Chapter 423 P.M.—The Button Manor #2
Fola’s irritation didn’t seem to disappear at this explanation; in fact she seemed to grow even more annoyed.
“Did you tell the police any of this?” Bilal asked, his voice softening, aware of the people and cops that were still in close range, even though the siblings were outside.
Bilal had always been the most levelheaded of the bunch. Where Fola always acted with unbending black-and-white logic, and their other siblings led with emotion, Bilal often managed to wield both logic and emotion at once.
Perdita shook her head and Bilal nodded. “Of course not,” he said, looking exhausted. “They wouldn’t understand. Who knows what they would even think.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure they would think that she killed Dad,” Octavius said, stating the obvious in his usual unhelpful fashion.
Before any of them could respond, they were interrupted by a loud sound coming from the direction of the drawing room.
There was a rise and fall of noise as the doors, which had been open for who knows how long, were shut once again.
This time, two figures were standing by the entryway.
Perdita felt her heart plunge into her stomach at the thought that they could have been overheard. Maybe we should have been quieter.
The tension in her shoulders eased a little once she realized that she recognized the intruders. One was Anwar, Bilal’s ex, and the other … Evie. Perdita’s eyebrows rose a little in surprise at the sight of her. She hadn’t seen Evie since … well, since Adam’s tragic passing a few years ago.
“Sorry to interrupt …,” Anwar began, clearly nervous, his gaze mostly concentrated on Bilal, who for some reason was not looking at Anwar at all. Instead her brother was just staring strangely at Evie. “Just wanted to see if everything was okay.”
“I’m also here for the same reason,” Evie said.
“We’re fine. Just dealing with a small family matter,” Fola said, folding her arms.
Neither of them looked convinced, and Perdita did not blame them.
“Are you sure?” Evie asked, taking in the tense scene she’d clearly just walked into. “Whatever’s going on here doesn’t seem small.”
No one said anything, and so Evie clearly took this as her cue to add more fuel to the fire. “I just wanted to say, I’m really sorry for your loss. And with everything going on I wanted to offer any help I can. I can’t even imagine how today’s been for you all,” Evie continued.
She can’t even imagine the half of it, Perdita thought.
“And how exactly would you go about helping us?” Fola said.
Her question was obviously rhetorical because she didn’t give Evie a chance to answer.
“Again, all of this is a family matter. We’re here trying to deal with the fact that our father is gone forever.
That not only is he gone, he was murdered.
And that someone here in our home probably has something to do with it.
So your sympathies are nice and all but unless you can deliver the culprit, you and your condolences are pretty useless.
” Despite the viciousness in Fola’s words, they did not have their usual bite; tears were streaming down her face as she spoke.
Perdita knew that her sister hated when people felt sorry for her, but it was hard not to right now.
Out of all of them, Fola had been the closest to their father.
She’d idolized him and made no decision without his approval.
It was clear her sister was really hurting, and Perdita wanted so desperately to comfort her.
“And no offense, but you are both also suspects in this murder case. So quite frankly I’d rather not discuss the particulars of our family with two unknown variables,” Fola finished coldly with a sniff.
Everything was still for a few moments in the garden.
The only sound was the sudden distant tolling of the bell inside, which overtook the space where an answer should be.
The ring signaled that more guests were being set free from the Manor; ants fleeing the nest, leaving an even smaller pool of people for the police to scrutinize under a microscope.
“I was actually dismissed a few hours ago, so I’m not technically a suspect anymore,” Anwar finally spoke up.
“Same here,” Evie said.
“So then what are you both even still doing here?” Fola replied, her eyes narrowing.
Perdita felt like she was bearing witness to a showdown between Fola and the two unfortunate souls caught in the cross fire.
She looked over at Octavius, who was being oddly quiet, just staring down at the tiles on the ground.
Romeo was next to Fola like her personal security.
Anwar exchanged a noticeable glance with Bilal but said nothing.
Evie didn’t appear alarmed by Fola at all. “Well, I technically live here, in the staff quarters,” she said.
“Then why aren’t you over there?” Fola said in a condescending tone that made Perdita wince.
