Saints and Sinners: (A Geeks and Things Cozy Mystery Novella #5) (Geeks and Things Cozy Mysteries) (5 page)
Authors: Sarah Biglow
Kalina expected Chris to be on the phone to the precinct giving orders but the hands free set remained unused. They spent the first ten minutes travelling in silence before Chris turned to look at her..
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine, Chris. I was only pretending earlier to get Bethany to talk to us.”
“All of this exertion just stresses me out. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“I’m fine. We’ve got a few weeks to go anyway.”
Just as Chris pulled onto the highway, his phone buzzed with an incoming call from the precinct. Kalina reached over and tapped the phone and set it to speaker.
“Hey Captain, is this a good time?” Jimmy’s voice filled the car through the speaker system.
“Yeah, it’s fine, Jimmy. What’s up?”
“I ran those prints like you asked and it came back with a match.”
Kalina and Chris shared an expectant glance before he said, “Go on.”
“The prints matched a guy with a criminal record named Logan Fairfax.”
Kalina bit down hard on her lip to keep from exclaiming that she’d been right. Chris nodded at her as he switched lanes.
“What’s the record for?”
“Misdemeanor possession. We’ve got an address in Marblehead.”
“His mother’s address. We were just there.”
“Sir? I thought you were going to interview their aunt.”
“I’ll explain when we get back. See if you can find any other address on Fairfax. We’ll be at the station in about fifteen minutes.” He jabbed the screen to end the call.
“Shouldn’t we go back and try to get more out of Bethany?” Kalina asked.
“Not yet. We need to see if we can get a location on Logan first.”
“She could have tipped him off.”
“At this point she only knows that her niece survived the accident too and someone’s killed her.”
“But wouldn’t you think she’d put two and two together?”
“If we go back now, she’ll shut down more.”
Kalina ran a hand through her hair and stared out the passenger side window, trying to sort through the thoughts racing around her brain. How could Bethany not know the truth? And why hadn’t she taken Patrick back to his parents when he showed up?
“Did you notice what dating website Verona had an account with?” Chris’s voice interrupted her thoughts.
“It might have been OK Cupid. I didn’t notice to be honest.”
“That’s all right. We’ll get Verona’s laptop and see who she was talking to.”
“I can’t imagine being separated for all those years and then they find each other on a dating website. Do you think they were actually attracted to each other?”
Chris shrugged his right shoulder. “Maybe. But if Logan knew she was Paige, he was probably using it to stalk her.”
“I wonder if she realized who he was before she died.”
“Something tells me he wouldn’t let her go before she knew.”
The conversation died down again as they got off the highway and pulled onto Main Street. “Can you drop me at the shop? I want to check in on things and I think I need to rest for a while,” she said before he could make the turn toward the police station.
“Of course.”
She pulled out her phone and sent a quick text to Jillian, letting her know she was on the way. There was no response before they pulled up in front of the shop’s front door.
“Make sure you put your feet up and drink plenty of water,” Chris called as she closed the passenger side door.
The bell above the front door ‘dinged’ as she entered and Jillian looked up from her phone.
“Just got your text. Shouldn’t you be at home?”
“Why? I’d just be sitting around going crazy when I could be here obsessing over work.”
“Or Paige Fischer?” Jillian slid the tablet they used for transactions across the counter.
Kalina picked it up and took it into the game room so she could put her feet up. Jillian followed after her, not saying a word. The tablet’s screen displayed a news article from the town’s online edition, published only a few hours ago.
Lost Twin Found … Murdered
By: Heather Casey, Staff Reporter
In the late morning hours of June 10
th
, a twenty-year-old mystery unraveled. As many in town will remember, ten-year-old Paige Fischer and her brother perished at sea twenty years ago. But a woman with Paige’s fingerprints was discovered in the cemetery by someone close to the local authorities.
“Damn, how did they find out?” Kalina groaned.
“People in town talk. I’m assuming once people found out this Verona woman was found at the Fischer family grave site, speculation began running wild,” Jillian answered.
Kalina kept reading.
The details are still unclear as to how Paige survived the boat accident that claimed her brother’s life or who would want her dead all these years later. Some in town speculate that Paige returned home to mourn her parents who passed away last year under suspicious circumstances. Others question if Patrick may have survived as well. And if that is true, why would they not have come home sooner?
A local school teacher recalled the twins as being quiet and reserved although there was always something about Paige that set the teacher on edge. “I remember she had this quiet intensity about her for such a young child. Like there was something deep down she was hiding.” And of Patrick, the teacher noted, “He always looked scared to me. Afraid of his own shadow, especially when his sister was around. I should have done something back then. I knew something didn’t seem right.” Was it this inner secret that led to her death now? Could it be her brother came back for some twisted sort of revenge?
