by M. P. Cooley
“Looks like they spent their whole budget on food,” commented Dave.
“Or her dress,” I said. “I didn’t see the gown in her closet.”
“She returned it,” Phil Brouillette said. While we were studying the photos he had moved around the back of the couch, looking at the album over our shoulders. “She bragged to me about it, how she took the seventeen-thousand-dollar dress for one day and returned it, like I would be proud of her for swindling the dress shop.”
“And Marty’s friend—his sponsor, Marty said in the note—he was a caterer, and did the food for free,” Amanda added quickly. “Alcohol was not served.”
Thus Danielle and Ray sharing a flask out back. We flipped ahead, to shots of people dancing, the bridesmaids clutching matching sequined bags, Marty with his groomsmen, including Ray, holding out the Leatherman tools that had been their gifts. There was a photo of Ray, his grin sloppy, spinning a white garter on his finger. In the final picture Danielle leaned against Marty’s chest, his arms wrapped tightly around her tiny waist, face half hidden in the cascade of her golden hair. They were alone on the dance floor, saying good-bye to their guests.
As we flipped the album closed, Phil Brouillette took it from Dave’s hands and walked back to his wife, placing the album behind them. We agreed to let them keep it, for now.
“So you haven’t talked to your daughter since then?” Dave asked.
“I saw her on the street a few times,” Phil said. “She was a cashier over at the pharmacy. She thought we’d be embarrassed seeing her working for a living.” Phil shook his head. “She didn’t last. She claimed they didn’t have the money to pay her. I gave everyone a work ethic except my daughter. She fucked everything—”
Amanda Brouillette talked over her husband. “The boy she dated in high school. His parents own the pharmacy.”
“Jason Byrne,” Hale said.
“Yes.” Amanda Brouillette pointed out the west window. “His family lives on the next property over. Good people.”
“Yeah, sure, Jason Byrne,” Phil said. “That kid’s got hustle—you gotta when you’re broke. I throw him a few bucks to come over, check on the place when we’re in DC.”
“Congresswoman, when was the last time you saw your daughter?” Dave asked.
“Eight days ago, over at the capitol. Marty worked there as a security guard.” Amanda removed her glasses and put them on the desk next to her. Seconds ticked by. “I got him the job.” The congresswoman picked at an invisible piece of lint on her skirt, waiting for her husband to react. When he didn’t she continued. “It had benefits for both of them, medical, dental, everything they needed, so if something happened. . . . That morning I was meeting the state senate majority whip for a strategy breakfast. I had to run to the meeting, so I invited them to dinner.” Again she paused, giving her husband a chance to blow. “Danielle made me promise to make my lasagna, but . . . they never showed.”
All was silent. Phil traced the rug pattern with his toe.
“That sounds nice,” he said finally.
“It does.” Amanda reached up, and he took her hand in both of his, cradling it.
Dave flipped back and forth between pages of his notebook, letting the Brouillettes collect themselves. Finally he said, “So do the two of you have any enemies? Any threats come in?”
The congresswoman let go of her husband’s hand, reached behind her, and grabbed a stack of papers. She assumed that her daughter’s death was about her, which, I realized, it very well might be. “I had Gloria pull together the kook list for you. These people are more than concerned constituents. Agent Bascom, is the FBI aware of any viable threats?”
Hale shook his head, a sharp no. “But we are going over additional intelligence.”
“As for my enemies,” Phillip Brouillette said, “I’m really goddamned rich. Someone always wants to kill me. I’ll call our head of HR, see if we have any pissed-off ex-employees. The crazy environmentalist groups have lain off us since we got out of the paper production business.”
“And your daughter?” I asked. “Any enemies?”
“Oh, no,” Amanda said. “In high school there were always girls with grudges—they were either best friends or mortal enemies.” She dropped her voice, as if sharing a secret. “Danielle was a beautiful girl, you know. But honestly, she was a little young to have provoked serious enemies.”
“Except she’s dead,” Phil said. He pointed his finger at Dave and me. “Thanks to that husband of hers. Why aren’t you interviewing him?”
“We did,” Dave said.
