‘They know to leave things as they are,’ Arvin said.
Mattie grunted, ‘Yeah, right,’ and she stepped out into the cool spring night. She felt Jamie behind her. Even in the dark, the view was spectacular. Manicured lawns and gardens, the sounds of frogs, crickets and a swollen spring river in the background. Off to the right was a pool with a cabana. She walked the perimeter of Richard’s second floor deck; there was a staircase that led down. Her thoughts ticked through the shoddy security and easy access into and out of Richard Parks’ bedroom. Chances were good the security system had been entirely off.
‘So why didn’t he just pick up the phone and call for an ambulance?’ Jamie asked. ‘Why go to his sister’s room?’
‘Could have been running from the shooter,’ Mattie said, not happy with that hypothesis.
‘Or maybe he wanted to make sure his sister was safe,’ Jamie offered.
Mattie thought of the shell-shocked girl in custody. What if that wasn’t an act? This was feeling less and less like a slam dunk. ‘So alone and either asleep or on the computer. The property has surveillance cameras?’
‘Yes, but not as much as you’d think.’ Kevin Simpson appeared on the deck. ‘And don’t worry, I got a sitter in with Rachel.’
‘Good,’ Mattie said. ‘I’ll want all the tapes and files. Jamie, you could start in on those. And check to see if the alarms were armed or not. I’d be willing to bet they weren’t.’ She looked around. ‘So where’s the staff?’
‘They come in the daytime,’ Kevin said. ‘Clarence is the only one who lives here. He’s got the caretaker’s house. Been here for years.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘I saw him outside. You want me to bring him in?’
‘You sound like you know him,’ Mattie said.
‘We went to school together.’
‘Right,’ Mattie said, remembering this was Kevin’s strong suit. ‘Why don’t you introduce me?’
‘Cool.’
‘Let’s go this way,’ Mattie said, heading down the outside stairs.
There was a chill in the air, and a soothing blanket of rushing water. Someone creeping in the backyard, even with the moon and the ornamental lighting, would have had little trouble finding cover. She noted the pool area off to the right; the two-story brick cabana would have a clear view of the back of the house. She stepped off the bottom landing and her rubber-soled shoes sank into the grass. She froze and stared at the ground. ‘Maybe not a good idea,’ she said.
‘Why?’ Kevin asked.
‘Who else has been down here?’
‘Hard to say.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Crime scene team’s been here a couple hours. Before them you had the responding officers. They would have done a perimeter search.’
‘You’re thinking it might not be Rachel,’ Jamie said. ‘She pretty much confessed when she called nine one one.’
‘It’s tempting to go with that … but why did he go to her room?’
‘And,’ Jamie added, ‘what sort of moron leaves an outer door to his bedroom unlocked?’
‘We do,’ Kevin said. ‘At least we used to. Hell, this is the country. We leave our doors unlocked.’
Mattie nodded. ‘And this is a private road, with a gate. So anyone coming here would either have to get through the gate and drive in, or just walk around. Then it’s a few hundred yards to the house up the back way, shoot Richard, retrieve your car … or just go back through the woods.’ She pulled out her LED flashlight and trained its beam on the lawn that led to the stairs. She ran it off to the right and swept it back. She turned in place, ever conscious of how subtle evidence could be altered and destroyed. She examined the treads on the synthetic wood steps, the grass stains and dirt. Access to Richard would have been easy, but would also have required inside knowledge of his bedroom and the layout of the property. And Rachel hadn’t actually confessed. ‘My brother’s been shot! It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.’ ‘Let’s meet this Clarence guy,’ she said.
Mattie, Jamie and Kevin sat around the square oak table in the caretaker’s cottage as Clarence Braithwaite poured coffee and passed them each a heavy white mug.
‘So the sirens coming down the road was the first you knew something was wrong?’ Mattie asked. Her gaze stayed fixed on the deeply tanned man in black sweats, a Lenore Says T-shirt and running shoes. If Kevin hadn’t said they’d been classmates she’d have figured the fit dark-haired man to be in his early thirties as opposed to forty or forty-one.
