DETECTIVE STEVENSON CALLED LATE ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON. “Lenora crumpled like a house of cards,” he told me. “Even with Medicare and Social Security, she had realized that keeping Agnes in Memory Manor was taking too big a bite out of her inheritance. Suzanne had convinced her that it would be easy to fix that, with no questions asked. Then she pitched in and helped Lenora do the job.”
“Whoa!” I said. “What about Danielle, then? Did Suzanne’s mother die the same way?”
“Good question, but with no autopsy it can’t be proved, but here’s a new wrinkle. Several years ago, Suzanne’s father died shortly after being hospitalized for a heart attack. He died while under a doctor’s care, so . . .”
“So there was no autopsy,” I finished.
“You got it,” Stevenson agreed. “A death with no autopsy followed by almost immediate cremation.”
“So it’s possible Suzanne was responsible for the deaths of both of her parents?” I asked.
“Possible though not provable, but Lenora has agreed to testify against Suzanne in Agnes’s death.”
“What about Petey?” I asked. “Were they both involved in what happened to him? There were all those calls from Suzanne to Lenora the night Petey died.”
“According to what Suzanne told Lenora, Petey showed up at Highline Development that afternoon, raising hell and saying that Agnes never would have sold the lots without letting him know. Threatened with exposure, Suzanne took care of the situation, but she was evidently under the mistaken impression that Lenora was the one who’d told Petey about what was going on. So we’ve got Lenora on tap for one count of murder and Suzanne for two. Lenora will plead guilty to second-degree. Suzanne will likely plead not guilty and go on trial for first-degree murder.”
“Let’s hope she doesn’t get away with it,” I said. “Does Lucinda know?”
“Hell yes, she drove over and sat in on the interview.”
Yes, I thought. Homicide is definitely a young people’s game.
“Good work, Greg,” I said. “The two of you make a great team.”