Law and Disorder (12 page)

“And aside from the colour, what is going on in that room?”

“In what sense?” I said, radiating innocence.

“In the sense of big duffle bags and underwear and make-up. It looks like an explosion.”

“Oh, right. That would be Ashley and Brittany. They’re visiting. Didn’t I mention that?”

“You’ll have to tell them to keep things neat.”

“Um, that won’t be happening.”

I thought her hair stood on end. “What? I can’t show a house in this shape.”

“I hear you. But I am going to bend over backwards to make these girls feel at home and welcome.”

Her lip seemed to quiver. As I watched with interest, it hardened up again. “Well,” she said, “I don’t know if it’s worth my effort to drag anyone in to see this place in its current condition.”

“Of course. It’s perfectly understandable if you choose not to represent this house.”

It had to be done, as much as I hated it. Just after dinner, I slipped into the kind of outfit in the no man’s land between what my sisters wouldn’t be horrified by and what they would approve of. My lightweight black cotton dress had a bit of stretch, a short-sleeved top and a flared skirt. I squeezed my feet into a pair of cork-soled high-heeled sandals that were neither too sexy nor too comfortable. I knew I’d regret that, but the situation called for them. I transferred everything from my regular Roots shoulder bag to the vast glossy yellow oversize handbag my sister Alexa had given me for my birthday. I drew the line at jewellery.

I headed for Rockcliffe Park and the perfectly manicured lawns, circuitous streets, spacious homes full of diplomats, mandarins, technology wunderkinds, and business people, old money and new. Luckily, through the Coco Bentley connection, I knew exactly where Judge Cardarelle had lived out his days. I found the woman I assumed was Mrs. Cardarelle cutting peonies in the garden. She was humming happily and didn’t notice as I arrived. She gasped in surprise as I said hello. Her lustrous silver bob swung in a flattering arc as she turned her head. I smiled and held out my hand.

She shook it uncertainly. I put her at about sixty-five, with the fine lines that go with it. But her skin was soft with a pale glow, and she had the most perfect bone structure I’d ever seen. She was also tall, fluid and elegant, in tan linen pants and a black linen top. I figured her clothes had come from Holt Renfrew, rather than a certain discount outlet like mine. Not that I care a fig about bone structure or where your clothes come from, despite my sisters’ propaganda wars.

On the other hand, Judge Robert Cardarelle had resembled a bad-tempered basset hound more than the kind of man I’d expect to be her husband. Of course, he hadn’t been as likable as any basset I’d ever met.

I had already worked up a discreet yet sympathetic smile. “Hello, my name is Camilla MacPhee.”

Up close, Madame Cardarelle was beautiful, a Spanish Queen perhaps, with a bit of Nordic ice showing in the pale skin and the cool, distant gaze. She tilted her head very slightly.

I felt compelled to add, “I’m a lawyer. I only just found out about your husband’s death and I wanted to express my condolences. Your husband was very kind to me.”

“Kind?” she said.

“Yes. Very kind.”

“Robert?”

“Judge Cardarelle.”

“Kind in what way?”

Somehow this wasn’t the reaction I expected. “Well, when I was in practice, I had occasion to meet with him to get some information, and I found it most helpful.”

Mild interest flickered across her face. “Robert met with you?”

Keep it simple, I always told my legal aid clients, back when I had them. No long stories, no extraneous details, no chances to trip over your own whoppers.

“Oh, no,” I said, trying a disarming smile. “I was very new at the law then. I never would have had the nerve to ask for an appointment. I just needed a bit of information.”

She watched me carefully. I felt like a mouse in a bucket. “Robert gave you information?”

“Yes. Yes, he did. I just stopped him outside the courthouse years ago. I knew who he was. He just tossed off a bit of information casually, but it was what I needed and it helped me.”

“That is truly surprising.”

I used the all-purpose line people rely on when they hit a conversational snag after a death. “I am very sorry for your loss.”

