by Alex Barclay
‘Yup.’
‘So, maybe not a random act of arson by a troubled teen …’ said Ren.
‘I mean, we have no idea who’s staying at the ranch,’ said Janine. ‘And “troubled” is different things to different people. Think you could work that up into a country song?’
‘I’ll give it a shot,’ said Ren. She paused. Janine waited. ‘OK, I got it: “Troubled is the word I say before I say your name, and troubled’s got these tiny hooks that always catch the blame.”’
Janine laughed.
‘Hooks!’ said Ren. ‘I didn’t even do that on purpose!’
‘So … are you saying – in your profound lyrics – that if we’re throwing blame around, it’s too easy for it to land on the troubled teens?’
‘Yes,’ said Ren. ‘But I’m not saying that that’s not the reality. Sometimes, easy is the way it is.’
‘There’s also a song in that …’ said Janine.
‘Please do not encourage me,’ said Ren. ‘Here goes: “Easy is the way it is, and easy’s good for me. If you want it hard, and want it bad, then take my friend, Janine …”’
Janine laughed loud.
‘OK, stop with the lyrics,’ said Janine.
‘“I’ve lost my words, I’ve lost my soul—”’
‘Stop!’ said Janine.
‘You’re missing out …’
‘Maybe it was an insurance job by Burt Kendall?’ said Janine. ‘He’s the only one who benefited from that car being burnt out.’
‘Yup, the choice of location is very convenient,’ said Ren. ‘Clever man. Dozens of suspects protected by confidentiality, owners keen to protect their image. And he wouldn’t have to explain away the accelerant if he wanted the insurance company to think it was some kid acting out.’
‘We need to check into the finances of Mr Burt Kendall,’ said Janine.
19
Ren arrived into Safe Streets and threw down her purse. ‘Afternoon, Clifford.’
‘Afternoon, Renard,’ said Cliff. ‘Nice lunch?’
‘Delicious.’ I ate several helpings of discomfort. And went back for more.
Ren sat down at her desk and went to the Denver Post website, scanning the main stories. A week had passed since the murder. In the side bar, there was one small piece on the lack of progress in the investigation.
Great.
Underneath, another piece caught her eye.
‘Well, looky here,’ said Ren, ‘someone has posted a link to a YouTube clip of eeee-vangelist Howard Coombes’ milkshake bringing all the boys to the yard. Is it cruel to watch this? I hate watching videos of people being humiliated.’
‘But you can’t stand the guy,’ said Cliff.
‘Even still, though … it makes me feel dirty.’
‘But we love you when you’re dirty.’
‘Don’t you love me all the time?’ said Ren.
He raised his eyebrows.
‘I invited that,’ said Ren. She pressed play. ‘I have my answer – it’s very cruel.’
‘Get back to work, young lady.’
‘Hold up,’ said Ren a few minutes later. ‘I’ve just spotted a little piece about wifey Coombes, who has been seen without her wedding band. Seriously? If your husband sleeping with another man wasn’t enough to make you take your wedding band off …’
Get back to work.
As she sat back, she realized there was a mug of coffee on Colin Grabien’s desk.
‘Who’s here?’ said Ren.
‘The panic, the panic,’ said Cliff.
Gary walked in as she was asking. ‘Roger Cornett is here for a few days,’ he said.
What? ‘Seriously?’ said Ren. ‘Is that chair doomed to be filled by an asshole?’
‘All chairs are,’ said Cliff.
‘I’d be seeing a doctor if my asshole were filling it …’ said Gary.
Gary has made a joke. The world has gone mad.
‘Sorry, Gary – you know Cornett is a total dick,’ said Ren. ‘There’s definitely a diagnosis there …’
‘Roger!’ said Cliff, looking past Ren, standing up, reaching out his hand. ‘Welcome back.’
Ren’s heart plunged. Oh. Dear. God.
She turned around to see no one behind her.
‘That was so mean,’ she said. She turned to Gary. ‘Aw, Gary, please. Please don’t consider Cornett as a permanent. He is a hater of humanity.’