This story is developing. Please check back for updates.
“Chris is going to have a field day with this reporter. I can’t imagine who talked to her. The guys on the force know better.”
“What about you?” Jillian raised a brow at her sister.
“Me? I’ve been with Jimmy or Chris the whole day. And I am not going to talk to the press. Paige may have been a bully to her brother … abusive even”—she tossed the tablet on a nearby table—“but she doesn’t need to be dragged through the mud like this. No one, no matter how terrible, deserves to be murdered.”
“Kal, I don’t think that’s what they were saying,” Jillian said, her tone placating.
“I know you’re right but it just makes me so angry. The way they just threw around all of these accusations like they’re fact.”
“But from what you said, it sounds like it isn’t just speculation.”
Kalina rubbed at the pressure building in her temples. She didn’t want to argue with her sister over this. “Just forget it, OK?”
Jillian held up her hands in surrender. “Fine. I think all of this detective work is stressing you out. It’s not good for you.”
“These were kids we knew, Jill. Don’t we owe it to them to find out what happened?”
“Yes. I guess they deserve to have their story told, even if it isn’t a happy ending.”
Jillian disappeared back to the front of the store just as Kalina’s phone buzzed, displaying Chris’s work number. She answered on the second ring. “Hi. Before you ask, yes, I’ve got my feet up.” Breath caught in her throat as a sharp pain lanced across her belly. She grimaced and bit down on her lip to keep from groaning audibly through the pain.
“Good. I figured you’d like to know we got a hit on Verona’s computer. We found a bunch of messages on OK Cupid between her and Logan. It doesn’t seem like she knew who he was based on the messages but they were definitely in contact.”
The pain subsided and she blew out a breath. “Have you had any luck tracking him down?”
“We’re working on it. The last communication between them was from a day before the murder. They agreed to meet in town.’
“Did they say why here? Neither of them was living in town anymore.”
“It sounded like Logan wanted to check out the beach. Or so he says.” Muffled voices crackled over the phone connection. “I think we may have found something on his location.”
“Keep me posted.”
Half an hour later, restless energy and a sense of anticipation compelled Kalina out of the shop and on a walk along Main Street. The pain had come and gone a time or two but she was doing her best to ignore it. She assumed Chris had found Logan by now. She was curious to know how it had happened. Had he known he’d found his sister when he and Verona first connected? And if he hadn’t, when did it click for him? She strolled along the street with the fading sunlight falling in little patterns on the sidewalk for a while longer until she found herself standing at the front lawn of the Fischer estate. For a place that had been vacant for over a year, it looked oddly lived in. The front mat was askew and the curtains in the front room had been opened to allow the natural light in. She didn’t get the feeling that Bethany Fairfax had been by to keep up appearances. Keeping Patrick a secret sent the very clear message that she didn’t approve of her sister and her brother-in-law and their parenting style. Before she could even set foot on the front walk, wailing sirens erupted nearby and a squad car came screaming up the street. Jimmy jumped out of the passenger side before the car had come to a full stop. Chris followed suit moments later and Kalina stepped out of their way. From somewhere at the back of the house, a door slammed loud enough to echo throughout the yard.
“He’s going around back,” Chris called and Jimmy took off like a shot.
Chris moved methodically toward the front of the house and tried the front door. It swung inward on oiled hinges, barely betraying his entrance. His shout of “Police Department!” ruined any chance of stealth he had.
Kalina watched her husband disappear into the house and her heart beat faster in her chest. Until he came out, gun holstered, she couldn’t breathe. Jimmy appeared moments later dragging along a man in his late 20s who looked like Logan Fairfax with his hands cuffed behind his back.
“I didn’t do anything!” Logan shouted.
Jimmy said nothing as he pushed him into the backseat of the cruiser. Chris stopped on his way to the car to place a hand on Kalina’s arm. “What are you doing here?’
“I don’t know. I was just out for a walk and ended up—” Breath caught in her chest as pain shot through her belly. She bent double until it passed.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I’m fine. It’s just a little pain.”
“You don’t look fine. Has this happened before?”
Kalina met Chris’s gaze and knew she couldn’t lie to him about this. “A few times. Maybe four times in the last hour. But, really, it passes and I’m OK.”
“Honey, it sounds like you’ve started to have contractions. We need to get you to the hospital.”
“No. It’s too early. And my water hasn’t broken.”
