Hush

by Nancy Bush

  But she was wrong. By eleven Dave Rendell was turning the corner and asked Coby humbly if she would mind just staying a few hours longer? He’d be ready to go himself by then, and maybe they could drive back at the same time?

  Faith and Danner stopped by as Jean-Claude and Yvette and Benedict were packing up. Juliet was almost ready and Suzette and Galen kept looking at each other, then at everybody else, then back at each other, as if they hadn’t decided quite what to do.

  Danner pulled Coby aside, motioning for her to follow him into the kitchen while Faith sank down on the couch beside Dave who, though now saying all the right things, couldn’t seem to get his legs moving forward.

  “How’s your dad?” Danner asked when they were out of earshot.

  She shrugged. “You’ve seen him. What do you think?”

  “Shock. Grief. He’s struggling to take it in.” He paused, then asked, “Has the necklace turned up?”

  “Not so far. Maybe it’s at the medical examiner’s office?”

  He shook his head. “If they’d have found it, you’d already know. Genevieve said Annette was determined to stop keeping secrets and that she told you the same.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What’s your impression on that?”

  “I don’t know. She never explained herself,” Coby said. “I got the impression it was just something she couldn’t keep secret any longer. Maybe something she’d held inside for a while, years maybe.”

  “If you had to make a guess?”

  Coby found herself staring at him, realizing this was cop mode, something she really hadn’t seen before. He’d been new at the job when they were dating. A recruit, then an officer, then it was over. That was eight years ago, and now he was a detective. “Well . . . I guess I would say it had something to do with her personal life. My dad thought it was something that happened at work. Somebody telling her she wasn’t leading a real life unless she was brutally honest, and maybe that set her off, but the issue itself . . . the secret? Her passion made me feel like it was personal.”

  “She works at the hotel?”

  “At Lovejoy’s. She’s, like, the general manager. My dad and Jean-Claude are the business owners but they aren’t as involved in the day-to-day running of the hotel as Annette is . . . was.”

  “You feel the secret Annette planned to reveal was about a personal issue,” Danner reiterated. “Maybe about someone she knows personally.”

  “Something about someone. That was my impression. Yes.”

  “Someone that she knew well?” he pressed.

  “I didn’t get that exactly. She was vague. Maybe . . .”

  “What?”

  Coby closed her eyes a moment, giving herself time to think. She did have some impressions. She did have some information. But Annette’s death wasn’t a homicide—at least it hadn’t been ruled one yet.

  As if reading her mind, he said, “Maybe there’s an investigation about to start, maybe there isn’t. But I wanted to get your impressions right now. Just in case.”

  “You think Genevieve’s right. That Annette was murdered.”

  Danner seemed about to say yes, but then responded instead, “She drowned in a hot tub with all her clothes on. Nice clothes. And she was wearing a sapphire pendant necklace that she’d just been given for her birthday. If it was an accident, then Annette slipped and fell into the water and died.”

  “It could have happened that way,” Coby said slowly.

  “Could’ve,” he agreed. “Maybe that’s just what it was. Annette accidentally drowns in a hot tub on her thirtieth birthday just after she’s been given an expensive gift, which is now missing.”

  “Or misplaced.”

  Danner gave her a sideways look. She didn’t know why she was defending the idea that it was an accident; she had suspicions herself. But she didn’t want to think someone had actually killed Annette. That opened the door to a lot of other possibilities she just didn’t want to face.

  “I want to be in front of this thing, not behind it, just in case,” Danner told her. “It’s not my jurisdiction, but that doesn’t matter to me if someone killed her.”

  They were speaking quietly. People still hadn’t completely left. Coby could hear Yvette yelling at Benedict to get the lead out.

  “I don’t want to talk out of turn,” Coby said. “I don’t know what to think. But Annette was kind of rabid about the whole secret thing when I first got here, like something had just set her off.”

  “Who was here then?”

  “Mostly her sisters, except Nicholette, who never made it. Jean-Claude. My dad. Benedict.”

  “Then?”

