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Back Murder Past Due Save as PDF
Chapters (36)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Acknowledgements
  4. ONE
  5. TWO
  6. THREE
  7. FOUR
  8. FIVE
  9. SIX
  10. SEVEN
  11. EIGHT
  12. NINE
  13. TEN
  14. ELEVEN
  15. TWELVE
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. TWENTY-FIVE
  29. TWENTY-SIX
  30. TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. TWENTY-NINE
  33. THIRTY
  34. THIRTY-ONE
  35. THIRTY-TWO
  36. THIRTY-THREE

Julia was getting angry with me again, but I wasn’t going to back down.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll get it out of my head for a moment. But let me ask you another question.” I hated doing this, but Julia was obviously—at least to me—lying about her time at the hospital.

“Well, go ahead.” Julia glared at me.

“If I asked Ezra whether you were with him all day at the hospital, what would he say?”

Julia’s eyes narrowed. “What is that supposed to mean? Of course Ezra would say I was with him.”

“Then one of you would be lying.” I said it as gently as I could. “It’s no use. I know one of you was in Godfrey’s room today.” I paused for a moment to let the words sink in.

Julia paled, and I knew I was right. I felt no satisfaction from it.

“How?”

“Justin found something belonging to Ezra in the room,” I said. “When he went back and found Godfrey dead.”

“Oh dear.” The fight seemed to have gone out of her—for the moment. “Is Justin going to give it, whatever it is, to the deputies?”

“No, I told him not to, for now,” I said. “He’s very worried about it, but I wanted to find out who left it there. You haven’t told him yet that you went there, have you?”

“No, I haven’t.” Julia shook her head. “I see now I should have told him.”

“You have to tell me the truth too, if I’m going to be any use to Justin,” I said.

“I will.” Julia’s tone was firm.

“The question is,” I said, “well, two questions, actually. First, which one of you went to the hotel? And second, when?”

She leaned back in the chair again. “It was me. Ezra never left the hospital. What did I leave there?”

“Ezra’s pen, one Justin gave him.”

“Of course. How stupid of me.” Julia shook her head. “Godfrey wanted to give me a check, but he didn’t have a pen. I had Ezra’s things in my purse, so I must have pulled out that pen and then left it behind.”

“Godfrey was alive when you left?” I hated to ask it, but I had to.

“Yes.” Julia’s eyes flashed. “Alive and mad as a hornet.”

“Why?”

“Because I read him the riot act,” Julia said. “I went there expecting to find Justin with him. And he wasn’t. When I asked Godfrey where Justin was, he told me they’d argued and why.”

“So you lit into him?” I had to suppress a smile. I recalled that Julia had a rather fiery temper as a girl.

“I did,” Julia said with a trace of satisfaction in her voice. “I told him he had to think more about what was good for Justin, and not what he wanted. He got the point.”