Green Tea

by Sheila Horgan

  “Her name is Kirsten Branden Gagnon. She lives locally. She is about the right age. You ready to spend the money to do a background check on her?”

  “No, but what I want to do is see if I can find a picture of her.”

  “That should be easy enough, we’ll just Google her name.”

  We typed it in, did the search, hit ‘images’ and tried to divine which image could be her. None of them looked like Jerkface.

  Teagan logged onto her account on the social network, did a search for the name, and got a picture.

  “Sorry to waste your time Teagan, that didn’t work.”

  “What didn’t work?”

  “I was just sure that we would find the picture and even though all those girls didn’t look like each other, they would look like her.”

  “What?”

  “When Nana Jo said that we all look like Mom, even though we don’t look like each other, it got me to thinking. They have on TV all the time that the murder victims look a lot alike. None of the girls I saw, really look alike, so I was thinking that maybe the thing that held them all together was that they all looked like Jerkface’s sister. Maybe he was out killing them because of some weird thing he has going about his sister, but it didn’t work. Those girls don’t look like her.”

  “It was a good try.”

  “I just can’t let go of what Jerkface told me when I first met him. He kept saying that the key to these crimes is in the minutia. It’s driving me nuts.”

  “Good news is it isn’t a long drive.”

  “Love you too. Go home. Jessie is waiting for you. AJ will be home any minute. He’s going to be pooped. I don’t think he sat down for more than twelve seconds today.”

  “He really is a good guy Cara.”

  “I know he is. You know what is going on with Jessie and his relocation yet?”

  “No decision has been made. He asked me again if I wanted to go with him.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said that I couldn’t think about it. That I had the wedding and the murders and everything to deal with.”

  “But you didn’t say no.”

  “I didn’t say yes.”

  “But you didn’t say no. That should tell you something. Maybe you should go.”

  “You trying to get rid of me Cara?”

  “No, I’m trying to be a good sister and tell you that you should go if that is what is best for you and not even threaten to slit my wrists or anything.”

  “Well, as long as you are being supportive.”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “Even if I decided to go, it would be a process. It isn’t like I’d decide to go, and be gone tomorrow.”

  “Do you even know where?”

  “Until I figure out if I’m even slightly interested in going, I’m not going to say where, because it doesn’t matter.”

  “Sure it does. If you decide to move, and you move to Tallahassee, that’s one thing, if you move to Atlanta, that’s another, but if you move to Wasilla Alaska, that is a whole other issue.”

  “As soon as I know, you’ll know.”

  “Does Mom know you are thinking about it?”

  “I promise, if I move to Wasilla, I’ll send her a postcard letting her know I arrived safely. I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t come after me.”

  “Probably not, but she might send somebody. Go home!”

  “You want I should walk?”

  “Lord. I forgot. You don’t have your car. I’m really beginning to worry about myself.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “I can’t stop thinking about it.”

  “Last night?” He had that ‘I’m just teasing, but reassure me anyway’ thing going on that guys sometimes get.

  “Well, that goes without saying, but I was multi-tasking, ya know, kind of like you were last night, only not quite as much skill, or quite as fun, but the best I can do in my current state.”

  “Current state?”

  “Hung over.”

  “Hung over? Cara, you don’t even really drink. How could you be hung over?”

  “Not on alcohol, on you!”

  I love it when he blushes. “Oh!”

  “What I was thinking about is minutia.”

  “Okay.”

  “The whole thing with Jerkface.”

  “Okay.”

  “My mom used to tell us all the time that it’s just plain stupid to tell a lie because no matter what you do the truth of it will rise to the top. That the more cunning you’re trying to be, the more likely you are to reveal yourself.”

  “Okay.”

  “When Jerkface was talking to me, way back when all this started, he said that Louis was just sure that every crime could be solved with enough inspection of the related minutia. It had a ring of truth to it. It meant something.”

  “Okay.”

  “What if that’s actually what happened? What if Louis was slogging through the minutia and what he found was information that pointed at Jerkface?”

  “Doesn’t that sound just as convenient as the theory going the other direction? The theory that Steph and Carmine proposed and you and Teagan got so upset about?”

  “Pretty much, except that my theory feels right.”

  “That’s scientific.”

  “Don’t be like that.”

  “I’m just telling you what the reaction is likely to be.”

  “Then I need to find evidence to prove my theory.”

  “Hold on. First, you’re supposed to stay out of this whole thing and let the professionals deal with it. Remember? We agreed.”

