Nipped in the Bud by Sheila Connolly

Author:Sheila Connolly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mysteries & Thrillers
Publisher: Beyond the Page
Published: 2018-10-15T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Seth had clearly been worried by Meg’s cryptic comment: he was back in less than his estimated two minutes. “You okay?”

“Of course I’m okay,” Meg said more tartly than she intended. “This Justin person seemed perfectly respectable and polite, and told a convincing story. Of course, he’d know how to do that if he’s a journalist. But I knew he was lying. Not so much about who he is, but when he started talking about Jenn, he claimed she was his girlfriend and she worked at odd jobs like waitressing, and they’d had a big fight after which she walked out, and I knew most of that wasn’t true. He didn’t have a good explanation for why she would head to Granford, where it’s kind of hard to hide. But of course, if she was chasing after drug dealers and he knew it, he’d want to stay as far away from any real explanation as possible. Wouldn’t he?”

“Yes, I think so. So, in time-honored fashion he just played dumb. ‘We had a fight and she left and I haven’t a clue why.’ That usually works. Of course, it’s often true: a lot of guys are clueless about why relationships go bad. So, tell me what he said.”

“All of it?” Meg asked. “Or just the stuff he made up?”

“All of it. Please.”

Meg ran through the details of Justin’s visit, until she reached his first lie. “I swear I would have believed him if he hadn’t lied to me then. He was definitely trying to fool me. What do you think he wanted?”

Seth sat back in his chair and thought for a long moment. “I would guess that he didn’t expect to get any real information from you. Based on what Art said, he’s already asked other people in town the same questions and gotten no results. Which may mean he knows that Jenn is dead and that her body was found awfully close to here and he’s checking the place out. You didn’t bring up anything about the murder, did you?”

“No way! I just pretended to be stupid. I don’t know whether to be pleased or offended that he believed my act. Of course, he was acting too.”

“Did he pay attention to anything in particular about the house?”

“Not the house, as such, but he did try to find out if I was living here alone, which I thought was kind of odd, so I said you were working out back. Anyway, he came in through the front, and he may have looked toward the woods, but that’s something most people would do anyway. I wasn’t watching him closely when he came into the kitchen, but he could have been checking out the views from the windows on that side of the house and what it would be possible to see, while I made coffee—my back was to him then. That’s the problem I’m having: everything he did seemed perfectly ordinary, more or less what an innocent person would do. He didn’t even comment on the goats or ask for a tour of the place.

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