Erwin laughed. “Are you kidding? Everyone loved Lena.” She rolled her eyes. “She was a saint.”
“To everyone except you, obviously.”
Erwin seemed to catch herself. “Well, she was cheating, and Thomas was devastated. But he would have forgiven her anything.” She shrugged. “Then she ended up dead.”
Vera glanced at Bent, who was still on the phone. “During the autopsy, it was discovered that she was pregnant.”
“Yeah.” Erwin studied her cuticles. “He was really torn up about that.”
“How strange,” Vera suggested, “that now his second wife is seriously injured, and she’s pregnant. I would almost be worried about his desire to have children, except he’s dead.”
Erwin stared at Vera as if she didn’t see her point, then she blinked. “Did you find out about the property appraisal?”
Oh yes, there was definitely far more to learn about this woman’s interest in the wives of her employer. Vera decided to turn Erwin’s question around on her. “When we looked at the property appraisal, you said you had no idea why Mr. Wilton would have requested an appraisal. Have you given more thought to this and come up with any ideas?”
Erwin kept her face blank now. “Well, I did do some thinking about that, and I recall once or twice overhearing Alicia say that life on the West Coast would be so much better. I really think she wanted to make that happen.” She made a squinched face. “I may have heard Thomas discussing a sale on a phone call about three weeks ago. Of course I’m sure everyone saw the surveyors and the others tramping around all over the place. We all suspected something was going on.”
Of course they did. “Any idea who he was talking to?”
She shook her head. “Sorry no.”
Okay, so Wilton was undeniably on the precipice of selling.
“How did you and the other members of his staff feel about the potential move?”
Erwin shrugged. “I have no idea how the others felt or if they even knew about it. I mean I assume they did, since they had to have seen what I saw. We haven’t ever really interacted beyond what was necessary.”
“You didn’t say howyoufelt?” Vera wasn’t letting her off the hook.
“I expected I would be going with him. He would need a personal assistant wherever he was.”
Just another revelation that didn’t surprise Vera one bit. This case seemed to have more cropping up every day. Too bad none got them closer to nailing down the actual killer.
“Larry Parson was found dead in his room at the Regency Inn.” As Vera made this announcement, Bent rejoined the conversation.
“Oh my God.” Erwin adopted a look of horror. “He’s the one I think attacked us.” She looked to Vera. “I remember the aftershave.”
“Brut,” Vera told her. “I checked.”
“That’s it! My college counselor wore it. I hated it. He kept it in his desk. Green bottle, right?” She shuddered. “I swear that man was a closet porn addict.”
“Brut aftershave comes in a green bottle, yes.” Vera didn’t bother explaining to the woman that Larry Parson could not have attacked them because he hadn’t even arrived in Tennessee when the event occurred. At least that was the theory she was sticking with for now.
“Did you find anything else? I’m certain he’s the one who attacked us.”
Her anticipation was palpable. “What makes you think there was anything else to find?” Bent settled next to Vera on the small sofa. “Surely a smart perp would dispose of whatever he used while committing a crime.”
Erwin looked entirely deflated. “Guess so.”
“Someone visited him at the motel just before I found him,” Vera told her. “He called me about his visitor.”
Something along the order of fear flashed in Erwin’s eyes and on her face before she could school the reaction.
Vera gritted her teeth to hold back an accusation. Too soon. She couldn’t be sure. “He was poisoned, we think. But I got to his room just before he died.” Might as well give her something to sweat about, as Bent would say.
Erwin shook her head. “That’s too bad. But you know the old saying: ‘Live by the sword, die by the sword.’”
Vera clenched her jaw to hold back a snarky retort. Then she thought about her call with Mrs. Childers. “Have you ever taken anxiety medication? Like Xanax?”
