Chapter 9
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The next morning Doreen woke up, hopped out of bed, and raced through her morning routines.
As soon as she opened her email, she found a message from Mack, with a file attached.
He also added a happy face emoji and this text: This is the Alberta file on the mother’s murder, and it’s coming to you with the captain’s blessings.
She grinned at that. She had helped the captain on a couple cases that were personal, so he had absolutely no problem with her helping on various police cases that she found interesting. There was a lot to be said for that cooperation.
She sent a thank-you message back to Mack and printed off the case file.
Not a whole lot was here. Jillian’s mother, Katie, had been stabbed while everybody was away from the home.
No sign of forced entry. It was a usual killing mode, and yet it couldn’t have been a stranger in this case, not unless some guy had popped into her corner of the world, looking for a shower or something, and had decided that her house looked to be a good one to break into, and then things got ugly.
As there was no sexual assault, that just added an odd tone to Katie’s murder, in Doreen’s opinion.
This could have been someone she knew. Doreen read the file further.
No foreign DNA was found. No motive either.
So Doreen was stuck trying to find something that made sense.
As she had often found, nothing about murder made sense.
What could possibly make sense when it came to murdering a woman in her own home?
Yet it happened so often that Doreen started to wonder what the stats were about women being killed in their own place. It seemed pretty high to her, which was just sad. You would think that you were safe in your own residence, but unfortunately that wasn’t always the case.
As Doreen went through all of the file, she read that the suspected murder weapon was a kitchen knife procured from the home itself.
Which usually meant the killing wasn’t planned.
Instead a weapon was used in the spur of the moment.
At least that’s how Doreen figured the experts would look at it.
The woman had been stabbed three times, once in the chest, once in the neck, and once high up in the shoulder.
The first one appeared to be high up in the shoulder and was more hesitant.
The ones through the chest and the neck were definitely more forceful stabs to finish the job. Seemed personal to Doreen.
Something else that Doreen found interesting was that both of those chest and neck wounds would have been fatal, as the artery had been cut in the throat, while the chest wound had gone directly into the heart.
So, was that evidence of somebody knowing how and where to put those strikes?
Because Doreen couldn’t imagine sliding a knife into the heart as being something that everybody would be capable of doing.
Would a knife bounce off bone or slide in along a rib?
Or was it just a lucky blow? Or did this person have medical knowledge?
Or did this person just have …
She stopped, winced. “Considering,” she said out loud, “the number of cooks in this plot, maybe it was literally somebody who had butchering experience.”
Not something she particularly wanted to contemplate, but also not something she could ignore.
She quickly glanced over the paperwork once more, highlighted a few issues, wrote a summary, tacked it onto the paper copy, and put it all in a marked file folder for later.
This information here she would need at some point in time.
But there just wasn’t very much to go on right now.
She sent a text message, after she was done, asking Mack for any information on the latest murder.
He phoned her. “You can’t be happy with what I gave you, huh?” he grumbled.
“Not if it’s connected,” she replied.
“And we don’t know if it’s connected,” he pointed out.
“Sure, but do you realize that’s three murders, all related to the Burgons?”
“Two,” he corrected, with a sigh. “The young man who was killed wasn’t part of the same family.”
“Not yet, but he was engaged to Jillian, so soon to be part of the family.”
“I know. Anyway I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to the captain about getting you some information.”
An odd note filled his tone, and Doreen wondered about that. Instead of asking him, she just said, “Good, thank you.”
“I don’t suppose you have anything in your head right now that I could take to the captain, do you?” he asked. “It would make it a little easier to get you that additional information.”
She laughed. “If I don’t have all the information,” she muttered, “how the devil am I supposed to come up with any answers or theories? I need the information before I can say anything. Unless somebody thinks too many cooks are in this broth.” And, with that, she ended the call on him.
She knew she got the saying wrong, but, as she kept getting other sayings wrong, it was now a joke between them.
