Jaina sat down next to him, leaning forward, as if she was ready to hug him if he burst into tears. “It’s okay. I won’t say a word, and Mom’s the diplomat. What’s so bad that you can’t tell Uncle Luke?”
Cut to the chase. The longer he built up to it, the worse it would be. Ben concentrated on calm, rational language.
“I don’t think Alema Rar killed my mother, “he said.
The words hung in the air as if he could see them. “I still think Jacen did.”
Leia just stood there, arms folded, but she didn’t react. Jaina shifted a fraction on the seat. If anything, they seemed…. embarrassed. He waited in the agonizing silence.
“What makes you think that?” Leia asked at last.
“I’m not going to rely on what I feel, “Ben said. “Even though I feel it. I’m going by things that don’t add up. You know what police look for? Captain Shevu taught me. Mo-tive, means, opportunity. And family doesn’t seem to mean much to Jacen. Look at the things he’s done to you and Uncle Han.” Ben recalled Jaina’s sudden exit from the Galactic Alliance military. “And you, Jaina. Look what he tried to do to you.”
“I know Jacen’s doing some terrible things, but let’s go through this a step at a time, “Leia said. “You’ve accused him before, but we’re all pretty messed up lately. Why is this still eating at you?”
“The way he found me on Kavan.”
“He’s good at finding people in the Force, Ben.”
“I was hiding. Doing my shutdown act. He’s not the only Jedi who can do that-he taught me to do it, and I taught Mom. I’ve even shown Dad how to do it, and he’ll tell you-once you switch out, even Master Amazing Super-Smart Jacen shouldn’t have been able to find me. And he still walked straight up to me in a tunnel on a deserted planet that’s the back end of beyond. That’s not luck, and it’s not finding me in the Force. He knew. And then there was the Sith meditation sphere that Lumiya had.”
He’d kept it to himself all this time. The longer you kept a secret, the harder it got. If only he’d disobeyed Jacen and told Dad about the thing. If only…. maybe Mom would have still been alive.
Ben would never know.
“What about the sphere?” said Jaina.
“I found it on Ziost. I handed it over to Jacen when I docked it in the Anakin Solo. Next time I see it, Lumiya’s driving.”
Leia sucked in a little breath. “Lumiya was always adept at taking what she wanted.”
“The Anakin Solo might be slack when it comes to stopping infiltrators, Aunt Leia, but I can’t see Lumiya just wandering in and stealing the sphere without someone knowing about it.”
“Okay, file all that under unexplained. How about motive?”
Jaina seemed to be holding her breath. Leia looked away for a moment as if she was weighing the evidence. It didn’t amount to much - yet.
“How about the fact that Mara was in his way, like any good Jedi?” said Jaina sourly.
“No, let’s hear Ben’s view.”
Ben was theorizing now. “I spent a lot of time telling Mom about all the things Jacen was asking me to do in the Guard, and I could see it made her mad. I’m sure she bawled him out.”
“Okay, so that’s motive, maybe. Now let’s look at means.”
“Only a really skilled Jedi could ever take down Mom. Look at all the stuff Jacen can do.”
“But poison? That’s Alema’s trademark.”
“So it’s obvious to use it to draw suspicion elsewhere, isn’t it?”
“Sweetheart, Alema had the sphere. She was in league with Lumiya. We know that. And I’m sure Captain Shevu would confirm that people stick with one method of killing that they feel confident using. Alema spent the last year trying to kill as many of us as she could.”
Ben was off and running down the behavioral path now. “Okay, Alema was crazy, but she didn’t have a motive for killing Mom. It was always about you and Uncle Han.” He shook his head. “I don’t buy it, because she’d have bragged about it to Jag if she’d done it. She’d have wanted us to know she got in one good shot, to hurt us all, to hurt you. And then there’s opportunity. She was in the area, yes, but we also know for sure that Jacen was in the Hapan system around the time it happened.”
Leia really looked as if she was taking it seriously. She hadn’t rolled her eyes or told him he was being stupid, or even rushed to defend Jacen. That wasn’t a surprise given what Jacen had done to her, his own mother.
“Well, it doesn’t clear him, “she said at last. “But it’s not exactly enough to take to a judge, is it? He could have been in the Hapan system planning to kidnap Allana.”