Chapter 6
Nikki had to sit down for this. Ollie followed suit. Janie remained standing until Nikki insisted she have a seat on the chair across from her. “Wait. Um, let me get you something to drink, okay? Water, wine—got lots of that—or, uh, tea?”
“Yes, please. Tea would be nice.” Janie sniffled and blinked her eyes several times.
Nikki went into the kitchen, put on the kettle, then thought better of it. No time to wait for hot water. This girl was in her own version of hot water. Nuke it. She put two mugs of water in the microwave and reached for a box of chamomile. Calming right? Yes. Calming was in order. Holy cow, just ten minutes ago she was sleeping off the bad effects of the day and then whammo, the day was apparently not over.
The microwave beeped. Nikki did a quick dunk of tea bags, tossed in a teaspoon of Splenda, and took her place across from Janie after handing her the warmed brew. Nikki took a sip, set her cup down, and grabbed her throw off the back of her sofa, wrapping it around herself. “Okay, now Janie, it has been a grueling day for all of us and I know you and Georges were really close, but I think you may be confused or in shock.”
“No.” She shook her head vehemently. “I’m not in shock. I swear. I know it sounds totally bizarre and it is, but it’s the truth. Georges was my dad and I only found out two days ago.”
Nikki bit her lower lip. The young woman seemed to be sober, coherent, upset—yes, but certain about what she was telling her. “Then maybe we need to go back to two days ago.”
Janie nodded, her eyes welling up again. Nikki leaned forward and patted her knee. “Have some tea. Kick your shoes off and just breathe for a minute. Here, take the blanket. You look a little cold.”
Janie cracked a weak smile as she wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. “Do you have kids?”
“No.”
“My mom used to make sure I kept warm.” Janie’s face lit up. “She always worried so much about me. She was awesome. I could talk to her about anything, you know. She was cool. She took me to my first concert when I was twelve. It was Pearl Jam. I mean, how cool is that? She was really young when she had me. But she didn’t give me up for adoption. She did it all by herself. I miss her. You remind me of her. You’d be a good mother.”
“Thanks.” Wait a minute. Hold on a minute. Nikki looked at Janie. Shit. She could actually be old enough to be Janie’s mom. Sure she probably would have been fourteen, but it was possible. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-one.”
Oooh. That hurt. That meant Nikki would have been fifteen, nearly sixteen. She shook her head, tossing the thought aside, and focused again on the matter at hand. “Why don’t we go back to two days ago, like I said?”
“We might want to go back even further,” Janie replied.
Nikki nodded, with no idea where Janie was going, but all of a sudden she knew it was going to be a really long night. Damn. Probably should have made some coffee instead of herbal tea.
Janie took a tissue from her purse and blew her nose. “You can probably guess that my mom is gone. She died last year.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She had breast cancer. She was thirty-nine. How wrong is that?”
“Very.”
“No kidding. But, um, she made me who I am. She had me at nineteen and did it on her own. She always told me that my dad was just some guy she met and hung out with for like a week or two, and you know what, I was okay with that. She said that he didn’t want a kid, and who wants a dad who doesn’t want a kid? Not me. Now I know that my dad didn’t know about me, but I’m cool with that. I’m not mad at my mom. Georges, my dad, was married to his first wife when they screwed around and Mom felt bad, and then we moved to San Diego and life was good for us. We lived at the beach and it was just me and my mom. She had cool friends and I had friends and we had a neat apartment, but after I graduated from high school she wanted to move up here.” Janie picked up her tea. With the back of her free hand she wiped her face.
“Why?” Poor kid. That’s really all she was, a poor kid. Here she’d lost the only parent she knew and now, this . . .
“That was the weird part about it, but now I get it.”
“What is that?”
