“Rodriguez is stuck on another murder case. He asked me to do a bit of follow-up on Gwen’s.”
“Is the new case related?”
“No. But it takes precedence over this one that’s growing colder by the minute. You want to guess where we’re heading?”
“If it were me, I’d be talking to Gwen’s friends from her college days.”
“So, you think her past holds a clue to her murder?”
Angie did think so. Of the two suspects floating around in her mind, one was definitely related to Gwen’s past. She was pretty sure how this person connected but could not yet assign a solid motive.
Jarvis’s, “Earth to Angie,” was accompanied by a nudge in the elbow.
“What’s wrong?”
“You suddenly stopped talking. Want to share your thoughts?”
“Not yet. Which of Gwen’s friends are we going to see?”
Jarvis said, “Guess,” as he turned into the parking lot of a small mom and pop type diner. He shut off the key and swung around on the seat to look at her.
“Debra Fingerman.”
He stretched across and kissed her on the temple. “You’re amazing. The last name is Ellis now.”
* * * *
In the historic college town of Bridgewater, the GPS instructed Jarvis to turn right off Route 28, which was Main Street. Another right and they found themselves on a narrow, tree-lined street with turn-of-the-century homes from one end to the other. The Ellis family lived in the first house on the right, a beautiful Colonial with an attached two-car garage. A recent model Chrysler was parked in front of the left-hand garage door.
Angie and Jarvis stepped up and rang the bell to the cranberry colored front door. A pretty woman in her late forties appeared. She had wavy almost-black hair that was going gray at the temples. Her demeanor was friendly but sad. She pushed wire-rimmed glasses higher on her nose and then gazed over them at Angie and Jarvis.
After he introduced himself and Angie, she ushered them into a living room that took a step back in time. The furnishings looked to have been taken from a house Angie once saw in old Salem village: a plank coffee table, a maple sideboard, and a braided rug in shades of blue.
After offering refreshments and receiving a negative reply, Debra Ellis seated herself on one of two identical flower-patterned sofas set perpendicular in front of a red brick fireplace where a jolly fire flickered. In her jeans and Patriots sweatshirt, she looked out of place in the colonial style room.
Angie and Jarvis sat on the second sofa with Jarvis leaned back and his leg crossed over one knee while Angie remained perched on the front of the cushion.
“I am very sorry for your loss,” she said.
“Thank you,” Deb said. She had a deep voice for a woman.
“I’ve heard many good things about Gwen. She had a great many admirers.” To which Deb nodded. “You two were close.” Angie said it as a statement of fact.
“We became best friends from the minute they assigned us as roommates. We had so many things in common. Both came from broken homes. We were both only children. We each loved history, especially American history.”
“So much so that Gwen majored in it.”
Deb smiled sadly. “As a child she hated the subject. Hated how all the teachers could do was recite dates and make them memorize battles and lists of presidents. Gwen had a plan for how she wanted to teach kids about their country.”
“But she never did,” Jarvis said.
“No.”
“Is that reason related to her death?” he asked.
She seemed surprised at the question. “Maybe.”
Angie didn’t ask her to elaborate right now. Her mind was churning, assembling information. For a while she steered the conversation toward more general topics like the play and the school.
“Did you and Gwen see much of each other?”
“We had a standing date. The first of every alternate month, we met in Boston. We had lunch—each time at a different place. We did a little shopping or sightseeing, or just sat on a bench and talked.”
“I assume you she told you she was seeing Ted? Did you ever meet him?” Jarvis asked.
“Nice man.”
Angie smiled at her. “Very noncommittal reply.”
Deb smiled. “He was a noncommittal kind of man.”
“What did you really think of him?”
“Odd. He was odd. That’s the best way I can describe him. I never could put a finger on what it was. But he was good to Gwen. He doted on her. They were good friends.” She moved forward on the couch, assuming a position much the same as Angie’s—leaned forward, feet flat on the worn braided rug, hands clasped in her lap.
“But when he proposed marriage, their relationship changed,” Angie said.
She felt Jarvis’s gaze on her and knew he was wondering if his repeated proposals had damaged their relationship. Angie pushed on with her questions. Time enough later to face that topic.