When he sent her a heart emoji, it just made her stop and sigh.
Something was so wholesome about him. That whole good-guy thing was awfully compelling.
She knew he wouldn’t take it very kindly if she were to use that phrase in any comment or message, but it was true.
Something was just very wholesome about Mack, and, for her, that was worth so much.
Her earlier marriage had been filled with verbal and physical abuse and strict rules of Mathew’s own making.
Now that he was gone, Doreen was still trying to deal with the emotional aftermath, plus all the related estate paperwork too.
Which just reminded her how she was due for an odd visit to her former residence.
And yet she knew that it needed to happen.
Still, in a way, it was probably a healing thing for her to do.
She just didn’t want to do it alone. She had discussed this unpleasant trip with Mack, but they hadn’t exactly set up dates and times for these inspections of Mathew’s various Vancouver properties.
Mack would need time off from work in order to spend a few days with her there.
And it really was okay with her if it didn’t happen right away.
However, she also knew her delay would hold up selling all those houses.
So the in-person inspections were definitely something she needed to do in order to get those estate things of Mathew’s wrapped up.
Not to mention Scott from Christie’s was going down there too, and he might need Doreen’s help to find some of Mathew’s hidden rooms full of stuff too.
Something else she really didn’t want to contemplate.
Scott called her next.
“Hey,” he greeted her. “I’m just checking in because you had mentioned going down to assess the antiques and whatnot in your ex’s estate.” Scott could barely keep his enthusiasm in check. “And something about secret rooms.”
“Yes,” she confirmed, “but I don’t think I can get there for a couple weeks.”
“That’s fine,” he replied. “No way I can get there that fast anyway. I just wanted to know how long we have to be out there and how many days I need to plan this trip for.”
“Considering Mathew was as big a hoarder as my grandmother, potentially a couple days.”
After a moment of silence, Scott noted, “You’re really surrounded by them, aren’t you?”
“Apparently,” she replied, with a laugh. “Yet that’s okay. We’ll get it sorted out one day. No need for a fuss.”
“Yes, we will,” he declared. “And obviously you’ve been blessed yet again by the money gods.”
“Funny you should say that,” she quipped, “because I had somebody ask me if they could pay me to solve a case that their family is involved in. I refused it because I just didn’t feel I should.”
“Also,” he pointed out, “you don’t need to. If you want to help on these cases, you can do it without having to charge the families, if you so choose. But, then again, if you feel your time is worth something, nothing is wrong with charging them something.”
“Hmm.” She pondered that. “I guess I hadn’t really considered it from that aspect either.”
“You might want to consider that some of these people probably would take advantage of you anyway, and you may very well want to have some contract or some payment system set up—not because you need the money. Besides, you could always give it away to charity.”
She perked up at that. “Yes, I can.”
Scott suggested, “It would be good for you if there were some written agreement between both parties.”
“That’s also something I hadn’t really considered,” she admitted.
“Here’s something else to think about, and I’m only bringing it up to protect you,” Scott explained. “I would hate to see something go south on one of these cold cases of yours and have somebody trying to sue you when they find out that you have money.”
“Oh, great,” she muttered. “Aren’t you a ray of sunshine today? You’re just filling my day with all kinds of possibilities.”
“People will be people,” Scott stated. “So, as soon as they find out that maybe you have some money, the world could look different to them. Especially if you planned to help them, but it didn’t turn out the way they thought it should.
Then they could come back after you, expecting some restitution in the form of a monetary settlement. ”
“In other words, I should get my soon-to-be-brother-in-law to help me write up a contract.”
“If he’s a lawyer who handles contracts, then yes.
Otherwise get a lawyer who does that,” Scott pointed out.
“Just to confirm that you’re in the clear.
The last thing you want is for somebody to come along and to make your life even more difficult, when you were just trying to help them.
” He sighed. “Even somebody who gets convicted in your cold cases could turn around and try to sue you as well. We live in a very litigious society.”