Feature Presentation

by K. J. Emrick

  Pearl smiled sweetly. “Why, yes,” she said, imitating Jack. “She fired me, but all was forgiven in the end. To be honest, I don’t really want to go into details.”

  “Not going into details would normally be a cause of suspicion, Miss Anderson. However, you appear to lack a motive to kill Liam Wood as well. It appears you didn’t really know him particularly well. You were a stagehand, after all, but you hadn’t worked with him long enough to form any sort of a grudge.”

  Miranda added another piece of the puzzle from where she was sitting. “That didn’t stop someone from saying they would cover for you if suspicion fell your way. But only because they knew for certain you were innocent.”

  “True enough,” Jack agreed with a smile. “But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, aren’t we?”

  “Hold on,” Pearl said, a little bolder now that she wasn’t being considered a suspect. “How do we know that woman up there didn’t kill Alma and Liam. I’ve never seen her before today!”

  “That’s exactly the point,” Jack said. “None of you know her, and she doesn’t know any of you. There’s no reason for Miranda Wylder, famed crime novelist, to be considered a suspect. Besides, I trust her completely.”

  He didn’t turn around when he said that, and Miranda was glad for that because she could feel her cheeks heating. She had to stare at her toes for a long moment until her traitorous heart calmed down.

  “So let’s move on,” Jack was saying. “We have you two.” He pointed to Charles and James. “I can’t find any reason that either of you would want to kill either Alma or Liam. It doesn’t make any sense that you would kill the talent behind your film. Would be kind of like cutting off your nose to spite your face, wouldn’t it?” He shot them a quick smile.

  Jack turned toward Dax. “Let’s discuss you, Dax Brennan. Alma reported you to the police for drug-taking. That’s a pretty good motive for murder in any police officer’s book.”

  Dax cleared his throat and fanned his collar. “Well, sure, that’s true, but I got clean and she hired me back. There was no bad blood between us.”

  “Which is true,” Miranda said, with a smile. “Fortunately for you, I overheard you discussing it with Pearl Anderson at the movie screening.”

  Not to mention Alma had confirmed it for her, but she thought it best to leave that part out.

  “So,” Jack agreed, “without any motivation to kill Alma, it is unlikely you would have wanted to kill Liam. So that takes us back to Pearl Anderson and to the person who said they were keen to prove her innocence.”

  Jack turned to Miranda again, giving the little show they were putting on back to her. “Right. In the moments before I tripped into the private lounge where I found Pearl and Christopher Clark in an embrace—” That met with a general gasp from everyone. “—I heard Christopher promising Pearl that he would do whatever he could to make sure the police didn’t suspect her, given that Alma had fired her.”

  Christopher’s eyes got very wide. Obviously, he thought he had deflected Miranda sufficiently by trying to put her on Liam’s scent. “Uh, well sure I said that. Any real man would offer to protect a woman he likes. That doesn’t mean I had a reason to kill anybody.”

  “But if you remember, Christopher, Pearl said to you that she was completely safe from suspicion. She told you not to worry about her.”

  “So?” Christopher said, sullenly.

  “So, presumably you had no idea what Pearl meant by that.”

  “Uh, well no,” Christopher said, and shrugged. “I still don’t.”

  “Pearl?” Miranda said, raising her eyebrows. “It’s time to explain that comment.”

  “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

  “No,” Jack told her, “but you do have to explain yourself to me.”

  Pearl knew she was cornered. “Look, Alma and I had got over our differences, and she had actually rehired me. Nobody knew that, but it’s true. Not only that, but Alma said she would backdate my pay to the moment where I had been dismissed. I have a letter to prove it. That’s why she invited me this evening. It was to bury the hatchet, so to speak. You see, I hadn’t told anybody yet. Not even Christopher.”

  Alma nodded her head, but she couldn’t help a little eye roll to go along with it. Miranda had to suppress her grin.

  “And yet,” Miranda said out loud, “Christopher wanted to protect you from suspicion. Which is admirable, considering how close you two have obviously gotten. Still I think it speaks volumes. Christopher knew you were innocent. He was just so darned positive that you didn’t commit the murder and yet still he offered to protect you, thinking that there would be a whiff of suspicion about you, having been fired and everything.”

  “All because you hadn’t told him the truth, Pearl,” Jack continued, then looked back to Miranda.

  “But why,” Miranda asked, “was Christopher so convinced that you had nothing to do with it, Pearl? You’d been fired, as far as everyone knew. Your name should have been in the credits, but it wasn’t. She wronged you, and then to everyone’s eyes, she invited you here today to rub it in your face. There was ample motive to point the blame at you, but still Christopher knew you were innocent. Now, why was that?”

  Pearl’s face crumpled as she realized the truth.

