Dead Astern by Jenifer LeClair

Author:Jenifer LeClair
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: woman sleuth, sailing, new england, coast guard, windjammers, maine islands, maine state police, agatha christie style mystery, boothbay harbor maine, isabella stewart gardner museum art heist
Publisher: Jenifer LeClair

Chapter 22

Brie punched in the number for the Bangor Police and sent the call. Dispatch answered, and she asked for the detective division.

“Detective James Wallace here.”

Brie identified herself as Maine State Police and gave her badge number. She told Wallace they were investigating one Lyle Jarvis in a homicide case. “There’s no record at NCIC, so he hasn’t been convicted of a crime, but he grew up in Bangor, so we’re checking to see if he’s ever been brought in on anything.”

“Let me see what I can pull up, and I’ll call you right back.”

Within five minutes her phone rang.

“You’ve hit pay dirt with this guy, Detective Beaumont. He was involved in a terrible crime twelve years ago. He was eighteen at the time. I’m patching you over to Detective Dan Branch, who was the lead on this case. He can fill you in.”

Branch came on the line and greeted her. “So, Lyle Jarvis has resurfaced. I figured it was just a matter of time.”

“I’ll fill you in briefly, Detective Branch,” Brie said. “It’s an odd case, unfolding in an even odder location.”

She told him about Peter Bendorff and his relation to Jarvis, and filled him in on the faked suicide and the subsequent murder aboard Maine Wind.

“Jarvis is the prime suspect. I’d say he’s got BPD—Borderline Personality Disorder. He hated his uncle, and after interviewing him, I got the sense that something bad had happened in his past. Maybe something the uncle extricated him from. Since then, Peter Bendorff, the uncle, has kept a Nazi-like boot on Jarvis’ life, and Jarvis hated him for it.”

“Your instincts are good, Detective Beaumont. You’ve sized the situation up perfectly. Twelve years ago, Lyle Jarvis was a suspect in a truly heinous crime—a rape-slash-homicide. The uncle lawyered him up with a top-notch defense attorney. There were two juveniles involved. We never thought Jarvis had anything to do with the rape—we collected DNA evidence that led to the arrest of the other kid, but the manner of death was the real enigma.

“The girl drowned, but fortunately the current carried the body to shore, where it snagged and was spotted soon after she died. There was still DNA under her fingernails, which led to the arrest of the other guy, one Thomas Beloit.

“The girl had suffered blunt force trauma to the head, either from being struck or from falling and striking her head. But that head wound was not the cause of death, and when we located the crime scene, we found a rock near the shore with blood on it that matched the head trauma. Two theories unfolded. Either the girl got up, disoriented, and fell into the river

—the case the defense made—or she struck or was struck on the head, rendering her unconscious, and either Beloit or Jarvis put her in the river.”

“Did you check for DNA on that rock?” “We did, but it was inconclusive.”

Brie thought about Jarvis’ professed hatred of the water, and she remembered his odd behavior on deck the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.