Gunned: An Alex Harris Mystery Read online

  Shirley and Jeff sat down in two wing chairs across from the sofa. Shirley looked down and clasped her hands together.

  “It started a long time ago. When we first got married, I had several miscarriages. We thought about giving up. I mean, we were happy together and I have nieces and nephews, so who cares, but then this young woman came into the insurance agency where I worked as an office manager. I still do the same work but for a different company, and Jeff’s a truck driver for a recycle waste company. Anyway, this young woman had several strikes against her and she couldn’t find an insurance company that would cover her car. We couldn’t either, but she was pregnant and didn’t want the baby, so she and I started talking and one thing led to another. I discussed it with Jeff and he thought it was a good idea for us to try and adopt the baby. The young woman didn’t have any family, well, except for some drug addicted mother and a dead beat ex-boyfriend. The baby’s father. She seemed happy for us to take the baby. So that’s why we were at the hospital then. Not because I was delivering Christine, but to be there for the birth mother.”

  “Well, then you’re certain Christine is the baby you adopted,” I said, wondering why they seemed so nervous.

  “There’s more,” Shelley continued. “On the same day Christine was born five other baby girls were born. They all had similar coloring, but a couple of them had the same dark hair and dark eyes. You saw Christine. She has dimples. But when we first held our daughter, we didn’t see any dimples. She was in the hospital for several days and I never noticed them. Then we brought her home and all of a sudden she had these dimples.”

  “So we got to thinking,” Jeff continued, “that maybe they gave us one of the other babies by mistake, you know? For us, we were adopting, and all we wanted was a baby, but we’re good people. We didn’t want a child that belonged to someone else.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked.

  Shelley’s eyes glistened with tears. I watched as one slipped down her cheek. “It was really touch-and-go with the birth mother and that boyfriend of hers. She kept changing her mind, mostly because he was trying to get her to ask us for money. And her mother, the drug addict, also kept asking for money. We didn’t have money. We paid for her health care, and a few things, but that was all. I was afraid if we made a fuss and the hospital wanted to do a bunch of tests, that the birth mother, MaryAnn, that was her name, that MaryAnn would just say forget it and keep the baby for herself, or that her mother would start causing more trouble and ask for more money, so we kept quiet.”

  “Shelley, I’m a nurse in Belgium where I live. And dimples can show up at any time,” Annie said in a clear attempt to reassure Mr. and Mrs. Jamison.

  “That’s what we read and that’s what we told each other all these years. We kind of put it out of our minds. And then that man showed up saying Christine was his daughter and we thought, my God, we were right all along. Christine was accidently switched.” Jeff shook his head and reached out and took his wife’s hand. “We told him to get out because we don’t want to know. She’s our daughter and that’s all there is to it. Maybe her DNA would have matched his, I don’t know, but it certainly wasn’t going to be a match with either one of us.”

  “And then there’s Hunter,” Shelley said.

  “Hunter?” Had I missed something? Maybe Hunter was their son.

  “Hunter is Christine’s fiancé.” Jeff made a sour face. “Hunter Wentworth.”

  “What kind of a name is Hunter? It’s a rich name, that’s what it is, and if Hunter found out that Christine’s real mother was some drug addict, he’d dump her like that!” Shelley snapped her fingers together. “We’re still trying to figure out what she sees in him, but she loves him. He comes from some prominent family in Branford. Technology of some sort. And he doesn’t work for the family business, by the way. That should tell you something about his family. They don’t think their own son is good enough to work for their business, so what would they think of our daughter if they found out she was adopted? And they weren’t thrilled to meet us. But love is love, and Christine loves Hunter and he seems to love her.”

  And major bucks is hard to resist. There I was judging. The money probably meant nothing to Christine. Maybe she really did love Hunter.

  “Does Hunter know about Mr. Spiegel?” I asked.

  Shelley pushed her dark hair off her cheek where it had adhered to a tear. “After she called us, she said she was going to call Hunter. I told her not to upset him, but the truth is I didn’t want her to give him any more reasons to call off the wedding.”