“Tell us about Randy.”
“She adored that man. And he loved her. Till the day she died.” Deb brushed something off the cuff of her sweatshirt. “Some people look their whole lives and never find
the one
. Gwen had two.”
Other times, Angie would ask if Deb was one of them, but she didn’t want to interrupt the flow of thought.
“You know he’s gay, right?” Deb said.
Angie and Jarvis nodded. “Was that what broke them apart?” Jarvis asked.
“Yes. He couldn’t perform in the bedroom. No, no, I take that back. He
could
perform but it was frustrating for them both. His allegiances, if you want to call it that, were elsewhere.”
“Was there someone else? For him, I mean.”
“No. It was an emotional thing. He just didn’t mesh with women. Gwen understood. She was totally supportive.”
“Was that why she moved out west?”
“No. The UC—the University of California—offered great courses in childhood education. She’d heard they taught innovative ways of mentoring kids. Randy encouraged her to go.”
“Maybe he thought that would be a better way to gain his freedom.”
“I don’t believe it. He and Gwen were totally honest with each other. Remember, I was there. We were together every day. They always planned on getting back together. They talked about finding jobs at the same school so they could be near each other. Maybe share a house.”
“They did get to be near each other,” Angie offered.
“It took a little longer than they planned.
“What happened?”
“Life got in the way.”
“Especially for Gwen.”
Deb smiled sadly. “Yes.”
Angie saw Jarvis shake off a puzzled expression and almost smiled. She loved when she could introduce information he hadn’t yet thought of.
He got back on track with, “Which again brings up the question of why she didn’t end up teaching elementary kids.”
“It seems like that’s the question of the day,” Deb said with a smile.
“Here’s a new one,” Angie said. “Who do you think killed Gwen?”
Deb lowered her head and, for several seconds, looked at her hands in her lap. “I can’t imagine it’s any of the kids—they adored her. Nor can I picture either Randy or Ted…”
“Though there’s a small part of you that wonders if something could’ve driven one of them over the edge.”
She took off her glasses and moved her gaze from Angie to Jarvis. Then she gave a tiny nod.
“Since I arrived in Carlson, someone’s been ransacking all Gwen’s personal places. Any idea what they’re looking for?”
Deb raised her face and looked Angie directly in the eye. “Again, all your questions come ’round to the same subject, don’t they?”
“I hoped they would.”
Angie’s comment earned another sharp glance and a soft grunt from Jarvis.
“And he doesn’t know.” Deb tilted her head toward him.
“I didn’t intentionally keep it from him. Right now, the thoughts are all tangled inside my head. I thought if I started throwing out questions…”
“Have my answers led to any untangling?”
“I have unraveled one nagging problem, though I still can’t fathom how it relates to a motive for Gwen’s murder.”
Deb nodded. “Neither can I.”
Confusion rolled off Jarvis in waves. Still, he didn’t speak.
“When will her body be released? I’d like to make plans for the funeral.”
Jarvis scribbled a phone number on a sheet of notepaper and handed it across to Deb. “Detective Rodriguez is heading up the investigation.”
To Angie’s left, a pair of oil lamps decorated each end of the fireplace’s rough-hewn mantle. Between them, spanning the length of the mantle were photographs, each encased in the same handmade wood frames. Angie went to look at them, hoping to see one in particular. It was there. She picked up the picture of four people. It had obviously been taken at a photographer’s studio. In it, Deb stood beside a good-looking blond man whom Angie assumed was her husband Jason. Two young boys, about four and six years old, were seated on stools in front of them. Both children were dark-haired like their mother.
Deb came to stand beside Angie. She took the picture and gazed at it with love in her eyes. She showed the picture to Jarvis and waited while he examined it and handed it back.
“Have you figured it out yet?” she asked them both.
“I believe I have,” Angie said.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Kiana and Evan stood on the sidewalk in front of a three-story building with yellow vinyl siding. It looked to be six apartments, two on each side of the center entrance. The building was wedged so tightly between two other tenements—these with peeling paint—that there wasn’t enough space between them to park cars.
