Maggie and the Empty Noose

by Barbara Cool Lee

  "I'll meet you outside," she told Reese, and he nodded and left.

  "Shut the door," Ibarra said.

  She did.

  Ibarra crossed his arms over his chest.

  "This how you want to play it?"

  Maggie couldn't hide the tears. "It's how they want to play it." She cleared her throat. "I wasn't a witness to the crime. I'm not a victim. I don't really have a say in it."

  "But you know Eddie Zimmer is a cold-blooded murderer," he said.

  "I wouldn't say cold-blooded," she said warily.

  "I watched your eyes," he said. "You caught every lie he told."

  She nodded.

  "You'd make a good cop, Ms. McJasper." His voice sounded hoarse, which she had learned was a tell that revealed he was feeling some raw emotion. She smiled faintly.

  "Thank you, Lieutenant Ibarra."

  "If he was arguing with her over who got the charity," Will said, "they could have just met at the office."

  She nodded. "He had to get her out on the beach at midnight, where there were no witnesses."

  "He hit a woman on the head with a rock," Ibarra said. "She scrambled up those stairs, running for her life. And she didn't make it."

  Maggie closed her eyes at the image he was painting. Then opened them again. "I know what happened."

  "Do you?" Will let out a sigh of his own. "Do you, really, Maggie? This was a brutal murder, not a man making an impulsive mistake."

  "I know," she said. "He made his kids sick hours earlier, so they would be awake and give him an alibi. Then changed the clock in the kids' room. Drugged his own family so they wouldn't know he'd left the house. Wore gloves. Cleaned up the scene. Threw away the rock he hit Olivia with. Put enough oxy in Reese's juice to kill an elephant. He expected him to die. Wanted him to die. He wanted Reese to be blamed for his crime."

  "And about that," Ibarra asked, "why is Reese helping him?"

  "They grew up together," she said. "They've known each other all their lives, Will. They were friends. Until this."

  "He's a better man than I am. I wouldn't hold the hand of a man who had tried to kill me."

  She could have said something sarcastic there, agreeing that Reese was a better man. But she didn't. Didn't actually believe that, anyway. Ibarra was a good man, in his own way. And without knowing the whole truth, he couldn't possibly understand the true kindness and compassion Reese was showing to Eddie.

  And he could never know that. No one could.

  So she agreed with the lieutenant that Eddie was minimizing his own guilt by downplaying the premeditation of the murder. But Chief Randall would be glad to mark the case as solved, the DA would take the plea deal for second degree murder, and everyone would be thankful to avoid a crazy, million-dollar, budget-busting, tabloid-fueled public trial that would disrupt Carita for months, if not years.

  "And what about you?" she asked him. "Are you going to take it? Or is it going to keep nagging at you?" The way it nagged at her.

  "He'll get away with it," Ibarra said in disgust.

  "How much time will he get?" she asked, finding it hard to care.

  "At least fifteen years for the murder. He'll also get something for the attempted murder of Reese. He won't get out any time soon. But still…." Ibarra looked at the earthquake preparedness poster on his wall.

  Then he came around to her side of the desk. He leaned toward her, as if he was about to give her a hug, but instead reached out a hand.

  She put her hand out and shook his.

  "You did good, Maggie," he said gruffly. "You did real good."

  She nodded.

  "Now go home and don't get into any more trouble."

  "I'll try," she said, not meeting his smile. "It's hard to accept," she said softly. "It's not fair."

  "Nope," he said. "It's not fair at all."

  "Take the win," she said.

  He smiled. "I will. I'll take this win, messy and dirty as it it. But I wanted to be sure we were on the same page."

  "We're on the same page, Will. I know what really happened."

  "And Reese? What about him?"

  "He knows, Will. He knows what Eddie did."

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Reese drove her home. There was no one there. Everyone had gone to the police station to chase the new story, of the ex-rock star turned philanthropist who had bashed an actress with a rock. A big, messy media frenzy that no longer centered on Reese.

  When they got to Casablanca, he parked Nora's little Bug sideways in the driveway, between Maggie's Passion Berry Fit and his Porsche.

  They went into her tiny house and he sat while she made French press coffee, and said nothing.

  Jasper settled down on the floor with a grunt, and began to snore.

  Reese watched Jasper, and Maggie watched Reese.

  Maggie felt tears rolling down her face, but she didn't say anything.

  Reese finally turned away from the dog, and saw she was crying. "What's wrong?"

  "What's wrong?" she repeated. "I just—it's so unfair, Stanley. You didn't do it. You didn't kill David."

  He smiled, the most happy and relaxed smile she'd seen from him since this whole thing started.

  No, the most relaxed smile she'd ever seen from him.

  "That's no reason to cry," he said.

  "No reason? You let Eddie sit there, and pretend he wasn't evil, and lie about why he killed Olivia."

