Fatal Family Ties

by S. C. Perkins

  I thought about possibilities. Could a desperate someone with a drug problem have broken in? Maybe he or she found Charlie sleeping, with some prescription pills by his bed, and when Charlie woke up and found them stealing his meds, that person panicked and suffocated him.

  I decided this was both as far-fetched and as equally possible as the idea that Camilla had killed her beloved great-uncle and was using Ben and me as her alibi. Then Camilla and I both started as a knock sounded on the bedroom door, banishing all other thoughts.

  “Lucy?” It was Ben’s voice. “You can open up.”

  I opened the door in relief and Ben held his hand out for my phone. I passed it to him and he gave his credentials to the operator, saying, “I’ve spoken with Detective Maurice Dupart of the APD, and he’s on his way.”

  “Dupart?” I repeated when Ben hung up. “He’s coming?”

  He nodded, sliding his Glock back into the hidden pocket of his shirt. “We’ve been texting about grabbing a beer since I got back. He texted again just as I cleared the house. I called him, and he’s on duty tonight, so he said he’d come. He’s also calling a judge for a warrant to search the house.”

  Camilla hadn’t spoken since explaining how she’d found Charlie, but my question about Dupart seemed to awaken her. She looked at us, her light brown eyes brightened another full shade with emotion, tear streaks down her cheeks.

  “What’s wrong with this Detective Dupart?” she asked, her brows knitting.

  “Nothing whatsoever,” I replied quickly. “He’s very capable and honest. I’ve, ah, just dealt with him more in the past six months than I would like, that’s all.”

  Camilla seemed to accept this explanation. Either that, or her mind was already elsewhere, and as if in a daze, she turned and picked up the jade horse from Charlie’s bedside table.

  “Please don’t touch anything, Ms. Braithwaite,” Ben said sharply, making Camilla convulsively pull the figurine closer to herself as she turned around in surprise.

  “Why?” she said. Ben and I stayed silent a heartbeat too long, though, and Camilla read our silence. “Wait. You two don’t honestly think I killed Uncle Charlie, do you?” Anger was replacing her sadness on the quick.

  “We have to preserve the crime scene, that’s all,” I said, in what I hoped was a soothing tone. Though if I’d succeeded at all, I figured I wouldn’t be seeing the rosy spots on her cheeks becoming blotchy.

  Camilla was now palming the jade horse. “Are you kidding me, Lucy? I know you don’t like me, but to accuse me of actually murdering my great-uncle? The man who was one of the most special people to me on earth? That’s just despicable. I should have known you’d think ill of me the first chance you got.”

  “Put the figurine down, please, Ms. Braithwaite,” Ben said. He hadn’t moved from where he stood, an inch or so behind me, and I could see out of the corner of my eye that his right arm was at his side instead of near the hidden pocket where his gun sat, but his voice had lost all its gentleness.

  Camilla stared at the green horse in her hand and gasped in shock. Then her voice went icy cold, the tone I was more familiar with, as she lowered the figurine.

  “You can relax, Ben,” she spat. “Or should I call you Agent Turner, now that I’m a suspect? Regardless, I wasn’t going to hurt your girlfriend.”

  She turned away from us, put the figurine back on top of the books, and wrapped her arms around herself. Ben cast me a glance that six months ago, I wouldn’t have been able to read. Now, though, I could see the slight flicker of something in his eyes. He had some more bad news to impart.

  “Ms. Braithwaite,” he began again, “when I cleared the house, I didn’t see signs that any door was forced, and there weren’t any broken windows, either.”

  Camilla turned slowly back around, her eyes narrowed at his careful tone. “But?”

  I saw Ben’s expression become what I referred to as his Fed Face. It was devoid of emotion, not giving away his feelings toward anything.

  “The office was targeted, it appears. Did your great-uncle have anything of value in there?” he asked.

  Camilla blinked. “Of course. His business papers, a few items from his travels that are worth a lot of money …” Her voice trailed off as her eyes met mine.

  “The painting,” we said, almost at the same time. “Oh no,” I moaned when Ben confirmed it was gone.

