Part Four

Honey arrived home from a long day of research, some of it for her case and some of it for her next book. Hanging up her jacket, she glanced around the apartment and sighed. She felt weary and disinclined towards doing too much thinking. During the day, she had taken the time to call Trixie and discuss a few matters with her regarding the case, but now that evening had arrived she felt like going to bed with a good book and forgetting about the world.

Dan was home when she arrived and he had already started on fixing a late dinner. He looked up when she walked in and gestured to her to come to him. He took a moment from his task to pour her a cup of coffee, which she gratefully accepted.

“Thanks,” she murmured, closing her eyes and leaning against the counter as she took her first sip.

“Long day?” he asked.

She nodded. “Long day and not much to show for it. Trixie and I have made a little progress on your note, though.”

“That’s good, I guess.” He turned back to the work at hand and Honey wandered into the bedroom, intent on a few minutes of quiet.

After they had eaten, as they were cleaning up the dishes and setting the place to rights, Dan brought up the previous topic again.

“So, what does my Mom’s note mean?” he asked. “Have you gotten far enough to tell me that?”

“Our best guess is that it means your mother was there and that she took you there with her,” Honey told him, as gently as she could.

Dan’s face took on a pained, puzzled expression. “How could she?” he asked, barely above a whisper. “Who was Dinah to her that she would take that kind of risk? To expose me to something like that?”

“That’s what we have to find out,” Honey answered, squeezing his hand in comfort. “We know all there is to be known about your mother’s family from Regan, but what about your Dad? Is there anything you know about him that might help us? Did he have any brothers or sisters? Cousins?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, his voice suddenly sharp. “I don’t know anything about him. I don’t know where he was born, where he grew up, what his family was like, anything! He never told me and I never thought to ask. I thought I’d have forever. And now it’s too late.”

“How about close friends of your parents?” Honey persisted. “You’ve had some time to think about this, now. Have you remembered anyone they were particularly close to?”

Dan shook his head. “If there were, don’t you think I might have gone to them when Mom died? There wasn’t anyone. And I don’t remember Dinah, except for that one dream, and I’m not even sure that it’s real. I’ve told you all I can, Honey. There just isn’t anything more.”

His girlfriend sighed. “In short, you don’t remember anything that can help us in any way.”

He scowled. “I know they wouldn’t like me living with you without us being married. If they were alive, they would have made that clear to me.”

Honey let out an exasperated sigh. “You’ve said that already. Why does it matter? My parents weren’t exactly overjoyed about us moving in together. Do you see me being influenced by their disapproval?”

“Your parents are still around to forgive you!” he snapped.

At his display of anger, Honey’s temper flared. “So, you’re never going to do anything that you think your parents wouldn’t like? You’re going to live your life wondering what they’d think and trying to do what you guess they would want you to do, without any way of knowing for sure? Is that how it’s always going to be?”

He was breathing heavily, his eyes downcast. When he spoke, his voice was low and controlled. “I think we should leave this discussion for the moment.”

“Why is that?” she asked.

A long pause ensued before Dan answered, “Because I’m really tempted right now to walk away from you and not look back.”

“You mean, you’d go off somewhere by yourself to avoid this discussion? I thought you were more grown up than that.”

Dan shook his head. “No, I mean that I’d pack my things and go.”

“You don’t really mean that,” Honey accused, her voice rising in fright. “You wouldn’t.”

“I do mean it. So, how about we drop this for the moment, or you might wake tomorrow to find me gone.”

“Okay.” Honey’s voice was low. “I’m sorry, Dan. I didn’t mean to fight with you.”

He nodded. “I think I’ll go to bed.”

Honey let him go and sat down to think through what had just happened. She knew that this investigation was upsetting Dan; somewhere at the back of her mind, she had known it for some time. She also knew that he sometimes regretted the way that their relationship had progressed. The two things together spelled trouble. With a sigh, she decided that it was time to apologise. She got ready for bed and slipped under the covers, glad to see that he was lying on his back and not with his back to her.

“Dan, I’m sorry I spoke to you that way,” Honey told him, in a low voice. “I don’t want to lose you.”

