7.
It was almost evening by the time Jennifer’s parents arrived, though the heat of the day was still radiating from the sidewalks and pavements of the city. Stan steeled himself as he put his hand on the doorknob of the conference room at the station, where they were waiting.
Bob Chalmers was medium height, a bit overweight. Alison Chalmers looked like what you would imagine Jennifer would look like in twenty five years or so. They were both teachers at the same high school in the Pittsburgh suburbs, he teaching math and she biology. They both looked exhausted, but who wouldn’t be after driving six hours to attend to the affairs of a murdered daughter? “That would be enough to tire out Richard Simmons,” Stan thought.
They rose as they saw the two detectives enter. Barb hugged the mother as Stan shook hands with the father. “Please accept our condolences on your loss. It’s beyond what any parent should have to bear,” she told them.
“It’s a horrible crime and you have my commitment that neither of us, nor the entire Department will rest until Jennifer’s killers are brought to justice,” Stan added.
“Who would do such a thing in this day and age?” Bob asked.
“We don’t know,” Barb replied, “But anything you can tell us about your daughter, no matter how trivial you think it might be could help us solve this.”
She continued, “I’m sorry to have to say this, but we will want you to identify her. Her boyfriend, Brian Coburn, was positive it was her, but you are her next of kin, so, legally, we need you to confirm that. Once that’s done, we can release her name to the public and release the body to whichever funeral home you wish, here or in Pittsburgh.”
Mrs. Chalmers broke into sobs. Barb passed her a box of tissues. Stan waited until the mother had calmed herself. He offered them some coffee, which they declined. “Now I hope you won’t mind answering a few questions,” he said. “It will be extremely helpful in our investigation. The parents nodded.
“When did you last speak with your daughter? I mean by voice, not text or email,” Stan asked.
The Chalmers glanced at each other. “About a week ago,” Alison replied.
“How did she sound?” Barb asked.
“Normal, like always. She was planning to come to Pittsburgh in a couple of weeks.”
“What do you know about her boyfriend, Brian Coburn?” Stan asked.
“She liked him a lot. He was very kind to her, took her to dinner, bought her flowers. She was thinking of moving in with him in the fall. He worked for some tech company here, though I don’t know much about them.”
“But you haven’t met him?”
“No, not yet,” Alison replied. “They had only been going out for a couple of months.” Stan nodded at the confirmation of what Brian had told them. “She mentioned he might come with her to Pittsburgh if he could get a bit of time off work.”
“So no indications of anything wrong?” Barb asked.
“No, she seemed very happy. She loved school and was hoping to go and work in China. And it seemed Brian was someone who cared for her.”
“How were her grades?”
“Very good. She told us she had a 3.6 GPA.”
“But you didn’t see them?” Stan asked.
“No,” Bob replied. “She’s an adult and we don’t get sent her report card, but Jennifer was never a liar.” Stan was satisfied that was true, and they would confirm it with the school once they had the court order.
“I hate to have to ask this,” Barb said, “But any drug use, alcohol, unusual sexual activities?”
Alison looked a bit surprised and defensive. “Jennifer was never into drugs and didn’t drink much. And I’m not sure what you mean by ‘unusual sexual activities’.”
Barb paused a moment before replying, choosing her words carefully. “Given the manner of her death, we need to know if she was interested in S&M or anything like that.”
Bob Chalmers looked angry. “Are you suggesting that our daughter volunteered to be crucified? That this was some bizarre sex party that she was a willing participant in?”
“No, not at all,” Barb replied very calmly. “We just need to explore every avenue since we have so little to go on. We’re in the process of getting court orders for her phone and internet records, so we will see. She didn’t use either of your accounts, did she?”
“No,” Bob replied. “We’re in different states and she wanted to be independent as much as possible. She took care of that on her own.”
“Thank you so much,” Barb told them. “I know how difficult this is for you and you are both being so helpful.” Stan was impressed with his partner’s diplomatic skills. This was probably going better than it would have if Dick had been there instead of Barb.
“You mentioned that you haven’t had voice communication since a week ago, is that correct?” Stan asked. Bob nodded. “What about texts or emails?”
“We had a couple of texts over this past weekend.”
“Do you recall what they said?”
Alison dug into her purse and extracted her phone. “Give me a minute,” she said. Barb and Stan nodded. “Here’s the first one. It’s from Saturday, around 11 AM.”
“Hi Mom & Dad. Beautiful day here. Going for a run by the river,” it read. “I replied, ‘Enjoy!’ about two minutes later,” Alison explained, showing the detectives her reply. The second was from Sunday around the same time. “Off to lunch with Brian.”
“Was that the way she normally spoke?” Barb asked.
The parents looked at each other. “Sure,” Alison replied. “I mean it’s texts. You just say what you’re doing and then go do it, right?” Stan wondered if the people who had taken Jennifer had texted on her phone in her place, to make people think she was OK, or if they had forced or somehow convinced her to do it herself. He wasn’t sure they would ever know.
“And how often did you guys text each other?” Barb asked. “Was one a day on weekends normal?”
Bob answered. “If you’re trying to imply that we were estranged from our daughter, the answer is no. She was twenty, independent, living her life in the big city. If we had something to discuss, we discussed it. Recently, we didn’t have anything particular to talk about. Neither Alison nor I, nor Jen, for that matter, were big on idle chit-chat.”
“I apologize if you are offended,” Barb said. “I didn’t mean to suggest anything. We are trying to reconstruct her last days and need every piece of information we can get. Right now, we don’t know exactly when she was taken, so that makes it hard to compile a list of possible suspects. As you know, this case is quite unusual and that makes it hard to know where to begin.”
“We understand,” Bob replied, looking at his wife, who nodded to indicate her concurrence.
“One last thing,” Barb interjected, looking at Bob. “You haven’t been sick in the hospital the last several days, have you?”
Bob looked puzzled. “No, not at all. Why?”
“That’s what Jennifer’s texts to her boyfriend said, that you were in the hospital and she had gone to see you. That’s why he hadn’t been looking for her, he told us.”
“No,” Bob replied. “I’ve been fine. At least until we saw Jennifer’s picture in the news.”
“I understand,” Barb replied, standing up, “If you would be willing, we should go over and take care of the identification.” With that Alison Chalmers burst into tears again. Stan watched as Barbara comforted her and thought that perhaps Reggie hadn’t been so far off to have assigned a female detective to this case. Especially not one with the people skills of Barb.
The invitation was for "a drink" Goldman! Nothing more, nothing less. So don't get any wild ideas and wipe that shit-eating grin off your face!
Facial hair can be damn sexy .... 
... not necessarily 
