by Gin Jones
"Not very friendly, this Vic Rezendes," Barry intoned.
"His assistant said he'd agreed to see me today, and I could stop by any time between noon and three." Helen reached for the cab's door handle. "There must be an intercom for visitors to announce themselves."
"Wait." Barry pointed at the gate that was swinging inward.
Jay Clary—or possibly Zee; it was too far to see the earring clearly—popped around the edge of the fence. "Hi, Ms. Bee. Come on in. Sorry if you had to wait a bit. We have to keep the gates locked to stop the fans from swarming the place, and something's wrong with the remote to open them. We're working on it."
"Well?" Helen said to the cab driver. "Will you drive up to the front door and wait for me? I shouldn't be long. Maybe half an hour."
"If you are paying, I will wait."
"I'm paying."
"I could say a prayer for you while I wait, if you wish," he said solemnly as he proceeded through the gates and up the driveway. "No additional charge."
"I hope that won't be necessary." The trees on either side were probably stunning during the summer, but at this time of year they were nothing but dark skeletons, throwing sharp shadows on the ground. Helen was relieved to emerge into the gray November light after just a few car lengths. The paved driveway curved to the left, and she could see that it continued into the backyard where a massive four-car garage was half hidden by the sprawling mansion. A new gravel parking lot large enough for half a dozen cars had been added to the left side of the driveway, situated even with the front of the house. Barry backed onto the gravel beside a late model SUV painted in what was likely a custom shade of purple, since it perfectly matched the decorative shutters on the house. She should have known Rezendes wouldn't limit his favorite color to little things like his clothes, food and drinks.
A deep, wide lawn set off the neocolonial brick-front mansion. The building had to be at least ten or even twenty times the square footage of her home, looming over visitors like a fortress. Vic probably didn't have to keep telling people that he wanted to be left alone; he could let his house do the talking for him. Helen just hoped that, contrary to the message the house was sending, Vic really was willing to talk to her about rescheduling his speech.
She turned to Barry. "Can you say a prayer for an institution, rather than a person?"
"It depends on the institution."
"The Wharton Library," Helen said. "It could use some divine intervention after yesterday's fiasco."
"A library is a fine institution. I will pray for it." Barry glanced at Art Hendricks, who had just come through the deep-purple front door and was scurrying down the steps and along the front pathway with an apologetic look on his young face, and added, "I will pray for you also."
Helen wasn't going to be turned back by an assistant, not with so much on the line, so she scrambled out of the cab before Art could stop her.
"I'm so sorry, Ms. Binney," Art said. "I was hoping the situation would improve before you arrived, but it looks like we've wasted your time yet again. Mr. Rezendes locked himself in his poker room sometime last night, and he's refusing to come out. He had a note on the door when I got here this morning, asking not to be disturbed."
"I thought you lived here." It wasn't easy to find a vacant apartment here in Wharton, even in the winter, and all the politicians she'd worked with in the past had required their personal assistants to live on-site. Besides, the quick way Art had responded to all her questions, even though he had to consult with Vic on every little thing, suggested that he was always right next to his boss. They could have communicated by phone or text, but she'd always pictured Art staying within a ten-foot radius of his boss at all times. "There must be enough room for you here, if only in the servants' quarters."
Art laughed. "Oh, this place isn't that grand or that old. No servants' quarters, and most of the bedrooms are being renovated. In any event, I have my own place in Wharton. Used to belong to my parents. They only stayed here in the summer, but it is a year-round house. Mr. Rezendes likes his privacy, and I like a little time for myself when I'm off the clock. If I lived here, I'd be working 24/7."
"Instead of just 12/7," Helen said. "Or do you work the weekends and take some time off in the middle of the week?"
"No, you're right," Art said with a good-natured chuckle. "Seven days a week. Not twelve hours a day, though, most of the time. Just during major tournaments and the lead-up to them."