  Coby lifted her shoulders. “More people came. I can’t remember in what order. Everybody got here who was coming. And sometime in there, Annette was . . . distracted.”

  “Distracted?”

  “She wasn’t in the moment. Was only listening with half an ear. I remember wondering what she was thinking about. She had an envelope in her hand that she was holding tight to. I glanced at it, she saw me looking, so she crumpled it up, as if it were trash, except I knew it wasn’t. I think she wanted me to forget I’d seen it.” Coby hesitated, but Danner was too perceptive.

  “You looked in the envelope?” he asked, reading her.

  “Right after dinner I was talking to Annette in the kitchen and she still had it, and then she tucked it behind the napkin holder. I picked it up and glanced inside, then put it back.”

  “And?”

  “It was a lock of blond hair. Blondish, I guess, with some light brown in it.”

  “Hair,” he repeated.

  Coby glanced again toward the holder with its blue napkins. “I put the envelope back and later it was gone.”

  “You think this lock of hair had something to do with her compulsion to tell an old secret?”

  “Actually, no,” Coby said, surprising herself a bit. “She was all about telling the secret, or secrets, earlier, but after she got the envelope, that’s when she was distracted. Kind of like it derailed her.”

  “Whose hair do you think it is?”

  “Oh, God, I don’t know.”

  “Sometimes first impressions are the best ones we ever get.”

  Coby thought that over. “I don’t know, but I don’t think the envelope was Annette’s. I think she found it somewhere, in someone else’s possession, and it bothered her. It was just something she stumbled upon and it kind of took the air out of her balloon in that she wasn’t so crazy about telling secrets.”

  “So someone else had this lock of hair with them.”

  “Yeah . . . maybe . . .”

  “Maybe it was a part of the secret that she didn’t expect to find?” Danner suggested.

  He was gazing at her hard. It distracted her momentarily and she was a little annoyed at how fast her pulse was starting to race. Pulling away from his mesmerizing blue eyes, her gaze fell on the open window shade.

  “The shade,” she said. “It was down when we found Annette. Then it was up later. It seemed odd, because Benedict was out in the hot tub and Yvette was watching him from inside and I saw her keeping an eye on him through the window and at that time the shade was obviously up. But it was down when we all rushed in just after Suzette started screaming. I noticed it.”

  “You’re thinking someone deliberately lowered it to hide anyone’s view of the deck and hot tub?”

  “You have a way of putting words in my mouth.”

  “Am I wrong?” he asked.

  “I guess not.”

  Danner’s attention was on the window, too. “It was loud. No one heard anything. With the shade down, you wouldn’t be able to see any part of that portion of the deck.”

  “I really don’t think it’s murder,” Coby said, though it was the beginning of a lie. “I just noticed the shade and wondered about it.”

  At that moment Juliet stepped into the kitchen, white-faced. “I’m sorry. I overheard you two talking. You think someone killed A
nnette!”

  “A possibility, that’s all,” Danner assured her.

  “I put the shade down,” she told them. “It was me. Kirk was getting into the hot tub naked and I just . . . pulled the shade down. Yvette was embarrassed, too, so she went out to get Benedict after Kirk got in the tub.”

  “Mystery solved,” Coby said, feeling relieved. “Thanks,” she told Juliet, who gave them each a searching look before leaving the kitchen. Turning to Danner, she gave him a “see?” look. “Everything’s probably totally explainable. I feel like a mean gossip even talking about this.”

  “It’s how the truth gets learned,” he said, unrepentant.

  “What good are impressions, anyway? Don’t you need facts to make a case, not someone’s idea of what happened?”

  “In a court of law,” Danner agreed. “But investigations run on hunches and impressions and then corroborating evidence.”

  She nodded.

  “I’m going to call you as soon as we’re back in Portland,” he said. “We’ll know more soon and I’d like to sift through some thoughts together.”

