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For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
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.
After relaxing for a while I called Trixie to see if she had found anything yet. “It’s only been 2 hours Steve,” she said, “this will take a bit more time to find out where they make most of their money. Their trading company is rather strange though. They don’t trade anything like I thought they might.” “Am I supposed to guess?” I asked, since she stopped talking right then, “Can I at least have a hint or two?” “What do people live in?” she asked. “Lots of things, but I will guess houses,” I said.
“Right! That’s what they trade,” she said, “but not permanent trades, they only trade for one or two weeks. Kind of gives people a vacation of sorts where they can live in a nice house, rather than a small hotel room. Only certain value houses are accepted in the system of trades. It also includes everything you need, including food and a maid/cook/companion.” “That last part sounded interesting,” I said. “Yeah, well, it seems only the husbands, or the wives, travel,” she explained, “but not both together.”
“Seems to me that wouldn’t be quite legal,” I said. “Well, it depends on how you list it,” she explained further, “they are very careful about that and this “maid” is only there for 8 hours during the day. They word it very carefully.” “So, they not only trade houses, but they trade spouses too,” I said. “Yep, that’s the way it works,” she said, “but they are only making about $1,000 per month for each of them.
However, their income is $12,000 per month for each. I still don’t know where they are getting all that extra money. But I’ll keep digging.” “Switch me over to Cristy please.” I said, “What have you found out Cristy?” “You have an appointment with Jacie’s parents at 9am tomorrow, at their home,” she said, “and an appointment with Dan at 11, at his home. There was no problem getting an appointment with either of them. Also, both Dan and Barry have a perfect alibi.
They were at a business conference in Vancouver when Jacie supposedly killed herself. They even showed up on security video from the conference and at the hotel where they stayed.” “Hmm, there goes our two prime suspects,” I said. “I am also sending you a copy of the coroner’s report. It didn’t help me, but maybe you will see something I didn’t.” It would be nice if these doctors would learn to speak English, but this time I was smart enough to bring our own doctor along, Samantha.
So, she looked at it for us and explained things for those of us not accustomed to such language. As it turned out, Jacie accidentally drowned in the bathtub which was evidenced by her lungs being full of dirty river water. She was found in the bathtub, by an unknown person, who called for an ambulance. The person was gone by the time the ambulance arrived. The caller was a male who used the home’s landline phone. No fingerprints were found on the phone, or anywhere else.
Kind of interesting that the police didn’t pick up on that water problem. I wonder if they kept a sample of that water? I called Cristy and asked her to check on that for me. It is unlikely they will let me see that sample anyway, if there is one, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. After settling into our hotel rooms, we still had time to head over to the hospital and check with the coroner about his report, sort of, in a sneaky kind of way. Jacie’s parents had called the coroner and gave us permission to see the body and get him to explain his report to us.
I just wanted to see how he would explain things compared to what Samantha said. She was with us as we went to see him. There was Samantha, Crystal, my wife and I. He introduced himself and I knew right away he was not the coroner who wrote the report. He explained that the original coroner was in a car accident yesterday and was now in a coma and likely wouldn’t live. A rather interesting coincidence I must say. I asked if they had taken a sample of the water found in Jacie’s lungs.
He said they did, but they didn’t keep it since the case was closed. I told him that made sense. He had gone to the original coroner’s office to find out which body was Jacie and when he came back we were told that the body had been picked up by the funeral home earlier that morning for cremation, which is what the parents wanted. I then thanked him and we left. Out in the car Crystal asked why I didn’t question some of the things that doctor had said.
“It wouldn’t do us any good Crystal,” I said, “they were ready with their lies and unless we put a gun to their heads we would never find out the truth. They are definitely lying to us since Jacie’s parents gave us permission to view the body, and they wouldn’t do that if they already had the body cremated. Someone is trying to cover up this murder, and we need to find out who, and why.”
“Could it have been something random,” asked Crystal, “like some guy breaking in to the house and found her, so he killed her?” “But don’t forget the river water in her lungs,” I said, “the river is a considerable distance from the house, so he/they would need a car to take her down there, drown her and bring the body back to put it in the tub.
That means two opportunities for people to see the person, or persons, involved. Why do that when they could have just drowned her in the tub?” “Oh, right, good thought,” she said, “guess I’m a bit tired.” “Yep, we all need to relax this evening,” I said, “tomorrow will be a busy day for us.”
To Be Continued. ©2025 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 