by Robin Caroll
“Sure.”
Danielle smiled, but anybody could tell it was fake. “Thank you. See you then.”
Pam held her tongue until they were outside. “Grayson, that woman’s got it in for you. I don’t know what the deal is, but trust me on this, that woman is determined to see you’re blamed for Anna Belle’s death.”
He couldn’t argue the point because now, more than ever, he knew how guilty he looked.
TEN
“Thank you for making time for us, Mrs. Dubois.” Brandon took in the home of the owner and CEO of Deets PR.
The house itself sat in the Lakeview neighborhood, considered to be a very successful line between suburbia and the big city life of New Orleans. With its great schools and easy access to City Park, the neighborhood was a popular choice for young families. Numerous neighborhood coffee shops, stores, and restaurants fed the sense of community.
“Of course. I’m happy to help in any way I can.” Emiline “Emmi” Dubois set the coffeepot on the tray and handed Brandon his cup before doing the same for Danielle.
“Thank you.” Brandon studied the woman over the rim of the china cup. He knew from the case file that she was thirty-eight years old and had been married to Tim Dubois for eight years. She was an LPN who worked at a nearby nursing home. They were a comfortable, middle-class, working couple by all observations. Yet they had secrets in their marriage. Could they be hiding other secrets? He intended to find out.
Setting down his cup, Brandon pulled out his Field Notes notebook and pen. “Can you tell me what happened, as far as you know, about Anna Belle Thibodeaux’s death?”
She rattled her cup in its saucer. Brandon had opted to jump right into the death questions to knock the woman off balance. By the flush of her face, he’d made the right decision.
“Well, we were all getting ready to meet for dinner when Georgia began screaming. Naturally, we all ran to see what was wrong.”
Brandon wouldn’t let this questioning go so easily for someone he considered a prime suspect. One of the reasons he was glad her interview was in her home—it gave her a false sense of security. “But hadn’t there already been things that caused screams and shock, events orchestrated by your own husband to cause fear and surprise? Wasn’t that the whole purpose of the game?”
Emmi’s face turned a brighter pink. “Yes, but we knew what those were. And we knew when they would happen. Nothing was supposed to happen before dinner on Thursday.”
“Unless it was part of the game that you weren’t aware of perhaps? Maybe something your husband had set up without you knowing?”
She shook her head. “Tim wouldn’t have kept something from me.”
“But hadn’t he kept his affair with Anna Belle from you for some time?”
Emmi gasped, then covered her mouth with her hand. Her swallowing seemed to echo off the wallpaper-covered walls of the living room. “That’s really none of your business, Detective.”
“This is a murder investigation, Mrs. Dubois, so it is my business. Please answer the question. Isn’t it possible that your husband might have added in something in the course of the game and not told you?”
“Of course it’s possible, but that isn’t what happened in this case.”
“Please, continue telling us what happened.” Danielle’s voice sounded soothing, but Brandon could tell she was furious with him despite her tone.
Too bad. After not finding the doll nor the mask at the rental house, Danielle was convinced Grayson had taken them before they got there. He needed to offer another, more viable suspect, and Emmi Dubois was his best candidate. Poison was, after all, the most common type of murder committed by women.
Emmi turned slightly in her seat so she was facing Danielle more than Brandon. “Georgia had found her on the floor, unconscious. Tim immediately began CPR, and Mr. York called for an ambulance. Everyone else tried to stay out of the way.”
Brandon didn’t miss how she didn’t even say Anna Belle’s name.
“I can imagine,” Danielle said. “What were you doing while Tim performed CPR?”
“I comforted Georgia, who was crying. It was a most somber mood of course. We were all very shocked.” Emmi reached for her cup and took a sip of her coffee.
“Understandable. What happened once the ambulance arrived?” Danielle asked.
“Well, they took over performing CPR, put her on a stretcher, and left. They were very quick and efficient.”
