Page 46 of Murder on the Page

Ivey passed an envelope embossed with the bank’s logo to Tegan. “I have another for your sister. Pull out the sheet of paper. At the top, you’ll see the stocks, starting with Apple and Google.”

I craned my head to get a peek at Tegan’s list. Ivey hadn’t misrepresented anything. Tegan and Vanna were going to be very wealthy women, and if Tegan wanted to buy Vanna out of the house, she would be able to do so.

Tegan muttered, “Crud.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I just realized my husband will get half of everything I inherit.”

“No, he won’t,” I said. “In North Carolina, separate property refers to assets or debts owned by one spouse individually.”

“Really?”

Ivey nodded.

“Separate property is considered all property,” I said, “whether real estate or personal property, that has been acquired by a spouse prior to marriage or attained by gift or inheritance during the marriage. All you have to do is keep anything you inherit in your own account, not a joint account.”

“How do you know so much about this?” Tegan asked.

“A customer at the Eatery sheltered his money from his wife, paying for all things household-related from their joint account and giving her a monthly allowance, as if she was an employee. When they divorced, he was able to pay her a flat sum. He was a scoundrel.”

“I’d like to be a scoundrel, too.” Tegan smiled. “Ms. Ivey, can you make sure I do it correctly?”

“Contact Mr. Tannenbaum. He can advise you,” she suggested. “By the way, Marigold withdrew a large amount of cash recently.”

“When?”

“Friday, at the end of day.”

“After I deposited the weekly take?”

“That’s right.”

Tegan said, “How much?”

“One hundred thousand dollars.”

I gawked. She’d come here after she’d fainted? Was she of clear mind or still dazed? “Ms. Ivey, did she tell you why she needed it?”

“It wasn’t my business.”

“That’s a lot of cash to be carrying around in a purse.”

“Oh, she didn’t put it in her purse. She asked me to slip it into one of the bank’s envelopes, and then she stowed the envelope in the brown leather satchel she’d brought along. I presumed she intended to hand it over to someone.”

CHAPTER11

“My good opinion once lost, is lost forever.”

—Fitzwilliam Darcy, in Jane Austen’sPride and Prejudice

“Would you come to the bookshop with me?” Tegan asked while shifting her car into gear. “I need time to process this. Why would Auntie withdraw one hundred thousand dollars?”

I buckled my seat belt. “Maybe she wanted to give the theater foundation the money she intended to bequeath to it on Saturday rather than make the foundation wait for her to, you know . . .”

Tegan moaned. “To die.”

“Yes . . . No,” I said, quickly revising as something niggled at the edges of my mind. “Wouldn’t she have consulted Mr. Tannenbaum if she’d decided to do that? And don’t you think she would have delivered it in the ‘Private and Confidential’ envelope Ms. Ivey put it in, which was found empty at the crime scene?”

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