Permanent Sunset (5 page)

Neil arrived at Villa Nirvana just in time to see an older blonde woman being escorted out by Sergeant Lucy Detree.

“Hey, Lucy, what you got going here?” Neil asked the young policewoman he’d met through Detective Janquar.

“Sorry, Neil. This is an official police investigation. Can’t talk about it.” Lucy slammed the door to Anneka’s rental car shut.

“I’m here officially. I got a call from a client I represented in LA that his fiancée died here. I’m here to help him out until I can find local counsel for him,” Neil lied. Why did he think he’d be reading more about Commercial Paper the way things were going?

“Oh, you mean Sean Keating? In that case, come on up to the house. We’ve got everyone sitting around the pool. Don’t go anywhere else. We haven’t started in the house.”

Neil’s legal antennae popped at the sound of Lucy’s warning. This sounded more like a criminal investigation to a seasoned criminal lawyer.

“Are people free to leave?” Neil asked. He knew the rules on paper regarding criminal procedure in the islands were not the same as those practiced. He hoped they were as loose as usual.

“We’re letting the people who didn’t arrive until this morning for the brunch go shortly. They all have their names on a list at the gatehouse showing their arrival times so they can be ruled out. Except your girlfriend and her partner. They get to stay and give statements with the other people who were here last night when it appears the death occurred.”

Neil caught a ride up to the house with Detree. He paused at the foot of the driveway, taking in the sheer ostentatiousness of the villa.

He could see Amy and Erin were packing up the Triple B food truck. The open great room, which served as the center of the house, was empty other than for a few cops with purple gloves standing around, a sign the cops were collecting evidence. At the far end of the great room was the predictable infinity pool, although this one even had a fancy fountain. He spotted Sabrina and Sean at one of the tables around the pool.

Neil strode confidently toward them, not acknowledging the cops in the great room. Oh, he still knew how to play this game. The question was, did he want to?

Sean saw him first, getting up from his chair where he’d been sitting next to Henry. Sean rushed toward him, hand stretched out, ready to greet him.

“Neil, thanks for coming. Things are a mess here.”

Neil shook Sean’s hand, remembering how he’d saved his butt from a drunk and disorderly charge that had involved the daughter of a film director and had promised to get ugly. He’d helped Sean out a few other times for a few misdemeanors that weren’t uncommon with young men in their twenties who drink too much and think getting laid is a national sport. But he’d liked Sean and remembered how he’d come up with quick cash when Neil wanted out of LA fast.

Neil walked back with Sean to the table, saying hello to Sabrina and Henry after being introduced to Jack and Kate Keating and Heather Malzone.

“What did you find out? They’re not telling us anything,” Sabrina jumped in.

“How about first someone clues me in?” Neil asked, not entirely sure he actually wanted to know.

“They’re not saying whether Elena committed suicide, Neil. We were supposed to be married here this evening. She wouldn’t sign the prenup my family wanted to protect the business. She felt we were attacking her character. I was so stupid. I went to tell her I didn’t care about the prenup this morning, but she was gone,” Sean said. “She was the one, Neil. You know what I mean? The real thing.”

Neil looked at Sabrina without even thinking. But she looked away from him and stared at her phone.

“I thought she was distraught over the prenup and that she’d committed suicide, but the police have been treating
us like something criminal has happened ever since Sabrina brought Elena in on the paddleboard,” Kate said.

“You went out and got the body, Salty? Really?” Whatever was she thinking? Why didn’t she just wear a T-shirt that said, “Dead bodies find me”? Neil figured the bar exam was definitely a good idea if Salty was in his future.

“Kate spotted her while she was painting. We couldn’t tell what we were seeing floating in the water. If I didn’t check and Elena was alive and then drowned, everyone would have blamed me. You know that, Neil.”

“Calm down, Salty,” Neil reached to pat her hand, but Sabrina drew it away. This was way more than he’d bargained for when he dropped everything to come help.

“Calm down? Don’t you dare tell me to calm down, Neil Perry. How condescending. I leap into action, ready to help in the best way I can, struggle to bring Elena in from the water, where the lace on her wedding gown had gotten stuck on a rock—”

“She was in her wedding gown?” Neil asked. He knew he had ignited Sabrina’s temper and needed to apologize fast, but he couldn’t get past the poor woman drowning in her wedding gown.

“Yes. It was an awful way to find her. Sabrina did a great job. I’m very grateful,” said Kate, looking over at Sabrina, whose cheeks were still flushed from her outburst.

“Look, Salty, I’m sorry. I just can’t wrap my head around all of this.”

