“It doesn’t have a nice ring to it for Jeff,” I pointed out. “Cause if Novio Bosiaki hadn’t plied his favorite trade, that young man would still be alive today.”
“Where did he find this hitman?” asked Brutus.
“The internet, where else?” I said.
“Craigslist?” Harriet ventured.
“Not exactly. Some obscure website on the darknet.”
“Why is it called the darknet, Max?” asked Dooley. “Is it because Mr. Bosiaki likes to work in the dark?”
“Something like that,” I said with a smile.
We were on the porch swing in Marge and Tex’s backyard, while our humans were whiling away the time by enjoying a wonderful feast. Tex was behind the grill, as per usual, and for once the barbecue was fully dry: no alcohol was being served. Not at our request, mind you, but at Gran’s. She felt that if she and Scarlett and Tex were goingto stand a chance of breaking their record number of days without imbibing their favorite alcoholic beverage, they needed a little support from their family and friends. For it’s hard to stay sober when everyone around you is swigging the good stuff by the gallon.
“Okay, so why did Ian Stewart kill Jeff?” asked Harriet. “I thought he loved his son-in-law?”
“Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t, but what he didn’t like about Jeff was that he was French. Not in the sense that he was a Frenchman, but that he was taking Steph and their little girl to go and live in France—permanently. Ian and Raimunda wanted Steph in Hampton Cove, but even more than Steph, they wanted Zoe to live nearby, so they could see her all the time. You see, from the moment Zoe was born, Ian and Raimunda simply couldn’t bear the thought of not having access to her all the time. They suspected that Kevin was gay, and very likely wouldn’t be able to give them a grandchild. And Steph already told them that she and Jeff had decided to have just the one kid. So Zoe was all they had.”
“Surely no grandparent is crazy enough to kill their son-in-law just to make sure they have access to their grandchild,” said Harriet.
“In Ian and Raimunda’s case, they were that crazy about Zoe. From the moment that little girl was born they loved her with all their hearts, and decided that nothing and no one would come between them—not even Steph or Jeff.”
“That’s just nuts.”
“Sometimes the love of a grandparent for their grandchild is nuts.”
After Ian’s arrest, a forensic investigation of his phone and computer revealed deleted email and text message exchanges between Ian and Novio Bosiaki. Detailed instructions on how to reach Jeff and the best way of disposing of him. And ways to make it look like a murder-suicide, though that hadn’t worked out so well in the end. When Jeff had arrived at Cipriana’s flat, she’d already been knocked out by the GBH the hired killer had administered—having forced her to swallow it down in a cup of coffee. Then when Jeff arrived he’d forced him to lie down on the bed and shot him, staging the scenario he and Ian had dreamed up.
Novio Bosiaki’s picture had been shown to the witness, and this time the old lady had confirmed that this was the tall man she’d seen entering the building.
“But why murder Jeff’s parents?” asked Harriet. “That makes no sense.”
“Oh, but it does, from Ian’s warped point of view,” I said. “You see, earlier that evening Steph had told her parents that she was planning to move to France with Zoe. That she wanted to pursue a career in fashion design and live in the apartment that Jeff’s parents had bought for them. And so Ian decided that David and Pauline had to die. He contacted Novio and made sure that the couple was drugged and would put up no resistance when the killer strangled them in their bed. He was going to string David up against the door, making it look as if he’d strangled Pauline first, then committed suicide by hanging.”
“We got there just in time,” said Dooley, who had been greatly impressed by the whole thing. “If not for Max, they would both have been dead as a doornail.” When he realized hisfaux pas he quickly put a paw in front of his mouth.“Oops.”
“Was Ian also involved in this slander business that cost Steph two jobs and Jeff the inheritance from his godmother?” asked Harriet.
“Yes, he was,” I said. “When he heard about the WelBeQ job offer, he asked Novio to send those emails, which wasn’t hard, since Ian had plenty of pictures of his daughter to choose from. Novio then contacted a computer hacker associate, who set up the campaign. Same thing with the Paris job, and the Paris apartment.”
“Anything not to have Steph leave the country,” said Harriet, nodding.
“Steph, but even more than Steph his granddaughter Zoe,” I said.
“So… how involved was Raimunda in Ian’s plans?” asked Brutus.
“Now that,” I said, “is a tough one to answer. Personally I think she must have known. Maybe even helped set up that smear campaign. But unfortunately we have no way of proving it, and Ian isn’t talking, and neither is Raimunda.”
“So she’s going to get away with it?” asked Harriet. “That’s not okay.”