The Begonia Bribe (24 page)

Cam doubted that was how it had gone down, but it would probably make an effective legal argument.

“Let us listen, ma’am.” The policeman clicked Play.

“I can’t believe after I helped you win Barry back that you’d implicate me in those murders,” Jessica’s voice came from the gadget.

“I did no such thing,” Mindy said.

“I heard a recording—you said I’d done it, that I was trying to get Telly’s money.”

“And you
will
get Telly’s money,” Mindy’s voice said.

“No more than if he was alive. He made a trust for the baby when the baby gets to college—it’s generous, but it’s all I get, then or now.”

“Jessica, they were suggesting Barry did it.”

“Why didn’t you trust the justice system to just catch who really did it?”

“Oh, I couldn’t let that happen.”

“Why not?”

There was a space of silence.

“Mindy, did you do it?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You did, didn’t you?”

And then Mindy exploded. “I slept with him once to earn my daughter finalist standing, and what does he do? Doesn’t follow through. Ignores me. Won’t return my calls. Not even when I told him I was pregnant!”

“You were pregnant?”

“No, but that’s not the point.”

“Maybe it is. Maybe he knew you were lying. He was horrible but not stupid.”

“He had to be stopped! He was a monster! And then I saw . . . how I could use the situation to win Barry back . . . how you could help me . . .”

“But why kill Judith?”

There was a pause where Mindy seemed to remember herself.

“I didn’t kill anyone!” she declared.

Too late.

“I think that’s enough. Mindy Blankenship, you have the right to remain silent . . .”

“I never would have believed that,” Cam whispered.

“I guess you never really know somebody,” Rob said.

“Oh, Annie could have called this.”

* * *

I
n the days that followed, Rob got a promotion and pay raise for his reporting on the twisted murder investigation, but Cam just felt concern for Lizzie and Lauren. Barry Blankenship was not the selfless person needed to raise two very different daughters by himself.

She hoped maybe Mindy’s sister could stay involved, but she was halfway across the state.

Jessica, on the third day after Mindy’s arrest, sent Cam an email letting her know she planned to keep an eye on the girls. Barry felt bad enough for Jessica’s treatment that he was letting her spend some time with them. She promised to let Cam know how they were.

Cam had been waiting for Annie when the email arrived, and they decided a little celebration was in order. She pulled out her blender and began throwing in mango, lime, tequila, triple sec, and ice.

Annie walked in as the first batch was done.

“Woohoo! You get a star for clairvoyance. How’d you know?” Annie said.

“Know what?”

Annie took her computer out of her bag and pointed at the blender, indicating Cam should pour while Annie loaded.

As Cam handed Annie the mango margarita, Annie pointed at the treasure on her computer screen and tapped the thumb drive Cam knew Annie had brought from Barry’s apartment.

“Motive for murder number two.” At Cam’s strange look, she explained. “Password for Mindy’s email was LCBEJB—the girls’ initials! So Judith saw the emails Mindy sent trying to blackmail Telly—threatening to expose him, and Judith sent back a counterthreat. Judith said she was sending Telly’s emails to the police and Mindy would be charged with murder.”

“But what if the murder hadn’t been over this?”

“I suspect Judith sent something similar to everyone who’d threatened Telly—I mean, heck, there must have been a bunch or the police would have followed this lead. Judith might have been trying to smoke out the killer, but it worked too well.”

“They can’t use this.”

“Not this copy, but they can subpoena her email records, and even if she deleted, there are recovery methods if they have this to know what they’re looking for. Or heck, get it from Telly’s computer.”

“I feel a little bad,” Cam admitted.

“For her girls, maybe. Sucks to have a mom so set on social standing and contests that she’d throw her life away like this,” Annie said.

Cam frowned. Annie was right—that was the main point. But still, Cam felt a little sorry for Mindy. As she was thinking it, her phone buzzed. Dylan Markham.

“Hello?”

“Miss Harris, how are you?”

“Fine, you?” She felt strange talking to Dylan after a few days’ break—like he was a part of some other life.

“I owed you some information. Is now a good time?”

“Sure.”

“I’m out front.”

“Oh. Your driving leg is better then?”

“No. I’m with Benny. Can we come in?”

“Of course you can.”

When she hung up, she pointed at the blender and supplies and looked at Annie. “You get a couple more ready?”

“We having a party or something?”

“Or something,” Cam said as she headed to the front door.

* * *

W
hen Cam got back to her kitchen with Benny and Dylan in tow, she caught Annie’s expression, but Annie distributed margaritas and the men sat at the table.

Cam picked up her margarita and stared at Dylan.

“So I have a success and a failure on that proof about Jessica.”

“We have the killer anyway, but let’s hear it.”

Dylan frowned. “No further proof when Telly might have been poisoned—just the telethon records, but the night Judith was killed, Jessica was with me all afternoon and evening. And the poison was in her coffee, which means it had to be put in very close to when Judith drank it.”

Cam rolled her hands, indicating he should go on. There was nothing new that she hadn’t heard.

“And Jessica has been talking to Barry.”

“So this is what? Thirdhand?”

“Pretty much. But what he said was all the evidence pointing at Mindy, she told him
I planted
—so he thought I was threatening his wife. He really did the lights and beating-up stuff, but because she’d misled him so he was trying to protect her.”

“Still, he can’t do that.” Cam wasn’t sure how Dylan thought that made it fine.

“Look. I just want it done. I dropped the charges.”

She wondered if maybe he was getting a nice, big payoff for it. She hated it, but she hated the idea of Lizzie and Lauren in foster care more, so she didn’t press the issue.

She was just glad to have the killer caught. It would make her public relations tasks significantly easier. She hoped the media flurry over the matter would die down soon.

With that in mind, she’d put the money from the pageanting project in the bank, hoping in a few months’ time—well before winter—she would be able to put it toward the car she’d been saving for. She knew just the one.