Nancy Salter looked formidable. She appeared to be in her late forties. She was tall, even looking down at Jessie, who was five foot ten. Her coal black hair was tied up in a tight bun that made her already pinched face look like a raisin. She wore no obvious makeup but had on an elaborate business suit, complete with a doily-style scarf that made Jessie wonder if she’d walked into an episode of Downton Abbey.
“Hello,” Nancy Salter said, her voice both loud and nasally. “We’re pleased to have you. I’ve scheduled a ten thirty a.m. meeting with Jasper to discuss what he’s able to share regarding the matter in question. In the meantime, I’ve collected some of the revelers from last night’s festivities that are still on the property. If you wish to interview them, I’ll take them to you now.”
She began walking without waiting for permission.
“How many people are we talking about?” Karen asked as they all rushed to keep up.
“About two dozen, I’d say.”
“We’re going to need the names of everyone who attended the party last night,” Karen said.
Nancy Salter looked back at her and seemed on the verge of laughing, but managed to contain it.
“I’m afraid that’s quite impossible,” she said.
“Why?” Karen pressed.
“Because there was no guest list. Jasper is very welcoming. He invites friends and expects them to invite people he might find interesting. I can probably write down the names of people I’m certain were here, but that will be a mere fraction of the total actual attendees. To be honest, I wish Jasper would be a little more formal when it comes to his gatherings. It’s quite difficult to ensure we have enough food and beverages when, on any given night, we don’t know whether to expect twenty visitors or two hundred. I can tell you that based on the caterer’s bill, I estimate there were between four hundred fifty and six hundred people here last night.”
Jessie decided to pursue a different area of inquiry.
“I noticed cameras all over the property. Has your security team handed that footage over to Detective Purcell yet?”
“They’re collecting what’s available as we speak,” Salter assured her.
“Great,” Jessie said. “I’d like them to especially focus on the personal wing, from six p.m. until the first officers arrived on the scene.”
Nancy Salter did actually laugh at that one.
“Forgive my impertinence,” she said quickly. “It’s just that the notion that Jasper would allow his private residence to be monitored is laughable.”
“But I saw cameras there as well,” Jessie said, trying not to get annoyed by the woman’s attitude.
“Yes, they were installed in plain view as a deterrent. But they’re inactive. In fact, the residential wing and the garden hedge maze we just left are the only areas on the entire estate where there is no monitoring allowed.”
“Why the hedge maze?” Karen wondered.
“Jasper enjoys spending time there. It’s a place of solitude and mystery that relaxes him. And since he values his privacy, of course he wouldn’t want cameras there any more than in his own bedroom.”
“Ms. Salter,” Jessie said, “I have to say, I find the assertion that, in the home of a public figure like Mr. Otis, in the middle of a massive party, with all the security on this property, there is no footage at all in the area where the crime took place…hard to buy.”
Salter stared at her with what Jessie suspected was her most severe expression, the one she saved for employees who’d failed her or her boss. Jessie stared back, undaunted, waiting for an answer.
“Ms. Hunt, all I can tell you is our policy. I’m sorry that it doesn’t comport with your expectations, but there’s nothing I can do about that. What I can do is leave you in Matilda’s care to conduct any guest interviews you choose to do while I reconfirm your meeting with Jasper and attend to other errands.”
“I assumed you’d be staying with us,” Karen said.
“You assumed incorrectly, Detective Bray. My duties are numerous on this Sunday morning. Keeping Otis Estate running is much like operating an unconventional business. Jasper has a new personal chef who I need to check in on. The gardening staff is in an uproar over the trampling of several rose bushes last night. We are trying to resolve a mold issue in one residential wing of West House. And someone appears to have released one of the goats from the petting zoo and dressed another in a tube top. So I’ll have to take my leave