Page 10 of The Lost Heiress
“And did you believe your sister to be dead?” Church asked.
The senator shifted in his chair. “To be honest,” he said, “I didn’t know what to believe. At first, I thought she might have run away. It wouldn’t have been the first time, and Detective Vance said there was no evidence of foul play. I suppose I kind of hoped, for a long time, that that was the case—that she was out there, living her life somewhere. But as time dragged on and there was no sign of her—well, that seemed less and less likely.”
“You said she’d run away before?” Church asked. “When was that?”
“When I first had her pulled out of school,” Senator Towers said. “Instead of getting on a plane to come home, she took a train from Choate to the city. I found her a week later, camped out at the Plaza Hotel.”
“Is there anyone you can think of who would want to hurt your sister, Senator Towers?” Church asked.
The senator leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin. “Anybody who’d want to hurt her? No. But someone who might hurt her if the alcohol was flowing and he saw something he didn’t like? Maybe.”
“Who’s that?” Church asked.
“Teddy Mountbatten,” the senator said.
“Saoirse’s ex-boyfriend?” Church said, and the senator nodded. “And what makes you say that?”
“Teddy was a jealous man,” Senator Towers said. “And when he got jealous, he could be ... violent. I saw it with my own eyes.”
“The night of Saoirse’s party?” Church asked.
“No, not then,” the senator said. “But a tiger doesn’t change his stripes.”
“So he’d been violent in the past?” Church asked.
The senator nodded. “Teddy and Saoirse were on and off for years,” he said. “They were both dramatic by nature. When they were together, they were either very affectionate or at each other’s throats. The smallest comment or gesture could be incendiary. I was at a New Year’s Eve party with them two years prior,” the senator went on. “They were together then. I saw them from across the room, fighting. Saoirse shoved him. Teddy grabbed her by her upper arms, roughly, and shook her. He screamed in her face. I got up and walked toward them. Teddy saw me over Saoirse’s shoulder, and he let her go. But the look in his eye—there was so much anger. Like he could have killed her. I don’t know how far he would have taken things if he hadn’t looked up and seen me standing there.”
“Do you know what the nature of their fight was that night?” Church asked.
“Yes,” the senator said. “Teddy had seen Saoirse flirting with another boy, and he’d confronted her.”
“I see,” Church said. He shifted in his chair. “And you believe, the night of Saoirse’s birthday, a similar scenario played out—only this time, you weren’t there to intervene?”
Senator Towers nodded. “It’s the only thing that makes any sense to me,” he said. “My sister wasn’t always the easiest person to get along with, Detective, but I don’t know anyone who actively wished her harm.”
Church knew that the police had interviewed Teddy three times. Once, the morning after the party, along with all the other guests. Teddy had claimed the last time he had seen Saoirse was when he’d pulled her out of an argument with another guest, and then they’d gone their separate ways. He’d noticed she was in distress, and he’d rescued her; she hadn’t told him what her disagreement with the other guest had been about, and he didn’t pry. She’d seemed distracted and wandered off, and that was the last he’d seen of her.
Later, when several guests corroborated that they’d seen Saoirse and Teddy in the ballroom together after the argument, sharing more than one drink, the police interviewed Teddy again. This time, they’d gone out to New York to meet with him. Maybe he’d had a drink with Saoirse in the ballroom after the argument, he said this time. He’d drunk heavily that evening, and his memory was fuzzy. When asked if he’d escorted her down to the beach for the fireworks, he’d adamantly denied it. He’d been having an amorous encounter, as he called it, with one of the servers in a supply closet. When asked the name of the girl so that the police could corroborate it, he grew quiet.
The third time the police interviewed Teddy, he brought a lawyer. And not just any lawyer. He had retained Alan Dershowitz, who had represented Patty Hearst when she went on trial for helping her captors rob a bank. Word on the street was that Dershowitz had also recently been retained by Claus von Bülow, the British socialite who was accused of killing his wife. Teddy hadn’t said a word that time, hadn’t answered a single question. With no physical evidence or anything to charge him with, the police had let him go, and the trail had grown cold.
There was a knock at the door, and both the senator and Detective Church looked up to see Robin standing there.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, Senator,” she said, “but they’re ready for you downstairs.”
“Yes, thank you, Robin. I’ll be right down,” the senator said. He stood and straightened the lapels of his jacket. “Detective, I hate to cut our time short,” the senator said, though he didn’t look like he hated it at all. In fact, he looked relieved. “I trust you’ve gotten everything you need?”
“Yes, this has been very helpful, thank you,” Church said. “If it’s not too much trouble, I’d like to get a tour of the house. You know—get a sense of the rooms where everything transpired and the layout of things.”
“Yes,” the senator said. “Mrs. Talbot, our housekeeper, can show you. I daresay she knows the house even better than I do.” Senator Towers retrieved his phone from his pocket and typed out a text. “I’ll have her meet you in the foyer,” he said.
“I appreciate it,” Church said, standing. “Thank you again for your time.”
The senator nodded. He extended his hand to Church, and Church shook it, noting once again the strength in his grip.
Maybe it wasn’t about the money, Church thought, or the differing political ideologies or the family reputation. Maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe it was about control. The senator was a man who liked to be in control of all aspects of his life, and Saoirse was wild and unpredictable and had bucked all his attempts to rein her in. She had been turning eighteen the night of her party, a powerful age. An age that legally declared her independence and adulthood, an age when her brother lost the authority to dictate every aspect of her life.
One thing was certain: If it was Senator Towers who had murdered Saoirse, it had not been some flight of fancy or a moment of rage. It would have been premeditated, perfectly planned, immaculately executed.
