All Dressed in White Page 9

  They had a copy of both the will and the prenuptial agreement between Amanda and Jeff. According to Alex, the prenuptial agreement was one of the least generous among standard terms for such documents. According to Sandra, Walter Pierce insisted on it to ensure that Jeff could not possibly assert any claims to the family company.

  But the will was another question. Amanda had left her modest personal belongings and checking and savings accounts to her one niece at the time—Henry’s daughter, Sandra—but bequeathed the entirety of her trust fund to Jeff.

  “Did it strike you as unusual,” Laurie asked, “that she’d leave so much money to her fiancé before they were actually married?”

  Lands smiled. “I want to help you. Amanda was a lovely woman. But I’ve got attorney-client privilege to worry about.”

  “Of course,” Laurie said, realizing she probably should have left the questioning of another lawyer to Alex. “Not as to Amanda specifically, but is it unusual for an unmarried person to name a fiancé in the will?”

  “Good job presenting the question,” Lands said. “No, at least not where the individual’s other family members have significant assets, and where the couple is about to be married and have no children yet. I think I can safely add that it’s especially common for fiancés to revise their wills as a way to make up for a prenuptial agreement that their family is insisting upon. Parents tend to care about prenups, but never imagine that their children will ever predecease them. If you know all the terms of Amanda’s will and prenup, I’m not sure how much more I can add.”

  “What we really want to know,” Laurie said, “is whether Jeff knew about the terms of Amanda’s will prior to her disappearance.”

  Obviously Jeff knew about the prenuptial agreement, Laurie thought, as he was a party to it and had signed off on it. But it was possible that he had no idea until after he returned from the Grand Victoria that Amanda had also written a will, naming him as the primary beneficiary. The inheritance wasn’t a motive for murder if he didn’t know about it.

  Alex had been the one to notice that Amanda’s will was signed on the same date as the couple had signed the prenuptial agreement. Now Alex pointed out that fact to Lands.

  “My guess is that they came here together to sign,” Alex said. “If you went over the terms of Amanda’s will in front of Mr. Hunter, then attorney-client privilege wouldn’t apply. Amanda was the client, not Jeff.”

  “Very clever,” Lands said. “And, yes, that’s precisely what happened. Amanda was quite comfortable speaking about these matters in front of Jeff. Not that I’m an expert in such things, but they seemed very much in love. You don’t really think he killed her, do you?”

  “We haven’t committed ourselves to any one theory,” Laurie said. “But working with families on their legal matters, you must understand why we’d at least want to consider Jeff as a possible suspect, and why the terms of Amanda’s will might be relevant.”

  Lands smiled knowingly. “Oh, I certainly do understand, but I also knew my client. I think you’re overlooking another possibility.”

  He kept looking at them, waiting for them to follow his train of thought. He seemed amused at their befuddlement. “When Amanda first disappeared, many of the news outlets called her the Runaway Bride. Cold feet, etcetera. My guess is that your show will assume that five years with no word makes a voluntary disappearance less likely.”

  Laurie nodded. “That’s a good assumption.”

  The knowing smile returned. “Unless it’s not.” He added another hint. “Maybe the will is relevant in a way you haven’t considered.”

  As she often did when it came to legal issues, Laurie found herself looking to Alex for guidance. But on this one, she had more knowledge than he did of the personalities involved. It wasn’t a legal puzzle. It was a puzzle about human motivations.

  “Both Jeff and Sandra say that Amanda would have never just walked away without a trace. But if she wanted to start over again, and felt like she owed something to Jeff—”

  Alex finished her thought. “Naming Jeff in her will and then disappearing was a way to eventually give some of her family’s wealth to him, despite her father’s insistence that he sign a prenup.”

  Lands was nodding in agreement, pleased that he was being given the opportunity to share his thoughts. “I’ve said as much as I probably can about my own dealings with Amanda, but I can say that in general, sometimes when people have been very sick and could have died, they become keenly aware of their mortality. They want to make the most of every day. Maybe breaking your family’s hearts is worth it if you can spend the rest of your days living on the other side of the world, doing exactly what you want.”