Chris turned and waved at Jimmy. “Call for another car and get him back to the station.”
“OK but why, sir?”
“We’re going to the hospital.”
Jimmy’s face broke out in a broad grin and he pulled Logan from the backseat of the cruiser with one hand, the other already reaching for his radio. Kalina didn’t protest as Chris ushered her into the passenger seat and they took off at what most would consider an unsafe speed. With the flip of a switch, the sirens blared to life, announcing their presence.
“The siren isn’t necessary, Chris,” Kalina said but Chris’s attention was focused on the trip across town to the hospital.
He pulled the car to a screeching halt in front of the Emergency entrance. The siren still wailed and a nurse came running with a wheelchair. Taking a slow breath, Kalina unbuckled the seatbelt and calmly exited the car.
“I can walk, thank you,” she said and stalked past the nurse.
Ten minutes later, they were escorted to a private room and Kalina settled on the bed to wait for the doctor to check in. Chris paced anxiously by the window.
“Sit down,” she said and patted the bed next to her.
“Sorry. I’m just nervous,” he said and settled next to her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “I don’t think either of us expected this to happen quite so soon.”
“I think Jill was right and this case is stressing me out,” Kalina said and rubbed her belly.
Chris nodded but stayed silent. The way his gaze still drifted to the window told her he wasn’t just anxious about the baby. He didn’t like not being involved in the rest of the investigation.
“You’re worried about how the interrogation is going, aren’t you?”
“Jimmy’s grown up a lot in the last year. He’s capable of handling it.”
“I know that. And I’m glad you see that too. Sometimes he doesn’t think you’ve paid attention to his progress. But even though you know he’s capable you don’t like to let cases go.”
“I guess we’ve both got a little control freak in us.”
Kalina snorted. “A little?”
He laughed and the little lines around his eyes crinkled. “OK, so a lot. But I have to realize that investigating the cases isn’t really my job anymore. I’m not a detective. I need to let them do the work.”
“Letting go of what you love is hard.” A lesson she was learning the hard way. Helping to solve these cases wasn’t a calling in the same way that Chris was called to police work, but it satisfied a passion in her. But as she’d told Mrs. Grant, she had no choice but to give it up … at least for now.
A quick knock on the door brought the conversation to a halt. Kalina’s obstetrician appeared in the doorway, an ultrasound machine just in view. “How are we feeling?”
“OK right now.”
“Any more pain since you came in?”
“No.”
“Well, we’re going to check you out anyway and figure out what’s going on. I’m going to have you get undressed and we’ll take a look.”
Kalina stripped down, wrapping the hospital robe around her body before settling back on the bed. Chris stood by her side, his hand wrapped around hers. He squeezed it tight as the doctor strapped on a fetal heart monitor and began a physical exam.
“Well, you look to be a couple centimeters dilated but we’re nowhere near delivering this baby.”
“Is the baby all right?” Kalina asked.
The doctor pointed to the steady heartbeat on the monitor. “Everything looks good with the heartbeat. There’s no sign of fetal distress.”
Kalina breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t even react to the cool gel that the ultrasound technician squirted on her bare abdomen. “Everything looks fine. I’m going to keep you here another couple of hours just to be sure but my guess is you had Braxton Hicks contractions.”
“So it was a false alarm,” Chris said.
The doctor nodded. “Most likely. But like I said, we’ll keep her here for a few hours just to be sure.”
“Thank you,” Kalina said.
Chris sagged against the bed as soon as they were alone. “Thank God.”
“Honey, they’re going to let me leave in a couple hours. I can have my mom come by and give me a ride home. Go back to the station.”
“No, I should be here with you.”
Somewhere down the hall an alarm blared. Simultaneously, Chris’s phone began to ring. He checked the display and stepped closer to the window for better reception. “Hello, this is Captain Harper.”
Kalina strained to hear what was being said on the other end of the call but he had the volume turned down low and he was facing away from her, distorting her view of his facial expressions in the window. “No I’ll meet you there. Text me when you’ve got a room number.”
“What’s going on?” she asked over the continued blare of the alarm.
“That was the officer on desk duty at the station. Jimmy had to call the paramedic to come sedate Logan.”
“What? Why?”
“Apparently, when Jimmy started questioning him about Patrick Fischer, he lost it and attacked Jimmy.”
“Oh God, is Jimmy OK?”
“I’m not sure. The officer said he had some lacerations. I told them to text me when they have more information.”
“Did they bring Logan here?”
“Yeah, he’s being admitted into the psych ward. Maybe with a doctor’s help we can sort out what really happened and what prompted him to kill his sister after all these years.”