  “I have to see,” Camilla said, and made to rush past us to the bedroom door.

  “Camilla, you can’t,” I said, holding out a hand to stop her.

  Ben nodded. “I’m sorry. I understand it’s frustrating, but we need to stay here until the police and the crime scene techs arrive. There could be evidence in the office that you might disturb if you went in there.”

  Camilla looked at us, incredulity written all over her face. Then, uttering a noise that was half frustrated and half anguished, she turned away again. She was still standing with her back to us, shoulders hunched and occasionally sniffling as she cast forlorn glances toward her great-uncle, when Detective Dupart arrived at the front door a few minutes later.

  FOURTEEN

  Ben and I were interviewed separately in the kitchen, while Detective Dupart spoke with Camilla in the photo-filled living room. Shifting my weight onto my back foot allowed me to look through the open doorway across the hall and see the back of Camilla’s head as she stoically answered Dupart’s questions.

  As if he sensed my attempt to eavesdrop, Dupart’s dark eyes lifted briefly and bored into mine for a half second before looking back at Camilla.

  If he thought I would be cowed by this, he was wrong. As intimidating as Dupart could be, with his tall frame, broad shoulders, thin goatee that offset the strong planes of his face, and deep voice with a hint of Louisiana Creole that would be easy on the ears if he hadn’t used it to bawl me out a couple of times, his attempts at a quelling look had nothing on Ben’s Fed Face. I kept right on listening.

  “Why did you tell Ms. Lancaster that you were at the deli picking up food when you had already been there twenty minutes earlier?” Dupart asked Camilla.

  So that was why she was microwaving Charlie’s soup! It had struck me as a bit odd that she had been heating the soup when she’d supposedly just returned home from picking it up.

  “I don’t know,” Camilla replied stiffly, one hand clutching a fresh tissue. “Maybe I just didn’t want to explain myself to her.”

  “Where were you when you said you were at Barry’s Deli, then?”

  Camilla gave an irritated sigh, then gestured out toward the street. “One of Uncle Charlie’s neighbors is this divorced guy named Marcus Brewer. He lives a few houses down, and every time I’m in town, he tells me I’m welcome to meet up with him and his friends for drinks at the wine bar a few streets over. He’s a nice enough guy, but …” Camilla hitched an indifferent shoulder. “I’ve never taken him up on it.”

  “And what was different about this time?” Dupart asked.

  Crossing her arms over her chest, she said, “Well, he’s implied more than once that he has some knowledge of Uncle Charlie’s neighbor, Elaine Trudeau, who has been dating Uncle Charlie recently … or so I have come to figure out.” This last part she said through gritted teeth, then added, “Look, Detective, you should know Elaine’s not my favorite person, and vice versa, okay? I’ll admit that. She’s bossy more often than not, and possessive of Uncle Charlie, and it makes me angry—but she’s been worse than usual this weekend. I’ve been wondering if she’s hiding something, and I hoped Marcus would have something meaningful to tell me.”

  “All right,” Dupart said, then prompted, “So you met him at the wine bar?”

  Camilla nodded. “I know he usually goes there around seven and stays for a couple of hours. It was seven thirty when I drove by the bar, so I stopped in for a drink. Uncle Charlie was napping, it wasn’t hot out, and everything I got from the deli could be served cold or reheated, so I took the chance.” She looked sadly down the hall t
o Charlie’s bedroom, and said in a quietly anguished voice, “If I hadn’t, maybe I could have saved him.”

  “Or you could have been killed as well, Ms. Braithwaite,” Dupart reminded her. When Camilla nodded like a robot, bringing the tissue to her nose, he asked, “And did Mr. Brewer say anything of note about Ms. Trudeau?”

  “No,” she said flatly. “He only said that Elaine never talks about her ex-husband, and he thought it was weird. I told him it wasn’t so weird. I never talk about my ex, either.”

  I just stopped myself from saying, “Believe me, I know,” out loud.