“Listen, I understand why you’re upset. You’ve been through hell today.
You all have,” Evie said, still not fazed.
“You’re trapped in your own home, likely with the person who hurt your father, and you want answers.
That we have in common. I’m obviously not one of you—I’m not a Button.
And I only had a few classes with you guys here and there, so you might not get why I’m probably the only other person here who understands some of your pain.
But I grew up with your dad too. I was trained with his methods too.
He practically made me, and my brother, brilliant.
” Perdita noticed the slight grimace on Evie’s face as she spoke of their father training her.
“I saw Mr. Button as much as I saw my own father sometimes, so it’s weird to me too.
It’s weird that he’s just … gone. It’s weird that the police are not being more forthcoming on what they’re looking for—who they’re looking for.
Though, historically, the police aren’t a particularly competent group …
It’s why sometimes you have to take matters into own your hands.
” She took a deep breath. “Anyway, I guess what I’m saying is, I get why you’re on edge.
Losing someone so tragically like that …
and without knowing why … It’s something you can never shake until you get answers. ”
They were all looking at Evie now, Perdita thinking how much older Evie now looked.
“What did you mean by that … take matters into your own hands? Are you speaking from experience?” Bilal asked, visibly uncomfortable.
Evie hesitated before she spoke again. “Kind of … I was just … I was eavesdropping on the officers earlier, before they dismissed me. I just wanted to know what was going on. And I heard them talking about how strange the method was.”
“What method?” Romeo asked.
“The way he … your father …” She paused.
“The murder weapon. That was all I overheard, and I wanted to figure out what was so strange about it. I’m pretty good with computers, and thought that if they were logging information about the case onto a cloud, they would probably be using the Manor’s Wi-Fi to do it.
So I went back to the staff quarters and used an old computer there that helped me get onto the cloud. Turns out I was right.”
“Did you find anything?” Anwar asked.
“Just that they still have no clue exactly what the murder weapon is. They just know it was a thick, curved object, like a stick but not as sharp and … wide. If they knew what it was, that could help us figure it out. The murder weapon would have had to be something that could be taken onto the boat without flagging security.” She paused, looking around at them all regretfully.
“I’m sorry, I should have asked if you guys wanted any more details. It’s pretty graphic.”
“Go on,” Fola said on behalf of them all.
Perdita personally did not want to hear the gory details of their father’s death, but she didn’t want to come in between Fola and her pursuit of God knows what.
“They also say he was … stabbed from the back. But based on the layout of the room he was found in—which was apparently his office—they can’t understand how that could have happened, since he was found in his chair, facing the only exit.
A sneak attack would have been very difficult to achieve …
or so Chief Waxler wrote in his notes. There was also no sign of a struggle, which kind of makes sense, Mr. Button would have had to know the weapon was coming and simply allowed the person to get close enough to strike him from behind … It’s very puzzling, isn’t it?”
Bilal looked agitated. Perdita only noticed because she was staring at Anwar, whose gaze was forever fixed on Bilal.
“It feels like there’s a web in here somewhere for sure,” Anwar said thoughtfully.
“A web?” It was Bilal this time who spoke.
“Yes, things hidden within other hidden things, forming an elaborate web. It’s like the truth is buried under several other truths.
Someone in there … or elsewhere …” He hesitated as he looked around the gardens, momentarily drawing his fixed gaze away from Bilal.
“Someone did this to your father, but I don’t think it is as straightforward as it appears.
That’s why so many things don’t make sense.
It would help to figure out if he had any enemies, anyone that openly hated him. ”
That was the funniest thing Perdita had heard all day.
Her father had many enemies—half his staff probably hated his guts, and he’d pissed off so many people over the years it was probably easier to count who didn’t want to harm him in some way than to tally up who did.
Except … none of his more prominent foes had been on the boat last night.
Almost none.
Her mind immediately went to Thorin’s father. But she wasn’t going to bring Thorin or his family into this. And, surely, though they hated each other, no one would believe that Mr. Philips would have gone so far as to harm their father.
“There was the woman from yesterday morning? At the press conference. The one who attacked Father and called him a murderer,” Romeo said.
