Saints and Sinners: (A Geeks and Things Cozy Mystery Novella #5) (Geeks and Things Cozy Mysteries)

by Sarah Biglow

  “OK.”

  “She said that Paige was kind of a bully toward Patrick. It got to the point that it could have been considered abuse. But Patrick wouldn’t let her tell their parents about it. Lois was convinced that Paige talked Patrick into getting on the boat that day.”

  “Did they know how to operate it?”

  “Apparently.”

  Chris took a sip of his drink and studied the sandwich crumbs on his plate. “That might explain some of the behavior the Maxwells observed. The talking to herself. The self-harm. In fact, they said it sounded sometimes like she was arguing with someone.”

  “That’s what I thought, too. She was used to bossing Patrick around and hurting him. Without him there, maybe she just started hurting herself.”

  “But eventually it stopped. The talking and the cutting.”

  “Maybe she just blocked that part of her life out and accepted that she wasn’t Paige Fischer anymore. She embraced being Verona Maxwell. I bet if you’d asked her anything about Paige, she wouldn’t have a clue.”

  “You mean like multiple personalities?”

  “Yeah. Something like that.” She let out a sigh. “I bet it would be really helpful to see what she talked about with her psychologist.”

  “Those records would be difficult to get, especially with the patient dead.”

  “You have to try.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “And you should talk to Abigail Fisher’s sister, Bethany. Something about the way the Fischers died doesn’t sit right with me. I tried to find their obituaries but there wasn’t much there.”

  “It’s worth looking into. Besides, maybe she kept something from Paige’s childhood we could use for a DNA match. And I’m guessing you want to come along.”

  “If that’s OK with you.” She batted her lashes at him and smiled.

  “As long as you aren’t running off on your own, I’ll let you tag along. I need to keep an eye on you.”

  They lapsed into silence for a while and Kalina focused on her soup. The baby gave a kick or jab to her bladder once or twice but she was much calmer than she’d been earlier in the day. She had enjoyed most of being pregnant but she was eager to meet her daughter and to hold her tiny fingers in her own hand. That thought sparked an idea. “You have Patrick’s fingerprints, right?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Have you thought about running his prints to see if they match any adults around the same age he’d be now? To at least rule him out as a suspect. I mean if there’s nothing then there’s probably a good chance he isn’t the killer.”

  “I’ll get someone on it.” He pushed his chair back and disappeared from the kitchen.

  In his absence, Kalina pulled out her phone and Googled Bethany Fairfax. Lucky for her, there was only one in the entire state of Massachusetts and she lived not too far away in Marblehead. That couldn’t be a coincidence. She copied the address she’d found online to the Notes app on her phone and grabbed her purse. She nearly collided with Chris as she tried to leave the kitchen.

  “I found Bethany Fairfax,” she announced. His furrowed brow told her he didn’t know who she was talking about. “Abigail Fischer’s sister. Fairfax was her maiden name.”

  “Oh, right. I’ve got the lab running Patrick’s prints. Where does Ms. Fairfax live?”

  “Marblehead.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yep. Want to go see if the aunt has any idea what might have happened to the rest of her family?”

  “I’ll drive.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  The trip out to Marblehead took about a half hour. The brief drive down the coast should have been pleasant, the weather had cooled off and a breeze blew through the open windows of the car, but Kalina couldn’t shake the sense of dread squeezing her chest in a vice. All of the open water made her wonder what Patrick and Paige had endured on that fateful day twenty years ago. Had they been afraid of the open water? Had they lost control of the boat or were they out on the water with the intention of visiting their aunt?

  “Kal, we’re here.” Chris’s voice drew her back to the world.

  “Did you call ahead?” she asked as he offered his hand to help her out of the car.

  “No. I figured the element of surprise might be useful.”

  “Anything yet on the prints?”

  “Nothing yet, no. The lab will call if and when they have something. But there is some good news. We have an angle on one of the surveillance cameras from the cemetery that got a good shot of the guy’s face.”

  “That’s great.”

  “So we’ve got that running, too.”

  They approached the single story, squat house that Google said belonged to Bethany Fairfax. Chris pulled out his badge and prepared to knock on the door. He didn’t get the chance because a woman bustled out in a floral-print sundress and enormous sunhat.

  “Oh, excuse me,” she said.

  “Are you Ms. Bethany Fairfax?” Chris asked.

  “I am. Who are you?”

  “My name is Captain Christian Harper. I’m with the Ellesworth police department. I was hoping I could speak with you for a few minutes about your niece and nephew.”

  Bethany took a step back into her front hall. “My niece and nephew died twenty years ago.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not true. Your niece, Paige, was recently murdered. Please, it’s just a few questions.”

  Bethany didn’t look willing to give in until Kalina made a show of pressing a hand to her belly and grimacing. The older woman gave a sympathetic look and waved them inside.

  “Thank you,” Chris whispered just loud enough for Kalina to hear.

  “Bet you’re glad you brought me along,” Kalina replied.

