by J A Whiting
Ian nodded. “Jackson might have strangled Cheryl to death, or he caused her to pass out and she regained consciousness when he was with John in the other room.” The detective sighed. “I don’t know what to think.”
“I do,” Claire said. “Jackson hurt Cheryl. Either Cheryl died in the house or she regained consciousness and left in her car. Someone else was in the house, and that someone had a hand in what happened to Cheryl.” Claire made eye contact with Ian. “I can feel it. I could feel it on the air when John was talking. I know it’s true.”
23
Because Lisa Richardson told police that she was at her sister’s apartment on the evening Cheryl Wilby vanished, Ian and Claire were going to interview the woman at an assisted living facility.
Rosa Richardson Moran answered the door dragging an oxygen tank behind her. In her early sixties, Rosa was thin, pale, unsteady, and slow.
“I have lung disease,” Rosa told Ian and Claire, her voice breathy and barely above a whisper. “It’s come on strong over the past three years. I’m practically a prisoner in my home. I can’t drive, can’t walk far, can barely make my own meals. I retired four years ago. My husband died five years ago. I’m basically all alone.”
“You have your sister,” Claire said.
Rosa moved her hand in the air. “Lisa doesn’t come by much anymore. She doesn’t like sick people. It reminds her that she’s mortal.”
“Do you have children?”
“We weren’t able to have kids. It’s just as well. I’d be a terrible burden on them.” Rosa stopped to catch her breath. “I have a couple of friends here at the facility. We spend the time complaining about our health issues.”
Claire smiled at Rosa’s spunky attitude toward her illness.
“You want to talk to me about Cheryl Wilby. I didn’t know her, but I felt very bad about her disappearance. She had so much to live for, her business, her husband, her little kids. It was a real shame.”
“Your sister knew Cheryl,” Ian pointed out.
“Yes, she did. Lisa worked at Journey. She was friendly with Cheryl.”
“Did you see your sister on the day Cheryl disappeared?” Ian asked.
“I did see her. She slept over. We had wine. Too much wine.”
“Lisa was seen at the Wilbys’s house that evening.”
“Oh, that’s right. I think she dropped off some paperwork. I could be wrong about that. You’ll have to ask Lisa.”
“Can you tell us about your sister?” Ian asked the woman.
“Oh, sure. Lisa is smart and ambitious. She was married early on, but they got divorced. I think her ambitious nature caused problems in the marriage. Lisa was also a flirt. It pained me that she was like that. She dated married men. I asked her why she would do that since she knew it would end up hurting the wife of the guy she was seeing. She told me it wasn’t her problem. Lisa can be fun and funny, but she has a weird set of ethics. Sometimes she can’t see right from wrong. It’s too bad. I think it’s hurt her in some ways.”
“How do you think it hurts her?” Claire asked.
“It pushes people away from her. Lisa doesn’t have many friends. She never remarried. She’s a workaholic. She’s generous to different charities and she does things for the community, but sometimes I worry that she’s lonely. Sure, she has a new guy every few months, but it never lasts.”
“Maybe Lisa doesn’t want it to last,” Claire suggested. “Maybe she prefers short-term things.”
“Well, I think that’s sad.” Rosa shook her head. “It’s just my opinion.”
“You said Lisa doesn’t come by much anymore,” Ian said.
“She’s very busy. I’m not supposed to drink alcohol anymore. I can’t do much except watch television. Lisa gets bored. She’ll drop off some groceries and she might stay for tea, but then she takes off. We used to have fun together.”
“Did you spend a lot of time together?”
“We did. Not so much anymore.”
“Can you tell us why Lisa left Journey?”
Rosa shifted in her chair. “She wanted her own business.”
“She left right after Cheryl went missing,” Ian pointed out.
“Yes, she did. She didn’t want to work there anymore. She’d talked about starting her own accounting firm and what happened to Cheryl made her rethink her life. Time was going by and she knew you could lose everything in an instant. So she decided to take the chance.”
