Chapter Thirty-Seven
Apparently, June Piedmont had been busy from house arrest, because the security guard at Pacific Pines was being a real pill about Juliette being on the banned-for-life list.
“Look, I have spent the entire morning on public transportation trying to track down Brigitte Ellingham,” Juliette said, glaring at the man in the gatehouse entrance.
“I have been to the Ellingham Group, her Pilates gym, the secret apartment she apparently keeps in Capitol Hill, and three different coffee shops where she’s a regular.
I had to ride the bus. A man with more gaps than teeth told me I had perfect feet, another man tried to get me to read the erotica novel he checked out from the library—a copy which they should obviously burn if he ever returns it—and an entirely separate third man tried to expose himself to me but couldn’t remember how a button fly works.
I’m not leaving until you let me talk to her. ”
Juliette’s phone buzzed for the umpteenth time that day but she didn’t bother pulling it out.
Kate and Veeta had been updating Kennedy on the group text nonstop since last night, and they were planning celebratory mimosas and French toast. But Juliette couldn’t join any celebrations until she knew the police had the right killer.
“Ma’am, you can leave, or I can have you removed,” said the security guard. “You’re on private property, and I will have you arrested for trespassing.”
Juliette crossed her arms. “You know what? Fine. Don’t let me in. But the least you can do is pass Brigitte a message. She’ll want to hear it. Tell her I know about the divorce decree, and I want to talk. I’ll wait.”
Juliette sweated it out in the July sun as the guard disappeared into the gatehouse and made the call.
Never mind that she was wearing heels and had been hotfooting it all over the city all day and could really use a seat and maybe a spiked lemonade.
He didn’t even have the respect to look chagrined as he stepped back out.
“Mrs. Ellingham will meet you in her private cabana,” he said, waving her through.
The club seemed to be doing good business despite its recent legal woes—or perhaps because of them.
June Piedmont must have been so happy with the fresh onslaught of members and their hefty dues, even if she couldn’t make use of them to fund her failing real estate schemes anymore.
The pool was full of kids playing far more politely than at any public pool, with an entire section roped off for older women to keep their sleek physiques by getting in their daily laps.
There were curtained cabanas ringing the pool, with private bars and teak loungers with silk pillows.
The closest cabana had its curtains drawn, but that didn’t stop the prying eyes of the women gathered close by, their conversation muted and fierce, their gazes like X-rays.
Juliette guessed it was Brigitte Ellingham’s private cabana.
Juliette gave the gossip gals a wave before stepping into the shaded interior of the cabana, a misting fan keeping the interior pleasantly cool.
Brigitte Ellingham occupied a lounger, her perfectly sculpted legs stretched out long against the silk pillows, her gorgeous retro-chic swimsuit fitted to her trim yet luscious figure.
She had half a glass of champagne beside her, a pair of sunglasses as big as her face shielding her eyes, and a Jean-Paul Sartre book propped on her lap.
She looked like a Parisian magazine spread, and Juliette couldn’t have loved it more.
If this woman was a mastermind murderer, she played the part exquisitely.
“You’ve made quite a reputation for yourself,” said Brigitte Ellingham, that vague European accent thickened by champagne.
“June Piedmont threatened me with bodily harm if I let you back on club grounds, so of course I had to test that threat. And Troy tells me you broke into my office and stole my divorce paperwork. What was your name again?”
“Juliette Winters,” she said, taking the lounger opposite Brigitte without invitation and stretching her legs out just as long. After all, she’d spent the morning hiking around in heels; she deserved it.
“I remember you from Warren’s party. You gave Warren the idea to write a book.” She gave a little laugh. “That’s what started all this trouble, isn’t it? Such a vain idea, writing a story about yourself. Perfect for Warren.”
She took another long sip of champagne, the portrait of a world-weary beauty. But now Juliette knew that was exactly what it was—a portrait. “So how did you land on European supermodel as your background, Bridget?”
