Will she make the suicide of this poor, depressed man into a murder? You’re not Miss Marple, Sara, so put away your magnifying glass.
Sara flopped back on the bed, engulfed by the covers. When she heard the door open, she didn’t bother to see who it was. If it was a gunman, she’d welcome him.
Jack sat on one side of the bed, Kate on the other.
“Looks like you saw it,” he said.
Sara put a pillow over her face. “Kill me now. Please.”
“Killing is what got us into this problem,” Jack said. “Who told them that we think it’s a murder?”
“How would I know?” Sara removed the pillow. “I got bawled out by Bella.”
“Wait until she finds out there’s a skeleton in her conservation area,” Kate said.
“She wanted everything in there protected from invasion and that’s what she got,” he said.
“Are you making jokes?” Kate asked.
“Trying to. Doesn’t seem to be working. So what’s our plan for today?”
“Go home,” Sara said. “Home to Florida. I miss my iguanas and the Bird of Paradise flowers and—”
“Ha!” Jack stretched out on top of the comforter beside her. “We aren’t allowed to leave, remember?”
Kate lay down on the other side. “Yes, let’s do go home. We’ll send Bella a note, using your most expensive stationery. ‘Dear Bella, there’s a skeleton in a hole in your backyard. He was probably murdered by one of your guests, so for your own safety, send them away. Best always, Sara.’ How does that sound?”
“Good,” Jack said. “Everyone will like that. Especially whoever did away with Mr. Howland for whatever reason they did it. But they’ll probably figure out that Puck found the bones. Too bad. Not our problem.”
“If we warned Bella, she wouldn’t tell,” Sara said tentatively.
Jack snorted. “Like we thought nobody would tell some reporter—who we never saw—about you and murder and all the other lies in that paper? Isn’t there a saying about only one person being able to keep a secret? Two people know and the world does.”
“Probably,” Sara mumbled. “Maybe I should go home and write a book with that theme. One person knows a lie, then she tells her bestie, then...” She shrugged.
Jack threw a leg off the bed. “Okay, I’ve had all the wallowing I can take. Besides, no one felt sorry for me on the Morris case when that reporter cut me to ribbons.”
“You slept with her!” Kate and Sara said in unison.
“Yeah, well,” Jack said. “She still—”
“This isn’t about you,” Kate said. “We need to figure this out, but we don’t know how. We—”
“Nicky had been beaten up,” Sara said as she sat up.
Kate and Jack looked at her. “Who? Why? When?” they asked.
“The night of the party,” Sara said. “Someone beat up Nicky.”
“The cop tell you this?” Jack asked.
Sara nodded. “For a price. I’m to turn him over to my agent.” She leaned back against the headboard, hugging a pillow to her. “Each perso
n who was there knows something. Even if they don’t realize that they know it.”
Kate leaned back. “Something they don’t want to tell.”
Jack took the other side of the headboard. “Okay, Miss Plotter, what do we do to make them talk?”