Okay, so she hadn’t meant to say that last part.
“My sister called me.” Geneva snatched the phone out of her pocket and tapped on the screen until it revealed whatever she planned to show Vera. “See that.” She stuck the screen in front of Vera. “My sister called me at ten minutes after nine that morning and left a voicemail telling me Luna had tried to—to kill her. When she got back from that hardware store, she finished the job.” She drew the phone away and slid it into her pocket, her expression daring Vera to top that one.
“And what did you do, Geneva?”
Wife and husband stared at Vera as if she’d asked if they wanted to have dinner now ... with her.
“I mean,” Vera went on when they both just kept staring, “did you rush over to see her? To offer moral support?” Vera shrugged. “To makesure that petite, seven-and-a-half-months-pregnant Luna didn’t come back and throw five-foot-eight, one-hundred-and-eighty-pounds Jackie down the stairs?”
Physical characteristics were all in the preliminary report Collins had worked up and sent along with the body. Giving Jackie credit, she’d carried the weight well.
“Get out of my house,” Geneva snarled.
Vera held her ground. There was more she intended to say before she was strong-armed out the door. “Before I came here this evening, I drove from the hardware store to Luna’s house, then back. It takes exactly twenty-eight minutes to drive from Luna’s house to the hardware store. She paid for the paint at 10:45. So if we go backward, I think we can safely estimate that Luna would have been in the store for about thirty minutes to pick out the paint, have it shaken, and then pay for it. So that takes the time clock back to 10:15. Subtract twenty-eight minutes from that, and we can assume Luna left her house no later than about 9:45 or 9:46.”
“I’m not listening to any more of this.” Geneva glared at her husband as if she expected him to do something.
“Your attorney may have told you this already,” Vera went on when Trenton did nothing but stare at her, waiting for the next shoe to drop. “The sheriff subpoenaed the records for Jackie’s phone, Luna’s, and yours, Geneva. Thankfully those records just came in.” Vera smiled. “Before I give you that news, let me remind you that the ME has put Jackie’s death between ten and eleven. And guess what? You—at least your phone—was at Luna’s home from 9:50—right after Luna left on Tuesday morning—until 10:50. Luna didn’t leave the hardware store until 10:45, which means she didn’t get home until approximately 11:13 or so. Which means she just missed you. But when she walked into the house, what she did find was Jackie at the bottom of the stairs.”
Every speck of color drained from the woman’s face.
“Oh and another thing.” Vera almost forgot this part, and it was the very best part. “When you left Luna’s house, why did you go to Leonard Andrews’s house? Were you there when he had his heart attack?”
“What are you trying to say?” the husband asked, his voice thin.
“I’m saying that Luna did not push Jackie anywhere. She wasn’t even at the house when it happened. Both she and Jackie got up and walked away from Jackie’s attempt to heave Luna down those stairs. But what happened after that was someone else’s doing. Someone who came to Luna’s house”—she stared at Geneva as she said this—“and pushed Jackie down those stairs.”
“How ... how do you know she didn’t just fall? She may have had some sort of medical event after the argument or whatever it was with Luna?”
Even as the husband asked this second question, the wife stood mute. She knew damned well she was caught.
“Well, Mr. Fanning, unfortunately that isn’t possible because Jackie sustained a fracture to her left tibia. The sort of fracture the medical examiner found suggests Jackie was hit in the leg with something or maybe kicked by someone wearing boots, perhaps. This is likely why she fell down the stairs that last time.”
The gasp that slipped from Geneva Fanning then was the final nail in her coffin, as far as Vera was concerned.
“Not to mention that her position at the bottom of the stairs suggested not just a fall but a hard push. Someone wanted to make sure she wasn’t getting back up. Then, barely an hour after Luna found poor Jackie, she and Jerome get the news that his father has had a heart attack. Maybe Leonard did push her and then rushed back home, but his poor heart couldn’t bear what he’d done. Except we know that isn’t the case because I guess I forgot to mention that both Jerome’s and his father’s cell phone records were subpoenaed as well, and Leonard was at home the whole time—at least his phone was.”
Trenton Fanning glared at his wife. “You were at his house when he had the heart attack? Did you call the ambulance for Leonard?”
Geneva shook her head, still unable or unwilling to find her voice.
“I swear if the two of you have started back up ...” Trenton was the one pointing a finger now—at his wife. “I won’t let it go so easily. I did last time because of Jackie’s cancer. I didn’t want her to know what you had been doing with her husband. But there is nothing to stop me now.”
“I’m calling my attorney,” Geneva wailed.
Vera was enjoying the show far more than she should have. Now might be a good time for Bent to show up.
Her cell vibrated, and as if the thought had summoned him, it was Bent. “Hey, I—”
“We have to get to Nashville, Vee,” he interrupted. “Alicia Wilton just woke up.”
Hope fired through Vera. “You still at the office?”
“I’m walking out the door.”
“I’ll pick you up.”
Since the Fannings were still shouting, Vera let herself out and hurried to her SUV. This was good news. She wouldn’t get her hopes too high until they knew how well Alicia had recovered, but this could be a big step in getting to the whole truth about what had happened at that cabin.
