“Looks like you’ll be staying here for a few more days,” I said, rising. I pressed on the small of my back and was rewarded with a series of pops that helped bleed some of the tension from my body.
Of course, it ratcheted right back up when the front door slammed open and Amelia rushed in, voice raised to a near shout. “Mom!”
“What? What happened?” Sheamus looked up, and then went right back to sleep as I hurried to the front door. “Are you all right?” Manny had taken my van to the car wash twenty minutes ago in an effort to help me out—the van was in desperate need of a cleaning—but now I was wishing he was home to help me deal with whatever latest disaster had befallen my family.
“I’m fine,” Amelia said. Her face was flushed and I noted that she looked excited, not scared. “I heard about it on the news.”
“Heard about what?” Though I already knew. As much as I’d like to, I couldn’t keep every bad thing from my children, no matter their age.
“The murder. Joseph Danvers.” She walked across the room and took me by the hands. “Do you know who that is?”
“I do. I met him.” When she gave me a curious look, I said, “He was going by the name Joe Hitchcock. He’s the man who was going to take Sheamus.”
“That’s what I thought! I wonder if . . .” She shook her head. “Never mind. Wait! Did you find his body?”
“I did.” I shuddered. That was an experience I never wanted to repeat.
“Oh.” Some of her excitement dissipated. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“It wasn’t fun,” I said. “Why are you so excited about this?”
Amelia grinned. “It’s a case. You know, to investigate.”
I was shaking my head even before she was done. “No, Amelia, you’re not to get involved. You might be getting mentored by Chester, but that doesn’t make you a private investigator.”
“That’s not what I mean.” She paced in front of me, a bundle of energy. I’m not sure I’d ever seen her so animated before. “Well, I guess it is, a little.”
“You should probably explain.” I moved to the dining room table. “And sit. You’re making me nervous.”
Amelia dropped into a chair, but her leg kept jiggling up and down. “Chester. It’s his case.”
“He’s looking into who killed Joe?”
“No. Well, yes. Kind of.” She made a frustrated sound. “He worked on the Danvers case years ago.”
“His wife’s murder.” I scrambled to come up with her name. “Christine, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, that’s it.” Amelia snapped her fingers. “The police said Joseph killed her, but because there wasn’t enough evidence, Chester got involved. He worked on it back then and did what he could to prove his client’s innocence.”
“He worked for Joe?” I asked, somewhat surprised. I would have thought Chester would have worked for the police on a case like that. Or maybe the victim’s parents, but the accused? I supposed it made sense, especially if Joe wasn’t the bad man everyone made him out to be.
“Joseph hired him to figure out what really happened. I don’t know the details yet. We’d just gotten started looking into old files when we heard about Joe. Chester had new information and was hoping to share it with him.”
“Wait. Back up. Was he still working on the case?” I asked.
“Of course. I mean, he stopped for a long time, but something caught Chester’s attention recently and he’d started working on it again. It’s why I had all those books. Chester hadn’t given me all the details, so I didn’t put it together until recently. I guess the whole thing is kind of personal for him, like he feels responsible somehow.”
My mind raced. What was it that got Chester interested again? Joe’s return? A new development?
And, of course, did it somehow lead to Joe’s murder?
“You need to talk to him,” Amelia said. “You found the body, right? He’ll want to know what you saw.”
“Amelia, I didn’t see anything.” But was that actually true? I found the door ajar. I saw the room with the photographs and files. I even saw the body, though I’d mentally blocked that out as best as I could.
“He’ll want to know.” Amelia scooted closer. “Mom, please. You really should talk to him. I’m not saying you go poking around like you did when Ben was in trouble, but if you could help Chester with his case, don’t you think you should at least try?”
There was such a gleam of hopefulness in Amelia’s eyes, I honestly don’t think I could have turned her down, even if I’d wanted to. I mean, if I could help, why not tell the PI everything I knew?
“All right,” I said. “I’ll talk to him.”
Amelia leapt to her feet and clapped her hands. “Great! I’ll call him. We should go right now. He’ll still be in the office.” She whipped out her cell and hurried from the room to make the call.
My head was spinning as I prepared to leave. I made sure the cats had water and some dry food, and made a quick pass through the house to make sure everything was put away. By the time I had my purse in hand, Amelia was waiting for me by the front door.
“Ready?” she asked in a voice reminiscent of all the times she’d impatiently waited for Manny and me as we readied for a trip to the zoo. Boy, did I miss those innocent times.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I said.
“Awesome! I’ll drive.” And she was out the door.
“Fantastic.” With a resigned sigh, I followed after her.
* * *
The ride downtown wasn’t as terrible as I’d imagined it would be. Normally, Amelia blasted her music so loud, you could hear it from blocks away, but today she kept it at a less ear-splitting volume. I couldn’t make out many of the words, but I suppose that wasn’t a surprise, considering most of the lyrics were in German.
Amelia pulled up in front of Chester’s office and parked. The building was a small, brick structure that looked tiny compared to the mansion-sized buildings around it. The street was full of old houses turned into businesses, and Chester’s office was no different.
