Framed for Murder

by Cathy Spencer

  Chapter 24

  I thought that Tremaine might drop by or call me after we had shared such a harrowing experience, but he didn’t. When I still hadn’t heard from him three days later, I felt a little hurt. He had seemed so grateful that I had saved his life. Didn’t that deserve flowers or something? And what about our intimate time together in bed? Didn’t he realize that our relationship had changed? Wasn’t he going to do something about it?

  I kept up a grumbling interior monologue for most of the day before giving myself a swift mental kick. How could I think such preposterous things? There was never going to be anything between Tremaine and me. Damn that Amy and her suggestions. I bet she had dalliances with younger men all the time, but she was a whole lot sexier and more enticing than I. And, judging by her fling with Jack, promiscuous.

  It was time to put all this nonsense about Tremaine out of my head and start concentrating on work again. And it was time to stop worrying about the murder investigation, too. What more could I do? Nothing, until we got the test results back from the O’Cleary barn and from Ben’s car. Besides, I hadn’t discovered anything with my investigations. Amy was too sweet and too dumb to have murdered Jack, Connie and Karen had a foolproof alibi, and trying to find out more about Jessie Wick had almost got Tremaine and me killed. Enough already.

  I came home from work Tuesday night ready for leftovers and a long after-dinner walk with Wendy when she greeted me at the front door, clearly upset. She whined, ran to the back of the house, and barked. I put my stuff down and followed her into the kitchen, doing a double-take when I looked out onto the deck. Someone wearing a black cowboy hat was lying on my recliner. Whoever it was had his back to me, and all I could see was the hat sticking over the back of the chair. My backyard was enclosed by a six-foot tall, Wendy-proof fence, and the only way into it was through the kitchen or a padlocked gate next to the garage. So how had the intruder gotten onto my deck?

  Wendy clawed at the door, but I didn’t want her making things worse by attacking whoever it was out there. I slid the door open just far enough to slip through before closing it in her face. Wendy whimpered on the other side.

  “Hello?” I said, inching closer to the chair. The cowboy hat swivelled, and a woman wearing big, black sunglasses smiled up at me.

  “Well, you’re finally home, Anna. How was the traffic leaving Calgary?

  “I beg your pardon?” I said. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

  The woman took off her cowboy hat and dropped it on the deck, freeing a cascade of blue-black hair that tumbled down her back. She removed the sunglasses, too, in case I hadn’t recognized the trademark hair. It was Jessie Wick.

  “We’ve never been formally introduced. Jessie Wick,” she said, holding out her hand. I shook it and took a wary step backward.

  “How’d you get into my backyard?” I asked.

  “I’m a stunt woman. How hard do you think it would be for me to get over your fence?” She swung her legs off the chair and stood in one fluid movement. She was dressed all in black in form-fitting jeans and a silk shirt except for an ornate silver and turquoise belt buckle at her waist. Standing next to her, I saw that she had me by three or four inches and about twenty pounds of muscle. She advanced toward me and I backed up until I was pressed against the sliding door, Wendy whining and scratching on the other side. I took comfort in the knowledge that I could let her out if I didn’t like the way things were going.

  “Your dog’s pretty excited. I guess she doesn’t like strangers,” Jessie said, standing too close to me. “Hi dog,” she said, tapping on the glass with her fingernails, inducing a paroxysm of barking from Wendy.

  “What can I do for you, Jessie?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. Amy was right; Jessie was a lot more intimidating than Karen and Connie. It was like the difference between a Labrador and a Rottweiler. Jessie smiled, but there was no friendliness in her eyes.

  “I heard from the police that you were out snooping around my place last Saturday. Sorry I wasn’t home. What did you want?”

  I thought quickly. I couldn’t admit that I wanted to check out the woman who had reported seeing Ben’s car at the O’Cleary ranch since I wasn’t supposed to know who the witness was, and I surely didn’t want to tell this woman that I was looking for my husband’s murderer. Instead, I took a deep breath and said, “I thought it was high time I met the woman who broke up my marriage.”

