by K. J. Emrick
There was a very good reason why.
“Are you giving that back to me?” Hannah asked Jack with a frown. “I didn’t appreciate having to give it up at the front desk.”
He shook his head. “No. You see, whenever a suspect is brought into our station with their belongings, it’s our policy to secure them, and go through the contents to make sure there’s nothing dangerous inside. It’s part of our policy. We did the same thing with your purse.”
Hannah looked annoyed. “So you went through my things? Seriously? I take it you were looking for poison.”
“Actually no.” Jack dumped the contents of the purse onto the desktop. “There are a lot of things going on in this case, Miss Smith. A lot of loose ends to tie up. You keep saying you haven’t done anything.”
“That’s right,” she snapped. “I haven’t.”
“Well. That’s partly true,” Jack shrugged, pushing the items from Hannah’s purse around with his fingers. “At the same time, it’s also partly a lie. Like I said, we were only following protocol when we searched your purse. We weren’t actually looking for anything in particular but imagine our surprise when we found… these.”
From the scattered items, Jack picked up a set of keys and placed them on the edge of the desk.
Then he picked up a second set and set them right beside the first.
“Why do you have two sets of car keys, Hannah?”
“Because I do,” she snapped back. She looked at the keys and then quickly away again. “Sometimes people just have more than one set of keys. That’s all.”
“And sometimes,” Miranda said, standing up next to Jack, “you have an extra set of car keys when you’re using a stolen car to try and run me over.”
Hannah had the good grace not to deny it.
They hadn’t actually tried the second set of keys in the ignition of the red car that had almost killed her. They had only just found the key ring, and the car had been taken to another location entirely where it could be kept safe while it was processed. It was obvious what had happened though. Hannah had gotten it into her head that killing Miranda, and probably Jack too, would end the whole entire investigation.
“I’m sorry,” Hannah muttered. “I really am. I was telling the truth when I said I’ve never killed anyone. I was almost relieved when you jumped out of the way, Miranda. That was an amazing jump, by the way. Anyway. I didn’t want you to die, but I didn’t see any other way. Braydon was a bad guy, just like you said. Of all the stupid things he’s done in his life to make money I knew you would arrest him for this murder even though he didn’t do it. You were going to take him away from me. I was already losing him to Janice. I didn’t want to lose him entirely to the tag team duo of Miranda Wylder and Jack Travis.”
“Pretty smart of you.” Jack almost made it sound like a compliment. “See, I figure that when you ditched that car, you pulled the keys out and took them with you. That’s just habit. We all do it whenever we’re driving a car. We stop, put the engine in park, and pull the keys out of the ignition to put them in our pocket. Or in your case, a purse. Habit. That’s all it was.”
Hannah nodded miserably. “Yes. Muscle memory.”
“That’s right,” he said. “That’s what it was. I’m afraid muscle memory is going to send you to prison, Hannah. In the meantime, you’re going back to the cell.”
Kyle came floating toward them from the corner where he’d been quietly watching. “That’s it?” he asked. “You aren’t going to ask her anything else? I thought you two were going to arrest her?”
“Not yet,” Miranda said. “There’s one more person to talk to.”
Chapter 15
It didn’t take long for the uniformed officers to bring Janice to them and put Hannah back in the cells. They all seemed more than happy to do what Jack asked of them, without complaint. Miranda was proud of her man. He’d earned the respect of the people he worked with. If he ever did have the opportunity to take over as Senior Sergeant, he’d have an easy enough time sliding into the role.
That was a consideration for another time, she reminded herself.
Janice Peniston sat in the chair that Hannah had just recently been in, her arms folded over her breasts, her eyes glaring at both Miranda and Jack. “I told you I didn’t want to say anything to you. I know my rights.”
“I’m sure you do,” Jack told her. “I’m sure being with a guy like Braydon Wise, you know all about how to act when you’re being arrested for a crime.”
She arched one blonde eyebrow. “Am I being arrested, then?”
