Chapter 40
Noah stared across Summer at Harper. “What’s going on?” He glanced back at the screen and saw nothing to explain Harper’s reaction. The picture wasn’t that shocking. There were likely many others that were worse if Summer dug deeper through the site.
“You don’t know who that is?” Harper said. He shook his head. “Remove the leather and makeup and add clothes scrounged from your grandmother’s closet. Then tell me if you know her.”
He leaned in and his chest tightened. “Betty Anne? No.” It took several seconds to undo his first impression and bring his thinking around. Yes, the face was the widow’s.
“Betty Anne has been hiding a rocking body,” he said, taken aback by the picture. A fist came out from behind Summer and socked him in the arm. “Hey. I’m speaking clinically.”
“Sure,” Harper said. Both women frowned at him.
He held up his hands in surrender. “Would you rather I said that Betty Anne appears to have some excellent musculature due to many hours spent doing Pilates and eating kale?”
“Yes,” they both said, with Summer grinning. The tech added, “But I agree with you. Betty Anne is rocking that leather.”
Noah examined the post with a critical eye. “There are many disturbing things about the picture, not the least is that putting herself on a site like that could leave the widow open to all sorts of potential dangers.”
“It also adds more suspects to the list.” Harper rubbed her eyes. “Any one of her playmates could be our killer.”
After further contemplation and examination of the page, Noah disagreed. “There is nothing on the post with her name and it’s unlikely that she’d risk her children by telling her lovers who she really is.”
Harper fell silent. Summer sat back and waited for her to weigh this new twist.
“You’re right,” Harper said, finally. “And I think we found out what revenge Betty Anne mentioned to her friend. She’s leaning back against Gerald’s desk. If she leaked that picture to him, he would have gone ballistic.”
“It would explain part of why he treated her so badly,” Summer said. “I’ve kept in touch with some of the girls. He was awful. More so, recently.”
“The hypocrite,” Harper added. “I hope he popped a couple of blood vessels when he saw this. Cheating in any form is wrong. But I’m glad she has some backbone, even if she could have used it in a more productive way.”
Summer said, “Like leaving Gerald.”
Despite being bothered by the post, the two women found strength in Betty Anne to admire.
“You know this doesn’t take her off the suspect list,” Noah said. “They could have had a fight that got ugly.”
“The post is a year old,” Summer added. “That’s twelve months for him to stew over his cheating wife.”
“True, but she wasn’t the knife-wielder,” Harper said. “We know the suspect was male.”
Noah sat back in the chair and stared at the ceiling. “That doesn’t mean the dominatrix didn’t hire out the murder.”
* * * *
While Noah and Summer discussed a few possibilities, Harper let her mind drift. Around every corner, new information about the victim and suspects popped up. When she thought she had all the players in the case wedged into perfect boxes, something would show up and she’d have to change her entire way of thinking.
Suddenly she realized that was how Summer, Taryn, and Jess had to think every day with every new case. The obvious wasn’t always correct. Yet, sometimes it was spot on.
“We need to talk to Betty Anne,” she said. “Summer, can we get a printout of that post?”
Seconds later, the printer whirred to life. The color print was remarkably clear. Betty Anne would see them now.
“Remember what happened last time we went to her house,” Noah said and explained what happened to Summer. He ended with. “I was almost eaten by her dogs.”
“Terrible,” Summer exclaimed. “Betty Anne isn’t nice.”
“She’ll talk to us this time.” Harper waved the paper around to make sure the ink was dry. Then she held it out. “We have the golden ticket.”
Since it was late and she and Noah didn’t feel like driving all the way back to Lansing, they went home and Harper spent the next two hours showing him how much she appreciated him stopping mid-seduction to run over to Summer’s house, without complaint.
They slept until seven and Noah retreated to his apartment to shower and change. They met back at Harper’s wreck of a rental vehicle an hour later. Harper patted the car and said, “Not much longer, Harvey.”
The poor car sputtered to life. Gray smoke coughed out of the tailpipe. Noah looked to heaven and Harper suspected he was praying to the gods of automobiles for divine intervention.
Not that he wanted the car to last a few more days, but that the angels would send down a lightning bolt and put an end to poor Harvey once and for all.
An hour and a half later, they pulled up to the Covington mansion. This time the gates were closed. Betty Anne had learned her lesson.
Harper pressed the buzzer on the fence.
“What do you want?” The voice was harsh and female. Berit.
Patience strained, Harper struggled to remain polite. She didn’t want to pull out the big guns unless pushed. “We are here to talk to Betty Anne. Let us in.”
“Go away.”
Patience failed. Harper grabbed the printout, climbed from the car, and slammed the photo over the security camera with an open palm. “You want to rethink that answer?” she snapped into the speaker.
The gate swung open. “That’s what I thought.” They pulled up the drive and parked out front. Before she and Noah got out, they carefully checked the vegetation for a canine ambush.
“The dogs are tied up,” Berit yelled from the open doorway.
“Excuse us for not trusting your word,” Harper said as she and Noah carefully got out. The only sound coming from anything not human was a crow squawking from a nearby tree.
They tromped up the steps and onto the porch. Harper was not taking BS from anyone. “Where’s Betty Anne?”
The assistant stepped aside, her jaw working angrily beneath taut skin. “In the living room. Follow me.”
Betty Anne sat gingerly on the edge of a floral settee. Gone was the usual gulag garb in favor of black slacks and a yellow top and her hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail. She looked years younger than the plain mouse persona she normally favored.
“Harper.”
“Betty Anne.”
“Please have a seat.” Harper and Noah sat side by side in a pair of chairs. “I’d like to apologize for sic’ing my dogs on you before. That wasn’t polite.”
Whether she was sorry or just trying to mitigate the damage Harper could do with the BDSM post remained to be seen, but they weren’t there to start an angry confrontation. They wanted answers that only the widow could provide.
Still, tension crackled between them.
Noah jumped in. “We accept.”
Betty Anne smiled tightly at him. He knew how to difuse any situation. Besides, he was the most aggrieved party. He’d almost been a doggie chew toy. If he could forgive, so could she. Or pretend to.
Drawing in a deep breath, Harper moved on. “Look, Betty Anne, we don’t want to jack you up with the BDSM business. What we want is to clear my name. I didn’t kill Gerald and I’m tired of waiting for the police to drag me off to jail.”
The widow turned red. For a woman advertising on a spank-me-call-me-bad-names website, she sure got embarrassed to having been caught. But would she confess?
Betty Anne spent a moment staring out the window where birds fought over seeds in a bird feeder. Harper braced herself for lies. It seemed the Covingtons only told the truth if it benefitted them. What she said when she spoke nearly knocked Harper flat.
“I can help you with that,” the widow said. “I know who killed Gerald.”