  Jessie laughed in a husky, deep voice, a laugh which men would no doubt find sexy. “Yeah, I heard that you’ve been nosing around Jack’s women since he died. Amy Bright, Karen Quill, and now me. Jack and I were ancient history, though, so you needn’t have bothered. And I’m not blind, by the way. I saw you on the set last Thursday night. We may have never officially met, but I recognized you. I checked you out four years ago when Jack and I were sleeping together. I always check out my competition. Were you curious as to how you stacked up against me? Not doing too much for your self-esteem, now, am I?” She looked me up and down with a look that said I was no better than the dirt beneath her boots, and flicked a strand of hair off my shoulder. I pressed my lips together and stared at her, trying to hide the trembling in my left leg.

  “If I were you, I’d look to my own house, Anna,” she said, lowering her head and breathing in my face. “I’d have thought you’d have all the trouble you could handle with the police trying to find Jack’s killer. First they find you with Jack’s body, and then your boy’s car is spotted outside the O’Cleary ranch. The police are thinking that Jack was killed in that barn, have you heard? Good thing I happened to be driving home from the set that way, or no one might have seen Ben’s car there.”

  “It wasn’t his car,” I said, starting to feel angry.

  “Oh no?” she said, leaning her hand against the glass behind my head. “Well, why don’t we let the police decide that? I hear they went over your son’s car last weekend, and they’re just waiting on the test results before arresting him for his father’s murder. Imagine that – a son murdering his own father. Ben must be deranged or something. No doubt you helped sonny boy move Jack’s body out of the barn, too. They’ll arrest you as his accomplice. Couldn’t leave Jack’s body hidden if you wanted the insurance money, right?

  “You knew about the insurance policy?” I asked in amazement.

  “Yeah, Jack mentioned it four years ago when he talked about leaving you. He said that the insurance policy was about all you’d get out of the divorce, and he figured he owed you that much after seventeen years of marriage. For being such a good housekeeper and all. Then he laughed and said you’d have to wait a long time to get it. I guess you got tired of waiting.”

  I looked away, hurt by this information, until Jessie laid her hand on my shoulder. “Let me give you some good advice, sugar,” she said. “Why don’t you and your son skedaddle before it’s too late? Clear out before the police get you.” She flapped her hand as if she were shooing away a fly.

  “Ben and I aren’t going anywhere,” I said, stepping around her out onto the deck. “Because we didn’t have anything to do with Jack’s murder.”

  Jessie shrugged and strolled back to pick up her hat, gracefully scooping it up off the deck and planting it on her head. “Suit yourself. Meanwhile, I’m trying to decide whether or not to lay trespassing charges against you. If Sergeant Tremaine hadn’t shown up when he did, I bet you would have broken into my place. Then you just about drowned the poor man when he tried to stop you.” Jessie shook her head. “Don’t know why you’re still walking around free, to tell the truth. You and your son are definitely a menace to society. I don’t think I’d be able to sleep at night if I weren’t so sure that the two of you were going to be arrested any day now.”

  She turned and stepped off the deck, waving the tips of her fingers over her shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ll let myself out. See you later, Anna.”

  I watched her saunter across my back yard and disappear around the side of the h
ouse. Straining my ears for any sound of her, I let Wendy out to make sure that Jessie was gone. Wendy bolted out of the kitchen, turned back for a second to sniff at me, and then tore around the side of the house. She returned a few seconds later and started searching the yard, nose to the ground. Jessie must have left.

  I collapsed onto my recliner, wondering what I was going to do about Jessie. My first instinct was to call Tremaine, but I was afraid he’d only say that I’d gotten what I deserved for sticking my nose into police business. Besides, Jessie hadn’t actually threatened me or done anything illegal, other than trespassing in my backyard. She’d only intimidated the hell out of me.

  Actually, once I’d calmed down and my heart rate had returned to normal, I thought that maybe I might have done the same thing in Jessie’s situation. Oh, I wouldn’t have had the nerve to confront someone the way she had confronted me, but she was letting me know in her own venomous way that I’d better stay away from her and her property. And wasn’t that just what I was going to do? Jessie’s visit was just one more inducement to mind my own business. From now on, I was going to lay low until the investigation was over and my life could get back to normal. That, and try to talk my son into not hating me, once he’d had time to cool off.

