A Justified Murder (Medlar Mystery #2)(4)

“You took photos of the whole house?” Kate asked.

Jack leaned across Sara. “We had at least an hour before you arrived.”

“I was there ten minutes after you sent your Neanderthal text. I thought maybe Aunt Sara’d had a heart attack.”

“I would have explained but you—”

Sara was quite used to the verbal tug-of-war between the two of them. She stood up. “I’ll put the photos on a flash drive, then I’ll go to the sheriff’s office and give them to him.”

Kate stood up beside her. “Good idea. You can drop me off at my office and Tayla can give me a ride home.”

Jack looked up at them. “We’re not getting involved in this, right?”

“Absolutely not!” Sara said. “I took pictures and that’s all.”

They were silent for a moment.

“Janet helped us when we were investigating the murder of the Morrises.” There were tears in Kate’s eyes. “She found names for us.”

“And she made that chocolate cake,” Jack said. “Best I ever ate.”

“She helped us so much.” Kate looked at Jack. “Your mother got her for us.”

Jack got up, pulled tissues from the box on the side table, and handed them to the women. Color was coming back into his face—and the color was the red of anger. “There was no respect in what was done to her.”

Kate blew her nose. “I can kind of, sort of, understand killing someone but...but that was too horrible to imagine. One way would have done it. Why three?”

They looked at Sara. “Who hated her that much?”

“Obviously, a crazy person,” Kate said.

“Or three,” Jack added.

“You think more than one person was there?” Kate asked.

Jack shrugged. “It’s a thought.”

Sara sat back down on the couch. “I wonder how they’ll investigate.”

Kate sat down beside her. “They’ll try to find out who hated her.”

As Jack sat down on the other side of Sara, he gave a snort. “If haters are suspects, then everyone in this town is going to say they loved her.”

“I agree,” Kate said. “There’ll be two thousand BFFs of Janet Beeson. Bet there’ll be a lot of tears at her funeral. They all loved her so very, very much.”

Sara spoke up. “When we were planning the memorial for the Morrises, did either of you see or hear anything bad about her? Or even odd?”

“My mind was focused on what we were doing,” Kate said. The women looked at Jack.

“All I remember about that day is the itching inside my cast.”

They stared ahead at the dark TV, silent as they went over every minute of that day. But Janet Beeson wasn’t a person you could remember very well. She was short, dumpy, gray-haired, with unplucked eyebrows, no makeup, and a quiet voice that didn’t carry well. An unassuming woman, someone who faded into the background. The day she was at Sara’s house, she’d silently taken a seat, opened her laptop, and started searching for whatever someone told her to look for.

The truth was that she was such an unremarkable person that it was embarrassing. They couldn’t recall a thing she’d said. She didn’t make jokes or complain or even ask questions. When everyone was driving Kate crazy about what food was to be served at the memorial for the Morrises, Janet had made no comment. She’d just stayed in the background, always helping, never asking anything of anyone.

“This really and truly makes no sense,” Sara said. “Why would anyone want to kill her? I know at least five people in this town who deserve worse than what was done to her.”

“Leave my relatives out of this,” Jack said.

His semijoke brought them out of their stupor and they again stood up.

Sara looked at Jack. “Your mother seemed to know Janet well. She might have some idea about why Janet was targeted.”

“You said you photographed the whole house?” Kate asked Sara.

“She even videoed it,” Jack added in wonder. Sara liked still photos, not pictures that moved.

They looked at each other. They were standing in a circle, as though they meant to close out the rest of the world.

After a moment, Kate took a few steps back. “I’m not going to get involved, but I am going to talk to Heather. Maybe she remembers something from that day.”

“I think I’d be better at talking to my own mother.”

Kate grimaced. “You can’t go. Heather will cook some childhood thing for you, then your sister will arrive, and you’ll forget all about poor Janet Beeson.”

Sara nodded in agreement. “I need to go buy some flash drives to put the photos on.”

Jack frowned. “I hope you don’t mean to let people see pictures of that body. My mother and sister aren’t to see it. They—”

“Give me a break.” Sara headed toward her bedroom, then stopped. She was looking at Kate and there was fear in her eyes. “I’m serious when I say that we shouldn’t get involved in this. I don’t want us to deal with the police, the sheriff’s department, any of it. Are we agreed?” She didn’t have to say that she was thinking about what had nearly happened to Kate when they’d investigated another murder.