by Elaine Viets
Briggs was drinking coffee and reading a newspaper in a brown leather wing chair near the French doors. He stood when we entered the room. He was handsomer than in his newspaper photos, but shorter than I remembered – an inch or two shorter than my six feet. He was wearing a rather battered sport coat, well-worn but good quality. Up close, Briggs was pretty-boy handsome, with long, girlish eyelashes and a slightly weak chin. He shook both our hands, and his hands were soft and manicured.
‘Angela,’ he said. ‘Good to see you again.’ His smile revealed perfect white teeth.
He turned to Jace. ‘How may I help you, Officer?’
‘It’s detective, Mr Bellerive,’ Jace corrected him. Good, he was snapping out of it. ‘Chouteau Forest Crimes Against Persons.’
Briggs raised one eyebrow. ‘What kind of crime, Detective? Rape, murder, assault with a deadly weapon?’ He sounded playful.
Jace did not. ‘Do you know this young woman?’ He showed Briggs a photo of Terri.
‘I’ve seen her picture in the newspapers,’ he said. ‘She’s a runner, right? And she ran off somewhere last fall?’ Briggs was treating this as a joke. I could see Jace’s jaw tighten. He was getting ticked off.
‘Did Terri ever come here? Eat flowers for dinner?’
Oh, dear. Jace was losing his cool.
‘I assure you, Officer, we don’t have any lotus-eaters here. Do you know Homer?’ He waved his hand at the bookcase to his left. ‘We have several translations, unless you prefer to read it in Greek.’
He was mocking Jace now, flaunting his money and his education.
‘However, I do like to cook with my nasturtiums, so I guess that does make me a flower eater. Angela can tell you about those. You’ve eaten them, haven’t you, my dear?’
‘Yes,’ I said, my voice flat. I didn’t want to be baited into responding.
‘You came to dinner here with that Cuban gentleman, what was his name?’
‘Mario,’ I said. ‘Mario Garcia. He owns Killer Cuts. He came to the US with nothing and built a successful business.’
‘Admirable,’ he said, dismissing me and Mario. ‘What did I make for your dinner? Oh, yes, I remember, Caribbean lobster – I find Maine lobster too bland – with nasturtium mayonnaise. I make the mayonnaise from scratch, you know, and add chopped nasturtium leaves and pickled nasturtium seed pods in place of capers. What did you think of it, Angela?’
‘It was interesting,’ I said, my standard noncommittal answer.
‘I detect a lack of enthusiasm. You must try my veal loin with nasturtiums,’ he said. ‘It has a marvelous peppery flavor.’
‘Mr Bellerive,’ Jace said, ‘I’m not here to discuss recipes. I want to know if you knew Terri Gibbons?’
‘No. I don’t associate with high school girls, Officer.’
‘Detective,’ corrected Jace.
‘Detective, then. I prefer adult women.’
‘Was Terri Gibbons on your property for any reason? Did she ask to run on your grounds? Was she here for some kind of special event?’
‘I can assure you that Terri Gibbons, to my knowledge, has never set her fleet foot on these grounds. May I ask what this is about?’
‘Terri Gibbons was found dead.’
‘Oh, that’s too bad,’ Briggs said, as if he’d heard someone’s cat had died. ‘But what does that have to do with me?’
‘Your name was found in her effects.’
‘My name?’ Briggs laughed. ‘Young girls often get crushes on so-called older men. They see me in the newspapers or on TV and try to email me. After all, I’m rich and single and some of them are looking for a sugar daddy. You’ve heard of the sugar baby phenomenon, haven’t you? Where attractive young women accommodate older men in exchange for money for college, nice clothes and exotic trips? There are even sugar baby websites. My secretary, Bernice, fends off those women for me. She gets dozens of letters and emails every month from pretty women propositioning me. She’s very protective and turns them down politely. I’ll have her check and see if there are any from this young woman – what was her name again?’
‘Terri. Gibbons.’
Briggs picked up the phone extension on the wall and said, ‘Bernice, did I get any letters or emails from a young woman named Terri Gibbons? Thank you. I’ll wait.’
