Chapter 54
CHAPTER
MY GOD, RHETT, YOUR FATHER,” said Judith as they sat in the dining room together at her home.
“It was a shock. I’d only just found out he was ill,” he added. He’d brought them dinner and they’d just finished eating. She poured them each out another glass of cab.
“What will happen now?”
“You mean to the business? I don’t know. I presume I’ll take over, but it will have to wait until the lawyers disclose the contents of the will.”
“You said one of the staff discovered the body?”
“Yes. Dad… he’d been dead for a while.”
“How awful.”
He gripped her hand. “But I didn’t come over here to talk about that. You have your own worries. Do the police know anything more?”
“No, they’ve been by several times, but they still have no idea where Maggie might be. But at least she’s alive. And there’s been no sign of Walter.”
“Amazing that he made such a clean getaway. Almost like he had help.”
“When he ran out of here I think he had a bag with him. It was like he had prepared for something like this. Just like an Eagle Scout,” she added derisively.
“Any idea where he would go?”
“None. I mean, all of this is really unthinkable.”
They both turned their heads when someone rang the doorbell.
Judith opened the door to reveal Detective Ramos standing there.
“Have you found out anything?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Is Mr. Temple here?”
“Rhett? Yes. He brought dinner. Please come in.”
She showed Ramos into the dining room, where he sat down opposite Rhett.
“Would you mind if I had a few minutes alone with Mr. Temple? I’m also handling the matter of his father’s death.”
“Of course not. I’ll just take things through to the kitchen.”
After she left Rhett said, “What is it, Detective?”
“We’ve just gotten the preliminary pathology report back. The bottom line is there are some issues with your father’s death.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“The medical examiner would not rule it a suicide.”
“Excuse me?” said Rhett. “Why not?”
“I’m not at liberty to say. But for right now we’re treating it as a homicide.”
Rhett pretended incredulity. “Someone killed my father? But why?”
“I don’t know, sir. That’s why we’re investigating.”
“How did you even know I was here?”
“Your office, they told us you were coming here,” answered Ramos.
“What do you need from me?”
“Well, for starters, and this is just routine, where were you when your father died?”
“What time are we talking about?” asked the quick-thinking Rhett.
“Between midnight and two the night before he was found.”
Rhett said, “Well, the fact is I was with a woman, downtown. I was there all night.”
“Do you have her contact information?”
“I do, yes. Her name is Laurel Burke.” He provided the information to the detective.
“Thank you, Mr. Temple. This is just routine stuff, I hope you can understand. We checked the video footage at your father’s estate. No cars came in during that time, so someone must have gained access another way. Unfortunately, the road is isolated and there are no cameras.”
“If my father was killed I want to know who did it, Detective. That’s all that matters.”
“Understood.” He looked around. “And how is Mrs. Nash doing?”
“Daughter missing, husband on the run? I’m surprised she can function at all.
” Rhett shook his head and then an idea came to him.
He thought it through for a few beats and said, “I have to tell you, I would have trusted Walter Nash with my life. I never saw any of this coming. Now Walter’s disappeared and you think someone might have killed my father?
It seems weird, you know? So close together. ”
Ramos stiffened and said, “Would Nash have any reason to wish your father harm?”
“Walter? My father? No, I… I can’t believe that.” But Rhett made certain not to sound too sure of that.
“Well, you couldn’t believe he would do what he did to his daughter and the security guard, correct?”
Rhett slowly nodded as he thought through the next phase of his plan with the detective. “But there is something, I don’t know if it’s connected, but it was odd.”
“What was odd?” asked a clearly interested Ramos.
Rhett leaned forward, and, though they were alone, spoke in a low voice. “My father approached me a while back and told me to give Nash a raise and more bonus money.”
“He was an employee. Wasn’t that the sort of thing your father would do?”
“No, not at all. I run Sybaritic, not my father, and compensation decisions go through me. Now, Nash was already being richly rewarded. A little too much, if you want my honest opinion. And my father was acting a little funny when he asked me. Like he didn’t really want to do it.
But I did what he asked because he was my boss, not because Nash deserved the extra money.
I can get you the paperwork. It’s all there. ”
“I’d appreciate that, thank you. Any idea as to why your father did that?”
“I do know that Nash had spoken with one of our rivals about joining them. Now, Nash has a lot of institutional knowledge about how we operate. It would not be good if he jumped ship.”
“Did your father know about that?”
“He was the one who told me.”
“So the extra comp could have just been to keep Nash at your company?”
Rhett shook his head. “To tell the truth, there was just something fishy about the whole thing, Detective. My father had never done that before. Nash was a good man, but he was no superstar. I don’t know why my father would have treated him special. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
Rhett looked embarrassed. “My father has had an eventful life. Three marriages, some scandals, some shady business partners. If someone had gotten ahold of something… well, really bad, and held it over him?”
Ramos tensed. “You think Walter Nash was blackmailing him?”
“I can’t say for certain, of course. But since my father just found out he was dying? Maybe he told Nash to screw off. Or maybe my dad told Nash that he was going to expose him as a blackmailer.”
“That definitely could be a motive for murder,” noted Ramos. “Could he have gotten into your father’s home?”
“He’s been there many times over the years.
For all I know my father gave him the gate code and a key to the house.
He’d been an employee for nearly two decades.
And he could have left his car down the road and maybe gotten in over the back wall, since you found the video footage on the gate was clear. ”
“I see.”
“I’m just speculating. I have no proof, you understand,” added Rhett quickly, even as he evaluated the impact his words had had on the detective.
“Thank you nonetheless, sir. I will follow up.”
After Ramos left, Judith rejoined him.
“What was that all about?” she asked anxiously.
“Nothing important,” replied Rhett.
He left her and immediately phoned Laurel Burke to finalize his ironclad alibi.
Please God, don’t let there be any cameras around Burke’s place showing me arriving after my father was dead.