by Nic Saint
“Back to India,” said Odelia softly. “To your orphans.”
“Yeah,” said Titta, a smile breaking through the clouds as she was reminded of her life’s work. “At least I’ll be able to do some good with the estate’s money. The orphanage is in urgent need of a fresh influx of cash. There’s a lot of work to be done.” She seemed to be lit by an inner glow, and spoke at some length about the orphanage and about her work there. She really had found her place in the world, after a pretty rough start in life.
“I like her, Max,” said Dooley, when Titta finally stood to leave, to keep her appointment with the lawyer. “She’s doing a lot of very important work in India.”
“Yeah, I like her, too,” I said. “Amazing to think that Neda had a little sister no one knew about.”
“She kept her a secret all these years,” Dooley said. “As if she was ashamed of her.”
“She probably was ashamed of her—or ashamed of the way their dad treated Titta, and didn’t want to be reminded of that.”
“Sad business,” said Dooley. “And now she’ll never see her sister again. Or her dad.”
We watched as Titta shook hands with Chase, then shared a hug with Odelia, and left the coffee shop, her backpack slung across her shoulder, a look of determination on her young face. Chase had picked out his phone and was putting through a call to Titta’s friend in Brooklyn. Moments later he disconnected the call after a short conversation and nodded. “She confirms that Titta was with her all day yesterday.”
“Well, that’s it then,” said Odelia as they both got up. “Another dead end.”
“So now what?”
“Now we get our asses over to my uncle.” She held up her phone. “He’s asked for a progress report.” She grimaced. “Unfortunately we don’t have any progress to report.”
20
Once again we found ourselves in the pleasant company of Uncle Alec, going over recent events, with Chase and Odelia giving the chief of police their frank view on the state of the investigation.
“So what have you discovered so far?” asked the Chief as he sat back in his creaky office chair.
“Well, turns out that Neda had a sister no one seems to have known about,” Odelia said. “Her name is Titta Riding, and she’s been living in India for the past fifteen years, after her father sent her away and decided to cut all ties with his daughter.”
“I’ll be damned,” the Chief grunted, as surprised by this denouement as the others. “So how about Neda? Didn’t she and her sister ever get in touch in the last decade and a half?” It was clear Uncle Alec was as intrigued by this family feud or rift as the rest of us.
Chase shook his head. “Looks as if Neda followed her father’s cue and had no contact with her little sister ever since she was sent away to boarding school.”
“Titta does admit that she was a handful when she was still living under her father’s roof,” said Odelia. “And also that Neda, being twenty years older than her, had already left the house at that point, so they never actually spent a lot of time together as a family.”
“Sad story,” said Uncle Alec, shaking a weary head. “Very sad.”
“If only she’d come down here three days ago she would still have been able to see her sister. And now the killer, whoever he or she is, robbed her of that opportunity.”
“She didn’t seem broken up about it,” Chase remarked as he placed his notebook on the desk.
“She hasn’t seen her sister in years, Chase. They may have been family, but as far as I can tell they were complete strangers to each other—no thanks to their cruel father.”
They all spent a moment ruminating on the circumstances that surrounded Titta’s childhood. Then Uncle Alec placed his hands on the desk and said, “So what now?”
Now, apparently, was Dolores Peltz barging into the office again, like a parrot repeating its message to anyone who would listen: “About that witness, Chief.”
“What witness? And how many times have I told you to knock and wait?”
“The witness of that car crash yesterday,” Dolores said, blithely ignoring her boss’s outburst. “The witness on the red bike who saw that accident on Groveler Street?”
But the Chief had no time for car crashes or mystery witnesses on red or other bikes, so he waved an impatient hand and said, “Just give it to Murphy.”
“She’s busy.”
“Or Jones.”
“He’s doing a training.”
“Just pick anyone! How hard is it to deal with a simple traffic accident!”
Dolores shrugged. “Pretty difficult, apparently, since no one has given these people the time of day since they came in yesterday.”
But seeing the look on the Chief’s face must have told her she was treading on thin ice, for she quietly closed the door and retreated back to her own lair.
When I looked up, I found Uncle Alec staring at me intently. I innocently returned his intent perusal of my noble visage.
“What are those cats doing here?” he asked irritably.
“You told me I could bring them into the station,” Odelia reminded him.
Uncle Alec produced a sound halfway between a snort and a grunt, and it told me, along with the unfavorable look he was still casting in my direction, that he was on the verge of rescinding his permission. But Odelia, who must have seen the way the wind was blowing, now promptly got up and said, “So what do you want us to do?”
And Uncle Alec had just opened his mouth to issue his instructions when another knock sounded at the door and immediately Dolores popped her head in.
“What did I tell you about knocking and waiting?!” the Chief bellowed.
“Neda Hoeppner’s house was broken into again,” said Dolores, once more ignoring her boss’s outburst, as probably she’d been ignoring his outbursts ever since she first started working at the station.
Odelia immediately sank down again, looking stunned. “Broken into? When?”