“I always liked cooking. Funny, huh? I guess it’s true that some things are inherited from your family, and I didn’t get good grades in school, but I always wanted to be a chef. My mom wanted me to come to San Fran and go to Le Cordon Bleu. We moved here and I applied. She was already sick, but she wasn’t telling me just how sick. She got me an interview with Georges, who hired me as his assistant. He didn’t know who I was then. My mom told him some line about us needing money and since they were old friends and all, but I think deep down Georges knew. I guess she didn’t tell him right away because she felt afraid or pressured. I’m not sure which or why.”
“Maybe she wanted to see if Georges was still the man she remembered, see if he was someone worthy of being your dad, before springing it on him.” Nikki sat up at the edge of the sofa. Ollie groaned beneath her as her foot brushed against him.
“I think it was something like that.”
Nikki shook her head. “Do you want something to eat?”
“No. Thank you. My stomach hurts too bad. I don’t think I could eat a thing right now.”
“Let me know.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“Did your mom stay in touch with Georges over the years?”
“No. I don’t think so. I think when she moved us up here though, she planned everything out. She searched out Georges and hoped for the best so that she could die knowing that I still had a parent.”
“That must have been hard for her seeing how she raised you by herself. But I can understand her wanting to have you cement a relationship with your dad.”
“Uh-huh.” She looked away and Nikki thought she might start crying again. She was so fragile, and understandably so, but Nikki needed her to keep talking. Janie knew something about Georges’ murder, that much she was certain of.
“How long after he hired you did Georges find out the truth?”
“He told me that he found out only two weeks before my mom died. He said that she came to him and told him she was dying and that I was his child. He didn’t believe it at first and asked her why she waited so long. She told him why, and then she told him that she’d wanted the two of us to get to know each other first before letting us learn the truth. That way we wouldn’t have the pressure of knowing our tight connection.”
Nikki nodded. She could understand Janie’s mother’s reasons to an extent. The woman had protected her daughter for so long and had been her only parent, but decided going into her last days that everyone deserved to know the truth. “Why didn’t they tell you before your mom passed?”
“She was in a lot of pain at the end, and they realized that I couldn’t handle the stress. I think both of them had enough sense to let me clear my head before adding any more pressure on me. I mean really, can you see it? Your mom is dying and then this man who is your boss turns around and tells you that he’s your dad. I’m glad Georges waited and that my mom agreed to it. I think I would’ve really freaked.” Janie pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders.
“How did you react when Georges told you?”
“It was weird. You know, we were in the car and he started talking about my mother and how they met twenty-two years ago and all of that, and I knew. I’m the one who blurted it out while on the Bay Bridge, on the way here to the vineyard, that he was my dad.”
“How did you feel?”
“Relieved. I really did. No matter what, I always wanted to know who my dad was, and I felt relieved because Georges has been so great to me. I mean, you couldn’t ask for a cooler dad. And now . . . now I won’t even get to know him that way.” She broke out in tears again.
Nikki reached for a tissue box on the corner table, took some, handed them to Janie, and sat down by her. “Here.” She rubbed her back.
&n
bsp; Janie’s cell phone rang with a Green Day song. She sighed and took it out of her purse. “Hello. Hi, baby.” She started crying and Nikki figured that it would have to be Janie’s husband. She decided to give Janie some privacy. She went into her bedroom and turned on her computer. She wanted to see if there was any information on Bernadette Debussey. She could hear Janie from the other room telling her husband between sobs about what had happened. “No. Don’t drive this late. You have to finish your paper and you have your final on Monday morning. Take care of what you need to, please. No. I’ll be okay. I think I’m gonna stay with this nice lady here. Nikki Sands. She lives in the guesthouse on the property.”
Nikki headed to her closet to pull out some blankets. She couldn’t send Janie back to the hotel, not in her state. She took out a pillow and a chenille blanket along with clean sheets. She’d let Janie have her bed and she’d crash on the couch.
She walked back into the family room. Janie was still talking to her husband. “Thanks, baby. Okay. Yeah. I’ll see you Monday. No, I mean it. I’m fine. You get your work done. You’ve worked so hard at school. Good luck with the paper and the final. The police want me to stay around for a few days in case they need to talk to me again.” She paused, obviously fielding his questions. “No, I have that suitcase. It was easier to use because of the roller things on them. I’m sorry. My duffel is in our closet. Use it.”
