Chapter 40

  Goode

  Thursday

  At three o’clock on the dot, a black Suburban pulled up to police headquarters, and Milton Biggs and Alex Battrelle stepped out. Rhona Chen and her cameraman were waiting for them in the plaza.

  “Did you kill Victoria and Simon Fontaine?” she called out.

  “No, I did not,” Alex said.

  “Do you know who did?”

  Biggs grabbed Alex by the forearm, a signal to stop talking. “Those assholes leaked this as a perp walk,” the attorney muttered. “Not a good sign.”

  Inside, Goode sat across the table from Alex and his lawyer in the interrogation room. Two FBI agents and SSA Martin Watts, who had arrived through the back entrance to avoid the media, listened on the other side of the one-way mirror. The feds would have their turn with him next.

  As Goode stared into the suspect’s eyes, Alex met his gaze without flinching. Time would tell if this was a sincere form of communication or a practiced business measure, honed from years of cons, both personal and professional.

  “I know you were with Victoria Thursday night and Friday morning. Did you shoot her up with something?”

  “No, absolutely not. We’ve both been clean for some time; her for years, and me for the past six months. We made love all night. She wasn’t feeling well when I left, but she was most definitely alive. She said she’d been throwing up, but she wears an IUD, so she didn’t realize it was morning sickness until she took a home pregnancy test on Thursday. She called to tell me it was positive right away, and I was so excited I drove straight down from Ramona. I spent all day Friday shopping for a ring.”

  “Did you guys ever experiment with Vitaleron’s sex drug?”

  “No. We don’t need any help in that department.”

  “Okay,” Goode said noncommittally.

  “Victoria and I were in love,” Alex said. “It just took me eighteen years too long to realize it. I’m not a murderer, and I never would have hurt her or our baby.”

  “How do you know it’s yours?” Goode asked. “You know she was seeing your brother, right?”

  Alex’s eyes widened and he shook his head, confused. “Michael? No, actually, I didn’t.” He paused before explaining that even though he’d been in Ramona for the past six months getting sober, he’d texted her one night about three months ago and they’d slept together. “But like I told her, I didn’t care whose baby it was, I’d raise it as if it were mine, and we could have another one of our own.”

  “So why run off to the Caymans? I saw in your text that you wanted to come back to see her that night.”

  “That’s right. After I left her house, I stopped at the store for some groceries and went to my house to eat breakfast before I went ring shopping. I finally found the right one at an estate jeweler on Prospect. I was on my way back with it when Michael called,” Alex said, recounting their conversation.

  “What have you done?” Michael asked, sobbing. “Victoria and Simon are dead. Victoria is lying on her bedroom floor, and Simon is at the bottom of the stairs, like he fell or was pushed. What did you give her? And what did you do to Simon?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Alex asked. “Simon was alive when I saw him last night, and Victoria was fine when I left her this morning.”

  “There’s oxy and Xanax on the nightstand and needle bruises in the fold of her arm, just like when you were still using,” Michael said. “She was cutting herself again too.”

  “I can’t believe this. There were no drugs or needles in her bedroom while I was there, and I didn’t see any cutting marks, because the lights were out. You know we’re both sober, Michael, and that I would never hurt her.”

  “I didn’t know you’d been here, but as soon as I saw her arm, I thought of you immediately. If you were the last one to see her, you’re a natural suspect. You’d better get the hell out of town.”

  Alex explained to Goode that his brother never mentioned that he’d been seeing Victoria. “But he was right that you would consider me a suspect, or I wouldn’t be sitting here right now. When Michael said he would ‘take care of it,’ I didn’t ask for details. I was devastated. My mind was a blur. I drove straight to the airport, and thankfully they had a flight to the Caymans. I didn’t even bring a toothbrush.”

  Take care of it? What does that mean?

  “That’s interesting,” Goode said, “because Michael told me he didn’t know she was dead until he heard about it Saturday on the news. How do you reconcile that?”

  “I’m sure he was trying to protect our family name, but he should come clean now that my ass is on the line. Here, I’ll show you the call,” Alex said, pulling his phone from his pocket. Scrolling through his call log, he showed Goode the incoming nine-minute call from Michael on Friday at 7:23 p.m.

  Bingo. All we need are the cell-tower records to confirm that Michael was at the Fontaine house when he made that call.

  “Why the Caymans?”

  “I do business there. There’s nothing illegal about that. My lawyer advised me to come back to deal with this face-to-face rather than have you guys put our family through the public humiliation. But I see by the TV camera outside that you’re going to do that anyway.”

  “Running off to the Caribbean makes you look guilty. You know that, right?”

  “If you say so.”

  “If it wasn’t you, then who would want Victoria and her father dead?” Goode asked. “What about Michael? Was he jealous or hurt enough after she broke up with him that morning?”

  “I’m sure he was hurt, but he’s a pussycat. She did say she was dealing with some heavy stuff at Vitaleron, but our minds were elsewhere.”

  “Well, there were serious legal and financial issues that she was about to disclose to the board, some of which implicated you and your father. Did she mention any of that?”

  “No. That’s news to me.”

