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Authors: Stephen Kaminski
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say?” asked Toma.
“He said that after he paid off all of the loans, he could probably settle on writing Clara a check for a hundred thousand.”
Clara tried in vain to suppress a smile.
“Well, between that and the hundred and fifty thousand you should be getting from Tabby’s estate, you’ll be sitting pretty,” said Toma.
“I suppose,” replied Clara who was unable to hide a look of satisfaction. “Once the police let us leave, I just want to get back to Richmond and forget all about it.”
“And then maybe we can work on getting married,” said Jordan.
Clara shot him a doleful look, but Jordan didn’t appear to notice and began to caress her hand.
“Maybe now I can move on, too,” Toma said. “I just couldn’t get past Tabby’s accident while that man was alive.” Toma inflected an air of disbelief into the word “accident.” He glanced at Damon and quickly changed topic to an indictment of the roadwork crews along the I-95 corridor.
Damon came away from breakfast with two distinct impressions. The first was a confirmation of his earlier suspicion that Dr. Jordan Hall was far more interested in Clara than she was in him. Only Jordan didn’t appear to be privy to her thoughts. The second was that Toma held a grudge against his former brother-in-law.
Damon considered Tabby Jovanovic’s accident. Jim Riley said the police believed it was a hit-and-run. But Toma hinted that perhaps it hadn’t been an accident after all. Could Lirim have been cold enough to cause the accident himself? It seemed far-fetched, but would explain Toma’s attitude toward Lirim and provide Toma a motive to strangle his brother-in-law. Of course, if Lirim ran into his own wife’s car, he risked killing himself as well.
At home, Damon left Gerry Sloman a voicemail. Damon still had a few hours before set-up began for that evening’s Fourth of July party. He decided to try his hand at amateur detective work. He could use his Lexis account at the library to search newspaper databases for records of Tabby’s accident.
The small cedar planked building in Hollydale was a mile and a half from the main county library and served a committed cadre of neighborhood residents. A large open second story regularly played host to local school groups and parent-and-baby reading sessions. But early Friday afternoons were quiet. Damon said a brief hello to Mrs. Stein who was staffing the front desk. He sat in front of one of the three reference computers.
Damon quickly found three hits for Tabitha Jovanovic in Morgantown’s Dominion Post. The first referenced Tabby as a volunteer at a local hospital fundraiser.
The second was an account of her accident and death. The newspaper dated back a year and a half, to December. Tabitha “Tabby” Jovanovic was found deceased in an older model forest green Chevy Cavalier. The airbag had deployed, but local sheriff’s deputy Jasper Horton stated that the brunt of the impact took place on the front driver’s corner and Ms. Jovanovic had not fastened her seat belt, effectively rendering the airbag useless. In his opinion, the collision killed her instantly. Tabby was found at 5:42 a.m. by a local man, Mr. Simon Chenter, driving along a rural wood-lined gravel road on his way to work. Mr. Chenter observed its tail end in the ditch with the car’s nose pointing face forward on the road. The position was consistent with a front end hit-and-run, said Deputy Horton. Black paint was visible on the crushed Cavalier. The police were looking for a black vehicle with significant front end damage. The article was silent on the reason for Tabby’s late-night excursion.
The final Dominion Post newspaper article on Tabby was a follow-up three days later. It provided information on an upcoming funeral, contained a brief quotation citing the deceased woman’s virtues from the “widower, Lirim Jovanovic,” and stated that the police had no leads on the identity of the hit-and-run driver.
Damon
“He said that after he paid off all of the loans, he could probably settle on writing Clara a check for a hundred thousand.”
Clara tried in vain to suppress a smile.
“Well, between that and the hundred and fifty thousand you should be getting from Tabby’s estate, you’ll be sitting pretty,” said Toma.
“I suppose,” replied Clara who was unable to hide a look of satisfaction. “Once the police let us leave, I just want to get back to Richmond and forget all about it.”
“And then maybe we can work on getting married,” said Jordan.
Clara shot him a doleful look, but Jordan didn’t appear to notice and began to caress her hand.
“Maybe now I can move on, too,” Toma said. “I just couldn’t get past Tabby’s accident while that man was alive.” Toma inflected an air of disbelief into the word “accident.” He glanced at Damon and quickly changed topic to an indictment of the roadwork crews along the I-95 corridor.
Damon came away from breakfast with two distinct impressions. The first was a confirmation of his earlier suspicion that Dr. Jordan Hall was far more interested in Clara than she was in him. Only Jordan didn’t appear to be privy to her thoughts. The second was that Toma held a grudge against his former brother-in-law.
Damon considered Tabby Jovanovic’s accident. Jim Riley said the police believed it was a hit-and-run. But Toma hinted that perhaps it hadn’t been an accident after all. Could Lirim have been cold enough to cause the accident himself? It seemed far-fetched, but would explain Toma’s attitude toward Lirim and provide Toma a motive to strangle his brother-in-law. Of course, if Lirim ran into his own wife’s car, he risked killing himself as well.
At home, Damon left Gerry Sloman a voicemail. Damon still had a few hours before set-up began for that evening’s Fourth of July party. He decided to try his hand at amateur detective work. He could use his Lexis account at the library to search newspaper databases for records of Tabby’s accident.
The small cedar planked building in Hollydale was a mile and a half from the main county library and served a committed cadre of neighborhood residents. A large open second story regularly played host to local school groups and parent-and-baby reading sessions. But early Friday afternoons were quiet. Damon said a brief hello to Mrs. Stein who was staffing the front desk. He sat in front of one of the three reference computers.
Damon quickly found three hits for Tabitha Jovanovic in Morgantown’s Dominion Post. The first referenced Tabby as a volunteer at a local hospital fundraiser.
The second was an account of her accident and death. The newspaper dated back a year and a half, to December. Tabitha “Tabby” Jovanovic was found deceased in an older model forest green Chevy Cavalier. The airbag had deployed, but local sheriff’s deputy Jasper Horton stated that the brunt of the impact took place on the front driver’s corner and Ms. Jovanovic had not fastened her seat belt, effectively rendering the airbag useless. In his opinion, the collision killed her instantly. Tabby was found at 5:42 a.m. by a local man, Mr. Simon Chenter, driving along a rural wood-lined gravel road on his way to work. Mr. Chenter observed its tail end in the ditch with the car’s nose pointing face forward on the road. The position was consistent with a front end hit-and-run, said Deputy Horton. Black paint was visible on the crushed Cavalier. The police were looking for a black vehicle with significant front end damage. The article was silent on the reason for Tabby’s late-night excursion.
The final Dominion Post newspaper article on Tabby was a follow-up three days later. It provided information on an upcoming funeral, contained a brief quotation citing the deceased woman’s virtues from the “widower, Lirim Jovanovic,” and stated that the police had no leads on the identity of the hit-and-run driver.
Damon
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