Framed For Murder (An Anna Nolan Mystery) Read online

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, practically spitting, I was so mad. It had never occurred to me that Tremaine would question my boss. I didn’t want her finding out the sordid details of my personal life from the police.

  “Anna, I told you that I would be questioning your associates,” he replied, leaning against my desk, perfectly calm.

  “Yes, but what’s she got to do with this case?” I asked.

  “Often it’s the people at work who know you best.”

  “Magdalena doesn’t know anything about Jack. I’ve never spoken to her about my marriage.”

  “I apologize if you’re upset by this intrusion into your professional life, Anna, but this is a homicide investigation.”

  “Yes, you keep saying that.”

  Just then, the door burst open and Ben stormed in. He stopped dead when he spotted Tremaine and stared at him with open hostility. “What are you doing here, Tremaine?” he demanded.

  I turned to the sergeant. “You know Ben? You’ve already spoken to him?”

  “Oh yeah, Mom. He came to the house at 7:30 this morning and woke me and my roommates up. We all had to troupe down to the kitchen to answer a bunch of questions. It took so long, I was almost late for work. When I got there, my boss asked me to make a delivery, but I detoured here first to tell you about it.”

  We both glared at Tremaine. If he felt nervous being trapped between an irate mother and her hostile son, he showed no sign of it.

  “Thank you again for your time this morning, Ben,” he said. “I thought that you’d prefer answering my questions at home rather than coming down to the station. Now, if you’ll both excuse me, I have other business to attend to.” He waited for Ben to stand aside before strolling out the door. Ben watched him leave before turning back to me.

  “He’s a cool bastard, I’ll give him that. Now, what’s all this about an insurance policy, Mom?”

  I explained about the two insurance policies Jack and I had bought when he was born, and how his father had held onto his and left me as the beneficiary. Ben frowned and said, “Gee, Mom, that doesn’t sound so good. You’d better be careful around this guy. He was asking some pretty loaded questions this morning, you know? He even asked me where I was on the night Dad was killed, and asked the guys to confirm the time I got home.”

  I felt a knot of anxiety inside my chest. “I’m sorry, honey,” I said. “I should have called you last night to warn you about Tremaine. It just didn’t occur to me that he would show up at your house this morning. That was stupid of me – of course, he’ll begin by questioning anyone who’s connected with your father. Don’t worry, I’m sure that he doesn’t seriously suspect you.” In my heart, I prayed that he didn’t, anyway.

  “Especially since I was out with Tracy that night. We saw a movie, got some pizza, and were home by midnight.”

  “Tracy? Who’s Tracy?” I asked, a silly grin plastered across my face. Whoever she was, I blessed her for giving my son an alibi for the night Jack was murdered.

  “Never mind Tracy – she’s a girl I just started seeing. I’m worried about you, Mom. The way Tremaine was talking, I think he really suspects you.” Ben came close and hugged me to his chest. I was surprised; usually he gave me a peck on the cheek or a pat on the back. I hugged him back, and then loosened my grip to look up into his face.

  “Hey, honey, don’t look so worried,” I said. “The insurance policy was a big shock to me, too, but it doesn’t prove anything. The police can’t ignore the evidence just because I happen to have a motive for killing your father. For one thing, the timing doesn’t work. I was at the book club for a good chunk of the three hours the coroner set as the time of death. And another thing – the police said your father’s body was moved. Well, the forensics cop practically had his nose to the upholstery of my car yesterday, and I know he didn’t find any evidence of a body.

  Ben’s eyes bugged out. “The police looked at your car?”

  “And the house, too. It was all voluntary, Ben. Don’t worry about it. Letting the police check out the house and the car helps to clear my name. They won’t find any evidence against me because there isn’t any.” Ben shook his head, not looking very convinced.

  “And another thing – when they find the murder weapon, the police will be able to trace it back to the murderer, right? So everything will work out fine, you’ll see. It’s just scary right now because Sergeant Tremaine suspects everyone at this stage, but he has to. It’s his job. Give him some time. I’m sure that he’ll find the right person in the end.

