Free You Bet Your Life by Jessica Fletcher Page B

very heavy on the way back and it took me a long time to get home. When I saw all the police cars in the driveway, I pulled in behind them. At first we thought it was an accident, that Victor must have tripped, hit his head, and fallen into the pool. Not for a second did I think that anyone had killed him.”
    “Wait a minute, Martha,” I broke in. “At the restaurant, did you have anything to eat or drink, and save the receipt?”
    “No. It’s ironic, really. The waitress was so kind. She brought me a cup of coffee while I waited, then refused to charge me for it. We got to talking. She told me she had two daughters and was working to put them through college. We spoke about children and how hard it is when they grow up. You want to mother them, but that’s not what they want from you.”
    “You told this to the police, obviously,” I said, interrupting her tale. “That would be your alibi for the time Victor was killed, wouldn’t it? I understand the medical examiner said he died approximately between noon and three in the afternoon.”
    “Of course I told them, and I told all my lawyers, too. Mr. Nastasi sent an investigator to the Winners’ Circle—that’s the name of the restaurant—to talk to the waitress. But she was gone. The manager told him they have a lot of turnover among the staff. Anyway, the woman I remembered didn’t work there anymore. She had a Spanish accent and might have been from Mexico. So maybe that’s where she went, back to Mexico.”
    “Wasn’t there anyone else who remembers seeing you there?”
    “I thought the hostess might remember me, but as you heard, she denied it. I didn’t talk with anyone other than the waitress. No, there’s no one we could find.”
    “Did Jane ever explain why she didn’t show up?” I asked.
    “She claims she didn’t know about the luncheon date. But I’d left a message for her on her mother’s answering machine the night before. Jane was staying there at the time. She swears there was no message.”
    “I thought Jane lived with you.”
    “She only stayed with us in the very beginning; then she moved out.”
    “She testified for the prosecution, didn’t she?”
    “Yes.”
    “The prosecution says you talked about having lunch with her, knowing you would use it as an alibi, but that you never intended to meet her and you never actually went to the restaurant. And of course, without a witness, there’s no proof that you were there.”
    Martha nodded.
    “Does Jane believe you killed her father? Is she looking for revenge?” I asked.
    “I don’t know,” Martha replied. “I’ve racked my brain trying to remember conversations we’d had. Had I misinterpreted her friendly overtures? Could she hate me so much that she’d stand me up and then deny we had a date for lunch in order to put me in this position? It doesn’t make sense.”
    I paused before asking, “Could Jane have killed her father? Was she sufficiently jealous of you, and of Victor’s attentions to you, to have done such a thing?”
    “I don’t think that’s possible. She adored him. Even her bad behavior was just to get his attention. And we’d been doing a lot of things together, the three of us. I just can’t believe she’d kill him.”
    “But what’s her alibi?” I asked. “Where was she when Victor was killed?”
    “She was visiting her mother in Henderson. Her mother swore to that.”
    “Could Jane have been setting you up, Martha? Maybe she hired someone to kill Victor, got you out of the house, and established an alibi for herself.”
    “If you’d seen her after Victor died, you wouldn’t say that. She was absolutely hysterical when she learned of his death.”
    “But, Martha, she left you hanging. Why did she do that? Did anyone ask her that question?”
    “Of course I did. And so did Nastasi when he cross-examined her on the stand. She testified that if we had an appointment, she didn’t know about it. And if she had known, she would have