“Lisa mentioned that she was upset about what happened to Cheryl. She didn’t want to work at Journey anymore because it was too upsetting,” Claire said.
“That was a big part of it,” Rosa nodded. “But the incident with Cheryl was also a motivator for Lisa to leave and start her business. She needed the change.”
“Did she like working at Journey?” Ian asked.
“I think she did. She had her complaints sometimes, but who doesn’t? None of us love our job each and every day,” Rosa said.
Ian asked, “Was Lisa dating anyone back then?”
“Lisa was married then.”
“We’ve heard Lisa liked Jackson Wilby,” Ian said innocently.
Rosa blew out a breath. “You probably know already. Lisa was seeing Jackson.”
“She talked to you about it?” Claire asked.
“Yeah, she did. She thought she was in love with him. She was head over heels over him.”
“Jackson was married to Cheryl. Wasn’t Lisa afraid of how that would play out?”
“Lisa didn’t care. When she was infatuated with someone, nothing else mattered. That’s how she was. I didn’t approve of it.”
“Her affair with Jackson?”
Rosa nodded. “I thought it was a foolish thing to get mixed up in. Date one of the bosses? And the other boss is married to the guy you’re seeing? A very bad idea.”
“Lisa didn’t listen to your concerns?”
“She has a mind of her own. Always has.”
“Can you tell us about that night?”
Rosa needed a minute to catch her breath. Her words had been interspersed with wheezing and it had become increasingly hard for her to get her words out.
“I was engaged. I married late in life. I had my own apartment. This was around the time that Lisa was seeing Jackson Wilby. Lisa’s husband found out what was going on and the wheels leading towards divorce began to turn. Lots of nights, Lisa would stay over at my apartment. She wanted to avoid going home. She didn’t want to discuss it over and over with her husband. Lisa stayed with me that night.”
“What time did she arrive?” Ian asked.
“Oh, gee, I don’t remember.”
“Did she come for dinner?”
“No, after that.”
Ian told Rosa what time Lisa had been seen at the Wilbys’s house dropping something off. “Did she come right to your place after that?”
“I really don’t remember what time she got here.” Rosa tugged at the sleeve of her shirt.
“You had wine together?” Claire asked.
“We did. I remember that.” Rosa grinned.
“Did Lisa talk about her day?”
“She must have.”
“Did she tell you she was at the Wilbys?”
Rosa bit her lip. “She might have.”
“It would be very helpful if you could tell us an approximate time that your sister arrived. It’s all part of the timeline. It might help the cold case. It might help us figure out some things about who was where, when.”
Rosa’s face looked even paler than when they’d arrived at her place.
“I … I … my sister asked me to do her a favor that night. She used to ask me for a lot of favors back then. Lisa wanted to spend the night with Jackson. She told me that if anyone asked if she was here that night, then I should say she stayed with me.”
“Was she planning to meet Jackson somewhere?”
“They did that a lot. Jackson would tell Cheryl he was working late and that he would stay overnight on
the sofa in his office. He really had a townhouse over in Medford. Cheryl didn’t know about it. He used the place to meet Lisa there.”
Claire’s senses began to crackle.
“So Lisa didn’t stay with you on the night Cheryl went missing. She was planning to stay with Jackson at his townhouse?” Ian asked.
“That’s right. Don’t tell Lisa I told you this. She’d be so angry with me. But it’s been years and years so what does it matter now if Lisa met Jackson for a night together?”
“Lisa and her ex-husband owned a cabin by a lake in New Hampshire?” Claire asked.
“They did. Lisa got the cabin when they divorced,” Rosa said. “Lisa still owns it, but she doesn’t use it much anymore.”
Claire smiled sweetly. “Would you be able to give us the address of the cabin?”
Ian and Claire decided to take a drive up to New Hampshire.
“Lisa wasn’t at her sister’s place on the evening Cheryl disappeared,” Claire said. “She was supposedly going to stay at Jackson’s townhouse.”