‘Yeah. I was still up and heard them coming. When they turned down I knew something was up. Just didn’t think … you know, I thought it was the usual.’
‘The cops have been here before?’ she asked.
He glanced at Kevin. ‘This feels …’ He shook his head. ‘She had us all sign non-disclosure forms. She was serious about those. I guess it doesn’t matter any more.’
‘I’m not following,’ Mattie said.
‘With Lenore, if you wanted to keep your job you kept your mouth shut about anything you saw. And trust me, I did not want to lose this gig.’
‘So that’s a yes to the cops coming out here?’
‘Cops, ambulances. It was always the same thing. Big fight between Rachel and Lenore, and then Rachel would do some stupid shit.’
‘Define stupid shit.’ Jamie prompted.
‘You name it. Swallow pills, cut herself. Once we found her in the car with a hose hooked to the exhaust − that one was bad. Sometimes she’d just talk about it, sometimes she’d do it. And, to be honest, for someone who’s so famous for being the perfect homemaker, Lenore treated Rachel like crap.’
‘Give me an example,’ Mattie said.
Clarence took the fourth place at the table. He sipped his coffee. ‘There’s so many to choose from. OK, here’s one. It was a couple years back and I was supervising a team of arborists. It was before Memorial Day and we were prepping the grounds for a party where they were going to shoot an episode of Lenore Says. I didn’t hear what started them going, but I remembered thinking how fucked up this was to hear them over the chain saws. Although you mostly didn’t hear Lenore, but Rachel was screaming at her. Awful stuff, like “you just want me dead … you should never have had me.”’ He paused. ‘That’s the one thing I did hear Lenore say, and I wasn’t the only one who heard it … she said, “I should have stopped with Richard.” I mean, what kind of mother says that to her kid?’
‘Apparently the kind who gets a TV show,’ Jamie said. ‘So how did you get this job?’
‘Right place at the right time,’ he said. ‘I’d just gotten my degree in landscape architecture and forestry and was hoping to get a job as a park ranger. In the meantime I was working for the landscape company Lenore hired when she bought this place. She wanted to redo all the gardens, a huge project, and she was already thinking of this as a set for her show. Anyway, something went south between her and my boss.’
‘What do you mean?’ Mattie asked.
‘Stupid shit,’ Clarence said. ‘My boss drank, and half the work crew was stoned at least half the time. Lenore is a sharp lady. She saw what was going on, fired my boss and asked me if I thought I could do the job and subcontract the labor. I guess she liked the way I handled things, and a few months later she asked me to be her caretaker. That was almost eighteen years ago.’
‘She trusted you,’ said Mattie.
‘She does … did.’ He shook his head. ‘And Richard’s dead. Man. Rachel’s got to be bugging.’
‘So you know them all pretty well.’
‘I guess, as much as anyone. Poor kids. God,’ tears swelled. ‘This is so messed up. It’s terrible to say, but you can kind of see why someone could get pissed off at Lenore, but Richard was cool. He was the peacemaker.’
Mattie studied him: nothing about him seemed forced or false. She looked around his kitchen, normal and cozy. ‘You live here by yourself?’ she asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘Kind of my job to pry, so I’v
e got to ask … good-looking man like you. You’ve been here for eighteen years, with no wife? Girlfriend? Boyfriend?’
He shook his head. ‘Got a girlfriend in town, no kids; kind of the trade-off for living here.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Mattie said.
‘Lenore said I could have the job as long as I wanted, and it is a very good job. I don’t pay rent, pretty much bank everything I make. I get full LPP benefits. But, just me. She didn’t want anyone else living on the estate. She knew how fucked up some of the stuff was that went on in that house. She wanted to keep her exposure down.’
‘There’s no live-in help?’ Jamie asked. ‘That place is massive.’
‘There’s plenty of help,’ Clarence said. ‘Just none of them live in. I’m in charge of everything on the outside, and Lenore’s assistant oversees the household staff. Her cook and trainer stay in New York and just came out when she was here. Which was never much; this was pretty much the place for the kids.’
‘What about when they were young?’ Mattie asked.
