Murderous Roots

by Virginia Winters

  "Hi. Can I have a few minutes?" Adam said as the customer left.

  "Sure," she said as she put the Closed, Back in 15 sign in the window. "Come in for tea."

  The back room of the shop served as office, kitchen and storage. The china was Royal Worcester, the teapot Spode, little elegant touches in the crowded room.

  "Do you know that Jennifer Smith was killed?" he asked.

  "Yes, I heard it on the radio this morning."

  Her mobile face drooped and lost color. Her dark brown eyes and brown hair deepened her pallor.

  "Did you know her well from theatre?"

  "Yes, but also from the library. She was helpful whenever I was researching furniture or a piece of glass or china. She loved research—all kinds, but especially genealogy. At the theater, she was different, rougher, not as kind. I wasn't going to go back after this play."

  "That's too bad," he said.

  "Yes, but it wasn't as bad for me as for the actors. She was cruel to some of them. I'm only a prompter and stage manager. She was awful to Elizabeth Baker and Cliff Madison, worse this year than last. If she could make them look ridiculous, she did. There was a scene last Tuesday. They both looked daggers at her. Oh, what an expression. I really don't like talking about this."

  She bit on her knuckles, a child-like trait he found endearing.

  "Erin, I have to ask about her, if I'm going to be able to find her killer. Murder is ugly. It lets loose all kinds of secrets and hates. I have to sort it out."

  He took her hand, a gesture he hadn't made before. She squeezed his hand and took it away to pour the tea.

  She peered at him over her dainty china cup and said, "Stan Davis was involved with her, I think."

  "I don't think I know him."

  He gingerly lifted the delicate cup. She loved tea, so he drank tea with her.

  "He comes from Greenbank. He's a lawyer over there."

  Greenbank was another small town about 30 miles away.

  "Yeah, now I remember him—a short, stocky guy with red hair who works out and runs."

  "That's him. I saw them together in a restaurant in Burlington. They seemed close."

  She poured a little more tea.

  "Like lovers? Or conspirators?"

  "It would look the same from across the room, wouldn't it?"

  "I suppose so."

  He stood up to go and asked if she would like to go out to dinner with him."

  "Sure, but not until next week."

  "Tuesday?"

  "Good."

  "I'll call you."

  Adam left the shop. Every stop, another few more people he had to interview. He called Pete to talk to the angry actors while he drove the thirty miles to Greenbank unless the guy was in court.

  He got the number of the law office from dispatch and called Davis and O'Connor. The lawyer was at the courthouse, so he headed back to the station and his next witness. What did involved mean anyway--in business, in love, in politics?

  He found Davis outside courtroom A. The oak benches lining the narrow hallway jostled together everyone attending court: young women and their babies, waiting for family court with their protection workers; bikers in metal studded leather jackets; sullen teenagers slouching beside taut-faced parents.

  A door off the entrance to the courtroom opened into a windowless room for duty counsel. He found Davis there, feet up on a battered table, rapidly reviewing a brief.

  "Can you spare me a few minutes, Mr. Davis?"

  "Court in two minutes," he said, eyes still on the page.

  He looked up.

  "I'll be done in two hours."

  "I'll be back."

  Adam could be abrupt, too.

  The office was empty except for Brad and his computer. He poured himself one of his too many coffees of the day and came around the desk to peer over Brad's shoulder.

  "Any luck?"

  "I've recovered most of the files I think."

  Brad's voice was proud. Apparently, it had been no mean feat.

  "Good job."

  The younger man flushed at the praise. He had started printing hard copies, he said, and would likely be finished by the end of the shift.

  "He was researching the Beauchamps."

  The rich always stood out on any list.

  "Who was the client?"

  "I'm not sure that I got that entire file though. I thought they came from France, way back, but this says the ancestors were from Quebec."

  Brad didn't realize that this could be a disaster for the stiff-necked Beauchamp clan. Disaster enough to murder? More interviews, his favorite kind, with people who thought they were too rich and too important to talk to him.

  "Did you find anything else interesting?"

  "Not locally interesting. Most of the files are about out-of-town families.”

  "Will you separate the copies into local, state, USA, and out of country?"

  "Sure, no problem, sir."

  As he passed through the office, he saw his chief, Jim Naismith at his desk. Jim Naismith had been chief of police here for twenty years, on the force for forty. He, Adam and a few others were all the police they needed for the town. The chief was a burly, strong-looking sixty years old, grizzled with dark grey eyes and a round face.

  "How's it going? Making any progress?"

  "Not too much. I haven't got any witness to Jennifer arriving at the library. I don't even have a time of death yet."

  "I'll be in Burlington for a meeting today. You can hold the fort?"

  "Sure."

  Adam called down to the Medical Examiner's office.

  "Kim," he asked the secretary, "has Al finished the report for me yet?"

  "I'm typing it now. Poor lady. Why did it happen?"

  "Don't know yet. Do you have a time of death?"

  "He says about midnight, give or take two hours."

