GUNNED (29 page)

We said our good-byes and I left my card for Rhoda, telling her to call if there was ever anything I could do for her, and I made a mental note to check in with her from time to time.

“I can show you to your table now.”

Our group followed the hostess to a large table in the back of the restaurant. It was right by the window and we had a view overlooking the water.

“I love the décor,” Annie said. “I have always found a nautical look very appealing.”

“Well, you’re in the right place,” Meme said. “New England has six states, but some people claim there’s actually one more, with the ocean being the seventh.”

“This makes sense,” Gerard said. “The sea has been such an important part in your history.”

“And our food supply,” Sam said. “I’m having lobster with lots of butter.”

We took our seats and in no time at all baskets of warm bread and little cups with softened butter were placed on the table. Drinks were ordered and delivered, while a young man walked around the table taking everyone’s order. When that was done, Gerard picked up his wine glass.

“I would like to make a toast. To our Connecticut family, thank you. Annie and I are thrilled to have another free place to stay in America!”

“Gerard!” Annie said, giving her husband a playful slap on the arm.

“To be serious, when we met in Brussels I thought you were very nice people,” Gerard said, looking at John and me and then Sam and Michael. “Now I know you are wonderful people, and it is our pleasure to be included in your family. Whenever you feel like coming to Belgium, you will always have a place with us.”

“Here, here!” everyone shouted, as other diners looked on and smiled.

“I hope you’re going to tell us how the whole thing ended,” Meme said. “There was nothing in the paper this morning except the police brought another person in for questioning. I know it was the wife because Alex called me, but how did you figure it out, kiddo?”

“It was actually Annie who found the final clue.” I told them about the article in the paper about the doomed cruise. “Once we saw that, we remembered Jackie telling us about it and the dates didn’t match up.”

“Then Alex put together a list of other things and it all led back to Jackie Spiegel,” Annie added.

“What was on your list, Alex?” Frances asked.

“Jackie is Jewish and so is Rhoda. If Jackie was going to switch a baby, I figured another Jewish baby would be her first choice. She also told us that she was having a girl. She let it slip that her mother was decorating the baby’s room in pink, so I concluded that she had had an amniocentesis test.”

“And if she had the test then she knew the baby was sick,” my mother said. “That poor woman.”

My grandmother shook her head. “Let’s not forget she’s a cold blooded killer, Mable.”

“Yes, there is that. What else was on your list, dear?”

“Jackie didn’t want Andrea to get tested to see if she had the cancer gene. Her idea was to leave well enough alone and what you don’t know won’t hurt. And I guess I can see her reasoning there, but when you add it in with the other stuff, then you know she didn’t want Andrea to be tested because she knew what would be found.”

“Looks like Alex and Annie beat you and Gerard,” my grandmother said to John.

“
Au contraire
, Meme,” Gerard said. “John and I were on to Jackie Spiegel from the start.”

“Really, John? How did you get on to her? Oh, I know, because the spouse is always the guilty party,” my brother-in-law said, then nudged me in the arm and asked me to pass the butter.

“That’s true, but I started by following up with her story about the DNA test. I also contacted the resort that she and her friend went to,” John explained.

“Let me guess, they never went.”

“No, Harry, they went, and I left it at that for the moment, but the more I looked into the widow, the more I found out. She owns a store and sells some pretty nice second-hand stuff, but the local police have been watching her. They think some of the items are stolen, but haven’t been able t prove it yet. She’s from New York originally so that got us thinking that she might be selling stuff from someone up here. We also needed to verify her whereabouts, and we checked her flight to Connecticut last Friday, and everything was in order.”

“But?” I said. John and Gerard got home late last night and other than a few details, neither Annie nor I had heard the whole story.

“Your husband had a gut feeling,” Gerard said. “It comes with being a police officer. I, too, get this same feeling when someone is telling me lies.”

“Gerard’s right. I didn’t have any concrete proof, but the more I thought about it, I didn’t see any of the other suspects killing Sheldon. The only one that worked for me was Rhoda Newman, but why would she kill him without knowing for certain that her child had been switched, and she didn’t know because Sheldon wasn’t certain. Christine Jamison confused him. So I started to trace Jackie’s steps. For the last week we’ve been working with local police stations all along the coast. If Jackie drove to Connecticut to kill her husband, more than likely she would need to stop for gas or food.”

“I bet you started searching for those cameras like they do on the cop shows,” Meme laughed.

“We did, Meme, but nothing,” Gerard said. “Instead we interviewed all the suspects here, we talked with his colleagues, and yet we still felt Jackie Spiegel was the murderer.”

“You must have finally found the proof you needed because you guys marched into that restaurant yesterday with purpose,” I said.

“We’d been concentrating on the main route from North Carolina up the coast, but then I got to thinking that she might be sneakier than I thought. What if she took another route? And then we found her stopped at a gas station in West Virginia in the middle of the night when she should have been at the resort. I contacted the owner of the resort again and he confirmed that he only saw Jackie and Lorraine the first two days and then nothing. He just figured they had taken a couple of day trips. Their stay was pre-paid so he didn’t care.”

“So her friend Lorraine was in on it, too?” I asked.

“Jackie says no. She drove Lorraine to the airport and as far as Lorraine knew, Jackie planned to head back to the coast for a few more days.”

“Did she tell you everything, John? Did she tell you who the man in the hospital was? Is she repentant?” Annie reached for her husband’s hand. “I do not understand how she could do this.”

