Laurie, Timmy, and Leo all “shared locations” with one another through their cell phones. She had already checked before calling to make sure that Leo was back from picking up Timmy from school. He’d be happy to watch his grandson for a second night in a row, and he was thrilled when he heard that he’d be doing it so Laurie could join Alex again.
“The good news is that we definitely got under Carter Wakeling’s skin today. He showed up an hour late for his interview and tried to back out. When we confronted him with what we knew about his relationship with Penny and his mother’s plans for the estate, he flipped his lid and took a swing at Ryan. It was a really hard punch. He was really out of control.”
“Laurie, in his state of mind, he could easily turn on you!”
“I realize that. He could attack me or someone else. I saw a side to him today that was frightening and volatile. He was demanding to know what we’d been told by Anna, Peter, and Penny.”
“My main worry is about you,” Leo said quickly. “But I agree that the others also might be in danger.”
“Dad, I can’t decide what to do. On the one hand, I want to keep a lid on the developments in our investigation until the episode airs. On the other, I certainly would never forgive myself if someone got hurt because I didn’t reveal a possible threat.”
“Trust me on this one,” Leo counseled. “Your show would take a major publicity hit if something bad happened while you sat on evidence. And the police might never cooperate with you again.”
He didn’t need to spell out another consideration: Laurie knew how Leo’s reputation in law enforcement had helped her build good working relationships with the police. In exchange, she had a responsibility to be more forthcoming with them than other journalists might be.
“Can I make a suggestion?” Leo asked. “What if I call Johnny Hon and give him a heads-up about what you’ve learned? He can weigh the new information in the context of the full investigation and decide what to do from there. He seems like a trustworthy person to me.”
It didn’t take Laurie long to agree that the suggestion to include Detective Hon was sound. She doubted he would leak anything to other media outlets, and, ultimately, what mattered was the safety of potential witnesses. If Carter was a killer who feared imminent exposure, he could be dangerous.
“Sounds good, Dad. Let me know how it goes. And thanks.”
“Happy to help. The only thing I ask in exchange is that you enjoy yourself tonight.”
She hung up, knowing that it would be an easy promise to keep.
When she was off the phone, she finally had time to sort through the snail mail waiting in the in-tray on her desk from that morning. She found a brown mailing envelope addressed to her from the probate court. She ran her letter opener across the seal as she walked to her office door and asked Grace if she could check whether Ryan was free. He had been the one to request a copy of Robert Wakeling’s will to compare against Virginia’s. His legal experience would come in handy during the review.
Grace shook her head. “I saw him hopping onto the elevator when I went to use the copier. My guess is that he couldn’t wait to tell Ivan about his impromptu boxing match with Carter Wakeling.”
Laurie rolled her eyes. Ryan had done a good job of appearing objective on camera, but she worried about his loyalty to Ivan off camera.
57
Laurie returned to the conference table in her office and removed the papers from the mailing envelope. As she had expected, the envelope contained the joint will of Robert and Virginia Wakeling, which went into probate when Robert passed away.
Next, she flipped open the binder she had received from Johnny Hon and found a copy of Virginia’s will, as it existed when she died. She was already familiar with Virginia’s estate. She also knew the distribution of assets that had occurred when Robert passed away: half of the shares in the corporation went to Virginia, a quarter went to each child, and the remainder of the estate passed to Virginia.
What piqued Laurie’s curiosity were the subsequent pages in the joint will, which addressed what would have happened in the unlikely event that both Robert and Virginia passed simultaneously.
Laurie had taken out a notebook to keep track of any discrepancies between Virginia’s will and the joint will in the event that the married couple had passed together. The similarities were striking, which was not surprising to Laurie. When she and Greg had created a will right after Timmy was born, the terms were simple: if one departed, the other inherited everything; if they happened to pass at the same time, the situation was more complicated, involving Leo and some family friends to care for Timmy. When Laurie unexpectedly found herself a widow, her lawyer took the “backup will”—the plan if both she and Greg departed together—and used it as the road map for her own individual will.
Now that she was comparing Virginia’s will to the will she had signed with her husband while he was still alive, she could see that Virginia had used the same approach. Virginia’s will relied on the same terms as the joint will in the event they both died together.
Laurie was doing a second scan of all the numbers when she realized there was one significant difference. In the joint will, Robert’s nephew Tom would have inherited $250,000 cash in the event that both Robert and Virginia departed at the same time. Because Robert predeceased Virginia, that condition never came to pass, and Virginia inherited almost everything. But while Virginia’s own will tended to cut-and-paste terms from the previous joint will, she had made one change: When she died, Tom’s interest was reduced from $250,000 to $50,000.
Laurie wrote the two numbers side by side on her legal pad, wondering what the change meant. Given that Virginia was worth $200 million plus half of the value of the corporation when she was killed, the change was a small percentage of the money that was at stake. On the other hand, most people would consider either amount significant, and the 80 percent reduction to her nephew was a notable alteration. This was the only revision she had made, and it seemed obvious that she must have had a reason for it.
Laurie closed her eyes, trying to imagine what it would be like to be a person with that much wealth at stake. When she opened them, she firmly believed that if she had been Virginia, the only reason she would have reduced a nephew’s inheritance—and no one else’s—was if she did not trust the nephew with money. She thought again about Anna’s recollection of the arguments Virginia had had with her children before she was murdered. She had told Carter that he needed to grow up, that he was still playing the field and not working hard enough at the company. According to Anna, her mother told Carter, “I’m afraid that if it weren’t for the family money, you would have turned out just like your cousin, Tom.”
Laurie had eliminated Tom as a suspect after confirming his alibi with Tiffany, but she wanted to be absolutely certain that she wasn’t overlooking anything before finalizing their special.