The Plain Jane Mystery Box Set 2

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  “Ah. This is interesting. Stacy, you first.” Jane tapped her pen on her paper. If they didn’t agree, then there was room to explore, something hidden she could learn.

  Stacy scratched her head and assumed a look of disinterest. “He has a short history with the Malachis. He never says much. And he, in my opinion, lacks a certain spiritual interest one would expect on a permanent Malachi Ministries task force member.”

  “However,” Francine jumped in again. “He wasn’t even at the revival. He was home sick.”

  Stacy shrugged. “I can only speak to what I saw in my training sessions. He was there in body, but not even remotely there in spirit.”

  “Francine, do you have a counter to that?” Jane asked.

  Francine interlaced her fingers and rubbed them together nervously.

  “Anything at all?”

  “We can talk about Robert privately.”

  Jane caught Stacy’s eye.

  Stacy shrugged.

  “Okay then, let me tell you what I think. I think Theo turned me in for practicing without a license. And I think he did it to get me out of the house. He wants to protect his mom. He thinks she killed Josiah.”

  Francine pursed her lips. “What could Theo know about any of this?”

  Stacy shook her head. “He’s just a scared kid.”

  “He’s a scared legal adult, I would say. He’s not that much younger than you and me, Stace. Right now I think he suspects his mom. He might even know something.” Francine and Stacy agreed about Theo…interesting. Even more now, she wanted to get them back to talking about Robert.

  “They keep the ministry secrets away from the kids. You can’t convince me he is anything but scared.” Francine’s voice was firm—confident, in fact.

  Stacy frowned. “What ministry secrets?”

  “Josiah Malachi fabricated his spiritual experiences on stage.”

  “Never.” Stacy crossed her arms over her chest.

  “You’re the body language expert. Really think about all your interactions with him,” Jane prodded.

  Stacy shook her head. “He was a gifted minister. A great man.” Stacy furrowed her brow. “I thought you were looking for justice for him.”

  Francine leaned forward and reached for Stacy. “He fooled all of us at one time or another. I know that it hurts to hear it right now.”

  Stacy shook her head, her blonde hair swinging. Her cheeks flushed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you. Jane’s doubts are understandable; she’s Presbyterian. She’s not been baptized in the Holy Spirit. You, though…you were on Josiah’s team. How could you say something like that?” As she spoke, Stacy pulled herself together. She uncrossed her arms and shook them out. “I never did trust you, Francine de Leon. Not once.”

  Francine nodded, a small frown on her face, but her eyes were gentle. “I know. It was getting hard to keep up appearances. Every now and again someone saw through me.”

  “What did you think of Francine?” Jane had her eye on her client. For the first time, it seemed like Francine’s guard was down. Her expression was open and concerned. Her shoulders had relaxed. Had she walked other team members through the realization that Josiah Malachi was a fraud before? She claimed she had threats hanging over her head, but what if the real reason she didn’t try and run was because of moments like this…moments when she could rescue people from the false teacher?

  Stacy’s jaw flexed. “From the beginning I could see that Francine didn’t trust Josiah. He always spoke kindly of her, but if she was around to hear it, she would bristle. She also cringed from his touch even though everyone knows he has a healing touch. I would have given any amount of money for him to lay hands on me and pray.” Stacy had her eye on Francine. “Why were you scared of Josiah Malachi?”

  Francine took a deep breath and plunged into the story of drugs, lies, and threats to her life. “I knew too much, Stacy. And after seeing his daughter disappear without a trace of concern, I didn’t dare try to leave.”

  Stacy’s mouth twisted, as though she was working to maintain her composure. “If you truly believe all of that, what was keeping you from planning his death?”

  “I’m not a killer.” Francine’s face paled, but she had a peace about her that surprised Jane. “I hired Jane to get to the bottom of the murder so that I wouldn’t get charged with a crime I didn’t commit—that I couldn’t commit. No matter what it looks like to you right now, I rely on Jesus for the strength to get through this—the murder, and the impossible situation of having to work for the Malachi Ministries.”

