Chapter 14
VERNON
On the bright side, the Hope Ranch call wasn’t for a robbery. Detective Sergeant Vernon Enible hated burglary calls to wealthy neighborhoods: the homeowners always expected the police to track down their stolen goods, and it was his job to disappoint them.
On the dimmer side, while the accidental death of a tottering eighty-one-year-old didn’t require the expertise of the Crimes Against Persons Unit, it still required Vernon’s presence. So he needed to show up.
And on the positively bleak side, while parts of Hope Ranch were merely rich, the DeYoungs were wealthy.
The truly wealthy were untouchable. Even if you knew they were guilty, you couldn’t work the system effectively, because their lawyers were already working it against you.
Hell, you often couldn’t even confront them directly.
Instead, high-end criminal attorneys turned the justice system into a goddamn book club. You talked and talked and talked.
Still, “Old Man Falls Down Stairs” shouldn’t take much time. Vernon would tut somberly, say a few comforting words, then return to the station.
At least that’s what he thought before he arrived at the scene.
The mansion looked like a fancy apartment building from the 1970s, all concrete and stained wood, though the water features were a nice touch.
And you couldn’t beat the expansive garden and ocean bluffs.
Unlike some of the mansions he’d responded to, he actually liked the DeYoung place.
Maybe he’d start saving his pennies.
He stepped from his car and glanced toward the three patrol cars. The tension in the air—or in the postures of the officers at the door—struck him as edgier than an accidental death deserved.
“What’s the issue?” he said as he approached.
“The wife—the widow—says the decedent was pushed,” Officer Aldwell told him.
He paused outside the grand front door. “‘Decedent’?”
“What in your day was known as ‘the dead guy,’” Aldwell explained, while glancing at her notepad. “Mrs. Karina DeYoung, sixty-four, has been married to the decedent for about ten years. Hosted a party tonight. The last guests were gathering in the foyer before heading out. As per usual.”
“As per usual?”
“They always said goodbye there, it was a kind of tradition.”
“And you already found that out?”
“I did,” Aldwell said.
“Huh,” he said, impressed despite himself. Aldwell was just a kid, but already thinking ahead. “Now tell me the good stuff.”
“Karina DeYoung saw the housekeeper push her husband down the stairs.”
“The housekeeper?”
“CJ Moore, thirty-five. She started working for Frank DeYoung soon after graduating college.”
“Good,” Vernon said.
“Why’s that good?”
“A housekeeper can’t afford the kind of high-powered crime attorney who makes my life miserable. Where is she?”
“Separated into the downstairs library, waiting for you. Eight guests were on the premises at the time of death. The two members of the catering staff stayed behind to clean up. They’re in the kitchen, they didn’t know anything happened till the ambulance arrived.”
He listened while Aldwell continued briefing him, then he perked up at a familiar name. “Sophie Gilman, the half-Chinese girl?”
“I didn’t ask about her ancestry.”
“You know what I mean. And Nicholas Perez, too?”
“You know them?”
“They live at the Marigold Cottages.”
Aldwell whistled. Everyone on the force knew the site of a double homicide. “You want to talk to them first?”
“Nah, I’ll start with Mrs. DeYoung. She’s the one making the allegation.”
After glancing into the party room, Vernon paused at the door to a den on the second floor.
Officer Aldwell indicated Karina DeYoung, huddled on a couch, her eyes red with grief.
She struck Vernon as unglamorous and middle-aged, which surprised him.
He figured music producers married women who looked like the dancers in videos.
Two other women, whom the officer identified as Jane Sheffield and Helene Kagant, were comforting her while two men, George Kagant and Jonathan “Sunny” Wheeler, murmured into their phones, apparently spreading the news.
“Mrs. DeYoung,” he said, stepping into the room. “I’m Detective Sergeant Vernon Enible. I hate to intrude but I need to clarify a few things.”
He said “clarify” instead of “question” because wealthy people got squirrelly about being “questioned” but were highly confident that they saw things clearly.
Karina DeYoung tearfully said that of course she’d help, and he reiterated his condolences before asking her to tell him exactly what she saw.
Karina sniffled. “I saw her. CJ. I saw her push Frank.”
“You’re referring to CJ Moore?”
“She just reached out and … oh, god.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Could you set the scene a little?”
She smoothed her black pants with trembling fingers. “We were—we were at the top of the stairs. Most of the guests had left, but the rest of us … we’re the kind of people who, once someone says, ‘I should be heading home,’ it’s thirty minutes before anyone actually leaves.”
“You’d all been in the, uh, room with the buffet table?”
“The great room, yes. Then George said they should be going.” She attempted a watery smile. “Well, he said, ‘Time to pretend we’re leaving,’ because he’s George. Then Pax left with … what’s her name?”
“Sophie Gilman?” Vernon suggested.
“No, the blond one.”
“Angela,” Jane Sheffield said.
“Right. Pax walked her out, and we, the rest of us, followed as far as the foyer. Frank is used to—was used to our long goodbyes, so he headed upstairs.”
“We stood around chatting,” Jane said. “I think maybe CJ brought Helene’s coat?”
“She did.” Helene tugged at the collar of her black embroidered jacket. “I was talking with Sunny and George about local theatre. One of the guests is a playwright.”
“Oh, is she?” Vernon asked.
Helene nodded. “She wrote a murder-mystery play set in Santa Barbara.”
