by L. T. Vargus
She collapsed into her new chair, which Paige had finished assembling. She had to admit, it was far more comfortable to the old one.
Still, she hadn’t slept well the night before. The grisly scene of Gloria’s death had been enough of a nightmare when she was wide awake. In sleep, it only got worse.
Pulling her notes out, Charlie began the task of running down alibis for the Carmichael clan. She made a couple of calls, first confirming Marjory’s story with her friend, Shay Odell, then reaffirming that Jude had been with the radio station manager as he’d reported. That ruled out both siblings who had shaky alibis for the time of Dutch’s death, which was a little disappointing.
She looked at the rest of the names on her list. Wesley, Brandon, and Dara didn’t have airtight alibis for Gloria’s death, but they did for Dutch’s. And even though Charlie was certain the murders were related, one of the first things Frank had taught her about investigative work was to be thorough.
One of Brandon’s friends confirmed that they’d had plans, but Wesley’s story would be tougher to nail down. Charlie might be able to canvass his neighbors and find someone who had seen him go out in his kayak. She’d leave that for later.
Dara didn’t have the phone number of the neighbor she thought she’d passed on her way to the estate, but their information was easy enough to find online.
A woman’s voice answered.
“Lynette Tamblin?” Charlie guessed.
“Yes?”
“I’m an investigator working with your neighbors, the Carmichaels. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”
“Of course. Is this about what happened to Dutch? What a horrible thing.”
“It’s related, but indirectly. Did you happen to see anyone over there at the house yesterday evening?”
“Me? No.”
“Not on the street? You didn’t drive past one of them and wave? It would have been around five o’clock.”
“Oh! You know my husband had to run into town around that time because we were out of dog food. Let me ask him,” she said. “Hold on, I’ll put you on speakerphone.”
There was a click and then the woman’s shrill voice.
“Ronald.”
When no answer came, she called again, this time louder.
“Ronald!”
“Eh?”
“Did you wave at one of the neighbors yesterday?”
“Did I wave at the who-what?”
“There’s a private investigator on the phone, and she’d like to know if you waved at someone on our street yesterday evening.”
“A private investigator? Sounds like a scam to me.”
“Ronald, I don’t know how a woman asking whether or not you waved to one of Dutch Carmichael’s kids on the street can possibly be a scam.”
“One of the Carmichael kids, you say?” He grumbled something Charlie couldn’t hear.
“Sir,” Charlie spoke up, “do you remember passing anyone in your car yesterday around five?”
“I guess I remember someone driving by. Sure.”
“And did you see who it was? Or what kind of car?”
“Nah. I was fiddling with my seat. Someone’s always messing with the settings. Tipping the seat too far upright.”
“Someone?” Lynette interrupted. “I’m the only other person who drives that car, and I’m not sure what else I’m supposed to do. I can’t reach the pedals if I leave the seat as it is.”
“So you scoot it forward and don’t mess with the back at all!” Ronald bellowed.
“I can’t sit like that!” Lynette shrieked back.
Their shouting was blowing out the mic on the speakerphone. Charlie thought she’d gotten about as much useful information from them as she was going to get, which wasn’t much. Charlie supposed Dara had correctly identified the car as belonging to the Tamblins. That counted for something, didn’t it?
“Thank you for your time,” she muttered into the phone. She hung up with the Tamblins still screaming at each other about seat settings.
That was probably as good as it would get for Dara’s alibi.
Charlie noticed for the first time that the three siblings who had voted to keep her on were the ones who didn’t have a solid alibi for Gloria’s murder, while the two who did—Marjory and Jude—had been quite against her continuing the investigation.
“What do you think it means?” Allie asked.
“Maybe nothing.”
“So now what?”
Charlie pondered this for a moment and then said, “Coffee.”
“That’s your answer to everything.”
“It’s an important part of the job. That’s what Uncle Frank told me when I asked him what the trick was to being a good P.I.” Charlie got to her feet and headed for the coffee machine in the back room. “He said, ‘It’s mostly patience and perseverance, but if you find yourself running low on either of those, make up for it with some coffee.’”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Armed with a fresh cup of coffee, Charlie returned to her desk. She took a sip of the near-scalding liquid and stared down at the names scribbled on her list. All of the Carmichael siblings had a solid alibi for at least one of the murders. But there was still one unchecked name. One person who, as far as Charlie knew, had no alibi for either murder.
Thumbing through her contacts, she found Zoe’s name and tapped out a text.
Did you guys interview Vivien Marley yet?
While she waited for a response, Charlie searched for the elusive Ms. Marley’s address online and jotted it down in her notes. If she couldn’t get Dutch’s mistress to return her calls, then maybe it was time for a house visit.
The front door opened, and Paige bustled in.
“What are you doing here?” Charlie asked. “You’re not scheduled to come in for another hour.”
“I know. It’s just I couldn’t stand to be in my apartment a second longer.” She set a white paper bakery box on Charlie’s desk and took off her jacket. “My roommate and her boyfriend started a band.”
“That bad?”
Paige scrunched her face up.
