“Oh yes. Her father can be a tyrant. She’s not the first of his assistants we’ve heard from. Diana, of course, believed he was being particularly hard on her. If not for the fact that I am to remain neutral in these things, I would have to agree with her.
“Diana recorded several of their arguments on her cell phone. She played them for me.” She shook her head in disapproval. “Not to say Diana can’t dish it out, but Lucien doesn’t hesitate to make an argument personal, to go for the raw nerve.”
“And what did he have to say for himself?”
“That Diana was being vindictive and ridiculous. He felt a great deal of pressure because of the circumstances and the timing. A cornered narcissist is a cornered cobra. He will strike out at anyone, regardless of their intent.”
“He struck out at you?” Taylor asked.
She waved the suggestion off like a bothersome fly. “I manage conflict for a living, Detective. We were all working very hard to try to bring the situation to a calm conclusion. Professor Chamberlain wanted Diana to drop her complaint. She would not. However, Forrest had finally talked Lucien around to sitting down for mediation.”
“It doesn’t sound like he was in the mood for mediation on Monday.”
“No, but I don’t know why. Perhaps they’d had another fight.”
“Did you speak to the daughter?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t heard from her this week. We were supposed to meet later this afternoon—the three of us. Of course, that won’t be happening now,” she said sadly. “Have you spoken with Diana?”
“She’s our next stop,” Kovac said, rising.
“Please give her my condolences,” Ngoukani said, showing them to the door. “And please let her know I’m available for her. All she need do is call.”
10
Two years after the death of her husband, Ted, Barbie Duffy married his fraternal twin brother, Thomas “Big Duff” Duffy.
“Clever girl,” Seley said. “Think of all the money she saved not having to change all her monogrammed towels.”
“It’s kind of creepy, if you ask me,” Nikki said.
They drove south on 77, across the Minnesota River, to the suburb of Apple Valley, and to a development where the houses were large and the lots were larger.
“There’s something sort of Stepford about it,” she continued. “Lose your spouse? Pick up a clone! Or were the Stepford wives robots? I forget.”
“It’s biblical, really. Isn’t there something in there about a man having to marry his dead brother’s wife?”
Nikki shuddered. “If I had to marry my ex’s brother, I’d become a lesbian.”
The last Duffy house they had been to could have fit into the current Duffy house twice with room left over. Instead of tired white clapboard, this one was faced in stacked stone and brown stucco. The pillars that held up the front portico looked to be fashioned from massive tree trunks. Prairie style on steroids. The heavy wooden front door was adorned with big black studs and fake strap hinges that looked like they had been hand-forged by some sweating, muscular shirtless artisan with a big hammer.
“It’s safe to assume this brother isn’t living on a cop’s salary,” Seley remarked.
“No. He owns Big D Sports.”
“He’s Big Duff? From the commercials?”
“The one and only.”
The Big D Sports commercials were local favorites featuring Big Duff dressed in Elmer Fudd hunting garb, and a guy in a silly, cheap moose costume: Melvin D. Moose. It was the kind of goofy humor that made guys guffaw. Speed and R.J. loved them and mimicked them, making each other fall down laughing.
“He had just started his first store around the time of Ted Duffy’s death,” Nikki said. “Twenty-five years later, he’s got stores all over the upper Midwest.”
Stores that specialized in hunting equipment, including guns, she reminded herself. But at the time of his brother’s death, Big Duff had allegedly been two hours away, at his cabin near Rice Lake, Wisconsin, getting the place ready for a Thanksgiving weekend party. Ted and some buddies had been set to join him for a few days of deer hunting and hanging out. Pre–cell phone, a family friend had driven to the cabin to break the news in person. Big Duff had reportedly been inconsolable over the death of his twin.
Two years later, he had married his dead brother’s wife.
One big happy.
The heavy door swung open as they approached.
“Mrs. Duffy, I’m—”
“I know who you are,” Barbie Duffy said impatiently.
Nikki’s first thought was that Barbie Duffy did not look sixty. Her hair, which hung just past her shoulders, had been artistically streaked ash blonde and carefully coiffed to look like it hadn’t been done at all—which undoubtedly cost extra at the salon. She’d had work done, but done well—a little lift here, a little filler there, a spot of Botox, a boob job. Dressed in leggings and a yoga top, she had a figure that would have been coveted by most women in their forties.