She glanced around as if she’d just heard a bit of unexpected but not unpleasant news. Why had I thought it would be a good idea to meet Madame Cardarelle?

“It’s a very difficult time.” I felt that comment was safe enough.

Madame Cardarelle said, “I suppose it is.”

I blundered on, “I lost my husband ten years ago.”

“An accident?”

“Drunk driver.”

She nodded. “Robert hated drunk drivers.”

“Did he?”

“He didn’t have much use for other lawyers either. Especially women.”

By now I knew that I wouldn’t be having a cozy chat with Madame France Cardarelle that would reveal the arrival of a lawyer joke one day and the judge’s name on a piece of paper the next. I said, “I just wanted to pay my respects.”

“You were very young to be a widow.”

“Yes, I had just turned thirty. I had a hard time getting over it.”

An odd expression crossed her face. “Did you?”

“Yes, but eventually I had to get on with my life. Paul, my husband, left me with some lovely memories.”

She furrowed the perfect brow. She leaned forward and clipped a low-flying peony, without acknowledging what I had said. She bent down and wrapped the stem in what looked like a damp paper towel. She echoed my words with a bit of puzzlement. “Lovely memories.”

Somehow I suspected she didn’t have her own.

I said before backing away. “Again, my condolences. I am sorry to have intruded.”

“Thank you,” she said, without a trace of emotion.

I slipped back into my car and took stock. Whatever Madame Cardarelle’s emotional state, grief formed no part of it. Now that piqued my curiosity.

I got into the Acura and edged the car along until the Cardarelle residence was out of sight. I was grateful for the vast size of the properties on this street as I turned into the next driveway and scurried up to the door. Coco Bentley opened it with one of her usual dramatic gestures. I almost fell off the gracious front step when she screamed, “Camilla!”

“Yes,” I said, quietly. I was hoping that Madame Cardarelle hadn’t heard, even from half a block away.

“What are you doing here? Come in and have a drink!” Coco is like all my sisters’ friends, affluent, with a house that could grace the cover of
Traditional Home
. Unlike my sisters’ monuments to obsessive-compulsive disorder, Coco’s surfaces are always covered with books, magazines, newspapers, old birthday cards and other lovely debris. The walls are decorated with finds from her many postings with Foreign Affairs and huge outrageous paintings by apparently drunken artists. Coco is tiny, with café-au-lait skin and a wicked glint in her huge dark eyes. She’s in her mid-fifties, like my sisters, but she could pass for thirties. I think she must be missing the matronly gene. I should mention that she is also far more fun than all my sisters put together. By now I was sorry I hadn’t stopped here first.

I followed her past the cluttered formal living room to a cozy garden room in the back of the house. “Name your poison,” she said cheerfully.

“Just soda for me, please.”

“Oh, don’t be so tight-assed. I finally get a visit from you, and you won’t even have a glass of wine. I will not accept it. Will not!”

I agreed to a small glass of red. I sank into a battered leather club chair, which felt quite heavenly, and accepted a red wine goblet filled to the brim. “I was just offering condolences to Madame Cardarelle, and I realized you lived next door.” Close enough to the truth. I did have to admit that I sounded as stilted as a stuffed bird.

“Now I’ll have to have a double,” Coco said, swinging a bottle of something, “because that’s just too weird for words. I hope you don’t think for one minute that I believe you, Camilla.”

“Why not? What’s wrong with condolences? Madame Cardarelle seems lovely.”

Coco took a sip of her whatever it was, and took a seat in the opposite club chair. She crossed her legs, elegantly. “In an icy, repressed way, I suppose. But he was a gold-plated bastard. Don’t bother to deny it.”

I didn’t plan to deny it. “No kidding. What’s the story?”

“Did she seem broken up about it?” Coco arched an eyebrow and giggled.

“Not in the least. No emotion whatsoever.”

She said, “And you think she killed him?”

A splot of wine slopped from my glass as she asked that. I snatched a tissue to wipe it up. “What makes you say that?”

