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“Mom was hard to love. I know you want to know who I think might want her dead. The answer is probably everyone who met her. I don’t think I ever heard her say I love you and mean it. She definitely never said it to me.”
“I’m sorry,” Faith said.
Genevieve shrugged with practiced carelessness. “It is what it is. I got over it by ninth grade. If she didn’t want to love me, that was fine. I didn’t have to love her.”
Faith was silent a moment as she allowed that admission to sink in. Then she asked, “Did your mother have a boyfriend that you know of?”
Genevieve chuckled. “Boyfriend? No. I don’t think Mom cared at all about sex, and if she married someone, she might be expected to pay attention to him.”
A tear welled in the corner of the young woman’s eye. She stared up at the sky and didn’t seem to notice it was there.
“Do you have any idea what your mother was doing in the industrial park on the opposite side of town last night?” Faith asked.
Genevieve shrugged again and shook her head. "I never understood why Mom did anything. Sometimes I think she would just do whatever came first to her mind to fill the days."
“I thought you said she was invested in her business.”
“She liked owning a business. She didn’t like running it. She didn’t like doing anything but listen to other people treat her like a queen.”
“So you don’t know why your mom might have been in the industrial park two nights ago?”
Genevieve sighed. "No." She turned to Faith, and there were two clear tracks down her cheeks. "I'm sorry I can't help you more. Mom and I were more like roommates for the past few years."
Faithwasa little disappointed at the lack of useful information she got from her, but she was gentle in her response. “Genevieve, I really am sorry for your loss.”
Genevieve smiled bitterly. “Don’t be. I never had anything to lose in the first place.”
***
In the car, Faith asked Michael if he learned anything useful.
“Other than that the whole family is a piece of work?” he said, “not much. Olivia shared that Gigi wasn’t well-liked, but we got that point pretty clearly from the first part of the interview. She then spent the rest of the interview talking about how she detested Goldwood and wished they had remained in Charleston.”
“Lovely,” Faith said.
“Anything from Kid Bitchy?”
Faith cast him a reproachful glance. “She just lost her mother, Michael.”
“She seems really broken up about it,” Michael replied sarcastically.
“She is,” Faith insisted. She might not show it, but she’s very upset at her mother’s death. I believe that Gigi was cold to her, but she’s an orphan now. She has no one left but her grandmother, and she didn’t seem the easiest woman to get along with.”
“Neither of them were,” Michael replied.
Faith let the argument drop. “We’ll call Tom and get him to send detectives to Le Courtesan to interview the employees.”
Michael frowned at her. “What are we gonna do?”
“I want to talk to Gerald Conway’s wife,” Faith said. “I want to see if he was as much of a ‘piece of work’ as Gigi Demetrious.”
“You think they were murdered for being assholes?”
“Stranger things have happened.”
Michael shrugged. “Fair enough.”
Faith called Tom while Michael drove to the nearby and equally egregious Tropical Garden Villas. Gerald Conway’s home was smaller and less opulent than Gigi Demetrious’s but was still far larger and more well-appointed than an average home. His money, evidently, was spent on toys. Two different Mercedes sedans sat in the four-car driveway. The other two spaces were taken by a trailer with two jetskis and a twenty-foot boat.