“But Jackson was busy that night fighting with his wife and trying to find her after he had choked her in the kitchen,” Ian summarized.
“So if Jackson was unavailable that night, where did Lisa stay?” Claire asked with a raised eyebrow.
“When John was hypnotized,” Ian said, “he claimed that he heard someone else in the house.” He gave Claire a quick look.
“Lisa?”
“Maybe.” Ian said the word with a sigh.
“Lisa and Jackson worked together to kill Cheryl?” Claire asked with a shudder. “Two monsters.”
On the rest of the ride up to New Hampshire, Claire and Ian were both very quiet.
The cabin owned by Lisa was on a long, bumpy dirt road through the woods. The couple only passed three other cabins and there was a good amount of distance between them. Lisa’s cabin was right on the edge of a large, blue lake … it was very isolated.
When they got out of the car, sweat dribbled down Claire’s back even though it wasn’t hot outside. Little zips of electricity seemed to bite at the skin on her arms.
“What do you think?” Ian asked as they stood looking out over the water.
“It’s very pretty here. It’s also very secluded.”
“I’ll say.”
“Lisa doesn’t use the cabin much anymore, but she still owns it,” Claire said. “She’s owned it for a long time. Almost twenty-five years.”
“It looks like this is a huge lake.” Ian used his hand to shade his eyes from the sun. “Lots of room to hide something.”
“Something like a car?” Claire asked. “And a body?”
“Something like that.” Ian turned to his girlfriend. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Claire gave a sad nod. “I’m doing more than thinking it. I’m feeling it. There’s electricity on the air … from a long, long time ago.”
24
“Ian is going through the channels to try and get some scuba divers out to the lake to search for Cheryl’s vehicle,” Claire told Nicole as they sat at the patio table under the lights.
“So it might be that Jackson and Lisa teamed up to kill Cheryl?” Nicole shook her head and watched the Corgis play with a toy. “It’s too terrible to even consider.”
“Ian isn’t sure about it. It’s just speculation. But Lisa lied to us about staying at her sister’s place on the evening Cheryl went missing,” Claire said. “Lisa was seen arriving at the Wilbys’s house around the time Jackson and Cheryl fought, and when John was under hypnosis, he told us he heard someone else in the house talking to his father.”
“It’s pretty suspicious, isn’t it?” Nicole sipped from her wine glass. “Did John say it was a woman who was talking?”
“He didn’t remember, but he was absolutely sure someone else was in the house because he heard someone speaking.”
“Could it have been the television?” Nicole asked.
Claire made eye contact with her friend and shrugged. “Lisa has owned a cabin on the New Hampshire lake for twenty-five years, but her sister said Lisa never uses it. Why would she keep it?”
“Maybe for the same reason Jackson Wilby still owns the house he lived in with Cheryl and the kids. Maybe the houses represent happier times in their lives and neither one wants to let that go,” Nicole suggested. “Or there’s some evidence of wrongdoing in those houses that they’re trying to hide.”
Claire and Nicole took the dogs for a walk and talked about the details of the recipes that they wanted to include in the filming of the cooking show, some ideas for the second cookbook they were going to do, and then discussed the idea of taking the ferry out to the harbor islands on the weekend.
“We need some fun,” Nicole said. “Not just work and more work.”
When they returned to the townhouse from the late evening walk, the friends hugged goodnight.
“See you bright and early,” Claire said with a smile as Nicole headed down the granite steps to walk the several blocks to her apartment.
Claire was putting dishes in the dishwasher when the doorbell rang.
“Nicole must have forgotten something.” She and the dogs went to see what Nicole needed and when Claire opened the door she was surprised to see Lisa Richardson standing in the darkness. The woman clutched a briefcase and took a quick glance over her shoulder. “I need to talk to you. It’s important. I need to come in.”
Despite her nerves buzzing, Claire invited the woman inside.
Lisa’s face was pinched and her blue eyes blazed with nervousness. “I was going to go to the police station, but coming here was quicker.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Plenty. Everything.”
