by Karen Singer
“Ha! I’ll bet my false teeth that he denied he did it.”
“Yes, he did.”
“And you can just look at him to tell what kind of liar he is!”
Pierce knew he wasn’t getting anywhere with her. He needed to move things in a different direction. “Ma’am, I spoke with the policeman outside.”
“And he didn’t tell you that Kyle did it either?”
“We didn’t discuss that, Ma’am. He said he was there because you seem very sure that you could be murdered next.”
“Of course I’m sure! How stupid do you have to be?”
“I don’t understand. Why would you think that?”
“My money! Every last person on this grubby little island is here for one reason and one reason only. They want my money. Well they can’t have it!”
“I was told they were here for a birthday party for you.”
“That’s what this trip was supposed to be about. Do you know how much I spent to rent this entire hotel so that just my family would be around me? Do you have any idea?”
“I’m sure it had to cost a lot.”
“A lot! That’s an understatement. But I wanted my family to all be around me, and I paid dearly to get it – just the way I wanted it!”
“So you rented the entire hotel. That still doesn’t tell me why you’re convinced someone will murder you next.”
Judith shook her head. “Dense! Look Mr. Cop. Every last person on this island is after my money. I won the lottery a few years ago, and ever since, the only time I ever hear from any of them is when they call to ask for money. And guess what! They call all the time. But none of them are getting a penny of it. It’s my money! It’s all in my name. And it’s staying there! If I died, then according to my lawyers, Larry would have wound up with all of it. Now with him out of the way, it would be divided up between my entire family. That’s one of the reasons my damn lawyers are pushing me so hard to put together a damn will…so I can dictate where I want my money to go. And right now, I don’t want any of those money-grubbing lowlifes to get a penny of it.”
“You don’t want it to go to any of your children?”
“They don’t deserve it. None of them! And especially that Kyle that you haven’t arrested yet.”
Pierce agreed with the cop outside. She was looney. “Do they all know you don’t have a will yet?”
“They do now. That’s one of the other reasons I put this little vacation together for them, so I could sit down and talk with each of them, try to decide if they deserved anything from me at all. And right now, the answer to that one is a big fat no!”
“I see,” Pierce replied, like he often did. “Thank you, Ma’am. I’ll leave you now. Please be aware that I’m not allowing anyone off this island until this investigation is completed.”
“Huh! Nobody is supposed to be going home until Saturday. The only thing they would have been leaving the island for is some shopping trips. I think this afternoon we had a trip out to Key West scheduled.”
“Not anymore,” Pierce replied. “No trips. Nobody leaves.” He nodded toward her. “Good day.”
Pierce was glad to get out of the room. After talking with her for just a few minutes, there were several things he was convinced of. Number one, Judith Finch didn’t pay for any kind of surgeries for Kyle Finch. Secondly, despite some of the things she had said, Judith Finch didn’t seem to be grieving for her dead husband at all. And finally, the cop had been right. Judith Finch was looney!
The Islamorada policeman approached him. “Did you convince her that me being here is unnecessary?”
Pierces shook his head. “As much as I hate to say it, she may be right. She’s rich. Very rich. And with the death of her husband, if she dies, it clears the way for someone else to inherit all that money. As much as I don’t want to believe it, it is possible that someone could be after her next.” What he didn’t add, was that if someone did murder her, he wouldn’t blame them at all! “I’ll leave it up to you to decide if you want to stay or not. I’m from Miami. You’re with the local precinct. I’m more concerned with the dead body we have now.”
--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---
Pierce sat at his Miami office desk reviewing his notes. He had spent the day doing preliminary interviews with a good part of the family. Not all of them, but most. There were a few of the younger ones he had yet to talk with, but after talking with their parents, he didn’t feel any of them would have much to offer. So far though, it looked like his primary suspect was the one everyone called Kyle. Everyone called him that, except Kyle himself…or herself. Kyle considered himself to be Jenni now.
One thing he found strange was the fact that everyone seemed to think that Judith Finch had paid for Kyle’s surgeries to turn him into a woman, yet talking with Kyle, Sally, and later the widow, he got the opposite impression. He wondered what was going on there, and if it had any bearing on Larry Finch being murdered. After talking with all of them, it was entirely possible.
He had never dealt with one of those transgendered types before, but the last thing he would have expected was how defensive she seemed to be about everything, and not just the fact that she was claiming she didn’t do it. But her claiming she didn’t do it, certainly didn’t mean she didn’t kill her grandfather. And so far, the evidence was overwhelmingly against her. In fact, so far, she was the only one he had any evidence against at all. But she claimed she didn’t do it. No surprise there, they never did. Or rarely anyway.
He glanced over the few notes he had made about her. He noted the phone number of the guy she worked for and his name. But he hadn’t asked what kind of work she did or what kind of company it was. His mistake. He’d have to ask. Or…. He picked up his phone and dialed her boss’s phone number, a Mr. B, for Bosch.
“Bosch Investigating,” the voice on the other end said when he answered.
Pierce blinked. Investigating? “Mr. Bosch?”
