Secrets, Lies & Homicide

by Patricia Dusenbury

  Paul's mouth twitched into a smile as he imagined Laura's outrage when she learned, as she inevitably would, of Geneviève's spectacular swindle.

  The sun was moving lower, lengthening shadows swallowed the flowerbeds, and darkness dimmed the garden's colors but heightened the fragrances. Paul inhaled the earthy sweetness of early heirloom roses. His housekeeper had left a cold supper in the refrigerator, but he wasn't ready to abandon the terrace. He felt sorry for those who either could not or did not experience pleasure in the world's beauty or a fine wine, who didn't know the joys of moderation and pursued only carnal pleasures.

  Sex was the rock upon which most of his clients foundered, and today those clients included childhood friends now well into middle age. On the surface their lives sailed on smooth water, but the lawyer who cleaned up messy situations knew better. He knew too well the couples bound to each other by habit, the loveless unions where passion was a distant memory, the armed truce negotiated for the sake of the children, and the cold war between two adulterers.

  From one generation to the next, there was no end to human folly. Geneviève's child had become a troubled man, following in his mother's promiscuous footsteps. Tony's affair with Claire Marshall would end badly. It was merely a matter of time.

  Paul looked inward, expecting satisfaction at the careful structure of his life, and received an unexpected jolt. His eye became sharper and his gaze hardened. He saw himself cataloging his friends' unhappy marriages like a miser counting gold coins, relishing each enumeration, ending Tony and Claire's relationship when it had barely begun.

  "No," he spoke aloud. He took no pleasure in the sorrow of others. He helped them cope; he wished them well. He was detached from their drama; he didn't feed off it.

  He reached to pour himself another glass of wine, and his hand hit the side of the bottle. It started to tilt. He grabbed for it and missed, knocking his glass onto the tile floor, where it shattered. Shards of Baccarat crystal sparkled in a puddle of fine Chablis.

  Paul felt a despondency far deeper than this trifling accident deserved. He could clean up this mess, buy another glass and pour more wine, but no one could put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Geneviève's revenge had ultimately cost her life, and the repercussions were far from over. Tante Geneviève. He would have saved her if he could, but all he could do now was pick up the pieces.

  He called his father and asked him to meet for lunch tomorrow.

  CHAPTER 37

  The run up to Valentine's Day had produced a weekend rife with domestic violence, including several fatalities. The Monday morning staff meeting ran on and on as each new homicide was summarized and added to someone's caseload. Once that was done, lead investigators recapped progress on ongoing cases and outlined next steps. The Burke/Burton case was the most complicated, but Bea's summary was a study in brevity.

  Because Vernon had ordered silence regarding specifics of the DNA results, she reported only that it had eliminated their prime suspect and suggested two other possibles, although more might surface. The investigation of the victim's finances remained a work in progress. In response to a skeptical question, she described the two approaches as complementary. Mike knew that neither approach was paying off yet.

  Bea spent the morning chasing the money trail. They met for lunch, and he asked her to bring him up to date.

  "That land deal Judy Harmon told us about hasn't panned out yet. We don't know enough to find the land in question, but the sugar daddy aspect might. Geneviève's checking account shows quarterly deposits from a brokerage account, a total of sixty thousand last year. The bank officer I talked to estimated it would take at least a million dollars to generate that kind of income."

  "When did the payments begin?"

  "The bank pulled up records for the last seven years. If we want to go further back, they'll have to dig into their archives."

  The waiter brought their lunches, salad with grilled chicken for him and the bacon cheeseburger platter for Bea. He regarded her plate with envy. He was too old to take up basketball, her favored exercise. He could ratchet up his jogging, start running marathons or go in for triathlons. Triathlons would be better, more variety.

  "I'm starved." She dove in.

  "Could her lawyer tell you anything about the source?" He watched juice drip from Bea's cheeseburger. Life wasn't fair.