Claire invited her into the living room and when Lisa sat down, she didn’t let go of the briefcase, but instead held it tight on her lap.
“I need to give you the information I have here.” While Lisa kept her arms wrapped around the case, she blurted, “Jackson killed Cheryl. He strangled her to death. Jackson is a monster like you’ve never known before. They fought in the kitchen that night. Cheryl told Jackson she wanted a divorce. She knew Jackson was seeing me. But the biggest thing was that Cheryl found out Jackson was involved in illegal activities and she was going to turn him in.”
Lisa’s face was as white as a ghost. “Jackson wouldn’t stand for it so he….”
“He killed Cheryl?” Claire asked gently.
Lisa nodded.
“Why didn’t you come forward before this?”
“Because Jackson has his thumb on me. He threatens to go to the police and tell them I killed Cheryl out of jealousy. He told me on the night Cheryl died that if I didn’t do everything he told me to, then he would frame me for her murder. He’d do it, too. You have no idea how powerful he is.”
“I’m going to text Ian Fuller and have him come here to talk to you.” Claire reached for her phone and sent off a text to her boyfriend.
Lisa stood up and flipped open the briefcase. “The detective doesn’t have time to get here. I think Jackson is following me. You need to hide the documents I brought.” The woman pulled a thick stack of paperwork and several flash drives from the case and shoved them into Claire’s hands.
The Corgis barked and ran back and forth in the living room.
“Go hide them. I have to get out of here. Is there a back way out?”
“There’s a patio and a tall fence outside,” Claire said. “I could take you through the basement.”
“Where will you hide the documents?” Lisa demanded.
Claire’s brain was whirling. “I think the basement would be best.”
“Then I won’t go out that way. Take the things to the basement. I’ll go out the front.” Lisa snapped the case closed and headed for the front door. “Go. Put those things someplace safe. You need to do it now.” Lisa was near tears.
When Claire took off for the basement with the dogs at her heels, Lisa ran to the door to escape into
the night.
Claire was halfway down the stairs when she heard Lisa scream.
Freezing in place, she gestured to the dogs not to bark, then gave the command for them to go and hide. The dogs scampered into the basement out of view, and Claire tossed the documents under the stairs just as a man’s voice spoke.
“Come up here.”
Claire looked up to see Jackson Wilby standing at the top of the staircase with Lisa standing to his left looking panic-stricken.
When Claire reached the top, Jackson stepped back. “We need to talk. Let’s go sit.”
They went to the living room where the two women sat on the sofa and Jackson took a seat by the fireplace.
Lisa sneered at the man. “Are you going to confess?”
Jackson gave Lisa a sympathetic look. “You mean that you killed my wife?”
“You killed her,” Lisa screeched. “You threatened me. You’ve been threatening me for twenty-five years. I don’t care anymore. I brought the documents I’ve collected on you to the police.” The woman lied to Jackson so he wouldn’t think the information was in Claire’s house.
Claire took a quick look at Lisa.
“Why did you come here?” Jackson asked slowly.
“I was going to tell Claire about you.”
“Why would you need to do that if you brought incriminating evidence to the police?” Jackson demanded.
“Because she needed to hear it from my mouth. I needed her to hear what you’ve done in case something happened to the documents. I know you have people in your pocket who work at the police station. They wouldn’t think twice about destroying the evidence.”
Jackson turned his penetrating eyes on Claire. “What did my friend, Lisa, tell you?”
“Nothing. She just got here. Maybe you’d like to tell me yourself.” Claire’s mind raced. If Ian came in, she would warn him to leave. She could feel danger in the room, but she wasn’t sure who the dangerous person was. Was Jackson the one lying, or was it Lisa?
Jackson shook his head. “I’ll ask again. What did Lisa tell you?”
“And I’ll tell you again. Nothing. But since you like to be the one in charge, why don’t you start talking.” Claire put on a tough front, but she was very close to bursting into tears. She pushed her fingernails into her palms to keep herself from breaking down.