“She was my first thought too. I already brought her up to Henry,” Fola said. Her face was now dry but the shadows of her tears remained.
“And?” Perdita asked.
“And, the fake journalist was apparently still in police custody last night,
so it couldn’t have been her. It had to be someone on the boat,” Fola replied.
“I liked what Anwar said. That the truth could be hidden … Buried under a whole pile of seemingly nonsensical things,” Evie mused.
“Father did love puzzles,” Romeo agreed.
“Maybe the truth here might lie in Mr. Button and his puzzles? He seemed to hide truths in them. Take Perdita, for example. The fact that he named you, his biological daughter, Perdita is another show of this. Maybe the truth of who your father’s true foes were, and therefore who might be behind his death, lies in these carefully placed puzzles,” Anwar said.
The siblings stiffened.
“How did you know that?” Perdita asked, her voice low and uneven. “That I’m his biological daughter?”
“We kind of overheard you guys … before. We’d already been standing there for about a minute or two,” Anwar awkwardly explained.
“How does Perdita’s name relate to anything?” Fola asked, unruffled—outwardly, at least—by the fact that these two knew about this earth-shattering secret Perdita had been carrying.
Anwar looked at their drained, confused faces in clear shock. “Seriously, guys … Leontes? Perdita? The Winter’s Tale?” he said.
When he only got back more confused expressions, he sighed. “Wow, you are all useless.” Then he looked at Bilal. “Not you.”
“Useless?” Fola scoffed. “As if you can save the world with a book, or worse, poetry.”
Anwar raised an eyebrow. “Actually, I think you can save the world that way,” he replied. “But as I was saying … in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, Leontes, the king, has a secret daughter named Perdita. It was always right there in front of you, like he was hoping you’d find out.”
Bilal was looking at Anwar as if all of his literary nonsense was the hottest thing he had ever heard. “Father did mention once that his mother and father were Shakespeare fanatics, hence his own name, I guess,” Bilal added.
Perdita didn’t feel any better knowing her father had been dangling this over her all along.
“And does this Leontes character from The Winter’s Tale have any enemies, or any friends who betray him?” Fola asked in a mocking tone.
“Well, he did indeed make a lot of enemies, but in terms of betrayals, I suppose King Leontes was betrayed by his closest advisor, the character Camillo.”
Fola rolled her eyes. “As nice and poetic as your name theory is and all, most of us got to keep the first names we were given at birth,” Fola said, which was true.
Fola had been adopted from an orphanage in Nigeria, and had been named Folake by her birth parents, though she rarely ever liked anyone calling her by that name.
Romeo chimed in. “I was actually named after the city I was adopted from, Rome, in Italy. My biological parents didn’t name me before they gave me up—that’s what Dad told me, anyway.”
“The only names our father gave the rest of us were our middle names and our surname. But in any case, I just don’t think it makes sense to base any theory as to who might have murdered our dad on a play,” Fola said.
“Maybe the play isn’t entirely relevant, nor are your names, but I still think there is something puzzling here,” Evie replied quickly. “It’s like I can see several of the pieces clearly mapped out but can’t quite make them fit.”
“Puzzles are what I’m good at,” Fola said. “Maybe if you hand me the pieces I can put them together. Do you still have access to those notes?”
Evie shook her head. “Not anymore. I got busted using the computer by one of the maids and so the power was shut off.”
There was a weird tension then as Fola gave Evie a look of disbelief, and as someone who had been on the receiving end of many of Fola’s glares today, Perdita was glad it wasn’t directed at her this time.
Still, Evie didn’t seem intimidated in the slightest.
“I guess it’s best to leave it up to the people who know best, then,” Fola said, her expression taut as she looked on at Evie. “You know, the police,” she clarified.
“I guess so,” Evie said. “I estimate that there are around twenty-five people left in the drawing room. Twenty-five suspects to whittle down.”
The tolling of the bell came again. Evie turned around and peered into the drawing room doors several feet away.
“Around twenty-one now,” she said with only some certainty.
It was harder to see through the slowly frosting glass panes in the doors.
“This probably means they are closing ranks; we should know who the prime suspect is soon.”