“Why would this have anything to do with Joe Tyler?” Vivian demanded.
“Well, at work we were discussing the fact that we hadn’t told them everything we knew,” Maria said. “And whether or not that could be considered withholding information in what might turn out to be a criminal investigation.”
“The hell you say,” was Vivian’s indignant comment.
Maria shrugged. “Well, I believe they can arrest people for obstruction or interference, or something, in an ongoing investigation,” she offered, obviously hesitant to set Vivian off again.
Jesse raised her hand, cautiously signaling her entry into the conversation. “I do believe that, at some point in my conversations with Sheriff Tyler, he mentioned something to that effect.” She and Maria shared a glance of solidarity.
After all, Vivian had an almost obscene amount of wealth and social position, not to mention an entire firm of attorneys, behind her. The image of Sheriff Tyler dragging her off in cuffs for interference was laughable. But Jesse and Maria were mere mortals who had no such protection. He could and would come after them with a vengeance if they got in his way enough to irritate him.
“Well, that’s a real buzz kill.” Sophia set her empty goblet on the coffee table. “I hate to be the voice of reason, but are we sure we actually know what we’re doing here?”
“The last thing I want to do is cross swords with law enforcement,” Maria said with quiet but firm conviction. “But Harry’s death is sad enough. If the personal details of his life don’t have anything to do with his death, then nobody needs for all the secrets to come out into the open.”
“Here, here!” Vivian lifted her empty glass in a toast of agreement.
“But there’s another reason why we’re here,” Jesse added, bringing them all back around to the unpleasant truth. “If Harry’s secrets did have something to do with his death, then maybe one of those secrets got him killed. And the first person they are going to look at is Bliss.”
“Wait. Are you talking about murder?” Sophia’s voice reflected the horror she felt.
Jesse nodded. “We have to consider that. Vivian thinks that’s where this is headed, and my gut’s starting to agree with her.”
Sophia stared at each of them, dumbstruck. “Are we all out of our minds?” she finally whispered.
“Maybe,” Bliss’s quiet voice came from the doorway. “But that doesn’t mean they’re wrong.”
Startled by her silent arrival, the meaning of her words arrived a heartbeat behind. Then Jesse noticed the pallor of Bliss’s complexion and the shaking hand that clutched something white and crumpled in its fist.
“Has something happened?” Jesse rose and started forward.
“I found something.” Bliss held out her hand. “I don’t know how the police missed it. But I took it.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t know why. I just took it.”
Chapter Eleven
“Okay.” Jesse stopped and spread her arms to the side. “Nobody move.”
Everyone obediently stayed put, which they were doing anyway, while Jesse cast around for something that would keep four more people from touching whatever this was that Bliss clutched in her hand. If it was real evidence of anything, they were all in enough trouble already.
Taking a small silver tray from what had once been Malcolm Windsor’s desk, Jesse held the tray out to Bliss. “Okay, lay that on this, carefully.”
While Bliss did as she was told, Vivian huffed in disgust. “It’s not a snake, Jesselyn. What are you doing?”
“Fingerprints,” Jesse explained. “Maria, why don’t you help Bliss into a chair? She looks like she’s about to pass out.”
Jesse set the tray on the desk, turned on a lamp and adjusted it to shine on the paper. Then she used two pens from the desk to smooth out the crumpled page of what looked like a standard steno pad or something similar. Small, script typeface at the top corner identified the paper as “from the desk of Harold Kerr.”
The words on the page were printed by hand, in a dark ink. She had read somewhere that, unlike cursive, printing was almost anonymous, and this printing looked like something from grade school. Plain, almost childish, but accurately spelled. “The pool tonight. 2:30 sharp. Come alone. Have something for you.”
Jesse looked over her shoulder to find Bliss seated in the wingback next to Vivian, who was glowering but remained in her chair. “Did the writing look familiar to you?”
Bliss shook her head. “No, nothing about it looked familiar except the notepaper. I don’t understand it.”
