by Lotta Smith
According to Jackie, Miranda loathed weather in New York, and she self-advocated that her heart belonged in California, where she attempted to pursue a career in acting. Her acting career was short-lived, but she scored her first husband, a big-time financier who also invested in the movie industry. Though her third and current husband was based in the Upper East Side, she spent most of her time in Beverly Hills, where she lived with an army of pooches.
“She comes back to the city whenever she finds an opportunity to harass her cheating husband, or me and my family, or both.” Giselle snorted bitterly. “Look at her lips! They remind me of giant bratwursts about to explode. Obviously, she’s been using too much fillers and way too much Botox.”
Arms crossed, DeLaurentis didn’t look happy as she said, “Shall we get started?”
Miranda ran toward the base of the grand staircase in her Louboutin stilettos. “Oh my stars! This is the place Giselle remains! And I’m sure my sister remains here. Hail Mary, rest in peace!” Clutching on a rosary, she enunciated the words as if she were delivering a line.
“Ha!” Giselle snorted. “Did you hear that forced delivery of her words? No wonder her acting career in Hollywood died immediately.”
“Aurora Westwood? Seriously?” Wolfgang snorted.
“She’s always been obnoxious, and I guess she’s just hit a new low.” Whitney shrugged. She was tall and had a body of an athlete. To Giselle’s dismay, she became fascinated by the kickboxing class she took for self-defense when she was in high school, to the point of developing a little bit too much muscle.
Meanwhile, they were audibly dissing Miranda. Wilma-Diane, their mother, shushed them, but flashed a thumbs up when Miranda wasn’t looking.
“All right, let’s get started,” Rowling requested, and both the McCambridge kids and Miranda Wollf stopped talking. He always had that effect on people.
Wendy Ruben and Stacy Wilcox—Whitney’s friends—were the first to be interviewed. They had been friends since high school. Stacy became friends with Whitney in an art class at Columbia, and then she was introduced to Wendy, who was attending Stern College for Women. The three girls became BFF.
“How close were you with the victim?” Rowling asked.
“We’ve met her just once,” Stacy replied. She was tall and thin and had gray eyes that sparkled with decisiveness. Wearing her blonde hair short, she looked sharp, dressed in a white T-shirt, yellow cardigan, and denim pants. She was from an academic family; her mom was a cancer research specialist, and her dad was a professor of genetic engineering. “It was Whitney’s birthday last October. We met and exchanged pleasantries. Right, Wendy?”
“Um… yes, right,” Wendy said rather timidly. She was petite and a little on the chubby side for the Upper East Side standard. She had brown hair and big brown eyes. She was clad in a lavender chiffon blouse, pairing it up with a black, knee-length pleated skirt. She was wearing her curly hair in a loose ponytail. According to the case file, she was the only daughter of a tech-startup CEO. I took a glance at her cute—and pricey—animal-print bucket bag from Prada and assumed her dad’s company must be doing great.
“You’re the one dating Wolfgang, I presume?” I asked.
“Yes.” When she smiled, her teeth were dazzlingly white.
Taking her hand, Wolfgang pulled her close. Like his big sister, he was tall and stylish. “She was always hanging around the house, visiting Whitney. We became friends and hit it off.”
The young couple was holding on to each other as if they were in the republic of two.
“Oh, I remember you!” Miranda let out a cackle like a witch. “You’re the one my sister called ‘a complete wreck of an applicant’ at Whitney’s birthday party in front of everyone. Aren’t you, sweetie? I can totally understand if you loathed her.”
“No! I didn’t loathe her!” Eyes wide, Wendy gasped.
“No!” Miranda mimicked Wendy’s tone. “Really? Hmm, maybe because she had a point. You’re a daughter of a nouveau rich, and you’re a little bit short and a little bit…you know, heavy to be a McCambridge wife. Maybe you were tempted to kill her just to shut her up.”
As Miranda dished on her, Wendy was clutching on her purse. I admired her patience, for she didn’t knock out Miranda with her Prada bag.
