Page 56 of Willowbrooke
I reminded myself that nothing was down there and that both Leo and William would be there with me.
Still, the musty, damp, heavy weight of the lower level immediately enveloped me only a few steps down the staircase. I released Leo to use the railings to steady myself, but he quickly found my hand again when we were at the bottom. Maybe he was drawing as much comfort from me as I was in him.
William turned on the available lights as he went, but the space remained murky and dank, almost as if in rebellion. He approached a bookcase, and managed to easily push it to the side, as the baseboard of the shelf was concealing casters. Moving it revealed a room previously hidden from view.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Leo breathed in shock.
“A lot of old houses like this were retrofitted with hidden storage and tunnels during prohibition.” William stood aside, allowing Leo and I to enter the room after he’d flipped on another too-dim lightbulb overhead.
The room had no windows and couldn’t have been larger than ten square feet. The walls were plastered with notes, newspaper clippings, photographs, and other ramblings of a madman. A long folding table in the middle of the space was stacked with binders, folders, and papers in some kind of organized chaos. Behind the desk was the lone missing dining chair I’d been trying to find for weeks. I never would have found it otherwise.
“What is this place?” I let my eyes wander the packed space, not knowing where to look next.
“George only told me when he was too weak to come down here by himself,” William admitted. “He called it his investigation den—decades of work trying to figure out what happened to your mother.” He turned to Leo. “He never did find anything concrete enough to go to the police, but he had his theories.”
Leo had approached one of the walls, where most of thephotos were taped. “I can see that.” He examined the images. “You’re on his list of suspects.” Leo pointed to an old photo of William. There were sticky notes next to the photo that said “Motive?” and “Confirmed in-person meeting with investors at T.O.D.”
“What’s T.O.D.?” I asked.
“Time of death,” William answered. “George told me he had long ruled me out, but he didn’t want to trust anyone with what he was doing until he had something more solid…only that day never came.”
“Margot’s on here too,” Leo commented.
The note next to her photo said, “How close were they?” and “Confirmed out of country with Ted.”
“Even you’re on there.” William pointed to a small picture of Leo as a toddler in a corner, almost hidden by other notes.
The note next to Leo read “Confirmed with nanny at park, on playdate.’”
“He exhausted every avenue—left no stone unturned,” William said.
“It looks like these two were his main targets.” Leo shuffled to view the center of the wall, where larger photos of two men were positioned. Under each was a name: Jeremy Pruitt and Warren Kane. I recognized the former from the police file Leo’s PI had unearthed.
“Warren Kane—is that Kane Industries?” Leo turned to William.
William nodded. “He was our primary business rivalat the time—he died in a plane crash about ten years after Christine died. I didn’t like the guy, he was a prick, but I never got the impression he’d cross that kind of line—still, he took a lot of secrets to his grave, and George could never manage to get a solid alibi from him.
“Every time they spoke, it was something else. He had a different meeting on his work calendar from his personal calendar, and his personal assistant said he was with his mistress at the time, but George never found her, and Kane—he was an asshole. I think he was amused by your father’s obsession with him, but murder—he was the type to initiate a hostile takeover, not kill his adversary’s wife. He’d want a business victory, not a personal one.”
William’s phone began to ring, echoing menacingly in the enclosed space. He looked at the caller ID and declined the call. “It’s my lawyer—I can’t stay.” He frowned.
“William…” Leo faltered. “There’s something else…” He looked down at his feet, then up at me, needing a boost of confidence, which I provided with a reassuring smile.
“I think someone killed Dad.”
William took a step back, alarmed by the declaration. “But the cancer—”
“The cancer was real, but he’d secretly asked me to conduct a private autopsy, and multiple pathologists think he was likely smothered.” Leo raked his hand through his hair nervously.
William was silent for a minute, trying to take ineverything.
“I wondered when I first heard, but they declared it a natural death so quickly, I was almost relieved. I saw him that day; he seemed in good spirits, that’s why it caught me off guard when Margot called me to tell me.” William’s face clouded as he recalled that day.
“You were the last person to see him alive—the nurse found him an hour later, and he was gone.”
“The dead nurse…”
“You know I have to ask,” Leo said painfully.
