The penny dropped—he knew why there had been a hint of recognition of the woman in the photograph that Juliette had discovered at Alice and Jan’s house—Morton had seen her in the Barnacle year book. ‘Laura Chipman?’ Morton interrupted.
‘Yeah, that’s her,’ Jack said with a look of surprise. ‘You know her?’
‘I just stumbled upon her in the course of my research.’
‘Oh, I see,’ he laughed. ‘Yeah, she’s amazing. We’ve got one son, George—named for my grandad.’
He had a brother…The revelations were coming thick and fast—too fast for his mind to keep up. Rafts of questions kept springing up, before being replaced, unanswered with another.
‘I’m now a professor, teaching forensic archaeology and Laura is an obstetrician.’
‘Forensic archaeology?’ Juliette said. ‘What does that involve?’
‘Using and applying archaeological techniques to forensic investigations. I used to work closely with the police department in all kinds of situations: homicides, identification at mass fatalities, cold cases... Now I mainly lecture, although I do get dragged back on occasion.’
‘Sounds more gruesome than my job as a police officer,’ Juliette noted.
‘Gruesome but rewarding,’ Jack answered, before facing Morton. ‘You know what got me started?’
Morton shook his head.
‘The fire. There were some pretty suspicious circumstances going on there and I just couldn’t let it go.’
‘I thought it was accidental—caused by the Christmas tree lights?’ Morton countered.
‘Yeah—that was the official verdict. Afterwards, I became more and more convinced that my dad had started it deliberately. From out in San Francisco I made some discreet enquiries. I contacted the Chief Medical Examiner, who issued me my dad’s autopsy report, which obviously didn’t make a great deal of sense to me, so I took it along to the university and spoke to one of the professors there and I ended up joining his course. The fire became my pet project throughout the degree.’
‘And did you find evidence that it was deliberate?’
Jack nodded. ‘Yeah, I did.’
‘But why?’ Juliette asked.
‘Because my dad was still married to his first wife and she was threatening to expose him—’
‘What? But I found records for the divorce,’ Morton interjected.
‘She—his first wife, Audrey, refused it. He bigamously married my mom.’
‘And so he started the fire deliberately and killed himself?’ Morton questioned.
‘No,’ Jack replied. ‘The autopsy notes showed evidence that his neck had been broken before the fire. The Chief Medical Examiner had dismissed it since most of his bones were broken by the house falling on top of him.’
‘You’re saying he hanged himself?’ Morton asked.
‘That’s right,’ Jack confirmed. ‘The more time has passed, the more cases I’ve worked on, the more certain I am about it. It’s really hard for me because in the months leading up to the fire, we weren’t on good terms and I blamed him for a lot of things that weren’t actually his fault.’
‘So, if he’d killed himself, then who started the fire?’ Juliette chipped in.
‘Your mum,’ Morton answered for him.
Jack nodded. ‘I think my dad killed himself because of what I was finding out about his past. I think he thought it was a way to draw a line in the sand and finally put a stop to it all. My mom found his body in the basement, then she started the fire to cover up his suicide.’
‘Wow…’ Morton said.
‘Yeah,’ Jack agreed. ‘And that’s not all. It got me thinking about my dad’s first wife. She died in 1954, along with her daughter, Florence and her lover—a guy called Dwight. They were also killed in a fire.’
‘What?’ Morton stammered, struggling to take in this latest information, and fearing where his line of thinking was taking him.
‘It took a while after I finished college and built up some contacts in the police and fire departments and with local coroners, but I was able to get hold of the original reports into the fire. The verdict was inconclusive but one theory was that it started with an electrical heater in the basement. It was the middle of the night and the three bodies were discovered in their beds.’
‘Oh my God,’ Juliette mumbled. ‘You think that was her, too?’
‘Well, let me tell you this: the fire happened a week after my mom and dad were discovered by a private investigator that Audrey had hired to bring him to court to face charges of bigamy.’
‘You’re saying your mum started that fire, knowing that it would kill the three of them, including a child?’ Morton said.
Jack nodded solemnly.
‘Could it not just be a coincidence?’ Juliette ventured.
‘I don’t believe in coincidences,’ Jack replied.
‘Neither does he,’ Juliette said with a nod towards Morton.
‘I didn’t want to just jump to that conclusion, I really didn’t. My own mom starting a fire that could have killed us all was one thing, but this was something completely different. So, I did more research. According to their neighbour at the time my mom went into a private hospital in Boston for two weeks suffering from bleeding in the early stages of her pregnancy with Alice. My dad drove her to the hospital for complete bed rest, picking her up again two weeks later.’
‘Giving her just the right amount of time to cross the country…’ Morton said.
‘Exactly the right amount of time, when you plot possible bus and train routes that she would have taken,’ Jack said. ‘I also found some witnesses and possible sightings along the route, but still it was circumstantial. Then I made enquiries at the hospital in Boston and they had no record of her ever having stayed there. In fact, nobody at all was admitted during that two-week period.’
‘Wow…’ Morton breathed.
‘Sorry,’ Jack
