The Fool Dies Last, page 16
‘I have no need to dispute it. The police know where I was and when.’
‘Good.’ Sylvia gave her an imperious nod. ‘Then you can be held to account, if appropriate. The way I see it, whoever is responsible for both deaths must have been in both locations.’
Hope didn’t dispute that, either. In fact, she had thought the same thing herself. The problem was that lots of people had been at the community center around the time of Roberta’s death, and lots of people had been in the hotel and spa around the time of Marilyn’s death, so making a comprehensive list and crossing off the possible suspects one by one until a single name remained, thereby revealing the guilty party, was nigh impossible. Ironically, however, by pointing the finger at Hope, Sylvia had unwittingly implicated herself and her son.
‘You do realize,’ Hope said to her, ‘that you just admitted that you and Gerald were in both locations also? By the same logic,’ she echoed Gram from a minute earlier, ‘the two of you could have killed Marilyn and Roberta.’
‘That’s–that’s outrageous!’ Sylvia sputtered.
‘Outrageous!’ Gerald exclaimed, the crown of his head reddening.
Hope shrugged in reply, which only seemed to infuriate the pair further.
‘How dare you accuse me!’ Sylvia’s face contorted with rage. ‘How dare you accuse my son!’
The top of Gerald’s head became nearly as burgundy as his mother’s lips. ‘How dare you!’ he shouted.
‘You have no proof,’ Sylvia continued in a fury, waving her hands about wildly. ‘No proof whatsoever!’
‘Oh, good heavens.’ Gram clucked her tongue as she had before. ‘Calm down, Sylvia. You’ll give yourself palpitations, and we’ll have to call an ambulance for your heart. No one is claiming to have proof against you. No one is blaming you – or Gerald – for anything.’
Hope raised an eyebrow. Blame or not, proof or not, Sylvia and Gerald’s reaction was so inordinately defensive that it made her wonder whether they might actually be guilty of something.
Sylvia seemed placated by Gram’s words. Her face relaxed, and her hands returned to her lap, clutched together once again with white knuckles. As though realizing that her response might have been a bit too vigorous, she said, ‘You shouldn’t think me unreasonable. I don’t want to appear hysterical. But it grieves me tremendously that there could be even the slightest suspicion that Gerald and I had any connection to our dear, dear friends Marilyn and Roberta being poisoned.’
‘Of course there’s no suspicion that you and Gerald had any connection—’ Gram began.
Cutting her off abruptly, Hope turned toward Sylvia. ‘How do you know that Marilyn and Roberta were poisoned?’
SEVENTEEN
With the grace of a gasping trout, Sylvia’s mouth opened, then closed, and opened again. Gerald’s burgundy head became beaded with sweat. Hope watched them in silence – and waited. Was it an admission of guilt? An inadvertent slip of the tongue? Could there be an innocent explanation?
Gram’s patience was short. ‘Hope asked you a question, Sylvia. How do you know that Marilyn and Roberta were poisoned?’
‘I … well, um …’ Sylvia gulped and gasped some more.
Gerald squirmed in his seat, rivulets of water trickling down to his temples.
Sylvia coughed and tried again. ‘I–I think …’
‘You think that you heard it from the police,’ Gerald supplied, his voice cracking. ‘The police told you how it happened.’
‘Yes. Yes, that’s it.’ Sylvia nodded vigorously. ‘I heard it from the police. The police told me how it happened.’
Hope looked at Gram. Did she believe Sylvia? Gram’s brow was furrowed. There was a hint of perspiration there, too, although nothing compared with Gerald’s.
‘The police told you how it happened?’ Gram questioned. She turned to Hope. ‘Have the police told you how it happened?’
‘No. In fact,’ Hope said, ‘I saw Nate – Detective Phillips – this morning, and he didn’t mention anything about the blood work having been completed or the lab results coming in. Neither did Dylan.’
‘I didn’t mean’ – Sylvia cleared her throat – ‘that someone in authority contacted me personally regarding lab tests, or blood results, or whatever. I was referring to what the police said—’
‘Also the news,’ Gerald proffered.