  "So ten to two the night before."

  "Yes, if you find him, we think we have tissue under the fingernails for DNA."

  "If I find him."

  Adam couldn't place Jennifer at the library, much less her killer. He did know that she had been alive at 10:30pm. Someone must have seen her, although most citizens of Culver's Mills were on their way to bed then. He paused after hanging up the phone. There had been bowling that night. Someone may have passed the library.

  Chapter Eight

  Culver's Mills Bowling Lanes occupied a long, low building on a nondescript side street behind a beauty salon. Gliding semipro players occupied all the lanes when Adam walked in. Tim Hunter, a grin splitting his round face, reached across the counter to shake his hand.

  "Good to see you, Adam."

  "You too, Tim. Is there someplace where I could talk to you?"

  "Sure, come into my office.”

  Adam walked around the counter and into a cubbyhole of a room behind the counter. Two chairs and a filing cabinet, its top covered with bowling trophies, just about filled the space. He moved files off a chair before he sat.

  "What's up?" Tim asked.

  They had gone to high school together, playing on the same football team.

  "I need information about Wednesday night's bowlers. Can you tell me who was here and who left last?" said Adam, settling back into his chair.

  "Sure. Wednesdays are the seniors. They break up a little early. Let me grab the game list."

  He pulled a paper off a clipboard hanging by the door.

  "Who left last?"

  "Ada Warren and Maude Albert. Ada's the organizer, so she wants to make sure everyone has a drive and so on. They left about ten thirty, quarter of eleven."

  "Thanks, Tim."

  "Looking for witnesses?"

  "Something like that."

  He shook Tim's hand again and walked out.

  Adam drove to Chester Warren's house, or rather his widow's since Chester had died last year. Ada was a trim and active seventy-five-year-old, formerly a schoolteacher, now an artist, local historian and demon bowler. The trick was to f
ind her at home. He rang the bell and heard the high-pitched barking of her fierce little Lhasa Apso terrier.

  "Quiet, Tom."

  "Why, hello, Adam."

  She had taught him in high school twenty years before.

  "Hello, Ada. Could I have a few minutes of your time? I'd like to ask you a couple of questions about your bowling night."

  He extended a hand as he passed into the tiny foyer.

  "My bowling night. Of course, the night Jennifer died. Is this about her? Please sit down."

  Ada took him into her living room and patted a comfortable recliner.

  "Yes, it does. What time did you leave the bowling alley?” he asked.

  "About ten thirty."

  As usual, Ada chose a firm, straight-backed chair. Easier on old bones, she always said.

  "When you drove home, did you pass the library, or see anything unusual?"

  "I passed the library. I didn't notice Jennifer or anyone sneaking around. A car parked near the library near the library had the lights off but I someone sat in it. Then I thought, just a couple necking, except I can't say I saw two heads. A grey car, I think, although it could have been pale blue, a sedan. American. I think the license started with vx."

  "Ada, you're still my favorite teacher. Was anyone with you?"

  "Yes, Maude Albert, but she concentrates when she's driving."

  He laughed. Tiny Maude Albert in her ancient, immense Cadillac was well known. She lived next door to Mrs. Warren, so he paid her a visit. She couldn't recall any details of the car.

  On his way back to the office, he called in his information on the vehicle Mrs. Warren saw and asked for the record on Davis's car. The lawyer was walking down the courthouse steps towards the red Camaro as Adam parked.

  "Leaving, Mr. Davis? We had an appointment."

  "Just stowing my briefcase, detective. Do you want to get a drink? I've been talking for two hours."

  Davis was casual and affable, cooperative with nothing to hide.

  "We better have it in the station."

  Adam followed the lawyer to the office, stopping to fill their cups on the way.

  "Mr. Davis, my information is you knew the murder victim, Jennifer Smith."

  Adam came to the point abruptly as they sat down in the office.

  "Yes, I did," he said.

  "How well?"

  "We were friends."

  "My information is that you had dinner with her in Burlington, looking quite close. Are you married, Mr. Davis?"

  "That's an offensive way to ask a question. No, I am not married. Divorced. And we weren't that close. She asked my advice about her job."

  Davis sat back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest.

  "What about her job?"

  "She was thinking about setting up on her own as a genealogy consultant."

  "A genealogy consultant."

  Adam was grateful he now knew what that was.

  "Does that mean she would give up the library?"

  "That was the problem. The library board doesn't allow moonlighting. Jennifer had many clients, but the library board considered they were the library's, not hers. The fees went into the general revenue. If she left, they wouldn't let her take any of her information databases or files out of the library."

  Adam thought for a moment. Did Jennifer copy those files herself? If so, where were they?

  "Did she give you any computer disks to keep for her, counselor?"

  "No, detective, she did not. Remember I was her friend, not her lawyer."

  "What was her decision?"

  "She didn't make one. At least, she hadn't the last time I talked to her. But she was excited about some research she had found. She didn't want to tell me that day. We were supposed to have dinner tonight."

