Elizabeth C. Main - Jane Serrano 01 - Murder of the Month (22 page)

Nick and I just stared at them. Tyler and Alix were nodding their heads as though to say, yes, that’s what happened, and, yes, it made perfect sense.

Then Nick shook his head. The frown on his face wasn’t reassuring. “This doesn’t add up. Even if you were wonderfully persuasive, and I’m sure you were, that’s not enough reason for them to let you go.” He added, “Not if what you told me was accurate.”

“It was accurate as far as it went. But I haven’t told you everything—”

He put up a hand to stop me. “Well, don’t. Not right now. Why don’t you go home and let me find out what happened here. I’ll be over in a few minutes.”

The phone was ringing as we walked in the front door of my house. I grabbed it.

“Bianca? Where are you?”

An unfamiliar female voice responded. “I must have the wrong number. This is Hilde from High Desert Community Hospital, trying to reach Jane Serrano.”

“I’m Jane Serrano. Sorry. I thought you were someone else.”

“Obviously,” came the amused voice. “I don’t know where Bianca is, but I was given your number to call on behalf of Laurence Thornton.”

“Is Laurence all right?”

“Perfectly all right physically, but he’s probably getting more agitated than he should be and he suggested … well, to be honest, he demanded … that I call you and find out, as he so delicately put it, ‘what the hell’s going on.’ Apparently he’s had some trouble trying to reach—”

“Yes, I can imagine. Could you please tell him that something came up?”

“Maybe you’d like to explain it yourself. It’s really not good for him to get so upset.”

“How about if I send his grandson over to see him right away?”

“If you mean Tyler, then yes, that should help. He’s been asking rather forcefully for him, too.”

“I’ll bet. Please tell him Tyler is on his way, and thank you.”

I hung up and turned to the expectant group facing me. “Laurence must be feeling better if he’s giving the nurses a bad time. Tyler, could you please go over there and tell him …”

” … that Thornton’s wasn’t open today because you were in jail. Sure.”

“Maybe not that, but I’m sure you’ll think of something. Minnie, could you take him?”

“Why me?” complained Minnie. “I want to help find Bianca.”

“Because,” Alix drawled, “a visit from me wouldn’t help Laurence’s peace of mind. You can take him some of your scones.”

“He does love my scones.” Minnie brightened at the thought. “Maybe some soup, too. But we get to help as soon as we get back.”

“Right,” I said.

“What can I do?” Alix asked.

I needed time to think things out before this group further muddied the waters, so I improvised. “Someone needs to pick up Wendell from the vet.”

“Okay,” she said. “I can do that.”

“All right then,” I said briskly. “Let’s get going.”

Nobody moved.

“Aren’t you forgetting something, Jane?” Alix asked.

“Yeah,” Tyler said, “like telling us what’s going on?”

“We don’t mean to pry, dear,” said Minnie, “but we
did
pick you up from jail.”

“Oh, that,” I said. They were all watching me as intently as Wendell watched his food dish. “Well, that was an unfortunate misunderstanding. Deputy Weems found me on the road behind Gil’s house again.” Seeing their accusatory looks, I explained further. “I didn’t call you because I thought Gil would be more likely to talk about Bianca if we were alone. I didn’t kill him though! He was already dead when I got there.”

“Well, of course you didn’t,” Minnie said with just a trace of relief in her voice, “but you must admit—”

“Any idea what happened?” Alix asked.

With difficulty, I pushed away the image of Bianca’s scarf. I shook my head.

“What about Bianca?” Minnie asked.

Had Minnie been reading my mind? “She had nothing to do with this,” I declared.

“Are you sure?” Alix asked. “She was chasing him and now he’s dead. What do you know that you’re not telling us?”

I hesitated. On the one hand, these people were ready to believe and support me. On the other hand, their previous efforts hadn’t exactly helped the situation. I wanted to keep them out of it, but things were getting complicated.

