The Case of the Drunken Heiress - Part 1

This week’s blog post will spotlight a mystery series called The Case of the Drunken Heiress by author Karen Carson. It’s presented here in five parts, the first of which can be viewed using the link below.

Karen has also provided the following comprehensive summary for reference. I think mystery fans will appreciate Karen’s textured characters and engrossing story. Enjoy!

SUMMARY EPISODES 1-5 OF THE CASE OF THE DRUNKEN HEIRESS

By Karen Carson

On the morning of the Boston Marathon, 25-year veteran and recent evening law school graduate, Detective Bahiti Patel, and weekend motorcyclist and doctors’ daughter, Detective Kenyatta Grossman arrive at the scene of the murder of Beacon Hill venture capitalist and Vice President of Malarkey Management, Ian Chenoweth. The Crime Scene Unit has found no entrance or exit wounds on the body but Viveca Chatworth--the nearly penniless heiress of a renowned publishing empire, and would-be stage and film star--sits beside him in shock, covered in blood, denying all memory of the previous evening.

Chenoweth’s friend and Treasurer of the Beacon Muse Condominium’s board association loudly and repeatedly shouts accusations at Viveca, insisting on her immediate arrest.

Legendary former attorney and police officer and speaker, and now private eye, Dr. Blaise Washington--100 years old but a dead ringer for the much younger Denzel Washington--enters, holding a gun, previously wiped clean of fingerprints.

How did Ian Chenoweth die, and why?

Dr. Washington and Detective Grossman play pool at Beantown Pub while they discuss the Chenoweth case. Over a Reuben sandwich, a side order of sweet potato fries, and a craft beer, they exchange notes on Colin O’Shea who is also an ecological consultant. Leo Manfredi, a part time law student and assistant to Barbara Salerno, President of the condominium’s board association, brings a copy of the minutes of the last board meeting minutes, and the financial report that shows a large deficit. Those documents and a copy of a $100,000 check from Massachusetts Solar Panels made out to Colin O’Shea, add to mounting incriminating evidence against him.

Armed with a subpoena, Detectives Bahiti Patel and Kenyatta Grossman search Viveca Chatworth’s condo while she is out. Sifting through a decades’ worth of hoarding books, tapes, Broadway cast albums, designer clothes, tapes, CDs, and other theatre paraphernalia, they discover a 40-year-old letter Viveca wrote to her estranged husband, Dean Donohue, that would change the course of their young lives. Fluent in several languages, Detective Grossman is able to translate court documents written in French, detailing charges against Viveca for an alleged theft from the Tati department store in Paris when she was twenty years old.

Viveca goes to Roxbury to the YWCA where Dean is director, and convinces him that she is not the murderer and needs his protection.

Meanwhile, in the Boston Public Gardens, Dr. Washington meets Smita Joshi, an MIT student and nanny to Colin and Lydia O’Shea, who reveals her boss’s gambling problem.

Back at the Beacon Hill Police Precinct, neighbor Lucia Pennbridge, tells Lieutenant Sokanon Smith that she witnessed Colin and Viveca arguing after the last board meeting.

Lieutenant Sokanon sends Detectives Patel and Grossman to Colin O’Shea’s consulting firm to arrest him. Knowing Viveca has been in contact with Dean, Detectives Patel and Grossman question him further at his students’ basketball game. When Leo Manfredi, who came along to see the game, talks admiringly of Dr. Washington, Detective Patel storms off, later revealing to his partner a surprising side of Dr. Washington that no one else is aware of.

Detective Kenyatta Grossman and her husband Joe Della Paola take their foster dog, Arya, to a Medford donut shop for the dog’s favorite breakfast: lightly-buttered toast. For her birthday, the couple see a sci-fi movie, get massages, go to the Tufts Gallery to see Detective Patel’s paintings, then drop their dog off home and pick up their motorcycles. They ride along the river and to a favorite restaurant for lunch, then catch Frankie Valli at a local theatre later that evening.

The next day, back at the police station, Lieutenant Smith interrogates Colin O’Shea in one room while Detective Grossman interrogates Viveca in another room.

At the 15th precinct, Captain Cherry Gottlieb, Dr. Washington’s protege and former partner--discuss her retirement party and evidence she has found on the Chenoweth case that takes it in another direction. Dr. Washington reveals a secret that he has kept for some time.

At the Beacon Hill squadroom, the detectives and Lieutenant Smith review new evidence, He sends them to arrest the suspect.

To read part 1, click here!
To read part 2, click here!

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Christopher Robinson

Days of Gods and Games

Continuing my examination of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, this week’s post sees another great gargantuan of Greece— the Statue of Zeus at Olympia.

The Greek sculptor Phidias, already renown for his earlier work, the Statue of Athena Parthenon, appropriately crafted his new 40-foot statue in the Temple of Zeus utilizing cedarwood, ivory, gold and ebony.

Seated on an opulent black marble throne, the god of sky, thunder and weather held a second statue in his hand, that of Nike, goddess of victory. In his other hand, he held a staff with a perched eagle. Allegedly, the statue had to be continually covered in olive oil as a safeguard from elemental erosion(!) The Temple of Zeus itself was located in Olympia, then controlled by the city-state of Elis, where every four years, fans congregated to witness its famed athletic games.

After eight years of construction, Phidias completed the statue in 5th Century BC which attracted awestruck onlookers from across the globe and dictated Zeus’s popular image in art, poetry and culture for centuries.

In 426 AD, the temple was destroyed in an earthquake but not before being desecrated and neglected by Roman emperor Theodosius I who banned all pagan cult activity, thus sidelining the Olympic Games for a spell.

But what became of Zeus? No longer a feature of the temple by the 6th Century, the statue of Zeus (formerly) of Olympia had seen renovation and subsequent relocation to Constantinople where anything from a tsunami, earthquake or fire may have claimed it.

That which we know of the majestic Statue of Zeus comes chiefly from its depiction in ancient art and coins. The timeline of its construction might also be a mystery were it not for the discovery of Phidias’ workshop in the 1950s. Little by little, discoveries of the such help us uncover the answers to the same age-old questions— When... where... how... and why?

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Christopher Robinson