I heard a grunt and without having to look, knew it was Ben, disgusted with our methods. I wasn’t so fond of this technique myself, but resorted to it when it seemed the best way to expedite the process.
“I still don’t believe it,” George said. “In fact, I’m certain Mike is behind this.”
“How can you be so certain?” MacGregor asked.
“He’s the one who has it in for me. I, uh, misplaced some of our inheritance money. I was just trying to prove to him that my investment ideas were better than his. But unfortunately—it didn’t work out that way and now he’s furious with me.”
“Furious enough to kill you?”
“He’d inherit my share of the money which would make up for the amount I lost.”
Ah, one of the puzzle pieces slipped neatly into place as I recalled the conversation between Mike and George about the missing money. Mike wanted to know where his money was. I would have bet my island cottage that Judy knew exactly where it was.
“That’s true,” Judy said. “But Marsha hates me a lot more than Mike does.”
“Because you stole George from her?” I asked.
Her smile was smug. “Absolutely.” The gloating look on her face explained exactly why the entire Green family disliked her so vehemently, assuming she had looked at them the same way.
“So, back to the missing money,” I said. “How much are we talking about?”
“A couple million?” George’s answer.
“More like twenty pretty much gambled away,” Judy blurted out, distracted as she looked past us toward the mirror behind the bar to check her hair.
While George cringed, I winked at Charlie. My bet would have paid off. “Is that how you got George to marry you, Judy? By blackmailing him?”
“What are you talking about?” But before her feigned shock, her initial reaction had been betrayed by darkened eyes that had glanced down at the table, and shoulders that had slumped in defeat.
“You knew exactly what he did with the money so you blackmailed him.” And my hunch was, in order for her to have such a strong hold on him, something illegal had transpired in the process.
“No! That’s not true. George loved me, loves me. We had an affair!”
“It’s easy to mistake lust for love,” I said. “And he made the mistake of trusting you with his business. He didn’t know you’d resort to blackmail.”
“You’re wrong.” George finally decided to join the conversation. “That’s not true. I love Judy. She wasn’t blackmailing me.”
“Sure she was,” MacGregor picked up the ball this time. “Why else would you divorce a woman whom you love in order to marry one for whom you have no respect?”
“Why are you doing this? Why are we even talking about this? We were nearly murdered and you’re worrying about blackmail? You’re supposed to be working for us!”
“Our job ended on Saturday morning,” Charlie said. “When your brother was arrested for a crime he didn’t commit.”
“Still, you should be focusing on something else—Marsha. You just told us she’s behind this.”
I laughed. I hadn’t meant to but it slipped out. Three minutes earlier he was proclaiming Marsha’s innocence, but now that he was on the line, he was suddenly willing to throw her under the bus.
He turned his nervous energy on me. “You find this amusing?”
I felt MacGregor stiffen as the man’s gaze turned threatening. Josh and Matt stood up simultaneously but I motioned for them to sit back down.
“I don’t find this the slightest bit amusing,” I said. “I don’t find it amusing that you cut the brakes on a friend of ours’ car to make it appear that the culprit had vandalized the wrong car by mistake. You risked harming someone else to make it appear that you couldn’t possibly be behind this. Who, after all, would not recognize his own car? As a wise police detective I know says, we always need to consider the possibility that a crime is staged to look like a crime.”
I glanced up at Ben Blaine whose full attention we now had. I almost detected a smile on his face. But I had to give him some credit here. The truth was, if he hadn’t planted that concept in my mind, I might not have solved this crime. Of course, he had been referring to the possibility that Shelby Elliot had staged the incident with the baby stroller and her fall, but if not for his misguided and rude insistence that the kidnapping was staged, I would not have had the concept in my mind at all.
“I might add,” I continued to address George Green, “you did an excellent job of selecting your time and place. The first car you vandalized, although it did result in an accident, did little harm to the driver, considering that it was parked well away from the exit ramp. However, the next time, when you vandalized your own car, it was parked adjacent to the ramp. And you had wisely backed in and parked on the third level so you were able to make it appear that someone was out to get you but you suffered only minor injuries. Definitely well staged.” I cringed at the sarcasm edging its way into my voice. I cleared my throat and cautioned myself that sarcasm is never becoming, not even when you’re face to face with a perpetrator.
