A Justified Murder Read online

  “Yes!” Zelly said. “They do. I could—”

  Jack tuned her out. His mind was on his friend Gil. This is what he was facing. A lifetime with this greedy, stupid woman. If he didn’t put up with her he could lose his son. No paperwork! Jack grimaced at that thought. There wasn’t a shred of evidence saying Gil hadn’t taken the child from a bereft mother.

  Zelly had told them that Janet said she would help her in any way possible, even to paying her lawyer’s fees. “She was an angel,” Zelly said. “Put on this earth to help others.”

  “I don’t think that’s the way Gil sees it,” Jack mumbled. With all this going on, no wonder Gil shot a nail through his foot, he thought. No wonder he’d driven away cursing.

  Why didn’t he tell me? Jack asked himself. Why didn’t Gil come to him and tell him of the situation?

  Because of what Kate called “the legendary Wyatt temper”? Or because Gil thought he could handle everything himself? How? By killing Janet Beeson? Without her backing, the idiot Zelly wouldn’t be able to pay a lawyer, wouldn’t have the courage to pursue a goal she only thought she wanted. He couldn’t imagine her living in Gil’s new house, helping Quinn with his homework, and going to church on Sundays. She wouldn’t last two weeks!

  When they got to the house, Jack saw that Chet’s van was still under the trees. In the garage was Sara’s MINI.

  They went through the courtyard and into Kate’s suite. He turned to Zelly. “I want you to stay in here. Take a bath. Wash your hair. Watch TV. Whatever you do, don’t leave here until Kate or I come and get you. Do you understand me?”

  “Sure. You want time to tell the old lady about me. She—”

  “Do not call her that.” Kate’s tone was of repressed anger.

  Zelly looked at both of them. “Okay, I get it.” She looked out at the canal with a clump of palm trees to one side. “Are there alligators in there? And what about falling coconuts?”

  “Yes,” Kate said. “Lots of danger out there. Stay in here.”

  Jack opened the door into the house and let Kate go first. He closed the door behind her.

  “No jury will convict Gil,” she mumbled.

  “I wish that were true,” he said.

  They were standing by the kitchen and neither of them wanted to go any further. The original idea of the boat trip had been to get away from thoughts of the murder.

  But Zelly had taken over everything. Their time together had been all about her.

  “Ready to see our houseguest?” Jack asked softly.

  “I guess so. You wouldn’t start acting like a dad with a shotgun and Sara as your virginal daughter, would you?”

  Jack smiled. “You should help Sara write her books. I swear that I’ll behave. I’ll—”

  He broke off when the doorbell rang. They heard a door inside the house open and the house was filled with the sound of a man’s weeping. Loud, full of agony—and they’d heard it before.

  They looked at each other. “Everett,” they said in unison.

  They hurried into the house. Sara and Chet were standing in front of the round, pudgy Everett. He had his hands over his face and tears were squeezing through his fingers.

  When Chet turned, he blinked a few times in surprise when he saw Jack and Kate, but Sara didn’t.

  “Get him a cold drink,” she said to Jack. “Cold washcloth,” to Kate.

  It took a while to get the weeping man to a couch in the living room. Chet sat at the end, and Sara took her place on the couch.

  Everett drank deeply of the ice water Jack handed him, then rubbed his face with the cold cloth.

  Jack and Kate flanked Sara on the couch.

  “I did it,” Everett said. “It was all my fault. I may not seem so but I’m a very religious man. I’m going to hell for this. That poor woman. All because of me.”

  Jack started to say something but Sara beat him to it.

  “Who? Tell us what happened. Now!”

  “Tayla. She—” He sniffed.

  Kate reached across the coffee table and handed him a wad of tissues.

  He blew his nose loudly. “Tayla. She—”

  Sara and Jack looked like they were going to strangle the man.

  Kate asked, “What did Tayla do?”

  “You haven’t heard?” He looked at them. “I thought the sheriff would have called you.”

  Sara squinted her eyes at him.

  “Tayla confessed to the murder of Janet Beeson.”

  They all gasped, even Chet.

  That Everett had astonished them with a writer’s beloved weapon, a story, seemed to perk Everett right up. He took his time finishing off his glass of water, then waited while Jack went to the fridge door and refilled it.

  Chet spoke. “Tell us everything that happened. Why did she kill the woman?”

  “She didn’t,” Sara said. “She isn’t—”

  The look Chet gave her made her stop talking. They were so quiet that the birds outside sounded loud.

  “Well,” Everett began, “as you might remember, I was a bit perturbed during dear Janet’s memorial. Such a lovely lady. I miss her very much.”

  So many words came to Sara that she began to choke. She coughed to cover herself, but she said nothing.

  “After the service, Tayla invited me to lunch at the Mandarin in Miami. She is a very interesting woman. She told me she’d read everything I’d written and thought I was an undervalued writer. She said—”

  When he saw Chet’s face, he stopped that line of the story. “Anyway, it was a very nice meal.”

  The three on the couch sat up straight. Who lived in Fort Lauderdale and took people to a meal in Miami? Tayla must have had a very serious purpose. And considering what she did, yes, she was more than serious.

  “I, uh...” Everett looked ashamed. “I drank too much. But then Tayla ordered a fifty-five-dollar bottle of wine and oh, it was delicious. Fruity, tart, and—” He cleared his throat. “I told her everything.”

  “About what?” Chet asked.

  “About my book. About the kidnapping.”

  They didn’t dare look at each other for fear that they’d give too much away.

  “What exactly did you tell her?” Chet asked, and they knew they were hearing the voice of a man who had gone up through the ranks to become chief of police.

  “I, uh... I, uh...” Everett took a breath, then looked directly at Chet. “I embellished. I told Tayla that you could identify the kidnapper.”

  Sara, Jack, and Kate turned to Chet. He gave a barely perceptible shake to his head. No, he had not told that.

  “I’m sorry,” Everett said. “I made it up. I—”

  “Why did you do that?” Jack asked. “Now you’re—”

  Sara broke in. “Because that’s what writers do. Give us one fact and we can stretch it into a book. Go on, tell us how you came up with that idea.” She sounded almost proud of him. Some writer’s bond, maybe.

  He glanced at Chet, then back at Sara. “I knew he was hiding something. I could feel it. And there had to be a reason he was so obsessed. It made sense that a rookie cop saw something but was too dumb to report it. Later, he realized what he’d seen and regretted it.”

  Only a slight widening of Chet’s eyes betrayed that Everett had guessed the truth.

  “What makes you think Tayla had anything to do with the kidnapping?” Sara asked.

  “I’ve asked around about people.”

  “Right,” Sara said. “Looking for stories. But what about Tayla?”

  “No kids. Probably her husband’s fault. He wasn’t a likable man.” He looked hard at Sara. “But you know that very well, don’t you?”

  Sara glared at him.

  Everett leaned back on the couch. “Did you know that Tayla’s sister lived in Atlanta at the time of the kidnapping