  Adam thought Davis was genuinely saddened at the memory.

  "I guess that's all then, Mr. Davis. If you think of anything else, you let me know."

  "I'll do that."

  The lawyer marched out of the office, brushing past Brad who knocked, entered the office, and triumphantly handed him a stack of paper.

  "What's all this?"

  "The hard copies from Jennifer's files. I divided them. The three on top, the Beauchamps, the Culvers and Doctor McPhail, are local. I put her in because she is here now. There were ten in state, and the rest are from out of the state or out of the country. Usually, there is only an inquiry from those. She completed the families in state. The last activity on most of them was last year. She was working on a file called Templeton from Burlington, and the three locals."

  "Thanks. Leave them with me."

  "Okay. It sure is hard stuff to follow," Brad said.

  Adam took up the top file, Dr. McPhail's. He looked through several pages, which seemed to build up layer upon layer of ancestors, with herself as the first contact, all the way back to many greats grandmother Margaret. The notes on the family tree followed bits of information about everything from marriages to education, from military service to immigration and naturalization. If there were any secrets worth killing for he couldn't find them, but he also wasn't sure what to look for. He decided to pay the doctor another visit.

  A familiar figure slouched over the receptionist's desk. The press had arrived. Ted Atkins, forty years old, paunchy, a sad sack of a face too old for his years, followed the crime and sports beats for the local paper. Adam knew a family tragedy had brought him to Culver's but not what had kept him here, year after year. His writing stood out from the village news columns and clergy reports that filled the pages of the weekly.

  "Adam, open season on librarians, is it? Anything you can give me?"

  "I haven't had time to do a press release."

  "Name of deceased, time of death, how did she die? A few crumbs. We go to press in an hour."

  "Okay. Here's all you can have for now. Jennifer Smith, the assistant librarian, found dead at the library, after opening time, by a patron of the library. She was a victim of blunt force trauma. Perpetrator unknown at this time. The investigation is continuing."

  "Sexual assault?"

  "No, and don't you even imply it, Ted."

  "Okay, okay. What else? Robbery?"

  "Nothing else today. Catch me later."

  "But."

  "Later."

  Adam raced out the door and through the court foyer before Ted asked another question.

  Anne knelt beside the flower bed that bordered the porch of the bed and breakfast.

  "Helping out are you, Dr. McPhail?" he asked as he walked up to her.

  "I think I love gardening more than genealogy."

  Anne looked happy and grubby in her Tilley hat, dark glasses and a mud-stained t-shirt that proclaimed I like to play in the dirt. "Are you here to talk to me again?"

  "Yes, ma'am. I wonder if you would help with Jennifer's genealogy files?"

  "Certainly. If I can help, I will but should I be seeing private files?"

  "I have a warrant, and you are my consultant. Can we sit awhile?"

  He indicated the two slatted wooden chairs on the porch.

  "This one is yours," he said, handing it to her."

  "Oh, great. I wonder if Jennifer found anything."

  She eagerly scanned the file.

  "She found a record of a baptismal certificate. Margaret was born and christened here. My cousin was right. Now I have to see if she was married here as well. Jennifer didn't do that yet. I wonder why she did so much ahead of time? I told her I would do the scut work myself."

  Anne stopped talking, aghast at her own enthusiasm over the dead woman's work.

  "Oh, I'm sorry. I shouldn't go on and on about this."

  "No problem, doc. Try the next file."

  He gave her the Culver file.

  "Culver—founding fathers are they?"

  "Yes, they sure are."

  "Jennifer began with someone called David Culver and went back through several generations. The name changes about 1800 to Calvert. French I would
think, perhaps originally de Colvere but not common among the old Quebec names."

  "How do you know?"

  "There are only a few original names, most of them still common in Quebec. Jennifer's notes indicate the ancestor came over with Lafayette. The family lived here since the early 1800's when the original Culver, a grandson of the one who immigrated, opened the mill. The weddings took place in Burlington or Montreal in the early years, later in New York. No local ones. I wonder about that."

  "Why?"

  "The family was large, but none of the children married into local families, not even the other French family, the Beauchamps."

  "How do you know about the Beauchamps?"

  "I ran across some references at the library."

  "Their file is next, but my computer guy says he couldn't recover it all."

  "The initial contact was a woman called Nicole Bouchard. She seems to be a cousin of your local family. The letter in the file says she lives in Montreal and is looking for her grandmother's family. The information is sketchy. Either Jennifer wasn't thorough, or much of this is gone, including the notes to all the individuals.

  "Could you redo the research?"

  "I don't know. I would need access to all of Jennifer's databases and reference material. Even then I might miss the important fact."

  She raised her eyebrows at the detective.

  "What important fact?"

  "The one that got Jennifer killed, Adam."

  If she was going to be a colleague she was going to call him by his first name.

  "A big assumption."

  "Yes, but it does seem logical, especially when someone broke into the library again."

  "How do you know that?"

  "Diner at lunchtime."