  “But if they’re right, the bad guys are already in jail, if it really is Jerkface and his sister; or he’s dead, if it was Louis. Either way there isn’t any real threat to me anymore. If the professionals are wrong, then the bad guys were either never in jail, or will be out of jail soon enough, and then when I’m not paying attention because I think everything is just spiffy, it is all gonna sneak up on me and bite me in the butt.”

  “We wouldn’t want that, it’s such a cute butt.”

  “If Jerkface and his sister convince the world at large that Louis was the killer and they were just trying to cover it up after Louis’s unfortunate accident, so that the money that was legitimately left to the place where Jerkface’s sister worked would not be hosed up, then they are gonna be in trouble, but not serial murderer trouble.”

  “You know, that never really made sense to me anyway...”

  “Doesn’t make sense to me either, but that’s pretty much what Steph told us.”

  “I’m pretty sure Steph knows a bunch more than she is telling us.”

  “That’s another thing, why is Steph in on all of this anyway? Seems like it would be a cop thing, not a lawyer thing.”

  “I agree.”

  “When you think of a lawyer involved in any process, you think she is there to protect the interests of her client. If I’m not her client, and we’re pretty sure I’m not, Teagan thinks that Steph approached her, not the other way around, so if Steph had some other interest in this, what is her interest? Who is she protecting? Jerkface and his sister hadn’t even come into the picture yet, and Louis was already dead.”

  “Good question.”

  “And, what is the connection? There has to be one. If Jerkface is the killer, why did they arrest his sister? And if she is the killer, why did they arrest Jerkface? And if they killed together, where does Louis fit in? And if Louis is the killer, then where do Jerkface and his sister fit in? And if it was Louis and Jerkface’s sister, what the hell is that and what about Jerkface?”

  “Those are all really good questions, and I don’t have an answer to any of them.”

  “Well, I’m gonna find an answer to all of them.”

  “And how are you going to do that?”

  “The answer is in the minutia.”

  “Great. I liked it better when we’d decided that it was all over but the court appearance.”

&n
bsp; “Your grandmother told me to stop acting like a ninny and she was right. I’ve been sitting back and letting life happen to me. That isn’t the O’Flynn way. That isn’t my way. I make my life what it is by the actions I take. Life is cause and effect. Choose your cliché, I’m getting my reality back.”

  “Where do we start?”

  “You go to work. I’m pretty sure that I’m perfectly safe. No matter who the bad guy is, he isn’t going to want to pull attention to himself, so he isn’t going to do anything to hurt me. I’m going to snoop around on the Internet for a while, think for a while, then call Jovana and see if there is anything I can do to help with the cleanup at the ballroom, or somehow pay back her or the girls from the bar for all they have done for me and my family, then I’m going to check on Adeline, then I’m going to the mall and finding a completely inappropriate and unbelievable sheer something fabulous to wear tonight, I’m going grocery shopping, then I am going to meet you back here, with a wonderful dinner prepared, and me, in said unbelievably sheer fabulous outfit, doing my very best to get all of your attention back to more pleasant things.”

  “Well, I won’t be going outside for a few minutes, I’ll put the kettle on so you can have a cup of tea.”

  Good thing we have an automatic shut-off on the kettle.

  Good thing AJ makes his own hours.

  I’m just sayin’.

  My mom called before I could put my plans for the day into action. “Hello, Love.”

  “Hi, Mom, what’s up?”

  “Your brother and his new bride have asked that I give the family a call. They would like to get together here for dinner tomorrow tonight, along with a few members of Morgan’s family, to eat some of that leftover food from the wedding, and open their gifts.”

  “Oh, crap.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I special ordered their gift and I don’t think it’ll be done.”

  “I’m sure they will understand, Love.”

  “Maybe, but that doesn’t make it better. I’ll give the guy a call.”

  “Will we see you here for dinner then?”

  “Of course. Can I bring anything?”

  “I was hoping you would ask. Morgan invited AJ’s grandmother. She has accepted the invitation. Can you pick her up, and of course, AJ is more than welcome.”

  “I can do that. Remind me to thank Morgan.”

  “You’re a grown woman Cara, I’m sure you can remember such a basic thing on your own.”

  “You would think so, but I seem to be having problems remembering anything these days.”

  “Tis all the stress from the situation you find yourself in. It will get better in time.”

  “I hope so. I’m beginning to worry about myself. I’ve always flipped from one subject to another, but it used to make some sense. There used to be a thread to it. Now I’m just all over the place.”

