by Abigail Roux
save me the work.”
Addison decided that he might like the detective, on the
surface at least. “Not that I can think of offhand,” he
admitted. He stepped out onto the deck and pulled the door
closed behind him. “Can I offer you orange juice that may or may not still be good?” he asked as he led the way around
the house to the deck that faced the ocean.
“No,” Walker answered as he followed.
“Not a risk-taker, then,” Addison observed. “Good for
you, Detective,” he said wryly, taking another sip as he sat in one of the teak Adirondack gliders.
Walker sat in the one next to it, looking at the table
between them that held a frosted-glass chess board. Addison glanced down at it, then back up at Walker. “Do you play,
Detective?” he asked in an off-handed manner.
“Occasionally,” Walker admitted carefully. He looked
from the board to Addison.
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“Well, give me your opener, Detective Walker,” Addison
invited with a wave of his hand at the board. “We’ll see how the game goes.”
Walker examined him for a long moment, and Addison
just calmly sipped at his orange juice and rocked gently. It was a very dangerous game he was playing with the
detective. If he made a wrong step, he could very well end up on the wrong side of those prison bars. But he just couldn’t help but enjoy it a little bit. A real live game of chess.
Walker finally seemed to come to a decision, and he
reached out slowly and picked up one of the clear glass
pieces. He turned it over in his hand, looking at it
admiringly, then set it down again to make his first move.
“Hand-blown glass,” Addison informed him. Half of the
pieces were clear, with the occasional bubble and
imperfection that testified to the fact they were hand-crafted.
The other half were tinted a rich red that cast a pink shadow over the board when the sun hit them. The board itself was
etched black-and-white glass. “A gift from my brother.”
“It’s a beautiful set,” Walker responded sincerely. “Did
you know of your father’s intentions to change his will?” he asked abruptly.
“Father changed his will every year or two,” Addison
answered as he reached out and moved a red pawn.
“How so?” Walker asked as he made another move.
Addison shrugged and moved again. “Mostly because of
the banks. He’d get pissed at the investors at one bank,
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move all his money somewhere else. He had to change the
will every time he did it to specify the institution. Why?”
Walker shook his head minutely and moved again. “The
papers we found in his desk included a will.”
“I’m sure he had copies all over,” Addison responded
with a shrug. He moved a piece, capturing a pawn, and then
took another sip of his orange juice. He shivered violently with the bitter taste. He reached out and poured it carefully into the cracks of the deck, and then he set the glass down beside him. When he turned back to the detective, the man
was trying not to smirk at him.
“This particular copy wrote you and your brother
completely out of it,” Walker informed him as he moved
another piece.
Addison stopped rocking briefly but then pushed his toe
against the warm deck and nodded. He sighed heavily as he
began rocking again. “I can’t really say I’m surprised,” he finally said grimly. He turned his head to study the board
and moved another red piece.
“Not surprised,” Walker repeated as he moved and
captured one of Addison’s pawns. “But angry?”
“It’s a lot of money to lose out on,” Addison commented
in place of an answer. He moved his bishop and glanced up
at Walker. “Is that where you’re looking for motive?”
Walker merely shrugged. “You tell me,” he invited with
another move to capture Addison’s bishop.
Addison shrugged. “Brayden and I both had trusts we
received when we turned twenty-one. They were… sizable,”
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he informed Walker carefully. “If Father wrote us out of his will, neither of us would starve,” he said with a move of his queen.
“Drug habits can be expensive,” Walker observed as he
pushed one of the glass pieces into a new square.
“I’m sure you’ve either already run my financial
information or you’re going to very soon, Detective Walker,”
Addison responded in amusement. He moved a piece
carelessly. “I’ll OD before I can spend all that on drugs.”
Walker cocked his head, his expression a mixture of
annoyance and pity. Addison had seen that look before,
mostly on his brother.
“Did your father ever threaten anyone you were
involved with?” Walker asked after a moment, sliding a piece across the board as he did so.
“Not that I’m aware,” Addison said with a shake of his
head. “Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Sounds like something he’d do,” he mused. “But he was more inclined toward
paying them to go away. Hell, a couple times I’d get involved with a friend who needed money just because I knew he’d
pay them to get out of town.”
Walker closed his eyes and rubbed at his forehead
slowly. He leaned back in his rocker and looked out at the
ocean over the dunes that protected the deck. Addison tried not to smile as he watched the man. He almost felt sorry for him.
