Bright New Murder: A Plain Jane Mystery Read online

  Finally, someone who looked guilty.

  And yet, the protesters hadn’t been farther than two feet from the door the whole evening, so could it have been her?

  Jane used Jake’s tablet to note the woman’s description and how she was acting.

  Then she sat down next to the shifty dishwater-blonde protester.

  The woman scooted away from Jane.

  “Hey.” Jane wanted to put her at ease—at just enough ease to answer some questions. “You’re looking a little pale. Can I get you something?”

  The woman passed her hand over her eyes and shook her head. “No. I-I’m okay.”

  “You’re not fasting in protest, are you?” Jane asked.

  “No.”

  Jane bit her lip. How to draw this woman out? She wished her class on interview techniques was not at the end of the school year.

  “You look weak.” She turned to the young man sitting to the left of the protester. “Doesn’t she look weak?”

  “Yeah. She does.” The man gave his friend a look of concern. “You should put your head between your knees for a minute.”

  The woman leaned forward and rested her head on her knees.

  “I’m going to get you water, all right?” She counted down the line of protesters. “I’m going to get you all water. And some dairy-free smoothies, okay? We do have some made with almond milk.”

  When the young man sitting next to the shifty dishwater blonde nodded his approval, Jane went to the kitchen. She filled a tray with vegan smoothies and grabbed a bucket full of water bottles. She passed them out to the protesters and then sat with her suspect.

  “I’m Jane.”

  “Valeria.” She pressed her lips together and looked at the ground.

  “Are you feeling any better?”

  Valeria shook her head.

  Jane leaned forward, just a bit, so she could lower her voice. “Do you want to talk?”

  Valeria opened her mouth, but the young man next to her wrapped his arm around her knee and interrupted her. “She’s okay.”

  Jane nodded, then reflected, “You feel like she’s okay and doesn’t need to talk.”

  “That’s right.” The man sat back, but his face was still tense.

  “What about you? How do you feel?” Jane tried to make eye contact, but Valeria’s gaze shifted around the room, until it locked on something just over Jane’s shoulder.

  Jane turned.

  Rose of Sharon stood right behind her, arms crossed, cheeks fiery red.

  “Thanks for the waters.” Rose of Sharon tapped the bucket with the toe of her moccasin. “I can take care of my friends from here.”

  Jane didn’t move. If she had learned anything in Criminal Justice 101, she had learned that she had to project authority to gain trust. She adjusted her posture, made eye contact with Rose of Sharon, lifting one eyebrow as though she questioned what Rose of Sharon was saying, and smiled, lightly, as though she weren’t about to pee her pants from fear and nerves.

  “Hey, gang!” Jake flopped his arm around Rose of Sharon’s shoulder.

  Rose of Sharon shuddered.

  “The cops are almost done here. I’m giving out the rest of the sandwiches if any of you are hungry, but in about five minutes we’ll have the all clear to go home. Janey, thanks for passing out the waters. Can you help with the sandwiches?”

  Jane widened her eyes and tipped her head towards Valeria.

  “That’s a yes? Great, thanks!” Jake headed to the next group.

  Rose of Sharon smirked. “If you have any gluten-free vegan sandwiches, I’m sure we’d all appreciate it.”

  Jane glanced at Valeria. Her eyes were downcast, but the young man next to her looked triumphant. Jane let out a slow breath and headed to the kitchen. Her first-ever semi-professional investigation and she’d managed to wrest one name. And just a first name at that.

  Utterly useless.

  Her phone rang while she stacked sandwiches. The ringtone alone told her it was Isaac. She turned her phone off and realized she hadn’t written a single thing on Jake’s tablet.

  4

  The next morning Jane rose late. She made a pot of coffee and sat at the breakfast bar with her phone for company. In the night, she had had three calls and two texts, all from Isaac. She stared at the phone, but wouldn’t read the texts. Wouldn’t listen to the messages. If she did, she’d take him back. And she was fairly sure she didn’t want to do that.

