A Reunion to Die For (A Joshua Thornton Mystery)

by Lauren Carr

  “Or maybe he did and she killed him.” Greg sat forward on the sofa with his elbows on his knees.

  “Eve married him for his money.” She asked, “Did you know that she took out a hundred-thousand-dollar life insurance policy on him just four months before he was killed? And he had already made her the beneficiary of a quarter-million-dollar life insurance policy. We only got a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

  “So she made three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in life insurance.” Joshua made a note.

  Greg added, “Plus the house and the dental practice, which she sold for a good deal of money, and his savings.”

  “All she gave up for us was Dan’s Agatha Christies,” Eve said.

  “Agatha Christies?” Joshua squinted.

  “My father was a frustrated Hercule Poirot,” Greg said. “He had a full hardback collection of every one of Agatha Christie’s books.”

  Eve told Joshua, “If Margo knew how much that collection was worth, she’d be furious. I had them appraised several years ago, and they are collectors’ items. Dan bought them because he loved Agatha Christie, not as an investment. After he died, Margo wouldn’t let us have anything without a fight, except his books, which I got for Greg. He still has them.”

  Joshua’s mind was working: the blood-covered picture of Margo in his office, the picture that was upright. “Did he read them all?”

  “Every single last one,” she answered, “and he saw every movie made from her books. He also read Perry Mason and Sherlock Holmes, and watched all those cop and detective shows.”

  “How about crime documentaries? Would he be up on modern detection techniques and forensics?”

  Eve sighed, “He died before they got cable. But, he did watch, I would imagine, what he could get.”

  Greg had been watching the two of them talk like a spectator watching a tennis match, his head turning back and forth with each question and answer.

  Joshua asked her, “Did your late husband say why he wanted to leave Margo?”

  “Dan was established in his career when she went to work for him,” she explained. “Then she didn’t want to work. Then she got bored and took a course in real estate. After she got her license, she wanted him to take all his money out of his savings and invest it in real estate. You see, back then, a lot of families were moving out of the area because the mills closed down. She wanted to buy their old houses and fix them up.”

  Joshua noted, “That’s how she got rich.”

  Eve shook her head sadly. “Dan was not a gambler. He didn’t invest in the stock market. To invest in those houses was a risk. He wasn’t going to do that with his money. They hadn’t spoken for months before he finally decided he was going to get out.”

  “Which would have left her with nothing,” Greg observed. “Notice that she made out like a bandit. She wouldn’t be where she is today if Dad hadn’t been killed. She got all she needed to invest.” He pointed a finger at Joshua. “That was her motive.”

  The ringing phone startled Joshua out of a dozing state that he had slipped into while drinking a cup of coffee and snacking on one of Tracy’s cinnamon rolls.

  “Are you sure you’re not mad at me?”

  “I’m not mad at you, Tad,” he yawned. “As a matter of fact, I pray that you and Jan do work it out as a couple. It would be great if the two people I love the most get together.” If he said it enough, maybe the feeling would fall into place.

  “Good. I hope so, too.” Tad resumed with the reason for his call, “Thought you might be interested in knowing that I finished the autopsy on Billy Unger and found carbon on his hands and speckling around the entrance wound where he was shot.”

  “Which means he had his hand on the gun when it went off,” Joshua said. “That supports our theory that he had a gallant bone in his body and took the bullet for Tori.”

  “But the bullet went through him and still killed her,” Tad concluded. “That will explain the downward angle of the wound. My guess is that Tori Brody, who was sitting, was the intended victim. Well, I’ll e-mail this report to you. What are you doing for lunch?”

  Joshua suggested that they meet at Tom’s, a family restaurant next to the Chester Bridge. He liked their breakfast club sandwich. Before hanging up, he asked his cousin to do him a favor.

  “What kind of favor?” Tad joked, “Is it legal?”

  “Last I checked it was. I want you to start a rumor.”

  “A rumor? Why do you want me to start a rumor? What kind?”

  “To plant the fear of God into a suspect. Since you know everyone, you’ll know exactly what fertile ground in which to plant this seed.”

  The Steubenville police had the license plate number for Heather’s sports car. Since there was a warrant out for her arrest, they looked for her at Billy Unger’s rooming house and found the car parked in the alley next door.

  They found Heather’s body lying across the same bed in which she had claimed they made love while Grace Henderson was being killed. The gun that had killed her rival was by her side.

  Propped up on his dresser was a Sylvia Plath poem ripped out of a book. The morbid tone of the poem suggested that she had left it there in an effort to confess to killing Grace Henderson, Tori Brody, and, accidentally, the only man she loved.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sheriff Sawyer was consulting with his Steubenville counterpart when Joshua arrived to see the ending of Margo’s daughter. He never did like Margo, but he didn’t dislike anyone enough to wish the loss of her child upon her. The medical examiner from Steubenville had completed her on-scene examination of Heather’s body when he got there.

  “How long has she been dead?” Joshua asked Sheriff Sawyer.

  “Twenty-four hours.” The medical examiner snapped her medical bag shut. “Single gunshot wound to the temple.”

