fifteen

WHEN SHE WAS HAVING A BAD DAY, Janelle switched from baking to fussing with more involved meals, and she chose background music that would make stones weep. Greg considered both to be healthy coping, so he left her to the kitchen’s comfort and headed out for a solo afternoon ride. He set a vase of wildflowers on the counter when he returned. It got him a smile, and she stopped to finger a petal. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” They were having breaded pork chops and some kind of honey-glazed dessert from what he could identify on the counters. “Smells good.”

“Appetizers are heating.”

He settled at the counter to scan mail he’d brought in, not sure if she would want to talk but giving her the opportunity. That she was hanging out at his place and using his kitchen to avoid being alone was as readable as a first-grade storybook, but it saved him having to track her down to see how she was coping. He liked having her in his line of sight, cooking in his kitchen, and pacing. She was coping, and coping was good.

“I accused the woman who used to be my best friend of murdering her brother. I still feel sick about it. It’s in Tanya, the dramatics, the self-interest, but not the premeditated violence to actually kill him. Six years in prison to mull over what happened and I never went this way, never considered it possible.”

“People do what you could never imagine, what they themselves might never imagine, if given enough pressure.”

She pulled the tray out of the oven, set the pan on a trivet, and pushed it his way—a stacked cracker, bacon, horseradish, olive, and cheese combination based on the tray not yet heating. He gingerly tasted one, not sure of the horseradish, and got a pleasant surprise. “This is delicious.”

“Thanks.” She slid the second pan into the oven.

Janelle leaned against the counter and moodily ate one of the appetizers. “Tanya would take and post video of a breakup fight to embarrass Andrew, conveniently ignoring the fact she would also hurt me in the process. I can accept the idea Tanya did arrange for it to be a nasty breakup. But I can’t live with where Ann then takes this. She doesn’t believe it was a spur-of-the-moment decision that Friday night, does she? She thinks Tanya planned it months in advance, all the way back to giving me that pink knife as a gag gift for my birthday.”

Greg knew Ann thought Tanya was precisely that cold. It wouldn’t help Janelle to deal further with that, so he simply took them a different direction. “Accept what you can, leave as possibly true what you can’t. Denial is the danger, Janelle, not the disagreement itself on what the known facts suggest.”

She nodded. “Ann’s looking for that videotape, I’ll bet. After nearly seven years.”

“I’ve seen her pull off miracles. If Tanya kept the knife, then she kept the video too.” He ate another appetizer. “We’ll know something when Ann does. Have a movie in mind for tonight?”

Janelle let him change the subject. He hoped Ann could find answers, for Janelle’s sake. Though he was only an indirect party, he felt the weight of this.

Ann and Paul arrived on the island late in the afternoon on December 29. Greg set the chocks on the plane’s wheels and then waited as the stairs opened and Paul stepped out, Ann behind him. “You found the video.”

“We did,” Ann confirmed. “The twenty-third box from the Chadwick house was still packed in the back of a trailer. The purchaser bought a number of old electronics, cameras, video players. The box yielded an older-model video camera with a tape still inside it. The first minutes confirm it’s what Tanya recorded that night. We haven’t watched it yet, Greg. I felt it was important for Janelle to be offered a chance to see it with us the first time it’s played . . . or not.”

“Watch her last fight with Andrew? That’s got some serious don’t-go-there implications, Ann.”

“I need her to trust me. If we’re ever to make a case against Tanya, it will need to go through Janelle. I want to at least give her the choice.”

Greg understood the gesture. He nodded to his SUV. “Let’s go see what she wants to do.”

He drove them from the airfield to his home.

Janelle was waiting in the living room. She put down the magazine she had been idly thumbing through. “You wouldn’t both be here unless it was serious news.”

Ann walked her through how they had found the tape. “We are strongly recommending that you let us, or Greg if you prefer, watch the video first, provide a caution for what is on it, and let you make an informed decision before you view it.”

Greg nodded his agreement. “It’s one thing to remember, Janelle, that you fought, to remember a few sentences which were said. It’s quite another to watch the whole episode play out. Reliving it after all these years, seeing Andrew from that evening, will make your grief that much more vivid.”

“I understand the concern,” Janelle replied. “But I was there. I’ve replayed that fight a thousand times over the years. I owe this to him. I want to see it along with you.”

“Okay then.” Ann set the camera on the coffee table, angled it so all three could see the small screen, and tapped the play button.

Sand. The scene wobbled around, but it was mostly sand. And then the image focused properly and they were looking down the Chicago beach. A breathless voice said, “There’s my brother, Andrew, and his girlfriend, Janelle, coming down the stairs now. Andrew said he would bring her to the beach tonight—it’s a favorite destination. I’m told there’s a proposal coming. I want to get it on tape for Janelle. She’ll love having it in her permanent record.”

Janelle sighed, and Ann hit pause.

“She slipped down to the beach that night,” Janelle said, “thinking to record a marriage proposal. That’s why Tanya tried to hide her car. She was there because I told her I thought Andrew was going to propose.”

Ann resumed the video. As the conversation on the beach turned into a fight, the emotions Janelle was feeling then rippling through her words, she showed every bit of that pain over again now as she watched. Greg squeezed her shoulder in sympathy. He had imagined a bad breakup, endured such a thing with his wife, but this one was particularly cruel. Janelle stormed away down the beach back toward the stairs.

The camera bounced around as Tanya ran across the beach. “What are you doing?” she shouted at her brother. “Are you nuts? You’re dumping her? You yellow-bellied wimp! She loves you! And you dump her?” The confrontation went on in a similar vein as Tanya raged at Andrew, but then the image shifted again as Tanya pushed past him to find Janelle, showing mostly sand until Tanya realized she still had the camera in her hand, still recording. The image then went blank and stayed that way.

