Authors: Stella Barcelona
Brandon chuckled with relief. Marvin got it. “Yeah.” He explained a few more things about Victor.
Marvin said, “Sounds like we gotta be prepared for almost anything.”
“That’s exactly right,” Brandon said. “Hey, do you know anyone who works in the Orleans Parish Office of Mortgages and Conveyances? I need to get in there this weekend.”
“Let me do some thinking on that one.”
After their conversation, Brandon showered and changed into a suit. When he went down the stairs, he found Sebastian in the study, on his phone, with three computer monitors working. Brandon’s computers were password-protected, but that wouldn’t stop Sebastian, who broke the phone connection as he eyed Brandon’s attire.
“Are we going out?”
“We? No. I’m going to the Second District station.” Brandon told Sebastian about Tilly, who Joe was going to be interviewing there. “Then after that, I’m going to a party. Anything new on Victor?”
“No, but I’m working on it. Two of my best analysts are pulling a Saturday night shift back in Denver. Two of my field agents are on the way here. Just in case.” Sebastian frowned. “From what I could tell of your side of the conversation, it didn’t sound to me like Taylor invited you to the mansion for the party.”
“She didn’t. It’s a fundraiser, though. I don’t think they’ll turn away people who write checks at the door.”
Sebastian stood. “I’ll go to the station with you. After, can you drop me off at the condo?” Brandon nodded. Sebastian kept a condo and a SUV in the warehouse district. “And if you’re going to that party to confront George Bartholomew, I have to go with you.”
“Confront him?” Brandon shook his head. “I’m not planning on it.”
Sebastian shook his head. “I’m not sure I believe you.”
“Look. I’m not my brother. I’m rational. George Bartholomew and the rest of the HBW Board obviously didn’t publicly air the Hutchenson letter. However, I don’t have hard evidence that tells me exactly what they did, so I’m not going to barge into his house and accuse him of anything. Plus, investigators looked into the fire at our house and they didn’t find evidence of foul play, so I’m certainly not going to blame George Bartholomew for it, thirty years after it happened. Right now, I care about figuring out what happened to Lisa,” Brandon paused, “and I care about Taylor. I’m going there to warn George Bartholomew about Victor.”
On the way to the station, Brandon called Pete. It took most of the fifteen minute ride to give Pete what Brandon felt he needed to know about Victor. “Until I figure this out, I need you at my house. There might be nothing to this, but keep the alarm on, your favorite weapons nearby, and be on the look out. I don’t know what Victor will do. If he murdered Lisa, I’m bringing him down,” Brandon paused. His brother wouldn’t voluntarily surrender to authorities. There’d be a fight. His stomach twisted. He had to prepare himself for all possibilities. “Once he realizes that, then I’m a target. If I don’t have my own eyes on Michael, I want your eyes on him. I’m not scared of much…”
“Hell,” Pete said, “I know that.”
“My brother scares the living shit out of me.”
“Say no more. I’m headed to your house now,” Pete said. “Michael will be safe.”
“Corey, Marvin’s son, will be back-up and he’s bringing Boy, a big, beautiful Rottweiler.”
“Cool,” Pete said.
Brandon broke the connection as he pulled into the station’s parking lot. Sebastian, who had listened to the conversation, said, “Good call.”
With those words, the night got darker.
“Great,” Brandon said. “Fucking great.”
“What?”
“I was hoping that you’d tell me I was being paranoid.”
“Not in my book,” Sebastian answered. “I called in some Black Raven agents. We need to find your brother, and we need to do it fast.”
Tilly and Joe were in the interview room. Brandon and Sebastian joined Marvin and Joe’s partner, Tony, in the adjoining room, where they could see and hear the interview. Tony said, “I told Joe that you were on your way. He’ll take a break when he feels it’s right. So far, Tilly’s admitted that he told Marquis Rochard and a couple of others that he killed Lisa, but Tilly now says that he was lying. He wanted to get into the Kings, as we thought.” Tony shook his head. “This kid’s got no sense, because killing a harmless college student isn’t the way to get into the Kings. Now, Joe is trying to figure out what else Tilly might know, if anything, and Tilly has clammed up.”
“Oh. I’m sorry,” they heard Joe saying. “I forgot to wish you a happy eighteenth birthday. It was three months ago, right?”
Tilly wore an oversized New Orleans Saints football jersey, three long, thick gold chains, and a black rosary with an silver crucifix. A gold baseball cap, which sat on the table, had left an imprint in his short afro. His skin was dark black. Brandon couldn’t see his eyes or his facial expression because the wiry teenager was looking down, at the table.