  “Yesterday morning,” Curt clarified. “The gun is a thirty-eight Colt revolver; exactly like the one Manners says he gave to Unger to get rid of. We checked out this place right after finding his body, and neither her nor that gun were here then.”

  Joshua checked out the dingy room. Heather looked out of place. The clothes she wore alone were worth more than all the furnishings, which consisted of a bed, dresser, and chair.

  “I thought you said that it looked like he was staying at Tori’s condo.”

  Curt nodded. “Evidence suggests that. Men’s stuff in the bath that forensics proved belonged to him. Clothes. Underwear. His semen in her body—”

  “I wonder if Heather knew about that?” Joshua muttered.

  “Which points to motive for this,” Curt concluded.

  “Do you believe that Heather was deep enough to kill herself over a failed relationship? Murder maybe, but not suicide.”

  Curt was reporting his findings while Joshua stepped up to the bed and observed her body before the attendants had a chance to place it in the body bag.

  “She’s been a busy girl. Since I talked to her mother, I called everyone who has any connection to her. She went to a concert in Pittsburgh on Friday night with three girlfriends and met up with a group of kids that maybe, maybe not, she knew. From the concert, they went to a party. The host’s parents were out of town, and they wrecked the house. The party went on until midday Sunday, and then she went home where she slept almost twenty-four hours, according to the maid.”

  “So she didn’t kill Brody and Unger.” Joshua gestured towards her face. “What’s that?”

  Curt looked down at where he was pointing. There was a purple mark in the form of a triangle on Heather’s cheekbone with a red slash across the center of it. “That looks like a welt.”

  Joshua peered at the hole at her temple. He saw what appeared to be a piece of foam.

  The sheriff took up where he left off. “Her mother swears tha
t Billy called for her on Saturday morning and said that Plan A was in effect. Heather went ballistic when she waited until Monday night to give her the message.”

  Joshua looked around the room. “And then she skips school on Tuesday to come over here to meet him, we assume.” He kicked at the carpet in which he could see the vacuum marks and took a swipe at the dresser that had been polished. “This room was cleaned—recently.”

  Curt agreed. “The forensics people had a go at it, but they don’t usually clean up after themselves.”

  “I want to see her car.”

  Joshua encountered an older woman who smelled of scotch in the hallway. She refused to let the most authoritative-looking man on the scene, since he was dressed in a suit, pass until she got an answer to her question. “When are you going to be through here? You’re disturbing my tenants. First, you people were tearing the place apart the day before yesterday, and now you’re back and doing it again.”

  Joshua answered, “We’re investigating a suspicious death.”

  “Too bad.” The landlady glanced in the direction of the late Billy Unger’s room. “I thought he was a deadbeat like the rest of them, but he surprised me.”

  “How did he do that?”

  “He paid me. I hadn’t seen him around for like a week. Then suddenly, he came out of the woodwork and paid me all his back rent, plus a month in advance.”

  “Why would he do that if he was hiding out at Brody’s place?” Joshua asked in Curt Sawyer’s direction. The sheriff appeared as surprised as the prosecutor.

  The old woman said, “He was paying for his girlfriend. I guess he felt guilty for ditching her for a rich bitch.”

  “What rich bitch?” Joshua glanced at Curt Sawyer who mouthed Tori Brody’s name.

  “I didn’t get her name,” she answered. “I saw her waiting for him outside in her car when he came to pay up and get his stuff. She looked like any other tramp, except she was dressed up all fine.” She craned her neck to look past him into the room. “He went through ladies like my ex went through beer. So she’s dead, huh? I’m not surprised.”

  Curt asked, “Did you see or hear anything yesterday morning?”

  “Just saw her sneaking in like she always does, like a thief in the night. I heard her running a vacuum she must have borrowed from one of the tenants. I figured lucky me. Most of my renters don’t clean up. Then, I saw her sneaking down the fire exit, like I was stupid or something and didn’t know that she was there.”

  “Why was she sneaking if he’d paid her rent?” Curt asked.

  “I guess she didn’t know that he had paid for her room for her.” The landlady squinted when she got a glimpse of Heather’s body on the bed. “Who is that?”

  “That’s one of Billy Unger’s girlfriends,” Joshua told her. “Who were you talking about?”

  “The other girl. The little one with the orange hair.”

  Sheriff Sawyer paused to ask one of the deputies to get a statement from her while Joshua hurried down the stairs to see Heather’s car. In the alley, he took no time in opening up the driver’s side door and getting in. The seat was further back than the front seat had been in Billy Unger’s car. “How tall is Heather?”

  Sheriff Sawyer prided himself in sizing up people. “Five feet, eight inches.”

  Joshua picked up a purple square piece of cardboard that rested on the dashboard in the window. “Pass for a parking garage in Pittsburgh.” He checked the date. “Dated for Friday night.” He looked at the passenger seat, and then stepped out of the car to observe where he had been seated. “No blood. Whoever helped Billy into his car, and then pulled him over to the driver’s seat, had to have gotten blood all over when they left. These seats have no blood and they haven’t recently been cleaned.” He observed a knapsack in the backseat. “Overnight bag.”

