salmon okay?” Keith asked. “Will Laney eat it?”
“Sure. We all like salmon.”
Pippa acknowledged this with a nod. “Then I’ll plan for five.” She began to scurry off, but Maisey stopped her.
“Are you enjoying Mom’s Yorkie, Pippa? Or would you like to bring her to me?”
“I’d be happy to keep her—unless you have other plans.”
Maisey smiled. “No, Athena doesn’t do well with the cat we rescued. She’ll be much better off with you, but I’m happy to cover her expenses.”
“No, that’s fine. If she’s going to be my dog, I’ll take care of her.” Pippa cast Keith one final glance, reminding him of that moment a few seconds earlier when he’d been positive she had something to say. He was tempted to go after her, to ask what she had on her mind. He had the impression it was important. But he was also fairly certain she didn’t want Maisey to hear.
Question was...why?
THE NEW CHIEF of police at Keys Crossing was every bit as attractive as Maisey had said. About five foot six, 125 pounds, she didn’t look particularly strong, but she had a no-nonsense, direct approach, which Keith liked, and clear, intelligent blue eyes. Once he’d met her, he was glad the old chief had retired. Reuben had had a great deal of experience with minor infractions such as traffic violations, breaking and entering, petty theft and drunk and disorderlies during the summer, when the tourists arrived. But to Keith’s knowledge, he’d never investigated a homicide.
Since Chief Underwood—she hadn’t offered her first name—hailed from Chicago, he was hoping she’d have more familiarity with violent crime. But once he met her, he didn’t feel that was going to be the benefit he’d anticipated. She was fully convinced his mother had committed suicide and nothing he said seemed to sway her.
“There’s no reason to assume she’d take her own life,” he argued when she refused to change her mind.
“I hear what you’re saying,” she responded. “I noticed the suitcases myself. But there was no sign of anyone else having been in the house and no indication that she was sexually assaulted, for instance. That’ll have to be confirmed when the autopsy is performed, of course—we’re not jumping to conclusions there—but so far all signs point away from it.”
“There’s heart attack, stroke.”
“Which will also have to be considered and addressed during the autopsy. But the coroner said she didn’t have a flushed face. Her carotid artery wasn’t swollen. There was no bluish tinge to her nose, eyes or fingertips—all typical signs of cardiac arrest. I’m afraid the preponderance of evidence, at this point, suggests suicide.”
“Even with her impending trip?”
“It’s possible she didn’t decide to...to do what she did until the last moment.”
Keith gaped at Maisey, who was sitting next to him in Chief Underwood’s small office. “She wouldn’t suddenly decide to kill herself. That kind of decision takes serious thought.” He knew from experience.
“She must’ve,” Chief Underwood insisted.
“Why?” Keith cried. “She had everything. What was there to make her so intent on ending her life?”
Keith hoped the police chief wasn’t about to point to their estrangement. The fear that his mother had committed suicide and he was the cause clawed deeper by the minute.
She formed her slender fingers into a steeple. “You two must be going through hell. There’s no need to hash this out. Not right now. Go ahead and grieve, and make whatever plans you’d like to make so you can put her to rest. Then, when that’s all over, you can come back and we’ll talk, okay?”
A tingle skittered down Keith’s spine. “No, that’s not okay,” he said. “Why can’t we talk now?”
Her expression indicated that she was trying to be patient. “I only knew your mother for three years, after I came here. But even three years was enough time for me to figure out that she had a great deal of pride.”
“That’s not news, Chief.” Other than Maisey, who would know Josephine better than him?
She straightened her blotter. “What I’m trying to say is...there may have been certain circumstances in her life—distressing circumstances—she didn’t tell you about.”
His mother hadn’t told him anything in five years. But neither had there been any sign of unhappiness in those letters he’d found. Nothing out of the ordinary, anyway. Wouldn’t something have shown up—some complaint? “Like...”
Two lines formed on the chief’s forehead. “Thanks to an investment she made—a huge resort she and a group of partners were building in Jamaica at a total cost of over a billion dollars—she was losing everything, Mr. Lazarow. All her money. All her holdings. Everything.”
“No.” Keith stiffened. “That’s not possible. My mother would not have risked that much.”
“Perhaps the resort seemed like a good idea at the time, but a series of...unfortunate events put the project under water—literally.”
“I’m telling you she was more conservative than that.”
“I understand why you’d be skeptical.”
“She controlled a vast fortune.” One his grandfather had built and would’ve hated to see destroyed...
“I’m sure she expected everything to go well,” the police chief explained, “but, because of a tropical storm, the resort flooded, and the insurance refused to pay because of an exclusion in the fine print that had something to do with the footprint of the hotel portion. Then the other investors pulled out, cutting their losses and leaving your mother holding the bag.”
At the news that their mother had been losing everything, Maisey had gripped his arm. Now she surged to her feet. “The situation can’t be as dire as you’re making it sound,” she said. “I’ve been working at Love’s in Bloom since I returned to the island. Business has never been better.”
A sympathetic expression pulled at the corners of Underwood’s lips before she whirled around in her chair to get a file from the cabinet behind her. “That may be true, but the flower shop was only a small portion of her holdings. The income from that couldn’t even cover the expenses of running Coldiron House.”
“Then why didn’t she cut back?” Maisey asked. “She didn’t have to be quite as extravagant as she was.”
“Pride could be the answer to that, too,” Chief Underwood replied. “She probably feared people would start to guess that she was struggling, thought she could get back on top without giving herself away. And let’s face it. I doubt there was ever another time when she encountered this type of setback. She wasn’t used to failing.”
Could the destruction of the Coldiron empire—the financial pressure—have
