THE RESTAURANT CHOSEN was sparsely occupied because it was expensive even by New York standards and the hour was early. The breakfast plates had been delivered, coffee poured, the conversation thus far limited to Janelle’s polite questions about living in New York and Tanya’s animated answers.
Greg watched with Ann from the restaurant’s office. Just like before, the video was good, the audio clear. Janelle pretty much ignored the food. There were a lot of clues that this meeting was going to be very different from yesterday’s, but that one observation was enough to tell Greg how stressed Janelle was.
She interrupted Tanya’s description of her apartment and abruptly turned the conversation to the Friday night of Andrew’s death. “Tanya, there’s no way you didn’t know Andrew was going to break up with me that night. He avoided conflicts of any kind. He would have told you, so you could ease me toward already knowing what he was going to say. You might relish confrontations, but not Andrew.”
“I was in the dark,” Tanya insisted. “He knew I was elated that you two were dating. If he tells me he’s thinking of breaking up with you, he would have had a confrontation on the spot. He’d avoid a confrontation at all costs, that was Andrew. But with us—hello, sisters bonding here—what’s he going to do? He probably figured breaking up with you cold was easier than a battle with me, followed by a second one with you. You don’t believe me?” Tanya shook sugar packets and ripped four open. “Whyever not? I would have felt awful giving you the news, but I would have warned you if I knew something like that was coming.”
Janelle leaned back in her chair. “I was your friend, dating your brother, but I saw what was going on, Tanya. I watched you pick fights with him just to get him riled up. You would stay out until all hours, not answer your phone, go to parties with guys you knew would give him concern. You would leave him wondering if you were hurt somewhere, if he should start calling the hospitals. You were angry at your parents dying, and he was a convenient target. You often caused Andrew grief simply because you could.”
Tanya flushed angrily. “We fought at times, not a surprise given he was a few years older and acting like my father. I thought you were on my side. I loved him, but he was my brother, not my keeper.”
Janelle’s voice turned icy. “I know you were there that night, Tanya. Your car was in the lot when I left Andrew—last parking place on the far side. I saw your vanity license plate. You came to see the fireworks when we broke up, to watch what you’d set in motion. I knew as soon as I spotted your car that you’d set your brother up for a doozy of a breakup, and you wanted to get it on video. You wanted to embarrass Andrew to his friends, post it on social media. That would suit how you wanted to get back at him for telling you how to live. I was just your unwitting actress in the drama you’d staged.”
In the office, both Greg and Ann stiffened.
“‘May we live in interesting times,’” Greg breathed out, quoting the song lyric. He was listening not only to Janelle’s words but also to the change in her tone of voice. She’d had the ability to point the finger at Tanya all along, but feeling jammed up by cops herself, the last thing Janelle would have done was to point a finger at a friend she thought was innocent too. “She should have told this to her lawyer, used it in her own defense.”
Ann shook her head. “If she’s right about the reason Tanya was there, saying this at the time just puts potential video of the fight in the hands of law enforcement. If the tape shows Janelle storming off, it doesn’t mean she didn’t come back for round two of the fight and Andrew got stabbed then. Video of it all just makes it easier for the jury to believe motive.”
On the monitor, Janelle was leaning forward to make a similar point. “That video shows I walked away, proof I hadn’t lied about how the fight ended. But you didn’t want to admit you were there, did you, Tanya? You didn’t want to chance the cops asking if you and Andrew had a conversation after I left.”
“You’ve got it all wrong,” Tanya insisted. “I didn’t admit I was at the beach because I was protecting you. If I said I was there, they’d want to know whether or not I’d seen you two fighting. And I’m a bad liar; it would have come out that there was video. I was protecting you by not saying I was there. For the same reason I tossed that knife in a drawer after I found it, I shoved the camera in a closet after I got home and left it there. The jury would have used both the knife and the fight video to bolster their conclusion you were guilty.”
“You were helping me, protecting me?” Janelle pushed her breakfast plate away. “Tanya, you and I both know you were the last one to have that pocketknife. You used the nail file to smooth off a chipped nail. You said you put it back in my purse and I believed you. Then I went to get it and give it to the cops and it wasn’t there. But you knew that, didn’t you? You knew because you still had the knife. And as it was Andrew’s blood on the knife, you used it that night, didn’t you?”
Tanya had flushed red and now went sheet white. “You’re crazy. I had nothing to do with my brother’s death.”
“You’re impulsive, you’ve got a flash temper, you could justify ‘stab him once, let fate decide. He dies, I’m free. He lives, he’s already facing a long recovery from his injuries, and one more doesn’t make much of a difference.’ I know how you think, Tanya. You could hurt Andrew and live with it. You didn’t like your brother running your life, controlling your money, being the authority in your life. Whatever you did that night, causing our breakup to be an ultra-disaster, being involved in his death—Andrew didn’t deserve it, Tanya.”
“That’s nuts. That is just wildly crazy nuts.” Tanya pushed away from the table. “I did not harm my brother. We fought occasionally, but he was my brother! I would never do what you’re suggesting, ever! How could you ever even think that, Janelle?” She got up and stormed away.
Greg watched as Janelle folded, covering her face with her hands, her shoulders shaking. The information she’d revealed was still reverberating. He forced himself to look away, to give her a few moments of privacy, and turned to Ann. “So, what did you take from that?”
Ann, absorbing the deluge of new information, was already shifting through the implications. “Video exists,” she said simply. “We’ve got to find it.”
“I heard Janelle speculating in several different directions. I didn’t hear Tanya agree.”
“Listen to it again. Tanya didn’t deny her car was in the parking lot that night, that she was there. Nor did she deny the videotape. Tanya was so paranoid the cops might look at her concerning Andrew’s death that she overdid the frame. She set up the two of them to have a blowout breakup, she got the fight on tape, she used Janelle’s knife, and she planted the bloody shoes in the closet.
“The shoes and missing knife turned out to be enough at trial to get a conviction, but Tanya couldn’t throw away her insurance policy—the knife and videotape—in case of an appeal. They’re her security blanket against detectives ever looking at her as the one responsible for her brother’s death. ‘You need more proof they were fighting that night—how about a tape of them fighting?’ If she held on to the knife, she held on to a video.”
The call Ann made was answered. “Paul, I need a very good researcher. We have to track down all fifty-eight boxes from the Chadwick house that went to auction. There may be video still in existence. We’ve got to find it.”