A Justified Murder, page 6
Kate leaned back against the couch. “Why are you home so early?”
“Let’s see. Two people came by the job site to ask if the Morris house was haunted. Four people arrived with cameras to ask me what Mrs. Beeson’s body looked like. That girl Britney showed up and tried to put her hand inside my shirt. And, oh yeah, Gil shot himself in the foot with a nail gun. I had to rush him to the hospital. And before you ask, he’s fine. His ego is more hurt than his foot.”
Kate gave him a look of sympathy. “Anyone at the hospital ask you questions?”
“No. They just took turns telling me what a wonderful person Mrs. Beeson was. She sorted out one doctor’s entire accounting system—for free. He sent her five pots of white orchids in thanks.”
“I guess we can cross him off the suspect list as having done something awful to her. How many people are still a possibility?”
“None,” Sara said. She’d left her writing room and sat down by her niece. “I talked to Heather. She spent the day doing deep research. She had her hair done at Best Day, looked at a Tiffany lamp at Out of the Attic, had tea at Mitfords, and... Ivy is going to kill her for this, but your mother spent an hour browsing at Caroleena’s Bridal Salon. And somewhere in there, Heather had a cozy, chatty lunch with the owner of Kendal Place Inn.”
Jack gave a low whistle. “Those are the gossip centers of this town. I owe her an oil change.”
“I sent your mom flowers as thanks and in sympathy.”
“Did anyone have anything bad to say about Janet?” Kate asked.
“Not a word. Just the opposite. She seems to have helped a lot of people. She was even nice to Eric Yates.”
Jack groaned.
“Tell me all,” Kate said.
“He’s the local Lothario,” Sara said. “Late sixties but thinks he’s twenty. Flirts with all the females who come into his drugstore. He told Heather he felt bad because when Janet first came to town, she thought he was serious when he suggested they go out together. She showed up on a Saturday night at seven, dressed up in a red suit and high heels.”
“Poor thing,” Kate said.
“Jerk!” Sara muttered. “He did that to me when I got back, only I was repulsed. You should see him! Cigarette-stained teeth, cheap toupee, a little belly that curves down like a sack of flour resting on his belt.”
Kate smiled. “That’s a vivid image. I hope Janet got angry and told him off.”
“Nope. Heather called a woman Eric said had been a witness. She said that when Janet found out his invitation was a joke, she was gracious. But Eric did say that Janet never returned to his store.”
“I don’t blame her.” Kate slipped off her shoes and put her bare feet on the coffee table. “What do you think Sheriff Flynn is doing now?”
“Talking on the phone,” Jack said.
“And you know this how?” Sara asked.
“One of the nurses at the hospital is a friend of Bea’s.”
“Who is Daryl’s right-hand man,” Sara told Kate.
“She runs the office,” Jack said. “She said Flynn is at his desk, no visitors, but he’s on the phone a lot. Not doing much of anything.”
“Which is probably why everyone is coming to us!” Kate said.
“Seems so,” Sara said. “How do we stop it?”
Jack looked across at the two women sitting side by side. “You mean other than by solving the crime? I don’t know and I don’t want to attempt it.”
They looked at Sara.
“I agree. It’s just that...”
“What?”
“I’m beginning to identify with Janet Beeson. Older people are all assumed to be senile and—gag me with a spoon—cute. I hate cute! Last week I called to make an appointment and the girl asked for my birth date. When I told her, she gasped. Then she started talking to me in slow baby talk because I’m—you know—on the verge of dementia. And someone my age has never used a computer. Certainly can’t work a cell phone. I wanted to—” Sara took a breath. “I just feel sorry for Janet, that’s all. No one seems to have seen her as a person, just an old woman—which of course means she was sweet.”
Jack stood up and held out his hand to Sara. “Come on and let’s have dinner. I vote that we send all that we have to ol’ Flynn and never think about any of this ever again.”
“Sounds good to me.” Kate looked at her aunt. “Where did you get those blue pajamas?”
“A company called PJ Harlow. I have a pair that I haven’t shortened the legs on. Want them?”
“Ooooh yes,” Kate said as they walked to the kitchen.
Behind them, Jack was smiling in fondness.
Five
THE DOORBELL BEGAN ringing at ten minutes after 1:00 a.m. Kate woke, pulled the cover over her head, and tried to block out the sound. Jack will deal with it, she thought. And why hadn’t the security men stopped whoever it was?
Last night they’d taken big platters of food out to the guards. At the far end of the property was a shed that Jack had remodeled into a little guesthouse. It had a living room/kitchen, bedroom/bath so the men could use that while they watched over the place.
The doorbell didn’t stop. It wasn’t frantic or hysterical, but slow and steady. Beeep, beeep, then pause and repeat.
Kate threw the covers off. “Please stop,” she whispered, then cursed Jack for having the house wired so the bell could be heard everywhere. “Why aren’t they getting that?”
The answer came to her immediately. “Because they’re waiting for me,” she muttered as she got out of bed. “One for all, all for one. No matter what time it is.”
