Red Leaves by Paullina Simons

  At first glance it was nearly disappointing. He found a photo – finally! – of a young girl, neat, short-haired, smiling, holding a kite in her hands. The picture had been taken near a body of water that looked like Long Island Sound. There was an older photo of a very beautiful young woman holding a toddler girl in her arms. Polaroid shots of teenage girls with babies. Spencer assumed they were girls from Red Leaves House. There were about a dozen photos. He would go through them again when he had time.

  Now he was looking for something more specific. He found a pen from a place called Fahrenbrae Hilltop Retreat and a matchbook with the same inscription.

  He’d read about Fahrenbrae in the Chamber of Commerce ‘Guide to Hanover’ brochure. Three houses, beautifully furnished, twelve miles away from Dartmouth in the Vermont hills, renting for $125 a night. He’d remembered them because the place had intrigued him. He had wanted to drive up there one day.

  Spencer found souvenirs from Scotland. Matchbooks, lighters, napkins, dirty napkins, beer-stained napkins, torn napkins with Gaelic words written all over them, words Spencer did not understand. There was a bar of soap from a bed-and-breakfast at the Mull of Kintyre. There were foil rings and red and white ribbons and nail polish with more Gaelic inscriptions on it. None of it individually meant anything. But all together, it made up a time of Kristina’s life that must have meant a great deal to her.

  Judging from other objects in Kristina’s box, the Scottish things must have meant more to her than anything else in her life. There were no matchbooks from Brooklyn, nor torn napkins from Dartmouth College. But Scotland was in her box.

  Scotland, and Fahrenbrae.

  There were a dozen letters from her grandmother, dated a few years earlier, an old antique parchment stationery with Old English initials in the upper left corner: Spencer read one.

  Dear Krissy, my baby, I miss you honey, I wish you would come and see me more often. I know you’re busy with school and work, your work is important, I know you can’t come down in the summer, but I wish I could see you a little more. If ever you have more time, come see me, I’ll always be glad, despite everything, and I mean that honey, I mean that from the bottom of my heart. You’re still my family, and I believe with my soul it wasn’t your fault. So don’t be scared of me who loves you. You come and see me when you can, darling, and I’ll do anything to help you.

  And one other letter, on pastel pink stationery, this one with a flowery R.M.S.

  Kristina,

  Why are you returning my letters? Why aren’t you letting me speak with you? What have I done that you should be so angry with me? I should be angry with you, furious, yet, I’ve been trying, and you’ve been turning your back to me. Please, honey, please. Your father, he didn’t mean anything by going to the lawyers, he was just mad, it’ll blow over, you’ll see. Forgive the letter he wrote you. I know he didn’t mean the things he wrote. He misses you so much. And me too, Kristina, we both miss you.

  It was signed Mother.

  KMS? Spencer wondered. S?

  He looked quickly for the father’s letter, but he couldn’t find it.

  What else?

  A manila envelope that contained a folded letter and a seven-page document. The letter scared him – him, a veteran of the Long Island Expressway on a Saturday night. A veteran of an ax murder. A grisly premeditated murder. A veteran of growing up in a family of eleven, veteran of six boisterous brothers.

  They all found their brides, some more often than others. He found his only once, and he was a veteran of that, too. Yet, sitting here in an empty room, he was afraid to open a thrice-folded letter in that manila envelope. Spencer looked at the thick document instead.

  A petition before the judge in the Borough of Brooklyn in the City of New York on this day of November 10th, 1993, being brought by a Kristina Kim of P.O. Box 2500, Hinman, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H., against a Howard Kim –

  There it was. Howard Kim. She was married.

  Married.

  Married. Buried. Well, not buried yet. But Spencer should have known. Kim was not her real name. He had thought it sounded strangely … nonoccidental. Malaysian? Vietnamese? Korean? Something. He quickly flipped to the end of the document to see her maiden name.

  Sinclair. Kristina Sinclair.

  Katherine Morgan Sinclair. John Henry Sinclair. Now that made sense. Kristina Morgan Sinclair, the divorce petition said.