“What did you do?” Brandon interrupted.
Emmi set her cup back on its saucer. “Tim thought we should go to the hospital, so we did.”
“Just like that?” he pushed.
She nodded. “He is the CEO, and she was one of the company’s employees.”
“One he’d had a long-term affair with.”
“Yes.” Emmi’s stare was harder than Danielle’s. “You already know that Tim had an affair with her. You know that I know. I don’t know why you must keep bringing it up and throwing it in my face.”
“We don’t mean to hurt you, Mrs. Dubois,” Danielle started.
“But we’re conducting a murder investigation,” Brandon finished. “So please accept our apologies if we might hurt your feelings a little as we work to bring out the truth.” He sat up straight in the most uncomfortable chair, not enjoying that he had to keep Emmi Dubois off balance. “So, yes, we know about Tim and Anna Belle’s affair, and it seemed most everyone in the company knew as well.”
“Yes, most people did know, but I don’t see how that matters now. The affair ended a few months ago, and Tim and I are in marital counseling, not that it’s any of your business.”
“We understand that Anna Belle ended the affair.” Brandon paused, waiting for her reaction.
Her jaw tightened, the muscles jumping as she ground her teeth. “That’s correct, and I’m sure you’ll read something more into it. The truth is, it had run its course and they both were over it. She just said it first.”
“Did Tim ever ask you for a divorce?” Brandon remembered that the affair was what Anna Belle used to get Grayson to agree to the divorce.
Her face paled. “We discussed all our options, including divorce, but since we love each other, we decided to make our marriage work.”
Not “try to make,” but “make.”
“So, you went to the hospital?” Danielle asked, cutting her eyes at Brandon. They’d definitely have an intense conversation, but he didn’t care. Something told him Emmi Dubois was hiding something about Anna Belle’s death.
Emmi nodded. “We got there and were told to have a seat in the waiting room, which we did. Colton York from Game’s On You came in next and sat in the waiting room, but not really with us. Hugh arrived about fifteen or twenty minutes after us and waited with us. It felt like hours, but I guess it was really less than an hour before a doctor came out and told us she had never regained consciousness and had died.”
Brandon studied her face, her mannerisms, for even a microexpression of grief or sadness. Nothing.
“Tim was naturally upset. I took him to the car and drove him home.”
“Did you know she had a cherry allergy?” Danielle asked.
Emmi put on a smile that was clearly just for appearances. “I’m sure you can understand that I didn’t know much about her, nor did I want to.”
“When did you get your belongings from the rental house?” Brandon asked.
“Excuse me?” Emmi’s eyes went wide.
“You said you drove home from the hospital. When did you get your clothes and things from the rental house? I’m assuming you didn’t grab them when you left to follow the ambulance to the hospital.”
“No, of course not.” She crossed and uncrossed her legs. “After we got home, Tim needed to call the board members of the company, so I went to the rented house and collected our things.”
“Alone?” Brandon asked.
Emmi nodded. “I just said Tim was making calls, so of course I went alone.”
; “Did you see anyone there? Anyone see you?” he asked.
“No. I got our stuff and shoved it into the duffel, then locked up and came back home. That place was even creepier at night.”
Danielle nodded. “I bet. Well—”
“What did you think of it all?” Brandon interrupted.
Emmi’s proper posture snapped back into place. “What do you mean?”
“That your husband hired a company to create such an elaborate game to decide who would get a promotion?” Brandon grinned and shook his head. “I might be just a simple cop, but I’ve never heard of something so complicated. To me, whoever does the best job gets the promotion.”
Emmi visibly relaxed a little. “It is odd, but after the position became available, the board decided it should be a group decision as to who would be promoted. Since most of the board members don’t know the employees personally, they wanted to see how those employees would react under stress. Many of the larger companies are doing similar things. It’s the newest fad, if you will.”
Just as his initial research had shown. But Brandon still had a hard time understanding the complexities. Guess it went over his head.
