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

  Over the years, it became the place where Kay could work at night on Aurora Development business while I sat across from her, finishing a story for the paper or exercising my need to be a novelist. As the years passed, we’d gone from big clunky desktops to more up-to-date technology. Kay had graduated to a tablet computer, but most days I still missed the sound of my IBM Selectric keys striking paper. My laptop was a concession to the relentless march of time and technology, not to mention the fact I couldn’t find typewriter ribbon anywhere.

  I pulled the Glock from my back pocket and set it down beside the computer. The laptop sprung to life with the push of a button.

  The novel I’d been working on opened quickly. The flickering blue screen mesmerized me, drawing me in. Suddenly, the words I’d choked on for so long promised to flow if only I would touch the keyboard. I reached out with both hands, spreading my fingers to fit them to their individual key: A, S, D, F with my left hand and J, K, L, and the semicolon with my right.

  My hands stopped mid-reach as the front door opened and I heard the thunk of something—a body? —hitting the foyer wall. A male voice screamed over a woman’s raspy sobs.

  “So is this where your man lives, huh? This is where he lives?”

  I grabbed the Glock, released the safety with my thumb, and jumped to the door to listen. The man—it had to be Rowan Starrett—shoved Charlie out of the entryway and down the hall. I heard the crystal decanters fall onto the floor from the Queen Anne sideboard as he shoved her through the living room toward the kitchen, searching for me.

  I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and dialed 911.

  “Police and fire, what is your emergency?” The dispatcher voice echoed throughout the study. The clamor in the kitchen stopped. The dispatcher repeated herself. “Police and fire, what is your emergency?”

  Before I could answer, the study door burst open, knocking me to the floor. I watched helplessly as both the phone and the Glock slid in separate directions across the hardwood floor. Rowan pushed Charlie, her face badly bruised, to the floor beside me. Blood from her broken nose stained the pink sweater, the same one she’d been wearing when she was arrested in the newsroom. Her wrists were bound together with duct tape and her jeans were marked with dirt.

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” she sobbed.

  I scrambled along the floor toward the Glock and was met with a workman’s boot in my stomach. I cried out, curling painfully into a fetal position. Rowan picked up the pistol and held it to my head, his foot on my neck.

  “You want my woman? You want my woman?” he screamed. A stream of spittle hung from his gap-toothed mouth. The hand that held my pistol was covered with the twisted scars of a burn victim, his efforts to hide his fingerprints when he’d wanted to leave his past behind and become Deke Howe. The sleeves of the worn flannel shirt only partially covered more scar tissue that traveled up both arms like twisted tree roots.

  “Rowan, he didn’t do anything wrong!” Charlie cried out. “It was me! I was drinking! I did it all! He told me to go away and I wouldn’t leave him alone!”

  “Shut up, bitch!” He leveled the firearm above Charlie’s head and squeezed the trigger. The bullet buried itself into the chair rail above her head as she tried to duck beneath the partner’s desk, screaming and sobbing.

  His boot shifted and I tried to sit up, but Rowan jammed me back down to the floor.

  “Leave her alone!” I said. “What do you want?”

  “I’m sick of being the bad son! Anytime I try to build myself back up, I’m in the way of somebody else! I can’t come home to see my dying mother? I can’t go to her funeral? For once, I’m going to tell the world I’m running things! I’m not at the mercy of my lying brother or my slut wife!”

  “Baby, I tried to help you, you know I did!” Charlie implored, coming out from beneath the desk.

  “Shut up!” He fired another bullet into the wall and Charlie screamed again.

  “ Why did you kidnap my wife? Why’d you shoot her?” I demanded.

  “I wanted you to know how it felt, you bastard.” His foot pushed harder against my neck and I gasped for breath. The room began to spin.

  “We were both in that motel room,” Charlie cried. “We were fighting over the gun—he was going to kill Kay first and then me, but I got the gun away from him.”

