Chapter Twenty-One: Revelations
"Ladies and gentlemen, we have just been cleared for our final approach to the Moonlight Diner. Please stow away all personal belongings and return your seats to the upright and locked position," Joe intoned, flicking on his signal light before making the turn into the diner's parking lot. "On behalf of our flight crew, I'd like to thank you for choosing Hardy Airlines."
Nancy's phone vibrated in her hand, interrupting her laughter. "Hey, pilot, we're receiving a transmission from the ground crew," she said, skimming the text message.
"Is it Nova? What'd she say?" Joe asked, dropping the goofball act.
"Um..." Nancy scrolled back to the top of the message and read it out verbatim. " 'Subject is a young blonde female. Arrived alone, looks nervous, not waving any weapons around. Operation is a go. Over and out.' Was she this melodramatic in high school?"
"Yeah, she's always been an oddball," Joe said, pocketing his keys. "Blonde female, huh?"
"Yeah, I know, that sounds like Faith. Don't gloat," Nancy grumbled. She popped her door open but hesitated, watching Joe check the safety on his Colt.
"All good?"
"All good. Let's do this."
They headed for the diner, moving with the seamless confidence of a team which has been honed by danger and experience. Nancy had lost count of how many times she and Joe, with or without Frank, had walked into trouble together. While Nova's text seemed to indicate that they were not walking into trouble tonight, neither of them had let down their guard yet.
The Moonlight was considerably busier tonight than it had been during their last visit. Nancy scanned the room, vaguely hearing the hostess offering them a table and Joe explaining that they were meeting a friend.
"See anyone we know?" Joe murmured, resting a hand lightly in the small of Nancy's back to guide her forward. Nancy pressed back into that hand for a moment, communicating her astonishment.
"Back left corner," she murmured back. "Jenny Rodanski. And she does seem to be alone."
Joe whistled softly. "Now that's an interesting development."
-
Jenny jumped when the detectives slid into her booth.
"I thought you weren't going to come," she said in a strained voice. The table in front of her was littered with little balled-up pieces of straw wrapper.
"Why would we stand you up?" Nancy said, moving deeper into the booth so that both she and Joe had a clear view of the rest of the diner. There would be no unpleasant surprises tonight.
"I don't know." Her fingers seemed to be moving independently of the rest of her body. They tore off another bit of straw wrapper and began twisting it as she spoke. "I wanted to meet with you alone, Nancy."
"This is my partner. You can tell him anything you wanted to tell me."
"Joe Hardy," Joe said, reaching across the table to shake Jenny's hand. "I'm mostly harmless."
Jenny looked neither amused nor convinced. She addressed herself to Nancy again. "You have to promise not to tell anyone about this meeting. Maggie thinks I'm at a computer design seminar."
"We're detectives, not hall monitors," Joe said. "Let's hear it."
Jenny hesitated. She still looked wary of Joe. Nancy suppressed a sigh. There were two angles of approach to this type of person: hand-holding or confrontation. And Nancy was not in the mood for coddling an informant. She leaned in and made eye contact with the younger woman.
"We're a team, Jenny. You can tell both of us what's on your mind, or we can walk out of here now. Your choice."
"No, wait! Don't go. I have to tell somebo-." Jenny broke off with a guilty little jump. Their waitress was approaching.
"Well, if it isn't my favorite customers!" Nova exclaimed.
"I bet you say that to all your tables," Nancy teased.
"I have to keep those tips rolling in somehow," Nova said cheerfully. "What can I get you, Nancy?"
"I'll have a cappuccino, please," Nancy said, handing over her unread menu.
Nova turned to Joe. "Let me guess: the usual."
"I have a usual? This is awesome. Nan, we have got to make this a weekly thing."
"You're gonna have to spell it out for me again, hon," Nova said, pulling out her order pad. "That milkshake had about a thousand ingredients."
"Double chocolate, with a shot of coffee...ah, crap, I can't remember the whole thing. Sprinkles, whipped cream, and cherries on top?" Joe guessed.
"I believe Oreo crumbles were involved," Nancy suggested. "And possibly hot fudge."
"I'll just have them throw in anything chocolate-based. Biscotti, brownies, chocolate liqueur..." Nova said. She tucked her pencil behind her ear and turned to Jenny. "I'll get you a refill on that Diet Sprite. Would y'all like to hear the soup of the day?"
Jenny shook her head. "No. Thanks."
Nancy shook her head as well. "I think that's all for now. Thanks, Nova."
"All righty, then. Be back in a jiff."
"I should've asked her to add peanut butter," Joe said belatedly.
