***
Waking up on an unusual sofa was strange. Waking up in her clothes was even stranger, but she hadn’t felt comfortable wearing pyjamas, just in case. Slowly, stretching out all her aching muscles, Mary Ann stood, wondering what her next step should be. “I’m not going to turn you in, Mary Ann.” Robert’s voice came from the kitchen. “Alex would be furious with me if he knew what I’d done.”
“Do we have any more news?”
“Nothing yet, but it shouldn’t be long. Murderer enquiries always go to the top of the to-do list, because an early arrest is important in these sorts of cases, although that doesn’t always work out the way it should. Sometimes you end up dealing with bone-headed Detective Inspectors who’ve lost themselves in their memories.”
“Like I said I understand why he is the way he is, Robert.” Mary Ann sighed. “That doesn’t make it any easier to deal with.”
“I doubt anything could make this easier to deal with.” He stepped out of the kitchen. “Do you want a coffee? I’m in the middle of making some.”
“I was planning on getting an early start. The sooner I sort this the sooner I’m going to be back in my shop.”
“You should have something inside you.”
Shrugging, she looked down at her clothes, to see how bad they were. Maybe she could get away with heading to Greg’s for a quick shower, rather than staying at Robert’s apartment for any longer than she had to. “I’ll be fine.”
“Being here is safer than being out there. If Alex finds you he’s going to arrest you, so you need to be careful. Maybe I should come with you. I know who he’s already spoken to and who he needs to talk with next.”
“Robert, I appreciate you offering me a place to stay, but I don’t want anything else from you.”
“Self-sufficiency is a wonderful thing.” He stepped out into the living room and made a face when he saw what she was wearing. “I understand why you don’t trust me. I accept that. I just wish you’d accept that the last thing I would have done was offered you a place to stay only to turn you into my brother.” He shook his head. “Who was it that made you believe all help came with a price?”
Mary Ann shook her head. “I’m not talking to you about things that happened far in the past because they’re something you don’t need to know about.”
“Needing and wanting are two very different things. I want to learn more about you, Mary Ann. The moment I met you I knew that, but you’re so closed off to everyone and I don’t think I’m going to be able to break past that shield you have up, unless you’re willing to give me a chance to prove myself. Let me help you.”
***
Having a shower did make Mary Ann feel more capable of dealing with the rest of the day, even though it had to have been the quickest shower she’d ever had. As she stepped out into the living room with fresh clothes on she thought about how her day was going to work out. Not being at the shop for a day was going to have an effect on her income, but that was something she was just going to have to deal with, because there was nothing else she could do. Robert looked over at her.
“We have some news that should make things a little easier.” He smiled. “Your prints were on whatever it was that had the arsenic in, but they’d been smudged. Smudging means someone else touched it after you did, someone who was probably wearing gloves to make certain they didn’t get caught, and it means it isn’t enough evidence for Alex to arrest you. He’s furious about that.”
“Great. That just means he’s going to try harder to make someone say I was the one who committed the murder… and all he needs is one person.”
“All we need is one person to tell the truth.”
“Yes, but that may not happen.” Mary Ann sighed. “I’m going to talk to Greg first. We’ve been friends for a long time and I doubt he would have done something like this to me. After Greg, I’ll talk to Julie, even though I don’t believe it was her or Marco. My main suspects, at the moment, are Kelly, Luke, Lisa, and Thomas. I don’t want to believe it was any of them, but anything is possible.”
“Alex still needs to talk to all of them, and Hannah again. I think he’s going to go back to Cassie as well, because he’s certain someone isn’t saying something, and he’s not going to be talking to anyone who seemed not to know Paul first.”
“Which means he’ll either start with Hannah or Cassie, then go on to whichever one he hasn’t spoken to, before moving onto Kelly and Luke. That gives me time to talk to everyone else before he even thinks about going to see them.” She couldn’t help feeling relieved. “I will see you later.”
“Ring me if anything happens and make sure you record everything. You need to have evidence if the murderer does confess.”
“I don’t think they will. I think they’re going to do everything that can to protect themselves and that means not talking to me about what really happened.” Shrugging, she pulled her rucksack onto her back. “Hopefully I’ll find something out that will give me enough of a clue to be able to work out who it really was.”
“Be careful. Anyone who was willing to do something like that in the middle of a party isn’t going to have any qualms about hurting you if you’re getting too close to the truth. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
Chapter 7
Mary Ann walked to Gregory’s. Her mind kept going over and over things she didn’t really want to be thinking about, but there was nothing she could do about that. First there was Paul’s death. Keeping busy meant she hadn’t really seen the body, just noticed it out of the corner of her eye occasionally, and that was bad enough. It being murder… she still couldn’t get her head around how anyone could have done that to someone in her shop when she’d invited them all there for a celebration. Biting hard on her lip she told herself not to cry over what had been done. There was nothing she could do to change it. All she could do was change how it affected her, which was why she was going to talk to everyone who was there, to find out the truth, because she was not going to go to prison for something she hadn’t done.
