The Cost of Betrayal

by Dee Henderson

  “I think I’m still in the relief side of the picture. The anger over the injustice hasn’t had space to rise up yet. I imagine it will.”

  “It would be a normal reaction. But you can skip entire pages of what is normal and still be processing things just fine. I’m going to get concerned only if I see you getting stuck on some step.”

  “Like I mentally start spinning my wheels?”

  Greg smiled. “Once I figure out how you brood, most of my work is actually done. I see you brooding, that’s my cue to step in and help you shift the way you’re thinking about something.” He rose to help her clear the table. “Let’s start that movie, then later go watch the sunset from the beach. Marco loves to end his day playing in the sand.”

  She looked down with amusement at the dog, still hoping for table scraps to fall his way. “He’ll try to steal and bury my tennis shoe again.”

  “His version of hide-and-seek. My guess, he’s playing the game in your honor.”

  She laughed and headed into the kitchen. Greg ruffled the dog’s fur. It helped to get her to laugh, and Marco had been doing an impressive job assisting him with that.

  Food had become a theme of Janelle’s stay. She had the fixings for BLTs laid out for breakfast. Greg decided it suited him fine. He stacked bacon on a piece of toast, piled on lettuce and a tomato slice, then picked up a knife and the peanut butter jar to liberally coat the other piece of toast.

  He found her on the patio, tossing a bite of bacon to Marco, who had obligingly backed up to the other side for a long toss. Greg smiled, watching them. He’d never known Marco to miss, no matter how long the toss.

  He pulled out a chair and settled in across from her. Adapting to her wasn’t a particular hardship thus far. Janelle didn’t eat inside if she could be outside. And she was showing a not-unexpected skittishness about being completely alone. He was thinking he’d buy her a good pair of cowboy boots for Christmas. She’d already picked up a cowboy hat at an island shop and was wearing it now. Her nose had sunburned and peeled, her shoulders and arms had tanned, spared the burn by ample sunscreen. She was adapting to life on the island. It was overcast, but the threat of rain had passed. It would be a nice day for a horseback ride.

  “I take it you know the pardon and case details well enough to tell me what all happened.”

  Greg nodded, not surprised that she would immediately bring up the topic. Having gathered the courage to ask this morning, waiting until later would only increase her tension. “I do.” He’d played out variations of how the next minutes would go and wondered which way Janelle would take them. He was as prepared as he knew how to be for this conversation.

  “Then let me just ask: Who killed Andrew? Do they know?”

  “Tanya.”

  She blinked, then erupted. “That’s crazy!” Her chair landed on its side behind her, startling Marco.

  Being well trained, rather than bolt, the dog immediately dropped down and stayed low. Greg used a hand gesture to command comfort, and the dog was instantly up again and into Janelle’s space, under her hand, leaning into her knee. Her hand curled into Marco’s fur. “Sorry, Marco. I’m sorry.”

  Greg leaned over to set right her chair.

  Her instantaneous reaction he’d expected, but the surging, adrenaline-driven anger that followed, flushing her face, was stronger than he’d anticipated. Okay, one question answered. Janelle’s instinct was to both mentally and emotionally defend her friend. Loyalty ran to the core of her personality. Greg didn’t follow up with another comment, as he needed to see how she’d process something she intensely rejected. He let his dog be the distraction and comfort she needed right now.

  “Ann found my pink pocketknife.”

  He nodded at her restatement of the fact from last night. Her tone was confused, softer now. She was desperately trying to rein in the anger. Janelle carefully sat back down. He gave her as much of a verbatim quote from Ann as he could recall. “She was at an auction with Paul. There were silk scarves and half-filled perfume bottles in a box of miscellaneous dresser-drawer items she thought might make a nice painting arrangement. She bought the box. When she unpacked everything, she found your knife in the bottom.”

  “Tanya’s fingerprints were on the knife, Andrew’s blood? They concluded Tanya did the murder off that new evidence? Because Tanya handled that knife all the time for innocent reasons—it had a corkscrew and nail file, any number of other gadgets she used.”

