Jane’s heart stopped.
Her fingers had found a warm, wet spot on Gemma’s temple. She held Gemma’s head in her arms, desperate to keep it together.
“Get off of me!”
“But your head.” Jane tried to keep her cousin pinned to the ground.
Gemma squirmed and shoved Jane to the side. “We’ve got to find her.” She scrambled up and ran again.
Jane stared at her fingers, which were wet and warm and brown. She sniffed them. Dog doo. Wet, fresh, dog doo.
Jane wiped her hand on the grass and took a deep breath. She had to calm down. After all, she had no idea what was happening.
Jane shoved her hand in the pocket of her jeans, but her phone was still in the kitchen. Her heart was like a hammer in her chest, beating so hard it hurt.
Another reverberating bang broke the silence of the morning.
Then a scream.
Jane got up and ran. She ran until her lungs burned. She ran until she passed Gemma. She ran into the woods, through the brambles that scratched lines of fire in her arms. She ran straight to the next-door neighbor’s property line.
24
Jane stopped at the edge of the woods and hid behind a large rhododendron. She knew Amy and Stephanie were just the other side of the bush, but her heart was beating so loudly she couldn’t hear a sound. She took a slow deep breath. She couldn’t burst onto the scene if there was a gun out there. She wanted to stop the violence, not die.
She gripped a thin branch and pulled it down so she could see. Stephanie was crouched behind a blue plastic canister.
Jane looked from side to side until she found Amy crouched behind a concrete urn full of roses. Amy’s face was scared, but she didn’t look like she was in pain. Jane turned her eyes back to Stephanie. Who had the gun? Her or Amy?
Stephanie narrowed her eyes, her thick lips pinched.
There was a whirr, then a piff.
A yellow ball shot out of the plastic tennis ball machine and hit the wall of the aluminum shed behind Amy with a noise so loud it made Jane’s skull vibrate.
Amy rolled away from the planter and took shelter behind the shed. Then she poked her head out. “Stop it, Stephanie!”
Another ball rolled out and rammed into the shed.
Jane counted four dents, one for each “shot” she thought she had heard.
Stephanie wasn’t talking.
Jane inched her way around the bush. If she could get Stephanie away from the machine, she could turn it off.
Jane heard Gemma behind her, panting. Jane turned, a finger to her lips, but she wasn’t fast enough. Gemma burst through the bushes. “Stephanie! What’s the matter?” she cried out.
Stephanie spun her machine. A ball flew out and hit Gemma in the shoulder. “Ouch!” Gemma fell to the ground. “What did you do that for?”
Jane picked her way through the edge of the woods until she was sure she could come out of them without Stephanie seeing her.
“My mother did not kill that man!” Stephanie spit the words out.
“Jeeze, Steph! No one said she did.” Amy shouted from behind the shed.
Stephanie spun the machine again. This time the ball came out while she was turning. It flew through the window of the pool house with a great crash. A scream came from inside.
Jane froze. Who was in the pool house?
“Why would your mom kill someone?” Gemma stayed low, one hand holding her shoulder.
“She wouldn’t.” Stephanie pushed the machine closer to the shed.
“No one thinks your mom killed my dad.” Amy poked her head from behind the shed again.
“Then why are the police looking for her? What did she ever do? She loved him, that’s all!”
Amy let a long breath out through pursed lips.
Jane stepped onto the lawn, hoping Gemma wouldn’t notice her.
“What are you afraid of, Steph?” Amy pulled her head back behind the shed before Stephanie could answer.
“I’m afraid that the police will be prejudiced against her because she loved him. It’s always the lover, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter that they had been together for over twenty years. And it doesn’t seem to matter he married a crazy lady. It will still look like my mom’s fault, but it wasn’t.”
Gemma made eye contact with Jane. She opened her mouth as though to speak, but Jane shook her head. If Gemma revealed her…she flinched just thinking about what the tennis balls, shooting in close range, at one hundred and thirty miles an hour, could do to her cousin, to Amy, or to herself.
