The yellow tape flickered in the fans that shifted hot air violently from one side of the large, saw dust strewn room to the other. The glare from the portable workmen lights only increased as the sun sped down over the horizon. Saw horses were stacked against a far wall as the police officers and technicians gathered in front of the half removed center wall of the room.
The wall had separated a rather expansive kitchen from an even larger dining area that led to a surprisingly small study. The workmen had been challenged with removing the center wall to create an open view of the dining area so the kitchen could see the diners in the next room. The workmen had been sitting around sipping coffee for roughly an hour after the uniformed police had finished all their questions about the two large, clear plastic bags found in the wall. The plastic was especially thick and sealed air tight against the whole of the world.
The two bags each held a body. One body held a gun in its right hand. The other was the body of a woman. A woman with her head shaved bare.
The two detectives had finally arrived and dipped below the yellow tape and kicked up sawdust as they walked across the room. The older, slender detective growled for the fans to be turned off and spat out a bit of dust for all the trouble of opening his mouth. His younger, slightly plumper partner shook his head at the gruffness and the spittle and stepped up to the wall that almost wasn't any more.
"Not a damn bit of odor in the air. The bags seemed to be sealed. Air tight. Some sort of melting done to the edges. When the coroner cuts them open, I really don't want to be there."
The older man came up and ran his index finger and his thumb around the edges of the bag that held the woman. "Huh"
The younger man waited. It had taken him weeks to learn to be patient after those grumpy, "Huh's". Ask the obvious question and the old man would clam up. Doubt himself to the point of not wanting to say it out loud. But keep quiet. Be almost dismissive and he would hav
"That jacket. Men haven't worn that style in 20 years. Bet if you check the label, it will be a custom job out someplace in Italy or somewhere."
The younger man looked at the jacket with its single button on the front and the way it tapered to the waist. He knew the best way to get more out of the older man was to appear skeptical. But it was honest this time. High fashion? From 20 years ago?
"My first wife was a seamstress in Malaysia before she came to this country. She was something of an expert on fashion and the quality of fashion. Some of it rubbed off."
The younger man looked again at the older man's leather shoes and for the first time wondered if they might NOT be cheap knock offs.
"We need to find out who owned this house twenty of so years ago. The new owners obviously have nothing to do with it or they wouldn't have hired these folks to knock the wall down. Well, unless they were extremely stupid. Or they could be really smart and are counting on us to not look at them. Who knows."
Ah. Have to get him out of that rabbit hole. Brilliant man, but he was so open minded that he sometimes could not close it around the obvious. He was so paranoid about his own assumptions leading him past the truth. Get the facts. Reel him back in with the facts. A few taps on his hand held and his jaw dropped open.
"What?" asked the older man.
"Holy shi..."
"Language, John."
"This house, twenty years ago, this house was owned by Giovanni Farfenelli. And then his estate."
Both detectives stood silent and just looked at each other. It was left to one of the uniformed officers to state the obvious, "Are you saying we might have found the missing Farfenelli heiress? The one who has been missing for 18 years? The one that supposedly took all that money?"
End Chapter 7
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