Page 44 of Old Money

“Look, five o’clock and the lounge is empty,” Jamie adds, peering down the hall. “Perfect conditions, I told you.”

But he sounds less certain now.

We went back and forth all afternoon, debating when and how to approach Mr. Brody.

In the end we settled on immediately, and guns blazing.

No point trying to subtly outwit him—the man who’d so gracefully sidestepped direct police questioning, obstructing justice so politely that no one felt a thing.

Jamie follows as I cross the gallery, pausing at the top of the basement stairs.

“Wait.” I hold a hand in front of him. “I just have to state the obvious. If you come with me, Brody will know you’re involved. He’s probably guessed what I’m doing already, but now he’ll know for sure, and—”

“And he’ll know I’m part of it,” Jamie continues. “And he’ll tell the board, and they’ll want me out.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

My eyes drop to the thin red ridge peeking out beneath his shirt collar—the only visible evidence of last night’s incident. That, and the slightly pouted mouth.

“This is a big call,” I add. “Jamie, you just climbed out of a car wreck.”

“Yeah,” he answers quickly. “So quit bugging me.”

He puts a hand on the brass banister, and heads down the basement steps.

***

“Ms. Wiley, I wasn’t expecting you,” says Mr. Brody as I open the door. “Bit late in the day to darken my doorway.”

He sits behind his desk, half-hidden by a newspaper, his chair turned toward the wall. This is as close as Mr. Brody gets to leisurely.

I step inside and sit in his guest chair, uninvited. No way to do this politely anyway.

“We need a minute of your time.”

Mr. Brody looks up. We?

Jamie shuts the door behind us.

“I have to ask you some questions about the July Fourth party in 1999,” I continue, spilling it all out in one breath. “The night my cousin Caitlin died.”

I let it hang in the air, taking in Mr. Brody’s placid gaze. He doesn’t move. He just looks back.

“Ms. Wiley,” he begins, inserting one of his performative ahems. “You are neither a member of this club, nor a full-time employee. As such—”

“Sorry, no,” I cut him off. “I know you withheld information from the police. I’d like you to give it to me.”

Mr. Brody’s face doesn’t change. But his head does. He tilts it forward slightly, his eyes fixed on mine. It’s so quiet that I can hear the faint wheeze in Jamie’s nose with every rapid breath. I didn’t think I had more adrenaline in me, but every inch of my body is wide-awake and rattling.

“Pardon?” Mr. Brody says.

“You were standing in the gallery, outside the pink room,” I say flatly. “Not in it.”

Mr. Brody remains still, head bent. Silence swells in the room.

“Come on,” I press, slipping for a moment, getting loud instead of firm. “I’m not saying you lied outright.”

“I should hope not,” Mr. Brody interjects, quiet and clipped.

“You just didn’t correct the assumption,” I continue. “You were by the back stairs when he left the party. You would’ve seen him leave, and which way he went.”

Mr. Brody holds steady, taking his time to reply. First, he just lifts a finger.

“ Could have,” he corrects. “You’ve made an assumption too.”

I seize up again. He’s right. I’m assuming Mr. Brody looked to see which way Patrick went. But I think it’s an accurate assumption.

“You’re telling me that Patrick Yates walks out of the party, and you don’t even turn your head?”

Mr. Brody breaks into a polite smile. “My dear, whatever you’ve gone a-hunting for, it’s not hidden in my cupboard.”

I ignore his fairy-tale riddle-speak and hold my face neutral and unreactive. I can do that trick too.

“That was indeed a terrible night in our history.”

Brody puts a hand to his chest. Our history , it seems to say. Not yours .

“But it was many years ago. I mean no disrespect to that unfortunate young woman.” He nods soberly. “Or to you. But again, you assume too much of me.”

I run his answer through my head again. Is it me or did he have it just a bit too handy? The little nod, that pat on the chest—and how smoothly it slid right out. This from the man who snapped over a screw-up with the punch yesterday.

“What’s that then?” I ask. “My assumption.”

I’m stalling—playing for time while I suss out the bullshit.

“Well,” Mr. Brody begins, all too happy to expound.

“Firstly, that I can recall the details of a party hosted twenty years ago, the very moment you barge into my office. Secondly, that I can track the whereabouts of each member in attendance on a given night. Sadly, my dear, I am not omnipotent. More’s the pity. ”

It’s coming to me in glimpses, the way it did when I read the text of Brody’s interview—the truth glinting between the lines. I just can’t quite make out its shape.

“Fine. You didn’t see where Patrick went,” I say, still stalling. Another minute and it’ll click. “He passed you on the way out and you—you were just looking in the wrong direction.”

Mr. Brody’s smug smile curls into a sneer.

“Are you under the impression that is what a butler does? Simply stands beside the party like a house cat?” he snarls.

“That is indeed what the officers thought—why they asked such inane questions. I imagined you knew better, but perhaps I overestimate you. Are you so ignorant, Ms. Wiley, that you assume my work extends only to the parts you see with your own two eyes?”

Mr. Brody waits, daring me to answer. I couldn’t if I wanted to. Jamie remains dead silent.

“I wasn’t in the gallery at that very moment, Alice,” Mr. Brody continues, his voice raised and rapid.

“I’ve no idea where I was, in fact, because there are countless tasks with which I am charged during a party.

Perhaps I was orchestrating dessert service in the kitchen, or reassuring the bandleader that there’d be no further disruptions by silly girls with silly song requests—quite a few that night, I recall.

I do remember making a trip to the subbasement for an extra case of gin.

True, that sort of errand usually falls to the barmen, but I’m certainly not above helping when staff is overburdened.

Regardless, I assure you, I spent very little time in the corridor, ‘just looking’ at the guests. ”

The air goes rigid in the silence that follows.

The tiny muscles around my mouth begin to quiver, and I can’t stop them.

I would rather set my hair on fire than cry in front of Mr. Brody—this vile, poisoned, pathetic man—but already, the tears are trembling in my vision, one blink away from spilling.

And Mr. Brody sits there waiting like a proud conjurer.

“But—” Jamie says beside me, cracking the quiet. “But then you did lie.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Or else you’re lying now,” Jamie says. “You’re saying you were somewhere else—in the subbasement, the kitchen, far away from the party. But when the police asked—”

“No.” I grasp Jamie’s forearm, my head whipping back to Brody. “Not lying. You’re just not telling the truth again.”

It really is an elegant trick: scolding us for making assumptions he wants us to make. Answering the questions exactly as asked. I easily could have missed it. But I’ve seen this trick before.

Mr. Brody shuts his eyes heavily, in a great show of exhaustion, before launching into a half-hearted rebuttal that I don’t even hear.

“They asked if you saw Patrick leave,” I interject—softly, patiently, knowing he knows what’s coming. “You said yes.”