Murder Past Due

by Miranda James

  “Why don’t we sit down?” I indicated empty chairs. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  Both deputies declined my offer. Julia and I sat first, then the two deputies took seats. Bates pulled his notebook and a pencil from a pocket and prepared to take notes.

  “Charlie told me you’re in charge of the investigation,” Julia said. Her complete attention seemed to be focused on Kanesha.

  “That’s correct,” Kanesha said. “I’m sure you’re aware by now that Godfrey Priest was found dead under suspicious circumstances. We are investigating his death, and I have some questions for you and also for your son.” She nodded in my direction. “And for Mr. Harris, too.”

  “I’ll be happy to answer your questions,” Julia said.

  Kanesha regarded Julia with a bland expression. “Mrs. Wardlaw, what was your relationship to the deceased?”

  “I’ve known him most of my life,” Julia said. “We were not particularly close, at least in recent years.” Her face colored slightly. “But I suppose you could say we were friends.”

  “I see,” Kanesha said. “And your son? What was his relationship to Mr. Priest?”

  Did Kanesha already know? The way gossip traveled in Athena, I figured she must.

  But why didn’t she ask directly?

  “Godfrey was Justin’s biological father.” Julia’s cheeks stayed red. “They met for the first time today.”

  “Is your husband aware of this?” Kanesha was an excellent poker player, I was willing to bet.

  “Yes, he is,” Julia said.

  “How does he feel about it?”

  “He’s not happy,” Julia said, in a tone that indicated she thought it a stupid question. “He has always considered Justin his own son.”

  “He knew he’s not the boy’s biological father?” Kanesha was poking at every possible sore spot—and none too gently.

  “Yes, he knew. He has always known.” Julia’s color heightened.

  “Where is Mr. Wardlaw?” Kanesha asked.

  “In the hospital,” Julia said. “Where he has been since about one o’clock this afternoon. I was with him until about thirty minutes ago.”

  Julia had stated her own alibi and Ezra’s very clearly, but Kanesha did not appear interested.

  “There was an altercation between your husband and Mr. Priest today.” Kanesha appeared to be well informed about the day’s events.

  “They had words.” Julia frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. “My husband struck Godfrey, and Godfrey hit him back. In the face. My husband was bleeding and in pain, so I took him to the emergency room.”

  “Did you see Mr. Priest again after that?”

  Julia hesitated. “No, I did not.”

  That was the first question Julia hadn’t answered right away. Was she lying?

  “You’re sure about that?” Kanesha had noticed the hesitation, too. She looked ready to pounce.

  “I am.” This time Julia didn’t falter.

  “So you have no further knowledge of Mr. Priest’s movements after you saw him at lunchtime?” Kanesha leaned back in her chair, relaxing her rigid posture for the first time since the interview began.

  “Only what Justin and Charlie have told me.” Julia smiled briefly. “But I’m sure you’d rather hear it from them.”

  “Yes,” Kanesha said, “and I’ll also need to talk to your husband. How long will he be in the hospital?”

  “It’s possible he’ll be released tomorrow.” Julia relaxed her arms, letting them slide into her lap. “But he’s ill. You cannot upset him.”

  Kanesha pulled a business card from one of her shirt pockets. “Please call me at this number tomorrow, and let me know when I can speak with him.”

  Julia accepted the card and placed it on the table in front of her. “Certainly.”

  “Thank you. I may have more questions for you later.” Kanesha said. “Now I’d like to speak to your son.”

  “I’ll get him, if you like,” I said to Julia.

  “Thank you, Charlie,” she said. “If you don’t mind.”

  “Back in a minute,” I said, rising from my chair.

  As I left the kitchen I heard no further conversation. Would Kanesha continue to question Julia while I was out of the room? I was concerned about Julia and that one hesitation in answering. I doubted Kanesha would let that go for long.

  Nothing I could do about it now, I thought as I climbed the stairs to the third floor.

