Lethal Little Lies (Jubilant Falls Series Book 3) Read online

  Chapter 34 Addison

  Gary McGinnis and I were at Aunt Bea’s, drinking our second cup of coffee when my cell phone rang.

  It was about an hour after Rowan Starrett’s broken, empty casket had been taken to the police evidence room to be examined for any possible evidence and Birger left to go meet with Steve Adolphus about something.

  Pat got a shot of the casket hanging from the backhoe’s bucket before it fell, but the shot of it falling came out blurred and unusable. There were a few other shots of police and cemetery workers examining the empty casket. I’d look them over later this afternoon when we decided which one to put on page one and the Web site.

  Right now, I had Fisher Webb’s smooth voice in my ear.

  “See? I told you that you could do this and do it well,” he said. “I saw your interview on the noon news.”

  “A little judicious editing can make anybody look good, Fisher,” I answered. Thankfully, Flagg had cut the profanity from the end of my interview. I hated that I now owed that asshole a professional favor.

  “So have you thought any more about my offer?” he asked.

  “Yes I have.” I looked at Gary, who arched an eyebrow when I mouthed Fisher’s name. I had told him about Webb’s offer while we waited for the waitress to refill our mugs.

  “What’s your decision?” Webb asked.

  “I think I’m ninety percent there. I’m leaning toward yes,” I said.

  “I don’t want you if you’re only ninety percent sure, Addison,” he said. “If you’re not one hundred percent certain you want to walk away from that newspaper, then I don’t want you.”

  “OK, let me think about it some more.”

  “Would an additional twenty thousand make you more certain?”

  I sucked in my breath. “That’s double what I make now,” I said softly.

  “I told you Addison, I’d make it worth your while.”

  “Let me talk it over with Duncan,” I said.

  “OK. Let me know.”

  I ended the call and lay my cell phone beside my reporter’s notebook on the table.

  “What are you going to do?” Gary asked me. “You gonna take the job?”

  “I don’t know, Gary. If things keep going as they are at the paper, I may not have a job.” I stirred a packet of sweetener into my coffee. Briefly I told him of Whitelaw’s possible plans to sell the paper and about the visit from the brokers.

  “I hate to hear that.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Life is change, Gary.”

  “I’d hate to lose you, Penny,” he said. “I can count on you. You make my job a whole lot easier.”

  “Thanks but…” I shrugged. “So what happens now with the Starrett brothers?”

  “There’s a death certificate for Rowan on file in Columbus that’s now obviously fraudulent,” he said. “We’re having the PD there look into that—if Rowan actually committed suicide, the coroner would have signed off on it. We need to know who really signed it—or who was paid to sign it. We’ve got to track down who ever it was who signed it. That’s at least one count of fraud against that person. If Rick filed any claims against any life insurance policy, we’re looking at more fraud, in addition to the murder charge. We will make some calls to some of the investigators at the companies we’ve worked with.”

  “But what about Rick’s claim that Rowan shot Virginia Ferguson? Doesn’t this empty casket verify this story that he didn’t kill her?”

  “You really don’t want him to have done this, do you?”

  I sighed. “No. Not really.”

  “We still have Virginia Ferguson’s dying declaration, identifying Rick as her killer just before she went into surgery. That’s a lot to get past.”

  “Could she have been wrong? What about fingerprints? Weapons?”

  Gary smiled. “I’m not telling you that, Penny.”

  “’You make my job a whole lot easier, Penny,’” I mimicked.

  “Listen, all it verifies is that the story he told is true, that Rowan Starrett is still alive. That’s a pretty damned big lie to be carrying around for ten years.”

  “Rick told me Rowan was running from people he owed money. Was Rowan in witness protection? Could you find that out?”

  He shrugged. “I could always ask. I don’t know if the feds would tell me or not, unless Rowan had come out of the program.”

  “I wish I knew what connects Virginia Ferguson’s murder with Kay Henning’s shooting,” I said. “There are so many little pieces that don’t quite fit together.”