  She nursed her coffee like it was medicine. Last night Jake had driven his sister and Gemma home, leaving Jane to take care of herself. Of course, in general, that’s how she liked things. But not so much after a crisis. After a crisis, she liked company. Instead, she had come home alone, and gone to bed before Gemma returned. She hadn’t slept much, and was paying for it now with a headache and a strong wish to go back to bed.

  She held her cup to her nose, the rich coffee aroma warming her even though it was still too hot to drink. She could hear Gemma stamping around in the bathroom, but hadn’t seen her yet. If Gemma felt anything like Jane did, it was probably best they weren’t in the same room.

  Gemma padded down the hallway and into the kitchen. She was up early, for her, and the dark shadows under her eyes indicated she hadn’t slept well.

  She clicked the radio on, but the sound was just fuzzy white noise.

  Jake ambled out of the bathroom, a toothbrush hanging from his mouth.

  Jane set her cup down and tried not to stare. “Uhh…”

  Gemma didn’t look…guilty. In fact, her face split into a giddy grin as soon as she spotted Jake.

  Jake slid onto the stool next to Jane. “Mornin’.”

  Jane rubbed her eyes. What had Jake done now? Though she had hoped for a Gemma/Jake hookup ever since introducing them, she hadn’t seen any signs of…this.

  “Morning,” Gemma said with a nauseating giggle.

  Jake winked.

  Jane rested her now-throbbing head on her hand. Flirting. The Gemma/Jake thing had been limited to flirting. She had been fobbing them off on each other for months now, but it hadn’t seemed to have taken.

  They hadn’t really…had they?

  Jake’s eyes were just as tired as Gemma’s, and he had a matching silly grin. His slacks were wrinkly like he had slept in them, and his hair stood up on end. He had clearly woken up here. Jane stared, her mouth slightly ajar.

  Jake narrowed his eyes. “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

  Jane gagged.

  Gemma dropped her coffee cup. It hit the linoleum with a thud and splashed coffee all over her legs. “Jeeze, Jake, what’s that about?”

  “Look at Jane. She’s thinking horrible things about us right now.”

  “Jane, you wouldn’t…” Gemma’s face turned fifteen shades of red.

  “I, uh…” She took another drink of her too-hot coffee. “Dang it.” She banged the cup down. “If you aren’t here because you spent the night with my cousin, why are you here?”

  “It’s lonely at my house, and you have a very comfortable sofa.”

  “Go home.” Jane flicked a paper napkin so it skidded across the breakfast bar.

  “I couldn’t abandon two beautiful, vulnerable ladies after our harrowing night. Especially while the killer is still on the loose.”

  “Oh, no.” Jane’s heart sank. “She did die then?”

  “Indeed. If you weren’t such a sleepyhead, you’d know that. It’s been all over the news this morning.”

  “Did they say who she was?” Jane picked up her coffee cup again, but she just held it, and let it warm her hands.

  “Nope. She won’t be identified until the family has been contacted.” Jake held his hand out to Gemma. “Coffee me, please?”

  Gemma handed him a mug.

  “The game is afoot, Jane, and it’s up to you to solve it. What do you do first?”

  Jane didn’t want to answer him. Especially since she didn’t know what to do first. She was inclined to take a lon
g, hot shower and then go back to bed, but she really wasn’t going to tell Jake that. “Wait.”

  “You’re going to wait, or I have to wait for your answer?”

  “I’m going to wait—and pray.”

  “No extra points for church answers. I want to hear your game plan.” Jake grabbed hold of her shoulders and gave them a vigorous rub. “I’m in your corner, champ.”

  Jane twisted out of his grip. While the shoulder rub felt good—very good, if she was being honest—the daggers Gemma was shooting at her weren’t worth it. “It might sound like a church answer to you, and maybe to Gemma as well, but I don’t know what to do next. I don’t have enough training or experience, and no one has hired me to investigate. I do feel like I was there at that time on purpose, but that doesn’t make the job easy.”

  “Good. Easy work isn’t worth it.” Gemma yawned deeply after her bon mot.

  “Are you on call today?” Jane changed the subject.