‘Right. Yes. What the police and the news,’ Sylvia amended, ‘said about the deaths. Public information, official statements, et cetera.’
There was a pause. Gram’s brow remained furrowed. Gerald reached for a napkin and blotted his head. Sylvia brushed some imaginary crumbs from her trousers.
‘Not to mention,’ Sylvia added after a moment, her tone growing in confidence, ‘that it’s obvious.’
‘What is?’ Gram asked her.
‘That Marilyn and Roberta were poisoned, of course! I didn’t see Marilyn. I only heard second-hand reports about her. But I witnessed everything with Roberta – or nearly everything. The way that she grabbed her stomach and thrashed around on the ground, plus all that swelling and those hives. And it was during dinner. There must have been something on her plate or in her cup. She must have been poisoned. It’s obvious.’
Was it obvious? Hope mused to herself. Perhaps it was. From the beginning Dylan and Morris had talked about anaphylaxis and allergens, not poison, but they were both doctors. If she hadn’t had the benefit of the Henshaw medical expertise, Hope had to admit that considering the manner of the two deaths, as well as the seeming connection with food and drink, she might have thought that Marilyn and Roberta had been poisoned, too.
‘It’s obvious,’ Sylvia insisted, when no one else spoke.
‘Obvious,’ Gerald agreed.
‘Besides,’ Sylvia continued officiously, ‘we had no more reason to kill Marilyn and Roberta than you did.’
Hope squinted at her. ‘Huh?’
‘Don’t pretend that you don’t understand me. If you know about the paper – which you made clear that you do just a few minutes ago – then you also know that Gerald and I don’t stand to gain any more from the deaths than you and Olivia.’
‘Gain from the deaths?’ Hope echoed in confusion. ‘What are you talking about?’
Sylvia responded by straightening her pearls.
Hope turned to Gram. ‘Do you have any idea what she’s talking about?’
Gram winced. It was only slightly, but enough for Hope to know that she understood exactly what Sylvia was talking about.
Hope threw up her hands in frustration. ‘Will you please explain to me what is going on? Is this one of the secrets that Morris was worried about?’
‘It isn’t a secret,’ Gram replied, also in a tone of frustration. ‘Or at least it was never meant to be one. Yes, we promised not to tell anybody about it, but—’
‘That sounds like a secret,’ Hope said.
‘Well, it could be interpreted that way,’ Gram admitted, ‘but honestly, that wasn’t our intention. It was simply meant to be a private arrangement among friends.’
‘That’s true.’ Sylvia nodded. ‘A private arrangement among friends.’
‘And it would have gone on being a private arrangement,’ Gram continued. ‘It could have remained small and quiet, of no interest to anyone but ourselves, except now—’
‘Except now,’ Gerald cut her off brusquely, ‘two of those friends have been murdered, and what was supposed to be small and quiet has turned into a damn big deal. I can’t speak for you, but I don’t plan on sitting around, twiddling my thumbs, waiting to become the third victim.’
Hope’s mind went immediately to the Tarot card that Summer had found. Did Gerald know about the third Fool? ‘You think there will be a third victim?’ she asked him.
‘Why wouldn’t there be a third victim?’ he countered. ‘Why would the murderer stop at two when the rest of us are still alive and kicking?’
Sylvia gave him a disapproving tsk-tsk.
Gerald shot her an agitated look. ‘You can pretend that it doesn’t apply to you, Mother, but it does. If somebody is going after everyone who was a part of it, then they’re going after you, too. You aren’t magically excluded. You’re not immune because you imagine yourself to be fancier, or smarter, or just plain better than your friends.’
‘Gerald!’ Sylvia exclaimed, aghast. ‘I do not imagine myself to be better than my friends.’
He grunted dubiously.
‘Gerald!’ Sylvia cried again, this time ending on a sharp note, once more commanding silence from her son.
With another grunt, Gerald slumped back in his chair.
Hope was thoughtful. It didn’t sound as though Gerald knew about the third Fool. Not unless his reference to Sylvia imagining herself to be smarter than her friends meant that he considered them – or his mother – to be fools.
‘I don’t see why there should be a third victim,’ Sylvia declared after a moment. ‘I don’t see what purpose it would serve.’
