Page 35 of One Last Goodbye

I can! This could be the evidence I need!

I search for the footage during the evening Frederick is killed. It’s quite a lot, and I’m not sure where to begin. I start by looking for footage from the boathouse, but alas, I’m not that lucky. They don’t have security cameras there. Perhaps they believe that the yacht’s security footage will be enough. The yacht is impounded by the police, so I don’t have access to that footage, but if those cameras were active, the police already haveit, so they should learn soon enough if there’s any incriminating evidence to be found.

Without being able to see the yacht, I check the external cameras. Again, I come up empty. The cameras cover the front of the house and the side entrance where Franz brings me the day I arrive, but there are no cameras at the rear of the house covering the path that leads to the boathouse.

I begin to feel anxious. Could this footage simply have been removed? Could they have truly been so incompetent as to leave such major gaps in their security system? Or is this just more evidence that Frederick Jensen’s murderer is someone familiar with the security layout of the home?

I flip through the interior cameras and try to follow Catherine’s movements throughout the evening. It’s painstaking work. She moves quite a bit during the earlier part of the evening when I am watching a movie with the children. She begins the evening in the living room, then heads to the pool. I watch her slowly strip down to her bathing suit, taking care to put on a show for Hugo and several other guests who watch without making any attempt to hide their lust.

Well, I knew her character already, so that’s not surprising. She swims for a half hour or so, then leaves the water and heads to her bedroom. Hugo tries to follow her, but when he leans in for a kiss, she rebuffs him. Then she enters the house alone.

And turns left. Toward the back door, not right toward the stairway that will lead her to her bedroom.

I check the timestamp. This is about thirty minutes before she asks me to look for Frederick. My heartbeat quickens. I fast-forward the footage and wait for her to reappear. She does twenty minutes later, dressed in the gown I see her wearing when I meet her in the dining room.

Hugo meets her near the foyer, and she wraps her arms around him and kisses him deeply. Then they walk to the diningroom together, and shortly after, I come to the kitchen and am waylaid by her to go search for her dead husband.

How interesting. Hugo tries to kiss her when they are alone, and she rebuffs him. Then she leaves through the back door. Twenty minutes later, she returns and kisses him like a lover.

Did she kill her husband during those twenty minutes? Did she want to make sure he was dead before she risked acting on her feelings for Hugo?

I take a video of the footage with my cell phone and email it to Sean. Just as I finish, I hear footsteps approach and quickly close the computer. I rush to the closet to hide, but the footsteps pass by without entering.

Still, I’ve spent enough time here. It’s been three hours since the children left with their mother. They could be home at any second, and if I’m caught here, there’s nothing I can say to excuse my presence.

And anyway, I’ve gotten what I needed. If Catherine was responsible for her husband’s death, the truth will soon come out.

I head downstairs and join Sophie for dinner. She lifts her eyebrow when she sees me and comments, “You seem in a chipper mood.”

“I had a good afternoon with the children,” I tell her. “I think we’ve begun to heal.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“That’s pretty disturbing,” Sean says.

He doesn’t seem so enthusiastic about the discovery, though.

We’re talking on my balcony. It’s eight o’clock now, and Catherine and the children still haven’t come home. For a brief moment, I’m worried, but Catherine calls Sophie around seven to say that there’s no need to wait up for them, and when she does, I hear Sophie talk briefly to the children, so I know that she hasn’t absconded with them or, God forbid, harmed them.

I suppose I must allow for the possibility that she truly cares for them. Still, there’s no mistaking what I saw on that security footage.

Except that Sean then voices his reason for his lack of enthusiasm. “I’m not saying that Catherine is for sure not the murderer,but, I’ve looked some more into her relationship with Hugo. It turns out that they have some history.”

“Doesn’t that support my suspicion?”

“Not necessarily. They were romantically involved for three months before Catherine met Frederick, but they kept the relationship private. I’ve uncovered correspondence between them that suggests that she broke off the relationship because she had fallen in love with Frederick and didn’t feel the same for Hugo.”

“Well, that’s nice, but it’s twenty years later, and she’s disappeared in the direction of her husband’s dead body and rekindled that romance within minutes of his death.”

"I'm not denying that. But I've uncovered plenty of correspondence over the years where Hugo begs for her to take him back, and she consistently refuses. Even during the past few years, when she admits to no longer loving Frederick, she is firm in her belief that it would be wrong to cheat on him."

“But she doesn’t believe it’s wrong to hop into bed with Hugo the very night her husband is discovered dead? If you’re trying to convince me that she’s innocent, Sean, you’ve done a very poor job of it.”

“I’m not trying to convince you that she’s innocent. But I’m saying that she could have merely decided to finally give in after years of wishing she could.”

“And perhaps she’s enabled that by murdering Frederick.”

“Perhaps, but… call it a hunch. I think we might be chasing a red herring.”

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