  But Jack’s murder investigation kept sucking me under like a treacherous undertow. Two nights later, I was in bed drifting off to sleep when I felt Wendy tense beside me and her head spring up off the mattress. I opened my eyes and saw that she was listening for something.

  I tensed, too. “What is it, girl?” I whispered. She responded with a rumbling growl from deep within her chest. I turned my head and looked at my bedroom window. The curtains were closed and backlit by my porch light. I heard a creak outside, and Wendy growled again.

  My heart started thumping as I sat up, staring at the window. Thank goodness it was closed and locked. A shadow hovered over the curtains and paused, as if someone were trying to peer inside. Wendy froze, and the breath caught in my throat. Something scratched on the glass, a bony, clawing sound. Wendy barked sharply – once – and sprang off the bed.

  The scratching stopped as Wendy bolted from the room. She ran to the front door and clawed at it, anxious to get outside. I crawled out of bed and slid my hand beneath it to pull out the baseball bat I always kept there, just in case. Steeling my nerve, I crept across the carpet, hesitated, and then slid back a corner of the curtain. A shadowy face stared in at me. I shrieked and jumped back. Wendy raced back into the room, barking.

  A hand rose up and waved at me, then pointed toward the front door. As the face turned in profile, I recognized Karen Quill. She disappeared from the window and I heard her walk across the porch. I stood there clutching my baseball bat with one hand and my chest with the other. There was a knock at the door, a really good knuckle-rapper. I stomped out of the bedroom and down the hallway while Wendy tore past me, barking all the way.

  Seizing Wendy by the collar, I flung open the door and snarled, “Karen, what the hell are you doing waking me up in the middle of the night?” She swayed on my door mat for a moment before opening the screen door and pushing her way in past me. Pee-yoo, she was stinking drunk. I closed the door behind her and flicked on the hall light. Her normally smooth blond hair looked like a rat’s nest shoved on top of her head, and mascara was smeared under her eyes. She wore a green leather jacket open over a short red nightie, and knee-high boots. Scowling, she pointed a lavender-manicured finger at me.

  “I need to talk to you,” she said, leaning toward me. I waved the fetid air between us with one hand. “Let’s go talk in there,” she added, pointing past me to the living room. She stumbled toward it, and I followed her as she negotiated her way around the coffee table and collapsed onto the couch. I snapped on a lamp and sat down beside her. Karen laid her head on the arm rest and closed her eyes. After a moment, she started snoring. Exasperated, I shook her shoulder and her eyes fluttered open.

  “What’s this all about?” I demanded. “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s that no good, lying, scumbag of a husband of mine,” she said, lifting her head to stare at me.

  “Connie?” I asked.

  “That’s him,” she said with a nod. “I just found out he’s been cheating on me with our bitch of a marriage counsellor. She’s been charging us a hundred and fifty bucks an hour to save our marriage and banging him on the side. And she’s fat! She’s old! She doesn’t even wear make-up. What the hell’s the matter with him, Anna?” Karen began to cry, a noisy, wet, blubbering sound that turned into wheezy sobs. I rolled my eyes and fetched a box of tissues from the kitchen.

  “Here,” I said, shoving them at her and sitting back down again. She looked at me out of bloodshot eyes.

  “Thanks,” she muttered, blowing her nose thoroughly, balling up the soggy tissues, and dropping them on the carpet. Wendy sniffed at them, and then lay down on the floor beside me. Karen sighed and fell over sideways onto the couch, cradling her head on the arm rest.

  “Oh no you don’t,” I said, shaking her shoulder again. “I’m sorry to hear that Connie’s been cheating on you, but what’s that got to do with me?”

  Her eyes opened and she struggled into a sitting position. “I almost forgot,” she said. “It’s the alibi. For Jack’s murder. Connie and I weren’t at the marriage counsellor’s that night. I was home watching TV. Don’t know where Connie was, but I’m not going to cover for him any longer. Came here to tell you that. Don’t care about him anymore, that lying, cheating rat.” Her head wandered back toward the arm rest and her eyes shut. “Gotta tell Anna. Connie wasn’t with me that night. No alibi.” She stopped talking and started breathing deeply.

