Chapter Three
“Did you leave the vault unlocked?”
Even as Joy shook her head, Aileen answered. Between the shock and the sedative, she’d gone into a dreamy state.
“Oh, no. Never. When we opened it, we were just stunned. It’s like Aladdin’s cave.
Nate said none of what was in there was on the estate inventory.
He was sure of it. We were going to call the lawyer about it all, then I told him to let me do a little research first. It’s what I do.
I’m a freelance researcher. Honestly, all I did to start was take a picture of the Renoir.
Neither Nate nor I believed it was real, but as it turned out, it was! And it had been stolen…”
She rubbed a hand on her temple again. “I can’t remember where or when now. It’s in the file—actually, there’s a tablet in the vault that has everything listed. It took some time for us to get through the passcode. Anya finally did. Our youngest.”
“Everything in there was stolen goods,” Joy continued, then pressed her lips together. “My father kept excellent records on the tablet in the vault. When and where acquired, how much he paid, the worth of the piece—obviously he updated that regularly. It was shocking, and mortifying.”
“And yet those stolen items remain in the vault.”
“I know it’s taken more time than it should,” Aileen admitted. “We were so dumbfounded and, well, horrified. We weren’t sure whether to go to the lawyer. We didn’t want to involve the police.”
“Because?”
“My father’s reputation.” Sitting stiffly now, Joy locked her fingers together.
“Our company’s reputation, and the public trust. Call us selfish, but we didn’t want the company, our employees, and certainly not our family to suffer for something Henry Barrister had done.
We wanted to plan out a way to return all of it, somehow, and anonymously if at all possible. ”
For the first time she picked up the tea, drank as if to soothe her throat.
“Alternatively, we tried working on a statement—but what could we say? Our father, the founder of Zip Global, was a thief, a man who paid to have paintings, jewels, objets d’art stolen, then hoarded it for his own personal, private enjoyment.”
“Our poor girls,” Aileen mumbled. “They’d be smeared by this.
They’d rise above it, but they’d bear the weight.
I asked Nate to let me research every piece—some had been stolen from individuals.
We could find out the heirs. Maybe it would be possible to contact each one, separately, work out a return, explain we hadn’t known, but now we did, and wanted to do what’s right.
We could ask to have our names kept out of it. ”
“But in case we couldn’t guarantee that—and how can you?” Joy asked. “We worked on a statement, and on the best way to deliver that statement, if necessary. We would put our PR team on alert to help us handle any fallout.”
“And when did you intend to do all this?”
“Nate talked to the lawyers—the estate attorney, Garrett Beyer—last Monday. We thought we should start there. We felt it was best to have legal advice and representation before we made contact with the list of owners I compiled.”
“Who else knew about the contents of the vault?”
“Oh, just the family. Nate, me, the girls, Joy. We didn’t even tell the staff.”
She looked down at the tea she still held in her hand, but didn’t drink.
“I have to confess we lied to the crew working on the house. We told them the vault held Henry’s old files, newspaper clippings, magazines with articles on him or the company, that sort of thing.
I mean to say, it had all been in that vault for so long, some of it for a couple of decades, even more, we didn’t see the harm in taking our time, making sure it all went as smoothly as possible. ”
“We never intended to keep any of it.”
“Oh, no! Absolutely not!” Aileen set down her cup, held out her blood-smeared hands to Eve. “You can ask Nate. We…”
And she looked at her hands. Eve watched the entire night fall around her again. The hands trembled, and she threw back her head and wailed.
Uma Acker, a tall bony woman with hair the red of a fading sunset twisted into a clip at the back of her head, got up quickly, strode over.
“Please, let me take her. She can’t sit here covered in his blood this way. Please, let me take her upstairs.”
“Go ahead. I need her clothes.” Eve took out an evidence bag. “Please put them in here, close the seal.”
“All right. Come on now, Ms. Carville, come with me. We’ll go upstairs, we’ll get you freshened up, get you clean clothes.”
“No, no. It’s Nate.”
“He wouldn’t want this for you, sweetheart. He’d want you to let me help you.”
“I don’t know what to do, Uma.” She let Uma help her up. “I always know what to do, don’t I?”
“You’ll know in the morning. That’s soon enough.”
“They fell in love in college.” Joy watched them go, swiped at another tear. “They never fell out of it.”
