Die Job (21 page)

“Thank you, Grace,” Avaline said, sending a gracious smile my way. “I was just telling John here how excited I am to be interviewing Cyril. I expect he’ll have a fascinating story to tell.”

John? I raised my brows at him. He smiled but kept his eyes on Avaline, who was leaning forward in such a way that he couldn’t avoid the view of her robust cleavage offered by the white blouse unbuttoned to approximately her navel. Okay, only the top two buttons were undone, but they were enough.

“And I can’t wait to get John on camera. I’m sure he’ll be very photogenic. Just look at his bone structure!”

We all stared at Dillon and I thought he flushed under our scrutiny.

“You weren’t even here when Braden fell,” I said, sounding more accusatory than I wanted.

“I’m not doing an interview,” Dillon said, and I felt a rush of relief. I remembered his hostility toward the press from an earlier case and thought Avaline van Tassel might not find it so easy to get him on camera.

“I’m trying to persuade him to give us background on the investigation,” Avaline said. “The fact that the police can’t pinpoint a suspect makes it that much more likely that Cyril pushed Braden.”

“So you think Cyril dressed up like a werewolf and smothered Braden at the hospital when pushing him off the landing didn’t do the trick?”

Avaline was unperturbed by the hint of skepticism in my tone. “Spirits have been known to travel some distance from where they died, especially when the emotional impetus is significant enough. I interviewed a spirit—a woman—in Montana who journeyed more than a hundred miles in 1912 to be with her daughter who had gotten trapped in a well. And perhaps the nurse, startled by Cyril’s presence, was . . . less than accurate in her description of what she saw in that hospital room. I’m interviewing her, too.”

Dillon pushed off the desk he was leaning against and said, “Look, I’ve got a couple of questions for Dr. Mortimer so if you could excuse us . . .”

His firm tone dislodged even the smug Avaline from her perch on Lucy’s desk. Lucy looked startled and a bit nervous but said, “Of course, Agent Dillon. Not that I saw what happened, but I’ll be happy to answer your questions.” Her hands fluttered to the cameo at her throat and she blinked rapidly.

Dillon’s gaze settled on me, and he said, “If you could wait until I’m done here, Miss Terhune, I’ve got a couple of questions for you, too.”

I couldn’t tell from his tone if he’d heard about Althea’s and my car chase so I said, “Sure,” as casually as I could and followed Avaline into the hall. A short man wearing horn-rimmed glasses and highlighted hair gelled into short points hurried up to her. A Vandyke beard quivered as he talked. “Ava, darling, what do you think about doing the show live?”

“Live?” She sounded doubtful.

“Live,” he affirmed, nodding quickly. He spread his hands expansively and a diamond ring sparked on his pinkie. “We’ll have the spirit and the hurricane, just like in 1831 when Cyril moved on. And we can hire reenactors to play his wife and the party guests.”

“But, Les, you know the spirits don’t always respond to my overtures immediately,” Avaline said with a sidelong glance at me.

Studying a portrait on the wall, I pretended not to be listening. Despite myself, I was marginally interested. I’d never thought about it, but I supposed you couldn’t whistle for a ghost like you could for a dog. Could you lure it with . . . what? A ghost wouldn’t have much use for food or money or a complete set of Ginsu steak knives. Maybe ghosts could be tempted with promises of fame or a desire to accuse their murderers.

“Not a problem,” Les said. “We can pad the show if we have to, or maybe make it a two-parter. You know the ratings need a boost, darling, and doing it live—”

They moved toward the front entryway, out of earshot, and I wondered if Les was the show’s producer, who could make problems disappear by applying a little cash. I didn’t envy
them trying to film the show during a hurricane and wondered if they had any idea how
loud
a hurricane was. When Dillon hadn’t appeared after a couple of minutes, I made my way back to the foyer—Avaline and Les were nowhere in sight—and stepped over cables to climb the stairs. The cameraman was gone from the landing and I headed down the hall toward the portrait gallery. Stopping in front of the painting Lucy had shown the high schoolers, I studied Clarissa Rothmere’s painted likeness. She looked happy in this picture, one arm around the waist of a taller, plumper girl seated beside her—an older sister, surely—and the other stroking the head of a spaniel with its paws on her knee. She gazed out at me without a shadow of self-consciousness or worry, and I wondered what had happened to turn this carefree girl into the anxious, sickly writer whose seemingly privileged life was a veneer over the rot of murder, adultery, and greed, just like some of the South’s historic mansions were no more than wooden shells hollowed by termites, weather, and Union bullets.

