What Remains of Me (21 page)

“THIS IS GOING ON TOO LONG,” MARY MARSHALL SAID. “I NEED TO
plan the funeral.”

Barry Dupree coughed and got an elbow in the ribs from Louise Braddock. He frowned at her.
What?
He hadn't meant anything by the cough. It was just a cough. What kind of an asshole did Braddock think he was?

“Mrs. Marshall,” Braddock said. “I understand your frustration. But as I said before, the medical examiner will be releasing your husband's body very soon.”

“I need to contact his relatives. He has relatives all over the country. He comes from a big family. How will they be able to get out here if I don't know when the funeral will be?”

She said it to Barry, not Louise, but they were both used to that. Most older ladies preferred Barry's company to that of his partner—either because he was a guy and therefore more trustworthy to them or because Louise was about as welcoming and warm as the iceberg that sank the
Titanic
or both. Probably both.

Louise held Sterling Marshall's appointment book in her lap, and she kept tapping on it—an almost hostile gesture, somehow made worse by the fact that she was wearing evidence gloves.

Barry said, “Can I get you a glass of water, Mrs. Marshall?”

She shook her head. Pointed at Louise Braddock. “She isn't listening to me.”

“We're both listening, ma'am,” Barry said. But he couldn't return her gaze. It was the look in her eyes—
this-can't-be-happening
to the hundredth power. He'd seen it before on people like her—attractive, wealthy, basically happy people who'd lived a certain number of years and thought they could make it all the way to the finish line without the world falling in on them. What could you say to that look—
Life sucks? Shit happens? Sorry you had to live so long?

Making matters worse was the pharmaceutical influence. By her own admission, Mary Marshall had been zonked out on sleeping pills when the shots had woken her. She was half groggy when she found her husband's body, and had tried to numb the initial horror with a handful of Xanax (she couldn't remember how many), then a few Klonopin parsed out by her well-meaning daughter when the Xanax-calm started to loosen its grip.

As a result, the shock was settling in little by little as the drugs wore off. One minute, she'd be perfectly lucid, answering questions, asking them . . . and then reality would hit her and she'd get that look in her eyes and she'd shatter. She'd go either comatose or combative—and at the moment she was definitely combative. “You can't just hijack my husband's body,” she said.

“No one is taking Mr. Marshall's body for any longer than it needs to be taken. You must try to be patient,” said Louise, ever the diplomat, talking to Mary Marshall like she'd been complaining about her dry cleaning not being ready. Barry couldn't believe Louise had given him shit for coughing. Did she ever even listen to herself?

“When was the last time your son spoke to your husband?” Louise said.

“My
son
? Why are you asking about my
son
?”

“He took a whole bunch of your pills, ma'am.”

“I know that.”

“A dangerous amount.”

“He is grieving, Detective Braddock. We're all grieving. Do you know how that feels?”

“They didn't see each other much, though, did they?”

She looked at Barry again, for such a drawn-out moment that he felt obliged to nod. “My son and my husband spoke on the phone every week,” she said. “They were close.”

“When was the last time you and your husband had dinner with your son and his wife.”

“We don't do that.”

“When was the last time the two of them just got together to play golf? Shoot the breeze?”

“I don't know.”

“So would you classify Shane and Sterling's relationship as strained?”

“No,” she said. “No, they loved each other very much.”

Louise opened the appointment book. “When was the last time Mr. Marshall spoke on the phone to Shane?”

She exhaled. “Just this past Sunday.”

“What did they talk about?”

“Sterling told Shane about his cancer diagnosis. My daughter, Bellamy, had already known for weeks.”

“Were you in the room during the phone call?”

“No.”

“How did your husband seem after he hung up with your son?”

“He seemed the way he always seemed,” she said. “Why are you asking me about Shane?”

“Did your son know that Sterling had made an appointment with his lawyer for this coming Monday?”

“What?”

“It's in his book.” She tapped at the open page. “Did you know about it?”