Evan stuffed the last of a hamburger in his mouth, chewed, swallowed and said, “Ready?”
Kiana nodded and they climbed four steps to the front door, recently painted a brilliant green. Seven black mailboxes hung on the right hand wall of the small vestibule. The first were numbered one through six in white stencils. The seventh box was different, newer, and with the apartment number 1A in gold stick-on letters rather than the stenciled numbers. This newer box bore the name Underwood in the same adhesive letters. Strange. If her estimation of the building’s makeup was correct and the building had six apartments, then the seventh must be an add-on. Probably it was tucked into the attic—a tiny apartment in the eaves—the owner’s way of producing more income.
She stepped back and peered up. Flat roof. No attic. No eaves. Maybe the apartment was a wing added at the back. She gestured to Evan who followed her down the alleyway to the right of the building. They didn’t find a wing-apartment, but they did locate a door, down three steps, into the basement. There was no identifying number on it but it was painted the same green as the front.
Evan made no negative response so she went down. And knocked. No answer. No dog barked. Lincoln Underwood’s personnel file had indicated he was single, but that didn’t mean a girlfriend wasn’t hanging out here. They hadn’t expected anyone to be there. Lincoln was at the high school, still drying auditorium seats. Even though the show had been moved outdoors; Mr. Reynolds didn’t want things getting all musty so he’d kept the staff busy drying the place out.
After knocking two more times and still getting no response, Kiana tried the knob. Locked.
She turned to ask Evan what to do next, when the door whooshed open, yanking the knob from her sweaty fingers. She prepared an excuse for why she’d been trying to get in but it was Evan standing there looking very proud of himself.
“I found an open window.”
“There aren’t any windows in a below-ground apartment.”
“Sure there are.”
Kiana stepped in to dark, though well-outfitted living quarters. The studio apartment appeared to take up half the basement of the building. To the left, a dresser and double bed, with a blue spread tucked neatly around the pair of pillows. To the right of that, beyond a half-open door Kiana could see a bathroom. Straight ahead, a leather sofa and chair in front of a wide screen TV hanging from the wall. To the right, a small kitchen. The eating area consisted of two stools tucked under a rolling countertop in front of the sink. Over the sink, as Evan said, was a rectangular window.
“The bathroom window was open,” he explained. “I fell on my head in the bathtub.”
“Could’ve been worse. You could’ve landed in the toilet.”
Evan punched her on the arm. She shrugged. “Let’s get looking. Who knows what time he gets off today.”
Kiana wanted to know more about this man who seemed so interested in that photograph from under Gwen’s blotter. Was he somehow related to her? Long-lost brother? Ex-boyfriend? Maybe they could find a clue here.
On a small table near the couch sat a pair of framed pictures. She picked them both up. One was Lincoln holding a small blonde-haired girl of about eighteen months. In the other he held a blond boy of about four years old. Kiana guessed the janitor was divorced and these were his children. She felt bad for the man that, until this moment, she hadn’t liked.
Evan had gone to the bedroom area. His hands were invisible in the top drawer of the dresser.
“Find anything?” she whispered.
“Just pictures of a couple of kids.”
“Same here.”
No other personal items were in the living room, so she went to the kitchen and pulled open drawers. Lincoln Underwood was a very neat man. He kept everything aligned side by side. The pile of mail stacked and fastened with a rubber band.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” came a growl from her left.
Kiana didn’t have to spin around to know a very angry Lincoln Underwood had arrived. He stepped toward Kiana. She stepped back.
“I’ll ask you again. What are you two doing here?”
He took another step. She took one. Out the corner of her eye she saw that Evan hadn’t moved from the bedroom area, though he had shut the drawer.
Underwood took another step. Kiana backed one more.
This couldn’t continue. Soon she’d be trapped against the refrigerator. And he could make bodily contact. He didn’t wield a mop this time but his body said he could wring her neck without a second thought.
Kiana launched herself at the man, pushing off with her feet and throwing her hundred-twenty-five pounds at his chest. He tumbled backward and landed with a thud on the floor between the rolling counter and the sink. His head make a terrible sound on the tile-covered cement.