He nodded. “I know. I don’t want to lose you, either. I just…” He shook his head, still looking down. “I feel conflicted by this. And all this talk about my parents is bringing it to the surface. Most of the time I’m okay with us, with how we are, but now… I’m wanting to move forward. Do you understand that?”

Her eyes filling with tears, Honey shrugged. “I’m not ready for anything else; I don’t know that I ever will be. What happened to me – it changed me, it hurt me. I don’t think I’ll ever be the same.”

A moment later, he pulled her into an embrace. “I’m trying to understand. It’s hard, though. I want the best for you.”

“Maybe the best for me is what we have,” she suggested.

Dan nodded. “I don’t think it’s the best for me, though. One day, I think that we’re going to have to address this.”

She nestled her face against his chest. “I’m not ready to change anything; I’ve told you that.”

“I know. But one day, I think you’ll have to.”

“Maybe,” she answered, “but for now, I’m giving you what I can.”

Dan smiled and squeezed her tighter. “I know, Honey. And I’m waiting as patiently as I can.”

When next Trixie and Honey met, Honey was still feeling rather subdued after her argument with Dan. The investigation was becoming an obstacle between them and she knew that the stresses it caused could not be endured for too much longer. With this in mind, she asked Trixie to speed things up, if at all possible.

“Anything we can do to finish this up,” she asked, “can we please do it? I don’t want Dan to have to suffer too much longer.”

Trixie considered for a few moments. “Well, how about if we go over the whole thing from the start and see what we might have missed,” she suggested. “Maybe something will jump out at us.”

Honey nodded and agreed with that plan. She pulled out a couple of notepads and pencils and set one in front of her friend. A moment later, Trixie began to speak.

“Okay, so we agree that Reynolds was probably alone in the house at the time of his death, or with one other person, and Dinah was working at the time, in the sleazy bar that Jack mentioned. Reynolds died from blood loss from a wound to the neck, but it wasn’t clear post-mortem whether the wound was deliberate or accidental, or if it was inflicted by Reynolds himself, or by someone else.”

“That all seems right,” Honey agreed. “And even though there isn’t any evidence to support it, I’m tending towards believing Jack’s instinct that it wasn’t a murder. I kind of think he probably did it himself, whether accidentally or on purpose, because I’m sure there would have been some evidence of someone else’s presence if they’d been there.”

“Yes, I think so, too,” Trixie answered. “So, our working hypothesis is that Dinah found Reynolds dead when she got home from work and for some reason did not raise the alarm. Instead, she called one or both of Dan’s parents – again, for some reason that we don’t know – and one of them took Dan to the scene. See, there must be some compelling reason why they’d do that and until we can figure it out, I don’t think this is ever going to make sense.”

Honey nodded, but did not comment.

“Probably around this time, the large object which stopped the blood spatters was removed. Maybe that was by Dinah, maybe by Dan’s mother or father, maybe by someone else. So, the next thing that happens is that Mrs. Young discovers the body and calls the police,” Trixie continued. “Veivers arrives, possibly takes the blade and almost certainly plants the evidence. Then, he calls in the detectives and the investigation begins. Which all leaves us with a lot of questions.”

“Like, why didn’t Dinah call the police?” Honey added.

Trixie jotted that question down on a sheet of paper and began adding more, writing them as she went. “And if it was an accident, what could Reynolds have been doing to injure himself that way? Why did the person taking care of Dan take him to the scene, especially since it was probably his mother? What were they doing there? What was the object that was removed, why was it removed and by whom? Who was Dinah to Dan’s parents that they would get involved with such a situation? Why did Veivers want to throw the blame on Dinah? And where did Dinah disappear to, and why?”

“I’ve been thinking a little about the wound,” Honey admitted, as her friend lay down her pen. “Do you think, maybe, he was trying to open something? Say, he’s got a knife of some kind and he’s using it to cut open a package and it slips.”

Trixie narrowed her eyes and started trying to act out how that would work. “He’s holding whatever it is with his left arm – assuming he was right-handed – and the knife in his right. He has the blade facing towards himself, it catches, it slips and he slashes himself across the neck. It’s kind of awkward, but I guess it would work. I think it would have to be something pretty big that he was trying to open, though. Otherwise, I doubt it would hit him on the neck – it’d get his arm, or his chest.”