‘They had nannies, but they never lasted, which was really messed up.’
‘Why?’ Jamie asked.
Clarence stared at the young detective. ‘Think about it. Two little kids, their mom is a celebrity who’s mostly not around, so you’ve got the nanny and me. But the nannies never lasted, they’d always do something that Lenore didn’t like. She didn’t give second chances. Screw up and you were out of here. I remember when one of the nannies left – Rachel was probably four – she wouldn’t stop crying. Richard held her and the poor thing just wailed.’
‘What did Lenore do?’ Mattie asked.
‘She wasn’t there. She’d have me collect the keys and later the pass cards for the gate.’
‘That’s harsh,’ Jamie said. ‘Kind of got you to do her dirty work.’
‘Sometimes. Lenore was constantly on the move. She used this place like a movie set. The kids lived here, but Lenore stayed in the city, or was off on location. I’d say on average she’d be here no more than a week in any month.’
‘So how did you survive?’ Mattie asked.
Clarence looked at her. ‘I don’t get your question.’
‘If Lenore was constantly letting people go, how is it you’ve been here so long?’
Clarence looked at Mattie dead on. ‘I never disagreed with her. I’d offer my opinion only if asked and, if she didn’t want to take it, we’d go her way. Her money, her way, it’s fine with me.’
Mattie nodded. ‘So let’s go through what happened tonight.’ Since he was one of three − possibly four − people on the estate at the time of Richard’s murder, Mattie wanted a clear accounting of Mr Clarence Braithwaite’s whereabouts. She observed his posture, his ease in the telling, his lapses into emotional states when he realized that Lenore was dead, and now Richard too. ‘Would you say that you were friends with Rachel and Richard?’ she asked.
‘Friendly,’ he replied without pause. ‘I was the help. Lenore told me early on to be careful not to cross the line. Her family was her business and no one else’s.’
‘You think that’s why she wouldn’t keep the nannies?’ Jamie asked.
‘Something like that …’ He hesitated.
‘What were you about to say?’ Mattie asked.
‘It’s speculation, so I don’t want to say.’
‘I’ll take that into account,’ Mattie said, ‘but I’d appreciate hearing it anyway.’
‘Lenore didn’t want people knowing her business.’
‘That was vague,’ Mattie said. ‘You’re saying what? She had secrets?’
‘Yeah.’ Clarence stared at his now empty coffee mug.
‘Clarence,’ Kevin said. He glanced at Mattie, who always made him nervous. He knew what she thought of him. Hell, it was what most people thought − the Simpson boy, good guy, but not the brightest bulb in the box. ‘In these investigations everything comes out. It makes everything run smoother if you just give it up now.’
‘Kevin’ – his expression was panicked – ‘I didn’t kill Richard.’
‘Whoa! Not what I’m saying. No one’s accusing you of anything. But let’s face it, you’ve had a front row seat to the real Lenore show for eighteen years. Detective Perez needs to know what you’ve seen, even the stuff you’re not sure of. It’s her job to sort it out, but she needs everything.’
Clarence looked at Kevin. His shoulders sagged. ‘I guess the non-disclosure agreement doesn’t matter any more. This is so many types of fucked up.’ He looked around his kitchen. ‘And this is real petty, but with Richard gone, I don’t know if I have a job or a place to live … and Rachel …’
‘What about her?’ Mattie asked.
Clarence shook his head. ‘I don’t think she’ll be able to handle this. When I heard the sirens, like I said, I thought it was for her. Course without Lenore to egg her on, I was a little surprised. For the most part she and Richard got along. In some ways he and I were alike. You know, just agree and things go smooth.’
‘And if you didn’t agree?’ Mattie prompted.
‘I’d keep it to myself, ’cause I was the help. Rachel never agreed with her mother, so it was a foregone conclusion the two of them would go at it. Lenore was never wrong, and in her world view her daughter always was. Richard was in the middle and, for the most part, he could make it work. Tell both Lenore and Rachel they were right, even when they were saying totally opposite things. I used to think you could send Richard to the Middle East and he’d be able to solve the thing with the Israelis and the Palestinians.’
