Murder Past Due by Miranda James

at the hospital all day? Until you left to get Justin from the hotel?” I watched her carefully.
    Her gaze dropped away for a moment. “Yes, I was.”
    “Then there was no way Ezra could have left the hospital?”
    Startled, Julia sat upright. “Of course not. Whatever made you ask something like that?” She frowned. “Ezra did not kill Godfrey. You can get that notion out of your head right this minute.”
    Julia was getting angry with me again, but I wasn’t going to back down.
    “Okay,” I said. “I’ll get it out of my head for a moment. But let me ask you another question.” I hated doing this, but Julia was obviously—at least to me—lying about her time at the hospital.
    “Well, go ahead.” Julia glared at me.
    “If I asked Ezra whether you were with him all day at the hospital, what would he say?”
    Julia’s eyes narrowed. “What is that supposed to mean? Of course Ezra would say I was with him.”
    “Then one of you would be lying.” I said it as gently as I could. “It’s no use. I know one of you was in Godfrey’s room today.” I paused for a moment to let the words sink in.
    Julia paled, and I knew I was right. I felt no satisfaction from it.
    “How?”
    “Justin found something belonging to Ezra in the room,” I said. “When he went back and found Godfrey dead.”
    “Oh dear.” The fight seemed to have gone out of her—for the moment. “Is Justin going to give it, whatever it is, to the deputies?”
    “No, I told him not to, for now,” I said. “He’s very worried about it, but I wanted to find out who left it there. You haven’t told him yet that you went there, have you?”
    “No, I haven’t.” Julia shook her head. “I see now I should have told him.”
    “You have to tell me the truth too, if I’m going to be any use to Justin,” I said.
    “I will.” Julia’s tone was firm.
    “The question is,” I said, “well, two questions, actually. First, which one of you went to the hotel? And second, when?”
    She leaned back in the chair again. “It was me. Ezra never left the hospital. What did I leave there?”
    “Ezra’s pen, one Justin gave him.”
    “Of course. How stupid of me.” Julia shook her head. “Godfrey wanted to give me a check, but he didn’t have a pen. I had Ezra’s things in my purse, so I must have pulled out that pen and then left it behind.”
    “Godfrey was alive when you left?” I hated to ask it, but I had to.
    “Yes.” Julia’s eyes flashed. “Alive and mad as a hornet.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I read him the riot act,” Julia said. “I went there expecting to find Justin with him. And he wasn’t. When I asked Godfrey where Justin was, he told me they’d argued and why.”
    “So you lit into him?” I had to suppress a smile. I recalled that Julia had a rather fiery temper as a girl.
    “I did,” Julia said with a trace of satisfaction in her voice. “I told him he had to think more about what was good for Justin, and not what he wanted. He got the point.”
    “I’m sure he did,” I said. “How long were you there?”
    Julia thought for a moment. “No more than fifteen minutes, maybe only ten. I had to get back to the hospital.”
    “What time was that?”
    “I got back a little after three. They were changing shifts.”
    “So you left Godfrey alive before three?” I was trying to get the chronology straight in my head.
    “Yes.”
    “You didn’t try to find Justin before you went back to the hospital?” I asked.
    “No. I was concerned about him,” Julia said. “But I had to check on Ezra, and I wanted to stop by the bank to deposit Godfrey’s check. Justin would have called if he needed me.” She turned away for a moment. “Or so I thought.”
    “You’ll have to tell the deputies about this,” I said.
    “I know. They’ll think Justin or I killed him. Or maybe that we did it together.” Julia rubbed a hand across her eyes as she faced me again. “Lord, I wish I could hear what’s going on in