The Vale family home was quieter than Raoul had expected.
It wasn't empty, but the air felt dry and stilted. It felt like the walls were closing in on him. The detective couldn't understand how anyone could stand to live in a place as suffocating as this, but the Vales seemed to take it almost in stride.
Violet was there, feet tucked under her on the sitting room sofa with a mug she was actually drinking this time. She claimed it was moral support, though the detective wouldn't fault her if she still felt protective of her brother's belongings. He certainly would be in her shoes.
"You don't have to watch," Raoul said while taking notes from the doorway of Virgil's room.
"I know," Violet said. She watched anyway.
He moved through the room exactly as he'd been taught over the years. He didn't want to disturb anything around, but evidence was evidence.
Drawers were opened and closed with little interference, surfaces were examined closely, nothing disturbed beyond what was necessary. Virgil's room was tidy. According to Vincent it was 'tidier than usual', though considering the near perfect state of the studio Raoul had to wonder what 'usual' meant to these people.
The room was cozy. In addition to the single bed was a bookshelf, a drawer, and small desk with sheet music stacked neatly on top. Raoul went through it without moving any of it out of place.
The bedside drawer held the expected things. A phone charger. A receipt. A small notebook, personal, which Raoul opened and closed quickly when it became clear it was lyrics rather than anything else. And at the back, in a small zippered case: an epipen.
He looked at it for a moment. Barely used, expired just a few weeks ago.
"He kept a spare." he noted, almost entirely for himself.
Violet looked up from the doorway. "He always had at least two. One for home, one to carry. Though in previous years he'd be so paranoid he'd have close to ten." She paused. "Why?"
"Oh, just routine. It's my job to note these things." Raoul said pleasantly, and moved back to the desk.
She watched him for a moment longer with those quick eyes of hers. He could feel her deciding whether to push on it and choosing not to. She let it go and decided to refocus her attention.
"Dad's been in a mood," she said, changing the topic smoothly. It seemed she was used to navigating around difficult subjects. "More than usual, I mean. Since mum died he's been worse." she made a gesture that encompassed a great deal. "He's always hated what I do. The music, the performing. Called it indulgent. Called it embarrassing." She said it flatly, the way you say things you've made your peace with. "While mum was alive he kept it mostly to comments. Since she died he's gotten more direct about it."
Raoul kept his hands moving through the desk while he listened. "Direct how?"
"Told me last month that if I didn't consider redirecting my career he'd make certain the redirecting happened for me." She said it with a brightness in her voice that didn't reach anywhere near her eyes. "He knows people. He'd do it too." She paused for a sip while thinking about what to say next. "Virgil used to say he didn't have as much leverage as he thought he did. I'm not sure I believe that anymore."
Raoul looked up from the desk. She was leaning in the doorway with her mug, looking at the room rather than at him.
"He threatened your career specifically?" Raoul murmured. "Not just disapproval. An actual threat."
"An actual threat." She confirmed it like she'd just observed the weather. "He said it to Virgil first, apparently. Virgil told me not to worry about it."
"When?" Raoul asked.
"A few weeks before all this." She stopped, looked at the empty bed, and sighed. She took a sip from her mug. "I'm worried about mum's will. It's not going to make him happy. He knows that. He was taking it out on everyone in reach."
Raoul nodded slowly. He turned back to the room and his eye landed on the wall above the desk, which he'd been peripherally aware of since he'd walked in and hadn't directly looked at yet.
A painting. Medium sized, framed simply, hung where Virgil would have seen it from his desk every day. Watercolour, a tad bit amateurish but beautiful nonetheless.
Five birds on a wire. Painted with enough specificity that each was distinct. A magpie, a heron, a swan, a shrike, and at the centre, slightly elevated above the wire, a small bird Raoul didn't immediately place. Incomplete, as though the artist couldn't bring themselves to finish the work.
Raoul looked at it for long enough that Violet managed to speak up. "Does it look nice?"
Raoul turned his gaze toward her and nodded. "Virgil made it. He was trying to copy mun's piece in the living room."
"Your mother painted?" he said.
"Since before we were born." Violet came to stand beside him, looking up at it. "She painted us like that when we were kids. Said she saw us that way."
"She saw you all as birds?"
Violet caught him on his blind side with a light punch to the shoulder, quick and unhesitating. The detective's eyepatch had always made that particular angle an open invitation, though he'd endured much worse than a light hit. He looked over, letting his visible eye observe her.
She continued to observe the near finished painting. She wasn't smiling yet, but Raoul had the sense that he'd witnessed a bit of the version of her that had existed before all this.
Grief has a way of swallowing a person whole. But every so often, if you know where to look, the real one finds a way back to the surface.
"Virgil loved that painting. Asked to keep it when she got too ill to paint anymore. Tried to learn her style enough to surprise mum before she passed."
"He never finished it?"
Her response was a simple shake of her head.
Raoul turned back to the painting. His eye caught the shrike at the far end of the wire. Its back was half turned to the others. Even in watercolour there was something menacing about it.