  “Really? What about your father? I hear he had some problems with Simon Fontaine. A battle over power?”

  “Simon forced me off the board before I got sober. My dad was pissed, but not enough to kill anyone. He’s more into mind games than hunger games.”

  Alex stared down at the table. Goode wondered if he was feeling the weight of the wreckage his addiction had caused, or if he was only pretending to feel remorse, as Goode had seen many addicts do.

  “The FBI says you’ve been doing illegal transactions in the Caymans and that Victoria was aware of this. She didn’t confront you about that?”

  “Asked and answered, Detective,” Biggs interjected.

  “Like I said, we were in no mood to talk about work,” Alex said.

  “Did you know she had a threesome in Hawaii a few months ago, involving Congressman Winchester and his fiancée? Curious timing, given her pregnancy, don’t you think? Maybe she told you about that and you got angry?”

  “Not my style. But no, she never said anything about a threesome. She was free to see whoever she wanted, including my brother, apparently. I was trying to get clean so we could be together. The night we spent together a few months ago was a weak moment on her part. It was right after she got back from Hawaii, so maybe she wanted to get that scene out of her head. If that’s the case, I don’t blame her. Winchester is my client, but he’s also a sleaze.”

  “When I questioned your father, he told me you’d been missing for six months, and he didn’t know where you were. Was he lying?”

  “No. I wanted to surprise him when I came back sober.”

  “What about the business deal that you two did with Keller Chemicals? Did he tell you that Victoria wanted you to divest those shares?”

  “No, I just told you I haven’t seen or talked to him for six months. But we knew there would be a strong market for the chemicals needed to make the sex drug. There’s nothing illegal or unethical about that. It’s simply good business.”

  “Well, she gave your dad a deadline that he failed to meet, and she was about to inform the board.”

  “Never heard a thing about it.”

  “I’m sure your family stood to lose some good money on that. Smells like a motive for murder to me.”

  “That’s absurd. Penny-ante stuff.”

  “What do you do in the Caymans for your clients?”

  “That’s not relevant to the death investigation, Detective,” Biggs interjected. “He invests in various companies and funds.”

  “You’re wrong. It actually is relevant in this case,” Goode said. “And as I told you before, we’re pretty sure these are two homicides, even more so now.”

  “Again, asked and answered,” Biggs said.

  “If Victoria wasn’t using drugs, why would she have Xanax and oxycodone on her nightstand? And with her past history, it seems unlikely that her father would knowingly prescribe either one of those, especially when she was pregnant.”

  “I’ve been wondering about that myself,” Alex replied. “All I can tell you is that the drugs weren’t there when I left around eight fifteen. Something bad must have gone down afterward. What do the toxicology tests say?”

  “Nothing so far,” Goode lied. “We’re still looking.”

  At that point, Goode stood up and left the room, purposely leaving Alex hanging. His story was believable, but it also left room for a possible Battrelle family conspiracy, which he, Stone, and Watts had already discussed. Based on Victoria’s memo, Darren McMurphy had several reasons for wanting Victoria out of his way too.

  Even if Alex wasn’t involved in the actual murders, he could still be liable for felony murder, when a murder occurs while another crime is being committed by a member of a conspiracy. They would have to bring Vincent and Michael Battrelle in again to clear up the discrepancies in their stories.

  “I’m done with him for now,” Goode told Watts. “He’s all yours. Let me know if he says anything more useful about the murders.”

  “We’ve already got the arrest warrant for money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the IRS, so we’ll get a statement—hopefully an admission of some sort,” Watts said. “I can dangle a deal if he agrees to talk more about the murders, but that would be up to you to pursue further. We’ll take him over to MCC when we’re done, so your potential victim will be safe for a few days—from this suspect anyway—until a judge sets bail. Justice has been served here, Detective. Well done.”

  Chapter 41

  Katrina

  Thursday

  Katrina was so hungry she was almost ready to chew her hand off. After stopping to grab a tuna sub on Convoy, she continued past the Vietnamese and Thai restaurants until she came to the Fullerton Security office. The clerk buzzed her in.

  “Charlie will be right out,” he said, motioning her toward the uninviting chrome-and-vinyl chairs. Katrina paced back and forth until a door opened in the middle of the blue wall.

  “Ms. Chopin,” Charlie said. “Come on back.”

  As she followed him down a narrow hallway, they passed a series of cubbyholes, each of which contained a remarkably similar dour-faced, dumpy, bald man sitting at a computer.

  Right out of a Dr. Seuss book, “with stars upon thars.”

  Charlie was bald, too, but he wore a friendly smile, probably because he was the boss. With his paunch, he looked like a bowling ball with stubby legs, draped with a green-and-blue diagonally striped tie.

  The viewing room had one large central screen, surrounded by smaller screens divided into four views, one for every camera in or around a client’s house.

  Charlie explained that a client could monitor these same views from a computer inside their house.

  “Is someone inside the Fontaine house right now?” she asked, describing the camera at the front gate that had turned toward her that afternoon.