She shook her head.

“When did he last speak to your son again?”

“Sunday.”

“He made the appointment on Monday, for one week later.”

“So what?”

“Is there anything your son could have said to him during that conversation that would make him call his lawyer?”

“What are you hinting at, Detective?”

“Louise,” said Barry.

“Did they fight at all? Did your husband mention anything about changing his will?”

“What are you trying to say about my son?”

“Louise, it stands to reason that he would want to get his papers in order.” He gave Mary Marshall a sad smile that he hoped would appease her. “I mean, in his condition.”

“Yes,” Mary said, the tension draining out of her. “Yes, that's true.” So often, Louise and Barry played good cop/bad cop. But it was very rarely intentional.

“I'm going to check in with the rest of the crew.” Louise got up from the couch, leaving the two of them, taking the appointment book with her.

It was probably the kindest thing she could have done under the circumstances, but that didn't make it any less uncomfortable for Barry. “We called your daughter a little while ago, ma'am,” he said. “She said she would be here soon.”

“With Shane?”

“I'm not sure.”

Mary gave him a weak smile, which crumbled fast. “I hope he's all right.”

A few tears trickled down her cheek. She wiped them away with a handkerchief she'd tucked into the sleeve of her silk blouse, plucked a gold compact out of her handbag, and applied red lipstick. “Do I look okay?” she said. “I don't want to scare my son again.”

“Again?”

“I think one of the things that upset him yesterday . . .” She cleared her throat. “I think I frightened him with the way I looked.”

“You look great, Mrs. Marshall,” he said.

“You've got to act and dress as though you always have an audience,” she said. “Sterling used to say that.” She let out a long sigh that became a sob. “Hell of a curtain call he's taking.”

Mary Marshall cried quietly into her handkerchief. Barry waited for the crying to subside. He wanted to pat her on the back but resisted the urge. Even in his mind, that felt awkward.

Finally, when she calmed, he cleared his throat, turned the page in his notebook. “Can you tell me a little bit about Mr. Marshall's schedule on April twenty-first?” Barry already knew about Sterling Marshall's schedule that day—at least he knew what he'd planned to do from the appointment book Louise had been tapping to death at the start of this interview. The uniforms going through Sterling Marshall's office had found the book straight off, and it had told them more by far than any witness interview. Turned out Marshall didn't have a personal assistant, and while he did have a computer that had since been taken into possession, he preferred scheduling on paper, as anybody would expect from a seventy-nine-year-old movie star with a drawer full of fancy pens.

“I'm not asking you for specific times or anything,” he said. “Just what you might remember him doing.”

She dragged the handkerchief across her eyes. “I wasn't home the whole day,” she said. “I . . . I had tennis and errands.”

“I understand. If you can just think back, though. Did he do anything out of the usual? Was he behaving strangely at all?”

“He had a doctor's appointment.”

Barry nodded. He'd seen that in the book. “What kind of doctor?”

“His oncologist.”

“Routine, or . . .”

“Nothing was routine. He'd just been diagnosed a few weeks ago with pancreatic cancer.” She got up from the couch, moved over to the window.

“Yes. Of course,” he said. “I guess what I'm saying is, how was he handling it?”

“Handling it?”

“His diagnosis. On that day. Was he acting strangely?”

“Detective Dupree. I have a question for you.”

“Okay . . .”

“How do you suppose Kelly Lund got into our house?” She said it flatly, matter-of-factly, and she didn't turn around. She stayed facing the window, the sun on her silver hair, her posture rigid as a ballet dancer's.

He stared at her back, not sure what she was asking. “We don't know who that was leaving the . . .”

She turned and faced him. “It was Kelly Lund. I know it was.”

“All I can tell you,” he said, “is there were no signs of a break-in.”

“It was the maid's day off. The cook only rarely stays nights and didn't last night. He and I were in the house alone.” She stared at him, eyes hurt and blazing. “And I was asleep.”