To the woman’s credit, she barely spluttered into her champagne, her expression hardly shifting as she set the glass down. “Renaldo, fetch me a superfood smoothie, would you?”
“Right away, Mrs. Ellingham,” said the bartender, slipping through the back curtain and leaving them alone. Brigitte didn’t remove her sunglasses, but Juliette could feel the woman studying her from behind the darkened lenses.
“How much do you know?” she asked finally, holding admirably to her fake accent.
“Enough,” Juliette bluffed. “Troy gave you up in a panic last night. The man is surprisingly not great under pressure for being a high-end chef.”
Brigitte sighed, finally deigning to remove her sunglasses. She lifted the flute, draining it, before hauling herself up and around the bar to refill it herself.
“His temper has always gotten the best of him,” Brigitte said.
“Is that what happened with Brad?” Juliette asked. “Troy’s temper got the best of him?”
“Troy had nothing to do with Brad’s death,” Bridget said—and she was certainly Bridget now, all trace of her phony European accent flattened out into a distinctly American tone.
Eastern seaboard, if Juliette had to put a finger on it.
“Even the police know it. I got him a lawyer right away, of course, the best Warren’s money could buy.
It was the least Warren could do for Troy after screwing him over by leaving the restaurant deal a spoken agreement.
The lawyer immediately grilled that detective on his evidence, and apparently the resin Troy used to make the raindrops doesn’t even match the kind under Brad’s nails.
It was some kind of higher-end compound, not that by-the-bucket stuff Troy bought.
The rest of their evidence will prove just as flimsy, and I have every confidence we’ll have Troy out by the end of the day. ”
Pretty bold, spending her dead father-in-law’s money to free her lover suspected of murdering her husband.
Whoever Bridget was, wherever she’d come from, she didn’t flinch in the face of the law.
Or gossip, apparently, judging by her presence at the club with the lookie-loos hanging around outside.
It was almost like she wanted them to look, dared them to.
“Who are you?” Juliette asked. “Really?”
“My old name doesn’t matter. Brad had my identity scrubbed before we got married.
But you can call me Bridget in here, if it pleases you.
My old life doesn’t matter either. There’s nothing unsavory or salacious, if that’s what you were thinking.
Rather the opposite. Mundanity so thick you could choke on it.
I’d been suffocating for years when I met Brad, and even though I knew his air was toxic, at least it was something I could breathe. ”
“That Sartre is really kicking in, huh?” Juliette muttered. “Okay, so, what? You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, that much is true?”
Bridget snorted. “Cute. I was a showgirl in a low-rent production in Atlantic City. Brad had run out of good grace with the sports books in Vegas and he’d come to AC looking for looser odds.
Warren wanted Brad to marry some poor girl from a good family, like that might save him from being rotten to the core.
Brad never liked being under his father’s thumb, but what could he do?
Warren had the money and Brad couldn’t make a good business deal to save his life.
He thought if he found himself a wife that he could keep under his thumb, he could keep Warren happy and maintain the life of debauchery to which he’d become accustomed. ”
“Hence the invented backstory,” Juliette said. “To make you more palatable to Warren’s high standards.”
Bridget nodded. “Not that it mattered. I could have been the prime minister of Britain and he would have found a way to be disappointed. No one and nothing was ever good enough for Warren, most especially his son. Brad hated him with a vengeance.”
“Enough to kill him?” Juliette asked.
“More than enough, though I didn’t think he’d ever have the balls to do it,” Bridget said. She looked at Juliette with a calculating expression. “So, the rumors are true? Warren’s death wasn’t the natural heart attack the police claimed it was?”
Juliette had half a mind to ask where Bridget had heard these rumors, but she knew better. A true gossipmonger never revealed their sources, and Bridget was playing it far too cool to blow her play now.
“Why don’t you tell me?” Juliette said.
Bridget snorted. “If you think I know something, you’re barking up the wrong tree.
Brad never told me anything. I had thought shaking my ass for sweaty men in desperate straits was humiliating, but it was nothing compared to being Brad’s puppet.
