Inherit the Dead

“Because you hated her? Or was it just for the money?”
    “Wh-what are you talking about?”
    Perry could see Angel shifting her weight from foot to foot.
    “You know exactly what I’m talking about, dear sister,” the man said.
    “You’re crazy.”
    “Am I? After you two are dead—a family feud the way I see it, your father shot you then himself, or maybe the other way around. It doesn’t really matter. Either way, the two of you will be dead and then, a few weeks from now I’ll announce my existence and I’ll get all the—”
    “Um, no.” Norman cut in. “No.”
    “No, what?”
    “Angel’s right. You will not get any money, not a cent.”
    “Of course I will! I’m Julia’s flesh and blood. Her heir. The only one. Everything will come to me.”
    “I’m . . . I’m afraid not. You see, I wrote the trust papers, and they do not allow for any half siblings. Other than Angel, no one can get his or her hands on that money.”
    “You’re lying!” The man took a step toward Norman. “And now you’re a dead man.”
    Perry slipped his cell phone into the pocket of his trench coat. Then he charged.
    So did Angel. Lunging at her half brother, the two of them struggling over the gun as Perry sprinted and the gun went off and then Norman Loki was on the floor, blood leaking from his head. Perry knocked the man to the floor, and the gun flew from his hand.
    “Oh my God—my God—Daddy, no!” Angel was shrieking, but she had gotten the gun and was aiming it at her half brother.
    “It’s okay,” Perry said to Angel. “Take it easy.”
    The man was struggling, but Perry had him in a headlock, under control when Angel fired the gun and he sagged in Perry’s arms, a hole in his shirt, a red stain spreading.
    Angel dropped the gun, and Perry kicked it away.
    “Why?” Perry asked. “I had him. You saw that.”
    “He killed my father, and he was going to kill me.” Angel stared at Perry. Her face looked like stone. “I had no choice. Anyone could see that,” she said, her voice calm.
    A hand gripped Perry’s arm, the man coughing up blood, fighting to speak. “It was . . . her. After I left you on the bridge I—I turned around because it, it was my chance . . . she was alone and you didn’t matter anymore. But when I got there she was creeping out from the back of that house on Washington Avenue, and I, I followed her . . . from Brooklyn to Park Avenue . . . waited across the street to, to see what she was up to and—”
    “Shut up!” Angel screamed. “You’re crazy!”
    She went for the gun again, but Perry got it first.
    “Go on,” he said, and pressed a hand into the man’s wound to staunch the bleeding.
    “I, I was outside when . . . when Julia came flying off the terrace. Five minutes later I saw her, Angel, slip out of the building and . . . and lose herself in the crowd.”
    “Liar!” Angel screamed. “You crazy, fucking liar!”
    “It was”—his breathing was labored, blood bubbling at his lips—“her.” Then his eyelids fluttered, his grip loosened on Perry’s arm, and he slid to the floor.
    “Hang on, damn it, hang on!” Perry glared at Angel.
    “You don’t believe him, do you?” Angel’s blue eyes were wide, filled with her unique brand of manufactured innocence. “He’s insane. God knows if anything he’s told us about his life is true. I thinkhe made it all up. This pathetic story about being Julia’s son and, and—” She sniffed, holding back sudden tears. “Oh, it’s all so, so awful. My father, my mother—That crazy murderer, that liar!”
    Perry stood up, took a few steps toward her, spoke softly but firmly. “I think it’s you who is lying, Angel.”
    “How dare you? After all I’ve—”
    “After all you’ve done to make sure you get all the money? That’s what this was all about, wasn’t it, Angel? Money.”
    She swiped her tears away, and Perry saw the tough little girl in the nanny’s photo, jaw set, the look of determination in her eyes.
    “You’ll never prove that.”
    “No?” Perry had them now, the words she’d uttered, what he had been trying to recall. “The Pollock,” he said.
    “The . . . what?”
    “The Jackson Pollock painting in your mother’s apartment.”
    “What about it?”
    All she cares about is stuff—her jewelry, her houses, her great big Jackson Pollock painting.
    “You mentioned it, just before, at the precinct.”
    “So?”
    “It’s new. Your mother just bought it.”
    “So