“No one thinks your mom did anything wrong, sweetie.” Amy popped out from behind the shed again, but on her hands and knees so she’d be lower than the tennis balls. “We do want to find her and let her know what happened, but no one blames her.”
Not so, Jane thought. If Stephanie’s mom was Douglas’s lover, the lover with the missing phone, then Jane thought there was a good chance she was the murderer.
“Well, she didn’t do it. She’s been in Cabo for a month. He was with her for most of it.”
“She’s still seeing him?” Amy crawled on her hands and knees to Gemma.
“Of course! Why would they break up when things have been going so well?”
“Because he’s married to Caramel! You can’t think it’s okay for married men to have lovers.”
Stephanie’s jaw worked back and forth. Jane thought she must have turned the ball machine off, since it hadn’t shot anything in a few minutes.
“Why not? She’s always been his lover. She’s been with him longer than either of his wives.”
“But don’t you want more for your mom?” Amy gently manipulated Gemma’s shoulder. Gemma bit her lip and shook her head.
“It’s a bit late for that now, isn’t it?” Stephanie pushed on something on the back of her machine. Maybe it wasn’t turned off, but out of balls.
Jane got around the other side of the pool house.
Stephanie had been staying with Jane, so she wasn’t the one living in the pool house, but she had run straight there in a panic. Maybe her mom was the guest next door.
Jane tested the doorknob.
The door opened.
Jane stepped inside, trying to be quiet, but the blonde woman crouched under the broken window turned and looked at her. She had big, buggy blue eyes like Stephanie.
“I didn’t do it, I swear.” She pressed her back to the wall.
“Of course not.” Jane dropped to a sitting position on the floor. The woman in front of her quivered, and her face was streaked with tears. “I don’t know why Stephanie thinks I did. When she called me and told me what had happened, it broke me. It just broke me. Doug and I had come back from Mexico early, and I had just seen him. I couldn’t believe what she was telling me…” She broke off, a sob choking out her words.
“Danae?” The woman looked up. “Are you Danae Monroe, the maid?”
She nodded, still sobbing great shoulder-racking sobs.
“Stephanie is just really, really scared. She needs you.” Jane kept her distance and kept her words soft and warm.
Danae nodded her head.
“Just push open the door and step out. You can help her calm down.”
Danae’s body slowly stilled.
“Your baby needs you to be strong.”
Danae opened the door and stepped out.
Jane crossed the room, but stayed in the little house with the wall between herself and Stephanie.
“Baby girl, what are you doing?”
“Don’t come out, Mom!” Stephanie didn’t turn. “Don’t let them take you away.”
Danae turned to Jane, her eyebrows pulled together in confusion.
Jane mouthed, “Keep going.”
“I know you’re scared, but you don’t have to be. I’ve already seen the police. They know where I was. They don’t think it was me.” Danae placed her hand on Stephanie’s shoulder.
“But the news keeps making it sound like they think it was you…�
�� Stephanie turned slowly to face her mom. “I’ve been so scared!”
“Is that why you haven’t come by to see me?”
Stephanie nodded. Her bottom lip trembled.
“Baby girl.” Danae wrapped her arms around Stephanie.
Gemma and Amy rushed to the tennis ball machine and pulled it away. “Why did you bolt from the kitchen?” Gemma asked.
“I didn’t want Amy to see me with you.” She wiped her eyes. “She might tell Matthew.”
Danae chewed her bottom lip.
“Why shouldn’t I tell my brother that you came by here?”
Stephanie looked from Amy to Gemma and back to Amy.
Jane stepped out of the house, her pulse racing. “Stephanie, you planted that evidence on me, didn’t you?”
Stephanie looked at her feet.
“You only came to my house to make me look like the killer.” A strange peace fell over Jane as the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. She wasn’t angry, or scared. She was in charge, and she was about to find all of the answers she had been looking for.
“No! I…”
“Stephanie, where is the laundry basket? Where are the towels?”
