Page 58 of The Lost Heiress
“Well, I don’t recall any of that,” Bass said, shaking his head.
“All right,” Church said. “Do you happen to recall, in this ...conversationthat you and Saoirse were having, what it was about?”
Bass was silent for a moment. “Laurence Olivier came from nothing, you know,” he said. “His father was a clergyman. But Olivier, they made him a lord.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Laurence Olivier,” Bass said, louder, as if Church were stupid. “He was born Laurence Olivier, but he diedSirLaurence Olivier. Isn’t that something?”
“I suppose,” Church said. He wondered at Bass’s lucidity. Maybe, in his old age, he had grown senile. “Now,” Church went on, trying to keep Bass focused on the conversation at hand, “perhaps this will jog your memory. That night, the conversation with Saoirse Towers, was it about Saoirse’s plans to divest her shares in Bass Corp.?”
Bass blinked at him and then laughed a deep, rumbling laugh that turned into a violent hacking cough. His shoulders shook violently, and Church wondered for a moment if he should get the nurse, but Bass held out a hand to stay him.
“Rumors!” Bass said, when he finally caught his breath. He swatted at the air like the word was a pesky fly. “People like to talk, don’t they? But that’s all it is—a bunch of hot air. Saoirse always had the acumen to separate business from her personal beliefs. Period. She was never going anywhere.”
Church couldn’t help but feel there was something threatening in that proclamation:She was never going anywhere.And in the end, she hadn’t, had she? She’d stayed right there at Cliffhaven, and her money had stayed invested in Bass Corp.
“What about the necklace?” Church asked.
Bass cleared his throat. “What necklace?”
“The one she always wore,” Church said. “It was given to her by her mother when she was just a girl. It had a locket with an inscription on it and a very distinctive chain—twenty-four karat gold, with little gold stars woven into it.”
“I’m afraid I don’t recall that,” Bass said.
“Here,” Church said, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out a plastic baggie that he had signed out of the evidence room that morning. He leaned forward and placed the bag with the necklace in Bass’s lap, and Bass flinched, either from surprise at the gesture or from seeing the necklace again after all these years—Church wasn’t sure which.
“Care to explain how this necklace found its way into your room the day after the party?” Church asked.
In the case file, Church had read how Bass had seemed agitated and flustered when the police had first questioned him, and he couldn’t account for Saoirse’s necklace being there among his things. Later, when they brought him into the station for further questioning, Bass claimed he’d found the gold chain on the floor of the ballroom the night of the party. He’d recognized it as Saoirse’s, picked it up, and put it in his pocket to give back to her the next time he saw her, but then he’d forgotten that he’d had it. Church was curious if Bass would give a different answer now.
“I don’t know,” Bass said. “A faulty clasp? Perhaps you should consult a jeweler instead of harassing me, Detective, with your inane questions.”
“A faulty clasp?” Church said. “You’re going to have to do better than that, Mr. Bass.”
Bass balked at the bald statement. “How dare you speak to me in such a manner,” Bass said.
But Church kept going. He thought that if he applied pressure, he might get somewhere with Bass. He had read, in the case files, about Bass’s volatile temper. “Saoirse was hell bent on divesting her shares in Bass Corp.,” Church said. “You went to her that night, tried to talk her out of it. A last-ditch effort. But Saoirse was stubborn; she wouldn’t listen. You grabbed her, and she screamed at you to let her go. There were witnesses, then, in the ballroom. But later, when you sought her out, there weren’t witnesses then, were there? You made sure of that.”
A vein pulsed on Bass’s neck. “Well, I’ve never been so egregiously treated in my entire life,” he said.
“It was the only thing you could do to save your company, to save yourself, wasn’t it?” Church went on. “You had to take Saoirse out of the equation forever.”
Bass looked around Detective Church toward the doorway. “Wanda?” Bass called, and when she didn’t immediately appear, he clicked the call button in his lap repeatedly. “Wanda, I need you!”
Wanda appeared in the doorway a few moments later, partly out of breath. “Yes, sugar?” she huffed.
“I want to watch my program,” Bass said, gesturing toward the TV.
“Are you two done talking already?” Wanda asked as she shuffled into the room.
“Yes,” Bass answered firmly. “The detective was just leaving.”
“All right,” Wanda said as she retrieved the remote from the tray on his side table and pointed it toward the television. “Let me get you all set up here ...”
She bit her lip in concentration as she fiddled with the buttons, and when Laurence Olivier’s face unfroze and his voice filtered into the room, she said brightly, “There you go, sugar,” and set the remote back down.
“And show the detective out,” Bass said, not even looking in Church’s direction. “He seems confused, and I wouldn’t want him to get any more lost than he already is.”
