Gunned: An Alex Harris Mystery Read online

  Jerome gave the phone another glance. One more time and I was going to rip it out of his hands and stomp on it until it broke into a million pieces.

  “Mr. Perry. You were saying.”

  “Oh, right. Yeah. I was in the North Carolina office. This was the day before we got into it, and as I walked by his office I could hear him talking. No one was in the office with him and he wasn’t on the phone so I thought maybe he was talking to me. I stopped and asked him what he just said.”

  “And what did he say?” My patience was wearing.

  “He said, ‘There is no killing the suspicion that deceit has once begotten.’ I remember it because it was a really weird thing to say.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  Jerome Perry gave me a look he probably reserved for lesser mortals. “How the hell should I know? I thought at first he was accusing me of something, you know? I was just about to get into it with him.”

  Annie gave Jerome a stern look. “Did you ask him what it meant? What did he say?”

  “He didn’t say anything. He just started working again on his computer and I walked away.”

  And that’s what Jerome did now. He got up and went to the counter, ordered a drink, and then took a seat at a table by the window where he opened his laptop and typed another message on his phone.

  There was no more information to be gleaned from Jerome Perry, so we finished our teas and left. But something about that cryptic statement started a tingle inside my brain, and I thought another visit to the widow was in order.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Andrea Spiegel Spellman was the spitting image of a young Fran Drescher, and had the nervous energy to match. She was on the phone when she opened the door of her mother’s room at the Indian Cove Inn, and from the snippets of conversation I heard, it sounded like she was making funeral arrangements for her father.

  “I’m sorry. How can I help you? Are you here to see my mother? I’m Andrea, by the way.”

  “I’m Alex Harris and this is Annie Willix. We were hoping to speak with your mother, if she’s here.” I explained to Andrea about how her father had come to my office.

  “She went to visit my uncle Jerry. As a matter of fact, she just left. My father left some stuff there and she went to get it.”

  I really wanted to speak with Jackie again. I had a feeling that Sheldon’s words, There is no killing the suspicion that deceit has once begotten had to be a reference to his belief that Andrea was Jerry’s daughter. But the more I thought about that, how could it be. If Andrea was the product of an affair between her mother and uncle, the DNA would have definitely matched with Jackie and it would had to have been pretty damn close to Sheldon’s DNA as well. I only had Jackie’s word that the DNA didn’t match with the Spiegels’.

  “This must all be so very difficult for you. First finding out that your mother and father weren’t your biological parents and then having your father killed. I’m very sorry.”

  Andrea sat down and motioned to the small sofa for Annie and me. “It’s not been the best year so far, that’s for sure. And now this.” Her eyes misted over.

  “How exactly did it happen that you found out about your parents?” I asked. I wanted to hear the story from Andrea to check for any inconsistencies with what her mother had told us.

  “At first the doctors told me my DNA didn’t match my mother’s. That was a shock, and then after they took a blood sample from my dad and it wasn’t a match, I sat my parents down and asked what the hell was going on.” Andrea got up and poured herself some coffee from a carafe and then asked us if we wanted anything. Annie took a cup of coffee and I took a bottle of water from the small refrigerator.

  Andrea twisted her long hair and then secured it to the top of her head with a huge clip. “I need a hair cut in the worst way, but, well, now’s not the time. So where was I? Oh, right. When my mother got cancer, I got really scared. Not just because I was afraid of losing her, but also because her mother had it and my aunt. What if I got it, too? I have a young daughter. I couldn’t risk not being there for her, you know? I told my mom I was going to be tested.” Andrea got up, cradling her coffee mug, and began to pace in front of a large window that looked out onto the Sound. “My mother didn’t want me to do it. She comes from a generation of what you don’t know won’t hurt you. She didn’t want to find out. As a matter of fact, when she found a lump, she didn’t want to go to the doctor, but my dad and I forced her. We told her we would pick her up and take her if she didn’t make an appointment. She said if it turned out that I had the same gene or whatever it is that causes all this stuff, she would never forgive herself for passing it on to me. She was really upset.”

