Murder in the One Percent

by Saralyn Richard

  The first paramedic stood by the defibrillator, his body shielding it from view of the others. Failing to see improvement, he knew what he had to do. “We’ve got to take the patient to the hospital,” he said to the group after several minutes of defibrillation and CPR. “We can only do so much with the equipment we have here.”

  “Please say he’s alive,” Nicole whispered hoarsely, tears shining in her round brown eyes.

  “It doesn’t look good, to be honest,” replied the second paramedic, “but we’ll do our best for him.”

  John E. looked at Caro and shook his head. “I’m going down to make way for the transfer.” He looked at Andrea and Nicole then. “I think we should all go downstairs and let the paramedics do their work.”

  “I won’t leave Preston,” Nicole wailed. “It’s bad luck for us to be apart.”

  “You won’t be able to come with us in the ambulance,” the first paramedic told Nicole. “With the defibrillator on, we need the whole rear space for the patient.”

  “The patient has a name,” Nicole shouted. “The patient is Mr. Preston Phillips. He is the former secretary of the treasury. He’s an important person. You have to save him. You have to.”

  Andrea put her arms around Nicole from behind, gently coaxing her to calm down. “I’ll take you to the hospital, Nicole. We’ll follow right behind the ambulance.” She looked toward the policeman, a young man she recognized as someone she had interviewed in the past, as if to ask permission to leave with Nicole. He nodded.

  As the paramedics carried Preston down the stairs on the stretcher, the party guests spontaneously parted to create a solemn aisle through the house and onto the driveway. The police officer followed immediately. Once the wailing ambulance and Andrea’s Land Rover had departed for the hospital, Officer Barton called for everyone to return to the dining room.

  His sober gaze moved from one to another of the rich and beautiful assembled around the table before saying, “Except for Mrs. Phillips and Mrs. Baker, who will drive Mrs. Phillips to the hospital, we need everyone to remain in this house until we can ask some routine questions. Okay?”

  Chapter 20

  Officer Barton resisted whistling over the surroundings at Bucolia. The appetizing aromas of breakfast hung in the air; the well-dressed group sat among the antiques and oil paintings, as if sheer luxury ran in their veins. Having heard Nicole’s mention of the patient’s status as former secretary of the treasury, he knew he was in high-powered company. He knew of the Campbells--their presence in Brandywine Valley had caused a bit of a stir when they’d purchased the farm a few years back.

  He assumed, correctly, that these were all heavy hitters in the financial arena. He hoped like hell that this guy had died of natural causes, because dealing with these people was not going to be simple. Jeez, look at this place, even the air I’m breathing feels expensive. He was determined to suppress his fascination, however. Just stick to the protocols, he muttered internally. Before making the decision to call a detective in, he began to orient the group as to what routine procedures were necessary in an incident such as this. He thought he might need backup, just to be thorough.

  The table was buzzing with questions. The pregnant lady asked, “Is Preston alive or dead?” The guy sitting next to her said under his breath, but loudly enough for Officer Barton to note, “What could possibly have caused him to be ill?”

  “Where are they taking him?” the lady with the straight, shiny hair asked.

  “How soon will we hear anything?” another asked. No one appeared to notice that no answers emerged from the string of questions.

  “It doesn’t seem possible that my birthday weekend could end so tragically,” Mr. Campbell said, rubbing his eyes with his hands.

  Quite possibly, Officer Barton thought, people were wondering how long they would have to stay at the farm. It was Sunday afternoon, after all, and these were people with important schedules. But no one uttered a syllable about leaving.

  He flashed his badge. “Officer Randy Barton.”

  John E. gestured for the officer to take a seat next to Kitty.

  As he sat, he rolled off his typical introductory remarks. “It is routine procedure when there is a non-respiratory emergency call to take down information about the people on the scene.”

  “Non-respiratory?” Caro squealed. “Are you saying that Preston is dead?”

  “It’s possible, ma’am,” Officer Barton replied, powering up his departmental iPad. “You heard the paramedics say it wasn’t looking good.”