  Howard Kim. At least now he had a name. In fact, he had more than a name, he had an address. The address was different from the one on Kristina’s college application. Howard must’ve moved in the years since. Spencer quickly scanned through the document. Abandonment … three years of separation not made legal by the courts … there was no alimony, there were no children.

  The divorce petition had been drawn in September 1993, two months before Kristina’s death.

  Maybe Howard Kim had killed her. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to be divorced from her.

  Imagine that – married. A college girl married. Spencer checked the dates. Howard and Kristina Kim had been married on the twenty-eighth day of November 1988. That would have made her sixteen years old! Still in high school. Wouldn’t she have needed parental permission to be married so young? Even if she hadn’t, why would a sixteen-year-old marry anyone? God, the questions. No answers, though.

  Not yet, thought Spencer.

  Howard was the man to talk to.

  Spencer wondered if her dear friends knew she was married. He wondered if Jim Shaw, as he was making plans to make Kristina his political trophy bride, had known that his girl had already been married to someone else, and at sixteen.

  Spencer got up to go, and then sat back down. There was still the matter of the letter, thrice folded.

  He held it in his hands, looking at it the way he had looked at the black boots poking out of the snow. Spencer suspected that as soon as he opened the letter and read it, all pretenses that Kristina’s death had just been an accident would have to stop. And despite himself, Spencer still entertained an idiotic hope that her death had been as unlucky as being hit by lightning.

  He unfolded the piece of paper. He saw the date, he saw Kristina’s signature, he saw the notary public stamp and the signature of Mr Carmichael above it. He read the six lines of text over and over.

  I, Kristina Morgan Kim, hereby leave the funds in my checking and savings accounts at New Hampshire Savings Bank to be divided equally among my three friends, James Allbright Shaw, Constance Tobias, and Albert Maplethorpe. Aristotle goes with Jim. Safety-deposit box contents go to Albert. My grandmother’s house on Lake Winnipesaukee goes to Howard Kim.

  All Spencer could think of, as he slowly put Kristina’s documents back into her box, was the three singles in her wallet he had found in a crushed Mustang near the reservoir the night she almost died.

  Outside Mr Carmichael was waiting. There was only one question to ask him. They stared mutely at each other. There was nothing to say.

  ‘How much?’ asked Spencer, not wanting to know.

  ‘Nine million three hundred and forty thousand dollars,’ replied Mr Carmichael.

  Spencer nodded, his mouth numbing. Nine million three hundred and forty thousand dollars. That’s a motive, or close enough for government work. But …

  ‘Mr Carmichael, you just notarized the letter for her, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, last Tuesday.’

  The day she died. The day after her brush with car death.

  ‘How long has the money been in her account?’

  ‘Since last Monday.’

  Spencer thought about it for two seconds. ‘What would’ve happened to her money if she had died without this letter?’

  ‘What always happens to the money,’ replied Mr Carmichael. ‘It would’ve gone to her closest living relative.’

  Spencer held his breath. ‘Like a …’

  ‘Husband. Sure. Or a child. I don’t know the line of succession that well.’

  ‘I think Speaker of the
House is third,’ said Spencer.

  Mr Carmichael just stared at him.

  ‘A husband … or a child,’ Spencer repeated. ‘Does ex-husband count?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Mr Carmichael’s eyebrows came together. ‘Isn’t that all kind of moot, anyway? Now?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I suppose it is.’

  But did the Speaker of the House know about the notarized letter that made it all moot? There was no husband and there was no child. Who would have been third?

  Spencer left the bank with Krishna’s belongings in a bag under his arm.

  He knew what had prompted Kristina to write a brief will. It had been written on the heels of a nine-million-dollar inheritance and a near-death on Monday evening. No one but her and Mr Carmichael knew she had written it, of that Spencer was sure. Without that will, who would have gotten all of Kristina Sinclair’s money?

  Back in his car, Spencer called in to the station. The dispatcher told him to go to Hitchcock. The medical examiner was there, waiting for permission to perform the autopsy.

  ‘Permission from whom?’ Spencer asked the medical examiner when he got to the dungeon of the hospital.