‘And a lover of numbers,’ said Gary. ‘This is business, Ren.’
Do not smile at me, handsome boss.
Gary smiled more. ‘You handled Grabien.’ He paused and grabbed the mug of coffee from the desk. He took a drink. ‘Roger Cornett is not here, Ren. You can relax.’ He walked out the door, laughing.
Ren turned to Cliff. ‘That was two jokes in a row – what the hell? And this is not business, by the way. It’s home. It’s home!’
‘You young people,’ said Cliff. ‘You have no lives.’
‘I know, I know,’ said Ren. ‘One minute, I’m prom queen, the next my office is my home. That and bars.’
‘You were never prom queen,’ said Cliff.
‘You are not wrong,’ said Ren. ‘I did, however, make out with her. Even though I had not voted for her … which made me feel a little guilty.’
‘How is the Vatican on that kind of guilt?’ said Cliff.
‘They’re big fans of me feeling guilty,’ said Ren. ‘For themselves? Not so much. Robbie gets repression of sexual urges, I get guilt.’
‘Ren, can you please quit talking about all that?’ said Robbie.
‘I am sorry,’ said Ren. ‘And you are right. I think I am a little fascinated by the whole thing.’
‘Robbie has been afflicted with the curse of having happily married parents,’ said Cliff. ‘It has been proven that that can actually mess people up, that you won’t settle for less.’
Oh my God, Robbie, you have told no one.
‘I don’t know,’ said Ren. ‘Ben’s parents are happily married. And he has totally settled.’
Her phone rang. It was Barry Tolman.
‘Ren, sorry, I was out of town for a couple of days. I wanted to let you know that one of my staff here at the lab got a call directly from Robert Prince last Wednesday.’
‘Robert Prince?’ said Ren. ‘What did he want?’
‘Well, he was asking about the release of the body. He thought it would be coming directly from the morgue. They put him in touch with the funeral home.’
‘OK …’
‘He asked about the fetus,’ said Tolman. ‘About whether it could be … transported in a separate coffin.’
Oh my God. ‘Well, I think that’s the surrogacy question answered,’ said Ren. ‘Jesus. That’s heart-breaking. We’ll try to get some buccal swabs from the Princes so we can confirm everything. Thanks for letting me know.’
Ren put down the phone, struck by the realization that Laura Flynn was buried by now.
How quickly you can be gone, how quickly you can be in the ground or ashes in the wind.
Ren called Eli Baer. ‘Hey, Eli – did you get anything from Laura Flynn’s memorial service?’
‘She was cremated at Rooks Funeral Home in Southampton on Saturday,’ said Eli. ‘There was a short service, and they scattered her ashes at sea. It was a small affair, as you can imagine. The Princes were there, both very upset, some of their friends, some of Laura’s friends from New York – mostly Irish.’
‘Was there a guy called Johnny there?’ said Ren.
‘No,’ said Eli. ‘And, by the way, it seemed none of her friends knew she was pregnant.’
‘That’s just so strange,’ said Ren. ‘I’m thinking surrogacy. Or the father is a married man …’
‘You’re still thinking Robert Prince …’ said Eli.
‘Well …’
‘I don’t know if this is going to make things better or worse for you,’ said Eli. ‘But I got some more on the OCBLA. Robert Prince was not supposed to be running in 2015, but one of t
he candidates – there are only two – dropped out at the beginning of the year; he was diagnosed with brain cancer. Robert agreed to take his place. This is a position he really wants. My source told me that when he wasn’t elected in 2005, he went all out to curry favor with the other members for 2010. Rumor has it he donated millions to a diocesan fund to pay off victims of child sexual abuse by the Catholic Church in Denver.’
‘And that’s a good thing?’ said Ren. ‘Jesus Christ. I wonder was he looking for anything in return, like land? I don’t get how these lay people are willing to pay for these priests’ actions.’
‘Unless that’s their thing too,’ said Eli.
‘I’m not getting that vibe from him.’
‘“He seemed like such a nice scout leader/clown/elementary school teacher/swim coach” …’ said Eli.