  “Your fingerprints were found on the knife, Andrew’s blood,” Greg corrected.

  Janelle began to run her fingertips back and forth on the tabletop in an unconscious gesture. “Then how . . . ? That doesn’t end up at a pardon. It proves the jury verdict against me,” she added, still confused.

  “Ann traced the box. They were Tanya’s things. There was a sewing kit, a jewelry box with the initials T.C. on it, the scarves and perfume. It turns out your knife was in Tanya’s dresser drawer.”

  That stopped her hand motion. “Her dresser drawer . . . Tanya’s dead?” Janelle whispered, a horrified look on her face.

  He’d miscalculated, not anticipating that question, and so quickly shifted gears. “Tanya’s alive and well and living in New York. She owns a high-end dress boutique, holds a partnership interest in a fashion magazine.”

  Janelle shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “Were you aware that Tanya moved to New York after the trial?”

  “Yes. That was always her dream,” Janelle replied, her voice softening again. “It was good that she went, that she got away from the tragedy of Andrew’s death.”

  Greg offered a piece of his bacon to Marco as a reward for the dog faithfully staying at Janelle’s side. “Tanya recently sold the Chadwick family’s Chicago home. She sent a few things to New York, but the rest of the contents went to auction. The house manager boxed up Tanya’s bedroom dresser—the box of items Ann purchased.” He waited.

  “Tanya killed Andrew.” Janelle wasn’t processing the fact so much as repeating it.

  “Yes.” He gave her another long moment. “Someone put those bloody shoes in your closet, Janelle. Tanya had a key to your apartment, right?”

  Her gaze lifted to meet his. “She had a key,” she whispered.

  She wasn’t seeing him. She was thinking, thinking hard. He’d just blown her understanding of the world into confetti pieces. The growing pallor of her face worried him, yet her hand on the table was still opened, not fisted, nor had she stiffened in the chair. Her original denial was so strong a response, he wasn’t sure she could absorb the facts the first time she heard the news. She wasn’t processing the facts yet, for none of it was real to her; they were just words.

  “She set you up, Janelle,” he said gently.

  She swallowed so hard, she looked sick. When the denial broke, she would desperately need to see what was real. He gave her the truth he needed her to stand on so her mind would process this through rather than get stuck.

  “There are a few different theories as to why Tanya did it. The most kind is that she found Andrew at the bottom of those stairs, knew his medical bills would eat through the family trust, and made a terrible decision. She used your knife to stab him and let him bleed to death. She tried to make it look like a robbery. But if the cops didn’t buy that, you would be her fallback. Tanya used the fact you had fought that night with Andrew. She put the bloody shoes in your closet for the cops to find so they would start with you rather than her.”

  Janelle held up her hand to halt his words. “Can we . . . stop this conversation now?” She was already more calmly pushing back her chair.

  “Of course.”

  Confusion, shock, bewilderment . . . all the emotions painting her face were easy to read, but he wasn’t seeing even a trace of reluctant acceptance as her mind fought it out with her heart. “I’m sorry, Janelle, that this was a betrayal by a lifelong friend.”

  She put her paper plate on the stone pavers as a thank-you to Marco, w
ho pushed aside the tomatoes with his nose but gladly snapped up the bacon. She wiped at tears with the palms of her hands. “I’ll be at the beach.”

  He nodded and let her go. Marco looked up as she broke into a jog. Greg nudged him with his foot. “Comfort,” he said. Marco considered matters, devoured the last piece of peanut-butter-covered bread, then ran after her.

  Greg rubbed his hands down his face. There were times this job was simply miserable. He pulled out his phone and made a call. “She just asked the question, Ann. She may not be able to accept it.” Twenty minutes later, he ended the call, sighed, reached down for the plate, and wadded it up with his.

  He couldn’t help Janelle, not yet. She’d hopefully storm that beach, kick up sand, do some yelling, then crying, and when the emotional storm ran out, she’d sit down on a log, her emotions numb, and replay their conversation.