  Ben frowned. “I sure hope so, Mom. And I’m sorry about all of this. Dad’s still making trouble for you, even after he’s dead. He probably got killed by some woman he dumped or by somebody’s jealous husband. I bet he had it coming to him, whoever it was.”

  I sighed. I hated to hear Ben talk that way about his father, even if he were right. But, knowing Jack, a rejected lover or a jealous husband was the most likely killer.

  I got Ben calmed down and out of my office only to have Magdalena pop in. “Anna, may I see you in my office, please?” she asked. I got up from my desk and followed her in, my stomach tightening. This was not a good day for my stress levels.

  “Please have a seat,” she said, indicating the chair before her desk. I sat down while she closed the door and took her place behind the desk. “Sergeant Tremaine told me about the murder investigation, Anna.”

  “I see,” I said, swallowing nervously.

  “Yes. I suppose that you were too overwhelmed to speak to me about it just yet?” I couldn’t miss the sarcasm in her voice.

  “I had hoped that the investigation would be confined to Crane and wouldn’t interfere with work,” I replied. “I’m sure you understand how much I’d like to keep this investigation private, Magdalena. Jack’s murder had nothing to do with me, really.”

  “Except that whoever killed him wanted you to find his body.” I stared at her, flabbergasted by her words. She studied me for a moment. “I assume by your expression that the thought hadn’t occurred to you?”

  “N-no, it hadn’t. But that isn’t necessarily true, is it, Magdalena?”

  “Think about it, Anna,” my boss said, leaning forward on her elbows. “Sergeant Tremaine said that you usually follow the same route when you walk your dog at night. He also said that your ex-husband’s body had been moved after he was killed. Therefore, whoever killed him moved the body to a place where you and your dog would be sure to find it.” She relaxed back into her chair. “I wonder why? It poses some interesting questions, doesn’t it?”

  I shook my head, feeling like an idiot. She was probably right about the murderer leaving the body where I would find it, but I hadn’t made the connection before. I would have to think about that when I was alone. “I don’t know what to tell you, Magdalena, except that I’m sorry Tremaine sprung it all on you,” I said.

  She shrugged. “Of course, if it affects you, I want to hear about it. By the way, Anna, the sergeant asked me some questions about you. Would you like to know what they were?”

  “Yes, please.” I had really wanted to know what the two of them had said about me, but I couldn’t think of a way to ask Magdalena.

  “Let’s see,” she said, staring off into space while she collected her thoughts. “He began by asking about your work habits. I told him that you were reliable. Then he asked if I had overheard any telephone conversations or observed anything to indicate that you were in contact with your ex-husband. I told him no. Finally, he asked if I was acquainted with your son. I told him that I had met him once, but very briefly. That was the gist of it.”

  “That’s all? That’s not much,” I said, delighted with my boss’s discretion. Tremaine wouldn’t find anything damning in that tidy little exchange.

  She considered me. “I’m sure that this investigation must be quite stressful for you, Anna. Do you require any time off work?”

  “Thank you for asking, but no, not at this point. Of course, t
hey’re sure to call me as a witness when there’s a trial.”

  “Very likely. Well, please keep me informed of any disruptions to your work schedule.”

  “Yes, I’ll do that, Magdalena, and thank you again, very much.”

  “You’re welcome.” She pulled a file from her desk tray, and I gathered that I was dismissed. As I stood, Magdalena looked up at me. “Sergeant Tremaine seemed very astute, Anna, and cautious. I’m sure that he will exhaust all possible avenues of investigation before coming to a conclusion.”

  What was this? Was she trying to reassure me? “Yes, he seems to know what he’s doing,” I responded.

  She nodded before returning her attention to the file. I left her office feeling a little better; a least Magdalena seemed to be on my side. Perhaps there was an upside to this horrible mess.

  Chapter Nine

  I stewed about the case on the drive home that night. Magdalena’s deduction that the murderer had left Jack’s body where Wendy and I would find it suddenly made the murder a whole lot more personal. Someone was trying to frame me. Worse, someone was trying to frame me who knew my habits. That meant that the killer was either someone I knew or someone who had been watching me. My heart rate quickened and I tightened my grip on the steering wheel as I wrestled with that idea.