He heard the front door before Violet did. Raoul caught the sound of light footsteps stepping across the wooden floors, and the quieter sound of a hand trailing against the concrete wall as if keeping someone's balance.
It didn't take long for Vincent to appear in front of Virgil's bedroom door. "Detective." He looked at Raoul with eyes that looked hazy with frost. "You've finally made it to the house."
"Better late than never," Raoul said.
Vincent looked around the room with the careful attention he brought to everything. His gaze moved across the surfaces, the desk, the closed bedside drawer, the painting. It stayed on the painting for a half second longer than the rest.
By the time he snapped back to the present Violet was halfway down the hall and Raoul was giving her a small farewell wave.
Vincent watched her vanish further into the house before turning to face the detective. "The autopsy report?"
"Came in this week."
"And?"
"And the investigation is ongoing." Raoul looked at him steadily. "I'll share results through the appropriate channels."
"Don't." Vincent said quietly. It wasn't hostile, just very formal and sudden. He looked at the painting again briefly, then at Violet, then back at Raoul. Whatever he'd concluded he kept to himself, which was entirely in character.
"Violet." He tilted his head toward the hall. "There's food in the car."
She spun on her heel to face her brother with a skeptical smile. "What food?"
"Groceries mostly. Some ice cream as well." Violet's eyes narrowed at Vincent's tone. "And some take out."
Violet pointed at him, beaming more than Raoul thought was possible. "You absolute hero." She set her mug down and disappeared past him into the hallway.
Vincent lingered a moment. He looked at Raoul almost like he was judging the man. "Now you can continue."
"What?"
"We're not discussing this in front of my sister. Now continue."
Raoul stared flatly at him for a moment. "Well, the results are significant. However I'll need access to your father's financial records. Specifically transactions from the past two years."
"Come again?"
"I'll need Nero Vale's financial records before I'm prepared to share anything further."
Vincent's expression didn't change. "Why?"
"I need to investigate all possible suspects thoroughly. Your father is one of them. His financial history is relevant."
"Relevant to Virgil's death?"
"Relevant to the investigation." Raoul insisted. "I need to follow every thread."
Vincent looked at him for a long moment with that slightly off-center gaze, finding him by the angle he'd learned to use. Ever since the background check Raoul couldn't shake the observation. It wasn't noticeable, but he could see the man fraying.
"No you don't." he said at last. "If that was the case, you'll be going through the official channels to obtain it."
Raoul scoffed. "I've already started, though there's only so much information I can get immediately."
"But you can get it."
"I thought you were the one calling my investigation slow." Raoul hissed with a scowl.
Vincent nodded once.
"What's wrong? Something on my face?" Raoul sneered. Vincent merely shook his head no and looked around, making sure Violet was out of earshot.
"The financial records. I have them. I've looked into them." he said, voice uncharacteristically hushed. "You should know that there's a money trail from the months before my mother died."
Raoul raised a hand up to cut Vincent off. "Hey who's the detective here, you or me?"
"Excuse me?" Vincent blinked a few times. He stared at the detective for a few beiefyseconds before realizing just what it is that upset the detective. Raoul was feeling upstaged, at least by Vincent's estimations. "You can't possibly be serious."
"What?"
"I thought you wanted the records." Vincent murmured, almost scolding Raoul if it weren't for how low his voice was. "I already have them."
"And I'm supposed accept that isn't suspicious?"
"Detective," Vincent hummed almost with a smirk. "You shouldn't feel threatened by me having information you need."
Raoul couldn't help but clench his jaw as he listened to the mocking tone Vincent dared to patronize him with. He felt his ears grow hot and and the temptation to wipe the smugness off Virgil's face rising by the second. But he knew better. There was an investigation currently going, and more importantly for Raoul he had dirt to gather.
He raised his hands up in surrender and shrugged "No. No, you're right. Priorities." he said, a low whisper sounding more like resignation than any sincere acceptance. "How'd you get ahold of the records?"
"Is that really important?"
Raoul could hardly keep what shred of professionalism he had left at this point. He leaned against Virgil's door frame, looked Vincent firmly in the eye, and spoke as plainly as he could manage. "As the detective currently investigating the death of your younger brother, it falls to me to ensure your information is valid and your sources are credible."
The ghost of a smirk on Vincent's face disappeared near instantly. The sight both vindicated and unsettled Raoul, but any progress he made was more important than his comfort right now.
"Father keeps about 10 years of financial records in his office." Vincent explained as bluntly as he could. "I made copies a few days ago."
Raoul's eyebrow quirked up. "And how exactly to you know this?"
"I've known about it for some time. I wasn't certain what to do with it."
"And you're certain now?" Raoul asked, to which Vincent quietly shrugged.
Vincent looked at the painting one more time.
"My mother saw everyone clearly," he said. "She deserved better than what she got."
He left without waiting for a response. Raoul listened to his footsteps down the hall, the murmur of his voice and Violet's, the sound of the front door.
He turned back to the painting.
Five birds on a wire. The shrike at the far end with its back half turned. The small pale bird at the centre, watching.
He stood there for a while in the quiet of the room.
Then he closed his notepad, put his pen away, and let himself out.