  Gary took a sip from his coffee mug. “I think we’re getting closer to finding out what those pieces are.”

  *****

  Back in the newsroom, Graham was waiting for me. He followed me back into my office and shut the door behind him.

  “So how’d the hearing go?” I asked, slinging my purse into my bottom left-hand desk drawer, and flopping into my chair.

  He shook his head. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  “What?” I pulled a cigarette from my center drawer and bounced the end of it off the top of my desk.

  “Marcus and Charlie came to some sort of plea agreement, with Charlie getting a suspended sentence. Charlie, Marcus and the attorneys all went into a conference room after the hearing. I waited for more than an hour, but they never came out. Birger showed up about forty five minutes in and went inside, but I couldn’t wait any longer.”

  “This needs to be another joint story, I think.” I slid my chair over to the window and lit my cigarette. “You need to write about the agreement that was reached in the case, nothing more. It’s possible that Charlie was going to tell them everything she told you.”

  “Good thing we didn’t publish it in today’s story,” Graham said.

  I nodded. “How could we? We couldn’t verify any of it from a second source, not with our deadlines. I need you to verify with Birger whether or not she’s still a suspect. I’ll do the part of the story about Rowan’s casket being empty.”

  “We should call Marcus about the agreement.”

  “Yes, if for no other reason than to give him and everybody in that conference room a chance to say ‘no comment.’”

  “You think Marcus would do that?”

  “If he wants to find whoever shot his wife, he will.” I smiled, took a final drag off my cigarette and tossed it out the window into the alley. “And frankly, if someone had done the same thing to Duncan, I would too, the story be damned. When are visiting hours at the jail?”

  “Females, nine until eleven in the morning Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Male inmates have visitation on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays from three until five in the afternoon. No visitation on Friday nights.”

  “Probably because they’re too busy booking new guests in. Why did I think you’d know those hours by heart?”

  Graham smiled.

  “Let’s start our story. I’ve got a few things to clean up here and then I can add my info to it. After that, I’m going to pay Rick Starrett a visit.”

  *****

  It was close to four-thirty before I made it to the jail.

  I’d chosen two of Pat’s shots to run on page one for tomorrow: One of the casket hanging mid-air and another one where police were investigating the open casket. The story was nearly finished—I’d done my part. Grant was simply waiting for Birger to call him back to verify a few details.

  “I’d like to see Rick Starrett,” I said into the voice box outside the visitor area door. There was a buzz, the door unlocked and I was let through. I’d left my purse and my cell phone in my car, checking only my car keys and my driver’s license as I came through security.

  I received a visitor badge and was led by a deputy, who advised that this visit would be recorded, to a long concrete ledge, separated into separate cubicles by thick Plexiglas. There were institutional-style chairs covered in chipped paint, setting in front of each cubicle, facing a thick wall of bulletproof glass. Phone recei
vers hung on the right side of each cubicle.

  The deputy led me to an empty cubicle. I sat down and scooted close to the ledge. In a moment, Rick Starrett was brought in to the other side of the glass. Before Rick sat down, another deputy fastened his shackles to a ring on the wall.

  He picked up the receiver on his side of the glass. So did I.

  “Hello, Rick.”

  “Hello, Penny.”

  “So, I looked into the stuff you told me about Rowan.”

  “Yes, I saw your story.” This voice was flat and non-committal.

  “They dug up Rowan’s grave today. It was empty, just like you said it was.”

  “Further proof what I told you wasn’t a lie.”

  “But I can’t connect Rowan in any way to the shooting. I’ve seen pictures of Rowan and he doesn’t look a whole hell of a lot like you any more, Rick. Prison wasn’t kind to him. The police say Virginia Ferguson identified you as her shooter.”

  Rick didn’t answer, just hung his head.

  “There’s more to Rowan’s disappearance, isn’t there?” I asked.

  Rick shook his head. “I’m done, Penny. I’m not saying any more.” He hung up his receiver and signaled for the deputy.

  The deputy unlocked the chain from the wall and refastened Rick’s shackles. Rick stood up and with a sharp wave, was escorted back to his cell.