She snatched up a robe Aunt Sara had bought in China and lent her—dark blue with pale blue peonies—slipped it over the slinky pajamas, and left her suite. Sure enough, Aunt Sara and Jack were standing in front of the closed door, just waiting.
“It’s the sheriff,” Sara said. “Thought you’d want to hear what he has to say.”
The doorbell was still going off as Jack looked the women in their silky jammies up and down. “Sure you two are well dressed enough to receive guests? I could wait while you do your hair. Or maybe your nails?”
“I could use some new polish,” Kate said.
Smiling, Sara nodded at Jack and he opened the door. Sheriff Flynn stood there in jeans and a blue cotton shirt. There were dark circles under his eyes and the lines radiating out the side of his face were deeper.
Jack stepped back and made an exaggerated gesture of entrance.
“Sorry for the late hour,” the sheriff said, “but I’m being watched closely. Not officially, but still... I sneaked out a second-story window to get here.” He held out his left hand, which was covered in blood.
Sara took over. She led him into the kitchen and held his hand under a stream of cold water. “Bandages are in the—”
“I know,” Jack said as he motioned for Kate to follow him. They went across the foyer to Sara’s bathroom. “What took you so long to get to the door?”
“The desire for sleep. And I thought you two could handle whatever it was.”
Sara’s bathroom was octagon shaped, holding two sink counters with lots of drawers beneath. A large glass-walled shower was at the end. To the left, a toilet and bidet were in their own room. On the right was a tub that had windows to a private garden.
Jack went to the drawer that held first aid supplies.
“What do you think he wants?” she asked.
“To tell us he loves us and misses us. The same as the others wanted us to know.”
She just looked at him, waiting for him to answer her question.
Jack handed her tape and gauze. “Flynn is going to do a sob story to try to get you and Sara on his side. He’ll do his best to drag us into this, but I don’t want us to have anything to do with it.”
“But he...” Kate began then stopped. “Aren’t we already involved? Can you get the sight of that body out of your mind? A knife and a gun, and—”
“I know!” Jack said. “That’s the point. Whoever did this is ruthless. And now he or she—”
“It’s a he. It has to be a man. It takes strength to—”
“Have you looked at those women at the gym? They have arms that make most men’s look flabby. They could easily use a knife and a—”
“I get it. You don’t need to be graphic.” She held up the tape. “We have to take this in there. Poor Sheriff Flynn looked like he was about to bleed to death.”
“And we wouldn’t want blood on your pajamas, would we?”
“You could give jealousy lessons to Kyle Nesbitt.” Kate left the bathroom, Jack close behind her.
“I bet his wife didn’t entertain visitors wearing her nightclothes.”
Kate clenched her teeth, then stopped and smiled. “I have on absolutely nothing under this. Just my skin.” Still smiling, she went to the kitchen.
Sara and Sheriff Flynn were in the family room sitting on the big sofa, sipping drinks and laughing. He had a couple of cartoon bandages on his hand.
“And Cal!” Sheriff Flynn was saying. “I thought he was going to kill Roy and Randal—and me—when they wrecked that old Jeep.”
“Ah,” Sara said, “the back seat of that Jeep! I lost it there. Lord only knows what Randal and Roy used it for. And you.”
“I’d have to forfeit my badge if I told the truth about those two, but Evie and I spent most of our senior year on those old springs. She said I gave her all my energy because she made straight A’s while I nearly failed everything. Old man Lakely was—”
“He wasn’t still there, was he? He was old in my day.”
“Still there, still telling us he was going to give a sex education class. But he didn’t know enough about the subject to tell us anything.”
“Cal’s Jeep should have been the guest lecturer,” Sara said and the two of them dissolved into laughter.
Jack had been waiting for them to finish their stories, but when he cleared his throat, they kept laughing.
Kate stood on tiptoe to whisper to Jack, “They’re talking about my father and yours.”
“The saint and the devil,” Jack said, then stepped forward. “Excuse me but some of us need to get some sleep. We have work in the morning.”
“Lot like his dad, isn’t he?” Sheriff Flynn said to Sara.
She laughed. “More so than he thinks he is.”
The two older people worked to get themselves under control while Jack and Kate—their faces disapproving—took the chairs across from them. Kate loudly dumped the medical supplies on the coffee table. “I guess you didn’t need these after all.”
Jack had no humor in his eyes. “You want to tell us what’s so important that you had to come here at this hour?”
Daryl rubbed his hand. “The cut wasn’t as bad as it looked. I always do bleed a lot. Anyway, I just wanted to know what you lot had found out.”
Jack stood up. “We’ll send you a report.” He was waiting for the sheriff to leave, but the man didn’t move.
Kate thought she and Jack must look like the parents while Sara and the sheriff were the naughty teenagers. Jack was still standing, and Kate looked around him. “You knew my father well?”
“As well as anyone could know someone like Randal Medlar. He was a difficult—Oof!”
Sara had elbowed him in the ribs.
“Randal wasn’t someone who confided in people,” the sheriff said. “Tended to keep his business to himself.” Daryl seemed to be uncomfortable with that line of questioning and looked up at Jack. “You planning to stand up through this whole thing?”
With his jaw clenched, Jack sat back down.