Joe continued. “Did you know that the fact that you’re eighteen makes you eligible for the death penalty?” Tilly shrugged, but didn’t look up. Joe continued, “I love the death penalty. It’s a shame those appeals take so long. Because once you’re convicted, you’re going to be sitting on Angola’s death row for a long time. You won’t be in candy land with other juvies. The Angola inmates are going to have plenty of time to get a piece of your sweet, eighteen-year-old ass.”
The kid finally looked up. His lips were in a sneer, but there was fear in his wide, dark eyes. “You don’t scare me. I didn’t do nothing. So what if I lied?”
“Well that goes to show how stupid you are, because you’ve all but admitted that you killed her. I’d be shitting on myself if I were you.”
“I didn’t do it, and you ain’t got evidence that says I did.”
“You told Marquis Rochard that you did it, and others, and you admitted that you told them. Why? Why the hell would you be bragging to these people if you didn’t do it, and how the hell did you even know that it happened if you didn’t do it?” Tilly chewed on his lower lip then spent several long minutes examining the table as he ignored Joe.
“Oh,” Joe said, “another thing. You told Marquis that you shot her in the head. No one knows that. No one but me, my partner, the coroner, and the killer. So, you’re not me, you certainly aren’t my partner, and you aren’t the fucking coroner. That only leaves one other possibility. So happy eighteenth birthday, cause that gives you two things to look forward to now.”
Tilly glanced at Joe, then back down at the table.
“Two things. Prison rape and death by lethal injection.”
Brandon watched Tilly look into Joe’s eyes. The punk’s sneer was gone. There was a pleading glance in his eyes.
“I need protection.”
“From what?”
“The killer.”
“Why?”
Tilly gave Joe another long, pleading stare. “He was freaky. He wasn’t a homeboy. Hell. I know most of the people in that neighborhood. It was a hit. An honest to God, professional hit,” his black eyes were wide with fear. “I swear. I don’t want that dude coming after me.”
Brandon drew a deep breath. “Well, I’ll be damned. He saw the murder.”
Joe leaned forward. “You saw it?”
Tilly nodded. “The whole thing. I knew she was shot in the head because I saw it happen.”
Joe said. “Tell me about it.”
“There’s an abandoned house that I sleep in sometimes on Melody Street. I was on the lookout that night for some punks, so I was paying attention to street noise. Not too many people know my secret spot, but some do. Anyways, this guy pulled up and got out of his car. Dude drove a fancy black Mercedes sedan with tinted windows. I was like, where the fuck this dude be going on that dumpy street? He got out of his car and stood near some bushes. I was like, what the fuck? What’s he hiding for? It was creepy as shit.”
“What did he look like?”
“Tall. Sort of had muscles, like he worked out, but sort of thin. Pale white face. He had on a cap, but fuck, it was hotter than hell, and muggy too. He took off the cap once and wiped his forehead with it. He didn’t have no hair. She walked up, and then I saw the gun that he’d been holding. He moved fast, man. Didn’t see the gun before then, cause it blended in with all that black shit he had on. Dude even wore gloves. He lifted that gun, pulled her by the hair, and pressed it against her head. I was too far away to tell what it was. It was black. Maybe a Glock. He had an awesome silencer, because I didn’t even hear a pop. I didn’t know silencers could be so good, ya know? It was like a whisper. The homemade jobs don’t do that. You always hear something. A pop. Or a whoof. This one, well, I barely heard anything. I saw her fall.”
In the outside room, Brandon glanced at Tony. “Did ballistics come in consistent with the use of a silencer?”
Tony nodded. “And a silencer that would be that quiet would be a damn good one.”
Joe asked, “Then what?”
“He grabbed her shit and left her there. He walked to his car and that’s when he hit a part of the sidewalk where the streetlights shone. He looked my way, but by then I was so far in the shadows, there was no way he was seeing me, and that’s when I saw his eyes.” Tilly paused. “I’ll never forget that dude’s eyes.”
“Why?”
“They were this weird shade of green-gold. Fucking freaky, in that white face, with the streetlight shining on them. About the only thing I ever saw with eyes that color was a cat.”
“What else?”
“That’s all I got. I didn’t see anything else.”
Joe stood. He entered the surveillance room. He looked at Brandon, then Sebastian. Instead of greeting them, Joe said, “Fuck.” Joe had known Sebastian when Sebastian was on the force with Brandon. The two had become reacquainted two years earlier when Brandon had killed the intruder. After a second, Joe added, “If the two of you are here together, looking that serious, it tells me the fast train to hell has left the station. Start talking.”
