False Front (8 page)

‘That it?’

‘No. There were two dislocated finger joints. Obviously happened just before death because there wasn’t sufficient time for any swelling to set in.’

‘Sounds like force was used to subdue her for that injection.’

‘Works for me. Now stop yakking on the phone and go find this woman’s killer. And don’t disappoint me. I put down the husband in the office pool.’

‘So it is a homicide?’

‘I only bet on sure things.’

‘You actually have an office pool for murder victims?’

‘Maybe. Maybe I’m just jerking your chain.’

Doc Sam hung up before she could respond. She stared at her phone. It had to be a joke – a sick morgue joke. Wasn’t it? Did it even matter? Doc Sam just obliterated the slightest microscopic trace of doubt from her mind – this was homicide, not suicide.

She walked into Candace’s bedroom, turned and faced the doorway. Staring at the spot marked by the victim’s fingernails, Lucinda imagined her struggling, grabbing anything to escape. Did she scream? She must have – Lucinda could hear it echo in the well of her imagination.

Did anyone hear her? Colter had done the prerequisite door-to-door. Lucinda thought if she’d found anything of interest, she would have called and let her know. She’d have to check with her.

Her cell rang again. She looked at the screen – her office number. Assuming it was Colter calling, she answered with: ‘Sergeant Colter?’

She was greeted with a titter. ‘Oh, Lieutenant Pierce, you are so funny.’

Kristen. What now? ‘Yes, Kristen, what can I do for you?’

‘Not a thing for me,’ she giggled. ‘But there’s a Mark Eagleton here and he wants to talk to you. He asked me to call and see if you’ll be returning soon.’

‘Frank and Candace’s son?’

‘I don’t know,’ Kristen said.

‘Ask him. Please,’ Lucinda said, trying and failing to hide her exasperation.

Lucinda heard mumbled voices and then Kristen said, ‘Yes, he is. How did you know that?’

‘Tell him I’m almost finished here. I’ll be back just as soon as I can.’ Kristen was still talking when Lucinda hit the end button.

She crossed the walkway over to Frank’s bedroom and pulled open the top drawer of his dresser. There, under a stack of silk boxer shorts, she found the passport right where she remembered. Where to hide it – correction, misplace it? If she knew what he’d worn the last time he flew out of the country, she could slide it in a pocket. But she didn’t. Where else might he leave it? She could guess but she knew it was too easy to get it wrong.

Maybe it should look intentional. Candace could have taken it. Hidden it. She snatched the passport and carried it across the walkway. Lifting Candace’s mattress, she slid it in as deep as she could. If it wasn’t the last place he’d look for it, Candace’s bedroom certainly wouldn’t be the first. She might not stop him from fleeing the country but she sure could slow him down.

Downstairs, she paused for a moment and looked up at the railing where the rope around Candace’s neck had been tied. ‘I’ll find out why you died, Candace. And I’ll find out who did it. I promise.’

She felt the pressure of a commitment made land heavily on her shoulders. She wriggled her shoulders as if balancing an unseen load and walked out of the home determined to keep her word.

THIRTEEN

M
ark Eagleton looked very much like his father, Lucinda thought as she watched him through the glass. Same broad shoulders, trim, fit body, prominent lower lip and startling blue eyes. Impatience creased his brow line and put his fingers in motion, drumming the surface of the desk.

Opening the door to the Spartan room, she said, ‘Mr Eagleton. Lieutenant Lucinda Pierce. You have my utmost sympathy for your loss. It doesn’t get much worse than losing your mother to an act of violence.’

He responded to her extended hand with a firm handshake. ‘Trying to disarm me with empathy?’

‘Now, why would I want to disarm you?’

‘Perhaps you think I killed my mother. Or perhaps you think I have knowledge that points to my father as the killer. You’re wrong on both counts.’

‘Mr Eagleton, my expression of sympathy was genuine. I do understand the magnitude of your loss.’

‘Nice – an implication that you have walked in my shoes without insulting me with an actual lie. As if you really knew what it was like to learn your mother was brutally murdered.’

‘Actually, I do, Mr Eagleton. My mother was murdered,’ Lucinda said.

Mark gave her a hard stare. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Were you there?’