  “More reason?” Annie said.

  “I’m Jewish. Jeff’s not, but I am and I’m not sure the Wentworths, who evidently have family who came over on the Mayflower, were thrilled with the idea of Jewish grandkids. So you can imagine what they would do if they found out her real parents were named Spiegel, and that the father was murdered.”

  “And I’m a truck driver. Another strike against us.”

  “We’ve also never told our daughter she was adopted. Once the papers were completed, a new birth certificate with our names was issued, so she’s never known the truth. I know, we should have told her, but we were afraid she’d want to find her birth mother.” Shelley took a sip of her tea and then continued. “Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t afraid of her meeting MaryAnn and knowing her true origins. I was afraid if she really started poking around it would come to light that we got the wrong baby. So you see, we had to keep quiet. And now with Hunter and his family in the picture, it’s just another reason to let sleeping dogs lie.”

  “This Hunter does not sound like a worthy husband.” Annie said, echoing exactly what I was thinking.

  “He’s not. But he’s who our daughter wants and she’s worked hard to put herself through school. Has a good job, a nice apartment. As parents you have to put aside your feelings. We would do anything for Christine.” Shelley gave me a small smile.

  Anything? I had to wonder if that included murder.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Annie and I left the Jamison home having partaken of two slices of cake each. Suddenly I wasn’t in the mood for any lunch, and besides, the guys were taking us out to dinner, so maybe it was better off that we just had a light lunch of tea and some of the best coffee cake I ever had.

  The next person on the list Shirley had sent us was a woman named Mandy Aiello. Shirley had given us her home address and that of her mother, but Mandy was the proprietor of a new chocolate shop in New Haven, according to Shirley’s notes, and I thought that was probably the best place to reach her. Besides, it was a chocolate shop, so even if Mandy was gone for the day, I was pretty sure I could find something there so as not to have made the trip for nothing. In hindsight, we probably should have stopped at Mandy’s while we were in New Haven visiting Christine Jamison, but we had to pass through again on our way back to Indian Cove anyway.

  “So tell me what we know so far,” I asked Annie.

  Annie stared out the window for a few seconds. “Bon. It is very apparent that these parents would do anything for their child. And I think all these years they have lived with the fear that someone would find out they received the wrong child and Christine would be taken away.”

  “Okay, but Christine isn’t a child anymore,” I pointed out. “Even if she was the wrong baby, time has passed. She is the Jamisons’ daughter now. Nothing will change that. And let’s not forget, maybe she is exactly who they thought. There’s a good chance that she is MaryAnn’s baby, the exact baby they expected to take home.”

  “This is true, Alex, but because they had doubt that they received the correct child upon leaving the hospital, is there not a possibly that they could be charged with a crime? That would be enough to frighten them all these years to keep their secret quiet. And along comes a man, Mr. Spiegel, who may very well upset the balance they have achieved. The adoption, a chance of the wrong child. It would all come out.”

  I nodded. Annie had a point.

>   “And then there is that Hunter person. A strange name for a man, no?”

  I smiled. “Hunter Wentworth. Probably has a numeral after his name, like Hunter Wentworth the eighth.”

  “One thing is certain,” Annie said, “with all the people we speak with, it just adds more to the list. Now I think we must also find Hunter and maybe his family.”

  “And we need to find someone at the hospital who worked there when all these baby girls were born.”

  “I think it is also very interesting that Christine never told us about Hunter,” Annie added.

  “We don’t know for sure that she called him,” I said. “Her mother said Christine was going to call him, but maybe she thought better of it and never did. We need to talk with her again, but I don’t think we’ll have time today. By time we talk with Mandy Aiello, we should probably head back home and get ready for dinner.”

  “There is something else that bothers me,” Annie began. “Mr. Spiegel seemed almost certain that Christine was his daughter. Jennifer Shalt did not mention anything about Mr. Spiegel taking her to North Carolina.”

