An officer grabbed Jeremy by the arm and sat him down again.
“It was you who came into my office that day, wasn’t it, Jeremy? You threw me off there for a while, dressed as a woman. You were very clever. But I should have known you were a man all along. No woman carries that many different tubes of lipstick. Nor that many different brands of tampons in her purse.” I turned to Dickhead. “Do they, Detective? You were married, you know all about these things, don’t you?”
His eyes narrowed. “Just keep going, Dixie.”
I did. As if reading my mind, Dylan handed me the picture — the one with Jeremy and Ned coming out of the tennis court. The one where he was bent scratching his left leg under the white tube sock. “See this, Jeremy?”
Getting paler by the moment — so pale now I could see the stubble of beard on his white cheeks — he looked at the picture and nodded.
“This proves that you were posing as Jennifer.”
“I hardly see—”
I smiled. “You shaved your legs before you put on that purple dress and came into my office. You had to have just shaved your legs for them to be this smooth. And for them to be this glaringly white, you’d have to have not shaved them before, or at least not in a hell of a long time.”
“How … how would you possibly know that?”
“I just do, okay!”
Jeremy Poole crossed the legs under discussion and set his hands over his knees. “This is craziness. You’ve proven nothing here.”
Judge Stephanopoulos spoke up. “Well, maybe I can prove something here, Mr. Poole.”
All eyes turned to the judge as, shoulders back, she strode into the center of room. “I have here a restraining order, Mr. Poole. One taken out against Ms. Dodd advising her to stay away from the Weatherby house and Weatherby Industries. Ms. Dodd was kind enough to provide it to me this morning.”
Ned shot a look to Luanne, she shot one back at him. It was obvious that neither of them knew about this.
I didn’t think it was possible, but Jeremy turned even whiter. I imagine those legs of his would have the potential to blind now if exposed to the light of day.
“And, Mr. Poole,” the judge continued. “What most strikes my attention is the signature on this restraining order.” Judge Stephanopoulos stood before him now, towering over him as he sat cowering in the chair. She snapped the restraining order open under his nose. “You spelled my name wrong.”
“Oh shit.”
“And I would wager, Jeremy,” I said, “that when we manage to get a search warrant for the car and residence of a certain sweet little old lady—”
“I don’t know any sweet little old ladies,” he said.
He had me there.
“Okay, then if we manage to get a search warrant for the car of one cranky old woman with a broken ankle, a yappy dog and a sharp tongue, a.k.a. your aunt, we’ll find evidence you’ve been a very bad boy.”
Now it was Rochelle’s turn to jump into action. “I just happen to have a search warrant right here, Dix. Typed up and everything.” She turned to the Judge. “Your Honor?”
She pulled a pen from her purse. With a flare of pen to paper, Judge Stephanopoulos signed the order, and handed it to Detective Head.
“McGrath, Barnable.” Two officers stood straight. “Get yourselves over to Mrs. Levana Fyffe’s place.”
“Er, what are we looking for, Detective?” Barnable asked.
I answered; Dickhead let me. “Check the car for fibers and fingerprints. And oh, check the house for some flashing fashion.”
“Huh?”
“A purple dress that Jeremy here might have worn when he dressed up as Jennifer. Wide glasses. Fake boobs. Big floppy hat.”
“Wait a minute,” Detective Head said. “That still doesn’t explain the gun. We found the gun that killed Jennifer in your possession, Dix.”
Now it was Dylan’s turn to act. “Let me take this one, Dix.”
I smiled. “Go for it.”
He cleared his throat. It looked like he enjoyed being the center of attention too. “I did some checking around myself, Detective. That gun you found on Dix was used by Talbot K. Washington in that double murder years ago. If you recall, during the trial, it was discovered to have gone missing.”
“Holy hell, Foreman, tell me something I don’t know.”
“Okay, then I will. There was a young law student clerking at that firm when that gun went missing. He wasn’t on the regular company payroll, only worked one afternoon a week for one of the senior lawyers who paid him under the table. I guess the old guy felt sorry for him.”
“Let me guess,” Detective Head said. “That would be our friend Mr. Poole who was clerking there.”
Dylan nodded. “I went to law school with one of the lawyers who works there now. Apparently, Jeremy Poole was a poor, starving law student, but then quit working all of a sudden just after the Washington trial ended. Came into some fast cash somehow. And plenty of it.”
“You bastard,” Detective Head said. “You stole the gun didn’t you? Or caused it to be stolen. Washington could have walked because of you.”
“I … I think I need a lawyer.” Jeremy wiped a hand across his brow.
Detective Head snarled, “I know you do. Get this….” — with a glance at the Judge, he adjusted his language — “…gentleman downtown. Let him call his lawyer, then leave him for me.” The disgust in Dickhead’s voice was evident. And for a moment, I almost felt sorry for him. Then I realized the disgust was probably over the fact that I wouldn’t be going to jail after all.
“Why?” Ned croaked, his voice thick with emotion, eyes filling with tears. “Why did you do it, Jeremy?”
Out of courtesy, the two officers escorting Jeremy Poole from the room stopped long enough for the question to be answered.
Jeremy’s bottom lip began to quiver, and his voice became that throaty voice he’d used in my office — his Jennifer voice. “Because … I love you, Ned.”
Collectively, we all did a double take.
“What’d he say?” Mr. Weatherby, Sr. asked.
“I think he said he loved him,” Mrs. Weatherby answered.
“Loved Jim? Who’s Jim?”
“No, not Jim. Him.”
Yeah, it was getting confusing. Not even I saw that one coming.
Unprompted now, Jeremy continued. “I’ve loved you for so long. When Jennifer got involved with Billy, I thought maybe … maybe then you’d throw her out for good. But you didn’t, you took her back.”
“But why? Why’d you have to kill her?”
“She was livid when she found out that I’d cancelled the caterer. It was a stupid thing to do, I know, but I was jealous. And I didn’t think Kenny Kent would call her about it. I thought he’d call you, and you’d finally, once and for all, just end it with Jennifer. I hoped. But it didn’t work that way. And when Jennifer found out, she called me. I went over to apologize but she wouldn’t hear anything of it. I begged her not to tell you, Ned. Begged her. And eventually she agreed.”
“But that wasn’t good enough for you, was it, Jeremy?” I said.
“I … I couldn’t take the chance. What if … what if someday she changed her mind, and did tell him? Ned would turn against me. I … I couldn’t have that. So I posed as Jennifer, and went to Dodd’s office. I was looking for a not-so-bright private detective, and given the dive she works out of, I thought I’d hit pay dirt. Dammit! All I wanted was for her to follow you around for a week! I did it to protect you, Ned.”
“Protect me? Protect me from what? From Jennifer?”
“No,” I answered. “He wanted to protect you from being blamed for Jennifer’s murder. I provided a rock-solid alibi, all week, in fact, until Jeremy had the opportunity to commit murder.” I turned to Jeremy, “You were protecting Ned, weren’t you?”