  The murderer also had to be someone who benefitted from Jack’s death, or someone who hated him enough to kill him. I couldn’t think how anyone other than me benefited from his death; Jack didn’t have much of anything. As to hating him, that was a definite possibility. His whole life had revolved around acting and women. Jack had been a womanizer, and “cherchez la femme” definitely seemed to apply to his murder. But I had been out of touch with him for four years. What I needed to know was what Jack had been up to and who he had been doing it with since our separation.

  Clive had talked about Jack sleeping with some of the women on the movie set, particularly Amy Bright. I didn’t know the movie people, but I did know Amy well enough to say hello to her. Maybe I should follow Miss Marple’s example and talk to a few likely people about Jack. I could get some inside information from the movie folk that they wouldn’t want to share with the police. If I passed it on to Tremaine, he might be impressed by how cooperative I was being, plus I might find something that would help him solve the case. It was better than hiding out in my house, waiting to see if Tremaine was either going to find Jack’s killer or tighten a noose around my neck. I could begin by going over to Amy’s house on the pretext of wanting a manicure. She would know that I was married to Jack, and I could steer the conversation around to his murder. Yes – I had a plan! It felt good to be able to do something to forward the investigation.

  When I got home, I ate supper and took Wendy out for a walk. I wanted it to look as if I just happened to be passing by Amy’s house when I remembered that I needed a manicure. I wouldn’t be able to get much information out of her if she was suspicious of me.

  Amy’s house was on a side street five blocks away from mine, on the boundary between the old part of town and the new subdivision. It was a cute little two-storey with white siding and a neat front lawn enclosed by a white picket fence. A driveway ran up the left side of the house with a detached garage set in behind. There was a wooden sign on the front lawn with an arrow pointing to the side entrance reserved for customers. I didn’t know if she was busy with a client or not, so I decided to try the front door first. I rang the door bell a couple of times and waited, but Amy didn’t appear. The curtains were drawn and it didn’t look as if anyone was home, but there was a strong odour of wood smoke about the house. Surely she wouldn’t have lit a fire and left it? She had to be around somewhere. I stepped off the porch and craned my neck upward to see the chimney, but there was no smoke coming from it.

  “Come on, Wendy – let’s try the side door,” I said.

  We didn’t get a response there, either, so we wandered up the driveway. A high wooden fence separated the driveway from the backyard with a gate leading between them. I spotted smoke wafting over the gate. It smelled like wood smoke. What was she up to? People didn’t barbecue with wood. I hesitated, not wanting to trespass, but timidity wasn’t going to help me. I unlatched the gate and pushed my way in, pulling Wendy in behind me and closing the gate. I looked around. There was a deck along the back of the house with a fire pit sunk into the grass before it. A fire was burning in the pit and Amy was standing beside it, her back to me, with a poker dangling from her hand. I noticed a small pile of clothes lying on the grass beside her.

  I walked up behind her and said, “Hi, Amy, what are you doing?”

  She whirled around in surprise, swinging the poker toward me in defence. Wendy growled and leapt at the poker, knocking Amy to the ground.

  “Get her off me, get her off!” Amy screamed as she wrestled for the poker. Wendy clenched it in her teeth and growled, shaking her head.

  “Wendy, off!” I commanded, hauling on her leash. She growled even louder and Amy screamed again before letting go of the poker.

  A man’s face suddenly appeared over the fence. “What’s going on in there?” he called. “Hey, Amy, do you want me to call the police?”

  “No!” Amy and I both shouted. Startled, we exchanged a look. Amy looked frantic. “No,” she mouthed at me, her eyes begging me to comply.

  “It’s okay, Mister,” I called. “My dog thought the poker was a stick. When Amy didn’t throw it, my dog grabbed it and Amy tripped and fell. Wendy, lie down!” I grabbed the poker from her mouth and shoved Wendy onto the grass. She whined, flattening herself onto her belly while I helped Amy up.

  “Gee, lady, you should have better control of your dog. A dog that big could really hurt someone,” the man said.

