Chapter 7

After a few weeks, Seiko was getting desperate, how was it possible that she couldn’t solve her first murder? She had numerous meetings with Jeff, but he couldn’t help her either. He just told her to calm down, that something unexpected would most probably pop up when they least expected it. Seiko was assigned a number of other smaller, less spectacular cases involving beatings even some attempted murders a lot of these as a result of domestic violence.

She kept on thinking and thinking and decided she had to go back to the basics, talk to all the people involved in these heinous crimes again, maybe focusing more on the why rather than on the how. Although there was one thing that bothered her enormously, the branding of the word whore on the forehead of both murder victims. On Rose, it was clearly branded letter by letter with an electric soldering iron, but on Kelly’s forehead, it looked quite different as if it was branded with a real branding iron, like the ones they use on cattle, this one with the word made in metal and then heated up, but with what? They hadn’t found anything that could have been used to heat up the branding iron, and the iron itself hadn’t been found either.

The theory of the pathologist was that the murderer had used a gas soldering iron, commonly used by plumbers to weld copper tubing. It was also clear that the murderer had something against lesbians, the question remained if it was someone who had a personal involvement with them or if it was somebody who just had something against Sapphic lovers.

She decided to go back to the retirement home where Kelly’s grandmother Dita was and have another chat with nurse Braxton who helped her to find Kelly’s real name. Maybe she could shed some more light on Kelly’s background. Rather than just drive up she called first, to make sure nurse Braxton would be there and willing to talk to her.

“Hello, can I speak to Nurse Braxton please?”

“This is Nurse Braxton, who is calling please?”

“Oh I’m so sorry, nurse Braxton, it is I, Seiko Tashima, I hope you remember me?”

“Yes, of course, I remember you, dear, you were the policewoman who came to see our dear Dita, was there anything else you wanted to know?”

“I was wondering if I could come by again and we could have a chat?”

“But of course dear, we haven’t seen Kelly for a number of weeks, so maybe you can tell me why, you see even though most of the time she doesn’t recognize her, Dita does miss the visits.”

“Thank you nurse Braxton, is this afternoon convenient for you?”

“Yes, I’m on duty till 6, so please feel free to come anytime before that.”

“Excellent I’ll be there around 1 if that’s convenient?”

“Yes, most of our residents will have had their lunch and will be resting, I’ll have time until at least 3 when we give them their afternoon cup of tea.”

“Thank you, nurse Braxton.”

“Alice dear, please call me Alice, I’m not a big fan of all those formal greetings and if you don’t mind I’ll address you as Seiko?”

“OK, Alice, and yes please do, thank you see you at 1.”

When Seiko arrived at the retirement home Alice Braxton was already waiting for her at the reception desk.

“Hello Seiko, please join me in the nurse’s station, can I offer you a cup of tea?”

“That would be nice, yes, and maybe you should have one as well.”

“Oh, why is it so bad what you are going to ask or tell me that I’ll need a cupper?”

“I don’t want to beat around the bush, so I’ll tell you straight away Alice, the reason you haven’t seen Kelly is because she’s dead.”

“Kelly dead, how come, she was a picture of health.”

“It has nothing to do with her health, I’m afraid she was murdered.”

“Murdered?”

“Yes and not in a nice way. I’ll spare you the gruesome details, but she was killed shortly after my visit to you, even before I had the possibility to meet her, and we still haven’t found who did it. We have an idea why, but not completely.”

“Oh my God, it’s not my fault that she was killed I hope?”

“No, no don’t worry the murder has nothing to do with you, but it is the main reason why I wanted to see you again, to try to find out some more about Kelly’s background.”

“Whatever you want to know I’ll gladly share it with you.”

“For starters, Dita is Kelly’s grandmother right?”

“Yes, she is.”

“What about Dita’s daughter, Kelly’s mother?”

“We were told she and Kelly’s dad died in a car crash.”

“So you don’t know anything about her?”

“That’s not what I’m saying, we have never seen her but we heard lots about her, both from Dita when she was still OK and also from Kelly of course.”

“Oh please do tell.”