  Stacy seethed—if she could have breathed fire, smoke would have been curling out of her nose. With slow, deliberate motions, she pulled her phone from her purse. “I don’t believe you.” Her hand shook as it hovered over the screen of her phone. “You know something about this murder. Tell us everything you know about Robert right now, or I call Christiana and tell her everything you said.”

  “Christiana knows it all. You can call her, Stacy, if it makes you feel better.”

  Stacy slowly lowered her phone.

  “I think it is time for you to tell us what you know about Robert.” Jane kept her face emotionless, though it was hard. She was as close to answers as she’d ever been. The solution was at her fingertips. Francine, so eager to protect her own reputation, yet keeping so many secrets. Francine, like an underground railroad for Josiah Malachi followers. Had her zeal for the truth led her to cover up, or even plan, the murder?

  “Robert is my bodyguard. I hired him because I was scared. But nobody else knows it.”

  Stacy narrowed her eyes and looked Francine up and down. “Just your bodyguard?”

  Jane tried to guess what Stacy was reading from Francine. Her color was heightened, just slightly. Her eyes were bright. Her body had seemed to stiffen as she explained who Robert was. Could it be that Robert was more than just a bodyguard to Francine?

  Stacy’s lip curled. “You’re lying.”

  Francine shook her head. “I’m not. I hired him to protect me.”

  “You hired him. That part is true.” Stacy stood up, her phone clenched in her tight fist. “Jane, I recommend you come with me. This is not a safe woman.” Stacy’s brow shone with nervous sweat and her body shook as she inched back from the table.

  Jane looked at Francine again. She had guessed Francine might be in love with Robert, but it didn’t look like Stacy agreed.

  “If Robert isn’t a hit man, I paid too much for my education,” she whispered, but Jane could hear her clearly. The coffee drinker at the table nearest them looked up.

  Francine shook her head slowly. “Stacy, you’re reacting to everything you’ve heard today about Josiah. Not to what you think you know about Robert. I know you are scared, upset, angry…maybe you even feel a little guilty. But it’s going to be okay.”

  Stacy had made her way to the door. Jane studied her face closely, but she didn’t see any fear or guilt on it. She saw anger, and then Stacy straightened up and threw her shoulders back, and Jane would have sworn she was filled with nothing but righteous indignation.

  “No, Francine, you are wrong about all of this.” Stacy turned and left.

  Jane wiped off the kitchen counter. She was at the Malachi house again, cleaning and hoping to run into Francine. They hadn’t made another appointment yet. She wondered why her client kept so distant, but didn’t have an answer for that.

  The confrontation between Francine and Stacy had unsettled Jane. She hadn’t kept in touch with Stacy through the years, but she didn’t remember her as being so…ardent.

  Francine had surprised her as well. There had been a depth to her that was missing in their earlier interactions. Francine to this point had seemed cold, calculated in fact, but perhaps that had all been driven by fear.

  Jane thought about Miss Marple for a moment, and how often the character had been able to relate the players in the mystery to people she had known in her life. Perhaps she would have related Francine to some other w
omen like her, and would have known right off that Francine was just scared. That she was scared, but brave. And maybe someday she, Jane Adler, would meet someone who reminded her of Francine de Leon, and it would help her solve a crime.

  But you couldn’t create a lifetime of memories in just twenty-odd years, no matter how much you wished it, and so right now, she supposed, she was building her backlist of references, that invaluable treasure trove that would serve her through her whole life.

  Nonetheless, Stacy’s seeming overreaction bothered her. Josiah was a manipulator. A creep, and a fake. But his followers and his family seemed to be all sincere, devout, and hopeful for a closer walk with Jesus. Why did God let a bad man have so much influence on good people?

  Jane heard the rattle of a car as it pulled into the driveway. She peered out the kitchen window.

  Lucas was at the back of a turquoise hatchback, pulling out a wheelchair. Tiffany must have been too tired to use her braces.

