Heiress On Fire

by Kellie McCourt

  Loraine was five foot five with a deathly straight, razor cut blonde bob. She had dark brown eyes and was constantly dressed in pantsuits. Even in the hottest of heatwaves. She was a member of staff who had always existed in my lifetime. She felt like an aloof but caring aunt.

  Ignoring her long-suffering PA, Grandmother stepped towards Mother and pointed her finger at her. The moment she did Esmerelda was on her feet.

  ‘What she needs,’ shot back Grandmother, not noticing Esmerelda, ‘is a professional.’

  Esmerelda stepped in towards Grandmother and growled in a low, scary, gravelly tone, ‘Back up Grandma.’

  Grandmother looked neither intimidated nor shocked. Instead a torrent of sophisticated insults began flowing towards Esmerelda. Esmerelda returned in kind. The insults flowing from Esmerelda were zero-level in sophistication, but to her credit extremely creative and some I am sure even Grandmother had never heard before.

  Grandmother and Esmerelda had started the ball rolling, and the tension in the air exploded. Both lawyers began speaking at each other at once. Mother tried to referee between Esmerelda and Grandmother. Loraine attacked Esmerelda, leaving room for Grandmother to attack Mother. Soon it was lawyer versus lawyer, personal assistant versus personal shopper, and mother-in-law versus daughter-in-law.

  Just as things were becoming apocalyptic two maids appeared. Apparently accustomed to this type of foray they began pouring tea for all the guests.

  Someone must have snuck a macaron, triggering the tea service. I looked up. Esmerelda had tell-tale scone crumbs down her T-shirt. Grandmother had wasted a perfectly good trap. She would not have been able to embarrass or intimidate Esmerelda by spotlighting her poor table manners. More likely Esmerelda wore her lack of sophistication as a badge of honour.

  Detective Burns was on her feet barking at people to calm down. No one except me seemed afraid of the police. No one backed down. The roar grew.

  Searing and I were the only two still sitting.

  And Eddy—who, despite the chaos, was having a vertical nap on the Drowsy Divan.

  Searing slid down the Chesterfield of Doom cushion, leant across the high tea-laden Conniving Coffee Table under the human canopy of conflict and said, ‘So, what happened?’

  I stared at my naked ring finger. I missed Richard. I was not in love with him, but I loved him dearly. He swore loyalty to me and was true to his word. Life wasn’t sexy or exciting with Richard, but it was safe. A hot tear of grief and guilt slipped down my cheek, but I did not feel sick or faint. My life as a protected princess was over. No amount of Shaw & Smith or Happy Meals or hiding in the pool house would bring it back.

  I couldn’t stand the noise anymore and I heard somebody start screaming. After a few seconds I realised it was me. The screaming pushed Burns over the edge and a piercing whistle cut through the air.

  Everyone stopped yelling.

  I stopped screaming.

  ‘I don’t give a flying fig who’s representing this woman!’ she shouted. ‘You can both do it,’ she said looking from Earl to Barker, ‘the Queen of England can do it, her pet hamster can do it, just all of you shut the hell up and let her talk.’

  ‘I cannot allow that,’ said Earl. Barking nodded in agreement.

  The two lawyers were now standing side by side. During their argument they had progressed towards each other like stags lining up for a fight. They now very much resembled a single unit.

  ‘Rich people,’ Burns muttered in exasperated tones, ‘they’re fucking unbelievable.’

  Searing took his eyes off me and adjusted them up to the lawyers. ‘What if I were to tell you that I believe Dr Richard Bombberg may have been the victim of foul play? That I do not consider Mrs Hasluck-Royce-Jones-Bombberg a person of interest in her husband’s murder?’

  Searing studied me. ‘I really would just like to hear your version of events from the night of the fire.’

  Burns made no comment. All eyes were now on Searing. I looked at him in surprise, then flicked my eyes to Mother and Grandmother, then to Barker. Was this a trick?

  ‘Just so we’re clear—’ Earl said.

  ‘—She’s not a person of interest?’ Barker said, finishing his sentence.

  Searing shook his head. ‘No, not to me.’

  Burns again said nothing.

  Barker smiled a suspicious smile at the redheaded detective and shook his head. ‘I don’t trust you, Burns. She talks, it’s off the record.’

  ‘You’d find some dodgy way to have it thrown out anyway,’ Burns shot back.

