"Understood," I said, meaning it.
"We'd like to talk to you about Carl for a few minutes."
I could tell she wanted to tell Aodhagan no. It was all over her face. But instead she said, "Okay."
It was clearly not okay.
"How is everyone dealing with Carl's death?" Aodhagan asked softly.
She laughed hysterically, startling me as much as our arrival had her. She just kept laughing until she was crying. This was one person who was not okay. Not in any way. Finally, she seemed to rally. "I'm sorry. Sorry."
Aodhagan leaned forward, putting his hand over hers. She didn't shirk back. He seemed to sense when people wouldn't, and again I assumed that was the result of being a cancer doctor. He probably had a finely tuned sense of when people needed comfort and when they would prefer to just hold themselves together.
"Take your time," he told her.
It took her a few moments to pull herself together, and she wiped her eyes with a linen handkerchief that struck me as so amazingly pretentious. It was embroidered with her initials. Finally, she cleared her throat.
"They are handling it with the same amount of decorum as one would expect from the Crowe family."
I flinched. That wasn't a pretty picture. They were a mess. As I knew from personal experience, most people with too much money were. It was the curse of blessings. There was definitely a point where it became too much of a good thing. The Crowes clearly had passed that point.
"Are they seemingly appropriately upset?" Aodhagan requested.
She shrugged. "The Crowes are… What would you Texans call it? A hot mess?"
Stifling a laugh, it came out of me as something closer to a snort, and her attention turned my way, a smile touching her mouth for a hint of a second. She took a heavy breath, and the motion moved through her entire body. "Look, they are as upset as they are capable of being. Carl was a horrible person, and so are most of the Crowes. It's a combination that means no one is going to behave in the ways you might expect, given the situation. The only people with hearts in the entire family are James and Faith, and Carl treated them so badly they aren't sure how to feel."
I leaned slightly forward. "You do realize, don't you, that one of them probably killed Carl?" I phrased it carefully to not include her. If she had killed Carl, it would lower her guard. If she hadn't, we could get more information out of her if we presented it like an us-versus-them scenario.
Waving a hand again, she shook her head. "I have no doubt one of them killed Carl. I'm surprised he lived so long."
Yikes.
"Were you aware that Carl was fraternizing with his employees?" Aodhagan asked.
Her laughter again bordered on hysteria. "If that's what you want to call it, certainly. We all were. Aware, I mean. We weren't all…fraternizing. But I was."
The statement shocked me. Not that she was sleeping with Carl. That seemed to be almost a universal. But that she was so willing to be frank about it.
Aodhagan didn't react, and I tried very hard not to. "Were you aware of who else was sleeping with Carl?"
She didn't seem emotional about the subject. "I would assume almost everyone who wasn't directly related to him that he had any influence over on a daily basis. Except Daisy. She couldn't be persuaded. Carl was aggressive in what he called persuasion."
"So he was sexually assaulting people?" I asked through gritted teeth. Sexual harassment was a different thing entirely than outright force.
She shrugged. "I don't know if I'd call it assault. But it certainly wasn't friendly persuasion. If you wanted to keep your job, you slept with Carl. It was just how things were done."
"Why did Daisy get to keep her job?" I asked. It seemed the most pressing question, considering. I didn't want to dwell on what Carl was doing to people. It wasn't the kind of thing I wanted to consider when Carl was already gone and nothing could be done to fix the damage he'd already done.
Leslie's head cocked, her left eye twitching. "I think it's because he liked to steal her inventions. Daisy has quite the little brain on her, you know. She's a genius with coffee makers and food processors especially. If she left, he couldn't exploit her in the other ways he needed."
"Do you think he tried to sleep with her?" Aodhagan asked.
She laughed. "I think he would have tried to sleep with a vending machine if it didn't fight too hard. But he needed her."
"Why did she stay?" It was what I really wanted to know.
It seemed like an odd question to Leslie, given the way she was looking at me. But again, it could have just been the medication. "Well, I think primarily because she's in love with Faith."
I could tell from Aodhagan's body language that he was as surprised as I was. People at the corporate office had mentioned that Daisy was the only person who was kind to Faith, but no one had mentioned a romantic situation. Of course, Leslie was in the inner circle, so the information she was privy to would certainly be better. I wasn't sure what impact it had to be aware that Daisy was in love with Faith, but it was significant enough that it certainly seemed worth knowing.
"Interesting." Aodhagan didn't seem sure what to do with the information either. "How is Robert handling the death of his father?" It was a good question. I knew James wasn't handling it well, and he'd liked his father ostensibly much less than favored son Robert had.
Leslie sighed. "He's thinking mostly in terms of what needs to be done next. We'll be headed back to Dallas in two days for the funeral. He's just interested in that process along with Vi and with figuring out what needs to happen next with the business."
"So he's not too emotional about it?" I asked.
She ran a hand through her hair so hard that it had to be pulling it. "He's not too emotional about anything. I get that you're only asking because you want to know if he murdered his father, but even if he did, his behavior is never going to reveal that to you. He never appears to care about anything. I certainly wouldn't know."
"Who do you think killed Carl?" Aodhagan asked.
