Thirteen

 

Sunday was family day for Jaymie, Jakob and Jocie. Jaymie hadn’t slept well. The turmoil and horror of the day before told on her. Jakob looked worried, but she assured him she had survived other periods of mayhem, and she’d be fine this time, too.

She called the police station. Detective Vestry wasn’t available, but the sergeant she spoke to agreed that the note was important. They sent an officer out to collect it. Jocie was excited to see the Queensville Township Police Department car, and was wide-eyed as she peeked in the windows of the cruiser as Jaymie handed over the piece of paper in an envelope with her own note, explaining the circumstances of receiving it and telling Detective Vestry she’d be in tomorrow to give her complete statement.

Jaymie then did her best, for the rest of the day, to put it all out of her mind and heart and focus on her family.

Jakob made breakfast, tiny pancakes that Jocie loved, then Kevin and Becca joined them, and they all headed to a farmers’ market. It was part family outing and part research for their next venture. Later they all had dinner at the Müllers’, Becca and Kevin included. Plans were made for the Christmas season.

But inevitably the cold hard light of Monday brought Jaymie to the grim realization that her diorama was forever stained in her mind and heart with the murder of Evan Nezer, and would have to be dismantled once the police were done. She finished getting ready and sat back down on the bed, staring down at the wood floor.

“What’s up?” Jakob said, coming back into the room from the en suite bathroom and grabbing his cell phone from the side table.

“I can’t leave the diorama in place,” she said, looking up at him. “It’s not right. It would be too gruesome a reminder of a horrible crime.”

Jakob sat down next to her and pulled her close, holding her. “I hate to say it after all the work you and Bill put into it,” he murmured in her ear, “but you’re probably right.”

“I know I am. I hate when I’m right.”

He released her, kissed her on the nose, and pulled her to her feet. “You’ll do the right thing. You always do.” They descended together for breakfast.

So . . . added to her to-do list for the day was to speak to the police about removing the diorama before the Friday night tree lighting.

After Jakob left to greet Shannon and Helmut, who would be working the Müller Christmas tree sales lot, Jaymie made sure Jocie had her bookbag and homework and was out to the road in time to catch the school bus. The child was excited and full of plans for the winter pageant, in which she was to play a snow globe. How did one play a snow globe? Jaymie had asked her. Very glassily, Jocie had replied, with a solemn look that dissolved into a giggle.

Jaymie dressed carefully in festive patterned leggings and a long red sweater. She had bemoaned that she didn’t know anyone at WC and so didn’t have a line into the college to investigate, but she had forgotten one thing: she did know someone at the college. She made a quick phone call to Austin Calhoun, offering him free lunch in exchange for a chat, and drove in to The Junk Stops Here to work for the morning, taking care of the cash desk while Gus trained the two new people, a young couple, ex-military both of them, on organization in the store.

Gus, a big bluff fellow, looked somewhat happier these days. He had gone through a traumatic time in the spring and still had family troubles, but things were looking up. As she finished her three hours and headed out, he waved goodbye to her and turned back to work with the two new hires.

It was a sparkling crisp day, blue sky reaching to forever, and with a crystalline feel. The air was cold enough to make her gasp, but her truck was warm. She checked her phone, wondering if she should drop in on Nan to see where she stood after their last testy conversation, and decided against it.

Jaymie’s next stop was Wellington’s Retreat, a sweet little hole-in-the-wall café and lunch spot on Wolverhampton’s main street. Austin leaped up from his seat near the window, his bright eyes alight with joy. They hugged, put in their lunch orders with the cashier and sat back down.

They caught up: Austin was serious about hospitality. He wanted to become either an event manager or a publicity manager for a hotel or inn.

“You would be so perfect for that, Austin,” Jaymie said, examining the glow on his round face. Though he could be gossipy and snarky at times, his general demeanor was cheerful helpfulness. “You’ve got that effervescence and joyful personality. Have you ever thought about working for a cruise line? You’d be great at that, too.”

His eyes lit up. “Not a bad thought! Work and travel at the same time. My mom would love that.”

A waitress brought their lunches and set them down.

“What do you have?” Jaymie asked, examining his plate.

“Chicken salad wrap and mug of soup. You were the one who got me started on a mug of soup with lunch. I’ve lost ten pounds in a year!” he said, smiling.

“Congratulations!”

They dug in and ate in silence for a few minutes.