  “I’m okay,” Amy called, brushing herself off. “Thanks for checking, Jim. That was very kind of you.”

  The man shook his head and disappeared while Amy and I gazed at each other. My hair had toppled out of its knot and was hanging in my face while Amy’s shirt had torn from her shorts.

  “You’re Anna Nolan,” she said in a soft, girlish voice. “I recognize you. You used to be Jack’s wife.”

  “That’s right. I was just stopping by to see if you could give me a manicure. I hope you can forgive this misunderstanding with my dog. I don’t know what’s got into her lately.” I said this over my shoulder as I strolled over to have a look at the fire pit. When Amy saw what I was doing, she hurried after me. Bending to examine the pile of clothes, I spotted a man’s white shirt lying on top.

  “What’s this, Amy?” I asked.

  She flushed and bit her bottom lip. “Uh, these are just some old things I don’t wear anymore,” she said. “I wanted to get rid of them.”

  “Really?” I said. “Most people donate their clothes to charity when they don’t want them anymore.”

  “I guess I’m just too lazy to bother,” she said, twisting her fingers together.

  “Why didn’t you just throw them in the garbage, then? Why go to all the trouble of burning them? Unless you’ve got something to hide?”

  Amy laughed nervously. “Don’t be ridiculous, Anna. I have nothing to hide.”

  I bent down to pick up the shirt, revealing a pair of men’s white briefs underneath.

  “Hey!” Amy shrieked, snatching the underwear off the pile, only to expose a pair of men’s black dress socks.

  “Amy Bright, either you’re a cross-dresser or you’re the worst liar in the world,” I said. “Who do these clothes really belong to? Or, should I say, who did they used to belong to? You were seeing Jack, weren’t you?” Amy gasped, and I pressed my advantage. “These were Jack’s clothes, weren’t they? What are you doing with them, and why are you burning them?”

  Amy’s eyes darted around the yard as if she was afraid someone was spying on us from the shadows. She stepped a little closer to me. “Please, Anna, don’t tell anybody,” she said in a low, urgent voice. “Yes, these are Jack’s things. The last time he came over, he
asked me to do some laundry for him so that he wouldn’t have to go to the laundromat. I told him that I didn’t mind.”

  “When was that, Amy?”

  Her voice got even quieter, as if she were a small child confessing to a transgression. “Last Thursday, the day he died. He followed me home after we were finished shooting and stayed for the afternoon. I barbecued him a steak for supper. Only, no one knows that Jack was here, and I was afraid to say so in case I got in trouble. That English police sergeant was over here today, asking about Jack. Please don’t tell him about the clothes, Anna – he might get the wrong idea.” Amy looked at me beseechingly, her big blue eyes looking scared.

  “Look, Amy,” I said, “maybe we should sit down and talk about this. Sergeant Tremaine has been asking me about Jack, too.”

  Amy smiled. “Oh, I’d like that, Anna. I’ve been so nervous since Jack died, I didn’t know what to do. It would be nice to talk to someone else about it.”

  I gestured toward the deck. “Shall we?”

  “Okay,” she said, leading me to a table and some chairs. I was excited, feeling in charge of the situation for a change. I had finally found someone who was more afraid than I was. I took a deck chair while Amy perched on the bench beside me.

  “How long did you know Jack?” I asked.

  “Not long, just a few weeks. We met on the movie set. He was really nice to me. We used to talk about acting while we were waiting for our scenes. Once, he even took me to a party for the actors and the director at an expensive restaurant. I mean the actors with big parts, not us extras. After that, Jack came over a couple of times for drinks. He said my house was real homey and he missed having a woman waiting for him at home. Jack was lonely, you know.”

  “Yeah, poor Jack,” I said. She nodded, not noticing my sarcastic tone. “How long was he with you last Thursday, Amy?”

  She closed her eyes to remember. “Let me see. He came to the house around three o’clock after he was done for the day. He parked his car in my garage so that no one would see it in the driveway. Jack said that we should keep our friendship secret because the director didn’t like the actors dating each other. ‘That kind of thing can cause trouble on the set,’ he said.”