Bright New Murder (3 page)

“I’ve never seen her before at all!” The speaker was a woman applying pressure to the wound. “Does anyone know this woman?”

Before anyone could answer, four paramedics barreled into the room. They paused in the door just long enough to spot the party they needed to help.

A pair of policemen stationed themselves at the door.

Jake climbed down from the table and joined Jane. He leaned close, his warm breath on her ear. “Now’s your chance, Janey. Someone stabbed that poor woman. But whodunit, and why?”

3

A slew of paramedics who seemed in control, but in a hurry, carted the injured woman away on a stretcher. Before Jane had a chance to pull herself together, more police officers poured into the room and began to sort the people into groups for questioning.

Jake joined the officer who looked like he was in charge.

Jane hung off to the side, but near enough to hear. Jake had been right. This was her chance to put her fall criminal justice classes into action—to test her detection skills.

“I had them sort of line up to make room for the paramedics,” Jake said.

“That was smart.” The officer was an older man, or, somewhat older. He had grey hair, but his face didn’t look as old as her dad’s did. Maybe he was in his forties? She thought he must be because he had the old-style wire-rimmed glasses with bifocal lines cut into them. No one wore glasses like that anymore. He also wore a trench coat and black slacks. Jane was glad to see her observation skills were working, but she needed to focus on the individuals in the crowd and not on the officer. The officer was the last person to have stabbed the guest. He hadn’t even been at the party.

Or had he?

Jane chewed on her lip. Maybe he
was
the killer. After all, he was the very last one she would suspect. And she hadn’t seen him come in.

“Didn’t I, Jane?” Jake nudged her.

“What? I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“Didn’t I give the guest list to Gemma to take care of?”

“Oh, yes. I think you did.”

“Why would you do that?” the officer asked.

“The preschool thing is kind of her baby. She’s a friend. I saw that I could help her with the refreshments and just putting stuff together, but she had to come up with the potential donors herself. Own it and all that.”

The detective nodded. “And did she?”

“Well…” Jake hung his head a little. “Her list was fairly sparse, so I made a few calls. But as far as any formal list goes, she’s the one that has it.”

“Can you point her out to me?”

Jane scanned the room and spotted her cousin slumped in a corner. Her navy cotton dress was crumpled, and her bobbed hair was a sweaty mess. “She’s over there, to the left. With the black hair and blue dress.” She pointed Gemma out.

“Thanks. Please try and help keep everyone in the room until we’re done getting names and information.”

“Of course,” Jane said.

When the officer was out of earshot, Jake nudged her again. “Follow him. Listen to everything he says. Where’s your notebook?”

“My notebook?”

“You detectives are always supposed to have those long, skinny notebooks. Oh, wait. That’s journalists. You aren’t a journalist, are you?”

“No. I’m not a journalist.”

“Hold tight.” Jake ran to the kitchen and back before Jane knew what was happening. “Use this.” He handed her a thin tablet.

“What’s this for?”

“It’s for ease of communication in a modern world, Jane. Now go take notes!” He shoved her forward. If Jane had a dollar for every time he had pushed, shoved, tweaked, or nudged her in the last day, she could buy her own tablet.

She followed the policeman, but tried to keep enough room for another person between him and herself so that he wouldn’t notice her.

He started with Gemma.

Jane took that time to figure out how to turn on Jake’s tablet and find the note-taking app. By the time she had done that, the policeman was facing her.

“You’re Gemma’s cousin?”

“Yes, sir.” Jane held the tablet by her side, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

“I’m Detective Walters. Where were you standing when the woman was stabbed?”

“I was up front when I heard a scream. I think it was her. But I didn’t see anything.”

“Nothing unusual at all?”

“No. I mean, the protesters had come inside the building and I was really preoccupied. I wanted to try and defuse that situation.”

“I see. Can you point out the protesters to me?”

Jane indicated the huddled protesters who made their home against the wall by the door. They sat together, knees up and arms hooked. “Over there. It’s the Helpers.”

“HLP?” He sniffed. “Of course it is. Okay. I’m going to go speak with Ms. Willis.” He walked away without another word.

Jane didn’t follow him. Instead she watched two other officers make smaller groups of the people lined against the walls. She had a feeling they were all stating their names and phone numbers, and if they had or hadn’t seen anything.

She hadn’t cracked a single textbook since Isaac had come home. What a dumb idea that had been. A little extra time spent with Crime Scene Techniques and Principals of Detection (revised American edition with foreword by C. Anderson) would have stood her in good stead right now.

 
But rather than follow the police around or ask her own questions, Jane found a quiet perch on a stool near the kitchen and took notes on what she observed in the crowd.

She had only taken the Introduction to Criminal Justice class at Portland State, and they had only spent two days discussing private detection—so what? It was two days’ more training than she had had when she helped solve the two previous murders. And what she had learned in those two days had been pretty good stuff. The importance of observation, body language, and a little Psych 101 on what liars look like.

Jane leaned over the tablet and tried her hand at observing the crowd.

The clump of people nearest her were almost all finished talking with the police. The last person, a woman with big, sparkly earrings and spikey white hair, was answering questions. Her small body trembled, but she made eye contact with the cop and kept her hands away from her face. She seemed to be telling the truth.

The other people in the crowd were shifting and shuffling. A girl about Jane’s age clung to the arm of an older-looking man who was wearing expensive jeans with a sports coat and turtleneck. He kissed the top of the girl’s head. Jane couldn’t tell if the girl was his date or his daughter. But either way, they looked a little scared, but not guilty.

A motion at the back of the room caught her eye. The small circle of people still waiting to talk to the police looked inward, and down, as though maybe someone had fainted.

