by J A Whiting
“It’s relaxing.”
“Reading about murders is relaxing?” Nicole turned up her nose.
“Trying to figure them out is relaxing,” Robby explained. “It’s something different for me to do. I’m always interacting with people or practicing or performing. Sitting at my laptop gives me some quiet time.”
“So what do you know about this case?” Claire cut some brownies into squares and set them on platters.
“The mother was killed late in the evening … in October, I think,” Robby said. “The little girl was asleep in her room. The police thought the mother, what was her name?” Robby looked off across the room. “Janice, I think. Yes, that was it. Janice must have known her killer because there was no sign of forced entry.”
“She opened the door to him then?” Nicole asked.
“That’s what the police suspected.”
“If someone rang the bell though, she might have gone to answer it and opened to see who was there,” Claire surmised. “People weren’t as cautious back then as they are now.”
“That’s true, but who would come knocking late in the evening?” Robby asked. “Wouldn’t you be suspicious if someone knocked or rang your bell at that time of night?”
“First, I’d ask who was there,” Claire said. “If the person said police or there’s a gas leak that needs to be fixed, then I bet I would have opened the door.”
“So Janice might have known the person or she was tricked by someone claiming to be an official and she opened up.” Nicole poured batter into a cake pan.
“Right,” Robby said. “Janice must have opened the door. There was no sign that someone broke in.”
“What else do you know?” Claire questioned.
“Let’s see. The little girl, Janice’s daughter, went to live with relatives.”
“Her name is Kelly,” Claire said. “She and Ian attended kindergarten and first grade together and then Kelly moved to live with her aunt.”
Robby’s forehead scrunched in thought trying to recall what he’d read online about the murder. “I think a neighbor claimed to see someone going inside, but I might be mixing up details between cases I’ve read about.”
“What kind of a house was it?” Claire asked.
“Why? What does that matter?”
“I was wondering why Kelly didn’t wake up,” Claire told them. “Didn’t she hear a fight or an argument or people crashing around the house?”
“I don’t know what the house was like.” Robby sounded disappointed that he’d missed a detail.
“Did Janice and her daughter live in the house alone?” Nicole asked.
“Yes. Just the two of them.”
Claire turned to face Robby. “Ian didn’t mention how the woman was killed. Was she shot?”
“Stabbed to death,” Robby informed her. “That detail, I didn’t miss. Her throat was cut and she was stabbed multiple times.”
Nicole’s face looked grim. “In the morning, the little daughter came out of her room to that? To her mother dead from a stabbing? It’s too terrible.”
Claire stood silently thinking and after a few moments, she said quietly, “I’m not sure I want to talk to Kelly Cox.”
“You can’t back out now,” Nicole told her friend. “The appointment is scheduled. We’re seeing her tomorrow afternoon.”
Ice felt like it was filling Claire’s stomach. “I know. I won’t cancel it, even though I’d like to.”
“It will be okay. I’ll be with you. It happened thirty years ago. I doubt we’ll be able to point out anything the investigators overlooked. We’ll meet with Kelly Cox, read the case notes, and that will be that. We’ll have tried, but there won’t be anything to go on.”
Claire looked over at Nicole with a worried expression. “You said that last time, on the last case we worked on.”
“Well.” Nicole held a spatula in the air as she spoke. “Maybe this time, we won’t be able to get involved.”
“It worries me,” Claire said. “If the killer was in his twenties when he committed the crime, he’d only be in his fifties now. He’s not an old man. He could come after us.”
“Don’t worry, Claire,” Robby kidded. “I’ll protect you.”
The blond baker glanced over at her young co-worker and a heavy sense of dread descended and nearly choked her.
3
“I was five years old when my mother was murdered.” Kelly Carter Cox sat on her sofa across from Claire and Nicole in her home in the city of Chatham Village. The thirty-five-year-old woman had dark brown eyes and chin-length, light brown hair with some gold highlights in it. She was about five-foot, five-inches tall and carried a few extra pounds on her frame.
