“Well . . .” I stopped and looked at the flowers again. “If he’s done something wrong, I am. My grandmother is a very special person. She’s devoted her whole life to caring for her family and being there for her friends and anyone in town who needs her. She deserves a little happiness.”
I could see Powell watching me intently and it made me blush. “She seems like a good woman,” he agreed. “It makes sense that you want to protect her.”
“Wouldn’t you? I’m sure you have a mom or grandmother you would do anything for?”
He shrugged. “I’m an orphan.”
“Oh.” For some reason it put him in an entirely different light. “I’m sorry to hear that. How old were you?”
He hesitated, spending a little too much time eating his muffin, but then he took a breath and said, “My dad died when I was about four and my mom died when I was fifteen.”
“Of what?” It was an impolite question, and I knew it, but it was out of my mouth before I could stop myself.
“My father was a drug addict.”
“Really?” I couldn’t hide my surprise. Powell was a straight-arrow, clean-cut guy. It didn’t add up.
He ran his hand through his crew cut. “I guess becoming a cop was my way of rebelling.”
“Or helping people,” I suggested. “And your mother? Was she an addict as well?”
He shook his head. “She was killed. Murdered,” he said quickly. “She crossed paths with the wrong people.”
“Like Sandra and Lily.”
He leaned forward. “I think there are bad people in this world and you have to weed them out or else they’ll destroy innocent lives. That’s why I do what I do.”
I nodded. “I’m sorry about your mom. About your parents. It must have been awful.”
“I know I can be a little pushy, but someone like you ought to understand why,” he said. “I’m not going to rest until I have the right person behind bars.”
“I do understand that.”
He nodded and got up from the table. “I better get back to work. Thanks for the breakfast. Bachelors don’t get a lot of home cooking.”
“Anytime.”
He stood by the door for a second, then looked at me. “If I did have a grandmother who was getting involved with someone I didn’t trust, I suppose I’d look into his background. Especially if, as you say, he and Mrs. Cassidy are getting close.”
“You wouldn’t consider that interfering in a police investigation?”
“Not unless he’s the killer.”
He smiled and left. I sat alone in the kitchen with, almost, official permission to do what I was already doing.
CHAPTER 25
I sat through my color theory class the way I usually did, with one eye on the clock. It’s not that color isn’t an important part of an art piece. It’s key. It’s the theory part that left me cold. I wanted to do something—paint, quilt, solve a murder. And sitting through a two-hour lecture was keeping me from all of the above.
Though Powell hadn’t exactly said it, he at least opened the door to my looking into Sandra’s and Lily’s murders. While I sat in class, I made a list of what I needed to know.
What connected the two women? I had a hard time believing their deaths, so close in time and place, were just coincidence.
What did Canada have to do with it? Maybe Jesse was right. Maybe those were just some leftover coins from a trip north, but who keeps foreign currency in their wallet?
Did the watch mean anything? Was it just an item forgotten by a man she knew or could it be the killer’s watch?
And finally, why was Sandra killed near the house? Who was she coming to see and why?
As soon as the professor gave us our homework assignment, I was out the door. I got in the car and started driving with absolutely no idea where I should go. I felt like my car was mirroring my head. I just kept going in circles. I drove for twenty minutes, changing direction twice. Eventually I knew I had to stop and regroup. I stopped at a park and went for a walk. It was a beautiful winter day. The weather was slightly warmer than it had been a week before, though I could still see my breath and feel the occasional pinch of an icy wind against my cheek. As I walked I realized the answer to all of these questions started with Sandra. If I could connect her to Lily then maybe it would lead me away from Oliver. I knew I couldn’t go to Jesse for answers but I could go to Sandra. I headed back to my car at almost a sprint and started driving with an actual destination in mind.
Because it was the place Jesse had first kissed me, the county morgue had an oddly romantic feel to it. At least on the outside.
Inside there was an imposing reception desk with a security guard.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“Yes. I’m here to see Sandra. Her body was brought in the other day for an autopsy.”
“Are you a relative?”
“Yes. Her sister.”
“Last name?”
I knew he was asking for Sandra’s last name but it suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t know it. So I gave him mine, to stall. “Fitzgerald.”
He looked through a list of names. I tried to see Sandra’s name on the list but there were no first names, just first initials. From where I stood, looking at the list upside down, there were three or four names with the first initial S. I didn’t think the guard would give me four chances to get it right.
The guard looked up, impatience creeping across his face. “No Fitzgerald on the list.”
“Oh, sorry, I thought you meant my last name. Sandra and I were stepsisters. We had the same mother,” I blathered, trying to think of a plan B. “We had different fathers so we have different last names. I guess you want Sandra’s last name.”
“That would be helpful, miss.”
I laughed nervously. I was punting. “I guess it would. She was about midtwenties, blond hair—”
“Miss,” he stopped me midsentence. “I don’t look at the bodies. I just look at the names. Do you know your sister’s name or what?”
I paused. Just as I was about to give up, I saw a large man walk out a door down the hall.
“Jim!” I called out.
“The last name is Jim?” The guard looked at me skeptically.
