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Her laugh was watery. “Fine, fine. You want to know who knew about the coins? It’s a short list, as far as I know. Even when he started to slip, Benny had a deep, instinctive drive to keep them hidden.”
“You knew,” Sam said.
Georgia flicked her free hand impatiently. “Of course I did. So did Frankie. We’ve known for years. We were appalled that Benny’s family let him keep them here, but…Carla was putty in Benny’s hands. That woman loved her father so much. Always made Frankie a little sad to see them together.”
Because Frankie had a son who hated him. Sam had almost forgotten about Gerald Wilson. Or Gerald White, as Frankie’s son had changed his name.
Georgia shrugged. “Anyway, Carla always said they were Benny’s coins, that he couldn’t enjoy them if they were locked in a vault somewhere.”
Goddard sat on the sofa. “So they bought him a vault here.”
Georgia nodded. “They sure did. I was never poor, boys. I ended up selling my house to afford this place seven years ago—when I hit seventy-five. I’d bought it when the market was low and sold it for a rather indecent profit, more than enough to pay my entrance fee to Shady Oaks. I was nervous about relocating, but I met Frankie and Ryan and Benny and Martha on my first day here. They were my first friends and we stuck together till the end. Till they ended, anyway.”
Sam squeezed her hand and she smiled sadly.
“They had a wealth I could never imagine,” she went on. “I mean, I had a reasonable amount of stuff and took vacations to faraway places, but I was never frivolous and I saved for those vacations. They did whatever they wanted. And then they started taking me along when they went on vacations. Let me tell you, the difference in level of accommodations was mind-blowing.”
Sam frowned. “I thought Ryan and Frankie weren’t rich until the nineties when Ryan sold his software program.”
“They weren’t, but Benny’s family has been wealthy since the sixties. Benny and Martha were generous to a fault and the money itself didn’t really mean much to them. But Ryan and Frankie never forgot that they’d both been struggling middle-class before Ryan’s windfall. Ryan and Frankie gave away so much money to charity. So did Benny and Martha. The money itself was just…stuff. I think Benny would have sold it all in a heartbeat. Everything except those coins. He’d sit and look at them. Sometimes he’d put gloves on and touch them, hold them to the light. And he wasn’t seeing the coins. He was seeing his father and his grandfather.”
“His family’s legacy,” Goddard said quietly. “Family pride.”
Georgia nodded in approval. “Quite right, Detective. Toward the end, when Benny’s mind started to slip, those coins became a tether, holding him to reality. So we didn’t say anything about him keeping a fortune in his apartment. We kept his secret as best we could, Frankie and I. When he was looking at the coins more recently, we’d make sure no one came into the apartment. We’d even shut the drapes, just in case. And then we’d breathe easier when he’d put them back in the safe.”
“Did Eloise know?” Sam asked.
“Yes, but she’d never tell. She helped keep the secret. She might seem flighty, Sam, but that woman is solid as a rock. Real rocks, not the rhinestones on her walker.”
Sam chuckled. “I know. Miss Eloise is a treasure. So who else knew?”
“Janice, the head nurse. She’d sometimes respond when Benny needed assistance and the other nurses were occupied. She wasn’t trying to snoop. At least I don’t think so. But once Benny had the coins out and was walking down memory lane when she came in to administer his meds. He was lucid enough in that moment to know she’d seen them and that it wasn’t a good thing. He told her they were commemorative coins.”
“Smart. They’re usually inexpensive to collect,” Goddard told Sam. “Some are valuable, but a lot of them are the kind of coins that kids might collect when they’re just getting started. If Janice the nosy nurse googled them, she’d find out the average value was less than two hundred bucks a coin.”
“Exactly.” Georgia shrugged. “I think she believed him. That was a year ago, and I think if she intended to steal them, she’d have done it already.” She hesitated, then sighed. “I don’t want to say this next one, because I think she’s as innocent as a lamb. But Devon knew.”
Sam frowned. No. No way. But this, along with the fact that Devon’s key card was the last one used before Benny’s death, wasn’t a good sign.
Goddard leaned forward. “Devon Jones, the nursing assistant?”
“Yes. She helped Benny a lot at the end, bathing him, making sure he got his meds. She was in and out of his apartment all the time. She told me that she’d seen them, said that she knew they were valuable. ‘Worth at least a thousand dollars, ma’am,’ ” Georgia said in a shaky falsetto that wasn’t a bad impression of the sweet teenager. “I acted surprised. ‘That much? Oh my.’ But I don’t think she bought my reaction. She’s not stupid. Naive, maybe, but far from stupid.”
“And she’s raising a child alone.” Sam felt physically ill at even the notion that sweet Devon could be involved. “A child who gets sick a lot. The doctor bills from her daughter’s last illness were in the tens of thousands of dollars.”
Georgia sighed again. “Frankie paid her doctor bills.” She rolled her eyes. “The child thinks that I paid them because I took one trip on the bus to see her and her daughter in the hospital, and Frankie wouldn’t let me tell her the truth. The old fool,” she said affectionately. “It was about two months ago that Devon found out about the coins. She and Benny became very close at the end. She’d sit with Benny and listen when he talked about his coins, his father and grandfather smuggling the best of the collection out of Germany. She’d sing to him when he became agitated, and it soothed him. She was good to him.”
“So Benny trusted Devon, but not Janice?” Goddard asked with a slight frown.
“I think Devon reminded him of one of his granddaughters.”
Goddard was still frowning. “Do you think Devon knew how valuable the coins were?”
Georgia shrugged. “Probably. It would have taken just a google to find the truth. But I can’t believe she’d steal them. And she would never have killed Frankie. Never.”
“I agree,” Sam said firmly, wanting to wince at the overly positive sound of his own voice, as if he were trying to convince himself. Which was what he was certain Goddard was thinking as the man turned his frown on Sam. But there was no way Devon could be involved. No way. But…Please, don’t let her be involved. “Who else knew, Georgia?”
“I don’t know. The other nurses spent time with him, but unless they saw him with the collection, there’s no way they could have known.”
