The Widow
"Earth to earth; ashes to ashes; dust to dust," the elderly minister intoned as he closed his well-worn Bible, thus indicating the graveside service had come to an end.
Rosalind Whitney, the widow, then stood beside the casket and received the condolences of her husband's friends and business associates. Not surprisingly, no members of the deceased's family had come to the funeral. Years earlier, Schuyler Whitney had a falling out with his parents and never had the opportunity to reconcile with them before his death. Rosalind sincerely doubted that even had her husband made the attempt, the stern, penny-pinching, Puritan-minded New Englanders would have forgiven their prodigal son or approved of his wife.
To hell with them! their daughter-in-law thought bitterly.
The late Schuyler Whitney, born to an old, wealthy Greenwich, Connecticut, family, had attended Choate and then went on to Harvard where he dropped out in his third year. Yet even without the degree or his family's wealth and connections to back him, Schuyler managed to make a success of his life. After leaving Harvard, he started his own electronics company, and by the tender age of twenty-five, he was already a multimillionaire. By thirty, he was a billionaire.
At twenty-seven years old, Schuyler married a woman who was intelligent, witty and ambitious but not very attractive She proved to be the perfect hostess and an asset to his professional life, but there was no love in their marriage and no passion in their relationship.
It was while he was entertaining a client in Boston that he met an attractive young cocktail waitress who later became his mistress. Rosalind, however, wanted more than a rent-free apartment, a fur coat and a collection of expensive jewelry. She longed for the prestige and social standing that accompanied a wedding band. Yet despite her dissatisfaction with being the "other woman," she was not foolish enough to put demands on Schuyler, for she believed doing so would only succeed in driving him away. Instead, Rosalind bided her time and hoped for the best. Her patience eventually paid off. The first Mrs. Whitney died young and left her husband a widower at the age of forty-two.
* * *
Rosalind and Schuyler were married for only three years when Schuyler's eye began to rove. Rosalind, after all, was no longer the twenty-two-year-old beauty he met in the Boston bar. Knowing it was only a matter of time before she was supplanted by a younger model, the former cocktail waitress decided to kill her husband and thus ensure her inheritance of his vast fortune. She knew she could never commit the act herself, for she would naturally be the prime suspect. Therefore, she must pay someone to do the deed for her. Finding a man willing to put his immortal soul in peril for a few thousand dollars was not difficult. Rosalind had known many desperate men when she lived in Boston, men who would murder their own mothers for the right price.
Three weeks before his forty-sixth birthday, Schuyler Whitney was murdered outside his office late one night. Police assumed robbery was the motive since the victim's wallet, Rolex and diamond-studded cufflinks were stolen. No one suspected Rosalind of having any part in her husband's death, or at least there was no evidence to support an arrest.
Hours after Schuyler's body was placed in its grave, the widow phoned her late husband's lawyer, inquiring about the will.
"I only handled Mr. Whitney's business matters," the attorney informed her. "You will have to talk to your husband's personal lawyer for questions pertaining to his estate."
"Do you have the name and number of his personal lawyer?"
"No. I'm sorry; I don't. But I believe he practiced law in Newburyport."
"Why choose a lawyer so far from Boston?"
"Because that's where your husband lived after he left Harvard."
The following morning Rosalind headed for Newburyport. She first stopped at the public library where she thumbed through the local phone directory. Thankfully, there were not nearly as many lawyers in town as there were in Boston.
It shouldn't take too long to locate the right one, she thought confidently.
Rosalind left the library and was heading toward her car when she saw a man walking across State Street. Her heart lurched, for the stranger bore an uncanny resemblance to her late husband.
It can't be him, she thought. It must be my imagination.
The man reached the curb, turned and began walking directly toward her. As he drew nearer, all doubt left her mind. It was Schuyler. He must have been preoccupied, for he never looked in his wife's direction. Only after the man passed the library parking lot did Rosalind get into the Jaguar and pull out onto State Street. She headed in the opposite direction from that her husband took.
That fool I paid to kill him screwed up royally, Rosalind thought, glancing at Schuyler's back in the rearview mirror.
As she neared a restaurant with a bar, she decided she could use a strong drink. She drove the car to the rear of the building and parked it behind a delivery truck.
"I'll have a glass of Jack Daniels," she told the bartender.
A bald, middle-aged, overweight man, wearing a cheap suit, eyed her with drunken interest. Rosalind gave him a scathing look that made him reconsider making a pass. Wanting only to be left alone, Rosalind took her drink and sat at a booth.
