Page 45 of Old Money

M r. Brody stops talking, but he doesn’t look up. His eyes stay downcast as he gives a stagy laugh, feigning incredulity.

“You said yes,” I repeat, waiting.

“Ms. Wiley,” Brody begins. But then—nothing. His sentence stalls out.

“ ‘I may have been in the kitchen,’ ” I say, repeating his line back to him. “But you weren’t, were you? You were somewhere else.”

He doesn’t answer. He just keeps his eyes down—as though I can’t tell from the rest of his body. He’s caught and cornered, no choices left but one: Will he surrender, or go down fighting?

“You did see Patrick,” I say, prompting him. “Just not in the gallery. You saw him somewhere else.”

Mr. Brody doesn’t speak. Instead, his chin drops to his chest.

“Brody,” Jamie murmurs softly, as stunned as I am.

I walked in half-expecting to be outmatched by Mr. Brody.

Even as an adult, I couldn’t quite shake the childish belief in his all-seeing, all-knowing power.

But now I get it. He’s just a petty fake, clinging to his sense of superiority.

He withholds answers because you don’t deserve them—you didn’t ask the questions right.

He’s no mighty ruler; he’s the man behind the curtain.

It’s about time someone rips it clean off.

“Were you in the locker room?” Jamie asks, taking a step forward. “Or on the grounds somewhere? It was eight thirty, right?”

I nod silently. Patrick left the ballroom around 8:30 p.m. That timing is certain, based on what I saw, what Theo saw and even the statements taken on the scene, from the otherwise tight-lipped members.

I read through the notes on Jessie’s drive, appalled by how similar their vague “recollections” were phrased: He was there when the band began playing, but all the young folks had vanished by the time they took their break. Teenagers . Never a dull moment.

“You were on the terrace,” I say, my gaze refocusing. “It’s got to be that.”

“The terrace,” Jamie murmurs to himself. “I didn’t even think.”

I never would’ve put it together either, were it not for those bland, scattered statements on Jessie’s drive. It was one of those invisible, unacknowledged tasks that brought Brody out onto terrace—the kind of thing no one thinks of when they picture an aging butler.

While Mr. Brody shifts alongside the party as it progresses, the waitstaff follows behind it.

With the first three ballrooms emptied out, they shut the interior doors for cleanup.

Since the ballrooms are visible from the terrace, they need to be tidy before the party moves out there for fireworks.

It’s always struck me as such a silly, draconian rule that I know it must be Mr. Brody’s.

“You stepped out to check their progress, right?” I demand. “To watch the cleanup from the terrace?”

“That is my role, Ms. Wiley,” Brody says, his jaw so tight it sounds like he’s speaking through a mask. “Supervision.”

“Right.” I think of Aunt Barbara’s words. “You keep everyone on their p’s and q’s.”

I see the club in my mind’s eye again, lighting up like a dollhouse: Mr. Brody stands watching at the terrace railing. The staff hurries to tidy the ballrooms. The sky darkens from dusk to full dark, and down in the basement, Patrick leaves the clubhouse through the north exit.

And then what? I think. Which way did he go?

I move the figure of Patrick around, trying to place him within Brody’s sight line. He couldn’t have taken the slate steps down the hill—he’d have been virtually invisible, especially in a black suit.

“The floodlight,” Jamie answers. “The one by the basement door, above the golf carts.”

“Floodlight?” I say, confused. “But I didn’t see—”

“No, you wouldn’t have. It’s automatic. Turns on at six and off at nine.” Jamie’s head bends toward me, but his eyes don’t move. “It’s for the golfers—games run late, maybe they’ve had a few.”

The tableau before me: Mr. Brody’s spots a suited figure in the floodlight, leaving the basement.

“How far did you see him go?”

Mr. Brody flinches, but says nothing.

“Did you see which way he turned? Did he seem—I don’t know, anything. Anything you remember.” With effort, I soften my voice to a plaintive pitch. “Please.”

Mr. Brody goes pale and hollow eyed.

“The pool.”

“You mean, the pool gate?” says Jamie. “Or—”

“Shh,” I hiss.

Mr. Brody shakes his head—a tiny, shivery no.

“Not the front. The side. Into the trees.”

I see the scene progress as Brody narrates: Patrick walks across the damp grass, aiming for the narrow thicket of evergreens just to the left of the pool—a practical feature, providing shade and buffering the sound of shrieking children.