  ‘Permission from her family,’ the medical examiner replied. Dr Earl Innis was a short, balding, heavyset man perpetually out of breath.

  ‘Her family,’ repeated Spencer. ‘I see. Well, her father is dead, her mother is God knows where, and she’s got no siblings. She does have an ex-husband, though. Would you like me to contact him?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Innis.

  Spencer nodded. Howard Kim, I don’t know how you felt about your recently exed wife, married at sixteen, dead at twenty-one, but I’ll soon find out.

  He called the New York operator from Dartmouth-Hitchcock and gave Howard’s new address – in New York City. He got an answering machine. Spencer looked at his watch. Six-twenty. Mr Kim should be just strolling in from work. ‘This is Detective O’Malley from Hanover, New Hampshire, calling for Howard Kim. It’s about –’

  The phone was picked up. ‘Yes,’ said a voice, in a slightly accented English.

  ‘Mr Kim?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Hello, sir. It’s about Kristina Kim, your ex-w –’

  ‘Yes? Is everything all right?’

  ‘No, sir, I’m afraid something terrible has happened,’ said Spencer.

  The voice on the other end said, ‘Is she dead?’

  ‘I’m sorry. Yes. Would it be possible for you to drive up?’

  Howard Kim’s voice was faint. ‘I’ll be there at ten-thirty. I’m leaving now.’

  ‘Come to the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Ask the front desk to page Detective O’Malley or Dr Innis.’

  Howard hung up, and eventually Spencer hung up, too.

  He had four hours to kill. It had gotten dark, and that usually meant the end of the day.

  The end of the day meant drink. But his day was not nearly done, so he drove to Everything but Anchovies instead, and had a bowl of chili and a turkey club. Then, because he had the time, he had meatloaf and mashed potatoes. And then two helpings of rice pudding. And then, because he had so much food in him to absorb the liquor, he went around the corner to Murphy’s and had two double Southern Comforts on the rocks. It was strong stuff. How could she have drunk it?

  Spencer looked at his watch. It was seven-thirty. The medical examiner from Concord was waiting to do the autopsy. Spencer was waiting for Howard. Ed Landers was back down in Concord in his lab doing his work. Will had long gone home.

  Spencer walked past the little Christmas trees in the town square, and past Baker Library. He made a left onto Tuck Mall and walked to Hinman Hall in the snow. It was Friday night, the Friday night he had been going to take Kristina to Jesse’s on their first date. Instead Spencer was waiting for permission from Kristina’s ex-husband to cut her open to see if there were any clues inside her to the nine million dollars she had left her three best friends.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Disposition of the Estate

  Spencer called Will Baker, asking him to come back to work. ‘I’ve brought the three kids back to the station. I want to play show and tell with Kristina’s safety-deposit box contents. Come on, Will, just for an hour.’

  ‘Really for an hour, O’Malley? Tell it like it is.’

  ‘Actually for the rest of the night, Will. She is going to be autopsied tonight.’

  Fell had long finished his shift. It was late Friday night, and there still was no one from the Concord DA’s office at Hanover. ‘Explain that,’ Spencer said to Will.

  ‘I can’t. I have no explanation.’

  Spencer called Fell at home. ‘Raymond,’ said Spencer calmly into the phone, ‘I’m looking around the headquarters, and you know what I don’t see around here?’

  ‘No, sir, what?’

  ‘I don’t see our friends from Concord, Ray. Do you know why that is?’

  Silence on the other end of the phone. Spencer turned his eyes to the ceiling and cursed out loud. Will placed a helpful hand on Spencer’s shoulder. ‘Ray?’

  Silence.

  ‘Ray!’ much louder.

  Will got the phone away from Spencer. After five minutes of listening and nodding, Will hung up the phone and said, ‘They’re not here.’

  ‘No! Really? I don’t believe it.’

  ‘It’s true. They’re not coming.’

  ‘Not coming. This is interesting. Are they deeming our matters here not important enough? Did he call them?’

  Will, trying hard to cover for Ray, said, ‘Didn’t call them, per se.’

  Spencer’s eyes widened. ‘Did he forget to call them?’

