A Justified Murder Read online

  Heather looked from one to the other, then back. “If Sara was here, you’d be those three monkeys of see, hear and speak no evil. What aren’t you telling me?”

  Neither Jack nor Kate spoke.

  “Okay. It’ll soon be all over town so I’ll find out.” Heather took a deep breath. “I have no idea who’d want to murder Janet Beeson. She was such a quiet little woman that I can’t imagine anyone noticing her, much less killing her. All I know for sure is that for years she was best friends with an elegant woman named Sylvia Alden, who committed suicide. Since then, as far as I know, Janet has been alone. I don’t think I ever saw her with anyone else. She was so alone that suicide was easy to believe—but not murder. How did—?” She raised her hand. “No, I don’t want to hear that.”

  Heather looked at them. “You said she was rich. Could it have been a robbery? Maybe Janet heard someone breaking in, then they hit her over the head with something? An accidental murder?”

  “No,” Kate said.

  “It was not an accident,” Jack said.

  Heather stood up. “I definitely don’t want to know any more details about this.”

  “No, you don’t,” Jack said.

  She went back to the stove, filled two bowls with her homemade minestrone, and set them on the counter. “How about if we have something to eat, then this afternoon I pay some visits and get people to talk about dear Janet? I’ll ask what they remember about her.”

  “That would be great,” Kate said.

  Heather set her bowl down across from them. “Actually, I have some photos of Janet and Sylvia together. Would they help?”

  “If they were taken with a cell phone, Aunt Sara might not let them in the house,” Kate said.

  When Jack laughed, Heather joined him. After all that had happened to him in the past year, her son’s laughter was a joy to hear—but there was still fear in her eyes. She turned to him. “I’ll help with this only if you promise not to get involved.”

  “We do,” Kate said. The sight of Janet Beeson’s mutilated body was strong in her mind. “We’re going to leave this to the professionals.”

  “Good. While you two eat, I’ll look for the photos. You’ll turn them over to the sheriff?” She was waiting for their reassurance.

  “And the FBI and the CIA and—”

  “The Secret Service,” Kate added to Jack’s list.

  Heather stood there for a moment, looking as though she was trying to figure out if they were telling the truth about staying out of the murder. When she seemed to be satisfied, she left the room.

  Kate let out her breath. “Was she like that when you were growing up?”

  “Worse. She was always terrified that I was going to become like my dad.”

  “Was she disappointed when you turned out exactly like him?”

  “I did not,” Jack said. “Roy Wyatt was a lying, thieving—” He broke off at Kate’s smile. “Very funny. Hope somebody laughs. Let’s go to the grocery, then home. I have to go back to work.”

  “Me too. I have a showing at three.”

  “Serious buyers or time wasters?”

  “They want a house that—” Her eyes widened.

  “What?”

  Kate put her hand to her face. “I have clients who want a house exactly like Mrs. Beeson’s.”

  He groaned. “You never stop working, do you?”

  “Look who’s talking. You—” She broke off when Heather came back holding some photos.

  “I can make some better prints but these are okay for now.” She spread them on the countertop.

  Kate picked up one picture. It was a group photo of half a dozen women standing in front of a pretty porch. To the right was the edge of a fountain with birds on it. “Where was this taken?”

  Heather picked it up. “At Sylvia’s place.”

  Kate and Jack looked at each other. “This is Janet’s house.”

  “Oh!” Heather said. “That’s right. I forgot about that! I was away then, but someone at church said Janet had bought the Alden house. That poor, poor woman. How lonely she must have been to buy her friend’s house. Are you sure it wasn’t suicide?”

  “Absolutely.” Jack stood up. “No doubt whatever.” He stacked the photos. “If you have the originals online, send copies to me. Sara can include them in the report she gives to the sheriff.”

  “And that’s it?” Heather asked. “No more investigating?”

  Jack hugged his mother. “The first time was a one-off. My leg was in a cast so I couldn’t work, Kate had just arrived in town, and Sara was, well, you know...being Sara, so it worked.”

  Heather held on to her son tightly. “And you knew the victims.”

  “Yeah.” Jack’s voice was hoarse. “I knew them.” He held his mother at arm’s length. “So stop worrying.”

  “But do ask questions,” Kate said.

  They both looked at her.

  She shrugged. “It could only help. Just write down what you hear and email it to us.”

  Jack kissed his mother’s cheek, picked up another piece of buttered garlic bread, and followed Kate to the front door.

  Outside, they got into his truck. “Were we telling the truth?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Jack said firmly. “I’m sure I lost ten years of my life the last time we got involved with a murder. I am not going to do that again.”

  “So which grocery do you want to go to?”

  “How about Trader Joe’s?”

  “Good idea.” As he headed toward University Drive, they were silent, haunted by what they’d seen in Mrs. Beeson’s house.

  Three

  TRADER JOE’S WAS NEW, small, and set in a plaza with a wonderful selection of stores. It was just down the road from the big Whole Foods and the gym they often went to.

  Kate was thinking that when her mother heard about the murder, she would call in fear. Her husband died when Kate was just four, so mother and daughter had been alone. Now that Kate was living in another state, her mother had a hard time coping.

  The other time they’d found bodies, Ava Medlar had dismissed it as meaning nothing. But after Kate had nearly been killed... Well, it had taken a lot of talking to keep her mother from lapsing into one of her debilitating bouts of depression and demanding that Kate return home to Chicago to take care of her. Kate would never be able to talk her way out of a second episode.

  “Thinking about your mom?” Jack asked as he pulled into a parking space.

  “Yeah.” She was getting used to the way he and Aunt Sara seemed to read her mind. “I need to promise her that I won’t get involved.” She got out of the truck. The sun was dazzlingly bright and she opened her bag, a Bottega Veneta that she’d borrowed from Aunt Sara, to look for her sunglasses. But Kate couldn’t find the glasses. All she seemed able to see was poor Janet Beeson and what had been done to her.

  Jack took the bag from her, removed the glasses, and slipped them onto her face. “Can’t get what we saw out of your mind?”

  “No, I can’t. Who would do such a thing to a little old woman?”

  Jack put his arm around her shoulders in a brotherly way and they stood still until she stopped shaking. “I like you in those heels. Really sexy. They make your legs look even longer.”

  Kate pushed away from him, gave him a look to cut it out, and they walked to the store. But she was grateful for his smart-aleck remark. It had brought her back to the present.

  “My guess,” Jack said as he got a cart, “is money. Somebody needs to look at Mrs. Beeson’s will and see who stands to inherit.”

  Kate began tossing in bags of salad greens. “Are you saying her heirs got together and killed her? Just so they’d get an early inheritance?”

  “Maybe.” He was filling a bag with oranges.

  “But isn’t the heir being the killer too obvious