‘But you can see what purpose the first two murders served?’ Hope said.
There was an amused snort from Gerald, which was promptly squelched by a glare from his mother. The glare then turned to Hope.
‘Of course I can’t see their purpose,’ Sylvia rejoined crossly. ‘I’m not a mind reader. I can’t climb into people’s heads and—’
‘Hope makes a good point, Sylvia,’ Gram interjected. ‘If we don’t know why Marilyn and Roberta were targeted – what purpose their murders served, at least in theory – we can’t know whether anyone else will be targeted.’
Sylvia harrumphed.
‘Gerald also makes a good point,’ Gram went on. ‘If somebody is going after everyone who was a part of it, then we must assume that we’re all targets. No exceptions or exclusions. Everyone connected to the tontine.’
‘The what?’ Hope asked.
‘Have you not been paying attention?’ Sylvia snapped. ‘The tontine. The paper. The document. The thing that we’ve been discussing for the last hour. The sole reason we’re here.’
That answered one of Hope’s questions. The paper was indeed a document. But what was a tontine? She turned to Gram quizzically.
‘Do you remember how I thought there was a pattern?’ Gram said. ‘A connection between the deaths?’
Hope nodded.
Gram nodded back at her. ‘I knew there was something – something beyond Marilyn and Roberta simply knowing each other – but I couldn’t put my finger on it. It probably would have come to me eventually, as Morris said. Thankfully, it came to Gerald sooner. He put it together and told Sylvia, and then she told me. And they’re right. I’m sure of it.’ This time she nodded at Sylvia. ‘The connection is the tontine. It must be. It’s the only thing that makes sense.’
‘Certainly, it’s the tontine,’ Sylvia argued. ‘What else could it be?’
‘I don’t know,’ Hope said. ‘Because I don’t know what a tontine is.’
Sylvia looked at her askance, as though she didn’t believe her ignorance.
‘A tontine is a bet,’ Gerald told her. ‘A bet on death.’
‘It isn’t a bet,’ Gram corrected him.
‘Really?’ he retorted. ‘A bunch of people all put in money, and the last one standing gets the entire pot. If that’s not betting on death, what would you call it?’
‘I would call it a group life insurance policy, of sorts.’
As he had with his mother a minute earlier, Gerald responded to Gram with a dubious grunt.
‘A group life insurance policy,’ Gram repeated, although she didn’t sound entirely convinced herself. ‘In a tontine,’ she said to Hope, ‘each subscriber contributes an equal share at the outset, and every year each subscriber receives a small payment.’
‘Like an annuity?’ Hope asked.
‘An annuity combined with a lottery,’ Gerald replied. ‘Except instead of praying for the winning numbers, the subscribers are praying to outlive one another.’
Hope frowned, not understanding.
‘When a subscriber dies,’ Gerald explained, ‘their annual payment is divided among the remaining subscribers. When there is only one subscriber left, the tontine is dissolved, and that final survivor gets everything – all the money.’
‘But what about the beneficiaries of the other subscribers?’ Hope said.
‘There are no beneficiaries, at least not in the traditional sense. No one outside the group inherits. A share can’t be handed down through a will or trust like a condominium or brokerage account. A tontine is exclusive to the original participants. It’s based on their lifespans only.’
Hope’s frown deepened. ‘I’ve never heard of such a thing.’
‘That’s probably because it isn’t legal,’ Gerald said.
‘Our arrangement is perfectly legal!’ Sylvia protested.
Gerald merely shrugged.
It was Gram’s turn to frown. ‘A lawyer wrote up the paper for us. He didn’t say anything about it not being legal.’
‘Maybe you’re right.’ Gerald shrugged again. ‘Maybe it was legal in North Carolina then. Maybe it still is. But tontines have been banned in lots of places.’
‘They have?’ Sylvia questioned. ‘How do you know?’
‘When you first told me about it, I was like her’ – he motioned toward Hope – ‘and had never heard of a tontine. So I did some research and found that they’ve been around for centuries, in various forms, across the globe. Tontines have been used by governments and companies, royalty and average citizens, to raise capital for everything from war and conquest to pension funds and building projects. High or low, big or small, they’re all schemes. Morbid schemes, in my opinion, plenty of which also turned out to be giant scams. That’s why many countries have made them illegal.’