“Yes, sir,” Hale said before I could back up Dave. “He’s a person of interest.”
“But not an active suspect,” I quickly added. The last thing we needed was Phil Brouillette going vigilante. “Can we see her room?”
“It’s empty,” Phil said.
“There may still be something interesting there, we—”
“As I said, it’s empty. I had movers take everything from the room and drop it at their apartment.” He raised one arm, as if to make a point, and then a second, as if in supplication. “Look, are we done? We’ve dragged out all our dirty laundry. Just . . . just, she wasn’t a bad girl. Not really. She pushed. She always pushed. But she would have turned things around.”
The congresswoman nodded in agreement, and sat forward on her chair. I sat forward as well, trying to bridge the gap across the broad fine-weave carpet.
“She was such a bright, lovable little girl. She would hold teas for me and her stuffed animals, and then play school next to me while I prepared lesson plans, teaching me math and giving me pop quizzes.” I smiled at this, as Lucy was currently in a similar phase.
Amanda continued: “She said she wanted to be just like me. Then she hit her teens, and it seemed like nothing was going to make her happy. Maybe I could have paid more attention—I was in the middle of my first national campaign and a little distracted—but I thought, ‘Oh, right. Sixteen.’ I remembered breaking little rules, rebelling against my parents, and I guess I missed the point when she crossed the line.” Her voice broke, and she hesitated. When she spoke again, she had her politician’s voice back. “But she would have turned things around. She never had the chance.”
CHAPTER 8
I DIDN’T WANT TO GO IN. I wasn’t cold on the porch of McKellison’s Funeral Home—it’s always warmer when it snows—and the less time I spent at wakes, the better. Kevin’s funeral had been more than enough for this lifetime. Mourners arrived: local politicians and a few from the state level, employees from Brouillette Paper Company, and any number of Hopewell Falls residents. My second grade teacher from Saint Patrick’s stopped and chatted with me. It turned out she’d taught Phillip Brouillette, too. Hale joined me, and I introduced him to the people who paused to talk. Nobody seemed to realize that I was there on official business, and their glances at Hale probably had more to do with thinking he was my new boyfriend than that he was FBI.
“How ’bout we head inside?” Hale asked, clapping his hands together. Hale’s cashmere coat and lined leather gloves had to be warm, but his head was bare, and he was wearing his wingtip shoes. Even the most proper of church ladies and obsequious political toadies knew enough to wear boots in this weather.
Four racks were set up for coats, and the funeral home folks wheeled out a fifth to handle the overflow. The mortuary was a converted house, built over a hundred years earlier for one of the lace-curtain Irish families who managed to clamber out of the mills and make a place for themselves.
People still liked the big houses—the Brouillettes’ place proved that—but now the functions were different: instead of sitting rooms and bedrooms, the Brouillettes had offices and home gyms. Still, the size of the Brouillettes’ house meant that it had been early afternoon before we completed our search.
Dave and Jerry arrived at McKellison’s together. A tired Dave dragged, but Jerry’s eager step offset his grave expression: he loved everything this case was doing for
his career. Jerry beelined for the Brouillettes. He didn’t get far. The condolence line spilled out of the room and snaked into the opposite sitting room and toward the back door. In addition to the friends and neighbors, the lobbyists were there, wanting to make a good impression on the congresswoman. The guy from the dairy industry was first in line. He’d arrived at noon.
I joined the line with Hale and Dave, several people removed from Jerry. Phil wore a gray suit, and in the face of people’s grief, he stared at the ground or over their shoulders. Amanda wore a black dress with a small circle pin glinting on her lapel. She pulled people in, accepting their condolences with a warm handshake, never breaking eye contact. Most people made a brief stop in front of Danielle’s open casket, and from back in the line she appeared uninjured: She wore a pink dress and artfully applied makeup, making her look young and alive. They’d styled her hair to cover the bruise on her head, and she held a rosary in her left hand. If I hadn’t seen the earlier wreckage I would have thought her death had been natural and peaceful.
