, I don't mind you and your sister inheriting, if that's what you're getting at. No skin off my nose. I wouldn't have gotten anything personally, no matter what happened.”
“Yes, I remember you said last week that the will was pretty airtight.”
“Man, it's like a steel drum,” said Russell.
“I guess Mr. Troutwig's a good lawyer, then.”
“Oh, Troutwig didn't do the Gale Trust. He did do a few
wills for Atherton over the years—Atherton was always proving what a big deal he was by disinheriting somebody or other. But I guess at the end Atherton decided he needed somebody more highpowered. He got the top lawyer at the top firm in Boston to write up the Gale Trust, make it unbreakable. The man's now a federal judge.”
“A federal judge from Boston,” repeated Molly. Why did that sound familiar?
“Yeah,” pronounced Russell with a smile. “The guy was a goddamn legal wizard. Azaria was his name. Martin Azaria.”
“That's wonderful,” said the warm voice of David Azaria on the other end of the telephone. “Didn't I tell you we would find we had things in common?”
“You mean that it's a coincidence that your father wrote my great-grandfather's will?” exclaimed Molly.
“Sure. What else could it be? And not coincidence. Synchronicity. Just as I said when we first met: The universe is full of synchronicity for people like us.”
Molly tried to picture him, sitting there in his apartment in New York where she had reached him, all earnestness and big brown eyes. She paced back and forth in front of the bed, tethered by the cord of the old black rotary telephone, hoping that no one downstairs would miss her.
“I'm sorry,” Molly said. “I'm not as naive as you may think. I just don't believe it.”
“What's not to believe?” asked David with a mild little laugh. “You say your great-grandfather was a millionaire living in the
middle of Vermont. Well, my father was one of the most prominent lawyers in Boston, the nearest major city. Why is it so unbelievable that your great-grandfather might have come to him? If the guy had money and wanted the best, Dad was a logical choice.”
“You don't understand,” said Molly, feeling like she would explode. Her eyes filled with tears. She collapsed onto the bed.
“No, I don't understand. Tell me.”
“They're all dead. Everyone's dead. And the same person who killed Jimmy killed our mother, and …”
“Wait a second, wait a second,” said David. “Who's dead? What are you talking about?”
Molly fought down the panic that had welled up again inside her. She took a deep breath. Then, as calmly as she could, she told him for the first time about everything that had happened: the suspicious death of Margaret Jellinek; the explosion of their house and shop; the red-haired man; the reunion of the Gale family and the plane crash that killed them; seeing Jimmy Gale's picture, then finding him dead with a bullet hole in his head, shot with the same gun that had killed Evangeline O'Hara Cole; the sheriff's suspicions about Nell, and the fact that she and Molly would now inherit the Gale Trust.
“You poor kid,” said David Azaria finally when Molly was finished. “I didn't understand the message you left me the other week. I thought you were just flustered because you liked me.”
“I don't like you,” declared Molly. “I don't even know you.”
“Then why are you calling me for help?”
“I'm not calling you for help! I just want to know why your name keeps coming up in my life.”
“Well, I didn't have anything to do with killing any of your relatives, if that's what you're getting at.”
Molly didn't say anything. She didn't know what she thought anymore.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” murmured David. “Am I really so awful?”
Suddenly all that Molly had been trying to hold in burst loose. Tears were running down her cheeks. She tried to stifle an audible sob, but couldn't. David let her cry.
“You've had a pretty tough time of it, haven't you?” he said gently after she had quieted down and blown her nose.
“I'm okay.”
Neither of them spoke for another moment. Molly stared at the pale yellow wallpaper, dried her eyes and blew her nose again. Outside in Dora's garden, a bird was singing. Through the open window the fresh pine scent of Vermont wafted into the room.
“How's your sister holding up?” asked David.
“I don't know,” answered Molly. “She knows what happened to Jimmy, but I'm not sure she understands what his death means for us. I'm always afraid that she'll have another one of her attacks. She had one when we first got here.”
“Yeah. You mentioned she had fits. What set her off this time, do you think?”
“Maybe it was seeing Dora so upset,” said Molly. “I don't know.”
“Now, who's Dora again?”
“She married Atherton Gale, our great-grandfather, after our great-grandmother died. Dora's very old. Ninety-three. She was devastated to learn who we were. Everybody else was just angry.”
Talking too fast again, Molly described the people who had also come to the door that first day. Russell Bowslater, Dora's child from her first marriage. Dr. George Gale, her adopted son. Mrs. McCormick, the nurse-companion. Henry Troutwig, Dora's attorney.
There was silence again on the other end of the phone. Molly listened for David's breathing but couldn't hear anything except a
car alarm going off in the distance. Or was it an ambulance? A fire truck? The police? Whatever it was, it sounded like New York.
“This Gale Trust must somehow be involved in what's been going on,” said David finally in a thoughtful voice. “Will any of the people you just mentioned get anything when Dora dies?”
“No, and you're going around in the same circles that the sheriff and I are going around in,” Molly said wearily. “Nell and I are the only beneficiaries of the trust now that all the other naturalborn descendants of Atherton Gale are dead. And if we weren't around it would all go to charity.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” said Molly. “The sheriff told me.”
“Have you seen the trust document yourself?”
“No, but—”
“Then you're assuming that this sheriff knew what he was talking about,” said David, “Perhaps that's not such a good idea. He's not a lawyer. He may not have understood what he was reading. Or maybe whoever told him about the terms of Atherton Gale's will left something out.”
“I suppose.”
“Look,” said David. “I'm going to give my father a call. Maybe he remembers something about all of this. Is there a number where I can reach you?”
Molly read him the number off the dial of the telephone in her room. She didn't want to give him the main number for Gale Castle, then have to explain to everyone who David was. She wasn't sure herself.