She glanced up at him as he patted his mouth after taking a long drink of his soup. “So how did things go at the Nezer residence after I left the night of the party?”

“I know what this is about,” he said, and his expression sobered. He leaned across the table and put his hand over hers. “I heard about you finding a body; my dear, you do have a talent.”

“One I’d rather do without,” she said.

“I getcha. However, if you’re going to find a body it may as well be one of someone so thoroughly unpleasant.” He rolled his eyes; they sparkled with mingled malice and gruesome enjoyment. “Now, what you asked. Let’s see . . . the college folk were still there when you left, right?” Jaymie nodded. “La Bella was playing queen of the manor and Ben the heir apparent. And then Finn Fancombe, enraged and ready to rumble, reappeared! Dra-ma!” He sang the last word on a falling note.

“Oh, dear. Nobody has said anything about that yet. What happened?” She ate her cheddar cream soup and listened as between bites of his chicken salad wrap he told her about it.

“Well, now . . . let’s see . . . Mrs. Belcher, the college president, and her two orcs, Carter Crossley and Andy Markham—that’s the provost and dean—were toadying to Nezer. It was as thorough a butt-smooching as I have seen in some time.”

“Why do you think that is? Why does—or did—the college leadership kiss up to Nezer?”

“The prevailing theory is—and I asked around this morning before class—that Nezer had brought attention to WC from some high-level conservative commentators. He had been on three different radio broadcasts since the school year started, and with the Dickens connection he was slated to be on a few more.”

Say something controversial and that was bound to happen. “I don’t think I get it. It was the attention?”

“No, no, my dear . . . it was the dollars! And the students. WC has a crummy reputation . . . kind of a third-rate school better known for its florists than its financiers. It’s a four-year college that shares its campus with Wolverhampton Technical College, my school, which offers technical courses. That does not give prestige in the academic world. Not that I think there’s anything wrong with that—I’m what the pretentious students call a Techie—but . . . academia!” He turned up his nose and said the word with a fake English accent. “Too too snooty, and all that.” He rolled his eyes. “Prof Nezer was apparently behind a move to shove WTC off campus. He was going to change WC’s rep, make it more serious, you know? Or so the thinking went.”

“Interesting. A good reason why Mrs. Belcher and the others would want him alive, I guess, if that was their goal. But what if he was rocking the boat too much?” That was vague and unlikely, unconvincing even to herself.

Austin, elbows on the table, leaned across and murmured, “Speaking of . . . there was a faction opposed to Nezer. And guess who was leading that, and all the attendant protests?”

Jaymie was silent.

“Finn Fancombe. Who crashed the party Friday night.”

“The actual party, and not just the kitchen?”

“No, my dear, the par-tay! After you left. He slammed his way in the front door and went right up to Mrs. Belcher. He said loudly that Nezer was a lying piece of crap, and that if his—Finn’s—banishment wasn’t revoked, he’d expose some very dirty business in the past.”

“In whose past?”

“He didn’t say. I guess I assumed Professor Nezer’s past, but it could just as easily have been Mrs. Belcher’s or even the college’s, I suppose.”

“Interesting. But going back . . . are you saying that Finn was leading a protest against Professor Nezer when he was reliant on him to help him get back into school? Why would he shoot himself in the foot like that?”

“Finn’s a complicated fellow, I’ve heard. And maybe he thought that he had a leg up with some information that would get him out of trouble. If Nezer was discredited it would help his own case.”

“He did tell his mother he needed to speak with Mrs. Belcher,” Jaymie said, sipping the last of her tea. “Maybe the college president has banned him from campus. There’s a campus police force, right?”

Austin nodded. “Kids in cute uniforms,” he said with a smirk. “I stole one and wore it for Halloween, only I wore shorts instead of the pants. That’s how pathetic they are, though, that a portly fellow like me could waltz in and steal a police uniform.”

“Austin—”

“I put it back! Cross my heart. They’re glorified mall cops,” he said, flapping his hand. “Not the real thing. So I borrowed a security guard uniform, big deal!”

Jaymie bit back a smile at his protestations of innocence and thought for a long minute. “When did the protests against Nezer begin?”

“Start of the school year, I think. You want me to find out?”

“Could you?”

His eyes wide, he asked, “Are you investigating a murder, Mrs. Müller?”

“Austin, don’t you dare go around saying that.”

He made a pouty face, but then smiled again. “I’ll keep it between us. Promise. What all do you want to know?”