"Are you sure Vic won't come out if he knows I'm here?" Helen said. "It's almost 2:00, so he's been in there for at least six hours now. He must be ready for some lunch or at least a bathroom break."
"He doesn't have to leave the poker room for that. It's got its own bathroom, and a fully stocked mini-fridge." Art pulled out his smartphone, perhaps to see if he'd received a message from his boss. After a brief glance, he shook his head and returned it to his pocket. "I don't know what to tell you. It's not usual for Mr. Rezendes to be this rude. At least not unintentionally. That's why he hired me. To make sure he didn't miss out on any of his obligations. Despite his…his excitable nature, he really is a solid businessman."
"Maybe something happened to him," Helen said. "I understand the poker room is still in the midst of renovations, and construction scenes are full of hazards."
"You might be right," Art said. "The contractor for the renovations wasn't too happy about being locked out of there with so many things left unfinished. She just went to see if she could crowbar Mr. Rezendes out of the poker room so she could do her work." Art glanced over his shoulder. "She'll probably come storming out of the house in a minute. I don't think he's going to let her in."
Helen heard an approaching vehicle and turned to see Marty Reed's van approaching slowly with Zee—or perhaps her brother—behind the wheel.
"There might be another way to check on your boss." Helen went over to where the van was stopped and rapped on the driver's side door.
Zee—it was definitely her behind the wheel unless she'd swapped earrings with her brother—rolled down the window. "Hi, Ms. Bee. We've got the gate fixed now. Do you need a ride home?"
Helen shook her head. "Barry's going to wait for me. I was wondering about something else. Did you finish installing the security cameras in the poker room?"
Zee glanced at Art and then leaned closer to Helen to whisper, "Don't tell the client, but Marty sneaked in here yesterday and got the cameras installed while everyone was at the library. Everything else was done before that, and the client's been using the alarm part of the security system for the last week. We just needed to get the audio-video stuff finished. Marty wanted to get the cameras in place before the specs got changed again. "
"Can you activate them remotely? And then can we see what they're seeing?"
"Sure." Zee jumped down from the van, calling to her brother to grab his laptop and follow her. She opened the two rear doors to reveal a jumble of wires and various sizes of boxes with part numbers printed on them.
Jay climbed into the van, connected his laptop to a large-screen monitor affixed to the driver's side back door and started tapping on the keyboard. "Okay, I've got the controls up and running. What do you want to see?"
Zee glanced at Helen, who answered him. "The poker room."
"One poker room, coming right up," Jay said. "Keep your eye on the screen. Pay no attention to the man behind the laptop."
When nothing but static appeared on the monitor, Zee said, "The ground floor, not the upstairs. They're turned off."
"I know that," Jay said without any irritation in his tone. "None of the floors or rooms are labeled yet, so it'll take a minute. Unless you think you can do better?"
"I can always do better, but you might as well keep going. There's no real rush." Zee turned to look at Helen. "Is there?"
"Probably not."
The image on the monitor suddenly resolved from snowy static to the clear picture of a poker room that looked like it had been transported here from a resort-style c
asino. The image was in full, crisp color, not the black and white Helen had expected from a security camera. She remembered belatedly that she'd been told Vic had been planning to stream his poker games and classes on the Internet, so presumably he'd wanted much higher quality video.
The room held a massive poker table large enough to seat ten large people comfortably, with oversized leather seating and what looked like the expensive sets of Kem cards that the library had bought for yesterday's events, and that Helen had hoped to raffle off to benefit the library. Art must have taken them while retrieving his boss's cape.
Indignant, Helen was about to demand that they be returned when the image changed to a different angle. This one showed the opposite side of the poker table, where a purple-clothed man lounged in one of the expensive leather chairs. A woman wearing a tool belt was leaning over him, obscuring the view of his face. Helen assumed she was Tate's niece, Stevie. She looked a bit like Tate—tall and lean, with short dark hair—and if she'd convinced Vic to let her into the poker room, she also had some of her uncle's skills of persuasion.
