Chapter Twenty-Seven
TED WRAPS HIS arms around Jill and holds her to his chest, feels her trembling against him.
Fuck, he’s thinking. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He can feel his heart pounding.
This is getting out of hand. It’s harassment.
Should they go to the police? But he is reluctant to do that.
He’d rather handle this on his own. He feels so sure it’s John Burnley – perhaps he should seek him out and make him stop.
But first, they have to go to the memorial, and it’s time to leave.
He talks to her soothingly, stroking her hair, kissing the top of her head while he holds her.
‘It’s okay, Jill. Whoever this is can’t hurt us.
You know that, right? It’s okay. I’ll get to the bottom of it, and I’ll make them stop.
’ She looks up at him. ‘Don’t let it get to you,’ he says.
He releases her and watches as she pulls herself together, finishes putting on her lipstick. Her hand applying the lipstick is trembling. She keeps glancing down at her phone on the vanity. He picks up her phone and turns it off.
They arrive at the hotel a little earlier than everyone else.
They want to make sure everything is properly set up, and they must be here to greet people as they arrive, to thank them for coming to celebrate Greg’s life.
Soon enough the room begins to fill. Ted and Jill stand at the entrance, together, and speak to Greg’s friends and acquaintances, the people he worked with, the people he knew socially.
Jill, Ted is relieved to see, has recovered from the shock of the latest text, and appears poised and comfortable.
For Ted, it’s an ordeal. There is a large turnout, which makes Ted feel rather sour and exhausted.
It also doesn’t help to have to listen to everyone say what a great man his brother was, to have to mumble assent.
Yes, yes he was. To hear them list all his positive qualities.
What a smart guy he was, such a talented businessman.
What a sportsman. Such an accomplished person.
Just once he’d like someone to mention what an asshole Greg was.
How willingly he could throw someone under the bus.
But no one is going to do that at Greg’s memorial.
This is what he’s thinking when he sees John Burnley coming toward them.
His stomach lurches. What the fuck is he doing here?
John approaches them, smiling. ‘Hi, Ted. Is this your lovely wife?’
Jill smiles becomingly at him, completely unaware of who he is. Ted fills her in. ‘This is John Burnley. I was telling you about him.’
Her face changes, the smile drains away. Ted turns to John. ‘What are you doing here, John? You didn’t know Greg.’
‘I just thought I’d pay my respects, that’s all, as a friend.’
He’s not a friend. Ted would like to tell him to leave, but he doesn’t want to cause a scene.
It’s a public memorial; they’d put a notice in the papers.
And there might be an opportunity to confront him later.
So Ted says nothing and is already looking past him, to the next person.
A moment later, he glances back to see Burnley moving further into the room, where food and drink is being served while a digital photo montage plays an endless loop of Greg on a large screen against the back wall. Ted finds it all rather sickening.
He greets the rest of the attendees on autopilot.
Min arrives with her boyfriend, who she introduces rather stiffly, avoiding Ted’s and Jill’s eyes.
Her demeanour is cold, which is not surprising after the last time he’d seen her, in his office.
The boyfriend’s name is Robert Carrera, and he shakes Ted’s hand without speaking.
They don’t pause to chat but quickly move inside.
Quite a few of the attorneys from Turcotte, Weiss he will keep it brief.
He will shed a few tears. But first, he grabs a glass of white wine off the tray of a passing server and scans the crowd for John Burnley.
The place is packed, and people keep stopping him to talk.
He still hasn’t spotted the bastard, but as he makes his way through the crowded room he sees someone else he wasn’t expecting.
Special Agent Ramirez. He must have slipped in late.
Seeing him again, after all these weeks of not hearing from him, is a nasty shock.
What the fuck is he doing here? He has no right, Ted fumes.
He’s amazed at the man’s audacity. He doesn’t belong here, in his cheap suit.
For a moment Ted is undecided – should he approach him, or ignore him?
He decides he mustn’t show fear. He walks up to Ramirez, smiles thinly at him.
‘Special Agent Ramirez, I didn’t expect to see you here,’ he says.
‘I suppose not,’ the other man replies, sipping from the glass of wine he’s holding.
They stand there observing each other, people all around them, engaged in their own conversations. Ted asks, ‘So why are you here?’
‘I’m just paying my respects to your brother, like everybody else.’
‘You didn’t even know him,’ he says pleasantly.
‘No, but I almost feel as if I did.’
What utter bullshit, he thinks. ‘Well, thank you for coming.’
‘It’s a great turnout,’ Ramirez offers.
‘My brother was much loved,’ Ted replies, ‘as you can see.’ He decides that it would be only natural to ask, perhaps unnatural not to. ‘We haven’t heard anything from you in a few weeks. Does that mean the investigation has been closed?’
‘Not at all.’
He doesn’t know how to respond. There’s an awkward pause. Ted feels animus toward this man, but he must not let it show. ‘I don’t understand,’ he says politely. ‘What more is there to do?’
Ramirez smiles and says, ‘There’s always more to do.’
