“How goes the case?” she asked. “Any new leads?”
I told her the story of the tracking device and my mother’s visit along with Siever. She was impressed with the device and not happy with the results of that meeting. While she’d never expressed any opinion on my family, she’d always treated my mother as if she were a recalcitrant witness, which I guess in a way she was. “You always seem to give more than you get with them. You need to let them ask the questions, and then determine why they are asking those particular questions.” We went through the exact questions that I’d been asked. She suggested a few possible counter-questions that I could have asked to turn the tide on the conversation. When I finished with the final question, there was a long pause on the other end.
“It sounds like they’re very concerned about your involvement with the Gillespies. If this is not tied up with Susan, they would have no reason to be so involved and worried about your questioning. Neither of them were ever this concerned about you and any other investigation you barged into.”
She was right. Of course, my mother had asked me to look into a friend’s disappearance after she left her two Scotties alone. She’d been interested in the results, but not necessarily the methods I used to find the truth.
Sheila continued. “For some reason, they want you to stay away from that family. Notice that they didn’t talk about any of the clients or the parents. It’s just the kids they were interested in. Now you just need to determine why they were so concerned. Do they think that the kids killed Mrs. Frias, or was there another reason that we don’t know about?”
I thought about it, but Sheila was right. I was too upset about the way in which it was handled to contemplate what was not being said – and what was being asked. They’d hit me with accusations, which was worsened by knowing that they were dating, and the lies that were so obvious. I had seen red and not thought about what they wanted from the discussion. They seemed to be in collusion to stop things from coming out regarding the Frias murder, when at first glance, neither of them had any stake in the matter. It only fueled my opinion that the two matters were linked.
“So what’s next on the game plan?” she asked. “I don’t know how much time I’ll have to help. I’ve been off two days, which means that the pile on my desk will be threatening to fall over and kill everyone in the place.”
“I want to talk to the girl, the other Gillespie child. I also want to see if this was an isolated robbery or if other cases look similar to it.” If it was part of a bigger pattern, then it was less likely that it had involved my sister.
“I can tell you one thing. There might have been other robberies around that time, but none so gruesome. If you find another case, the house will have been empty, and there was no violence done. This was a particular bloody murder, and any others like it would have been immediate news. However, this has always been the Frias murder – and not part of a series. But you can look if you want.”
“Then it looks like I’ll be relying on one witness here.” I felt useless. The entire case had dwindled down to a single person who might talk to me, or might just never return my email. In most of the other matters I looked into, there were always multiple things to do and learn. I wondered if it was because the case was so old that my leads were scarce, or if this was what the police had encountered when they had investigated the crime.
“Oh yeah, I got the sister’s address and work place too. You’re going to love this one.” Sheila rattled off an address and work name so fast that I had to ask her twice to repeat it. The address was only down the street from her brother’s house. He had made them sound more distance, but I calculated that it couldn’t have been more than a mile or two at most.
The work place was another thing. Gwen Gillespie worked for my vet. It wasn’t a huge surprise, given that she loved dogs, and dog-related jobs are few and far between in Toledo, but it did make life easier. I could get an interview with her through the vet.
I was surprised that Sheila was so relaxed about the vet. My vet had helped with a previous murder case, and during the process of sorting paperwork had made a pass at me. I hadn’t reciprocated. To be honest, I am so far out of the loop that I wasn’t even sure what was going on. It wasn’t until Sheila brought the matter up that I realized she’d been flirting. Sheila had been angry, which had led to a long talk about our relationship and where it was going.
The short version was that we needed to set some boundaries, and one of those was to be exclusivity. It had been an easy conversation on my part, since Sheila was the only woman I’d dated since – well, forever. I wasn’t sure that I needed to spell that out to the vet, or if I could just imply it to her, but I thought I’d try to work mostly with the Gillespie girl and keep my distance from the doctor. Avoidance had always been my best tactic, and I wasn’t about to let go of it now.
“So what did you do with the tracker?” Sheila asked, abruptly changing the subject on me while I was still trying to navigate the ways of dating. I honestly felt that in some ways I’d been lucky not to date. It was difficult and thought-consuming at times.
“I put it on the lawnmower,” I answered, thinking of the device sitting out there waiting for the spring and some grass to actually appear.
“Nuh-huh, here’s what you need to do.” She outlined a rather devious plan that would keep them guessing for a few days. That would give me enough time to talk to more people, and hopefully find out what was going on.
After we hung up, I went for a long walk with the dogs. I didn’t worry about Sheila or Susan tonight. I had my hands full with two Corgis who wanted to pull me the entire way home. I flopped down on the couch after finding something to eat in the house, and fell asleep watching TV with two dogs and a cat for warmth.
The next morning, I called my vet’s office first thing. Rather than go for a personal contact and the need for an introduction, I called the vet, knowing that I would be a known entity there. Corgis are not all that common, and their personalities stand out anywhere. At the vet, both of them are at their most charming, and don’t stop until they have the adulation of everyone there. I was a known entity through my dogs. The Countess could not have cared less about the vet, and she let it be known, like most other cats. So I had to rely on the dogs for an introduction. It worked, because Gwen Gillespie answered the phone.
