CHAPTER 48

ARTHUR LED US THROUGH a foyer to a sunken timber-frame living room with massive beams and posts and a huge boulder set into the wall on one side. A fire blazed in a glass-fronted box in the middle of the boulder. A chimney made of similar stone rose above it.

Theresa May Alcott sat in one of two dark leather club chairs staring into the flames, a cut-glass tumbler in one hand and an unlit cigarette in the other.

“Theresa,” Arthur said. “Your visitors are here.”

She swiveled in the chair to face us, then stood up. Dressed in brown suede pants, tooled cowboy boots, and a sheepskin vest over a denim top, Mrs. Alcott had a striking, almost regal presence. She set down the drink and the cigarette on the table between the chairs and came over.

“I’m Theresa May Alcott,” she said, extending her right hand. On her left, she wore a large diamond engagement ring and a wedding band despite the fact that her husband had passed years before.

We introduced ourselves and thanked her for seeing us.

“Sounds like I did not have much of a choice,” she said, the slightest slur to her words. “Can Arthur get you something to drink on a cold winter night?”

“No, ma’am,” Mahoney said. “Not while we’re working.”

“Find them something appropriate, would you, Arthur?”

He nodded and left. She showed us to a couch and returned to her chair.

“That’s a beautiful fireplace,” Mahoney said. “I’ve never seen one like it.”

“Because there isn’t,” she said. “It was custom-made for us in Finland. It’s soapstone, which holds the heat and radiates it. My husband loved it.”

I glanced at the other club chair, the empty one. “We wanted to speak with you about the judicial advisory board you sit on.”

“I was surprised but pleased and honored that President-Elect Winter asked me to serve.”

“You’re a big supporter of Sue Winter.”

“I have been for a long time,” she said, picking up her drink and sipping from it. “She’s brilliant. She’s warm. She listens. She thinks outside the box. Sue will make an outstanding president.”

Mahoney said, “Getting back to the advisory panel. Were you aware that three people on the panel’s list of possible Supreme Court candidates have been murdered in the past month?”

Mrs. Alcott was either genuinely stunned or an accomplished actress. Her jaw dropped, and she set the drink down. “No. No, I did not know that. I … had a recent death in the family, someone very close to me, and I haven’t been keeping up with the news. Or with anything, for that matter.”

I said, “Speaking of that death in your family, did you ever talk to Ryan Malcomb, your late nephew, about the list?”

“Ryan? No. Absolutely not. The panel was instructed to work discreetly. Who are the dead on the list, please?”

“Judge Franklin of the DC Circuit, Judge Pak of the Ninth Circuit, and Professor Nathan Carver.”

At that last name, her eyes went wide in disbelief and her hand traveled to her throat. “No. I spoke to Professor Carver myself. He was my number one. Oh my God. This is awful.”

Mahoney said, “Did your nephew know you were on that committee?”

“I don’t believe so,” she said. “Why do you keep bringing up Ryan?”

“We’ll get to that. But I find it hard to believe you wouldn’t at least mention that you had been invited onto a prestigious panel by the president-elect.”

Mrs. Alcott made a dismissive gesture. “I don’t want to sound like an ass, Mr. Mahoney, but my late husband and I have played in these circles for years. I might have mentioned it to Ryan in passing, but we never talked about it.”

Arthur returned with a tray with hot water, tea bags, and cookies. After he left, I decided to take the discussion in another direction. “Did you know Ryan was looking for a ranch in Nevada?”

“Of course. I advised him to look for a large physical asset as an anchor to his growing wealth.”

“He wouldn’t have inherited this place?”

She smiled sourly. “No. My husband’s will stipulated that the house and the immediate two thousand acres around it would be sold after my death. The rest will go to the State of Wyoming. Why all the questions about Ryan?”

“Just tying up some loose ends,” Mahoney said.

I said, “My wife, Bree Stone, came to talk to you.”

Alcott raised her chin. “I felt she was incredibly rude and insensitive to badger me like that at Ryan’s funeral.”

“She told me she regretted intruding.”

The billionaire said nothing.

I said, “Tell us about Sean.”

Her lips twisted as if she’d tasted something bad in that last sip of whiskey. “I told your wife about him. He was extremely smart. Maybe smarter than Ryan. But he was far more difficult as a child. Insolent. Defiant. Violent. Brooding.”

“Bree said he had a history of mental illness. Can you tell us what his diagnosis was?”

Alcott looked disgusted. “He had most of the psychiatrists we went to wrapped around his little finger; he was able to turn on the charm and brilliance when needed. But after he had a psychotic break at age sixteen, we sent him to a residential facility, where he was diagnosed with various psychiatric illnesses.”

“Can you describe the psychotic break?” I asked.

She hesitated. “He was home from prep school. It was Christmas, and out of nowhere he attacked Ryan, tried to kill him with a butcher knife. My husband and a friend stopped him.”

“This happened without provocation?”

“Ryan was having a down day and was in his wheelchair. In Sean’s disturbed mind, that was enough. He hated all the attention his brother got. For his illness and for his brilliance.”

Mahoney said, “And how did Ryan feel about Sean?”

“Ryan was protective of Sean, tried to keep him out of trouble.”

“Until he left at eighteen,” I said.

Alcott nodded. “On his eighteenth birthday. Had us transfer his inheritance to a new account, told me he never wanted to see me again, and left in the Range Rover I’d bought for him for his high-school graduation.”

“And you never heard from him again?”

“Not directly. I did get a notification from my insurance company that he’d sold the Range Rover in Salt Lake City about a week after he left and canceled the policy.”

“And Ryan?” I said. “Did he lose touch with his brother too?”

“As far as I know,” Alcott said, her hand trembling slightly as she reached to pick up the cigarette and a lighter. “We made it a practice to avoid the subject of Sean.”

She thumbed the lighter on, lit the cigarette, and took a puff.