“I’m sure you will. You’re aware that your son was killed during a burglary.”
“Yes, yes. Joy gave me the ugly details.”
“Did you know about the vault in his office?”
“No, I didn’t. Will I say it surprised me?” Her voice lost that choked-up flavor. “Not if I’m honest. Henry, may he rest in peace, was a man of secrets. That was part of his appeal. I was so young, a child really, and he was so mysterious and romantic. I loved him with all my young heart. The man simply swept me off my feet.”
“You were married about ten years.” The longest, Eve thought, of the four.
“Yes, you could say I grew up as a young wife, then a mother. I gave Henry what no one else had. I gave him two children. He was grateful for that. And even though our marriage faded, we remained civil, even friendly, for the children.”
The hand went back to her heart as she looked out to the sea, as if in grief.
“It’s a blessing, I suppose, that Henry didn’t live to see this terrible thing happen. As a father, he saw to it Nathan and Joy had every advantage. The finest education, extensive travel as part of that. When we couldn’t hold our marriage together, he bought me a penthouse nearby so the children would be close to both of us.”
“Regarding the vault.”
Tina waved that aside. “I stayed out of Henry’s business.”
“In ten years, you never went into his office at Barrister House?”
“Well, of course I did. As a young, devoted wife, I might go in to urge him not to work so hard, or take him a drink. Or…”
Smiling now, she tipped down her sunshades. Eve decided violet-blue was accurate, and those striking eyes showed no signs of weeping.
“Henry and I made love in that office. He liked me to play sexy secretary, and then—”
“Okay. Got that. He never mentioned the vault or its contents?”
“A man of secrets,” she repeated, and tapped the sunshades back in place. “Was it really full of treasures? My husband heard Henry had the Blue Moon in there.”
“I really can’t tell you, ma’am.”
“Oh, don’t call me ma’am.” She laughed gayly. “Why, we’re practically the same age. I’m saying if Henry really had something like the Blue Moon in there, I would’ve loved to see it all. Try a few things on, just for fun.”
Her lips moved back to their pout. “But he never told me. Something like that? Just behind the wall? And I never knew.”
“Would you have any idea who he might have told?”
“He never told me, his wife, the mother of his children. Maybe one of his dalliances.” She shrugged. “He had plenty of those. I realized, after I gained some distance and experience, that Henry was addicted to sex. And the younger the… partner, the better.”
“Anyone specific?”
The shoulders shrugged. “I hardly remember names, but you might look at the one he married years after our marriage dissolved. Nothing but a gold digger.”
After the conversation, such as it was, Eve put her head down on the desk for a minute. She needed to have one more of these with wife number four. Leading nowhere, she thought, but to the conclusion that Henry Barrister had lousy taste in wives—and a definite type.
But she had to check off that last box.
At least Abernathy had come through. Though tempted to switch it up, dive into those investigators’ reports, she copied them to Roarke. Comforting herself with more coffee, she contacted wife number four.
Lacey Jones Barrister O’Ryan surprised her. The mixed-race woman in her early forties hadn’t bothered with makeup, had her dark hair bundled carelessly back under a floppy straw hat.
“Just doing some gardening,” she said. “I heard about Nathan. I’m so sorry. I can’t say we were close, but he was a nice man, had a nice family.”
“You were married to Henry Barrister.”
“That’s right. Nathan would’ve been… well, in his late twenties or early thirties. I was about ten years younger, but we got along fine.”
