Chapter 6 - Walter's Last Whiskey
Walter Harper’s death investigation began with a prescription bottle.
Eight years earlier, his cardiologist had prescribed digoxin.
The dose was tightly controlled.
Too much could cause fatal arrhythmia.
Walter’s pharmacy records showed an unusual refill four days before his death.
The refill had been picked up by Gwen.
That alone proved nothing.
Then police obtained hospital blood stored from Walter’s emergency-room admission.
A sample remained because the hospital participated in a cardiac research study.
Modern testing found digoxin levels far above the therapeutic range.
Detective Reed called Liam into a conference room.
“We cannot say yet whether it was intentional.”
“But?”
“But your father’s death may not have been natural.”
Liam stared at the report.
“Gwen found him.”
“Yes.”
“Eric worked for her.”
“Yes.”
“Patrick knew about the trust.”
“Yes.”
Reed nodded.
“We’re looking at all three.”
Liam went outside and vomited behind a trash can.
Nora remained hospitalized.
She had begun sitting upright with help.
Her neurological tests were better than expected.
Rehabilitation would be brutal.
But she would walk again if everything went well.
Liam visited only when she asked.
The second visit lasted ten minutes.
The third lasted twelve.
On the fourth, Nora asked.
“How is Gwen?”
“In jail.”
“I mean how is she acting?”
Liam understood.
“Like she still owns the room.”
Nora nodded.
“She’ll keep trying to make you feel guilty.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He looked at her.
“I’m learning.”
Nora studied him.
“Tell me something true that isn’t an apology.”
The request surprised him.
He thought.
“I am afraid you’ll never trust me again.”
“That’s true.”
“And?”
“I am afraid my father was murdered.”
Her expression softened slightly.
“And?”
“I miss my sister.”
Nora stared.
Liam forced himself to continue.
“I hate what she did.”
“I hate what I allowed.”
“But part of me still remembers her making pancakes when Dad was drunk.”
“I remember her waiting outside school because I was afraid to walk home.”
“I remember thinking she was the safest person in the world.”
Tears filled his eyes.
“And I don’t know what to do with the fact that both versions are real.”
Nora looked at him for a long time.
“That’s the first thing you’ve said that sounds like healing.”
He swallowed.
“Does that mean…”
“No.”
He stopped.
Nora’s expression stayed calm.
“It means you are finally talking about Gwen as a person instead of a debt.”
Liam nodded.
“Okay.”
He left when the nurse came.
No pressure.
No promise.
That afternoon, police arrested Patrick Voss.
He had been living under his own name in Grand Rapids.
He did not run.
He called Gwen reckless.
He called Eric unstable.
He called himself an accountant.
Then detectives showed him Walter’s toxicology results.
Patrick asked for a lawyer.
Eric remained missing.
Federal marshals found a storage locker rented under one of his aliases.
Inside were marina cash ledgers.
Fake identification.
Weapons.
And photographs.
Nora appeared in several.
One showed her outside the Petoskey house.
One at Samuel Pike’s office.
One entering her bookkeeping firm.
Eric had been watching her for weeks.
Another photograph showed Liam.
Outside his gym.
At work.
Buying groceries.
Gwen had monitored both of them.
Reed found a handwritten schedule.
NOV 14 - DINNER.
NOV 15 - BANK.
NOV 16 - IF N. STILL HAS CARD, RETRIEVE.
November 16 was the night Nora fell.
The word retrieve had been underlined.
Below it Eric wrote.
G SAYS L WON’T WAKE.
The drugging was planned.
Liam looked at the page until the letters blurred.
Nora’s fall had not begun with his anger.
Gwen had prepared for the possibility that he would be unconscious.
But Liam’s cruelty had given Eric the perfect opportunity.
The truth was layered.
That made it harder.
No single villain absorbed his responsibility.
At seven that evening, Reed received a call from Charlevoix.
A marina worker had seen Eric.
He was using the name Dean Cross and sleeping aboard an old trawler registered to a shell company.
Police surrounded the marina.
Eric noticed.
He started the boat.
Coast Guard units blocked the channel.
Eric rammed a dock.
Then jumped into the water.
In November.
He made it twenty yards.
Hypothermia did what law enforcement could not.
Officers pulled him out.
Alive.
At the hospital, Eric asked whether Gwen was cooperating.
Reed said nothing.
Eric laughed.
“She’ll bury all of us.”
Then he offered a deal.
Information about Walter.
In exchange for consideration on Nora’s case.
Prosecutors listened.
Eric said Walter discovered Gwen had been stealing marina income.
Walter planned to remove her from the trust.
Gwen panicked.
Patrick suggested changing documents.
Walter scheduled a meeting with Samuel.
The night before, Gwen asked Eric to visit Walter.
“For what?”
Reed asked.
“To scare him.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Put extra pills in his whiskey.”
Liam’s stomach turned.
“You poisoned my father.”
Eric looked at him through the interview-room glass.
“I was told it would make him sick.”
“Not kill him.”
“Who told you?”
“Gwen.”
“Did she give you the pills?”
“Yes.”
“Patrick?”
“Knew about it.”
“Then what happened?”
“Walter drank more than Gwen expected.”
“He collapsed.”
“Did Gwen call 911?”
“After she cleaned the glass.”
Liam closed his eyes.
His father had died not because Gwen wanted him dead, according to Eric, but because she wanted him weak enough to intimidate.
The distinction meant almost nothing.
Reed asked.
“Why fake your own death six years later?”
Eric smiled bitterly.
“Gwen decided I knew too much.”
“So she tried to kill you?”
“She tried to set me up for theft.”
“I disappeared first.”
“Why work for her again?”
“Money.”
“And fear.”
“Which one?”
“Both.”
Then Reed asked about the balcony.
Eric looked away.
“I climbed up.”
“Why?”
“For the card.”
“Did you push Nora?”
“No.”
“Did you grab her?”
“Yes.”
“Did she fall because of you?”
Eric stayed silent.
Reed repeated.
“Did she fall because of you?”
“Yes.”
Liam felt his knees weaken.
Eric continued.
“She climbed over.”
“I grabbed her sleeve.”
“She pulled.”
“The ladder was iced.”
“She slipped.”
“Did you try to help?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I heard someone in the courtyard.”
“I ran.”
Nora could have been dying below him.
Eric ran.
Gwen could have called for help after Eric failed to report.
She ran too.
Liam had slept upstairs.
Three people had abandoned Nora in different ways.
The next morning, prosecutors charged Gwen in connection with Walter’s death.
The news broke nationally because of the trust value and the dramatic balcony case.
Reporters gathered outside the hospital.
Nora asked for the television off.
She did not want to become a headline.
Liam respected that.
Then Samuel Pike called.
“I found something in Walter’s trust file.”
“What?”
“A sealed amendment.”
“Another one?”
“This one was never executed.”
“Why does it matter?”
Samuel’s voice changed.
“Because Walter wrote a condition by hand.”
“What condition?”
“If Gwen ever harms Liam or any spouse of Liam in order to preserve control of the trust, her entire beneficial share passes to…”
Samuel stopped.
“To who?”
“Nora.”
Liam stared at the wall.
His father had never met Nora.
The document predated their marriage.
“That makes no sense.”
Samuel agreed.
“Unless Walter had someone else in mind.”
At the bottom of the amendment was a name.
NORA ELLIS.
May you like
Written eight years before Liam met his wife.
Liam’s father had known Nora before Liam did.