  “But you did it anyway,” I said. “You had to. You needed to know.”

  “Yes, I did, but it took me a while to get up the nerve. Maybe I didn’t need to know, you know? I mean, my mother’s right, why stir up trouble. If I got sick, I would just deal with it then, but my husband said we had to know. Then we could take whatever steps we needed to so that I wouldn’t get sick. So I took a blood test and then we waited. When the results came back and I told my mom, I thought she was going to pass out. She insisted on talking to the schmegeggy of a doctor, and then had my dad take a test. At first she threatened to sue the lab. She made them do all the tests again. But the results came back the same.”

  “Then what happened?” Annie asked.

  Andrea continued her pacing. “I told my parents I didn’t care. I loved them and they were my parents. I had no idea what was going on, but I didn’t care. My mother calmed down when she realized I wasn’t going to start looking for my biological parents. I was a bit curious, yeah, but what if I found out my real parents were like horrible people, you know? Serial killers or something. Then what? No.” Andrea shook her head quickly. “Leave well enough alone. At least I knew I didn’t have the risk of getting the same kind of cancer that my mother had.”

  “But your father wouldn’t let it go.”

  “No. He became obsessive. At first he didn’t believe any of it when I told him. He was certain my mother’s affair with my uncle resulted in her getting pregnant with me.” Andrea shuddered. “Finding that out, about my mom and uncle, made me physically sick. Who wants to know that stuff about their parents? And my uncle. Oy. He’s a weird one. I certainly didn’t want him for a father. But then my dad talked with the doctor and he calmed down about my uncle Jerry. That lasted for a week or two and then he started digging into the other people who had babies on the same day. He kept saying that they needed to find their real daughter. I’m their real daughter. My mother kept telling him to leave it alone. What would happen if I turned out to be a goy? She was horrified.”

  I put up my hand. “Wait. What’s a goy?”

  “A non Jew. A shiksa. A fate worse than death in my mother’s opinion. I told my mother to just let him get it out of his system, but I was hurt. And angry. He was acting like all these years I didn’t mean anything. Like I was bupkis. He made me feel like dirt. Wasn’t he happy with me? What was he going to find out anyway? How could he possibly get access to hospitals and people’s DNA? But he wouldn’t stop. It was causing problems for me and my husband because I was so upset all the time. Plus, I know I was probably just imagining it, but I felt Ben, that’s my husband, I felt him looking at me funny, like maybe I was just a shiksa, or maybe a daughter of a serial killer, and passed on all that evil to our daughter.” Andrea shook her head. “Crazy, I know, but that’s how I was thinking.”

  “Then what happened?” I asked.

  “I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t even talk to my dad without screaming at him. I even told him I was glad he wasn’t my real father. I told my mother I wasn’t coming to visit until he stopped with all this cockamamie stuff. I didn’t even want to call her anymore because it always ended in arguments. My husband convinced me to just let my father rant and rave and then he would calm down. But my mother didn’t understand. She didn’
t understand why he wanted to know. Wasn’t he happy with me as his daughter, she asked. But my dad is…was an engineer, and he liked to have answers. I told my mom to go on her annual trip and by time she got back, he’d have gotten it out of his system.”

  “But he didn’t?”

  Andrea sat down, her eyes were wet and tears were making their way down her cheeks. “And now he’s dead. Why? Why would someone kill him over this? This is what I was afraid of, that we would find out my real parents were horrible people. My dad must have found them and made them mad. He could be a real putz when he wanted to be. I loved him dearly, but he was stubborn and he didn’t have a lot of tact. If he found out the identity of my real parents I could see him threatening them in some way. He could make people mad when he wanted to. He must have said the wrong thing to the wrong person and that person killed him. My mother said you were looking into his death. She said you’re nosy, a real yenta, like those old lady sleuths on TV, and you would figure it all out. ”

  Andrea buried her face in her hands and wept while Annie and I sat there quietly waiting for her to get it all out. I wasn’t too crazy about the idea that Jackie told her daughter I was nosy, and what the hell did she mean by old lady sleuth? But I guess it was true. I was nosy. But I wasn’t old. She had some nerve.