“Friends of yours?”

Dillon’s voice came from behind me and I turned with a half smile. He stood a couple of paces away, hands crossed over his chest, gaze fixed on the painting. “Sort of.” I explained about my interest in Clarissa.

Dillon moved closer to study the painting and his shoulder brushed mine. “She looks like a nice kid,” he observed. “This guy, though”—he pointed to a blond young man with a narrow face—“looks like a weasel.”

I laughed. “Maybe that’s the brother who was in debt, the one Clarissa is afraid killed their father.”

“My money’s on the wife,” Dillon said. “She’s got that unsatisfied look that means trouble. Ever looked at a portrait of Henry the Eighth? Or Marie Antoinette? They had the
same look. You can probably find it in cave paintings, too, for all I know. The ‘I want more’ look you see on the faces of shoppers at the mall.”

“Wow, you’re almost as good as Ms. Van Tassel,” I said. “Maybe you could get your own show—
The Portrait Whisperer
.”

“TV’s not for me,” he said shortly.

“Why not?”

He eyed me for a long moment and then said, “I don’t trust reporters.”

“Why not?”

“Because getting the story first is more important to most of ’em than getting the facts straight or keeping a murderer behind bars.”

“That doesn’t sound like a hypothetical situation.”

“It’s not. It wasn’t.” Before I could probe for more details, he took a step forward, and he gently touched the abraded spot on my cheekbone. “Should I be asking what the other guy looks like?”

His touch confused me and I didn’t want to talk about my dip in the Atlantic. Resisting the impulse to turn my face into his palm, I stepped back and his hand fell to his side. “Grace, zero. Ocean, one,” I said lightly. At his questioning frown, I gave him an abbreviated version of my morning’s swim. His brows arched toward his hairline, but I distracted him by recounting the story of Althea’s and my trip to the trailer park and our almost run-in with Lonnie. I downplayed the car chase, making it sound like nothing more than a Sunday drive down a shady lane, but he was still frowning by the time I got to the gun.

“Lonnie pulled a gun on you?” Anger and something else vibrated in his voice.

“Well, I’m not sure he knew it was Althea and me,” I said, “and he
didn’t point it at us or anything. In fact”—I visualized the scene in my head—“he seemed scared. Frightened of something. And I don’t know why Althea or I would frighten him.” The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that Lonnie hadn’t realized who was trailing him.

Dillon flipped open his cell phone and issued an order to someone to pick up Alonso Farber for questioning. “He’s armed,” he said into the phone. “Let me know when you’ve got him.” He hung up and concentrated on me again. “You’ve had a busy day.” His tone didn’t lead me to think it was a compliment. “Anything else I should know?”

“Well . . .” I relayed what Hank had said about Glen Spaatz and what Mark had said about Braden’s involvement with the Relamin study.

Dillon received the news impassively and I couldn’t tell what he thought.

“Could Braden have been a threat to the pharmaceutical company somehow?” I asked.

“I think you’ve been watching too many whistle-blower movies,” he said.

“I guess I’d rather have Braden’s killer be a faceless corporation than some kid that Rachel goes to school with,” I said. I hadn’t realized it before, but it was true.

“That’s understandable.”

I hesitated for a moment, on the brink of mentioning my concern about Mark Crenshaw, but drew back.

“What?” Dillon asked, clearly sensing my indecision. “You’d better tell me.”

I shook my head, my hair whisking against my cheek. “No. It’s nothing.” I couldn’t justify siccing the police on Mark’s father with no more than an easily explained bruise and vague suspicions to go on. Maybe I could find an opportunity
to talk with Captain Crenshaw myself and get a feel for the man. Or maybe I should approach Mrs. Crenshaw. To distract Dillon, who was looking at me with one brow quirked, I asked, “Where do you send Groucho when there’s a hurricane?” Groucho was his horse, a big black brute I’d only seen in photos.

“A woman I know owns a boarding farm a couple hours northwest of here,” he said. “I had Groucho taken up there a couple days ago.”

Conjuring an image of a svelte blonde in jodhpurs and riding boots, I suppressed a completely unreasonable sting of jealousy at the phrase “a woman I know.” “That’s good,” I said lamely. “I suppose he’s not used to hurricanes.”