I got out of Amelia’s car and waited for her to join me on the sidewalk. She led the way up a short flight of stairs, to Chester’s office door.
From the street, I hadn’t been able to see a sign, but up close, I saw a small plaque on the door. C. Chudzinski. Private Investigator. No other names adorned the plaque. I wondered if Amelia hoped to have her own added there someday.
Amelia opened the door without knocking. A bell that sounded as if it had survived a cave-in or two, clanked above our heads as we entered. The entryway was cool and spacious, if not on the run-down side. A coatrack sat just inside the door. There were no coats on it, just a newsboy cap hanging from the top. The dust on it made it appear as if it had been there for years.
A pair of desks sat in the front room, but no one was sitting at them. There were papers atop the desks, and one closed file folder. Amelia walked straight past the two desks without a glance, to a door on the far side of the room. The top half of the door was of frosted glass with one word, CHUDZINSKI, in the center.
“Chester?” Amelia rapped on the glass. “It’s Amelia. I have my mom with me.”
A surprisingly soft voice came from the other side of the door. “Please, come on in.”
Amelia opened the door to Chester’s office, and with a look of pride on her face, allowed me to enter first.
The room was tidy, with a trio of bookcases along the back wall, filled with books I could only assume were legal texts. A small love seat sat near a window, and a pair of comfy-looking chairs faced the desk where Chester Chudzinski sat, glasses perched at the end of his nose as he perused a file.
Chester looked to be about sixty, if not a few years older. His hair was thinning, and had long ago gone to gray. His suit was brown, and looked as if he’d worn it for at least a decade. Fine threads trailed from his wrists where it was beginning to fray, and the elbows were faded near white.
He clo
sed the file as we entered and set it aside before plucking his glasses from his nose and tossing them onto his desk. When Amelia entered behind me, his eyes lit up, and I noted a genuine fondness in his gaze that was more grandpa than dirty old man.
“Mrs. Denton,” he said, rising and reaching out a hand. “I’ve heard so much about you. I’m thrilled you have found the time to stop by.”
I shook his hand. His grip was firm, if not a little rough, as if he’d never used moisturizer in his life. “Call me Liz. I’m glad to be here. Amelia speaks highly of you.”
Chester sat back down and gestured toward the two chairs. I took one, Amelia the other. “Good to hear it. She’s got a sharp mind in that head of hers. You can only imagine my good fortune when she told me her interest in the field and wished to mentor under me.”
Amelia ducked her head, embarrassed by the compliment.
“She’s a good one, that’s for sure.” I managed to resist reaching out and mussing her hair, but just barely.
“So, Liz”—Chester folded his hands on the desk in front of him—“Amelia was vague about why she wanted to bring you when she called. I assume it has something to do with Joe Danvers?”
Before I could speak, Amelia piped up.
“She was the one who discovered his body.”
Chester sat back as if Amelia’s words were a blow. “You were there?”
“I wish I hadn’t been, but yes, I was.”
Chester lowered his head briefly, as if in silent prayer, before he looked up. “Joe was a good man. I’ve worked with him for years. Well, not straight through, mind you. And not always for pay. But his case always intrigued me, and I regret I never was able to find out what happened to Christine.”
“Amelia said you worked the case when his wife disappeared.”
“I did. It was a horrible thing. Christine, by all accounts, was a good woman. I never got the chance to meet her, since, well . . .” His smile was sad.
“You were hired by Joe?” I asked.
“I was. When Christine came up missing, all eyes immediately turned to Joe. There were prejudices at the time, you see. And, well, people see what they want to see. The couple never fought, never had reason to hate one another, let alone resort to murder. Yet”—he spread his hands—“here we are.”
I didn’t need to ask what prejudices Chester was referring to. “You don’t believe he killed her.”
“No, I don’t,” Chester said. “It didn’t help Joe’s case when he vanished like he did, but I couldn’t really blame him for doing it. All the police had to go on was a missing woman who hadn’t taken a thing with her but the clothes on her back. There was no blood, no defensive wounds on Joe. The only supposed witness, a man named Harry Davis, had it in for the both of them from the start.”
“He saw what happened?” I asked.
“He claims he did, but his story has never been consistent. He claimed he saw Joe carrying the body out into the woods, a shovel dragging behind him, but he couldn’t decide if it happened in the early morning or during the late evening. Then, later, he said Joe was dragging Christine’s body and the shovel was on his shoulder. It’s small differences, but they do mean a lot. I think he just wanted to see both Joe and Christine out of town anyway he could manage.”
I wondered if that meant he’d resort to murder to get his way.
“I’ve spent years, decades even, on this thing,” Chester said. “Even after Joe was gone, I couldn’t get the case off my mind. I’d look into it here and there, check to see if any new information popped up somewhere. I feel like I’ve let Joe down by never finding Christine for him. And now, he’s dead too.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “This has to be hard.”
“It is. When I learned Joe was back in town, I contacted him right away. I hadn’t discovered much of use in the years since he’d left town, but I thought he’d like to know the tidbits I did uncover. Turns out, he’d been working on it on his own all this time.” Chester leaned forward. “And I honestly believe he was getting somewhere.”