Many questions raced through her mind, chief among them being if Schuyler was alive—and he was since her own eyes bore witness to the fact—who, if anyone, was buried in Peaceful Pines Cemetery? The more she thought about it, the more Rosalind was convinced that both Schuyler's death and his funeral had been an elaborate deception, one to which she had not been a party.
Had the man she hired to kill her husband received a more lucrative counteroffer from the intended victim? That had to be the answer. Rosalind paid the little scumbag $10,000 cash upfront and promised him an additional $40,000 once the estate was settled. However, Schuyler was a billionaire. He could have offered his would-be killer double or triple that amount to let him live. Not only would the culprit get a bigger payoff, but he also would not have to run the risk of being arrested for murder.
Rosalind waved to the bartender and ordered another Jack Daniels.
Why then did Schuyler pretend to be dead? she continued to ponder once her glass was refilled. Why did he run away to Newburyport? What is it about this place that drew him here?
Schuyler and his hired killer clearly were not the only ones involved in this plot. The two policemen who came to the house to notify her that her husband had been killed were clearly in on it. His business lawyer, who supposedly identified the body, and the Medical Examiner, who claimed to have performed an autopsy, must also have participated. And the undertaker? He had to have been involved, too.
This scheme has more conspirators than the Kennedy assassination, Rosalind thought as she ordered a third drink.
* * *
An hour later, Rosalind was back at the public library. This time, however, she was interested in the white pages of the phonebook rather than the yellow pages.
She scanned the "W" residential listings. There it was! Whitney, S. So, her husband kept a residence on Congress Street. Why hadn't he ever told her? Probably because she never showed any interest in her husband's past or much of an interest in any other aspect of his life beyond his net worth.
Before she left the library, Rosalind asked the librarian, where she could find Congress Street. The woman gave her a disapproving look—no doubt she smelled the alcohol on Rosalind's breath—but she gave her directions nonetheless.
While she hadn't expected a house the size of the mansion in which she and Schuyler lived, Rosalind had by no means anticipated her husband's home-away-from-home to be a small, aging saltbox. But when she drove slowly past the property, she saw the name S. Whitney on the mailbox.
She stopped the Jaguar a block from Schuyler's house and parked along the side of the road.
What should I do now? she wondered. Should I go back home, try to contact the lawyer and see if I can get the estate probated? Or should I confront my husband and demand to know the truth?
The widow waited for half an hour and then she saw an older model Subaru Outback pull into Schuyler's driveway. She watched in surprise as a dark-haired woman got out of the station wagon and went into the saltbox.
Who is she?
Rosalind got her cell phone out of her handbag and dialed the number she had found in the phonebook. A woman's voice answered after the third ring.
"Is Mrs. Whitney there?" Rosalind asked.
"I'm Mrs. Whitney," the woman replied.
Rosalind had to think quickly. She did not want to simply hang up on the woman and possibly create suspicion.
"I'm calling about a new lawncare service that's available in your area," she lied, pretending to be a telemarketer.
"I'm sorry," the other woman said politely. "I was just about to cook dinner. Could you call back some other time?"
Rosalind apologized and hung up. Then she leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Schuyler had another wife here in Newburyport. Had he been married to the woman before he wed Rosalind?
If so, I might not be his legal wife. That means I might not be his heir or even the beneficiary of his life insurance policy.
"Wait a minute!" the widow exclaimed, slapping her palms against the steering wheel. "I'm not going to get a cent even if he did marry me first. He's not dead!"
A sudden idea turned Rosalind's blood to ice. What if this woman had not come before her but was the next in line? Rosalind had thought she was the clever one, conspiring to kill her husband and get his fortune, but had Schuyler been involved in a conspiracy, too? Perhaps he had known of her plans all along; perhaps she had unwittingly played right into his hands.
"What a fool I was!" she cried. "I can be killed any time or any place. Who will ever suspect Schuyler—a dead man? Well, I'll be damned if I'll sit and wait for him to murder me!"
Rosalind started the engine and headed out of Newburyport toward Interstate 95. On her way back to the Whitney mansion, she stopped at the bank where she withdrew all the money from the joint savings and checking accounts and emptied the contents of the safety deposit box. When she entered her home, she immediately brought her suitcases down from the attic, put all her jewelry and valuables into the overnight bag and locked it. Then she began packing her clothes.