  27

  That night at seven-thirty, Alex was thrilled to hear the sound of keys in the front door. His brother, Andrew, had made it to New York with time to spare before dinner.

  He was about to pull the door open when he felt it being pushed.

  “Glad to have the better-looking Buckley on the premises,” Alex said with a laugh.

  “Younger and better-looking!” Andrew said as he embraced his brother.

  Ramon was hustling away his suitcase.

  As much as Alex enjoyed his life, so busy with work, he felt most at home when Andrew was here. One of the reasons Alex had bought this large apartment on Beekman Place—six rooms, plus housekeeper’s quarters—was so his younger brother could always have his own room and there would be plenty of space when he brought his family up for a weekend. Andrew was a corporate lawyer in D.C. who came up to New York frequently on business.

  There was a reason it felt natural for Alex to have his brother under the same roof with him. For a long time, it had been only the two of them. Their parents had died within two years of each other. At only twenty-one years of age, Alex became Andrew’s legal guardian. He sold their parents’ home in Oyster Bay, and the two of them moved to an apartment on the Upper East Side, where they lived together until Andrew graduated from Columbia Law School. At commencement, Alex thought he probably cheered louder than any of the graduates’ parents.

  Alex walked over to the bar to make cocktails while Ramon continued to prepare dinner in the kitchen. Measuring shots of gin into a martini shaker, Alex asked Andrew about Marcy and the kids. He and Marcy now had a six-year-old son and three-year-old twin daughters.

  “I love coming back to the city,” Andrew said, “but, man, it’s getting harder and harder to leave them, even for a few days. Marcy tells me I’m lucky to have a break, but I miss them like crazy when I’m here.”

  Alex smiled, wondering what that was like. He handed Andrew a martini, and the two of them clinked glasses.

  “So what’s your story, Alex? I thought I might finally meet Laurie tonight. She couldn’t join us?”

  Alex regretted mentioning the possibility when Andrew had phoned yesterday. “I invited her, but she’s lining up a new case. When she jumps in, it’s not just with both feet. She gets in all the way up to her ears. She didn’t want to ruin dinner by being distracted.”

  Andrew was nodding. “Sure, I understand.”

  It was obvious to Alex that his brother, in fact, did not understand. When Laurie said she didn’t want to meet Andrew until she could give him her full attention, Alex accepted the explanation at face value. Now he was seeing it as yet another wall standing between them. “Hopefully, next time.”

  Alex found himself relieved when Ramon appeared with a small plate of hors d’oeuvres. He had not realized until that moment how much he wanted Andrew to meet Laurie. Andrew was the only real family member he had. Would there ever be a time when Laurie would become part of this family, too?

  28

  “Are you sure you don’t want my help, Dad?” Laurie called out to the kitchen.

  “Tonight’s my night with my sous chef,” Leo said, popping his head around the corner. Laurie smiled at the sight of her father in the chef’s hat that Timmy had given him last year for Father’s Day.

&
nbsp; Timmy’s grinning face, smeared with tomato sauce, appeared for an instant and then disappeared into the kitchen again.

  Her father was preparing what he called his “Leo lasagna” for dinner. She knew from eating it that it contained Italian sausage, mozzarella, and fresh ricotta, but that didn’t explain why it tasted better than every other sausage lasagna she had ever sampled. Her father was so protective of the recipe that he joked about putting it in his will.

  “I’ll get it out of Timmy,” she said. “What’s that new video game you’re asking for?”

  “Nice try, Mom,” Timmy said. “Grandpa, your secrets are safe with me.”

  “Laurie, I’m actually surprised you’re home. Alex told me that Andrew was coming into town. I assumed you would want to join them for dinner tonight.”

  After Alex accepted her invitation to host Under Suspicion, Leo had struck up a friendship with him outside of the show. They had grown even closer since Laurie and Alex had started seeing each other. She was delighted that her father approved and had someone to talk sports with, but sometimes there were downsides to their independent communications.

