Once I’d told her everything—which wasn’t much—she picked up the phone. Whatever she read there didn’t make her any happier. If head shaking were an Olympic sport, she’d take the gold.
“Is that what you wanted to tell me about?” she asked. “Your brother’s suicide attempt?”
“No, it really isn’t,” I said. “I wanted to tell you about a few other things. Should I be telling them to both of you?”
“No,” she said. She clamped her lips tight. I saw the muscles in her neck clench as well. “You can tell me, and I’ll share the information with my partner.”
“Okay,” I said. I trusted Post more than Richland. I liked her. She maintained some semblance of a professional wall, but she also came out from behind it from time to time. I sensed she was doing that then. “I found out that my mother was married once before,” I said. “Her first husband came by to talk to me.”
Post tilted her head a little. “What do you mean, ‘found out’?”
“He told me all about it,” I said.
“But you didn’t know that before?”
“No, I didn’t. Did you?”
Post looked uncomfortable, as if maybe she’d sat on a nail. “We do background checks on anyone who has been the victim of a crime like the one involving your mother. It’s standard procedure during the investigation. We saw that she had married this—” She leaned forward and opened a manila folder, leafed through a few pages. “Gordon Baxter? Is that the man you spoke to?”
I nodded.
“She was married to him for a while,” she said. “And he came to see you? Why? How did he find you?”
“I’m in the book.”
“You know—”
I held up my hand. “I know, I know. It doesn’t matter. He found me. I didn’t let him in. We talked in public.”
“You should probably avoid contact with him in the future.” Post reached for the folder again. She brought it back and opened it in her lap.
“My uncle says he’s a crook.”
Post nodded. “He’s done time for larceny and assault. Make that twice for assault. And these are just things he’s been convicted of. Chances are there’s more. He didn’t threaten you at all, did he?”
I considered the word. Threaten. He didn’t threaten me. But…
“He wants money from me.”
“For what?”
“He says my mother was giving him money, helping him out. Now he wants me to keep doing it. I’m the executor of the estate. My mother got some money when my father died. A life insurance policy. And I’m sure there’s a policy on my mom as well. Gordon Baxter wants some of whatever money my mom had.”
“How much?”
“He didn’t say. But I found my mom’s bank records in her house. She’d withdrawn fourteen thousand dollars over the last year. That’s totally unlike her. She wouldn’t even eat at a fast-food restaurant. She wore the same clothes for the last twenty years. I have no idea what she took that money out for.”
“But he didn’t threaten you?”
“No,” I said. “He didn’t say, ‘Give me the money or else.’ Nothing like that. He seems shady. In some way, his presence is threatening. He showed up out of the blue on my doorstep. I wondered if maybe he was the one who broke into my apartment.”
Post nodded. She made a note in the open file folder.
“But,” I said, “I can’t imagine what he’d be looking for there. I don’t have anything. And he doesn’t know anything about me.”
“I’ll keep it in the back of my mind,” she said.
Post’s phone buzzed again.
“Do you need to get that?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“So,” I said, “if you know all about her marriage to Gordon Baxter, you must know about their daughter, right?”
I knew professional police decorum meant never showing surprise when presented with unexpected information. Post mostly concealed her reaction, but her eyes moved just enough—a twitch or a tic—to tell me that she not only didn’t know about the other Elizabeth, but was quite surprised to hear it.
She didn’t answer. So I said, “You didn’t know, then? Wouldn’t you find out if you ran some sort of a background check on my mom?”
“A juvenile that long ago might not show up in the system. We haven’t had computers forever.”
“Okay. Well, now you know.”
She hesitated. “I’m not sure how it’s relevant to the case.”
“Not relevant?” I asked. “My mother’s ex-husband has a criminal record, and they also have a daughter who went missing years ago and now has managed to get herself into my mother’s will. And that’s not relevant?”
Post considered a moment. She closed the folder in her lap and placed it back on the desk. “Is there something I need to know about this daughter?”
“A few things,” I said.
I gave her the whole rundown, from Elizabeth’s disappearance in 1975 to her apparent reemergence into my mother’s life sometime in the recent past. I made sure to include the stuff about the will, including Elizabeth Yarbrough’s call to the lawyer, as well as my uncle’s and Gordon Baxter’s assertions that Elizabeth Yarbrough was some kind of grifter taking advantage of my mother and not the rebellious teenager who walked out of their lives thirty-seven years earlier. Post asked a few questions as I went along, mostly just clarifications of minor points. She still didn’t take any notes, but she was attentive. When I was finished, she leaned back in her chair, the springs squeaking as she moved.
“You’ve never met this woman?” she asked. “This Elizabeth Yarbrough?”
“Never.”
“And where is she?”
“She lives in Reston Point, according to the will. That’s all I know.”
“Hmm,” Post said.
“Look, you’re trying to hang this all on my brother—”
“Nobody’s hanging anything,” she said. “We’re dealing with the evidence.”
“Okay. Fine. But you have someone with a criminal record who was getting money from my mother, and you have someone else—someone who was given up for dead long ago—suddenly showing up and working her way into the will. She gets a third now that Mom is gone. Are you telling me that isn’t suspicious?”
“One of your sources against this Yarbrough woman is the guy you also say is a crook. Gordon Baxter,” Post said. “Who knows why he’s smearing her? And you don’t know that this woman called the lawyer. And even if she did, I’m not sure what it proves. People call lawyers. Maybe it shows she was after the money. Maybe. But maybe she just had a legitimate question.”
I accepted the dousing of cold water. But I wasn’t finished. “At least admit it’s hard to believe Ronnie killed my mom. Can you just admit that for me?”
“Can you admit it?” she asked. “Do you have any doubts about it?”
“I do.”
“You mean you have them now?”
I didn’t answer. But she was right, and she knew it.
“People kill for all sorts of reasons,” she said. “And you’d be surprised at who ends up doing the killing. You may not expect it from them, but they do it. And the one constant, the almost ninety-nine percent answer to the puzzle is—the killer knew the victim and, in their mind, had a very good reason to do it. So far, I only see your brother fitting that bill. And I have to be honest—this suicide attempt doesn’t make things look any better for him. We’re still looking at other options, and maybe Elizabeth Yarbrough and Gordon Baxter will factor into that. No charges have been filed yet, of course. But your brother has confessed.”
“He didn’t do it,” I said. “Okay, you’re right. I have my doubts. Little moments of doubt about Ronnie. Sure. He had outbursts. Apparently Mom felt scared enough to call the police once. That’s there. I can’t change it. But I know him. I know him. He didn’t do it.” I felt I’d been convincing, that I’d stated my case so clearly and strongly no one could refute it.