  “It was because,” Jack said directly, “Christopher committed the murders.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Christopher said immediately. “You have no proof of that!”

  “Well, actually… I have this.” Miranda took the partially burned movie script from the folder where Jack had put it, careful of the crisped edges. “I’m afraid you didn’t quite finish the job. No wonder you were angry when I found my way into that closet. Not only did I find the murder weapon you left behind, but I found this before you could destroy it. This is a movie script for Galactic Highway.”

  “So?”

  “So, you should really see the pages at the back. The ones that outline the credit sequence for the end of the film. You know, the full list of the credits that would roll up at the end of the film?”

  Miranda stared at him intently, until Christopher flinched and looked away.

  “You’re not mentioned,” she said. “But you knew that, didn’t you? Despite being involved in the writing of the script for Galactic Highway, you didn’t even get a mention. And that was why you were so angry at the end of the film. That was why you stood up and marched out of the back of the cinema. You weren’t gone long, but it was long enough. You went looking for Alma in Jean-Paul’s office first. You didn’t find him, but you found the award he was planning on giving to her tomorrow. Just her. You picked it up, and you brought it with you, and you found Alma in the ladies’ room.”

  “Guesswork,” Christopher muttered. “That proves nothing. You really would make a terrible script writer.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Jack said. “Seems to give you a really good motive. And like Miranda said, we’ve got the murder weapon. Alma’s blood, and what I’m sure will turn out to be your prints.”

  Christopher’s face turned red. “You said that I was involved in the writing of the script for Galactic Highway, but I was the lead writer. I put far more into that film than Alma did. That was my talent on the screen. Mine.”

  Miranda bit back a comment on what kind of talent she had seen up there during the movie. It wasn’t important. What was important was how Christopher had just incriminated himself.

  “Oh my God,” Alma said, almost as if the memories were returning to her. “He did this. He followed me into the bathroom. He killed me!”

  “Yes,” Miranda said, directing the word at Alma even as she was looking right at Christopher. “And when you saw that you weren’t credited, you lost it.”

  “I’ve never been so angry.” Now that the admission had started, it was like he was unable to stop himself. “I should have known what was coming. Alma O’Neal was talented enough, but she always wanted all the credit for herself.”

  “T
hat’s not true!” Alma snapped, floating over to slap at Christopher across his face. Her hands went right through him, and he felt up to his face as if a stray draft had touched his skin.

  Miranda shifted a little to her right, so she could see Christopher around Alma’s shoulders. “So you followed her out?”

  “No, Alma had already left. It was like you said. I went looking for her to confront her, to see what I needed to do to get the credit I deserved. I found the trophy, and I took it, meaning to slam it in her face—” He choked off, realizing what he’d just said, and maybe for the first time realizing what he had really done.

  “Okay,” Miranda said, slowly drawing out the word. “So why did you attack me?”

  “I just thought you were poking around too much. I just wanted to scare you. I was never going to actually hurt you.”

  “So then,” she added, relaying the narrative just like she’d figured it out, “you escaped the closet, and decided to throw your evidence out of the fire doors at the back. The scarf. That was a prop you wore over your face to hide your identity while you tried burning the evidence, wasn’t it?”

  He nodded miserably. “I grabbed the scarf from the cloakroom in the lobby to cover my face. It was a synthetic fiber. So, no way it would burn. I had to get rid of it another way.”

  “And Liam spotted you.”

  Another nod. Another admission. “I hated that man. So much. When he threatened to tell everyone what I was doing, I choked the life out of him and it just felt so damned good…”

  He took a heavy breath and slumped forward in his seat before he could continue. “Three times I shouted at him to get away, mind his own business, but he just wouldn’t listen. I knew we’d get caught at any moment because somebody was sure to come along if they heard shouting. I didn’t have a choice. I wrapped my hands around his neck and I strangled him.”

  “And then you threw the scarf out of the fire door?” Miranda asked.

  “Yes. That’s when I realized I forgot the damned award back in the closet and went back for it. You know how hard it is to get around this building without being seen by anyone? I had to avoid you, Miss Busybody Miranda Wylder, and the police, and everyone else. In the end, I made my way back to find it but it wasn’t there and I searched everywhere and tore that place apart and then lo and behold, there you were again, snooping around.”

  The room fell silent. Everyone shifted uncomfortably in their seats, not quite able to look at Christopher, knowing what he had done. Pearl got up and moved to a different chair.

  “Was it worth it, Christopher?” Jack asked after a moment.

  The killer in their midst just shook his head. “That film meant so much to me. And Alma lying about my involvement in it would have taken away my eligibility for credit if the film did well at the Sundance Festival. My career would have gone nowhere, after all the work I did for her.”