Nikki returned to her room and got on the Internet as she heard Janie say, “Okay. I love you, too. Good night.”
“Your husband okay?” she called out.
Janie came to her bedroom door. “He’s good. Worried about me. He wants to drive out here now, but I told him to finish his stuff for school. He doesn’t know about Georges being my dad, and I downplayed it. I mean, to him Georges was just my boss. It’s not like there’s anything he can do for me right now, and you’ve been really great. You don’t mind if I stay here, do you?”
“Stay. Please. You can have my room. I just wanted to look something up about Georges’ ex-wife.”
“I can already tell you, she’s a real winner.” The sarcasm in Janie’s voice was evident. “I can sleep on the couch. It’s no biggie.”
“No. Hang on and I’ll be right out. I want to ask you about Bernadette Debussey and why you think she might frame you for Georges’ murder.”
“That’s gonna take awhile.”
“I figured. You up to it?”
“Yeah. I need someone to talk to, and like I said, there was no way I was gonna tell that cop today. He kind of scared me.”
“Detective Robinson?”
“Yeah. The dude with the green eyes. He’s really intimidating.”
“Don’t let him get to you. It’s his job.” But Nikki knew that she’d let Jonah Robinson get under her skin, too, and she could certainly see how he could do it to Janie. The girl was smart but definitely lacked sophistication. Knowing how cops worked, she figured that Robinson had probably played upon and preyed on Janie’s weaknesses of vulnerability and naiveté, the kind that youth carries with it. This thought made her angry. Jerk. How dare he frighten Janie so much that she felt she couldn’t be honest with him. But Nikki hadn’t been entirely open either. Her reasoning was different, and it wasn’t a lack of honesty. She simply hadn’t been completely forthright, and if she’d had any doubts earlier in the day about the way she’d responded to Robinson, she didn’t anymore. Janie needed help and she’d come to Nikki for it, plus she’d made Nikki promise to keep her secrets under lock and key. Aunt Cara had always taught her that a promise broken harms the integrity of all involved.
Nikki looked Bernadette Debussey up on Google and immediately several links popped up. She opened the first one and read a story from the San Francisco Chronicle dated April 19 of the previous year. Nikki found several more articles from the Chronicle dated through August. There weren’t any more articles to find after August 27—the date when Bernadette Debussey was sentenced to spend the next two decades in prison.
Chapter 7
The following morning Nikki poured Janie a cup of coffee and then one for herself. She brought over a couple of bowls of oatmeal and a side of bacon, her fat allotment for the day.
“You’re really nice to do this and let me stay here. When Trevor comes tomorrow we’ll go back to the hotel. I was afraid to stay there last night because, you know, I mean, what if someone knows I’m Georges’ daughter and they come after me, too?” Janie said.
Nikki hadn’t thought about that but could see why Janie might. But foremost on Nikki’s mind was the question that had plagued her all night after reading through the articles on Bernadette. She didn’t have a lot of time to get the story straight in her head before heading out to see how Simon and Marco were doing, and Derek, too. She knew they’d all have to pull together to do damage control and manage the guests at the hotel until the police gave the okay for them all to go. There were a few people Nikki wanted to track down today. Baron O’Grady was for sure on her list because he had been Georges’ partner and friend. Maybe he would have an idea about who might have wanted to kill Georges. She also wanted to speak to Charlotte, Georges’ spa therapist yesterday, who had conveniently left before Nikki had found Georges dead in the water.
“I learned a lot about Bernadette last night.” Nikki sat down and picked up a piece of bacon. Before taking a bite she pulled the fat off, which didn’t leave a whole lot of the meat. “You helped put her in jail? You didn’t tell me that she was in jail.”
Janie poured almost half a carton of cream into her coffee and spooned in several sugars. “Yeah. She deserved it.”