“Yes? What can I do for you?”
“This is Detective Pierce. Miami police.”
“Yes?”
“Do you have a Kyle Finch working for you?”
“No. I don’t.”
“How about a Jenni Finch?”
This time the reply was much slower. “She’s not exactly on my payroll, but she does a lot of research for me.”
“What kind of research?”
“Take a guess. This is an investigation company.”
“I see. So you know this Jenni Finch?”
“I just told you that.”
“Yes. Of course. Tell me, what’s she like?”
“You think she murdered her grandfather.”
“How did you know about it?”
“She called me after she found the body last night.”
“And what did she say?”
“Two things. She didn’t do it, and she was scared as hell.”
Pierce grunted. “She didn’t act very scared to me. In fact, she was rather confrontational when I talked with her early this morning.”
“Jenni can have a…bit of a temper at times. But treat her like a woman, and I promise you she’ll be nice as can be. Treat her like anything else, and watch out for fireworks!”
“So she’s got a temper.”
“Afraid so.”
“Which means, she could have murdered him.”
“I seriously doubt it. Despite that temper, Jenni has a serious good streak in her. She hates seeing people get away with crimes.”
“That doesn’t mean she didn’t do it. Anybody can snap. All I wanted to do was to confirm that she is who she says she is, and that she works for you.”
“Detective…”
“Yeah?”
“Take my advice. If Jenni happens to come up with any theories about who did it, or in fact, about anything at all to do with the murder, if I was you, I’d listen real hard. Jenni as a knack for figuring things out. She’s been doing research for me for two years now, and she’s hardly ever wrong.”
&
nbsp; “But that still doesn’t mean she didn’t do it. Thank you Mr. Bosch for your time.” He hung up the phone. A private investigator. Who would ever think? And evidently, Kyle…or Jenni, was following right along with the business.
On a whim, he picked up his phone again and called an acquaintance in the Gainesville police department. “Hey Philly, it’s Pierce.”
“Pierce?” Detective Phillips replied happily. “Are you still spending all your time ogling the babes on the beach instead of doing any actual work?”
“Of course, and you’re just jealous.”
“Hell yes I am. So what can I do for you?”
“Have you ever heard of a PI by the name of Bosch?”
“Bosch? Robbie Bosch? Sure. Why?”
“I’m working a case and one of my suspects works for him.”
“Yeah? I didn’t know Robbie had anyone working for him, other than his wife. Last I heard, and that was as of a few days ago, it was just Robbie and his wife.”
“Well, from what I’ve learned, he’s got this girl too…except she not really a girl.”
“What?”
“Never mind, it’s…weird. What can you tell me about Bosch?”
“About Robbie? Listen Pierce. Robbie Bosch was the number one detective at this station for three years in a row. He’s good. Real good! I’d trust him with my life. He’s even helping us with one of our cases right now. Kind of off the books, you know?”
“So why did he leave the department if he was that good?”
“Politics! Plain and simple. He got tired of all the B.S. that was coming down the pipe. And I can’t say as I blame him.”
“Yeah. I get that. So this guy’s pretty legit?”
“Totally! Like I said, we even asked him to give us a hand on one of our cases. What kind of thing are you looking into with someone who works for him?”
“Murder! And she’s our number one suspect.”
“Does Robbie know?”
“I’m guessing she called him either before she reported it to the police, or right after.”
“I’m not sure what to make of that,” Phillips replied. “But if you need anything from us, just let me know. Glad to help.”
“Thanks Philly. I just wanted to check this guy out.”
--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---
Robbie and Shirley Bosch looked at all the pictures that Jenni had uploaded to their Dropbox account. “Geez!” Shirley said with a shake of her head. “Did she take enough pictures? She’s got so many here that don’t even make sense.”
“I’d guess she was being overly thorough,” Robbie replied. “Probably scared too.”
“I’m sure she was scared! I mean…why take a separate picture of every part of his body?”
“Hm!” Robbie grunted as he pulled up a close-up picture of one of the hands. “No defensive marks that I can see. His clothes don’t look like he put up any kind of struggle. From the way the knife was stuck in his back, I’d say he never saw it coming. Whoever it was, snuck up behind him and shoved the knife right into his back, and then got the hell out of there. Over and done with quick.”
“Cold!”
“And premeditated,” Robbie added.
--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---
“Aren’t you coming to dinner?” Sally asked over the phone.
“No!” Jenni replied. “I’ll do like I did with breakfast and lunch. I ordered room service. I can do that for the rest of the trip.”
“Jenni. You didn’t do it.”
“Tell that to everyone else! They all hate me anyway.”
Sally sighed. “They hate me too. But I’m still going.”
“Good luck!” Jenni replied.
She hung up the phone and went back to staring at her computer screen – that she had been staring and doing nothing much with all day long. Out of desperation for another break in the Granger case, she had been trying to find out more information about the company he worked for and his job. She was deep into the company’s website now and had come across a picture of Frederick Granger along with three other men that worked on a team to build prototypes. What kind of prototypes? The article didn’t say. But the company’s name was Proto Dynamic Industries, and she was guessing that building prototypes was a lot of what they did. She had a feeling that the information about Granger was there – somewhere. But everything she had found so far was sparse. Now, she was basically stuck.