Brandon told Joe everything that he could about Rorsch, the Hutchenson letter, how it was connected to Lisa, and Collette, and then he polished it all up with his concerns about Victor. He concluded with, “I think Tilly just described Victor. Let Tilly see me. I look like Victor,” Brandon shrugged. “Sort of. We’re about the same height. His face was always thinner. Our eyes are the exact same color, except his might have a tinge of light brown. In the dark of night, with streetlights, I would imagine that the light brown tint could look gold.”
Joe frowned. “That would be quicker than getting an artist to draw what Tilly saw, and if he says yeah, that’s the dude, well then, case closed. I get to arrest you, because you’re identified as a murderer, and then I can go home for the night and get a great night of sleep.”
Sebastian shook his head. “Brandon, I don’t think so. Weren’t you a suspect as recently as two days ago?”
Sebastian had gone to law school with Brandon, but had never practiced law. Still, Sebastian knew enough about the law, from both a legal perspective and a cop perspective, to make Brandon pause. Then he shook his head. “If he identifies me as the killer, there’s several ways to get this identification thrown out. Overly suggestive. Not a proper line-up. Whatever. Let him look at me.”
“If you’re not going to take my advice, call Randall,” Sebastian said, his eyes serious. “He would advise you not to do this.”
“I’m not expecting Tilly to finger me. I’m expecting him to say, sort of, but that’s not him,” Brandon said. “I’d bet my life on it.”
Sebastian said, “You might be.”
“Hell, I’m game,” Joe said.
With Brandon on one side of a one-way window, Joe let Tilly get a good look at Brandon. After, Joe said, “It went exactly as you said it would. Tilly said you were sort of like the guy that he saw, but the guy that he saw seemed leaner than you, and bald. There’s more angles in his face than in your face. Your eyes, though, Brandon, were just like the perps. Except, according to Tilly, your eyes didn’t glow as much. No shit. He really said the word,
glow
.”
“Find my brother, and you’ve found Lisa’s killer.” Brandon thought through a few scenarios of how to approach George Bartholomew and tell him that his daughter was a potential target of someone who wouldn’t think twice about killing her.
“Joe,” Brandon said. “Want to go to a party with me?”
Chapter Seventeen
Clara pointed Taylor in the direction of the study, where George was reviewing the guest list with Andrew and Andrew’s two oldest sons, Phillip and Mark. Her father and Andrew wore neat seersucker suits and white dress shirts. Phillip and Mark wore cream-colored linen suits. Tom Hood, HBW director of security, was there, his earpiece evident, and Lloyd Landrum stood next to George, who stopped in mid-sentence at Taylor’s entrance. He gave her a dark-eyed appraising glance, accompanied with a frown due to her late arrival, then returned his attention to papers that he held in his hand. Judith, her father’s secretary, crossed the room and handed Taylor a paper that contained names of important guests, with details about each name.
“Taylor, I’d like you to remember these names in particular,” George said, as he rattled off names. John, her father’s personal assistant, was at the computer. Photographs of each person appeared on a large computer monitor that hung from the wall. “All three have authority regarding the submarine contracts.” George said some other names and remarked upon their military standing. John showed more photographs that Taylor tried to commit to memory. “The senators from Louisiana are here and also, because we’re doing the full court press for the contracts, our competitors are here.”
The private meeting ended, and, after a champagne toast, led by George, “To submarines,” they all took their positions at various places in the house and on the grounds. Taylor and George, the official hosts, stood in the foyer, a few feet from the reception desk. Taylor followed Brandon’s advice and focused on one minute, then two, then three. She tried not to think about the Hutchenson letter, but a hard knot of dread was in the back of her throat.
She believed Brandon.
She believed that his mother had something, but whatever document she had, it couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t be. Her grandfather and her father couldn’t be the bad guys. The bad guy had been Brandon’s grandfather. A jury had convicted him. In his phone call, Brandon had spoken with urgency. Something was wrong, because, from what she could tell, Brandon didn’t overreact. She had ended the conversation quickly so that she could get to the pre-party meeting and appease her father, but now she needed to know what was wrong.
Taylor made small talk about the July heat with a woman whose name she should have known, but couldn’t remember. As soon as that guest stepped away, a male guest gripped Taylor’s forearm and introduced himself. He was one of the people on her list, someone who had authority over the submarine contract. He introduced her to his wife, who had a pretty, easy smile.
One minute. Two minutes. Three minutes.
For an hour, Taylor greeted guests while at her father’s side in the front entrance. At nine, she took a break, retrieved her purse from the study, and climbed the stairs to her old bedroom on the third floor. She took her cell phone from her purse to call Brandon. Before dialing, she saw that at eight p.m. Andi had sent her a picture of the beach, with soft evening sunlight casting a pinkish hue on crashing waves, and a text, “
Collette would have liked this gorgeous sunset. Hope you’re doing ok. Sorry I’m not there with you. Can you talk? Dying to hear about your day.”