  I stared at her for a moment, my assumptions about the night Jack had died collapsing around me. Karen and Connie’s alibi had seemed unshakable, so I had dismissed Connie as the jealous murderer weeks ago. Now there was every chance that he was the killer. I fell into the chair across the coffee table from the couch and stared at Karen. Her mouth opened, and she started snoring again. Nice.

  I had to tell Tremaine. I dug his card from my wallet and dialled the number. It rang and rang before switching to voice mail. Shutting off the phone, I stopped to think. A drunken Karen might be a whole lot more cooperative than a hung-over Karen with second thoughts. I had to get her to tell her story to the police before she sobered up.

  Then I thought of another important detail: I still had Connie’s gun. For all I knew, it might be the murder weapon. I hurried to my bedroom closet and removed the gun from its hiding place in an old shoe box. Wiping it down with a sock, I carried it to the bathroom. I might be erasing evidence, but I didn’t want my fingerprints on it. I wrapped the gun in a towel and put it in a plastic shopping bag to take along with me. Then I put a coat over my pyjamas, and spent the next half hour hauling Karen off my couch and taking her to the police station.

  Fortunately, Steve was on duty and willing to take Karen’s story seriously. I sat in the interview room and held Karen’s hand as Steve poured coffee into her and listened to her spill the beans about Connie. While she was indulging in a crying jag, I slipped Steve the plastic bag containing the gun and told him that Karen had brought it with her to my house. Steve raised his eyebrows and said that Connie had never come in to fill out a missing gun report.

  “What was all that at Amy’s house if the Primos still had the gun?” he asked. I shrugged, doing my best to appear perplexed. Let them figure it out; I was just thrilled to be rid of the gun. Karen eventually fell asleep with her head lying on top of the table. Steve and I went out into the hallway to talk.

  “What do you think? Do you believe her?” I asked, glancing at his face. Steve leaned against the wall with his arms folded over his chest.

  “Yeah, I believe her,” he said. “Drunken witnesses don’t always make sense, but they usually tell the truth. Wait until Tremaine hears about this. It will make his day.” He looked at me and shook his head. “I don’t know how
you keep landing in the thick of things, Anna, but you sure got into a humdinger tonight.”

  I held up both hands in front of me. “I didn’t have anything to do with this one. She just turned up on my front porch.”

  “All tied up in a pretty red bow,” he said, pushing himself off the wall. “You better go home now. It’s almost one o’clock. I’ll get a female officer to put Karen in a cell, and she can sleep it off in there. If Karen has any complaints in the morning, I’ll tell her that I could have charged her with drunk driving. I can’t believe she drove over to your house in that condition. What’s the old saying, that angels look after fools and drunks?”

  I shrugged. “Something like that. When will you tell Tremaine?”

  “I’ll give him a call first thing in the morning. He’s out of town right now.”

  “Really?” I said, taking a step closer. “What’s he up to?”

  “Something to do with the investigation. He flew to Toronto earlier today and we don’t expect him back until the beginning of next week.” I stared at Steve, waiting for more details, but he shook his head. “I don’t know any more than that, so don’t bother to ask. Look, I’ll pass Karen’s information onto Tremaine, and we’ll let him take it from there. Go on home and get some sleep. You did good, kid.” He grinned at me and I smiled back at him.

  “You’re pretty cute, calling me ‘kid,’ you juvenile delinquent,” I said.

  He rubbed the top of my head, mussing my hair. “Night, Anna. And thanks.”

  “Night,” I said. It felt like things were back on an even keel between us, and I was glad as I headed out to the parking lot.

  On the drive home, I realized that Karen could have killed Jack, too, now that she no longer had an alibi. Maybe she had fallen in love with him and seen him as her solution to an unhappy marriage, until she found out that Jack was messing around with Amy. You never know what someone is capable of doing when it comes to love and jealousy. So, now we were back to three suspects: Karen, Connie, and Jessie Wick. I started getting excited, but restrained myself. I would stick to my resolution. This was police business, and I was going to let them figure it out without any help from me.