A Justified Murder Read online

  “When you’re in a wheelchair,” he’d said, “it’s as though people think you’ve lost all your senses, including your hearing. Couples have arguments while standing right next to me. If a walking person goes by, they shut up. I seem to be invisible.”

  Kate had grown quite fond of the man.

  By the time they reached his house, Sara looked like she was on her way to a guillotine.

  Arthur didn’t wait for them to knock, but was sitting by the open door. He was a tall man and kept the upper half of his body in good shape. He had strong arms from pushing the big wheels on his chair. Kate knew that a nurse came twice a week to give him massages and work his legs. For his household needs, he used delivery services.

  She kissed both his cheeks. “How are you? How are the Vandas you ordered?” Arthur had a screened porch full of orchids.

  “Happy and blooming.” He led them to the dining room where a long table was covered with plates of food.

  As Kate looked at the table, she laughed. “You lovely scoundrel. Look what you did.”

  The food was divided into three sections and labeled. One was low calorie for Kate. Little round slivers of bread piled high with slices of cucumber, chocolate muffins hardly bigger than her thumb, a bowl of tiny wild strawberries. For Jack there were thick beef and pastrami sandwiches and cold beer. At the end was for Sara. Her keto diet’s no-sugar and no-carbs rules had been obeyed. Bacon wrapped around asparagus, almond flour scones with whipping cream, salmon with sour cream and sprigs of dill.

  Kate looked at her aunt and saw her expression soften. Arthur had made a lot of effort to welcome them. They took their places at the table. Jack and Sara were at the ends, Kate and Arthur across from each other. His plate of food came from each of the three sections.

  They were just tucking into the feast when Arthur looked at Sara. “Well?”

  They all knew what he meant. His book.

  Sara had already eaten the asparagus and was on her second cup of tea—the Assam she loved—and she was happier. “It’s very well written. You have a knack for good sentence structure. Never once did you begin three sentences in a row with ‘he’ or ‘she.’” She filled her mouth with food.

  Kate looked at her aunt. Was that all she was going to say? She glanced at Jack. He had his head down, eating. He was staying out of what was going on.

  “That sounds good.” Arthur ate in silence for a moment. “I’ve always been curious about something. When an author such as yourself who has had umpteen books make the New York Times Best Seller List and has... What is it? Sixty million in print?” He waved his hand. “Anyway, when you turn in a book, how much praise does your publishing house give you?”

  Sara nearly choked on her derisive laugh. “None whatever. You pour your heart out in a novel, send it in, and no one reads it for months. When they do, the best you can hope for is ‘It’s fine.’ After that, you get masses of people telling you what’s wrong with it. They—” She broke off as she looked at Arthur’s pleased expression. She stuffed an almond flour scone into her mouth.

  “That’s what I’ve heard from other people. So now you want to tell me the truth about my book?”

  Sara hesitated a few seconds, wiped her hands, and said, “Okay, you asked for it. Your book is one big cliché. Your FBI hero is the same as in everyone else’s book. He has PTSD so he goes crazy and kills the bad guys? Then all his boss does is bawl him out, but lets him go free? Really? I’ve read that a thousand times. A flawed hero is all the rage right now. But I’m telling you that if you want people to read your book, you have to do something different.”

  She looked him up and down. “Maybe your hero is a retired cop who’s in a wheelchair. He can’t use his legs but he can use his brains. He’s rich so he hires the gardener’s gorgeous son to do the legwork, but the kid always gets in trouble with women. Every book needs sex in it. If you write about something that has meaning to you, your readers will feel it.”

  Kate’s eyes were wide. There’d been a lot of passion in her aunt’s diatribe and she didn’t know how Arthur was going to take it.

  He blinked for a moment, then said, “Can I include a smart-mouthed, retired romance writer who he’s had a crush on since he was a kid?”

  “Only if she still looks good in a bikini,” Sara shot back.

  As they all laughed, Jack winked at Kate, his way of telling her that he knew Sara could handle her own argument.

  “I vote for a pretty young woman who has inherited her father’s lawn maintenance business,” Kate said. “The retired detective does a makeover on her. From L.L. Bean boots to Prada heels.”

  “I do love Pygmalion stories,” Sara said.

  Jack said, “How about if the cop also has a very handsome nephew and he works with the gardener girl, and how high are the heels?”

  Arthur said, “I like it! The nephew is a doctor—or maybe a lawyer—and the very brainy uncle put the kid through school so he owes him.”

  Jack smiled. “And the girl takes one look at the nephew and falls in love with him. On day one they jump into bed together. Then they—”

  “Booooo,” Sara and Kate said and Arthur joined them.

  “He can get any woman but her,” Kate said.

  “It’s all perfect,” Arthur said. “But I just don’t know where I’m going to get ideas for such a plot. Why wouldn’t every woman fall for a tall, dark, and handsome hero?”

  They were looking at Jack as though he had an answer to the question.

  He lifted his hands in surrender. “That’s what I ask myself every day. Every hour. Why? Why? Why?”

  They turned to Kate.

  “A girl wants more than dessert.”

  The others groaned, but Kate was unperturbed. “Arthur, you have to figure that out. It’s your book.”

  “But it seems to be your life,” he shot back.

  Their explosion of laughter was a great relief after the misery of the last few days.

  Sara started to say something, but the doorbell rang. Only it didn’t ring once. Someone was pushing it in short, angry blasts. Frowning, Arthur rolled away from the table to go answer it.

  “Déjà vu,” Kate said. The bell was like what had happened to them just days before.

  “Not the same as ours,” Jack muttered. “This one is in daylight.”

  They heard the front door open then slam shut.

  “Niederman!” bellowed a male voice. “Where the hell is she? You said you’d get her here, so where is she? I don’t know why you think a—” his voice was a sneer “—a romance writer could help me. I was willing to try, but—”

  “Shut up!” Arthur yelled.

  Jack and Kate looked at Sara in alarm, but she just shrugged. She’d heard this all her long career.

  “What?” the stranger’s voice said. “It’s not like you ever have a houseful of company. You didn’t—?”

  Arthur must have done something because the voice abruptly halted and they heard whispering. The only clear thing they heard was the man say, “I am dead.”

  Jack looked at the women. Whoever the visitor was, they wanted nothing to do with him. He stood up and looked toward the back door.

  The women silently agreed. Leave before whoever it was entered the room.

  They moved quickly and were at the back door when the man rushed into the dining room. He was round and pink-faced, his skin so pale and soft he looked like a reincarnated mole. Had he ever been outside in the sunshine?

  “Please don’t leave.” His eyes were begging. “I’m really, really sorry. My life is falling apart and I can’t think correctly.”

  “Get in line.” Jack was referring to Tayla having said the same words.

  “He’s a writer.” Sara’s tone was the same a person would use to say someone had a highly contagious, deadly disease.

  “An investiga