  Bethany led them to a small living room cluttered with second-hand furniture and Tiffany lamps. It wasn’t the set up Kalina had expected for a woman from a wealthy family. She eased herself onto the loveseat positioned beneath the mantle and Chris settled in a recliner next to her. Bethany paced back and forth in front of them for a few minutes before finally sitting on a wooden stool, setting her hat on the low coffee table between them.

  “Thank you,” Kalina said, indicating the seat.

  “Sure. When are you due?”

  “A few weeks.” She looked around the room as best she could and caught a photo of Bethany and a young man who looked vaguely familiar. “Do you have children?”

  “A son. Logan. He’s grown up now and moved out.”

  “Ms. Fairfax, I know this news must be a shock for you but I really need your help,” Chris interrupted.

  Bethany smoothed out the hem of her dress and twisted her fingers into the fabric. “I’m not sure how much help I’ll be, but OK.”

  “What do you know about what happened to your niece and nephew?”

  “They went out on the family boat and never came home.”

  “Do you happen to have anything that belonged to Paige as a child? A lock of hair or a toothbrush for when she stayed over?”

  “Why? I thought you said she was dead.”

  “The fingerprints match but we want to be absolutely sure.”

  “I don’t. I’m sorry. They never really stayed over here. Abigail, my sister, didn’t like them being away from home.”

  That seemed odd to Kalina, given how much the Fischers seemed to travel and leave their children in Lois Hendrix’s care. But she said nothing. She caught Bethany’s gaze flit to a photo of Logan as a teenager. He was sandy-haired and suntanned with a broad grin. Still, she couldn’t shake the familiar feeling. Much like she’d had when he found Paige in the cemetery. “How’d your son react to the news that his cousins had died? They look like they’d be about the same age,” Kalina said.

  “He was upset of course. We all were. It was such a shock.”

  “But Paige didn’t die. She was taken into foster care and adopted. She ran a successful beauty shop until someone killed her,” Chris said.

  “I don�
�t know what I can tell you. Until you showed up at my door, I had no idea she was even alive.”

  “This may seem like a strange question but do you know how your sister and brother-in-law died?”

  “I think it was a faulty carbon monoxide detector in the house. That’s what the police said when they came to notify me.”

  “When was that?”

  “I don’t remember. A year ago maybe.”

  “Did Logan get along with Paige?” Chris asked.

  “Yes. Why are you asking about Logan? I thought this was about Paige.”

  “Ma’am, is it possible that your nephew could have survived too?”

  “I don’t know. I think I want you to leave. I’m sorry I can’t be more help.”

  Kalina opened her mouth to press the issue but Chris shook his head and offered his hand to help her up. They started for the front of the house when Kalina stopped. “Could I use your bathroom?”

  “Last door on the left down that hallway.”

  Kalina took off down the hall at a brisk waddle. She really did need to use the bathroom but she figured she could also use the time to look around. The hallway was lined with more photos of Logan as a teenager. There was even one of him graduating from college. Oddly, there were no photos of him younger than eleven or twelve. The suspicious part of her mind tried to convince her that Logan was actually Patrick but it couldn’t rationalize why Bethany would have kept his survival a secret. Surely she would have returned him to his parents. She passed a room on the right with a partially closed door. She nudged it open with her foot and took in the room of a guy in his late twenties. The walls were bare except for a single photo of Logan and Bethany. There was a laptop sitting open on the desk. When she hit the Enter key to wake the machine up, it prompted her for a password.

  “Damn.”

  The desk had a center drawer that she eased open to find a print-out from a dating website. The figure in the profile picture was unmistakably Verona Maxwell. The baby chose that moment to press more insistently on her bladder and she had to retreat across the hall to the bathroom. She returned to the living room to find Chris, keys already in hand, and Bethany with her hat back on her head.

  They left through the front door and said nothing until they were back in the car. Kalina watched as Bethany strode up the street at a brisk pace.

  “Well that was a bust,” Chris muttered.

  “Not entirely. I looked around a little bit while I was heading to the bathroom. There aren’t any pictures of Logan before the age of ten. And it looks like Bethany lied to us about Logan moving out. There’s a room that looks lived in. I saw a computer but it was locked. There’s definitely something off about all of this.”

  “You think Logan is Patrick.”

  “I got that same feeling looking at pictures of him that I did with Paige. And she was definitely avoiding talking about Logan as a young child. There has to be a reason.”

  “It’s looking more like we have a suspect. We just have to find him.”

  “I know it’s not definitive but what if you used aging software on a picture of Patrick at ten and see if it looks like Logan now. And compare it to the surveillance photo.”

  Chris leaned over and kissed her cheek. “I knew I married you for a reason.”

  “There’s something else. I found a print-out of a profile for Verona on a dating website in the top desk drawer. Even if Logan isn’t Patrick, he still found Verona and it’s worth talking to him.”

  Chris put the car into drive and did a quick U-turn so they could head out of town. “So let’s see if we can find Logan Fairfax.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Kalina expected Chris to be on the phone to the precinct giving orders but the hands free set remained unused. They spent the first ten minutes travelling in silence before Chris turned to look at her..