Shivers ran up and down my spine. Perhaps Ben Blaine was a better detective than I’d been giving him credit for. I raised my voice slightly to be certain Ben didn’t miss a word. “And, that same police detective pointed out that more often than not, it’s the people closest to the victim who is out to harm them.” He had been referring to kidnapping crimes, of course, but it applied to other crimes as well.
“You’re nuts!” George mustered all his strength to utter the words. “You think I sabotaged my own car and risked injuring myself?”
I noticed he hadn’t included Judy in that proclamation.
“And, you think I keyed my own car? My Mercedes? And put a brick through my windshield?” His voice was gaining strength as excuses popped into his head. “And I was nowhere near Judy when she was nearly run down.”
“You weren’t that far from the scene,” I said. “And before you say that you don’t own a large silver car, you could easily have rented, borrowed, or even stolen one for that purpose. Or—”
“Or, it’s easy enough to hire someone to carry out the gruesome task,” Charlie offered.
Judy turned a scathing look on her husband and said, “You fucking bastard!”
“Shut up, you idiot!” George snarled back at her. “You know I didn’t do what they’re saying. You can’t buy into any of this crap. It’s all a trap.” He grabbed her by the wrist and started to stand up. “We’re out of here! Come on, Judy!”
Ben Blaine selected that moment to participate in our conversation. He stood up and pulled back his jacket to reveal his badge. “I don’t think so, Mr. Green.” He nodded toward his chair. “Sit down.”
“This is stupid!” he muttered but followed Ben’s order. “For Crissake, why the hell would I hire a PI if I were behind this?”
“Something else I really do not find amusing,” I continued. “Your hiring us in an attempt to validate your innocence.” I looked away from George Green and winked at my father. “But fortunately another wise detective taught me that things often are not as they seem and that some of the most clever criminals hire investigators simply in order to appear innocent. So, no, Mr. Green, to answer your question, I do not find any of this amusing. I do not like being used that way. Nor do my colleagues. I don’t like our time being wasted, particularly when it’s as precious as it was this past week.”
He had, after all, taken our time away from finding Ally Elliot, although, I did have to admit that if not for him, I would not have been to a party and reconnected with Scott Morrison who gave me insights into the Elliot-Rawling relationships. And his brotherly-love relationship did provide me with insight into sibling envy which ultimately helped me realize the motivation behind the kidnapping.
His arrogant expression had returned. He would not go down easily. He was too cocky for that. “If you think I’m behind this, why did you have Marsha arrested?”
/>
Ben responded to that. “Your ex-wife has not been arrested.”
“But—”
“I wanted to see your reaction.” I nodded at his wife. “And Judy’s. Very informative.”
“I said nothing to incriminate myself,” George insisted. “This is all bullshit. All pure conjecture.”
“Is it?” MacGregor said. “If Mike was not responsible for the bomb, that leaves one person. You. You were the one who called him to the house when you knew perfectly well he was being followed. You were the one who made certain to ‘accidentally’ lock the garage door behind yourself and leave him in there, knowing full well that our man who was tailing him would assume he was guilty.”
“You can’t prove any of that.”
I tilted my head to the side and looked at Judy. “We don’t have to. We only have to convince a jury that you were attempting to murder your wife. And I’m sure Judy will testify to the fact that she was blackmailing you, won’t you, Judy?”
“If it means sending his ass to prison, yeah, I’ll testify.” She glared at him with her intense green eyes and for a moment I thought she was going to spit in his face. I was reasonably certain she was considering it.
“Shut up, you moron! Don’t you see what they’re trying to do? They’re trying to turn you against me for crissake?”
“Yeah, well, you should have thought about that before you tried to kill me, you bastard!” Her hand was faster than I would have guessed. She smacked him hard across the face twice before he even knew what hit him—literally. “You just want to get rid of me so you can get your bitch of an ex-wife back! You couldn’t stand to see her with another man. You’re a fool, George Green! You forget that you were the one who came on to me because you weren’t getting it at home!”
