Tags:
Fiction,
Suspense,
Thrillers,
Mystery & Detective,
Women Sleuths,
Suspense fiction,
Crime,
Serial Murderers,
Murder,
Investigation,
Murder - Investigation,
Cold cases (Criminal investigation),
Women Forensic Scientists,
Cleveland (Ohio),
MacLean; Theresa (Fictitious character)
she noticed, were blue with blue-gray flecks, like bubbles in champagne. “I bought that from a pipe maker in Bath…remarkably smooth, don’t you think? Anyway, then my father died and I returned to manage his estate. I also took over his position in the preservation society.”
Jablonski pounced on this. “The what?”
Frank’s pager buzzed, that angry-bee sound.
Corliss answered without looking away from Theresa. She had not been a tactile person for many years but somehow didn’t mind the warmth of his hands wrapping hers around the ivory train. “The American Railroad History Preservation Society. I’m the vice president. We’re hosting a cocktail party–slash–fund-raiser at the art museum next month. You should come.”
Was this older man hitting on her?
Of course as her officially ancient birthday loomed, sixty-one no longer seemed too far out of line, especially a well-spoken and interesting sixty-one, so perhaps she should consider—
Then she thought of her fiancé, dead for fifteen months now, and it all seemed absurd. Her, her job, a seventy-four-year-old corpse.
“All of you,” Corliss added.
“It’s beautiful,” she said of the train, and placed it back on the shelf.
“Thank you for showing us around.”
“Any time. I’m only too happy to share my collection. See this gear? It’s from an original Union Pacific steam locomotive.”
“We have to go,” Frank said.
“Mr. Corliss, did your father ever mention the Torso Murders?” Jablonski asked.
“The what? Oh, those, the bodies in the river. I’m not
that
old, young man. Those things happened long before I was born.”
“
Now,
” Frank added.
Both host and reporter seemed disappointed as the party moved back to the front door, their voices echoing slightly against the foyer’s high ceiling. Corliss said, “Do come back if I can help in any other way. Take my card, Detective—there’s my phone number. It’s been a pleasure to meet you.”
“Thanks,” Frank said.
Jablonski asked if he could come back with follow-up questions, perhaps in the next day or two, and Corliss agreed.
“Thank you,” Theresa told him. He responded by touching her elbow as she made her way over the threshold, a courteous gesture, gentlemanly, except for the way his thumb caressed her forearm as he did it.
As she slid into the passenger seat, she noticed Corliss still watching from the open door. “That was interesting.”
Frank mumbled under his breath.
“Did you get a call?”
“I’m going to drop you off at your car, Mr. Jablonski,” he said by way of response, and nosed the car out onto the boulevard.
“Your boss said I could stay with you two all afternoon, following the investigation….”
“Only the cold case. Not a current one.”
The grim way he said it convinced Theresa that the rest of her day had just been claimed as well.
Jablonski sprang forward like a pointer catching a whiff of quail. “You mean there’s been a homicide?”
“No comment.”
“Oh, come
on
!” he protested. Theresa could hear real frustration bubbling up from his carefully maintained persona.
“No.”
The reporter threw himself back in the seat. “We’ll see about that.”
Chapter 9
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 6
PRESENT DAY
The Cleveland Air Show began as national air races, an idea brought to the United States from Europe by Joseph Pulitzer, the man for whom those prizes are named. The purpose in 1920, as now, was to encourage interest in aviation. The show rotated through several cities until Cleveland hosted the largest and most (indeed
only,
to that point) financially successful show in 1929. Fully three times larger and longer than today’s shows, the 1929 show established Cleveland’s ownership of the event.
Particularly in these early days, the work could be dangerous. Occasionally a pilot would be lost. But in 1949 a racer banked his Mustang too sharply at one turn and crashed into a house in Berea, killing
Dan Andriacco, Kieran McMullen
Patrick Robinson, Marcus Luttrell