Chapter Thirty-Two #2
“Right,” Kennedy said, recomposing herself.
“Brad and Brigitte got married seven years ago, and most everyone agrees the marriage was mostly to piss Warren off. According to the Rotary Club president, Warren wanted Brad to marry a nice girl from a local family to keep his business ties strong. But Brad is the rebellious sort, so he runs away to Europe and comes back married to this gorgeous, mysterious woman who was supposedly a French model or something. Except no one can actually find any photos of Brigitte’s modeling career.
Not a fashion magazine spread, not a perfume ad, not even a Sears bra campaign.
No one even knew Brigitte’s last name. It’s like she didn’t exist before Brad married her. ”
“Now, that is interesting,” Juliette mused. “People don’t hide pasts they’re proud of. So what is Brigitte hiding?”
“That’s not all,” Kennedy continued. “Their marriage has apparently been pretty contentious, even from the beginning. Brad was a serial cheater, hitting on every cart girl and female tennis pro at the club.”
“That certainly tracks with my private interaction with him,” Juliette said dryly. “Though I thought it was pretty commonplace for country club husbands to sleep around.”
“Oh, it is,” Kennedy said sadly. “That’s why I never joined.
But I guess Brigitte didn’t know that, because they used to have very public fights about it whenever Brigitte discovered the latest poor girl dragged into Brad’s orbit.
It got so bad that they hired a security guard whose sole job was running interference between Brad and the female employees. ”
“Jesus,” Juliette muttered. “So that explains their unhappy marriage, but it doesn’t connect Troy and Brigitte.”
“If you were that beautiful and you were married to a worm like Brad Ellingham,” Kate said, “who constantly had the gall to publicly cheat on you, what would you do?”
“I’d fuck the guy he hated the most in retaliation,” Juliette said simply.
Kate put up her hands. “There you go.”
“Okay, so Brigitte gets tired of being on the receiving end of Brad’s public humiliation and decides to indulge in some cuckolding of her own.
I can get behind that. Brad finds out, gets furious, confronts the two of them.
They fight, Troy takes a nine iron to Brad’s skull. It’s a great theory, but I need proof.”
“How do we get proof?” Kennedy asked.
“Break into Troy’s place and plant secret cameras to record them?” Veeta offered.
“Okay, you offered that way too fast,” Juliette said.
“We’re going to have to talk about legal means, but I like that direction.
We need something to prove motive. Something that shows Brad knew about the affair and planned to do something about it.
And it still doesn’t give us a means for how Troy and Brigitte killed Warren. ”
Juliette’s gaze drifted to her computer, where the photo of the autopsy was zoomed in on her screen.
She’d spent so long looking at it that she figured she knew every distinct pixel of the document, but there was something in the photo she’d never noticed until now.
She tilted her head to the side, squinting to make out the edge of a document tucked underneath the autopsy report.
“What is it?” Kate asked, coming around the desk. Veeta and Kennedy trailed after her, all of them leaning in. “What does that say? Is that a D? Or an O? Why do people use ornamental fonts, they’re complete garbage.”
“I think it’s a D,” said Veeta. “Div, maybe.”
“Dividends?” Juliette guessed.
“Oh, I’ve got it!” Kennedy said. “It’s a divorce decree! I recognize the font.”
The other three looked to her slowly, waiting for more explanation. But Kennedy only gave them a blank smile.
“Okay, we’re going to talk about that later,” Juliette finally said.
“But if Brad was going to divorce Brigitte, that’s more than enough motive for her and Troy to kill him.
Brad would have made sure she lost everything in the divorce.
Now she’s inherited everything instead, including Warren’s estate. ”
“Maybe that’s why they killed Warren,” Kate reasoned. “Because Brigitte knew Brad didn’t have any money. Not if all those gambling rumors about him are true. But if Warren is dead, Brad inherits his fortune. Maybe she figures after seven years she’s owed a lot more than half his lousy debts.”
“June Piedmont said that Brad and Brigitte interrupted their toast with Warren in his room before the party,” Juliette mused.
“And Robert had to pivot from dosing his glass to dosing the whole whiskey bottle. Then they had to dose themselves to not give it away. Brad drank a glass, but Brigitte didn’t.
She said it was because she only drank champagne—”
“Boss move,” Veeta said appreciatively.
“I know, right? But what if Brigitte saw them dose the whiskey bottle? She might not have known it was digitalis, but she most likely would have assumed it was poison. Maybe she hoped it would take out Warren and Brad in one go. After all, she took the microphone from Brad. And if she was working with Troy, he could have discharged the defibrillator during Warren’s speech. ”
“What about the manuscript?” Kennedy asked. “Why would they go to the trouble of stealing it?”
“Between the two of them, I’d be willing to bet they have more than enough secrets to hide,” Juliette said.
“Just think about the things we do know about them. If Warren had dirt on them—and believe me, Warren had dirt on everybody—it would have been bad enough to send the both of them away. They couldn’t risk it. ”
“What if Brad figured it out, though?” Veeta said.
“After you went poking around, maybe he got suspicious. Figured out what they did, and threatened to reveal them. Or leave her with nothing. And they took him out. Now she gets everything and doesn’t have to bother with the divorce. Nobody’s the wiser.”
“Except that divorce decree exists somewhere,” Juliette said, tapping the screen. “If I can find it, it goes a long way toward proving motive to Detective Marks and getting him off my back for Brad’s murder.”
“So how do we get it?” Veeta asked. “We’re back to my breaking and entering idea.”
“I don’t think we need to break in,” Juliette said. “All we need is a reservation.”