CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
S
he pushed the bell and heard it chime inside. The door popped open immediately. They must have seen son of Enzo roaming the grounds.
A guy who resembled a well-dressed bar bouncer blocked the doorway. She held up her ID wallet. “Agent Bernadette Saint Clare.”
“This way” he said, throwing a hand toward the back of the house.
Staring at his meaty fists, Bernadette thought back to the hands from her sight. Touching a pregnant woman. Reaching into the refrigerator to retrieve the baby bottle. Feeding Lydia’s baby. They could be the same hands. Maybe.
As she jogged to keep up with him, she looked around. While Ed’s place was nice, there was no mistaking it was a cabin. The furniture wasn’t coordinated, the couch cushions sagged, and the kitchen dishes were mismatched. Except for the log walls, the interior of this Walker Bay home could have been lifted from a decorating magazine. Plush area rugs and runners. Wide-plank wood floors. Dried-flower arrangements, tapered candles, and bowls of potpourri. Distressed country furniture. An open staircase in the middle of the main floor led up to a true second story instead of a loft.
She followed the bouncer down a hall to a room facing the lake. After quickly sweeping the space with her eyes, she looked at Garcia and nodded. “Sir.” He knew what that meant: this was indeed one of the two rooms that she’d visited with her sight.
Her boss was standing with his back to the menacing bear, and it looked as if the thing were poised to pounce on him. A metaphor for the meeting with the senator. Even though he’d been at the house since morning, Garcia was still carrying his jacket. They’d obviously made a point of making him feel unwelcome. Bastards.
Garcia crossed the room and stepped up to a couch parked against the wall. “Senator and Mrs. Dunton, this is the lead agent working on your daughter’s case. Bernadette Saint Clare.”
A tall, trim, auburn-haired man with a lantern jaw got up from the couch and Bernadette recognized him immediately from his newspaper photos. Senator Magnus Dunton. Dressed in starched khakis and a cashmere crewneck, he could have stepped out of a Brooks Brothers catalog. Dunton offered his hand, and it was too late for Bernadette to remove her gloves. “Thank you for everything you’re trying to do,” he said tiredly“Senator,” Bernadette said, and tipped her head to his seated wife. “Mrs. Dunton.”
Ash-blond hair tied back from her narrow face, Michelle Dunton was the Ralph Lauren model. Hollow cheeks. Peach lipstick. Skinny jeans. Yellow cable-knit sweater. Half-spent cigarette dangling from long, pale fingers. She nodded at Bernadette and tapped a gray snake. The ashtray in front of her was filled with peach-stained butts.
Dunton glanced through the slider. “Who’s that?”
Through the glass, Bernadette could see Cahill coming into view. He caught her eye and then turned around. Walked up to the deck railing and looked out over the lake. “Agent Carson Cahill,” she said, and left her boss to fill in the rest.
Garcia: “He’s assisting Agent Saint Clare on the case, but he doesn’t need to be a part of this briefing.”
While Dunton was studying Cahill’s back, the young agent slipped a hand inside his jacket pocket. The senator opened his mouth as if to make a comment, and then closed it. He sat back down on the couch. A cushion separated the couple, and Bernadette took note: this tragedy had not brought the Duntons closer together.
“I’d like some coffee,” Mrs. Dunton said to the bouncer. With her hoarse chain-smoker’s voice, she sounded as if she were sitting at a bar ordering another Manhattan.
“Would you like a cup, Miss Saint Clare?” asked the senator.
“Love one,” said Bernadette, unzipping her jacket.
Michelle Dunton snuffed her cigarette out in the ashtray, took the pack off the coffee table, and got up. Proceeded to follow the bouncer out of the room.
“Don’t you want to stay and hear this?” Dunton asked after her.
Michelle Dunton stopped in the doorway and spun on her heel. While withdrawing another smoke from the pack, she looked from Bernadette to Garcia. “Have you arrested the person who killed my Lydia?”
Garcia: “No, but like I said before—”
“Do you have a name?” she asked, and put the cigarette to her lips.
“No,” Bernadette said shortly.
Michelle Dunton flicked her lighter, took a long pull, and expelled a cloud into the room.
“Mickey,” the senator said. “At least listen to what they have to say.”
“They’ve got nothing.” His wife turned around and exited the room, leaving behind a wisp of smoke and a hint of Chanel No. 5.
