“Oh dear, I’m so sorry. Here, sit down,” I said, guiding Bethany to a bench and patting her on the shoulder as she sobbed. I should’ve offered to leave her in peace, but I didn’t. “Can I bring you anything?”
She shook her head, blotted her eyes on the kimono sleeves and, with a visible effort, regained control of herself.
“I’m so sorry, I don’t usually —”
“Please don’t apologize. You’ve suffered an enormous loss.”
“It is,” she said, staring at me earnestly. “It is enormous.” She ran a hand over the midnight-blue silk of the kimono. “This was hers,” she said. “It still carries the scent of her fragrance. I wear it because it helps me feel closer to her. Kennick has left all her clothes and things with me. He says I should keep what I want and give the rest away. But I won’t. I won’t get rid of any of it.”
She smoothed her already-sleek hair and then got up and exited the solarium. I followed, hoping she wasn’t taking me back to the front door.
“I’ll have my smoothie in the living room, Sofia,” she called in the direction of the kitchen, then led me into the same room I’d waited in earlier. Once we were seated, I tried to get the interview back on track.
“So, you and Laini were in beauty pageants together?”
“We both started when we were very young, and we did well, too, if I do say so myself. One or the other of us was always winning. Laini more often, if I’m honest. It was an extraordinary thing. We used to joke that she was the only contestant with black hair that ever won pageants. My mother said it was her talent that gave her the edge,” Bethany said with a shrug. “When she was tiny, she had this amazing routine with a bunch of dancing poodles, and then when she grew older, she swallowed fire and juggled flaming torches. Playing with fire — literally.” Bethany gave a small, sad laugh and traced a pink nail over the pattern of her upholstered chair. “It always wowed the judges.”
“What was your act?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“You didn’t come here to hear me reminisce about the old days, Miss McDonald. Can we get to business?”
Not correcting her on my name, I said, “Right, of course. Laini’s brother has hired me to investigate his sister’s death.”
“I don’t understand why. It was a suicide.”
“That hasn’t been fully established yet.”
“But she left a note! The police showed me.”
“Her brother doesn’t believe she killed herself.”
“I think he might be in denial. Isn’t that a stage of the grieving process?”
I nodded, conceding the point. “It sounds like he and Laini didn’t spend much time together in recent years, so I thought you might be able to tell me more about her,” I said. “About the Laini you knew.”
“Yes,” Bethany said thoughtfully. “She was a different person with each of the people in her life.”
“Who was she with you?”
“She was —” She paused, considering. Fully expecting her to say “beautiful” like everybody else had, I was surprised when she said, “Bright.”
“Bright? As in clever?”
“No. Well, yes, that, too. Laini was no one’s fool. But I meant bright like she had an inner glow. She could light up a room, you know? So much energy and laughter — when she was feeling good, that is.”
The maid came in, bearing a tray with a tall glass of dark-green sludge.
“I should have offered you something,” Bethany said. “Can I get Sofia to make you a smoothie?”
“No, thanks!” It came out sounding rude, so I smiled apologetically and added, “Really not my thing, kale smoothies.”
Sofia gave me a narrow-eyed gaze. “I think you’d like a cup of coffee?”
“Yes, please,” I said meekly. When she left, I asked Bethany, “Did you and Laini stay in contact all these years?”
“No. She dropped out of the pageant circuit before her teens, just gave up.” She shrugged, as if Laini’s decision still baffled her. “We lost contact. I connected with her online a couple of years back, and when I found out she was in marketing, I offered her the position here.”
I watched, fascinated, as she swallowed down the entire glass of green gloop in one go. I would rather have stuck pins in my eyes.
“It must have been good to get to know each other again.”
“It was. We had girls’ nights together, watching old movies and painting each other’s toenails, laughing and gossiping about the people in town.” Her smiled faded, her lips trembled, and her eyes welled. “What will I do without her?” she asked, her voice bleak.
Hoping to avert more crying, I asked, “What was she like at work?”
She sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. “Gifted. She added such value to our organization — the business won’t be the same without her.”
No doubt Bethany would have to lean more on Denise’s assistance. Denise might even get Laini’s old job. Should I warn Bethany about my suspicions in that quarter? Probably. But not yet.
“Did Laini like her work?” I asked.
“Of course! She said she’d finally found her niche. Although …”
“Yes?”
“She resisted taking extra responsibility. Don’t get me wrong, Laini was excellent with innovative ideas and creativity, but she wasn’t great at handling pressure. Sweet and Smoky had grown by leaps and bounds, and we were planning to expand further. I wanted her fully in on that. I even offered her half-shares in the business. That was a mistake, I see that now. I blame myself.”
“For what?”
“I think it was all the stress and the prospect of taking on even more responsibility that broke her. It was too much pressure, on top of her rocky relationship with Carl. And her brother’s problems, of course.”
Struggling to keep up with the revelations, I asked, “Which problems were those?”
“Money. He borrowed a lot from her over the years, and I gather he hadn’t repaid very much of it. Well, Laini was never good at setting boundaries or confronting others.”
