The Michaela Bancroft Mysteries 1-3 (73 page)

Michaela had a lot of questions and she was in no mood to not have them answered. "Okay, it's truth time for all of us. I know about the letter and what it says. What you wrote in there, Juliet, is disturbing to say the least. It's obvious to me that you and Zach are protecting your father because he murdered Sterling, and I have been made the fall guy. Frankly I don't care how it was done, but you two are going to tell the police. And—how in the hell did you get into my house?" Her body quickly filled with a heated rage. Tomorrow she planned to start looking for a new four-legged companion.

"The letter…yes, Juliet wrote it," Zach said.

"Got that much. Why don't we start with tonight, Juliet? How did you get in here?"

"Your kitchen window was cracked and I crawled through."

Here Michaela thought she'd been careful when she locked up each night. Living in the back forty wasn't apparently as safe as it once was. "Did you actually think you would find the letter and get out of here without me knowing? And you." She turned to Zach. "How did
you
get in, and how do you play into all of this other than wanting to protect Juliet and—from what I gather—keep on jumping her bones?"

Zach sighed. "We went out tonight. We figured that you'd overheard us in the barn talking about the letter and then when we got into Sterling's place, we knew it had to be you who was there. We tried to figure out how we could get the letter from you."

"How did you know that I even had it?"

"We didn't for sure, but we needed to know. Juliet drank more than usual and she was talking nonsense about coming here and confronting you and getting the letter back. I told her that we needed to wait until tomorrow and then we could all have a sensible discussion about it."

"I would've appreciated that, rather than having a gun pointed at me." Michaela wasn't completely buying their story. For all she knew they'd come here to kill her.

"I told her it was crazy, and we argued about other stuff."

"Uh-huh."

"When I dropped her off at home, I had a bad feeling that she might do something stupid, which she did. I called her a few times and when she finally answered she said that she was on her way to get the letter from you."

"So, you drove out here and obviously saw how she'd gotten in, made your way in as well, and here we all are—the three musketeers." She turned to the inebriated Juliet. "You're lucky you didn't kill yourself or someone else in your condition," Michaela snapped. "Okay, the letter. I'm not giving it back, and seeing how I now have the gun in my possession, we're going to call the police and the two of you are going to tell them everything that you know."

"We didn't do anything!" Juliet cried. "We didn't kill Sterling."

"I believe that. But you did break into my house and hold a gun on me, and I think you're protecting your dad, who may have killed him." Michaela tried to change her tone to one of empathy. She understood the need to protect a parent. Over the years she'd shielded her own father, who had fought his gambling addictions on and off, but this was far worse. Juliet was protecting her father from murder and had involved Zach to a point that the two of them could possibly be considered as accomplices.

"She's right, Juliet," Zach said.

"No. We don't know for sure it was my dad."

"Can I ask you what you told your father and why you think he might have killed Sterling?" She looked at Zach. "Does it have to do with Rebecca Woodson's death? I know about last summer."

Zach nodded. "I'm the one who told Juliet about that. I saw her getting serious over Sterling and I knew that his intentions weren't always honest. He was known for telling a woman one thing and then doing another. I thought he was stringing her along like he had Rebecca, and I didn't want her to get hurt."

"Do you believe that Sterling had something to do with Rebecca's death?"

He shrugged. "I don't know what to believe. I was driving home the night of the party. Sterling denies he had anything to do with Rebecca going off that pier, but Tommy Liggett was there and he confided in me that he saw Sterling follow Rebecca out on that deck. Look, Sterling was a complicated guy and I didn't know if Juliet could trust him."

"You and Sterling were friends, though."

He laughed. "Sterling had a lot of
friends.
He had friends out of convenience. When it worked for him, then it was all good. If there was someone better to hang out with, though, he'd leave you high and dry. People understood that about him. The only real buddy he ever had was Justin Nightingale. When Justin was alive those two were tight."

Robert and Paige's son. That part of the web had not been unraveled enough just yet, but she had to take it one step at a time. "And this didn't bother you? You went and hung out with him for a part of your summer."

