Kim Again

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Kim was an outstanding teacher, mother, and citizen.  Her husband cannot offer anything when asked, "Do you know anyone who would want to kill your wife?"  I visited him since I knew the locals had their way with him early on after the murder. When a woman is killed, and you don't have answers, you always start with the husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, or ex anything.

These are standard, fruitful practices in many cases.

How often have you seen the spouse of a missing person engage in the search for them and say a few things to reporters and you, as a viewer? "He did it."

I spent a half hour with Mr. Risqua, and we had a beer. In my heart, he did not do this.

The kitchen was large, and Risqua showed me where the cassette player was. He added, "It looked old, perhaps from a yard sale."

As Strier told me, when we were bowling, the scuff marks were still on the floor. There was a rough but obvious circle, a line that skipped a bit, moved to another circle, and continued.

"Did you know Kim when she was in college?"

"No, I met her in Harvard Square in 1998; she was teaching and living not far from here. We had a Scorpion Bowl at The Hong Kong, and we became permanent from that night on."

"Except for job travel, we were together every night since."

He teared up a little, and I passed on my condolences again.

"Did Kim tell you stories about ex-boyfriends or guys she knew in college"?

Mr. Risqua laughed and said, "Early on, they had a "Body count" conversation, and he told me they each had the same number...three. I laughed and said that guys always lie about the body count, and I asked him if there was a chance her count was the result of fuzzy math.

I'm glad he had a sense of humor because I didn't know how to ask him about it.

He laughed and said, "I lied, of course; I was a Frat Guy and all that comes with it. I think she was honest. There was a high school guy, a college guy, and one guy, another teacher when she started working. Then I came along.

"I hope the police are looking at those individuals," I said

"Do you know anything about who they were?"

"The high school guy is in her yearbook, and I don't know anything about her College boyfriend or the teacher they dated."

"She said they went to Aruba together, had a difficult time, and broke up not long after the trip."

"Mr Allston, I believe her about it being only three." She was honest in her core.

"Did she ever speak about her guy in college?"

"She mentioned only once they broke up in her senior year when he started seeing someone else in her dorm."

"So there was heartache?" I asked

"We were drinking wine one night, deep into a bottle of Three Buck Chuck, and she brought it up and told me how the dorm mates were forced to pick sides." 

"You could tell Kim was hurt still."

"She said let's move on from the Jerry Springer crap."

I asked, "Did she have any friends from her dorm days with whom she stayed in contact?"

He told me "no," and Kim had never been to any reunions.

We left friends, and you could feel his pain. I thanked him, gave him my card, and asked him if anything had popped into my head. Could I ask him?

He said yes, please! I want that bastard dead, whoever he is.

Finally, some anger and forward direction. Tango and I will start looking at Dorm mates and what happened to split the house all those years ago.

Somewhere In New England On The Coast - Early Evening

I shared everything I knew about the case with Eve while we sat on the seawall. We split an Italian Sub and had a couple of Diet Cokes. Eve can be a profound thinker, and I respect her process.  

"The cassette thing is interesting, and  the dance thing is scary." "You have a nut job."

"I wonder what the Fed profilers are saying?"

"If I were on the case, I would look for the current connections of the three victims with old classmates at HFAC." 

"Why do you say that?" I asked

"Strier told you the music on the tapes was from the late eighties."

Eve's smart. I gave her a sloppier kiss than Tango ever could, and I'm sure I tasted like Mortadella, Salami, Prosciutto, Provolone tomato, onion, and olive oil.

We are on the same page. That's what she tasted like.