"If you have any idea who he hired, I'd be happy to look into it," the sheriff replied.
"He didn't have to hire anyone," I said. "He did it himself."
"But how?" Dad said, eagerly. I could hear the words "cast-iron alibi" muttered from several directions in the crowd, and the sheriff was shaking his head regretfully.
"I wasn't anywhere near here when Jane was murdered," Jake said, smugly. "So how could I possibly have done it?"
"The storage bin," I said. "That's how you did it. And where you did it."
Jake froze.
"She was accusing you of selling her sister's possessions or giving them to Mother," I went on. "I overheard you telling her that the jewelry was in the safety deposit box and the furniture and paintings were safe in your storage bin. She didn't want to wait, did she? The bank wasn't open on the weekend, but you promised her that you'd take her to the storage bin as soon as the party was over. And you did. But she never came back. Not alive, anyway."
"This is ridiculous," Jake said. But his voice was shaky.
"Did you drug her coffee with her sleeping medication? Or did you hold a gun on her and force her to take it? Either way, you knocked her out, drove her out to your storage bin, tied her up, and left her there. Then the next day, in between a couple of errands, you asked Mother if she'd mind if you dropped by your storage bin for a minute. What was it you said you wanted?"
"His golf clubs," Mother said, frowning slightly. "He wanted to take them with us on the honeymoon."
"And of course Mother didn't want to go inside your stuffy old storage bin. Right? I bet she stayed in the car reading a bridal magazine while you bashed Mrs. Grover's head in with a blunt object--I'm guessing one of the golf clubs--and stowed her in the trunk of Mother's car."
"In my car?" Mother said, faintly. "We were riding around with a dead body in my car?" I saw gleams in the eyes of the two cousins who sold cars.
"He couldn't use his, Mother," I said. "It's a hatchback. And then that night, after we all went to bed, you snuck back and put her on the beach. You figured it didn't matter that the autopsy would show she'd been moved from wherever she'd been killed, because everyone would know you weren't anywhere nearby to have killed her. The fact that the body wasn't found for another whole day made it even harder to prove anything."
"That's all very interesting, Meg," the sheriff began. "But I think you're letting your imagination run away with you."
"Check his storage bin," I said, turning to the sheriff. "The U-Stor-It on Route Seventeen, bin number forty-three. Check his golf clubs for traces of blood. I bet you'll also find a lot of other interesting things in his bin, things he didn't plant in Samantha's room, like traces of foxglove plants and leftover stuff from that bomb he planted in Barry's jack-in-the box and a brand-new gorilla suit and--"
Suddenly I felt an arm grab me around the neck and a cold, metal circle pressed against the middle of my back.
"Everyone stay away! I have a gun!" Jake shouted, dragging me with him as he backed slowly away from the sheriff.
"Now, Mr. Wendell," the sheriff said, in his most soothing tone. "You don't want to make things any worse for yourself."
"Any worse! I like that! You're going to put me away for murder, and it's all his fault," Jake shrieked, pointing at Dad with the gun for a moment before sticking it in my back again. Everyone looked at Dad in bewilderment. "When we got home from the damned party, Jane told me that she knew how I'd done it," Jake said. "It was Langslow and his damned garden that tipped her off. He was going on about common household poisonings. She recognized Emma's symptoms."
"And she threatened to turn you in?" the sheriff asked. Good. Get him interested in talking and maybe he'll wave the gun again. I was too surprised to make a break the first time, but if it happened again, I'd be ready.
"She said she'd tell if I didn't pay her off," Jake said.
"She tried to blackmail you?"
"She said if I didn't pay her five-hundred-thousand dollars, she'd give Emma's ashes to the sheriff. She seemed to think you'd still be able to tell she'd been poisoned."
"So Dr. Langslow inadvertently enlightened Mrs. Grover on how you killed her sister, your late wife, and you killed Mrs. Grover to prevent her from blackmailing you?"
"You can't give in to blackmailers," Jake said, very earnestly. "They're like crabgrass; you never get rid of them. And I already had one on my back. It was going to be hard enough to get rid of her."
"Someone else was blackmailing you?" Dad asked.