  John E. reached for his wife’s hand and sandwiched it between his own. If Preston had died in their house, Caro would never forgive herself. And how would she explain it to her family? “We’ll be glad to answer all of your questions, Officer.”

  “To start with, which of you are the owners of this farm, and what is the occasion here?”

  “I’m John E. Campbell, this is my wife, Caroline, and this is my farm.” He leaned across the table to shake hands with the patrolman. “We’re all here for a weekend celebration. My sixty-fifth birthday, in fact.”

  “What is the full name of the...er, patient...and what is his relationship to you?” Officer Barton asked, his fingers on the virtual keyboard.

  While John E. answered the officer’s questions, his guests listened attentively, their facial expressions and body language anything but casual.

  One guy was running his fingers through the thinning hair on his head, both elbows on the table in front of him, while his wife twisted her ultra-straight hair around her finger, let it go, and petted the still-straight locks. Another couple held hands under the table, squeezing so tightly that the tension showed in their shoulders and collarbones.

  The heavy-set guy muttered something unintelligible under his breath. His wife’s eyes were shiny with incipient tears. “Only a few hours ago, Preston and I were sitting at this table, laughing. He didn’t seem sick at all.”

  A redhead sat to the left of a young blonde. The redhead covered her face, and she seemed to be hyperventilating. Blondie patted Redhead’s shoulder.

  None of the body language escaped Officer Barton’s attention. As much as he would have liked to wrap up his questions and let these smart people get on with their lives, there was something suspicious in the way everyone was so tense, notwithstanding the fact that one of them was most likely arriving DOA at Brandywine Hospital about now. “Excuse me a moment,” he said. “I need to get something from my vehicle.” He clicked off his iPad, closed its case, and rose from the table.

  When he got to his car, he called for a detective. “Need somebody at Campbells’ farm...Yeah, EMTs took the guy to Brandywine. I got fourteen people here and four floors of farmhouse...Yeah, I’ll need help.”

  Caro’s phone rang just as he was returning to the dining room. “Andrea?” she answered breathlessly. “Do you have news?” She paused for a second, her eyes closed in a kind of prayer. “Oh, no,” she screamed, denial and genuine grief ripping through her voice. She dropped the phone on the table, her eyes meeting the policeman’s.

  Everyone at the table looked at everyone else. No words were needed to confirm their fears. Preston Phillips was dead.

  Officer Barton was the only one who seemed in full control of himself and the situation. He dreaded having to work with these Wall Street types, but his role was clear: secure the scene, gather facts, recover evidence. “Let’s all stay calm,” he said in his most soothing voice. “Apparently Mr. Phillips has died?” He looked to Caro for confirmation, although his gut had told him so from the moment he entered the fourth floor bedroom. Her nod was the closing of a curtain on Preston Phillips’ life, just as it opened a curtain on its aftermath.

  “Now I need to take down the names, dates of birth, addresses and contact information of everyone here and everyone who came into contact with Mr. Phillips in the last twenty-four hours. We’ll start with the hosts...”

  Chapter 21

  Officer Barton was taking down
the last bits of information from the guests. All semblance of party atmosphere had evaporated from the house, as the doorbell’s chime perforated the somber mood.

  “I’ll get it,” Caro said, glad to have a reason for standing. She felt like her body was moving through thick cotton as she walked to the door. Preston dead? It just couldn’t be true.

  “Afternoon, ma’am,” the young plain-clothed officer said, his badge held at her eye level. “Detective Parrott of the West Brandywine Police Department.”

  “Come in, Detective.” Caro opened the door, wishing she could exit through it, even as she ushered the detective inside. Her hand shook as she closed the door behind him, cutting off her transient dream for escape.

  She led Detective Parrott, a tall, muscular African-American, into the dining room. He made eye contact with the guests, nodded to Officer Barton, and turned back to Caro. An impressive-looking metal suitcase was tucked under his arm.