  She would either be able to quote his words verbatim or wouldn’t remember much of anything beyond the statement that Tanya did it. Her mind would deal with the news however it had to, either shutting down or going to the opposite extreme of examining each word in an endless loop. He’d adjust what came next based on which coping mechanism had been triggered. He hoped she would smile again in the next week. It wasn’t likely, but he could hope for it.

  One small blessing—Janelle had left her phone on the table. She wasn’t calling someone from her past right now, wasn’t calling Tanya. She was alone, thinking, denial and truth locked in a fierce battle, her heart and mind at war with each other. If denial won, the next conversation was going to be particularly difficult. He looked at her phone and left it on the table. Marco would come bounding back here to get him if Janelle needed help. He went to fetch a book, settled back at the table, and waited for her to return.

  eleven

  GREG COULDN’T READ HER FACE; it was as impassive as granite. But she’d cried so hard that her eyes were swollen, and he could only guess at an acute tension headache. She came to a stop beside the table and picked up her phone. “Ann found my pocketknife, and tests showed it had Andrew’s blood on it. Ann reasoned Tanya did the murder because she had possession of the murder weapon and had motive because of the family trust money. Then Ann considered what had happened to me and determined the evidence against me had to have been planted by Tanya, who set me up to take the blame. I have it right?”

  “Yes,” Greg said.

  “I want to see the case file.”

  He nodded. “It’s in the conference room—past my office, second door on the right. Some of it’s video interviews, various investigators’ notes, the trial transcript. The photos are not there—I’d like us to talk before you look at them. Do you want me to walk you through the material? Would you like Ann to do so?”

  “It’s written down, how the pardon conclusion was reached?”

  “Start with the blue folder with Ann’s card stapled on the front. Her pardon note runs about sixty pages.”

  “I’ll come find you if I have a question.” She hesitated, then handed him the phone. “So I won’t call a reporter, do something I might later regret.”

  “Thank you.” He pocketed her phone.

  “They’re wrong about Tanya.”

  “I know you honestly believe that. You’ll find Tylenol and Ibuprofen in the cabinet with the coffee filters. I’d recommend you guzzle a sports drink after your choice of painkiller. I’ll bring you food in a few hours that you can share with Marco if you can’t stomach eating anything yet.”

  She looked at the dog, swishing his tail at the sound of his name, politely sitting beside her. She gently ruffled his fur. “I’ll bet he puts on weight around your more emotional clients.”

  Greg smiled. “He loses it just as quickly by tagging along when they go exploring.”

  She turned toward the house, but then stopped, turned back to face him. “I didn’t kill Andrew,” she said simply.

  “I know.”

  “Do you?”

  He’d read the transcripts, watched the videos of the interviews, had just seen Janelle’s immediate reaction to the idea Tanya was the guilty one. There were two women in this case. One was a liar, the other loyal, honest but bewildered. Janelle hadn’t stabbed her boyfriend.

  “I know it, Janelle.” He tried to offer her some safe ground. “My job is to help you, not be another investigator. I’m officially neutral to the question of whether Tanya did this, or if it was a robbery committed by a stranger, or something else entirely. But for your own well-being, denial can’t be where you stop. If Ann is right, the implications going forward are very dangerous. You don’t have to agree with her conclusion, but you do need to accept the possibility.” And Greg could tell that acceptance was still a long way off. “I’ll be here when you’re ready to talk.”

  Janelle nodded and went into the house.

  Janelle had been reading through the materials for several days, and Greg hadn’t interrupted. He thought it was now time, however. She was brooding, edging toward being stuck. “I’ve got clam chowder simmering. Come eat.”

  Janelle left the conference room to join him in the kitchen. She’d lost most of Christmas to those case files, along with her smile, that joy he’d found so delightful. He’d been able to pull her attention away only for an abbreviated hour on Christmas Day. She’d opened the packages with her name on them with pleasure—a watch and earrings from Ann and Paul, cowboy boots from him—and accepted his lavish thanks when he opened her gift and found she’d made him a cheesecake. But the case details had sucked her right back in. The one saving grace: she was still eating and sleeping, and letting Marco tag along as her shadow.

