by J A Whiting
“Is there a boyfriend?”
“They’d broken up recently,” Claire reported.
“He’d better be looked at closely. In many cases of assaults and murders, the perpetrator is known to the victim.”
“Ian told me that. The police must be giving the boyfriend a lot of scrutiny.”
Changing the subject, Augustus asked Claire about the chocolate shop. “Have you and Nicole started to work on the cookbook?”
“We have.” A smile formed on Claire’s lips. “We’re pulling together recipes from Nicole’s and my collections. My mother was a great cook and baker. She taught me to bake and she gave me all of her recipes. I wish she lived to see what we’re doing. She would be so excited and proud.”
Augustus made eye contact with Claire. “I’m sure your mother was already very proud of you.”
Claire nodded and couldn’t help a sigh escaping from her throat. She and her mother had been very close to the poverty line living from paycheck to paycheck, hanging on by a thread. Her mother stressed the importance of an education and worked three jobs to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. Claire never realized how poor they were … she and her mother baked together, went to the park, had picnics, picked wildflowers. Her mom taught her how to sew and to make her own clothes.
Claire graduated from college with high honors and went to a prestigious law school. She landed a great job with a financial institution and bought a house for her mother. One day, the founder and CEO of the firm met Claire and fell hard for her, and eventually convinced her to date him. Over time, Claire fell in love with Teddy Rollins and despite the whisperings that she was a gold-digger and the fact that Teddy was forty years older than her, the couple married.
They were happy together for two years before her husband died suddenly of a massive heart attack. Teddy had never married before he met Claire, he’d never had children, and he had no immediate family except for his young wife. Teddy had also been one of the wealthiest men in America, and his fortune went to Claire.
She was very secretive about her net worth and had only revealed her financial situation to two people … Nicole and Ian … who were both stunned and amazed, and made jokes about how lucky they were to be associated with someone so wealthy. Her only regret was that her mother had died before Claire had the chance to wipe money worries from her mind, once and for all.
Claire was generous and frequently made important donations to charitable organizations. She’d anonymously purchased the market and deli building for Tony Martinelli and paid for Robby’s music school tuition when he ran out of funds. Claire believed that money was no good unless it was shared and spread around to help others.
The morning sky was clear and bright and the sun climbed higher as Claire made her way towards the North End from Beacon Hill. Deciding to take a detour, she turned left to pass by the Granary and the closer she got to the burial ground, the faster her heart beat. Beads of sweat gathered at the back of her neck and her palms became clammy.
She stopped outside of the tall, open, metal gates and stared in at the graves, the trees, and the pathway. A few tourists walked around reading the names on the markers.
Benjamin Franklin’s parents were buried here, as were John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, the five victims of the Boston Massacre, and many others.
Claire ran her hand over part of the gate. The metal felt cool against her skin. She’d always liked the Granary, a peaceful place tucked away in a busy part of the city.
She thought about the night when Grace Dylan was discovered by the two tourists. The anxious, frightened feeling flooded through her veins again and made her want to flee, but she forced her feet to move onto the walkway until she stood at the spot where Grace was found at the back of the cemetery.
She looked back to the front gate, imagining someone carrying Grace through the graveyard.
Did you park on the street in front of the Granary? Did you plan to put the body here or was it a convenient place that presented itself to you as you went past? Why didn’t you leave Grace where you killed her? Did you know her?
Claire bent down, closed her eyes, and pressed her hand against the ground.
What happened to you, Grace? Who did this to you? Was this planned or was it random?
“Claire.” A hand touched the young woman’s shoulder causing her to jump.
Claire’s eyes popped open to see Tessa standing beside her.
“I was coming up the street. I saw you walk in here.” Tessa searched her friend’s face. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay. I wanted to come by. I wanted to look around.”
“Do you sense anything?”
“Not really.” Claire ran her hand over her eyes. “I don’t know if I’m picking up on things or if my emotions are getting in my way.”
Tessa nodded. “Come back in a few days. It could be too soon to pick up on any feelings.”
“I thought it would be better to come before sensations floated away,” Claire said.
“Each situation is different. Sometimes it’s better to try to pick up on things right away. Other times, it’s necessary to allow sensations to sort themselves out and settle down.”
Claire glanced around. “I hope no one is overhearing this conversation.”
Tessa smiled. “No one would understand it anyway.”
The women turned and starting walking towards the entrance.
“Come back another time. Try again later.”
“It’s sad, isn’t it?” Claire asked. “Someone so young losing her life like this.”
“It’s always sad when someone disrupts the natural way of the universe.” Tessa’s expression hardened. “He may think he’ll get away with it, but he won’t. You and Nicole and Ian will see to that.” Tessa touched Claire gently on her arm. “Let me know if you need any help.”
5
Claire and Ian stood outside of Grace Dylan’s apartment building.
“I get a weird feeling from this place.” Claire frowned and rubbed her hands over her arms. “Let’s walk around the perimeter of the building.”
