“Oh, yes. J
ust as they killed Luke and his attorney, they killed Lillian’s sister. I’ve tried hard to protect Luke’s past so that the world would never find out about it, so I kept quiet after Luke’s death. It was harder after that lawyer died and left two little children behind. How is his wife doing?”
“Taking it hard,” Bailey said.
“Yes. Luke told me that theirs was a good marriage.”
“You keep saying he told you,” Bailey said. “Did he call you?” There was a hint of jealousy in her voice. Yes, Jimmie had been to bed with many women, but Bailey had survived by knowing that Jimmie talked to no woman but his wife.
Smiling, Martha pointed toward a cabinet along the far wall. It was large and of waxed pine, and Bailey doubted if it had cost less than a hundred grand. She opened both doors and looked inside. Inside were shelves full of pretty boxes covered with peach silk. Each box had a brass label on it and a date, each box covering about six months.
“Go on,” Martha said, “open them.”
Bailey pulled out a box, removed the lid, and looked inside. In a neat row were letters, each one in an envelope of Jimmie’s monogrammed, green stationery.
“A letter and a photograph,” Martha said softly. “Every other week since July 1978, he sent me a letter and a photograph. And he also kept my bank account filled with money. And, by the way, dear, Luke was born in 1954, not 1959. He was so proud of his new face that he nipped a few years off his age.”
Bailey opened one of the letters and read.
Frecks was mad at me when I got home last night, but I soon got her in a good mood again. She lost four pounds while I was away, so I got the chef to bake that chocolate mousse cake she loves so much. I know, I’m a devil, but I like her fat. She’s all mine that way.
Bailey folded the letter and put it back into its envelope, but she couldn’t help removing the enclosed photo and looking at it. It was a picture of her, sitting on a chair on the patio of their house in Antigua. Near her were a dozen people, all with drinks in their hands, all seeming to be laughing.
But Bailey was alone in the middle of the crowd, and her face showed her misery. No wonder they disliked me so much, she thought; then she looked across the room at Matt. I’m much happier now, she thought as she slipped the photo back into the envelope, replaced it in the box, put the box away, and resolutely closed the cabinet doors. That part of her life was over. James Manville had not killed himself because his wife had asked him for a divorce.
“How do we prove that Atlanta and Ray murdered Jimmie?” Bailey said.
“Actually, I have proof,” Martha said, then smiled at Bailey’s and Matt’s identical looks of astonishment. “I’ve had months, and thanks to Luke, I’ve had unlimited funds, so while the rest of the world was crucifying you, dear, I hired investigators.”
“To find out what?” Matt said sharply.
“Who was near that plane for forty-eight hours before Luke took off in it. And I had some men—actually, about a dozen of them—go up into the mountains, find the wreckage of Luke’s plane, and bring every piece of it down.”
“I thought the police did that. Jimmie’s body—” Bailey began.
“The police searched the wreckage, but only superficially. They weren’t looking for evidence of foul play because two young men at the little airport where Luke kept his plane said they’d begged Luke not to fly the plane. They said they’d told him that there was something wrong with it.”
“No,” Bailey said. “I could believe that Jimmie slammed a plane into a mountainside in one great flash of drama; he’d be in control then. But he’d never go up in a plane that was malfunctioning and let a piece of machinery have control over whether he lived or died.”
“That’s just what I thought,” Martha said, smiling, her eyes twinkling. “I was sure Atlanta and Ray paid those two young men, so while everyone else in the world was looking at you, I was quietly having my own investigation conducted.”
“And you found out that the plane had been sabotaged.”
“Yes,” Martha said. “It was quite simple, really. The fuel gauge had been tampered with, so Luke ran out of gas in midair.”
For a moment they were quiet, then Matt said, “If you found a broken gauge, couldn’t it have broken in the fall?”
“Yes,” Martha said, “but we didn’t find a gas gauge, broken or not.”
“Then how —” Bailey began, then her eyes widened. “He had a black box on board.”
“Yes,” Martha said, smiling.
Bailey turned to Matt. “I forgot all about this. Jimmie and I were watching the news one night when a jet had gone down. The reporter kept talking about the black box that recorded the words of the pilots. I remember that Jimmie said, ‘I ought to get one of those so I can’—” Bailey stopped talking.
“So he could tell you that he loved you before he went down,” Martha said softly, and Bailey nodded. “Yes, that’s what he wrote me that he’d told you. He had a system put in his plane, and he did it in secret, as he did so many things.”
“And your men found the box,” Matt said, “because they knew to look for it.”