“She had it on late last night before we left Villa Nirvana. I went to see her before Sabrina and I left after clearing up after the rehearsal dinner. She had refused to sign the prenup and told me she may as well get to wear it because it didn’t look like there was going to be a wedding,” Henry chimed in.

“This really does sound more like suicide. Did anyone look for a note?” Neil asked.

Jack, Kate, and Sean all looked at one another like they’d been poked with a cattle prod.

“Neil, we haven’t been allowed to do anything other than sit at this table. The cops barely let me get into dry clothes. They’re treating the Keatings like they’re criminals rather than a family who has just suffered a tragedy,” Sabrina said.

Neil had been so focused on talking to Sabrina and the Keating family that he hadn’t noticed everyone had left the other tables, including the waitstaff from Ten Villas, with the exception of two men sitting several tables away.

“Who are those two guys?” Neil asked.

“My other son, Gavin, and the company CFO, Paul Blanchard,” Jack said.

“Have the cops come over and told you not to discuss the case with anyone?” Neil asked.

Everyone shook their heads.

“Good. Let’s chat a little before they’re on to us.”

Sabrina’s heart warmed at the huskiness in Neil’s voice inviting all of them to have a chat. She was grateful for his presence and willingness to become involved, regardless of what happened to their personal relationship. He could be maddening, but there was something comforting about Neil. He had a sense of confidence that suggested he would get to the bottom of whatever it was. No big deal. We’ll get it fixed. Sabrina was more worried about her business’s reputation than being the person who found the body, but she still didn’t like being this close to another investigation. She hoped there would be a resolution long before anyone in the press connected Elena’s death to her name.

She knew it would always be like this. She carried her own story like a string of tin cans tied to a car bumper after a wedding. She hadn’t meant to kill Ben when she’d fled to their Nantucket vacation home after learning he was cheating on her. How was she to know he’d pick the same
night—in the middle of the freakin’ winter, no less—to bring his bimbo to their summer home? She’d thought there was a burglar in the house when she heard those noises and used Ben’s own gun to fend off an intruder.

Except it wasn’t an intruder. It had been her husband, and Sabrina had been tried for first-degree murder. Though acquitted, she lost everything she had scrambled so hard to earn. Her job as a Boston television meteorologist, her home on Beacon Hill, and most importantly, her privacy. Tabloid television featured her case every night for nearly two years.

Crime fighter and INN (In News Network) television host Faith Chase had tried to reignite the case against Sabrina a few months before when a villa guest had been murdered and Sabrina had discovered the body. She’d enlisted Neil’s help with that case and hoped that if they were as successful working together on this one, she and Ten Villas would escape unscathed from this event. Sabrina knew she was stuffing her personal feelings for Neil down deep inside her, a survivor’s skill she had learned as a child when she constantly had to explain the absence of her mother and had to live with the unpredictability that life with an alcoholic father brought. When you are always living on the edge, emotions become a luxury you can’t indulge.

“Listen, folks, I’m happy to help you out here as much as I can, but you know I don’t practice law anymore. I can maybe help you sort through some of this and then
make a couple of calls to local counsel if you think you want or need representation. Do you mind if I ask a few questions?”

When no one objected, Neil jumped right in.

“When is the last time each of you saw Elena alive? Sean, you go first.”

“Last night when I went to her room to ask her one more time if she wouldn’t just sign the prenup to keep my family happy. I told her I would never enforce it. She threw me out of the room,” Sean said, shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe he had pushed the issue so far. “That’s when I drove over to Bar None to see if you were there, Neil. It had to be after eleven thirty.”

“How about the rest of you?” Neil opened it up to the group.

“When she stormed out of the great room and went up into her room, I followed and tried reasoning with her once more. But she wouldn’t open her door, so I talked through it and just asked her to think about the big picture. I mean, it isn’t as if anyone thought the marriage would fail. It was just a precaution. I told her I had signed one,” Kate said.

“Same here, but when I knocked on her door and she told me to go away, I did. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Elena, but she wasn’t warm and fuzzy like Lisa. She was a businesswoman, and I was done arguing with her. I came back down and Kate and I hit the sack,” Jack said.

Sabrina was surprised to find she felt sorrier for the Keatings than for Elena. It sounded like they were blindsided by Elena’s last-minute hysteria over signing the prenup. She made a note to ask Neil more about prenups once they had an opportunity to talk alone.

“I didn’t see her after she left the great room. I wasn’t about to try and persuade her to sign something she was so obviously opposed to. Isn’t that like duress?” Heather asked Neil.

