Page 9 of Go First
‘CSI’s nearly done with the scene.I can squeeze in with Desiree and Lara.’
“Interesting choice of words.Desiree in particular.”
‘Stop it.’Grinning, he handed her the fob for the sedan and she watched him go
Marcus had a fiancée, but things seemed to be rocky between them right now. Sometimes, he told Kate what was going on, and she always did her best to advise him from her own, limited experience.Recently, though, Marcus’s behaviour had been bewildering: he always seemed to be sending or receiving texts, there were a lot of late nights and wall-to-wall flirting.Desperate flirting, like it was about to be outlawed.Kate didn’t really think he was about to try his charms on the CSI team, but she wouldn’t have been surprised.
She walked towards the house, crunching along the unnaturally white gravel, taking her time.Splitting the workload made sense —Marcus diving into Whitfield’s financial records back at HQ, her heading to meet the widow—but it left Kate with an odd, hollow space.And, if she were being truthful, she thought interviews were always best done by a pair.One person could observe, while the other asked the questions; there was always so much more going on, beyond and behind the conversation.It easy to miss the micro-tics and the nano-tells: the longer-than-usual pause before the answer, the involuntary flicker of an eyelid, the mouth saying one thing, while the tone testifies to the total opposite…
Parked to the side of the house was an open garage, with a trio of top-range vehicles inside: all gold, a Bentley coupé, a gleaming Escalade, a shiny red little rollerskate of a thing that Kate assumed was Italian and worth several times her salary.The Whitfield auto-fortune on full display.
But as she mounted the marble steps to the front door, she reminded herself to look past the surface.That was her job.
A uniformed housekeeper answered the door, Scottish judging by her voice, which was hushed and hospital-serious, as if there was a sick patient inside.
“Mrs.Whitfield is expecting you.”
Kate followed her through a cavernous hallway dominated by a chandelier so ornate it could feasibly collapse under its own weight.She would have said that every detail screamed wealth, but screaming wasn’t the right word.It was more like a never-ending belch, the gas of some gargantuan feast, comprising dish after dish of costly baubles, from handwoven rugs to carved oak banisters.It was just as ostentatious as Whitfield’s office, maybe even more so.
And then Anne Whitfield appeared, descending the broad staircase with a kind of unhurried grace.
Kate blinked.The contrast was jarring.Anne was a slight woman, dressed simply in a navy dress that looked decades old but neatly pressed, a plain cardigan across her shoulders, unbuttoned.No jewelry sparkled at her wrists or ears.No diamond necklace.Just a gold wedding band, worn thin by the years.Like her.
Her face was pale, almost translucent in the sunlight streaming through the tall windows, and her eyes—clear, blue, tired—regarded Kate with cautious courtesy.
“Mrs.Whitfield?”Kate asked softly, stepping forward.
“Please,” Anne said, her voice gentle.“Call me Anne.”
They shook hands.Anne’s fingers were cool, her grip surprisingly firm.
The housekeeper vanished, and Anne led her into a drawing room lined with gilt-framed paintings and overstuffed furniture.Kate took in the heavy curtains, the polished surfaces, the quiet tick of a grandfather clock.A room meant to impress, though Anne herself perched at the very edge of a sofa, seeming in that vast space, not just small and spare, but also somehow unwelcome.
Kate accepted a seat opposite, notebook balanced loosely on her knee.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” she began, keeping her voice even.
Anne inclined her head, eyes dropping to the handkerchief twisted in her lap.“Thank you.It has been… difficult.My sister Margaret is still in shock.She was the one who found him, you know.It will take her a long time to recover.”
But not you?
“I understand.”Kate gave her a moment before continuing.“I need to ask about your husband.His life, the people around him.Do you know of anyone who might have wished him harm?”
“No.Jonathan had no enemies.”
It was the speed of the reply that caught Kate’s attention.No pause, no reflection and virtually no facial expression, as though the line had been expected, and rehearsed-for.
“None at all?Forgive me, Mrs Whitfield, but I believe someone shot him in Baltimore.”
Anne nodded graciously, as if receiving a compliment.‘Shotathim.The man was mentally ill.It wasn’t personal; he’d attempted to shoot the state senator the day before.’
‘And the fishermen?A row over right of access to the lake?’
Now, Anne Whitfield looked surprised.Or rather, she did a good impression of someone looking surprised.Kate was beginning to find the woman’s manner distinctly odd.It seemed as if her face was eerily blank until something came along that she needed to react to.And then she’d react, but slowly, and almost theatrically, like an actress practising in front of a mirror.
‘Amicably settled.My husband built them a new boat-house, over on the eastern shore.In any case, even at its most… tense, it would have been impossible to imagine a dispute of that order leading to murder.’
Kate wanted to point out that, over the course of her career, she’d come across people being murdered over a postage stamp, over a rock of crack the size of a lentil, and whether basketball was a superior sport to ice hockey.But she kept it to herself.