  "Eddie's not evil," Reese said. "He's a coward. He lied about driving the car all those years ago, and then it just snowballed from there. Once he started on that path, there was no turning back. He was blackmailed by Olivia. He was obsessed with trying to somehow make up for the lie with good deeds. At any point, all he had to do was tell the truth, but he couldn't. So it got worse and worse."

  "Until he murdered Olivia and tried to kill you."

  "Yeah," Reese said casually.

  "But—"

  "—Don't you see?" he asked. "If he'd told the truth, anywhere along the way, it would have been over. His parents could have grieved. He could have made amends. Everyone could have moved on. But instead, he ended up like this, destroying his whole life just to cover up that one little lie."

  He pulled out a cigarette. He stopped, looked at it in his hand, then put it back in the pack. "I'm done with this," he said softly. "I'll call Nora in the morning. Check into rehab for a bit to make sure I'm solid with my sobriety."

  He said it matter of factly. It was no longer painful. No longer a trauma.

  But Maggie couldn't let it go. "But I just don't see how it's all better for you."

  He smiled gently. "You're usually so observant," he said, in that same calm tone he'd had ever since he'd stood down the barrel of a gun on that cliff.

  "You'll have to live the rest of your life with David's death hanging over you," she said. "It's so unfair."

  But he shook his head. "No. Don't you see? It's not hanging over me. Not anymore."

  She finished making the coffee.

  He accepted the cup she handed him and took a sip.

  The dog grunted in his sleep and Reese's smile widened. "All these years, I've hated myself," he said. "I've fought for sobriety because I knew I had to do it to stay alive, to take care of Shane, to keep going. But I always hated myself. I killed my best friend. I was a selfish, shallow idiot and I recklessly killed my David."

  "But that's what people will always think of you."

  She sat down on her stool by the loom. The mourning necklace she had made for her dead husband hung there. The black crystals glittered, dark and unfathomable. The necklace had been about making peace with a difficult past filled with mixed emotions.

  "People will always think you killed your best friend, Stanley. They won't know the truth."

  "But I won't think that," he said. "I won't look at my face in the mirror every morning when I'm shaving, and think, that's the face of a murderer. Not anymore. I know the truth. After all this time, I know I didn't do it. I'm free. I know
I'm innocent. What difference does it make if anyone else knows? I know."

  "And I do."

  "Yeah." He leaned toward her. "And you know. You always did. You're the key to all this, Maggie."

  "Me? I didn't do anything."

  "Four days ago, I woke up in bed with my murdered ex-girlfriend. And you are the only person on Earth who knew from the start I didn't kill her. My lawyer doubted me. My own mother doubted me. Even I doubted me. I thought maybe, in some drugged haze, I snapped and murdered the mother of my child."

  "You wouldn't do that."

  "And you never doubted that. Why?"

  "Because I just did. I know you. I know who you are. What you care about. You just wouldn't hurt Shane that much. You wouldn't betray your own values that much. You just couldn't do something like that."

  "Exactly. You were one-hundred percent sure, even when all the evidence said otherwise. Do you know what it's like to think you're a murderer?"

  "I can't imagine."

  "I've lived as a killer—an accidental one, but a killer just the same—for all these years. I've had to wake up every morning and know that my best friend was dead because I drove into a tree and wiped out any chance he had to have a full life. And now I'm free of it."

  "But no one else will ever know."

  "I will." he leaned close and brushed his lips against hers. "And you will," he whispered.

  "You can live with that?"

  He laughed so loudly he woke the dog. "You bet I can."

  Later, they went out to the back of the magnificent beach house to watch the waves crash against the shore.

  Jasper rolled on the pavers and sniffed at the flower beds while they stood next to the rusting wave sculpture and gazed out at the sea.

  "I'm going to buy a ranch," Reese said suddenly.

  "A ranch?"

  "I need a change. Casablanca was a good place for me when I was drifting. But it's time to settle down. Make a real life. A life for Shane. And for me, too."

  "Are you moving back to Deep Creek?" she asked, feeling her heart break a little inside at the thought.

  But he shook his head. "Nah. My roots are there, but I'm not quite that country boy anymore. And I want Shane to stay at his boarding school. It's a good dose of normalcy—at least as much normalcy as the son of a movie star can have. He can become an accountant or something."

  She laughed. "So where will you go?"

  "There's a bunch of places out in Carita Valley just a few miles from here. It's close enough that Shane can come home on weekends. But still far away from Los Angeles. I'll find some place out Valley Road. Past the golf course, maybe."

  "I can't picture you as a golfer."

  "Not my thing. But I could find a little ranch and get a couple of horses. But don't worry," he added. "I'm not going to leave you in the lurch here. I know you need someone to rent Casablanca to stay ahead of the bankruptcy court. So I'll keep up the lease until you find a new tenant."

