CHAPTER FOUR
The Whitfield residence was less a house, more an exhibit.
They walked up a drive which swept in a wide curve past manicured hedges clipped into perfect spheres, and the front doors—carved oak with elaborate ironwork—stood open to let the late-morning light fall across a broad expanse of marble tiles.
Just before the short set of steps, Hernandez, their escort, turned round to face them, making just the hint of an embarrassed shrug, as if to say, ‘What did you expect?’ He then gave a brief salute, and started walking back towards the lake.
‘Do we just walk in and holler?’ Kate wondered. ‘Or will a servant do that for us?’
‘You know what? I’m just thinking,’ Marcus said, suddenly. ‘There’s got to be a bunch of financials to look into. I mean – if this guy made his money honestly, then I’m the next American pope. And I’ve got a feeling there’s going to be a lot of paperwork.’
‘You want to go back to Portland and get stuck in?’
‘You okay with that?’
‘It’s practical. Only one problem. We came in your car.’
‘CSI’s nearly done with the scene. I can squeeze in with Desiree and Lara.’
“Interesting choice of words. Desiree in particular.”
‘Stop it.’ Grinning, he handed her the fob for the sedan and she watched him go
Marcus had a fiancée, but things seemed to be rocky between them right now.
Sometimes, he told Kate what was going on, and she always did her best to advise him from her own, limited experience.
Recently, though, Marcus’s behaviour had been bewildering: he always seemed to be sending or receiving texts, there were a lot of late nights and wall-to-wall flirting.
Desperate flirting, like it was about to be outlawed.
Kate didn’t really think he was about to try his charms on the CSI team, but she wouldn’t have been surprised.
She walked towards the house, crunching along the unnaturally white gravel, taking her time.
Splitting the workload made sense —Marcus diving into Whitfield’s financial records back at HQ, her heading to meet the widow—but it left Kate with an odd, hollow space.
And, if she were being truthful, she thought interviews were always best done by a pair.
One person could observe, while the other asked the questions; there was always so much more going on, beyond and behind the conversation.
It easy to miss the micro-tics and the nano-tells: the longer-than-usual pause before the answer, the involuntary flicker of an eyelid, the mouth saying one thing, while the tone testifies to the total opposite…
Parked to the side of the house was an open garage, with a trio of top-range vehicles inside: all gold, a Bentley coupé, a gleaming Escalade, a shiny red little rollerskate of a thing that Kate assumed was Italian and worth several times her salary. The Whitfield auto-fortune on full display.
But as she mounted the marble steps to the front door, she reminded herself to look past the surface. That was her job.
A uniformed housekeeper answered the door, Scottish judging by her voice, which was hushed and hospital-serious, as if there was a sick patient inside.
“Mrs. Whitfield is expecting you.”
Kate followed her through a cavernous hallway dominated by a chandelier so ornate it could feasibly collapse under its own weight.
She would have said that every detail screamed wealth, but screaming wasn’t the right word.
It was more like a never-ending belch, the gas of some gargantuan feast, comprising dish after dish of costly baubles, from handwoven rugs to carved oak banisters.
It was just as ostentatious as Whitfield’s office, maybe even more so.
And then Anne Whitfield appeared, descending the broad staircase with a kind of unhurried grace.
Kate blinked. The contrast was jarring. Anne was a slight woman, dressed simply in a navy dress that looked decades old but neatly pressed, a plain cardigan across her shoulders, unbuttoned.
No jewelry sparkled at her wrists or ears.
No diamond necklace. Just a gold wedding band, worn thin by the years. Like her.
Her face was pale, almost translucent in the sunlight streaming through the tall windows, and her eyes—clear, blue, tired—regarded Kate with cautious courtesy.
“Mrs. Whitfield?” Kate asked softly, stepping forward.
“Please,” Anne said, her voice gentle. “Call me Anne.”
They shook hands. Anne’s fingers were cool, her grip surprisingly firm.
The housekeeper vanished, and Anne led her into a drawing room lined with gilt-framed paintings and overstuffed furniture.
Kate took in the heavy curtains, the polished surfaces, the quiet tick of a grandfather clock.
A room meant to impress, though Anne herself perched at the very edge of a sofa, seeming in that vast space, not just small and spare, but also somehow unwelcome.