  “No, she didn’t. What are you getting at?” I asked.

  “Mr. Jamison said that he told Mr. Spiegel to get out and that he did. He went away and never came back. I do not think Mr. Spiegel would go away so quickly if he was certain Christine was his daughter, which he seemed to think was true. If he felt his child was at stake he would be very…what is the word for one who does not give up?”

  “Persistent. Pushy. Ruthless.”

  “Oui! He would be all of that.”

  “Which means he probably did come back, and then what?” I asked.

  Annie nodded. “Exactly. We need to find out when he came back and what happened?”

  I found the candy store, Le Petit Bonbon, not too far from a small Belgian restaurant that had opened in New Haven a few years ago. John and I had tried it on several occasions and it was quite good, though not as good as the food we had when we were in Brussels. I parked the car on the street and Annie and I walked the block to the store.

  A tiny bell tinkled as I pushed the door open. Two women worked behind a display case full of chocolate delights and brightly colored macarons. Both women were currently helping customers, so I took a look at what was on offer, searching for anything with coconut. I also was a big fan of dark chocolate and marzipan, and they seemed to have a few varieties from which to choose. But the macarons were gorgeous. The colors were so vivid, I had to wonder what kind of food coloring they used. I especially liked the bright orange and the turquoise ones.

  “Alex, look at this.”

  I walked over to a small display case where Annie was currently engrossed.

  “Aren’t these beautiful?”

  Annie had found delicately carved and decorated marzipan candies in the shapes of flowers and bunnies and eggs.

  “They look like those we saw at that wonderful Belgian shop on the Grand Sablon,” I said, thinking back to my trip to Europe a year ago.

  “Wittamer. That is the shop you went into. It is one of their specialties, especially for Christmas. They carve exquisite little candies from marzipan. It is an art.”

  “Do you see something you like?” a voice said behind us.

  I turned to look at one of the women who had been behind the counter. She had on a white chef’s coat. She was short, had light hair and sparkling blue eyes, and a scattering of freckles across her nose. She was slightly overweight, and I figured that must be a hazard of working in a candy store. She also had on a name badge and it said Mandy. From her outward appearance, I couldn’t imagine her being the daughter of the Spiegels, but as I well knew, children didn’t always look like their parents.

  “Did you make these?” Annie asked, pointing to the marzipan shapes.

  “Yes, everything you see in here I make myself.”

  “You’re Mandy Aiello, the owner?”

  “Yes, that’s me. How may I help you?”

  “We’re here to ask you a few questions about a Mr. Spiegel. Sheldon Spiegel. Did he by any chance contact you?”

  Mandy looked around the shop. The two customers had left and there was no one there but us. She gestured to a small café table by the window and the three of us sat down.

  “Yes. He came to see me on Monday morning. I was just opening up the shop when he came in. How did you know that?”

  I explained to her why we were there and she nodded.

  “Yes, I saw on the news the other night that he was killed. I’m sorry that you had to identify his body. That must have been horrible.” She looked down at her hands and clasped them tightly together. “I’m very sorry that he died and I never got to know him better.”

  “You wanted to see him again? Why is that?” I asked. So far everyone we spoke to couldn’t wait to get rid of the man.

  “I was hoping he would come back. I wanted to talk with him again when I wasn’t so busy, but I never got the chance, and then I saw he was killed. You see, I’m pretty sure he’s my father.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Mandy Aiello excused herself for a few minutes and came back with a tray with three cups, a pot of tea, and a plate of colorful macarons. If I kept drinking tea and eating treats I wasn’t going to want any dinner. Maybe I should have just not accepted her kind offer, but, hey, they were macarons and they were beautiful.”

  “I hope you like tea. We’re all out of coffee and the shop closes early on Saturdays so I don’t want to make another pot.”

  “Tea is perfect,” I said. “So tell us why you think Mr. Spiegel was your father. Did he actually tell you that?”

