A Justified Murder Read online

  The book stopped right after Lisa left, and it told how happy Sylvia was that the misery she’d been enduring would soon be over. When her daughter’s divorce was final, they could leave. Sylvia wrote of all she’d done to prepare for their escape. She’d transferred every photo she had of her life with her husband and daughter onto a single three-terabyte hard drive. She’d secretly mailed it and several sentimental items to a friend who lived in Boston, someone Janet didn’t know about. Sylvia put a couple of packed suitcases in a storage locker, along with two open-ended plane tickets to London. Her passport and five grand cash were in her bag. She would be able to walk out the door with nothing in her hand and leave the country.

  What wasn’t in the book was the night Janet cooked spicy enchiladas and served them to Sylvia. She ate them and drank most of a bottle of red wine. Considering what Janet usually “allowed” her, Sylvia must have thought it was a treat.

  She’d had no idea that Janet overheard her plans of escape. It was difficult for Sara to make up what she needed to finish the story. It was tough putting herself into Sylvia’s place and imagining what she must have felt when she realized that Janet had poisoned her. Surely, Janet told Sylvia that Lisa had turned herself in to the police. Sara wrote of Janet’s delight in telling Sylvia that all she’d gone through had been for nothing.

  Janet had the suicide note ready for Sylvia to sign. If she didn’t sign it, Janet said she’d persecute Lisa forever. So of course Sylvia signed. She died pleading, not for herself, but for her daughter.

  Sara could have ended the book there, but she wanted to add the rest of it. The readers deserved to hear about some form of justice in the end. For that, Sara needed the details of the actual murder of Janet Beeson—and those could only come from Carl. When she went alone to visit him in the hospital, she took a notebook with her. His strength was failing rapidly but he smiled at the sight of her, and said yes, he’d be glad to tell her everything.

  “But I’ve never been a good storyteller,” he said.

  “That’s okay. How about if I ask you questions?” He nodded and she started. “What would you most like people to know about that day?”

  “That it was an accident,” Carl said.

  “How could it have been an accident if you arrived with a gun?”

  “I only meant to use it if I needed to defend myself. Maybe I shouldn’t have been concerned about my own death, certainly not when you consider the circumstances, but...” He didn’t seem to know how to finish.

  “Okay, so you had a gun. Bought it? Stole it? What?”

  “Bought. But not from a store. There’s no documentation on the gun. You need to understand that I went there to reason with her. And I wanted to prove to myself that I could talk to her without being overwhelmed by her. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes. Proving your courage, and that you’ve learned something. What did you talk about?”

  Carl shrugged. “You know.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I wanted her to stop threatening Gil and Tayla. And I wanted to know the truth about what had happened to Sylvia.”

  “What was her reply?”

  “Janet wouldn’t answer me. She said she was going to call the sheriff. Her phone was on the dining table but I grabbed it before she did. She screamed at me.”

  “Did anyone hear her?”

  “No,” he said. “She’d run the Nesbitts off and the other neighbors were at work. She had a kettle on the stove and it went off. I decided to make her a cup of tea as a peace offering.”

  “Wait a minute,” Sara said. “You’re there with a gun and she just sat there? Why didn’t she run away?”

  “I was carrying a canvas bag, like the ones you take to the grocery. I had a newspaper in there and some bananas.”

  “And a .38.”

  “Yes, but she didn’t know that.”

  “Did you leave the bag behind when you went to the kitchen?”

  “It was on the end of the dining table.”

  “Near Janet?”

  Carl paused. “Janet was never afraid of me. And the truth was that she was enjoying seeing me beg.”

  “So you left the gun behind and went to the kitchen to make tea. Then what?”

  “I saw the canister that said Sylvia’s Tea. I honestly thought it was a nice gesture, a calming one, to serve her the tea Sylvia used to like. I didn’t know it was full of poison.”

  “Wasn’t it kind of dumb for her to leave it there? In full sight?”

  “Who was going to think that a little old woman was a multiple murderer? Who would have kept a tin of poisonous tea on the counter at the ready?”

  “I see your point. I guess she drank the tea.”

  “She did. Downed a whole cupful. But then she saw the canister I’d used and started shouting that I’d tried to kill her. I had no idea what she was talking about. She put her fingers down her throat and vomited into the sink. When she came up, she grabbed a knife off the rack, then threw the canister at me. That’s when I realized it must contain the poison she’d used on Sylvia. I backed out of the kitchen.

  “She followed me. She was raging, saying she was going to take Quinn away from Gil, going to expose Charlene. She was going to destroy everyone who’d ever done anything bad to her.”

  Carl stopped for a moment. “I honestly don’t know what happened next. She lunged, and I swerved. I was trying to knock the knife out of her hand, but she leaped toward me. I grabbed her wrist and twisted. The knife went into her body and she fell back onto a dining chair.”

  Sara was listening with wide eyes. “And then?”

  “It didn’t kill her. She told me—ordered me—to give back her phone so she could call an ambulance. ‘I’m going to make all of you sorry for this,’ she said.”

  Carl paused. “She grabbed the canvas bag. Maybe she thought I’d put her phone in it. The gun fell out and she reached for it. I was several feet away but I got to it before she did. I was shaking all over and pointing the gun at her. I just thought of Gil and Quinn and Tayla and Charlene and all the people she was going to destroy. And the many, many others whose lives she’d destroyed.”

  Carl ran his hand over his face. “It was horrible! She had vomit on her face and her clothes and a big knife was sticking out of her chest. But she just sneered at me in contempt. I’d seen that look so many times before. Then she said, ‘You always were a coward.’”

  Carl shrugged in a gesture of helplessness. “I shot her.”

  He took a moment to get his breath. “I was quite calm afterward. I put the gun in the bag, then cleaned up the kitchen. Janet was always fanatical about neatness. I wiped the kettle of my prints, picked up the little canister of Sylvia’s tea, wiped it and put it back into the rack. I turned its face around as I couldn’t bear to see the name.

  “Then I walked out. I felt bad that poor Dora would probably be the one to find her, but it couldn’t be helped.”

  They sat in silence for a while. Sara was visualizing all that he’d told her. Carl’s face was even more gray than it had been.

  Sara looked at her notebook. She hadn’t written a word. “I guess that’s all.”

  “Are you sure? I don’t want any questions to come up later. After I’m, you know, gone.”

  “I don’t think there will be,” she said softly.

  “Good.” Carl smiled. “The drugs they give you here are wonderful. I can almost understand addicts. Speaking of which, how is Lisa?”

  “Still here in Lachlan. She’s...”

  “I know. Waiting for me to go. I will as soon as all this is settled.” He sat up a bit, his face alarmed. “What about that reporter? He’s been a real pest.”

  “He’s been sorted,” Sara said firmly. “He’s dropped the White Lily Kidnapping. I told him that Chet had planted the evidence, and that the man was kind of crazy. Hi