Page 9 of Death in the Family
Nine people were staying in the house, and most of them were relatives. I wasn’t optimistic that fingerprints would reveal much. Close families have few boundaries. Formalities tend to fall away. If this family was anything like mine, their prints would beeverywhere, and that would make the interviews I was about to conduct even more crucial.
The thought made me shudder. I knew even then, so early in the case, that the key to this solve wasn’t in my pocket or behind Jasper’s locked bedroom door. It was downstairs in the living room.
Waiting.
FOUR
I wasn’t ready to face them, not yet. There was a part of me that still hoped I’d find Jasper alive and break some local records for the fastest solve in history, so I skirted the living room and went straight for the basement, the door to which I found in the kitchen.
Picture a cellar from a horror film, dusty and dank with crumbling stone walls and a criminal air. Old pipes clang and a strange odor hangs heavy, nauseating in its rottenness, meat-sweet. That’s how I imagined the basement in the house on Tern Island. In truth it was pretty ordinary, but walking down those stairs gave me a head rush akin to eating too little and standing too quick. It took me hundreds of miles from the island, to a place I never wanted to be again.
I wasted no time getting out of there to do a cursory search of the grounds outside, rain be damned. There was no way I couldcover the whole island on my own, but I poked through leaf piles and peered over steep cliffs with gusto. If there were indeed caves chiseled into the rock, they didn’t reveal themselves to me. Back inside I checked the sunroom, library, and Norton’s room. It was the sole bedroom on the main floor, accessible through a butler’s pantry. Predictably, it lacked the old-world glamour of the rest of the house. A single bed, a small chest of drawers, and a nightstand constituted Philip Norton’s belongings. There was a framed photo beside his bed that showed him as a much younger man, with a full head of red hair and his arm around a boy about ten years old. I picked up the frame and scrutinized the kid’s face. The boy might have been Jasper, but I couldn’t be sure.
Only the room where Tim had situated the Sinclairs and their guests remained. I stepped through the doorway and finally got my first look at our witnesses.
They made me think of Bram. Presented with the family and their pristine house at the summit of Tern Island, he would have seen perfection. To Bram, perfection was synonymous with danger. In the context of a murder case it alarmed me, too. Nothing about this place was flawed, and that uncanny fact had preoccupied me throughout my search. Every room I’d entered was magazine-ready, and the living room was no different. On the mantel sat a mindfully arranged autumn vignette of hefty pewter candlesticks, gourds, and pheasant feathers. Fresh-cut mums burst from vases on mirrored tabletops. Heavy valances in neutral tones were shaped like the bustle of a nineteenth-century skirt. Classy. That’s how I’d describe the place. And the family fit right in.
Like Camilla’s, their clothes were casual but perfectly tailored—dress shirts overlaid with cashmere sweaters, pants with centerline creases sharp as the blade of a knife. A woman with short dark hairand fat diamond earrings reclined artfully on a settee as if gracing the cover ofVanity Fair. A handsome man with coffee-colored skin leaned against the window beyond which trees strained against the storm. It was open a crack to let in a wet breeze, and sheer curtain panels billowed around him like smoke. The youngest of them all, a teenage girl with rosebud lips and shiny chestnut hair, looked like she could have been a celebrity’s little sister about to make it big herself. An equally striking man who was surely her father sat by her side. Against the high-polish backdrop of the house’s antique furniture and the fire that crackled happily in the hearth they were exclusivity personified. There was one exception, one person who didn’t belong in this picture of privilege and wealth, and I’d have bet anything her name was Abella Beaudry.
Abella’s eyes were ringed in red. Here was the source of the sobs I’d heard earlier. The woman looked dazed, as if she’d taken—or was given—something for the shock. Out of everyone, she alone wasn’t dressed. Her hair was a mess, her pink pajamas wrinkled. Even from across the room I could see the fabric on her hip was stained with blood. Jasper’s girlfriend had our missing man’s DNA all over her, and she hadn’t done a thing about it.
Camilla had taken my advice and gotten herself some tea. She was still ashen, but compared to Abella she looked absolutely hearty. Overall, the rest of the family came off surprisingly well. There was a serving tray on the table that held a plate of sliced cake, a coffee urn, and a pitcher of cream. Several of the mugs were in use. Were it not for their voices, kept respectfully low, and the poor, pathetic girl in their midst, it might have been just another rainy autumn day at the river for these American aristocrats.
As I studied the room, a niggling itch formed at the back of my throat. I took a head count. Nine on the island, Tim had said,including Jasper. Norton stood at attention by the living room door. That left seven. There were five people seated, plus the man by the window. Someone was missing.
“Wellington,” I said. “A word?”
Tim followed me into the foyer as the others looked on, and brought his head close to mine. “How’s it look up there?” he asked. The movement was minuscule, nothing our witnesses would notice from a distance, but I felt him rock on his feet. Whether he was keen to hear what I’d found out or nervous, I didn’t know.
“Messy,” I said. “There’s enough blood to fill a kiddie pool. If Jasper’s still alive, he won’t be for long.”
“Really?” Tim looked shocked. He dropped his gaze to the burnished floorboards. “Wow,” he said eventually. “Gotta say, I wasn’t expecting that. You thinking drugs?”
How did Abella sleep through the stabbing?How did Jasper’s attacker get him out of a second-floor bedroom without a fight?“Could be,” I said. “Nothing visible in the drawers or luggage, but we’ll see what forensics says.”
“So the guy took a knife to the gut and disappeared.”
“Looks that way. There’s no easy escape route to the ground. The house is all clear and in order, except there’s a room upstairs that’s locked.”
“That would be Jasper’s older brother, Flynn Sinclair. I tried to round him up while you were with Camilla, but he’s refusing to leave his room. I nearly had the same problem with the kid.” He cut a glance at the gorgeous teen on the couch. “She belongs to Miles Byrd—middle-aged guy with the hipster glasses,” he said. “Her dad seemed impressed I was able to coax her down here at all. I’m sure she’s dying to get back to her busy schedule of Snapchatting and brooding.”
“You told them not to use their phones, right?”
Tim nodded. “First thing.”
“Good. We don’t need folks getting the media all keyed up before we have a handle on the case.” McIntyre liked to talk about the era before cell phones, when it took hours for news of a crime to circulate in town and days to reach the rest of the county. Now witnesses could take a murder public in seconds. McIntyre’s good old days were my Shangri-la.
Tim chewed his lip. “No ETA on the Watertown team, and these people are getting antsy, Shane. I’m not sure how long I can keep them in the parlor.”
“The parlor?” I repeated, amused. “How posh.” Nodding at the ceiling, I said, “Guess that settles it. The first interview goes to Flynn.” Frankly, I was a little disappointed. My chat with Jasper’s girlfriend would have to wait. At the same time, I was eager to get to know Jasper’s family, these people who’d allowed one of their own to disappear. Behind us, a man cleared his throat. “Tell them to get comfortable,” I said, taking a step toward the room. “It’s going to be a long day.”
“There’s something else,” Tim said. “Philip Norton.”
His tone stopped my forward momentum short. “What about him?”
“I’m not sure. There’s something familiar. I thought so the minute I saw him, but I can’t put my finger on it.” He shrugged. “Could be he has one of those faces.”
“Well, if anything hits you, let me know. You get the name of that trapper?” It was a long shot, but if he’d been on the island in the hours before Jasper disappeared, we’d need to give the man a call.
