Saints and Sinners: (A Geeks and Things Cozy Mystery Novella #5) (Geeks and Things Cozy Mysteries) (3 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

After waiting for Jillian to get back to the shop, Kalina headed out to visit Mrs. Grant. She pulled up to the small front porch and found Mrs. Grant waiting outside. Kalina gave a wave as she climbed out of the car and made her way up to sit beside the older woman.

“My, look at you!” Margaret exclaimed.

“Due in a few weeks,” Kalina said and rubbed her belly as the baby kicked.

“I take it the little one isn’t what you wanted to talk about.”

“No. It’s not. Do you remember Patrick and Paige Fischer?”

Margaret nodded her head more vigorously than Kalina had seen her do in almost a year. “Such a tragedy. Poor dears, lost so young.”

“Do you remember what happened to their nanny, Lois Hendrix? She was charged with their deaths.”

“She did some time in prison but only a few years.”

“Do you know where she ended up when she got out?”

“Why the sudden interest?”

Kalina blew out a breath. “We found a body who we think might be Paige Fischer. But she wasn’t a child. She was an adult. I’m just trying to figure out if it’s possible she might have survived the boat accident. I thought Lois could tell me what she knew from when they went missing.”

“I heard she ended up settling down in Boston. Getting lost in the big city you know. No one there would know what she’d done.”

“Thank you,” Kalina said with a smile.

“Don’t give it up, dear.”

“Sorry?”

‘This knack you’ve got for digging until you get the truth.”

“My priorities are changing.”

“Maybe but there will come a time when it will be right to pick it back up. Don’t let it die completely. Promise me.” The woman’s tone was firm and her voice was as clear as the first time they’d talked.

“I promise.” Kalina gripped the woman’s partially paralyzed hand and gave a firm squeeze.

They sat in silence for a short time, both enjoying the sun on their faces. Inevitably the baby moved, landing a solid thump to her bladder and the spell broke. She knew she needed to talk to Lois Hendrix but she had no real reason to seek her out. Showing up on her doorstep unannounced asking about the Fischer children would likely close the woman off to answering questions. But she wasn’t ready to share what she’d found with Chris yet.

“I should get going. Thanks again for letting me stop by,” she said and bent as best she could to give the woman a hug. “Do you want me to help you back in?”

“Oh, no. I’ll be fine here a while.”

With a final wave, Kalina headed back to her car. As soon as she’d buckled up, she put her phone on speaker and placed a call to the station.

“Ellesworth PD,” Jimmy answered.

“Jimmy, it’s Kalina. I need you to do me a favor.”

“I’m listening.”

“I need you to find the last known address for Lois Hendrix. I think she lives in Boston. Would have moved there maybe fifteen years ago.”

“That name came up in some of the files I was reviewing.”

“I know. She was the Fischers’ nanny. She went to jail for a while over their deaths.”

“And you think I should talk to her.”

“I think I should go with you to talk to her.”

“I’m not sure the captain would like that.”

“I can make her feel at ease. Besides, you’d be surprised what a belly full of baby can get you,” she said and patted just above her belly button.

“I’ll see what I can find and text you.”

“You’re the best.”

“Bye.”

The connection died after Jimmy hung up and she focused on her short drive home. Even if she wasn’t ready to tell Chris what she’d found, she did need to let him know where she was going and that it wouldn’t be alone. She found him already at home on the couch staring at files. An untouched—and likely cold—cup of coffee sat on the side table next to him.

“Hi honey,” she said.

He jumped at the sound of her voice, clearly oblivious to her presence. “Sorry. I thought you’d already be home.”

“I stopped by the shop to check on Jill and then I paid Margaret Grant a visit. I hadn’t seen her in a while.”

“How is she doing?”

“Well, she’s not entering anything into the Solstice Fair this year but she is in pretty good spirits.”

He looked up from the folder in front of him and patted the vacant spot on the couch. “There’s something else. What is it?”

