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“He may have caught his own murder on camera,” she exclaims.
He sighs. “After I found out he was blackmailing Marcella, I took them all down. He had to stop before . . . something like this happened.”
Blackmail is a perfectly reasonable excuse for murder, yet something still isn’t sitting right with me. “If you knew he was blackmailing people, why did you accuse me first? Seems like his victims would be the most obvious choice.”
“I apologize about that.” He looks to the ceiling, embarrassed. “I had just found him. I was in shock. It was so grisly, so . . .” He waves his hands like he’s searching for the right word. “Brutal, and with all due respect, your family’s reputation . . .” He bobbles his head as if to say fill in the blanks.
“How was he killed?” Stella blurts out then presses her lips together firmly, like she didn’t mean to.
“He was in one of the private rooms. On a St. Andrew’s cross. Someone had, uh . . . had cut off his penis and, um—” He clears his throat and shakes his head. “Stuffed it in his mouth.”
Stella’s jaw falls open. “Jesus Christ.”
“To be fair, that does sound like something I’d do.” I shrug with a light chuckle. Stella shoots me a death glare. “With all due respect,” I add with a friendly smile.
“Anyway,” she says dramatically, and Mauldin switches his attention to her instead of staring at me with a mixture of disgust and terror. “Despite what Lochlan just said, it actually sounds like something a woman would do. The whole dick thing isn’t something you’d do just to stop a blackmailer. If that was the goal, why not make it look like an accident or just shoot him?”
I consider this and think out loud. “You’re right, this was personal. They wanted him to suffer. They wanted to make a point.”
We sit in silence for a few moments, processing, thinking. Stella is the one to speak first. “Call Ilya Jakšic. I have an idea.”
“This has to be violating a dozen different health codes.” Stella grimaces as we stand face-to-face with a very frosty Jeffery Mauldin packed in a chest freezer within a larger meat locker. She scrunches her nose. “Is this really necessary?”
I scoff dramatically. “God, yes. He would smell worse than landfill right now—”
“I don’t mean freezing him.” Her lip tugs in a disgusted sneer.
When Clark couldn’t find his brother this morning, he thought he might have fallen asleep drunk in one of the private rooms. Something he’s apparently done before. Instead of passed out, he found him still on the cross, pants around his ankles and dick in his mouth.
What a way to go.
He didn’t want to call the police for obvious reasons, so this freezer in an overflow storage building was the next best option.
“Oh.” I understand her meaning now. “Necessary? No. But hey, aren’t you the one always saying how dramatic us Fox men are?” I wink and she rolls her eyes.
“Let’s just get this over with,” she grumbles.
I peer into the freezer next to her. “All things considered, he doesn’t look too bad.”
“You’re terrible,” she says, stifling a laugh.
Ice crystals cling to his eyelashes and facial hair, and his skin is ghostly pale with blue-gray undertones. He’s fully dressed, minus the suit jacket that was in Stella’s room. His pants are pulled back up, but his dress shirt is stained with blood. His mouth is frozen open, making it look like he’s yawning.
Once I get what I came for, we go straight to the Jakšics’s villa. Mauldin made sure Ilya and his son would be out by inviting them to a private luncheon by a spotlight Michelin-star chef. It was almost too easy for him to come up with a misogynistic reason to explain excluding Marcella, something about “the finest quality steaks being wasted on a woman who only eats bird food.”
Their villa is almost identical to ours but more secluded and off the main path. As soon as I ring the doorbell, Stella starts getting fidgety, toying with her necklace and glancing nervously around. I know she must be anxious. Our current theory is Marcella drugged Stella to frame her.
I set a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to be here if you don’t want to be.”
“No, I do.” She stills and rolls her shoulders. “I want to ask her ‘why me?’ myself.” She doesn’t say it out loud, but I know that’s not all. I’m sure she wants to look Marcella in the eyes when she confesses. To know for certainty that she isn’t a murderer.
Seconds later, Marcella opens the grand front door. She looks like a Barbie, dressed in a pink bikini and skirt, and is dwarfed by a solid wood, floor-to-ceiling door.
“Stella!” she says jubilantly, lifting her sunglasses onto the top of her head. She waves us inside, talking as she walks into their living area. The doors to their deck and pool are open, sunlight streaming in.
“Oh my god, are you as hungover as I am?” She flops down on a plush white couch.
Stella grits her teeth and forces a smile. “I’ve been better.”