Lucinda forced down the lump in her throat and kept her expression blank. ‘Yes. Yes I was.’

‘Is that when you injured your face?’

‘We are not here to discuss my past trauma, Mr Eagleton, but the answer is no. I only shared that information with you in hope that you would accept my sincerity and realize that I am not here to play games with you or trick you in any way. We are here to share information together and nothing more.’

‘When will you release my mother’s body?’

‘That is out of my hands at the moment. When all the necessary information is gathered for the autopsy report, you’ll be informed and a funeral home can transport the body for the service.’

‘I guess it’s taking longer because Mom wanted to be cremated.’

‘Actually, that’s not the case. We were unaware of her wishes.’

‘I’ll have to take your word for that, I suppose. You’re certain it’s not suicide?’

‘You think it might be?’ Lucinda asked.

‘Nothing she did would surprise me.’

‘What do you mean by that, Mr Eagleton?’

‘Please, call me Mark. When you say Mr Eagleton, I think my dad’s in the room.’

‘Why wouldn’t you be surprised by a suicide, Mark?’

‘My mother was unpredictable. Moody. Overly dramatic.’

‘Difficult to live with?’

‘Most definitely. I don’t know how my dad stood it sometimes.’

‘According to your father, he loved her.’

‘Yes. There was that. He seemed to dote on her. For the life of me, I don’t understand why. Sure, I loved her. She was my mom. But as an adult, I’ve stepped back and looked at her objectively. If she were my wife, I’d go nuts. I’d either kill myself or kill her. I couldn’t take it.’

‘Is that what you think happened here? Your father just couldn’t take it any longer?’

Mark drew back. ‘Absolutely not. That was a figure of speech and besides I was talking about me and not my dad. There is no way . . .’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Oh, I see. You’ve talked to my sister, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, I have.’

‘She always took mom’s side. She thought Dad was a tyrant. He wasn’t.’

‘Molly said that your mother had a plan. She was about to leave your father.’

‘Oh, please. Where would she go? How could she possibly maintain that elevated lifestyle she enjoys so much?’ Mark paused and squinted his eyes. ‘Unless she found another man. Is that what happened?’

‘At this point, we have no evidence pointing to that conclusion.’

‘Which means you’re considering the possibility?’

‘We’re considering all the possibilities, Mark. What if she did have a plan . . .?’

‘My mother always had a plan. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. And she never worried about the legality of any of her whacked-out ideas.’

‘Meaning . . .?’

‘When I was seventeen, she found a small stash of pot in my room. Typical teenage experimentation was all it was. But my mom was anything but typical. She offered to bankroll me if I wanted to be entrepreneurial with it.’

‘Excuse me?’ Lucinda asked.

‘She said she’d give me upfront money if I wanted to deal. She explained how I could give people good value for their dollar and be able to have all the pot I wanted for my own use at no cost.’

Mother of the Year, Lucinda thought. ‘Was she serious?’

‘Seemed like it to me. She made a budget, calculated revenue projections and did a risk assessment analysis. She figured I could stay in business until I went to college with minimal risk of being arrested if I were careful. Then, she thought I could re-establish my enterprise wherever I went. She also assured me that Dad could buy my way out of any trouble I encountered. When she said that, I understood.’

‘Understood what?’

‘That she really wanted me to do it and she wanted me to get busted. She wanted to cause problems for Dad.’

‘Why, Mark?’

‘I’m not sure if she was amused by it or if she felt it gave her power over him. It was a complicated relationship.’

‘Speaking of complicated, did you know your dad was having an affair?’

‘Did my sister tell you that?’

‘No, your father did. He said that’s why your mother moved into the second master suite.’

‘She told me separate bedrooms sparked up their marriage. She said, the yin on one side, the yang on the other with a gender gap arching between the two. She thought it was poetic. She said it would revitalize their passion. This is why I do not think she was leaving my dad.’

‘But she was, Mark. She had written a farewell note to him.’

‘Really? That makes no sense – unless she thought she’d have Dad on the hook for life because of his affair.’

‘Actually, Mark, in her note she said that she wanted nothing from him – not his money, not his house.’

‘That doesn’t sound like her.’