“No. That’s Jim. He’s the blood-spatter expert working on the case.” I called again. “Jim!”
This time Jim turned around. “Hey,” he said warmly. “I know you.”
“I’m here to see you about Sandra.” I was on thin ice because this could easily get back to Jesse, but it was my only way in. “Jesse asked me to stop by.”
Jim laughed. “Really? Let her in Bobby.”
I smiled at the security guard and walked down the hallway, following Jim to some unknown destination. The cold temperatures and the stark, sterile feel of the place had me a bit spooked. We turned and walked down a long hallway painted in two tones of gray and broken up periodically by swinging steel doors.
“So how’s everything?” Jim asked jovially.
“Good. I guess.”
“Jesse didn’t send you, did he?”
I stopped. “I’m sorry. It’s just that Sandra was found outside my house and I . . .”
Jim smiled and shook his head. “So what do you want to know?”
“How are things with you, with the investigation?”
“I don’t know much more than I told you.” He started walking again and I followed him until he stopped in front of a pair of swinging steel doors. “But I know the man who does.”
He opened the door to a room that looked familiar. It was the same one where Lily’s body was autopsied. It seemed strange that the hallways that seemed so creepy to me today were the same ones that I had walked with Jesse just weeks before. I guess I was so caught up in being with him that I didn’t notice my surroundings.
“Dr. Parker, this is Nell,” Jim said to a man in a white lab coat.
The minute the man turned around, I knew we’d met before. “I was here with Jesse Dewa
lt,” I said.
Jim laughed. “Good. You two are old friends. Nell here is curious about Sandra Thomas.”
Thomas. If nothing else, I had a last name.
“I was wondering if you knew how she died,” I said.
Parker grabbed a chart. “Strangulation,” he said.
“She wasn’t drowned or killed by a bump to the head?” I asked.
“She did have internal bleeding, and she definitely hit her head against something,” Parker read from the report. “It’s possible she might have eventually died from the bleeding if she hadn’t also been strangled.”
“She wasn’t drowned?”
“No. No water in her lungs. That indicates she was dead when she was put in the water.”
Jim shook his head. “Somebody must have really wanted her dead. First he bangs her head, then he strangles her, then he dumps her in the river. The classic definition of overkill.”
“Lily was given sleeping pills, tied up, taken to the river, and drowned. Sandra was strangled,” I said. “If it was a serial killer, wouldn’t he have committed the murders the same way?”
“There’s nothing in the autopsy to suggest that the murders are related,” Parker said.
“But the women were about the same age and they were found in the river only a couple of weeks apart. Both of them were murdered,” I told him. “That can’t be a coincidence.”
“Yes it can,” Jim offered. “And that’s good news. If each of these murders was a stand-alone, then there isn’t a serial killer on the loose and women in Archers Rest can breathe a little easier.”
“I guess,” I said, not totally convinced but with nothing tangible to offer as an opposing explanation.
“I have a meeting, so I have to go,” Jim said. “Stay out of trouble, Nell.”
“I am,” I said a little defensively, before I realized he was just making fun of me. “I appreciate your help.”
Jim nodded. He leaned in and whispered, “A murder on my property would have me poking around too.”
I smiled. It seemed everybody understood my curiosity but Jesse.
After Jim left I turned to Dr. Parker. “Thanks for the information,” I said.
“Anything I can do to help the Archers Rest police catch this guy.”
Of course. He must have assumed I was with the police. After all, he’d met me first with the chief of police and then with a forensic specialist.
“Is it possible to have a copy of the reports? On Lily Harmon and on Sandra Thomas.”
“I sent them over to Dewalt,” he said. “But I can make you copies. Give me a minute.”
He left me standing alone in a room with corpses lying on autopsy tables. They were all covered but, still, they were dead bodies.
When he returned, he handed me a folder. It was so easy that I started to worry.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll let you get back to work.”
He smiled. “Anytime.”
I was about to go, having already pushed my luck, when I thought of another question.
“Has anyone claimed Lily or Sandra?”
Dr. Parker frowned. “No. They’re both still here. Sad isn’t it?’
“All of it,” I agreed.
I smiled at him, and then walked out the swinging doors, down the drab hallway, and past the surly security guard, clutching the photocopies of the autopsy reports. I felt as if I were getting away with the crown jewels.
Even though it was cold outside, the sun was shining and it was nice to feel a little warmth on my face. It might not have been as romantic a visit as when I was with Jesse, but it felt just as good.
Still, I couldn’t stand there all day. I felt like I was one big step closer to finding the killer and I didn’t want to waste the momentum.
The snow was melting, creating a dirty slush that made it hard to walk. When I finally unlocked the door and climbed behind the driver’s seat, I knew my next move. I dialed Carrie.
CHAPTER 26
Within two hours Maggie, Carrie, Bernie, Natalie, and Susanne were all gathered in the cramped office of Bernie’s pharmacy. I told them what I’d learned at the coroner’s office and what Powell had said about Oliver.
“Maybe Powell can help with information,” Susanne said. “It might be safer to get it from him.”