  There were two people she could stand to talk to. She hadn’t yet had a chance to get them alone. Reggie had said that Lucas wasn’t in the sound booth the night of the murder, and Jane wondered why. Could it be that the murderer had arranged to get him out of there so that the film of the event would somehow be compromised?

  Lucas let himself into the house, and carefully helped his wife’s chair over the threshold of the back door. “Good morning.” His face was friendly, but with a hint of sadness. She wondered how someone like him had managed to accept the teaching that drugs were God’s tool. It seemed so unlikely.

  “Mornin’.” Jane rinsed out her rag. “Can I make you all some coffee? Or tea? Christiana hasn’t come down yet.”

  “Coffee would be great.” Tiffany rolled herself out of the kitchen, but Jane could still see her from where she stopped in the sitting room.

  “Do you like anything in it? Cream, or sugar?” Jane poured out two cups.

  “Black is fine.” Tiffany yawned. “It’s been hard sleeping since the murder. I can use all the help waking up that I can get.”

  “Me too.” Lucas carried the cup to his wife. “I can’t imagine how Christiana is keeping up.”

  “We’ve got to convince her to take a break.”

  “We’re so glad that you are here to take care of the house for her,” Lucas said.

  Jane almost replied, “It’s a job.” But that wasn’t quite the right mood to set. She just smiled and tried to look sympathetic.

  “Can you help us convince her?” Tiffany asked. “She needs a break. A rest. I know she thinks that the people will expect her to keep going in faith, but we all know that’s not true.” She stared at Jane, her big brown eyes wide and trusting.

  It would be rude not to answer. “I don’t think she’d listen to me.”

  “She might. She’s too used to us.” Tiffany rolled back into the kitchen. “I’m tired, but restless. You know what I mean? I want to do something, but I can scarcely keep myself together.”

  Lucas kissed the top of her head. “That’s why we have each other.”

  “And Christiana and the boys, and Evelyn, have us too, but they are all trying to go it on their own.” Tiffany shook her head. “It breaks my heart.”

  Lucas sat down next to Tiffany and took her hand in his. “But we can only do as much as they will let us. And one thing we can do is just be here.”

  Tiffany nodded.

  Jane thought back to her friend Paula and how just sitting with her after she had lost her husband seemed to help so much. Lucas and Tiffany were closer to right than they realized. “It’s good of you to come.”

  “What else do we have to do?”

  “How are things going for the big event?”

  Lucas shook his head. “We are a mess, to be honest. Nguyen had already done all of the street work. Invitations have been out for ages. We have to go through with it, but none of us are ready.”

  “Did Josiah kind of…micromanage? Not in a bad way, I mean, but you know.” Jane tried to make her question sound innocent.

  “Well, no one’s perfect.” Lucas laughed. “And no one would deny that Josiah liked to have things his way.”

  “When you all met last time, the whole group, I couldn’t help but overhear that it sounds like you are missing some of your ministry materials.”

  Lucas sighed. “We are. Expensive stuff, too. But we can’t let the things of the world stand in the way of God’s word, can we? I think this meeting needs to be a memorial to Josiah, but not Josiah focused. A God-focused memorial. Something where we can all celebrate the work that God has done through him, remember the man we knew, but also…” Lucas frowned.

  “We could look toward the future, couldn’t we?” Tiffany said, a bright, hopeful sound to her voice. “We could praise God for the work he will do. Right? I think that’s what Josiah would want.”

  “Do you think Christiana is up for that?” Jane asked. They hadn’t had a regular funeral yet, though the news had said the body was already cremated. “Do you think she could get through a whole service like that?”

  Lucas and Tiffany exchanged a loving glance. “She wouldn’t have to do it alone.”

  Jane finished in the kitchen while the two spoke quietly in the living room.

  Theo came down but didn’t notice her, so she ducked behind a wall. She wanted to see how Theo reacted to the lovebirds today. Lucas and Tiff had been almost too much for her to handle, but then, as Stacy put it, Jane was a Presbyterian, not a Pentecostal. That much sincere affection so early in the morning might be perfectly normal for Pentecostals.

