Page 31 of Willowbrooke
“Why do you think he told you he cut you out?”
“Maybe a test?” Leo guessed. “I was a kid—but I wouldn’t put it past him. I’m sure I wasn’t the best son growing up, but he was all I had left. I felt so betrayed when I left for college, and it turns out it had all been a joke to him.”
“What did Margot say?”
Leo shook his head. “She was just as shocked as I was—couldn’t believe he would do something like that to his own son. And it’s not like he’d changed his mind when I came back to care for him—he’d never touched the thing.”
Having strained the tomato chunks through a sieve to keep the seeds from the pulp, Leo set the bowl aside and began to chop some cloves of garlic on a cutting board.
“Earlier, you said you had some theories. Who do you think did it?” I inquired bluntly.
“It’s not that simple. I think plenty of people over the years would have wanted to kill the old man, but whoever did it would have needed not just a motive, but also means andaccess.” Leo’s tone was methodical—he was disassociating again.
“Suffocating someone with a pillow, even if they are completely incapacitated, can take a good five minutes. This wasn’t a crime of opportunity—it was premeditated, and it was personal. To stand there for five minutes and smother him…” Leo dropped his knife on the cutting board, the thoughts becoming too intrusive for him to focus on such a delicate and dangerous task at the same time.
“So let’s run through your list of suspects,” I proposed. “I suppose we can rule you out, because if you had done it, you never would have proceeded with all the private autopsies—”
“Or gone to the police,” Leo added.
“You went to the police?” I was surprised he was only mentioning it now.
“That’s where I was for most of the day yesterday. They didn’t take too kindly to me showing up and trying to reopen what they’d ruled an open and closed case—an easy natural death. A couple of the pathologists did warn me, to be fair.” Leo resumed mincing the garlic.
“Warned you about what?”
“Said the police didn’t like it when civilians second-guessed their work. The last one also said that the evidence she discovered looks like suffocation when it’s all put together, but individually, she understood why they gave the original cause of death.” Leo scraped the garlic into a pan, poured a fair amount of expensive-looking olive oil in after it, andthen turned the burner back on.
“She said his eyes were bloodshot, which is typical of suffocation, but his meds made his eyes bloodshot too—and everyone knew that; he hated it and complained about it to anyone who visited. His appearance was important to him—that’s why he refused to go into the office or do video calls at the end.
“The first pathologist said they only found the fibers in his mouth because they were looking for them, the second also found what they call petechial hemorrhages on his lungs—the coroner didn’t open him up because they had no reason to before, so they wouldn’t have seen it. There were no signs of struggle, which meant he was likely sedated, but that wasn’t unusual for him. But all of those things added up. I just wish the police would have listened to me.” Leo sighed.
“What exactly did they say?” I ventured.
“That they’d look into it.” Leo rolled his eyes. “They had some desk jockey take my information. I could tell they won’t take it seriously. If I don’t figure this out myself, his killer will remain free.”
“I’ll do whatever I can to help you,” I promised him.
Leo gave a gentle nod of appreciation.
“Is that why the solarium is off-limits?” I asked, suddenly realizing, at the thought of the police, that maybe it wasn’t grief alone that kept that door locked.
“Yeah, but a fat lot of good that did.” He grimaced. “I still have no idea how it got open that day, but since itwasn’t you, I have to assume that the crime scene has been contaminated.”
“You think the killer came back?” I asked, brows raised. “Why?”
“No idea.” Leo shrugged. “Maybe if we can figure it out, it will give us a clue as to who they are.”
“So William was the last visitor, and then Nurse Julie found him,” I repeated. “Could someone have snuck into the solarium from outside? I know you’ve got the ancient security system, but I haven’t seen any cameras on the property.”
“I suppose someone could have. We didn’t keep the solarium locked during the day; if it was nice out, like that day, Dad liked the fresh air.” Leo began adding all sorts of spices and bits to the pan with the olive oil and garlic, using a flat wooden spoon to move everything around to keep it from burning.
“But like you said, this was too personal, and would have taken too long. It’s unlikely to be an outsider—or if it was, they would have been assisted by someone inside.”
“Exactly.” Leo slowly began to add the tomato pulp into the pan. “I’ll look into a security system though, now that you mention it.”
“So who does that leave us with? Where was everyone that day, other than William and the nurse?” I returned to our list of suspects.
“Margot was a few towns over, helping with some charity event.” Leo continued to stir the sauce, adding more spicesevery now and then.