  Janelle settled onto a stool at the counter, blew on the first spoonful of chowder, then reached for the canister of crackers. “I don’t buy it. I understand their theory; they’re just plain wrong.”

  Greg slipped Marco a piece of salami as a way of thanking the dog for keeping Janelle company. Her anger was abating, which was good. Yet the stubborn certainty was still there, set in stone. At the moment, he put Tanya’s guilt at around seventy percent. The professional in him recognized a skilled liar in the interviews, and all kinds of flags had gone up. Still, he was willing to discuss with her either side of the argument as needed—a reasoned conversation was the only way to help Janelle, rather than offering a particular set of facts.

  “I can tell you what Ann is going to say.” Greg didn’t say anything further. Instead, he just waited.

  “Tell me,” Janelle said moodily.

  Greg couldn’t help but smile. He rather liked this person she was when pushed into a corner, asked to believe something she didn’t agree with. The backbone that had gotten her through the trial and subsequent mistaken verdict and sentence was still as strong as ever. She wasn’t about to cave to an idea she couldn’t accept. So he gently used that strength to help her.

  “Ann would say you need to put aside the rose-colored glasses and realize the personal danger you’re in,” he replied. “You’re fully persuaded it was a robbery gone wrong that resulted in Andrew’s death. But what if you’re wrong? Then Tanya is a murderer, and you are the greatest threat she faces. The cops are looking into Andrew’s death again. Tanya is going to be in a panic about what you might remember, what you might know, what you didn’t say at the time. And a second murder is considerably easier than the first.

  “Ann and Paul are two very experienced homicide detectives, skilled enough to figure out you’re innocent even after finding a knife that has your name on it, as well as traces of Andrew’s blood. Their instincts come from decades of solving murders. They’ve reached the conclusion that the full evidence supports, including your and Tanya’s behavior. And based on all that, Tanya is the one who killed Andrew.”

  Though Janelle listened well, he watched the expressions flicker across her face and could read the continued denial. It was an emotional reaction as much as a logical one. The problem was simply the fact Janelle didn’t want to believe what she was hearing. She
had the facts, she followed the logic, and yet she just didn’t want to believe it was true.

  “How about this?” Greg changed his tack. “You’re innocent.”

  She nodded.

  “Someone put those bloody shoes in your closet. If a stranger robber did the crime, how would the person know your address, Janelle? The only one who had your key, who had access to your knife and could plant those shoes, is Tanya. And don’t forget—she had a strong reason to want her brother dead, rather than paralyzed for life with a broken back. She had an intense, felt need for the money his death would bring her, and that need led an otherwise good woman to commit murder. She likely convinced herself that her brother wouldn’t want to live the rest of his life in a wheelchair, that what she was doing was best for him.”

  He slid the Kleenex box her direction. He was pushing because she was stuck, the one place he couldn’t let her stay. “I know the truth is miserable. You don’t want to believe it. That’s fair. But, again, you need to accept it as a possibility, then deal with the emotions that come as a result.”

  “He was my boyfriend. He got nosebleeds. I never believed the blood on my shoes was from that night. It could have been there for ages. Tanya didn’t do it. I told you, I’m not buying that theory.”

  She pushed aside her chowder, got up and started pacing the room, blew her nose. “I’m not helping them send another innocent person to prison. I was falsely accused, and now Tanya is being falsely accused. Don’t you see that? If they take her to trial, Greg, I’ll get on the stand and perjure myself, state that I stabbed Andrew and pushed him down the stairs. If they rip up the pardon, so be it. I’ll do whatever it takes. I’d have to in order to stop another miscarriage of justice of this magnitude.”

  He took out an energy shake from the fridge, shook it, and passed it over to her. She needed something in her system if it wasn’t going to be the chowder. He doubted she could lie under oath, given she hadn’t done so when changing her story would have let her accept a plea deal and receive a lighter sentence. Even so, he believed she’d do what she could. “You honestly believe it’s not in Tanya’s character to commit murder.”