  “I’m still going to kill you, bitch!” He pointed the gun at Charlie.

  “Stop it, Rowan! Stop it! We struggled over the gun—both of our hands were on it—when it went off.” She began to sob again. “I didn’t want this to happen—I was trying to keep her safe, Marcus. I’m the one who called you that day. I was trying to tell you where she was. I was trying to save—”

  The words were barely out of her mouth when Rowan squeezed the trigger again. Charlie’s body jerked back against the wall as a round, red hole appeared in her forehead. Blood and brain matter darkened the wall behind her head. A second shot exploded in her chest, sending blood, bits of sweater and tissue against the wall and across the floor.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and swallowed the vomit building in my throat.

  “Why did you fake your suicide? Why didn’t you just come back to Jubilant Falls and start again?” I demanded. From the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of my phone beneath an overstuffed Queen Anne chair, just out of my reach. Hopefully, dispatchers were sending a cruiser to investigate my 911 call. Maybe if I could keep Rowan talking the police could get here in time to save my life, even if they couldn’t save Charlie.

  And Rowan wanted to talk.

  “That was my brother Rick’s idea. By the time he’d gotten his big time political job in Columbus, he couldn’t be bothered with a twin brother who had a past. I was too inconvenient, he said, too much of an embarrassment. He couldn’t let it be known that he’d bet on anything that moved, same as me.”

  I heard him pull back the trigger.

  “You know that video that everybody saw? The one where I supposedly was taking money for betting on my own game?” he asked. “ That wasn’t me. That was my fucking brother, Mr. Perfect. But who was going to believe me? I’m the one who went to prison; I’m the one who had the gambling problem, not him, not the good son! Nobody’s going to believe we’re twins, for God sake, not without a DNA test! Not now!”

  I gasped as he jabbed the gun’s cold barrel against the back of my head.

  “But what about the commercials Virginia Ferguson was running? The ones that showed you walking into jail?” I asked, hoping to postpone my own death, hoping the phone connection was still open.

  “I’m the one who told Virginia Ferguson the truth, a piece at a time. She was stupid enough to not recognize me. I told her I was Deke Howe, that I knew Rowan Starrett and that he was still alive. I met her and her campaign manager several times in Columbus at a restaurant. I’d feed them just enough to send them off to look for details. Then I’d call Rick and tell him I’d heard she was digging into my suicide, that she was getting close to finding the truth. He thought it was all going to come out and his precious career was over, like mine was. All the time he’s sending me money, thinking it will keep me quiet.”

  He jabbed the barrel harder against my skull and I winced. Rowan continued his story as Charlie’s dead eyes stared back at us, her jaw hanging.

  “So he gets stupid enough and mad enough that after she wins, he’s gotta go over to her house. He can’t let it alone, he’s got to find out what she knows. And that dumb bitch? She’s all cocky and mouthy and she tells him the whole fucking story’s going to be turned over to the Ohio attorney general and the FBI as soon as she takes the oath of office. That his career is more than over, he’s headed to prison.”

  “So Rick shot her.”

  “Yeah and he decides he’s going to spill enough of my story to make it look like I shot her. And now, I’m gonna shoot you.”

  There was an explosion.

  “Kay,” I whispered and everything went black.

&n
bsp; *****

  A SWAT team member pulled Rowan Starrett’s dead body off me and rolled me over. Birger was still holstering his sidearm as he walked into the study.

  “You OK?” Birger asked.

  Sitting up, I nodded and rubbed the back of my head where the barrel had been.

  I shook my head at the carnage throughout the room. In the corner, beside the partner’s desk, paramedics were covering Charlie’s bloody body with a sheet. Rowan’s wet and sticky blood was soaking through the back of my shirt and pooling on the hardwood floors. The heavy curtains were spattered in red and cold winter air came through the broken glass as other paramedics lifted Rowan’s corpse, a single bullet in the back of his head, into a body bag. There was a single hole in the side of the partner’s desk.

