Organized for Homicide (Organized Mysteries Book 2) (12 page)

"
Too much trouble." Meg shook her head. "You'd have to wash out the blender in between. Just make me a smoothie like yours."

"
No, I'll use Mason jars, then I only have to rinse off the blades."

"
Huh?"

Kate held up a finger.
"Watch." She pulled two Mason jars from a top shelf, and added smoothie ingredients in one, and shake mixings in the other. A second later, she'd removed the bottom collar from her blender and screwed it onto the top of one of the jars, so the blades were inside. Then she flipped the jar over, and seated the collar back into its normal place on the blender. "I haven't found a blender yet whose blades collar didn't match up to the opening in a Mason jar." She hit the switch and soon had a rich and wonderful shake for Meg. She pointed to a round cylinder on the counter. "There are straws in there if you want to drink out of the jar. Or pour it into a glass. Your choice."

"
Ohmigod, Katie, I think this is the best idea you've ever shown me." Meg shook her head as she pushed a straw into the shake and took a sip. "Wonderful, and perfectly easy."

A rinse
of the blades and Kate was ready to give her smoothie a noisy zap. She grinned as the blender noise filled the room.

"
I've always done this rather than mess up the big blender when I'm doing one or more small mixtures," she explained after powering down the machine. "Not that it would have been a big deal to clean between the two drinks if I had mixed it in the blender. But this way I can save glasses too. And if I decide I can't finish it right now, the lid goes on the Mason jar, and it's ready for refrigerator storage."

"
And for another zap if you want to blend it again later," Meg added.

"
Also great if I want to mix anything up early, to be ready when the girls beg for a snack later." Kate moved back to the table. "Well, we have our treat now. Let's see if we can figure out a few more questions you can run by Gil. I'm worried about Sydney."

Meg set her shake on
to the table and dropped into her chair. "I can't believe he didn't say anything about Erin."

"
Maybe he didn't know. Valerie didn't tell me who her source is."

"
That's easy. She's buddies with several people who work in Erin's office. She probably picked up the scuttlebutt from one of them."

Kate tapped the end of her pen against her lip.
"Which means we don't know how reliable the information is. Not just because it's from Valerie, but someone may have added the info about the text to give Erin a reason for being there."

"
No." Meg tapped a nail on the tabletop. "Based on the scene we witnessed between Erin and Collier and Constable Banks yesterday, there wasn't a reason good enough for Erin to be there."

"
Except Valerie said Collier had been the one who texted Erin and asked her to come by the house."

Meg gave three slow shakes of her head.
"I don't believe that. He was too opposed to her being onsite."

"
But he did say he'd left Dara and Dustin to come home with their friends' family," Kate reminded. "He could have arranged everything so he would be alone with Erin."

"
You think he lured Erin there to kill her, then accidently killed Lila instead?"

Kate shrugged.
"I don't know what I think. I'm just throwing out supposition here. His coming back without the kids makes me wonder if Erin is actually telling the truth. But given we live in a small town, she may have seen him leave with the kids at the restaurant and decided to have a showdown with him if she could catch him alone."

"
Then why would she have come to the house when there were cops all over?"

"
Because she's nosy?"

"
Or maybe she killed Lila, ran away, then circled back and showed up pretending she got a text so she could look all innocent," Meg suggested.

"
You really don't like her, do you?" Kate asked, smiling.

"
No, I really don't. Go ahead and laugh at my suggestion. I know you want to," Meg said, letting her own contagious laughter fill the room.

"
Okay, okay." Kate held up a hand, then resumed scribbling on her list.

1) Blaine Collier showed up without his kids. Could he have already come by earlier on foot to kill his ex-wife then drive up afterward?

2) Did Erin get a text like Valerie said?

3) When did Erin arrive on the scene?

"I wish we knew when Erin arrived." Kate tapped her pen on the page. "Since we were in the house, we missed it. And we only have Valerie's word about her rumor. We need Gil to find out what he can tell us. If possible, it would be nice to know who told Valerie the story to begin with, so we can try to decide if it's coming from someone trying to help Erin, or someone who doesn't like her."

"
Like me," Meg added.

Kate pointed her pen as a silent warning and couldn
't help but smile. The laughter was too close to the surface for her to let it start again. "We need to see if we can find out exactly when Collier left the hamburger place, to determine if he could have come by, killed his ex-wife, then run off and reappeared later in his car."

"
But would he do something like that and let his daughter get suspected of the murder?" Meg asked. "Remember, whoever killed Lila used Sydney's knife to do so."

"
Good point. You saw where her workroom is located. It was close enough, but not right next door. Someone had to purposely go there for the knife, then go back and kill Lila on the balcony."

"
Unless the knife wasn't in the workroom."

Kate considered the idea. When
Sydney showed her the workroom, the teen had been very specific about wanting to pack everything herself, and nothing had been sitting handy on any of the work spaces. "No, I don't think anything like a knife would be left out anywhere. She's protective of her younger siblings, and her tools are important to her. I could tell by looking at them that they were expensive, and sharp."

Meg
took a last slurp of her drink and grinned at the noise. "Can you tell I liked the shake?" She pushed aside the jar and picked up her pen, letting it jiggle up and down in the air as she mused aloud, "So who knows about her fledgling business and knows where her stuff is kept in the house?"