“I may have found someone who can help figure out if Paige survived that boat accident. I didn’t want to get your hopes up so I asked Jimmy to look into it.”

“Who’d you find?”

“Lois Hendrix.”

“Their nanny.”

“That’s part of the reason I went to go see Margaret. She told me that after Lois got out of prison, she moved away, to Boston. I want to talk to her. She must remember something. And maybe she knows what happened to Abigail and Harrison.”

“It’s worth a try. But don’t be surprised if she doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“I know. But we have to try.”

She looked at the myriad casefiles spread over the table. “What’s all this?”

“I pulled the files on the twins’ disappearance and supposed deaths. I also got the results back from the second fingerprint test.”

“Let me guess, they still say Verona Maxwell and Paige Fischer are the same person.”

“Yes. I’m even more convinced that she’s the same person because before 1996 Verona Maxwell didn’t exist. No birth certificate, no social security number. Nothing.”

Kalina cocked her head in thought. “And then all of a sudden she’s got all those things.”

“Yeah. I managed to reach out to her parents. They’re from out of town but I’m having them come in tomorrow. Either way, I need to notify them of their daughter’s murder.”

Kalina sighed and settled back on the couch. “Did Clint ever get you more useable footage of the killer?”

Chris let out a sigh of his own and shook his head. “He sent some more over but the techs are having a hell of a time cleaning it up. Whoever this guy is, he was careful not to let his face get caught on any of the cameras. He must have scoped out the cemetery before he took her there.”

“He couldn’t have been that smart. He left her somewhere that had a really good angle of her body. If I hadn’t found her, someone else would have.”

“I’m starting to think he wanted her to be found.”

Kalina’s phone beeped with a new text message, interrupting the conversation. She glanced at it. Jimmy had been successful in tracking down Lois Hendrix and he would pick her up the following morning at 7.

“That’s early,” Chris said and gave her a sympathetic smile.

“We need to beat the traffic. Besides, I’m guessing she has a job and us showing up unannounced is going to throw a big wrench in her day.” She pushed herself to her feet and headed towards the kitchen. “Come on, let’s eat. I’m starving.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

She left him in the living room and listened as he made a call. She rummaged in the fridge, gathering ingredients to make chicken salad, suddenly craving a nice, thick sandwich.

“Jimmy, it’s Chris. Yes, I know about tomorrow. Call ahead and set up a time. Leave earlier if you have to.” A pause. “No I’ll make sure she’s ready. Thanks.”

She said nothing as he joined her by the sink and began pulling big leaves of lettuce off the head and running them under water. She was going to need to go to bed early if there was the possibility of Jimmy coming by earlier than expected.

CHAPTER SIX

The sun was barely above the horizon line as Kalina packed a thermos full of decaf tea and some oatmeal into her bag. Chris stood bleary-eyed by her side at the front door, both waiting for Jimmy to arrive. He’d made arrangements to meet Lois Hendrix at 8:00 at a coffee shop before she went to work. According to him, Lois had been more than willing to talk about the Fischer children.

“Good luck today,” Chris said, yawning.

“You, too,” she answered and gave him a sideways hug. She hoped today would prove fruitful for both of them, getting the police that much closer to finding the killer.

Jimmy’s hybrid pulled into the driveway and, after a quick kiss, Kalina headed out and crammed herself into the front seat. In the end, she had to push it almost all the way back to get comfortable. “So she sounded willing to talk?” she asked once they’d finally hit the highway.

“Yeah. I didn’t give her much but she’s willing to sit down with us so that’s a start.”

“I hope Chris can find something from Verona’s parents.”

Jimmy accelerated and shifted into the high occupancy lane. As the car settled into doing just over 60 MPH, he glanced across at her. “What do you think happened?”

Kalina shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she survived the accident. She could have had some kind of head trauma that made her forget who she was and someone found her.”