  Birger reached for me and pulled me up to my feet.

  “Your phone never disconnected from dispatch,” he said. “We got everything on tape.”

  “Good.”

  Using a pencil, he picked up the Glock by the trigger guard. “This yours?”

  “Yes. And I don’t ever want to see it again.”

  “ We followed Charlie in an unmarked car after she left the bus station. We didn’t figure she would keep the terms of her plea agreement. She met Rowan again and when we tried to follow, we lost them. We searched all over for them until we got your 911 call. Looks like they were headed back here all the time. You were wise to put your wife at that hotel.”

  “You knew I did that?”

  “You don’t think we weren’t going to keep an eye on you? We’ve got more than one unmarked cruiser. It’s been at the hotel since you left her there. She’s fine. A little pissed off, but fine.”

  I sighed. A radio crackled and the police officer beside Birger spoke into the microphone at his shoulder.

  “There are reporters outside,” he told Birger. “Graham Kinnon from the Journal-Gazette and he’s says he’s got an intern with him. A couple TV stations, too.”

  “OK.” He turned to me. “You up to talking to reporters? Hell, I think one of them is your son.” He started to slap me on the back, but seeing the blood, thought the better of it. “Go change your shirt first—and bring it back here. We’ll need it for evidence.”

  Outside, my front yard was ringed with yellow caution tape and the street was blocked with police cars and ambulances. I watched as a cop lifted the tape and two coroner’s employees rolled Rowan and Charlie’s bodies on gurneys to a white unmarked van. Graham already had Birger cornered and was peppering him with questions as Pat Robinette moved around, shooting the scene.

  “Dad!” PJ called out. Ignoring the police, he ducked under the caution tape, running toward me. We met in the middle of the yard in a crushing embrace.

  “It’s OK,” I said. “It’s over.”

  Chapter 37 Addison

  On Wednesday, after the presses stopped rolling and the day’s edition was on the street, Watterson Whitelaw locked the front door and gathered all of us into the back of the pressroom for our annual Thanksgiving luncheon.

  Each year, Watt bought the main fixings of the meal from the local grocery store and the staff, everyone from the front office clerical staff, circulation, advertising, the pressroom and the newsroom, brought in their favorite desserts and appetizers.

  It would be a welcome break before returning to work to finish the Thanksgiving Day edition. Stuffed with Black Friday advertising, Thursday’s edition would print at five o’clock this afternoon and be delivered after midnight, so as to give everyone the holiday off. The dance toward deadline would begin again Friday morning.

  We usually filled the inside pages with kids’ letters to Santa, sometimes a special investigative theme. This year, we managed to pull together a look back at the whole Starrett saga. I even managed to give PJ Armstrong a byline for a story he put together on stalking.

  But right now, it was time for celebration.

  Tables, covered with orange and green paper tablecloths from the Hallmark store, were lined up against the back wall. Large, steaming foil pans filled with the catered food sat on top of one table: a golden roasted turkey, a ham glistening in brown sugar syrup and studded with cloves, a mountain of au gratin potatoes, a pan of green beans and a large, clear, disposable bowl filled with salad. Just around the corner in the break room were pitchers of iced tea and lemonade and a pot of coffee.

  Spouses were invited to this event, too. I watched as they filtered in, many of them carrying annual favorites. The pressroom foreman’s wife brought her brownies; Dennis was carrying the Watergate salad Jane from advertising always made.

  Did I just see Jane’s hand around Dennis’s waist? I looked again. Maybe not—she had taken the salad from him and was pulling off the plastic wrap from atop the salad. He looked across the room at me and grinned. I need to talk to that boy, I thought to myself.

  There were cheese and crackers, cupcakes, chocolate chip cookies, homemade candy and fruit salad, most of it made by the advertising and clerical staff.

  Graham brought a bag of chips, a container of French onion dip—and the hand held police scanner.