  Burns moved her gaze to Searing, then me, rolled her eyes and puffed out an exasperated breath. ‘Fine, off the record. For God’s sake just tell us what happened.’

  I felt all eyes on me. I looked from Mother to Grandmother to Burns, then back to Searing. His eyes were a sympathetic, hypnotic golden brown.

  ‘I am responsible for the death of my husband and of Dr Sam’s date Crystal. But it was not murder, it was an accident,’ I said in a voice steadier than I thought possible.

  Esmerelda spun towards Searing nodding her head vigorously in agreement. ‘Like a total accident!’

  ‘A complete accident!’ Grandmother and Mother agreed in unison.

  Burns pre-empted the lawyer’s objections raising her hands, palms up, at them. ‘Shut it. Both of you.’

  CHAPTER 5

  THE SNAP HAT

  Mother picked up a botanical gilt-rimmed cup and saucer, gracefully edged Grandmother out of the way and sat down next to me. She smiled, kissed me on the cheek and handed me the tea.

  Grandmother finally signed the document Loraine had brought her, then gave a small unenthusiastic nod of approval.

  I sipped my tea and began.

  ‘We were hosting a small cocktail party for two new Sydney Plastics surgeons. Sydney Plastics is—was—Richard’s practice.’

  Searing had his notebook out and flipped back several pages. ‘Dr Bradley White, from LA, trained at Johns Hopkins,’ he said reading. ‘Wife Rachael White.’

  I nodded. ‘Richard had high hopes for Brad White. Not only was he a fantastic surgeon, but Richard said he was also a great administrator.’ I let out a small chuckle.

  ‘What?’ Searing asked.

  ‘Nothing, it’s just—I found out that night Brad was a classic surgeon. He could barely send an email. He wasn’t a fantastic surgical administrator at all; she was. His “housewife” Rachael had a Harvard MBA and a string of successful websites. She was the operational brains, so to speak.’

  The women in the room, Burns included, flashed each other a ‘typical-men’ look.

  ‘At any rate high-quality surgeons are still hard to find. Brad was in demand in LA. Rachael said he did fantastic breasts and his rhinoplasty was flawless and subtle. Rachael wanted to leave LA. She did not enjoy life in the gated Hidden Hills community. She wanted to go back to work.’

  I turned to Esmerelda. ‘Put Dr Bradley White and Rachael White on the list.’

  What kind of a basket do you send to someone you almost burnt to death? Chocolate? Liquor? Leather goods? Live baby ducks?

  ‘Did that yesterday dude,’ said Esmerelda.

  Boy, she was good.

  Searing flipped more pages in his notebook, and plastered on a terrible imitation of a stymied expression, ‘And a Dr Sam Bruce and Crystal Devine from …’ He was movie star gorgeous, but the worst actor I had ever seen. Then again, he thought I was innocent, so I helped him anyway.

  ‘I knew nothing about Crystal—Devine is it? And my information on Dr Bruce was limited to her being trained at the University of Sydney originally.’

  I willed Dr Sam Bruce not to die.

  ‘Where was I?’

  ‘Sydney Uni,’ said Burns.

  ‘Yes. Generally considered a good thing. Richard met Dr Sam during his volunteer work in Asia last year sometime. I can’t recall where exactly. Thailand perhaps? Malaysia? She lived there. Nobody apart from Richard even knew what she looked like. Or that she
was a she. I thought Dr Sam Bruce was a man.’

  This assumption was confirmed with the RSVP email from Richard’s PA Michelle listing Dr Sam’s ‘guest’ as Crystal somebody (Devine apparently). I was a little surprised when Dr Sam turned out to be a woman, and even more surprised to learn from Dr Sam that that night was their first date. I felt terrible about Crystal. I’ve had some bad first dates but getting burnt alive in a powder room must be the worst possible outcome.

  ‘And Dr Bombberg—Richard—he liked Dr Bruce?’ Searing asked. ‘Thought she did good work?’

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  ‘I assume so. He offered her a position at the Sydney surgery.’

  ‘Was that more prestigious? The Sydney practice,’ Burns said.

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘Sydney is the head office for Sydney Plastics. Most of Richard’s best and brightest are here.’

  ‘And you and your husband are the sole owners?’ said Burns with a curious tone in her voice.