  “Yup, and thank goodness. We need to get these babies delivered.”

  Jake lowered his voice so Jane could just barely hear him. “Don’t turn the conversation. I’m here to help you, but I can’t stay all day.”

  Jane groaned. “Then go, Jake. I’ll figure out what I need to figure out.”

  Jake threw himself across the couch. “Okay. You’ll do your thing. Gemma and I will do ours. Consider me gone, in the ‘interfering in your business’ sense, even though I’m technically still here in the ‘I’m still in your living room’ sense.”

  Gemma joined him on the couch. “And what is our business today?” She didn’t try to suppress her grin.

  “We need to talk numbers. Very boring, but important for things like fundraisers and such. I have a feeling if you check the account we set up for donations, you will find that the little murder attempt has made your fundraiser go viral. There are some silver linings here today, my friend.”

  Gemma slid onto the couch. “That’s a good thing, I guess.”

  “You bet your sweet bippy it’s a good thing.”

  Jane rested her head on her folded arms. Jake was going to do half her work for her, she could tell. But what was he going to do about Gemma? If she had learned anything from her readings on body language, the way that Jake had jumped up from the couch when Gemma let her hand fall on his knee indicated that Jane’s assumption that they had gotten up to shenanigans last night was the least likely thing in the world. It looked like the Gemma/Jake thing wasn’t going to happen.

  And Gemma was going to end up very disappointed.

  ***

  Despite nervously watching Twitter, the news, and listening to the radio every spare second of the morning, Jane and Gemma didn’t hear another word about their murder until well after noon.

  Jane had spent the morning cleaning for two clients and trying to ignore that she didn’t have any new messages or texts from Isaac.

  Gemma had assisted a birth.

  By the time they met back at their apartment for a late lunch, they were exhausted.

  Jane stretched across the couch with a yogurt. Her shoulders ached. Her morning headache had progressed. Now it felt like a nail piercing her temple. She was starving but couldn’t put the effort into anything more than peeling the foil lid off of the plastic cup of Oikos.

  Gemma slumped at the breakfast bar, her head in her hands.

  There was a tap at the door, and then Jake poked his head in.

  Jane groaned.

  He plopped a greasy paper bag on the counter next to Gemma. “Lunch. Eat. And listen.” He tapped his phone and a newscast turned on.

  “The stabbing at the Yo-Heaven fundraiser for the Helping Hands Early Education Center on December twenty-sixth turned a yo-heavenly night into hell for everyone at the party. It is being called a coldhearted fro-yo murder.

  An hour into an event intended to provide quality early intervention education to the children of homeless families, a woman, now identified as Nevada resident Michelle White, was stabbed in the side. The wound proved to be fatal.

  White, a mother of one and grandmother of three, was in town for the holiday.

  The police believe the incident was a random act of violence.”

  “It says something about the Adler-Crawford Detective Agency that the latest information on our current case comes from the Mount Hood Community College School of Journalism podcast, doesn’t it?” Jake said.

  Gemma snickered. “The Adler-Crawford Detective Agency? We’re all in business together now?”

  “You’re not a detective, Gem, sorry.” Jake sat on Jane’s legs. “Jane, what are you going to do now that the ‘Pod-vocate’ has handed you your information on a silver platter?”

  “I’m going to eat a hamburger. That’s what you have in the bag over there, isn’t it? A burger with a roly-poly bun?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Then pass that on a silver platter.”

  Gemma tossed a paper-wrapped burger to Jane.

  “You’re trying to pester me into action, Jake, but you don’t have to.” Jane took a huge bite of the juicy burger on the fat bun.

  “She has been working on this.” Gemma grabbed a French fry. “Not McDonalds, but it will do.”

  Jane swallowed. “I’ve got alerts set. I would have heard this as soon as I checked them. And I know exactly what I’ll do next.”

  “If you say you’re going to google Michelle White from Nevada, you’re a big dork.”

  “True, the first step has changed. Michelle White is not the Hortense Swiggenbotham kind of name I had been hoping for. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m doing next.”

  “Okay then, what are you doing next?”