“Just now,” said Dolores. “A Cher Shorn called and said she went over to Neda’s place to drop off some stuff and discovered that the backdoor had been forced open.”
“Was anything taken?” asked Chase.
“No idea. You’ll have to ask her. She’s still over at the house, waiting for you.”
“Well,” said Uncle Alec with an impatient gesture of his hand. “Don’t keep the woman waiting. Off you go. Chop, chop.”
And like the good little detectives that we were, off we went.
21
We were back at Neda’s house, though this time at least no lethal consequences had resulted from this most recent break-in.
Cher Shorn, Neda’s loyal secretary, opened the door even as Chase parked in front of the house, and looked both rattled and shaken. And of course I could see why that would be. First her employer was murdered in her own house, and next some unknown and unseen force of evil barged in to abscond with who knows what. It would rattle a lesser person to the core to find themselves alone in such a place, with no way of knowing if this same person isn’t still lurking upstairs, hiding in some cupboard or under the bed.
“What happened?” asked Chase the moment we set paw inside the house.
Cher took a deep breath and launched into her tale. “I got here at nine o’clock to return some of Neda’s stuff, and to prepare for my interview with her sister, when I discovered that the backdoor had been forced open.”
“You’re meeting Titta?” asked Odelia.
“Yes, she called me this morning out of the blue, said she was in town and could we please meet.” She shook her head. “I didn’t even know Neda had a sister, to be honest.”
“Neda never mentioned her to you?” asked Odelia as they walked to the back of the house, and halted in front of the backdoor.
“No, never. Which is odd, considering I worked for her for so many years.”
The backdoor had indeed been the subject of a vicious attack: the window had been broken near the lock, and the door was aj
ar.
“We were out in front of the house last night,” I told Odelia from my vantage point on the floor. Someone had turned off the floor heating, and the stone floor had become stone cold, unfortunately. “In fact two neighborhood watches were parked outside, watching the house, and we didn’t see a thing.”
Though in all honesty the respective members of both neighborhood watches had been more interested in figuring out the limits of their turf than doing what they were supposed to be doing: keeping an eye out for any nefarious or burglarious activities.
Odelia nodded, to show me she’d understood what I said.
“The neighborhood watch was out in full force last night,” she told Chase, “but apparently this burglar managed to evade detection.”
“If whoever broke in here came in through this backdoor,” said Chase as he studied the vandalized door, “and the watch was watching the front, that stands to reason. You didn’t touch anything?” he asked the secretary, who quickly shook her head.
“The moment I saw what happened I called it in,” said Cher.
“I’ll get forensics out here,” Chase grunted, and excused himself for a moment to make the necessary phone calls.
“Did you check if anything was taken?” asked Odelia as we walked back to the living room, where we paused at the spot where Neda’s body had been found.
Cher inadvertently clutched a hand to her neck and visibly shivered. “No—not that I can tell at first glance. Though to be honest with you, the moment I saw that backdoor, I immediately called 911 and locked myself in the hallway, waiting for you to arrive.”
“So you haven’t checked the house?” asked Odelia, glancing in the direction of the staircase.
Cher shook her head nervously, as her eyes followed Odelia’s gaze. She suddenly lowered her voice. “Do you think whoever did this could still be in the house?”
“I doubt it,” said Odelia. Though she didn’t sound very sure of herself. “Nobody would be foolish enough to break in and then linger.”
But she still relayed Cher’s concern to Chase, who’d finished his phone call, and the cop immediately mounted the stairs to take a gander. Five tense minutes later he called down, “Nobody up here!”
Both Odelia and Cher visibly relaxed. And frankly so did I and Dooley!
“Maybe you can check the crime scene photos,” I suggested. “And compare them to how the place looks now. That way you can see at a glance if anything was taken or not.”
“Great idea, Max,” said Dooley.
Chase had returned, and announced that a team was arriving in ten minutes to go over the place again, this time in view of this second break-in. Odelia relayed my idea to him, and he nodded and she took her tablet from her shoulder bag and fired it up.
“Yesterday a specialized team took pictures of every available area of the house,” she told Neda’s secretary. “So if anything was taken, we might be able to see it by making a comparison.”
For a moment, the three of them studied the room, comparing the way it was now with how it had looked twenty-four hours before. Not unlike that much-loved game of ‘Spot the Difference.’ And then, all of a sudden, Cher, who clearly boasted a good secretary’s eagle-eyed vision, let out a little cry of excitement. “I found it!” she said as she pointed to Odelia’s tablet.
They moved over to a tall bookcase behind the salon. It took up half the wall space, and was filled with an impressive collection of reading material, interspersed with the odd knickknack and plenty of decorative items: framed pictures and the like. Chase had put on plastic gloves and slipped a volume from a shelf located at eye level and opened it.
“Photo album,” he grunted as he leafed through the tome.
That entire row consisted of photo albums, and according to what I could determine from Cher’s outburst, one of those albums had mysteriously disappeared overnight.
“Can I have a look?” I asked, curious to know what this missing album looked like.
Odelia cast a surreptitious glance at Cher, but she was too busy following along with Chase, as he took down album after album, leafing through them for potential clues.