“One afternoon, when Dita was sleeping Kelly told me the story of why her mother never came to visit Dita. Abuse was the keyword in this, you see Dita’s husband, Kelly’s grandfather had abused his daughter, Kelly’s mom, from an early age onward for many years, but Dita never believed her, or was afraid of her husband as I heard later, it seemed he had loose hands and not only for touching Dita and her daughter but also for hitting. And when Dita’s daughter became too old for his taste he made a move first on Lindsey, Kelly’s older sister, and then on her.”

“Kelly’s mom never forgave Dita for not interfering, but Kelly did after she had heard that her grandmother had been abused and beaten up by her husband if she dared to comment on his behavior, and that’s why Kelly kept on visiting her grandmother, seeing her also as a victim.”

“This explains a lot, it might also explain why Kelly turned lesbian.”

“Did she now? I never noticed it, but she was married wasn’t she?”

“Yes, but that didn’t amount to very much, in fact, it resulted in her husband also becoming a pedophile just like her grandfather. I don’t know if Kelly ever knew. At one point in our investigation, we even suspected him of killing Kelly, but unfortunately for him, that resulted in us discovering him as a sugar daddy to a 15-year-old girl, a friend of his niece, Lindsey’s daughter.”

“Now that I come to think of it did Lindsey ever visit Dita?”

“No, I didn’t even know that Kelly had a sister until she told me the story.”

“Did Kelly ever mention the name, Meredith?”

“No, I never heard that name, one day when I brought in the afternoon tea while she was visiting, I overheard her mention someone named Rose to Dita.”

“That was Meredith’s artist’s name.”

“Oh, and who was this Meredith or Rose them?”

“She was a very close friend of Kelly, in fact, she was Kelly’s lesbian lover as far as we know.”

“Now that you mention it, shortly after I heard that name Rose, Kelly was accompanied by another woman to visit Dita, but that only happened once.”

“Is this the woman who accompanied Kelly? “ Seiko asked, showing a photo of Rose she had on her phone.

“Yes, I think it was.”

“Was there anything else that you know about Kelly that could help us?”

“No I’m afraid nothing else comes to mind, it was only that one time that Kelly confided in me. It is so sad for Dita, even in her condition, that she will no longer get any visitors anymore, unless, of course, Kelly’s sister decides to forgive her as well after I tell her the whole story. Now that I know there is another relative, maybe I should give her a call if I can get her number?” She said while looking hopefully at Seiko.

“Yes that might be an idea, I do feel sorry for the poor woman, I’ll give you Lindsey’s number, but please don’t divulge to anybody you got it from me.”

“No, you can rest assured this will be our little secret, I’ll be very discreet.”

“Thanks, Alice for your help and candor in telling me about this dark family secret, I’m sure it will help us.”

“Any time, will you keep me informed if you are able to catch the murderer?”

“I don’t think I will have to tell you, I’m sure when we catch him it will be all over the papers.”

“Just for one murder? Murders happen almost daily.”

“No Alice it’s not one but two murders and believe me they were spectacular.”

Seiko now better understood why Kelly had turned lesbian but it would not allow her to solve the murders immediately. Unless a miracle would happen or an unknown witness would drop suddenly out of the sky and in a way it did a few days later, when Alice called her.

“Hello, Seiko?”

“Oh, hello Alice is there something else you thought of that might help me?”

“No, I would like to ask you a favor.”

“OK, as long as it does not involve giving you any information about the investigation.”

“No, no it has nothing to do with the investigation, you see I sometimes volunteer in a women’s shelter and I’ve been seeing some women who have been badly abused by their husbands, and I was wondering if you could do something about that.”

“If they come to the station and log a complaint we can do something about it, but if they don’t I’m afraid there isn’t much we can do.”

“These women are always very afraid, even when they are safe in the shelter.”

“I understand but again...”

“Couldn’t you please come to the shelter instead of them having to come to the station? I think that would help a lot to convince them to log a complaint.”

“About how many women are you talking?”

“Well, there are at least two who have been beaten up very badly, your know, broken bones, and stuff.”

“And when do you think we can see these poor abused creatures?”