“What’s the point of bringing up the matter again? I just stated the fact when I said she’s not suitable to be the wife of McCambridge Steel’s CEO.” The ghost of Giselle took full advantage of the fact that no one but I could hear her voice and kept on insulting Wolfgang’s girlfriend. Turning to me, she said, “Actually, she’s my prime suspect. She’s got the motive, and she was at this house. Tell my thoughts to Ricky, will you please?”
I conveyed Giselle’s words to Rowling in a stage whisper.
While, Rowling raised an eyebrow in response to my words, Miranda changed her target to Stacy Wilcox. “By the way, you were so upset at that moment, weren’t you?”
“Excuse me? Having your friend insulted isn’t a pleasant experience,” Stacy replied in a tense voice.
“I know. That was terrible,” Whitney agreed. “I don’t know why she chose that moment to pick on my friend. It was my birthday party! Then again, it’s so typical of her.”
“Oh my God!” Miranda displayed a shocked expression as much as her botoxed facial muscles allowed. “So, the three of you offed my beloved sister in cahoots? That is so terrifying. Or maybe, the four of you. I know you weren’t happy to have your taste in girls criticized.” She turned to Wolfgang.
“I was offended, but most people know you don’t go around killing off people who have obnoxious manners. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be breathing right now, Grandaunt Miranda, would you?” Wolfgang responded with a smile, and Miranda turned the color of a beet.
“That was well said,” Giselle applauded.
“You guys were in the dining room at the assumed time of her fall, right?” Rowling asked, indicating the short corridor connecting the grand foyer to the dining room.
“Yes,” nodding, Wolfgang replied smoothly, like it was the millionth time he answered this particular question. “I know the dining room is close to here, and we should have heard something like when Glam—we were urged to call her Glam instead of Grandma, you know—fell down the stairs. But we didn’t hear anything.”
“It was a karaoke night,” Whitney interjected. “Wendy was singing a Taylor Swift number, and we were a little bit drunk. So, the four of us were singing and dancing, which might have muffled the sound of Glam’s fall.”
The ghost of Giselle wasn’t happy about her granddaughter’s comments. “Too drunk and too busy to notice my death? How considerate.” She snorted, tapping the marble floor with the tip of her Jimmy Choo.
Even to me, they sounded like they were missing emotion. “Don’t worry. Deep in their heart, they care about you,” I whispered to her. Giselle McCambridge was snobby and difficult, but she deserved better. The ghost smiled bravely.
“Excuse me?” Whitney turned to me. “What was that supposed to mean?”
“No need to bother with her. She has this tendency of zoning out,” Rowling cut in before turning to Marcus Warne-Smith, the butler. “And, I suppose you’re the one to whom the victim told that she got pushed, right?”
“Exactly,” the butler acknowledged eagerly. “She sounded so certain. I think she was about to name the killer as she wrote the letter W on my palm. But unfortunately, she passed out before giving me the full name.”
“Oh, really?” Again, Miranda didn’t miss a chance to be nasty. “It’s just what he says. As the old saying goes, ‘Dead men tell no tales.’ He could make up anything as my sister’s final words. He could have taken her hand and written the bloody W on his palm using her finger. Besides, it’s often the first person to come across the dead body who turns out to be the killer.”
“Excuse me, ma’am. I’ve been working for the McCambridge family for more than twenty-five years. During those years, I’ve received multip
le offers to leave this house and work with someone else, but I didn’t take any of them. Why? Because I liked working for the McCambridges, and I still do. I respected Madame Giselle, and I was more than grateful when she told me that I could continue working for this household until I retire. So, if I killed Madame Giselle, like Mrs. Wollf’s accusation, which I didn’t, what kind of a moron bothers to commit a murder that gets him nothing and deprives him of his job, health insurance, retirement benefits, and freedom in case he gets caught? Besides, I wasn’t the first person to come across Madame Giselle following her fall. Actually, Willow Ganong, the maid of this house, was the person who made me come out of my waiting room.”
The butler cast a glance at the woman in a navy dress with a white apron that was slightly more stylish than the ones seen in Downton Abbey episodes—except her hair was dyed blue and she had a nose ring.
“How did you find the victim?” Rowling asked.