  “I’m going to…” Jane bit her lip. She couldn’t let Jake know she was making this up just now. “I’m going to find out who brought Michelle White to the fundraiser.”

  “And how are you going to do that?”

  “Facebook.” Jane grabbed her phone from the coffee table and logged onto Plain Jane’s Good Clean Houses Facebook business page.

  “Hey guys! I’m looking for the person who brought Michelle White to Gemma’s fundraiser! All tips welcome! She clicked the boost button and added twenty dollars to the fund. Then she shared it on her private page too.

  “Facebook?” Jake scowled. “That’s not hard-boiled detecting.”

  “Very true. But do I look like a hard-boiled detective?” Jane pulled the elastic out of her ponytail and let her hair fall over her shoulders.

  “Fair enough. But you’re not going to just sit and wait for someone to contact you, are you?”

  Her phone bleeped.

  She raised an eyebrow and smiled, but her heart thumped. She read the PM out loud. “Hey Jane! My mom brought Michelle with her! We can’t even believe she’s gone. Everyone at home is totally crushed, but I know Mom would talk to you, if you wanted to.” Jane grinned. “And now, my next step will be connecting with Sarah Henry’s mom.” She tapped out her request for Sarah’s mom’s digits.

  Jake frowned. “That’s all well and good, but I think there should be more trench coats and magnifying glasses involved.”

  “Don’t jump ahead. We’ll take this investigation one step at a time.”

  “We?” Gemma interjected.

  “Of course ‘we.’ I’ll need all the help I can get.”

  Gemma squeezed herself between the arm of the couch and Jake. “Awesome.”

  Jane got up. “I’m beat. I didn’t sleep well last night. I’m hoping Sasha Henry will be able to see me later today, so I’m going to take a quick nap and then a shower. You two…sort out your guest list, and donations and stuff, and then figure out who was at the party that really shouldn’t have been there.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” Gemma’s smile could have lit the room.

  “Let me know if you need help napping. I’m great with a snuggle.” Jake tipped his head at Jane as she walked away.

  Jane tried her best to sleep—a fifteen-minute power nap would
make a world of difference—but her mind was racing and she couldn’t slow it down.

  Michelle wasn’t from around here. Michelle was a friend of one of her own mom’s friends. Michelle had grandkids. But what had Michelle done to make someone want to kill her? Her husband hadn’t been mentioned. Was she married? Divorced? Widowed?

  Jane sat up and started writing her questions down. First she had to figure out what she needed to know, then she had to figure out how to get the information from Sasha Henry without coming across as nosy, or morbid.

  She narrowed her field of questions to learning Michelle’s backstory, and learning what her plans in Portland were. She hoped that by comparing the two, she might be able to spot the thing that made her a likely victim.

  This random act of violence business didn’t fly with Jane. Not at all.

  5

  Sasha Henry phoned while Jane was still in the shower, a fact Jake used to his advantage.

  “My eyes are closed, I promise.”

  “GET OUT!” Jane poked her head around the shower curtain but held it against herself with an iron grip.

  “Trust me, you want this interruption. Maybe not as much as I do, but you want it.” He held up her phone and waggled it a little.

  “Jake.” Jane took a deep breath. “Get out of my bathroom.”

  “It’s the Henry woman, but if you don’t want to talk to her, I can.”

  Jane shut off her water. “I think I hate you.” She reached for the phone with one hand, but kept the shower curtain tight in her hand.

  Jake pulled the phone back, just a tad.

  Jane gritted her teeth.

  “Kidding.” Jake set the phone on the bathroom counter and left, shutting the bathroom door behind him.

  “Sasha? This is Jane Adler. Thanks for returning my call.”

  “Not at all. You’re Nancy Adler’s girl? The one who cleans houses?”

  “Yes, that’s me.” Jane sat on the edge of the bathtub, shivering. Her towel hung from the hook on the door, but she was afraid of messing up the phone call, so she didn’t grab it.

  “What can I do for you?” Sasha’s voice was raspy and emotional. “You said you wanted to talk about Michelle?”