“I don’t know! I wasn’t there! I never saw those!” Stephanie’s face drained of color. Her body shook. “I didn’t want you to get arrested, Jane. I just wanted…” Her mouth hung open like a fish. Then she took a deep breath and straightened up. “My mom called. She told me that she had stopped by the house and seen Amy and Caramel. She mentioned some errands she had to do. I just went to the shop and said I was her. Joe wasn’t in; the other guy let me pick it up. It was easy. Then I had it… and I could use it if I needed to. But, Jane… not to hurt you. Just to protect my mom.”
“Oh, Stephanie…” Danae shook her head. “What did you think would happen to this poor girl?”
Stephanie’s face flushed, and her eyes began to fill with tears. She ground her teeth together, a look of fierce determination fighting against the tears.
“But, Danae, if you weren’t with Douglas that morning, and Caramel was out back on the property, who was in the tub with Douglas when he died?” Jane drummed her fingers on the wall. “Did he have a new girlfriend, Amy? What do you know?”
She shook her head. “I would swear that he doesn’t.” She paused. “Didn’t. He was an old dog, and slowing down.”
“Stephanie, do you want to come in and sit down?” Jane asked in slow, low tones, hoping to soothe Stephanie into telling them more. Her next question was about Matthew Swanson, but she didn’t want to rush it. An idea had formed in her mind, so revolting that her stomach turned, but she was almost certain she had the key to the murder; maybe not the murderer, but definitely the motive.
“Yes, please.”
Danae led her daughter into the pool house. “You’re lucky Marion is letting me stay here still,” she said. “I get to move back into the apartment next week.”
“You popped into the big house to look for your phone, didn’t you?”
Danae nodded. “Yes, once or twice.”
“Amy, she was there the day that Alexandra and Matthew came over, wasn’t she?”
“Yes, of course she was. But I certainly couldn’t have my mother find out she was there.”
Stephanie sat on the edge of the wicker sofa, her hands gripping the edge of the cushion.
“Would you have been embarrassed for Matthew to find you at the house?” Jane asked, still trying to lull Stephanie with a calm, low voice. Her whole body was tense with excitement, but if she could keep her voice calm, she could make it work.
“What would Matthew care about the housekeeper’s kid?” Amy asked, her lip curled in distaste.
Danae rubbed Stephanie’s back, but her face was awash with emotion, though she kept her mouth closed in a firm line.
“You didn’t have a crush on him, did you?” Amy’s face was clearly disgusted. “He’s so old.”
Danae stood up. “The important thing is we have all calmed down. If you all don’t mind, could you just leave us alone? I’ll clear everything up.” She looked from Amy to Gemma to Jane, her eyes wild.
Jane was sure now, she was completely sure. “Danae, is Douglas Stephanie’s father?”
“No!” Stephanie stood up, shaking. “My dad was a Marine! He died in Bosnia!”
Danae buried her face in her hands.
Amy closed her eyes, and rolled her head. “That’s just brilliant. No wonder he hired you to work here after you had the baby.”
“My dad is a war hero!” Stephanie spun, her eyes not stopping on any of them. “Douglas couldn’t be my dad. Mom was married to a war hero!”
“My husband was gone a long time before he died.” Danae’s voice was a whisper.
“But Douglas took good care of you and the baby, didn’t he?” Jane tried to match Danae’s quiet tone.
“He always took very good care of us.”
“Douglas is not my father.” Stephanie’s voice quivered with the sounds of doubt.
“You have a crush on your brother?” Amy’s voice, while derisive and sarcastic, had just a hint of fear. Her own face had drained of all color, only her freckles standing out against her snow white skin.
“Amy…” Jane shook her head. She watched Stephanie as shock and horror flooded her features. As her mom failed to deny the accusation, Stephanie’s rigid frame shook until her legs looked like they were going to buckle. She sat again, next to her mother, but not touching her.
It was Matthew.
Jane knew it now.
Danae still loved Douglas.
Stephanie had had no reason to hate her family benefactor.
But Matthew… Jane’s mind spun as the pieces fell into place. His awkward posture and need to leave the house quickly. His absence from the house while Caramel sorted the things. His comment about his love life being no one’s business.
