PART 2: CHECKERED SLIPPERS
Jasper didn’t sleep that night.
Lyle Hargrove had come into his life when Jasper was eleven.
He had been Walter Kincaid’s partner, Jasper’s father, for decades.
After Walter died in a maritime accident, Lyle was the one who kept the businesses together, calmed the workers, and taught a young Jasper to run an empire he wasn’t ready for.
When others tried to take advantage of the twenty-year-old who had just lost his father, Lyle stood beside him.
When Jasper made mistakes, he corrected him.
When he won, he never took the credit.
He had even sat at Jasper’s bedside almost every night since the strange illness began.
That was why Jasper needed to be certain before accusing him.
The next morning he called Lorraine.
The doctor listened to the peppermint clue and replied:
“Don’t build a sentence around a smell. Your doctor uses a menthol rub for his back, too. And half the country buys peppermint candy.”
She was right.
Jasper set a trap.
That afternoon he summoned Travis, Lyle, Dr. Howard Tillman, and the housekeeper, Odessa, one at a time.
He told each of them the same thing.
His condition had worsened.
The attorney would arrive at ten the next morning.
It would probably be his last night.
Travis left in tears.
Odessa crossed herself and went to make broth.
Lyle stayed sitting beside Jasper for several minutes.
“I’ve always loved you like a son,” he said.
Then he placed a very old bottle of bourbon on the nightstand, one that had belonged to Walter Kincaid.
“We’ll open it when you walk again.”
Dr. Tillman examined Jasper and left a new box of medication.
“Try to rest.”
By midnight, the house was quiet.
Renee and Hattie hid in the walk-in closet with a phone recording.
Jasper pretended to sleep.
One o’clock passed.
Then two.
At 3:07, the board in the hallway creaked.
The door opened.
Checkered slippers appeared on the rug.
A figure moved to the nightstand.
Jasper kept his eyes barely open.
A hand opened the box.
Then he caught a medicinal smell.
Not peppermint.
When the figure turned toward the lamp, Jasper recognized the face of Dr. Howard Tillman.
He opened his eyes and seized the doctor’s wrist.
The doctor dropped the packet he was carrying.
Renee stepped out of the closet, recording everything.
Howard didn’t even try to run.
He sat down.
And began to cry.
For years he had piled up enormous debts from failed ventures and gambling.
Months earlier, someone had bought all of them.
Then photographs started arriving of his daughter, a college student in Boston.
The young woman entering her apartment.
Leaving class.
Having coffee.
With them came instructions.
Switch certain pills.
Don’t ask.
Don’t talk.
“I don’t know who it is,” Howard kept saying. “I’ve never seen his face.”
Jasper watched him without blinking.
The confession seemed to close the circle.
Until Hattie came out of the closet.
She stared at the doctor’s slippers for several seconds.
Then she slowly shook her head.
“It’s not him.”
Renee turned.
“Hattie…”
“The other man drags his left foot a little.”
The girl crossed the room, imitating the sound.
“And he comes more nights. This man only came some of them.”
Howard lifted his head.
He admitted that his instructions had him enter only on certain Tuesdays.
But someone else had been replacing the pills too.
There were two people.
One forced into it.
And another determined to make sure personally that Jasper didn’t live to sign the will.
Howard’s phone buzzed.
Hidden number.
The message read:
“Why is he still alive? Tomorrow I’ll finish the job. The girl is in the way too.”
For the first time, Jasper felt real panic.
Not for himself.
For Hattie.
The next morning, he went down the thirty-nine steps gripping the banister while Hattie walked beside him, counting them aloud.
Odessa nearly dropped a tray when she saw him.
The guards had believed Jasper could barely sit up, and yet there he stood.
The attorney was sent away.
Howard was held until the sheriff’s deputies arrived.
Then Jasper called in Travis.
His brother entered the study with shaking hands.
Jasper placed the anonymous note used to accuse Renee on the desk.
“Who paid off your debts?”
Travis denied it.
Jasper asked again.
At last his brother broke down.
A year earlier he had lost an enormous sum gambling.
He hadn’t dared tell Jasper.
Lyle had turned up one day and paid everything.
He asked for nothing.
He only said:
“Someday this house will be yours. Then you’ll remember who stood by you.”
Travis began to cry.
He also confessed that Lyle had planted his suspicions against Renee.
He had reminded him that Eddie Ames disappeared while working for the Kincaids, and that his widow might hold a grudge.
Jasper rose slowly.
Suddenly he remembered the bottle Lyle had left beside his bed.
He asked Odessa to bring it.
The housekeeper returned without it.
“It’s gone.”
“Where’s Lyle?”
Odessa looked confused.
“He left an hour ago.”
Then she added:
“He took Hattie to school.”
