A Justified Murder Read online

  Sara spoke up. “You are going to talk to Leland alone? You’re practically in competition for his wife’s favor.”

  “And you’ll lose your temper,” Kate said.

  “I won’t do that. I—” He gave up. “Ten minutes, then I leave without you.”

  “Sure you will,” Kate said. “Good one.”

  It took thirty minutes as they had to organize the boys. They couldn’t drive without an adult with them and their mother was unreachable. The hotel said she was having a deep tissue massage.

  In the end, they took Kate’s car. Jack and Sara were in the front bucket seats and the boys sandwiched Kate in the back.

  “Let’s drive home,” Max said as he smiled at Kate. “Only take a few hours.”

  Jack made them get out near Valerie Johnson’s house. “Just give her the invitation, then leave. You have other stops to make and you can walk.”

  The boys winked at Kate and waved goodbye.

  “Their father needs to take them down a peg,” Jack muttered as he drove away. He acted like he didn’t hear the smothered laughter of the two women.

  By the time they got to Southwest Ranches and pulled into the long drive to Charlene’s house, they weren’t laughing. Their minds were back on the murder—or murders.

  The gate was open and they pulled in. No one answered at the house or Charlene’s studio. They walked around, but the place had a feeling of abandonment. No one was there.

  They were about to leave when a sleek blue BMW pulled in. The man behind the wheel was Leland, Charlene’s husband. The look on his handsome face told of his misery and worry. And his fear.

  He stood beside the car for a moment as he looked at them, unsurprised to see them. With a movement of his head, he motioned for them to follow him inside.

  Kate thought how her first visit there had been so happy. Charlene had been laughing and talking about how wonderful her life was.

  Leland sat down heavily on the couch, while the three of them sat across from him and waited in silence.

  “If you need to talk to my wife, I don’t know where she is. She doesn’t have a car or credit cards or her passport. I—” He ran his hands over his face, then looked out the window for a moment. “I guess you want me to tell you what I know.”

  “Yes, we would,” Sara said softly.

  He nodded. “I just got back from seeing Tayla.”

  Kate drew in her breath.

  “Yeah,” Leland said. “Exactly. She’s taking the blame. She—”

  He took a moment to compose himself. “I didn’t know of the bootie until Tayla told me this morning.” He blinked back tears. “Where do I begin? Janet—” He swallowed at the name. “Janet Beeson babysat our boys four times. We thought she was ideal, a sweet little old woman who said she’d taken care of hundreds of children in her lifetime. She said she used to teach school.” He looked at them for verification.

  “Not that we’ve heard,” Sara said.

  “Our kids and the Nesbitt boys were friends.”

  Again, Kate gasped.

  Leland shook his head. “I guess you’ve met Kyle. He hated the woman. Said she complained about everything he did. Trees, noise, deliveries. Everything displeased her.”

  “The boys probably heard his complaints,” Sara said.

  “Kyle said he figured that’s part of why the kids thought she was a witch.” Leland looked up, his eyes brimming in tears. “I didn’t believe him. I like Kyle, but he gets angry too easily. I felt sorry for the woman. She—” He took a breath. “So we said yes when she said she’d love to babysit for us.”

  “Did the boys like her?” Sara asked.

  “No. But we didn’t believe them either. We thought the Nesbitt kids had told them what Kyle said.”

  “The trickle-down effect,” Kate said.

  “Exactly what did your boys tell you?” Jack asked.

  “That Mrs. Beeson poisoned them.”

  Jack, Kate, and Sara were too stunned to make a reply.

  “I punished them for that. No iPads for a week. And to prove my point, I asked Janet to stay with them overnight.” He paused. “Today Tayla said Janet probably drugged the kids so she could search the house.”

  “To get rid of them so she could look for secrets,” Sara said.

  “Yes,” Leland said. “I think so.”

  “And she found a big one,” Jack said.

  “I didn’t know it—and neither did Tayla—but Charlene had an old tin box with newspaper clippings and the pair of booties in it.”

  “I would imagine that it was so she’d never forget how fortunate she is to have her life today,” Sara said.

  “Why was Janet so angry at Tayla?” Kate asked.

  “I think it was because Tayla sold Sylvia a house.”

  “You mean for charging too much?” Kate asked.

  “No,” Leland said. “A few years ago, Janet went away for a couple of months. While she was gone, Sylvia bought a house through Tayla.”

  “Why would that make Janet angry?” Kate asked.

  “You ask me? My life is coming apart and I’m supposed to know why some old woman wanted to hurt people? Why did she bring up a twenty-plus-year-old...? I can’t even call it a kidnapping. Charlene was sixteen years old.” He stopped and looked away.

  “Would you tell us?” Sara asked softly.

  “I guess you deserve that.” Leland took a moment to collect himself. “Charlene shouldn’t have been left alone. I guess you know that just days before her parents left the country, she’d given birth to a stillborn baby, a little boy. She was still...” He made a motion around his chest area. “You know.” He looked up. “My wife is brilliant at concealing pain. She said all the things her mother and grandmother wanted to hear. She told them she was glad it was over so that now she could get on with her life.”

  “The catch phrase that everyone thinks buries the past,” Sara said.

  “Yes!” Leland’s hands were in fists. “Her mother shouldn’t have believed her, but...” He looked up.

  “Tayla was coming,” Jack said.

  “Yes, that was it. The problem and the solution all in one person. Tayla was supposed to arrive about two hours after the parents left.” Leland grimaced. “That whole damned family loves to dump responsibility onto Tayla. They think she can do anything, that she can solve any problem. So they turned over a frightened, half-crazy teenager to her—but they’d kept the whole pregnancy secret from her. Tayla walked into a monumental problem knowing nothing about any of it!” He got up, went to the window, and looked out for a moment.

  When he turned back, he was calmer and he sat back down. “To be fair, I think Charlene actually believed she was okay. When Tayla left a message saying she’d be a day late, Charlene decided to get out of the house. She felt so good that as she left, she pulled up a bunch of flowers from a pot by the door.”

  “Lilies of the valley,” Kate said.

  Leland nodded. “Charlene slipped them into her pocket, then caught a bus to downtown. When she saw the sale signs at the store, she went inside. But...” He looked up, his eyes bleak. “Right away, she saw the children’s department. Infant wear.” He paused for a moment. “I think that’s when she realized what she’d lost. She was holding an outfit for a little boy, for her son, when suddenly boxes and racks collapsed.”

  “And there was the baby,” Sara said.

  “Yes,” Leland said. “A baby in a stroller, crying in fear at the noise, stopped at her feet. On its dress was embroidered lilies of the valley. It seemed to be fate. She picked the child up, put the flowers in the stroller, and went into the restroom. She changed the baby into boy’s clothes, then fed it, nursed it. She was a mother and that’s what mothers do.” Tears were rolling down Leland’s cheeks. “Charlene doesn’t remember hearing any sirens. It was just her and the baby.”