“You heard your sister-in-law scream?”
“What? Yes. Or I wasn’t sure it was Aileen. I just heard screams—I think I thought it was a show at first, turned up too loud. Then I realized it was real, and came running.”
“Is the house soundproofed?”
“No. I’m a light sleeper, especially when I’m not in my own place.
I think—I can’t be sure now, as it just blurs—but I think I was half awake before the screaming started.
I think I might have heard Aileen go by my room.
She’d have to pass my door to get to the stairs. But I might be imagining that.
“Lieutenant, we have to tell their daughters. Aileen’s not thinking straight yet. We need to get them home. I can arrange for a company shuttle to bring them here from Cambridge. Aileen and her girls will need each other now.”
She pressed a hand to her face. “We’ll have to make some sort of statement, but I can do that, as his sister.”
“The office, at least, will need to be sealed off until fully processed. If there was a break-in—”
“What else? That damn vault,” she muttered. “How did whoever did this learn about it, about what was in it? We were so careful. But … maybe my father wasn’t. He wasn’t as sharp as he’d been. The last couple of years, he hadn’t been as sharp.”
“Who might he have told?”
“I can’t tell you. Maybe he had a second snifter of brandy and bragged to someone at his club. Maybe he wanted to impress a woman. His age didn’t preclude him from wanting to impress women.”
Now she shoved her hands through her dark blond hair. “Or I suppose it could have leaked through the lawyer’s office. The house has good security. Not the best, in my opinion, but good security. I wish Nate had upgraded the system before doing the work on the interior.”
“Your brother inherited the house.”
“Yes. Our father had very traditional ideas. The son inherits the family home. Which was and is no problem for me. I’m more than happy with my condo. There were multiple bequests, for Nate, for me, for Aileen, for his granddaughters, for his staff.”
“The same staff?”
“Yes, Nate and Aileen kept everyone. No reason not to.”
“Any friction between you and your brother?”
Joy gave her a sour look. “I’d hardly admit it if there were, but others would be happy to tell you.
So I can truthfully say no. Nate and I always got along.
We needed each other—as our father was either focused on the company or on his current wife or female interest. And we liked each other.
He was an easy man to like, so no, before you ask, I don’t know if he had enemies. None he told me of.
“Lieutenant, I really want to lie down for a while. Just lie down in the quiet. If there’s more, can we get to it later?”
“Sure, but we’ll need your clothes.”
“My clothes?”
“They also have blood on them.”
She looked down, shuddered. “Oh. Of course.”
Eve handed her an evidence bag. “Thank you for your help. And I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“I appreciate that.” She rose. “Can you tell me where they’ll take my brother?”
“I’ve asked the chief medical examiner to take care of him. I’ll leave his card if you or another family member wants to contact him.”
With a nod, she started out, then stopped. She turned back with a hint of fear in her eyes.
“Will you post a guard? If whoever did this comes back, gets in again. I don’t know where or how security was breached, but until we know and fix … We can hire private, but tonight.”
“We’ll have someone on the premises.”
“Thank you.”
Eve rose, walked over to where Peabody sat with the cook and the butler.
“I’ve got everyone’s statements, Lieutenant.”
“I don’t know if it’s early or late for you, but I’d be happy to fix breakfast for you and the rest of the police here.”
“I appreciate that, but we’re fine. Could I ask you, Ms. Fortigue, and you, Mr. Tyler, how long each of you have worked in the household?”
“Fifteen years,” Divine said. “I started the year after I lost my husband. John—Mr. Tyler—came, what was it—two or three years after me.”
“Two, and close to three. So over twelve years. Mr. Henry Barrister was a good employer. Mr. Nathan and Ms. Carville have been the same. Their daughters are delightful.”
“Uma—Ms. Acker. It’s about twenty-two years now, as she told Detective Peabody. Nearly half her life. She worked for the cleaning service before that.”
“Thank you both for your help.”
“I don’t understand what could’ve happened.” Tears blurred the cook’s eyes again.
“It’s our job to find that out. The office will be sealed off for the time being, and at Ms. Barrister’s request, there will be uniformed officers on the premises tonight.”
Before they left, the butler retrieved the chair from the lounge, carried it back to the dining room.
“What have you got?” Eve asked Peabody.