“I’ll have to give that a read.” He looked back to Karina, who was blank-eyed and pale. “So they were in the foyer and you were where?”
“Upstairs with Frank,” Karina said. “CJ was already with him because she thinks she’s his daughter, even though he’d rather that I help him, so I ran upstairs. Then we were saying goodbye and—and…”
She waved her manicured hand, telling him she couldn’t speak, so he said, “Maybe Ms. Sheffield can take over?”
Jane Sheffield straightened as everyone’s gazes turned to her. She was the type of glamorous middle-aged woman who still turned heads. Looked like she should’ve been the wife, but instead she raised funds for international relief.
“Sunny was talking about life extension,” she said in a throaty voice.
“His favorite subject. Then what happened? Pax hadn’t returned from the driveway yet, which I remember because I was going to have him help Sunny to his car, and then—we were laughing, we’d had a few drinks.
There was a noise in the great room, a sort of crash. ”
“A crash?” Vernon asked.
“When I looked later, I saw broken glass. I guess a wine bottle rolled off a shelf and smashed on the floor.”
Vernon took note of that, because you needed to exert serious force to shatter a wine bottle. “And then?”
Jane opened her mouth to continue but Karina spoke first: “That’s when it happened. I was at the top of the stairs with CJ and Frank. Everyone turned to look at the noise, but I looked at Frank instead and that’s when I saw her.”
“What exactly did you see?” Vernon asked.
“CJ. I saw CJ, standing behind Frank. Her face, that stupid winged eyeliner … I can’t forget her expression, she looked eager. She reached out with both hands and shoved him and—he fell, and I heard … the sound and—it was awful. I keep hearing the sound.”
Vernon murmured sympathetically, then considered the men in the room as the other women comforted Karina. He doubted they had anything useful to add. Men tended not to notice details that didn’t affect them personally. So he thanked the widow and went to find the suspect.
Officer Aldwell pointed him to a long rectangular room packed floor to ceiling with vinyl records on built-in shelves.
At the far end of the room, fifty or so bottles of expensive booze were displayed behind an impressive bar.
A massive stereo covered the other wall, behind gold velvet low-slung couches centered around a black Asian-looking coffee table.
It was Vernon’s perfect living room.
A pale figure huddled miserably on one of the couches.
CJ Moore, a tall woman shrinking into herself.
Her face looked bloodless and her eyes sunken despite her almost-calligraphic makeup.
Sitting there pulling tissues from a box and shredding them.
She didn’t seem to notice him; she kept staring at a square window that looked out over the garden.
Or that would have, in the daytime. At night, with the room bright, it had turned into a mirror, so maybe she was staring at herself.
She tore a tissue into strips, then pulled out another. She ripped that one—then startled when he approached. She stood suddenly, gawkily, like she wasn’t sure how her body worked. He asked her to sit, then sank into the velvet couch across from her. Made him want to light a joint.
He talked her through the events of the night, which agreed with everyone else’s right until the only moment that mattered.
“I heard glass break in the great room,” CJ Moore said. “I was at the top of the stairs, I guess helicoptering a little?”
“I don’t know what that means, helicoptering.”
“Being a mother hen? That’s what Frank called me. His balance isn’t great, and he’d had a few drinks, um, so standing at the top of the stairs made me nervous. Then the bottle smashed in the great room.”
“The wine bottle?”
“I mean, I don’t know at the time but everyone turned, including Frank. Except he turned too fast and I saw him stumble so I reached out to catch him. I tried to catch him. I swear. That’s what Karina saw. She saw my arm out, grabbing for him.”
Vernon talked her through the events once more, then asked, “Why is Karina so sure you pushed him?”
“She was drinking. She’s in shock.”
“Is that all?”
CJ took a breath. “I don’t know. Yeah, I think so.”
“Do you get along?”
“Sure. Sort of. She—Karina doesn’t like me.”
“Why is that?”
“She’s jealous.”
“Of you and her husband?”
CJ took a breath. “I’m closer to Frank than she is. I was. In some ways. In a lot of ways.”
“Did you have a sexual relationship?”
She shot him a look of perfect disgust. “He’s fifty years older than me.”
“And worth a hundred million dollars more.”
“Eighty-six million,” she said. “No, we didn’t have a sexual relationship. He was my friend and my boss and…”
She started crying, so Vernon stood to leave.
Fortunately, she didn’t catch him struggling to lever himself out of the couch.
He turned things over in his head as he left the room.
He had an accusation but no proof. Aside from the widow, no one saw CJ push the victim.
Then there was the question of the sudden crash that had immediately preceded the fall.
Vernon beckoned Officer Aldwell to him and said, “Wine bottles don’t shatter so easy.”
“That’s true,” she said.
“So how did this one break falling off a counter?”
“It didn’t. It’s not a wine bottle. It was Amaretto. And I already googled. The square bottles are known for breaking.”
“Damn, Aldwell. I’ll be working for you soon.”
She turned away, but not quite fast enough to hide her smile.
He jotted down the additional information in his notepad, then moved back to the foyer to watch the crime scene unit working.
He thought about Nicholas Perez and Sophie Gilman.
Most people never came across one murder in their lives, but look at them: the third corpse in six months.
Was that just a coincidence? Or were they here for some unspoken reason?
He left the blood spatter to forensics and went to find out.