Authors: Kasey Michaels
“Hey, youse guys,” Jessica quipped, seeing them, “you missed it. Old Man Brainard did another one of his fainting acts when a cracker-jack reporter—that would me
moi
—asked a particularly probing question from the peanut gallery. I mean, he didn’t actually grab his chest and swoon, but he did go sort of pale all over and get up and leave the stage. This time Joshua stuck around, though, and held down the fort. I guess he figured the same dodge wouldn’t work twice.”
“You never make things easy, do you, Jess? We’ve been invited to the man’s house to speak with him,” Jade said, shaking her head. “Did you have to go after him in public? What did you ask him?”
Jessica rolled her eyes. “Well, I didn’t ask him if he killed his wife, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“She came close, though,” Matt said, slipping an arm round Jessica’s waist. “Don’t worry, I gave her a little nudge and shut her up.”
“Right, a little nudge. My ankle is going to be
black and blue.” Jessica turned to look at Sam and Jolie. “Glad you’re back. So you’re not just hanging around here for moral support? We’re all going to confront the guy together? Isn’t that pretty close to a group toidy?”
“I think I heard that line somewhere before a little while ago,” Sam said, at which time Jolie glared at him. “But you’re right, Jessica. There’s too many of us. We’re the ones who showed up late, so we’ll go. Jolie? You agree?”
“I guess so, if Jessica here promises to behave. None of us are on the man’s Christmas-card list, Jade, but he really isn’t happy with either his old golfing buddy here or me, so we’ll wait in the Mercedes again. Don’t ask me to go any farther away than that.”
“Good,” Jessica said, obviously pleased. “But Rockne stays. I still say my theory has merit if Brainard takes one look at him and says he can’t have him around because he’s allergic. Matt and I didn’t get close enough the night we slipped inside the fence. But it makes sense that that’s why Rockne was locked out of Teddy’s office that night.”
“She’s like a dog with a bone,” Matt grumbled, shaking his head. “All right, Jess, Rockne stays, for now. But once we’re inside and Brainard doesn’t react, you’re going to have to take him back to Jolie and Sam. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Jessica said reluctantly, but then almost immediately brightened. “It’s showtime.”
Jade turned to see two sets of headlights approaching up the winding hill, Joshua Brainard and his hangers-on or bodyguards or whatever the heck was the reason for the second black SUV.
They stood back and the lead car pulled in front of the gate, but then stopped with the gate still closed.
The blacked-out rear passenger-side window slid down and Joshua Brainard’s handsome, solemn face appeared. “I asked to see
you,
Ms. Sunshine. I don’t think it is in our best interests to turn this into a… into a…”
“Group toidy,” Jessica whispered, thankfully quietly.
Jade secretly agreed with the man, and quickly offered a compromise. “If you’ll allow Mr. Becket to accompany me, I’m sure everyone else will be willing to wait here. Is that agreeable?”
“I just want this unpleasantness over with, Ms. Sunshine, and for all of you to promise to go away. All right, you and one other may come in.” He stuck his head out further and looked at Jessica. “But not her.”
The window slid back up, hiding Joshua Brainard’s face once more, and the gates opened. Both SUVs slipped inside.
“I’m almost flattered,” Jessica said, grinning at Matt. “The man’s afraid of me.”
“Jess, honey, everybody’s afraid of you,” Matt said, deadpan. “It’s probably why I feel better carrying a gun.”
“One other?” Bear Man said. “That would be me, right? I go with her?”
Sam and Court exchanged smiles before Sam answered, “Actually, Bear Man, I think Jade would like Court to go with her. You can guard us out here. How’s that?”
“Fine,” Bear Man said, waving his arms as he walked away. “Fat lot of good I’m going to do out here…”
“Who do you think was in the second vehicle?” Jolie asked.
“My money’s on the old man, Cliff Brainard,” Matt said, taking Jessica’s hand. “They’re not quite joined at the hip, but you can usually find one when you see the other. If Joshua told him you were meeting here with him tonight, Jolie, he would also want to be here. Come on, Jess, back to our car. You can pretend you’re a big bad cop on stakeout.”
“Ha-ha, funny man. Jade? Here, sis, take Rockne’s leash. I’m telling you, Brainard starts to sneeze and we’re halfway home.”
“Jess, I’m not going to—”
“I’m betting Brainard still didn’t fix that slice in his chain link,” Jessica interrupted. “I bet I could still get inside, eavesdrop from the patio.”
