The Investigators, Inc. The Case of Jacie’s Murder. Chapter 3. Strange Things.

It was a nice, quiet night for us, something we don’t often get while on a case. However, this case hasn’t really started much yet, so maybe that’s why it was so quiet. After today things might be a bit different. I expect we will get some kind of a fire started today. We had breakfast in the hotel restaurant and discussed some of our plans for today. Some of the girls, namely Sky’s Bad Girls, will drive around the city a bit and see where Dan’s office is located.

They will also check for access sites to the nearest river from where Jacie lived. Even the nearest river is quite a long distance from their house. I still don’t understand why anyone would risk being seen twice by taking Jacie to the river, drown her there, then bring her body back home again and put it in the bathtub. Why not just drown her in the bathtub? It would be safer for the perpetrators, and faster. That part just didn’t make sense at all.

But maybe that is the point, to throw of anyone investigating and making it harder to find the murder, or murders. If someone was hired to kill Jacie, then it likely was a local individual. It didn’t make sense to hire someone from farther away, which would be more expensive, unless you have a prominent target in mind. But Jacie is young, not wealthy and her parents are certainly not wealthy either. Unless Dan and Barry were starting to move into someone else’s territory with their activities and they didn’t like that, so they might have been trying to send Dan and Barry a message.

One they would understand quickly. But that means that someone must have contacted them ahead of time giving them a warning first. Then when the warning didn’t work, they resorted to murdering Jacie. However, that is just an idea I had, not something based on any evidence. Hopefully we will learn more today speaking with Jacie’s parents, then later with Dan and Barry. I’m not really expecting to get much help from Dan and Barry though, but hopefully I will be wrong about that.

Well, our first stop for us this morning is meeting with Jacie’s parents, Peter and Laurie Boardman. There was Crystal, Sherry (our driver), Samantha, Brandy, Kitty (my new pretend wife, Jennifer decided it would be better to have a ghost as my wife, for safety purposes), and myself. Sherry would not be coming inside for the visit though, she would stay in the car and watch things. Brandy would also stay in the car, she is one of our best photographers and I want her to take photos of anything she considers interesting.

Like cars driving by slowly, especially if they are looking at the house. There ended up being two such cars, though one was a neighbor that just might have been a snoopy type. The other one was a new, black Mercedes, with dark windows. However, the one back window opened part way as they drove slowly past the house. The girls could only see one man in the back. He was wearing dark glasses and a black coat and hat.

Sherry thought he looked to be in his 50s, while Brandy said more like 35 to 40 years old. That didn’t help much. However, let’s back up a bit. We arrived at the house in an older neighborhood of the city. I had already asked if others could come with us to visit and they said yes. I rang the doorbell, but couldn’t hear it ring. “Maybe it doesn’t work,” said Crystal. I tried again, but still nothing. We were just 5 minutes early, so they should be home expecting us.

I then decided to knock and Peter answered the door quickly. He invited us in and we sat in the living room. They recognized Crystal right away and were happy to see her. She introduced me as her friend and boss and Kitty as my wife, plus Samantha as my personal doctor. “Did they let you see Jacie’s body?” asked Peter. I frowned a bit. “Um, we were told that the funeral home had picked up her body and cremated it according to your wishes,” I told them.

When Laurie heard that she nearly went hysterical, yelling, “They burned my poor baby!” Peter then told us they did not want a cremation, but wanted to bury her normally. He then called the funeral home who confirmed that Jacie’s body had indeed been cremated according to their wishes. They even had the papers they signed for that. He got in a little argument with the person from the funeral home saying they had not signed anything and they would sue the funeral home for such gross negligence.

While he was on the phone, I contacted Sienna and told her. She knew a prominent lawyer in Calgary and would get him to work on this right away. Someone didn’t want anyone to see that body. Was it even Jacie’s body? I talked with Cristy next and asked her if there was any photos of the body. “Yep, several of them Steve,” she said, “I will send them to you. Bridgette said it looked like she had been beaten before being drowned.”

Crystal had taken Laurie into the kitchen to get her something to drink and calm her down a bit. That gave me time to do my calling. “She was definitely beaten Steve,” said Samantha, “that is so obvious it should have led them to check and see if she had been raped as well.” “But they wanted this to be an accidental drowning in the tub,” I said, “or that she deliberately drowned herself. So why check for anything else? Someone is covering up this murder for some reason, but who is it and why?”

“That’s your department,” said Samantha. Peter then came back to us. By this time we could hear Laurie in the kitchen yelling and crying. “It’s that horrible Dan Giraud and his friend Barry, they killed my baby! She found out about him selling women for sex and they wanted her to join in and she said no! So they beat my baby and drowned her in the river! They murdered my poor baby and the police let them go free!” I sent Samantha in to help Crystal with Laurie.

“She is very upset by all of this,” said Peter, “Jacie was our only daughter. We have 5 sons, all older than Jacie and she was still living here with us. Laurie believes Dan and Barry took Jacie to the river and drowned her after beating her. It’s all in the coroner’s report.” “But she was found in the bathtub,” I said. “No, some people walking by the river discovered her body,” said a confused looking Peter, “why did you think she was found in the bathtub?”

“It was in the coroner’s report they gave us,” I said, “and we have photos they took of your daughter in the bathtub.” We showed him the photos and then he went and got their copy of the coroner’s report which was quite different than the one we were given. When Samantha returned I gave her the coroner’s report Peter showed us. “This is obviously the original report Steve,” she said, “it is written more like a normal report should be done.”

She told Peter she had given Laurie a mild sedative and Crystal took her to lie down for a while. We stayed and talked with Peter for about half an hour longer and then left. I did tell Peter that a good lawyer would be coming by to see him and would represent him free of charge if he wanted to sue the funeral home and the hospital/coroner and anyone else involved in this coverup.

He wasn’t sure if he wanted to do that though, it would be very hard on his wife. I could understand that, but the offer was there anyway. He thanked us and told me to feel free to ask them any other questions we might have. We then left and that’s when we found out about the Mercedes. This is not an ordinary murder, but what is it?

To Be Continued. ©2025 Steve McLeod.