Ann stopped the playback. “We’ll watch the rest to the end to confirm that’s all there is. One minor point I noticed, Janelle. You were carrying your purse that night, not a clutch that matched your dress. And your purse wasn’t robbed that night. You dropped it on a towel on the sand, and that general area is in and out of the video frames. The purse—from when you set it down to when you grab it up and leave—is lying the same way, with the same twist in the strap. It wasn’t moved.”

“Okay.” Janelle took a deep breath and dashed a hand across her eyes. “Thanks for commenting on my purse rather than that awful fight. I need a minute.” She walked outside.

Greg watched her go with concern. Her seeing the video had been a mistake, possibly a major one.

“Did you notice how Tanya was setting up the video to be another insurance policy?” Ann asked Paul. “It’s terrifying how good she is at arranging her frame.” She took the video back to the beginning to watch it again.

Greg’s gaze snapped back to Ann, startled. “Wait a minute. You think this video implicates Tanya further?”

“It’s too perfectly scripted not to be a frame,” Ann said patiently. “It explains everything. Why she’s secretly on the beach, recording—it’s to record a marriage proposal. After the fight and Janelle storms off, Tanya makes sure her own fight with Andrew is on tape. ‘She’s loved you since the fifth grade and you dump her! Don’t you dare be bringing another girlfriend home with you and be rubbing her nose in the fact you moved on!’ She’s waving the camera around like she’s forgotten she’s holding it. And she’s making sure Andrew can’t get more than a word in. Then she stomps away with the camera bouncing around, showing sand, and you hear her muttering to herself, ‘Where did Janelle go? He drove. She’s going to need a lift home. She’ll key that car before she ever rides in it again, or stick a tire.’ And the camera clicks off. Tanya layered together the evidence like a pro. The video of the fight preserves in dramatic fashion Janelle’s motive. The knife with Janelle’s name on it is blunt proof of the act. The blood on Janelle’s tennis shoes is even more proof she was there. It’s so well packaged it’s terrifying.”

Greg could feel some of Janelle’s confusion. “You honestly think the video confirms your theory that Tanya did it?”

Paul moved over to the couch. “You can’t see it, Greg? All the way to the muttered last four words—‘or stick a tire.’ Tanya was laying another predicate for the jury, dropping an inference to Janelle’s pocketknife. This frame was months in the planning. Tanya likely already had Janelle’s knife in her possession when she was filming this.” He turned to his wife. “She’s incredibly dangerous, Ann,” he remarked, “and I’m not sure what we can do about it.”

Ann nodded. “Tanya Chadwick got a taste of manipulation and murder, and her reward was a handsome amount of money. Odds are good she’s still a liar and manipulator—money being a strong motivator—and a murderer when necessary.”

She looked at Greg. “The New York FBI office owes Paul—they can keep an eye on what she’s doing, take a long look at her history, maybe spot the next frame as it’s being set up.”

Greg held up his hand. “You both know Janelle is going to see all of this through a different lens. She thinks Tanya was helping her.”

Janelle came back in to join them and heard the last of his remark. “She was helping me, or attempting to do so. I pushed her hard in New York, trying to fit her to what you’ve been thinking. Tanya said she didn’t have anything to do with Andrew’s death and I believe her.” She dropped into a chair across from Ann. “So talking with Tanya, finding the video, it hasn’t changed our basic impasse. I don’t think my friend could do this. You think she could.”

“I think Tanya framed you, Janelle, and didn’t miss a note,” Ann replied calmly.

Janelle nodded. “I can live with us disagreeing, but I know one thing after today. That knife and that video would convince a new jury I was the guilty party. If you arrest Tanya now, she plays the video and says, ‘I didn’t do it, Janelle did,’ and the jury’s going to believe her. And since you can’t make the case against Tanya, you won’t arrest her. That’s good enough for me. Further, I’m going to guess that even if you could find my ‘stranger robber’ with Andrew’s wallet and phone, you’d hesitate to charge him with murder because you can’t explain how he acquired my pocketknife, given my purse wasn’t robbed during the fight on the beach. Bottom line, no one will be charged in Andrew’s death.”

The four looked at each other, and Paul said, “That’s probably realistic, Janelle.”

“I know you don’t agree with us,” Ann said, “but you do need to keep your distance from Tanya, a good distance.”

“After what I said to her at breakfast, that’s not going to be a problem,” Janelle replied. “I killed the friendship in spectacular fashion. I’ll accept what you believe could be true and live accordingly.” She turned to Greg. “I’m going down to the beach.”

“Take Marco with you,” he suggested.

Janelle got to her feet and held out her hand. “Thank you, Ann. Paul. For bringing the tape, for everything. I’ll say goodbye for now, as I know you’re heading back tonight. Maybe next time we meet, it’s a more enjoyable occasion for me to simply cook you a good meal, and we won’t have a single case-related question to talk about.”

Ann smiled. “A nice plan. Take care of yourself, Janelle.”

Janelle headed out. Ann watched her go, then looked to her husband. “So Tanya gets away with it.”

Paul pushed to his feet. “At least an innocent person is no longer sitting in prison. Let’s go home, Ann.”

Greg tried to find some good news in how things had ended. “Janelle needed this, the look back at what happened. She’ll close the chapter more easily now, having been through the details in such an intense fashion. The grieving can begin—for all that she’s lost, for both Andrew and almost seven years of her life. Why don’t you two plan to come for an actual vacation weekend in February, let her fix you that dinner? I predict you’ll find her in a much more content state of mind by then.”

“We’ll plan to do that,” Ann said with a smile. “Thanks, Greg.”

“‘You do what is possible, you live with the rest,’” he replied, quoting her words back to her.