Dave nudged me, tilting his head to the corner of the room where Marty and Ray sat. Marty wore a suit, and I was very aware that underneath his navy wool and cuff links a flaming skull was traced on his arm. Ray was again playing dress-up in his brother’s clothes: belted chinos, a white shirt that hung halfway down his shoulders, and a tie. In fact, Ray wasn’t that small—he was only a few inches shorter than his brother—but he had no substance to him. His body was shooting up, but soon age would settle weight on his frame, bulking him up with muscle or fat. Marty had that solidity—all muscle—and I don’t know whether it was his years in the Abominations or Danielle’s death that gave him a heaviness of spirit that tethered him tightly to the ground. I bet Marty believed that everything in life had to be hard. I felt the same way after Kevin died, but it seemed an unfair burden for a twenty-five-year-old.
No one talked to the brothers. No one got within three chairs of them. Ray stared at the crowd, his mouth set in a straight line like Lucy figuring out one of her spelling problems. When Ray saw us he elbowed Marty, who nodded and returned to gazing out the window.
Dave, Hale, and I stood at the front of the line now. Dave shook Amanda’s hand, and I reached out to Phil.
“I’m here in an official capacity,” I said, “but I wanted to say how sorry I am about your daughter, personally.”
Phillip nodded, never breaking eye contact with my wrist. I imagine I looked the same after Kevin died. A banking lobbyist shouldered himself in front of Amanda, and we found ourselves pushed in front of the casket.
Hale nodded toward the reception area, where a few hundred people congregated. “I’m going to the reception room, keep an eye on things.”
“I’ll go with you,” Dave said, and then more quietly, “Keep an eye on things in here, okay?”
I made a quick sign of the cross, helpless not to with my Catholic childhood, and approached Marty. A formal acknowledgment of his grief seemed appropriate, even if the rest of the room shunned him. I extended my hand.
“I’m very sorry for your loss. Do you mind if I sit with you?” I eased into the chair next to him. “Have you spoken to Danielle’s family?”
We both winced; Marty was Danielle’s family, too. We looked to where Danielle’s parents stood. Amanda was leaning in, listening to an older woman, but Phil stared straight at us. Marty twisted his body, cocked sideways, his hip lifted off the chair, which gave him the comfort of not accidentally making eye contact with Phil. “Yeah. I offered to bring her favorite dress, for her to be buried in. A short black number. With the coffin, who would have known she was showing some leg?” His mouth quirked up, a half smile. “And I know that somewhere, it would have made her laugh. They said no.” Thus the pink dress, I thought. Marty continued. “Tried to pay for the funeral. Said no to that, too, said they’d arranged everything, and when I contacted some other funeral homes . . .”—Marty slumped down in the chair and extended his long legs, almost tripping a banking industry lobbyist—“no one would take my money.”
Ray hurried forward to the mourners’ line, almost pushing Susie—as always in her Dunkin’ Donuts uniform—into the white carnations of one of the two dozen or so wreaths that lined the walls. Jackie DeGroot and her father stood patiently, and I expected Ray to rush his girlfriend. She was dressed in black, but it was a sort of cocktail dress, sequined gladiolas stitched to the front. Tears welled up in her eyes as Ray approached a young man instead of her, slapping his back and calling him “bro.” The man, too, was dressed all in black: a button-down shirt, black pants, motorcycle boots, and a pendant on black leather laced around his neck. He was six feet four or five and towered over most everyone in the room.
“Awesome shit, son.” Ray’s inappropriate comment carried over the crowd.
Marty watched the two of them through squinted eyes.
“I told him how to behave at a funeral. No yelling, swearing, all that sh—, er, stuff. We were raised in a barn.” Marty made a fist, three joints loudly popping. I must have looked alarmed because he apologized. “This weather, old injury starts aching.”
“Are your parents here? Your brother said they were coming in today.”
“No, the snow in Chicago . . . their plane got canceled. Tomorrow.”
“Did they know Danielle?” I asked.