  "Never got a chance to ask him." She wiped her fingers on her napkin. "That's the second red flag. We talked last Wednesday. I explained the situation and asked about Tony's visit. He said they'd discussed Geneviève's estate. He'd be happy to go into more detail, but he was on his way out the door and wouldn't be in the office the rest of the week. We scheduled a phone interview for eleven this morning."

  Mike chewed on a piece of grilled boneless skinless chicken breast with the taste and texture of cardboard and waited for her to continue.

  "Now, he's got nothing to say about anything and won't until the will goes through probate, unless I can show him a subpoena." She dipped a french fry in catsup and regarded it thoughtfully. "Someone shut him up."

  "His change of mind might not matter if we can get a name from the brokerage firm, but I'll start the ball rolling on a subpoena." He pushed the half-eaten salad aside. "I'm meeting Paul Gilbert at four. I talked to him yesterday. Our conversation reminded me of your riddle."

  "How's that?"

  "I told him that the DNA analysis showed that the killer was related to Tony but not to Geneviève, and I told him that it cleared Roger. He immediately assumed it cleared any Devereux."

  "He'll never figure it out," she said.

  "Reconvene in my office at five."

  Promptly at five Bea walked into his office with a big grin on her face. She mimed a basketball shot. "Slam dunk. I know where the money came from and I know who the killer is."

  She sat down. "When Tony was born, Roger Devereux gave Geneviève four hundred acres of land, most of it tenant farms, to put in a trust fund. The income went to her, and when she died, the land went to Tony.

  "But listen to this. After a few years, Geneviève kicked out the tenants. No more rental income for the trust; she's leasing pastures to a neighboring cattleman and pocketing the money. A few years later, she sells off most of the land, buys stocks and bonds, and sets up a second trust, this one with terms more to her liking. The name on the brokerage account is hers. But that's just penny ante cheating."

  "I'm not sure it's a slam dunk. Still, nice job tracking the money."

  "Nice job by Claire." She handed him a large envelope. "Talk about a silver platter. These are copies of all the documents, a present from her to us. This is what she was doing up in Greensburg. And five will get you ten it's what stirred up the Devereux family." Her expression became indignant. "Can you believe Geneviève cheated her own son to get money for a bunch of broken-down horses."

  Mike pulled the documents from their envelope and scanned them. "She cheated her lovers, too, which makes our job tougher. Roger Devereux believed he was Tony's father, but so, apparently, did Jim Burke." He relayed Paul Gilbert's theory about multiple sources of support for the same child and enjoyed the growing incredulity on Bea's face. "He gave me the names of five other potential fathers."

  "I want to invest in Lucy the lab tech's DNA analysis company. We'll make Geneviève Burke our poster girl." Bea started to laugh but stopped. "Tony never had a chance, did he?"

  "The lab completed their tests. The bones are Jim Burke's remains."

  "Amanda Pierce said her brother had been involved with Geneviève. I'll talk to her again, ask if he paid Geneviève child support." Bea made quote marks in the air with her fingers, "Everything we've learned and we're back to Laura and Amanda."

  "Or someone else," he said. "Some or all of our five other candidates will have female relatives."

  "I hate to say it, but I'm thinking someone else, because of Iris," Bea said. "She wasn't a threat to Laura or Amanda. If she'd seen either one in the hall, so what? A frequ
ent visitor, a resident, both had perfectly legitimate reasons to be there." She threw up her hands then slumped back down in the chair. "The only person Iris talked about was the man by the elevator, but the killer was a woman. There must have been someone else."

  Bea's line of reasoning made sense, and something about the man by the elevator had been floating at the edge of Mike's consciousness. He retrieved the transcript of Iris's television interview.

  "What are you looking for?" Bea had recognized the document. "I know every word by heart."

  "I found it." He read it to her. "He scrunched his head between his shoulders and turned away like he was trying to hide. The killer didn't want me to see his face."

  "Melodrama." Bea put her hand over her heart and gazed upward, but he saw the pain. She'd taken Iris's murder hard. Experience would teach her not to take crime personally and not to identify with the victim. That, or she'd leave the homicide division.

