Chapter Seventeen
Present
Detective Church leaned back in his chair and rubbed his temples.
His head was starting to throb from all the reading he’d done, the strain of studying small text and puzzling out handwriting in the old case files, which had never been digitized.
Instead, there were several large binders full of typed and handwritten reports, microfiche, and photographs that had degraded with time.
The pages had yellowed, the ink had faded, and everything smelled musty, like an old library book.
Church had been through the whole thing now, catalogued timelines and persons of interest. The details swam around in his head, untethered.
A cold case was like a giant puzzle that had been partially assembled, the edges and corners filled in, the middle a patchwork of center pieces and the maddening empty spaces between them.
Normally, Church enjoyed the slow, laborious process of examining each piece and figuring out how they fit together; he loved the challenge of looking for the needle in the haystack that someone else had missed.
But the Towers case was frustrating. Often, crimes were solved by one of two things: witness testimony or physical evidence.
What was perhaps most remarkable about Saoirse Towers’s case was the scarcity of either, when one would think the circumstances under which she disappeared would have lent themselves to an excess of both.
How was it, Detective Church wondered, that in a house full of guests gathered for the express purpose of celebrating Saoirse’s birthday, nobody had noticed that the guest of honor was missing?
Surely somebody would have seen or heard something? Anything.
But when the police interviewed the guests the evening after Saoirse disappeared, the timeline they were able to cobble together of Saoirse’s activities the night prior was piecemeal and fuzzy.
One guest claimed to have seen her floating on a swan raft in the outdoor pool, sipping champagne, at the same time that another saw her eating cake in the ballroom.
One guest might have seen her crying in the bathroom.
She had given her handkerchief to a tall dark-haired girl in a silver party dress weeping over the sink, but it could have been someone else—she didn’t get a good look.
On only three points were the guests decidedly unanimous: the night was dark, the drinks were flowing, and the storm was loud.
The party and the weather worked in unison to create the perfect cocktail of chaos and distraction.
Part of Detective Church couldn’t help but wonder if that was purely coincidental or by design.
When the police searched the house and grounds the next day, they were dismayed to find that the whole scene had been compromised.
The household had known about Saoirse’s disappearance for hours before they alerted the authorities.
By the time the police arrived, any evidence that the storm had not washed away had been destroyed by the guests in their search.
The halls were smeared with muddy footprints going in every which direction, the gardens trampled, every surface in Saoirse’s room touched by dozens of hands.
Detective Church shook his head to clear his frustration. So no evidence to go off of, then, and a suspect list that included everyone in the house that night—312 names, to be exact, when the staff and entertainers were factored in along with the guests.
The last sighting of Saoirse had been around midnight, when several guests claimed they had seen Saoirse barefoot and inebriated, clutching her shoes in one hand and laughing as she headed down to the beach for the fireworks. A man was with her, but it was dark, and they couldn’t see who.
Was it Teddy Mountbatten? Church wondered. Ransom Towers? Or someone else?
Church had tried to substantiate Teddy’s claim that Saoirse had been pregnant when she was taken out of school.
He’d asked Nisha whether there was any way to determine, based on Saoirse’s remains, whether she had ever been pregnant or given birth.
Nisha told him that sometimes there were parturition scars on the pelvic bones from childbirth but that they were not always present and certainly wouldn’t be present if Saoirse had had a C-section or miscarried.
As it was, Saoirse had no such scars. So Church tried to find another witness to substantiate Teddy’s claim.
The family doctor was deceased, but Church had been able to track down a gardener who had worked at Cliffhaven during the time in question.
The man was in his eighties now, living in Sacramento with his daughter.
Church had sat with him for over an hour, but he had no recollection of Saoirse being with child and claimed to have spent very little time in the house.
Church sighed. There was only one thing left for him to do. He would have to go back to Cliffhaven and talk to Florence Talbot.
It was Florence herself who answered the door when he showed up at Cliffhaven unannounced.
“Detective Church,” she said brightly. “I was wondering when I might see you again.”
“I’m sorry for not phoning ahead,” Church said. “I hope I’m not intruding.”
“Not at all,” Florence said and waved him in. “Come into the drawing room; I have something for you.”
Florence ushered him into the next room and onto the sofa, while she orchestrated an order of tea to be brought out and a box to be brought up from the storage closet.
She inquired about his grandmother and made sure he had exactly the number of lumps of sugar and milk that he wanted.
Not long after, a maid entered, carrying an old, dusty box.
“Ah, here it is,” Florence said, setting down her own cup on the coffee table and waving the maid over. “You can set it down here, Jenny. Thank you. Would you go check on Rebecca and make sure she takes her break now?”
Jenny nodded and left the room.
“What’s this?” Church asked, looking at the box.
“Just some old party-planning things,” Florence said. “Odds and ends.”
When he still looked confused, Florence went on. “Seating charts, from the night of Saoirse’s party. RSVP cards. Some old photographs from that night, like we talked about.”
“Oh, yes,” Church said. He had forgotten all about that. “Yes, thank you.”