The home was a white, Colonial with a one-car garage and a small area of grass in the rear and was located on a tree-lined street of similar houses. Kelly worked as a math teacher in one of the city’s middle schools.
“Do you remember anything about that night?” Claire asked.
Kelly leaned against the sofa back with a sigh. “I remember waking up earlier than usual. The light was just peeking in past my bedroom window’s curtains. Funny, but I felt off, something felt off. I didn’t know what it was, but something seemed wrong. Maybe the house was too quiet, maybe that’s what made me feel uneasy.”
“Can you tell us about the layout of the house?” Nicole asked.
“Sure. My mom rented a small bungalow. It had two bedrooms. Mine was right off the living room. There was a small kitchen and there was a dining area between the kitchen and living room. There was a short hallway that led to my mother’s bedroom. The bathroom was off the hallway.”
“What happened after you woke up?” Claire questioned. Her heart pounded like a hammer.
“I got out of bed. Usually, I pushed the curtain back a little to look outside to see if it was sunny or rainy or whatever. I didn’t do that. I walked to my bedroom door. It was closed. I leaned down to look through the peephole. It was an old house. The bedroom doors had those old-fashioned locks you needed a key for. They never got locked, we didn’t have the keys. There was a peephole on the doors though.” Kelly let out a long breath. “I saw my mother on the living room floor.”
Nicole waited a few moments before she asked the next question. “Did you open the door and leave your room?”
“I did.” Kelly’s voice was soft as she looked down at her hands clasped tightly together. “I went into the living room.”
“Did you know your mother was dead?” Claire asked gently.
“I knew it.” Kelly nodded. “There was blood all over the place.”
“What did you do?”
“I looked down at her. Her body was face-down, but her head was turned to the side. Her face was turned away from me towards the sofa. I could see the side of her face. She had blood on her cheek.”
“Did you stay inside?”
“No. I ran out of the house. I was in my pajamas. I ran out to the walkway. The neighbor, Mr. Adams was in his yard. He looked up when I came out. He was about to say hello to me, but then he must have seen the look on my face. His expression changed. He asked me what was wrong.” Kelly paused. “I told him I thought my mother was dead.”
Claire and Nicole exchanged looks of sadness, each of them thinking about the horror of that day.
“What did Mr. Adams do?”
“He called to his wife,” Kelly said. “She stayed with me in the yard while Mr. Adams went inside our house. He wasn’t in there for long. He came rushing out, his face was like a ghost. I went into the Adams’s house with Mrs. Adams and she made me some breakfast. Mr. Adams must have called the police because they showed up while I was eating my eggs.”
“How did you feel?” Claire asked.
“Confused.” Kelly’s forehead scrunched. “I didn’t know about death at that age. I didn’t understand. Part of me thought my mother would wake up. I didn’t realize it was permanent. Mr. and Mrs. Adams were always nice to me. I remember him showing me a
butterfly that was on his shoulder one day. We didn’t touch it, we just looked at it until it flew away. I wasn’t afraid or anything that morning because they were with me.”
“Did someone come for you?” Nicole asked.
“My grandparents came. They didn’t live far from us, maybe ten or fifteen minutes by car. My grandmother was crying and I started to cry when I saw her. My grandfather’s face was serious, but I could see it in his eyes. He didn’t look like he usually did. He looked afraid to move.”
“You went to live with them?”
“I did. It was only for a year and a half. My grandfather got sick and my grandmother couldn’t handle it, especially right after losing my mother. It was a very hard time for her. I think my grandfather’s illness was triggered from the loss of his daughter. I went to live with my aunt in Hull. I stayed with them until I went to college.”
“Your mother would be sixty now?” Claire asked.
“She would. It’s been almost thirty years since she was killed.” Kelly ran her hand over her hair.
“Why have you asked the detectives to look into the murder now?”
