“I hope this line of questioning doesn’t offend you.”
She recrossed her legs.
“Theyallthought I cheated on him, to the point where I started to feel as if I might as well have.” She smiled again. “Just to have some fun in the bedroom again.”
He didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing. There was a lengthy silence between them until she finally said, “You can’t possibly think I was the one who threw him off that boat, even as big a girl as I am.”
“Just checking boxes,” he said.
“Did you check one with the Iron Maiden?”
They both knew she was referring to the first Mrs. Joe Wolf.
“She’s a tough old bird,” Cantor said. “But I’m not sure she’s tough enough at her age to get it done.”
“Or maybe she waited a long time to get even with him for leaving her and had somebody do it for her.” She gave a tiny shrug. “Perhaps another way of looking at things.”
“I’m told you were pretty upset at the reading of the will,” Cantor said.
“Damn right I was. I thought I deserved more, especially since I dideverythingfor that man when we were still together.”
“Then he screws you.”
“Figuratively,” she said. “Not literally.”
He ate some peanuts. He’d been trying to pace himself, not wanting to empty the bowl in her presence.
“I keep wondering if there was a way somebody had gotten a look at that will beforehand,” Cantor said. “And been in enough of a rage after seeing what was in it to take him out. With the exception of his daughter, of course.”
“She was always Daddy’s little girl,” Rachel Wolf said. “No matter how badly she treated him.”
She leaned forward in her chair.
Eyes up here,Cantor told himself.
“Are you now suggesting I knew what was in the will?” she said. “Ask anybody who was in the lawyer’s office that day. Even I’m not that good an actress.”
She suddenly reached into her purse and came out with her phone and said, “I need to go.”
“Date?”
“Are you asking, Detective?” She gave a shake of her head. “Charity thing for the New Conservatory Theatre.”
She stood up. She really was quite tall.
“One more question,” he said. “If you had to put your money on a member of the family who could have killed Joe Wolf, who would it be?”
“That’s easy. The son who told me on multiple occasions that the whole family would be better off with Joe dead.”
“Jack or Danny?” Cantor said.
“No, that would be the boy prince,” Rachel Wolf said. “Thomas.”
Forty-Four
I OPENED THE FOLDERand removed the printouts of the email correspondence between Danny Wolf and Donna Kilgore on what was called ProtonMail, emails in which he laid out the terms of his deal with her—what she would be paid for accusing Ryan Morrissey, what she was supposed to say, and what her best friend, a woman named Barb Rubio, was supposed to say to back up Donna’s account of things.
There were also some embarrassing dirty exchanges as Danny and Donna Kilgore took what sounded like a rather sweaty trip down memory lane.