  “Often you don’t see the connection between two things until you have the luxury of looking back at them. If you are having problems Love, perhaps you should change your vantage point.”

  “Good idea, but I think the only thing I haven’t tried is standing on my head.”

  “Then I’ll leave you to it.”

  With that she was gone.

  I texted AJ and extended the invitation. He said he’d already gotten word from Jovana; she would be there as well. He was very touched that his grandmother had been invited. I reminded him that he’s part of a family now, caught myself before I said ‘for better or worse’, and that if it hadn’t been for him, Morgan would have had to walk down the aisle naked. His ‘damn, wouldn’t have minded seeing that’ made me laugh; too bad he wasn’t close enough to smack.

  Jovana had AJ pass along the message that there was no need to help clean up the ballroom. Morgan’s father had paid for a crew to take care of it. Yay!

  Next I called AJ’s grandmother, told her that AJ and I would pick her up, and that my parent’s house is three steps beyond casual for these things.

  I called my engraver guy; he said he could have the gift done by tomorrow afternoon. Yay again.

  I called Adeline, offered to go over and fix lunch and visit. She said that she was spending the whole day painting, and that she’d see me soon.

  Most of the day to myself. AJ usually works a short day on weekends. Today, a shoot with a mom and dad and a bunch of little ones, might take longer than usual. He said he’d be back in time for dinner. Grocery shopping and the mall could wait; I felt a solution to my mysteries coming on.

  Logging onto the Internet, I had no idea where to start. That’s one of the nice things about the Internet; you can start just about anywhere.

  I started out with the obvious and figured I’d branch out from there. I typed Jerkface’s sister in the search engine and hit return. I got 193,000 results in .26 seconds. Great. I typed in a plus sign and added Jerkface’s name; that cut it down to just 187,000.

  I puttered around the Internet for a while, very hit or miss, and happened onto a site that offered to find Jerkface and his sister for me, for just under twenty dollars. I was tempted. I decided to look to see if there were any sites that would give me such information for free, and although I didn’t find that, what I did find was a site that listed Jerkface and a hand full of people in his life. My guess is the intention was to sort out the person you are looking for from everyone else with the same name.

  The right basic geographical area and his sister’s name were there for Jerkface.

  The right geographical area and her brother’s name were there for Jerkface’s sister.

  They both had two other matching names. I assumed one to be their father, and one to be their mother, or stepparent, or whatever.

  I jumped up and celebrated that minor victory with a cup of tea, and a happy dance in the kitchen while it brewed.

  Once I had my cup of tea beside me, for its magical powers, mostly of caffeine, I tried to find information on the parents.

  First I tried the sex offender registration stuff. I figured if Jerkface’s father was a perv years ago, he’s probably still a perv, there is no cure for evil, and sexual abuse on a child isn’t acting out, it is evil. Couldn’t find him.

  I spent the better part of my whole cup of tea searching anything that came to mind with no luck.

  Frustrated, I typed ‘how to find a person for free on the Internet’ and everything I needed appeared before me. I love the Internet.

  I printed out some articles, and some step-by-step instructions. How to look people up through everything from social networks to military records; reverse email directories, to professional organizations and yearbooks. I even found a way to look up a person’s family tree, that was helpful.

  More tea.

  I know that I should have opened tabs or extra windows or whatever, but I just can’t do that, so my printer was pretty busy for a while.

  I took all the printed material, highlighted what I thought might match, then went back to the computer and searched on that information, printed it out, and highlighted some more.

  By the time it was time for more tea, I had every horizontal surface in my apartment covered with paper, a really good feeling about finally getting to the bottom of all this, and was secure in the knowledge that if Teagan was available to help me, I’d get it done in half the time.

  “Hey.”

  “Hi, you busy?”

  “Not really. Jessie has a meeting.”

  “Today?”

  “Yep. What about you?”

  “AJ’s working.”

  “And you questioned Jessie having a meeting?”

  “Okay, stupid response, can you come over?”

  “Sure. Why?”

  “I think I’m onto something with the whole Jerkface thing.”

  “Four minutes, put on the kettle.”

  It took us about four hours, but we had a solid case, documents to back it up, and were mostly convinced we were right.

  “Now what?”

 
“We could call Steph.”

  “Do we trust her?”

  “Cara, I don’t trust anybody about this. This is scary. To be looking at proof that you have found a serial killer. And, I’m not even sure what the ramifications for all of this are going to be. What if it rains back down on the family.”