The Marsh Madness

“They could have been discreet. What about Lisa Hatton? She was crazy about him.”


“Whatever. They were discreetly left out of the will, then. Chadwick left everything to several charities.”

“What charities?”

“United Way, Second Chance Foundation for Homeless Families, the Sierra Club, UNICEF and the endowment fund at his alma mater, Yale. He left Summerlea to the Historical Society of Harrison Falls.”

“No individuals?”

“No, and none of the employees of these charities are likely to have hit him over the head and pushed him down the stairs. Unless you think the president of Yale did it.”

I gulped. “Everything?”

“Small stipends, here and there, hardly enough to kill him. He left a few trinkets to staff at the Country Club and Spa, such as Lisa Hatton. He also funded her retirement fund outside the will. Quite generous, but hardly enough motive to kill him as she’d get that anyway.”

One phrase really got to me. “What do you mean, hardly enough motive to kill him? You’ve been suggesting we did it for a few bits of antique silver and—”

She continued as if she hadn’t heard me. “He’d set up a college fund for the children of the housekeeper and the groundskeeper-gardener, and there were generous retirement funds for them and other long-term staff at his residences, but those arrangements were established as savings funds in their names. The arrangements were made outside the will and wouldn’t be affected one way or the other by his death. Except their jobs would probably end, so they’d most likely prefer to keep him alive. His social life seemed to have involved other very wealthy people. If he had a love interest, she or he never worked their way into the will.”

“But maybe his second cousins will contest the will.”

She shrugged. “Move on.”

“Maybe they didn’t know and thought—”

“Everyone named in the will was formally notified through the lawyer well in advance. It seemed to be ironclad, and according to his lawyers, if they wanted to squander their own resources going after more, good luck to them. Waste of time. As is this.”

I felt disappointment seeping into my spirit. I’d been counting on those faceless cousins to be the villains with some connection to Lisa Troy.

“There must have been other people who wanted him dead.”

“Apparently, everyone loved him.” From the look on Castellano’s face, she doubted this.

“Everyone has some enemies.”

“Maybe. But there’s no sign that Kauffman had any. We’ve pretty much ruled inheritance out as a motive. We’re sticking to our main theory: You and your uncle, who, unlike Vera, do have a history of criminal behavior—”

“Your theory is wrong.”

“We’re closing in. Everyone else we’ve had any reason to think about has an airtight alibi, from the housekeeper and her family to the staff at that country club. But you were there. The evidence connects you, and it sure looks like the murder was planned and premeditated. It’s only a matter of time until the noose tightens, as they say.”

I rubbed my neck. We no longer execute people by hanging in this country, and no one has been executed in New York State since the sixties, but it was still a very scary moment. “What evidence do you think you have?”

Castellano shot me one of her incandescent smiles. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

Sammy arrived while they were still mucking around outside. Then we got “no comment,” all right. Castellano was furious, but Sammy pointed out she’d better charge me or let me go about my business. I wasn’t crazy about him playing chicken with her again.

She signaled to Smiley, gave me a poisonous look and headed back into the house.