No Gravestone Left Unturned (A Jane Ladling Mystery 2)

“Jane,” he barked. A noise infiltrated the line, and she imagined him jumping to his feet, a rolling chair pitching across the room and bouncing against the wall. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

Really? “Are you not at your office in Atlanta?”

“I am.”

“But that’s an hour-long drive. Minimum.” And he expected to make it in thirty?

“Today, it’s half an hour,” he grated, and her chest tightened. “Is Beau there? Or nearby? Either way, go inside and lock your doors. Double check every window. Turn on your alarm and do nothing else.”

Okay. Time out. She understood there’d been a death and everything, but telling her what to do in her own home? “I don’t think—”

“That’s right. Don’t think. Just do as ordered. I’ll contact Sheriff Moore. Expect him within the next fifteen minutes. If not him, someone else. Is Beau there?” he asked again.

“No.” Some of her irritation faded. This man was majorly concerned for her.

“Call him,” he ordered. “And Jane?”

“Yes?”

“I meant what I said. Do nothing else. Under no circumstances are you to launch an investigation.” Click.

Argh! He’d hung up before she could explain how she’d already begun. And that she planned to continue. In fact, why not gather every bit of possible evidence while she had the chance? During the last investigation, she’d been left out of the loop at nearly every turn. Why wait on a police report or the GBH to refuse to share crime-scene photos? Better to have her own on hand.

Her property, her responsibility. She kind of owed Ana. So, back to the big question. What had killed the journalist? Healthy, twenty something women did not end up dead on someone else’s rocking chair without cause.

Chewing on her bottom lip, Jane looked left. Right. Behind. All clear. After setting the timer on her phone, she activated the camera app and snapped pictures of Ana from every angle. The right shoe was askew, the heel not fully seated. A clue? Snap, snap, snap.

“Sorry, girl, but this needs to be done,” Jane said, suspecting her former classmate would despise looking anything but Instagram ready.

Hey! Look there. A tuft of strawberry blonde hair had snagged on a nail in a window sill streaked with blood. The strands had been removed from the roots and now billowed a good twelve inches from Ana’s head.

A living person would have screamed in agony when this injury occurred. A scream Jane would have heard, even if she’d been sweeping. Unless Ana was dead before she got here.

Oh, yeah. Someone had definitely planted the body. To avoid fees, as previously suspected, or to hide a murder? If the latter…

Had the murderer(s) carried Ana here, of all places, as a threat? You’re next… Had he/she/they wheeled the body in a container of some kind? Jane didn’t see any tracks. But time and the weather could have smoothed those away.

Why choose the porch and not, say, a grave? Had the killer wanted Ana to be discovered? Perhaps hoping Jane would panic and hide the crime herself? Or were the reasons more sinister? Who better to frame than the woman who’d found the other corpse?

The nerve of some people! No wonder Jane preferred the dead and her darling cat to the living.

“I’m going to find out who did this to you, I promise,” she told Ana, before zeroing in on the tuft of hair. Snap, snap, snap. “And don’t worry. I’m very good at keeping my word sometimes.”

Jane checked the timer on her cell. Four minutes and three seconds since her conversation with Conrad ended. No doubt he’d already spoken with Sheriff Moore. Should she stop or keep going?

No risk, no reward. Jane shot inside the house, grabbed a pair of cleaning gloves, and hustled back to the porch, calling to Rolex, “Be a good boy while Momma keeps herself out of jail by committing a felony.” More than one probably. Tampering with evidence and obstruction of justice, just to name two. But honestly, she deserved a reward for being willing to help right such a terrible wrong. And she did plan to return everything exactly as she’d found it.

Harried but careful not to disturb the body...much, she dug into the pockets of Ana’s slacks. A receipt from The Golden Spoon. A candy wrapper. A tissue—thankfully not used. A crumpled piece of paper with a single name written in flowery script. J. Smudged letter. N. E.

Jane nearly choked on her own tongue. Did that smudged letter happen to be an A? A reminder to return a call at long last? A prompt to visit the cemetery for a mysterious reason?

She captured a photo of each item before returning them to their original locations. See! Careful.

Her gaze fell to the handbag. Hmm. The killer knew no woman alive would leave home without her purse. Except Jane, who did it often. And others like her. Whatever. Did this mean the murderer was a female? Or a married man thinking to blame a woman?