Jack turned to Miranda. “Did I say she was being arrested?”
“No,” Miranda said brightly. “You didn’t say anything at all about her being arrested.”
Janice looked confused. “You said something about me being with Braydon Wise…”
“Right. Braydon Wise. He’s the one we’re arresting.”
“What!” she exclaimed. “What for?”
“Come on now, Janice. You know what happened here. Someone killed Leon Peniston, your husband. Someone killed Josh Bates.”
“And you think Braydon did that?”
“Certainly,” he said with a shrug. “I mean, who else? He committed those two murders, just like he broke into Ragged Rest looking for information on the disappearance of Miranda’s aunt, Constance Cleary.”
“Hey, I won’t let you railroad Braydon for something he didn’t do. You already said you know it was me who broke into that ugly mini castle of yours. What did you call it? Ragged Rest? I’ve never understood people who name their houses. Whatever. You know I was the one who was in your house. I won’t let you arrest Braydon for something I did.”
“Like three murders?”
“Three? I don’t know what you mean. That doesn’t make sense.” Janice shifted uneasily in her chair. “There’s only two murders here, remember? Josh Bates, and my husband.”
There wasn’t a single tear when she said it. Whatever emotions she had worked up before to show that she cared about Leon Peniston dying, she wasn’t able to fake it this time. It was like she didn’t care at all that Leon was dead.
They had her off balance, though. Yes, they knew she was the one who broke into Ragged Rest. Saying they would put the blame on Braydon had put Janice off guard, though, and that was exactly where they wanted her.
“Alright, Janice,” Jack said. “Then I’ll explain it to you. That way, you don’t have to talk at all. You can just listen. Let’s start with your husband, shall we?”
“I didn’t kill Leon,” she said immediately.
“So then it was Braydon.” He smiled at her like they were playing chess, and he’d just boxed in her king.
Kyle murmured in Miranda’s ear. “He’s good, that man of yours. Now Janice either has to admit she killed him, or hang Braydon for it. Either way, you guys catch another killer.”
Miranda nodded with a small tip of her head. That was the whole idea.
“I told you,” Janice said, “I won’t let you charge Braydon with something he didn’t do.”
“I see.” Jack pursed his lips. “Well, how do you know he didn’t kill your husband? Seems to me he had a great motive. You and he were having an affair. Kill the husband off, and he has you all to himself.”
“But Braydon had an alibi.” Janice sounded smug as she said it. “He was with me when Leon died. You saw us at the diner. We were there with Hannah, and even that weasel Josh Bates showed up.”
“Yes, you were all there,” Miranda agreed. “But that doesn’t give you an alibi. You see, the poison used on both your husband and Josh Bates takes a little while to kill. Hours, even. So your husband wasn’t poisoned while you were with Braydon and Hannah and Josh. He was poisoned before.”
Miranda watched as Janice’s face paled. She hadn’t thought they would pick up on that fact, but they did. It helped that Jack was such a sharp detective, and she wrote mystery novels for a living. It helped that they were such a great team.
“All right, all right,” Janice snapped. “Fine. He wasn’t with me. He was probably with that awful woman Hannah. They were trying to rekindle their romance, or some nonsense. Braydon told me all about it right after you broke the news to me about Leon at the diner. That’s why I was so mad at him at the motel.” She shrugged. “So what? We don’t have alibis, and you don’t have any real suspects. You certainly don’t have any proof.”
“Oh, but we do.” Jack leaned in, eager to get to the heart of the matter. Either Braydon was the killer here, or Janice was. This would decide that part of the mystery. “We have the coffee cup that Braydon took from the diner. When it comes back from the lab whose prints do you think we’ll find on it? Braydon’s. He’s already admitted to carrying it out and throwing it away. You know as well as we do what was in that cup, Janice. The murder weapon, in this case. Poison.”
They didn’t have the report from the lab on that cup yet, any more than they had actually tested Hannah Smith’s keys in the ignition of that red car. What they were telling her was what they knew, not what they could yet prove.
