Catherine let it go. "So she'll need access to a pharmacy to keep getting the digitalis," she said. "And the skin condition will be something our officers can watch for. That's a big help."
"The family has an adequate supply of medication, at least for the time being. But at some point, yes, she'll need to get more. And I hope this helps her, honestly." He was staring at his desk again, looking stricken. "I take my responsibilities seriously, Supervisor Willows. You presented a quandary, with two competing and mutually exclusive priorities. I hope I chose correctly."
"I'm sure you did, Doctor Boullet," Catherine said. "Thank you for your help."
She was standing up when something he had said struck her. He said he talked to Helena Cameron on one of his visits to the house and that the family had plenty of medicine. Did that mean Helena was suffering from the same thing? She hadn't seen the woman when she had gone to the house – she wasn't well, either, and she had gone to bed, tranquilized, the estate manager had said.
Dustin Goitlieb, in fact, the same estate manager who had sex with Daria before her disappearance.
He would need talking to again.
She started to ask the doctor about Helena, then stopped herself. He had told her everything he was going to and wouldn't talk about Helena, she was sure, without her permission, since she wasn't missing. He had noticed her hesitation, though. "Yes?" he asked. "Will there be something else. Supervisor Willows?"
"No, Doctor. That's quite enough. Thank you again."
She called Wendy from the car. "Thanks for that quick work on the Daria Cameron DNA," she said. "It was exactly what I needed to pry some information out of her doctor."
Wendy didn't ask what information, and Catherine appreciated that. "Glad it was helpful," she said. "I was just about to call you again."
"You've got something else for me? You're on a tear today."
"I just want to get everything wrapped up so I can go home."
"Well, you've been a big help today. We all would like to call it quits, but -"
Wendy cut her off. "I know, Catherine. I wasn't really complaining. Much. Anyway, here's the scoop…"
Catherine knew she was risking Undersheriff Ecklie's wrath by returning to the scene of the crime – the Cameron estate, in this case. She was doubling her jeopardy by demanding to talk to Helena Cameron herself. But after she made her case to Dustin Gottlieb (all the while promising herself she would have a few words with him before she left the premises), he parked her in a sitting room and went to fetch Mrs. Cameron, Drake McCann, and Craig Stilton.
During the few minutes she was waiting there alone, Catherine took in the artwork on the walls – an original Thomas Moran Yellowstone landscape, which was almost as big as one of Catherine's entire walls, a pastoral piece by John Singer Sargent, and more. Many paintings appeared to be at least a hundred years old, most depicting somewhat romanticized landscapes. All were hung in frames that appeared just as old as the paintings themselves.
"I love the out-of-doors," Helena Cameron said in a voice quavering with age and ill health. Catherine was staring at the Yellowstone painting, depicting a brilliant sunset over the mountains, and hadn't heard her come in. "Sadly, I hardly get to see it in person anymore. Bix and I used to travel the West in a style that might surprise you, to look at me now, Mrs. Willows. We drove around in a station wagon with wooden panels on the sides, slept in tents, cooked our meals on campfires. Even after the money was coming in and the children were born, we loved to be outside, in nature. Now I can only experience what little nature there is here on the estate or enjoy it through lovely paintings and photographs."
"I sympathize, Mrs. Cameron," Catherine said. "I've always been more of an indoor girl myself, but I do appreciate natural beauty when I get the chance to see it."
"To what do we owe this visit, Supervisor Willows?" Stilton asked, remembering the right title for her. He and McCann flanked the lady of the house, as if ready to catch her if she fell. Helena Cameron was barely five feet tall and girlishly petite, with white hair cropped boyishly short and skin that looked a few shades past tan. "Is there some development in the case?"
"There are two cases ongoing," Catherine said. "The man who was shot on the property last night and Daria's disappearance. I'm becoming more and more convinced that there's a connection between the two."
"Oh, I don't see how there could be," Helena scoffed. "I'm told the man was a filthy bum, perhaps some sort of degenerate -"
"Careful how you talk about him, Mrs. Cameron," Catherine said, interrupting as gently as she could. She didn't want to let Helena become too riled up, since she was clearly not well. But she was here, and the poor woman had to know the truth. Next of kin notification could be the hardest job any police officer had to do. Sometimes, though, valuable information could be learned through the process, which was one of the reasons detectives preferred to do it themselves instead of delegating it. "In fact, it might be best if you sat down."
"Anything you have to say, Mrs. Willows, I can hear standing up."
"Very well," Catherine said. She noted that Craig Stilton took Helena's elbow, offering support. Catherine took a deep breath. Conrad Ecklie would be pissed, but that was a risk she would have to run. "The man Mr. McCann here shot last night? He was Troy Cameron, your son. I'm very sorry for your loss."
Helena wobbled, and McCann caught her other arm. Her face went white, or as white as someone whose skin was taking on a distinct terra-cotta cast could go, and her dainty, fragile left hand curled before her lips. "That's not possible."
"This is outrageous," Stilton fumed. "How can you come in here and say something like that? What proof do you have?"
"I have enough common DNA markers to be sure, at odds of about eight trillion to one," Catherine said.
Helena's legs threatened to give out. Stilton and McCann got her onto a couch that didn't look as if it would have been comfortable when some French craftsman had made it in the 1700s, much less today. "He… I haven't seen Troy since he was seventeen," she said in a faltering voice. "I can't believe he's been… alive all this time, and… and now that I find him, he's… he's…"
Her head drifted backward. Stilton got a hand behind it just before it hit the wooden rail at the back of the couch. "We need to get her to bed," he said. "She can't take this. I can't believe you came in here and told her that."
"She has a right to know," Catherine said. "We always tell the next of kin." She knew that Ecklie would hear about it, and she would hear about it from him. But what she had said was true. Helena Cameron had to be told. Better in person than through an intermediary. And Catherine had needed to see her reaction, if at all possible.
One thing was certain now: Helena had not known her son was still alive.
And another thing: whatever illness Daria Cameron suffered from, Helena had it, too. Her flesh was definitely on the orange side, and when she had put her hand to her mouth, Catherine had seen yellowish-white streaks on her nails.
"I'm afraid you'll have to leave, Supervisor Willows," Gottlieb said as he marched into the sitting room. "I understand you've upset Mrs. Cameron terribly."
"That was not my intention," Catherine said. "But I'm sure you'll agree that a mother has a right to know her only son has been found."