“I found her when I came out of the kitchen,” she said curtly. Maybe too curtly. Also, she sounded annoyed, like she really hated it when someone asked her questions.
“The kitchen in the downstairs?” This time, it was the butler who threw a question at her.
“Are there kitchens in this house other than the one in the downstairs? If so, I didn’t know they existed,” Willow talked back.
“No, I mean… I thought it was funny that you found Madame Giselle on your attempted ascend on the grand staircase rather than descend.” Frowning, the butler turned to us. “I’m telling you this because I heard a noise like someone falling off a few steps on the stairs, followed by Willow’s shriek. If she was going up the stairs, how could she fall from the stairs before she had started climbing?”
“He has a point.” Arms crossed, Giselle hissed, “I told you it can’t be her because she walks like an elephant, but in retrospect, anyone could have snuck up on me. Besides, she has her job only because Wyatt likes her. Otherwise, she should have already been let go. She’s such a lazy worker; always late for work, doing her job half-heartedly, and sneaking out to smoke whenever she has a chance. Mandy, you must confront her and ask if she pushed me in order to save her job.”
I just couldn’t butt in, saying, “Hi, Willow. By the way, did you kill off the victim so she wouldn’t fire you?” I looked the other way, pretending not to hear her, but—
“Mandy, what are you doing, ignoring me? Do you want to take a ride to Hell with me?” The ghost was super intimidating.
“Um… Ms. Ganong, I heard you were not on the best of terms with the victim,” I interjected.
“That’s right. She was annoying, always fussing about my fashion. She hated my guts and the feeling was mutual. So, what? I didn’t kill her, because finding another job is easier than taking a risk of twenty to life in prison.” The maid rolled her eyes at me.
“Well, I just thought you had a motive to kill,” I reminded.
“That’s just a wild speculation!” Wyatt jumped in to defend the maid. He was the youngest of the McCambridge kids, but he was the one with the largest mass of muscles. According to Jackie, he was shirtless in his room, but at least he had the decency to put on a white linen shirt before coming out of his man cave. It would have helped if he didn’t keep three buttons unfastened. “Willow always waters plants in the terrace upstairs just before finishing her job for the day and leaving for home. The timing of her fall on the stairs exactly matches her usual schedule.” Then he winked at the maid. “I know your schedule because I’m always paying attention to you, Willow.”
“Thanks,” Willow mumbled.
“Wyatt, Wyatt, Wyatt, what’s wrong with him?” Giselle shook her head.
The maid let out an exasperated sigh and continued. “I was going to the terrace upstairs, so I came out of the kitchen and walked to the stairs, fully intending to go up. But I came across Madame lying over the stairs, four or five steps from the base floor. I hurried to her side. At first, I thought she got sick and passed out. I approached her because I couldn’t just leave her like that. So I climbed up some steps, calling her name, but then I realized she was bleeding from the head. I was taken aback, and I fell off a step or two myself. I might have shrieked out something.”
“Yes, you did,” the butler confirmed.
Willow shrugged. “And a few seconds later, Mr. Warne-Smith here jumped out of his waiting room and started fussing all over her. And then came the apocalypse.”
CHAPTER 7
Everyone who had been downstairs was interviewed, and it was time to question the people who were upstairs at the time of Giselle’s fall. Under normal circumstances, we could have just moved upstairs, but it was a tricky situation. Giselle couldn’t move from the place she expired, which meant she couldn’t hear us if we moved upstairs, so one of the uniforms brought a floor map of the upstairs.
“After all, who pushed me?” Following Willow’s statement, Giselle was still skeptical.
Rowling turned to Wyatt. “What were you doing at the time of your grandmother’s fall?”
“I was in my room on the phone with Ryan. If you don’t believe me, you can ask him. He and I are members of the same mixed martial art club.” He mentioned the name of a very prestigious private school.
DeLaurentis nodded. NYPD had already obtained his phone record to support his statement. According to the record, he was chatting with Ryan Fender for two straight hours.