My mind flashed back to the photographs and files. “I saw a room,” I said. “The room he died in. There were files all over the place, photographs on the wall.” I wished I would have taken the time to look at them better because now, I couldn’t bring a single one to mind. “And his computer was gone.”
“I was afraid of that,” Chester said, voice going somber. “I warned him to be careful. He was obsessed, convinced that someone here in town knew what happened to Christine. He said he went to talk to some people he trusted not to turn him in, despite me warning him against it. Just because I accepted him, didn’t mean anyone else would.”
“I wish I’d seen something,” I said. “No one was there when I got to his house, and nothing seemed out of place. He seemed like a nice man.”
“Trust me, he was just as friendly as he seemed. Even if someone had killed Christine and then admitted to it, I don’t think Joe would have hurt them. He would have been angry, sure, but he’d have let the police dispense the justice.”
None of this was making me feel any better about what had happened. Sure, it eased my mind about my vetting process somewhat, but a man was still dead. You couldn’t feel good about that, no matter what.
“Do you think the person who killed Christine killed Joe?” I asked. “If he confronted the killer, it would make sense, right?” I hoped he’d left detailed notes if that was the case. It would make it easier for the police to catch his killer.
If the notes haven’t already been destroyed.
Chester folded his hands onto the desk in front of him. When he spoke, he looked me directly in the eye. “No, Mrs. Denton, I don’t believe the person who killed Joe Danvers killed Christine.” He paused, glanced at Amelia, before turning back to me. “In fact, I believe that Christine Danvers might still be alive.”
5
“Proof,” Chester said, “is tough to come by in a case like this.”
Amelia and I sat side by side, each absorbing Chester’s words like gospel. He had a magnetism about him that was hard to ignore. It wasn’t his looks, or even the tone of his voice. I think it had more to do with the confidence with which he spoke, the certainty that what he was saying was the absolute truth.
“The police believe Christine Danvers dead. They have a witness claiming he saw Joe with the body and a shovel, but the witness is suspect at best. What else do they have?”
He looked at us, though I knew he wasn’t expecting an answer.
“A missing woman,” he said, smacking the top of his desk. “That’s it.”
“But Joe fled town,” I said. “You can’t ignore that.”
Chester pointed at me, as if I was making a good point in his favor. “He did leave town. I, for one, believe that to be a mistake on his part, but it was understandable. He was being hounded by the people of Grey Falls, watched by the police. He was being labeled a murderer. His wife was gone, presumed dead. Let me ask you, Mrs. Denton, would you not also want to get away?”
I didn’t have to think about it for long. “I suppose I would.”
“And that’s what Joe did. He left town to get away from the constant pressure building up around him. He hid, changed his name so that no one could find him.”
“But he came back,” Amelia said.
“That he did.” Chester looked to Amelia as he might a prized student. “He came back because he knew Christine was still out there. He came back because he thought it was the only way he could find her again. He hoped no one involved in the old case would recognize him, but I did. And it seems someone else must have.”
I truly wanted to believe what Chester was saying, but it was hard. So far, all he’d given me was his belief with nothing to back it up. “What makes you think Christine is still alive?” I asked. “Do you have any sort of proof?”
Chester’s face fell at my question. “Unfortunately, no. I have a lack of proof when it comes to the popular belief of Joe’s guilt. I have d
oubts that a man like Joe would have killed his wife for any reason. I have the fact that there is no hard evidence of him hurting her, or that she was harmed at all.” He leaned forward, met my eye. “And I have rumors.”
“Rumors?” There was a healthy dose of skepticism in my voice.
“I know it’s not much,” he allowed. “But sometimes rumors do pan out.”
“Sometimes it’s all you have to go on,” Amelia said.
I knew that all too well, just as I knew that often, rumors could lead you down the wrong path and obscure the truth.
“What kind of rumors have you heard?” I asked.
“That while Joe was looking for his missing wife, Christine was, in turn, looking for him.”
I raised my eyebrows at that. “Did she tell you that?”
Chester laughed. “How easy would my job be if she had? No, I have nothing so grand as a letter from her. But when you spend as much time on a case as I have, you hear a lot of things. A lot of it is bunk. But sometimes, there’s something that stands out, especially when you hear it from more than one source.”
“Yet, you haven’t been able to confirm anything?”
“Sadly, no. But, if nothing else, I hope Joe’s death will somehow draw out the truth.”
Amelia and I left a short time later. I wasn’t completely convinced of Joe’s innocence, but I did feel better about the whole mess. If he didn’t kill his wife, and she was still out there somewhere, then perhaps there’d be some form of justice for him.
“What do you think?” Amelia asked on the way home.
“I think we need to be careful,” I said. “If Chester’s wrong, we could be defending a guilty man.”
“He’s not.” The confidence in her voice didn’t surprise me. Chester had made a pretty good argument, despite his lack of proof.
Amelia dropped me off at the house and immediately took off again. I wondered if she was heading back to Chester Chudzinski’s office to look into Joe’s case some more. My chest tightened at the thought—I didn’t want my daughter to put herself in harm’s way—but there was nothing I could do about it. She was an adult, able to make her own choices.
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