"You only asked for video. Do you want sound too?" Jay didn't wait for an answer, but hit a key on the laptop, and the sound of a woman screaming blared from the laptop's speakers.
The woman on the screen straightened and raced out of the room, leaving a clear view of Vic Rezendes. Dark red blood clashed with his purple sweatshirt, and his eyes stared sightlessly in the direction of the camera.
CHAPTER FOUR
"You really didn't need to kill someone just to keep me entertained," Tate said as he approached the grouping of plum-colored Adirondack chairs where Helen had been waiting for Detective Peterson to deem her worthy of being interviewed.
"You know me, always trying to keep you on your toes." Over the past half hour, Helen had sat there, shivering occasionally, trying not to think about the scene in the poker room. She'd concentrated on patting the long-haired tortoiseshell cat that had jumped up next to her on the arm of the chair. The soothing, repetitive motion and the ensuing purr had helped settle her racing pulse after the shock of seeing Vic's bloody body.
Helen was glad she hadn't gotten quite as personal a view of the corpse as Stevie had. Viewing the battered body through the camera had been bad enough, especially with the high-resolution system Vic had insisted on. Poor Art had fainted at the sight and was now being monitored by EMTs from one of the three ambulances that hadn't bothered with the gravel parking lot but had driven straight onto the grass in front of the mansion's main entrance. Stevie was made of sterner stuff and had been quickly released by the EMTs and sent to wait with a couple of uniformed officers until Peterson collected her to take her statement.
"I'm quite capable of staying on my toes without your help," Tate said.
"I'm not talking about your ability to stand in front of your lathe for hours and hours," Helen said. "Your legal skills will get rusty if you don't get called to a crime scene at least once every few months. Someone has to make sure that won't happen."
"You're too good to me," he said. "Where's Stevie?"
"I'm not sure." No one had paid Helen much attention after the body was found, although she had a feeling that would have changed if she'd tried to leave the property. She didn't actually have any way to get home, since Barry, reluctant to get stuck here all afternoon, had taken off as soon as the police were called, and Jay and Zee were on lockdown just like she was. Helen had simply wandered over to the group of three plum-colored Adirondack chairs that matched the front door and the shutters on the mansion. They formed a semi-circle about ten feet from the front right corner of the house, away from the chaos of the EMTs and police swarming all over the crime scene. Once seated, she'd had enough presence of mind to call Tate to let him know that his niece might need his support. Stevie might not have fainted at the gory sight, but she had to be in some sort of shock after finding a dead body. "She was with a couple of uniformed officers, and I figured they didn't want us talking to each other and comparing stories, so I've been staying over here where I'm out of everyone's way."
"You?" His eyebrows rose. "Staying out of the investigation?"
"For now. It's not really any of my business."
Tate frowned. "Are you feeling all right?"
"I'm fine." The words came out automatically, despite the mental sluggishness that still plagued her. She'd even tried a few sips of the kale smoothie earlier today, in case it really was a miracle food, but the feeling of her brain being out of synch with her body hadn't improved. "Are you telling me I should be getting involved in the investigation? That there's something unusual enough that it's likely to stump Detective Peterson?"
"It is a little unusual." Tate looked over at the two ambulances remaining as one of them prepared to depart. "From what Stevie's told me in the past, Rezendes doesn't have any family or a significant other. That's who's usually responsible for an in-home killing."
"He's a jerk, though, just like you told me. That must add to the suspect list."
"Not necessarily," Tate said. "I mean, he was definitely a jerk, but not a violent one. I never heard of him getting into any physical altercations. Even if someone did take a swing at him, Rezendes was a big guy. It wouldn't have been easy to overpower him."
"Someone definitely managed it," Helen said. "I looked away as soon as I realized what I was seeing, but there was a lot of blood on him, and it seemed to be coming from several places. Like he'd been wounded several times, not just once."
