“Were Carmelina and your brother . . . involved?” Maybe Laura wasn’t the only one stepping out.
“How you pry, Miss Truitt.” A tight grimace. “I suppose it’s what you lawyers get paid to do. How would I know what Vincent was up to?” Her voice drops. “Let’s just say such conduct would not be against his principles—or his custom.”
“Let me ask you frankly, just between you and me: Do you think your brother murdered Laura?”
“Of course,” she says. “Who else would have done it?” She shakes her head grimly.
How can she be so sure? I wonder. “Perhaps it was her ex-lover, the architect,” I offer.
“That milquetoast?” Her laugh is derisive. “No, it was Vincent. In his mind, Laura had betrayed him. He couldn’t live with that.”
“But why now? I mean, the affair was over. According to Vincent, they were reconciled, hoping for a child.”
Her hands grip the arms of her chair for a moment, then unclench. “Maybe she told him something new, something that infuriated him. For all his hollow core, he’s capable of considerable rage, my brother.”
Her words quash any hope she might be useful at the trial. Raquella is determined to sink him.
“This interview is at an end, Miss Truitt.”
“Let me at least take the cups to the kitchen,” I say. She waves me down, but I already have our cups on the tray with the teapot. “No trouble.”
I pass through a corridor in the direction from which Angela appeared, find the kitchen—a spotless, modern affair—and park the tray on the granite counter. I risk a quick look around. There’s not much to see beyond the usual kitchen things—appliances, a brass bar cart—except, in the corner, a niche with an elevator. I cross to it. One direction. Up. So the apartment is not as separate from the house as Raquella pretends. Maybe Laura designed it so she could come down to visit Raquella whenever she pleased. Or so that Raquella could go up. Or someone else.
Raquella has wheeled in after me. “You may take your leave, Miss Truitt.”
She swivels, and I follow her back to the living room.
“One more thing,” I say, remembering what Vincent said about Laura. She took my sister, Raquella—in a wheelchair and beset by demons—and gave her a reason to live. “The picture I’m getting is this, Miss Trussardi. You were bitter and depressed, confined to a wheelchair, cut out of the family business, and ignored by your brother. Then Laura comes along and everything changes. She picks you up and gives you a reason to live. Makes a place for you in her life, in her house. You say the two of you were incredibly close. And yet you can’t tell me what was happening between her and Vincent, what was going on in her mind or in her life? Something doesn’t add up.”
The wheelchair takes a sudden lurch toward me: I jump out of the way. “Get out. Now,” Raquella rasps. Anger? Pride? Or maybe fear? But why?
“Thank you, Miss Trussardi,” I say, and find the door.
At the corner of the walkway, I turn. Raquella sits in the sun, face of stone. I give her a smile. You can’t scare me. Off this case or anything else.
Her chair whirls and she disappears behind the Botero.
ACT
TWO
CHAPTER 15
BOXES FOR YOU,” DEBBIE SAYS, motioning to a tall stack of cardboard containers beside her console. Her tone sends the real message—Get them out of my space ASAP. I check the label on the top carton as I move toward my office. OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, and then in smaller print, R. V. TRUSSARDI. Impressive. As per our conversation Friday, Cy isn’t wasting any time giving disclosure. Must have had Emily working all weekend. No doubt this is just the start. Supplementary megabytes will shortly flood our electronic networks.
It’s three thirty on a sunny Tuesday. I’ve had a trying day in court wrangling over whether the police need a warrant to ransack the contents of my client’s computer on a hunt for child pornography. A man’s computer is his castle was my line. In pornography cases, it always seems to be a man. Between the inept posturing of the junior counsel for the attorney general and the technologically challenged judge—What’s an emoji? he’d asked—today felt long.
“Bring them in,” I tell Debbie.
“Sure,” she replies without lifting her fingers from her keyboard. “We need a gopher around here. I haven’t got time to do everything.”
