A Justified Murder (Medlar Mystery 2)

“I’m sure that’s it. He knows you’re the best photographer in town,” Jack said.

“Maybe he plans to share them with the Broward County Sheriff’s Department,” Kate said.

They looked at one another, knowing that was an absurd idea.

Sara sighed. “Maybe he knows they won’t share with him, so he asked me to take pictures for him. And that’s all he wants from us. I hope they come out well. In the kitchen I had to cut the exposure down a couple of notches.”

“You took photos of the whole house?” Kate asked.

Jack leaned across Sara. “We had at least an hour before you arrived.”

“I was there ten minutes after you sent your Neanderthal text. I thought maybe Aunt Sara’d had a heart attack.”

“I would have explained but you—”

Sara was quite used to the verbal tug-of-war between the two of them. She stood up. “I’ll put the photos on a flash drive, then I’ll go to the sheriff’s office and give them to him.”

Kate stood up beside her. “Good idea. You can drop me off at my office and Tayla can give me a ride home.”

Jack looked up at them. “We’re not getting involved in this, right?”

“Absolutely not!” Sara said. “I took pictures and that’s all.”

They were silent for a moment.

“Janet helped us when we were investigating the murder of the Morrises.” There were tears in Kate’s eyes. “She found names for us.”

“And she made that chocolate cake,” Jack said. “Best I ever ate.”

“She helped us so much.” Kate looked at Jack. “Your mother got her for us.”

Jack got up, pulled tissues from the box on the side table, and handed them to the women. Color was coming back into his face—and the color was the red of anger. “There was no respect in what was done to her.”

Kate blew her nose. “I can kind of, sort of, understand killing someone but...but that was too horrible to imagine. One way would have done it. Why three?”

They looked at Sara. “Who hated her that much?”

“Obviously, a crazy person,” Kate said.

“Or three,” Jack added.

“You think more than one person was there?” Kate asked.

Jack shrugged. “It’s a thought.”

Sara sat back down on the couch. “I wonder how they’ll investigate.”

Kate sat down beside her. “They’ll try to find out who hated her.”

As Jack sat down on the other side of Sara, he gave a snort. “If haters are suspects, then everyone in this town is going to say they loved her.”

“I agree,” Kate said. “There’ll be two thousand BFFs of Janet Beeson. Bet there’ll be a lot of tears at her funeral. They all loved her so very, very much.”

Sara spoke up. “When we were planning the memorial for the Morrises, did either of you see or hear anything bad about her? Or even odd?”

“My mind was focused on what we were doing,” Kate said. The women looked at Jack.

“All I remember about that day is the itching inside my cast.”