“But who would want her dead? I mean killing her at her parents’ graves is pretty specific. Whoever it was knew she was really Paige Fischer.”

“Until we talk to Lois Hendrix, I can’t say with any certainty what could have happened.”

The car fell silent as Jimmy focused on navigating the increased traffic on the roads. Kalina took the opportunity to doze, her head propped against the window of the passenger side door. The gentle, steady hum of the engine and the tires on the pavement lulled her into a peaceful unconsciousness until Jimmy slammed on the brakes.

“What happened?” She jolted upright.

“Sorry, the idiot in front of me didn’t have his blinker on until the last second. I nearly hit him.”

She waited for her heart rate to lower back to normal and managed to stay awake the rest of the trip. The edge of the city soon came into view and she dug her thermos and oatmeal from her bag, sipping the still warm tea.

“So where are we meeting her exactly?”

“Coffee shop in downtown.”

“Good luck finding parking around there.”

He quirked a brow at her but said nothing. She tried not to laugh at his frustration as half an hour later he drove down one-way streets looking for a place to park. The clock on the dash ticked away the minutes until their meeting with Lois.

“Just let me out by the coffee shop and I’ll start without you,” she said.

With a huff, he pulled up to the curb and she climbed out with some difficulty. She wouldn’t have minded sticking with him until he found a spot except the baby was happily punting her bladder like a soccer ball and she was in desperate need of a bathroom.

Five minutes later, she scanned the small crowd in the coffee shop, hoping she would recognize Lois Hendrix. She pulled up her phone and tried to find the one photo she’d seen of the woman at the end of the article about her arrest. It was several decades out of date but it was enough for her to cautiously approach the woman with greying hair sitting by the window, a large coffee grasped between slender fingers.

“Ms. Hendrix?”

The woman looked over. “Yes.”

Kalina slid into the chair opposite her. “My name is Kalina Greystone.”

“You aren’t the officer I spoke with yesterday.”

“I’m with him. He’s parking.”

“Not from around here.”

“No, he’s definitely not a city boy.”

“What’s got the police in Ellesworth looking me up after all these years? I did my time but I never hurt those children.”

Kalina was torn. She wanted to dive in and get what she could but she knew Jimmy wouldn’t be happy with her.

“Maybe we should wait until Jim—Officer Griggs gets here.”

Lois drummed her fingers on the side of her cup. “Please, just tell me what this is about.”

“A woman was found yesterday and her fingerprints match Paige Fischer’s.”

If Lois hadn’t already been sitting down Kalina was sure she would have fallen at the news. “She was alive all this time?”

“It seems that way. We were just hoping you might be able to fill in some of the gaps about what really happened the day they went missing.”

“I’ll never forget that day.”

The door to the shop opened and Jimmy stalked in, his neck and cheeks red. He was clearly not happy. Kalina pointed him to the counter and mimed drinking. He would be less irritable with some caffeine in his system.

“Ms. Hendrix, I presume,” Jimmy said once he’d acquired an extra-large iced coffee and dragged a chair over to the table.

“Officer Griggs. Ms. Greystone was just telling me you found Paige.”

“Yes, ma’am. She was going by the name Verona Maxwell.”

“I don’t know where the last name came from but she loved Shakespeare.”

“She was adopted by a foster family,” Jimmy answered.

“She was a little young for Shakespeare, wasn’t she?” Kalina asked.

“She was a bright girl. She started reading before Patrick did and was on to novels by the time she’d hit second grade.”

“How were they together? I mean I know having an older sister can be a challenge. I can’t imagine having a sibling the same age as me, having to share everything.”

Lois looked around the shop as if someone might overhear. “They could be civil if they wanted but I won’t pretend things weren’t tense between them. Paige was a bit domineering—”

“So she was a bully,” Jimmy interrupted.