"I was only in Santa Barbara for a weekend."

"I feel sick," Juliet said.

"Sit down," Michaela told her and pointed to her reading chair and ottoman in the corner of the room. The danger appeared to be over, and before she picked up the phone and called Peters she wanted to try and get as many answers as she could out of these two, although it looked as if Juliet was going to pass out.

She turned back to Zach. "Why did you go to the coast with Tommy and Sterling?"

"Why not? Tommy had been out there already with him for a month and said it was a blast. Sterling paid for everything. I thought it would be cool, so I went."

"And you met Rebecca Woodson."

Zach nodded. "Everyone met Rebecca. Total party girl, who wanted more from Sterling than he could give, but he fed her lines, you know—stuff like she could come visit him. He even told her he'd get her a place to stay in the desert. Stupid stuff for him to say, because we all knew that he wouldn't live up to it. I left because I was kind of over the scene and his bull."

"Do you think Ed Mitchell killed Sterling?"

"I don't know. I think he's very protective of Juliet and he'd do anything for her."

"And so would you."

"Yes," he replied quietly.

"Even if it meant sending an innocent woman to jail."

"I'm sorry. You have to understand—"

"No, I don't! And now you have to tell the police what you know. As far as the letter goes. I don't think it's necessary for us to tell the cops how either one of us might have it in our possession, but I'm giving it to them."

"You can't give them the letter." He pointed to Juliet, who had passed out in Michaela's chair.

"I don't care about your promises, Zach. I think you're a good man with ethics. I really do, and now is the time to live up to them. If Ed Mitchell is guilty and I go to jail for something that I didn't do, can you honestly live with yourself?"

Zach stood there for a moment, then pulled out his cell phone.

"Who are you calling?" Michaela asked.

"The police."

DETECTIVE PETERS SEEMED TO BE AS THRILLED to see Michaela at three o' clock in the morning as she was to see him, which was not at all. But maybe they could get this mess straightened out and her life back to normal.

Peters questioned Zach over and over on his story. He stayed true to Michaela, but Juliet, when woken, freaked out and blabbed everything.

"She broke into Sterling's house." She pointed at Michaela. "And stole a letter that I'd written to him."

"Is that true, Ms. Bancroft?"

How was she going to get out of this?
But Zach cut in. "That's not true. We went into Sterling's house. I found the letter and didn't tell Juliet. I told her that someone else had been there and taken it. I made up the story about seeing Ms. Bancroft there."

Juliet's jaw dropped. "What! I heard someone in his place, too. Why are you lying?"

"You came here in the middle of the night to tell Ms. Bancroft this?" Peters eyed them.

Michaela nodded and shot a warning glance at Juliet, figuring that Zach would possibly corroborate with her about Juliet breaking into her house and pointing a gun at her.

"Where is the letter now?"

Before the police arrived Michaela had taken it from her purse and brought it downstairs. She grabbed it off the coffee table and handed it to Peters.

"This all smells foul to me, Ms. Bancroft." He read it, then said, "If you think that this letter alone merits me waking up one of the most prominent men in this county to be questioned, then you are sorely mistaken."

"What? You're not going to question Ed Mitchell?"

"We've already questioned Mr. Mitchell and he has an airtight alibi during the time of death. He was with a group of people all day at the event and they have all checked out."

"You're not going to look into that then?" She pointed at the letter.

"I'll speak to him about it, but I don't think it has anything to do with Sterling Taber's murder."

Michaela had no response. If Ed had an alibi then the letter probably didn't mean a damn thing. "Don't you have any more to ask them?" Michaela looked at Zach and Juliet.

"Good night, Ms. Bancroft," Peters replied and opened the door, following Zach and Juliet out.

What a total mess. Had they screwed up by calling the police? At least Zach had defended her. He was a decent guy, or had possibly changed his mind about being head over heels for Juliet when she pointed the gun at him. God, how love was so very blind. Here a man was willing to protect the woman he thought he loved, and her father, and deny the truth, likely sending an innocent woman to jail. Crazy.