  A few minutes later Andrea wiped her eyes and apologized.

  “There’s no need to be sorry,” I said. “You just lost your father. Andrea, someone told us that they overhead your father say, There is no killing the suspicion that deceit has once begotten. Do you have any idea what he may have meant by that?

  Andrea wiped her eyes again and blew her nose. I looked at her closely trying to decide if she resembled any of the other parents we had spoken to already. She had dark hair, which matched Jackie’s, but her manner was less domineering than that of Mrs. Spiegel. The truth was she could be anyone’s daughter. She didn’t have any dominant trait which stood out screaming a definitive match with the other parents we spoke to. Plus, with Christine Jamison being adopted, there was another couple out there for whom I had no information.

  “I have no idea why my father would say something like that. It doesn’t make any sense to me at all. None of this makes any sense. I was so angry at him. I refused to talk to him and now he’s dead. How do I live with that?” Andrea got up and walked over to the window again. She looked out for a minute and then turned back to me. “I’ve already talked to the police and I’ll tell you the same thing I told them. If you find out who my real parents are, I don’t want to know. I don’t care who they are. I don’t care if I have brothers and sisters. I don’t want any part of any of this nonsense. My father is gone and it’s just me and my mom now. We have enough to deal with. Let sleeping dogs lie.”

  Whether she wanted it or not, the police would not be letting sleeping dogs lie, and neither would Annie and I. And I had to wonder, did Andrea want this to all go away because it was too painful, or did her anger at her father get the best of her and turn her into a killer?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  We waited a bit longer in the inn’s dining room sipping hot chocolate hoping that Jackie Spiegel would return, but after forty-five minutes Annie and I left and walked around Indian Cove’s town center. At a small boutique on Main Street Annie tried on several sweaters and finally settled on a deep purple cardigan and a scarf to match. It really did look lovely on her and I was tempted to try it on as well, but I just wasn’t in the mood to try on clothes, or more precisely, to take off the ones I already had on. Next, we hit the drug store, one of those old timey places that sold a little bit of everything. I could spend hours in here and have on more than one occasion over the years. Annie picked up some post cards, lip gloss, and a couple of magazines.

  “What do you make of everything so far?” Annie asked me back in the car.

  I headed my little Honda toward home. Gerard was cooking dinner tonight. Something called stoemp, along with grilled sausages.

  “Well, I’m not thrilled being compared to an old, nosy sleuth.”

  Annie laughed. “I think the Spiegel women have a bit of drama in their blood, no? Not that I am suggesting they do not have a right to be heartbroken and upset at this time, but I suppose we are being nosy. As for old, I am sure that was probably more to describe me and not you.”

  “Annie, you’re not old. But you are right about us being nosy. We have to be. I want to find out what was going on with this man.”

  “Alex, I think it is time we let John and Gerard know what we are doing. We have found out some things that might be construed as withholding evidence, I think they say on the police shows.”

  I sighed heavily. “I guess. John will tell me to keep out of it, and of course we won’t, but we have learned some things that may or may not have some bearing on the case. I just hope there won’t be a lot of yelling.”

  “Gerard likes to huff and puff, but I will remind him that we are guests in your home and to act like an oaf would not be polite.”

  I pulled my car into the garage and we went into the kitchen to find Gerard at the stove and John in the yard taking the sausages off the grill.

  “Eh bien! Perfect timing,” Gerard said and then placed a kiss on Annie’s cheek.

  John came in and gave me a quick hug and then put a platter piled high with grilled meat on the table.

  “Something smells wonderful,” I said.