  “Where is Elaine, by the way?” Camilla asked Dupart. “Why isn’t she being interviewed? Her house faces the back door, and she’s always watching Charlie’s house. Yesterday I accidentally left the door ajar for two minutes, and she stormed out of her house and told me off for being careless. She could have seen the person who came in and murdered Uncle Charlie.” Her voice became thick with emotion. “Or maybe she’s the one who murdered him!”

  “Ms. Trudeau was not at her house,” Dupart replied, though I got the impression that he said this not just to give Camilla information, but also to see her reaction. “Her neighbor across the street said she saw Ms. Trudeau driving away sometime just after seven o’clock. We have not been able to contact her thus far.”

  “Well, that sounds suspicious enough for me,” Camilla snapped. “Elaine had more than enough time to come over and kill my great-uncle. You should be interrogating her.”

  I watched as Dupart’s face took on its now familiar inscrutable mask. “We are looking for Ms. Trudeau and we will be checking out every angle thoroughly, I assure you.”

  Camilla looked like she was going to protest, but Dupart smoothly moved to another question. “Besides items in your great-uncle’s office, of course, is anything else missing from the house so far as you can tell?”

  “Well, Detective,” Camilla replied icily, “since I came home, fixed my uncle’s dinner, spoke to Lucy and her FBI boyfriend, walked down the hall to find Uncle Charlie dead with a pillow over his face, and then was kept cornered by Lucy and said FBI boyfriend until you arrived, I haven’t exactly had a lot of time to go through the house room by room. You barely let me see Uncle Charlie’s office, if you recall.”

  Dupart remained unruffled. “Speaking of the office, is anything else coming to mind as being missing from the room? Besides the items you listed already, including Mr. Braithwaite’s computer, a purple-quartz chess set, two small jade figurines of dragons, and the painting—” He looked down to check his notes. “The folk art–style painting of a battle scene, one of three panels painted by your ancestor circa the mid- to late 1860s.”

  Camilla had absolutely insisted on seeing Charlie’s office for herself when Dupart arrived. Thus, as Ben and I followed them out of Charlie’s bedroom, on our way to the porch where we would wait, separated, until Dupart’s request for a consent-to-search was approved by a judge, I was able to get a brief look inside the office before Ben took my hand and pulled me after him down the hall.

  Charlie’s office had been wrecked. Books were all over the place. Some of the photos had been smashed, others knocked to the floor. His laptop was gone, papers were strewn everywhere, and his desk had been cleared of everything except a few scattered pens and the box of letterhead, which was resting halfway off the desk. The last thing I saw was the leather chaise longue he’d rested on yesterday, which had been pushed so roughly aside that it had rocked up onto its side legs and was caught in that position, leaning against the French doors. I didn’t get to confirm for myself that Charlie’s piece of the triptych had been stolen, but I’d caught the look on Camilla’s face as she stared up at the wall. She’d looked as if she simply couldn’t believe it was gone.

  Camilla was rubbing her forehead, but she finally answered wearily, “I’d have to look again, but I didn’t notice anything else right off.”

  Dupart moved on. “Does your uncle’s house have any security cameras?”

  Camilla shook her head, then reconsidered. “Well, he has one of those doorbell cameras.”

  “Can you access it to see if the camera picked up anyone coming to the house?”

  Dupart called out to one of his techs to bring him Charlie’s phone, and saw me at the same time. Without thinking, I’d stepped into the living room. “What are you still doing here, Ms. Lancaster?”

  “I just wanted to check on Camilla,” I said lamely. Ben walked up behind me, but stayed silent. Unlike me, he knew when not to interfere.

  Camilla had not seemed to notice either of us as she stared forlornly at Charlie’s wall of photos. For a moment, Dupart watched her before turning back to me. “Since you’re already here, why don’t you stay until we’ve finished our interview?”

  This seemed to bring Camilla around and she surprised me by saying, “Yes, please stay, Lucy.”

  “Of course I will,” I said. Dupart gave me a discreet nod of thanks as a crime scene tech handed him a plastic evidence bag containing a cell phone.