Ted feels a sudden, pulsing fury. But he has been brought up to show poise under any circumstances. He says, ‘Please, help yourself to some food. Excuse me.’ And he turns on his heel and makes his way into the milling crowd, seething.
Ramirez watches Ted Westcott’s straight back disappear into the throng. He admires the man’s poise, but he’s certain he has something to hide. Ramirez has slipped away from work to be here; he can’t stay long. He’d seen the notice in the paper and couldn’t stay away.
He glances around the room at the women wearing smart dresses and a lot of jewellery, the men in impeccable suits.
He knows he is rather shabby in comparison.
These are the people in charge, he thinks, the ones who run everything.
The people with money. He stands off to the side, observing.
He didn’t grow up with people like these, he didn’t know anyone like them, until he met the Westcotts.
He remembers the inside of their brownstone, its luxury and comfort, its good taste.
The Donleavys’ place too. They’re born to it.
Very few of the people here started from nothing, he thinks to himself.
They’ve mostly had it handed to them. The Westcotts certainly have. It’s why he dislikes them so much.
That, and because even a large inheritance from Ted’s father wasn’t enough for them.
They had to have more. So they threw Greg Westcott off a boat to get his money.
He knows what he saw when he mentioned cameras on that boat.
Their flash of fear. He knows in his gut that they committed murder.
Maybe they planned it. Or maybe they didn’t deliberately throw him overboard, but simply didn’t try to save him. He’s sure they’re guilty of something.
He knows he’s gone a bit too far, pushed the envelope on this case. He’s done some things he shouldn’t. But he’s okay with that, all things considered.
He decides to finish his glass of wine and leave.
He’s done what he came to do, which is to let Ted and Jill Westcott know that he hasn’t forgotten them.
But it occurs to him that perhaps Ted won’t tell Jill they spoke.
He decides to seek her out. He grabs a tiny sandwich off a passing tray and wanders around the room, his eye occasionally drawn to the large screen showing photos from Greg Westcott’s life.
A life of tennis, sailing, travel, private schools.
He finishes his sandwich in two bites and spots Jill speaking to Lara Donleavy.
Ben Donleavy is in conversation with another man a short distance away.
Ramirez stops where he is for a moment. Lara is an interesting one.
When he interviewed the Donleavys at their home, her husband had seemed genuinely outraged at the suggestion that what happened on the boat might have been murder.
Lara had been staunch in the Westcotts’ defence, but it hadn’t quite rung true, as if his suggestion that it might not have been an accident had made her think.
He approaches the two women. He sees Jill start when she recognizes him, sees her face stiffen.
‘Special Agent Ramirez,’ she says with a tight smile. Lara is watching the two of them, alert.
‘I thought I’d come pay my respects,’ he says smoothly.
Jill doesn’t answer. She seems frozen, as if all her natural social graces have left her.
‘I was just on my way out,’ he says, ‘but I thought I’d say hello.’
Jill Westcott looks at him with what he thinks is barely concealed loathing. He realizes he feels much the same way about her. He turns away and makes his exit.
Ted is about to give up and approach the podium for his speech when he spots John Burnley deep in conversation with an attractive woman.
He can tell from their body language, even from a distance, that they are flirting.
At his brother’s memorial! He remembers his wife’s distress at the text before they left for the memorial and suddenly he wants nothing more than to confront John Burnley.
He strides over to the pair, interrupting.
‘Excuse me,’ he says. ‘John, can I speak to you for a moment?’ He takes him away by the elbow into a private corner where no one can overhear.
‘What’s on your mind?’ John asks.
‘Are you sending us those texts?’ Ted asks, with an edge to his voice.
‘What texts?’ John says, raising his eyebrows, as if feigning ignorance.
He’s so good at it that Ted falters for a second. But he presses on. ‘You know what I’m talking about.’
‘No, I really don’t,’ John replies. And then he smiles that disarming smile that Ted finds so hard to read.
‘Stop it now, or I will go to the police.’
‘Oh dear,’ John says, cocking his head to one side. ‘Someone is sending you nasty texts? I wonder why?’ He says it with obvious pleasure.
Ted feels his face flush. He wants to punch this arrogant bastard right in the face, but he can’t do that here. ‘You tell me.’ He glares at his adversary.
‘Well, sorry to disappoint you, but it isn’t me,’ John says. He brushes past Ted to return to the woman he’d been speaking to earlier.
Ted watches after him, uncertain. He doesn’t know what to believe. He turns away and catches sight of his wife and Lara Donleavy with Ramirez and his blood turns a little colder.
His wife suggested that it might be Lara who is sending the texts.
But would she text MURDERERS to Jill’s phone right before she had to come to this memorial?
What kind of friend would do that? Now he watches them, Lara with her hand protectively on Jill’s arm, as she speaks to Ramirez.
Ramirez, who questioned Lara and her husband weeks ago, suggested to them that it might have been murder, planted the idea in her mind.
Would Lara send those texts? He doesn’t know her very well.
But Jill does. And Jill thinks it’s possible.