  “It is stoemp, the national dish of Belgium. I hope you will like it.” Gerard placed a large bowl on the table with what looked like mashed potatoes.

  I leaned over the back of a chair. “So what’s in it? I see potatoes and carrots.”

  Gerard clapped his huge hands together. “Bon! We have those things, yes, and some leeks and spinach, and a good amount of bay leaves.”

  We took our seats and John passed the sausages around the table. We chatted for a few minutes, saying how nice it was that we were all together and that we must make this an annual event, and then my husband turned the subject to murder, or more to the point, my involvement in murder.

  “Funny thing,” John said as he placed a large scoop of stoemp on my plate. “Jerome Perry called me this afternoon and said someone claiming to be my wife was asking him questions.”

  I heard Annie take a huge intake of breath next to me.

  I picked up my utensils and started cutting a piece of sausage. “I took Annie to see Port Chester. The town’s becoming the next food destination with a lively restaurant scene, and I thought she’d like to see that not all of America was hamburgers and hotdogs,” I said with the enthusiasm of someone who might work for the Port Chester Department of Tourism.

  “And you just happened to bump into one of my suspects while touring restaurants.” John took a sizable bite off a sausage and stared at me while he chewed.

  I put my fork down and wiped a bit of grease from my mouth. “As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what happened. Hand to heart. We stopped at this trendy new coffee place called the Village Brew for lunch, and just as we were leaving, in he walked.”

  “This is true. It happened exactly as Alex says.” Annie gave John an engaging smile.

  “And you recognized him how exactly?” John asked.

  I looked across the table at Gerard, who was doing his best not to laugh. Okay. This was good. At least he wasn’t mad at me, and if John got really angry I could always take up refuge behind Gerard.

  “Okay, you know what, John Van der Burg? If you didn’t want me talking with Mr. Perry, then you shouldn’t have let his name slip out at dinner last night. As a matter of fact, you probably did it on purpose to get my take on the man.”

  “This is true,” Annie said again to John. “I believe it is entirely your fault, no?”

  John looked at Annie and then at me, and then he and Gerard burst out laughing.

  “I told you, Gerard, that they weren’t out seeing the sights.”

  I turned to my husband. “Oh please. What sights? This is Indian Cove.
I’ve already showed her the gazebo in the town green and we’ve driven by the beach. What else is there?” I wasn’t making fun of our little town. I loved Indian Cove, but we didn’t have a lot of big ticket items as far as tourists went. Unless you counted the water tower outside of town that a bunch of high school seniors had painted in a rainbow of colors depicting a beachy scene. Maybe I could take Annie to see that. “Of course we’re looking into Sheldon Spiegel’s murder. And if you’re really nice and do the clean up after dinner, Annie and I just might share what we’ve found out.”

  We finished our dinner, Annie and I got into our comfy pajamas, and while we sat in the living room having herbal tea and some cannoli we had picked up on the way home, I told John everything we learned so far, or most everything we learned. My husband wasn’t as forthcoming with information as I would have liked so I saw no reason to totally do his job for him. Information about Christine Jamison being adopted and Mrs. Shalt’s sister Kathy working at the hospital the day the babies were born, I kept to myself. I certainly didn’t want John getting to Nurse Kathy before I had the chance, and the statement Mandy Aiello made about her mother killing anyone who would dare to upset her campaign, I also held that back. Annie took my cue and let me do most of the talking. We were becoming quite adept at reading each other’s signals.

  “I think it is safe to say that we may cross Mr. Jerome Perry off the list of suspects,” Gerard announced as he reached for a second cannoli. “The man may be a pompous ass, but a killer I do not see.”

  “Really? What about the tweets he sent out after he got fired?” I said. “It sounded like he definitely blamed Sheldon Spiegel for his current situation.”

  “You got us on that one. I never looked at his Twitter account,” my husband said, “but the man was just fired. Of course he was going to be upset, and that’s what people seem to do these days, they put their every waking thought on the Internet.”