Sal waved the gun in the air in a dismissive gesture. “Bah. I don’t know. She called anonymously. Isn’t that always the way? But she certainly knew a lot about yooou,” he drawled, then threw his dark head back and laughed at himself. “She told me, under Cris’s instruction, this Madam Zoltar had changed the sole beneficiary from my name to yours. I didn’t know anything about his will or a house, but still, I couldn’t figure out why Cris would do such a thing. I was so hurt. Devastated, in fact. Why leave all of his possessions to a complete stranger? We’re family! So who are you to him, Stevie Cartwright?”
I ignored his question and shook my head, tears stinging the corners of my eyes. “But you killed her a day after Win’s will was read. Why would you do that when there was nothing you or she could have done to change it anyway?” This was all so senseless. Madam Z never had to die at all.
He used the butt of the gun to scratch his forehead. “Oh, she carried on about that. She told me the will had already been changed and there was nothing I could do. That made me mad. So mad. The caller did say someone despicable was going to get their hands on his money if I didn’t change the will back. To think, if my flight hadn’t been delayed, I’d have arrived on time and I could have changed it back and no one would have had to die.”
Who? Who had called Sal to warn him? Who could have possibly known? Win was already dead by the time he’d asked MZ to change his will. Would one of my coven do something so awful? Had someone else been communicating with the afterlife in my stead?
And then it hit me in a sick wave of understanding, but Sal was still droning on and I had to focus.
“Mr. Bigshot, always wandering around like he was James Bond reincarnated while I worked a menial nine-to-five, slogging back and forth on the tube day in, day out. Everything was some important secret with Cris. My nana used to gush all the time about him to her friends and I was sick of it! Even when we were young blokes, he always thought he was better than all of us—me especially!”
Win sighed in my ear, grating and long. “Still slagging me off even in death. Sal is a jealous Nancy. Always whining about something. Surely you can see why I didn’t want to foist him upon the good people of Ebenezer Falls?”
I shook my head as though it would extract Win. “I still don’t understand why you killed her, Sal? She was a harmless old lady who’d never hurt anyone.” The thought tore at my heart.
Liza’s face flashed in front of my eyes, her sorrow, her raw pain. And that made me angry. So angry.
Sal became agitated again. In fact, every time I mentioned him killing Madam Z, he became edgier. Now he paced back and forth in front of me. “Because she wouldn’t tell me whom he’d given all this to! That’s why!” He spread his arms wide to encompass the basement. “You got all his money and this shambles of a house and I got nothing! I was going to force her to change the will back until I found out the deed was already done and there was nothing I could do about it. That made me furious, Stevie. So furious. If not for you, she’d still be alive. It’s all your fault. You have no one to blame but yourself!”
I swallowed hard. “So you made her call the Senior Alert line to keep help from coming and then strangled her to death?”
Sal instantly stopped pacing, his focus solely on me, his blue eyes soft and melty. “I promised not to kill her, you know—if she called off the cops.” He smiled as though the memory were a fond one, making my stomach somersault.
“I’ll kill him,” Win growled, harsh and angry. “Kill him.”
But I remained silent, my mouth dry. I wasn’t sure I could keep Sal talking long enough before I vomited at his filthy feet.
“But I gotta give it to the old bird; she wouldn’t tell me whose name was on that will, no matter what I did. Doesn’t matter. I found a copy of it just this afternoon. Took me a couple of days, but it was easy enough once the cops cleared out. Lost a nice pen in the process, too. The pen Win had his secretary send me for Christmas one year, the braggart.”
The Montblanc. How could Win not have made the connection?
“Before you go accusing me of not catching that clue, I have no idea what my secretary sends to anyone for Christmas,” Win defended. “And who knew this sod could mimic an American accent?”
Running his hands through his hair, Sal shook his head, as though he regretted killing Madam Z. “I couldn’t let her live, of course. She’d have ratted me out to the authorities. Boy, but she was tough. Held out right until the very end. Right up until the bitter end, in fact. Struggled so hard, she jammed her foot against that pedal she had under the table—blew the socket right out of the wall!”
Oh God. He truly was insane.
But what left me feeling the absolute worst? Madam Z had been protecting me even before she knew who I was. Because of Win.
As my stomach turned, I knew I had to figure a way out of this basement. I didn’t know how I was going to do that, but Sal couldn’t be allowed to walk free.