  “Heather probably never had the time to unpack from her weekend party.”

  Joshua pulled the trunk release, went to the back of the car, and lifted the lid to reveal a suitcase. They exchanged smirks as Curt unzipped the case to reveal that it was packed with Heather’s clothes.

  “Plan A,” the sheriff concluded. “Let’s run away together.”

  “If you were going to kill yourself, would you bother packing a suitcase?”

  The next morning, while Oak Glen High School mourned the loss of yet another classmate, and while her mother accepted calls of condolence, Joshua went to the Fifth Street Café in East Liverpool to meet with Detective Diana Windsor, the Columbiana County Sheriff Department’s counterpart to Seth Cavanaugh. He had never realized the soup and sandwich shop was there until he found it where she suggested they meet.

  Joshua searched the faces of the patrons for the detective while he made his way through the diner. He had created the image of a woman not unlike the female officers with whom he served in the Navy. Efficient, perfectly groomed, handsome, maybe even pretty. He was not prepared for the woman who stopped him as he passed her. “Mr. Thornton, I presume?”

  He had mistaken her for a teenage boy. Slightly built and wholesome looking, Diana looked like a boy with ultra-short, black hair and enormous hazel eyes. Her skin was olive color. She had to have Italian in her genetic background. She was dressed in a V-neck sweater and slacks under a brown leather bomber jacket.

  “Detective Windsor?” he stopped and asked.

  “That’s me.” She shot him a toothy grin.

  He slid into the booth in the seat across from her. “You don’t look old enough to be a detective. You probably get that all the time.”

  “I’m thirty-four and I have two kids. Last year, my husband traded me for a younger model with a no-kids package.”

  He shook his head with a laugh. “Some men don’t know a classic when they see it.”

  “And they say lawyers are stupid.”

  They laughed together before the detective gestured to the envelope he was carrying. “Why would Hancock County’s Golden Boy want to meet me for lunch?”

  He slid the envelope containing the case file across the table to her. “The Dr. Dan Boyd case. His widow lives in my jurisdiction, and I heard that you work Columbiana County’s cold cases, of which this is one.”

  The waitress appeared at the end of the table with a notepad. “What can I get you kids?”

  Diana told Joshua, “They have great chili here,” before turning her attention to the waitress. “I’ll have a bowl of the chili, and cornbread, and a cheese sandwich, and the house salad, and a chocolate milkshake, and for dessert I’ll have the hot apple pie a la mode.”

  The waitress turned to Joshua, who was amazed at how much the wisp of a woman sitting across from him had ordered. “Sir?”

  “I’ll have the same.”

  “Well, let’s see what we are looking at.” The detective spread the crime-scene pictures from the 1988 murder across the table while he reported the circumstances of the case.

  “Dan Boyd left blood all over the place. He died at the receptionist’s desk.” Joshua showed her the picture of the desk that was clear except for her computer and her keyboard.

  Diana pointed out the door that was in view in the picture of the body. “Why didn’t he go out into the street for help?”

  “Because his larynx was cut, and he couldn’t talk. He had to leave a message giving the name of his killer.”

  “Any normal person would have gone running for help.”

  “Suppose he wasn’t any normal person.”

  “Do you think his wife did this?”

  “Margo Connor.”

  “The real estate lady whose daughter was just killed? You’re cold.” She went back to the pictures. “What makes you think he left a message?”

  “Boyd loved whodunits. According to his receptionist, she bought a new computer that month to automate the offi
ce. He was killed before he had the chance to learn how to use it.” Joshua leaned across the table to point to the picture of the keyboard. “Look at this. There’s blood all over it.”

  Diana leaned across to look at the picture. A lock of her slicked-back hair tickled his nose. “The computer is not on.” She showed him the monitor.

  The couple parted when the waitress arrived with a tray loaded with food. With a look of amusement at their feast, she unloaded the tray, plate after plate, while they gathered up the pictures of the bloody murder to make room on the table.

  Once the waitress was out of earshot, Joshua told the detective, who was slathering butter on her cornbread, “I was wondering if, being a whodunit fan, he might have left some sort of clue telling us who killed him.”

  “I doubt it, but I’ll check out the evidence room when I get back.” She then asked, “Are you going to eat your cornbread?”

  Joshua passed her his plate.

  Mitch, the bartender, warned Nicki with a single nod of his head when Tad MacMillan, Joshua Thornton, two Ohio State Troopers, and two West Virginia State Troopers came into the bar. They were accompanied by a man and a woman in business suits. They looked out of place in the bar that catered to the generation that devoted itself to going to the extreme in the party scene.

  Nicki remained in her seat at the bar. Even with the law enforcement audience in the empty bar in the middle of the day, the underaged girl took a drink of her vodka and orange juice. “What’s up, Doc?” she greeted the only one in the crowd with whom she was familiar.

  Tad responded, “I guess you heard that your good friend Heather Connor is dead.”

  “Yep,” she took another sip of her drink. “I heard she offed herself in Billy’s room.”

  “We don’t think so. It’s kind of hard to run a sweeper and dust the furniture after putting a bullet through your head.”