  “This is Detective Parrott,” Caro announced to the group. Turning back to the detective, she said, “Would you like to sit down?” She pointed to the chair she had just vacated.

  “No, ma’am,” Detective Parrott replied, his voice deep and resonant.

  A preacher’s voice, Caro thought fleetingly. Seems out of place for a cop.

  “I’d like to take a look at the room where the deceased was found, if you don’t mind,” he continued.

  “Certainly,” Caro replied. “I’ll walk up with you.”

  Detective Parrott followed Caro up the stairs, while Officer Barton wrapped up his remarks to the rest of the group. “I understand this has been a shock to you folks. I appreciate your cooperation. Now if you will remain here to give Detective Parrott and myself some time to look over the upstairs, we’ll come back down and get you on your way home.” He looked at John E., tacitly turning over leadership to him.

  John E., shaky, but seemingly in control, nodded. He stood, stretched, glanced at his Patek Phillipe, and asked if anyone would like something to eat or drink.

  “Not much of an appetite,” Marshall said. “Sorry such a great weekend came to such a crashing end.”

  Others muttered similar sentiments.

  “Don’t think about me,” John E. said, his voice cracking. “Think about poor Preston. And Nicole. How is that poor girl going to manage with her ankle and now this?”

  “Well, I can’t be hypocritical, I am not President of the Preston Phillips Fan Club,” Leon Spiller said. “On the other hand, I can’t say I’m glad he’s dead.”

  Vicki walked over to the galley tray to pour herself a bloody Mary. “Anybody else need a stiff drink?”

  “None of us is overly fond of Preston,” Gerald said, his eyes landing on Kitty, who had been crying off and on for the past half hour. “That doesn’t mean we wished him harm. We aren’t criminals.”

  “Do you think the police officers suspect foul play?” Libby asked. “Or are they really just following routine procedures?”

  “How could it be foul play?” Julia retorted, her voice more shrill than normal. “That would mean that one of us would have to be a murderer.”

  ***

  Having deposited Parrott at the doorway to Preston’s room, Caro touched the detective lightly on the arm. “I’ll leave you to your work, but before I go downstairs, I have a favor to ask. Preston Phillips is my cousin, as well as a public figure. Whatever you and Officer Barton find out about him, could you please share it with me first? I’m afraid this is going to become a media circus, and I worry about my aunt, Preston’s family, even Nicole.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, Mrs. Campbell. I’m hoping what we’ll find is just an unfortunate heart attack.” Parrott thought about the recent violent death of his own cousin. Despite his personal bias against the very rich, he suspected Caro was a woman with a good heart.

  He entered Preston’s bedroom suite, where he donned gloves and booties to begin the methodical search for evidence. The rays of the afternoon sun spotlighted the same place where just yesterday Margo and Preston had planned their interlude. The pillows on the upholstered chair looked as if they had not been plumped up. Someone had been sitting there recently.

  Parrott bent over the apricot-colored chenille of the chair, his eye caught by a fine lime green thread in the gutter where cushion met armrest. “Might ask around to see if anyone was wearing lime green this weekend,” he muttered as he dropped the thread into a plastic evidence bag.

  Barton was at the headboard, examining fingerprints under the ultraviolet lamp. Parrott crossed over to help.

  “Smell like sex to you?” Parrott asked, sniffing the sheets. Without waiting for a reply, he rolled back the bed coverings, one layer at a time. The sheets were jumbled, but there could be any number of explanations for that.

  “Yeah, I noticed the smell earlier. Campbell was doing CPR when I got here. He was all sweaty, so I smelled that, too.”

  “Well, what do you know,” Parrott exclaimed, as he pulled back the thick comforter and the top sheet. “Two...no, three...pecker tracks. Not bad for an old guy. How many days had he been staying here?”

  “Friday night arrival, so two. Vic was sixty-seven. Guess he still had it going on. His wife is a hot little number, young. Come to think of it, though, she’s got a broken ankle, stuck in one of those metal things. I don’t think she’d be much in the mood.”