“Of course,” Florence said. She looked at him for a moment, a crease of concern forming between her brows. “You look tired, Detective,” Florence said. “Bone weary.”
Church rubbed his jaw. He thought about denying it, but he was tired, and he knew he looked it. “Lots of long nights lately,” Church said.
“Yes,” Florence said, nodding. “Maybe you should do something to take your mind off of it? Just for a little bit. I read somewhere that the subconscious mind is better than the conscious mind at solving problems, that even when you’re not actively thinking about something, the subconscious is at work, making connections. ”
“I believe that’s true, yes,” Church said. “My best breakthroughs in a case usually come when I’m playing hearts with my grandmother.”
Florence laughed.
Church looked at her thoughtfully for a moment and then said, “Florence, can I ask you something?”
Florence set down her cup of tea and nodded. “Yes, of course,” she said.
“Was Saoirse ever pregnant?”
She blinked at him, and Church clocked the real confusion on her face as she processed his words.
“What?” she said.
“The year before she died, when Ransom pulled her out of school and brought her home,” Church went on. “Did he do that because she was pregnant and he wanted to hide it? Was Saoirse’s illness a cover?”
“Wherever did you hear such a thing, Detective?” Florence asked.
“I’m afraid I can’t disclose my source,” Church said.
“Was it Mr. Bass who told you this?”
“Who?”
“William Bass,” Florence said.
The name tickled Church’s brain. Bass. He had come across that name more than once in the case files.
“Saoirse’s godfather?” Church asked.
“Yes,” Florence said.
“Why would you think it was him?” Church asked, sidestepping Florence’s question.
“Because it’s just the sort of thing he would say,” Florence said. “If he found himself in a tight spot, his back against the wall, he would say anything, even if it was hurtful, even if it was untrue.”
Church was thrown off by her remark. “I thought Bass was quite close with the Towers family,” he said. “Why would he want to strike at them with such a damning allegation, if it were false?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time he’s betrayed the family,” Florence said.
“How do you mean?” Church asked.
“I mean,” Florence said, “that Charles gave Bass his start in life. Bass could never have founded his company without Charles’s investment or sustained it when it fell on hard times without Charles’s continued support.
Charles made Bass godfather of his children, executor of their trust. And what did Bass ever do for Charles?
He lent him a plane that took him straight to his watery grave. ”
Church furrowed his brow. “The plane that Charles and Birdie went down in, it belonged to Bass Corp.?” Church asked. He had never read that in any of the case files.
Florence nodded. “Charles and Bass had had a fight the week before the crash, practically a falling-out,” she said.
“The plane, the lending of his vacation home on the island, was Bass’s goodwill gesture to patch things up.
Bass was supposed to join them, but at the last minute, he backed out.
He insisted they still go on without him. You tell me what that looks like.”
Church scratched his chin. “Did they find any evidence of foul play in the wreckage?” he asked.
Florence shook her head. “The official ruling was that the crash was a result of equipment failure. But I have my doubts.”
Church’s mind was reeling. If this was true, if Bass was responsible for Birdie’s and Charles’s deaths, then that established a pattern of behavior. He was looking not just at a killer but at a serial killer.
“Do you know what Bass and Charles’s falling-out was about?”
“What else? Bass Corp.,” Florence said. “Charles wasn’t happy with the way Bass was running things. He didn’t feel comfortable investing more money unless there was a significant change in direction.”
“Charles told you this?”
“Birdie did,” Florence said. “She and Mr. Bass were close. She was concerned about a rift in Charles and Bass’s friendship, what it would do to the family.
I told her we were all better off without Bass, but she didn’t listen.
When Bass extended an olive branch—the private plane, the weekend getaway—they took it. ”
“And suddenly, without them in the picture, Bass became guardian of the children, executor of the family estate,” Church said, putting it all together, “in control of the finances he needed for his company, and in control of his own destiny again.”
“Exactly,” Florence said.
“And,” Church went on, “the only thing standing between Bass and Charles’s money at that point was Charles’s children.”
“Yes,” Florence said, the disdain clear in her voice. “Ransom looked up to Bass, trusted him implicitly. Saoirse, on the other hand, was much more difficult to manage.”
“You think Bass got rid of Saoirse to get at her money?” Church asked. “But I thought Ransom, not Bass, stood to inherit her trust if something happened to her?”
“He did,” Florence said, “but don’t you see?
That’s exactly what Bass would have wanted.
Saoirse didn’t want anything to do with Bass Corp.
She made it very clear that when she turned eighteen and gained control of her trust, she was getting out, which would have sent Bass Corp.
into a tailspin. But Ransom and Bass were close; Bass could have counted on Ransom to keep his shares invested, which is exactly what he did when he inherited her estate. ”
“I see,” Church said.
It certainly established a motive. And Bass had plenty of means and opportunity as well.
“What does your gut tell you, Florence?” Church asked. “Do you think he did it?”
Florence didn’t hesitate. She looked him square in the eyes and said, “I think there’s no morally decrepit act that man wouldn’t make, if it benefited him.”