Dunton sat forward on the couch and folded his hands in front of him. “I apologize,” he said to the floor. “She … we’re having a hard time understanding all of this.”
Bernadette had dealt with many grieving relatives over the years. The silent sufferers displayed nothing more than red-rimmed eyes and knotted tissues. At the other end were the screamers and wailers. While Magnus Dunton seemed to fit the quiet end of the spectrum, Bernadette had no idea where Michelle fell. She appeared more irritated than grief-stricken, but then everyone handled it differently.
“Let’s hear it,” Dunton said to no one in particular.
Wing-backed chairs were at each end of the couch, but Bernadette didn’t feel comfortable taking a seat unless it was offered. Garcia came up next to her, and they both stood facing the senator. A pair of delinquents meeting with the assistant principal. Bernadette started. “First, let me say how sorry I am for your loss.”
“Thank you.” Dunton crossed his arms in front of him and fell back against the cushions. “What have you come up with?”
Bernadette wished she’d had a minute alone with Garcia, to tell him what she’d found in the backpack. She had no idea whether he’d want her to reveal their discovery to the Duntons. Bernadette decided to give the senator an opportunity to spill the beans on his own. “I believe we’ve made … substantial progress,” she said, selecting her words carefully. “But we need your help to … take the investigation to the next level.”
“Next level? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Let me ask you this, did your daughter contact you or your wife at all while she was on the road?”
“No.” He motioned toward Garcia. “Already told him that.”
Dunton had already told a lie, at least if Lydia’s boyfriend was to be believed. “Sir, why would your daughter have traveled up north in the first place?” asked Bernadette. “What drew her here? Who did she have in the Walker area?”
“She didn’t know a soul around here.”
“But you obviously know people up here if they’re hosting you,” said Bernadette.
“This cabin belongs to a business associate of mine. Lydia had never been here, never been to the area.” Dunton got up from the couch. “If all you’re going to do is ask me the same questions—”
“Did she know anyone in Brule?” Bernadette asked.
“Where?”
“The identity of the baby’s father,” continued Bernadette. “If we could have some help with that. What about a boyfriend? Was she seeing anyone from the neighborhood or … her school?”
“I … I don’t know who got her pregnant,” said Dunton.
Bernadette detected a slight hesitation in his voice. He did know that David Strandelunder had fathered the child. More lying.
Dunton went over to the slider and looked out at the agent pacing the deck. Son of Enzo had made an impression on the senator. “Why is that important?”
Garcia: “If we knew—”
“If I knew, I’d wring his neck,” said Dunton in a low growl.
“Sir, someone has stepped forward,” she said. “If you could confirm that he’s a possibility, that he knew your daughter.”
Dunton sighed to the glass. “Davy Strandelunder?”
Bernadette blinked. She was stunned that he’d suddenly offered up the name. “Yes. Can you tell us if he’s—”
“A lowlife with absolutely no future.”
“Did he father Lydia’s baby?” asked Bernadette.
“That boy caused this family a whole lot of heartache, and I don’t want my daughter’s name …” Dunton put his hand over his mouth for a moment. “I don’t want Lydia’s name associated with his. He wasn’t … good enough for her.”
“Why didn’t you volunteer his name earlier, Senator?” asked Garcia.
“What difference does it make who got her pregnant?”
Garcia: “The person who killed her—”
“He didn’t do it,” said Dunton. “He doesn’t have much going for him, but he’s not a … Davy wouldn’t have done that, not to Lydia.”
“Why didn’t you and Mrs. Dunton tell the police that you’d kicked Lydia out of the house?” asked Bernadette. “Why didn’t you inform them that she was pregnant?”
“Come on, Miss Saint Clare.” He walked into the middle of the room and stood between the two agents.
“Miss
Saint Clare. Kids?”
“No.”
“You don’t either, do you?” he asked Garcia.
“No, sir.”
“Neither one of you has a clue. Did we do the best job? Hell, no.” Then, in a much lower voice, “We tried.”
“We aren’t judging you, sir,” Garcia said. “But by withholding information, you’ve hindered our investigation and endangered others.”
“Are you aware that another person was murdered yesterday?” Bernadette asked.
“A potter woman. Mr. Garcia has already informed me, and I’ll tell you exactly what I told him: I didn’t know the individual and I have not the slightest inkling what her connection to my daughter was. Her death must be completely unrelated.”