"It's all just speculation for now," Tate said. "And like you said, it's none of your business. Remember that while I'm off to find Stevie. I'll check back with you before we leave, in case you need a ride."
"Thanks."
Tate had only been gone a couple of minutes when Art came running over from the back of the ambulance parked at the bottom of the mansion's front steps. "Grab Broadway!"
What on earth was Art talking about?
"The cat," he shouted. "Grab her. She's not supposed to be outdoors!"
Before Helen could react, the cat jumped down from the arm of the chair and sauntered off into some bushes along the mansion's foundation.
"Oh, no. She got away. Mr. Rezendes will die if anything happens to her." Art stumbled to an embarrassed stop. "I mean, that was his cat, and it's not safe for her to be out on her own. Mr. Rezendes loved her more than anything or anyone else in the world, I think."
"I'm sorry," Helen said. "Can I help you look for her?"
"No, no. She doesn't like people much, and we'd just scare her deeper into the woods. If we don't chase her, I'm sure she'll come to the kitchen when she's hungry. She does love her food." Art smiled ruefully. "She's a lot like her owner. Neither one of them ever missed a meal. Until today."
* * *
Once the panic over the cat subsided, Art felt faint again, so he wandered back to the ambulance for some more oxygen and being fussed over.
Helen waited on the Adirondack chair, hoping the cat might return if she stayed there and pretended not to care. After a while, though, it became obvious that the tortie wasn't coming back, and the temperature was dropping as the cold spell returned, so sitting outside wasn't particularly comfortable. She stood and stamped her feet to get warm.
When she'd last seen the cat, it had been heading around the corner of the right side of the house, so maybe it was still in that side yard somewhere. Helen peered around the overgrown shrubbery. Unlike the bushes, the lawn was so neatly maintained it looked like a golf course, except without any sand traps, water features, or flags. It was also sadly devoid of any tortoiseshell felines.
Helen caught some movement out of the corner of her eye, over near the side property line, but too high to be the cat unless it had gotten itself trapped at the top of a tree. Where the golf-course-like lawn ended, there was a thickly planted mix of medium-sized evergreens and taller deciduous trees. During the summer, they would have completely cut off any view of the neighboring mansion to a height of at least fifty fe
et, but with all the leaves long since fallen, it was possible to see through the upper bare branches to the second story of the next-door mansion.
Someone was standing on a second-floor deck in the back of that house. What Helen had interpreted as movement was actually the reflection of the sun on the lenses of binoculars. Helen waved at the nosy neighbor, a tall, thin woman in a red hat and what looked like a navy pea coat over similarly colored pants. The woman immediately ducked back inside the house.
"Hey!" Detective Hank Peterson shouted from close behind Helen.
Startled, she automatically gripped the handle of her cane, which was the only thing that saved her from falling onto the frozen ground. She took her time turning around, in part so she wouldn't embarrass herself if her hip refused to move properly, and in part to make it clear she wouldn't dance or otherwise move to his tune. Detective Peterson had a habit of looking down on her—it wasn't personal, she'd come to realize; he did it to everyone, even if they were taller than he was—and she wasn't in the mood to be condescended to by him yet again. She might not need medical treatment as a result of seeing poor Vic's bloody body, but she was still a bit shaky from the shock.
"What are you doing here?" Peterson planted himself a few feet away from the corner of the house, with his arms crossed over his chest. He wasn't much taller than Helen's 5' 6" ex-husband, although the detective was a bit stockier, and he managed to look intimidating. At least he did to anyone who, unlike Helen, had actually been caught doing something wrong.
"I'm looking for the cat," Helen said.
He opened his mouth to continue berating her, only to realize his prepared lecture didn't fit with her response. "What cat?"
"Vic Rezendes's cat," Helen said. "His assistant said it wasn't supposed to be outdoors, and I saw it come in this direction, so I went looking for it."