“Thanks.” I pick up the top box, heft it under my arm, make a mental note to figure out how I can work a gopher into my office budget and how I can keep that person occupied for the remainder of the day after completing Debbie’s requests. I dump the box in the corner of my office on the table that occupies a quirky alcove the architect forgot to eliminate. I pass Debbie on my way back for the second box; she drops her load on the table with an emphatic thump. When all the boxes are in, I buzz Alicia.
She arrives promptly, a bright smile pasted on her face. “We need to go through all these boxes and number the documents.”
I watch her face fall. It’s routine work. Jeff and I will need to peruse each document, looking for discrepancies, clues, but first everything needs to be catalogued. I push one of the boxes in Alicia’s direction. “Start with the police reports. And I’ll look at the transcripts of the police interview with Trussardi.”
Alicia stares at the box. “We’ll be here until midnight.”
“Yeah, I know. Tedious. Plus they put some secret compound in them that destroys brain cells.” She gives me a wide-eyed look and I smile. “Known fact.”
Alicia settles in as I pull the other box of transcripts over to my desk. I slit my paper knife through the tape, and the box opens with a sigh. I’m about to find out what’s been eating us since the first day of this case—what did Vincent Trussardi tell the police in the interview Joseph Quentin was naïve enough to let happen?
I reach for the top file. Bingo. The date is there, the time. VINCENT TRUSSARDI, INTERVIEW, the label reads.
The sheaf of paper inside is thick—page after page of double-spaced type. I feel my stomach turn. So much paper, so many chances to let slip what should be kept secret.
I scan, glossing over the trivial and searching for the vital. Corporal Beatty, an experienced detective, was by turns warm and comforting, probing and accusing. The whipsaw worked, like it always does, and before long, even stoic Vincent Trussardi was spilling out his anguish and his humiliation over the affair with the architect.
Beatty picked up on the revelation. “You were angry, weren’t you, Mr. Trussardi? I mean you had a right to be angry—angry with Trevor Shore, angry with your wife.”
Jump in, I mentally scream to the young lawyer Quentin sent along to hold Trussardi’s hand. But he didn’t.
“Clearly, it was difficult for me,” Vincent Trussardi said. “But I loved my wife. It was my fault—I was not the husband that I should have been. So was I angry? Yes, but mainly at myself.”
Nice move, blaming the affair on his failings as a husband. Still, it’s not good. He’s blabbed about an affair that might otherwise have remained hidden and given the police, who already have the means, the motive they need to complete the picture—jealous husband enraged over his wife’s infidelity. I curse Joseph Quentin again. Then I remember Shore’s grief-stricken face at the funeral. The affair may work in our favor, if we can paint the jilted architect as the killer.
I put the file down. Later I will go through it line by line. I pull out the folder with Carmelina’s interview—Jeff’s going to interview her tomorrow, so he needs to read it first. A glance tells me that Officer Denton is an experienced interrogator. He had Carmelina sized up from page one—simple country girl who needs tender loving care.
“When did you come to Canada, Carmelina? It must be lonely sometimes. It’s so lovely in Calabria—do you miss it?” he asked, edging into what he really wanted to discuss: Vincent and Laura’s marriage. “Did the Trussardis treat you well?”
Soon enough, Carmelina was rambling on. “I loved Mrs. Trussardi. She was always so g
ood to me. Mr. Trussardi, too, so considerate. They were such a lovely couple. Fighting? Never. Of course, I didn’t see a lot—I was usually in the kitchen and went to my suite after dinner. So terrible what happened. It was such a shock—to come home and find Madam murdered.”
At this point Carmelina appeared to break down sobbing, and Denton suggested a break. “I know this is hard.”
Her best friend, her confidant. Beware, Carmelina. When they resumed, Denton, as expected, dug down for the dirt.
“Did you ever see anyone suspicious at the house? Do you have any idea who could have done this? Surely you must have seen Mr. and Mrs. Trussardi fighting? Only normal in a marriage.”
Carmelina denied it. “No, no, never.”
Brava, I think. Maybe I’ve underestimated you.
Denton zeroed in on her relationship to Mr. Trussardi. “Did you talk?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Long discussions?”
“Yes, sometimes in Italian. He liked to talk with me about life in Calabria.”