Bernadette: “Senator, if there is anything you could—”
“That’s enough,” he said tiredly and put his hand to his forehead. “I’ve had enough.”
Garcia: “Sir, we’re—”
“You’re wasting time. I never wanted you people on the case in the first place. I knew this would happen. I want the FBI off the case and I want my daughter’s body released so we can plan a proper …” His voice started breaking.
“We can’t do that yet, sir,” said Garcia.
“If you could please answer our questions,” said Bernadette.
A maid rattled into the room with a serving tray. She set the tray down on the coffee table and waited with her hands folded in front of her apron. Bernadette noticed that there was only one cup on the tray, along with the pot and a creamer. Michelle Dunton came in after the young woman. “Thank you, Rose. That’ll be all.”
After the servant exited, Michelle Dunton sat down and poured herself a cup. Took a sip and addressed her husband as if the agents weren’t in the room. “Maggie, you look beat. Tell them to come back tomorrow.”
The bouncer walked in, followed by a second bruiser in a suit. “Is everything all right, sir?”
The senator returned to the patio window and looked out. Cahill had stopped moving and was leaning against the deck rails, one hand buried in his jacket pocket. “Their colleague must be getting cold,” Dunton said. “See if he needs anything.”
Garcia’s jaw tensed. “Agent Cahill doesn’t need a thing. Thank you anyway, Senator.”
The bureau had displayed some muscle, and the senator was attempting to push back. Maybe instigate a tussle and manufacture a reason to throw them out. Bernadette wondered how far Dunton was willing to take this.
Not that far, apparently.
Dunton said to the two bouncers, “Why don’t you fill up the cars. We’ll be leaving tomorrow.”
The pair exited, taking a layer of tension with them.
Michelle Dunton got up from the couch and went over to her husband. “Maggie?” she asked her husband’s back, and took a sip of coffee.
“What?”
“Tell them to go.”
Dunton didn’t say anything.
She made an exasperated noise, went back to the coffee table, and poured herself another cup. Took a sip and frowned. “Rose!” she yelled to the door. When no one materialized, she picked up the tray herself. An excuse to flee the room.
Bernadette decided to drop the bomb. “Senator. Mrs. Dunton. Who has been blackmailing you?”
Michelle Dunton froze with the tray in her hands. Her husband turned from the window. “What?”
“We found Lydia’s backpack,” said Bernadette. “It was filled with letters. Someone has been milking you for large sums of money.”
Garcia looked at Bernadette with wide eyes.
“You found Lydia’s things?” Michelle Dunton inhaled sharply and released the tray. Glass and coffee exploded on the floor.
“What in the hell are you talking about?” Dunton rushed past the two agents to get to his wife.
Michelle Dunton dropped down on her knees next to the mess and began talking to the broken dishes. To herself. “They found my baby’s things.”
Dunton extended a hand down to her. “Mickey, it’s fine,” he said through his teeth. “Please, get up.”
The mumbling woman sat back on her heels, half of a broken cup in each hand. “Maggie, make them give us Lydia’s things. I want them back.”
“Senator, who has been blackmailing you?” asked Bernadette. “What do they know?”
“Get out,” said Dunton. Then a shout toward the door: “Ben!”
A short man with an egg head stepped into the room, and Bernadette and Garcia looked at each other.
The guy from her vision.
Dunton went down next to his wife while giving orders to the man. “See them out. Get Rose in here.”
The new arrival took a step toward Bernadette with his hand extended. “I’m Benjamin Rathers, the senator’s chief of—”
“They don’t need to know who you are,” said Dunton, rising with his wife, an arm around her waist. “Get them out of here.”
“Senator,” said Bernadette. “We need to know who is blackmailing—”
“No one,” the senator snapped. “No one is blackmailing us.”
Eyes darting between Bernadette and his boss, Rathers seemed dazed and confused.
“But the letters …” Bernadette continued.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Dunton. “Letters. What letters? That’s a load of nonsense. Good God. I can’t believe I’m even having this conversation.”
“Lydia,” croaked Michelle Dunton, falling against her husband and burying her face in his shirt. Her narrow shoulders started shaking.
Dunton wrapped his arms around his sobbing wife. “Why are you wasting time harassing the only people you know
didn’t
kill Lydia? Why don’t you go after those Satanists or witches or whatever they are?”