9 Ronan

After the trip to the shelling island, Ronan had grilled some burgers and hot dogs for lunch. He, Jude, and Fitz had an appointment to meet with Shane Matheson in the early afternoon. Ronan figured his making lunch for everyone was a good way to keep the husbands from getting angry at the detectives for working during vacation.

Ten had decided to come along, stating that Everly had given him some information while they’d been on the beach earlier in the day. Ten didn’t want to reveal what he knew until they’d met up with Shane. Ronan had a feeling Ten wanted to see the detectives’ reactions to the news all at once. As annoyed as he’d been over Ten’s refusal to talk, he understood the reason behind it.

“Take the next left,” Jude said, pointing to Oaklawn Street. “The house number is twenty-two.”

Fitzgibbon took the turn onto the street which was filled with cute one story bungalows. “Here we go.” Fitz parked across the street and turned off the ignition. “I guess this is what a Boston Police Department pension buys.”

“It’s a pretty nice neighborhood.” Getting out of the car, Ronan could see kids Everly’s age riding bikes together. It’s the kind of neighborhood he wouldn’t mind retiring to when his cold case days were behind him in another thirty years or so.

Crossing the street, Fitzgibbon rang the doorbell.

“Hey, guys!” Shane said, opening the door wide for them. “Come on in. We can talk on the patio. I made some fresh lemonade. It’s amazing what you’re forced to learn when you’re twice divorced.”

Ronan chuckled and followed behind his former partner. The house was relatively neat with a large leather sectional sitting in front of a gas fireplace with a huge television mounted above the mantle. The kitchen was neat as a pin with dishes drying in the rack.

He grabbed a pitcher of lemonade out of the fridge and set it on a tray with matching cups. Ronan pulled the sliding door open to allow Shane to walk outside. He set the tray on the patio table and began pouring glasses for everyone. “I’m surprised to see you, Tennyson. I thought you were on vacation.”

“You know the old saying about best laid plans?” Ten asked with a grin.

“Working as a cop for thirty years, I’m well acquainted with that phrase. Hell, it might be the reason I’ve been divorced twice.” Shane laughed.

“The reason I came along today is because I have information about the night Jillian Marsh was murdered. Our daughter told me what she knew this morning.” Ten’s eyes were on the former cop.

Ronan choked on his lemonade and started to cough. Jude pounded his back until Ronan held up a hand for him to stop. “Why are you just telling me this now?”

“I wanted to tell all of you at once,” Ten said, before turning to Shane. “Our daughter’s gift is much more powerful than mine. She also has an easy way with people. Spirits tend to trust her more. I always assumed it’s because she was so young, but now I think it all has to do with her inner light.”

“What did Everly say?” Jude asked.

“She told me that she spoke to Jillian on the plane. She was aware that Fitz has her wedding rings.”

Fitz stood up and pulled a small bag out of his back pocket. Ronan saw a glint from the diamond engagement ring as Fitz set them on the table.

“Damn, that’s one big rock.” Shane let out a low whistle. “Patrick must have been raking in the big bucks.”

Ten shook his head. “Jillian’s parents had money. Lot’s of it. Everly said that the night of the murder, Jillian was wrapping presents in front of a roaring fire, when she heard a loud bang. I assumed that was the sound of the door being kicked in. She saw a person dressed all in black, including a facemask, who was pointing a large gun at her. Jillian couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, but she did say the eyes looked like her husband’s. After the shot, the killer picked up a manila envelope filled with documents Jillian had just signed and dropped it into the fireplace. That was the last thing she saw before running into the light to meet her family.”

“Holy shit,” Fitz mumbled under his breath. “What were the papers?”

“Everly said Jillian had been to see a lawyer in the days before the murder. She saw the word ‘will’ on one document and the word ‘power’ on another.” Ten grinned. “Life has gotten so much easier since Everly learned to read last year.”

“Could have been a power of attorney and a will,” Shane said. “We need to find out who this attorney was and see if the firm can send us those papers.”

Ronan pulled out his notebook and jotted down what Shane said. With Jillian being dead, attorney/client privilege no longer existed. It shouldn’t be a problem for the firm to send along the papers Jillian would have signed that last night. “I would assume that if she was planning to divorce her husband they could have been divorce papers, a new will, disinheriting Patrick and the power of attorney would have barred him from accessing Jillian’s money.” Ronan shook his head. “Did Everly know if the divorce was something Patrick was involved with?”

“It didn’t sound that way to me. I got the impression that this was all supposed to be a surprise for Patrick.”

“Merry fricken Christmas. Obviously Marsh found out somehow.” Jude took a few sips from his drink. “Patrick knew what was going to happen and hired someone to kill his wife before she could give the signed documents back to her attorney, which meant that when she was killed, he stood to inherit everything.”