That was odd. In the vision I’d had of her and Denise, Laini hadn’t seemed to have a problem confronting the employee, and she hadn’t succumbed to Carl Mendez’s pressure to marry her.
The maid came in then and set down a tray on the table in front of me — a demitasse of black coffee, a tiny jug of cream, and a side plate of almond biscotti. The look in her eye said, “Waste this cup, too, and I’ll tell the boss about the crown affair.”
I thanked her effusively.
Bethany said, “Once you’ve finished the kitchen, you may go, Sofia.”
“Yes, Miss Ford. Have a good weekend.”
Swallowing a bite of biscotti, I asked Bethany, “Did Kennick know about the shares?”
“Oh, yes. She said he was impressed, that he’d urged her to accept the offer.”
I’ll just bet he did. First loans and then shares — I wondered what else my sideways-smiling client had kept from me.
“But Laini wasn’t sure. She knew it meant more stress, I suppose. And when she felt overwhelmed, she’d get very down. She suffered from depression, you know?”
“I didn’t. Was she on medication?” People, I’d discovered, tossed terms like “depressed” around very loosely.
“I urged her to see a doctor or a therapist, but she refused. She said cycling out in nature was the best medicine for her.” Bethany glanced at my biscotti and then looked away. Resisting temptation? “I often wondered if she had bipolar disorder because she had such wild ups and such bad lows. I think it caused problems in her relationship with Carl.”
“You think that’s what caused their breakup?”
“You know about that, do you?”
I nodded.
Bethany glanced out of the window, as if seeing past scenes of domestic unhappiness. “It was a stormy relationship. Laini with her moods, and Carl with his temper. Well, I know all about that. I used to date him years ago and let me tell you, the man has serious anger issues.”
“Was he abusive?” I asked bluntly.
“To me? No.”
“And with Laini?”
“She never actually said so in as many words, but …” Bethany’s voice trailed off.
“Did she tell you why they’d broken up?”
“She didn’t give me any details, just said they’d called it quits. She arrived on my doorstep on Saturday morning with all her stuff — packed bags, coffee machine, camera — and asked if she could spend a few nights because she’d moved out of his place. She said Carl was taking it hard, and she didn’t feel comfortable staying there for the night.”
“‘Comfortable’ — is that the exact word she used?”
Bethany tilted her head, considering. “She may have said ‘safe.’”
“She spent the rest of day with you? Slept here on Saturday night?”
“Yes. Look, I did tell the police all this already.”
I could tell she was running out of patience.
“And how was she that night?” I asked.
“A little subdued, perhaps, but then she had just broken up with Carl. We shared a bottle of wine and spent the night chatting.”
“About?”
“This and that. Life, men, traveling, future plans for the business. She seemed better the next morning, calmer, more settled, you know? She had more color in her cheeks and said she was more certain of her plans going forward.” Bethany’s face crumpled under the weight of her distress. “At the time, I thought she meant life without Carl. Now, I realize that she’d made up her mind about ending it all.”
People who were planning to end their lives often did seem calmer and more settled just before they implemented their plans. For some, the hardest part was making the decision. Once that had been done, the follow-through was easier. When I’d seen her hand holding the note, I, too, had picked up on that growing sense of resolution and decision.
“When was the last time you saw her?” I said.
“Early Sunday morning, around eight o’clock. She said she was going for a drive into town to buy us a box of cider donuts for breakfast.”
“Cider donuts? I wouldn’t have said your body had ever come within ten yards of one of those,” I said.
“A rare seasonal treat.” Bethany smoothed a hand over her flat stomach. “Then she hugged me and kissed me goodbye. I never dreamed that would be the last time I saw her. But I should have known when she kissed me!” She punched a fist into her thigh, hard. “I mean, you don’t kiss a friend goodbye when you’re just nipping into town, do you? I should have known, or guessed. But I had no inkling of what she planned, honestly!”
“So, you think it was planned?”
“Well, I don’t think she just went for a stroll up to the quarry and on the spur of the moment decided to hurl herself off!” Bethany said acerbically. “Plus, she left a suicide note. And she sent me a text, you know, saying she was spending the day with Carl. And he got one from her, too, saying she was spending the day with me. That was deliberate.”
Bethany stood up and walked to the door. “I’ve told you what I know, and now I really do need to get going with my day.” Judging by the tears that were welling in her eyes again, she really needed to get going with a good crying jag.
“Right. Thanks so much, I really appreciate your insights.” I followed her out of the room. “Can I just ask about Jim Lundy?”
“Jim? He’s a funny little man — those ears! — but absolutely reliable and vital to our operation.”
“How did he get on with Laini?” I asked as we walked into the entrance hall.
“He adored her. He was always bringing her odd gifts. I advised her to keep her distance so he didn’t get the wrong idea, but I think she felt sorry for him. Always asking him how his arthritis was doing and giving him advice.”
“What kind of advice?”
“He’d had some kind of trouble, and she was helping him with that, but I have no idea what it was about.”
Bethany opened the front door and stood aside for me to leave. I stepped out, but before she could close the door, I squeezed in a final question.
“So, Laini wasn’t afraid of Jim?”
Bethany blinked. “No. Should she have been?”