First, I'll find a safe place to stay, she decided. Then I'll hire a private investigator to uncover Schuyler's little scheme. Once I do, I'll sue him for every cent he has.
Intending an abrupt escape, she lugged the suitcases down to the garage and put them in the cargo area of her husband's Land Rover. When she went back into the house for her handbag, the butler met her in the foyer.
"Madam," he announced, "you have a visitor. I've shown him into the library."
"Thank you, Evans, but I don't have time to see anyone right now."
"Pardon me, madam, but it's Mr. Whitney's attorney. He's come to discuss the will."
Rosalind quickly suppressed a smile.
"I'll see him," she replied, heading toward the library.
I won! she thought triumphantly. All that lovely money will be mine shortly.
But when she opened the library door, she was struck with terror.
"You!" she screamed when she saw Schuyler standing in front of the fireplace.
"Rosalind? I'm ...," the visitor began, but the distraught widow would not let him continue.
"I know why you're here, you monster! You want to kill me."
The former cocktail waitress ran from the room, screaming for the servants.
"Wait!" the visitor called as he followed her down the hall.
The butler walked out of the dining room and asked, "What is wrong, madam?"
The cook ran in from the kitchen, and she, too, screamed when she saw what she thought must be the spirit of her dead employer.
"Don't worry," Rosalind declared, "he's not a ghost! His death was faked. It was all part of a scheme to murder me so that he could rid himself of me without having to part with any of his precious money."
"I'm sorry, but you've got it all wrong," the lawyer said.
"Have I?" Rosalind cried. "I know all about that woman and the saltbox in Newburyport. I was there."
The visitor made a move toward her.
"Rosalind, I'm not ...."
"Don't you dare come any closer! You should be dead. What did you do? Offer Bruno more money to let you live than I offered him to kill you?"
The visitor and servants gasped, stunned by Rosalind's inadvertent confession. Too late she realized her error: she had implicated herself in attempted murder.
"You paid someone to kill your husband?" the visitor asked.
"Don't pretend you didn't discover the truth. How much did that little weasel get out of you to double-cross me?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," he replied angrily.
"I sent Bruno Silvestro to kill you; only you paid him more to let you live. Then you hid in that pathetic town and somehow convinced all the others to go along with a travesty of a funeral. What did you hope to gain by all this deceit?"
"Deceit?" the man laughed harshly. "You're a fine one to talk about deceit. You married my brother for his money and then you had him murdered."
"Brother?"
"Yes. I'm not Schuyler Whitney; I'm Sherman, his twin brother."
"He never mentioned a brother."
"Schuyler was never one to talk about his family, not even me. But I am his brother and his personal lawyer as well. I came here today to discuss his will, but it seems I've managed to uncover his murderer instead."
Rosalind panicked and tried to run, but the butler got hold of her before she made it to the door.
* * *
"Well?" Sherman's wife asked anxiously when he returned to Newburyport.
Sherman laughed heartily, as he took a document out of his breast pocket and tore it in half.
"We don't need this fake will to claim a small inheritance from my brother's estate."
"Why? Did the widow guess that you changed her husband's will? Did she go to the police?"
"Oh, she went to the police all right!" the murdered man's twin replied through a renewed outburst of laughter. "But you needn't worry about me. In fact, all our worries and cares are behind us now."
The wife looked at her husband, anxiously waiting for him to explain.
"It seems my brother's gold-digging little cocktail waitress paid someone to murder him. She then came to Newburyport to get her greedy hands on the will, and by an amazing coincidence, she spotted me and thought I was Schuyler."
"She must have thought she saw a ghost."
"Not her. She immediately jumped to the conclusion that Schuyler was alive and hiding out here, plotting to kill her."
"That's incredible!"
"Here's the best part. She now has no chance of getting her hands on my brother's fortune. That means yours truly, as Schuyler's next of kin, will inherit his entire estate."
The couple danced joyfully around the saltbox.
"You know what's really weird, though?" Sherman asked, breathless from his celebration. "She said she drove into Newburyport this morning and saw me crossing State Street in front of the library."
"It's not so weird. It's just one of life's little coincidences, or maybe it was fate."
"But," he said with a puzzled grin on his face, "I was nowhere near State Street today. I can't imagine who or what it was Rosalind saw."
Salem and his twin brother are identical. They even share the same hobby: bird watching.
Above image © actioncat.com