Kate accepted a seat opposite, notebook balanced loosely on her knee.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” she began, keeping her voice even.
Anne inclined her head, eyes dropping to the handkerchief twisted in her lap. “Thank you. It has been… difficult. My sister Margaret is still in shock. She was the one who found him, you know. It will take her a long time to recover.”
But not you?
“I understand.” Kate gave her a moment before continuing. “I need to ask about your husband. His life, the people around him. Do you know of anyone who might have wished him harm?”
“No. Jonathan had no enemies.”
It was the speed of the reply that caught Kate’s attention. No pause, no reflection and virtually no facial expression, as though the line had been expected, and rehearsed-for.
“None at all? Forgive me, Mrs Whitfield, but I believe someone shot him in Baltimore.”
Anne nodded graciously, as if receiving a compliment. ‘Shot at him. The man was mentally ill. It wasn’t personal; he’d attempted to shoot the state senator the day before.’
‘And the fishermen? A row over right of access to the lake?’
Now, Anne Whitfield looked surprised. Or rather, she did a good impression of someone looking surprised.
Kate was beginning to find the woman’s manner distinctly odd.
It seemed as if her face was eerily blank until something came along that she needed to react to.
And then she’d react, but slowly, and almost theatrically, like an actress practising in front of a mirror.
‘Amicably settled. My husband built them a new boat-house, over on the eastern shore. In any case, even at its most… tense, it would have been impossible to imagine a dispute of that order leading to murder.’
Kate wanted to point out that, over the course of her career, she’d come across people being murdered over a postage stamp, over a rock of crack the size of a lentil, and whether basketball was a superior sport to ice hockey. But she kept it to herself.
‘You really can’t think of anyone?’ she asked.
“Not one,” Anne repeated. “Jonathan lived for others. He was a giving man. Everything he had, he wanted to pass forward. He was the embodiment of selflessness, and humility, and modesty.”
Kate let silence hang for a few beats, watching the way Anne twisted the handkerchief tighter. “And yet,” she said at last, “this house, the cars, the church headquarters… none of it exactly looks modest.”
A flicker crossed Anne’s face, a genuine emotion, there and gone before it could be interpreted.
Her voice, when she answered, was steady, but cool.
“Jonathan believed that humility lived in the heart, not in bricks and wood. He never placed himself above anyone else. If God chose to bless him with means, he used them to bless others. This house has welcomed hundreds, perhaps thousands, over the years. Congregants, donors, families in need. Was that wrong?”
Kate studied her carefully. She could almost see the seams of the speech, lines stitched together with certainty, but not necessarily faith.
“I don’t mean to suggest wrongdoing of any kind,” Kate said carefully. “I just want to understand the man.”
Anne’s gaze softened, a brief flicker of warmth. “He was a man who believed love should be shared. When Jonathan was young, he was helped by others. He never forgot it. Everything he did was to pay that forward.”
Her words hung in the air, polished and complete, the kind of narrative a publicist might spin. Not exactly false, but crafted nonetheless.
Kate scribbled in her notebook, though she already knew she had little to follow up on. Anne was either too careful or too committed to the story. Maybe both.
“Was Jonathan ever threatened?” she asked. “Any letters, calls, confrontations?”
Anne shook her head. “Never. People adored him. They respected him.”
Kate noted the quick denial, the same certainty as before. Too much of it.
“And his work with the Prosperity Fund? The financial side of the ministry—did he ever speak of difficulties?”
Another headshake. “Jonathan managed those things with complete integrity. He saw every dollar entrusted to him as sacred.”
Kate almost smiled. The answer was too neat. She thought of Marcus right now at HQ, digging into Whitfield’s books. If there was rot beneath the polish, he would find it.
“Can you tell me about the party last night?”
“Up to a point. I retired to bed at nine, due to a migraine.”
Could explain the weird manner Kate thought; Mrs Whitfield might be in great pain, or coping with its aftermath.
“And did you sleep right through, or…?”
“I wasn’t expecting my husband to come to bed, which I assume is the prurient detail you’re trying to find out.”
Kate felt herself redden slightly; Mrs Whitfield’s tone took her straight back to grade school.
“My husband and I sleep separately, and have done for several years,” Anne went on. “I noticed nothing untoward during the time I was present, except…” She paused, blinking quickly; it was like watching the cogs and wheels turning. “It’s not important.”