  Dupart worked the phone with Camilla telling him the password. He accessed the doorbell camera and called up the events it had recorded, with the most recent on top. The camera appeared to have a far reach and picked up things like a neighbor walking by with their dog at 8:22 p.m., Ben and me parking on the street and walking up the driveway at 7:48 p.m., Camilla returning home at 7:44 p.m., and a car pulling out of the driveway, nose first, and turning onto the street at 7:12 p.m.

  “That’s Elaine’s car,” Camilla said, jabbing a finger at the sedan accelerating past on the screen. She was frowning. “Elaine’s driveway is right next to Uncle Charlie’s, but I don’t recall the camera ever picking up on her pulling out of her own driveway.” She looked up at Dupart, her eyes alight and intense. “She must have been in Uncle Charlie’s driveway.”

  “Meaning?” Dupart asked noncommittally.

  Camilla pointed to herself. “I left the house at six forty-five to pick up his meds and food and got home more or less an hour later,” Camilla said. “So, it means that Elaine had enough time to come over, suffocate Uncle Charlie, trash his office, steal the painting and other valuables, pack everything into her car, and drive off.” She looked first at Dupart, then at Ben and me, before half turning to point toward the driveway. “Look, the back door is hidden by a vine-covered trellis. Elaine could have backed into the driveway and the trellis would have helped hide her while she loaded things into her trunk. The neighbors wouldn’t have thought it strange if she was coming in and out of Uncle Charlie’s house, either.” Her voice rose with her vehemence. “I just know she had something to do with this!”

  Dupart dutifully made notes, then called another officer to have the crime scene techs pay close attention to the area around the back door. Then, looking down at Charlie’s phone, he said to Camilla, “There’s some more events logged here. Do you recognize any of these people?”

  The next event was from 7:08 p.m., a young couple out for a stroll, the woman with a hand over her belly. “That’s the Kapoors. Vidya is pregnant and likes to walk after dinner,” Camilla said, and Dupart clicked on the next event, from 6:56 p.m. Camilla frowned when she watched what had triggered the camera. She also shifted toward Dupart, blocking my view of the screen.

  “Do you know this woman?” Dupart asked Camilla, indicating the video.

  She shook her head. “I’ve never seen her before.”

  Ben, who could see better than I, said, “There’s another event that says ‘Doorbell Notice.’ See if it’s the woman arriving. Maybe you can get a cleaner shot of her face.”

  Since I still couldn’t see the screen, I was glad that Dupart felt the need to narrate it.

  “Okay, it’s six fifty-five p.m. She pushes the doorbell; she’s smiling as someone answers the door. Now she’s saying something. Introducing herself, from what it looks like.”

  Camilla was squinting at the screen. “I can’t lip-read, but she’s acting like she has an appo
intment or something.” Camilla looked up at Dupart, then her eyes slid to me. “But Uncle Charlie didn’t say he had any appointments. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee he didn’t. He writes everything on his big desk calendar.” She pointed into the office. “It’s in there. The calendar was torn, but I saw it on the floor. After our doctor’s appointment this afternoon, he spent some time dusting and rearranging his photos, and then sat at his desk for a half hour and made phone calls. I heard him the whole time because I was changing his sheets and folding his laundry. I never heard him talk to anyone about a meeting tonight.”

  Dupart called out to the crime scene techs working the office. “Hey, Raza. Do you see any appointments scheduled for tonight on Mr. Braithwaite’s calendar?”

  We heard the tech moving around. After a pause, Raza called back, “No, sir. Nothing for yesterday or today. There’s ‘Expect call from Lucy Lancaster re: art appraiser’ scheduled for Tuesday, then nothing else until Thursday.”

  “Art appraiser?” Dupart asked me. “Is this referring to the painting?”

  I nodded, then glanced at Camilla, who said, “Tell him.”

  “Charlie saw that there might have been another painting underneath the top layer of canvas,” I explained. “He asked if I had any friends in the art business who could help him determine what was underneath. I said I did, and that I would contact her.”

  “And have you?” Camilla asked.

  “I have, yes,” I said. “I should have updated you earlier. I went and saw her this afternoon, not long after you dropped me off at my condo. She said she’d be happy to come look at the painting. I gave her Charlie’s card and she said she would call him.”