  “I was too wired,” she said. “I needed to get some more work done before I could relax.”

  “Well then, go ahead and do it,” her father said. “Chardonnay or pinot noir?”

  With her father and son hard at work on dinner and a glass of wine in hand, it was a good time to follow up on some of the issues that had come up today on Amanda’s case. First on her mind was Charlotte’s claim that Meghan accused Amanda of stealing a multimillion-dollar idea. There was no reason Charlotte would make that up, but it seemed far-fetched to think that Meghan would kill her best friend over a business dispute. Besides, Ladyform continued to own the idea, whether Amanda was there to control it or not.

  But Laurie’s conversation with Charlotte echoed for a second reason: her description of her sister’s personality. Sandra made Amanda sound almost impossibly happy about every aspect of her life. She hadn’t even mentioned Amanda’s cancer. But Charlotte spoke about Amanda in a darker way, as if both women were trapped beneath their parents’ expectations. Laurie had gotten the same impression from Mitchell Lands. If the lawyer was right, maybe Amanda had changed her will to leave some money behind for Jeff once she disappeared for good.

  She scrolled through her emails until she found the one from Jerry with all the contact information for the show’s participants. She dialed a number on her cell phone. Amanda’s brother, Henry, answered after two rings.

  • • •

  A moment later she was having a hard time hearing Henry over the sound of a crying child in the background. “I hate to say this, but I probably know less about Ladyform than you do. Maybe no one told you, but I’m sort of the black sheep in the family. I love my dad, but I had no interest in spending the rest of my life making underwear, let alone fighting with my sisters about the right to do it. I moved out west with a college buddy and started an organic wine company in Washington. Aside from both of us preferring to run our own businesses, I’m about as different from Walter Pierce as a son could be. If Meghan accused Amanda of stealing some idea, I know nothing about it. And I can’t say anything about Jeff’s whereabouts that night, because I crashed early. It was a party weekend for everyone else, but Holly and I had just had our first baby, Sandy. All I wanted to do that week was sleep.”

  “But you were at the Grand Victoria with the rest of the wedding party. You must have spent time with Meghan and your sister.”

  “Oh yeah, sure. I didn’t hear a cross word between them. And I think if they’d been talking about the company, I would’ve tuned them out because, frankly, it’s boring. I understand that Charlotte would blow some tiff about a Ladyform idea out of proportion, but if I had to guess, I’d say there was no bad blood between Meghan and Amanda. If Meghan came across as not being worried, that’s just how she is. Maybe it’s because she’s a lawyer or something like that.”

  “What do you mean by not worried?” Laurie asked. They had received her signed agreement to participate, but even though they had exchanged messages, she had still not actually spoken to Meghan directly.

  “You know, she’s kind of a cool cucumber. Never gets ruffled. I can be the same way. Like at first, when Jeff was running around the resort looking for Amanda, I assumed she went for a swim or something. But once we realized she hadn’t slept in her room, even I was panicked. But not Meghan. She was acting like everything was okay.”

  “Do you think she knew more than she let on?”

  “Wow, you really are suspicious, aren’t you? No, like I said, it’s just her way. Different strokes for different folks. So has everyone agreed to do the show?”

  “Yes, everyone we asked.”

  “Kate Fulton?”

  “Her, too. Is there something I should be asking her? As you said, I’m suspicious of everyone.”

  “Touché. No, I was just wondering. I don’t stay in touch with any of Amanda’s friends anymore. Look, I have no idea what happened to my sister, and I still miss her like crazy, but I’ve got to be honest: I don’t think you’re going to learn anything new with this show.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because, as much as it pains me to say it, my best guess is that she went out late for a swim or a walk and crossed paths with the wrong kind of person—the kind of person who doesn’t get caught. I for one am not looking forward to being back down there.”

  29

  Laurie was trying to picture Amanda’s best friend remaining calm while everyone else panicked. Maybe Henry was right. Not everyone responds to worries in the same way. Or maybe, as Amanda’s best friend, Meghan had been in denial, refusing to believe that anything could have possibly gone wrong.

