Digging into Mr. Thompson’s and Candidate Anderson’s past turned into a task much more difficult and intriguing than Kate had anticipated. Together with Chainey, she’d found the candidate’s driver’s license, insurance papers for a blue Honda Civic, and a birth certificate, which led them to the discovery of the twin sister’s birth and death certificates.
“There goes the theory she could have been involved,” Kate said as the document appeared on the screen, proving that she was already dead well before Thompson got killed, let alone the current murders.
Just over a year ago, Kate realized.
If only she could find something. Anything of substance that could connect it all. At least enough to convince a judge to issue a search warrant so they could find out more.
A few phone calls and emails later, Kate started reading newly acquired legal documents pertaining to both Anderson and his sister, Penelope. The siblings had been emancipated at the age of sixteen. That little tidbit, as uncommon as it was in Massachusetts, led her down the rabbit hole she was now in. The kids had to have had really strong reasons to have been granted such a request.
So, there she was, following the parents’ trails. She’d phoned in a request to get travel information from Customs. See if she could find out where they were now. Their latest departure date from the US had been over three years ago. Best information pointed to them having entered Peru at that time.
Customs had no other information for her.
So she got on Google next, hopeful that some information about the parents and their current location could be found somewhere. She’d discovered a religious sect she’d never heard of: Explorers of Christ. According to their websites, their goal was to bring the Christian faith to isolated communities throughout the world. Photos of both the mother and father were displayed on the website, as though revered as semi-gods themselves. The spacing between the mother’s eyes and her dimples made it obvious she was related to Anderson. The twin daughter had inherited the mother’s blonde hair.
Their hyped-up bios listed them as having fought malaria, yellow fever, and other disabling diseases before successfully converting isolated villages that most would have called “savages” back in the explorers’ days. A map showed little dots of settlements they’d converted all over Asia and Central and South America. Hovering over the colored circles provided Kate with additional information such as dialect spoken, number of people in the community, and date visited.
It was obvious spreading the Lord’s word had been much more of a priority than raising their own children.
Mr. Thompson, the school teacher, had held that responsibility. But he was dead. The sister, too, was dead and the parents were God knows where trying to push their faith down the throats of people who didn’t want that done to them. But that’s neither here nor there.
It left Kate very little to go on. Why would Anderson kill his school teacher? What possible motive could he have had? That teacher was probably the closest thing to a parental figure he and his sister had had.
Unless Mr. Thompson had become too involved with the education of the children…
As suspicions of pedophilia crossed her mind, Kate realized she could have just stumbled into enough of a motive. But that thought was pulled out of thin air.
She had to find a way to prove whether or not it could have been the case.
Following Thompson’s trail left her empty-handed. No siblings, no parents, no children. The man had been an island, or so it seemed.
She didn’t have much to go on, save for one tiny detail. The Andersons had owned one home until 2009, the year when the children received their emancipation.
Chances were that the address of that home would have been the address where the children lived and where Thompson had educated them.
“Look at what I found,” Rosebud said, handing Kate a photocopy of a small clip from a newspaper as she was getting up from her desk.
A portrait of a blonde woman with a braid hanging over her shoulder appeared above a brief paragraph:
“Penelope died on June 1st, 2017. No funeral or service will be held but donations can be sent to the AFSP.”
“What’s AFSP?” Kate asked.
“American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Isn’t that the shortest obituary you’ve ever seen?”
Kate shrugged. “Can’t say that I read them very often.”
“Well, I do, and this one was written like someone was making a mockery of it.”
“Or maybe they were embarrassed by the fact that she had committed suicide. Maybe she disfigured herself. Maybe they didn’t want anyone to see her. Maybe they were ashamed of her suicide.”
“But why pay for an obituary if they’re ashamed? As far as I know, there’s no legal obligation to do so in Massachusetts.”
“Why don’t you look into her death a bit more? See if anything suspicious comes up. Perhaps it wasn’t a suicide. Maybe it was a murder after all. I’ll head out to scope the neighborhood where they grew up. See if I can find people who knew the teacher way back when. Maybe they’ll remember something about what happened in that home nine years ago. If I learn that some dodgy stuff was happening, that could point us to Anderson’s motive. Then we’d need to figure out how he poisoned the man remotely.” Kate shook her head. “I know it’s a stretch.”
“We’ve got nothing else. I’ll keep digging into her past and man the phones. With a bit of luck, and a toxicology match…”
Kate walked out, letting Rosebud’s words dangle in the air and inflate her hopes. They desperately needed a bit of luck.