Briggs paced while Jace and I sat on the edge of our seats. After about four minutes, Briggs said, ‘Nothing? You’re sure?’ Briggs winced, as if the secretary had scolded him. ‘Of course. Thank you, Bernice.’
He hung up the phone and said, ‘There you have it. Bernice says there was no contact with this young person at all – no phone calls, no emails, no letters. Bernice is a bit of a battleax, but nobody is more thorough. So I guess we’re finished here, Officer.’
I wanted to wipe that smirk off Briggs’s face. This time, Jace didn’t bother correcting him about his title, but I could tell the detective had had enough. His neck and ears were red.
‘No, we’re not finished,’ Jace said. He stood up and handed Briggs the search warrant. ‘Read this.’
As Briggs read it in his wing chair, the smirk disappeared. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I thought we were just having a friendly talk.’
‘We were,’ Jace said. ‘Now playtime’s over. We have a search warrant for this address.’ He held up his cell phone. ‘I’m making the call. Tell your guard at the gate to let my officers in.’
‘Not until I clear this with my lawyer,’ Briggs said. His surface politeness had vanished, along with his smile. His eyes were hard and dark.
‘Feel free,’ Jace said. ‘You can fax him the whole thing. But I’m making my call now, too. And if my officers don’t get through, you and your guard will be arrested.’
NINE
‘Well, Angela, since my home is overrun with gendarmes, shall I show you my flowers?’
‘I’d be delighted,’ I said. And I was. That’s why I was here – to see if he’d reveal anything about Terri’s death.
He gave me his best smile, but I didn’t trust it. I’d seen how he’d reacted when Jace had flipped out that warrant. His genial smile had vanished, replaced by a hard mouth and mean eyes.
At first, Briggs sputtered like an old car. Then he called his lawyer, Claude X. Obert, and ordered his assistant to fax the warrant to him. Obert said that the warrant was valid and the police had the right to search the entire Bellerive estate. Claude volunteered to monitor the search – although I don’t think this was charity. He got at least seven hundred dollars an hour. Briggs told Claude to go ahead.
Meanwhile, Jace made his phone call and a platoon of police showed up at the Bellerive front gate. Jace met them there. There was a mild kerfuffle when the gate guard tried to stop the police from entering.
‘We have a search warrant for this address and we’ll break down this gate if we have to,’ Jace said. ‘Step aside or you will be arrested.’
The guard defied Jace long enough to phone Briggs, who gave his approval – not that Briggs had any choice. I was proud of Jace. It took guts to buck the Bellerives and their minions. Especially since Jace wasn’t connected in the Forest. People as powerful as the Bellerives could get Jace fired with a phone call.
Jace unleashed a small army to search the estate, and he’d organized the huge group into teams. They brought flattened boxes, packing tape, evidence bags (plastic and paper), envelopes, evidence tamper-proof sealing tape and more.
They were already taking video and still photographs of the gate. They had to video and photograph the search from start to finish. Jace would have to be able to establish where his teams were and what that area looked like both before and after the search. Did the police trash the place? Break anything? Crack that Ming vase on the mantel? Videos and photos answered those questions.
The searchers also had to document what they found and where they found it, and how that area related to the other parts of the estate.
The microphone on the video recorder was muted. Most detectives learned that
from bitter experience. Cops were an irreverent bunch, and used offbeat humor to get through bad scenes. Too often during a video recording, there was what was politely called background ‘noise’ from careless officers or detectives. Comments like these were heard at a murder scene: ‘The SOB deserved it’ and ‘Would ya look at the size of those fake tits?’ They did not sit well with the prosecutor, much less the defense attorney.
Ten minutes after the search started, Claude X. Obert roared up in his sleek black Mercedes. The lawyer had a lean, predatory look and a suit only the wealthy could afford. It fit like a second skin.
Claude advised (although it sounded like a command to me) that Briggs stay out of the way during the search. That’s when Briggs decided to be my tour guide. He’d recovered enough to return to his affable host mode.
Back in the library, he offered me a drink. ‘Would you like coffee, tea, or something more interesting, Angela?’
I asked for hot tea, and a uniformed maid brought it into the library, along with a plate of ‘fingerprint’ butter cookies surrounded by pink nasturtiums. The fingerprint depression was filled with a citrusy apricot jam. Briggs poured himself a scotch, and the two of us crunched cookies for a bit.