  Chapter 35 Kay

  I was sitting up in a chair, wearing a pair of black yoga pants and a loose white sweater when Marcus came in. Whatever collection of personal belongings I’d amassed during my stay—celebrity magazines, a toothbrush, hairbrush and a vinyl travel bag filled with makeup—was stashed in a brown paper shopping bag at my feet. A small pharmacy of medication and stack of replacement bandages lined up on the bedside table, atop several pages of instructions. My best winter coat lay across the rumpled sheets of my former hospital bed.

  “I can’t believe it! I’m going home!” I reached out to hug him. His hug was strong and warm, but his smile was stiff.

  “I know, baby, I know,” he whispered into my hair. “I can’t believe it either.”

  “Did something happen at court today? The policemen left a little after ten this morning and a lady from the hospital’s public information office called to ask if I wanted to talk to a reporter.”

  Stepping back, Marcus sat down in the wheelchair that would roll me to the front door and back into my own home, my own bed. His eyes were hard and I could see his jaw grind with tension. “Really? Who?”

  “That Mike Flagg from the TV station. I told her the only reporter I wanted to talk to was my husband.”

  This time the smile matched the light in his eyes.

  “Good for you,” he said.

  An orderly appeared in the doorway. In a few minutes I was rolling out of the elevator in a wheelchair, through the front lobby and into the cold November sunshine. Marcus held my arm as I walked the three tentative steps into the Lexus. He kissed me again as he fastened my seat belt and, in a moment Plummer County Community Hospital was in the rearview mirror.

  But we weren’t headed home.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “You’ll see,” he said, without smiling.

  In a moment, we pulled into one of the parking lots of the hotels south of downtown, near the highway. He pulled a key card from his jacket.

  “Marcus, what are you thinking? I’m not entirely sure my doctor…”

  “Trust me. Just trust me.”

  He jumped out of the Lexus, grabbed my two small bags from the back seat and helped me from the front seat. Our room was on the fifth floor. He opened the door with the key card and, in one motion, picked me up and carried me across the threshold.

  Gently, Marcus sat me on the bed. Wordlessly, he helped me shed my winter coat, lifted my legs onto the bed and plumped the pillows behind my head. Marcus lay down next to me, drawing me into his strong arms, making me feel—for the first time in a long time—we were complete again.

  This was the man I belonged with, the only man I could—or would—ever love. We had been through so much, had such a past and such a future, I couldn’t ever let him go. Ours was not the torrid embrace of new adoration, but the deep, abiding love built day by day, month by month and year by year.

  I knew now that he had never been and never would be unfaithful. He wasn’t Paul. He was Marcus.

  He lifted my chin with his finger, brushed a strand of red hair from my face and kissed me, long and deep and passionately. His lips moved down my neck and I felt one of his hands slide up inside my sweater, up between my shoulder blades. I wanted to feel his weight against me, and more. I cried out as I tried to wrap my leg around his, feeling the pull of my stitches.

  We fell apart, breathing heavily.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t even ask my surgeon when we could—”

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s OK.” He smiled tenderly as he swung his legs over the other side of the bed. With his back toward me, he spoke, his words tense and clipped. “Just do me one favor.”

  “Of course.”

  “Don’t leave this room. Don’t answer the phone and don’t open the door.”

  “What?” I raised myself up on my elbows.

  He stood and slipped on his coat. Searching through his pockets, he pulled out my Blackberry and handed it to me.

  “Marcus, what is going on?”

  “I’ll call you on this. It’s been charged up, so you don’t need to worry about the battery dying,” he said. “Remember, you have to trust me.”

  “Marcus, what happened today in court? Where’s Charlie? What is going on?”

  “Trust me, Kay. Just trust me.”

  In two steps he was gone.

  Chapter 36 Marcus

  On my way back into town, I called the newsroom and got Dennis.

  “Hey, is PJ still there?”

  “Yeah. You want to talk to him?”

  “No. I need you to keep him there.”