  ‘Didn’t forget.’

  ‘Will,’ said Spencer, ‘it’s been a long day, and this is not a party. I don’t want to play charades. What exactly did Fell do? Per se.’

  ‘He called them, but it was after six when he did, and they had all gone home.’

  ‘What do you mean, all?’

  ‘Don’t you remember last weekend?’

  ‘All too well.’

  ‘Everybody who worked was promised time off this weekend.’

  ‘Yeah, except me. But he didn’t call them until six?’

  ‘No, he got busy. Says he did everything else.’

  ‘What everything else?’ Spencer shouted. ‘There was nothing else to do!’

  ‘Tracy,’ said Will quietly. ‘What are you hyperventilating about? It’s a homicide case, and it’s all yours till Monday.’

  Spencer calmed down. That was true. That wasn’t such a bad thing. ‘Ours, Will, ours.’

  ‘Yours, partner. I got family obligations this weekend.’

  Spencer thought about it. ‘That’s too bad, Will. You should see what I found.’

  ‘In her room?’

  ‘Oh, no. You know her room was bare.’ Spencer paused. ‘But her safety-deposit box wasn’t.’

  Will widened his eyes. Will didn’t usually get excited about evidence, but the divorce decree and the will excited him. Then the ever cautious Will said, ‘But the coroner hasn’t determined the cause of death, has he? Conceivably, she could’ve lost consciousness and frozen.’ They were talking in hushed tones. The door to the questioning room was open and they could see Conni’s and Jim’s backs.

  ‘It’s possible, yes. But I’m telling you – my instincts are out on this one. She did not fall into the snow and die flat on her back with her arms outstretched and her eyes closed by Providence.’

  ‘O’Malley, sometimes your instincts are wrong. Remember the Hammonds?’

  Spencer remembered. When they were still patrolmen, he and Will had frequently rounded up a quiet, diminutive Mr Hammond because Mrs Hammond called up screaming to the dispatcher. Every Saturday the wife was badly bruised, and he was too. She would scream at them to take him, to book him, to hold him in jail overnight because she was pressing charges in the morning. The husband never said a word against his wife, never offered a word of explanation for why he beat
her. He rarely spoke.

  One Saturday night, Spencer and Will came to the house a little before the time of her customary phone call and witnessed a crazed and obviously drunk Mrs Hammond beating the shit out of a cowering Mr Hammond with a one-quart aluminum pan and then beating herself in the face with the same pan before staggering to the phone. They rang the doorbell immediately. The pot was still in her hands. She was surprised they had come so quickly and couldn’t understand why they had to arrest her.

  Till the very last Saturday, Spencer had maintained that Mr Hammond was the very profile of a habitual wife abuser.

  ‘All right, all right,’ Spencer said tonight. ‘The Hammonds broke my instinct bank. But who would’ve known?’

  ‘No one. All I’m saying here is keep an open mind, O’Malley. Things look one way here, but we don’t know shit, and those kids out there, they’re likely as not completely innocent.’

  ‘You won’t say that after you see this.’ Spencer pointed to the manila envelope.

  ‘Can’t wait,’ said Will.

  The five of them sat in the questioning room. Conni sat between Albert and Jim, their chairs huddled close together, across the round table from the two detectives, in an icy stand-off. There was nothing in the bare room to look at except one another.

  Spencer began. ‘It has come to my attention that there were a few things you guys left out yesterday when we spoke at such length. Anyone care to comment?’

  But the three of them wouldn’t be roped into anything. They sat there – Albert impassively, Jim sullenly, Conni watchfully – and did not say a word.

  Spencer passed the divorce document to them and then Kristina’s will and watched them as they read, as they shifted in their seats, or remained completely calm, or stared at him with amazement.

  ‘Kristina was married?’ gasped Conni.

  ‘Kristina had nine million dollars?’ exclaimed Albert.

  ‘I thought Kim was a strange name for her,’ said Jim. ‘What was her real name?’

  ‘Sinclair,’ said Spencer. ‘Kristina Morgan Sinclair.’

  ‘We roomed together for two years and she never told me she was married. Jim, did you know she was married?’