“You were using your cell phone, weren’t you?” Miranda interrupted. “That makes you a suspect. You can walk around and push someone off the stairs while talking on the cell phone. Giselle was more than keen on getting rid of your favorite maid, so you got rid of my sister to keep your Willow from getting fired, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t do it! I could snap an old bat’s neck with just one hand. Why should I bother pushing her off the stairs like a coward? If you’d like, I could always demonstrate with you. Wanna try?” Wyatt snapped.
“Stop it already, idiot!” Miranda snapped back.
“Did you just call me idiot, you gold-digging old bag?”
“Mandy, you have to do something!” Giselle urged me. “They can’t go on fighting like this and waste time!”
“Um, Wyatt?” I tried to intervene, except the guy didn’t notice me.
The rest of the McCambridges, the friends, and NYPD members shrugged and exchanged glances.
BEEP!
Suddenly, a deafening noise blasted in the foyer and even Wyatt and Miranda stopped fighting.
Rick Rowling, who was the person responsible for the uproar, silenced the alarm on his phone and cleared his throat. “Wyatt, you were the last one to come down following your grandmother’s fall, right?”
“Yep. That’s because I couldn’t hear the commotion downstairs because I was on the balcony outside of my room. Thanks to living in ye olde house with insanely thick walls, the signals are poor inside. I didn’t know what happened until Wolffy came to my room and told me that Glam was in a trouble.” Wyatt pointed at the floor map where a balcony interconnected the boys’ rooms.
“Oh, yes. I noticed Wyatt wasn’t at the foyer when everyone else was fussing over Glam, so I went to his room to find him still on the phone with his buddy.” Wolfgang nodded.
According to the phone record, Wyatt’s call ended between the butler’s 911 call and the ambulance’s arrival, so the boys’ story made sense.
“Okay. Thank you.” Rowling nodded and turned to Wilfred, the current CEO of McCambridge Steel, and asked where he was and what he was doing when the victim fell off the stairs.
“I was reading a book in my den. The room is surrounded by soundproof walls, and I didn’t hear my mother’s fall. I had no idea about the incident until Willow came to notify me,” Wilfred, still in his Hermès suit, replied with a solemn face.
“By the way, your den is located just a few steps from the grand staircase, meaning you had plenty of time to go back and pretend you knew nothing after pushing the adopted mother you loathed off the stairs f
or good.” Again, Miranda butted in, saying the most insensitive things that most people would think twice about before actually opening their mouths.
“Aunt Miranda, please!”
“I can think of a hundred reason for you to wish my sister dead.” Still pressing on, Miranda lowered her voice, adding a saccharine smile. “Still, I sympathize with you. I don’t blame you if you wished her dead. Considering the track record of her super-tough agenda, she didn’t even allow you to have mistresses, did she?”
“Will you stop that, Aunt Miranda? I’ve never had a mistress. How could I obtain my mother’s permission about having mistresses who never existed? That’s ridiculous!” Wilfred snapped.
“Ooh, poor Wilfred, all men have a craving for young women.” Miranda snorted.
“Hmm… she has a point,” Giselle muttered. “Men tend to have this delusional illusion of having mistresses… Patrick was a lady’s man.”
“Was he?” I asked in a stage whisper.
“Yes.” Smiling affectionately, Giselle glanced at Rowling. “His grandfather and my Patrick were the most well-known playboys in town. I educated Patrick to concentrate on me, but Nate kept on flirting with women, even after marrying Juliet, the drop-dead gorgeous girl. She was an über-fashionable socialite from one of the most eminent families in town, but she was nothing like the stereotypical mean girl. She was sweet and gentle. Nate was such a fun person to be around, and I had a huge crush on him, but I felt good about marrying Patrick, because I was able to keep him all to myself. Besides, Patrick was the one who was always there for me when I had difficult times dealing with my feelings toward Nate.”
“Ummm…” I let out a low groan. As I heard about Rowling’s granddad, I recalled Rowling’s dad, who had at least five mistresses nicknamed Miss Monday to Miss Friday. And then I took a glance at Rick Rowling, Mr. Number Two of the most eligible bachelors in Manhattan. I had seen photos of him; in each of them, he was smiling with some supermodel, Hollywood A-lister type, beautiful woman when I secretly googled him.