  “Jesus, Marcus. What are we, babysitters?” A voice echoed in the background. I heard a rustling on the phone, more muffled voices and then Dennis was back. “That was Graham. He’s got a couple things this evening—a township meeting Elizabeth asked him to cover. He said he could take PJ with him. What’s up?”

  “I’ll tell you later. Just don’t let him come home until he hears from me.” I touched the phone’s screen and ended the call.

  Within a few more minutes, I was pulling down our street. The gray Ohio skies made the empty street seem gloomier. I looked around to see if any unmarked police cars remained, but didn’t see any.

  As the garage door opened, a few lonely, fat snowflakes fell from the sky. An engine rumbled low in the distance, the sound growing louder as it came down the block. I held my breath and gripped the steering wheel, only to watch in the rearview mirror as a FedEx truck passed the house. I exhaled, relaxing as I let go of the steering wheel.

  Leaving Kay at the hotel room wasn’t what she wanted, but something told me earlier that afternoon, as Charlie and I left the courthouse and went our separate ways, this wasn’t over. I’d seen too many sides of her to trust the one I saw in court today.

  Her agreement was to tell police where Rowan was, then to immediately leave town, without making contact with him. I wasn’t in the room when she passed that information on. I know Steve Adolphus handed her a bus ticket after she’d finished her long, sad tale and she promised to give them Rowan’s location. Birger was driving her to the bus station himself.

  After Charlie got on that bus, my part of the agreement was to drop the protection order.

  Inside the house, I made a beeline for the walk-in closet in our bedroom, searching the back shelves. I dug behind the boxes of old, failed novels, my old IBM Selectric typewriter, the zipped storage bags filled with our summer clothes and a collection of baseball hats until I found it: My 9mm Glock, inside a locked case. I’d bought it ten years ago in a fit of testosterone poisoning, whe
n the kids were still at home and our upscale neighborhood was enduring a series of break-ins. No one, including Kay, knew it was there.

  A quick check of the magazine showed it was loaded, a full seventeen rounds. The pistol felt heavy and strange in my hand. Suddenly I wished I’d spent more time at the firing range after I’d bought the damned thing.

  This is not what my fictional hero, Rhys Chapman would do, I told myself. Grow a pair.

  Clutching the gun, I walked through the house, checking each room to make certain I was alone. Satisfied that I was, I returned to the kitchen and, laying the Glock on the counter, made myself a sandwich.

  In the next couple hours, the pistol became my security blanket and I kept it next to me, as any toddler would. Like some oddly armed housekeeper, I changed the sheets on all of the beds, wiped down the sink in the hall bathroom that the kids had shared, rinsed the few plates and mugs in the sink and put them in the dishwasher, the Glock always within reach.

  As I stood at the sink, I stared out the back window, watching as the snow began to fall heavily. The snowflakes were fat, fluffy and coming fast, filling the world outside with winter’s silence.

  I glanced at the calendar hanging on the side of the stainless steel fridge. Two weeks ago, what seemed a lifetime ago, Kay had circled Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, on the calendar.

  Three days away.

  We were getting used to juggling everyone’s schedule for holidays, now that the kids all had their own lives. The original plans had been to meet Lillian, Bronson and Bronson’s family in New York City. PJ was going to come down by train from Cambridge. Andrew couldn’t get leave until Christmas. We didn’t know yet if we’d be able to connect with him by phone or Skype.

  How different would the holiday be now?

  I pulled a can of diet soda from the fridge, and stuffing the Glock into the back pocket of my jeans, wandered into the study.

  I sat down at the old partner’s desk and pulled the laptop out of the center drawer.

  This desk belonged to Kay’s father, Dr. Montgomery James, one of Jubilant Falls’ long-ago family physicians. He and his partner shared an office when they’d first begun to practice medicine. Ten years later, the partner wanted to be out on his own, and he’d left the desk behind. Dr. James brought the antique desk home to this room. He died when Kay was sixteen and her mother, Marian, had gradually whittled away at the masculine furnishings, filling the room with her own awful, overblown, frilly tastes. Only the partner’s desk remained.