“Well, it can be. Prenups are contracts, but they have some added requirements and protections because they’re between people who have a personal relationship with one another. It’s not an arm’s length transaction, like it is when you have a business contract. How about you, Henry? When did you last see Elena?”

Sabrina knew Henry wasn’t happy with this question, as it was a source of discord between the two of them. They would eventually need to sort through the issues the eleventh villa had brought to their business relationship and friendship, but first things first.

“A little after eleven. Just before we left the villa. I felt bad for her. I mean, here she is on the night before her wedding and everyone keeps pushing a bunch of papers under her nose to sign. I went to her room. She had her dress on, with the train wrapped around her shoulders like a shawl. Her shoes were like the glass slippers out of Cinderella. She was obviously sad.”

Sean let out a groan and put his head on his folded arms on the table.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sabrina saw Detective Hodge approaching. The tall, slender man strutted with confidence toward the table.

“Mr. Perry, Sergeant Detree tells me you’re here to see a client. Might I ask when you got a license to practice law in the Virgin Islands, sir?”

Neil stood and rose, meeting Hodge eye to eye.

“Detective Hodge, good to see you again. You’re certainly a busy man these days,” Neil said, extending his hand. Hodge looked at it, then shook it quickly.

“About my question, sir.”

“I represented Mr. Keating, Sean Keating that is, when I practiced in LA. I’m only here until we can find him local counsel,” Neil said. Sabrina could feel Neil’s discomfort. She felt uneasy, too. Why was this cop worried about an attorney being present at the request of a man whose bride had just drowned? Who cares where Neil was licensed? They weren’t in court.

“Mr. Perry, you don’t need me to lecture you about the danger of practicing law without a license, do you? It’s one thing for you to be a Good Samaritan and bring the widow of a car accident victim to the clinic last night, but you will not be tolerated stepping over the line into areas reserved for professional law enforcement.”

“Detective Janquar didn’t have any problems when Neil helped with the Carter Johnson case,” Sabrina couldn’t
resist pointing out the obvious discrepancy. Car accident. Victim. Widow. Wait a minute, Sabrina realized, an awful lot had happened on St. John in the last twenty-four hours.

“Wait. Who died in a car accident?” she asked, afraid of the answer. In the short time she’d lived on the island, Sabrina had come to know and care about many of its residents.

“Larry Thomas. He took the curve at Bordeaux too hard,” Neil said.

Sabrina had just about had it. Screw this villa. The hell with its suicidal bride. Poor Larry Thomas, who flew sea planes just about every day of his life, died because he didn’t navigate a curve right? And what was wrong with her, immediately indicting Neil as a cheater when he was only acting as a friend to a woman whose husband had just died?

“Look, if you want to question me, do it now. Otherwise, I’m leaving. I’m happy to talk to you or Sergeant Detree, but I have a caterer and music to cancel, and accommodations to find for these people, Detective,” Sabrina said, standing up to face Hodge.

“Actually, Ms. Salter, you all need to leave. The EMTs have suggested that there are signs Ms. Rodriguez’s death may not have been accidental or a suicide. Of course, we won’t know for certain until the medical examiner does an autopsy over on St. Thomas. We have the dive and scene-of-the-crime teams on their way. None of you
are permitted to leave the island, except you, Mr. Perry, because you have nothing to do with this case. Please leave your telephone numbers with Sergeant Detree and let the station know where you’ll be staying once arrangements are made. Several of the safari taxi drivers who apparently were meant to take people on tours are waiting to take you where you need to go. No one is permitted to take anything,” Vernon Hodge said in a voice devoid of any emotion except, Sabrina detected, a note of condescension.

“Are you saying Elena may have been murdered?” Sean lurched out of his chair, tipping it over.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying, and why we’ll be wanting to talk to you, your family, and the villa rental staff a whole lot more.” Hodge crossed his muscular arms over his chest, clearly a signal for Sean to come no closer. Sabrina was relieved to see Neil place a hand on Sean’s shoulder, knowing any confrontation with the police would only complicate matters. She remembered seeing marks on Elena’s throat when Kate was checking for a pulse and was afraid she knew where this was heading.

“Let’s head to the taxis, folks, so we can find you new accommodations.” Sabrina gestured for the Keating entourage to follow her, but none of them moved.

“That’s ridiculous. Who would want to kill Elena?” Kate sat shaking her head, leaning into Jack, who was seated next to her.

“That’s what we’re going to find out, ma’am.” Hodge’s thin lips curled at the corners of his mouth into the hint of a smile.

“Please walk out to the taxis now. Oh, and Ms. Salter. Don’t worry about canceling the caterer. My people will be working here all night and will naturally need some fortification.”