Leslie's gaze never wavered from Aodhagan's face, her frenetic behavior seemingly beginning to calm. "If it were Faith or James, I wouldn't blame them. I can't wait to get out of this family."
That was a surprise. "Where are you going?"
She glanced to me, the metal-corseted woman of our first meeting returning. Her nose cocked up slightly. "If you must know, I plan to divorce Robert and return to England at the first available opportunity. I was hoping Carl would leave me a little something to facilitate that, but the hysteria at the house suggests that Carl left all his money to orphaned cats? Is that…a thing?"
"Orphaned cats?" I questioned. "I…guess?"
The look she gave me clearly betrayed how annoyed she was at my existence. "Is it true that Carl left his money to charity?"
"Oh." I nodded. "Yeah, that part is true."
"Were you aware that Carl was considering selling the business?" Aodhagan requested.
She nodded, her head lolling slightly with her lowered muscle tone. Maybe the meds weren't wearing off after all. "I knew because Robert knew. I don't know that everyone was aware."
I asked the question that I was really curious to know. "How did Robert feel about that?"
Fiddling with her bracelet suddenly, she cast her eyes out the very small window on the door, though I imagined she could see very little. "He wasn't pleased. He wanted to stop him."
"Would he have done anything to stop it?" Aodhagan asked at last.
Her nostrils flared. It was very, very clear that she understood the implications of Aodhagan's question. "It's possible."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Outside it was raining again, but the crew was still hard at work as though nothing was occurring at all. They didn't look like Birdwell men to me, but their intent work likely meant they were either desperate for the job or consummate professionals, which likely meant they'd been imported by the Crowes. It took a good five minutes of skirting the inner fence before we finally
found Robert. He was standing holding blueprints and speaking to a man in his fifties who I assumed was someone like the foreman.
We stood silently while they finished talking before Robert finally noticed us. "Oh, it's you. The lady with the house."
"In a manner of speaking," I muttered. Good to be sure of one's own value, I always said.
Aodhagan reminded Robert who he was and told him why we were there in a law enforcement capacity.
His face shuttered, any visage of welcome completely fading. "Aren't the state police handling my father's case?"
Oddly, he was the first person to question us about our jurisdiction.
"They're point, but Birdwell and Tallatahola County are also participating," Aodhagan said smoothly.
Robert's tightly pressed mouth made it clear how he felt about that, though one would assume he'd appreciate more cops willing to participate. It made for better chances that Carl would see justice. He reminded me of someone, but it wasn't necessarily Carl. It was something about his face. And now it was going to drive me insane until I could figure it out. It was his wispy blondish brown hair. His arched eyebrows. The shape of his mouth.
Finally it sank in. He reminded me of Lynette from the cat shelter. It occurred to me finally and suddenly why Carl might have chosen to leave his money to the shelter. It was possible that Lynette was his daughter. Maybe one he'd only just realized he had at all. Which only just made it sadder. Faith was giving everything to scrape for the slightest hint of attention from her father, and meanwhile he was willing to give everything he owned to some woman he'd never even met.
I was almost one hundred percent certain that Lynette wasn't aware of Carl being her father or even of his existence before we'd told her. It made me wonder if Robert knew.
Aodhagan was apparently reading my mind because he asked, "Why do you think your dad might have chosen to leave everything to a cat sanctuary in Houston?" He spoke as though Robert already knew. But Robert didn't let us down.
Robert's mouth compressed into a single tight line. "I assume because he thought that the woman who runs it is his daughter. But he had no proof of that, of course. He merely discovered that she is the daughter of his very favorite toy of all time, though she's getting older now. He thought she looked like one of his kids."
"She does," I pointed out, probably unhelpfully.
He glared at me. "Regardless, he never had her tested. I doubt he even told her that he existed. He had this stupid romantic idea of giving her what he'd owed her from birth. But I'm completely certain that all he wanted was to get her mother's attention. I believe his plan was to head to Houston eventually and say he was proving his devotion to the relationship they could have had by planning to give his lost daughter everything in the will. Unfortunately for him, he never got to carry out that particular machination."
"What did you think of your father's consideration of selling the business?" Again Aodhagan was assuming that Robert knew instead of asking, but the technique seemed to work on Robert.
"Well, I thought it was a terrible idea. The business was built from the ground up by Crowes, and it belongs with Crowes. He shouldn't even have been considering it."
"I take it that you won't be going through with the sale now that you're in charge?" I asked.
His expression left little to the imagination. He definitely wasn't planning to change ownership. "Certainly not. Crowe Appliances will leave Crowe hands when there's no blood left to carry it on. But not before then."
The difference between Robert's view of the business and James's was really quite extreme. I didn't think Robert was very old, maybe early thirties, but with his attitude I would have thought he and Leslie would have cranked out at least an heir and a spare by now. He was probably going to be upset about that divorce for more than the obvious reasons.
"Who do you think might have killed your father?" Aodhagan requested, doing a good job of sounding sympathetic. I wasn't sure if he was or not. I was kind of leaning toward thinking Robert was guilty myself.