  ‘Me?’ I said. ‘No, no, Richard owns—I mean owned—Sydney Plastics.’

  Searing flipped through his notes. ‘You’re listed as partners in the practice.’

  ‘Really?’

  This was news to me. I had little to do with the practice day to day. It made no difference. I owned it now either way. Fantastic. Another enormous job for me. Add it to the list.

  I looked at Esmerelda. She already had the iPhone out, tapping away. I owed Mother a trip to the spa. Esmerelda was gold, even if she dressed like a—a, I do not know—something that dressed badly.

  ‘And there are quite a few Sydney Plastics surgical centres around the country?’ asked Searing, this time without aid of a notebook. ‘And around the world?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tell us about Crystal,’ said Burns suddenly.

  ‘Crystal was Dr Sam’s date.’

  Burns said, ‘Dr Sam was gay.’

  Was that a statement or a question?

  ‘I guess so. I had never met her before, but her date was a woman so I suppose she was,’ I said, resettling on the moustache lounge. I paused. ‘I am an open-minded person but Crystal was very … she was rather …’ I flapped my hands in exasperation, searching for the correct, polite term. ‘For the partner of a plastic surgeon she was …’

  ‘Fat?’ piped up Esmerelda, trying to be helpful.

  ‘No, she was slim.’

  ‘Short?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Dog ugly?’ Esmerelda tried again.

  Mental note: discuss with Esmerelda what she considers the essential attributes of a surgeon’s partner to be.

  ‘No, she was very attractive. Long red hair, green eyes, although they were contacts, so her eyes were probably brown or blue. She wore a lot of make-up, and she had had work done on her …’ I touched my nose then waved my hands around my chest area.

  Grandmother chipped in, ‘Was she inappropriate in some way? Her dress? The way she ate?’ She eyed Eddy as she said this. He’d awoken several minutes before and had a distinct trail of pink and green macaron fragments down his thick silk tie.

  ‘Well she was rather scantily clad, albeit in Versace. It was not the way she ate, she did not eat anything.’ Although she drank. A lot.

  ‘Was she rude?’ said Mother, also trying to help.

  ‘Not deliberately. Just a little coarse. Not particularly educated, but trying to be sophisticated,’ I said, recalling the way she spoke.

  Grandmother smiled tightly. ‘She sounds remarkably like a fashion model.’

  I felt Esmerelda’s hackles go up and I shot Grandmother a warning look. Mother closed her eyes and counted to five: the high road of the Buddhist.

  ‘It was not that she was not nice. She was. She was just very physical with Dr Sam. Dr Sam—she seemed uncomfortable with it. With her. It was just odd. They were odd together.’

  Esmerelda shook her head and looked at us all like we were simple. ‘She’s a hooker, dude.’

  We all peered at her.

  ‘No!?’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Ah, yeah!’ said Esmerelda.

  ‘Surely not!?’ said Grandmother in shocked tones.

  ‘No!’ I said, echoing the shocked tones. ‘Crystal, a—a, lady of the night?’

  ‘Her name was Crystal Divine for crying out loud!’ said Esmerelda, turning Devine into Divine, one eyebrow shooting high on her face. ‘Crystal Divine? Seriously?’ She shook her head at me in a disappointed fashion. ‘Dude.’

  Searing ignored Esmerelda, and pushed on. ‘Was there anything else strange about Crystal that you can recall?’

  ‘Well, I do not like to speak ill of an employee’s partner, especially one deceased.’ And deceased by my hand, I thought. ‘But she spent a significant portion of the evening in the powder room. So either she was fastidious to the point of compulsiveness about her make-up, had a shocking cold no one else knew about or, well, you know,’ I said, tapping the side of my nose.

  I had been around enough celebrities to know that an intimate relationship with the powder room meant more than just excessive vanity or fibre.

  Searing moved forward on the Chesterfield of Doom, which he looked perfectly comfortable on. My heart rate went up a notch as he closed the space between us. Good Lord—I was a slutty widow and a killer. Life had taken a strange turn.

  ‘You think Crystal was taking drugs?’ he said, as if I was the only person in the room.

  ‘It is not kind to speculate—’

  Esmerelda cut me off, ‘All hookers love coke.’