‘I gather you didn’t like my nasturtium mayonnaise, Angela,’ he said.
‘I can’t bring myself to eat flowers. They’re so pretty.’
‘But tender Bibb lettuce isn’t? Or curly leaved Romaine?’ He popped a pink nasturtium in his mouth and chewed it.
‘OK, you’ve got a point,’ I said, and took a polite sip of tea. ‘But I still can’t eat flowers.’ I reached for another cookie.
‘Really? You’re eating them now.’
‘Where?’ I looked at my tea, as if nasturtiums were lurking in the cup.
‘The cookies,’ he said. ‘They’re made with nasturtium flowers. There are more flowers in the jam.’ He was laughing. ‘Admit it now. They’re good with a cup of tea.’
‘They are,’ I agreed. ‘As long as I don’t know I’m eating flowers.’
‘Come, come, Angela, it’s not like the horrible things they put in hot dogs. You’re not eating ground-up pig lips. Just gently snipped nasturtiums. And I personally inspected them for bugs and slugs.’
That did it. I put my nasturtium cookie back on my plate.
‘Are you single, Angela?’ The way Briggs studied my ringless left hand gave me the creeps. Or maybe it was because I knew he was a killer.
‘Widowed,’ I said. ‘But I’m seeing someone.’ And that’s all I’m doing, I thought. Looking at the guy. Just keep away from me. OK?
‘Let me know if you change your mind,’ he said and positively leered.
I put my teacup on the tray. ‘You were going to show me your flowers.’
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
I followed him out into an enormous hall that could have been a hotel lobby – three crystal chandeliers, a black-and-white marble floor, lots of gold-framed mirrors (to make the place look even bigger?), and Louis the something-or-other chairs and settees scattered about.
We went through the polished black double front doors. From the vast marble porch, the pots of nasturtiums were a river of color running down the stairs. The spring breeze stirred them slightly and we were treated to a sweet perfume.
‘These yellow ones are Peach Melba,’ he said, ‘and the trailing ones are Salmon Baby.’
‘Pretty,’ I said.
‘Useful, too. During World War Two, when there was a shortage of pepper, people ground up the seeds and used them as a pepper substitute. Gum?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Would you like a stick of gum?’ He handed me a stick of Beeman’s clove gum.
I was momentarily stunned. I recovered enough to say, ‘Thank you’ and stashed the gum in my pocket. Another link to Terri’s death. And a reminder to be careful around this man, no matter how much he tried to charm me.
We followed a stone path around the house to the back, where Briggs showed me his ‘kitchen garden’ – a vegetable patch.
‘I grow heirloom tomatoes, two kinds of potatoes – Irish Cobbler and Red Norland – asparagus and winter squash. I love to cook with them.’
‘Speaking of cooking, I was surprised you had such a—’ I paused. What was the polite word? Outdated? Antiquated? ‘Vintage kitchen.’
‘Vintage? Oh, Emily took you through the servant’s entrance. That’s their kitchen. Let me show you mine.’
He led me to an addition on the other side of the kitchen garden, and showed off his kitchen, rattling off terms designed to impress: a Sub-Zero refrigerator and freezer. A Viking gas range that operates with higher-than-usual BTUs, which ‘allows for larger, hotter flames.’ Three ovens, plus a convection oven. Warming drawers. A pot filler over the stove. Three sinks. Two dishwashers.
My head was spinning by the time we were back outside on the stone path. It was soothing to look at the massive beds of spring flowers – buttery yellow daffodils and fiery red tulips. Missouri was heavenly in the spring.
The path passed a two-story stone building with a white gingerbread porch.
‘That looks like my home on the Du Pres estate,’ I said. ‘It used to be a guesthouse.’
‘I’m not surprised they look alike,’ Briggs said. ‘Our guesthouse was constructed by the same architect who designed the one on the Du Pres estate. Both were built in the 1920s. As a boy, this was my “playhouse.” Now it’s useful for stashing unwanted guests and relatives.’
And captive young women? I wondered.