“I don’t know exactly why,” Kelly said. “It’s been eating at me. Time is going by. No one has been arrested. Soon it will be too late, everyone involved will be dead. Maybe it’s too late already, but I have to try. I went to my mother’s grave on her birthday and I promised her I’d try to find her killer.”
Claire gave the woman an understanding nod. “Thinking back on the night of the murder, did you wake up that night? Did any noise disturb your sleep?”
Kelly put her hand to the side of her face. “I’ve been asked that a million times. I’ve asked myself that a million more. I don’t remember waking up. I don’t recall hearing any sounds. Maybe my mother didn’t scream because she feared waking me. Would the killer have attacked me, too, if I got up and opened the door that night? Did my mother keep silent in order to protect me?”
“Who was the detective who handled the case back then?” Claire asked.
“William Boyd,” Kelly said. “He was with the Chatham Village police department. He’s in a nursing home now. He has dementia. He isn’t able to converse at all. I don’t think he knows who he is or where he is.”
“Have you spoken with the police about the case?” Nicole asked.
“I talked with a detective here in town. That’s how I found out about Detective Boyd being in a nursing home.”
“Who did you speak with?”
“Detective Gagnon. Mike Gagnon.”
“He has agreed to look into the case?”
“He was reluctant. I had to convince him. He told me there probably isn’t any way to find new information and that the investigation will go nowhere. Detective Gagnon said that every now and then, a member of law enforcement takes a look at an old case, does some digging, and either decides to go forward with it or makes the decision to abandon it. He told me my mother’s case has been looked at many times and that nothing new comes to light.”
“But you talked him to taking another look?” Nicole asked.
“He said he’ll look into it, but he can’t promise anything. He talked to your detective friend, Ian Fuller, to get additional eyes on the case. And now, the two of you are here.” Kelly smiled. “This is probably the most attention my mother’s case has received in thirty years.”
“You know that it will most likely be very difficult to find anything new?” Claire questioned. She hated the idea of disappointing Kelly. “Solving it, finding the killer, well, the odds are probably worse than trying to win a lottery. You understand that we will probably come up empty? You need to brace yourself for that.”
“I know what everyone is saying about the chances of finding the killer.” Kelly’s lips held tight together. “I don’t care what anyone says. I promised my mother. If it takes me the rest of my life, I won’t give up until I have the answer.”
“We’ll all do the best we can,” Claire said with a serious expression. “But sometimes, the best isn’t good enough.” She worried that Kelly would not be able to handle a disappointing outcome.
“Has Detective Gagnon been able to get hold of the case notes and the evidence bags?” Nicole asked.
Kelly swallowed. “The items are no longer available.”
“What does that mean?” Claire asked. “Why not?”
“There was a small fire several years ago in the police department building and the evidence bags associated with my mother’s murder were destroyed.”
Claire’s heart sank. No evidence? How could Ian and Detective Gagnon work a case with no evidence? “It was destroyed? All of it?”
Kelly gave a slight nod. “It was lost in the fire.”
“What did Detective Gagnon say about that?” Nicole asked.
“He said it would make things even more difficult.” Kelly had a hard time forcing those words from her throat.
Claire thought that was an understatement. How could a case be investigated with no evidence?
“Despite the lost evidence,” Nicole said, “Detective Gagnon is still willing to open the cold case?”
“He’s asking around.” Kelly nodded at the two women. “He’s trying to find something, anything before he gives up on it. He’s trying to find some of the people who were around back then. The officers who arrived on the scene. Some reporters or lawyers, or whoever might know things.”
“What about Mr. and Mrs. Adams, your former neighbors?” Claire asked.
“They’re in an assisted living facility not far from here,” Kelly said. “Detective Gagnon will visit them and ask some questions.”
“The case notes were lost in that fire, too?” Nicole questioned.
“Yes, they were.”
Claire groaned inwardly. This case is going to be impossible.