Danielle stood. “Well, thank you for your time, Mrs. Dubois.”
“Of course.” Emmi stood and opened the front door for them.
Brandon had no choice but to follow them. “We’ll be in touch if we have any follow-up questions.”
“You do that.” Emmi smiled that fake smile again.
Brandon had barely latched his seat belt and started the cruiser’s engine when Danielle jumped in on him.
“I can’t believe you were so hard on her. That poor woman.”
“Poor woman?” Brandon backed the car out of the driveway and steered it down the road. “She’s a murder suspect, not some sad victim.”
“I don’t think she’s a suspect.”
“Because she’s a woman whose husband cheated on her? That makes her a victim, right?” Brandon snorted as he eased to a stop sign. He glanced over at his partner. “Think about it for a minute, Dani. She couldn’t even say Anna Belle’s name.”
“I can’t blame her for that. I wouldn’t either.”
Some of Danielle’s personal feelings were overflowing into the investigation, but Brandon didn’t think it wise to bring it up at the moment. He pulled in a calming breath. “Look, I agree that Emmi Dubois got the short end of the stick when it comes to husbands, but that just gives her all the more motive to get Anna Belle out of the way.”
Danielle shook her head and gripped the armrest. “Then give me your theory. Go.”
“Okay. We all know that poison is usually a woman’s method of murder.”
“Too coincidental, my friend.”
“Wait. Hear me out.”
Danielle threw her hands up in the air. “Okay.”
He expertly changed lanes as he headed toward the offices of Deets PR. “All right. We know that Tim and Anna Belle were having an affair. Since everyone seems to have known it, I’m guessing they weren’t too discreet. Anyway, they were having an affair. Anna Belle used the affair to get Grayson to agree to the divorce. By Emmi’s reaction when I mentioned if they’d ever discussed divorcing, I’m going to guess that Tim did, in fact, ask for a divorce.”
“You don’t know that,” Danielle interrupted.
“No, I don’t, but I do plan to ask Tim in a few minutes when we talk to him.”
She made an mm-hmm noise but didn’t say anything else.
Brandon figured that was his cue to continue. “So, let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Tim does ask Emmi for a divorce because he’s in love with Anna Belle, and now that she’s getting a divorce, he thinks they can live happily ever after.”
“For the sake of argument, okay, I can see how that gives Emmi motive. But the timing doesn’t work. Anna Belle called it off with Tim at least a month or more ago. She was no longer a threat to Emmi’s marriage.”
“Ah, but you don’t know that. See, if Tim was really in love with Anna Belle, and she was now divorced, maybe he had hopes of rekindling their romance.”
“I’m not buying it. From everything we know about Anna Belle, she was the type to do whatever it took to get ahead. If she thought she could, she would’ve rekindled things with Tim when she found out about the promotion.”
She had him there. Unless… “Or maybe Tim wanted to test her and see if she was playing him or if she really loved him. I can see him demanding she win the promotion on her own.”
“But they didn’t know they were in a game, right?”
Right. He let out a soft sigh. “Unless Tim told her to give her a heads-up.”
“Which doesn’t make Emmi any more of a suspect than anyone else. Yes, poison is usually a woman’s method of murder, but Georgia was in the house, is a woman, and didn’t like Anna Belle.”
“But Emmi is in the medical field. As a LPN, she’d know how fast an allergy like Anna Belle’s could kill her. She’d know to keep the EpiPens out of reach.”
Danielle laid her head back on the headrest. “So your theory is that Emmi was jealous and wanted to save her marriage, so she finds out about Anna Belle’s allergy, gets cherry juice, taints an energy drink, and gets it into Anna Belle’s room without anybody seeing her? Just so her husband won’t divorce her?” She shook her head. “Seems a little too complicated to me.”