Ian said, “The officers and the detective who went to Grace’s apartment didn’t notice anything amiss when they were there. They told me there were rumpled sheets on the bed.” Ian’s head moved from side to side glancing around at the surroundings as they walked. There was a bit of lawn in the back with a few benches lining the walkway. Flowers bloomed in the beds behind the building. The place was tended and neat.
Claire gestured at a window. “That window right there must be in Grace’s bedroom. Her bedroom is here at the back corner. There’s another window on the back side that’s situated on the rear wall of her room.”
The first floor was slightly higher than expected which provided a bit more privacy than if it was at ground level. No one could walk up to the windows and look in. Someone would need a short ladder to break into an apartment through the windows.
“The police haven’t figured out where Grace was murdered? The medical examiner reported that she had to have been shot in a location other than the Granary, right?”
“That’s right,” Ian said. “Grace wasn’t killed in the cemetery. She was killed somewhere else and taken to the burial ground and dumped there.”
Claire squinted at something on the rear of the building near one of the windows. “What’s that on the wall? Up there close to the window.”
Ian saw what his girlfriend meant. It looked like a small chunk of the wall had broken off. He moved his eyes along the side of the building and spotted another circular chunk similar in size and shape as the one Claire had indicated.
“We need to go inside.” Ian took out his phone, placed a call, and spoke to someone. “Okay. Thanks.” Turning off the phone, he nodded at Claire. “The roommate is at home. She’ll buzz us in.”
When they climbed the steps to the first floor, Jenny was waiting for them with the door to the apartment slightly open.
“I was surprised to hear from you.” Jenny was wearing a knee-length bathrobe. “I stayed home from work today. I had a wicked headache. I slept for a while.”
“I hope I didn’t wake you when I called,” Ian told her.
“No, no. I was up already. You want to take a look at Grace’s room again?”
Ian said, “We need another look at the space.” He and Claire walked down the hallway to the bedroom while Jenny went to the stove to make some tea.
Stepping into the room, an icy chill slid down Claire’s spine. They moved slowly around the space, went to the two windows and looked out.
“There’s something off about this room.” Claire rubbed the back of her neck trying to understand what was bothering her. “The dresser is in an awkward position, isn’t it? Why is it pushed so close to the end of the wall? Why would Grace arrange the furniture this way?”
“Help me push the dresser.” Ian put his shoulder against the tall, white wooden bureau and leaned into it.
Claire put her hands on the side and pushed when Ian gave the word.
The dresser slid over the wood floor.
“It looks better like that,” Claire said. “It fits the room better.”
She and Ian saw the spot on the wall at the same time and walked over to get a closer look.
“Is that a hole?” Claire bent to see the spot more clearly, and then she stood straight staring at Ian.
Ian moved his hand to the small, rounded chink in the wall. “This is a bullet hole.”
Her eyes wide with surprise, Claire stepped back. “Was Grace shot from the outside? Did Grace get shot in here while she was in bed?” She gestured to the hole in the wall and then to the bed. “If a bullet came in through the wall, it could have hit Grace.”
Ian positioned himself against the wall and faced the bed. “Maybe. I think the trajectory is slightly off though.”
“Did someone break into the apartment? Did someone shoot at Grace from outside? Did the shooter then come inside to see if she’d been hit?” Claire tossed off questions as they popped into her mind. “Did he kill her right here in her room?”
Ian tugged on the bedsheets to see if there was any visible blood on them.
“Is that why the quilt and the blanket are gone?” Claire asked another question. “Was there blood on them?” Her heart pounded so hard she worried it would hurt her chest wall.
Ian pulled out his phone for the second time in fifteen minutes and called for a team to come to the building.
“I’ll leave. I don’t want to be here when the team arrives,” Claire said. “Anyway, Nicole and I have that meeting in an hour with the cookbook publisher.”
“Good luck with it.” Ian hugged his girlfriend. “Don’t rush into anything with the publisher. Take some time to consider it if he makes an offer. And thanks for bringing up your concerns about the missing blanket and quilt on Grace’s bed. Without your feelings and perception, we probably would have missed the bullet hole in the wall.”
While riding up in the elevator, Claire updated Nicole with the latest information on the case and the young woman was astonished by the news of the bullet hole in Grace’s bedroom wall.
“Someone shot her through the wall?” Nicole stared at her friend. “Why wasn’t there blood in the room?”
“Maybe that’s why the blanket and the quilt are missing. Ian and the other officers will figure it out. It’s possible that the hole could have been there for years.”
“Did you ask Jenny, the roommate, if she’d ever noticed it?”
“Ian asked her, but she told him neither she nor Grace had realized there was a hole in the wall.”
Nicole let out a sigh. “They didn’t know because it wasn’t there until the night Grace got killed.”
“We don’t know that for sure. We can’t get ahead of ourselves.”
“My head is spinning,” Nicole said.
“We’ll talk more after this meeting. Right now we have to put our focus on the discussion with this editor,” Claire said.
