At Wick's End - Tim Myers [69]
“Give it up, Harrison. You wouldn’t take the bait on the Dodge, so I decided to delay killing you until I could come up with another accident. No time for that now. It looks like you’re going to have to die in a robbery attempt. A pity really, since we both know how little you actually make here.”
“But why kill me at all,” I asked, wondering if I could throw the wax at him and get out of the way of the shot in time.
“I’m afraid that’s been my final option from the beginning. You see, there was something you weren’t meant to know, an additional codicil to Belle’s will just in case you refused to leave. Your great-aunt didn’t know about it either, for that matter. I added a little proviso that turned the estate over to its executor if you decided to quit or if something happened to you before the one-year anniversary of Belle’s death. You didn’t stand a chance.”
“So when you found out you couldn’t run me off, you decided to tamper with my brakes.”
Again Young looked surprised by the conclusion. “I must say, Harrison, I believe I underestimated you. I worked in a garage when I was an undergraduate, so it was easy enough to do. I purposely neglected to mention Belle’s truck to you, but evidently someone couldn’t keep their mouth shut. I had the perfect setup, but you somehow found me out.”
“I was on the roof when you were sabotaging my truck,” I said. “I saw you run away, but it was too dark and too far away for me to see who you were. I just don’t get why you’d stoop to murder. You did all this so you could convert River’s Edge into a lawyer’s complex like Cragg was going to do?”
Young laughed. “Hardly. I have more ambitious plans. What wonderful condominiums these will make. I’ll be able to pay off my gambling debts and have a steady income to indulge my hobby.” Then I remembered Pearly saying that he’d seen Young on his way to the racetrack in West Virginia.
I said, “Listen, I know I don’t have a chance, you’re holding all the cards. Just tell me one thing before you do anything rash. “I needed to appeal to his ego if I had the lighten chance of getting out of this alive.
“A last request.” be said. “How dramatic.”
“Why did you choose River’s Edge to hide the diamonds you stole?”
“Thanks for reminding me,” he said “Where’s the one Belle found?”
“I’ll answer you if you answer me.” I said. What did I have to lose? At least I wouldn’t die of curiosity.
“I used to lease Markum’s office, I don’t know if you’re aware of that or not. There’s a floor safe up there he doesn’t know about so I figured it would be a perfect place to hide something important. The only problem was that I dropped the bag of diamonds in the hallway in my haste. Belle saw me as I was leaving the building the night of the robbery, but I made up an excuse about coming to the complex to see her. She would have bought it too, if I hadn’t lost one of the diamonds. She decided to confront me the next evening, and I knew I had to do something. In a very real way, it was self-defense. One quick shove was all it took. Then it was simply a matter of staging the accident downstairs. I would have been home free if I could have only found that blasted diamond. I thought I covered my tracks by killing the jeweler, but Belle suddenly became another loose end.”
“So why did you kill him?”
“I handled Bleeker’s business affairs along with that cluck Ann Marie, so I knew the way his security system operated. I needed something to pay off my creditors, though it wasn’t enough to satisfy them completely. They gave me quite a bit less than top dollar for the diamonds, but I wasn’t in any position to complain. It was surprisingly easy to dispatch the jeweler, he was extraordinarily careless. Kudos to you, Harrison, you figured this out with the sparsest of clues.”
“It’s the only way it all made sense. Belle must have found the errant jewel and somehow tied it to you.” Another thought occurred to me. “You didn’t have