Sara, who had minutes before seemed like besties with the sheriff, turned cold eyes to him. “Tell us what you know.”
Daryl hesitated, as though he might refuse, but then he looked at their faces and took a deep drink of his iced tea. “No one in town really knew Janet Beeson. A lot of people could identify her, tell a story or two about a nice thing she did, but that’s about all. So far, no one has been able to find out where she came from or who the Mr. to her Mrs. is—or was.”
Kate looked at Jack and Sara. She wanted to say that they hadn’t realized they didn’t know those things. But she just nodded.
“It’s being treated as a possible serial killing,” Daryl said.
Involuntarily, Kate drew in her breath.
When everyone looked at her, she mumbled. “Sorry. Go on.”
“We don’t want the details to become public knowledge. People might get so scared that they close their houses with hurricane shutters,” the sheriff said. “We don’t want a panic.”
“Especially since the idea of a serial killer is absurd,” Jack said.
The sheriff leaned back against the pillows and smiled. “That’s just what I said, but no one listened to me. They’ve found a couple of murders in California that sort of fit what was done to Janet and they’re checking into them.”
They just looked at him.
“No comments?” he asked.
“How do you reply to absolute stupidity?” Jack asked.
Sheriff Flynn squinted at Jack. “How about coming up with some evidence that shows they’re wrong? What do you have?”
Kate looked at Jack and Sara and saw that they weren’t going to speak. “We’ve heard the same as you. Mrs. Beeson was a very nice woman who helped a lot of people. No one has a bad word to say about her. She even saved a girl’s life.”
“Britney Mason.” The sheriff was nodding. “Her parents were really grateful to Janet. They sent her lots of flowers as thanks.”
“And what else?” Sara asked.
The sheriff looked confused. “What else should they have done?”
“I don’t know,” Sara said. “A parade. Pay off her mortgage. If she’d saved my child...” She didn’t finish.
“I never thought of that,” the sheriff said.
“As usual, no one seems to have thought of actually repaying Mrs. Beeson,” Sara said. “She came in second in a contest and the winner gloated. Janet gave kindness in return. Her hair was dyed green and Janet was nice about it. She cleared up a doctor’s billing and he sent a potted plant. And Eric—” She closed her mouth.
“And those girls were monsters to her, but she saved a life,” Kate said.
“From what we’ve seen,” Sara said, “Janet had reason to hold grudges against several people, but not the other way around. And we’ve heard no motives strong enough for murder.”
“Who is it that you’re planning to arrest?” Jack shot out.
There was a quick look of surprise on the sheriff’s face, then he went back to showing nothing. “They found something but I don’t think it means anything.”
When he said nothing more, Sara said, “What was found?”
“I can’t tell you. I want to, but I can’t risk—” He stopped talking.
“Her connection to Sylvia Alden?” Sara asked.
The sheriff’s eyes lit up. “Exactly! In the last twenty-four hours I’ve heard her name a thousand times. I think she has something to do with this, but no one will listen to me. How do you think they’re connected?”
“That’s a question we should ask you,” Jack said.
“I got so sick of hearing her name that I called Sylvia’s family.” He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a piece of paper, and put it on the coffee table. “I knew her. She was a lovely woman, so tall and slim and gracious to everyone. She and Tom used to put on the best parties. The food... I always ate far too much.” For a moment he stared into the distance in memory. “Then Tom died and Sylvia withdrew into herself.”
Sheriff Flynn shrugged. “When Janet came to town, they started hanging out together, and that was the end of all Sylvia’s outside social life.”
“You think they were lovers?” Kate asked.
The sheriff gave a snort. “You young kids. It’s never friendship—it’s always sex. No, I don’t think they were.” He paused. “Evie said—” He looked at Kate. “She’s my wife. High school sweethearts.”
“With a penchant for the back seat of an old Jeep,” Kate said.
He looked at Sara. “She’s Randal’s daughter, all right. Doesn’t miss a thing. Anyway, years ago, Evie said that there was something unusual between those two. I asked if she meant a friendship bond. Evie said that whatever it was, it was very, very strong.”
“Have you recently asked her what she meant?” Sara asked.
“I did. She said it just seemed like Sylvia and Janet had to be together. Couldn’t bear to be parted.”
“What happened when you called Sylvia’s family?” Sara asked.
“It took a while to get to a person who knew her. I had to go through three household staff, all the way up to the butler. Who has a butler nowadays?”
No one answered him.
“So finally, I got Sylvia’s older brother on the phone. He was a real bastard. Very cold. Said that his sister had turned her back on her family when she married. And the way she’d passed was an embarrassment to them. He was going to hang up on me, but I asked if he could give me the name and number of Tom’s family. He said that they knew nothing about that man. Then he hung up.” Sheriff Flynn looked at them in silence.
Kate spoke up. “In essence, Mrs. Alden had no real family except her husband, and after he died, she had no one. Mrs. Beeson must have been a godsend to her.”
“Any children?” Sara asked.
“A daughter, Lisa. Married a lawyer named Wellman. They live in Boston, no kids. I didn’t contact her, but the fact that no one in Lachlan seems to have ever met the daughter says a lot.”