Claire and Nicole sat in the Boston office of a well-known publishing company talking with an acquisition editor. The office was in a tall building in the Seaport area of the city and there were wonderful views of the harbor and a runway of the airport.
They sat at a wooden conference table in a large room decorated with comfortable modern furniture in shades of dark blues and grays. The abstract artwork on the walls was done in colorful hues of blues and greens.
Claire and Nicole had put together a mock-up of a cookbook chock-full of recipes they both had collected and changed over the years. There were sections for cakes, breads, pies, chocolates, croissants, ice cream creations, candies, and puddings.
“We’ve worked hard to offer traditional desserts and some unique sweets we developed ourselves.” Nicole showed photographs of different cookies and cakes.
“Many of the recipes have been in our families for years.” Claire pointed out some of them. “We’ve taken some of recipes and put our own special spin on them, we’ve updated things to serve the modern palate, tastes, and expectations.”
The agent, William Flannery, looked with interest at the photos and some of the recipes. “You have quite the social media following. You have lines out the door of your shop just about every day. Your store received quite a lot of press after you won the grand prize at the Boston Food festival.”
“Co-won,” Claire corrected.
“Right.” Flannery went over the publication process with the two young women. “We expect the cookbook to do very well. A successful project like this can open a lot of doors for you.”
“How do you mean?” Nicole asked.
“The sky’s the limit. More books, interviews, television shows, a line of cookware, maybe a magazine. Your shop is so popular right now I can see this snowballing into a dozen different outlets. You two are right on the cusp of becoming extremely well-known bakers and entrepreneurs. You can take this business in any and all directions you want to go.” Flannery beamed at them.
Claire was taken aback by the man’s pronouncements.
“We had no idea.” Nicole blinked.
“It’s an exciting time.” Flannery opened a drawer and removed two leather bound folders. “We have an offer to make for the rights to the cookbooks. Plural. We don’t see it stopping at one book. Everything is right here in the folders.” The man handed one to Claire and one to Nicole. “You can take those with you to show your intellectual property attorney and your agent. Perhaps I can call you in a few days? We’d like to sign you as soon as possible in order to get things into production as quickly as we can.”
Claire’s head was spinning, and when she glanced at Nicole, she could tell her friend was having the same reaction.
“We want you on our team.” Flannery looked from one to the other. “We think you’ll be very pleased with our offer.”
On the way down in the elevator, Nicole had a stunned expression on her face. “Television shows? A line of cookware? What’s going on? I thought this was about publishing one cookbook.”
Claire had a shell-shocked look on her own face. “I think we’d better find a really good lawyer.”
“But you’re a lawyer.” Nicole hugged their mock cookbook against her chest.
“I’m not the kind we need.”
Nicole pressed a finger against her temple. “What about an agent? Do we need an agent?”
“Gosh.” Claire shook her head. “We need help.”
6
Harry Parker was twenty-six-years old, tall, athletic-looking, with light brown hair and brown eyes. He was wearing a blue shirt and a navy blue tie. The young man was sitting across from Claire and Nicole in a coffee shop near Beacon Hill where they’d met him after he talked with Ian at the police station.
Harry’s face appeared drawn and tight. “Detective Fuller asked me to speak with you. He said you were independent investigators. Are you employed by the Boston Police?” Harry asked.
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sp; “We’re part-time consultants. We get called in when the police need a hand.” Claire was intentionally being vague about Ian’s request that they meet with Harry, but the brief explanation seemed to satisfy the young man.
“Detective Fuller didn’t say much about how the investigation was going,” Harry said. “Are they close to finding a suspect?”
“The police don’t share that information with us,” Claire told him. “We’re researchers and interviewers. That’s all.”
Harry picked up his mug of coffee. “I can’t believe what’s happened. How could anything happen to Grace? I just don’t understand any of it.” After taking a long swallow from his cup, he added, “Grace and I knew each other for a long time. We were together more than five years. I pick up my phone to text her sometimes … and then I realize she’s gone. I can’t wrap my head around the fact she isn’t in the world.”
“We heard you and Grace had recently broken up.” Nicole used a soft tone to bring up the subject. “Was it an amicable parting of the ways?”
Harry took in a long breath and leaned back. “It was Grace’s decision to end the relationship. I should rephrase that. We were still friends, we still cared about each other, but we were no longer a couple.”
“Were you surprised by Grace’s decision?” Claire asked.
“At first I was, yeah.” Harry ran his hand over his hair. “I realize now that we’d fallen into a rut. We’d sort of fallen into taking each other for granted. Grace wanted a break. She thought it would be good for both of us to see other people, to have new experiences. I wasn’t thrilled about it, but after long conversations, I could see that Grace was right. It was for the best.”
Claire felt Harry was holding something back from them. “When did you last see Grace?”
“About five days ago. Grace asked if she could borrow a medical manual I had. I met her at the hospital and gave it to her. We grabbed some coffee in the cafeteria.”