  Confirming her assessment about the motion detector, Charlie said, “I doubt anyone was inside. No one but the police—and you—have contacted us, though we’ve been keeping close tabs on it due to the recent events. The Fontaines’ contract is paid up through the end of the year.”

  He planted himself in a swivel chair in front of the largest screen and offered her the chair next to him. “What time do you want to start the tape?” he asked.

  “How early can we go?”

  “There was a power outage here that morning, so there’s no footage from six to ten o’clock, but the detective said the 911 call didn’t come in until 9:00 p.m. anyway.”

  Katrina stayed mum about her new information from Cat. “Let’s start at 10:00 a.m.”

  “Okay,” he said, shrugging. After typing in the time, he hit “play” and slowly advanced the video.

  “Wait, I saw something,” she said. “Can you rewind?”

  Charlie did as he was asked, and advanced more slowly. At eleven thirty, an Asian woman wearing nursing scrubs and her hair in a bun walked up to the gate carrying two white paper bags. The bigger one looked like it held take-out food, the other was a small pharmacy bag.

  Now that the nurse’s face was directly in view, Katrina could see that she was a Filipina in her late twenties. Pressing a button, she waited for the gate to slide open, then disappeared down the driveway. It appeared that she’d been there before and that the occupants buzzed her in because they were expecting her.

  “Can you zoom in on her face?” Katrina asked.

  Charlie complied, but Katrina still didn’t recognize the nurse, which wasn’t surprising because all her interviews had been phoners. Still, something pinged in her short-term memory.

  “Can you print me a screen grab of her face?”

  “I’m not sure the police would want me to do this.”

  “They’re your cameras, right?”

  “Yes, but it’s an ongoing investigation.”

  “Please, Charlie. You’re a private company, and the public has a right to know. That’s why I’m here.”

  As the printer whirred behind them, Charlie swiveled around and grabbed a black-and-white, time-stamped side view of the woman.

  “Thanks. Let’s keep going.”

  They stopped the footage again at 12:02 p.m., when the uniformed police officer showed up, just like Cat said.

  “Can you zoom in on his face too?”

  But as much as the officer’s head was magnified, he was looking down and away from the camera, his face mostly obscured by the hat. After he called someone on his cell, the gate opened.

  “He didn’t hit the intercom. Someone let him in from the inside,” she noted, asking for another screen grab.

  Charlie advanced the tape again until a shiny, silver Mercedes pulled up to the gate. The white-haired male driver, who resembled William Fontaine but was slightly older, punched a code into the keypad, then drove through at 12:32 p.m.

  “Wait, can we watch that again for the plate number?”

  “Sure,” Charlie said, reaching for a clipboard and flipping through the pages. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  “What?” Katrina asked as she wrote down the number, along with a description of the car.

  “That’s Dr. Fontaine’s car. His daughter drives a red Miata convertible.”

  “Really? Okay. Thanks. So, we know he was still alive at twelve thirty.”

  As they advanced the video to one o’clock, Katrina saw the nurse approach the other side of the gate, looking nervous and agitated. Scared, even. “There she is again.”

  The nurse pushed a button, waited for the gate to open, then quickly walked through it.

  Are Victoria and Simon already dead by this point, or is the nurse just late for work? It’s still eight hours before the 911 call. It would help if we knew the time of death.

  Half an hour later, the uniformed officer went through the same motions, the top portion of his face still obscured by the brim of his hat.

  It’s almost as if he knew how to avoid being ID’d by the security cameras. Could this officer be a friend of the victims, stopping by for a casual visit over the lunch hour? Or was he off the clock, doing something he shouldn’t have been?

  The officer looked both ways up and down the street with a tight-lipped expression—until his lips sort of curled upward.

  Surely, he didn’t just smile if those people are dead inside? Wait, is that lipstick? So, is that a female officer?

  The officer looked thin, but strong, and the posture looked more like a man than a woman. After reading about crimes committed by police impersonators, she knew that anyone could buy a uniform, but how many officers still wore hats, let alone lipstick?

  Not unless they’re on a TV show, in a parade, or at a funeral. Maybe the Fontaines are still alive at this point. The nurse didn’t leave until after Simon got home. I wonder why he and Victoria were home, not at work, on a Friday.

  The next five hours of video showed no movement until 7:15 p.m., when a midnight-blue Jaguar pulled up. A man with brown hair leaned out the window, punched a number into the keypad, then drove through. But there wasn’t enough light on his face for Katrina to recognize him.

  “Can we go back and zoom in on the driver’s face?” she asked.

  Katrina gasped this time through. “Is that Alex?” she asked softly.

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing,” she said, cursing herself for thinking out loud.

  “You know him?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe. It’s dark so I can’t really tell. Can you print me a still of his face and one of his license plate?”

  Charlie handed her a dark, grainy photo that could have been Alex, but also could’ve been Michael. She’d only seen Alex in photos. The driver was wearing a white dress shirt and tie—certainly not a Halloween costume. Nor was it a black outfit with a stocking mask, as if he were about to commit a murder.

  He knows the security code, so he’s been there before.

  Katrina was antsy to get back to the newsroom to run the plate number with the Department of Motor Vehicles and obtain the registered owner’s name.