“I don’t wanna say bad, because that sounds mean. And I do like music. But they do this thing called ‘musique concrète.’ Have you heard of it?”
“No.”
“It’s some kind of experimental thing. Lots of weird noises. They record just random sounds, like the toilet flushing, and her boyfriend uses his computer to distort it. Like he’ll speed the sound up so it sounds like something completely different. And then my roommate, she does all this sort of avant-garde singing over it. Sometimes it’s sort of like yodeling and other times it’s more like that ASMR whispering stuff.”
“They got any bangers?” Charlie asked.
“Well, I don’t get it, personally,” Paige admitted. “But I’m glad she’s got a passion for something. Anyway, I cleaned our place top to bottom this morning and baked a little, trying to distract myself from everything that happened yesterday, I guess. But I kind of ran out of stuff to do, and then they showed up with all their music gear. I knew I’d go crazy if I had to listen to that right now.”
Charlie nodded with understanding and then pointed at the white bakery box.
“What’s in there?”
“Cupcakes,” Paige said. “Help yourself.”
Charlie lifted the lid and admired the rows of perfectly formed confections. Each one had a flawless swirl of icing on top with a dusting of chopped nuts.
Charlie removed one of the cupcakes and took a bite. The cake was fluffy, and the frosting had a touch of tang from the cream cheese. The chopped nuts on top rounded out the whole experience by adding just a bit of crunch. Delicious.
“Oh my God,” Charlie said, talking with her mouth full.
“You like it?” Paige asked hopefully.
“I want to eat only these for the rest of my life. I require no other sustenance.”
Paige clapped her hands, obviously pleased by the response.
“I think the raspberry filling needs work. The recipe I used called for store-bought jam, but I think it’s too sweet when it should be tart. I’m going to try making my own next time from scratch.”
“Well, you’re a baking wizard as far as I’m concerned.” Charlie polished off the first cupcake and reached for a second. “I can’t even make muffins from a box mix.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Paige said.
“It is,” Charlie insisted. “One time I tried, and they turned green.”
Paige laughed.
“That just means you overmixed the berries. I’m sure they still tasted good.”
“Nope. They were weird and rubbery.”
“That’s also from overmixing,” Paige said, going on to explain the properties of flour and gluten and the effect of being too zealous with the whisk.
After her third cupcake, Charlie pushed the box across the desk.
“Please hide these from me or I’ll just keep eating until the box is empty.”
“I know the feeling,” Paige said, tucking the lid of the box closed. “I’ve had five already.”
Paige removed the pastries from the desk and disappeared into the back room. Charlie rolled her head from side to side, trying to loosen the soreness in her neck. Her whole upper back and shoulders felt tight today. She wondered if it could be from performing CPR. Was that a thing?
Pens and paperclips rattled as she slid open one of the drawers on her desk, searching for the bottle of ibuprofen she kept inside. The motion of shaking out two of the brown tablets brought on the realization that she hadn’t called her mother this morning.
“Shit,” she muttered, dry-swallowing the pills and grabbing for her phone.
“Hey Mom. It’s me,” Charlie said when Nancy finally picked up.
“Was that you on the roof just now?”
Charlie frowned.
“Was I… what? I’m at work, Mom.”
“I heard noises.”
Charlie’s heart started to race. Not this. Not now. She couldn’t deal with one of her mother’s paranoid episodes along with everything else. Then she remembered Elaine mentioning birds nesting on the house, and she relaxed.
“It’s birds, Mom. Elaine said there are some robins nesting in the eaves.”
“Well they’re making an awful racket up there. Scrabbling and scratching. I wish someone would do something about it. It’s driving me crazy.”
By someone, she meant Charlie, of course. But she couldn’t just ask. She couldn’t be direct and say, “Charlie, dear, could you get the nest out of the eaves?”
No, she had to be passive-aggressive about it.
Charlie pinched the bridge of her nose and reminded herself it wasn’t worth getting dragged into an argument over a bird’s nest.
“I’ll take a look next time I’m there,” she said, finally. “The reason I called is that I wanted to make sure you took your pills this morning.”
“What pills?”
Her heart set off again, faster this time.
“Your medication, Mom.” It was a struggle to keep the panic out of her voice. “The Lexapro and risperidone.”
There was a long pause, and then Nancy said, “I was kidding. I already took them, of course. I’m a grown woman, you know.”
Charlie got no sense of calm this time. She only felt exhausted. She needed to get off the phone before her mother gave her a heart attack.
“OK, Mom. I’ll see you later.”
“When?”
Charlie sighed.
“I’m not sure. I have some things to take care of at work first.”
“Well, I need bread,” Nancy said. “And creamer.”
“I can pick those up before I come.”
“Make sure you get the Coffee-mate and not the generic brand. They try to tell you it’s the same, but I know the difference. I like French vanilla best, but hazelnut is OK if that’s all they have.”
“Alright. I have to go now.”
Charlie hung up. Lifted her coffee cup. Empty. She half-remembered finishing it off between her second and third cupcake.