Taylor responded,
“Party ends at 11:30. I’ll be in bed by midnight. I’ll call you then.”
“Great. Leaving beach now. Can’t wait to talk to u. Status of your v. pledge?”
Taylor chuckled because Andi couldn’t resist. She responded,
“Gone.”
“Moved on?”
Taylor hesitated. She glanced at herself in the dresser mirror and automatically reached into her purse for concealer to cover the bruised area on her neck. She wanted more. More time with him, more kisses, more touches. More times when she could make him laugh. More. To say that she wasn’t ready to move on was an understatement.
“Not quite. Still reeling from it all.”
“Maybe u shouldn’t move on.”
Taylor was about to dial Brandon when George knocked, then opened the bedroom door. “I’m sorry, Taylor. I know that Collette was a good friend. Thank you for rising to the occasion and attending the party.” Taylor hadn’t expected empathy or appreciation, and those two emotions, coming from her father, added a new jolt to the roller coaster ride that she’d been on ever since learning of Lisa’s death, from her first glimpse of Brandon, to Collette’s death, to the flight home from Dallas. He continued with, “You’re doing a fine job.”
Her father’s approval, something that she had always wanted, was something that she had rarely received. A quiet, “Thank you,” was all she could say.
“Shall we return to the multitudes?” He gestured for her to walk ahead of her.
She hesitated. He was there. She had his attention. She wanted to know what he would say about Rorsch’s comments, and, taking a page from Brandon’s playbook, she chose the most direct route possible.
“What does the Hutchenson letter actually say?”
“Excuse me?”
Good God
, Taylor thought, as she watched her father’s eyes widen and his face lose all color. His reaction told her that Rorsch wasn’t a crazy, hallucinating old man. The Hutchenson letter actually existed, and if it could make her father go pale, it must say exactly what Rorsch had suggested. She reminded herself to breathe, but the ball of anxiety in her throat wouldn’t allow the air to hit her lungs.
“Did you just ask me about the Hutchenson letter?”
She nodded.
He narrowed his eyes. A small bit of color returned to his cheeks. “How do you know of it?”
“Lisa Smithfield,” she said, “the Tulane student who was murdered. Her research led me to it.”
He studied her. “Did she have the letter? Do you have the letter?”
“No,” Taylor said, forcing herself to think and not give in to anxiety. With rational thoughts, she was able to breathe, and then able to speak. “There’s a trail that suggests that she had it. The letter explains that Benjamin Morrissey was innocent, doesn’t it? That the three men who originally founded HBW let Morrissey be falsely convicted of treason.”
George’s dark eyes, deadly serious, held her gaze. He gave her a slow nod. “That is exactly what the letter says,” he paused. A steel-trap door of anxiety threatened to close off her throat, making breathing impossible. “The letter is a fraud.”
She gasped. She shook her head. “A fraud?”
“Yes,” he said. “A total fabrication.”
Momentarily blindsided by his instant dismissal, she shook her head. “What do you mean?”
When George saw her reaction, he said, “Goodness. Please don’t tell me that you’ve fallen for that outlandish conspiracy theory. The letter was prepared by Benjamin Morrissey’s crazy son, who was obsessed with his claim that his father was innocent, and the content of it is nothing but a lingering conspiracy theory regarding the Benjamin Morrissey treason case. The conspiracy theory resurfaces every other decade or so. I’m afraid that Lisa Smithfield had fallen for it.”
Palpable relief coursed through Taylor and de-iced her veins. Thank God. He had an explanation. She was able to breathe, really breathe.
Hutchenson. Letter. Hoax.
Those were the three words that Taylor had overheard the day before, and the words now made sense. Even Brandon said that his father had been obsessed. Had Marcus Morrissey been that crazy? Thank God. There was an explanation, and it made sense, more sense than thinking that her grandfather had committed a crime and framed someone else. The explanation made much more sense than thinking that her own father was complicit in concealing a confession by the first Andrew Hutchenson.
“Do you have any further questions?”
Her mind flashed to Brandon, the day before, at the museum. Telling her how his father would show him the drawings, night after night, and that the drawings were signed by his grandfather. “Who actually designed the landing craft? Who put pen to paper, did the drawings, did the engineering? Hutchenson or Morrissey?”
He frowned. “Why do you ask?”
She drew a deep breath. “Lisa Smithfield believed Morrissey did the design, but didn’t receive the credit.”