But they weren’t going to tell Janice Peniston that.
“I know what you’ll find on that cup,” Janice said. Her lip quivered, just a little. “You’re going to find Braydon’s prints on the cup. Josh Bates’ prints will be on there, too, because he drank from it.”
“And yours?” Jack pressed.
She lowered her head, her blonde tresses falling forward. Finally, she nodded, sending ripples through the waves of her hair. “Yes. Maybe. I mean, sure I touched it.”
There it was. Janice had taken the bait.
“So you touched the cup?” Jack said, leaning forward more, like a tiger about to pounce on the prey he’d been stalking for hours through a tangled jungle. “Then you tell me, Janice. Did you put the poison in the cup, or was it Braydon? One of you is guilty. At this point I think a jury would convict either of you. My Sergeant wants this closed, Janice. He wants it off his desk and I doubt he’s overly concerned whose name I put on the arrest report. So what’s it going to be? Am I arresting you, or Braydon Wise?”
Miranda held her breath while she watched Janice swallow, and clasp her hands together tightly, and finally speak.
“Me. It was me who poisoned Bates.”
Miranda still didn’t dare breathe. This was just a small step they were taking toward the truth, but it was a very important step.
Jack edged his chair closer and held his hands over Janice Peniston’s. “It was you? Are you sure about that?”
Angrily, she yanked her hands back. “I already told you, cop. I won’t let you charge Braydon for something he didn’t do. I love him too much for that.”
“I know,” Jack told her, almost gently. “We knew you loved him, even more than you loved your husband. I was very sure you wouldn’t let him take the blame.”
Janice sniffled, and Miranda was surprised to see tears on her cheeks when she lifted her head again. “I loved him. He loved me. We were perfect for each other. I had to get my husband out of the way and when he threatened to tell this one—” She pointed an accusing finger at Miranda. “—about us breaking into her home to find out what she knew about her aunt…”
She almost literally bit her tongue to stop herself from talking, but it was too late.
“So that’s what he was going to confess,” Miranda said, putting that piece into the puzzle now, too. “And, that’s why he left his car up the road to do it. He couldn’t risk you and your friends finding out that he was going to tell me everything. Especially with Josh Bates following him.”
She remembered how they had found Josh Bates driving on the road just down from Ragged Rest, and then how they had followed him to the Dinner Plate. Bates had been following Leon Peniston. Leon was about to blow the whistle on him and Braydon and even his own wife. At the same time, his wife was poisoning him. Miranda frowned at the cruel irony behind it all, but she knew the nature of bad people was to turn on each other.
Jack was nodding his head as he put each fact in its place. “It was you who killed your husband. You loved another man, and besides that your husband was about to turn on you and expose what you had done. Two solid motives for murder. Then you killed Josh Bates because… why?”
“I originally wanted to kill him because he found out about my affair with Braydon. He’d threatened to tell Leon about it and wreck my marriage unless I used my… influence on Braydon. He wanted a raise. A bigger piece of the pie from everything Braydon was involved in. After everything he’d done to screw us up, he honestly thought I would try to get Braydon to give him more.” She paused, and it seemed like she was weighing up whether to continue or not. Then she shrugged. “I hated him. So even though, with Leon dead, his threat was no longer an issue, when I saw him steal Hannah’s coffee cup from her I knew that was my chance to get rid of him. I’d been waiting for it, and there it was. A little bit of poison on a cloth strip is all it took. It’s easy. It sinks right to the bottom of the cup when nobody’s looking and believe me, when Braydon Wise gets to shouting, no one notices anything but him.”
Jack frowned, trying to picture it. “You kept the poison in your purse I take it. Just sitting there?”
“Of course. I’m not stupid. A girl has to be prepared when opportunity knocks.”
“Where’s the poison now? I just upended your purse. It’s not there.”