‘She had a meeting scheduled that morning with a client who she believed would provide her with the financial security she needed.’

‘Client? My mother hadn’t worked for that PR firm for ages. She quit to work full-time for dad before I was born.’

‘Do you have any idea who that client might be?’

‘No. Not a clue. Are you sure about that?’

‘That’s what she told your sister.’

Mark spit out a rueful laugh. ‘Maybe client was a code word for lover. It had to be someone with money – lots of it. Or someone she was using to provoke Dad.’

‘You don’t have a very high opinion of your mother, do you?’

Mark exhaled loudly. ‘She was a great mom when I was little. Always creating little adventures. Very clever at turning little things into big learning moments. She made me feel loved and safe. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I saw the other side. I didn’t like the way she treated Dad.’

‘What about how your father treated your mother?’

‘It’s not an example I’d want to follow. He was very controlling but it seemed like he had to be. She’d run off the rails without his steady hand to keep her in place. But he didn’t kill her, Lieutenant, no matter what my sister thinks. You need to look elsewhere. You need to find who was responsible. Someone has to pay for taking my mom’s life.’

‘What if that someone was your father?’

Mark hung his head and shook it from side to side. ‘I can’t go there, Lieutenant. It doesn’t fit with anything I know about my dad. It doesn’t make any sense. There’s something else going on here – please find out what it is.’

Lucinda wrapped up their conversation and watched Mark walk down the hall. His shoulders more slumped than they were earlier; his walk closer to a shuffle than the energetic stride of his father that she supposed was his typical gait. And how will he cope if he learns that his mother died at his father’s hands? The old pain of her mother’s death formed a hard knot in her chest. She had to set that aside and be objective. She didn’t want her judgment clouded by her past and yet, her only known suspect was still Frank Eagleton.

FOURTEEN

L
ucinda’s cell vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it out and checked to see who called. It was her brother, Ricky. She listened to his message: ‘I – I – I can’t leave a message about this. Call me. Please.’

She hit redial and didn’t hear a ring before she heard her brother’s voice. ‘Do you remember Seth O’Hara?’

‘Hello to you, too, Ricky,’ Lucinda said with a laugh.

‘Sorry, sorry, hi, Sis. But do you?’

‘Seth O’Hara? Your wife’s older brother?’

‘Yes. His middle son, Dylan committed suicide three nights ago.’

‘Oh, that’s horrible. How old was he?’

‘Sixteen – only sixteen. His birthday was last week.’

‘And he committed suicide? How?’ Lucinda asked as she walked down the hall and entered her office.

‘Gunshot to the mouth in the parking lot of the high school. The police are certain the shot was self-inflicted and I think they’re right. When we dropped by the house with his gift and had a slice of birthday cake on Wednesday, Dylan seemed odd, morose, withdrawn. Wasn’t even excited when Seth handed him the keys to the old pick-up truck he wanted. But no matter what I think, no matter what the police say, Seth refuses to believe it.’

‘That’s pretty common. Denial of a suicide happens all the time.’

‘Yeah, I know. But he’s refusing to allow the funeral home to embalm Dylan’s body, saying he wants a full murder investigation first. Lily and I went over to the house to talk to Seth last night, to try to get him to accept what happened and stop calling the police and raising holy hell. By the time we left, though, Lily was convinced that Seth was right – some kid at school who’d been pushing him around finally pushed too far and killed him.’

‘And you?’ Lucinda asked.

‘I still think it’s a suicide. Seth showed us a snapshot of Dylan smiling and hugging his little brother around the neck that he said was taken the same day that his son died. He thinks that proves that Dylan was happy and couldn’t have committed suicide. But I think I read somewhere that people who kill themselves are often euphoric once they have a plan and are ready to follow through with it. Is that true?’

‘That’s sometimes the case,’ Lucinda agreed.

‘I told Lily that but she didn’t buy it. She’s been pestering me ever since to call you and ask you to please come up here, look at what happened and give your opinion.’

Why don’t these things ever happen when I’m not in the middle of a fresh homicide investigation? ‘Ricky, I’m not sure of how quickly I can get up.’

‘The sooner the better, Lucinda. Martha is crying all the time.’

‘Martha?’