“Yeah, she took herself up there to meet them a week before we left the coast, even though I told her why I cut them out of my life.” He stared at Danielle in the casket, as if willing her to explain herself. “She called me from Soledad, told me she went up there to thank them for giving me to her, like they had anything to do with the good. The good stuff, that’s all AA. Anyway, it worked out, because she managed to talk them into letting me take Ray with me, which was a . . .” From across the room Ray barked out a laugh, and the room fell quiet. Marty frowned, dropping his voice, and I leaned in close to hear the rest. “Well, they must have liked her, because they didn’t kill her.”
Another young man wedged in the door, blond curly hair and cheeks flushed bright red from the cold. Marty waved. The line of mourners edged forward, and I saw Denise Byrne from the pharmacy. Denise was the same height and shared the man’s same fair coloring, although her blond was so bright it had to have come from a box. I would bet that the young man was Danielle’s ex-boyfriend Jason.
I had met Denise during Kevin’s illness, I couldn’t say exactly when. I felt like I visited the pharmacy twice a day back then, picking up medication for the cancer symptoms or, more often, for the effects of the cancer treatment. Denise and her husband were always behind the counter—Byrne’s was a mom-and-pop operation running three generations back. Several times she dropped off prescriptions at my house that the doctors had called in late.
“I can’t believe you did this. You’re a lifesaver,” I said the first night I found her at my door.
“Us little guys need to do something to compete with the big chains,” Denise said, spinning away before I could get out a “Thanks.”
I hadn’t discovered until recently that Denise’s own husband was sick.
“Oh, he’s real bad now,” Lorraine told me one day, when I mentioned the favor. “The Lou Gehrig’s disease is finishing him fast. I don’t know how she does it all—him sick, and having to do all the work at the pharmacy on her own, especially when the chains are trying to eat her lunch. Her son helps her—he’s a sweet kid—and he’s always cheery, but me, I’d be more like you were.”
I was curious. “What was I like?”
“Closed off. Which I don’t blame you. I’d be a bitch on wheels if I was going through so much stress. I mean, not that you were a bitch.”
“I’m kind of a bitch now.”
“Yeah, but no one can stand those chipper types, really.” She lowered her voice. “I mean, like Denise. She’s sweet, too sweet, and while everyone goes through hard stuff different, we all know Denise’s ‘Fine!’s’ are a lie. But she’s tough—it’s not that she would ever
ask for help.” Lorraine paused, head tilted, her shiny coral lips pursed, and considered. “Maybe she’s not so different from you.”
Ray and the young man in black returned, Ray pointing at me and whispering, “Cop.” The young man looked to be about Marty’s age, but his calculated swagger made him seem as immature as seventeen-year-old Ray. Jackie tripped along in their wake in too-high heels, skipping her last regards to Danielle.
“Hey, man,” the young man said, putting out his hand. Marty ignored it, reaching around to pull Jackie into the center of the group, thanking her for coming and telling her how pretty she looked.
“Jackie DeGroot, this is Officer June Lyons of the HFPD,” Marty said, all formality. Jackie didn’t acknowledge me, adjusting her dress to keep the satin from bunching at the waist, with little luck—the dress was about a size too small.
“And this guy is Craig Madigan”—Marty rolled his eyes at me—“the Brouillettes’ pilot.”
“Not their pilot.” Craig shook my hand, holding it a little too long. “I own my own airplane charter company.”
Marty snorted. “Your dad owns a charter company, you mean.”
Craig stood there, frozen, and Ray jumped in. “Hey, bro. Marty. We’re going to take off for a while, go drown our sorrows at Craig’s place. Can I go?”
Marty seemed to consider Ray’s request. Ray was holding his breath, and surprisingly, Craig and Jackie were, too. Finally Marty nodded.
“All right,” he said. “You’re going home with Mom and Zeke in a few days, so I guess you can have a last party with his friends.”
Tears welled up in Jackie’s eyes, but Ray hopped from foot to foot, excited, before catching himself and returning both feet to the ground. “You wanna come, bro?”
“Thought I should stick around,” Marty said through gritted teeth, “it being my wife’s funeral and all.”
The sarcasm was lost on Ray. “Yeah, man, that’s cool. Maybe next time.” Ray, Craig, and Jackie were in the doorway before Marty called to his brother.