I explained who I was and what I wanted to talk about. This time, I didn’t put up a charade. I explained that I was looking into the Frias murder and had hoped to talk to her about what she remembered about the night of the murder, and anything else she knew. She didn’t speak for a minute, but I knew she was still on the other end of the line. I was learning that when I hit these people with distant memories, they tended to drift off there for a minute until I called them back to reality. I wasn’t sure if any of these people were enjoying the recollections or if they brought back pain and suffering.
Finally, she spoke. “Sure, if it gets this nightmare over once and for all, then why not? Everyone acts like it’s a huge secret. I get tired of playing along.” Without explaining her comments, she suggested a time and place for lunch, and I agreed to meet her there.
I was early to the restaurant, but she came in just after me. I waved at her. I was surprised that I’d recognized her. In my fear and misery after Susan’s disappearance, I had shut out most of the world. I didn’t remember many things about middle or high school at that age. In fact, I didn’t remember much about school through graduation. I kept my head low, which meant that I rarely looked at the people around me. I was too busy maintaining a low profile as not to be abducted as well. So the fact that I remembered this girl was a shock to me.
She sat down. We made small talk through ordering. When the menus had been collected, Gwen said to me, “What do you want to know?”
I was surprised by her frankness. Adam had been secretive and wary of what I wanted. Gwen was the opposite. Her disposition invited you to ask her anything.
“What ca
n you tell me about the crime?” I started, wanting to hear what she had to say about what I’d read.
“There’s not much to tell. Belinda was our maid. We were all out of the house that day. She had a key, so she could come and go as she wished. She must have let someone in the house, and that person killed her. We came home afterward and found the body.” She shrugged like she’d disappointed me somehow.
“So you had no idea who could have done that? Man or woman, boyfriend,” I asked, leaving the question open for her to expound. When given the chance, most people liked to talk and talk a lot. In so many cases, they didn’t even know they were telling you what you needed to hear.
“She was married. No kids. Her husband is still around somewhere. I’m sure you could find him if you wanted. He was always into something – one of those dreamer types who try to invent the latest ‘As Seen on TV’ product. She worked so they would have a steady income. I doubt that she had a boyfriend. The husband didn’t have a full-time job, so she couldn’t have met someone anywhere. He drove her to work and picked her up. I wouldn’t have liked that.”
I cleared my throat. “One thing I noticed is that the neighbors didn’t mention that your dog barked or carried on?”
She broke into a broad grin. “Silver Blaze!”
I looked at her. “Sorry, what?”
“Silver Blaze is the Sherlock Holmes story where the dog does nothing, so Holmes deduces that the killer must be someone that the dog knows. Oh.” Her voice trailed off as she realized what exactly that clue would indicate.
“So about your dog?” I prompted.
“Yeah, Rusty could bark if provoked, but he was pretty relaxed with strangers. We socialized him so that he didn’t bark unless he thought a family member was in danger. I’m not sure that he’d consider Belinda family, but she’d worked there a long time, so he might have. I do find it hard to believe that he didn’t bark at all. He normally carried on like an idiot when we came home though. I still miss that old dog.”
“So he would have been okay with a stranger coming into the house?” I asked. If he was open to all strangers, then Sheila’s idea would be useless. I had hoped to be able to narrow it down to the family and work on their alibi, but that was looking less likely now. The dog’s friendliness made it possible for several people to have entered the house.
Gwen still didn’t speak. “Well, maybe. It’s been a long time ago. Rusty passed away about a year after that, and we’ve had other dogs since then. It’s hard to remember exactly what one pet would have done in a hypothetical situation. If I had to guess, I’d say that Rusty would have been okay with a stranger in the house. I have no idea what he would have done with a knife-wielding stranger. Nothing like that ever happened – besides that once. So the Silver Blaze theory is out?”
I nodded. I switched gears to talk about other people then. “What about other clients? Could it have been related to them? Did you ever notice if she’d gone through your things?”
Gwen made a face. “Yeah, actually she did. I didn’t talk about it much at the time, because it seemed mean to say something about her when she’d just been killed, but I caught her going through my parents’ room a few weeks before she died. She begged me not to tell them because they would fire her. And they would have too. They were like that.”
“Any idea what she was looking for?” I thought that perhaps my ideas about one of her clients killing her might be more applicable. If she found something criminal or dangerous, she could have blackmailed the client for extra money. If she was being paid cash already, the payments would be almost undetectable.
“Not really. My parents kept large sums of cash in the drawer of their dresser, so it could have been money. They weren’t too discreet with it. We knew about it, so it wouldn’t be a stretch for someone who had access to the house to know about it too. They also kept all their papers in the bedroom too. Their wills and that sort of thing. They never invested in a lockbox or anything remotely secure.”