"
Also, was the knife used to implicate Sydney? Or did the killer actually come to burgle the house, like everyone first assumed, and took the knife in a defensive move when Lila showed up unexpectedly?"

"
You know," Meg said. "If I can play devil's advocate for a moment, can we truly rule Sydney out as the killer? Girls get mad at their mothers all the time. Sometimes they snap."

"
But the one thing I got out of my conversation with Sydney is what a protective personality the girl has."

"
Recognized yourself in her. Huh?"

"
A little." Kate grinned. Meg knew enough about Kate's relationship with her own parents to know how she had to learn early on to be the responsible one in the family. She noticed that same dynamic between the Collier mother and older daughter. In fact, Kate had worried about the teen feeling too worried about everyone, as she also coordinated school activities for the younger children while her parents were so focused on their own corporate and environmental activities. "She's naturally protective. You saw how she stood in the self-protective stance when I introduced you both as we were surveying the bedrooms for the move. The protective way she felt about Lila was even more apparent when I saw them together the day I met with the all Colliers the first time."

"
You're sure you aren't doing any of that transference stuff about you and your own parents?"

Kate bit her lip.
"No. No, I'm sure about this. Besides, why would Sydney use a weapon that absolutely pointed to herself? Had only her fingerprints on it?"

"
It was her tool. She was comfortable using it. She would know exactly how sharp it was. How hard to bear down to make a cut," Meg explained. "It could have already been in her hand if she was in her workroom working and her mother dropped by to tell her something Sydney didn't want to hear. They argue, going through the house as her mother goes to the upstairs master bedroom to get something she left behind. Sydney follows, shouting, the knife still in her hand. Her mother goes out to the balcony, says something to tip the scale for Sydney's anger. The girl slashes her mother's throat and tosses her over the railing. She's plenty strong enough. Does weight training for her skating."

"
But what could Lila have said to make Sydney so angry?"

Meg frowned and pulled at her lower lip.
"Do you remember what Lila said right before she left us on the balcony? Something about how she and Collier still needed to talk. I don't remember exactly, but it made me think they might be contemplating Sydney not staying here with her mother. Do you remember?"

"
A little." Kate shrugged. "I remember a thought along those lines going through my head at the time, but it didn't really stick. I don't recall exactly what she said."

Kate had too much in her own past, she knew, to try to be completely unbiased here. What Meg said made sense, and her friend had every reason to assume Kate identified too much with
Sydney because of her own upbringing. She appreciated her parents' concern for mankind and the environment, but it had been a difficult life growing up in the shadow of 'for the greater good.' She wondered if Sydney felt a similar emotional pain, especially if Lila and Collier really were thinking about sending their older daughter out West with the rest of the family because of a danger presented by Lila's career. Kate couldn't erase from her mind the nasty scratches she and Meg saw on the passenger door of Lila's car as she drove away. Was the vandalism part of the reason she was killed?

"
Also ask Gil if the police have any idea who scratched the nasty epitaph on Lila's car door," she suggested.

"
I've already got a pretty good idea about that one."

"
And?"

Meg shot her self-satisfied grin.
"The same person who keyed Collier's car."

"
Erin?"

"
One and the same."

It was a good point when coupled with the
awful message dug into Collier's paint job. She wished she could have seen the damage. See if there was any similarity between what Erin did to his car and what appeared on Lila's. "Ask what Gil thinks. I know you have her pegged for everything including the hole in the ozone, but see who else might be juvenile enough to key Lila's car door."

"
A key, a knife." Meg shrugged again. "Not a huge step up from one to the other."

"
But it is a giant leap between writing 'bitch' on a car door, and actually killing the woman who drives the Prius."

* * *

All discussion ended when the twins and the Berman boys burst through the front door about nine and announced their team won. Gil sent his sons back out and headed for home so Meg could gather her notes and make her goodbyes. Kate congratulated her girls for cheering the team to victory but warned it was time to head upstairs.

"
After we get a glass of milk!" Sam called, as the duo disappeared into the kitchen

At the front door, Meg said,
"I'll be here at six-forty-five so we can make a coffee run on the way, and we'll still be on time to set up the food. We'll likely be able to find something in our bake sale stash to take the place of donuts."

"
Absolutely." Kate smiled. "However, remind me once in awhile not to eat all the profits."

"
Like that's going to happen."

"
You never know. I'll have the van waiting out front and warmed up. Just knock when you're ready."

"
See you then."

Kate closed and locked the door, satisfied they had a plan to start working toward helping
Sydney. The police probably weren't the only ones believing the teen guilty of matricide, and if Kate wasn't so swamped with work and tied down to the job site she'd probably hear talk about it in the community. But her gut and Meg's said otherwise. Now they just had to prove it. She stretched, realizing they'd been sitting and stewing for a couple of hours. Plus, it was late. But it was a Friday night, and only the moms had to rise early the next morning, which left everyone in high spirits. It had been fun seeing the kids' excitement.

As the girls thundered up the stairs, Kate called,
"I have a bath ready for you two. Get in and wash off the game dust."

She heard footsteps clump back down, and Sam hung over the railing.
"Did you talk to Daddy yet?"