“How about you?” Jesse asked Maria. “See if this means anything to you. Just don’t touch it,” she warned as the younger woman joined her and leaned over the note.
“That looks like the notepad Harry had on his desk.”
“He had one like it on his desk at home, too,” Bliss said.
“Which means we have no idea which place this paper came from,” Jesse added, hoping she didn’t sound as disgruntled as she felt. She looked at Maria. “Anything else?”
“I don’t recognize the writing. It’s not Harry’s. It doesn’t look like any of the salesmen at work. I don’t remember any phone calls that might have a link to this.” She held out her hands, looking helpless and frustrated. “It means nothing.”
Jesse looked at the note again, thinking out loud. “Except it clearly means Harry went to the pool to meet someone.”
“It doesn’t sound like a woman to me,” Bliss added. “Or at least, not a girlfriend.”
“No,” Jesse agreed. “I’m not sure it sounds like a friend of any kind.”
“So.” Vivian popped up out of her chair, her patience at an end. “Can we all read it now?” She motioned to Sophia, who didn’t seem nearly so eager, but dutifully rose.
Jesse moved to the side. “Sure, just don’t…”
“I know,” Vivian interrupted, waving a hand dismissively. “Don’t touch it. I get it.” She pointed to the note and rolled her eyes before she leaned closer to read it. “Evidence.”
Maria returned to the sofa, obviously uncomfortable. “This is getting almost spooky,” she said quietly. “Is anyone else starting to feel really tired?”
Bliss caught her eye and nodded. At the desk, all attention was focused on the small, cream-colored sheet of paper in the silver tray. Sophia leaned in to read the note over Vivian’s shoulder, then drew back and looked into her daughter’s eyes.
“We’ve stepped in it, now, haven’t we?” she asked softly, while Vivian leaned closer to reread the note.
“Sheriff Tyler will not be pleased with us,” Jesse agreed.
“When are we going to tell him?” Sophia asked cautiously.
“Soon,” Jesse answered.
Vivian turned and nodded. “It will have to be soon. I’m guessing any minute now.”
Maria raised her hand to her forehead and rubbed, the weight of the situation seriously pressing on her. “Do we all have to be here? I don’t want to sound like a coward, but I’m afraid if the sheriff sees me here, the other people at work might get drawn into this, too.”
“I see your point.” Jesse gave the matter a few moments thought, then shook her head. “I don’t really see why you or my mother, either one, need to be here. Do you, Vivian?”
“I think we can put Bliss to bed, and you and I can deal with this,” Vivian agreed. “I wouldn’t want the sheriff to confuse a meeting of the Myrtle Grove Garden Club with some sort of a plotting session.”
Sophia shook her head emphatically. “No, wouldn’t want that.”
“So, all right then,” Jesse said. Her gaze skimmed over her mother, reassuring her, before landing on Maria, then on to Bliss. “You two can leave anytime. And I just have another couple of questions for you, Bliss.”
Bliss’s head drooped. “Sure. This is all like one of those nightmares that won’t end. You try to wake up, and it just keeps on going.” She sounded somewhere between exhausted and shell shocked. “He went down th
ere because of some stupid, anonymous note. And now he’s dead!”
A thin thread of hysteria caught Jesse’s ear. Bliss had held up well, but she was running out of steam and at any moment she threatened to collapse completely. Jesse needed to find out what she could and then get the frazzled widow safely upstairs and into bed before the sheriff made his appearance.
Sophia crossed her arms and leaned back against the desk next to Vivian. “I think I’ll stay put for a while longer, if it’s okay.”
Maria popped up from the sofa, lifting her daiquiri glass and Sophia’s from the coffee table as she rose. “And I think I’ll head out now. I’ll just take these to the kitchen on my way.”
“Good idea,” Sophia said to Maria. “Just put those in the sink, and I’ll wash them before I leave.”
Seating herself on the sofa across from Bliss, Jesse said, “Okay, now. Just a few more questions, Bliss. And then we’re putting you to bed for the night. Think you can do that?”
