David Handler - The Snow White Christmas Cookie

“Girl, you haven’t lost your edge,” Yolie said to Des admiringly.

“What edge?” Grisky asked.

“The Resident Trooper told us last night that Josie smelled wrong.”

“She never served any time,” Toni pointed out. “Just got slaps on the wrist. I spoke to an old-timer on the Lewiston PD who remembers her. He told me she’d been out on the streets, hooking and using drugs, ever since she was sixteen. But that she was a smart, scrappy kid who cleaned up her act. She even enrolled at Bates College. Studied there for one semester, according to her transcripts. Then she left town one day and was never heard from again. According to her Social Security records, she relocated to Castine, home to the Maine Maritime Academy, where she worked as a waitress and chambermaid at the Castine Inn. She lived on the premises until 2005 when she filed for a change of address to the home of one James Allen Miller-better known as J.A. Miller, the author of a series of bestselling science fiction novels featuring someone called Torbor the Reclaimer. Do we have any sci-fi fans in the house? No? Anyway, Josie was twenty-four at the time. Miller, age fifty-six, was a widower with two children who were both older than Josie. I spoke to someone on the local PD. It seems that Miller used to eat dinner at the Castine Inn every night. He and Josie struck up an acquaintanceship and eventually it led to something more. He taught marine systems engineering at the academy before he became a bestselling author and bought himself the historic waterfront home that he invited Josie to share with him.” Toni paused to gulp down some coffee. “James Allen Miller died of an overdose of the prescription sleep aid Ambien in 2007. A therapist had been treating him for anxiety-related depression. They closed it out as a suicide.”

“Damn, this is starting to sound familiar,” Yolie said. “Did the local PD have any reason to suspect it wasn’t suicide?”

“None. Miller was seeing a therapist, like I said. Had been increasingly despondent in the days leading up to his death, and he left a suicide note.”

“What did it say?” asked Des.

“It said, ‘ Forgive me, Torbor .’ But guess what Miller did two weeks before he died: He changed his will. Left his waterfront home to Josie instead of to his two kids.”

Des shoved her heavy horn-rimmed glasses up her nose. “God, maybe she is a black widow.”

“What’s a black widow?” Sam Questa wanted to know.

“An attractive young woman who snags rich, lonely men, picks them clean and kills them before she moves on.”

“I never heard of one of those,” The Aardvark said.

“Maybe they only exist in the movies,” Des conceded.

“Maybe not,” Yolie said.

“Miller was well liked in Castine. Josie was regarded as a scheming little tramp. His children contested the will. Threatened to fight her in court if they had to. She accepted a cash settlement of $100,000 and left town.” Toni glanced down at her notes again. “She shows up briefly on our radar screen next in Portland, Maine, then in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she rented an apartment for a few months before she moved to New Haven. When she got to New Haven she enrolled in an online life-coach program. After that she rented a cottage here in Dorset, set up her practice and eventually met Bryce Peck. You know the rest.”

“That’s good work, Sergeant,” Yolie said.

“Real good,” echoed Grisky. “Aside from the fact that we don’t know the rest. Is she or isn’t she responsible for the deaths of Bryce Peck and Hank Merrill?”

“And what, if anything, does she have to do with our stolen mail?” Questa wondered.

“Maybe she and Hank were in on it together,” Des said. “The two of them had mutual interests. Hank had serious money problems. And Josie needed drugs-the drugs that she used to kill Bryce. We know that she’s a clever girl. Clever enough to cook up this grinch smoke screen. Clever enough to persuade Hank to steal for her by promising him that when she got hold of Bryce’s house she’d bail him out with his ex-wife.”

“That plays pretty sweet,” Grisky said. “Keep talking.”

“When the grinch thing started setting off alarm bells Josie went proactive. First, she took care of Bryce the same way she took care of J.A. Miller in Castine. Then, last night, she eliminated Hank because he was the one man, the only man, who could link her to Bryce’s death.”

“It was a two-person job,” Toni pointed out. “Who helped her?”

“Casey Zander, who else? That’s why she’s been sleeping with him. She’s got Casey wrapped around her little finger. He’d do anything for her-including help her do away with his own mother’s boyfriend.”

“I’m liking this more and more,” Grisky said. “We’d better make sure baad Josie doesn’t leave town.”

“She’s not going anywhere,” Des assured him. “Bryce’s half-brother, Preston, is on his way here from Chicago to contest Bryce’s will. Odds are she’ll accept a financial settlement just like she did in Castine. But she’ll stay put until then.”

Grisky turned his attention to Yolie. “Please tell me you’ve come up with some forensics that actually tie her to these deaths.”

“The M.E.’s office fast-tracked Bryce Peck’s autopsy,” she responded. “Bearing in mind that it takes them longer to find what they aren’t looking for than what they are, the toxicology so far confirms that it went down exactly as it appeared-Bryce washed down massive doses of Vicodin, Xanax and Ambien with a bottle of tequila. They’ve found no bruising. His skin and fingernails have yielded nothing. It still looks like a straight suicide.”

Grisky frowned at her. “Then how’d she do it?”

“Maybe she forced him to swallow the pills at gunpoint,” Des suggested. “There’s a.38 in the mix, remember?”

“Maybe,” Grisky allowed. “But good luck proving that. How about the Kinney Road crime scene, Lieutenant? You find the missing bourbon bottle?”

“I’ve had eight trainees digging through the snowbanks around that parking lot for six solid hours. And more men searching the woods seventy-five feet in every direction just in case Hank got out of the car and heaved it. So far we haven’t found so much as a shard of broken glass. There are no fingerprints on Hank’s cell phone. No partials or smears, no nothing. It was wiped clean. We tracked the so-called suicide text message that he sent to Paulette Zander. It did originate from that locale on Kinney Road. And when Paulette received it she was in the vicinity of her home on Grassy Hill Road.”

“She told me she was downstairs doing laundry,” Des said. “Didn’t notice she’d gotten it until a few minutes later.”

“We had troopers canvass her neighbors up and down Grassy Hill Road. A woman who lives across the street, two houses down, said she saw Hank’s Passat go out at about 5:30, which confirms what Paulette Zander told Master Sergeant Mitry. He headed off in the direction of Frederick Lane, which would be the way he’d go if his destination was Kinney Road. She also saw Casey’s Toyota Tacoma go out an hour or so later. Casey went the opposite way-toward the Old Boston Post Road, which is where the Rustic Inn is located.”

“Could the neighbor confirm that Hank was alone in his car?” Des asked.

Yolie shook her head. “Couldn’t even confirm that it was Hank behind the wheel. Just Hank’s car. Same goes for Casey’s Tacoma.”

Grisky frowned at Des. “Where the hell are you going with this?”

“Just playing out the what-ifs.”

“We can’t build a case on what-ifs,” he said pointedly.

“My bad, Agent Grisky. Next time I have a question I’ll raise my hand. Will that make you happy?”