Page 10 of Immortal By Morning
“That idea troubles you?” Detective Delacort asked gently.
Abril shifted in her seat and then shrugged helplessly. “I mean I don’t really know these people, but they were very nice to me. They didn’t seem like crazy serial type killers to me.”
Knowing that what she thought didn’t really matter, she stood abruptly and headed for the hallway to the guest bedrooms on this side of the house. She and Gina were temporarily using them as offices until the addition was finished. “I’ll go check the purchasing contracts. That should have their first names on it.”
She paused at the mouth of the hall to turn back and add, “Although, it seems to me they said they’d purchased a new house in Port somewhere or other.” She frowned, trying to recall which town it was. There were a lot of lakeside towns an hour or so on either side of London named Port something or other; Port Bruce, Port Burwell, Port Stanley, Port Glasgow, Port Franks... Unfortunately, she couldn’t recall at that moment which one they’d mentioned moving to.
Shrugging the concern away, she added, “I rememberthat they owned a store in the city, a craft shop or something. I can’t remember what it was called, although Mr. Branson told me the name at the time.” Abril grimaced apologetically. “Unfortunately, I had no idea then that it might be important so didn’t commit it to memory.”
“Of course not,” Detective Delacort said reassuringly.
She smiled at him with gratitude, and then turned into the hall again, saying, “I’ll get those contracts.”
Abril was a very organized person. It was what made her good at her job. She had a place for everything and kept everything in its place, so she was able to find things quickly when needed. Gina was less so, and apparently had gotten into the files at some point and mucked them up. Abril had filed away the purchasing contracts in a special file that she now couldn’t find. It took several minutes for her to track it down, minutes during which she became more and more irritated and silently cursed her boss.
She knew that was silly. In the end, the files were actually Gina’s, not hers, and her boss had every right to do what she wished with them. Unfortunately, though, it made her life more difficult when Gina ran roughshod through the filing cabinet. Something she’d done repeatedly since Abril had started to work for her.
Finally finding the contract in question, she pulled it out, slammed the drawer closed, and hurried out of her temporary office.
Five
“I found them!” Abril announced as she hurried into the kitchen, only to slow to a halt as she saw that Delacort was the only one still there.
“Forensics arrived,” he explained when she peered from him to the empty seat where his partner had been. “Roberts went out to greet them and explain the situation.”
“Oh.” Nodding, Abril continued forward. She set the papers she’d fetched on the island before him, then reclaimed her seat. “That’s the contract for the purchase of the house. Their names are Fred and Wilma.”
Detective Delacort’s eyebrows rose, but he pulled the pages closer to glance over them. After a moment, he said, “You are not kidding, Fred and Wilma are their names.”
“Yeah, I was a little surprised too, at the time.” She smiled faintly. “I mean, I don’t want to be rude, but the only time I’ve ever heard of someone being namedWilma before this was as a kid watchingThe Flintstones. And his name being Fred? For real?” she asked with a grin.
“The Flintstones?” Detective Delacort echoed.
“It was a cartoon,” she explained when he peered at her with obvious bewilderment. “Wilma was Fred Flintstone’s wife.”
“Ah.” Delacort smiled faintly. “I fear I have never seen the cartoon, and it has been much longer than the twenty years or so that it must’ve been since you were a child since I have heard the name Wilma.”
Abril’s eyebrows rose at the comment. He didn’t appear to be that much older than her. By her guess, the man couldn’t be more than maybe thirty years old, and that was a bit of a stretch really. He looked closer to twenty-five, but she suspected he had to be closer to thirty to be a detective. Of course, she could be wrong about that. Maybe it was ageist to think that homicide detectives would be older. Shrugging that concern away, she asked, “Will you be able to find them? The Bransons?”
He nodded as he perused the contract. “Now that we have their names, we should not have any problem finding them. If worse comes to worst, we can always contact their Realtor on this sale to see where they bought and moved to after here. The Realtor for this sale probably handled the purchase of their next home as well,” he pointed out.
Abril nodded agreement, and then bit her lip briefly before saying, “You don’t really think the Bransons are responsible for—I mean, maybe it was the family who lived here before the Bransons. Or maybe the house was built on an ancient burial site or something.”
“It is possible the family before the Bransons are responsible for the skeletons Lilith found,” he allowed and then said gently, “But the bones are not part of an ancient burial site. Roberts and I uncovered more of the bones attached to the skull and some material was revealed. Part of a faded blue denim shirt.”
“Definitely not ancient then,” Abril murmured.
“No,” he agreed. “But the forensics crew will do their bit. Hopefully, they will be able to date the skeletons by the clothing they are wearing. If not, maybe we will get lucky and they will find something else with the bodies to tell us if it was the Bransons or who they bought the house from who is responsible for their deaths.”
“Like ID,” she suggested. “Learning who they are and when they went missing would help with that. But I’m sure the Bransons aren’t responsible.”
Delacort closed his notepad and smiled at her sympathetically. “You liked them.”
Abril shrugged. “I never met the kids, but the parents were good people. They even emailed me after Gina moved in to make sure we found everything all right and didn’t have any questions.”
“Emailed you or Gina?”
“Me,” she answered, and explained, “I’m always the contact for Gina. I was the contact with her lawyer and real estate agent too.”