  “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m fine, Chris. I was only pretending earlier to get Bethany to talk to us.”

  “All of this exertion just stresses me out. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “I’m fine. We’ve got a few weeks to go anyway.”

  Just as Chris pulled onto the highway, his phone buzzed with an incoming call from the precinct. Kalina reached over and tapped the phone and set it to speaker.

  “Hey Captain, is this a good time?” Jimmy’s voice filled the car through the speaker system.

  “Yeah, it’s fine, Jimmy. What’s up?”

  “I ran those prints like you asked and it came back with a match.”

  Kalina and Chris shared an expectant glance before he said, “Go on.”

  “The prints matched a guy with a criminal record named Logan Fairfax.”

  Kalina bit down hard on her lip to keep from exclaiming that she’d been right. Chris nodded at her as he switched lanes.

  “What’s the record for?”

  “Misdemeanor possession. We’ve got an address in Marblehead.”

  “His mother’s address. We were just there.”

  “Sir? I thought you were going to interview their aunt.”

  “I’ll explain when we get back. See if you can find any other address on Fairfax. We’ll be at the station in about fifteen minutes.” He jabbed the screen to end the call.

  “Shouldn’t we go back and try to get more out of Bethany?” Kalina asked.

  “Not yet. We need to see if we can get a location on Logan first.”

  “She could have tipped him off.”

  “At this point she only knows that her niece survived the accident too and someone’s killed her.”

  “But wouldn’t you think she’d put two and two together?”

  “If we go back now, she’ll shut down more.”

  Kalina ran a hand through her hair and stared out the passenger side window, trying to sort through the thoughts racing around her brain. How could Bethany not know the truth? And why hadn’t she taken Patrick back to his parents when he showed up?

  “Did you notice what dating website Verona had an account with?” Chris’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

  “It might have been OK Cupid. I didn’t notice to be honest.”

  “That’s all right. We’ll get Verona’s laptop and see who she was talking to.”

  “I can’t imagine being separated for all those years and then they find each other on a dating website. Do you think they were actually attracted to each other?”

  Chris shrugged his right shoulder. “Maybe. But if Logan knew she was Paige, he was probably using it to stalk her.”

  “I wonder if she realized who he was before she died.”

  “Something tells me he wouldn’t let her go before she knew.”

  The conversation died down again as they got off the highway and pulled onto Main Street. “Can you drop me at the shop? I want to check in on things and I think I need to rest for a while,” she said before he could make the turn toward the police station.

  “Of course.”

  She pulled out her phone and sent a quick text to Jillian, letting her know she was on the way. There was no response before they pulled up in front of the shop’s front door.

  “Make sure you put your feet up and drink plenty of water,” Chris called as she closed the passenger side door.

  The bell above the front door ‘dinged’ as she entered and Jillian looked up from her phone.

  “Just got your text. Shouldn’t you be at home?”

  “Why? I’d just be sitting around going crazy when I could be here obsessing over work.”

  “Or Paige Fischer?” Jillian slid the tablet they used for transactions across the counter.

  Kalina picked it up and took it into the game room so she could put her feet up. Jillian followed after her, not saying a word. The tablet’s screen displayed a news article from the town’s online edition, published only a few hours ago.

  Lost Twin Found … Murdered

  By: Heather Casey, Staff Reporter

  In the late morning hours of June 1
0th, a twenty-year-old mystery unraveled. As many in town will remember, ten-year-old Paige Fischer and her brother perished at sea twenty years ago. But a woman with Paige’s fingerprints was discovered in the cemetery by someone close to the local authorities.

  “Damn, how did they find out?” Kalina groaned.

  “People in town talk. I’m assuming once people found out this Verona woman was found at the Fischer family grave site, speculation began running wild,” Jillian answered.

  Kalina kept reading.

  The details are still unclear as to how Paige survived the boat accident that claimed her brother’s life or who would want her dead all these years later. Some in town speculate that Paige returned home to mourn her parents who passed away last year under suspicious circumstances. Others question if Patrick may have survived as well. And if that is true, why would they not have come home sooner?

  A local school teacher recalled the twins as being quiet and reserved although there was always something about Paige that set the teacher on edge. “I remember she had this quiet intensity about her for such a young child. Like there was something deep down she was hiding.” And of Patrick, the teacher noted, “He always looked scared to me. Afraid of his own shadow, especially when his sister was around. I should have done something back then. I knew something didn’t seem right.” Was it this inner secret that led to her death now? Could it be her brother came back for some twisted sort of revenge?

  This story is developing. Please check back for updates.

  “Chris is going to have a field day with this reporter. I can’t imagine who talked to her. The guys on the force know better.”

  “What about you?” Jillian raised a brow at her sister.

  “Me? I’ve been with Jimmy or Chris the whole day. And I am not going to talk to the press. Paige may have been a bully to her brother … abusive even”—she tossed the tablet on a nearby table—“but she doesn’t need to be dragged through the mud like this. No one, no matter how terrible, deserves to be murdered.”

  “Kal, I don’t think that’s what they were saying,” Jillian said, her tone placating.