“Were you fond of him, Carmelina?”
“Yes, of course, such a fine man.”
“Very fond?”
“What do you mean? No, no, no.” Sobs, the transcript says in parentheses. Another break. Evidently Carmelina persisted in her tears—according to the time stamps, fifteen minutes later, Officer Denton concluded the interview.
Carmelina’s strong, on our side, and wilier than I guessed. I set the file aside and look back to Alicia. “Anything interesting?”
Engrossed in her page, marker slashing across the lines, Alicia answers without looking up. “A motel manager named Emond Gates seems to think he saw Trevor Shore and someone who looked like Laura Trussardi the afternoon before the murder.”
My heart plummets. “I see it now. Cy’s going to say Trussardi learned that his wife and Trevor Shore met for a secret sexual rendezvous the day before the murder, imply that they had been meeting all along and that in his disappointment and rage, Vincent Trussardi killed the woman who had betrayed him.” I survey the boxes. “Something’s missing.”
Alicia rechecks her box. “Just the pathologists’ reports in here.”
“Who’s the pathologist?”
Alicia riffles the pages. “A Dr. Christine Moyer.”
“A friend. Not that it will help. Anything else?”
“That’s it.”
Then it hits me. “Trevor Shore,” I say. “That’s what’s missing. He was Laura’s lover, and the police haven’t interviewed him yet? His transcript should be here with the other major players.”
Alicia looks puzzled. “If they’ve talked to him, they’ve kept it secret.”
CHAPTER 16
TWO DAYS LATER, JEFF, ALICIA, and I convene a meeting to take stock. My boardroom has never felt so small. Cy’s boxes line the east wall, lids askew, papers spewing in disorderly array. A number of the more critical police reports and photographs have earned a place of privilege at the center of the long table. By now, we’ve become inured to the graphic story they tell, and no one notices that Laura Trussardi’s bruised breast peers out from under the banal report of a telephone interception.
I sit on one side of the table, absently thumbing the pathologist’s report I have just picked up. The cause of Laura Trussardi’s death—a bullet from the base of the neck to the temple—is not in doubt, but the fine print may yield tidbits that can help, like whether my client was telling the truth when he said she was pregnant.
Richard Beauvais comes through the open door and slides into the empty chair beside Alicia. “Bonjour, tout le monde.”
Richard—accent on the last syllable, no “d”—hails from Montreal. His face is handsome in the classic French-Canadian way—full lips, deep brown eyes—but not so striking you’d look more than twice, an asset in his line of business. He hears more than he says. When he listens, he has a way of tucking in his chin and rocking forward, which gives you the impression he is hanging on every word. As he is.
“What do you have on Trevor Shore?” I ask.
Richard runs a hand through his mop of wavy brown hair. “Short version or long?”
“Short, for now.”
“Trevor is every designer’s go-to boy. He’s featured in glossy house magazines. Has a string of awards for innovative Pacific Rim architecture. Originality, artistic sensibility, that’s his bag. Hasn’t hit the really big time yet.”
“Inference: creative genius,” says Jeff.
“Creative yes, businessman no. He has a series of unsuccessful partnerships behind him.”
“Inference: loner.”
“What about his personal life?” I probe.
“Married briefly, long ago. A few affairs, no children.” He shoots Jeff a look. “Inference: either can’t commit or can’t get along.”
“Violent? Any brushes with the law?” I query.
“A couple of traffic tickets. Apparently likes to drive fast.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Let’s cut to the chase then. Where is he?”
Richard spreads his hands. “No idea. I went to this little office on the sixth floor of a Homer Street refit. His name’s on the door, along with a couple of other artist types, but the girl at the desk says she has no idea where he is. She guessed that he was taking a break. Apparently, he does that from time to time, disappears between projects to”—air quotes—“ ‘travel and recharge.’ I did a preliminary check of airline rosters—no record of him flying out.”
“Vanished from the face of the earth.”
“So it seems.”