“Jackie Spiegel wanted what she wanted. Her mother had a hand in switching the baby, and in fact it was her idea to have the baby in New Haven where no one would know Jackie’s medical history. Jackie also admitted the crazy man who came into the hospital was a friend of hers. Some guy named Clark. I forget his last name.”

“Oh my gosh, Annie and I saw him at the hotel a couple of nights ago. It was the night we picked up Meme. He was just leaving when we arrived.”

“As a matter of fact, he’s been supplying her with some of her best items for her shop all these years, and he lent her his truck once she arrived in Connecticut. She drove it to the beach and shot Sheldon there with a gun Clark provided,” John said.  “They’ve been partners in crime for quite a while.”

“I think Sheldon saw the same article Annie and I did. He was reading the newspaper with his brother the night before he died and Jerry said he became quite angry.”

“Sheldon was suspicious of his wife for a long time,” John said. “Starting with her affair, some of the stuff she was selling, and then when the DNA test came back, that was the last straw.”

Our meals arrived and murder was put on hold while we dug in to our dishes. I opted for lobster and concentrated on getting the rich meat from the shell.

“There is something that doesn’t make sense,” Sam said. “If Jackie is the killer why did she insist that Millie was her daughter?”

I dabbed butter from my mouth. “All part of her plan. She wanted us to believe she was as much in the dark about the switch as the rest of us were. She came to my office that day for the purpose of acting the part of the grieving widow. She pretended to not understand what her husband was up to, but because Millie’s name was the first one on his list, Jackie led us to believe that Millie must be her daughter. It was all a masterful misdirection from the very beginning. From the minute she stepped into my office it was all an act.”

“She had me believing her,” Annie said. “I feel like a fool.”

Gerard patted his wife’s back. “She is very clever. And do not forget that she has had thirty years to perfect her lie.”

“But then her daughter had those tests and her husband started to put two and two together,” Meme said. “Lies always have a way of coming to the surface.”

“Mr. Spiegel was an honorable man. He did not become obsessed for his own benefit, but to find out the true parents of Andrea. Once he knew what Jackie had done, he knew his biological daughter was either dead or sick and yet he still wanted to right a wrong. It is a very sad story,” Gerard said.

We finished our dinner and returned to our home where we all had a nightcap and good-byes were said. When everyone had left, Gerard and Annie went upstairs to finish packing. John and I went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I lay next to my sleeping husband wondering what was going to happen to Rhoda Newman.

On Sunday morning Annie and Gerard left in their little rental car, headed for JFK airport. Annie and I had had a good cry and promised to keep in touch via email and Skype, whatever the heck that is. John said he would show me and maybe it was time for me to get a better phone, but I only really needed it when there was a murder, and how often did that happen?

“Looks like it’s just you and me again,” John said when we were back in our kitchen looking through the Sunday paper.

I wrapped my arms around John’s neck. “I can live with that.”

*****

A couple of weeks after our guests left, Martha Aiello won the election and became mayor of New Haven. My mother made the sign of the cross and asked for mercy. My grandmother said it was a good thing we didn’t live in New Haven. Martha looked lovely when giving her winning speech. Every hair was in place and she had on the latest style of dress. Her daughter Mandy catered her inaugural event, and I saw in the paper that Le Petit Bonbon was expanding. A month later, in the Sunday paper I read that Christine Jamison had married Hunter Wentworth. The bride and groom looked happy. The two sets of parents in the background, not so much. The Shalt Nursery was merging with a large garden center out of Hartford and their future looked bright for the moment. Life was back to normal. Rhoda Newman was still going to counseling sessions and felt they were working. Gerard and Annie wanted to know if we’d like to go up to Prince Edward Island with them next summer, and I thought that sounded like a splendid idea. They said to invite everyone.

A couple of months after Annie and Gerard returned home, I received an email from Rhoda Newman. I went to the kitchen for some more hot water and then settled at my desk. Everyone had left for the day and after a very busy week the office was finally quiet. I opened up Rhoda’s email and started to read. Rhoda had recently joined a support group for parents who lost children, and at one of the meetings she met Craig, a very nice legal aid lawyer who asked her out for coffee. She said he was a good listener and had a great sense of humor. I leaned back in my chair and smiled. It was so nice to find out that out of all this ugliness, something positive had happened. Maybe Rhoda would finally find some happiness in her life. I leaned forward again to finish reading the email and was surprised to see that Rhoda had received a call from Andrea Spiegel Spellman, and had gone to New York to meet with Andrea and her family. I hadn’t been sure this would happen, but the fact that Andrea reached out seemed to be a good sign for both of them.

I finished reading the email and smiled again at the same time my eyes welled up and a few tears trickled down my face. I looked at the computer again and read the last paragraph one more time.

Alex, she has such a nice family and they were so very kind to me. They asked if I’d like to come to dinner next Sunday and told me I should bring Craig. I think I’m going to do it. I feel like God is giving me a second chance at life. I only wish Ira could know the truth and that I was not responsible. But maybe somehow he does. This last week I feel, well, I feel buoyant! Like I’m floating. And smiling! It has been a very long time since I’ve smiled and laughed and it feels good.  I don’t know how this will all turn out, but right now I am grateful to have all these new people in my life. Thank you for finding the truth. Ruthie, Andrea’s daughter, is such a delight and has already brought me joy. They are a lovely family and I’m so happy to be a part of it. I’ll keep you informed as to our progress, but I see good things ahead and I am ready for them to happen! Thank you again for your kindness and tell Annie hello for me when next you contact her. Oh, and the best thing of all? Andrea has Ira’s eyes.

The End