“Okay,” Conor said.
“The caretaker came by. He knows the cops, and one of them called him, told him to get over there. He said there’s a succession of young women who stay there. Like college-aged.”
“A party house?” Conor asked.
“Not at all. No noise complaints, no one trashing the property. The opposite, in fact.”
“In what way?”
“He said it’s like a nunnery. Everyone is very quiet. Polite.” He paused. “One of the girls was Suzanne McKinney.”
“Wait, Garrett mentioned a Suzanne ...” Conor said. “Who is she?”
“She was around last night,” Tom said. “Working at the dinner, and Maeve said she’d hired her to do the place cards.”
“Okay,” Conor said, picturing her. He wondered about the house, about Suzanne, and what Belinda’s connection to them had been.
“The caretaker does the garden as well as the house. He said hardly anyone seems to go to the beach or walk down the hill to Bay Street—they don’t socialize. But every so often he sees a Mercedes pull into the drive. An older woman gets out, enters the house through the back door. He has the feeling she didn’t want him to see her face. She stays for a while, then leaves with one or more of the girls.”
“Maybe she owns the house,” Conor said.
“Turns out the owner of record is a business—Leprince de Beaumont Associates, LLC.”
Conor knew that it was not uncommon for homeowners, especially wealthy ones, to put their houses under the names of their trusts, corporations, or limited liability companies. These were time-honored ways to protect the owner’s privacy and provide tax advantages. It was hard to crack the shield and learn the identities, but there were ways around it.
“What’s Leprince de Beaumont Associates, LLC?” Conor asked.
“No clue. I checked out the secretary of state’s website and found the listing. There’s a registered agent but no actual owner listed. I left a message with the agent’s service, and I’m waiting for a callback,” Joe said.
“What about that truck that was parked outside? Can you trace it?” Conor asked.
“That’s registered to a different corporation—1740 LLC.”
“That number was stenciled on the truck’s door,” Conor said, picturing it. “Are there any other leads?”
“A few,” Joe said. “Starting with Maeve Longacre. She’s our 911 caller—she saw the blood.”
“Why was she at that house?” Conor asked.
“She said she’d gone out for an early walk,” Joe said. “She heard screams and ran to look through the open door.”
“Who did she think it was?” Conor asked.
“Kate,” Joe said. “See, Maeve had gone to check on her, and when she found the Tower Suite empty, she saw the cut-up veil and realized that the dress was missing. She was on high alert for Kate.”
“Kate had no connection with that house,” Conor said, doubting that scenario. “Why would Maeve have assumed it was her?”
“She didn’t know,” Joe said. “Her nerves were raw after the scene last night. She was worried about Kate.”
“And instead she came upon Belinda dead. Wearing Kate’s dress,” Tom said.
Conor nodded. “You said a few leads. What else?”
“Suzanne McKinney,” Joe said. “She apparently had an agenda.”
“What about her? How did Maeve come to hire her?”
“It’s the other way around,” Joe said. “Suzanne found Maeve.”