Ren laughed. ‘My radar is usually good for that kind of thing …’
‘If I find out any more, I’ll let you know …’
She put down the phone and filled the others in.
‘So, the pregnancy was secret,’ said Cliff. ‘And he wants to be head of an organization where he needs to be a model Catholic. That’s a worrying combination.’
‘Maybe Laura Flynn wasn’t the target at all,’ said Ren. ‘Maybe the baby was …’
20
Ren slid her keyboard toward her.
‘There’s another option … it could also be that there’s another heir to the Prince throne out there that this new baby was going to usurp … Maybe it’s in someone else’s interest to make sure this little girl was not born.’
Ren Googled Robert Prince and his former relationships. He had clearly been careful. There was very little information; scattered over the previous three decades were no more than ten photos of the same five or six beautiful girlfriends on his arm at major events. Ren followed their trails through the internet; there were four marriages, three divorces and seven children between them. There was no suggestion of Robert Prince as a babydaddy, but, then, if he was, it was likely his offspring and their mamas would have been paid lots of money to remain invisible.
She came across an article from February about the restoration of the Prince family mansion outside Butte. It was to be opened to the public in time for Christmas. Robert Prince and his wife, Ingrid, were expected to attend a gala charity opening night …
Seven months from now. They had probably chosen that night to introduce the new baby to the world.
Ren found the phone number of the public relations officer for the project – a woman called Barbara Hynes.
‘Hello,’ said Ren, ‘I’m Special Agent Ren Bryce, I’m calling from Safe Streets in Denver. I’m investigating the death of Laura Flynn; she was the housekeeper for Robert Prince and his family.’
‘Yes,’ said Barbara. ‘How can I help you? I read about the case. It’s very sad.’
‘Had you ever spoken with Laura Flynn for any reason?’ said Ren.
‘No,’ said Barbara. ‘I deal directly with Robert Prince.’
‘How long have you been working with the Prince family?’
‘We have a connection that goes back over a century,’ said Barbara. ‘My great-grandparents worked for the family, as did my grandparents. I’ve worked for twenty years as a local historian out of the library in Butte, so when it came to handling the PR for the renovation, I put myself forward …’
‘Have you had many dealings with Robert Prince?’ said Ren.
‘Yes, I’ve met him a few times while working on this.’
‘And what’s he like?’ said Ren.
‘Well, to set aside my PR hat,’ said Barbara, ‘he’s business-like, brusque …’
‘Really?’ said Ren.
‘He’s a take-charge kind of guy,’ said Barbara. ‘I get it, he’s a successful man, he’s used to doing things his way.’
‘Had you met him before the renovation project?’ said Ren. ‘Do you know much about him?’
‘Just what I get from the media or anecdotal stuff from my relatives. Why do you ask?’
‘I’m just trying to get a sense of the family,’ said Ren. ‘The Princes are the closest to family that Laura Flynn had.’
‘Well, I know that family is very important to Robert Prince. During the renovation – it would have been late November – we found some things belonging to his ancestors. There were papers and letters from Patrick Prince, his great-grandfather, correspondence from one of the old law firms in town, Redmond O’Loughlin. The letters were sealed, we didn’t open them, obviously … but there were other letters connected to Robert’s grandfather, Walter.’
Letters that you mention with no small amount of distaste.
‘What kind of letters?’ said Ren.
‘It’s not a very pleasant story and, to be honest, it would be embarrassing for the Princes if it got out,’ said Barbara. ‘This goes way back. A lot of the Irish who emigrated to Butte weren’t very literate. But Patrick Prince was taught to read by the local priest, and went on to become a very well-educated man, as did his children. When his son, Walter, was in his early teens, he helped the Irish immigrants to write letters home … I think his father was encouraging him to be … kind. Anyway, he obviously never mailed any of them … they were all still there.’
‘That’s a terrible thing to do,’ said Ren.
‘And I can’t think of any other reason to do it apart from spite,’ said Barbara. ‘It’s not like these people were revealing any great secrets when they were dictating these letters. It was just to let their families know how they were doing.’ She paused. ‘I don’t think Walter Prince was a very nice man.’