  I knocked on Justin’s door and waited for a response. When none was forthcoming, I opened the door and looked inside. Justin, still dressed and with his shoes on, appeared to be sound asleep on the bed. Diesel, stretched out beside him, raised his head and blinked at me.

  I entered the room, moving quietly. I found three candy wrappers on the floor by Justin’s bed. Some dinner, the poor kid. He’d had a terrible day, and it wasn’t finished yet.

  Laying a hand on his shoulder, I shook him gently and called his name.

  Justin’s eyes popped open, and he stared up at me in confusion. “Mr. Charlie? What . . . ?” The memories of the day evidently came back, and he sat up, rubbing his face.

  “Sorry to wake you,” I said. “But the deputies are here. You need to come downstairs now.”

  “Yes, sir,” Justin said, his voice dull.

  Diesel jumped to the floor and rubbed against my legs as I turned to leave.

  “Please wait. I need to ask you something.” I turned to face him as Justin stood.

  Diesel began chirping at me, and I reached down to rub his head. The cat pushed his head against my hand, and I rubbed a little harder. He really loved head rubs.

  “What is it, son?” I asked.

  “I don’t know what to do.” Justin ran a hand through his hair.

  “About what?”

  Diesel walked over to Justin and rubbed against his legs.

  “What if I found something in the hotel room?” Justin asked. “Something that could get somebody in trouble?”

  ELEVEN

  “In the hotel room, you mean?” I examined Justin’s face. He was clearly worried.

  Justin nodded.

  “You should tell the deputies, like we discussed earlier.” My tone was firm. “It’s best to be truthful. What you found could help them solve the case.”

  “I’m afraid to.” Justin looked miserable. “And you’re the only person I can talk to about it.”

  “What did you find?” I asked. Who was he afraid of incriminating? I had an uneasy feeling I knew.

  Justin stuck a hand into his pocket and withdrew something. He held his palm out to me, and lying across it was a gold pen.

  “It’s my dad’s.”

  “Your dad’s? You mean Ezra’s.” I was so shocked by what Justin had, I didn’t know quite how to respond.

  “Yes, sir,” Justin said. “I gave it to him for his birthday last year. I had it engraved.” He held the pen closer, pointing to the letters on the shaft with his free hand.

  I suddenly recalled Justin’s question when we were sitting in the hotel restaurant. He’d asked me if I thought Ezra had killed Godfrey.

  Now I knew why. The evidence lay in Justin’s hand.

  But how could Ezra have left the hospital and made it over to the hotel without anyone knowing he was gone? Julia said she had been with him all day, and surely the hospital staff would have noticed if he had been gone for very long.

  “What should I do?” Justin asked as we both stared at the pen.

  “You have to show it to the deputies,” I said.

  “I can’t,” Justin said. “Even after what he did to me.”

  I stared at the pen in his hand, torn. Justin’s fingerprints were all over the pen now, and had probably obliterated any others. Deputy Berry already knew he was in the room.

  I made a snap decision—with my heart, not my head. I wasn’t keen on suppressing evidence, but until I knew how that pen ended up in Godfrey’s room, I was going to continue to protect Justin�
��and whichever of his parents left that pen behind.

  “Put it back in your pocket, and don’t say anything about it to them yet. Let’s see how things go with their questions.”

  Obviously relieved, Justin nodded. He shoved the pen back into his pocket. “Guess I’d better go downstairs.”

  “Yes.” I strode to the door and held it open. “Come on, boys.”

  Diesel scampered out, and Justin and I followed. The cat had already disappeared by the time Justin and I reached the stairs.

  Back in the kitchen we found Deputy Bates regarding Diesel with awe. “That’s really a cat?”

  “Yes,” I said. “He’s a Maine coon, and they get to be as big as thirty or thirty-five pounds.”

  “Dang, he’s bigger’n my dog.” Bates shook his head.

  Kanesha frowned at her subordinate while I exchanged an amused glance with Julia. If nothing else, Bates’s reaction to Diesel had relieved some of the tension.

  “Deputy Berry, this is my son, Justin Wardlaw.” Julia stepped forward, stretching an arm around the boy’s waist and pulling him close.