“You can trust us,” Minnie said gently.

“I know that,” I answered automatically, and then suddenly, as I looked into their earnest faces, I meant it. After all, they’d already risked going to jail to help me. They wouldn’t let me down and they deserved the truth. “Okay, I’ll tell you. I found Bianca’s scarf at Gil’s house. Remember the bright one she was wearing for a belt at the last book club? I found it wrapped around Gil’s head, used as a gag.”

Everyone took a sudden interest in studying the carpet. After a long, silent moment, Tyler said, “Well, it wasn’t Bianca who did that. We know that much.”

“Right,” Alix agreed.

Minnie was the last to speak. Using the same take-charge voice with which she organized church potlucks, she summed things up. “So, what we need to do is figure out who took Bianca’s scarf and killed Gil.”

Tyler nodded as though this seemed perfectly sensible to him.

“That’s all?” Alix asked. “We ought to be able to finish up in a couple of hours. But maybe we should find Bianca first. If that scarf is at the house, it probably means she’s hiding nearby.”

“The scarf isn’t exactly at the house right now,” I said. “I took it with me when I ran.”

For once, even Minnie was speechless. She waved her hands around in front of her in jerky, random gestures before finally clasping them together in a prayerful gesture.

“Look, I wasn’t thinking. I recognized the scarf and … at that point I thought Gil might still be alive, so I untied it to let him breathe and then …” I trailed off as the scene came rushing back to me in all its horror. “And then, I saw that it … didn’t matter.”

Goose bumps pimpled my arms and I attempted to rub away the sudden chill. “But you know what? Right now I really don’t care what happened to Gil. I just want my daughter back.”

“It all must be related,” Tyler said. “Vanessa’s death, too.”

“Tyler’s right,” Alix said. “People here wouldn’t just start disappearing and dying all of a sudden unless there was a connection.”

“It was Gil!” Minnie squealed in excitement. “Gil was the connection—”

“—but he’s not talking,” Tyler said.

My brain was finally starting to thaw. “Yes, of course he was the connection, but he didn’t shoot himself. We need to take another look at Vanessa’s death. Crazy as it sounds, I think Bianca must have stirred something up with her so-called investigation.”

“Maybe Gil really did kill Vanessa,” Alix said.

“But he had an alibi,” Minnie reminded her. “People at the open house saw him.”

“But Jenna Lang was one of the people Bianca was planning to question, so that’s something to follow up,” I said. “As Bianca said, people mill around at crowded events and no one pays attention to exactly when they saw someone. Here’s something else to think about. Assuming that there is only one murderer currently on the loose in Juniper, and assuming that Gil didn’t shoot himself, then maybe Gil didn’t kill Vanessa either. So, who did?”

“Aha!” Minnie said. “We need to figure out who knew both Gil and Vanessa.”

“That’s easy: everybody in town,” Alix said. “Do you suppose it’s worth looking at the alibis of both Jenna and Gil? What if they were fooling around? That would give Jenna a special reason to get rid of Vanessa.”

“But what about Gil?” Minnie asked. “If you’re right, and I’m not saying you are, Jenna certainly wouldn’t want to kill him.”

“Maybe things went bad between them. It’s happened before,” Alix suggested.

“Could be,” I agreed. “Also—sorry, Tyler, but we have to consider it—there’s Kurt Wendorf. He’s known both Gil and Vanessa for years, and he had a spectacular grudge against Gil. Maybe he didn’t like Vanessa either.”

“Max’s dad didn’t have anything to do with this,” Tyler insisted.

“Probably not, Tyler,” I assured him, “but we have to check out everything.”

“So how do we get someone to confess?” Minnie asked.

“We start by doing just what we decided before,” I said. “You and Tyler go to the hospital to calm Laurence down, Alix will get Wendell, and I’ll monitor the phone here in case Bianca calls. After that, we’ll decide what to do next.”