Robert's lips twisted. "Jackson. If he marries Faith, with his five percent and Faith's percent, he'll be the majority stakeholder. Dad never would have let him marry Faith."
"What about all the sexual harassment your father was doing?" I asked. "Do you think any of those people might have been responsible?"
He waved a hand dismissively. "Certainly not. None of that is true."
I was struck dumb by that. I could see him saying that he didn't believe it would have led to murder, but I wasn't quite sure what to do with total denial.
"I think you'll find it was definitely true." Aodhagan kept his voice even, but I could hear the darkness underneath.
Shaking his head, Robert cut the air with his hand again. "It isn't true. He wouldn't do that."
Aodhagan and I exchanged glances. There was probably nothing we could say that would make Robert believe a truth he didn't want to think on too hard. In a way, it was heartening to realize there was at least one person in the world who had an ostensibly good relationship with Carl Crowe. Too bad I was pretty sure he'd murdered his father to keep the business from changing hands.
"Okay, well, thanks for talking to us." Aodhagan clearly felt like we'd gotten everything we were going to get out of Robert.
Robert's eyes were taking on a certain feverish quality that told me, for him, Crowe Appliances was a religion. And we weren't about to break his faith.
Robert politely thanked us for coming, even though I was pretty much positive he wasn't at all glad we had. We stepped away from the job site and headed for the car. Aodhagan's phone rang, and he jogged a bit ahead so he could get far enough away from the heavy machinery to hear who was on the other end. He was already in his much quieter Land Rover by the time I reached him. I got in and watched a pickup truck full of down-on-their-luck fifty-something Birdwellians pull up to the gate, optimism shining in their eyes. I hoped it worked out for them.
Aodhagan was clearly enjoying his phone call. The dimples were flashing all over the place. "Well, okay. I'll see you later this week. Okay, thanks." He hung up.
"Who was that?"
"Moe," he told me with a grin. "He decided to take my job offer. He's going to be my new assistant."
It took me a second to remember who Moe was. Our driver in Dallas. The crazy one. "Well, okay." Because that was a person who Birdwell needed on board for sure. Apparently we had no limits on the quirkiness quotient in Birdwell. At least he was entertaining?
Aodhagan's phone rang again, and I assumed it was Moe calling back to impart another piece of wisdom, but it was clearly Junior, Aodhagan's partner in crime in all the ways I wasn't, including as a deputy. He listened for a long moment, thanked Junior, and said we would be right there. He turned to me. "Junior got all the footage he could find of the Spring Fest. It's going to be boring, but we're going to have to watch it all and see if we can figure out where everyone was toward the end of the day."
That sounded…not riveting, but hey, it was part and parcel with my nonappointed deputy status. And it was the sad side effect of currently living in the same house as the very slightly appointed sheriff. Marian's ancient Beetle was parked in front of Junior's house, a misplaced-looking log cabin on a massive tract of cattle land outside of town. Like many people in Birdwell, he didn't actually live within the city limits. We parked and headed inside to get the data stick with hours of videos that would hopefully lead to some information on where all the members of the Crowe crew had been for the last hour or so of the fest.
Junior handed the data stick to Aodhagan the second he opened the door. "It's twenty-six hours of footage. You're probably gonna wanna watch that at high speed."
I was probably gonna wanna bang my head on a wall, but it was better than not having any footage. It would hopefully give us some more definitive information on where all the key players had been over the course of the day.
"Hey, I called on Jerry and Sven like you asked," Junior said, rubbing hi
s hand over his flat hair. It was the inevitable side effect, I had learned, to spending all day wearing a cowboy hat. When it came off, you just looked absurd.
"Oh, good. Normally I'd have someone like Dwight question possible hit men, but I'm almost one hundred percent positive that they're one hundred percent full of crap."
Junior nodded. "You're one hundred percent correct. When I asked them if they were working as hit men, they laughed. Then they asked if I wanted to hire them. I said 'no, you dumb butt, I want to know if you did something wrong.' Then they laughed again and said that they had absolutely no skill with killing people and had only been kidding when they'd put forward the idea. But they were cool if someone actually wanted to try it. I reminded them I worked for you, and that shut them up. Then I said a witness saw them talking to Carl Crowe's kids at the fest, and they admitting to maybe selling them drugs, depending on who was asking, suddenly seemed to realize how much trouble they could be in, swore they didn't kill anyone, and shut up completely. I didn't get anything else after that."
"That's what I figured when I sent you. Jerry and Sven are about as dumb as a trap door on a canoe, but I figured someone had to check."
Junior nodded again, like Aodhagan's statement had some sage meaning. Sometimes Aodhagan surprised me with a southern euphemism, and I was taken aback every time. It was like the times when that little bit of Texas twang worked its way into his voice. It didn't come often, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't find it slightly delightful. Of course, it was the same thing I found irritating in other people, so I might have been slightly biased.
When we were back in the car, I picked up the stick and stared at it for a long time, not relishing the hours ahead for us. "I think Robert did it," I told him.
He glanced at me and smiled slightly. "Funny coincidence. So do I. But we still have to watch that footage."
All My Exes Live in Texas Page 18