“I don’t think he’s going to help,” I explained. “I think he’s just not going to stand in our way like Jesse would.”
“Speaking of which, don’t you think Jesse’s going to be mad at you?” Natalie asked.
“Only if he finds out. And he won’t,” I said. “And if he does, all I’m really doing is looking into Oliver’s background, which, as Powell pointed out, is what a good granddaughter would do.”
“Well Eleanor will kill you,” Maggie said.
“She’ll kill us all,” Bernie answered.
“Again, only if she finds out.” I tried to calm them. “If Oliver is a good guy, she never has to know. And if he’s not, then I’m willing to be in the doghouse for a while. But I understand if you guys want to step out of this.”
I looked around. No one, it seemed, wanted to back out. In fact they voiced certainty that whatever we had gotten ourselves into, we were going to see it through as a group.
“The main thing is to find out if Oliver is good enough for Eleanor,” Bernie said.
“On that front, I had a friend check Oliver’s credit and it’s excellent,” Carrie told us. “In fact he seems to be worth more than fifteen million dollars.”
“From paintings?” Maggie was astounded.
“From paintings and investments,” Carrie said. “The interesting thing is that he lives very modestly. He owns a house, but it’s small: two bedrooms, one bath. The only improvement he made was to convert the garage into a studio. He has an investment firm take care of his accounts: He doesn’t touch the principal, and in fact he rarely even touches the interest.”
“Wow,” Natalie said. “That’s a lot of money.”
“Well, I hope he’s innocent. Eleanor deserves a nice rich man for her old age.” Bernie sat back in her office chair. “We could all use one. Does he have any brothers?”
“I’ve been looking into that,” Maggie said. “The Internet is a wonderful thing. I found the number for a records office in London and called there. Apparently Oliver was married in 1954.”
“Is he still married?” I gasped.
“Divorced in 1957,” she said. Maggie smiled a cat-ate-the-canary smile. “But he wasn’t married as Oliver White. His real last name is Lyons. Apparently he changed it when he came to New York.”
“Do we know anything about the ex-wife?” Natalie asked.
Maggie paused. “It took a few calls but I found another marriage certificate for the ex-wife. It turns out she remarried shortly after the divorce. Then I found this Internet service that looks for lost friends. They found that she moved to Canada. I don’t know what happened to her after that, but I can check if we need to.”
“Canada,” I repeated. “Maybe there is a connection to Oliver. Sandra had those coins.”
Susanne frowned. “If they’ve been divorced all these years, what could she tell us?”
“Did you find his ex-wife’s name?” I asked.
Maggie reached into her purse and pulled out a small notebook that looked like a detective’s pad. “Her maiden name was Violet Hammel. Then, of course, she became Violet Lyons,” Maggie said. “And then she married a man named Gerard Kelly. So I assume she’s Violet Kelly now.”
“Did Oliver ever remarry?” Susanne asked.
Maggie shook her head. “Doesn’t look like it.”
“Does he have any kids?” Natalie’s hand went instinctively to her slight bump.
“He said he didn’t,” I said. “At the school. He said he didn’t have any family.”
Maggie nodded. “It seems he may have told the truth about that. I contacted one of those Internet search companies to check birth and death records. Oliver had a brother wh
o died at twenty-five, unmarried. There were no birth certificates in England, the United States, or Canada listing Oliver as a father.”
“Okay, so he was divorced and had at least one bad dating relationship,” Bernie said. “You could say the same thing about me.”
“You were never arrested,” Maggie said.
“Actually I was arrested twice. Once for protesting the Vietnam War and once for inciting a riot when I took off my top off in front of a bunch of sailors,” Bernie said. “Sometimes I miss those days.”
“Let’s hope that Oliver’s criminal past isn’t any worse than yours,” Carrie laughed.
Finding out about Oliver’s past only made us more curious. As we talked through the evidence, one thing seemed obvious. Changing his last name made Oliver suspicious. Maggie promised to keep digging.
“There has to be more,” she said confidently.
“I’ve got plans to meet with Oliver and Eleanor for dinner on Sunday.” Bernie looked at me. “Maybe I can find out something.”
“That’s great,” I said, “but there’s also something else I need you to do.” I pulled the folder out of my bag. “These are the autopsy reports for both women. Bernie, you’re a pharmacist. I know that’s not the same as a doctor but . . .”
Bernie grabbed the folder. “I’ll do it. After all these years I know as much medicine as any doctor.”
“And I’ll see if I can find anything on Sandra and Lily,” Carrie offered.
“Good idea,” I said. “If we can find a connection . . .” I didn’t have to finish the sentence. It was like when we made a quilt as a group. Everyone brought their separate talents, but they combined into one vision, one tangible outcome.
As I headed to my car, Natalie chased after me.
“I forgot to say anything, since we were all caught up with Oliver,” she said.
“Kennette.” I realized what she was about to tell me. “You had lunch.”
Natalie looked disappointed. “I tried. I really did. But somehow I ended up talking about how I met my husband and what baby names we were picking out and, well, everything except her.”
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