“Nope. They’re few and far between in Wisconsin.”

I was suddenly overwhelmed with a desire to hear all about his life in Wisconsin, his life before he arrived in Georgia. I realized I didn’t know if he had been married before, if he had siblings or children, or what he liked to do in his off time, other than hang out with Groucho. “What—” I started.

Dillon’s phone rang. He answered it, raising one finger in a “hold that thought” gesture. “I’m on my way,” he said into the phone. “I’ve got to go,” he told me as he ended the call. “We’re still on for Friday?”

“Barring hurricane intervention.”

He grinned and strode away. I listened to his steps as he ran down the stairs and started thinking about what to wear Friday night. Maybe my halter-top dress with the leaf design. But that wouldn’t work if it was chilly in the aftermath of the hurricane. Possibly the blue . . .

A creaking sound, like someone stepping on a loose floorboard, pulled me out of my thoughts. Looking over my shoulder, I saw no one, just Clarissa and Cyril and the rest
of the Rothmere family gazing at me from the oil painting. Was there a new urgency in Clarissa’s expression? I leaned closer to the painting and touched a finger to the painted fabric of Clarissa’s yellow gown, almost expecting the feel of silk under my fingertip. But the hundred-and-fifty-year-old paint was rough and dry. Too much talk of ghosts and spirit whisperers was getting to me. Or maybe it was the falling barometer making me feel so strange. Another almost creak—more a sigh of air compressed between two boards—goosed me out of the portrait gallery and closer to the stairs. Old houses make noises, I told myself, looking over my shoulder toward the shadowy passage that led out of the gallery in the other direction. And this house was full of people—cameramen and other people involved in Avaline’s show. Creaks and squeaks were nothing to worry about.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I reached the stairs and began descending them. Sunlight, muted by clouds, streamed into the foyer from the open door. It felt welcoming after the stingy light in the upstairs hall. At the bottom of the stairs, under the magnificent chandelier, Avaline stood talking to a woman who looked vaguely familiar. She turned as I stepped into the marbled entryway and I recognized the other chaperone from the field trip, Dr. Solomon. Dark brows arched toward the widow’s peak, and she looked as startled to see me as I was to see her.

The lines in her brow smoothed out as I approached. “Grace, right?” she said, extending her hand. “I guess you’re here for an interview about that night, too.”

I shook her hand, noting the somewhat stubby fingers with their bare nails filed short. The rest of her look was equally no-nonsense: smooth, olive-toned skin free of makeup; hair pulled back into a low ponytail like on Saturday; deep-set brown
eyes and a wide mouth that pulled down a tad at the corners. I could definitely envision her in a white lab coat rather than the navy slacks and pinstriped oxford blouse she wore with a cardigan knotted around her neck.

“We haven’t talked her into it yet,” Avaline said, tossing back her mane of black hair. “Maybe you can convince her it won’t be painful, Tasha.” She laughed, and with a glance at her watch, excused herself, disappearing down the hall toward Lucy’s office.

“I’d guess it will be more painful for you than it would be for me,” I said, taking the opening Avaline had unwittingly supplied. “I mean, you knew Braden so much better than I did.”

Tasha Solomon drew in a fast breath, nostrils flaring wide. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you worked with him in that drug study, didn’t you?” I said innocently. “I’d only met him a couple of times with Rachel.”

A technician walked past us, unwinding cable from a big spool and I stepped aside. Tasha Solomon didn’t move.

“Ah.” She seemed to be thinking. “Who told you about the drug study?” Her eyes, hooded under heavy lids, watched me closely. “Not that I can confirm whether or not Braden McCullers was taking part.”

“I heard it from one of his friends,” I said, deliberately vague. “I guess there was some talk that maybe the drug made him light-headed or dizzy.”

“That’s bullshit,” she said, thrusting her face forward pugnaciously. “Relamin is a miracle drug. It’s going to make a huge difference in the lives of thousands of people trying to cope with depression. It’s—” She cut herself off. “Why am I explaining this to you?” She hefted her purse higher on her shoulder, preparing to leave.

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” I said, a little startled by the severity of her reaction.

“No, I’m sorry for blowing up at you,” she said. Some of the tension eased out of her shoulders. “This whole thing with Braden has made me a little edgy. He was a good kid and it’s just awful to think that someone would want to kill him. Ari—my daughter—spent a whole day in bed when she heard. Look, I’ve got an appointment.”