  Elizabeth Day, my features and education writer was the only person from the newsroom to make the effort and actually bake something: two deep-dish pumpkin pies.

  Marcus and Kay came in, with PJ behind them, carrying a two-layer cake, still in its bakery box, the receipt taped to the top.

  “We ran into Duncan,” Marcus said. “He was in the checkout line behind us, buying cookies. He should be here soon.”

  Within a few minutes, everyone’s offerings were placed on the tables beside the catered meal and the staff took their places behind their chosen seats around the rented tables and folding chairs.

  At the table with the rest of the advertising staff, Dennis stood next to Jane, gazing at her like a sick puppy.

  At the newsroom’s table, Kay Henning was the only one seated as Marcus stood protectively behind her. I stood beside Graham, with Elizabeth standing across the table from us.

  I looked up and down the tables, surveying the faces of everyone standing behind their chairs. How many years had I worked with these folks? Many of them were like family. We’d attended staff weddings, sometimes their children’s weddings, sent flowers at times of loss and pulled together to help in other times of tragedy.

  I’d bought Girl Scout cookies from their daughters, candy bars from their soccer-playing sons, and tried to be sincere and profanity free when I talked to their classrooms about being a newspaper editor.

  Duncan was the last to come into the pressroom. He slid a box of turkey-shaped sugar cookies onto the food table next to Elizabeth’s pies, before he slipped behind me and placed his hands on my shoulders.

  “Your dad called this morning,” he whispered in my ear. “He says he’s made his appointment for knee replacements, as he promised you. By the way, did you call Fisher Webb?”

  I nodded. “Right before I came down here,” I whispered in reply.

  “What did you tell him?”

  Before I could answer, Watterson waved his fat, wrinkly hands in the air and the chatter around us stopped.

  “May I have everyone’s attention, please?” he asked. “We have been through an awful lot this last year and especially this week. I want to thank each and every one of you for all of the effort you’ve put forth in these very trying times.”

  There was a polite round of applause and he continued to speak.

  “As many of you know, the Journal-Gazette has been in my family since 1823—”

  “Was that when you started, Watt?” one of the pressmen called out. Everyone laughed.

  He smiled and continued. “There are days when it sure feels like it. I’ve been here since 1960, when I was twenty-five. That’s close to fifty years and it’s time for me to call it a day.”

  The pressroom reverberated with “No!” and “Awww!”

  Had he sold to the brokers I’d met on Saturday? I looked up at Duncan, who shrugged, as
if he knew my thoughts.

  Watterson continued. “Most of you already know her, but right now I’d like to introduce my daughter, Earlene Whitelaw.” Polite applause masked concerned and curious glances among the staff members.

  Earlene Whitelaw Baxter Hernandez Goldman Jones, in a too-tight royal blue dress that showcased her breast implants, and black patent-leather stiletto heels, entered from the back of the pressroom. Her bottle-blonde hair was sprayed into immobility, as curly and tall as the mane of any Miss Texas pageant hopeful and she waved both hands above her head as she took her place beside her aging father.

  I shook my head in disbelief as Watterson began to speak again.

  “I am pleased to announce, however, that in this age of corporate takeovers and closures, the newspaper will remain in the hands of the Whitelaw family. I have to tell you all that I was looking to sell the J-G. I even fielded a couple offers to sell it.”

  The staff groaned.

  “Wait! Wait! Wait! Then I got a call from my darling Earlene, who said she was ready to come home. Earlene has agreed to return to Jubilant Falls and take over running the Journal-Gazette.”

  This time, the staff applauded politely. Marcus leaned around Kay to whisper, “He’s kidding us, right?”

  “Doesn’t look like it,” I whispered back.

  “Holy shit.”

  “Yup.”

  The applause died down as Earlene began to speak. Her accent was thicker and broader than any Texas native. Why did she suddenly change her mind about taking over the paper? Maybe her fourth marriage bit the dust and this time, she hadn’t come away with the Porsche, the house or any spousal support.