“I want to know what students think of Finn; I know he was working on his master’s in some branch of economics, and that he was also a teaching assistant. The student I spoke with admired him. But what was thought of him generally? And the timing issue . . . did the plagiarism incident come up before or after he started to protest Nezer’s conservative talk-show chats and push to move WC in that direction?”

“Are you seriously thinking Finn Fancombe might have killed him?”

“I’m curious, that’s all. Anyway, how did it end with Finn at the party?”

“That’s the part I don’t understand. Prof Nezer took him aside and they had a chat that started out angry and ended kind of . . .” Austin shrugged, his eyes clouded with puzzlement. “Finn’s anger melted away and he looked . . .” He made a face, struggling to find the right word. “Distressed. Surprised. Like he’d learned something startling and didn’t quite know what to do about it.”

“And then?”

“And then he left.”

“What about Ben Nezer?”

“He was watching everything like a hawk, including the run-in his dad had with Finn. He cornered his father afterward, but the professor shrugged him off and went back to the college administrators.”

She felt a sick lurch in her stomach. If only she’d delivered that note to him. Would Nezer still be alive? “I wonder what Nezer said to Finn. Maybe he promised him that he’d take care of the plagiarism thing. That’s all Finn was concerned with, it seemed to me. He couldn’t afford to let it go.” She finished her soup. “Anything else you can find out about Nezer on campus, I’d appreciate.”

“I will do it with alacrity!”

She gazed at him wide-eyed.

“Alacrity: brisk and cheerful readiness. My mother gave me a word-a-day calendar for my birthday. A current-year calendar. In November. She loves me but she’s thrifty.”

Jaymie laughed and got up, retrieving her coat from the back of the chair. She slipped it on, and the two hugged. “I’ll call you,” she said.

Her next conversation was going to be more difficult. She headed to the police department, housed in a long, low red-brick building that was backed by the local jail. She asked to speak with Detective Vestry and, after a few minutes waiting, was shown into her office.

It was a sterile little box with a window overlooking the jail yard, enlivened only by some paintings of the St. Clair River and a photo of a boat with the name TruthSeeker emblazoned on the side. The detective looked up, held up one finger for a moment, and returned to her computer screen. She nodded, put her computer in sleep mode, and as the screen turned black, turned to Jaymie. “You’re here so I can take your statement,” she said.

“Yes, that, but other things too. About the note Sarah Nezer handed me.” The detective nodded. “And I’m not sure if anyone from the historical society has spoken to you yet, but we decided to hold off on the official opening of Dickens Days until this Friday.”

“Wise decision. I had already figured that out when the lighting of the tree didn’t happen on Saturday. And when I saw the notice in the paper. I am a detective, after all.”

Jaymie was taken aback at her acerbity, but relaxed when Vestry offered the briefest of smiles. She was kidding. “But also . . . I would like permission to remove the diorama. It’s . . .” She swallowed and tears welled. “It’s an unpleasant reminder of what happened. And I don’t want it there to give news crews any food for sensationalism.”

“I appreciate that, but I can’t give you the go-ahead yet. We’re still processing the scene.”

“But how much more can you get from it?”

“You’d be surprised,” she said dryly. “Are you ready to give your official statement?”

“Okay.”

“Let’s adjourn to an interview room,” she said, gathering up her cell phone, clipboard, and pen.

Jaymie knew the reason behind moving; her interview would be taped. The interview room was small, simply furnished with three chairs and a bare table attached to the wall. A video camera was mounted near the ceiling and pointed down at the chair she occupied. Detective Vestry, in a monotone, stated Jaymie’s name, the date and time, and that it was an interview of a witness who found the deceased, all for the record. Jaymie went through her interactions with Nezer so far, the party the night before, and then her finding his body in her diorama.

Detective Vestry made notes. They sat in silence, the detective’s scratching pen on the paper the only sound. They then went back over her statement. Vestry asked pointed questions, and Jaymie fleshed out some of her answers. Most of the questions were about the Friday evening party. And then: “Explain to me how you came to have the note you gave us.”

Jaymie described coming up the walk toward the door, hearing something in the bushes and seeing Sarah Nezer. “She handed me the note and I took it . . . reflex, I guess. And then she hustled away. When I saw the name on it, I knew she wanted me to give it to her son.”

“But you didn’t do that. Why?”