Hope looked at Gram in surprise. ‘How on earth did you ever come up with such an idea?’
‘Rebecca Huber,’ Gram said.
‘Rebecca Huber,’ Sylvia echoed.
‘She read about it in a book.’
‘It seemed like fun,’ Sylvia said.
Hope raised an eyebrow.
‘Obviously, it doesn’t seem like fun now,’ Sylvia amended.
‘That tends to happen when two members of your tontine die under suspicious circumstances,’ Gerald muttered.
Sylvia’s nostrils flared with indignation, but Gram spoke before she could.
‘In our defense, it was a long time ago. Almost thirty-five years. Before you or your sister were even born,’ she said to Hope. ‘Your mom was away at college. When Rebecca mentioned it to us, we thought it sounded interesting. It wasn’t a huge sum of money. And we were all around the same age, give or take a few years. I was the oldest. Rebecca was the youngest.’
The name wasn’t familiar to Hope. ‘Have I met Rebecca?’
Gram shook her head. ‘No. She was diagnosed with cancer shortly after we organized the tontine. She died within a year.’
‘How awful,’ Hope said.
‘I wish you could have known her. Rebecca was such a kind person. Always willing to go out of her way to help someone. And she never—’
‘Yes, yes. That’s all nice and good,’ Sylvia interrupted Gram. ‘But the most important point is that because Rebecca is already dead, she can’t be the one who killed Marilyn and Roberta.’
Gram gave her a look of reproof.
‘Scold me if you like,’ Sylvia returned defiantly, ‘but it’s the truth. It doesn’t matter what sort of person Rebecca was back then: thin or fat, short or tall, smart or dumb. We need to worry about now. The present, not the past—’
Struck by Sylvia’s choice of words, it was Hope’s turn to interrupt. ‘Was Rebecca smart or dumb?’
The question startled Sylvia into momentary silence.
‘Based on what’s happened to Marilyn and Roberta, the past appears to be much more important – at least to the murderer – than you imagine,’ Hope said. ‘Was Rebecca considered intelligent or foolish?’
Gram reflected a minute. ‘I see what you mean. You’re thinking about the cards, aren’t you? From that perspective, Rebecca was definitely intelligent. She was a partner in a successful accounting firm. I doubt that anyone – then or now – would have considered her foolish.’
‘Did she have any children or other close relations …’ Hope began. ‘Forget that. You said inheritance and beneficiaries don’t matter in a tontine.’
‘They don’t matter,’ Gerald confirmed. ‘As my mother pointed out earlier, I don’t stand to gain any more from the deaths than you do.’
‘Yes, but the remaining members stand to gain plenty – potentially,’ Hope reminded him. ‘Who else was part of the tontine?’
‘There were six of us,’ Gram said. ‘Sylvia and me. Marilyn and Roberta. Rebecca and Kirsten Willport.’
‘No one else? You’re sure?’
‘Of course she’s sure!’ Sylvia exclaimed, regaining her voice. ‘We were all in the lawyer’s office together. We know who else signed the paper.’
‘Where is the paper now?’ Hope asked. ‘Still with the lawyer?’
‘No. He retired some years ago. Moved to Wyoming, if I recall correctly.’
‘Too bad you can’t also recall what you did with the paper,’ Sylvia sniped at Gram. ‘You never should have gotten it. You should have given it to me.’
‘You didn’t want it then,’ Gram retorted. ‘No one did. And one of us had to take it. When he closed his business, the lawyer returned all the documents he was holding to the clients.’
Sylvia grumbled.
‘So you don’t know where the paper is now?’ Hope pressed Gram. ‘Because it would be good for us to read it. There could be something in there – something in the fine print, so to speak – that could help explain what’s going on.’
‘I don’t remember there being any fine print,’ Gram mused. ‘It was just a simple little agreement.’
‘What seemed simple thirty-five years ago might not be so simple anymore,’ Hope said. ‘Which is why we really need to take a look at it. Do you have any idea where you put it?’
