Chapter 16
VERNON
Vernon tapped his pen on his notepad. He didn’t know what to make of Sophie Gilman’s refusal to speak with him, except that it was suspicious.
She was the kind of woman who used to be called neurotic, the kind who now wandered around with a support chihuahua.
That wasn’t the type who refused to talk to the authorities. Somehow, her meekness had disappeared.
Possibly because she felt guilty about the lies she’d told him last time.
Vernon had never unpicked those lies, but he knew they existed. He knew she and her friends had covered for Mrs. B and Anthony. Still, he’d gotten his arrest back then, and he’d get another one now. He just needed to question the right people.
He allowed his gaze to linger on Pax Heron for an intentionally uncomfortable moment, then said, “Wait here, sir.”
The guy looked nervous enough to share all the gossip if Vernon rattled him a little.
So he returned upstairs and separated the gorgeous Jane Sheffield from the others.
He led her to an alcove with two chairs and a round table.
Jane had the husky voice and sultry demeanor of a woman from the era when they could make you weak in the knees with a glance.
When he quizzed her about Mrs. DeYoung, she said, “Poor Karina takes all this”—she gestured vaguely—“far more seriously than Frank ever did.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“No, darling,” she purred, “you wouldn’t.”
“Hm. How would you describe their relationship?”
“Better than it appeared,” she said. “He loved her.”
“What did she think of him?”
“Despite how Karina looks,” Jane told him, “she’s all woman.”
He didn’t know what that meant, either, but he suspected she was playing with him.
Jane understood power dynamics, and she wasn’t impressed by a badge.
So he focused on the facts: how much money had the dead guy given to World of Goods, how long had she known him, and could she think of any reason CJ would’ve wanted him dead.
“Do you know what they were to each other?” she asked. “Frank and CJ?”
He could imagine, but he said, “What?”
“Best friends,” she told him, which was not in fact what he’d expected.
He moved on to Sunny Wheeler, Frank’s oldest friend, who was the archetypal rich weirdo. Happy to chat about his investments in life-extending therapy: cryogenics, blood transfusions, weekly IV packs. Vernon got less out of him than Jane, mostly because the poor guy couldn’t stop crying.
Finally, Vernon spoke with Helene and George Kagant.
She was a chatty woman whose flustered air couldn’t conceal her intelligence, and he was what happened if a mad scientist got his doctorate in literature.
They claimed they hadn’t seen anything suspicious, but they filled in the blanks of some of the relationships.
George had known Jane back in the mists of time.
They’d even gone on a few dates before losing touch—he claimed—for twenty or so years.
And Helene wanted Frank to invest in a nationwide initiative to convert all pet shelters into no-kill shelters with long-term care for unadopted animals.
He left the Kagants consoling Karina and headed back downstairs to question the massage therapist, Pax Heron, who to Vernon’s dismay seemed less nervous after waiting. Which wasn’t ideal, but he played along, giving a smile and asking about his work.
“I specialize in bodywork for seniors,” Pax told him.
“Massage for old people?” Vernon asked.
“Also palliative and hospice care. I often focus on craniosacral therapy and lymphatic drainage—though some clients respond even better to a simple head rub or applying lotion to their hands and feet. Often we just do guided breathing.”
As far as Vernon knew, the only kind of guidance that breath needed was in and out, but he took a few notes, then asked the guy what he’d seen in the moments before Frank DeYoung fell.
“Nothing,” Pax said. “I was coming back inside to make sure no one needed a ride. They’d all been drinking.”
“And?”
“I saw Frank lying in the foyer. At the base of the stairs.”
“Then what happened.”
“I checked his pulse?”
“Who else was there?”
“Right beside him? CJ, of course. She ran downstairs when he fell. Sunny and George, I think? Everyone was milling around, calling for an ambulance. Jane and Helene went upstairs to Karina who, uh, said that CJ pushed him.”
Vernon tapped his pen on his notepad. “You think that’s what happened?”
Pax shook his head. “No way. She loved him.”
“CJ did?”
“Yeah, like a father.”
Vernon wondered if Frank DeYoung loved CJ like a daughter, or something else. “What about this noise in the great room?”
“Oh, yeah. That came before the scream. There was a pop of glass shattering. I thought a caterer dropped a stack of plates but someone said it was a wine bottle?”
The sudden distraction of a loud noise struck Vernon as a little too convenient. “How’d it break?”
“No idea.”
“And you definitely heard the sound before the scream?”
“I think so.” Pax scratched the tattoo on his arm. “Yeah, I heard the crash from outside. I mean, the windows were open in the great room.”
“Quite the coincidence,” Vernon said, trying to draw him out.
“There’s no such thing,” Pax told him, with complete assurance. “We simply overweight unlikely events when we attach meaning to them.”
“Oh, is that what we do? So you massaged Frank four times a week. Talk to me about his physical condition.”
“He’s been getting shakier,” Pax said. “The past two months in particular. Between you and me, I’m surprised he hadn’t already had a fall. It’s just a tragedy he was at the top of the stairs.”
“Tragic coincidence,” Vernon said aloud, as he wrote the words.
And he would’ve believed them, too, if not for the eyewitness.