“Is there a doctor or a nurse here?” a woman’s voice cried out. She sounded like she had laryngitis. A person willing to holler out like that despite her own physical discomfort had too much compassion to stab someone.

One of the protesters broke from her group. “I’m a doctor of naturopathic medicine.” She caught the eye of one of the police, who nodded his approval. The small group clustered around the fainter made way for the doctor.

An old man in a tweedy coat lay on the floor. His hair, face, and slacks were grey. The doctor checked his pulse. She nodded, and her face visibly relaxed. The doctor spoke with the people standing around, but Jane couldn’t hear what she said. Three women handed over their purses. The doctor stacked them and then raised the man’s feet and rested them on the bags. She then sat cross-legged next to the man and held his hand. That simple gesture calmed all of the people around her. It was obvious by the way their shoulders seemed to drop a few inches. Two women in excessively high heels sat down beside her as well. The doctor couldn’t have been the person who stabbed the woman.

Jane turned to the next group, the one sitting next to the man who fainted. But they all seemed normal. That seemed to be the trouble with their crowd full of philanthropists and smoothie lovers. They were all either perfectly normal or extra compassionate.

Jane took a deep breath and considered the protesters. Would she call them extra compassionate? They had come out on a dark, cold night to try and convince a crowd of strangers that their bodies were worth better treatment.

She gave each protester a good, long look. Three sort of punk-rock hippies, if there were such a thing, sat at the end of the row. Two of them had liberty spikes and Doc Martens. One of them wore a leather motorcycle jacket with the sleeves ripped off. That person held hands with a woman who could have been someone’s grandma. She had on a long, flowered dress and a nubby sweater. The only difference between her and a normal grandma was her long, grey-streaked hair. The ends of her hair brushed the floor where she was sitting.

Then a string of hippies in the classic sense, Birkenstock-wearing, long-haired, dreadlocked, all of that, made up the rest of the row. One of the hippies, a tan young woman with freckles on her nose and dishwater-blonde curls, was pale like she might also faint. She kept shifting her gaze around the room like she was keeping her eye on the police. And while Jane watched her, she let go of the hand of the person next to her, and then clasped it again five times.

Finally, someone who looked guilty.

And yet, the protesters hadn’t been farther than two feet from the door the whole evening, so could it have been her?

Jane used Jake’s tablet to note the woman’s description and how she was acting.

Then she sat down next to the shifty dishwater-blonde protester.

The woman scooted away from Jane.

“Hey.” Jane wanted to put her at ease—at just enough ease to answer some questions. “You’re looking a little pale. Can I get you something?”

The woman passed her hand over her eyes and shook her head. “No. I-I’m okay.”

“You’re not fasting in protest, are you?” Jane asked.

“No.”

Jane bit her lip. How to draw this woman out? She wished her class on interview techniques was not at the end of the school year.

“You look weak.” She turned to the young man sitting to the left of the protester. “Doesn’t she look weak?”

“Yeah. She does.” The man gave his friend a look of concern. “You should put your head between your knees for a minute.”

The woman leaned forward and rested her head on her knees.

“I’m going to get you water, all right?” She counted down the line of protesters. “I’m going to get you all water. And some dairy-free smoothies, okay? We do have some made with almond milk.”

When the young man sitting next to the shifty dishwater blonde nodded his approval, Jane went to the kitchen. She filled a tray with vegan smoothies and grabbed a bucket full of water bottles. She passed them out to the protesters and then sat with her suspect.

“I’m Jane.”

“Valeria.” She pressed her lips together and looked at the ground.

“Are you feeling any better?”

Valeria shook her head.

Jane leaned forward, just a bit, so she could lower her voice. “Do you want to talk?”

Valeria opened her mouth, but the young man next to her wrapped his arm around her knee and interrupted her. “She’s okay.”

Jane nodded, then reflected, “You feel like she’s okay and doesn’t need to talk.”

“That’s right.” The man sat back, but his face was still tense.

“What about you? How do you feel?” Jane tried to make eye contact, but Valeria’s gaze shifted around the room, until it locked on something just over Jane’s shoulder.

Jane turned.

Rose of Sharon stood right behind her, arms crossed, cheeks fiery red.

“Thanks for the waters.” Rose of Sharon tapped the bucket with the toe of her moccasin. “I can take care of my friends from here.”

Jane didn’t move. If she had learned anything in Criminal Justice 101, she had learned that she had to project authority to gain trust. She adjusted her posture, made eye contact with Rose of Sharon, lifting one eyebrow as though she questioned what Rose of Sharon was saying, and smiled, lightly, as though she weren’t about to pee her pants from fear and nerves.

“Hey, gang!” Jake flopped his arm around Rose of Sharon’s shoulder.

Rose of Sharon shuddered.

“The cops are almost done here. I’m giving out the rest of the sandwiches if any of you are hungry, but in about five minutes we’ll have the all clear to go home. Janey, thanks for passing out the waters. Can you help with the sandwiches?”

Jane widened her eyes and tipped her head towards Valeria.

“That’s a yes? Great, thanks!” Jake headed to the next group.

Rose of Sharon smirked. “If you have any gluten-free vegan sandwiches, I’m sure we’d all appreciate it.”

Jane glanced at Valeria. Her eyes were downcast, but the young man next to her looked triumphant. Jane let out a slow breath and headed to the kitchen. Her first-ever semi-professional investigation and she’d managed to wrest one name. And just a first name at that.

Utterly useless.

Her phone rang while she stacked sandwiches. The ringtone alone told her it was Isaac. She turned her phone off and realized she hadn’t written a single thing on Jake’s tablet.