  “Well, no. He told me his story and all about his daughter, and how he was certain a switch was made at the hospital. I felt so sorry for him. That’s it, really, and then he left because he had some other visits to make, but I just knew it was true. I knew I was his daughter.”

  “And why is that, Ms. Aiello? Physically, there does not seem to be a connection,” Annie said. I liked the way she got right to the point.

  I reached for a bright orange macaron and took a tiny bite. It had a citrusy filling that was just the right amount of tart and sweet. It was superb.

  “I felt it. You see, I never had any sort of connection to my family. My father died a long time ago and my mother, well…” Mandy turned and gazed out the window and watched a motorcycle rev by. “Have you heard of my mother? Martha Aiello? She’s running for mayor and eventually hopes to become governor. And then president. And then queen if they’ll let her.” Mandy gave a snort. “Maybe she can move to London and take over there.”

  “This is not a good thing?” Annie asked. “America is all about opportunity and grabbing the golden hoop.”

  Mandy looked at me with a puzzled expression.

  “Brass ring,” I said with a smile.

  “Oh, yes, the brass ring,” Annie said. “This is not good to grab the brass ring?”

  “My mother is very ambitious and I’ve always been the family embarrassment. I got into some trouble as a teenager. I was bullied because of my weight, I didn’t fit in with my fashion model sister and mother, and I never liked any of the things that they found important.”

  “You seem to have done very well for yourself,” I said, as I looked around the lovely shop with its artfully displayed offerings, the café tables, and a retro Parisian decor.

  Mandy Aiello’s full face brightened. “I have, and with absolutely no help at all from my mother, which is a good thing because you do not want to be in my mother’s debt. She’s like one of those companies that loan you money and then the interest keeps getting higher to the point that you can never pay the debt off. My grandmother, well, she’s never gotten along with my mother either. She saw something in me and said if I did well in junior college she would send me to Europe. So I took her up on it and it was there, in Europe, that I found a love for cooking. My grandmother paid for me to study with some master bakers in Belgium and then France, and then hel
ped me start this place. I opened it up last fall, and by Christmas I had tons of orders for holiday parties and now for spring we’re already booked up for weddings.”

  “Do you make wedding cakes?” I asked. I would love to see one if she did.

  “Oh, no. But people like giving gift bags to their guests. We do chocolates or any of our specialty cookies, and one bride wants a macaron cake. Things are going exceeding well. If the candy and specialty cookies continue to attract customers, which they seem to be, I’m hoping to add cakes and pastries and maybe even sandwiches, though I’ll need more space. And help,” Mandy sighed. “But my mother never lets me forget my druggie past. I know I got mixed up with the wrong crowd, but look at me now. I was just a kid then. I have my own business, for Christ sakes.”

  “So how does this all relate to Mr. Spiegel?” I asked.

  “When he said there may have been a mix up at the hospital, I thought, that’s it! That’s why I never fit in with my family, because I wasn’t one of them.”

  I didn’t want to burst her bubble, but not all family members got along. “Ms. Aiello, Mandy, that doesn’t necessarily mean you were Mr. Spiegel’s daughter. My father and his brother are worlds apart.”

  “Okay, but still. I was willing to take a test, you know, a blood test or something to verify it. And now that Mr. Spiegel is dead, I still want to. I want to know. I need to know. It would be so freeing to finally have proof that I’m not related to that woman.”

  “Is it really that bad?” I had seen Martha Aiello on TV and she wasn’t anyone I would vote for. I didn’t trust her for some reason, and while I applauded ambition, she seemed more aggressive and bullying than anything else. Maybe she had even bullied her daughter because of the weight issue.

  “You want to know how bad it is? My mother is having a huge reception. Huge!” Mandy spread her arms wide. “Hundreds of people will be attending. Maybe thousands. The crème de la crème. The exposure for Le Petit Bonbon would be immense. Has my mother asked me to do the catering? No. No, she has not. Her own daughter. The one with her own shop who knows how to cook better than anyone else she knows. She went to some chain restaurant, for Christ sakes. Who does that? Who?”