A Justified Murder Read online

  “I haven’t been here in weeks. I think somebody else has been using my boat.”

  “Isn’t that what security is supposed to prevent?”

  “Alarms are put in houses but they still get robbed. Let me go in first.”

  She watched him disappear through the door into the hold, then waited until he stepped back out and motioned for her to get onboard.

  “All clear,” he said, then began untying it from the dock and they pulled away into the open water.

  As Jack said it would, the wind and the water cleared their minds. Death and kidnapping seemed far away.

  Jack was an excellent sailor. He seemed at one with the sea.

  Kate didn’t put on her swimsuit. The sun was so hot she thought enough skin was exposed. She slathered on sunscreen, stretched out in the shade, and told Jack to sing for her.

  “There was a woman from Nantucket,” he began.

  “No, no. Something nice.”

  He stood by the mast and began to sing an aria in Italian.

  Kate didn’t know much about opera, but she knew it was a love song. She closed her eyes. Between Jack’s singing, the water, and the warmth of the sun, she was sure she was in heaven.

  When he finished, she opened her eyes and raised her hands to applaud him, but someone else was already clapping.

  Kate sat up so fast she banged her head on the side of the boat.

  Jack, still by the mast, was staring in openmouthed astonishment. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m Zelly.”

  Kate was rubbing her head as she looked up to see a thin, scraggly-haired blonde woman standing by the door that led down into the boat.

  “Zelly?” the woman said. “Gil told you about me, right?”

  They were silent.

  “He should have told you. I’m real important in his life.” She said the last almost as a threat.

  Jack and Kate exchanged looks. They had an idea who she was: Quinn’s mother.

  “Do you have anything to drink? It was hot in that closet and besides, it’s been hard living here and having to sneak out to get food. That guy that runs the place watches everything. But he’s cute, isn’t he?”

  When no one moved, she reached for Kate’s canvas tote bag.

  But Jack grabbed it first. “What do you mean that you’ve been living here? On my boat?”

  “Well, yeah, but Janet said I could.”

  Kate had recovered enough to get up. She opened her bag and handed the woman a bottle of water.

  She drank deeply of it. “Yuck, it’s warm, but I guess that’s okay. So where are we going?”

  “We aren’t going anywhere,” Jack said. “I want to know why you’re here. And it was Janet Beeson who said you could stay here?”

  “Yeah. You have something to eat? I like candy a lot.”

  “I think we should sit down.” It was the first time Kate had spoken. “I’ll get the food. Sorry, no candy.”

  “You two look like you go to a gym.” She had an unnaturally thin face, as though she hadn’t eaten in a long time. She had on red shorts, a blue tank top, and flip-flops that looked to be years old.

  Kate got the bags of food from below and when she came back up, Jack and the woman...was Zelly short for something?...were sitting far apart on the cushioned seat. He was staring at her as though he’d found a feral animal. Was it poisonous or not?

  Kate didn’t open the grocery bags but put them by the woman, then went to sit by Jack. It was clear that the two of them were on one team and she was on the other.

  “Why don’t you start at the beginning?” Jack said.

  “Well, Janet said—”

  “No. From the real beginning. With Gil.”

  She was picking through the bags, pulling out sandwiches and salads, cheeses and crackers, fruit. She sneered at all of it. “No hot dogs? No cheese doodles?”

  No one answered.

  She took out a roast beef sandwich, peeled off the plastic, then leaned back against the seat. “Okay, so I guess it started with my mom. She was sick—cancer, but not too bad—and I took care of her. She had some money so I didn’t have to get a job. That suited me. It was all fine until I broke my wrist.” She was chewing, her mouth full. “It hurt like hell. You have any ketchup?”

  “No.” Jack was glaring at her.

  “So Mom shared her pain pills with me, and it felt so good to not hurt that she bought me some more pills. She got them from a guy that lived downstairs. He and I were a couple for a while but it didn’t work out. He still wanted me to pay for the pills. Can you imagine?” She took a bite. “So one night I met Gil at a bar. You’re his friend, right?”

  Jack nodded, but didn’t speak.

  “I’d had a few drinks—they made the pain pills work better—and this big guy asked me to dance. He was just so clean and he smelled so good. Well, we ended up back at his motel. I guess we never would have seen each other again, but the next morning he drove me home in his truck. I picked up a bill off the seat. It was for wood for fifteen grand so I knew he was rich. I got him to give me his email address.”

  “It wasn’t his bill.” Jack’s jaw was clenched shut. “It was for my company.”

  “Oh?” She looked at Kate. “You’re smart to go after him. All that money!”

  “I don’t—” Kate decided not to put herself on the defensive. She waited for Zelly to go on.

  “Six weeks later I was throwing up. I was preggers. I thought I’d go to a clinic and you know, have it out, but Mom said she really wanted a grandbaby and we could raise it together. By that time her cancer was...” She looked at Kate to supply the word.

  “In remission.”

  “That’s right. You a doctor?”

  “No. What happened?”

  Zelly looked annoyed. “My mom made me eat foods I don’t like. She loved green. Anything green and she made me eat it. And no pills of any kind. She even flushed the Tylenol. And I’m not sure but I think maybe she was the one who called the police on the guy downstairs. He didn’t come back.”

  “I like your mother,” Kate said.

  For a moment, Zelly turned away to look out at the water. “Yeah, me too,” she said, then looked back at them. “I had the baby. He was...” She waved her hand. “Needy. Every minute of every day he needed something. Then my mom got sick again and...and...”

  “So you contacted Gil,” Jack said.

  “Mom did. She said the baby deserved better than the two of us. She asked me about the father and I told her about Gil, how clean he was and all that. Mom was afraid he was like Joe downstairs, but I told her he wasn’t.”

  “And Gil came right away.”

  “Yeah, he did.” Zelly shook her head in wonder. “He took one look at that baby and wouldn’t put him down. Even when the kid smelled bad, he still held him.”

  “What about the money?” There was anger in Jack’s voice.

  “Well... Everything costs a lot now.”

  Kate spoke before Jack could. She could see his anger rising. “Gil had a DNA test done, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah. He and Mom did all that. They talked about money and she wouldn’t let Gil take the baby with him to his motel. Gil kept saying no to the money but when the test came back and he saw that he was the father, he...” Zelly shrugged.

  “Gil gave you every penny he had in his savings, sold the stocks in his retirement plan, and later put a second mortgage on his house. He sent you that money too.”

  Zelly was unperturbed by the anger of Jack’s tone. “Gil got what he wanted so he was happy.”

  “Were there any papers signed? A lawyer involved?” Jack asked.

  “No. Gil wanted that but my mom said it was a deal of ‘honor.’ And...”

  “And what?” Jack asked.

  “Mom said that maybe somed