A Justified Murder (Medlar Mystery #2)(96)

Minutes later, Sara and Jack returned and they got into the sheriff’s car and he drove them to the hospital.



Twenty-One


IN THE BIG white bed, Carl looked even smaller than he had the other times they’d seen him. His eyes were sunken, his skin gray and thin.

Sheriff Flynn left them at the door and the three of them took seats by Carl’s bedside. There was no need to make introductions.

“I want to tell you about her,” Carl said.

“I think that after what we’ve been through, we deserve that,” Sara said.

For a moment, Carl put his hands over his eyes. “Where do I begin? First, you need to understand that Janet liked to win. Winning was what ran her life. She set a goal then worked to achieve it. She didn’t care how she won, just so she did.”

“It seems that you were a trophy,” Sara said. “We found Sylvia’s book.”

Carl closed his eyes for a moment. “Yes, I was. Janet worked in a small, menial job in the building I owned, but she didn’t need the money. She just liked to spy on people.”

“Liked to learn their secrets,” Sara said.

“One fateful day, she was in a restroom with half a dozen women. They were plotting about me. How to get me. Fat, plain-faced, boring old me.”

“But you had a bank account and that’s what they wanted.” Sara spoke from experience.

“Yes,” Carl said. “That was the real prize. The problem was that they ignored Janet. They didn’t consider her competition. She vowed to win no matter what she had to do. Never mind that the prize was a human being.”

“Let me guess,” Kate said. “She researched you.”

“Went to the town where I grew up and asked people about me. What I like, that sort of thing.”

“She did that with Gil and Lisa,” Jack said.

Carl smiled at him. “You three have been so clever in uncovering the truth.”

“What happened after the marriage?” Sara asked.

Suddenly, there was light in Carl’s eyes. They were seeing some of the hatred the man had felt for years. “To her, marriage meant that she’d won so she didn’t have to make any more effort. She hated sex and affection. She didn’t cook. Didn’t clean. Didn’t want to go anywhere. She spent a lot of time on her computer, and I had no idea what she was doing.”

He paused. “It made me sad. My idea of a marriage is what I’d had with my first wife: love and affection and great heaps of delicious food. But it was okay with Janet. It wasn’t bad, just sort of nothing.”

He paused. “But then, a few months after the wedding, one of the women in the office, Elaine, brought me brownies. I took them home to share with my wife. I was shocked when Janet became furious. She didn’t yell, just looked at me with hate in her eyes, then dropped the brownies into the garbage disposal.

“The next day Janet came to the office. She was so smiling and happy that I thought everything was fine. But two hours later, Elaine was rushed to the hospital. She had to have her stomach pumped. She nearly died.

“At the time I didn’t connect it all. I never thought anyone would poison a person over some brownies.” A machine he was attached to started loudly beeping and Carl took a moment to calm his breathing. Talking was depleting him.

“When did you realize the truth?” Sara asked.

“There wasn’t any one moment. It was a hundred things. Objects in my house began to disappear. If it had a hint of my first wife, it would go missing. If I asked Janet about it she’d get angry—and her anger was out of proportion to what I was asking. I began to keep my mouth shut.”

“You got so you did anything to avoid the rages,” Sara said.

“That’s exactly right. It was better to keep the calm. I’m not sure when I started being afraid of her. Maybe it was when I went to a sales conference three states away. I was at dinner with potential buyers, all men, and I looked across the room and there was Janet. She didn’t wave or say a word. She was just there. Staring at me. It creeped me out. One of the men asked me a question and when I looked back, Janet was gone. I told myself it was probably someone who looked like her.”

“Did you ask her about it?”

“Oh no,” Carl said. “By then I’d learned—no! I’d been taught to ask no questions about her personal life.” He took a breath and smiled. “But then, I fell in love.”

“Elaine,” Sara said.

He chuckled. “I’ve read some of your books. You’re good at romance.”

“Thank you.”

“Yes, Elaine. We were very discreet, but she made me remember what I was missing. I sat down with Janet and said that our marriage wasn’t making either of us happy so we should get a divorce.”

“But that would make her a loser,” Jack said.

“That’s the way she saw it too. I denied that there was another person involved. I thought it was going to be okay, but then, bad things began happening to me. Car trouble. Credit cards canceled. Two big clients left. I slipped on marbles and broke my foot. It was something every day.

“I knew it was Janet, but I was determined to leave. We went to mediation, and in front of the counselor, she cried. I’d never seen her cry before. She got a lot of sympathy.