  Kanesha introduced herself and Bates to Justin, then motioned for him to have a seat. “I’d like to speak to Justin alone,” Kanesha said.

  “No.” Julia shook her head. “No, I need to be with him.”

  Kanesha frowned. “How old are you, Justin?”

  “Eighteen,” he said.

  Kanesha nodded. “In that case, Mrs. Wardlaw, I have to insist I talk to Justin without you. Justin is an adult.”

  Julia bridled at that. She looked like a lioness about to attack. “That’s ridiculous. If you’re not going to let me stay with him, then I don’t think he should talk to you.”

  Kanesha opened her mouth, but I spoke first.

  “Julia, Deputy Berry is right. Justin is an adult now, and I think it’s best to let her talk to him now. Otherwise, I imagine he might end up doing it down at the sheriff’s department. Wouldn’t you rather avoid that?”

  Kanesha shot me a severe look. She wasn’t happy with my interference, but I thought I’d better do something before Julia got really riled up.

  “Very well. You’re right. I don’t want that.” Julia let go of Justin after a moment. “I’ll be close by if you need me.” She smiled at her son.

  Justin nodded. He might be eighteen, and therefore an adult in the eyes of the law, but when I looked at him, I saw a tired, frightened boy. I hoped Kanesha would handle him gently. He’d had a very difficult day.

  I offered Julia my arm and escorted her across the front hall into the living room. She sank into an armchair and covered her face with her hands.

  At the moment I wasn’t sure how to comfort her, other than by patting her shoulder a few times.

  I pulled a chair close to hers and sat down. “Julia, it’s going to be okay.” I hoped I sounded convincing.

  Julia let her hands fall to her lap. Her face was wet with tears. “Oh Lord, what are we going to do?”

  “They won’t arrest Justin,” I said, to myself adding, at least not tonight, I hope.

  “Please, Lord, no,” Julia said, her voice soft. She leaned back in the chair, looking suddenly older than her fifty years. “Ezra will be so upset when he finds out about all this.”

  “He’ll have to know,” I said, and Julia nodded. “And while we’re talking about Ezra, I have a question.”

  Julia regarded me warily.

  “You were with him at the hospital all day? Until you left to get Justin from the hotel?” I watched her carefully.

  Her gaze dropped away for a moment. “Yes, I was.”

  “Then there was no way Ezra could have left the hospital?”

  Startled, Julia sat upright. “Of course not. Whatever made you ask something like that?” She frowned. “Ezra did not kill Godfrey. You can get that notion out of your head right this minute.”

  Julia was getting angry with me again, but I wasn’t going to back down.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll get it out of my head for a moment. But let me ask you another question.” I hated doing this, but Julia was obviously—at least to me—lying about her time at the hospital.

  “Well, go ahead.” Julia glared at me.

  “If I asked Ezra whether you were with him all day at the hospital, what would he say?”

  Julia’s eyes narrowed. “What is that supposed to mean? Of course Ezra would say I was with him.”

  “Then one of you would be lying.” I said it as gently as I could. “It’s no use. I know one of you was in Godfrey’s room today.” I paused for a moment to let the words sink in.

  Julia paled, and I knew I was right. I felt no satisfaction from it.

  “How?”

  “Justin found something belonging to Ezra in the room,” I said. “When he went back and found Godfrey dead.”

  “Oh dear.” The fight seemed to have gone out of her—for the moment. “Is Justin going to give it, whatever it is, to the deputies?”

  “No, I told him not to, for now,” I said. “He’s very worried about it, but I wanted to find out who left it there. You haven’t told him yet that you went there, have you?”

  “No, I haven’t.” Julia shook her head. “I see now I should have told him.”

  “You have to tell me the truth too, if I’m going to be any use to Justin,” I said.

  “I will.” Julia’s tone was firm.

  “The question is,” I said, “well, two questions, actually. First, which one of you went to the hotel? And second, when?”

  She leaned back in the chair again. “It was me. Ezra never left the hospital. What did I leave there?”