“Did you tell him, Danae? When Stephanie started talking about her new relationship?”
“Yes.” Danae inhaled deeply. “He was so much older than her, I never thought she’d need to know.”
“Matthew can’t be my brother,” Stephanie whispered.
“Well, he is, obviously.” Amy sat down on a footstool. “I guess we can all thank God he lived so far away.”
“We weren’t dating… yet,” Stephanie said.
“But you were both in love, weren’t you? He lived far away at some school, and you lived in Seattle. You emailed each other and talked on the phone and fell in love.” Jane knew exactly what that felt like, and her heart broke for Stephanie. “But Danae, you got hold of Matthew and told him the truth.”
“Yes, I had to. I could see how serious she was about him. Her heart was going to break, and it needed to happen fast.” She rested her forehead on Stephanie’s shoulder. “Oh, baby, I am so sorry. I should have told you the truth all along.”
“Amy, how long has Matthew been in town?” Jane licked her lips.
Amy wiped a tear away.
“Amy…you see what I see, don’t you?” Jane nodded toward Stephanie.
“He’s a good guy, Jane.” Amy held the cuff of her shirt under her nose. “He’s a really good guy.”
“But one phone call ruined his dreams, right?”
“Oh, Jane, he came home two days before Dad died! He didn’t know I knew, but Caramel saw him in the garage with Dad, and she told me.”
“And then one morning, he came by, and he talked your Dad into hopping into the hot tub with him, just to relax and hang out.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think he would.”
“He wouldn’t have, he wouldn’t have.” Stephanie’s voice was almost silent.
“Hello, I need the police.” Gemma had her cell phone to her head.
“Please don’t.” Amy’s words faded to nothing.
“We need to tell them what we know,” Jane said. “The police can decide if we are right or not.”
“Please,” Danae said. “Please, can I be alone wit
h her now?”
Jane stood up. “I’ll go. I’m so sorry.”
Gemma followed her out, giving details of what they had learned to the police.
Gemma chattered, fast and furious, about what had happened and how bad her shoulder hurt as they drove away. Jane didn’t listen.
Solving mysteries uncovered so much ugliness. Did she really want to do that with her life? Didn’t she want to clean sin with the gospel instead? Or just simply clean dirt for her clients? So much hurt and ugliness in the world. Was she strong enough to do this?
And what if no one could ever prove her theory was correct?
“I am going to need to seriously alternate hot and cold on this shoulder,” Gemma said. “I can’t believe how much it hurts!”
Jane glanced at the injured shoulder; it was deep red and already swollen. “What you need is a frosty cold smoothie.”
25
The drive to the mall would have been quiet if Jane had had her way. But Gemma recounted every moment of their confrontation at a 100 words per minute. By the time they arrived at the mall Jane was ready to abandon Gemma to the first person she saw.
That person was Jake. “This is my cousin Gemma, and she has suffered a serious injury in the name of justice. What drink do you suggest for heroes?” Jane pushed her cousin forward.
Jake looked Gemma up and down. He whistled. “Jane’s cousin, eh? Then let me mix you a special.”
“I’m allergic to strawberries,” Gemma offered. She looked over at Jane, one eyebrow lifted. “He’s cute,” she whispered.
“Gemma’s a doula with a heart for God,” Jane said.
“Work with pregnant ladies and stuff?” he asked as he handed over two smoothies.
“Usually.” Gemma sipped her drink. “That’s good.”
“Make sure to get your free smoothies while you can, Gem. Jake’s moving back to Thailand soon to rescue women from sex slavery.”
Gemma smiled at Jake. “I’ll be sure to come back while I can.”
Jake winked at Jane. “I know what you did there.”
She shrugged. “Just trying to make the world a better place.” She led Gemma from the food court. Now that she had distracted her cousin and calmed her down a bit, what she really wanted was wise counsel. “I’m going to go see my mentor. Would you like to come?”
Dirty Little Murder: A Plain Jane Mystery (The Plain Jane Mysteries Book 2) Page 19