If Ed had an alibi, what did that mean for her? It meant that she's just wasted half a night of sleep and risked her freedom—and Joe's—at Sterling's place by breaking and entering. That's what it meant. It also meant that she hadn't figured things out yet.

There were still so many what-ifs, including the mystery woman on the videotapes that Sterling had made, the Sorvino clan, Robert Nightingale's vendetta toward Sterling, and, from Paige's account, his now supposed missing-in-action status. Lest Michaela forget, there was also Erin Hornersberg, who had already killed someone in the past, and who thought Sterling lower than a dust mote. She'd sure clammed up when Michaela and Camden had gone to talk to the makeup artist.

Then there was this bizarre situation with Sterling's old girlfriend Rebecca Woodson, the dead party girl. Michaela should've asked Zach about Sterling's family and what they were like. She would have to talk to Tommy Liggett about that. Tommy had spent more time last summer with Sterling than Zach had. Maybe he could shine some light on what had happened there. And there was the undercover blonde woman in the Ford Explorer who was keeping tabs on Michaela. It all seemed so strange; none of it made sense, but at that point her brain was fried from trying to piece any of it together. She decided to try and get some rest.

MICHAELA DIDN'T GET MUCH MORE SLEEP. AFTER tossing and turning for an hour, she got up and made a pot of strong coffee. She didn't know if she'd ever felt so exhausted before. Always an early riser, getting started in the morning wasn't typically a problem. Her life had been filled with plenty of ups and downs, like most people, but before this fiasco she'd finally settled into a peaceful place in her life. Her ranch was a wonderful place to live; she woke up and took care of her animals every day; she taught sweet and special children how to ride; and she thought that maybe there was a possibility with her and Jude. Only a week ago, she'd been able to wake up and be grateful for all that was right in her life. Today, it was hard to do, but she did it anyway, thankful that her animals were there waiting for her and happy to see her. And she was thankful for the caffeine. She was going to need it. Only two hours until Sterling's funeral service; she'd have to psych herself up for the appearance.

She weighed her options. None of them looked too great. Facts were that if she went, all eyes would likely be on her, including Detective Peters, who would surely show up. Wasn't that what investigators did while on a case? Show up at the funeral in case the perp made a wrong move? Oh goodness, she had watched one too many
Law & Orders
. Had Peters really questioned Ed Mitchell? What if Juliet had convinced Peters that Michaela had stolen the letter? She knew she couldn't continue to lie to him. It wasn't who or what she was, and it could prove to be the final slice in cutting her own throat.

The downside of not going to the service was that she had a gut feeling whoever did kill Sterling
would
be there, and maybe, just maybe, she would pick up on something that the police had missed.

She slipped into a black dress, knowing that she had no choice but to make an appearance at that funeral. She would do her best to make herself nondescript. Maybe no one would notice her. Yeah, right.

Her plan didn't work. As expected, Detective Peters was at the church. He eyed her when she came in. Maybe she was being paranoid, but damned if a lot of people didn't stare at her when she walked in. So much for the nondescript, inconspicuous part. She tried to not allow him to unnerve her. Paranoid. That's all. She was being paranoid.

Then she spotted Robert and Paige Nightingale, which was odd to say the least. Hadn't Robert left Paige only two days before, his anger getting the best of him? And where was Camden? She had chutzpah when it came to the down and dirty questions. Robert's arm was wrapped protectively around Paige's shoulders. Quite a change of heart. Obviously they'd worked out their differences. Or not. Could it be that Paige knew something about Robert that he did not want the world to know? Maybe that he'd killed Sterling out of rage and now he needed her as an alibi? Was it possible that Robert had murdered Sterling over his grief and his belief that he was to blame for his son's death? Paige had replaced her child, in a sense, with Sterling. Loss of a loved one was the worst kind of grief. Michaela knew it firsthand. Maybe Paige couldn't take any more loss in her life, and had told Robert that she'd speak the truth if he tried to divorce her. Michaela had pegged Paige for an insecure woman. Would her sadness and insecurities force her to remain in a dead marriage? If Michaela had learned anything on this path called life, it was that everything was a possibility.