Free I'll Take Care of You by Caitlin Rother Page A

this,” Sandy recalled. “I’m not saying Jenny wasn’t, but she didn’t show it.”
    As they pulled into the church parking lot, they could see the priests wearing their elaborate ceremonial garb—the white robes with ties and tall hats. Unbeknownst to them, they were all being filmed by Newport Beach cops, who were watching for suspicious behavior as they searched for Bill’s killer.
    Nanette came with her two children in tow: nine-year-old Kristofer wearing a little-boy suit and necktie, and seven-year-old Lishele in a dark dress with a floral print. Nanette wore a businesslike black skirt suit, with the jacket buttoned up. Sandy was admiring it so much that Nanette later asked Sue what size Sandy was, saying she wanted to buy one for Sandy as a gift.
    Nanette’s face was blank. She never showed much emotion anyway, but on that day, she seemed especially aloof and hard to read, while everyone else was in shock. But more than that, Sandy couldn’t believe that Nanette had brought such young children to the service.
    â€œI thought it was inappropriate,” she said. “I didn’t even know what she had told them. Did she tell them he had a heart attack? To this day, I still think she used those kids as props to draw sympathy in her direction.”
    Nanette sat with the McLaughlin family in the front pews on the left side of the church. The room wasn’t full, but a healthy crowd of about one hundred people had filed in, including some of Bill’s business associates, his brother Patrick and his kids, and Bill’s extended family, who had flown in from Chicago.
    With a blowup photo of Bill on an easel in the foreground, his friend Denis Townsend gave the eulogy, trying to offer some words of compassion for Nanette, who he assumed was in mourning like the rest of them.
    â€œThat kind of raised the hairs on my neck a little bit, because I’d had five or six days actually of looking at Nanette from a different vantage point,” Sandy recalled later. “I was feeling very funny about her at this point. As aloof as she was to Bill, I didn’t think she deserved that callout. . . . [Denis] was kind of showing her sympathy, because we were all starting to act strange around her. I think Denis picked up on something.”
    Kevin was so upset that it was even more difficult for him to speak, but he still got up to say a few words. He was more uncoordinated than usual and so angry about his father’s murder that his nose crinkled up. Jenny and Kim sniffled to themselves, but they were keeping it together until they heard a wail erupt from nearby.
    As they turned to look, they saw the sound was coming from Lishele, who was shaking and sobbing loudly as she stood up and turned away from the poster of Bill. Nanette didn’t shed a tear, at least not that anyone could see, and she also didn’t take her traumatized daughter into her arms and cradle her, as some mothers would have. Nanette just sat there, stonelike.
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    After the service, the McLaughlin family and friends congregated in the rectory. Patrick and his sons were trying to make chitchat with Kristofer when he let a bomb drop.
    â€œMy mom’s boyfriend plays football,” he said.
    Patrick and his sons didn’t mention this comment to Bill’s children, but they quickly realized that the police needed to hear this—immediately. The information came as quite a shock to those who thought Bill and Nanette had been in an exclusive relationship.
    Afterward, Nanette, her kids, and the McLaughlin family headed over to have lunch at Bill’s favorite Italian haunt on Balboa Island, where he’d often ordered the gnocchi. On the way there, they talked about the service.
    â€œOh, my God,” Jenny said, “I was holding up okay during the service, but Lishele was making me cry.”
    From there, Nanette said she had some things to do. Undercover detectives, who had