"Next week," Nancy told him. "Jenny, I think you were about to tell us why you asked to meet up?"
Jenny's eyes widened. "Oh. Um, okay. I heard that Keith is out of jail."
"Yes. He made bail."
"But how?" Jenny burst out. Her reluctance to speak was gone. Now she seemed unable to stop the words from pouring out. "It's totally wrong. He had the murder weapon. The fucking murder weapon. Why would they let him out? What if he does it again? They have to-"
"Jenny- Jenny-!" Nancy had to say it twice, loudly, to cut off the girl's flow of words.
"Why are you so sure Keith did it?" Joe asked.
"Look, I know stuff about Keith." Jenny was tearing her straw wrapper again, her movements jerky and frustrated. "He's not a great guy. Faith thinks he's, like, this big puppy who would never hurt her. She has this stupid blind spot about guys she's sleeping with."
"So, Keith is a jerk. How does that make him a murderer?" Nancy asked.
"I just said, I know stuff about him. I know he's working for the people who have the paintings now. He's the one who stole them and killed Brendan."
Joe cleared his throat. "Can you give us names?"
"What names? Keith is the murderer," Jenny insisted.
Nancy and Joe exchanged a glance. She's covering for someone.
"How deeply would you say Maggie is involved with this?" Nancy asked with sudden inspiration. Her reward was immediate. Jenny's fingers slipped from the last section of her straw wrapper and her hand knocked into her glass, tipping ice and Diet Sprite across the table. Joe grabbed for a stack of napkins to stem the flow while Nancy righted the glass.
"I'd say she's in it pretty deep," Joe said with good humor.
"She's not- I mean, she didn't-" Jenny broke off, swallowing hard against some rising emotion. Anger? Panic? Nancy watched her face, intrigued. "I- I don't want to talk about Maggie."
"If it helps, we're reasonably sure Maggie did not steal the paintings herself. Was she involved with planning the theft?" Nancy guessed.
"That's not- No. Keith did it," Jenny said, reverting to her main point. "I'm positive it was him. He's the one who mailed the paintings to Hawaii. He works for my cousin's girlfriend, who works for our relatives in Hawaii."
"Do you know when he started working for them?" Joe asked.
"A few months ago, I think. My cousin, Diarmid?" She looked to Nancy, waiting for her nod before continuing. "He caught Keith stealing money from Brendan last semester. Keith's been working for Allie ever since."
"Blackmail," Nancy said thoughtfully.
"Allie isn't just working for your relatives. She is your relative," Joe told Jenny. "She's your cousin."
"But she's dating Diarmid! Does he know she's our cousin?" Jenny sat for a minute, absorbing this. She frowned, and opened her mouth to say something- but closed it again as Nova approached with their drinks.
"I'm sorry, y'all, I would've had these out a lot quicker if somebody hadn't ordered the most complicated shake in the history of milkshakes," she teased, handing a tall glass to Joe. "Try not to drink it all at once. There's so much chocolate in this, it's borderline hazardous. We're thinking of adding it to the regular menu and calling it the 'PMS Special.' "
"That's not a bad idea!" Nancy said, reaching over to steal one of the cherries off the precarious tower of whipped cream crowning the beverage. "Offer it in a to-go cup, with an order of those sweet potato fries on the side. You'll make a fortune."
"Girl, I like the way you think. You let me know when you get sick of sleuthing around with this big lummox, and we'll go into the restaurant business together," Nova said, deftly placing Nancy's coffee and Jenny's Sprite in front of them.
"I'll consider it," Nancy agreed.
"Fair enough. Let me get those wet napkins out of your way. Can I get anybody anything else?"
Joe released his straw long enough to shake his head. "I think we're set. This is perfect. Whatever you put in there, write it down."
"Will do," Nova promised. "All right, folks. Enjoy. Just flag me down if you get hungry."
When she was gone, Jenny pushed her new glass away impatiently. "What you said, before, about Allie? That's nasty. But that's not the point. The point is, they had no right to let Keith go. He's going to do it again. I need you to stop him."
Nancy was losing patience with the girl's repetition. "What makes you think there's going to be another murder?"
"The paintings Brendan found? They weren't the whole inheritance. Somebody dug up another one. Allie has to know about it. She'll send Keith to get it for her, and he'll kill again if anyone else gets in his way."
"In other words, one of your family members is also planning to steal the painting from the gallery tonight," Joe said. Again, Jenny visibly jumped.
"I didn't say that!"
"Jenny," Nancy said soothingly. "Relax. We're not looking for a scapegoat, here. We're just after the truth. I don't know what to tell you about Keith, though. He made bail, and he has an alibi for the night of the murder. We have no reason to believe he is a threat to anyone."
