“Want some coffee?” I asked, gesturing for her to sit at one of the corner booths. Monica looked half-starved, her hands shaking with grief and fatigue. I figured if we sat down here, we could get Sammy to whip us up something. “I was just about to have breakfast if you’d like to join me.”
The back door crashed open, and a very unhappy man named Luther Dean stormed inside. “You can’t be serious,” he said, glaring at his sister.
She took a seat and blew out a long breath, expelling such a deep, abysmal sadness when she did so that I felt consumed by it. I filled my lungs to ease the weight and ducked behind the bar for coffee.
“I’ve done my research,” she said to her brother. “She’s very good at her job.”
He glanced over a massive shoulder toward me. “She doesn’t look very good at it. She has a black eye.”
“I beg your pardon,” I said, feigning offense. He was funny.
“Luther, sit down.” Monica took off her sunglasses and offered him a glower of annoyance when he didn’t comply. “I told you, she can help us. So, either behave yourself or leave. It’s your decision.”
He jerked a chair out from a nearby table and sat down. “She called me an asshole.”
“You are an asshole.”
I grinned and brought over three coffee cups, realizing how much fun this conversation was going to be. Thirty minutes later, we were polishing off an amazing rendition of huevos rancheros with green chile enchiladas on the side. God I loved Sammy. I’d considered marrying him, but his wife got upset when I asked for his hand.
“What makes you so trustworthy?” Luther asked, his icy-blue glare particularly brutal. He took skeptic to a whole new level. “I mean, you’re working for Nathan. Why should we believe anything you have to say?”
“Actually, I’m not,” I said, hoping they’d believe anything I had so say, “and why don’t you trust your sister’s husband?” We had yet to actually talk about the case. I decided to lull them into a false sense of security, which would have gone over better had I not stolen the last bite off Luther’s plate. He was very touchy about his food.
Still, I could tell he was coming around. They exchanged glances.
With a sigh of resignation, Monica admitted, “No reason whatsoever.” She shrugged. “He’s perfect. The perfect husband. The perfect brother-in-law. He’s just…”
“Too perfect?” I offered.
“Exactly,” Luther said. “And there were things, instances, that just didn’t quite make sense.”
“Like?”
He glanced at his sister, getting her approval before explaining. “Teresa invited us out to eat one night a couple of months ago when Nathan was out of town, just the three of us.”
“She seemed concerned about something,” Monica said, and I could’ve sworn I felt a pang of guilt assault her. “She told us she took out a huge life insurance policy on both her and Nathan, and that if anything were to happen to her, anything at all, we would get it all.”
“So she took it out?” I asked. “Not Nathan?”
I felt it again. A quiver, a tremble of guilt emanating from Monica as she replied, “Exactly. I’m not even sure Nathan knows about it.”
“She wanted us to know where the policy was,” Luther added. “She made sure of it.”
Monica produced a key. “She even put us down as her beneficiaries on her bank account so we would have access to her safety deposit box where she kept it.”
“That does sound odd,” I said, fighting to ignore the bells going off in my head. Was she afraid of her husband? Did she think her life was in danger? “How big was the policy?”
“Two million dollars,” Luther said. “Each.”
“Holy mother of crap.” I was ever the wordsmith. “Is that even possible?”
“Apparently,” Monica said.
Luther crossed his arms over his chest. “The policy was his idea. It had to be. Why would Teresa take out such a big policy? He had her do it to make himself look good.”
“We don’t know that,” Monica said.
“Please.” He scooted back in his chair, irritated. “Everything that man does is to make himself look good. That’s what he’s all about. Looking good. Presenting the perfect picture for his hordes of fans.”
I had to agree with him, from what I’d seen so far anyway. “Anything else?” I asked.
“Nothing I can think of.” Monica wiped the wetness from her eyes, and that was when I noticed the odd coloring around them, the unnatural puffiness and the yellowish tint lining her mouth. The mystery of her sister’s whereabouts was overwhelming for her, the not knowing, and … the guilt. “She did mention that Nathan was spending more and more time at home with her, refusing to go to conferences and getting furious if he was called to the hospital in the evenings. I think she felt smothered.”
“Did she say that to you?”
“Not in so many words,” she said, shaking her head. “But she said he did strange things.”
“Like what?” Luther asked. “She never told me that.”
“Because she couldn’t.” Monica offered him a frown. “You fly off the handle for the most ridiculous reasons, we can’t tell you anything.”
Luther’s jaw muscles flexed in reaction, and I could feel guilt assault him as well, but his stemmed from shame. Monica’s was deeper and full of regret. And she said we. We can’t tell you anything.
He seemed to force himself to calm down, then asked, “What did she say?”
Monica appraised her coffee cup as she thought back. “She said he would do strange things like wake her up in the middle of the night, scaring her on purpose, and then just laugh. And one time he said her dog got run over by a car. She cried for two days. Then, out of the blue, he showed up with it. Said he’d been picked up by the pound. But she’d checked the pound. They never picked him up.” She looked at me and shrugged. “He just did odd stuff like that all the time.”
Everything he did was a form of manipulation. Simply put, he was an extreme control freak, a very unhealthy habit. Still, I needed to get Monica alone. Clearly there were things she couldn’t say in front of her brother. I freshened their coffees, mentally calculating how much java his bladder could hold. He was a big guy, but hopefully he’d need a potty break soon.