“Maybe we can make something of that,” Alicia chimes in. “Trevor Shore disappears after the murder. Looks suspicious. You might just translate that into reasonable doubt. He had motive and opportunity.”
“What do you mean, opportunity?” Jeff asks.
“He designed the house, chances are he knew how to get in, how to get the gun,” replies Alicia.
“Makes sense,” I say. “With luck, we can twist the disappearance of Trevor Shore into an inference of guilt.” I catch Jeff’s unconvinced grimace. “What about Trussardi’s alibi?”
“I’ve got my team checking out who ate at the yacht club that morning, who logged boats out, who might have seen him,” Richard answers. “Assuming he was there. So far we’ve got him signing his boat out, but nothing on when it came in. Not great.”
“We need a witness.” Jeff leans back to toss a crumpled photocopy in the garbage. “Preferably someone who remembers seeing him late in the afternoon when the murder was being committed.”
“Nice day, that Sunday,” I muse. “Must have been lots of people around the yacht club.”
“Most of them potted,” inserts Jeff, ever the realist.
“Trussardi says there was a boy who used to hang around the house,” I say. “Anything on him?”
Richard scrolls down his iPad, squints as he finds his note. “The gardener says he found a boy in the bushes at the edge of the garden a couple of times, sometime in February or March. Skinny guy, dirty blond hair, dirty clothes. Maybe eighteen or nineteen. Every time the gardener asked him what he was doing there, the boy would just run away. Finally, the gardener waggled his orange shears in his face and told him to get lost and never come back. Seems to have worked. Never saw the kid again.”
“Did Carmelina see him?”
“She says Laura brought a boy back for supper one night, but he ran away. Same description as the gardener’s. But Carmelina never saw anyone in the garden.” Richard lets out a sigh. “No one knows the kid’s name. There’s no way to find him.”
“What else do you have, Richard?”
“Laura. I need to track her activities in the days, weeks, and months before her death.”
Alicia reaches for a pile of papers, pulls one out. “Disclosure documents say a blond woman meeting Laura’s description rendezvoused with the architect Trevor Shore at a North Van hotel the day before the murd
er.” She holds the paper up. “The Stay-A-While Motel.”
“Maybe the affair wasn’t over,” I offer.
“Maybe Trussardi’s lying about that, too,” counters Jeff.
Richard ignores us. “I need to talk to her acquaintances, the ladies she lunched with, the women she met on her causes. Try to figure out what was going on with the street boy in her garden. I need to see what she was doing online, too. Her Facebook page looks innocuous, but I’ll trace every contact and check them all out. And we need to find her cell phone. Maybe it will tell us if the lady at the motel was really her.”
“Cops took it,” I say. “They’re getting a warrant to search the contents.”
Richard raises his brow. “A warrant?”
“Yeah, Supreme Court just ruled you can’t download from phones without a warrant. A woman’s phone is private, even if she’s dead. Don’t worry—they’ll get the warrant. Soon we’ll get a transcript of all her calls for the past year or so.” I look in Alicia’s direction. “More scintillating reading, I’m afraid.”
Richard smiles for the first time this morning. “If we’re lucky, it will tell us whether she went to that motel.”
“The chief coroner’s a friend,” I say, shifting gears. “I think I’ll talk to her.”
Richard eyes me skeptically. He knows what I’m thinking—more specificity on the pregnancy our client asserts, and if so, who the father is. Dangerous, if it turns out not to be our client.
I take a deep breath. “Okay, let’s pull this together. What have we got?”
Jeff throws down his pencil. “Nothing, nada, rien. No Trevor Shore. No alibi backup. No kid. Just our crazy client, deep in denial. I can see it now. We put him on the stand. ‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my name is Vincent Trussardi and I’m innocent. My bed, my gun, my cheating wife. But trust me, I didn’t do it. Really.’ ”
“It’s early days, Jeff. We’ll keep looking. Alicia’s right, Trevor Shore is still a possibility. And the alibi may yet pan out. Maybe we can find someone who saw him that afternoon. We have to chase down every alternate possibility—Trevor Shore, the drugged-up kid—all we need is a reasonable doubt.”
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