“The missing object was big,” Honey pointed out. “Maybe that’s what he was working on. Maybe someone didn’t want the police to find whatever it was when they came to the scene.”

“That would kind of suggest that it was something that they shouldn’t have,” Trixie decided. “Maybe something illegal, or illegally obtained. Maybe something that you’d use to make something illegal. I might spend some time on that – maybe I could figure out what it could have been.”

“Okay,” Honey answered. “While you’re working on that, I might see what I can find out about that kind of wound. I might give Brian a call and see if he can tell me anything.”

Her friend nodded. “That’s a good idea. Do you want to see if you can find anything further on Veivers, or will I?”

“I’ll take that,” Honey decided. “You’ve still got some leads to follow on the family research front?”

“One or two,” Trixie answered. “I’ve got a few more ideas to try.”

“Well, I think that’s it, then.” Honey began tidying her papers. “Can you think of anything else we can do?”

Trixie shook her head. “I think we’ve covered everything.” She picked up her belongings and stood up. “So, are we clear? You follow up on the wound and Veivers and I’ll follow up on the missing object and keep looking for connections between Dinah and the Mangans. When we meet up again, we’ll compare notes and see if we’ve got any further, okay?”

Honey nodded. “Sounds good.”

That settled, they went their separate ways.

“So, what are you working on now?” Dan asked, as Honey sat frowning at her notes of the case later that week. “Have you gotten any further?”

She sighed. “Not much. At the moment, I’m just trying to see if there’s anything I should have done that I’ve missed. I’m not seeing anything, though.”

He picked up a piece of paper and considered it. “Trixie has been asking me questions again. She seems to think that I might be able to give her clues to follow up. I don’t seem to be able to; I don’t really remember what it was like to be part of a family.”

Honey gazed at him in consternation. “You are part of a family – we’re a family and the Bob-Whites are like a family.”

“Not the sort of family I’m talking about, with a mother and a father and at least one kid.”

“We could have a kid,” she pointed out. “It’s easily arranged. If that’s what you want, you know where the bedroom is.”

Dan’s thoughtful expression changed to one of anger and Honey knew that she had said the wrong thing. “Why can’t you ever understand what I really want?” he demanded. “You should know me better by now.”

“I do know,” she soothed, trying to hold back the tears that had sprung to her eyes. “I’m sorry. I was joking, but it wasn’t a very good joke.”

“You’re right: it wasn’t.” His shoulders were tense and he still had a wary look in his eyes.

She placed a hand on his arm. “I didn’t mean it, Dan. I’m really sorry.”

His eyes closed and the tension seemed to flow out of him. “I’m sorry, too. All this talk about my parents is making me remember things I’d rather forget. I shouldn’t be taking it out on you, though. I asked you to find this out for me.”

“I’m not doing a very good job of it,” she replied, with a rueful shake of the head. “I’m running in circles and not getting anywhere.”

He shrugged and pulled her into his arms. “Maybe it’s not important. Maybe I was being overly optimistic that you could find anything. Maybe you should just ignore me when I get these ideas.”

She shook her head. “I’m sure I’ll find something, someday. I just wish I could do something for you now.”

“It’s enough that you’ve tried,” he answered. “I’m still feeling a bit raw because of this, but it’s going to be okay.”

She took his hand and smiled. “It’s okay. Come to bed and see if we can make you feel better.”

Dan looked up and met her eyes for a long moment before nodding his agreement.

When they met together to share their discoveries, both Trixie and Honey were wearing discouraged expressions. They had chosen Honey’s place for this meeting and were sitting on the sofa, with their papers ranged across the coffee table while outside, cold rain beat down from a dismal, grey sky. Both women had further piles of paper in their laps.

“What did Brian say?” Trixie asked, as she tried to sort out her own mess.

Her best friend blew out an exasperated breath. “I hardly know. He talked for a long time, but it didn’t mean all that much to me. From what it sounds like, though, you’d have to be pretty stupid to accidentally wound yourself like that, but since we have no evidence on whether Reynolds was stupid or intelligent, I don’t know that it helps, much.”

“Even intelligent people do stupid things sometimes,” Trixie answered. “Maybe, if we can get something more on the missing object it will make more sense. How about Veivers? Anything new on him?”