Bliss nodded, clearly holding onto her composure with nothing more than determination. Jesse couldn’t help wondering how any of the rest of them would be faring after having the kind of day the other woman had had.
Then, putting sympathy aside, Jesse leaned closer and asked, “All right now, where exactly did you find that note? How did you get it past Deputy Murphy? And why in the world did you bring it with you, instead of just giving it to her?”
∙∙∙•••●●●•••∙∙∙
Jesse hung up the phone and took a deep, steadying breath. “Okay. He’s on his way.”
“Oh, dear.” Vivian looked around the room that now held just the two of them. “Maybe we should fix a pot of coffee while we wait.”
“I think I’m having an anxiety attack,” was Jesse’s only response.
Like Vivian, she glanced around nervously. The note remained on its silver tray, bathed in a pool of lamplight. Pitchers, glasses, and empty bottles were all gone. The room looked neat, innocent, somber.
Bliss was tucked into bed, sedated and instantly asleep. Maria was long since gone. Sophia had cleaned up and left for home, cheerfully promising to bail Jesse out of the pokey if need be. Jesse and Vivian remained alone, waiting to face the music. Old friends, who had seen each other through worse times than this on more than one occasion.
“I suppose he’s going to be upset,” Vivian said with what, in anyone else, would have sounded like trepidation.
“That would be my guess,” Jesse agreed. Privately, she couldn’t even imagine what form his anger would take, but she was willing to bet it would be impressive.
“Should I apologize now for getting you into this?”
In the silent, semi-dark house where nothing moved but the two of them and maybe a mouse or two, Vivian’s question was as sincerely humble as it was unexpected. Jesse turned to her friend of countless years, and she was again a girl, staring at a woman of exquisite beauty and awesome strength, her mentor, her hero, her beacon through the dark and troubled years of youth. Vivian Windsor had been a gift, treasured and well-used throughout Jesse’s life.
“No, Vivian,” she said softly, hoping her sudden burning tears didn’t show in the room’s understated light. “You never have to apologize to me for anything, ever.”
“Good,” Vivian answered just as softly, then smiled. “I must be getting a little tired. I don’t know what came over me for a minute there.”
Jesse laughed and linked her arm through Vivian’s. “I think that coffee’s a good idea. We need to get our stories straight before the Lord High Sheriff gets here.”
“We’d better talk fast, then. I’ve seen that man drive.”
“Point taken.” Feeling the urgency, Jesse steered them to the kitchen. “Do we have any snacks?”
“I believe there’s some of Sophia’s orange-cranberry bread left.” Vivian took the plastic wrap off the half loaf remaining and began to slice it. “The glaze on this is unbelievable, by the way. Your recipe or hers?”
“That one, actually, is my grandmother’s. Mom’s thinking of putting together a cookbook with three generations of recipes.” Jesse started the coffee while she talked, and by the time Vivian finished arranging the tea bread on a platter, the coffee was perking.
“Then what?” Vivian asked.
“I don’t think she’s thought that far ahead.” Jesse shrugged. “Maybe sell it at the tea room?”
“Maybe that could be a project for the Garden Club,” Vivian suggested. She reached into the cabinet and brought down an insulated carafe for the coffee, which had just finished brewing. “Fix a little pitcher of cream, would you? I’ll pour the coffee.”
Jesse headed for the refrigerator. “What garden club?” she asked over her shoulder. “I thought you were kidding.”
“Nope. We started one tonight.” Vivian arranged the carafe and platter on a tray. “Think you can carry this?”
“Sure.” Jesse placed a delicate china pitcher of creamer next to the coffee and picked up the tray. “Does this garden club have a purpose other than to irritate the local sheriff by poking our noses in where he doesn’t want them?”
Vivian tossed her head and tilted her nose ever-so-slightly aloft. “Not at the moment. But it’s a new club. Maybe we’ll actually do some gardening after we figure out who killed Harold.”
Jesse shook her head and heaved a sigh. “Oh, Vivian.”