  They walked back into the living room where Faith, who’d apparently finally convinced their father to pack up, as he was nowhere to be seen, was hovering near the kitchen door and had to move away quickly when Danner and Coby came through. Danner talked a little more to Juliet, then tried to engage Yvette and failed, had a few words with Jean-Claude, Suzette, and Galen, and then gave it up. Coby wasn’t trying to look for hidden agendas, but she kinda thought Danner might be just going through the motions with them, that maybe there was a teeny part of him that had interviewed her so thoroughly because he’d wanted to be in her company.

  Well, at least she could hope.

  Everyone slowly left. Jean-Claude was first, then Coby watched Danner and Faith depart in her sister’s white BMW. Yvette and Benedict took off a few minutes later, and Suzette and Galen finally got their act together and climbed into her compact Ford and followed after them.

  It was thirty minutes later before Dave was ready to leave, and he and Coby argued over how they were going back. He and Annette had come together in her black Lexus sedan and Dave planned to drive back on his own with Coby following. It wasn’t ideal, but he was adamant, so Coby waited on her father, who was just checking the lights, taking his time as he seemed to be standing in each room for long minutes, reviewing each one, as if reliving some memory, probably of him and Annette, before he closed each door.

  Finally Coby stepped out the front door with Dave locking it behind her before he headed to the garage. It was then she realized Juliet was still standing outside her own sedan, a silver Mercedes from a decade past, or two, holding an umbrella to keep off the rain. Seeing Coby, she sidestepped mud puddles and crossed to her. “I wanted to talk to you. I don’t know if you’re right,” she said. “About Annette. But if you are . . .” She slid her jaw to one side, thinking hard. “Like you said, you don’t want to spread gossip, but if it means uncovering something that helps?”

  “What did you see?” Coby asked.

  “Oh, nothing. Nothing!” It was as if her question shocked Juliet back to the present. “Really. Nothing. I . . . maybe you should talk to Yvette, though? Annette was arguing with her.” As if she couldn’t bear even revealing that tidbit, she hurried back to her car.

  Coby thought about it. She’d seen Annette and Yvette arguing, too. Something about Dana Sainer Bracco. What was it they’d said, exactly?

  Annette: “And what about Dana? The truth’s going to come out.”

  Yvette: “Just keep your fucking mouth shut! You were only eighteen when you got involved with Daddy Dave.”

  Annette: “This isn’t about me!”

  Yvette: “It’s always about you, Annette. Always.”

  “Well, huh,” Coby said aloud, watching Juliet’s Mercedes drive off through the cloudy gray afternoon.

  Chapter 11

  Joe Hamlin followed on Coby’s heels as she walked into her office, but she was unaware of his presence. When she reached for the door to close it behind her, his hand stopped her and, surprised, she half gasped, then saw who it was.

  “Got a minute?” he asked.

  No. “Sure,” she said, circling her desk and seating herself in her chair. She grasped the desktop and pulled herself forward, trying not to be annoyed at his familiar ways.

  Joe leaned a shoulder against the now-closed office door. He had a casual way of presenting himself that made it look like he was relaxed and engaged, but she knew him well enough to realize his brain was running along avenue after avenue, working toward his next goal, whatever that might be.

  “You got through to Shannon on Saturday,” he said with a note of admiration. “Good job.”

  Her meeting with Shannon felt like a lifetime ago. It was a lifetime ago in that so much had happened between Saturday night and Monday morning. “Thanks,” she said to Joe, her mind on other issues. Danner hadn’t called her yet, but she sensed he would soon, maybe today.

  When Joe didn’t immediately leave or say more, she lifted her brows. “Something else?”

  Straightening, he ran a smoothing hand over his tie, a courtroom move. “I heard on the news about your stepmother. You were there when she accidentally drowned. Jesus, how did that happen?”

  “The authorities are trying to figure that out.” She’d had a message from Nicholette the night before, a voice mail left on her phone that sounded scattered and didn’t make a lot of sense. Coby called her back and got her voice mail in return, so she’d just left a message saying Nicholette could call her back or they would see each other on Monday. They hadn’t reconnected yet.

  “Are you okay?” Joe’s dark eyes were probing as he came forward, bending down a bit to look directly into her eyes.

  “Not really.”