  She changed her mind about hiding just from Theo, and made a lot of noise leaving out the back door. She had opened the sitting room window to let in the fresh spring air earlier, so she tucked herself between the house and a big, poky bush, and hoped she could hear everything.

  “You.” The single word was Theo speaking.

  “Theo…” Tiffany’s voice had a sad note to it. “How are you holding up?”

  “As can be expected,” Theo responded.

  “Do you have a minute, brother?” Lucas’s tone was more…formal? Bossy? She thought about peeking in, but couldn’t even guess which way everyone was facing, so she stayed put.

  “I’m having breakfast.”

  “That’s okay. You can eat and talk.”

  There were a few moments of silence. Then Lucas spoke again. “I know you don’t like Francine…” His voice trailed away. “Not fair to the rest of us if you did.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about.” Theo didn’t sound like he meant it, but Jane did. What were they talking about?

  “If you wanted to make Francine look bad, or get her fired…it wasn’t right.” This time Tiffany spoke, her words like those of a teacher talking to a three-year-old. “It hurts the rest of us when this happens.”

  “If you would just tell us what you did with it…”

  Were they talking about the missing “ministry supplies”? Did they suspect that Theo had tried to make Francine look bad by making the LSD disappear? But it couldn’t be that, because the drugs had been a secret from the kids.

  Or…they had meant it to be a secret. But how easy would it have been for two boys growing up in this kind of household to overhear things they weren’t supposed to? To see things they weren’t meant to see?

  It had been a few moments since Jane had heard anything, so she inched herself out from the bushes.

  The cat brushed past, rubbing itself against her leg. It wasn’t supposed to be out, so Jane picked it up and toted it back into the house. “Look who I found.” She set the cat on the floor, as though she had gone out after it and returned successful.

  Tiffany’s face was frozen in a look of disappointment. Lucas had his back to Jane, but Theo stared at her, hatred in his eyes. “Just leave Haven’s cat alone, will you?”

  Jane’s heart leapt to her mouth. She knew, and Nick knew, and Francine knew now, but poor Theo still didn’t know that his sister was safe. Awa
y, but safe.

  And no matter how much she wanted to tell him, she couldn’t do it. Not yet. She watched the beautiful cat wander around the room. How much the missing girl must have broken everyone, if they still traveled all over the country with her cat in tow four years later.

  Just to see what would happen, she followed the cat into the living room, picked it up, and gave it a snuggle. “Who’s Haven?”

  Theo’s face turned red. “Shut up. You know exactly who she is. Give me that cat.” He grabbed for the cat, who hissed.

  Jane cradled it against her chin. “This is a nice one. Does she travel well?”

  Theo seethed. “Why do you people let her in this house?” He turned to Lucas. “If you want to know what happened to all of Dad’s drugs, ask Francine. She was his supplier, or didn’t you know?”

  “Theo…” Tiffany’s face turned deep red.

  “Jane already knows. She’s a girl detective. Didn’t she tell you that?”

  “Theo, please watch what you say.” Tiffany rolled over to him and put her hand on his. “I don’t know what you know…but I’m sure it’s not enough. We can explain everything.”

  “I know that Francine was getting Josiah and my mom all messed up. And I know that she is the one who wrecked our family. And she’s the one who killed Dad, but Jane comes here every other day anyway, spying on Mom.”

  Or you, Jane thought. This Theo seemed to have a huge anger problem. Something more than just youth. Had he experimented with his own substances after he found out his parents were using?

  “Theo, how did you find out about the acid?” Jane set the cat down. She had triggered a response, and that was all she wanted.

  “I went to one revival too many.” Theo grabbed the cat by the scruff of her neck and pulled her to his chest.

  “But what did you see, and when?”

  Theo turned red. “You want to know that? You can’t dig it up with your spying? Fine. I was fourteen. I was at a revival. I was hunkered down behind some speakers, in the front, and I saw Josiah put the tab in his mouth. I didn’t know what it was at first, but then, when he started talking, it was different than it had been before. I asked him about it later, and that was the last revival we were invited to.”