‘Really?’ said Ren.
‘I know my grandmother certainly didn’t think so,’ said Barbara.
‘Why not?’ said Ren.
‘He was … just unpleasant, by all accounts.’ She paused. ‘We had a young journalist come here last year who was working on a piece about the renovation of the mansion. The project got a federal grant and this young man’s nose was out of joint because the family is so wealthy. But, there you go, wealthy people take advantage of these kinds of opportunities – I guess that’s why they’re wealthy. This kid uncovered a story about Walter Prince. There was a terrible case from 1919 – the Orchard Girls … Three young girls disappeared in Butte, mostly from disadvantaged families, broken homes … One, she was a young girl from an Irish family, she was only ten years old, was found raped and murdered in a culvert on the outskirts of town. The second girl, she was Irish too, was last seen in the same area, but never found. And the third one was a young Mexican girl whose father worked at the orchard. He was the last to see her alive. Rumors went around about him and he became the prime suspect. But he had a lot of supporters, people who said he doted on his daughter, he was good to all the kids in the area, he didn’t have a bad bone in his body. Anyway, he was found beaten to death shortly afterwards: a group of vigilantes caught him on the way home one night, tortured him to try to get him to confess, then killed him. Apparently, the ring leader was Walter Prince. He would have only been about sixteen at the time.’
‘And … this young journalist was going to have this article published?’ said Ren.
‘None of the newspapers here would touch it,’ said Barbara. ‘He was going to publish it online … until he got a Cease and Desist from the Princes’ lawyers as soon as they got wind of it.’
‘Do you know the journalist’s name?’ said Ren.
‘Yes, but he passed away a few months back,’ said Barbara.
Curiouser and curiouser.
‘Drugs,’ said Barbara. ‘His name was Jonathan Black.’
Ren Googled him and read a small piece on his death – it had happened in January and was classified as an accidental overdose. One of his friends was interviewed, said she was in shock because she knew that Jonathan wasn’t a user. She had met him two days before he died, said he was in high spirits, that he was working on a big story, that he didn’t have any history of depression
…
Death by rattling the bones of the Prince family skeletons?
‘What did you do with the Prince items you found?’ said Ren.
‘I packaged everything up and mailed it to Robert Prince in New York with a note asking him to call me when he received it,’ said Barbara. ‘He did, and he thanked me. I suggested we try to get the immigrants’ letters mailed to their descendants in Ireland, but he wouldn’t hear of it, because it would have shown his grandfather, Walter, in a very bad light. He said that he wasn’t even going to open them, that he would shred them and he asked me to treat the whole matter as confidential, which of course I did. You’re the law, so I can obviously say it to you.’
‘And were there other items in the box?’ said Ren.
‘Yes – family photographs, things like that. I took a look at the photos, thinking I could maybe use them in our little history room – we’ve set one of the rooms aside and there is an audio-visual presentation and people can get a sense of what it was like in the house, things like that. But when I mentioned this to Robert Prince, he said absolutely not.’
‘Was there anything strange or inappropriate in the photos?’ said Ren.
‘No,’ said Barbara. ‘Not in my opinion. They’re just of the Prince family, some of their neighbors at a picnic on the lawn. No illegitimate children or ladies half-undressed—’
Ren laughed.
‘But what really got to me was that he had a few photos of the Prince Christmas Ball … his grandfather and grandmother hosted a ball at the mansion every Christmas Eve and it was a huge event – I think there was only one year, two at most, where it was hosted elsewhere. Anyway, the invitations were like gold dust. They’re the kinds of photos people want to see when they come to visit a historic house like this.’
What was Robert Prince’s issue?
‘How are you with the preparations on the house?’ said Ren.
‘It’s all on track,’ said Barbara. ‘It will be beautiful. We’re using the launch to revive the Christmas Eve ball.’
‘Well, good for you,’ said Ren.
‘I love this old place,’ said Barbara. ‘I’ll be glad to see it fully restored.’
