Down at the road, Billy requested that officers be dispatched to Caroline’s home to secure it as a possible secondary crime scene. Anyone with access could go in and destroy evidence, including the killer. He advised CSU to requisition a tent and asked the watch commander to take over the scene until Chief Middlebrook arrived, so they could locate the family and make the death notification.
They took his car. He drove on the shoulder to bypass the traffic, the black Charger’s LED lights flashing in the front grill and back deck. Frankie found the Lees’ address, their home located in the Shady Grove area nearby. He hoped to make the notification before the Lees left for morning appointments at their law office.
At the light in front of the hospital, he turned left and drove quiet streets that wound through some of the most expensive properties in the city. Enclaves surrounded by stone walls served as sanctuaries for the Delta plantation society who, bonded by birth and wealth, took their privileges for granted. The Lees lived inside the walls of Shaking Tree, the most exclusive neighborhood in the area.
Saunders Lee and his wife Rosalyn managed the family’s venerable Memphis law firm, and maintained Airlee Plantation, Saunders Lee’s ancestral home in Mississippi. The plantation’s big house needed constant tending as did the grounds, formal gardens, and the greenhouses maintained year-round to provide fresh cut flowers.
Billy had met the family as a teenager when, on Saturday afternoons, Saunders Lee would stop by the diner, Kane’s Kanteen, bringing along his young daughter Caroline, his son Martin, and their various cousins. While the kids ate at the picnic table outside, Mr. Lee and Billy’s uncle Kane would sit at the front window table and discuss Mississippi politics.
Although Kane had dropped out of school in the ninth grade, he was a sharp observer of human nature. Having an educated man, a plantation owner like Mr. Lee, ask his opinion about the state senate race meant the world to Kane. After about an hour, the men would stand and shake hands as if having reached an agreement. Kane would then move to Mr. Lee’s chair and smoke a cigarette while studying the traffic out the window.
His uncle always held Saunders Lee in high regard. So had Billy. He still did. Mr. Lee represented the best part of the old South culture—honor, civility, and integrity.
He pulled up to the security kiosk at Shaking Tree and asked the guard to ring the Lees’ number. The housekeeper answered and would only say that Mr. and Mrs. Lee weren’t home.
“I’m calling the law office,” Frankie said as he was backing out. She listened for a moment. “It’s a recording.”
“Their offices are about ten minutes from here on Poplar Ave,” he said, and sped down the shaded road that millennia ago had been dense hardwood forests. Multi-million dollar properties stood where trees measuring five feet in diameter once grew. In minutes he pulled into the parking lot of the two-story Victorian house the Lees had rescued from demolition a few years ago. Two cars, a late model Jaguar and an Alfa Romeo 4C convertible, were parked on the lot.
Frankie ran the plates. “The Jag is registered to Rosalyn Taylor Lee, the convertible to Martin Lee.”
“That’s Caroline’s older brother.”
They hurried down the walk past hollies that sheltered the white, clapboard building’s front porch from traffic noise. Formal brass carriage lamps flanked the glass door through which they saw a spacious foyer and staircase. The door was locked. The only lights on were in offices down a hallway that led to the back of the building.
“I’ll call again,” she said.
He shook his head and pounded the door with his fist.
“Calm down, Billy.”
“Attorneys keep TVs in their offices. I don’t want the Lees to look up and see Caroline’s car surrounded by emergency vehicles.”
A young man in a dark suit stepped out of a hallway to the right. He pointed at his watch, waved them away, and disappeared down the hall.
“What a jerk,” Frankie said.
“That’s Martin.”
He’d known Martin Lee as a stuck-up little kid who quit coming to the diner on Saturdays with his family after he’d been given a T-Bird convertible for his sixteenth birthday. Martin would show up by himself, order a takeout cheeseburger, and then count the quarters and dimes Billy had given him as change. Even at that age, Martin had loved money and hated like crazy to part with it.
Billy was ready to pound the door again when Rosalyn Lee walked through the foyer, her head down over a file she was carrying. She had to be in her fifties now, still trim and stylish in a red suit. He tapped his badge wallet on the door then pressed his shield to the glass.
Rosalyn closed the file and looked annoyed as she came to the door. He could see Caroline in her face, the same classic features.
“May I help you?” she asked through the glass.
“Detective Billy Able, MPD. This is Detective Malone. We’re here on police business.”
She unlocked the door and took his ID. A question crossed her face as she glanced up, but she handed it back and opened the door for them to step inside. His uncle had introduced them years ago when they’d catered a fund-raising barbeque for a political candidate on Airlee’s back terrace. She wouldn’t remember him of course. At that time, he’d been the help.
“What seems to be the problem?” she asked.
“We need a word with you and your husband,” he said. “Is there someplace we can talk in private?”
“Saunders isn’t here. He’s ill.” She gestured to a long hallway leading off the foyer. “My son is waiting in my office. This way.”
At the end of the hall, double doors opened into what had been the morning room of the original home. The office was spacious with floor-to-ceiling windows extending the length of the south and eastern walls letting in the morning light.
To the left, wingback chairs stood on either side of a fireplace with a mahogany mantel intricately carved with a scene of huntsmen and hounds in full cry. A young black woman in a maid’s uniform stood at a tea table beside the fireplace and was pouring coffee from a sterling pot. The coffee was for Martin Lee, who was seated in one of the chairs. He came to his feet, his irritation at their intrusion showing.
Martin hadn’t changed much from the boy Billy remembered. His face was that of a man who’d experienced few difficulties in life. Knowing Martin, there’d been difficulties, but he’d refused to acknowledge them.
Rosalyn dismissed the maid and introduced her son, who didn’t offer to shake hands. She walked to her desk, the sound of morning traffic filtering through the windows.
“Now what’s this about?” she asked.
Billy clasped his hands in front of him. He’d delivered many death notifications in his career. This might be the most difficult. “I’m sorry to inform you, your daughter Caroline has died.”