“I get why you’d say that, but there was never any money missing from their joint accounts that would have made up a murder for hire payment,” Fitzgibbon said.

“Are you serious, Fitz? You must have an amazing marriage.” Shane laughed. “Both of my ex-wives hid money from me all the time. They’d take cash out of our joint account and stash it in places I’d never find it. My first ex loved to hide things in shoe boxes. My second hid cash in her tampon box. I wouldn’t have gone looking in there for all the money in the world, which I guess was how she was able to save up enough money to leave my stupid ass.”

Fitz frowned. “I take two hundred dollars in cash out of our joint account every week. I use it to pay for coffee, lunches, snacks, or to grab something I think Aurora would like. If you looked at our financial records, you’d see that transaction once a week.”

“I’ve seen you take out the cash a couple of times,” Ronan said. “There’s no way Jace would ever know that you didn’t spend that money on lunches and what not.”

“There’s also no way Jace would know you were saving that money up for a hit man,” Jude added.

“Jesus,” Fitz muttered. “I’ll go back through the financial records with this information in mind. I feel so fucking stupid.”

“You’re not stupid, Fitz. Far from it. We don’t think like criminals, which is our weak link when it comes to solving crimes.” Shane poured more lemonade into Jude’s glass.

“What if the payment for the murder came later?” Ronan asked.

“What do you mean? Like the hitman agreed to a payment plan?” Jude asked. “That way little sums of money wouldn’t trigger an investigation.”

“That,” Ronan agreed, “or if getting rid of the wife meant the girlfriend would get Patrick. That could be a payment in and of itself.”

“It also makes for a perfect alibi,” Fitz added. “The evidence techs never found anything incriminating in the Marsh house. Not the shoes that were worn to kick in the door, nor any signs that Patrick fired the fatal shot. Lack of evidence is the reason this case has gone unsolved for a decade.”

“Well,” Shane began. “I’ve got something that could help heat things up again. The results came back from Mabel’s heavy metal tox screen.”

“And?” Ronan asked. If Shane could prove Patrick was poisoning his second wife, it would give them all the probable cause they needed to arrest him for the murder of his first wife.

“Mabel tested positive for arsenic,” Shane said. “The amount is small, but certainly more than we come into contact with through the environment. She’s definitely being poisoned.”

“Is she going to be okay?” Ronan asked. Christ, knowing that Mabel was being poisoned changed everything. She was going to need to be careful going forward. If Mabel accidentally let it slip that she knew about the arsenic, that could cause Patrick to speed up his time line and choose an alternate way of getting rid of her.

“Yes, she’s going to undergo outpatient treatment and will stay with her parents while she recovers.”

“How is Patrick going to take that?” Jude asked. “If he knows his wife is onto him, that could mean big trouble for Mabel.”

“Mabel told Patrick that she was having trouble with her woman parts and that she needed a quiet place to recover from a procedure and someone who could take constant care of her. Since Patrick’s business is flourishing, she chose her mother. According to Mabel, Patrick bought her lie. With Mabel gone, that means Patrick can spend all his time with a girlfriend or two, so I don’t imagine he looked very hard into his wife’s condition.”

“Yuck!” Ten shook his head. “Seems like he’s always got one bird in hand with another in the bush.”

“What do you know about bushes?” Ronan asked, sounding snarky.

“Enough to know that I don’t want my hand stuck in one.” Ten laughed.

“What’s our next step here?” Jude asked.

“I’m going to visit Mabel at her parents’ house in an hour. After that, I’ve got Santa duty tonight. I’ll be free by eleven at the latest and will go to Patrick’s house and do some surveillance. Tomorrow is trash day, so I’ll grab whatever is in the bin before I head home. We can go through it tomorrow.”

“Just what I wanted to do on vacation, go through some asshole poisoner’s trash.” Jude shook his head. “Did you guys bring gloves? There’s no way I’m touching that shit with my bare hands.”

“I’ve got gloves, Jude. No worries there.” Shane grinned at the detective.

“Hold on,” Fitz said. “If we know that Mabel is being poisoned, shouldn’t we get the St. Pete Police involved here? If there’s evidence of the poisoning in the trash then it won’t be admissible in court.”

“Mabel isn’t ready to go to the police yet,” Shane said. “I’ll speak to her about it later, when I go to see her.”

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help,” Ronan said. His eyes were on Tennyson as he spoke. The last thing he wanted was to upset his husband, but he couldn’t let Patrick Marsh get away with committing a second murder, vacation be damned. Ten would understand and if he didn’t, Ronan had a kick ass Christmas gift for his husband that would keep Ten from being too mad at him.

At least Ronan hoped it would.