Lois shook her head. “Not to other children. It was strange if I’m being honest. She could be the sweetest thing you’d ever seen to other people and children her age. But when it was just her and Patrick, she could be quite nasty. I remember one time I found Patrick sitting at the bottom of the stairs with a bloody nose and a cut on his face. He said they’d been playing and Paige hit him. He begged me not to tell their parents.”

“Did that happen often?” Kalina pressed.

“It seemed to come in waves. There would be weeks, months even, when they got on really well and then other times when he was coming to me with bumps and bruises.”

Jimmy pulled out a notepad from his shirt pocket and jotted some notes down, alternating that with taking large gulps of his coffee. Lois twisted her cup between her hands.

“It sounds horrible but I have to say that when you called I had a feeling it was something like they’d survived. But a part of me hoped it had been Patrick. That boy didn’t deserve the way his sister treated him.”

“And you never confronted her about it?”

“Oh, I tried a few times but she acted all innocent and their parents wouldn’t believe me.”

Jimmy nodded and took another swig from his coffee. “What can you tell us about the day they went missing?’

“I told the police all about this back then.”

“We know but we’re hoping we can figure out how Paige might have survived.”

Lois sighed and rubbed at her eyes. Kalina could tell she was losing her patience. “Everything was fine until the afternoon. They both said they wanted to go out on the beach and look for shells. It was one of the times they were getting along so I let them. The fresh air could do them good anyway. I had a lot of other things to take care of. I was the cleaning lady as well as the nanny and so I didn’t notice until after it got dark that they hadn’t come back inside.

“I went looking for them as soon as I realized they were gone. I couldn’t find them anywhere. I didn’t notice until the next day that the boat was missing. It didn’t even occur to me that they knew how to start the thing, let alone maneuver it in open water. Besides, I don’t think Patrick would have gotten on the boat unless Paige goaded him into it.”

“Could they both swim?” Jimmy asked.

“Of course. They were like fish when they got in the ocean. Both very strong and skilled.”

“So if the boat went off course or got pulled into a current, they’d be able to swim to shore,” Kalina said.

“I’d think so.” Tears glistened unshed in her eyes. “Do you think maybe Patrick is alive, too?”

“It’s possible. It would also shed some light on who might want her dead,” Jimmy answered.

Lois gave a soft hiccup and the tears began to fall. Kalina reached across the table and took the woman’s hand in comfort. Jimmy was on his feet retrieving napkins a moment later. Lois hiccupped again and sniffled a little more and then settled herself. Wiping at her eyes and cheeks, she said, “I’m so sorry. I just haven’t thought about those poor children in a long time. The idea that both of them survived is just overwhelming.”

“We understand. Ms. Hendrix, thank you for talking to us today. We should let you get back to your day,” Jimmy said with a smile.

“Please find out who killed Paige.”

“We’ll do our best,” Jimmy said and stood as she did.

Kalina reached out to stop her before she got too far. “One last thing, do you know how Mr. and Mrs. Fischer died?”

Lois shook her head. “I’m afraid not. I believe Abigail had a sister … Bethany Fairfax. She might know.”

“Thank you.”

Lois shuffled out of the coffee shop. Jimmy settled back into his chair as soon as she was gone and exhaled. “I think the brother might be alive, too.”

“I got that feeling, too. I don’t know what happened that got them Marblehead but something did. And if she was abusive towards him, it would give him a very clear motive for wanting her dead,” Kalina agreed.

They stayed put until Jimmy finished his coffee. Kalina watched as people passed by the windows, oblivious to the world around them. A part of her missed the busy streets of Boston and the fast-paced lifestyle. But the part of her that returned to her roots and was content with her life as it was quickly shut down that longing. She had everything she’d always wanted back home in Ellesworth. Jimmy nudged her shoulder and brought her back to her surroundings.

“I just got a text from the captain. He wants me back at the station as soon as possible. He says he’s got something interesting to share from the Maxwells.”

Kalina heaved herself out of the chair and after a quick trip to the restroom she headed outside in the summer heat to wait for Jimmy to return with the car.