4th of July

Chapter 122

PACIFIC HOMES FLYERS WERE fanned out on a table in the foyer, and the flowers had been changed since Joe and I had taken our self-guided tour of this pretty house on Ocean Colony Road.

“Mind coming upstairs with me?” I asked the Realtor.

Ms. Harris shrugged, tossed the keys down next to the lilies, and started up the stairs ahead of me.

When we got to the entrance of the master bedroom, she hung back.

“I don’t like to go into this room,” she said, casting her gaze around the pale green bedroom with its brand-new green carpet.

I could imagine the murder scene almost as well as she could. Only three weeks before, the body of Lorelei O’Malley had lain gutted about ten feet from where we stood.

Emily Harris swallowed hard, then joined me reluctantly in front of the walk-in closet. I showed her the faint painted-over outline of the peephole in the door and the still-visible crescent where Joe’s thumbnail had left its impression in the wood filler.

“What do you make of this?” I asked her.

Emily’s voice thinned and became scratchy. “This kills me, that’s what I make of it,” she said. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? He was videotaping sex with Lorelei. He told me he wasn’t sleeping with her anymore, but I guess he lied.”

Then her face crumpled and she started to cry softly into a bouquet of pale blue tissues she pulled from her handbag.

“Oh, God, oh, God,” she sobbed. After a while she blew her nose, cleared her throat, and said, “My relationship with Ben has no bearing on his murder. Can we get out of here now?”

Not if I could stop her. Whatever I might learn from Emily Harris, there was no better time than now, no better place than right here.

“Ms. Harris.”

“Jesus Christ. Call me Emily. I’m telling you all this personal stuff.”

“Emily. I really need to know your side of the story.”

“Fine. You know about Sandra?”

I nodded my assent, and as if I had pulled the plug, she spilled.

“Don’t you think I worried that she killed herself because Ben was seeing me?” She dabbed at her swollen eyes, and more tears came.

“Ben said Sandra was a head case, which is why he didn’t leave her. But after she killed herself, I stopped seeing him for a year.

“Then Lorelei came into the picture. The Princess. Ben thought the sooner he got married, the better for Caitlin, so what could I say? I was still married, Lieutenant.

“Then we started up again.

“My place mostly. Motels once in a while. Funny enough, I don’t think Lorelei gave a damn about Caitlin.

“But Ben and I made the best of the situation. Played a game with it. He called me Camilla. I called him Charles. His Royal Highness. It was fun. And I miss him so much. I know Ben loved me. I know he did.”

I didn’t say, “As much as a scurvy, cheating prick can love someone,” but I did open the door to the walk-in closet and invite the real estate broker inside.

“Please, Emily.”

I showed her the second peephole in the back wall.

“This hole goes through the wall . . . to Caitlin’s room.”

Emily gasped and put both hands to her face.

“I never saw that. I know nothing about it! I have to go,” she said, turning and running out of the bedroom. I could hear her high heels clacking as she ran down the stairs.

I caught up to Emily as she grabbed the keys from the hall table and opened the front door. She stepped outside.

“Emily.”

“I’m done,” she said, her chest heaving, pulling the door closed and locking it behind us. “This is too painful. Don’t you understand? I loved him!”

“I can see that,” I said, walking beside her, then standing next to the driver’s-side door as she fired up her engine.

“Just tell me one more thing,” I persisted. “Did Ben know a man named Dennis Agnew?”

Emily released her emergency brake and turned her tear-streaked face toward me.

“What? What are you saying? Did he sell our videos to that slime?”

Emily didn’t wait for an answer. She yanked on the steering wheel and jammed down the accelerator.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” I said to the retreating Lincoln.