“I knew I should have brought my handcuffs,” Matt said, looking apologetically at Jade.
“Oh, just give me the damn leash, Jessica Marie,” Jade said. “I’ll take him in with us, but then I’ll bring him back out the first chance I get. And you’d better be waiting right here at the gate to take him.”
“Okay, that works. See? It doesn’t take a lot to make me happy.”
“Which explains her ecstasy over the size of the diamond in her engagement ring,” Matt said, earning himself a jab in the ribs from his beloved.
You’d think they were at a damn party,
Jade thought. Maybe they all just felt it, smelled it in the warm night air.
Victory.
All because of Joshua’s reaction to hearing Tarin’s name at the airport, that and a missing hairbrush in a plastic bag. Combined, they were the last two nails in Joshua Brainard’s coffin.
Jolie gave Jade a hug for luck and then everyone else returned to their cars while Jade and Court headed up the drive on foot toward the well-lit front door, which was only fifty yards or so from the gates.
“I can’t believe I just got away with that,” Jade said as Rockne nosed ahead of them, sniffing at the grass. “The last thing I wanted was to have Jess in here with us.”
“I sensed that, yes, and I think Jolie did, too. Deferring to the oldest, or something like that. I think the jury’s still out on who won, though, considering we’ve got the dog. Are you really ready for this?”
She squeezed his hand. “More ready than I was an hour ago, yes, thanks to you.”
They walked up the semicircle of marble steps to a wide portico and the almost-as-wide man who was standing with his back to the slightly open door.
“Leslie,” Court said, just as if the two of them had been formally introduced. “You want to stand there making faces like a constipated grizzly, or do you want to take us to your leader?”
“Wow, what got into you?” Jade whispered as they followed the bodyguard into the large foyer.
“I think he’s the one who made the threatening phone calls, disguising his voice,” Court told her quietly. “And then there’s the way he chased us the other day. He’s not my favorite person, and I wanted him to know it.”
“No, that’s not it,” Jade said, looking at Court, seeing a part of him she hadn’t seen before, hadn’t known existed inside the button-down businessman. “You want to make him mad. You want to make him take a swing at you. Don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t mind. He scared you, and he said
knotty pine.
I don’t think he shot Teddy, but he knows too many details not to have been in on it somewhere. Mostly, I don’t like that he scared you.”
“That’s very nice of you, Court, even very macho, but just in case you haven’t noticed, the man’s built like a brick sh—”
“Shh, here we go.”
Jade turned her attention to the double doors Leslie was pushing open with a flourish and the room they entered behind him. It was time to remember that she wasn’t only Teddy’s daughter; she was a trained private investigator. It was time to push emotion aside and put her game face on.
She was pretty sure Leslie wasn’t going to pull a trumpet from out of his backside and announce them, so she just kept moving, her eyes shifting right and left, taking in her surroundings, until she saw Joshua Brainard standing in front of one of several sets of French doors that overlooked the well-lit pool, a short, fat crystal glass holding some brown liquid in his hand.
“Ms. Sunshine. Mr. Becket, is it? Yes, of course, Sam’s cousin. I saw you today at the airport.” He shifted his gaze back to Jade. “You enjoyed that this afternoon, Ms. Sunshine? Inflicting pain?”
Jade wondered for a moment if this would be easier if Joshua Brainard didn’t look like such a nice guy. Handsome, born to money, personable. He was, she thought, sort of a cross between an earnest, younger Robert Redford and Matt Damon at his most vulnerable. Hardly the face of a killer.
Yeah, well, as Jessica would say: tough beans. If the man was looking for some sort of apology, he might as well know now that an apology wasn’t going to happen.
“You won’t deny, Mr. Brainard, that you recognized the name. Tarin White.”
Joshua walked over to a grouping of chairs and motioned for Jade and Court to join him. “No, I don’t think there would be any point in that after the way I reacted to your little trick. Nice dog—what’s his name?”
“Rockne,” Jade said, tugging on the dog’s leash. Rockne had decided to sniff the stranger—the stranger who wasn’t sneezing. “You’ve got Leslie, I’ve got Rockne.”
“Right, Rockne’s the muscle. I’m only here for the floor show,” Court said sarcastically, again surprising Jade. Amazingly, she had never really thought about Court’s life outside the two of them. She had a feeling he could be a real bad ass in the boardroom.