4
“The evidence and case notes were lost in a fire at the police station.” Claire wiped down the table across from Tessa who had dropped into the chocolate shop between clients for a quick coffee.
“So what will happen?” Tessa held her cup near her lips. “Is that the end of re-opening the case? It can’t be looked at if there isn’t anything to look at.”
“Au contraire.” Robby stopped next to Claire after delivering a latte to a customer. With a hand on his hip, he glanced from Claire to Tessa. “Aren’t you going to ask me what I mean?”
“What do you mean?” Claire asked the young man.
“I told you I hang around those cold case websites. I’ll post something about the case and ask for help. You wouldn’t believe how many people read those blogs and sites. Lots of amateur sleuths have been instrumental in solving cases.”
“I don’t know,” Claire said with hesitation.
“Don’t worry. It’s not a bunch of kooks,” Robby explained. “Well, there are some kooks, but most people just want to help. Plenty of law enforcement officers frequent the sites. It’s like crowdsourcing. You ask people for help and you often get it.”
“I’ll text Ian about it to get his okay.”
“Fine with me. He’ll say yes, you wait and see.” Robby went back to the counter to wait on some customers.
“Robby probably has a good idea.” Tessa wiped her lip with her napkin. “As it stands now, you’ve got nothing to go on.”
There was a lull in customers entering the shop and Nicole came over to talk to Tessa and Claire. “I felt so badly for that woman. Imagine opening your bedroom door and finding your mother dead on the floor outside your room.” She shook her head. “Kelly Cox is probably lucky to be alive. What would have happened if she woke up when the man was attacking her mother? Would he have killed a little child, too?”
“Thankfully, that didn’t happen.” Tessa’s eyes darkened. “How was the interview with Ms. Cox? Did she recall things from that morning?”
“She told us she didn’t hear anything during the night,” Nicole said.
“Kelly said she woke earlier than usual and that she peeke
d through the keyhole in her door before going out into the living room,” Claire said. “That tells me that she sensed something was wrong. Maybe she did wake up during the night, heard a commotion, was afraid, and burrowed under her covers. Or she woke slightly, heard fighting, fell back to sleep, but when she woke, she remembered something from the night … maybe the noises outside her room and that’s why she acted cautious by looking through the keyhole.”
“That could be true.” When Tessa nodded, her auburn curls bounced. “I wonder.”
“What?” Nicole looked at Tessa with interest.
“I wonder if Ms. Cox has ever undergone hypnosis.”
“Hypnosis?” Claire’s eyes narrowed. “Isn’t that just hocus-pocus?”
Tessa straightened and said to the blond young woman, “Is your ability to sense things hocus-pocus?”
Claire glanced nervously around the crowded café and slipped into a seat at Tessa’s table. “Keep your voice down,” she whispered.
“Does hypnosis really work?” Nicole asked.
“It can, yes,” Tessa said. “Some people are more responsive to hypnosis than others, but researchers have yet to determine why that is. Hypnosis doesn’t cause the subject to fall asleep nor does it make the person unconscious. On the contrary, the mind of a hypnotized person becomes hyper-focused and hyper-attentive and the subconscious is more accessible.”
“You think hypnotizing Kelly Cox would help her remember things from that night?” Claire asked. “Could it bring forward some things that have been buried in her mind?”
“It’s happened before,” Tessa said. “I wonder if hypnosis has been tried already with Ms. Cox.”
“Information from hypnosis can’t be used in court, can it?” Nicole asked.
“On a very limited basis,” Tessa said. “But if Ms. Cox recalls anything about that night, the police might be able to follow it up to produce some hard evidence. If all else fails, keep it in mind as a last resort.”
Claire said, “Kelly’s former neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Adams, lived next door to the house she lived in when her mother was killed. They’re in their late seventies or early eighties. The detective who has agreed to look into the case will speak with them. Maybe something helpful will come out of the meeting.”