"Which are you going to believe? An alibi, or a bloody murder weapon hidden in his bed frame?" Jenny demanded.
"In his bed frame, huh?" Joe said mildly- too mildly. He reached for a spoon to scoop up his melting whipped cream.
"Yeah. Tell me how he can walk away from that one."
"That's not where the bayonet was found, Jenny."
A flicker of uncertainty showed in her eyes. "But...but that's where it was. I mean, that's where Faith told me she saw it."
"Faith told me she saw it lying on the floor under the bed," Nancy said.
"It must have fallen from where you wedged it," Joe added, scooping up another bite of whipped cream. Nancy touched his knee, gently, under the table, to ground herself. She knew this mood and found it slightly unnerving. He was somehow managing to radiate pure menace from behind a completely innocuous facade. It made Nancy's skin crawl, and she could see that it was affecting Jenny as well. The girl had been nervous before, twitchy and unsure of herself; but now she was rigid and wide-eyed with real fear.
"You framed him, didn't you," Joe went on, inexorably. "You did a damn good job, too. There was nothing on that bayonet to trace it back to you."
"It's not framing if he's guilty!" Jenny cried. "I was just trying to help. Nobody seemed to be getting anywhere. Not Nancy, not the cops..." Her voice shook and trailed off.
"Where the hell did you find the murder weapon?" Joe demanded.
Jenny turned pleading eyes to Nancy again, looking for sympathy. "I just...found it."
"Who are you protecting, Jenny?" Nancy asked.
"My family, from a murderer." Jenny's hands balled into fists, suddenly, and the fear in her eyes turned into something akin to defiance. "Tell me you wouldn't do the same, in my place," she demanded.
Nancy had not pinned Jenny as the type to fight when cornered. She has some backbone, after all!, she thought. Aloud, she simply said "No, I wouldn't." She reached for Joe's knee again and tapped it, letting him know to keep going. Jenny was clearly less comfortable with Joe than with Nancy. A little more pressure, and she might abandon the fight. Judging by the gleam in Joe's eyes, he was happy to comply.
"I think it's beautiful," he said. "Did you hear that, Nancy? She loves her family so much, she's going to take the rap for the murder and the theft."
"No," Jenny said, startled.
"That isn't what you meant?" Joe asked, all puzzled innocence.
"No!" Jenny said again.
"Then you are going to tell us who had the murder weapon," Joe said.
Jenny shook her head. "It wasn't any of us. We didn't do it."
"You just confessed to placing the bayonet in Keith's room," Joe said. "If you don't tell us where you got it, you're going down for this."
"You can't- Nancy, tell him he can't do this!"
Nancy shook her head. "If you don't cooperate, it won't look good for you. You're already on the hook for tampering with evidence, giving false testimony, and obstruction of justice. Just tell us where you found the bayonet."
Jenny's mouth hung open for a minute. "This isn't fair."
"Neither is framing your cousin's boyfriend for murder," Joe growled.
"Okay. Fine. It was at my mom's house. But she had nothing to do with this!"
"I don't buy that for a second, Jenny," Nancy said. "Tell us about your mother's role in the theft."
Jenny was crumbling, now. Her hands were shaking too hard to continue shredding her straw wrapper. "She knew about it," she whispered.
"Knew about it, or planned it?" Joe asked.
"Sh-she planned it with her cousin in Hawaii," Jenny said sullenly. "We were supposed to get half. That was the deal. B-but then Allie mailed the paintings to Hawaii before we could s-sell them. They double-crossed us. And n-nobody, nobody was supposed to get killed!"
"Start from the beginning on that one. Tell us about the deal," Nancy said calmly, handing the girl a napkin to wipe her eyes.
The story came out disjointedly, with lots of disclaimers. All Jenny knew, or claimed to know, was that Lana had been feeding information about Brendan's endeavors to a cousin in Hawaii, on the understanding that they would take what he found and split the inheritance. The Hawaiian branch had sent Allie out to act as their agent, but had not informed Lana that she was a family member. Instead of selling the painting locally and sharing the profit, Allie had acquired the paintings for herself and vanished, with the disgraced traitor Diarmid in tow.
"And now you're telling me Allie is actually one of our relatives, which makes everything even worse," Jenny finished. "He's sleeping with his cousin? And she knows she's his cousin?"
"I don't think Diarmid knows she's his cousin," Nancy said, as if that helped anything. There was a pause, during which Nova breezed up and set the check on the table.
"I'll just leave this here. No rush," she said pleasantly.
"Thanks, Nova," Nancy said automatically.
