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“Have you told anybody on the force—anybody at all in Orchid—about this?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I’m afraid I’ll tell the wrong person. I’ve been all through Chet’s office, looking for some notes or something, but there was nothing.” She looked at Jackson. “I wonder if he could have left something with his lawyer, just in case.”
“He didn’t do that,” Jackson replied.
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m his lawyer.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that before?”
“It didn’t come up. Mind you, all I’ve ever done for him was to close the sale of his house a couple of years ago, and draw up his will.”
“When did he make the will?”
“He signed it about ten days before he was shot.”
“You think he thought his life was in danger?”
“He didn’t give any indication of that, but who knows? It was pretty simple and straightforward. He left everything…” Jackson stopped. “I’m sorry. That, of course, is a client-attorney confidence.”
“Did Chet have any family you know of? I haven’t been able to discover any.”
“No.”
“I see. You’d have thought that if Chet was worried enough to make a will, he’d have told somebody else what was going on, or at least, left some evidence with somebody.”
“Maybe he did,” Jackson said.
“You got any ideas?”
“It could only have been Hank Doherty.”
“Of course. That has to be the motive for Hank’s murder.”
“Did you go through Hank’s place?”
“With a fine-toothed comb. I went through his desk and his safe myself. The safe was open.”
“So, somebody shoots Chet, then thinks, holy shit, he might have told Hank Doherty something, so he goes over there and kills Hank.”
“And finds whatever Chet gave him, which is why I didn’t find it.”
“And you’re sure it couldn’t still be there?”
“Don’t see how it could be. The house has been cleaned out. Hank’s daughter took some memorabilia, and his housemaid took the rest. Her church sold some of it at a tag sale the following weekend.”
“So everything is now scattered.”
“Irretrievably, I would think.”
“Did you search Chet’s house?”
Holly stopped walking. “No. It wasn’t a crime scene, so it just didn’t occur to me. Boy, am I stupid!”