‘When you said Lenore had secrets, what did you mean?’ Mattie asked.
‘It’s why she didn’t like people knowing her business. Like who the sperm donor was for the kids, or why she never married.’
‘Why was that?’ Jamie asked.
‘Lenore was gay,’ he said.
‘What?’ Kevin asked.
‘Yeah, a lesbian, and I don’t … no, I know that’s not something she wanted known. It may be part of the reason she kept me around.’
‘I don’t follow,’ Mattie said.
Clarence nodded and got up from the table. He refilled his mug and then went around topping off theirs without being asked. ‘It had to have been a year, maybe not even, after I first came here. I’d see Lenore, and I was very eager to please. I had school loans, she was paying me a decent salary, I had free housing, and let’s face it a degree in landscape architecture isn’t much more than saying you’re a gardener with a bachelor’s. No way was I going to screw this up, so like it said in the agreement, anything I saw or heard here − especially something she didn’t want her adoring public to know − I kept my mouth shut.’
‘What did you see?’ Mattie asked.
‘Right.’ He shook his head and sat back down. ‘I can’t wrap my head around her being gone … and Richard. Shit. I’m sorry. Old habits. It feels wrong talking about this stuff, and it’s all so clear, like it just happened.’
‘Clarence,’ Kevin said, ‘you’re killing me with the suspense.’
‘I know. I saw Lenore making out with her cute little wardrobe lady, Peggy. They’d done a filming at the house and the rest of the crew had left. I had the tractor and was trying to get a jump on the clean-up and as I came around the corner I saw them. They were in the hot tub, naked, and going at it. It was the end of the day and I’d wanted to clean up the mess the crew had left. I must have been going so fast they didn’t have time to separate, or maybe the noise of the tub blocked out the tractor. But I saw them and Lenore definitely saw me. I was sure my ride on the gravy train had just come to an end. I figured, what the hell, and kept going. It wasn’t my business who she was with.
‘The next morning I got a call at six a.m. She wanted to see me. I was sure the ax was going to fall. I met her at the house. She asked me if I was happy with my job. I told her I was.’ He stared across the room. ‘She said “good, it’s yours for as long as you want it”, and that was it.’
‘She didn’t have to. We both knew what was going on. I’d seen. I knew, and I really liked my job. But more than that, whose business is it anyway? If she wants to screw around with Peggy the wardrobe lady, or Krista her Pilates teacher, or that pastry chef she has on her show, or … Although I think that woman has her own show now.’
‘Seriously?’ Mattie asked.
‘Oh yeah. I didn’t keep track, and because the secret was important to Lenore it became important to me. I built a pergola over the hot tub, always made certain there was no day staff here after six. I looked on it as part of my job.’
‘Who else knew?’ Mattie asked.
‘Other than her girlfriends … the kids, a couple of her friends. Oh, man …’
‘What?’
‘Just thinking how at least one person must be real nervous that their own gay secret’s about to pop out.’
‘Who? The girlfriend?’ Jamie asked.
‘No. And I wouldn’t use the singular when talking about Lenore’s gal pals.’
Jamie stared at Clarence. ‘No way.’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘But … really? No. He’s so …’
‘What are you talking about?’ Mattie asked.
Jamie shook her head. ‘Really … John Gregory is gay?’
‘Get out,’ Kevin said. ‘Mr shoot-’em-up?’
‘Yeah, and Lenore’s pretend boyfriend off and on for twenty years,’ Clarence said.
Mattie stared at Clarence. ‘Is this speculation or fact?’
‘You mean did I see penetration? No, but he’d bring his “trainer” with him whenever he’d visit. Once the staff went home and it was just Lenore, the kids and me, you could tell they were a couple.’
‘Because?’
‘I’ve seen them kiss, hold hands. On occasion she’d have others over; you’d be amazed at the number of celebrities who live out here, and quite a few of them are gay. A lot of them, especially the actors, aren’t open about that.’
‘When did you last see Mr Gregory?’ Mattie asked.
‘He and the trainer were here a couple weeks ago. They were supposed to stay the weekend.’
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