I would rather have crawled back to Atlantic City naked over broken glass than stay married to that man.
I told him I would keep up appearances through Warren’s birthday, and then I was done.
Troy was going to let me work management in the restaurant to make money. ”
Troy had been telling the truth; Bridget had been the one to file. But money was a hell of a motivator for murder, especially for someone who had spent seven years growing accustomed to having it. Maybe it hadn’t been enough for her to leave; maybe she wanted to take something with her.
“Why would you need to make money if a good lawyer could set you up with alimony?” Juliette asked.
Bridget snorted. “What alimony? Brad was flat broke. Worse than flat broke, he was in debt up to his hair plugs. And not the kind you gently default on to a disappointed bank manager in a dated tie, either. He owed big money to some scary people. I told the police if they were looking for someone who had it in for Brad, they should start with the sports bookies in Atlantic City. Brad had been trying to outrun them for months. He’d promised them some big, sure thing this year that would clear his slate. Said he had a connection.”
“Do you know what the sure thing was?” Juliette asked.
“Something about the golf tournament,” Bridget said, returning to her lounger with a fresh drink and settling into the silk with a heavy sigh before replacing her sunglasses. “Like I said, Brad never let me in on his little schemes.”
“Golf tournament?” Juliette said, sitting up straighter. “Chipper mentioned discussing the details of Warren’s death with Brad. Were they friends?”
“Not that I know of,” Bridget said with a shrug. “They were both at Stanford at the same time, but Brad didn’t make himself any friends with that dorm room betting business. Apparently he got some of the kids on sports scholarships reprimanded.”
“Do you know why Chipper left the tour ten years ago?” Juliette asked. “There was some kind of controversy, but no one will say what it was. Could it have been related to Brad’s betting?”
“I don’t know why either of them would chance it. If Warren found out, he’d have ruined the both of them, blood relations be damned.”
But Warren did find out. That must have been what he was threatening Chipper with the night of the party.
Chipper had been involved in illegal gambling, and Warren had found out and threatened to expose him.
What if Brad and Chipper had made a deal to get rid of Warren?
Brad gets the money he so desperately needs and Chipper protects his reputation at a time when he needs it the most. But if Brad was pressuring Chipper to throw another tournament for a bet, maybe Chipper snapped.
He couldn’t lose everything he’d worked so hard for, not after a decade of obscurity.
If she knew one thing about Chipper, he loved the attention in the limelight.
If Brad threatened to take that away, Chipper could have easily cracked under that kind of pressure.
And nobody would know how to use a golf club as a weapon better than the Sultan of the Short Game.
“Have you seen Chipper lately?” Juliette asked.
“No, but I’ve certainly heard enough of him,” Bridget said, the eye roll evident in her tone.
“With June and Robert Piedmont tied up in this fraud business and Brad dead, I’m apparently the only one left qualified to make managerial decisions here at the club.
He’s been hounding me to get the police to release Brad’s murder scene so he can get back on the greens and practice. ”
“Why would he need the murder scene released to practice?” Juliette asked. “Those can’t be the only locker rooms in the club.”
“They’re not, but I suppose they’re his favorite. I don’t understand men and their silly superstitions. Wearing the same socks every time, driving the car to a certain mileage. He’s obsessed with this tournament business.”
But Juliette didn’t think Chipper Floyd was being superstitious. She suspected he was anxious about something else, something that had sent him to that locker room the day Brad was murdered. And she figured it was about time Chipper showed her what it was.
“I don’t suppose you want to help me set a trap that will exonerate your boyfriend and catch Brad’s real killer?
” Juliette asked nonchalantly. “All you have to do is give Chipper Floyd exactly what he’s asking for, and give me access to the security cameras in the club.
And one of those superfood smoothies you ordered.
I skipped lunch and these heels are a workout. ”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re quite demanding?” Bridget asked mildly.
Juliette gave her a sly grin. “In the boardroom and the bedroom. Now make the call.”