AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Screw this. Who is in residence? I’ll speak to any damn human being in the house.”
One moment.
“Contact his office,” Eve told Peabody, “see if you can talk to a human. I want to know where the hell he is.”
“One moment,” Peabody couldn’t resist saying, stepping out of range as she took out her ’link.
Before Eve decided whether to snicker or snarl, she heard locks disengaging.
“Lieutenant. Detective.”
“Sila. You work here?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The cleaning contractor bobbed her head, stepped back to let them in. “For about six months now. Mrs. Betz, she fired her other cleaning company, and she got our name from Senator Mira. Is something wrong?”
“There might be. I need to find Frederick Betz.”
“Oh, golly, I don’t know where he might be. I know Mrs. Betz said how she was going to their place in Bimini, I think it is, with the baby and the nanny, and the nanny’s helper.”
“The nanny has a helper?”
A little smirk escaped. “Oh, sure. And Mrs. Betz, I think she was taking her personal assistant, too, and maybe Mr. Betz was going—she didn’t say. But we started upstairs, and well, the master suite’s a mess—that’s just usual. But I can’t say if I noticed any of his things gone, like packed up for a trip.”
“Who’s we?”
“Oh, my mama and Dara—my daughter. It takes the three of us two full days to do this house, it’s got so many curlicues and fuss, even though they have a house droid who sees to it daily. We come in twice a month, go top to bottom.”
“Do me a favor, Sila. Stop the others from cleaning anything, for now.”
“I... All right.” She pulled a ’link out of her pocket, tapped out a quick text. “Can you tell me why?”
“There’s been another murder, a friend of the senator’s. I’m checking in with other friends.”
“Oh my goodness. Oh my. What should we do? We’ve been working on the bedroom floor for over an hour.”
“It’s all right. Don’t touch anything else. It would help if we could talk to the house droid.”
“Oh. It’s back in the kitchen, in the storage area. I don’t know how to turn it on. Mrs. Betz, she said Mr. Betz would shut it down while they were gone, and would program it by remote to come back on, freshen the house when they planned to come back.”
“If we can’t get it on, we’ll get someone from EDD. Peabody?”
“Working my way up to his admin. Lower assistants either don’t know or won’t say where he is.”
“Keep on it. Would you show us the droid, Sila?”
“I sure will.”
She started back, out of the entrance hall—with its central koi pond and massive gold chandelier with hundreds of...
“Curlicues,” Eve repeated and made Sila smile.
“And folderols and gimcracks. I swear they must’ve used two tons of gold paint and a couple acres of silks and velvets. If they could put a tassel on something, they put six.”
She shook her head as they walked past art—more cavorting cherubs, women in filmy, flowing white robes, men with swords or bows—and all framed in ornate gold frames.
“I took one walk through this place, and named my price as double what I usually charge. Mrs. Betz didn’t so much as blink, so that’s fine for both of us. Lieutenant Dallas, they got themselves his and hers bathrooms off the master. Not unusual, but he’s got a full bar in his. A bar, with stools and everything, and she’s got herself a long divan in pink silk, and a wine friggie. In the bathroom. I mean to say, I don’t know anybody who does much entertaining in the toilet, no matter how fancy it is.”
They passed archways leading to rooms packed with furniture, and with furniture so loaded with pillows (hundreds of tassels) no one could possibly fit their ass on a cushion.
