A Justified Murder Read online

Kate was still standing by the open door wearing a look of disgust. It was deeply annoying that they’d known she was going to go to the house. Especially since she hadn’t decided until the last minute.

  Jack and Sara were standing there grinning at her.

  “We get the books, then we’re done, right?” Kate said.

  “Of course.” Sara filled Kate’s big bag with all the Amanda Martin books, then began taking photos. This time she opened closets and cabinet doors and even drawers.

  When they finished, they went outside and Sara took pictures of Sylvia and Janet’s garden. Jack held back shrubs as Sara photographed the area around the tall fence.

  “I bet this is where the kids’ soccer balls came through,” Sara said. There was a four-foot-deep planting of perennial flowers against the wall-high fence. A ball hitting them would destroy the delicate stems.

  Kate was looking around the beautiful garden and at the lovely house. “I don’t get it. Sylvia had all this and a successful career and people who loved her. Why did she kill herself?”

  “Writers have a lot going on in their minds,” Sara said. “It makes us ecstatic and miserable at the same time. We crave the ordinary but we also hate it. I’m afraid that I can understand suicide very well.”

  Jack and Kate had no reply to that. She looked at her watch. “I think we should go. That gate was opened for a reason and I don’t think it was for us. I wouldn’t want to be caught here. Do you think they’ll notice that the books are missing?”

  “Only if their records say that the California serial killer stole paperback novels after he did his business.” As Jack looked at the house, his anger began to rise. “Suicide, murder. I don’t think we’ve accomplished anything so far. But I’m sure Flynn and his entourage are going to arrest someone soon. I need to go back to work. If Gil comes back today, somebody has to be there to protect him.”

  “You’re sure he hasn’t said anything to you about why he’s so upset?” Kate asked.

  “Are you asking if Gil told me that his son’s mother is threatening him? Or that he needs a half mil or so to pay her off? Or that he killed Janet Beeson in a really nasty way so no one would suspect him?”

  Kate ignored his sarcasm and glared at him.

  “No. Nothing. Not a word. Today when Gil picked up a Skilsaw I took it from him and he got angry. Yelled at me. Gil never yells at anybody. I put on my best caring look and asked him to tell me what was wrong. He said...” Jack looked at the women. “And I quote, he told me that I wasn’t his, uh, f-ing therapist and I could mind my own f-ing business. Then he got in his truck and spun out so fast two of my men got hit with gravel. So no. Gil told me nothing.”

  Jack stalked ahead of them as he went to the gate, Sara and Kate behind him.

  “Boxing, right?” Kate said.

  “Oh yeah.”

  When they got home, it wasn’t easy, but they got Jack to stay there and take his anger out on a boxing bag. That his friend Gil wasn’t there to hold the hand pads made his anger worse.

  Kate went to the kitchen to make a pot of chili—with no beans for her aunt’s keto diet—while Sara snuggled down and began to read the Amanda Martin books.

  “They’re all brand new, unopened,” Sara said. “It looks like Janet was a real fan. She probably had a set for reading over and over, and a display set just for show.”

  “Wonder where the old ones are?” Kate was chopping onions.

  “Good question,” Sara said but she didn’t have an answer.

  It was while the chili was simmering, Jack was pounding, and Sara reading, that Kate called her mother. The call upset her, but she didn’t tell them about it.

  After dinner, they went to the big couch in the living room and watched TV—their mutual form of relaxation.

  Jack sat in the middle, remote in front of him, and the women took the ends. Sara was sitting sideways, reading glasses on, and deeply absorbed in the first Amanda Martin book. Jack knew her feet were always cold so he put a pillow on his lap and her bare feet on it. There was a lap robe on the back of the couch and he covered her feet.

  Kate was so absorbed in her thoughts that she said nothing when Jack changed the channel to a football game. He pulled her feet onto his lap too.

  “These books are her autobiography,” Sara said.

  Jack wasn’t really watching the game. He put it on mute. “How so?”

  “They seem to cover Sylvia’s life. I can see why she didn’t want anyone to know she was the author. The first one is about a woman in her midthirties—old to be a romance heroine—who is trapped by her older brother and her father. She makes their lives so comfortable that they won’t let her marry. They scare off any man who gets near her.”

  “An historical, right?” Kate said.

  “No. Contemporary. Finally, the heroine runs off with a handsome young plumber. He’s content with his job but the heroine is ambitious and they end up opening a store that sells high-end bathroom fixtures.”

  “Plumbing?” Kate said. “Not exactly romantic.”

  “Pays the bills and then some,” Jack said. “Sounds very romantic to me.”

  Sara pulled the novels out of the bag, arranged them in order, and began reading the back blurbs. “All the books are about this one couple and what happens in their lives. In this one, they have a daughter and struggle with the shop.” She paused to read. “This is interesting. When the heroine’s father dies, her older brother cuts her out of inheriting. When she protests, her brother slaps her with a lawsuit. Next book, they have money problems because the brother’s suit has cleaned them out.”

  She read some more. “The daughter goes to college—no Ivy League as they couldn’t afford that—and the heroine and her husband move to Florida to escape the brother. Uh-oh. The daughter is in trouble at school. Drugs.” Sara sighed. “And in this one the heroine’s husband dies and she’s left alone.” Sara was silent.

  “What happened after that?” Kate asked.

  Sara smiled. “Ah, the most glorious question a writer can hear. What happened next? That was the last book. By the way, the stories are all told in first person. It’s all seen through the heroine’s eyes.”

  “Is this ordinary that novels are about a writer’s life?” Kate asked.

  Sara started to answer, but Jack spoke up. “I’ll take this one. Every word our dear Sara has ever written is autobiographical. That one about the woman finding the guy she loved in high school? He was a widower and the heroine took over his life and his son. Remember that?”

  “I see,” Kate said. “That was Sara and your grandfather. Oh! And the story about the young man who was always brooding about his rotten father. That was you.”

  “I don’t ‘brood’ as you call it.”

  Kate and Sara laughed. “Heathcliff could take lessons from you. Every time you see Sheriff Flynn, your eyebrows draw together.” Kate demonstrated.

  Jack rolled his eyes.

  Kate looked back at her aunt. “I think you should read the last book next. Maybe Janet is in it. And maybe it tells why Sylvia wanted to end her life. But then, a greedy brother, a daughter on drugs. It seems like her whole life was one tragedy after another. The only friend she had was her husband and when he died...” Kate sighed. “I’m beginning to understand her suicide.”

  “Well, I’m not!” Sara sounded angry. “I’m seeing that Sylvia Alden was a fighter. In every circumstance, she fought back. Her brother and father tried to keep her at home. But she eloped with a gorgeous young plumber. But all he did was repair toilets. So Sylvia opened a store that sold products that rich people would buy and she made a fortune. When her father died and her brother took everything, Sylvia left the state and got away from the bastard. It was an Up Yours gesture.”

  Kate was looking at her aunt in admiration. “I didn’t see it that way.”

  “When someone