I thought back to my own parents. They’d kept their papers in a manila envelope in the kitchen. Not the best place for personal papers, but they’d been able to lay their hands on them whenever they were needed. My parents had placed a higher value on convenience than security. I didn’t even have a will or any documents providing for my estate or my pets. I wondered if I needed one. I was only halfway through my 20s. It seemed early to be talking about my demise, but Belinda Frias had probably not expected to die so soon either.
“Are your parents still around?” I asked, thinking of what Sheila had told me about them dropping out of sight after the murder.
“They moved to an island off the coast of Mexico. It was a good buy, and they decided to retire and they did. We get cards at Christmas and on birthdays. Other than that, I don’t hear much from them.”
She gave me an international number to reach them. I wrote it all down. I’d heard of people living in other countries to reduce the cost of retirement. I wondered if her parents had experienced money troubles after the murder. Maybe they couldn’t sell the house or maybe one of their jobs had fallen through.
“That’s a long way for a retirement,” I said, hoping for a clarification. I wanted to know more about what had happened to these people.
Gwen shrugged. “Not if you knew my parents. They were very much into each other first, and everyone else later. The kids, my brother and I, felt like intruders sometimes, because they wanted to do things for themselves more than take us to soccer practice or choir auditions.”
I had a momentary flashback to high school. I remembered the choir director, a largish woman with a broad smile who laughed a lot. I was shocked to remember something again. I wondered if looking into Susan’s disappearance would be good for me in some way. Perhaps it would help me to remember part of my past, even if that past was painful.
“So were there other clients she had?” I realized that in my frustration at not getting an easier answer before that I’d hit her with a number of questions all at once, and I chose to go back through each one individually so that I didn’t miss anything. Sheila would have told me to focus on the task at hand and not worry about parents or high school memories. It was just hard to ignore all of them after all these years.
I was annoyed that the dog theory hadn’t worked out. The clients of Belinda Frias would be next on my list, though I didn’t know how I would get the names of all of her clients. I was sure that some names, perhaps even the killer’s name, might slip through the cracks after all these years. I didn’t know why I thought that I’d get the easy answer that it had to be a family member. I knew that TPD had looked into this case, and they had not found an answer. If it had been as easy as the family, then the case would have been solved years ago.
“The only ones I knew of were us and the people next door. They were the Wagners, but I don’t know a first name. They were always Mr. and Mrs. at that age. She did both houses the same day so she could just walk between them. It was easier for her than her husband coming to pick her up and take her to the next person’s house.” She seemed to run herself down with the last little nugget, and she turned her attention to her food.
I took down all the information and tucked my notes in my pocket. “Thanks. You’ve been a lot of help. I was at a standstill.”
She touched my sleeve. “I was wondering if you’d answer a question for me.”
“Sure,” I said, thinking that turnabout was fair play here. I was usually the one who did the questioning.
“So is it true about you and the doctor?” she asked. Her eyes were big and bright. I realized that part of her motivation for coming here was to get information in return. I tried to explain in very kind terms what had happened. We had worked on trying to solve a murder case, and she’d grown fond of me, but I was dating someone else.
When she asked me if it was serious, I had to stop and think about it. Were things serious with Sheila? I knew how I felt, but I wasn’t sure all the time how she felt i
n return. Her actions indicated that she cared about me, but I couldn’t answer the question definitively. Did I want her to be serious? I answered honestly, “I think so.”
She beamed. “Young love is so wonderful. I love to see young people find each other. Too many times something comes between them.”
She looked at me, waiting for me to say something, but I wasn’t sure how to answer. I wasn’t exactly young. I was two years younger than she was. That was hardly Romeo or Juliet. I was an adult, settled into my own life, though it was changing drastically at the moment. Her comments seemed wildly out of place, but at the same time, I felt like I was expected to know something that I didn’t have a clue about.
Besides, I wasn’t sure that I agreed with that sentiment. For me at least, young love was all that great. It was too fraught with emotion and drama and angst for my taste. I’d missed out on dating in school, but there were a lot of pitfalls to avoid in this whole dating thing.
Her comments threw me off, and I puzzled over them all the way back to my house. I was greeted by my two Corgis, Bruno and Bess, so I took them for a long walk to sort out my thoughts. I had contact information, or something resembling contact information for her parents and other clients of Belinda Frias. I also was told that Mr. Frias was likely in the book. While the dogs stopped to sniff everything along our way, I made up a list of people to contact.
I decided to start with the husband, since Sheila always informed me that the spouse was the most likely person in a homicide. That usually preceded any discussion we had on getting more serious, so I wasn’t exactly sure where things would end up with us. However, I enjoyed things as they were now. Still it was a depressing statement about marriage that the happily ever after was the most likely to kill you.
I found Mr. Frias’ name in the original articles and then located him via the Internet. I opted to visit him in person rather than calling him. This was the type of intrusion that would likely be met with resistance, so I thought that I’d provide fewer chances to say no by meeting him face to face. From trying to get clients for my business, I found that people were more likely to be rude on the phone than in person, and they were worse still on a computer.
SLEEPING DOGS (Animal Instincts Book 6) Page 5