Mettner said, “You’re saying Hugo made one of his daughters become a fake patient of Dr. Jeremy Rafferty?”
“I think so,” Josie said. “And then, at some point, he made them falsely accuse Rafferty of inappropriate behavior. He probably threatened to go public or to the police if Rafferty didn’t pay him. Fifty thousand dollars. Jesus.”
Gretchen grimaced. “That’s beyond evil.”
“Rafferty paid,” Josie said. “But he still couldn’t live with it.”
“Unless he really had been inappropriate,” Noah said.
Josie thought of Devon Rafferty’s passionate mission to clear her father’s name. “I’m not so sure about that,” she said. “Although I suppose anything is possible. Regardless, the point is that Hugo was using the kids to do his dirty work. To bring in money between the deaths of Lydia’s husbands.”
“Now Amber wanting absolutely nothing to do with her family makes a lot more sense,” said Gretchen. “And her not wanting to say why also makes sense.”
Chitwood walked over to Josie’s desk and began riffling through documents. “We know that Rafferty killed himself thirteen years ago. Lydia was married to husband number four by then. The last one before she remarried Hugo, anyway. She married one more older man after that, but she didn’t bring Hugo or Nadine in on the score. She was finished after that.”
“I’m sure all of them knew what was going on and what happened with Rafferty,” said Noah. “It’s possible even Vivian Toland knew. They were running these scams together for years. At that point she wasn’t even married to Toland yet.”
“Unless it was something secret that Hugo was doing on the side,” Chitwood said.
“Maybe Vivian didn’t know,” Josie said. “But I’m sure that Lydia did and possibly Nadine.”
“Lydia received a postcard with Russell Haven Dam on it,” Gretchen pointed out. “So she knew for certain. Except that she only emailed Amber. Why?”
“Maybe Amber was the one who accused Rafferty,” Josie suggested. From the corner of her eye, she saw Mettner wince.
“Detectives,” Chitwood said. “We still haven’t addressed the larger issue here. Why is someone killing all these people now?”
“Atonement,” said Noah. “Gabriel joined Thatcher Toland’s church years ago. He’s been a devoted follower. It’s actually kind of creepy. He’s all about atoning for sins. He admitted he tried to help Amber atone, but she wanted no part of it. Eden was getting there. He was seen accosting Amber before she disappeared. His prints are on her surveillance camera. We found blood evidence and hairs linked to her—in all probability, pending final lab confirmation—at his house, and he attacked Josie when confronted by police.”
“But killing them,” Gretchen said. “How is that atonement?”
“It’s not,” Mettner said. “It’s vengeance.”
“Also, where does Thatcher Toland himself fit into all of this?” asked Chitwood. “Does he know his wife is a con artist?”
“I don’t think so,” Josie said. “He might be one of her cons. She sold him his first house, remember? He came from money. Did you know that? He already had a lot of money before his ministry took off. She would have known that when she became his realtor. Maybe she saw an opportunity to get more for herself than just realtor fees from the long cons that Lydia, Hugo, and Nadine were running.”
“Or the whole thing is a con,” said Noah. “Thatcher is in on it. He and Vivian are working together. He didn’t become Thatcher Toland, famous televangelist, until Vivian came along. The church is the con.”
Chitwood said, “I can’t see a guy in Toland’s position wanting to kill people like this, even indirectly, and besides, what beef does he have with the Watts family? Vivian helped them but she really wasn’t instrumental in swindling these elderly men out of their money. Really all she did was sell a few houses.”
“Speaking of houses,” said Gretchen. “There were eleven parcel ID numbers on Amber’s list. Lydia only had five rich old husbands.”
“Right,” said Noah. “The other parcel ID numbers were for homes that these husbands had as either vacation or rental properties. I think Amber was trying to compile a list of all the houses that changed hands as a result of the scams that Lydia, Hugo, Nadine, and Vivian were running.”
“Then Eden was looking around the same time,” said Gretchen.
“They must have been in contact somehow,” said Chitwood.
“That’s why we need the phone records,” Josie agreed. “Amber might have deleted calls between her and Eden in her call history, but the records will still show if any took place.”
“Okay, okay,” said Chitwood, holding his hands up. “It seems clear that the sisters were gearing up to expose the adults in some way. That still doesn’t tell us who killed Eden and Lydia or who made Amber disappear.”
“I think we need to look at Gabriel,” Noah said. “The guy definitely has a few screws loose. He obviously disapproves and holds a grudge against his family for everything they did or he wouldn’t have approached Amber at all.”
Chitwood said, “All right, let’s run with that logic. Gabriel decides he’s going to kill his sisters and mother because they lied and cheated a bunch of men out of their money and even drove Dr. Jeremy Rafferty to kill himself. Maybe he was even planning on killing his dad, too, but hadn’t gotten that far yet. But was he going to leave Vivian untouched?”
Gretchen said, “Vivian could easily claim ignorance. Like we said, all she did was sell some houses for Lydia.”
Chitwood nodded. “Okay, let’s keep going then. Gabriel starts with his Aunt Nadine. He travels to Sullivan County and drowns her in her pond. Then he decides to kill Eden. He kidnaps Amber. Then he kills Lydia. He dumps Eden and Lydia at Russell Haven Dam because that’s where Dr. Jeremy Rafferty’s body was recovered.”
Noah said, “Driving a man to suicide is a pretty egregious sin. Much worse than convincing a lonely old wealthy guy to marry you and then keeping his money after he dies.”
Mettner said, “But again, what’s Thatcher Toland’s part in all of this? From what we can tell, he spoke with Eden before she left Philadelphia, and then the other day he went to Amber’s house.”
“Maybe Gabriel unburdened himself to Thatcher,” Josie suggested. “Vivian lied about not knowing Nadine Fiore. It’s not a stretch to think she lied about Thatcher not knowing Gabriel personally. Maybe Gabriel went to Thatcher and told him everything. Maybe Thatcher realized that Gabriel had some disturbing ideas as to how his family could atone for their sins, and he was trying to smooth things over—to avoid murder. Maybe he told Gabriel he’d handle it by talking to both Eden and Amber but that wasn’t enough for Gabriel.”
“That’s assuming that Thatcher Toland isn’t some slimy, disgusting, scheming TV preacher who is only out for money. He did marry a con woman, after all,” Gretchen said. “I’m still not sold on the theory that he knows absolutely nothing about his wife’s former activities.”
“You don’t think he’s for real?” asked Mettner.