He took a breath, said it calm as he could. She was trying to put words in his mouth, and he couldn't let her do that. “You're saying,” he said, “that whoever this on the surveillance video is . . .”

“Kelly Lund.”

“Fine,” he said. “You're saying your husband must have let her into the house.”

She nodded vigorously.

“So . . .”

“So, if that's the case,” she said, taking a few steps toward him, the hurt in her eyes turning fierce. “If Sterling allowed Kelly Lund to come into this house, then yes. My husband was behaving very, very strangely.”

There was a soft knock on the closed door. Barry cracked it, saw Braddock's face.

“I need to talk to you,” she said.

“Seriously?”

She didn't even bother nodding.

Mary Marshall was back on the couch now, her head in her hands.

“Excuse me, ma'am,” he said.

She didn't look up.

Once he'd closed the door behind him and was out in the great room, Braddock pulled him aside to one of the enormous windows behind the pink marble staircase, overlooking the canyon. Every once in a while, it would hit him how incredible this house was—probably the ritziest crime scene he'd ever set foot in, and with such perfect air-conditioning. He'd wonder if Mary planned to unload it fast and take the hit, or wait at least three years so her Realtor wouldn't be obligated to tell prospective buyers what had happened in the study. He'd go back and forth over what he would do in her position and then he'd feel bad for it—what an obnoxious train of thought to be having at a murder house.

A uniform stood beside Braddock—a tiny young girl who looked far too happy, given the situation. He half-expected her to start jumping up and down.

Louise said, “Get anything?”

He hoped the uniform hadn't smiled like this around Mary Marshall. “Not really.” He gestured at the much-too-young officer, that face she was making—like somebody had just given her backstage passes to a One Direction concert. “Looks like she does, though.”

“This is officer Nutley. She's on the team that's been going through everything in Sterling Marshall's office.” Louise handed Barry a pair of evidence-handling gloves. “She did indeed get something.”

The smile erupted, taking over the kid's entire face. Nutley going nuts, as it were. She held out a burner phone.

Barry put the evidence gloves on and took it from her—a basic flip phone. Didn't even have a display screen. It was still on, battery charged.

“It was at the bottom of the trash can,” Nutley said proudly.

Barry stared at it. He flipped it open.

“It's on,” she said. “It was on when I found it.”

“You always jump to conclusions, Barry,” Louise said.

Barry looked at her.

“With this case, you were all ready to tie Kelly Lund to the crime, relying on your intuition like you always do. And you remember what I told you yesterday morning?”

“Innocent until proven guilty.”

“That's right. And of course I still hold by it. But, Barry . . .”

“Yeah?”

“That intuition of yours. It isn't always wrong.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Hit redial.”

Barry put the phone on speaker, pressed the redial button on Sterling Marshall's burner, and connected with the dead man's most recent
call—very recent, considering that the phone had been on when it was found and still held a charge.

It went straight to voice mail. Kelly Lund's voice mail.

BELLAMY MARSHALL LIVED CLOSER THAN KELLY MIGHT HAVE IMAGINED—
in Irvine of all places. Sebastian Todd had explained to Kelly that Bellamy had done an artist-in-residence year at the college several years ago and had liked the town so much she'd stayed on, long after the one class she'd taught had graduated and moved away.

But knowing this did nothing to ease Kelly's shock when she saw Rancho Escondido, which was the name of the sprawling, sterile-looking condo complex where Bellamy now lived. When they were kids, Bellamy used to call them “space fillers,” complexes like this, every house exactly the same, manicured lawns, carefully trimmed topiaries doled out equitably, two to each lot, shining Spanish tile roofs and faux adobe, each house exactly the same as the next, the whole lot looking as though it had gone up overnight. There were hundreds of these in Southern California, particularly the more recently developed areas in Orange County. But never once in thirty years had Kelly expected ultrahip, march-to-her-own-beat Bellamy to live in one.