  Grandmother opened her mouth to speak. I knew she would be unable to resist another pun on models and drug use. And let’s face it—she was not too far off. Very few stay that thin without assistance of the pharmacological kind. Except Mother. She was a true genetic anomaly. Having said that, age catches all of us, and even she had upped the yoga and goji berries and done away with all the fun carbs in the last few years.

  I shot Grandmother a pleading look. Normally this wouldn’t have worked, but apparently the death of my husband, the murder of a possible prostitute, the destruction of my home and what I still believed was my imminent arrest for said deaths bought me some leverage. She innocently picked up her teacup and remained silent.

  ‘That,’ I said, in defence of prostitutes everywhere—not that I personally knew any—‘is a gross generalisation.’

  ‘Okay, so most like, like coke,’ Esmerelda said, trying to placate me.

  I held her eyes.

  ‘What? Okay, well, I’m sure she was one of them classy, 10k-a-night hookers who drank kombucha and only did really good coke.’

  Grandmother’s eyes widened—there were just so many openings for another supermodel insult. I gave her another pleading look. My Hasluck luck held.

  I rolled my eyes unsubtly and said, ‘If I may continue?’

  Esmerelda shrugged and sat back on the love seat. ‘Fine, I’ll shut up.’

  ‘That would be greatly appreciated, Esmerelda, is it?’ said Burns, eyeing Esmerelda. ‘Do I know you?’

  ‘Nah,’ said Esmerelda shrinking back and brushing hair over her face. ‘Nope.’

  I saw a small smile play on Searing’s lips. He recognised Esmerelda too but said nothing.

  Eddy leant sideways on the Drowsy Divan. He looked sleepy again.

  Burns shot Esmerelda a suspicious look then turned back to me. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well I mentioned to Richard that Crystal was going backwards and forwards to the powder room. Frequently.’

  Yes. I told on her. I was a tattletale. But in my defence she spilled her cocktails all over my perfect parquetry every time she went to the bathroom.

  ‘Richard was very anti-drugs, he went to the powder room to speak to Crystal. But he was gone for so long that Rachael and Brad started asking questions. I could not say he had gone to see if Dr Sam’s lesbian partner was taking drugs in the powder room. I tried to distract them with hors d’oeuvres and cocktails but I couldn’t find a single waiter.’ I wondered out l
oud, ‘What happened to all the catering staff?’

  Esmerelda piped up, ‘So like they went out for a ciggie break around nine and couldn’t get back in. They forgot their swipe card things. Left them upstairs. Totally locked out.’

  ‘Do people still smoke?’ I asked her.

  ‘Nah, not really. They mainly just went out to check their social feeds and stick some selfies on Insta.’

  Saved by selfies. A welcome jewel from the lucky dip of social media.

  ‘That’s correct,’ confirmed Searing. ‘We interviewed them on the night. They were outside posting on Instagram in the minutes leading up to the fire. Their accounts check out.’

  ‘Saved by their egos,’ said Burns.

  ‘So, there it is. Social media has finally made a consequential social contribution,’ added Grandmother with an arched brow.

  The detectives and lawyers looked at her.

  ‘Just because I’m a sexagenarian doesn’t mean I can’t have an opinion on Snap Hat and The Facebook,’ she barked sharply.

  Eddy’s drowsy nodding head snapped to attention.

  ‘No ma’am. Yes of course, ma’am,’ said the lawyers.

  ‘Don’t have to know its name to own shares in it then,’ Burns murmured to Searing.

  Esmerelda tittered. No doubt the word sexagenarian was too juvenile for her to resist.

  Mother appeared dubious. I too doubted grandmother was in her sixties.

  CHAPTER 6

  DIANE VON NEUVO AND THE DEADLY BLOW FISH

  ‘Anyway,’ I continued, ‘I saw a full sashimi platter and thought: How hard can it be?’ I picked a large, scone-filled platter up off the Conniving Coffee Table and demonstrated my one-handed style with it.

  ‘I tried to serve, you know the way staff do, to distract them.’

  I did my best imitation of serving as I spoke.

  I heard Grandmother inhale sharply. The idea of serving employees or anyone she was negotiating with was abhorrent to her. Not really a surprise from a woman who booby-trapped her lounges.

  When my much older grandfather died twenty years ago, many thought she would allow the company directors to run the dynasty for her, while she shopped in Paris, spa-hopped in Switzerland and generally spent the profits on heiress-like pursuits. They were wrong.