  “Oh God, it’s all true,” Alma said, thoroughly ashamed. “I did try to steal credit from him. Oh, and it was so unfair. Christopher had worked so hard on Galactic Highway, and his sci-fi writing is so much better than mine.”

  “Don’t worry, Alma,” Kyle said, smiling. “That’s something you can deal with yourself when you get to where it is you’re supposed to be going.”

  “Am I going now?” she asked, as Miranda glanced over at her surreptitiously. Slowly but surely, Alma was fading.

  “Don’t fight it,” Kyle suggested. “Just go with it.”

  Lifting her hands to the roof, giving one last bow to the audience, Alma disappeared from view.

  Jack had been waiting for Miranda to say something else, but when she didn’t he just cleared his throat and went about his job.

  “Well, at the end of the day, you’ve killed two people, Christopher. You know what that means.” Raising a hand, he motioned to the two uniformed officers. “Take him away.”

  Miranda went over to sit on the other side of Jean-Paul. “You see? None of this was your fault. There was nothing you could have done.”

  He still looked desolate, but he nodded. “I know, and it’s so hard to think that Alma was the sort of person who would cheat somebody so badly.”

  “I know, Jean-Paul.” Sapphire said, gently patting his arm. “There is so much to deal with here. But you’ll get through it. We’ll help you, Miranda and I. Won’t we?”

  “Of course we will,” Miranda agreed readily. “We’re friends, and we’ll always help each other, right?”

  “Ahem.” Jack made a comical sound as he intentionally cleared his throat to get Miranda’s attention. “Can I see you over here, Miss Wylder?”

  “Certainly, Detective Travis,” she said, amused by the way they were being so formal. When they were far enough away from everyone, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Thank you, for saving my life.”

  “Heh. I think you more or less saved your own life. You do have a way of getting into, and then out of, trouble. I kind of think it’s attractive.”

  “Oh?” she asked him. “Attractive enough to come have a drink at my place?”

  Kyle had floated up next to them, and Miranda did her best to ignore his anxious interest while Jack worked through his own emotions.

  “I…” he said, and then trailed off. “Miranda, there’s things about me you don’t know.”

  “Likewise,” she said with a lopsided grin, “I’m sure.”

  “Really?” His eyebrow quirked. He was obviously intrigued. “Well, then I tell you what. How about one more date out on the town, you and me. We can talk about the things that make us different and if you still want to invite me round to your house someday, then I’m all in.”

  “All in?” she liked the sound of that.

  “Yes,” he said sincerely, taking her hand in his. “I’m all in.”

  Miranda had a hard time telling who was more excited by that. Her, or Kyle.

  -End-

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  About the Authors

  K.J. Emrick

  Kathrine Emrick writing as K.J. Emrick is the author of the popular Darcy Sweet Cozy Mystery series and the Pine Lake Inn Cozy Mystery series.

  Strongly influenced by authors like James Patterson, Dick Francis, and Nora Roberts, Kathrine Emrick dreamed of being an author for the majority of her life.

  She never quite gave up on the idea of being a published author and at the age of 51, thanks to Amazon and their Kindle platform, she finally realized her dream. Her maturity allows her to bring a variety of experiences and observations to her writing.

  She lives in beautiful South Australia with her family which includes several dogs and cats.

  Kathrine can always be found jotting down daily notes in a journal and like many authors, she loves to be surrounded by books and is a vo
racious reader. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family and volunteering at the local library.

  Her goal is to regularly produce entertaining and noteworthy content and engaging in a community of readers and writers.

  To find out more please visit the Kathrine's website at kathrineemrick.com

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  Kathryn De Winter is a passionate Cozy Mystery Author & Bookworm who spends her days writing and reading in Melbourne, Australia. Born in the UK her passion for crafting stories began during her childhood and it has stayed with her ever since.

  Anytime Kathryn writes, she strives to create something entertaining that her readers thoroughly enjoy to read and dreams of being a New York Times® Best Seller one day. The authors who influence her work the most are Agatha Christie and James Patterson. She is also deeply inspired by her good friend K.J. Emrick.

  Kathryn lived in the USA during her twenties where she became a single parent after her first marriage ended. Coincidentally, she met her now Australian husband in the US five years ago, when they were both there on holidays.

  When she has a few moments to herself, Kathryn likes swimming, bike riding, cooking tasty meals, and discovering new places. She is also an avid music and animal lover. (Drums are her instrument of choice and she is a cat & dog person.) One of Kathryn’s favourite places to be is her local library. Most importantly, she loves spending time with her wonderful husband and son.

  Kathryn De Winter recently finished a three-part cozy mystery series and has written another two cozy mysteries in a different three-part series. To find out more about her publications, visit her official website: http://www.kathryndewinter.com