Page 22 of Murder on Charity Lane

“Did you hear that?” Angela asked from behind us.

Nicholas held me close. “Should I take you home or—”

“Someone must’ve had a heart attack,” I told him. “We should help.”

I dragged him to the front of the house, then stopped at the open door. Frank’s friend George, the erudite man with the bushy white beard, stood in the foyer, murmuring into his phone. His wife, Helene, was bustling upstairs, followed closely by Jane.

And CJ knelt at the base of the staircase beside Frank DeYoung.

Well, beside Frank DeYoung’s body, which was sprawled on the polished concrete floor. One of his pant legs had hiked up to reveal his blue-veined pale calf. His hands were too white and too still, and his neck was bent wrong.

I froze in place as Pax the masseuse crouched beside CJ. I shifted my gaze away, focusing instead on the ice cubes scattered along the stairs from a dropped drink. I didn’t want to acknowledge the ugliness of a broken body, so my gaze fixated on the ice cubes like nothing mattered more.

Karina stood on the second floor, at the top of the stairs, far above Frank, looking pale and unsteady, about three inches from fainting. Then Helene gathered her into her arms, and my gaze fell to where Frank’s best friend Sunny watched stricken from the other side of the foyer, his sunglasses skewed on his face, grasping one of the mission-style benches for support.

“What happened?” Angela asked, entering behind me and Nicholas.

“Ambulance is on the way,” George announced.

“Is he—breathing?” CJ asked Pax.

Pax felt Frank’s neck for a pulse, then shook his head. He might’ve whispered “no” too quietly for anyone to hear.

Sunny gave three wrenching sobs, then sank onto the wooden bench.

Karina didn’t move. She looked like a statue of a woman suddenly widowed as CJ took Frank’s hand with a tremulous smile, tears on her face while George kept talking to 911 dispatch.

“What happened?” Angela asked again.

“He tripped,” Pax told her.

“No,” Karina said, barely loud enough for me to hear.

“He fell,” Helene said. “Oh, god, Karina, I’m so sorry.”

Karina pointed downstairs toward us. “She pushed him. I saw it. She pushed him.”

14

VERNON

On the bright side, the Hope Ranch call wasn’t for a robbery. Detective Sergeant Vernon Enible hated burglary calls to wealthy neighborhoods: the homeowners always expected the police to track down their stolen goods, and it was his job to disappoint them.

On the dimmer side, while the accidental death of a tottering eighty-one-year-old didn’t require the expertise of the Crimes Against Persons Unit, it still required Vernon’s presence. So he needed to show up.

And on the positively bleak side, while parts of Hope Ranch were merely rich, the DeYoungs were wealthy. The truly wealthy were untouchable. Even if you knew they were guilty, you couldn’t work the system effectively, because their lawyers were already working it against you. Hell, you often couldn’t even confront them directly. Instead, high-end criminal attorneys turned the justice system into a goddamn book club. You talked and talked and talked.

Still, “Old Man Falls Down Stairs” shouldn’t take much time. Vernon would tut somberly, say a few comforting words, then return to the station.

At least that’s what he thought before he arrived at the scene. The mansion looked like a fancy apartment building from the 1970s, all concrete and stained wood, though the water features were a nice touch. And you couldn’t beat the expansive garden and ocean bluffs. Unlike some of the mansions he’d responded to, he actually liked the DeYoung place.

Maybe he’d start saving his pennies.

He stepped from his car and glanced toward the three patrol cars. The tension in the air—or in the postures of the officers at the door—struck him as edgier than an accidental death deserved.

“What’s the issue?” he said as he approached.

“The wife—the widow—says the decedent was pushed,” Officer Aldwell told him.