“Say it anyway. You never know.”
Mrs Whitfield attempted a smile. It was more like a baring of teeth. Odd woman.
“It’s nothing, I’m sure, but I didn’t recognise one of the waiting staff.”
Kate leant closer, her heartrate kicking up a notch.
“Would you expect to?”
“For an event of that size, yes. I knew all seven members of the congregation. The five young people from Willington High had all worked for us before, and are, in any case, also members of our Young Faith Cohort. And of course, I know Miguel Hernandez, who is part of the security team.”
“But you saw someone else?”
“I don’t drink champagne or any other alcohol, and the only other choices were fruit juice and sparkling water. I simply couldn’t have abided either of those, what with my migraine coming on, so I asked… this person in black for a glass of still water.”
“Can you describe them?”
“Stocky build, very short brown hair, I think, no idea about the eyes. Wearing a black shirt and black pants, like all the others.”
“Male or female?”
“You’d think I would remember, but I don’t. I’m sorry. But there’s just one detail. It stood out because it was so unexpected.”
“What was it?”
“Everyone else was clean and tidy. My husband insisted on it. But this person had mud on their shoe.”
Kate made a few notes. It was one of those clues that could go either way. It could bust open the case. Or it could mean nothing at all, except wasted man-hours.
“Do you think it’s possible that it was one of the regular staff, but your senses might have been distorted by the onset of the migraine?”
“No,” Anne replied, after some thought. “Because I remember thinking that I didn’t recognise them, and resolving that I would ask them who they were when they returned with my water.”
“And did you?”
“No. For the simple reason that they never returned with my water. I asked Miguel for one instead, but I began to feel so unwell that I retreated to my bedroom before he could bring it to me.”
“So this would have been shortly before 9pm?” Kate checked, whilst scribbling notes.
“It would.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Anne’s hands were folded neatly now, the handkerchief tucked flat across her lap. Suddenly, she drew breath, almost startling Kate.
“Does that I mean I might have spoken to my husband’s killer?”
Kate closed her notebook quietly. “It might. But there are a lot of other, possible explanations. Don’t lose sleep over it.”
“I don’t sleep anyway,” said Mrs Whitfield.
Kate didn’t know what to say to that, so she said nothing, and stood up, saying, “Thank you for your time today, Mrs Whitfield. I’ll be in touch.”
Anne rose immediately, a little too quickly, as though she was relieved the exchange was ending. “I wish I could help more,” she said, escorting Kate to the door. “But Jonathan truly was a good man. He wanted nothing but to serve.”
Kate gave her a small nod. “Sometimes the truth takes time to reveal itself.”
Anne’s smile faltered, just slightly, before she recovered. “Then I pray you find it.”
Outside, the sunlight was blinding. Kate slipped on her sunglasses and walked back to her car via the path that ran around the lake, detouring for a quick conversation with Pearl Gibney, Whitfield’s secretary.
Then she sat for a while behind the wheel of Marcus’s FBI-issue black sedan, staring at the gleaming facade of the Whitfield estate. The house seemed to shimmer, unreal in its perfection, like a stage set that might collapse if you leant against it.
Anne Whitfield had played her part well.
Arguably too well. The grief was real—Kate had seen it in the tightening of her hands, the tremor in her voice—but the devotion she had spoken of?
The insistence that her husband was flawless, generous, beloved?
The blind refusal to admit that anyone might have nursed a grudge, however small?
Those things felt less like testimony, more like instruction.
As though someone—perhaps Pastor Jonathan himself, or the machinery of the church around him—had drilled the lines into her until she could recite them even now, after his death.
Kate started the engine, pulling slowly down the long drive.
She hadn’t wasted any time today; she was coming away with a lead, of sorts, to explore.
She’d requested all the interior and exterior CCTV footage from the day before, and Pearl was going to send it over once it had all been collected.
It was possible, just possible, that they might have the killer on video, even in the company of the woman who’d soon be his victim’s widow. It was a start.
But one thought—more of a doubt—clung to her as she passed through the gates and watched them close silently behind her.
Did Jonathan and Anne Whitfield truly believe the package they were selling to the people who had so much less than them? Or had a genuine faith blurred long ago into performance, the kind of show you couldn’t stop once it had begun?
That question stayed with her all the way back to Portland.