“Please call me back right away,” she said. “I can't stay at this phone very long.”
“Okay,” said David. “Oh, by the way. Did I mention that you sound very pretty today?”
“No, I don't,” said Molly.
“Yes, you do,” he answered. Then he said good-bye and hung up.
Molly lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. For all she knew David's father had some sinister involvement in all this. Perhaps David was involved as well—it was impossible to know whom she could trust anymore. But if David were involved, what was kind of world was it? What was the point of anything? Why even bother to go on living? Did she really sound pretty? Or had he just said that to be nice?
The door of the room opened with a squeak. Molly jumped up in alarm, then fell back as she recognized Nell's familiar silhouette.
“Hi,” Molly said. “I'm just lying down for a moment. I wasn't feeling well.”
Nell came over and sat down next to Molly on the bed. Then she put her cool hand on Molly's forehead. Nell shook her head to indicate there was no fever, but her eyes were full of concern.
“No,” said Molly. “I don't think I'm sick. It's just beginning to get to me, you know?”
Nell nodded.
“Nellie,” said Molly, looking in her sister's deep green eyes. “When you went out to get me the watch for my birthday, why were you gone so long?”
Nell shrugged. She mimed holding a car wheel. She brought the flat of her hand to her brow, like she was searching for something.
“You had to look around to find a store with the right watch?”
Nell nodded.
“Of course you had to look around,” said Molly, relieved. “We're in the middle of nowhere up here.”
Nell grinned and motioned bringing a fork to her mouth.
“And naturally you got something to eat. I should have known.”
Nell seemed calmer than she had been in a long time, almost serene. It was ironic: Now that the person who had been the biggest threat to them, Jimmy Gale, was dead, it was Molly who was falling to pieces.
Nell grabbed Molly's hand and gave it a tug.
“No,” said Molly. “I think I need to be still for a bit. Maybe take a nap. I'll be fine. Will you cover for me downstairs? I don't want Dora to worry.”
Nell nodded and rose. At the door she stopped and glanced back at her sister.
“I'm okay,” said Molly. “You go. I'll be back down in a little while.”
Nell left, shutting the door behind her. Molly closed her eyes and waited for the phone to ring, relieved that Nell had an explanation of why it had taken her so long to buy the watch last week. How could the sheriff possibly think that Nell might have had anything to do with Jimmy's death? It was absurd. Molly knew her sister. Nell was the gentlest soul on earth. She wouldn't hurt a bluebottle fly.
The phone was silent. Molly's thoughts turned again to David Azaria. She didn't know him at all, not really. Why then had it been so reassuring just to hear his voice? And why was he so interested in her? What had been David's father's relationship to Atherton Gale? How did any of it tie in to Evangeline O'Hara Cole?
The minutes dragged on for what seemed like forever. Molly worried that David wouldn't call back, that she would never hear from him again. Then she worried that he would call back—call back and tell her she was too short, too talkative, too much trouble.
Suddenly an old-fashioned bell jangled loudly enough to make her jump. It was the telephone. Molly grabbed it, worried that someone downstairs might have heard. Then she remembered how isolated this wing of Gale Castle was. You could probably shoot a cannon off here and no one would be the wiser.
“Sorry it took so long,” said David's calm voice at the other end of the line. “I had to get him out of a hearing. Nobody ever does that. He wasn't happy.”
“What did he say?” Molly asked, her palms moist, her stomach dancing with butterflies.
“Well, my father does remember your great-grandfather's trust,” said David. “He didn't usually get involved with personal matters—corporations are his specialty—but Dad didn't build Azaria Klein Morthall & Nathan by turning away clients like Atherton Gale. You know, I didn't quite understand what you were telling me before. Millionaires are a dime a dozen these days. Apparently this Atherton Gale was in a different category entirely. You and your sister are going to be very wealthy women from what my father tells me.”
“We don't want the money,” said Molly, standing up and walking around the bedroom.
“Sure you do,” answered David with a laugh. “Everyone wants money. But let's deal with that later, shall we? First I have some disturbing things to tell you.”
“What disturbing things?”
David's voice suddenly became dry and professional.
“It turns out that my father set up not one, but two different trusts for Atherton Gale over a period of a few months,” he said. “The will that went into effect divides everything among all living bloodline Gales upon Dora's death, as you said. But there was an earlier arrangement with much different terms. Before Atherton changed his mind and decided to include his whole family there
was going to be only one ultimate beneficiary for the trust's principal.”
“You mean that somebody thought he was going to get everything and then Atherton pulled the rug out from under him? My God, that must be it! That's the person with the motive! He would have been angry enough to kill all the Gales.”
“I'm afraid you're jumping to the wrong conclusion, Molly,” said David. “The sole beneficiary of the earlier will was to have been Atherton Gale's granddaughter.”
“Granddaughter? What granddaughter?”
“The daughter of his only natural child, Margaret.”
“But that was my mother,” said Molly, then gasped. “Are you saying that Atherton Gale was going to leave everything to my mother?”
“That's right,” answered David. “Atherton told Dad he had never met her and didn't want to. He said he ended up hating anybody he got to know, especially relatives. Apparently Atherton only knew about your mother because she had sent him some letters or something.”
“He never answered,” murmured Molly, sinking into one of the room's big overstuffed chairs, her mind reeling. “Mom thought that Grandma's family might help us, but she never heard anything back. We assumed that they just didn't care. But why did Atherton rewrite his will in the first place?”
“The stepson and adopted son who had previously been his heirs had done something that Atherton found intolerable,” David replied. “Atherton wouldn't tell my father what it was, just that he was furious. The new will was going to be Atherton's punishment for them, leaving the entire Gale fortune to this young woman that nobody else even knew existed.”

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