  She shook her head. "I need to make a change, too. I've been holding onto this house out of stubbornness. I just couldn't let my ex-husband win the last battle. But it's a trap. What am I trying to prove? I can't put my life on hold any longer, either. I need to take the loss, declare bankruptcy, and move on."

  "Good for you," he said. "I guess we're both growing up."

  "Yeah," she said. "I'll just need to find somewhere to park my tiny house, and I'll be set for the next stage of my life."

  "You can park it out by my crawdad pond," Reese said.

  "Is this the wrong time to point out that you don't have a crawdad pond?"

  "I will by the time you're ready to move."

  "Sounds like a plan," she said. Then it struck her. "Hey, wait a minute. That means you'll be my landlord."

  "What's wrong with that?"

  "Nothing, I guess. But I kind of liked having the World's Sexiest Man in my swimming pool."

  He leaned closer and whispered, "there's no reason you can't have him skinny dipping in your crawdad pond."

  "How soon can I move in?" she asked.

  His laughter echoed across the yard, making the rusty old wave sculpture rattle.

  Maggie searches for the gifted young artist who created an amazing beaded skull–and finds a dead body in her apartment. Can she track down the real killer before someone else bites the dust?

  And when Reese tries to make a fresh start, can Maggie keep him from going off-track?

  Find out in Maggie and the Huichol Homicide, the next Carita Cove Mystery.

  The Carita Cove Mysteries

  Maggie McJasper is starting over in a little California beach town. She has a craft shop, a nice circle of friends, and a handsome movie star who keeps flirting with her. Life would be pretty great if she could just stop stumbling over dead bodies….

  * * *

  Maggie and the Black-Tie Affair

  A bored trophy wife. A cynical movie star. One evening to save an innocent girl from prison. None of them will ever be the same after this Black-Tie Affair.

  * * *

  Maggie and the Inconvenient Corpse

  A handsome movie star in her kitchen, and a corpse in the swimming pool. Just your typical Monday morning.

  * * *

  Maggie and the Mourning Beads

  Can Maggie find the real killer when her teenage student threatens to strangle her mother with a jet-black necklace... hours before the woman is found dead?

  * * *

  Maggie and the Empty Noose

  When the handsome movie star renting Maggie's house is accused of murder, she's the only one who believes he's innocent. Now all she has to do is prove it.

  * * *

  Maggie and the Huichol Homicide

  Maggie searches for the gifted young artist who created an amazing beaded skull–and finds a dead body in her apartment. Can she track down the real killer before someone else bites the dust?

  * * *

  Maggie and the Whiskered Witness

  Maggie's dog-training buddy drops off her German Shepherd for a play date–then disappears. Soon Maggie begins to wonder if her friend could be leading a deadly double life.

  * * *

  And more to come. Click here for the latest booklist.

  The Pajaro Bay Mysteries

  Welcome to Pajaro Bay, the little California beach town where the cottages are cute, the neighbors are nosy, and it's always possible to find your personal Happily Ever After. The novels can be read in any order, or follow along from the beginning to see how the world develops:

  * * *

  Honeymoon Cottage

  A tiny beach town, a handsome sheriff, and a chance for a fresh start. Sure, there's a serial killer on the loose, but no place is perfect, right?

  * * *

  Boardwalk Cottage

  Hallie thought she'd spend a fun summer at a funky old amusement park. She didn't expect to become the key to solving a kidnapping plot!

  * * *

  Lighthouse Cottage

  Alone at a lighthouse with a handsome, sweet… murderer? Lori had better figure out what he's hiding before they both end up as shark bait.

  * * *

  Little Fox Cottage

  Deliver a dog to its new owner, they said. It'll be easy, they said. They didn't say anything about murder.

  * * *

  Rum Cake Cottage

  Roxy spent 10 years in prison for a crime she didn't commit. Now she's got 72 hours to find the real killer, or she'll lose her daughter forever.

  * * *

  Songbird Cottage

  The abandoned cottage with her grandmother's portrait on the wall is the first clue. Will Robin find the others before it's too late?

  * * *

  Sunshine Cottage

  Witness protection in a small town. If Teresa's cover is blown, she'll lose the best life she's ever known. Oh, and she'll die. That, too.

  * * *

  And more to come. Click here for the latest booklist.

  Barbara
Cool Lee writes the kind of books she likes reading: fun and heartwarming romantic mysteries where the good guys treat people with kindness and you can always count on a happy ending.

  She lives in a cozy cottage by the sea on the California coast. While she's writing her next book, she's got a loaf of sourdough bread in the oven, a pot of veggie soup on the stove, and the fog is billowing outside the windows.

  Be sure to sign up for her newsletter to get all the free short stories and be first to find out when the next book is released.

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