“From what I read, she did. Why don’t you tell me your version?” Nikki sat back and took a bite out of the bacon. Mhhm, nothing like that smoky, salty, fat flavor.
“Well, the chick went ballistic, you know. Here she and Georges are, sitting pretty in their Pacific Heights mansion, and after my mom died Georges was cool enough to let me have the guesthouse until I could figure out what I was gonna do. It wasn’t like I could stay at my mom’s place. Too hard.”
“I’m sure.”
“I don’t even get why Bernadette wigged. I started going out with Trevor about a month after my mom died and we spent a ton of time together. He’s great. You’ll love him. But anyway, one day Bernie—that’s what we called her—comes home, and at first she was way cool with me. We hung out and everything. She’s only five years older than me, so it was good ’cause I needed a friend and everything. But then she saw that Georges and I were hanging out more and more. It wasn’t because he wanted into my pants. Duh. I knew that, too. He was into her. I think Georges was kicking it with me because he wanted to get to know me better. After all, I was his kid.” She looked away, and when she looked back, her eyes had again filled with tears. “I’m sorry. It’s pretty hard. I liked him. I think I loved him, you know. I did. I am sorry, but he was my dad. That’s a total reality for me now. Now that he’s gone.”
“I understand.”
Janie wiped her face with a napkin and swallowed some coffee. “Bernie flipped out because she thought Georges and I were messing around. One day when I was at work with him in his new restaurant, she ransacked the guesthouse and she shredded my clothes, and the worst part is, she smashed several paintings that my mom had done. Sure, my mom was no Picasso, but she liked to paint and I liked what she painted. She’d left me those pieces and Bernie ruined them.” Janie shook her head. “Unbelievable. I went straight to Georges, who believed me because she’d gone crazy on him, too, that night, accusing him of sleeping with me. Once he found out what she’d done to my stuff, he kicked her out and filed for a divorce the next day. She was so pissed. I mean she signed a prenup, so she was getting nothing.”
“That weekend she came back and torched the guesthouse?” Nikki asked.
“Yeah, and all my stuff. The police found her fingerprints and everything. She says she didn’t do it, but c’mon, it’s so obvious.”
“Some people aren’t to
o bright. I’m sorry about your mom’s paintings and all that you’ve lost.”
“Me too. Listen, can I stay here today? I don’t really want to talk to anyone.”
“Sure. I’ve got to go into the office and see what’s going on there and then over to the hotel for some damage control. It might be Sunday, but with what’s happened I’m sure my boss will hold a meeting. But before I go, can I ask you, since Bernadette is behind bars, why or how do you think she could have murdered Georges and framed you?”
Janie set her spoon back in her oatmeal and swallowed. “Bernie knows lowlifes, you know what I mean? The rumor I heard was that her brother was in a gang, and bad news. Georges didn’t let him come over, and that upset Bernie because she was close to her brother. I never met him. Georges got mad at her one time for bailing him out of jail. I think that maybe she could have had her brother or one of his friends kill Georges.”
“That said, how could she frame you, and why?”
“She’d frame me because she blames me for her getting sent to prison. You know, some people can’t take responsibility for their actions, and Bernie thinks that it’s my fault she’s in jail. I even got a letter from her that says so.” Janie got up and took her notebook out of her backpack. She brought it over to the table and opened it. It appeared to be an entire schedule from Georges’ day—yesterday. It even had the time he was supposed to have met with Nikki to discuss the wine pairings for dinner, and his spa treatment appointment.
Janie took out a letter from a pocket in the notebook. “Read this.”
The letter said that if Janie had never come into Georges’ life, Bernadette wouldn’t be in jail and the reason she’d ruined her clothes and paintings was because Janie was always with Georges, that it was disrespectful to Bernadette. She went on to write that she did not burn the guesthouse down and that Janie should have known her better than that and that Janie’s testimony was what put her in jail. She also wrote how betrayed she’d felt by Georges. That part Nikki found really interesting. It sure did sound like Bernadette Debussey needed help.
Silenced By Syrah Page 6