Odelia placed her tablet on the sofa, and I hopped up to have a look-see. And indeed Cher was right: there had been a dozen of those photo albums the day before, and now there was one less. A smaller one, which had been wedged among its larger brethren.
“Odd,” I commented.
“Could it be that one of the crime scene technicians took it?” Odelia asked Chase.
“No way,” the cop said with a quick shake of the head. “They know better than to remove things from a crime scene.” He glanced up at Cher, but the latter quickly denied having touched even a single thing in the house.
“Maybe it was Neda’s ghost,” Dooley suggested. “And she came back to collect some of her favorite things to take along to the afterlife.”
“Ghosts don’t break windows, Dooley,” I told him. “They float through the walls.”
“Yes, but maybe she doesn’t know that. She’s never been a ghost before, since she’s never been murdered before, and so she’s probably still getting the hang of things.”
“Even if ghosts existed, which they don’t, why would Neda take this particular album?”
“Maybe it’s full of her favorite pictures? Pictures of her dad, maybe?”
“Doubtful,” was my verdict, which caused Dooley’s shoulders to sag a little. I quickly added, “But still an interesting avenue to pursue, buddy.”
“Thanks, Max,” he said, perking up again. “I think we need to look at every possible explanation, and not rule out a single one, however implausible.”
I had the impression he got that from one of his Discovery Channel documentaries, but refrained from comment. The human contingent were still going over the room, picture by picture, but found that nothing else had been taken as far as they could tell.
Soon the crime scene technicians arrived—the people in the white coveralls and the blue booties—and we were all relegated to the backyard while they did their thing.
“Titta told us she and Neda didn’t get along,” Odelia said, steering the conversation back to Neda’s private life, hoping to discover what had made the woman tick. “And that they hadn’t been in touch in years. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
“Oh, for sure,” said Cher as she hugged herself. A dark cloud had edged in front of the sun, and it was a little chilly out. “Neda was a formidable woman, no doubt about it, but in my personal dealings with her I never had any complaints. She was possessed with a forceful personality, but not an unkindly one. She always treated me with respect, was meticulous about her paperwork, and was generous to a fault.”
“She wasn’t very well-liked by the members of the choir,” Chase pointed out.
“Only after she became director. Before that there were never any complaints.”
“And afterward?”
“Jealousy and spite,” she said, echoing Father Reilly’s words. “As long as she was one of them, they were all friends. But the moment she became director, they all started bitching and moaning.” She shrugged. “Human nature. Nothing you can do about it.”
“Did Neda find it annoying that people resented her?” asked Odelia.
“She wasn’t happy about it, but she told me she was sure that the whole hullabaloo would soon pass. Just give it time, she said, and they’ll see that I simply want what’s best for the choir. She had plenty of plans, you know. She was going to turn St. Theresa Choir into one of the best choirs on Long Island, and maybe even the state.”
“Ambitious, huh?” said Chase.
“She certainly was very ambitious, and I’m sure that if she’d lived, she would have fulfilled the promise she made to that choir.”
“And shut up her detractors?”
Cher gave him a keen look. “Do you think a member of the choir did this to her?”
“We’re keeping our options open. And looking at every possible angle.”
>
“You’re wrong,” said the secretary, suddenly speaking in uncharacteristic blunt fashion. “I told you who killed Neda. Raban Pacoccha did it. I’m absolutely sure about it.”
“We talked to Mr. Pacoccha, and he claims he wasn’t anywhere near the house yesterday.”
“We found him working in Janette Bittiner’s garden,” Odelia explained. “Where he said he’d been all morning.”
“It’s only two miles from here! He could easily have come over, trying to wheedle more money out of Neda, and when she wouldn’t budge, killed and robbed her.”
“We’re not ruling out that possibility, Miss Shorn,” Odelia said, trying to mollify the secretary, whose face had turned a little flushed, and her voice a little sharp.
“Well, I hope you don’t. That man is a drug addict, and we all know what drug addicts are like: they’ll just as soon hug you than kill you, if that’s what it takes to get their next fix.” She pointed a finger at the house. “If you don’t go after that man, I’ll be very disappointed. Very disappointed.” And with these words, she stepped away and took a ramble around the garden, taking out a packet of cigarettes and lighting one up.
Odelia and Chase shared a look. “Maybe she’s right,” said Odelia. “Maybe we have let Raban off the hook too easily.”
“We haven’t let him off the hook,” said Chase. “He’s one of our suspects. Though as far as I’m concerned, I like the choir rivalry angle a lot more. There was real hatred there.”
“And what about Cher?” asked Odelia as she glanced at the secretary, who stood a little distance away, blowing out a plume of smoke. “How does she fit into the story?”
“Why would she kill her employer?”
“I don’t know, Chase, but she’s the only person we’ve spoken to so far who hasn’t said a bad word about Neda. On the contrary, she painted her in such a favorable light it’s almost as if she were preparing to have her declared a saint. Neda Hoeppner wasn’t a saint, or at least I don’t think she was.”