The Beach House

Bill Montrose immediately rose from his seat. 'Absolutely not! Mrs. Neubauer is currently undergoing treatment for chronic depression. She's been unable to take her medication since this ordeal began.'

I looked at Campion, who had already sat down in the witness chair. 'How are you feeling?' I asked her. 'You okay with this?'

She nodded. 'I'm fine, Jack. Actually, I want to say something.'

'Not that it means anything to you,' shouted Neubauer from his seat, 'but the law prohibits forcing a wife to testify against her husband!'

'The so-called spousal privilege,' responded Macklin, 'can be asserted by either spouse for their own protection. But the privilege only protects statements made by one spouse to another, not the underlying facts. You may testify, Mrs. Neubauer.'

A thin smile broke across Campion's lips. I had known her for a long time and had seen her change from a beautiful, free-spirited woman to an extremely bitter one. That was part of the reason I was taking a chance with her now.

'Not to worry, darling,' she said to her husband. 'No one's forcing me to testify against you. I'm here of my own free will.'

After Gidley swore in Campion, I asked if she would go with me to examine a few of the photographs on the wall. She did as I asked.

I pointed to a woman apparently reaching climax in the third picture in the row. 'Who is that?' I asked.

'Stella Fitzharding. She's a freak.'

'And this younger woman on her knees?'

'Tricia Powell. The young businesswoman doing so well in Special Events at my husband's company.'

'And poured between the two of them, my brother, Peter, who was certainly no saint.'

Campion shook her head. 'No, but he never hurt anybody. And everyone did love Peter.'

'That's comforting,' I said.

I walked her down the line of photos. I pointed.

'Peter again,' Campion said.

'How old would you say Peter was when this picture was shot?'

'I don't know – maybe fifteen.'

'No older than that?' I asked.

'No. I don't think so. Jack, you have to believe this – I had no idea this was happening in my house. Not at first anyway. I'm sorry. I apologize to you and your family.'

'I'm sorry, too, Campion.'

We proceeded down the row. 'In each of these next half dozen shots spanning five years, my brother, who in the earliest pictures is no more than fifteen, is being mounted by a much older man.'

'That would be my husband, Barry Neubauer,' she said, and pointed to the man grabbing the arms of an old beach chair as tightly as he held Peter in the photos.

We skipped several shots, then stopped together in front of the last photograph in the series.

In it Peter and Barry were joined by a third middle-aged man, wearing a studded dog collar hooked to an industrial-strength leash. 'The man on all fours,' I said. 'I'm almost positive I've seen him before.'

'Undoubtedly,' said Campion. 'He's Robert Crassweller, Junior, the attorney general of the United States.'

Chapter 106

I ESCORTED CAMPION back to the witness chair. Suddenly she looked younger and more relaxed. She'd even stopped glancing over at Barry for approval, or disapproval. Or whatever it was she got from him.

'You still okay?' I asked.

'I'm fine. Let's keep going.'

I gestured toward the wall of photographs.

'Other than the faces and bodies, Campion, is there anything else you recognize in the pictures?'

'The rooms. The pictures were all shot at our house. The house I grew up in. The beach house my family has owned for nearly a hundred years.'

'Different rooms or the same one?' I asked.

'Mostly different.'

'One thing I can't quite figure out,' I said, 'is where the photographer hid.'

'It depends on the shot, but there are any number of places. Lots of nooks and crannies. It's a huge old house.'

'But how would the photographer know where to hide and be able to get himself there again and again without being detected?'

There was a crash behind me, and when I twisted to face it, Neubauer, having destroyed the card table with his full-stretch lunge, was crawling across the floor toward his wife. As Fen-ton and Hank pounced on him, a black tomahawk flew across the room, leaving a nasty black mark on the wall six inches from Campion's head. It was Stella Fitzharding's left shoe.

'Your husband and friend seem quite certain you were the one helping the blackmailers, Mrs. Neubauer,' I said. Unscathed by either attack, Campion sat on the stand as calmly as when she arrived.

'I was,' she said.

'You were blackmailing your own husband, Mrs. Neubauer?' I asked. 'But as controlling partner of Mayflower Enterprises, you had more to lose than he did.'

'I guess we would have to agree, Jack, that there are some things more important than money. At first I merely wanted to document it,' Campion explained. 'Have a record of what was going on in a house that has been in my family for a century. But then I couldn't resist the thought of watching my husband squirm.'

'Peter didn't know about the blackmailing, did he?'

'He never would have gone along with it. He didn't hate Barry enough. Peter didn't hate anyone except himself. That was his loveliest flaw.'

'Wouldn't it have been easier to simply divorce your husband?'

'Easier perhaps, but definitely not safer. As you've noticed by now, when Barry gets upset, people start washing up onshore.'

I covered my mouth with a hand and took in a breath. Then I asked my next question, a big one. 'Isn't that why you needed pictures even more incriminating than the ones up on the wall, Campion?'

Her back stiffened. 'I'm not sure I follow,' she said, nervously fingering the black crystal amulet on her necklace.

I moved in closer to Campion. 'I think you do. It's one thing catching Barry having illicit sex with young boys and girls. But if, for example, you had pictures of him committing murder? Isn't that why you set up Peter?'

'I didn't know Barry was going to kill Peter that night. How could I?'

'Of course you did. You just told us – 'when Barry gets upset, people start washing up onshore.' In fact, you sent Sammy to cover the murder.'

'But there are no pictures!' she pleaded. 'I don't have any pictures!'

I held up an envelope.

'But I do, Campion. I have the pictures right here.'

Chapter 107

ALL OF THE COURTROOM TECHNIQUES I'd tried so hard to master through the winter and spring deserted me in a frantic, anxious rush. I quickly opened the envelope instead of milking the moment for what it was worth. My heart was pumping. All my senses were razor-sharp. I held several photographs from the envelope in my fist.