  "Do it," he said. "Show me what she described."

  Bea lifted her shoulders, tucked her chin to her chest, and rotated her torso away from him. He watched her and knew they'd identified both the man and the killer.

  "That's precisely what Roger Devereux did when we were introduced," he said. "It's how he reacts to strangers."

  "Iris saw Roger standing by the elevators."

  "Which means Laura was nearby." He finished her sentence. "He's too timid to go anywhere alone." How many times had they been told that?

  "Laura must have been inside Geneviève's apartment. She didn't know anyone had noticed Roger until Iris went on television and told the world. That foolish child."

  "We have a plausible scenario." He tapped his fingers on the desk. "Test it, Bea. Play the devil's advocate."

  "My favorite role." She sat up and squared her shoulders. "Opportunity is easy. Laura knew her way around Sunny Gardens. But what about motive? Why, after all these years kill Geneviève, who was careful not to offend the Devereux family. She implied to both Iris and Claire that she knew things she couldn't say, but she went no further. Tony thinks his mother was paid off. What changed?"

  "The discovery of Jim Burke's remains was the trigger. That's not news. Tony guessed most of what had happened and vowed to avenge his father. Geneviève wasn't about to take the fall alone, and she threatened to implicate Roger Devereux, who'd been her accomplice. Laura killed to protect her uncle. There's ample evidence she felt extremely protective toward him."

  "Let's start at the beginning." Bea said. "Jim Burke was murdered fifteen years after Roger and Geneviève divorced, and it was not an amicable divorce. Do you expect me to believe that he remained involved with his ex-wife all that time?"

  "More like thirteen years, but that's a good question," Mike admitted. "However, I have confirmation from Paul Gilbert's father, who was Roger's best friend, that the relationship persisted until around the time of Jim Burke's death."

  "Will he testify?"

  "If necessary." Paul had asked him to do everything in his power to avoid that eventuality. "What else?"

  "How did Laura find out, and so quickly, that her uncle was threatened with exposure? Numerous people witnessed the mother-son argument, and I've interviewed them all. No one heard what either said. If Laura knew, Geneviève or Tony told her."

  "Not Tony. He was drunk and getting drunker." Mike almost laughed at the vision of the elegant and poised Laura Bethea in some bar with an inebriated Tony Burke crying on her shoulder.

  "But Geneviève made no phone calls after she learned that Tony had opened the studio, and the only call she received was from the trainer. She spoke to no one at the cocktail party. After the argument, she returned to her apartment and stayed there alone. The staff was keeping a close eye and would have noticed any visitor. Her next contact was Iris, delivering the morning meds."

  "Geneviève appeared tired but not fearful. Something happened after that." Mike thought a minute, and he had it. "According to one of the waiters, she went to the dining room a little before eight. What if, on the way back, she bumped into Laura and Roger."

  "Are you saying this was pure happenstance?"

  "Nothing suggests premeditation. The victim was strangled with the scarf she was wearing."

  "Okay."

  "So say Geneviève told Laura that Tony had found the bones, and she wasn't going to take all the blame. Laura tries to reason with her. She leaves Roger standing by the elevator and follows Geneviève into her apartment."

  "They argue. Laura loses her temper, grabs Geneviève's scarf and strangles her." Bea moved the scenario to its conclusion. "Do you want to bring her in for questioning?"

  "Not yet." He remembered Laura Bethea's performance when she came to his office. "She's clever. She told me the marriage failed because Roger was gay. What better way to throw me off the track?"

  "Especially if she knew Roger was Tony's father."

  "Paul says she did. She also told me that she was with Roger at Sunny Gardens when Geneviève was killed. I didn't ask. She volunteered the information, and I thought she was giving Roger an alibi."

  "Motive and opportunity," Bea said.

  "Won't hold up without proof, and she's not going to give it to us."

  "We know that Roger was involved in Jim Burke's death, but we'll never in a million years prove it. He and Geneviève got away with murder. Will Laura?" The speed of Bea's pacing increased with her agitation. Soon she would literally be bouncing off the walls.