“They go through there sometimes,” Brody continues. “To drink and all that teenage rot. But he was alone. That awful boy. He never should’ve been there.”

“And then?” I coax. “He cut through the trees and then what? Did he hop the fence? How did—”

“ Into the trees, Ms. Wiley,” he answers, turning his empty eyes on mine. “Not through.”

Another assumption , I scold myself. But Mr. Brody doesn’t. He carries on, his gaze still aimed in my direction, but not at me.

“I saw him step into the trees, and then, one of the waiters—a new boy, too young for high season. He came running for me, panting about some emergency. Running , in clear view of the party, and so I had no choice, you see. I had to step in that very moment.”

I don’t see—not entirely. There’s some part he’s skipping over, some detail he’s left out.

“And then?” I prompt. “You—went to handle the emergency.”

“Hardly,” Mr. Brody mutters. “Party nonsense—such fuss over nothing.”

I wait, unsure which part to press him on.

“When did you next see Patrick?” Jamie asks, each word landing firm and measured.

And exactly right. I know it the second I hear it. This is the right question.

Mr. Brody knows it too. Whatever umbrage left in him evaporates, and he answers Jamie without resistance.

“After. During the fireworks. When he came back up the basement stairs, sweating in that wrecked suit. That’s when I was in the gallery. After it happened.”

I sit forward again.

“After what happened, Mr. Brody?” I speak up, reaching for him through the fog.

He pauses—not hesitant, but perplexed.

“After he killed her, Ms. Wiley,” he answers, a mild lilt in his voice. “Only just, I imagine. I’d barely laid eyes on him when that awful screaming started from outside—you, screaming like nothing I’d ever heard. Yes, I assume just minutes after he killed her.”

Jamie and I look at each other, both of us caught on the same word. And even in his absent state, Mr. Brody seems to hear it too.

“I assume,” he says wearily, “because I did not see the killing with my own eyes. I saw enough to be certain. And to remain certain, despite what the authorities and family believed. But only you and he, Ms. Wiley, can claim to know.”

Minutes pass in ringing silence. Mr. Brody’s words still fill the air like woodsmoke, settling into our clothes and hair and lungs.

Eventually, I feel the ground beneath my feet again, and realize we can leave—we’re done.

We did it. I turn to Jamie, nodding toward the door—then pause, my chin aloft, as something catches my eye: that strip of red on Jamie’s neck, thin but vivid, his pulse beating behind it.

Something knots up in my chest, hard and knuckly, like a fist.

I turn back to Mr. Brody.

“I’m going to the authorities tomorrow, to begin the process of having my cousin’s death reinvestigated.”

He looks at me bewildered. I’ve never seen him look so human.

“I’d like you to come with me,” I continue. “And tell them what you just told us.”

He draws a long, audible breath. “Ms. Wiley, I’ve entertained these accusations only because of your intimate involvement in the matter. I suppose I should forgive your behavior, given your troubled history. But I believe you’ve been forgiven far too much.”

“Understood.” I turn back to Jamie, signaling toward the door. “Ready?”

“Yep.” His voice matches my casual tone, but his eyes dart back and forth, alarmed.

I open the door, looking back to Mr. Brody over my shoulder.

“If you change your mind, call me before tomorrow morning.”

He rears back, flummoxed by my informality.

“You have a legal right to amend your statement,” I add. “Possibly an obligation, but I’m not sure.”

He stands, imperious again, but still speechless.

“See you tomorrow afternoon then.”

I let the door slam behind us and head for the stairs, nudging Jamie to pick up the pace.

“What just happened?” Jamie asks.

“I gave him a chance.”

“Alice.” Jamie stops at the bottom of the stairs, turning me by the shoulders. “Explain.”

I put my finger to my lips, and glance down the hall. Still empty. No sound of nearby footsteps or showers running in the locker rooms. I turn my back on Jamie, unbuttoning my blouse.

“Uh,” he says.

“Shh.”

I unbutton all the way down to my sternum, smirking to myself as I recall that batshit staff dress code Jamie sent me on my first day—the rules for female staffers twice as batshit, naturally: no dyed hair, no visible kneecaps and absolutely no pockets.

No problem , I think. We’ve got a solve for that.

A phone’s not as easy as stashing a thumb drive, but in a pinch it’s doable.

“No fucking way.” Jamie stares awestruck as I turn around, holding it up to show him.

I check the screen, smiling again.

“Looks like it’s all there.”

I hit the red button and stop the recording.

“Shall we?”