Day 20 – Wednesday midmorning
Marjorie Hawkins’ house
The police officer lifted the crime scene tape and allowed them to duck under, then unlocked the door and let them in. Ginny waited on the threshold while Fergus cleared the scene, then followed him inside.
The place was a mess. She walked through the rooms, seeing voids in the dust where a computer had been, desk and cabinet drawers open and empty, and the dead woman’s jewel box on its side, the drawers gone.
Rugs and furniture had been moved, air conditioning vents pulled down, and holes punched through the wallboard. There were even some dangling electrical wires where the lamps and plumbing had been investigated. Very thorough.
There was fingerprint powder, too. What the cartel hadn’t taken, the police had investigated.
Ginny pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves she had brought with her and began going through the mess, looking for clues. Her own notes-to-self tended to be jotted down on scraps of paper, then transcribed into the computer. She searched for anything that looked like a to-do list. Both men watched, but neither made a move to interfere.
Half an hour later, Ginny sighed to herself. This was getting her nowhere. She was standing in the room that had served as a home office, looking around. The thieves (and police) hadn’t taken everything. The books sat on the floor in piles or lay scattered across the floor, the bookcases clearly the object of someone’s interest. What could the books tell her about the dead woman? She began picking them up and putting them back on the shelves.
There were six books relating to Roman Catholic church ritual, the first catechism inscribed in a childish hand with a name Ginny hadn’t seen before. It took her a minute to figure out it was in Irish Gaelic and translated to ‘Eloise Quinn.’ That implied Quinn’s father was an Irishman.
There were a number of classic novels in the editions usually seen in high school classrooms, some of them in Spanish. One had a bookmark. She pulled it out and looked at the Christmas card featuring a family group; the Irish father, a woman who could easily have been Hispanic, and the very young Eloise. Ginny felt a queer sensation in the pit of her stomach. Such a pretty child. How had she ended up as Marjorie Hawkins, murderer? Ginny put the card back in the book and pushed the book into place on the shelf.
She worked her way across the carpet, in no particular order, finding a smattering of philosophies, one or two art books, and a large collection of paperback spy novels.
Many dealt with SCUBA diving and where to go for the best views. Ginny flipped through the travel guides, seeing Marjorie had added notes, highlighted items of interest, and flagged timetables—and was reminded why she was here.
She began to move faster, grabbing books at random, letting her mind wander, putting her subconscious to work on the problem. She hoisted a pile of reference books back into place, then reached for a massive tome, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, with two hands, but when she lifted it off the floor it came up easily.
Ginny paused. She had expected that one to be heavy. She took it across the room and laid it on the desk, then opened it to find someone had cut out the middle, making a hiding space. It was not empty. Both men had followed her and were looking over her shoulders, one on either side. She looked from one to the other and smiled.
“Bingo!”
* * *
Ginny selected one of the slim volumes and opened it to the first page. It was a journal, lined, without pre-printed dates.
There were dates, however. Each entry started with one. They were chronological, too, in that each entry was later than the one before it, but they were not complete. The author had skipped some days and written very little on others. Ginny flipped through the pages, noting this volume covered five years, all of them long ago. She set it down and picked up the second. More of the same.
In the fourth, she found what she was looking for. The latter pages covered the time starting in the fall of the current year. Ginny read avidly.
I’m sick of having to pay hush money. I need to find a way to end this.
A few pages later, Ginny found a list.
Things to consider:
That entry was dated early in November. By Thanksgiving, they had taken on a sinister tone.
She stood right in front of me this morning, looked me in the eye, and told me she was planning to put an end to imposters in nursing. I’m not sure how to interpret this. If she’s the blackmailer, then why tell me? Is she planning to screw more money out of me? If she’s not, then how do I keep her out of the archives? Either way, she’s a threat.
This was followed by several pages of lists, diagrams, and musings. Ginny frowned over the drawing of a garrote, with instructions on how to use it to best advantage. She turned another page and saw an entry for the day before Phyllis’ death.
Okay. I’m ready. If she’d been satisfied with merely blackmailing me, I could have overlooked it, but she’s getting too close to the truth and that I cannot have. I’ve got people counting on me. I’m their contact to the money, to the good life, to not going to prison. They need me. The planning is complete. I have all my ducks in a row. With just a little bit of luck, by morning this particular problem will be behind me. So, off to work! Write at you later.
Ginny was beginning to feel queasy. She had worked with this woman for years, trusted her as one does a boss who doesn’t make your work life a living hell, chatted amiably with her about her hobby. Ginny looked around, found a chair, dropped into it, then read the next entry.
I do NOT believe it! After all my careful planning, someone beat me to it! Phyllis Kyle disappeared into the bathroom and was not seen—alive—again. They found her body at change of shift. I don’t know who saved me the trouble of putting her out of my misery, but someone did! I didn’t know what had happened, of course. I was checking on everyone during the night. Around four I found that neither of her patients had gotten anything done for half an hour, so I know (now) roughly when she disappeared and I know (now) where she was. But I didn’t at the time. I kept expecting her to show up so I could put my plan into action. I didn’t want to draw attention to her, of course, so I did her four o’clocks and kept looking. By the time they found her, I had given up and was thinking how to try again later. Then, there she was, dead as doornail. Divine intervention, do you think?
Ginny took a breath, then another. She’d been right. Marjorie Hawkins had planned to kill Phyllis, but she hadn’t actually done so. Which meant Ginny was also wrong.
“What does it say?”
Ginny lifted her eyes from the page to find Fergus crouching in front of her, alert, as always, the policeman hovering behind him. She turned the book around and handed it to him, watching as he read the entry.
When he was through, he looked up. “So, not guilty. Not this time, anyway.”
Ginny nodded, then found herself blinking back tears. As long as she thought Marjorie Hawkins was the murderess, she could take comfort in the fact she was dead. No trial, no testifying, no chance she could kill again. Instead, the criminal was still at large, still a threat, and Ginny would have to go back to that mountain of evidence and go through it all over again.
“I’ll take you home.”
Ginny shook her head. “The police station. We need to hand these over to Detective Tran.”
Fergus nodded. “All right. Then home.”
Ginny nodded. Home, minus one suspect and the riddle still unanswered.
* * *