As she pressed the button for Gregory’s apartment all she could do was hope it had nothing to do with him. He was the only person in her life she’d been friends with since kindergarten and she didn’t want it to have been him. “Hello?”
“Greg, it’s me.”
“I’ve been waiting for you to turn up.” He sounded relieved. “I’ll come down to you.”
She was only waiting for a minute at the most. When Gregory jogged out of the door Mary Ann smiled, and he smiled back. “You’ve been worried.”
“How could I not be? I’ve seen the papers, Mare, and I know what that idiot D. I. thinks. You are not a murderer.”
“Thank you.” Their eyes met. “Did you notice anything weird at the party?”
“No, I didn’t. It was a chance for us all to relax and I made the most of it, because I didn’t imagine anyone would do anything like that at your shop.”
“As far as I can tell no one did.” She shook her head. “I need to find out who the murderer was.”
“Before the party there were some issues between Lisa and Tom. I don’t know if they had anything to do with what happened, but I do know that Tom was all over the place for a little while. He’s been drinking far more than he should a lot of the time.” Gregory sighed. “He won’t listen to any of us when we talk to him. I remember him talking to Paul once before the party. They didn’t know I’d seen them, because they were in a coffee shop not paying any attention to the world around them, and I didn’t know if it had any relevance.”
“From the way Tom acted at the party it seemed like he didn’t know Paul at all.”
“Maybe they’d fallen out over something. Maybe it was the fact Tom was drinking too much, or it had something to do with Lisa.” Gregory shrugged. “I don’t know anything more than I told you, so you’re going to have to talk to them about it.”
***
Going to see Julie first still made more sense. Marco was th
e only other stranger on that side of the table and Mary Ann couldn’t help hoping it had been him. It seemed impossible for Thomas to be a murderer, but anything was possible. Her phone rang as she made her way up the street Julie’s house was on and she knew I was going to be Robert. “Any more news?”
“Alex hasn’t got anything new out of Cassie. She’s insisting you didn’t know Paul until the night of the party, so there was no reason for you to kill him. Unsurprisingly Alex isn’t pleased about that, but he seems to think your friends are doing everything that can to protect you, so the next person he’ll be talking to is Marco.”
“I hope he’s not at Julie’s.”
“He shouldn’t be. Last time I heard from Alex he was heading towards one of the colleges because Marco’s teaching at one of them.”
That was a little unexpected. “Marco seemed too quiet to be a teacher, but then if it’s college it’s probably different.” She nodded. “I’m going to talk to Julie. Marco was the only other stranger on that side of the table and there’s a part of me, as much as I hate it, that wants him to be the murderer. Everyone else was my friend.”
“You can’t accept that, can you?”
“Would you be able to?” She shrugged. “Even if it was one of my friends I’m going to make certain they are arrested for what they did. No one can get away with murder.”
“People have before.”
“No one can get away with murder when they use my lemon meringue to do it.”
Robert laughed. “Good luck.”
“Thank you.”
Slowly, Mary Ann walked up the path that led to Julie’s house. As she knocked on the door, she found herself wondering if Marco would be the one to lie about it being her who poisoned the pie. Was he the one who’d killed Paul? When Julie opened the door, their eyes met. “It wasn’t Marco, Mare. That much I’m certain of.”
“How can you be so certain?”
“Marco and I were together the whole time.” She brushed a hand through her hair. “I know it’s not going to be a good enough alibi if someone was to say something different, but it was our first date in over three weeks and we wanted to make the most of it. Being able to eat your pie at the same time just made everything perfect. Paul’s death came as a shock to both of us.”
“Did you notice anything weird at all?”
“No, and I’ve thought back to that night a hundred times. I didn’t see anything strange, even though I wish I had, and I hate that more than anything because I want to be able to help you. The last thing I want is for one of my closest friends to go to prison for something I know they couldn’t have done.”
***
Pressing the bell again seemed like the wrong thing to do, so Mary Ann went around the back. Lisa should have been in. It was too early for her to be at work, but then there was a chance she was at Thomas’, and if she was that might be a problem. “You aren’t going to say anything to anyone.” Thomas’ voice was loud. “There’s no reason for you to.”
“Mary Ann’s the one who’s being hurt by all of this, Tom.” Lisa sounded like she was crying. “I don’t want this to be happening to her any longer and I can fix it.”