  “Well, unless he was playing solitaire, he had a busy social life.” Parrott shone a hand-held high intensity lamp over the sheets, looking for other bits of information. “Maybe the guy died while having sex, had a heart attack or something.” No blood, no urine, no feces, no mucous. But what’s this? The strong light cast a thread-like shadow near the middle of the bed. “Pubic hair. Hand me a bag, will you?” He bagged the hair and kept moving systematically across the sheets and from the head to the foot of the bed, looking for human traces. “Here’s another one.” He put the second hair in another plastic bag. With any luck, they would be from two different DNA types.

  “No crime in having sex,” Barton muttered. “I just don’t think he was having it with his wife, that’s all.” He strode into the bathroom to check for drugs. “Maybe the guy overdosed. Looks like he was taking some stuff.” He opened his iPad to list the contents of Preston’s Dopp kit, as well as the items on the marble counter. Celebrex, Voltaren, baby aspirin, Restasis eye drops, Metamucil--nothing too out of the ordinary. “Nope, bottles are almost full, so no sign of overdosing.”

  Parrott straightened, turned off the lamp, and picked up a Smartphone from the nightstand. Always pays to check these out, he thought, scanning received calls first. He fired up his iPad to record names and numbers. “Hmm...last missed call was from Nicole at twelve-forty-five this afternoon.”

  Barton said, “That’s the wife. Guess she was calling from downstairs.”

  “Calls made...nothing today or yesterday.”

  “It’s the weekend. Even these financial big-wigs must take weekends off. Nobody works weekends anymore, ’cept the munis like us.”

  Checking the camera function, Parrott examined some of the saved photos. “Take a look at this,” he said, holding the phone so Barton could see a picture of Nicole in a black lace pushup bra. “Is this the wifey?”

  “Yeah. Young and pretty, just like I said. Some guys have all the luck.”

  “Guys like this--” Parrott paused. “--luck is a talent.” His stentorian voice added, “Somerset Maugham, I think.”

  “Well, I’m impressed, Detective.”

  Parrott moved on to search Preston’s contact list. In the Cs he found Caro, followed by an entry labeled “Chief.” He wrote down the phone number with the 512 area code. “What area code is five-one-two?”

  “Texas...Austin. My brother-in-law just moved down there.”

  “Austin, Texas...then ‘chief’ must be our favorite ex-president.” He whistled his appreciation. “This guy must’ve been really connected.”

  “Yeah, his wife shouted something about his
being former secretary of the treasury or something.”

  “Didn’t keep him from the Grim Reaper, though.” Parrott continued to scan the room with a meticulous eye. “I don’t see anything to suggest foul play. We’ll see what autopsy and toxicology come back with, but my bet is the guy had a coronary or stroke. What was your feel for the group downstairs?”

  “Bunch of rich people, spoiled, shocked. None of them seemed to talk much, just answered questions. Mrs. Campbell and the red-haired lady seem the most upset.”

  “Let’s eyeball the other bedrooms before we go downstairs and let them go home?”

  “Sure thing.”

  ***

  The restless party guests were still in the dining room when Andrea’s SUV pulled up in the driveway. From one person to the next, there was fidgeting, nervousness, sadness, but mostly exhaustion. It had been a long weekend, a late night the night before, and a stressful afternoon.

  Kitty was pouring herself a glass of water near the sink, so she was the first to see the SUV pulling up in front. “They’re back from the hospital. Here they are.” Her normally mellifluous voice sounded hoarse and gravelly. She had been thinking all afternoon that just about everyone there had a motive to dislike Preston, but to kill him? She couldn’t imagine anyone of their breeding and stature in the community would take their grievances that far. They all had so much to lose.

  Margo, who had remained silent for most of this time, was shivering in her seat, her hands wrapped around a mug of herbal tea. Her long cinnamon-colored hair shrouded her face as she leaned forward in her chair, leaving her expression undecipherable. Kitty wondered what had transpired between Preston and her.