Heartbreak Hotel

I will not lie and say I expected nothing to happen vis a vis the gem. Philip Duke was clear about his belief that it belonged rightfully to his family and that he was going to own it. But I did turn down his request to actually take the gem during one of my house calls to Thalia.

I suppose I knew he’d attempt to acquire the ruby by stealth, however I rationalized that as only a minimal loss to Thalia, seeing as she’d left it in plain sight for decades and had never included it in her estate when she enumerated such to me, as her executor. In fact, it was only after Phil Duke alerted me to the visual characteristics of the gem that I was able to locate it, serving as a finial atop a lamp, a use that I chose to characterize as Thalia’s humorous belittling of the stone.

I am not offering an excuse, however I am emphasizing that in no way did I expect my transferring the information about the stone to Philip Duke to lead to homicide. When I learned of Thalia’s death, I was as shocked as anyone. Thalia was dear to me. It took a long time for me to integrate the terrible facts and to make sense of them. I finally realized that someone as callous as Philip Duke was likely to attempt to effect a similar end upon me. Frightened, I traveled to the Ojai Valley Inn where I spent two days contemplating my future.

Eventually perceiving that future as dim and hopeless, in addition to having lived with neuralgia and other sources of physical pain for years, and in the spirit of full atonement, I have decided to set my own punishment as capital punishment. In that same spirit, being of sound mind and body and lacking any natural heirs, I hereby bequeath my entire estate to the identical charities benefited by Thalia Mars’s estate, in identical proportions.

Sincerely,

Richeline (Ricki) Sylvester, J.D., Esq.