“Lisa…”
“She’s always been a good friend to me. I’m not going to let this stop me from being a good friend for her.” The back door opened and Mary Ann tried to pretend she hadn’t heard anything when Lisa stepped outside. “I’m sorry I didn’t answer. Tom was trying to convince me I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I’m going to be handing myself into the police soon, and I wanted you to be the first to know the truth. I was the one who poisoned Paul.”
“Why?” Mary Ann looked between a still crying Lisa and a very tense looking Thomas. “I didn’t think you knew him.”
“Both of us knew Paul, but he made the choice to cut us out of his lives when Tom’s drinking got too much for him. I can understand why he would. It’s been hard for all of us.” Lisa reached out to take Thomas’ hand. “Paul, until recently, had been there for Tom through everything, until, one day, he made the decision to walk away.” She ran her tongue over her lips. “A couple of days before that Paul came on to me. He told me he could be a better boyfriend than Tom had ever been and all I had to do was say I’d leave Tom. When I said I wasn’t going to leave Tom Paul got angry. He hurt me, Mare, and I made the decision that day I was going to hurt him back.”
“You shouldn’t be doing this.” Thomas shook his head. “If we keep to the story no one needs to know what happened.”
“We disagree on the choice I made because Tom doesn’t want me to go to prison for hurting someone who hurt me. I think I need to do something before you end up being arrested.”
“Mare won’t be arrested if there isn’t enough evidence.”
“Did you dump the container for the arsenic in the bin in my back alley for a reason?”
“No, it was just the first bin I came across and I didn’t think anyone would realise Paul’s death was unnatural. I thought it would be seen as nothing more than an unexpected fatality, until I read the reports in the paper, and now I know the D. I. thinks you were the one who killed Paul I have do something.”
***
Thomas was sitting outside the police station when Mary Ann got there. “You’re in the clear, Mare. They’ve arrested her because she took the rest of the bottle of arsenic as proof of what she’d done, and now her life is over.”
“We’ll be waiting for her when she comes out.” Mary Ann studied Thomas. “You’re angry with me, aren’t you?”
“Of course I’m angry with you. If it wasn’t for you she wouldn’t have admitted to murder.” He shook his head. “I’m angry with everyone and everything right now. Nothing is going to change that. My girlfriend is facing twenty-five to life and she expects me to accept the choice she made… for you.” He stood. “You have no idea how much I hate you right now.”
“I think I do.” She could see the hatred in his eyes. “This wasn’t my fault.”
“No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but Lisa’s. She was the one who made the decision to give herself in and I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to forgive her for that. It was the worst choice she could possibly have made.” A tear trickled down his cheek and if it had been anyone else Mary Ann would have tried to comfort him. “I don’t know what I’m going to do next. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to cope with this. I don’t know why she would leave me like this.” He bit his lip. “She knows how much I need her and she still left me.”
The more he said, the more she wondered if Lisa really was the murderer. “We can be there for you, Tom. I know we aren’t Lisa, but we aren’t going to give up on a friend, so if you need any help at all come to one of us. We will do everything we can.”
“Yeah, because that’s what you do. You help those who need it. Right now you should be helping Lisa. If someone else confessed…”
“Confessing wouldn’t do any good. Lisa had motive, she had the means, and she had the opportunity. She’s confessed. She gave the police the gloves she was wearing on the night of the murder.” Having Robert inform her of everything she needed to know was very helpful. “I’m sorry, Tom, but nothing is going to change the fact she’s the one who killed Paul.”
“For a good reason.”
“Unfortunately the reason she did it doesn’t matter. What matters is that she did do it, as much as I wish it didn’t because I can’t imagine what it must have been like for her.”
“Why are you here?”
“D. I. O’Connor asked me to come by, for a conversation. I dread to think what that means, but I’m hoping, even though I doubt I’m right, he’s going to apologise for the choices he made.”
Chapter 8
“Come in.” D. I. O’Connor watched Mary Ann as she stepped into his office. She was glad it wasn’t an interview room. “You know your friend Lisa’s been arrested, right?”
“I know.”
“Do you think she did it
?”
“She says she did.” Sharing her doubts about Thomas wasn’t something she was willing to do with him, considering the choices he’d made in the past. “All I know for certain is that I had nothing to do with the murder.”
D. I. O’Connor nodded. “She said you didn’t help her get the poison into the pie.”
“Good, because I didn’t. There was no reason for me to kill Paul. I didn’t know him.” Everyone who did know him said he was a nice guy, so that didn’t correlate with Lisa’s story, and again Mary Ann couldn’t help wondering if there was something more to it. “Why did you want to see me?”
“Obviously I made a mistake when I said you were the murderer and I wanted to apologise for the way I acted. Rob, my brother, thinks it’s because of an old case I worked on and he could be right about that.” D. I. O’Connor sighed. “This job can be very difficult, Miss Lennon. Murders are the hardest of all to deal with.”
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