  "Sit down, please." Mike waited until his partner had lowered herself into a chair. "The answer to your question is, not if we can help it. Step one is bringing Vernon on board. He's a political animal, but he's still a cop." He hoped he was right. The case against Laura Bethea would remain a mix of fact and conjecture without her DNA or some other proof that hadn't yet surfaced.

  "Convincing Superintendent Vernon that we need Laura's DNA then convincing a judge to issue a warrant is going to take time," Bea said. "It will take at least a week to get the results. If she thinks we're on her trail, she'll react."

  "We're going to be very careful not to alarm her. Paul is informing the family that Roger is no longer a suspect. That should reassure her."

  "I hope."

  "No one besides Vernon and the two of us will know what we're up to."

  "I want to warn Claire. At least tell her that we have a suspect, a person generally considered above suspicion, and she needs to be careful."

  "Don't do that, but tell her to avoid situations where she is alone or alone with someone she doesn't know well. Give Burke the same message." He gritted his teeth. He was practically ordering them into each other's arms.

  CHAPTER 38

  Claire walked through Tony's house, checking off the work that had begun and listing what remained. Satisfied that she hadn't missed anything, she went back outside and sat on the steps to wait for Tony who was due any minute. Felicia Miata sat at the curb, her bright blue the single cheery note on this gray evening, growing grayer as an invisible sun set behind heavy clouds.

  Claire's mood was as somber as the sky. Barely two weeks ago, she'd sat here alone waiting for the police to come see the human skeleton in the back yard. Since then, two women had been murdered. The killer remained at large and, according to Bea, it wasn't over yet. Of course, it wouldn't be over for the police until they had identified the killer.

  But I'm out of it, and so is Tony.

  Still, he might have changed his mind about living in this house. If he'd decided to put it on the market, finishing the interior was a given—he'd never find a buyer for a house in mid-renovation—but she thought he should do more. Finishing the gallery reconstruction, painting the exterior and freshening up the landscaping would make the house much more saleable, and only the painting would be expensive. From an economic perspective, it all made sense.

  What didn't make sense was the additional climate control in the center hall. The purpose was to protect Jim Burke's painting, a non-issue if Tony was going to sell. Reggie had
agreed to install a dehumidifier in the attic. One vent would run through a closet in the second bedroom and the other, through the linen closet. The carpenters should have blocked out the spaces by now, but the framing could be removed and the old walls repaired without too much trouble.

  She was beginning to wonder if Tony had forgotten their meeting when his Ferrari pulled in behind Felicia.

  "Sorry I'm late. Igor was in the shop."

  "I hope he's feeling better."

  "He's being prepped for travel. His boat leaves next week." He sat down and put his arm around her. "We have to stop meeting like this."

  She fit perfectly into the space between his arm and his chest. Like interlocking pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, they belonged together, but he'd already begun preparations for his return to Italy. If he regretted leaving her behind, he was keeping it to himself. She handed him the list.

  "If you decide to sell," she said, "this is what I think should be done before it goes on the market. The systems will be in by the end of next week, and the kitchen is well underway, but you'll get a better price if you also finish the outside work. Curb appeal is worth a lot to your average buyer. You should get your money back plus some."

  His arm moved from her shoulders to the step behind her. She raised her face to kiss him, but he'd turned away, and her lips caught a bit of cheek, a bit of mouth.

  He read the list and handed it back to her. "What prompted this?"

  "After all that's happened, I didn't know if you'd still want to..." She shrugged, reluctant to mention the center hall gallery or anything to do with Jim Burke.

  "You're right. I have been thinking about it."

  Claire held her breath.

  "I want to go ahead with both the renovation and the retrospective," he answered the real question. "Jim Burke wasn't my biological father, but he claimed me, and I'm going to claim him."

  "I'm glad." This kiss found its mark.

  "I'm also claiming that second trust. Shylock called to say he'd done in-depth research and now realizes that Geneviève had no right to add the stipulation about keeping the farm. The money is mine."