She shrugged. “Because you were there. And I know you like to meddle in murder. Every time I open the paper, there you are up to your armpits in one.”

“I do not like to meddle in murder.”

She shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

“Fine. Do you think she might have killed him?”

“I certainly would have bumped off the old bastard. Well, I probably would have divorced him long before I felt like murdering him. And I like to think I wouldn’t have married someone like him in the first place.” She shivered. “Those jowls.”

“But she didn’t divorce him.”

“No.”

“And he treated her badly?”

“I don’t mean he beat her or anything. But he was a vile man, cold, manipulative, and I am absolutely certain she never had a happy day in her married life.”

“I got that sense too, when she spoke, although she didn’t put it into words. So you’re insinuating she’d have reason to kill him. Do you think she polished him off?”

She said, “That’s just wishful thinking on my part.”

“Stop teasing me, Coco. Why not?”

“For one thing, she was in hospital having a hysterectomy. She was still in the recovery room when he died.”

“That must be why there was no funeral or visitation,” I said.

“It certainly allowed her an out. She wouldn’t have had to pretend in front of his colleagues, who were probably glad he died too. I mean he wasn’t like any other judge I ever met. Then there was his family. I don’t think she got along with them.”

“I read that he died of anaphylactic shock.”

“Nuts. A long time allergy. He always carried an epi-pen.”

“Let’s just speculate. Do you think she could have arranged to leave the nuts at home before she went into the hospital? Maybe hid his epi-pen?” Of course, I wasn’t sure how a joke would fit into this scenario.

“It didn’t happen at home, though. He had gone out for a walk. I saw him leave at least forty-five minutes before they told me he died. He couldn’t have eaten any nuts at that point, because he was fine. Not that he spoke to me or even acknowledged my presence.”

“Did he forget his pen?”

“I heard that it was found by his hand and that it was working. A fluke, everyone said. I was just kidding about murder. If it was anyone else, I’d have thought what a terrible tragedy. But the world is better off without this man. Don’t quote me.”

“This is very nice wine.” A non-sequitur for sure, but I wanted to get my head around this information.

“Well, it should be a nice wine,” Coco said, without bothering to explain. “You still haven’t told me why you’re here.”

I thought for a minute. Coco liked to talk and I didn’t want this story spread all over town, at least until I understood it. Finally, I said, “Can you keep a secret?”

“No, not at all. That’s why I had a career in the foreign service.”

“All right, all right, it sounds like a dumb question.” I filled her in on the jokes and the deaths that seemed to be connected, ending up with Judge Cardarelle’s name.

She uncrossed her legs and sat forward, staring me right in the eyes. “I see why you wanted to talk to her.”

“I thought I could develop a rapport and then sniff out if he’d received any jokes. Then maybe try to learn if there were people who hated him.”

“Of course there were,” Coco chuckled. “I hated him, and I hardly knew him. France definitely hated him.”

“I’m wondering if he had any connection to Lloyd Brugel.”

“The nasty creature who’s on trial now?”

“The same.”

Coco may be small and cute and sexy and glamorous, but she’s also sharp. “So you think this Brugel is behind it?”

“There has to be a connection. He’s a likely one. Heartless enough to play such a game. I hope it’s him. And if it is, he may get away with it too. Who knows how many other people might get a joke.”

“What do the police say?”

“The one I talked to from Major Crimes was delighted by the idea. I’m just trying to scrape together enough to get them to take it seriously.”

She smiled at me. “I can call the chief if you like. I find him quite attractive, although awfully tall.”

“What I’d appreciate even more is if you can find out if the Cardarelles received any jokes. Madame wouldn’t have been around on that last day. I am sure that she would have been stunned when she got back home after major surgery, having lost her husband and all, but maybe she would have noticed a joke.”

“I’m on the case,” Coco said. “I feel guilty about not offering to do anything for France. I think I’ll invite her for dinner tomorrow. Impromptu.”