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“How did you know Jenny was close to figuring things out?” asked a disgusted Devine.
“Got a phone call from Freddy. ‘Please, big, strong Uncle Ben, come up here and save my skinny ass.’”
“So you came up here, assessed the situation, got Jenny alone, and shot her. Then dropped the .300 Norma to implicate, what, foreign enemies from her CIA job?”
“Oh, so you’re not so smart after all. You got the first part right, sure. Jenny went to meet with Françoise, because she didn’t know the little bitch was in on it. But there I was instead. She had figured out it was a cop car the rapist was in and suspected it was me or Harper. I brought Freddy along for the ride so the little shit could see how it’s done properly. Jenny always was a tough little gal. Took the round like a true warrior. She actually flipped me off. Then we took her to the bluff and threw her off.”
“And the part I got wrong?”
“I never chambered the fuckin’ Norma polymer, Devine. I was an early investor in Warwick Arsenal, and that would have been a red flag. However, this was known to certain family members, including Freddy. I’d even given them some of the fired polymer casings as souvenirs. I used the good old NATO round to shoot Jenny, and when I shot at you.”
“Why dump the body at the same spot where Alex was attacked?”
“Just to confuse the shit out of everybody. We were making this stuff up as we went along. It’s not like we had months to prep this sucker.”
Devine tensed. “And her laptop and cell phone?”
“Chucked them in the ocean. Figured they had classified shit on them. I’m an asshole, but not a traitor.”
Devine breathed a sigh of relief and jumped ahead because time was growing short. “Youpoliced your brass with Jenny, but Freddy dropped the polymer casing where Jenny was found to make it look like a long-range shot, but he didn’t know enough to get it right on the shot angle. But Françoise said the round fired at Dak was a .300 Norma Magnum.”
“I gave the family some live rounds along with the polymer casings as well. I thought I was going to make a killing. And then I ended up being the one killed.” He laughed and then groaned. “I would have policed my brass when I shot you, too, but you ducked just in time. I had to get the hell out of there.”
“And Françoise? Did she know her brother raped Alex?”
“The whole family knew. We circled the wagons. It’s what we Bings do.”
“I can understand why your brothers would go along with it, but why would Françoise?”
“She didn’t want to labor all her good years in the mortuary business. My brother Ted is a stingy jerk, and he tied up the money his kids would eventually inherit the same way our old man did with him and my brother John. But now, with all that’s happened, Françoise cut a new deal with her father. She helps get the family through this crisis, little Franny gets anafter-taxeighty-million-dollar payout right now. Enough money to live like a queen while she’s still young.” He coughed up some more of his dwindling blood. “Only she didn’t expect to die,” he added grimly. “But you try and fuck with me you get dead.”
“Fred lied and said he’d agreed to give her half the inheritance even if she didn’t stay at Bing and Sons.”
“Screwing people runs in the family, I guess.”
“I saw you and Earl on film at Wilbur Kingman’s funeral service. Were you telling him that you knewhewas the reason the boat sank and Kingman died?”
“Damn, Devine, you are good,” Bing said.
“It was actually the only logical explanation.”
“Wilbur let Earl pilot the boat while he was fixing some gear. The idiot got mixed up in the fog, hit the throttle, and ran ’em right into that shoal.”
“But how did you find out?”
Bing coughed up more blood, and the pace of his conversation started to noticeably slow. “The day before the funeral Earl went to Bing and Sons after the viewing was over and confessed his guilt to a corpse. The recorders were on for some reason, so my family got his confession on tape and told me about it. At the funeral I told him we knew, just in case I ever needed something from him. And boy, did I.”
“Fred also killed Bertie Palmer in a hit-and-run. He’s repairing the vehicle in the garage back at the house.”
“They told me that Alex had some sort of fit while she was with Bertie, and named Freddy as her rapist. Bertie went straight to Françoise to see if this was possible. I mean, she had no proof, only what Alex said during the seizure.”
“So Françoise tells her brother what happened with Alex, and Fred takes care of Bertie?”
“Yep. Then they waited to see if another shoe dropped, but it didn’t happen. Freddy didn’t want to kill Alex. He was still head over heels for the chick.”
“But fifteen years agoyoukilled Steve and Valerie.”
“They tried to blackmail the Bings. So I took care of that, too, and got Franny to look the other way on the autopsies. And now here I am bleeding out. No more beach, no more golf. Life sucks.”