“I meant to, but with everything that happened, all the things I’ve told you about, I forgot. In fact, I didn’t think about it until the next day, and I didn’t have a chance to look at it until Saturday night.”

“You opened the note and read it. Why?”

Jaymie rolled her eyes. “Curiosity, I guess.”

“What do you make of the contents?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

Vestry’s cool gray gaze flicked over Jaymie. “Come on, Ms. Müller, you can tell me what you thought.”

“I didn’t know. I don’t know,” she said firmly.

“Okay.” Vestry scratched something on her clipboard and checked her phone screen. “Did you see anything suspicious that night, anything to do with the victim’s computer in his home office?”

Uh-oh. “Why do you ask?”

Vestry, no expression on her face, said, “Just answer the question, please. It’s pretty simple.”

She had to say it, but at least she could keep the coat check student out of it. “Now that you mention it . . . I didn’t think this was important, but when my husband and I went into the office to get our coats—they were using it as a coat check room—I saw one of the servers at the computer.”

“One of the servers?”

“One of the casual servers the Nezers had hired.”

“Did you recognize the server?”

Jaymie took a deep breath. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

“And . . . ?” Vestry prompted when Jaymie was silent for too long.

Jaymie squirmed in her seat. “It was Jacklyn Marley.”

“Did you ask her what she was doing?”

“Have you asked her yourselves?”

“Just answer the question, Ms. Müller.”

Jaymie sighed. “I did. She told me there were . . . irregularities in how she was paid as a ghostwriter for Mr. Nezer’s book, and she was trying to discover if he was holding back information or revenue from her. I told her I didn’t think it was a good idea, but I didn’t turn her in. That was between them. My husband left it up to me whether to say anything, and I said we should leave it.”

“You’re a good friend of Ms. Marley’s?” Vestry asked, seeming not surprised by the information.

The nervous coat check girl had probably already told all. “No, I wouldn’t say that. We met briefly the other day.”

“So why were you hiding her activities from us?”

Jaymie sighed. One of Detective Vestry’s favorite questioning techniques was to imply collusion or coercion where none existed. “I wasn’t hiding anything, I didn’t mention it. If you can tell me why I would have thought it relevant, I’ll apologize for the omission.” She paused, watching the other woman’s chilly gray eyes. “What does her being on Nezer’s computer have to do with his murder?”

“It was within a few hours of his death, or even less. She appears to have a substantial conflict with the victim and was looking for information by hacking into his computer.”

Jaymie was silent; she made good points, but none of this had anything to do with her.

“I’m left wondering what else haven’t you told us?”

“Let’s see . . . I went to a farmers’ market yesterday. I saw my in-laws. I took a walk with my dog.” She shrugged helplessly. “I can’t relate every moment of the last forty-eight hours. How do I know what you’ll think I was hiding when I don’t feel like I’m hiding anything?” Jaymie was exasperated, and mortifyingly close to tears.

“I don’t mean to badger you, Jaymie, but this is a murder investigation. You’re not stupid; you’re the polar opposite of stupid.” She rolled her eyes. “Okay, I’ll admit something: I value your observations. This will go more smoothly if you tell us everything you know or think you may know. You’re a smart young woman and you’ve been through this before. You know what I mean. Stop worrying about incriminating anyone in particular and tell us what you’ve witnessed or thought of.”

There was so much she had asked and heard and thought about, like Finn Fancombe and his activity protesting Nezer, and his badgering his mother to intercede and let him into the party, and how that related to his showing up later. And about Sarah Nezer accusing her ex-husband of stealing novels thirty years ago, and . . . what else? She shrugged helplessly, weary and discouraged. She could talk all day, but all of this was stuff the police could, and probably would, find out, and that Vestry would no doubt find irrelevant. Jaymie had been accused of telling them stuff that didn’t matter in the past, and now of withholding stuff. They couldn’t have it both ways. She was getting irritated. “If I think of anything, I’ll let you know.”

“I feel like you’re hiding something, Jaymie. I thought we were past that.”

She stayed silent and shook her head.

Vestry’s mouth tightened into a grim, thin line. She waited, but when Jaymie didn’t say anything else she stood and looked down at Jaymie. “I’ll let the historical society know when you can dismantle that . . . what is it, diorama? Until then, stay away from it.” She stared down at Jaymie. “But I am surprised that you didn’t bother to tell us that the holly piercing Nezer’s heart was from your very own Queensville home backyard.”