Resisting the urge to call out to Paige for a refill—she was a secretary, not a servant—Charlie pushed her chair back and stood.
She paused to stretch her back and shoulders again. Something popped in her neck. It sounded bad but felt pretty good.
A blip came from her phone, and Charlie snatched it up. Zoe texting back, she hoped.
Negative on the Marley interview. Pretty sure she’s dodging us. Just like you said she was.
Charlie gritted her teeth. When it came to Dutch’s murder, Gloria had suspected Vivien, the mistress, above everyone else. And now she was dodging everyone looking to dig into Dutch’s life? Awfully suspicious. Why duck everyone’s calls unless she had something to hide?
That sealed it then. Charlie was going to talk to Vivien Marley whether the old lady liked it or not.
But first, coffee.
And maybe one more cupcake.
TWENTY-NINE
Vivien Marley lived in an affluent neighborhood on the southeast side of Salem Island. Bridgefork Heights, or Richfuck Heights as Allie called it, formed a six-block area along the beach—manicured landscaping and spotless mansions loaded with every luxury one could imagine. Wine cellars. Marble floors. The occasional indoor swimming pool. The people here may not be as wealthy as the Carmichaels, but they were close—all firmly entrenched in the top one percent, Charlie knew.
Charlie drove that way, watching the houses along the side of the road get bigger and nicer as she closed in on Vivien’s address. The front yards, too, grew larger. While a few were so bold as to showcase a fountain or statue, most were flecked with decorative trees, tufts of exotic grass, various beds of flowers, ferns, and ivies. A few kept it simpler, with massive expanses of green grass that stretched out, put some distance between the homes and the street. In a couple of cases a whole football field’s worth of sod stood between the asphalt and the front columns of the house.
“I know I’m harping at this point, but just imagine squandering your riches on something like that,” Allie said. “Paying someone to mow the vacant field of grass in front of your house. It’s pathological.”
As Charlie pulled up to a stop sign, she saw the wrought-iron gates rising up to fill the roadway before her. She double-checked the address on her phone. Glanced over to verify the street name. Yep. This was Vivien’s street alright.
She craned her neck to take in the full view. The arched barrier blocking the way in was set between brick columns. At the highest point, it stood around twelve feet tall, Charlie figured. A small booth huddled between the lanes in and out, the shape of a man in a khaki-colored uniform faintly visible within.
Charlie clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. Apparently part of Bridgefork Heights was gated, and Vivien lived behind the gate. That was not ideal.
She realized she’d been idling at the stop sign for a good forty-five seconds and took a right. She went down a full block before she circled back to park within viewing distance of the gate. Better to avoid the notice of the rent-a-cop in the security booth if she could. Most weren’t too meticulous, she knew, but it was always best to take precautions when one could.
Charlie fished a hand into her glovebox. Pulled out the small pair of binoculars. Peered through the broad glass front of the building.
The security guard’s head didn’t swivel her way. It didn’t move much at all. Instead, it stayed locked on the phone in his hands. Every few seconds, the fingers of his right hand detached from the phone, formed a fist, and punched the air in celebration.
“Must be watching sports,” Charlie said.
She was talking to herself more than anything, but Allie never missed an opportunity to offer her own insight.
“Or porn.”
“Why would he celebrate while watching porn?”
“Boobs,” Allie said, as if it were obvious.
&nb
sp; Charlie shook her head.
“Regardless, the fact that he’s distracted could be a help.”
Charlie started the car and eased it alongside the booth. She rolled ahead slowly, as though any sudden movement might spook the attendant.
As she got close, the glare tinting the glass waned and parted, revealing the security guard beyond the windowpane. He was younger than she’d imagined. Toothy. Kind of cute in a gangly way.
His eyes flitted over to her. He smiled.
“Good afternoon, ma’am,” he said. “How can I help you?”
“I’m here to see my aunt. Vivien Marley, 108 Strickland Avenue.”
“Okey-doke,” he said.
Charlie held back a giddy chuckle at how simple that had been. What was the point of having a guarded entryway if they let people in that easily?
Then she saw the guard eyeballing a clipboard.
“I don’t see any guests for number 108 on the list today,” he said, his gaze swinging up to meet hers.
“Oh, that’s because she doesn’t know I’m coming,” Charlie said, thinking fast. “It’s kind of a surprise visit.”
He smiled again.
“That’s sweet of you. Your aunt is a lucky lady.” He leaned across the booth, and Charlie thought for sure he was about to buzz her through the gate. Instead, he lifted a phone into view. “Give me a minute, and I’ll call up to the house real quick.”
“Wait!” Charlie said, and the guard froze with a finger outstretched over the dial pad.
Her mind went blank. She had no idea what she was going to say. She just didn’t want him calling Vivien Marley and blowing her cover.
“Time to bust out that feminine charm,” Allie whispered.
“What?”
“Flirt with him, dingus.”
Charlie plastered a World’s Sweetest Niece smile on her face.
“I’m Charlotte, by the way,” she said, batting her eyelashes. “I didn’t catch your name.”