“That’s not true!”
“It sure as hell is!”
Wisely, he backed his chair away from her just in time to miss another slap.
“I was stupid, that’s all! I only slept with you because—because—you were there!” Not something you say to an already-irate woman.
This time the punch came hard and fast right between his legs. Moaning, he bent over in pain. “You fucking bitch! You don’t hold a candle to Marsha! She’s twice the woman you could ever be, you cheap slut! I just wish to hell you’d died in that explosion!” He turned his glare from Judy to Charlie. “If you hadn’t fucking interfered and had your men watching us as well, she would have! One man alone would never had seen what was happening and been able to save her. I had it all figured—”
And there it was. Amazing how a marital spat could incite a confession.
Ben Blaine stood there shaking his head as he slapped handcuffs on both husband and wife. Judy protested vehemently that blackmailing someone was nothing compared to attempted murder. George was smart enough to shut up when he knew he was behind.
After turning the couple over to the policemen whom he had called once he saw the direction of our conversation, Ben joined us at our table. “So, tell me the truth, Jenny, how did you really figure this out?”
I laughed and said quite simply, “Pure logic, Ben. George is the one to benefit most from disposing of his blackmailing wife. He gets rid of her and she can no longer expose him for losing or gambling away money or whatever he did with it. At the same time, he can try to get his real love back. And, he gets rid of his brother who suspects him of having done something nefarious with their money. Kills two birds with one stone so to speak. Or three.”
Ben’s smile was borderline gloating as he looked over at Charlie. “I knew it. I knew you didn’t really believe in any of that intuition crap.”
Charlie raised his pint in the air for a toast. “To logic and intuition crap!”
Everyone cheered and took a pleasant sip of their drinks. I inhaled a deep breath and released it slowly. Logic, I thought. Yeah, right. Maybe now that broken record about jealousy and envy would stop grinding away in my head.
It looked as if I could add circling airport parking lots to my mind-clearing methods. It seemed to be as effective as riding the ferry. Of course, I’d have to throw in visits from possessive ex-husbands as well. Joe and his envy had actually helped me figure out who was behind all the car crimes. And the Green brothers’ sibling rivalry had definitely helped me solve the kidnapping. The freeway and talking to Josh had played a large part as well. But the majority of credit had to go to Holly and her honest words. And her perfume.
MacGregor stood up and walked around the table. He pulled me into his arms and hugged me. “Have I told you lately?”
“That you love me?”
“That too, and that you’re nothing short of amazing, McNair.”
“Why thank you, MacGregor.”
“So, just one more thing I wanted to discuss with you.”
“And what would that be?”
“Something Holly brought up, actually. What we will call each other now that we’re . . . intimate.” He was still coy about our intimacy, another endearing trait.
“McNair and MacGregor seem to work just fine,” I told him.
“Aye, that they do, but I fear McNair MacGregor might be a mouthful.”
“You want me to drop the McNair?”
He kissed the tip of my nose. “Och, no, I did not say that, now did I?”
“Not exactly.”
“Actually as much as I’d like you to take my name, I think McNair suits you well.” He grinned and I knew he was thinking of all the years he had persisted in calling me that, despite the fact that my legal name had been Campbell. He had held onto hope for a long time. Calling me McNair had been a symbol of that hope.
“You don’t mind if I don’t take MacGregor?”
His smile was appreciative. Then he said, “As long as you’re my wife, I’m a very happy man, Jenny McNair.”
– THE END –
Felicity Nisbet is a native Californian, but when she moved to an island in the Pacific Northwest she fell in love with rainy days and the island lifestyle of reading and writing by candlelight and depending on a woodstove during power outages. She also writes children’s books, contemporary fiction, and adult romances.
The Jenny McNair
Cozy Mystery Series
Book #1 - Unlawful Alliances
Book #2 - Winnie’s Web
Book #3 - Three Dog Island
Book #4 - Saving Sharkey
Book #5 - Running on Envy
Running on Envy Page 30