“But how is all this going to help us find Bianca?” Minnie asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, “but we have to start somewhere., and the police certainly aren’t going to help us.”

As soon as they drove away on their respective missions, I was out the door and on my way to the garage out back. The police still had my Volvo, but Tony’s Ford Explorer fired up on the first try. I felt that I had the best chance of catching Jenna Lang off guard if I went alone. Of course, that’s what I’d thought about going to see Gil this morning. I hoped this interview would go better.

I was forced to negotiate a number of annoying speed bumps while searching for Jenna Lang’s townhouse in the midst of the numerous cul-de-sacs that made up the trendy Misty Mountain Meadow complex. The teeth-rattling obstacles and maddening roads to nowhere were designed to deter gawkers, and I could guarantee that I wouldn’t be coming here again voluntarily, in spite of the stunning views of the Deschutes River.

All the townhouses featured tiny golf-course-perfect lawns and low-maintenance greenery planted precisely in identical window boxes. Everything must have been part of the original package. No humble snapdragons and petunias need apply. No need for an owner to spend a moment keeping up the place, either. Plenty of time for Caribbean cruises, power meetings, and gala real estate events that provided good alibis.

As I waited for Jenna Lang to open her front door, I noted that even the chimes for Number Sixteen Misty Mountain Way sounded expensive. I knew her only from her glossy ads in the
Juniper Journal
and the feature story the paper had done about her triumphant return a year ago to invigorate the family business, Lang Realty and Interior Design. She’d spent the previous five years making an extended study of upscale developments from Bangkok to Buenos Aires. She’d come a long way, baby, and was now ready to shake up stodgy old Juniper, Oregon. I just hoped I could shake her up.

The person who opened the door resembled only slightly the confident young beauty pictured in the Lang Realty ads. Her red-rimmed eyes told me that she had already heard the news about Gil, and her scowl told me that she knew who I was. So much for the element of surprise.

“You’ve heard,” I ventured.

She nodded. “Why are you here? You’re not going to pretend to be sorry he’s dead, are you?”

“No.”

“So …?” The question hung in the air while somewhere behind me the motor of a sports car roared to life. I hoped no one was watching, but I didn’t turn around to check. This was a conversation best conducted in private.

“May I come in?” I started forward, as though taking her permission for granted.

She put one hand across the open space and gripped the edge of the door, effectively blocking my path. “No. We have nothing to talk about.” She attempted to push the door closed, but, without thinking, I slapped the flat of my hand against its surface to prevent it from moving.

“We do, Jenna. You know why I’m here. It’s way past time for you to tell the truth … if not to me, then to the police.”

She startled me with a short bark of laughter. “Okay, then I choose the police.”

She tried again to close the door, but I resisted her efforts. We struggled silently for a few seconds until she suddenly let go and turned away, retreating into the dim room behind her. The door banged against the wall before I could catch it, but the noise didn’t seem to bother her. I followed cautiously as she sank onto a peach-colored velvet loveseat that probably cost more than all the furniture I’d ever owned. She’d decided against physical resistance, but she picked up a portable phone—peach-colored, to match the couch of course—and looked challengingly at me. “Will you leave or do you want to explain your presence to the police?”

I’d already had enough chances this week to explain to the police my presence in various places, so I turned conciliatory. “Okay, I’ll go, but … don’t you want to know who killed Gil?”

“I assume it was your daughter, and so do you, or you wouldn’t be here.”

“No! That’s not true!” With considerable effort, I lowered my voice. “Bianca couldn’t possibly have used violence against another human being. She doesn’t even kill flies, just wraps them in a dishtowel and puts them out the door.” I wasn’t getting through to her, so I tried something different.

“You think I’m defending her just because she’s my daughter, but she hardly knew Gil. She had no reason to kill him. If you look at it that way, and take Bianca completely out of the picture, doesn’t it make better sense that someone else killed both Gil and Vanessa?”