She looked down at her fingertips. “I suppose there’s no sense in keeping secrets from you now, cop. It’s in my motel room, packed up in my luggage.”
That would be the final proof they needed, at least in a court of law. It certainly wasn’t the final answer that Miranda wanted out of this woman.
“What do you mean,” Miranda asked her, “about Bates screwing things up?”
“Approaching you, for one thing.” Janice sneered at the very idea of it. “Talking to you about your aunt. Dragging that whole incident up again. Those were complications that Braydon didn’t need.”
“Because he’s a private man.”
“Yes.”
“Because even though none of you will admit it,” Jack said, “Braydon Wise is involved in a lot of criminal activity.”
Janice shrugged. “Sure. I can say that. I could tell you about his gambling operations, and his drug running, and his extortion rackets, and it doesn’t matter. You’ll never prove any of it. Not with someone as smart as Braydon. Just because you know he’s a bad man doesn’t mean you can do anything to stop him.”
“And,” Jack continued, “because years ago, he killed Constance Cleary, Miranda’s aunt.”
Miranda tried not to move or give anything away. Kyle’s reassuring hand on her shoulder was a cool tingling that bolstered her courage to hear the answer from Janice Peniston’s own lips.
“You’ll never prove it.”
In spite of herself, Miranda gasped. It was as much of a confession as she was likely to get from either Janice or Braydon. Her aunt was dead. After all of these years of wondering, now her family could know the truth. Connie hadn’t just abandoned them. She hadn’t gone off in search of some adventure and never looked back.
She’d been murdered.
“Here’s what I think,” Jack said, and Miranda silently thanked him for taking the lead on this. “Braydon knew Constance all those years ago. Or rather, she knew him. She knew that he had robbed that bank. Now, I don’t have all the details yet, obviously, but I know Constance wasn’t the type of person to let a criminal run free. I also know she was a practicing psychic medium. She found out about the robbery, either because she was smart or because her extrasensory perception divined it. Either way, she probably threatened
to go to the police, and Braydon killed her for it.”
Janice’s sneer was cold, and although she spoke directly to Jack, she turned that stony expression on Miranda. “You’re right. You’ll never know. You’ll certainly never know enough to arrest anyone. You’ll never find a body, and you’ll never put her murder on me or Braydon either!”
“Yes, I will,” Jack said calmly.
Standing up, he went around the desk again, just like he had at the end of his interview with Hannah Smith. This time the purse he picked up was Janice’s. This time, when he upended it to dump the contents onto the desk, it was only a single key that he picked up from among the spilled items.
“This is how I’m going to prove it,” he said, holding the key up between his thumb and forefinger. “This is the key to Ragged Rest. Pretty gutsy of you to keep it in your purse like this, but I’m guessing you held onto it in case Braydon asked you to sneak into the house again. When we discovered the mess you and Leon left inside Ragged Rest, we also noticed there was no sign of a break in. No broken windows. No broken doors. You got in without damaging a single thing. The only way you can do that, is with a key.”
The color drained from Janice’s face entirely as she realized she was caught. There was the proof of the break in, but it was more than that. It was proof of everything, as Jack was about to explain.
Miranda had the strongest urge to go over there and pound the living daylights out of Janice Peniston. She wanted to smash her face in, again and again, until this feeling of anger and sadness and cold grief went away. Only, she didn’t do it. She was better than that. She was a better person than Janice Peniston or Braydon Wise.
Besides. Janice wasn’t the person who killed Aunt Connie. She was just a bit player in the whole scene.
“So we found this key,” Jack explained, “when we searched your purse after bringing you to the station. By the way, I want to thank both you and Hannah for bringing your purses with you, just like I asked. Very considerate. Now, the question became, how did you get this key? There would be no way for you to make a copy. You don’t know Miranda, so you certainly didn’t get it from her. You’re not even from Moonlight Bay, for that matter. No. You had to get it from someone who had a connection to Miranda’s family. You had to get it from someone who had been in Ragged Rest before.”