"I'll bring some chairs from the dining room," Bricker murmured, heading out of the room with Anders on his heels, but Jo hardly noticed. Her surprised gaze was on Marguerite as the woman settled in her rocking chair. She didn't look anywhere near old enough to be a grandmother.
"I'm over seven hundred years old, dear. Old enough to be a great-great-great-great-great grandmother or more if fate had been more accommodating," Marguerite said with a little sigh as Lissianna and Sam returned with Bricker and Anders on their heels. Each of the men carried two chairs.
"Well, there we are then," Marguerite said once everyone was seated. She glanced around the group, her gaze pausing on Jo. "So you think our Nicholas is innocent of murdering that mortal and hope Jeanne Louise knows something that will help prove it."
Jo blinked in confusion, and then grimaced as she realized the woman must have read her. Jeez, she really needed to learn how to guard her thoughts, Jo decided, and leaned forward to set her mug on the coffee table.
"Nicholas isn't innocent," Jeanne Louise said in a low, angry voice. "He killed that woman."
Jo peered at her, anger rolling up inside her until she saw the sad, tormented look on the woman's face. She looked ready to cry and was obviously upset to think that her brother could have done such a thing. Forcing her anger back down, Jo asked quietly, "Do you really believe that?"
Jeanne Louise looked at Nicholas uncertainly, but then said, "Decker saw him do it."
"Decker saw him with a body" Jo corrected gently.
"He said there was blood all over him," she argued in a firm voice, and Jo sat back with exasperation.
"You people and your seeing-is-believing!"
"Jo," Nicholas said in warning tones as she leaned forward to pick up her coffee.
"I'm just going to drink it," she muttered, and proceeded to do so. As Jo lowered the cup, she glanced to his sister and asked, "But if I had thrown this on you, Jeanne Louise, and you were covered with coffee, would it mean you drank it? Or even that you spilled it?"
When Jeanne Louise just stared at her, eyes widening slightly, Jo said firmly, "Nicholas didn't kill that woman. He has no memory between when he first spotted the woman in the parking lot and when he opened his eyes in his basement to find her lying dead in his arms. Someone set him up. And if it wasn't Decker, then they got super lucky that he showed up when he did, or I bet they somehow arranged for him to show up."
"But how could they have managed it?" Jeanne Louise asked quietly. "How did they get Nicholas there with the dead woman in his arms?"
"Drugs would be my guess," Jo said, and when Jeanne Louise merely bit her lip and looked uncertain, she shifted impatiently. "Look, it doesn't matter if you believe in his innocence, I do. So just tell us if you know what Annie might have wanted to tell him."
Jeanne Louise sighed, but shook her head. "I don't know."
Jo sagged with defeat, sure the girl wasn't even trying because she didn't believe.
"Jeanne Louise," Marguerite said softly, suggesting she thought the same thing.
"I don't," Jeanne Louise insisted. "We talked about loads of things. Her work, my work, family, shopping, movies, men…" She shrugged helplessly. "Everything."
"Wasn't there anything she talked about more than others?" Jo asked pleadingly.
"I'm sorry, no. Not that I recall," Jeanne Louise said unhappily.
Jo sighed and glanced around the room. "Well then maybe she mentioned something to one of you?"
When her gaze settled hopefully on Marguerite, the woman's gaze turned apologetic and she shook her head. "I'm sorry, dear. I really want to help, but we only met three times. The first time was when she and Nicholas first got together, and she was quiet and shy then. The second time was at the wedding, and we didn't get a chance to talk much at all, and then the last time was a couple weeks before she died. She and Jeanne Louise came for a visit while Nicholas was away, and as I recall…" She paused and frowned. "I think she mostly asked me about Armand."
"Armand?" Jo asked.
"My father," Nicholas told her.
"She was naturally curious about him," Marguerite murmured.
"Why naturally?" Jo asked with a frown.
"Because she hadn't met him."
Jo glanced to Nicholas and back to Marguerite with confusion. "Surely he attended the wedding?"
"No," Marguerite said quietly. "He couldn't bring himself to attend."
"He hasn't left his farm since his last wife died," Thomas said quietly. "He's become a total recluse."