“Was that all, Detective?” Addison asked him after a
moment.
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Walker gave a slight smile and turned his head to look
at Addison. “It’s your move,” he reminded.
Addison nodded and smirked at him. “I know. I just
thought you’d like to finish your questions before I check
you,” he told the detective seriously.
Walker’s eyes flickered in surprise, and he looked down
at the board suspiciously, as if expecting it to be a trick. He looked back up at Addison after a moment of studying the
board, and Addison shrugged and reached out to move his
piece.
“Check, Detective,” he murmured.
Walker leaned back in his chair, eyebrows raised. After
a long moment, he moved a piece.
“Did you want your daddy dead, Sonny?” Walker asked
quietly.
“Sometimes,” Addison answered in all honesty as he
immediately moved his own piece. “Check.”
Walker turned his head to look at him. He looked down
at the board and silently moved one of his pieces.
Addison glanced down at it and then back up at Walker
expectantly.
“Did you kill him, Sonny?” Walker asked him in a low
voice.
Addison frowned slightly. That wasn’t the question he’d
been expecting. If anything, he’d expected the focus to shift to Brayden next. Maybe even Micah. But he recovered
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quickly and shook his head. “My father killed himself,” he
said softly as he moved a piece. “Checkmate.”
BRAYDEN
opened the door already knowing who it would be.
Addison had called him as soon as Detective Walker left his house to warn him that the man would be coming to him
next. Brayden hadn’t even bothered getting formally dressed.
He still wore the linen khaki pants and white T-shirt he’d
been lounging in as he read on his patio. He was slightly less imposing when he wasn’t in a suit, but he didn’t really care about things like that anymore.
Life was so much easier now that he didn’t have to be
his father’s son.
“Detective,” Brayden greeted when he opened the door.
He’d taken as much time as possible to calm himself before
the detective got here. He could still feel his hands shaking with nerves, though.
“I assume you were expecting me,” Walker returned as
he stood on the front stoop.
“I didn’t think people in your line of work made
assumptions,” Brayden responded as he turned and waved
for Walker to follow.
“We make them,” Walker responded as he followed
Brayden in. He was looking around Brayden’s home
curiously, probably wondering why neither Brayden nor
Addison had moved into the family mansion yet.
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“What can I do for you, Detective?” Brayden asked with
a long-suffering sigh. He led the man into his study, where he’d settled to read and enjoy a plate of apple slices and
cheese cubes after receiving Addison’s call. He didn’t offer any food or drink. Any man investigating the murder of
someone who was poisoned probably wouldn’t be accepting
anything to eat or drink from his suspects.
“I’d like to ask you about your father’s will,” Walker told him as he took a seat opposite Brayden. His eyes drifted
down to the magnificent chess board Brayden kept on the
coffee table.
Brayden waited for him to continue, but he seemed
distracted by the board. “Do you play chess?” Brayden asked him curiously.
“I did,” Walker answered wryly. He looked up at
Brayden. “Until I met your brother.”
Brayden couldn’t help but smile. “He’s very good, isn’t
he?” he said with a hint of pride.
Walker nodded.
“I think it’s because you don’t expect it of him,” Brayden
murmured as he reached out to pick up one of the chess
pieces. They were hand-carved out of 10,000-year-old
mammoth tusk. Addison had given the set to him on his
thirtieth birthday. Brayden didn’t know where his brother
had found it.
“What do you expect of your brother?” Walker asked
him as he pondered the chess set.
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Brayden continued to look at the pieces on the board for
a few moments before slowly looking up to meet Walker’s
eyes. “He didn’t kill our father,” Brayden informed the man in place of an answer.
Walker raised an eyebrow. “No one’s accused him of
murder, Mr. Bainbridge.”
“But you want to,” Brayden said with certainty. He
couldn’t help but smile slightly. “You just don’t have the
evidence to do it.”
“You think we should?” Walker asked evenly.
Brayden exhaled slowly and relaxed back into his
couch. “I think my father killed himself,” he finally decided.
“I think, eventually, you’ll know that too. And I think you should leave now. If word’s going to get around that I’m
being interrogated, I’d rather be able to tell the club’s
members about gray concrete walls and hard metal chairs.”
Walker smiled slowly. “That can be arranged,” he
promised as he stood. “I’ll show myself out,” he said as he turned away.
Brayden watched him leave with narrowed eyes. His
heart was racing and he felt slightly lightheaded. He wasn’t cut out for this kind of thing.