  “What a shock. On her birthday, right? Her actual birthday?”

  “You writing a book, Joe?”

  He looked like she’d slapped him. “Just trying to be sympathetic, babe.”

  “Don’t really feel like talking about it . . . babe.” Unconsciously, she crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Coby, come on. You hated her and now she’s gone. That’s gotta be screwing with you, at some level.”

  “I didn’t hate her,” she denied heatedly. “I didn’t love her. And I really didn’t love that she was married to my dad, but I didn’t hate her. You want to know what I feel? Confusion, mostly. And a need for answers. Like there must be a reason, or something, that this happened, when I know there isn’t.”

  “You really don’t want to talk about it,” he said on a note of discovery.

  She mentally counted to five. “No.”

  “All right.” He headed for the door, pausing with his hand on the knob. “How’s Faith doing?”

  “She’s okay. My dad? Not so much. Thanks for asking.”

  He laughed. “I absolutely adore you when you’re bitchy.” Then he was out the door and cheerily onto other Joe Hamlin business.

  She shook her head in wonder. He was so completely wrong for her. Why had it taken her nearly a year and a half to figure that out?

  Did Annette accidentally drown? Did she?

  Pushing that thought aside, she pulled out a file on one of Nicholette’s clients, the next one she needed to work on. The divorce case concerned a man who swore, swore, swore that he’d never cheated on his wife against all evidence to the contrary. Nicholette had tended to believe him, but that was kind of her way. If her clients were telling the truth, she could do the best for them, but if she thought they were lying, she wasn’t good at giving it her all. If she believed in them, she could work with them.

  Coby was more cynical. She thought the guy was a lying piece of shit, but he was a JJ&R client, so she would try her best to level with him about what this divorce was going to mean in dollars and cents.

  She’d half expected Nicholette to beg off work today; the family undoubtedly had preparations to make for Annette’s
memorial service. But half an hour later Nicholette knocked on Coby’s office door, ducking her head inside as Coby called, “Come in.”

  Nicholette Deneuve Ennis, the oldest of the Ette sisters, looked the worse for wear. She normally wore her dark hair tucked into a bun that emphasized her cheekbones and made her brown eyes seem huge in her face. It was an austere look that somehow had a touch of vulnerability, too. Like Joe, her way of being worked in the courtroom. Nicholette inspired confidence but also seemed human. Coby could vouch for the human aspect; sometimes she felt Nicholette’s emotions overrode her sense of going in for the kill. And yes, in life, that was a good thing; in the courtroom, not so much. Upon occasion Coby felt compelled to confer with Nicholette when the court was in recess and remind her of the firm’s overall goal: to win the case for their client.

  Nicholette’s eyes were heavily made up and Coby could see the puffiness beneath the eyeliner and mascara. “I wasn’t going to come in but I wanted to see you,” Nicholette said. She sank into one of the client chairs, her whole body collapsing as if it were made of Jell-O.

  “How are you?” Coby asked her.

  “Better than Suzette, who’s crying all the time. Not as good as Yvette, who’s made of stone, which we all knew anyway. Juliet doesn’t seem to know how to feel, flipping back and forth. And Dad’s a wreck. How’s Dave?”

  Coby just shook her head. “He went back to his condo in the Pearl. I think he’s even at Lovejoy’s today.”

  “Dad’s going there, too.” Nicholette shook her head. “Why? Neither of them is going to get anything done at work. We need to plan the memorial service.”

  “Who’s in charge at Lovejoy’s, with Annette not there?”

  “They have an assistant manager. I can’t think of his name.” She sighed. “Dad told me, but my brain’s mush. It’s lucky that Suzette and Juliet are basically minions and don’t have to make decisions. They’re not worth anything either right now. No one is. God . . . I just can’t believe it.” She inhaled heavily and blew out the air slowly. “You know how you wonder weird things? I mean, we were so frustrated with the mudslide that we just stopped at Halfway There and stayed in one of their rooms, but if I’d kept coming . . . I don’t know . . . maybe there would have been a different ending? Just one thing different, you know?”