She hadn’t left her room all day. Even when the maid came in to make the bed, she had stayed. Calling down to the front desk to find out if there was some way to get something to eat without going to the restaurant had been a stroke of luck. She had learned all about room service then. They brought whatever she wanted right to her. She didn’t have to put up with anyone else. It was a much better solution to everything.
Her nerves were going crazy. She considered herself fortunate that the police hadn’t arrested her yet. Yet! She knew perfectly well that everyone was probably blaming her. She hadn’t talked to any of them, but she didn’t have to. She knew!
She glanced over at her phone, then on a whim, she picked it up and pushed the buttons to make a call. She waited until he answered. “Hi, Mr. B.” she said, grateful to hear his voice.
“Jenni! How are you?”
“Wiped out. Scared as hell.”
“What did you say when the police questioned you.”
“That I didn’t do it of course.”
“Jenni, I did a little checking on Detective Pierce. He’s the detective assigned to the case.”
“Yeah. He was here questioning me before the sun was up this morning.”
“I’m sure he was Jenni. Murder is serious business and they have to get to the bottom of these things as quickly as possible.”
“I know but, I got no sleep at all last night waiting for him or anyone to come and talk to me.”
“Be patient with him Jenni. From what I heard, Pierce is a pretty damn good detective. Everyone I talked to said nothing but good things about him.”
“Yeah, well…just so long as he believes me.”
“I can’t guarantee that Jenni. Only that from what I heard, he seems to be fairly competent.”
“Let’s hope he’s competent enough to figure out that it wasn’t me who did it.”
“Let’s hope! Jenni, listen, since everyone seems to be blaming you, it wouldn’t hurt for you to dig into this case some yourself.”
“Me? How?”
“How do you investigate any case? How have you been investigating all the cases I’ve given you to work on for the last two years?”
“You think I should look into my own family?”
“It couldn’t hurt, Jenni.”
“Yeah. I guess I can do that. I guess…I should do that.”
“That’s the spirit Jenni. It’s time to stop feeling scared and start fighting back.”
“Well, I can try,” she replied.
“And Jenni, more than the internet research I’m sure you’ll probably bury yourself in, there’s something more important that I think you should do as well.”
“What’s that?”
“Talk to everyone. Question everyone. Find out what they think. Find out what they saw. Find out what each of them knows. Find the facts!”
“But that’s all the stuff you usually do.”
“Jenni, I’m not there. You are. If you don’t want to rely on just Detective Pierce, then it’s going to be you that has to talk to everyone to help figure out what happened.”
“But Mr. B, you don’t know my relatives. They all hate me! And I’m pretty sure that’s an understatement.”
“You’re going to have to try Jenni. Do whatever it takes. And for heaven’s sake, don’t lose your temper! Ever! Bury that damn temper of yours and put up with whatever they say to you. But you’re going to have to talk to them all…like it or not. Or…”
“Or what?”
“Rely only on Detective Pierce.”
“I thought you said
he was pretty good.”
“I did. But Jenni, so are you. You’re one hell of a researcher. But now it’s time to make the leap and go a bit further. Talk to people. Like it or not.”
“Ugh! I hate this. I hate them. They hate me!”
“And Jenni, one other thing. Detective Pierce may not like you investigating on your own like that.”
“Then that’s a good reason for me not to do it.”
“No, it’s not. But even if he doesn’t like it, it wouldn’t hurt to keep him in the loop on everything you find out. Just like you do with me.”
“Tell you what,” she replied. “I’ll keep him, and you in the loop. I trust you a lot more than I trust him.”
“That’s good Jenni. Please, keep me up to date.”
“Yeah. I’ll try. Right up until they arrest me.”
Chapter 7
Sally nearly dropped her fork. She had come down late for breakfast, hoping most of the family would be gone already, only to find that much of the family was either still in the restaurant, or they arrived shortly after her. She had tried sitting with her brother, Jimmy and his wife, only to be rudely told by Jimmy to get lost. She had been very put out by that. She could see by the looks everyone else there were giving her, that she would get the same answer. She chose a table by herself instead. And now, the surprise of the morning had just walked in. “Jenni,” she said happily. “I didn’t expect to see you.”
“Hey Aunt Sally,” Jenni replied. “I didn’t expect to be here. But…” She sat down at the table.
“Got tired of staying alone in your room?”
“No. I….” But she didn’t finish.
“Why don’t you move to my room with me?” Sally offered. “I’ve got a big room. A really nice suite. And the bedroom is a whole separate room.”
“No thanks, Aunt Sally. I think it’s better if I stay where I am. Especially now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Because everyone hates me so much. And now everyone thinks I killed Grandpa. I’m much happier staying as far from everyone else as I can get.”
“Everyone hates me too Jenni, but you can’t let that stop you from doing anything.”