House on Fire

34

I went to find Sukie and say goodbye. I found her sitting in the game room in the basement, with some of her siblings. The room was painted deep green and was crowded with toys — a pool table, a dartboard, a foosball table, an air hockey table. The air was hazy. Cameron was smoking a cigarette, and Sukie was vaping. She was still wearing a bathrobe over her nightgown. And a pair of suede sandals, which looked too dressy, until I realized she was wearing the shoes for the footwear impressions the cops wanted.

“Why the hell are the cops wasting our time with this?” Cameron was saying. He looked angry. No longer the fun-loving drunk. He was almost pouting. “It was so obviously an accident.”

“They have to do their job,” Megan said. “Rule out homicide.”

“For God’s sake, she was drunk as a skunk. She was a hazard. Couldn’t handle her liquor.” Did he not know she was faking it?

“Don’t use that word, ‘hazard,’” Megan said. “That makes us liable.”

“Well, I was asleep,” Sukie said through a haze of vapor.

“Me too,” said Cameron. I remembered seeing him in the hallway at around four in the morning, dressed, coming in from somewhere. I knew he was lying.

I said, “I wonder if the security cameras were on.”

Cameron’s face quickly flushed. He winced.

“Oh no,” Paul said. “Oh, shit, you didn’t. A booty call at the Hole in the Wall? It even rhymes.”

Sukie turned to me. “Cam has a relationship with Big Boobs Betty, the barmaid at our local Irish pub.”

“She goes by Beth these days,” said Cameron. “I guess she’s my alibi, then.”

Megan said, “What did you tell the police? Did you tell them you were asleep upstairs?”

“I forgot about the cameras,” her brother said.

“You have to be honest with these people,” said Megan.

“Go back and amend your statement,” said Sukie. “Tell them the truth.”

“The goddamned cameras,” he said. “I totally forgot about them.”

“You were embarrassed,” Megan said. “You wanted to protect Beth. That’s why you didn’t give them a full account the first time. Like that. Which is about the size of it, right?”

“The point is,” Paul said, “this woman was intoxicated and for some reason decided to walk the property, and she must have fallen to her death. It’s as simple as that.”

I made a let’s-get-out-of-here gesture with my head, and Sukie followed me out of the room and into the hallway. I walked a distance down the hall, away from the game room, so we couldn’t be overheard.

“It’s handled,” I said. “The detective is going to make some calls. If I check out, he’ll keep it quiet.”

“Sort of professional courtesy?”

“Something like that. But now I need to get out of here. Either we go for a drive or I’ll get an Uber.”

Sukie called for her car and announced to her siblings that she was going back to the city. She tracked down her father and said goodbye. Ten minutes later we were sitting in the back of the town car.

I didn’t talk much in the car, because I’m a suspicious type myself and have been burned by limo drivers before who listen for pay. But when we got to the Westchester Airport, where she was dropping me off, we both got out and stood outside the terminal in the cold air while her car waited in the lot.

“Look,” I told her, “the reason I didn’t get any files is that I let Maggie take them first.”

“Maggie.”

“The real name of the woman who was killed.”

“And you know this how?”

“Because we were friends. We worked together in the Pentagon, and she later became a private investigator.”

“She was a PI too?”

I nodded.

“Cameron brought her in? Cameron?”

“Well, Megan hired her.”

“For what?”

“Megan wanted to see your father’s latest will. To see how much he’s leaving to Natalya. And find out who was left out.” I told her briefly about our breaking into Conrad’s study and my finding the safe room. And the safe. And the envelope of photos and documents Conrad Kimball wanted destroyed upon his death. But the Phoenicia study seemed to be missing.

When she’d heard enough, she said, “Oh, dear God, she was killed. The woman was murdered.”

“I think so.”

“By whom?”

“Somebody working for your father, I assume.”

“Fritz?”

“He’d be at the top of my list of suspects.”

“Oh, God. They could be coming after me! If they figure out that I’m trying to get this clinical trial— Jesus, Nick, I could be a target.”

“You’re a member of the family, let me remind you. You’re safe. And no one knows what I was doing. They don’t know I got into your father’s study. As long as no one knows—”

“I want you to stop. The job is completed.”

“I haven’t gotten the documents.”

“I don’t care. You tried, you came close, we’re done.”

I looked at her. “Do you know why I took the job in the first place?” I said.

“Because I asked you.”

“No,” I said. “Because of a man named Sean Lenehan, whose funeral you attended. A man who saved my life.”

She fell silent, looked down. Played with the rings on her fingers. “I understand,” she finally said. “But I want you to stop. You’re done.”

I nodded, looked away. In fact, I wasn’t going to stop now. Sean and Maggie both were killed, in different ways and for different reasons, because of the same drug.

No, I wasn’t done.