Kalikimaka Killer (Charlotte Gibson Mysteries Book 6) by Jasmine Webb

Author:Jasmine Webb [Webb, Jasmine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-11-29T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

The news on the criminal front went from bad to worse when I got home to a text from Dot.

Leon Chalmers seems to have gone to ground. I can’t get any sort of ping on him at all. His phones are off. Bank account and credit cards haven’t been touched. I’m afraid we’ll have to catch him the old-fashioned way.

I sighed and typed out my reply. Okay, cool. Stakeout it is, I guess. Should we give him a day or so to come back to his sister? Maybe head over to his place after the party? And of course, since this is on me, I won’t be offended if you tell me you don’t want to come.

I’ll come if you’re buying the pizza. But we’re not livestreaming it.

I chuckled at my phone. Deal.

Whether or not this was going to be easy, there was no way I was going to let Leon get away.

I slipped my phone into my backpack and jumped out of the car, just in time to see Jake emerging from the building.

“Just the guy I wanted to see,” I said brightly. “How did it go with my case?”

A slight frown crossed his features. “I looked into it, discreetly. Personally, I agree with you. I would have called for a suspicious death and gotten a medical examiner to do an autopsy. There was enough there, but of course, it means more paperwork in the week leading up to Christmas.”

“Nothing like letting a killer walk free because you don’t like filling out a PDF. Did you manage to get the call changed?”

“No. I spoke to my captain about it. He said he doesn’t want to make waves over there and that he’d call theirs, but he made no promises. I got word yesterday their captain backed up the original call their detectives made. Said there were no obvious signs of foul play and therefore no autopsy. Not unless the family want one.”

I bit my lower lip in frustration. Would Angela’s parents be up to that? I had no idea.

“Anyway, it turns out it’s too late, anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“Angela’s body was released to the family and cremated last night. You’re never going to get your proof she was murdered.”

My heart sank to the ground, hitting the concrete with a thud. “You’re joking.”

“I wish I was. If someone killed that woman, you’re going to have to get a confession. And you’re going to need irrefutable proof. It’s probably the only way you’ll ever get a conviction, since we won’t have any physical evidence she was murdered.”

“Cool. So now I need a motive, someone with the opportunity, two different poisons, probably, but I can’t know for sure because the body is gone. Easy peasy.”

“If only solving murders was simple.”

“Yeah. Well, I’ve solved harder than this before.”

Jack’s eyebrows rose skyward. “Have you?”

“No,” I admitted. “But there’s a first time for everything.”

“I admire your persistence. A lot of people would have given up when they found out the body was cremated and any chance of getting physical evidence of a murder disappeared.

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