  She looked at her watch. It was just past seven-thirty, not too late to call someone in Atlanta. She picked up her phone again and called Kate Fulton.

  Laurie introduced herself and asked if Kate had time to review some basic information. Kate confirmed that she was a homemaker in Atlanta, a mother to four children, and wife to her high school sweetheart, Bill. Laurie found comfort that Kate’s bio lined up with the information they’d gathered so far in their research. Preparations had been moving so quickly, she was worried they would overlook something important. Not to mention that several of the participants were spread out across the country, so she was forced to question some people by phone.

  “How did you feel when you realized that Amanda was missing?” Laurie asked.

  “Terrified. I don’t even know how to describe it. It was like time stopped, and everything went blank. I just knew in the pit of my stomach that something had gone horribly wrong. I couldn’t stop crying. In retrospect, I’m sure I only made things worse for Amanda’s poor family.”

  “What about Meghan? Did she react the same way?”

  “Oh, God no. Meghan? She’s the exact opposite. Her way of dealing with bad news is to try to fix it. In college, we called her TCB—always Taking Care of Business. She’s a planner and thinker, but Amanda’s disappearance was something that even Meghan couldn’t fix. She was at a loss for what to do, but no, she’s not a crier.”

  “Did you find it strange when she began a relationship with Jeff?”

  Kate paused for a moment. “Of course we were all surprised. I didn’t even know they were dating. Meghan called me after the wedding—or what she referred to as their non-wedding. Just vows exchanged at the courthouse.”

  “Is it possible they might have been seeing each other before Amanda disappeared?”

  This time she didn’t need to reflect before answering. “No way. Jeff was head over heels for Amanda. Meghan had tried getting his attention before, and they just didn’t click. I think it was actually their mutual love for Amanda that helped to bring them together later.”

  Laurie heard her father tell Timmy to be careful of the heat from the oven, and resisted the temptation to walk to the kitchen to supervise. “What do you mean, she h
ad tried getting his attention?”

  “They’d gone on a couple of dates. Meghan was always interested in Jeff, even in college. If you’ve seen him, you know he’s very attractive, and they were both drawn to public interest work. They’re a good match, but for whatever reason, they didn’t hit it off at first. I think Meghan was sort of disappointed.”

  “So Meghan played matchmaker for Amanda? That was thoughtful.”

  “Not really. Jeff bumped into Meghan in the neighborhood, and Amanda happened to be there.”

  That was interesting. Laurie had gotten the impression that Meghan had intentionally set up Amanda with Jeff. She was about to ask for more details when Kate shifted the conversation back to Amanda’s disappearance. “More so than anyone except maybe Mr. Pierce, Meghan really wanted to believe that Amanda left on her own. I always thought it was her way of coping.”

  Laurie shook her head in frustration. She still had no sense of Meghan as a person. After she and Alex met with Jeff, she had called Meghan twice to try to schedule a meeting, but got voice mail both times. Meghan had replied only by email, saying that she was busy at work but “looked forward” to talking “soon.”

  “That’s what we keep struggling with on our end,” Laurie said. “To us, it seems far more likely that something bad happened to Amanda. Why would anyone possibly disappear for all these years?”

  “They wouldn’t, or at least Amanda wouldn’t. But at the time, it hadn’t been a matter of years. And we were all trying to convince ourselves there was some explanation. It was the day before the wedding, and Amanda was having doubts.”

  “She was?” Charlotte said she sensed her sister was having second thoughts, but this was the first time anyone had claimed to have heard Amanda express them.

  “Doubts might be too strong of a word. But when we were alone, she was asking me if I was happy. If I wished I had met Bill later in life. Whether I’d had enough adventure before settling down. But if I thought she was really going to back out of the wedding, I wouldn’t have been so terrified when she was missing. I can’t bring myself to say this to Sandra, but I’m convinced my friend is dead. I know for a fact she wouldn’t put her family through this.”