  “Ezra’s pen, one Justin gave him.”

  “Of course. How stupid of me.” Julia shook her head. “Godfrey wanted to give me a check, but he didn’t have a pen. I had Ezra’s things in my purse, so I must have pulled out that pen and then left it behind.”

  “Godfrey was alive when you left?” I hated to ask it, but I had to.

  “Yes.” Julia’s eyes flashed. “Alive and mad as a hornet.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I read him the riot act,” Julia said. “I went there expecting to find Justin with him. And he wasn’t. When I asked Godfrey where Justin was, he told me they’d argued and why.”

  “So you lit into him?” I had to suppress a smile. I recalled that Julia had a rather fiery temper as a girl.

  “I did,” Julia said with a trace of satisfaction in her voice. “I told him he had to think more about what was good for Justin, and not what he wanted. He got the point.”

  “I’m sure he did,” I said. “How long were you there?”

  Julia thought for a moment. “No more than fifteen minutes, maybe only ten. I had to get back to the hospital.”

  “What time was that?”

  “I got back a little after three. They were changing shifts.”

  “So you left Godfrey alive before three?” I was trying to get the chronology straight in my head.

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t try to find Justin before you went back to the hospital?” I asked.

  “No. I was concerned about him,” Julia said. “But I had to check on Ezra, and I wanted to stop by the bank to deposit Godfrey’s check. Justin would have called if he needed me.” She turned away for a moment. “Or so I thought.”

  “You’ll have to tell the deputies about this,” I said.

  “I know. They’ll think Justin or I killed him. Or maybe that we did it together.” Julia rubbed a hand across her eyes as she faced me again. “Lord, I wish I could hear what’s going on in your kitchen right now.”

  “I know. I wish I could, too,” I said. “But there’s nothing we can do at the moment except wait.”

  Julia nodded.

  “It’s possible they might think you or Justin killed him,” I said. “Depends on what they think your motive is. Revenge, maybe.”

  “Why would I suddenly decide I wanted revenge now?” Julia snorted. “If I’d
wanted to kill Godfrey because he got me pregnant and ran out on me, I would have done it years ago.”

  “Possibly,” I said. “But now your husband is terminally ill, Godfrey appears and wants to take your son back to California, and maybe you’re so stressed you lose control and strike him down.”

  Julia blanched. “I hadn’t thought of that. It does sound plausible when you put it that way. The Lord knows my stress level is through the roof.”

  “No wonder,” I said in sympathy. “Anybody’s would be, with what you’re going through with Ezra.”

  Julia smiled her thanks. “But I didn’t kill Godfrey, and neither did my husband nor my son.”

  “Then we have to look elsewhere.” I paused. “How often did Godfrey come back to Athena over the years?”

  Julia thought for a moment. “Every few years, probably. A few times he came on a book tour. Other times for research of some kind.”

  “Once his parents left Athena, did he have that many ties here, other than college?”

  Julia didn’t appear to have heard me.

  “What is it? Have you remembered something?” I leaned forward in my chair.

  “Talking about book tours made me think of it,” Julia finally said, focusing on me again. “When I was leaving the hotel earlier today, I saw somebody at the front desk with a box of books.” She shrugged. “At least, that’s what I thought it must be, because I saw the name of Godfrey’s latest book on the side of the box.”

  “Who was it?” A potential new suspect, I hoped. All the better for Justin and Julia.

  “That woman who owns the bookstore on the square, Jordan Thompson,” Julia said. “And I know for a fact she hated Godfrey with a passion.”

  TWELVE

  “I didn’t think ministers’ wives listened to gossip.” I said it teasingly, but Julia didn’t take it that way.

  “I don’t run around gossiping with anyone.” Julia’s tone was frosty enough to make me wish I was wearing a sweater. “But people tell me things, even when I don’t ask them to. Besides, Melba Gilley’s niece Patty works there. Has since she got out of high school five years ago. She used to babysit Justin, and whenever I run into her, she always wants to talk.”