Laurie wished Ryan hadn’t moved to hostile territory so quickly. Until now, Penny had been extremely cooperative.
“Seventy-five thousand dollars,” she confirmed. “I was very grateful. That’s what I made in two years as her assistant.”
“And those little notes you found: was she planning to cut your part of the inheritance as well?” he asked, pressing the point.
“I—I don’t remember.”
“And yet you remember an awful lot about what Ivan and her children might have been inheriting,” he challenged her.
Laurie interrupted, sensing that Penny was a few questions away from asking them to leave. Looking at Penny, she could see that she wasn’t strong enough to have pushed Virginia from that roof on her own. If she was involved in the murder—which was a big if right now—she had to have had an accomplice.
“Do you remember Tiffany Simon from the gala?” Laurie asked. “She was Tom Wakeling’s date—Virginia’s nephew.”
“Oh yeah,” she said, as if the memory was coming back to her. “Virginia said she seemed like a perfect match for someone on that half of the family. She took Bob’s side regarding the split with his brother, Kenneth, so there was no love lost, even for Kenneth’s son. She said that her nephew was just like his father—he wanted all of the rewards without doing any of the work.”
“That nephew works at Wakeling Development now. He’s doing quite well from what I’m told,” Laurie said.
A flash of resentment crossed Penny’s face. “Nepotism, I’m sure. He probably wore his cousins down once Bob and Virginia were both gone.”
“Well, his date from that night seemed to think that you were seeing someone at the time—maybe someone who was at the gala?”
Penny shook her head, and once again, her gaze drifted to her watch.
“Maybe even someone close to Virginia?” Laurie nudged.
“That’s ridiculous. Virginia’s friends were three times my age.”
“Her son, Carter, wasn’t,” Ryan said. “Neither was her son-in-law, Peter Browning.”
“Now you’re suggesting I had an affair with Anna’s husband? I’m so glad I decided to try to help you,” she said sarcastically.
“We’re just trying to be thorough,” Laurie explained. “Ivan also mentioned that he’d heard you on the phone with a boyfriend. If we knew who that person was, we could be certain it wasn’t related at all to Virginia’s murder. We want to turn over every stone.”
Penny was on her feet now, heading toward the door. “I’m on a tight timeline, so I’m afraid I need to get back to work.”
Laurie tried one last time. “I’m sorry we offended you. I just need to know: did you tell Anna, Carter, or Peter—or anyone—about those notes you found? If they knew Mrs. Wakeling was going to change her will—”
A look of panic crossed Penny’s face, and she suddenly seemed even more rushed to end the conversation. “I’ve told you everything I know. Good luck with your production. I won’t be speaking to you anymore.”
43
Laurie and Ryan rehashed their interview of Penny in his car on the way back to the office.
“Did you see how many times she checked her watch? She was expecting someone she didn’t want us to meet.”
Laurie had had the same thought.
“And how did she pay for that apartment?” Ryan asked. “Her seventy-five-thousand-dollar inheritance from Virginia wouldn’t touch the down payment. Even if she’s renting, that place has to be at least six grand a month. And when I asked about her job? She barely gave an answer. Real estate? That’s like us saying ‘media.’ Totally vague.”
Laurie tried not to be irked that he clumped their jobs together. “Maybe she moved in with a boyfriend,” she suggested. “I didn’t see a wedding ring.” She began to look up Penny’s address on her phone to see what she could find out about the cost of the apartment or the owner.
“Well, I solved one part of the mystery,” Laurie announced, holding up her phone. “The apartment? It’s listed online as ‘in contract.’ The asking price was an even four million.”
Ryan let out a whistle. “So Penny came into money well beyond Virginia’s will.”
“Nope. I’m looking at the original real estate listing here. The agent’s name is Hannah Perkins. She has her office phone, cell, and email address listed. And if all else fails, she also has a number for her assistant. Want to guess the assistant’s name?”
Ryan’s eyes widened. “Penny?”
“You got it. No last name, but the phone number’s a match.”
“So it’s not even her apartment? It’s a client’s? Why would she fake that?”
Laurie thought it over, trying to place herself in another person’s shoes. “Because she’s ambitious. She didn’t want us to know that her current position’s no better than the one she had three years ago.”
“I noticed how annoyed she seemed when you told her the nephew, Tom, has a good job at Wakeling now.”
“Exactly.”
“So if she found out Virginia was going to cut her out of the will instead of giving her the kind of job she felt entitled to, maybe she got mad enough to do something about it.”
Laurie shook her head. “No, I can’t picture it. Seventy-five thousand dollars is a lot, but it’s not life-changing. And Virginia’s death meant she wouldn’t have any job at all. It would also mean she lost entree to a world she desperately wanted to be part of. I doubt her current boss lets her tag along to the Met Gala, for example. If she’s lying—”
“Oh, she’s definitely lying,” Ryan said.
Laurie found herself agreeing with him again. “Ivan believed Penny was hiding a boyfriend. And then, completely separately, Tiffany Simon got the feeling Penny had her eye on someone in the family. It lines up. If Penny were secretly seeing either Carter or Peter, she could have mentioned those notes about the will, not realizing the damage that might be done. She looked scared when I mentioned the possibility. I think it honestly never dawned on her that the family might be involved.”
“If they were, it’s possible Penny’s the one who got Virginia killed, all because she snooped in her garbage. If only we knew for sure what was scribbled on those notes.”
“We do know what Virginia wrote in her own will,” Laurie said, thinking aloud.
“Right. I saw a copy of it in that big notebook you got from the NYPD.”
Irritated, Laurie wanted to tell Ryan she had been trying to make a point. “What I’m trying to say is that the will was hers, written solely for her purposes, shortly after her husband passed away.” Laurie’s eyes clouded, remembering how she had rewritten her own will more than a year after Greg was killed. It was another reminder that he was really gone. Her father had said he felt the same way after getting nagged by his lawyer to redo his will after her mother passed away.
Ryan was following her train of thought. “The original will written when Robert Wakeling was alive would have reflected what the two of them jointly decided, in the event something happened to both of them at the same time.”
“We should compare that to Virginia’s will. It’s a long shot, but maybe it will give us some indication of if and how she revised it.”