“Don’t trip.” Vivian took the lead and headed back toward the library. “There are some dessert plates and mugs in a china hutch behind Malcolm’s desk. I think they’ll be more to the sheriff’s liking.”
“Real mugs, or little, fancy mugs?” Jesse asked, following behind at a more sedate pace. It wasn’t that the tray was heavy, it was just cumbersome. And Vivian was right. She wouldn’t want to trip.
“They’re real mugs,” Vivian defended. “Just not those big, heavy things young people use these days.”
Jesse wasn’t going to argue, but she remembered her father using one of the biggest, heaviest mugs she had ever seen, and that was a long time ago. Entering the library, she went to the coffee table and set down her burden. “Okay, we need to talk.”
Vivian stopped rummaging through the china hutch and turned. “I remember that Deputy Murphy had gone into the bathroom, and that’s why Bliss was alone in the master suite. But the rest of it didn’t make any sense to me.”
“And, that’s exactly why…” Jesse pointed to Vivian with the index fingers of both hands. “Bliss is in bed. Because it’s not going to make any sense to Joe Tyler either.”
“So, what do we do?”
“Keep it as simple as we can. When he asks where Bliss is, we say that she’s in bed sedated, that she was exhausted, physically and mentally. If he keeps pushing, we say all she could do was cry, so we put her to bed.” Jesse held up her hand, palm extended. “Trust me, he will not want to talk to Bliss if she’s just going to cry. He’s been there already.”
“Okay. Exhausted. Tears. Bed,” Vivian repeated. “What’s next? Oh, I know! Why did she bring it home with her? I didn’t understand that one. So if he asked me that, I wouldn’t make any more sense than Bliss did.”
Jesse took a minute to think. All Bliss had been able to say was that she didn’t know, she didn’t know, she didn’t know. She just had. Which was pretty much what she had said when she first walked in with the crumpled note in her hand.
“I almost understand that one,” Jesse said finally. Her words came slowly, as she searched through thoughts as vague and confused as Bliss’s explanation had been. “I think it was just instinct. I think it was the last thing she had from her husband. It took her by surprise, and she just couldn’t let it go. So, without consciously thinking about it, she brought it with her.”
“I think I’ll let you explain that one,” Vivian said.
“For the sheriff’s purposes, I think we’ll just say that she was exhausted, grieving, and wasn’t thinking straight. How’s that?” Jesse asked.
“Ex
hausted, grieving, wasn’t thinking straight,” Vivian repeated with a frown. “That sounds a lot like why she’s in bed.”
“That one has tears thrown in. This one has not thinking straight,” Jesse explained. “Other than that, they’re both just blah-blah-blah, leave us alone, take the note, go away.”
Vivian laughed. “Oh, dear, this is starting to get complicated.”
“It’s been complicated,” Jesse said, laughing with her. “It’s just that we’re starting to get too tired to keep it all straight.”
“And what about that nice Deputy Murphy?” Vivian asked. “She wasn’t supposed to leave Bliss alone in the house. Are we about to get her into trouble?”
Jesse shook her head with regret. “I think we’re just going to have to throw her under the bus, Viv. I feel bad about it, too, but I don’t see any way around it.”
“Damn Harold, anyway,” Vivian said. “What idiot wouldn’t have better sense than to go down to a deserted swimming pool in the middle of night, all alone, on the basis of an anonymous damned note! It’s like one of those gothic suspense novels where you’re yelling ‘don’t go up there alone.’” She spread her arms wide. “And there she goes, marching off into certain danger, like an idiot.”
“Maybe he knew who he was meeting,” Jesse suggested. “Maybe it was someone he trusted, or at least wasn’t afraid of.”
“Yeah, well, fooled him!”
Chapter Twelve
Jesse pointed to the note and moved back. When Joe Tyler leaned in for a closer look, she automatically gave a little start. “Don’t touch it,” she cautioned before she could get her mouth to stop talking.
He turned his head, one brow arched alarmingly high, and pinned her with a stare that would make a lizard look warm and fuzzy.
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