“It’s not. Come on, Dani, think about it. You’re Emmi. This woman, who is beautiful and successful, has been having an affair with your husband for months. She suddenly becomes divorced. Your husband asks you for a divorce, and you know why. Deep in your heart, you know. But you love him and aren’t ready to let him go. You beg, you plead … you do whatever you can to make him stay. When he does, you think you’ve gotten him back. That he’ll fall back in love with you again and you’ll live happily ever after. Then you learn that the only reason you haven’t been served papers is because she broke it off with him. You know, somewhere in the darkest part of your heart, that he loves her and if she’d have him, he’d be gone in a minute.”
Danielle didn’t say anything, just stared straight out the front windshield.
Brandon kept on. “Your life hangs in the balance based on what this woman wants because it’s a daily fear that she’ll decide she wants your husband and will call him to her, and then you’ll be left. Cold and alone.” He checked for cars, then turned onto the road where Deets PR sat. “Then an opportunity falls in your lap. You can take her out of the picture, save your marriage and your love. All you have to do is put a little cherry juice into one of the drinks that everyone knew she drank like crazy. Just sneak it in there, and it’s not like you really killed her. It’s not like you shot her or stabbed her or even put toxicity in her body. Cherries are, after all, fruit. It’s her body’s fault that it causes a reaction.”
His partner’s silence told him she couldn’t discount his theory. Even so, it didn’t make him happy. A woman was still dead. It was up to him to speak up for her.
“Emmi could’ve taken the mask and doll out of the house when she went back to get her and Tim’s things.”
“Whatever for?”
“Killers keep trophies, right?” He turned into the parking lot and inched into a space. “Emmi would have it made. Her competition is gone, she’s a hero for staying with her husband during what had to be the most traumatic time of her life, and she’s just a little happier knowing she took control of the situation.”
“Control?”
He nodded. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, as they say, right?”
“Well, it’s an interesting theory and one I can’t destroy. Let’s go see what her husband has to say. He’ll either strengthen your theory or rip it to shreds.”
“Then let’s go find out.” Brandon led the way into the building and to the receptionist’s desk. “We’re here to see Tim Dubois. He’s expecting us.”
“One moment.”
Brandon glanced around the office
space. It was in a prime downtown location and, by the looks of the front room, recently renovated. Lots of glass and mirrors. Water treatment right inside the frosted glass doors. He moved to the group portraits hanging on the wall. One of them had a large group of people, but prominently smiling in the front were Tim, Anna Belle, Franklin, Hugh, and Georgia. The next portrait was one of five people, and Brandon only recognized Tim. This was probably the board. He made a mental note to make sure to review the board members.
“He’ll be right with you,” the receptionist said.
“Thank you.” Brandon glanced at his partner. “Nice digs,” he whispered.
“Being successful isn’t a crime, remember,” she whispered back.
“But murder is.”
ELEVEN
“I can’t believe I didn’t immediately think of bringing this over.” Pam shook her head as she made her way into Grayson’s living room and plopped down on the couch. She set her laptop on the coffee table and opened the lid to the Mac.
“Me too.” Grayson moved to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. It might be afternoon, but he and Pam drank java all day every day. “If it hadn’t hit me immediately, I should’ve picked up on it last night when you told me about taking the equipment back.”
“Ditto that.” Tapping echoed as her fingers flew over the computer keys. “I’m connected to the office server. Let me access the saved video feeds.”
Grayson pulled mugs from the cabinet and set them on the counter, then hesitated. He wasn’t sure how he was going to feel about actually seeing Anna Belle again. It was one thing to see her picture but something totally different to see her moving and talking, alive and vibrant. He needed to steel his emotions.
“Hmm. This is odd.”
“What?” He joined Pam in the living room.
“Someone accessed the file through the server this weekend.”
It was so encrypted, no outside entity could get in, so that wasn’t a worry. “The police?” But they would have the means. “Did they serve a warrant on the business?” As co-owner, he should have been informed if that was the case.