Whiplash

"I'm leaving later to take the train to my sister's in Philadelphia. I've got to tell the boys their father is dead. How can I do that? How?" Tears formed in her eyes, and one big one slipped down her smooth cheek. She wiped it away, swallowed, and tried to pull herself together, but another tear slid down, then another.

Sherlock looked from Jane Ann Royal to Mick Haggarty. "It will be difficult. I'm sorry." She paused a moment, then said quietly, "I hate lies, Jane Ann, particularly when I can't see the reason for them. Tell me, how long have you been sleeping with Mick?"

Jane Ann Royal jerked as she dashed her hand across her cheek. "What? What a thing to say to me the day after my husband was murdered! I didn't think you were like that-"

"Like what, Jane Ann?"

"I expected kindness from you, but you're being cruel."

"Well, fact is, I'm a federal cop and I'm investigating a particularly brutal murder." Sherlock flicked her finger toward the bedroom. "I saw a dress on the floor in the bedroom. Mick forgot to close the bedroom door before he answered my knock. Or maybe it's another woman's dress, Mick?"

Mick looked like a deer caught in the headlights. "No, no, th-there is no other woman. We're not sleeping together. Poor Jane Ann was exhausted. She came over here, all upset, and so I let her sleep in my bed. I slept on the sofa."

Sherlock looked back and forth between the two of them. "Your salary, Mick, I checked. No way do you earn enough to afford this lovely apartment. You only moved in two months ago. Your former residence was far more basic than this one, on the other side of the tracks. Do you have many paying clients, or is it just Jane Ann who keeps you in comfort?"

Jane Ann Royal jumped to her feet, her face flushed, waves of anger rolling off her. "I didn't lie to you, I didn't! But it wouldn't matter if I had. I did come to Mick for comfort, so what? What business is it of yours? It had nothing to do with anything.

"Look, I didn't want to hear all the nauseating pap I'd get from my girlfriends, they're idiots. I knew Mick would understand, he wouldn't just mouth platitudes, he'd care, and that's why I came here. It's the day after my husband's death, surely not the time to screw around with another man.

"I want you to leave now, Agent Sherlock. I'm not going to sit here and let you make crazy accusations. You've done nothing to find his murderers-those two men who also tried to kill you and your husband, if you'll remember."

Sherlock asked, voice mild, "Are you paying for this very nice apartment, Jane Ann? I really can't see you visiting the Merriam Bartlett down the road twice a week. Someone would recognize you, and then Caskie would have done something, wouldn't he? I know he had the money in the family, not you. You worried about a divorce? Losing your lovely lifestyle?"

"All right, okay. So what if I do trade the cost of the apartment for tennis lessons? What's wrong with that?"

Mick Haggarty roared to his feet. "I wouldn't sleep with her. Do you think I'm insensitive? Jane Ann is in pain. I've done what anyone would do, I've given her shelter, a place to rest, what comfort I could."

"You and Jane Ann have been sleeping together how long? Three months, maybe a month before you broke your existing lease to move in here?"

"No! Never! I'm not interested. Jane Ann's too old for me. Who wants to sleep with his mother?"

His stark words rode a violent tsunami into the now silent living room.

Mick yelled, "Wait, wait! I didn't mean that. I mean Jane Ann is a great tennis player and I like her a lot, but I mean, I'm twenty-four years old and she isn't, she's a mother, for God's sake, and her husband was murdered and I'm her friend, really, that's all-"

"You puking little freak!" Jane Ann Royal roared at him and slammed her fist into his jaw. Mick fell back onto the sofa. He sat there, holding his jaw, staring up at her, pinned.

"All you can do is play tennis. You, an actor? That's a joke. I saw you in Taming of the Shrew-you were ridiculous, you hear me? All you did was prance around, and everybody could tell you're a no-talent little creep! You don't even have any talent in bed. You're a huge conceited bore!"

Sherlock jumped up and hauled Jane Ann back as she pulled and heaved toward Mick again. "Don't hit him again, all right? Or I'll have to arrest you. Listen to me, this is going to stop, all the lies, and especially this little drama you're enacting for me." Drama. Is that what all this was? Sherlock saw a flash of movement from the corner of her eye, but she wasn't fast enough.