A Justified Murder (Medlar Mystery 2)

Jack and Kate looked at her.

“We’ve all met rotten people. In my long life I’ve met—” She waved her hand. “You aren’t allowed to kill them, no matter what they do to you. They can beat you, steal all you have, whatever. People can do horrible things to you but you can’t kill them. You can’t even get them back by doing what they did to you. If they steal from you, that doesn’t give you the right to steal from them.”

“So Janet had no right to...?” Kate began.

“I mean that whoever killed Janet shouldn’t have done it.”

“But we do need a motive,” Jack said.

Sara picked up a notebook off the kitchen desk. MOTIVE, she wrote at the top. “Tayla may be protecting her niece.”

“Gil didn’t want Janet helping his son’s mother.”

They looked at Kate. “It’s possible that Janet did something to the teen girls.”

“And maybe to Kyle Nesbitt,” Jack said.

“That’s four motives for murder,” Sara said. “Not sure who would have done it for the girls.”

“Britney’s dad,” Jack said. “I would have if it was my kid.”

“That would mean that her parents knew,” Kate said.

Sara was looking at the paper. “Did just one person know—if any of this is true, that is? Or did all of them know?”

“Maybe three of them killed her,” Kate whispered. “Like in Murder on the Orient Express.”

“So Tayla is taking the blame for a lot of people?” Jack asked.

“I wonder...” Sara said.

“What?”

“If there are others.”

“Four motives and multiple suspects aren’t enough for you?” Jack asked.

“Remember the woman with the crochet story?” Sara asked. “She came after we’d called the guards. They said she was really upset and wanted to tell us how good Janet had been to her.”

“At the memorial service several people sang her praises,” Kate said. “Janet the good.”

Jack pushed his empty plate away. “Too bad we can’t talk to them and see if they would tell the real truth. If there is an alternate truth to all this, that is.”

They were silent as they thought about this. If they went around town asking questions, whoever had killed Chet—and probably Janet—would know.

Sara sighed. “There was a problem with a hairdresser. Maybe Kate and I could get our hair done and ask about Janet. We’ll make it sound like gossip and nothing else.”

Jack snorted. “I’m sure you’ll be told, ‘I hated her enough to kill her. Please put me on your list of suspects.’”

“So how do we get them to tell what they know?” Sara asked.

“Numbers!” Kate said loudly. “In the sexual harassment cases, no woman wanted to stand up by herself and say, ‘He did that to me.’”

“Because she wouldn’t be believed,” Sara said. “For all our ‘enlightened’ age, if a woman says a man assaulted her, people will say it was her fault. She wore a tank top in 1986 so of course the man went after her. Not his fault. Hers!”

Jack and Kate waited for her soapbox tirade to finish.

“Sorry, just my opinion. You were saying?”