(2012) Cross-Border Murder Read Free

glass. I tried to look appropriately offended.
    “No. Of course not. I’m not a private detective. I’m not for hire. Eventually I may write something and I’ll bill the newspaper.”
    “I have some money left from my father’s insurance,” she said defiantly.
    “Enough to have hired a qualified detective?”
    She stared at me. “Maybe. Probably. I don’t know. But a detective was not what I wanted. I felt that most of the people we would have to talk to would talk more readily to a journalist.”
    “Why? I mean what gave you that silly idea?”
    She shrugged. “I did my degree in communications. Most people subconsciously want the media on their side. And most people don’t want to trust the police, or even private detectives.” There was an elitist assurance in her voice. Having a degree in communications will do that.
    I said nothing.
    “Did you do your degree in journalism?” She asked.
    “No. Such things didn’t exist in my day.”
    “Oh.”
    I did my major in philosophy.”
    “A philosopher!”
    “No.”
    “But did you ever want to become one?”
    I hesitated. Then I smiled. “I started out wanting answers. Modern philosophy has none.”
    “And so you turned to journalism.”
    I shrugged. But I wondered to what extent my cynicism, my wish to be just an observer, my habit of despondent introspection was due to the influence of my philosophy professors over thirty years ago. Surely, life was not that simple. While the waitress slid our plates of chicken, fries, sauce and coleslaw in front of us, Gina Montini removed a large photograph from her backpack. She handed it to me. It was a picture of seven people, all smiling, with their arms around each other. I recognized her father. He was thin and short. Some of the other faces were vaguely familiar.
    “There are four in particular who were, supposedly, close friends of his. I mean they all formed a group on campus who hung together. But they all avoided him when he needed them. I think they shunned him because whoever was the real murderer kept the doubts about his guilt alive even after the charges were dropped.”
    “Why do you think that?”
    “It’s my mother who thinks that. But she couldn’t be more specific.”
    “Maybe it was just an enemy, not the murderer who kept those doubts about him alive.”
    “True. But it’s still a starting point. We have to start somewhere. We’ll find out what we find out.”
    I wondered how she would react if she found out that her father was as guilty as hell. I decided it was time to see how emotionally brittle she was.
    “Maybe his friends continued to shun him because he had had an affair with the murdered man’s wife.” That affair had been one of the reasons he had been arrested.
    Her eyes blinked open. There was the hint of anger in them, but she controlled it well. “Back in those days,” she flung at me, “fooling around seems to have been the rule rather than the exception.”
    “Back in those days?” The implication of a generation gap made me smile. “Does your generation really behave so much differently than mine?”
    “Yeah, probably.” There was still the flash of battle in her eyes. “But that’s beside the point. Unless you can say you behaved better than my father did, I’m not going to let you cast stones at him.”
    “That was not my intention.”
    “It was there in your tone, Mr. Webster. You know. Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink. Maybe he deserved his fate because he got caught with his shorts down. It’s bullshit and you know it.”
    Emotionally brittle? Maybe. But when she took a hit, she could hit back. I don’t remember her father being like that. Maybe she had her mother’s genes.
    “After his trial was squashed, life for your family must have been difficult. You were what? Thirteen?”
    “Fourteen. Worse for my parents than it was for me.” She picked at her french fries. “Everyone treated me sympathetically. Besides, I had still had a future to look forward