“That’s part of the conspiracy theory. The reality, as far as I know, is that Andrew Hutchenson designed it,” George said. “Benjamin Morrissey was a minor player. He had some innate knowledge, but not enough to put his ideas on paper in a meaningful way, much less go from paper to the beaches of Normandy.” He frowned. “Any other questions?”
A million, she thought, but she couldn’t articulate any. She was too busy wrapping her mind around relief.
“Then we have a house full of guests who need our attention.”
She replaced her phone and make up in her purse, then carried it with her so that it would be in the first floor study and close to her, in case the bruise on her neck started to show through the make-up. She followed George and, as she started down the curving staircase that led from the third floor to the foyer, she glanced to the first floor, where one guest in particular captured her attention and made her heartbeat soar. Brandon was in the entry way, bending slightly to listen to a woman who was working the reception desk. He turned towards the stairway. She watched him look around the grand foyer, his eyes taking in the sparkling chandelier, the oil paintings that adorned the walls, and then his eyes fell on her, his expression, for a moment, unreadable. In a navy-blue suit, light blue dress shirt, and a tie with green, yellow, and blue, he looked elegant and gorgeous. Joe was at Brandon’s side. Joe was wearing clothes that fit in with the party, or at least with the men who had decided that dress pants and a sports coat were formal enough for a hot Saturday night in July. Nothing about Joe’s appearance suggested that he was a policeman, but as Joe scanned the entryway, the grim look in his eyes indicated that he wasn’t there for fun.
Taylor knew the moment her father saw the star of the Morrissey Minute, the man whose law firm had more than twenty lawsuits pending against HBW Shipbuilding Enterprises, the man whose not-quite-sane father had drafted the Hutchenson letter. George and Taylor were midway down the curving stairway when her father stiffened and muttered, under his breath, “Well, what the hell.” Brandon and Joe were both looking at them. “Do you know them?” George asked.
“Yes,” she said, while Brandon’s eyes held hers. She glanced at her father, and said, “Yes, I do.”
There were questions in her father’s eyes, but she glanced away. When they reached the final stair, Brandon and Joe stepped towards them. “Brandon Morrissey,” Taylor said, “New Orleans Police Officer Joe Thompson. My father. George Bartholomew.”
***
Taylor’s introduction came as Brandon told himself,
It was just a house. A damn big house, but just a house.
Brandon had almost succeeded in not being bothered by his surroundings, until he entered the foyer and saw a spotlighted oil painting. In it, Taylor was flanked by her parents. The canvas was at least eight feet tall, yet it wasn’t too large for the formal entryway. A slightly younger version of Taylor was standing in a formal, white, sheath-like sleeveless dress and long white gloves. A glistening diamond tiara was perched in her long, golden brown hair. Brandon knew that women who were Mardi Gras royalty in the exclusive krewes and women who were debutantes wore tiaras at various social events. But Taylor didn’t look like a mere carnival queen or a silly debutante. In the painting, she looked like real royalty, not pretend royalty. She looked like she belonged there, with a crown of diamonds in her hair, in the mansion, at the pinnacle of society in New Orleans.
Fuck
. The very thought rattled the hell out of him.
Tonight, she was gorgeous, in a form fitting ivory-colored dress, with her hair flowing to the middle of her back. Composure had robbed her face of expression. She had the look of a polite, gracious host of an important social event, present, but her mind on a million other things. Brandon couldn’t equate this version of Taylor with the images of her that were implanted on his mind, images of a grief-stricken woman, an inquisitive woman who had not wanted to believe Rorsch’s theory, and a sensual woman looking up at him with passion as he made love to her.
As Taylor introduced Brandon and Joe to her father, Brandon forced himself to turn from her to George. George was almost Brandon’s height. He stood erect. He wasn’t smiling. His dark-eyed attention was focused on Brandon, then Joe, then back to Brandon. He gave them an abrupt nod, but didn’t offer his hand.
Joe said, “Mr. Bartholomew, I’m the detective who is working the Lisa Smithfield murder case. I need to talk to you and Andrew Hutchenson.”
“We’re busy,” George said with a slight head shake.
“So am I,” Joe said.
A slight pink flush crawled up Taylor’s cheeks. She glanced at Brandon with a pained expression, but it was there for only a second, then she put on her unreadable party face.
“My house is full of important guests,” George said. “You are welcome to enjoy the party, but if this visit is about police work, you may contact my office and set up an appointment for after the Fourth. This isn’t the place or time. ”
Brandon had tried to be open-minded, but his openness ended with George’s words and the superior tone that he used. He decided that George was a pompous bastard.