Dylan grunted agreement.
“I’ve got it!” I said, my eyes widening. “I betcha my best RF tracker that Ned Weatherby’s arrangement with Ryder’s doesn’t involve credit cards at all. I’m betting he has a free standing line of credit. You know, rack up the purchases, settle up once a month.”
“Oh, hell, yeah. That’s gotta be it. They could give her a cash refund, no problem, because they’d still get paid by Ned.”
“Oh, and hey, maybe they even levied a little surcharge,” I suggested. “Say five or ten percent, to make it worth their while. Then everybody’s happy.”
“Okay, that works for the local dress shops,” Dylan said, “but what about the airlines?”
I shrugged. “Maybe not the airlines, but certainly any travel agent that was interested in keeping the substantial Weatherby account could figure out a way to accommodate.”
He looked further through the journal. “But the consistent correlation of notes to self and Ned’s church times ends. And in the last few weeks, Jennifer was buying and returning up a storm whether she writes of Ned going to church or not. In fact….” He jumped up and rummaged through the pics on the bed. “In fact, the last time he went to church, when you snuck into choir practice, Jennifer didn’t even make an entry that day.”
And we both knew why.
“Church attendance was no longer noteworthy,” he said. “It was expected. Part of Ned’s everyday life now. She might as well have written in he brushed his teeth and wore a tie. Going to church was that common.”
“Right,” I said. “But Jennifer wasn’t a big Ravenspire fan.” I flipped around the pages. “Other than the first two Sundays Ned attended, Jennifer never returned to Ravenspire’s church.”
“We need to look into this guy some more,” he said.
“Oh yeah. Do we ever.”
Proud as oh-so-smart peacocks, we sat grinning at each other. This felt good. This felt like good old-fashioned private detective work. This felt like a bit of control here.
As we’d poured over the journal, we’d drawn closer together on the bed. Getting more casual, getting more at ease as we sat there. Together. Almost touching. Dylan looked at me closely, his eyes soft but unreadable.
“We … we still don’t know who killed Jennifer Weatherby,” I said.
“But, we’re getting warmer, aren’t we, Dix?” His voice was slow and deep.
I nodded. “Damn right we’re getting warmer.”
I tossed the journal on the bed beside us, and it fell open. A chill raced up my spine as I glanced over and saw where the book had opened, as if willed to this page by some other force. Some other spirit.
J cancelled caterer, in Jennifer’s handwriting.
And beneath it, contrasting sharply and angrily, the bold, black-inked NO WAY IN HELL.
Dylan and I both stared at it. And we both knew. The answer was here. Had to be here.
“Jennifer didn’t write that last part,” he said. “That’s not her blue; that’s not her hand writing. Someone else could just as easily have found out what she was up to.”
“Someone else did.”
“But who?”
“We’ll figure it out.”
Dylan nodded. He reached out and touched my hand. And I didn’t pull away.
Yep. Damn right we were getting warmer.
Chapter 18
Luanne was nothing if not ultra-efficient.
But was she an ultra-efficient murderer?
Dylan and I were motel-bound for the rest of that rainy afternoon. When Mrs. Presley saw us coming in, she said she’d fix up some sandwiches for our supper.
“Or should I fix up some oysters on the half shell?” she asked. “Strawberries dipped in chocolate? Want me to send down a bottle of wine for you two? Candles? I got some old 45s out back. What if I hook up a record player so you two can have some music to dine by. Love me Tender kind of stuff. You like love songs, Dix?”
Subtle, Mrs. Presley. Real subtle.
I told her — emphatically — that sandwiches would be fine, and that I’d be back in a little while to pick it up. But truly, food was the farthest thing from my mind right then, as Dylan and I headed down the hidden hallway to Room 111. We had work to do.
We got down to business immediately, pouring again and again over Jennifer’s journal. That was strange in itself, looking so intimately at the life of this poor dead woman. She’d clearly been taken by the attention of Billy Star. And again, that made me cringe as I reflected on Billy’s initial motivation for wooing Jennifer, i.e., to revenge himself on Ned. And, oh, how she’d soaked up that attention! At least at first. But, if I was reading the cues correctly — and I’m a woman so, hell, of course I was — love was waning as of late.
May 12
J - return (mail) necklace to BS
LL - needs to confirm things for reception — call the bitch and make sure she does.
May 16
J - call EB at spa, re-confirm all my Monday’s
May 20
J - must find that lost BS letter!
May 22
J - tell BS to go FCK himself once and for all!
Now, that last one was a shorthand code you didn’t have to be a detective to decipher. And I doubted very much if the BS here was the Bombay Spa. No, Jennifer was done with Billy Star. There were a couple more references to Luanne (LL), snarkily written. Complete with little frowning faces all over the page — and a fair number of devil’s pitchforks. The (PR) Pastor Ravenspire mentions were equally negative, but the accompanying graphics were a little more intense. And there were many N (for Ned) entries, of course. EB — Elizabeth Bee popped up every so often, always with a note to be sure to tip her for one thing or another. For one who apparently had been saving her money, Jennifer had no qualms about tipping Elizabeth very well. Genuine generosity? Buying her silence? There were a few references to neighbors, appointments to be kept, but nothing out of the ordinary.
And it wasn’t just the re-reading of the journal that kept us occupied that rainy day and evening. Dylan and I also listened to every taped conversation, again and again. We looked over every photo. We went over every note, the crumpled restraining order, every receipt. I swear, Dylan and I could have recited verbatim the contents of any of those documents or recordings.
+++
It was about 6 p.m. when, with a mutual huff, we set the pages down. The whiteboard Dylan had brought along had been written upon and erased time and time again until it was more gray than white.
“I’m missing something, Dylan. Any one of these folks,” I waved a hand over the pictures and pages before us on the bed, “could have killed Jennifer. Could have hired someone to come into the offices to pose as her and set me up. Could have written that NO WAY IN HELL in her journal.”
I groaned in frustration, then yawned on the next indrawn breath. I glanced at my watch. Holy crap, I was tired. And getting a little hungry.
I’d long abandoned the comfy brown housecoat. In fact, the room was warm enough that I’d shucked my socks hours ago. Now, weary and tired, I linked my fingers together and curled my back as I stretched out my arms. My neck was sore from the strain of hunching so long over papers. I rolled my head gingerly, then put a hand to the tight muscles on right side of my neck. Ouch.