The waitress seemed to sense that this was not a good moment to renew their banter. She withdrew discreetly. But her brief intrusion had derailed the growing tension. Joe slid to the end of the booth, his movements quick and decisive.
"Okay, Jenny," he said. "This is how things are going to go down. You're going to hand Nancy your car keys. You're going to leave a nice, generous tip for Nova. And then you're going to walk out to the parking lot with me, calm and easy, and take a little ride with me."
Jenny looked terrified again. "W-where are you taking me?"
"River Heights Police Station," said Nancy, who had picked up on Joe's intentions. He was the one with the gun, so he would ride with the suspect.
"But I helped you!"
"Yes, and we're everlastingly grateful, but that doesn't change the fact that you're up to your ears in criminal conspiracy," Joe said pleasantly.
"Bastard," Jenny hissed. "Nancy, tell him it's not happening. I deserve, what's it called, immunity."
Nancy shrugged. "He's right, Jenny. Would you rather we called the cops and had them walk you out of here in cuffs?"
"You bitch! Fuck you!" Jenny snapped. Had she been Maggie, in this position, Nancy would have expected to have to call the police. But Jenny was not the strong-willed twin. Jenny was the pragmatic twin. She weighed her options for a moment, seething with anger; and in the end she pulled a twenty-dollar-bill from her clutch and slapped it down on the table, glaring daggers at Joe.
"Good enough?"
"It'll do. Shall we?" He stood, smiling pleasantly, and offered her his arm.
"Bastard!" she said again, jerking away from him. Nancy stifled a laugh, finished her coffee, paid the bill, and followed them out to the parking lot.
The sun, which had been setting as they arrived at the diner, was long gone. The gloomy day had given way to a clear, starry night. An icy wind had picked up and was blowing a plastic cup across the parking lot with a rasping rattle that seemed peculiarly loud in the stillness.
"Meet you at the station, Nan," Joe called.
"I'll be right behind you the whole way," she called back, more for Jenny's benefit than Joe's- the unspoken subtext being so don't try anything stupid.
Jenny stuck her head out of the passenger side of Joe's truck. "Be careful with my car. My mom will flip if anything happens to it before it's even paid off."
"I'm a good driver," Nancy assured her. Feeling sympathetic, suddenly, and remembering how young Jenny actually was, she walked over to the truck and grabbed the door before Jenny could close it.
"Now what?" Jenny demanded.
"Jenny, that painting they just dug up is a fake. We set the whole thing up to trap the thief."
Jenny's eyes went wide. "No."
"You did a good thing tonight. You might be able to cut a deal if you go in there now and talk to someone. If you wait, this whole thing is going to fall apart tonight and you'll go down with it."
"Okay." She was tearing up again, but she took a shaky breath and squared her shoulders. "Okay. I'm going. Just remember what I told you, about Keith."
The drive to the station was uneventful. They parked side-by-side and got out. Nancy handed Jenny the keys to her car.
"You're doing the right thing," she said again, because it seemed as though someone ought to say something.
Jenny felt no such compunction. She gave them one last glare and stalked away without a word.
"Should we follow her in to make sure?" Nancy wondered aloud.
"Nah," Joe drawled. "She'll do it." He wrapped an arm around Nancy's waist. They stood together, braced against the cold, and watched Jenny Rodanski disappear inside the police station.
Nancy sighed and rolled her tight shoulders. "Well, that was certainly informative. What's the plan now?"
"Circle past the gallery, head over to your dad's, wait for some action?"
"That sounds about right."
Joe released her, then, and headed for the station to peer in the glass pane of the door. Nancy watched as he cocked his head, clearly communicating with someone on the inside. He opened the door, stuck his head in for a moment, and then came bounding back to Nancy, his shoes crunching on the layer of frozen slush coating the poorly-plowed parking lot.
"Reynard's on duty up front. He says Jenny went back to give a statement, and if he sees me loitering around here again he's going to personally arrest me."
"In that case, we'd better ditch this joint," Nancy joked, heading for the passenger side of the truck. "You still owe me from last time I bailed you out."
"What? That time doesn't even count!" Joe protested. "That was in a foreign country. Foreign bail is a whole different deal."
"Bail is bail, Hardy."
"It was your fault I got arrested in the first place, if you'll recall."
"That's not the way I'd tell it."
"Oh, bull," Joe said, starting the truck. "I guess Aunt Gertrude isn't the only one having brain problems."
"Don't make me call Frank. You know he backs me on this one," Nancy threatened.
"Yeah, that's right, go running to my big brother, like that's supposed to intimidate me," Joe teased.
Still playfully bickering, they headed out toward the gallery.