Chapter 6 - Jonathan Controlled More Than Medicine
Vanessa looked horrified by her own answer.
“Jonathan said Evelyn’s assistant was sick.”
Richard stared.
“So you collected the prescription.”
“Yes.”
“Did you give it to him?”
“No. I brought it here.”
“Where is it now?”
Evelyn’s medication cabinet contained the bottle.
The pills were counted.
Nothing obvious was missing.
Investigators took it anyway.
Vanessa looked at Richard.
“I did not poison your father.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“But you thought it.”
Richard did not answer.
He had.
That hurt them both.
Then Maria spoke.
“I saw Mr. Pierce here last week.”
Everyone turned.
“Jonathan?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Maria looked confused.
“He comes often.”
Richard stared at Evelyn.
His mother looked away.
“How often?”
“Every few weeks.”
Jonathan managed Evelyn’s estate planning.
He had unrestricted access to financial records.
Sometimes to the mansion.
Richard remembered the alarm code.
Jonathan knew it.
But Maria shook her head.
“The man I saw today was not Mr. Pierce.”
“Michael?”
“Yes.”
So two men had been moving through the house for different reasons.
Michael wanted the report.
Jonathan might want something else.
Richard examined his father’s old financial records.
Jonathan had drafted the disputed transfer documents that moved Thomas’s
ownership to Charles.
If the signatures were forged, Jonathan had either failed
catastrophically or participated.
Anna had retained copies.
A forensic examiner reviewed them.
Thomas’s signatures were likely simulated.
Richard felt sick.
His father had stolen from his brother.
Jonathan had legalized it.
Evelyn had protected Charles afterward.
Vanessa had hidden her blood relationship.
Michael had carried evidence.
Anna had disappeared into illness.
Nobody was clean.
But only one person might have committed murder.
Then Michael voluntarily contacted police.
He agreed to meet.
Richard joined with counsel present.
Michael placed Charles’s watch on the table.
“You want this?”
Richard stared at it.
“I want the truth.”
“Good.”
Michael opened the hidden compartment.
The brass key was gone.
“Where is it?”
“Anna used it.”
“For the safe-deposit box?”
“Yes.”
“What did she find?”
Michael slid over a photocopy.
The original box contained Thomas’s partnership agreement.
It proved he owned thirty percent of the early company.
But that was not all.
There was a letter from Charles.
Written three days before his death.
Richard read it.
Charles admitted forging Thomas’s transfer years earlier.
He intended to correct it.
He planned to restore ownership to Thomas’s daughters.
Vanessa and Anna.
Richard stared at Michael.
“My father was going to confess?”
“Yes.”
“Then why would Jonathan kill him?”
Michael’s expression hardened.
“Because Charles wasn’t only confessing about Thomas.”
The letter named Jonathan.
For twenty years, Jonathan had skimmed money from Cole projects through
legal consulting entities.
Charles discovered it.
He intended to report him.
Richard looked at the date.
Three days before Charles died.
Motive.
Then Michael added something worse.
“Jonathan knew Charles had changed his estate plan.”
Richard frowned.
“To give Vanessa and Anna their share?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Michael looked directly at him.
“To remove Evelyn as trustee.”
Richard stared.
May you like
“Why?”
“Because Charles believed your mother had been helping Jonathan.”
