FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, PRESENT DAY
Russ met up with Jack Liddle outside the dining tent. He had the guest list in hand, passed to him by a tense-faced Clare, who had briefed him on what Audrey Langevoort had told her and then said, “I’m getting the pump,” before heading out the door.
Liddle held up a pocket-size notebook. “I took down the locals’ names and numbers and let them go. No one had even heard of Saunderson before the party tonight.”
“You still tote a notebook around?”
Liddle made a face. “Force of habit. I don’t feel dressed without one.”
“Are you still carrying?”
“Not to a party, Russell.”
Russ noticed Jack didn’t actually answer the question, but he let it go. The caterers had set up an impromptu bar on one of the dining tables and were passing coffee around, which would mean a lot of overcaffeinated drunks on the road later. One thing at a time. “Did you find out anything useful from the Barkley and Eaton people?”
Liddle shook his head. “Saunderson was the fair-haired boy. Literally, I guess. No one was surprised he got the top spot. Kept his nose clean, worked six days out of seven, didn’t have any unsavory habits as far as anyone here knew.”
“Personal life? Financial problems?”
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to turn to the NYPD for that. No one up here seems to have known him that well.” Liddle gestured toward the house. “Did you get anything up there?”
“As far as I can tell, the only people in the house at the time were Saunderson himself, Clare, one of the caterers, and a Mrs. Fike in the powder room.” He pointed to her name on the guest list.
“Yeah, I cleared her husband to go. He’s waiting for her.”
“The only one to see anything was the caterer, who spotted him when he reached the deck. She said he was alone and had something white around his neck.”
Liddle blew a breath out. “The musicians?”
“Gone as soon as we went down for dinner. I took a look at the guest room he’s been staying in.”
“Anything?”
“Well, he had some condoms in his shaving kit, so he wasn’t a monk. Otherwise…” Russ shrugged. “No prescription or other drugs. Clothing for a week in the mountains. One of those books on improving your efficiency. His laptop.”
“We should get a look at that. And his phone.”
“I’ll see if Kent Langevoort knows the passwords. Otherwise, I’ll have to get a warrant, and I can guarantee Judge Ryswick won’t issue one based on what we have right now.” Russ rubbed his lips.
“You’re thinking this is a straight-up suicide attempt.”
“Right now I am. What about you?”
Liddle nodded. “He wouldn’t be the first person to hide his personal troubles away. Maybe the strain of the new responsibilities was the final straw. Or maybe—a business thing like this is bound to get some press coverage. A story in the New York Times. Definitely in the Post-Star. Maybe there’s something he doesn’t want exposed.”
Liddle frowned. His sentence hung in the air like a weapon someone had tossed into the middle of an argument.
Russ stared at the older man. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“No.” Liddle shook his head. “That’s complete supposition.”
“We have a girl who was killed a week ago. Now we have a guy, who was here a week ago, trying to off himself despite just being handed a top-of-the-line Wall Street job on a silver platter.”
“Uh-huh. And do you have a single other thing to link them together? A piece of evidence? Any way that they overlap other than being within the same fifty square miles of each other?”
“No, but—”
“How many suicides does the county average in a year?”
“Ten or twelve.”
“So maybe two or three in your jurisdiction.”
“Yeah, but—”
“How many have you had so far this year?”
Russ paused. “None.” He looked back at the house. At the twenty-foot-high deck he had admired. “Okay. I get your point. I want to close the murder and that’s making me grasp at straws.”
Liddle snorted. “You know where that saying comes from?” Russ shook his head. “It’s a proverb about a drowning man clutching at reeds in desperation.”
“Reeds are straws?”
“Everything was straw in merry old England. Here’s the thing, Russell. Usually, when you pull on a reed, it comes up out of the mud. But some of them, once in a while, are rooted deeply enough to let a man haul himself to safety.” Liddle tapped the side of his head. “As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I thought of your murder. Intuition is an important tool in a cop’s arsenal. But it’s worthless without meticulous casework to back it up.”
“We’re going to have to cross our t’s and dot our i’s. I get it.”
“First you have to find some t’s and i’s, Russell. Right now all you have is a soggy straw.”
Russ exhaled. “Better let the rest of the guests go, as long as we have their contact information.” He glanced into the tent again. “How’s Mom holding up?”
“She’s talking with people who own three houses like they’re her next-door neighbors. Your mother’s a remarkable woman.”
“I know. Let’s get her home before she drops.” Not to mention Clare. And himself. He was exhausted by the events of the evening, aching from performing CPR for so long, and had an increasing itch of unease about Ethan. This was the longest they had both been away from him.
Russ called Kent Langevoort’s phone and left a message about the laptop while Chief Liddle—Jack, Jesus, he was going to have to stop thinking as if he were still a teen—told the remaining guests and catering staff they were free to go.
Up at the house, he left Clare’s new intern in charge of her mother. “We’ll be fine. A good night’s sleep, hopefully, and then we’re having everybody from B and E back for a breakfast meeting.” Joni turned to Clare. “I may not make it to assist on Sunday. I’m sorry.”
Clare hugged her. “Take all the time you need.”
“It’s not that. It’s going to be a delicate time for the business. Transitions are always tricky, and something like this happening? There are going to be a lot of clients and market partners needing reassurance. And to know we have a plan going forward.”
“We?” Russ said. “I thought you were out of the company.”
She sighed. “Yeah, well. It’s not always that cut-and-dried, is it?”
They drove back to Mom’s place in silence. Ethan, doing his usual trick of being good for everyone except his parents, had taken a bottle at ten and fallen asleep. Emma left with a wad of cash in her pocket and a cheerful, “See you for October break, Grandma!”
“Are you going to be okay to drive home?” Russ asked Liddle.
“How about a cup of tea?” His mother went to the sink and began filling the kettle. “Not as bad as coffee at this hour, but it’ll help perk you up.”
Liddle smiled. “I’ll take that offer.”
“None for us, Mom. Clare and I need to get Ethan home.”
She crossed the kitchen and kissed him. “Need to get yourself home, more like. Drive safe.”
“I always do.”
Liddle barked a laugh.
“I always do now,” Russ amended.
Ethan stirred when they fastened him into the backseat, but he passed out again as soon as the car was in motion. “I’ve been thinking,” Clare said. “When Joni was talking about how the business could be affected. Do you think that might have something to do with it? Could there be some sort of, I don’t know, terrible loss Saunderson was covering up? Or embezzlement? Or fraud?”
He hadn’t. And all of those sounded more probable than the theory that Saunderson had something to do with Gabrielle Yates’s death.
“I think…” He paused. Clare laid her hand on his arm. “I think I really, really need a fresh perspective on all this.”