Inside, the two-story guesthouse’s expensive, casual furniture had the look of a decorator’s touch. No castoffs here.
By this time, the police had finished searching the main house and were starting on the guesthouse. Claude followed them inside, and stood around with his arms crossed. It was one o’clock, and the lawyer was at least twenty-one hundred bucks richer.
Jace motioned me to speak to him. I followed him past the flower beds, out of Briggs’s earshot. ‘This guesthouse is as big as my home,’ Jace said. ‘I’m hoping we’ll find something here.’
I told him Briggs had given me a stick of gum, and Jace said, ‘You’re doing good. Keep getting him to show you things. See if you can tour those woods behind the house.’
That’s the last thing I wanted to do, but I said, ‘OK, just keep your ears open in case I need help.’
Back with Briggs, I pasted a smile on my face and tried to keep it there. ‘You have a really big garage,’ I said.
‘It can hold six cars,’ he said. ‘Do you like cars?’
‘Love them,’ I said, and that was the truth.
The garage was painted white, inside and out, and the gray concrete floor was shiny. This was a showplace, not a hangout for mechanics to tinker with cars. In the first bay was a new Ford F-150 pick-up truck – the body didn’t have a ding or a dent. Next to it was an old but well-cared-for gray Toyota, then a snappy BMW convertible. Next to that was a big black Mercedes. The fifth vehicle was under a gray cover.
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
Briggs lifted the cover reverently. ‘That’s my 1962 E-Type Jaguar,’ he said.
We both admired the sculpted silver body. ‘It’s a collectible,’ he said. ‘But one I can drive.’
‘Is there a sixth car?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he said. The garage floor was so clean, I couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. But he did answer awfully quickly.
When we left the garage, I saw a cloud of pink flowers in the woods that Jace had wanted me to search. ‘Are those pink dogwood?’ I asked, pointing in that direction. ‘Can we go see them? I love dogwood.’
‘You can see them from here,’ Briggs said.
‘But I like to look at them up close,’ I said. ‘You know the legend of the dogwood, don’t you? That its wood made the cross Christ was crucified on?’
‘Not possible,’ he said. ‘The tree is too small to be a cross.’ His voice was drained of its smoo
th affability. He sounded annoyed.
‘That’s it,’ I said. ‘The legend says the tree was distraught when it found out it had been used to crucify Christ, and Christ made it a promise: the dogwood would never again grow large enough to be used that way. Now it has cross-shaped blossoms with “blood stains” – the brown marks on the petals. Dogwood only bloom a short time each year. I have to see them.’
‘Angela!’ Briggs shouted. ‘Come back here.’
But I didn’t. I kept running toward the pink dogwood trees. They were gorgeous. And behind their lacy pink curtain was a new Range Rover. No wonder Briggs didn’t want me looking at the dogwoods.
‘Jace!’ I yelled. ‘Jace, come here!’
Both Jace and Briggs came running, followed by the lawyer. Briggs looked angry, and the lawyer showed no emotion at all. But he must have been worried, or he wouldn’t be in these muddy woods, wearing his fancy shoes.
‘What is it, Angela?’ Jace asked.
‘A green Range Rover, abandoned behind those trees,’ I said.
‘It’s mine,’ Briggs said. ‘So what?’
‘Why isn’t it in your garage?’ Jace said.
‘I’m having the vehicle hauled away for scrap.’
‘Your Range Rover looks almost new,’ Jace says. ‘There’s not a mark on it. Why scrap it?’
The lawyer interrupted: ‘Briggs, you don’t need to answer that question.’
‘Yes, I do,’ Briggs said. ‘I’ve got nothing to hide.’
When someone said that they usually had plenty to hide. My heart was pounding as Briggs kept talking. Did he use this car to transport the dead women? Was he going to talk himself into a jail cell?
‘My stupid housekeeper ruined it! A freaking Range Rover! When the warm weather started this March, I wanted a barbecue. Three weeks ago, the stupid woman picked up two hundred pounds of meat and then left for the weekend. Said she had to visit her sick mother. The idiot left the meat in the Range Rover and when she came back Sunday it was rotted! Rotted – I can’t get the stink out. I had to throw out all that meat and buy more.’