“He doesn’t look much like a killer,” Joshua said, Rockne now sitting at his feet. “You know, now I remember seeing him before. The night your sister and the police lieutenant trespassed on my property? I never could have a pet. Allergies, you know.”
Jade watched as Joshua rubbed behind Rockne’s ears, the dog’s tail banging against the carpet in ecstasy before Rockne sank lower onto his haunches as if prepared to make a night of it at Joshua’s feet. “Maybe, then, I should get him out of here.”
“No, no, it’s all right, leave him. It wasn’t me who was allergic.” Joshua sat back and crossed one leg over the other. “So how much do you know about Tarin?” He got to his feet once more. “Oh, wait. I’m a terrible host. Let me get you two something to drink.”
Court also got to his feet. “I see a few bottles over there, Mr. Brainard. Allow me. I don’t want to infringe on your conversation. Here, let me refresh that for you. Single malt?”
Joshua looked at his glass and then handed it to Court. “Uh, yes…thank you. That would be very nice.”
It was a subtle move, and Jade folded her hands together so as not to applaud it. Smoothly, deftly, Court had reversed roles with Joshua Brainard, putting himself in the position of host. And it worked. As he sat down again, Joshua wasn’t looking quite as at home in own house as he was a moment earlier.
“Becket Hotels, right?” Joshua said, gesturing over his shoulders with his thumb as Court headed for the small bar located on the far of the large room. “I think he may have played in our member-guest tournament with Sam a few years ago. So it’s you and Court Becket, and your sister Jolie and Sam? Is that what they call keeping it in the family?”
“Does it matter?” Jade asked coolly, more than willing to fall in with Court’s idea to keep the man off balance. “Why don’t we get back to Tarin.”
“Yes, all right, back to Tarin. How did you connect me with Tarin?”
“I didn’t. My father did. You should have met with him when he wanted to see you, Mr. Brainard. Things may have turned out differently if you had.”
“I don’t see how, not if he knew about Tarin. Not unless your father was looking for a payoff, for hush money.”
“Teddy wouldn’t take hush money or try to blackmail you over something that happened so many years ago. We’re not talking about an extramarital affair here, we’re talking about murder. So why don’t you try again?”
“You’re an angry woman, Ms. Sunshine, but you’re directing that anger, and your suspicions, at the wrong person. Tarin and I were such a long time ago, as you said. A lifetime ago. I don’t want to play twenty questions with you, Ms. Sunshine, so why don’t I just tell you what I think you want to know. Besides, the Fishtown Strangler case has been solved. We both know that.”
All right, time to drop the first bomb. “Tomorrow morning’s newspapers will report that Herman Longstreet confessed to five murders, not six. He swears he did not kill Tarin, and the cops believe him. So why don’t you do as you suggested and just tell us what you know.”
“He…” Joshua pressed a thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose, shook his head. “No, that’s not possible. Of course he killed Tarin. He killed all of them. I don’t…”
Court returned with two tall glasses filled with ice and ginger ale and sat down beside her once more. He hadn’t brought Joshua’s glass back, deliberately taking away the man’s crutch, or his weapon, as it had been a very heavy, lead-crystal glass.
“Jade might not have told you, Mr. Brainard, but I’m her ex-husband, a condition soon to be remedied. Which is why I insisted upon accompanying her here tonight. In other words, Jade lost her father and she deserves answers, and I’m here to see that she gets them.”
Joshua seemed to recover, sitting up straighter once more. “I understand. And I asked Ms. Sunshine to come here because she and her sisters have been, to put it bluntly, harassing me to the point where my father has become ill. I want it stopped. I’ve nothing to hide, unless you’re out to destroy me out of pure vindictiveness. In this age of
gotcha
politics, I suppose going public about Tarin could cost me the election. But that would be Philadelphia’s loss, not mine.”
“You’re a real savior, I’m sure. It might help move matters along if you stopped thinking about the election, Mr. Brainard,” Court told him. “The subject here is murder, not your political ambitions.”
“Could you just start at the beginning, Mr. Brainard?” Jade couldn’t believe how cool the man was, how composed. Did he really think he was going to get away with murder after all they’d learned?
“All right, I’ll choose to take your word that there’s no hidden political motive here. For the moment. Let’s talk about Tarin. I met Tarin my last semester of grad school. I was researching a paper and she was working part-time in the library to earn money to continue taking college courses. I was already engaged to Melodie, before you ask, and I’m sure you would have. I kept seeing Tarin off and on, and… and my father found out.”