“NEXT case we get, you get to be the asshole,” Sam Walker
grumbled to his partner as they sat at their desks and ate
their cold lunches.
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“But you’re so good at it,” Ray Morgan protested in
genuine distress.
Sam grumbled as he leafed through the files on his
desk. They had hit a block in the road and they were now
spinning their wheels in frustration. Addison Satterwight
was their most likely suspect, but they were having all kinds of trouble making a motive stick. They didn’t technically
need a motive, but since they had absolutely no solid
evidence, they needed something in order to go on with the investigation.
“We know this kid killed his dad,” Morgan stated in
annoyance, obviously thinking along the same lines as Sam.
“We just don’t have anything on him. We can bring him in on the drug possession charge,” he suggested as he rested his
head against his hand and stared down at his notes. “Hold
him ’til he starts detoxing, then lean on him.”
“That charge’d never hold up long enough to even book
him,” Sam sighed.
“So we go back to the crime itself,” Morgan suggested in
frustration.
“We’ve backtracked the night of the murder,” Sam
responded as he pointed up at the whiteboard they had
commandeered from a protesting lab tech the day before.
“There was a party at the club. Reggie missed his nightly
bourbon but was supplied instead with what he thought was
a boat drink of some sort. It turned out to be nothing more than pineapple juice, maraschino cherries, and antifreeze,”
he rattled off with a frown.
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“And the waiter who served it to him says it was sitting
on a tray by itself with a placard with Bainbridge’s name on it, waiting to be picked up and served,” Morgan huffed.
“Word from all the staff is the old man was picky and his
food and drinks were served that way a lot at parties, so it wasn’t all that abnormal.”
“Pretty ballsy of the killer,” Sam murmured in
something close to admiration. “And damn stupid of Reggie
to have his food labeled if he was as paranoid as he seemed to be.”
“Everyone was so scared of him, no one would touch
something with his name on it,” Morgan observed.
“Obviously someone did,” Sam pointed out wryly.
“Don’t be an asshole,” Morgan grunted at him.
“I’m good at it, remember?” Sam said with a smirk.
“Shut up. Keep going,” Morgan ordered as he opened his
bag of chips.
“Scared of him or not, it was the perfect way for them to
get the shit into him,” Sam argued. “If what Grace said was true about Reggie not trusting his kids, then why would he
make it that easy for them?”
“He should have known that. It’s almost like he wanted
someone to attempt it,” Morgan agreed thoughtfully.
“Are we sure the kid brother isn’t right and the old man
didn’t just off himself?” Sam asked dubiously. His interviews with Addison and Brayden had left him disturbed for more
than one reason. He was beginning to think the killer was
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playing a game with them, just like Addison and Brayden’s
chess boards. If Addison was the one playing with them,
then they needed to up their game, because the kid was
good.
Morgan was shaking his head. “Bainbridge left specific
instructions to have the autopsy performed, no matter how
he died,” he said. “And every person we’ve talked to has said that he was hyper-vigilant about his security and his health.
This was a man who enjoyed living and wanted to keep doing
it for a long time. I’d say he knew someone would off him
eventually and didn’t want them to get away with it,” Morgan mumbled.
Sam sat with his head bowed, staring at the page in
front of him for a long time, thinking about the man who had died and everything people had told them about him. “Do
you think it even remotely possible that he found out he was dying somehow, like… cancer or something?” he posed in a
soft, hesitant voice. “And as his last act of revenge he
decided to set up his own sons for his murder?” he asked as he raised his eyes and looked at his partner over their joined desks.
Morgan stared at him unblinking, his sandwich held
forgotten in his hand. “No,” he finally answered flatly. “You been watching too much TV,” he added with a point of his
finger.
Sam smiled wanly and nodded, looking back down at
his notes as his frown returned. All the same, he reached for the autopsy report again. He scanned it quickly, looking for any mention of a lingering illness or something that
indicated the man might have been sick. There was nothing.
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He’d practically been in perfect health, except for the fact that he was dead.
“Find any tumors?” Morgan asked wryly.
“No,” Sam muttered. He tossed the report on his desk
and looked around for something else, trying to spark an
idea. “Where was the tray sitting again?” he asked with a
sigh as he reached for the floor plan of the club.
Morgan reached for his book of notes and began paging
through them. He had interviewed the waiters while Sam
had been off dealing with the sons. “The area where the
courtesy desk usually is was made into a serving bar that