Honey shook her head. “I’m at a complete stand-still on him. Any progress on the research on Dan’s family?”

Trixie tossed the pile of letters Dan had received down on the table. “We’ve got nothing. None of the certificates we’ve tried to get have turned up. We don’t have a marriage for Dan’s parents, or a birth for his father; all but one of the applications we’ve put in have come back with no result and I’m running out of ideas on where else to look for them. And, if the dates I got from Dan’s father’s death certificate are right, he was five years younger than Dinah, which knocks the school-friend theory pretty firmly on the head. But some of the details on their death certificates don’t seem to be right – if they were, we should have been able to get the other certificates.”

Her friend frowned. “That’s really strange. I wonder why that could be?”

“Well, for his mother, it’s not so surprising. The person informing of the death just plain didn’t know any of that stuff, so a lot of those parts are blank. For his father, it was his mother who filled out the form. You’d think she’d know, wouldn’t you?”

“Maybe. Unless she was so grief-stricken that she made a mistake.”

“Or unless she lied,” Trixie added.

“Why would she do something like that?” Honey wondered.

Trixie shrugged. “I don’t know, but it’s a possibility. Maybe she had something to hide – she did mention lies in her note.”

“If she did, it’s going to make it doubly hard to find out, I’d guess.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Trixie admitted. “If his mother was deliberately hiding something, we could be completely on the wrong track and how would we know?”

Honey sighed. “It’s times like this that I really wish I’d gotten the chance to meet her.”

Her friend gave her a sympathetic hug. “I know, Hon. I feel the same way about Jim’s parents – not yours, of course, but the ones he was born to. It’s hard to understand when you never knew them at all.”

“And Dan just doesn’t want to talk about them. I think he finds it still hurts too much.”

Trixie nodded. “Jim’s the same. Sometimes, he finds something good that he remembers, but mostly he just won’t say. He’s gotten a little bit better as we’ve researched his family together, but it’s still like pulling teeth trying to get information out of him.”

“You talking about me?” Dan asked, as he walked into the room.

Trixie shook her head. “The information-miser I was referring to is my ever-loving husband.”

Dan nodded. “I got another letter,” he told her, handing it over. “No certificate. Again.”

“Well, I’m stumped,” Trixie admitted. “That was the very last chance we had. I don’t know where your Dad came from, Dan. He just seems to have appeared out of nowhere. I don’t know where your parents got married, either. Though, are you sure they actually were married, legally?”

“Positive,” he replied. “They were real strict about those kinds of things. I know they were married, even though we can’t find a certificate.”

“Well, I can’t find any trace of either of them from before they got married until after the crime in Honey’s house,” Trixie told him.

“Don’t call it my house!” Honey objected. “There’s no way I’m buying it now. Wild horses couldn’t drag me back there after what we found out.”

“Whatever,” Trixie answered. “Anyway, I am completely out of options for finding out anything else. It’s going to take a lot of luck, or some new information from somewhere, to get past this roadblock.”

“Can you get anywhere on Dinah?” Honey asked, frowning at this set-back.

Trixie shook her head. “Not very far at all. There’s such a thing as privacy laws, you know. Since she might still be alive, there are a lot of things that I can’t get about her. What I’ve got isn’t telling me anything.”

“So, this is the end of the line?” Dan asked.

Trixie shook her head once more. “No; this is the end of this line of enquiry for the moment, though. We need to approach the problem from another angle and keep looking for that new information. The clue we need to solve this is out there somewhere, I’m sure. We just need to keep looking.”

“That’s not the answer I was looking for, Trixie,” Dan grumbled. “I’m ready to put this enquiry to bed.”

She gave him a sad smile. “I think we’re going to, pretty soon. I have just one last lead that I want to follow. I don’t think it’s going to get us a connection between your parents and Dinah, though; it’ll only clear up some of these other issues.”

“Well, don’t take to long on it,” he requested. “I don’t think I can take much more of this.”

Trixie gave his arm a squeeze. “If this one lead takes me somewhere, it will be over soon. If it doesn’t, I’m out of ideas. Either way, we’ll leave you in peace before too long.”

Dan nodded. “Good. I’m going to hold you to that.”

Continue to part five.