Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder

fourth or fifth of August.”
    Lisa seemed very concerned that she had all Bill’s orders memorized, and she asked him to repeat them several times.
    He nodded, and then added, “Just tell him that I don’t have the money now because I thought I got scammed. I let my sister use the money to pay bills. He’ll understand. I won’t have the money as soon as he wants it, but it’s guaranteed. [Tell him,] just go ahead and do it.”
    She seemed to have the message all straight, and Lisa explained that Y wanted her to come see him on Saturday, July 26, but she said that she probably wouldn’t be able to come back to see Bill until Thursday, July 31.
    That would be cutting it close for his timeline, but he nodded.
    “Did you have to sign in to see me?” Bill asked, almost as an afterthought.
    “Yes,” she said. “But signing in wasn’t a problem. I used my sister’s name. Anything else you want me to tell Y?”
    “Yeah, tell him good luck.”
    “How will you know it’s done?” Lisa asked. “I have to come back and let you know when it’s done?”
    “Just tell him to do it—and I’ll know. I’ll get the message when it’s done.”
    “Okay. ’Bye. See you later!”
    “Thank you. Nice meeting you. ’Bye.”
    Lisa was able to come back in to see Bill Jensen on Saturday, July 26. He seemed far more at ease with her on her second visit. She told him she had received a letter from Yancy. He wasn’t going to get out of jail until the fourth, and that would be too late to do the job Bill wanted.
    “So everything that he wants us to do is just going to be me, and his brother.”
    That seemed to alarm Bill Jensen. He explained that his sister was getting suspicious because she’d called Yancy’s phone and it was disconnected. She’d spent some of the money he owed Yancy. He thought it might be better if he paid Yancy the other half himself after he got out of jail. He didn’t even know how much money was left.
    Lisa asked Bill where he was getting the money. Did Yancy know?
    “Yeah, he knows.”
    Lisa asked him when “they” would be together. She meant Sue and her sister, but she didn’t want to say it aloud. “The only time you think they will absolutely be together is Monday—before court?”
    “Yeah.”
    Bill was nervous, and said he wondered if the jail phones were recording their conversation.
    “Nah,” Lisa said. “I’ve been in jail a bunch of times. They’re old. They’re not recording.”
    “They’re not?”
    “They don’t—they hardly fucking work.”
    Bill seemed to relax when she reassured him. He repeated that the two women would be coming to the pretrial hearing together on July 28.
    “Do you know where they’re going to be?” she asked.
    “Well, I know the one will be coming down from Kirkland, the sister-in-law.”
    “And will she go by and get your wife?”
    “Probably.”
    “They going to have anybody with them?”
    “They’re just going to be the two of them, probably.”
    “Okay. Where is your daughter going to be?”
    “She’s probably going to be home.”
    “At your house?”
    “Yeah.”
    “So if we catch them at the house, leaving, we can get your daughter too?”
    “Probably. Now, the son will probably be in there, too.”
    Lisa sounded surprised. “Oh, I didn’t know you had a son.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Wait a minute,” she said, flustered. “I’m confused. Well, I ain’t—nobody mentioned no son to me.”
    Bill hastened to explain that his son would be no problem for them. He was only fifteen.
    “Is he big?” Lisa asked suspiciously.
    Bill assured Lisa that Scott wasn’t a huge teenage football player type, and wouldn’t give them any trouble. It probably wouldn’t be difficult for Lisa and Yancy’s brother working together to overcome him.
    Now Bill Jensen described his sister-in-law’s blue Volkswagen, and Sue’s 1988 Mustang convertible, but when Lisa asked how to get to his family’s house, he looked worried. He had been in jail for two months, and he’d noticed that the address had been left off when he’d been served with the last protection order. He mused aloud that Sue might have sold the house and moved.
    “Can she sell it without you?”
    “Yeah—it’s a long story but she’s got full ownership right now.”
    “Can your sister find out if she’s still living in it? Does your wife talk to your sister?”
    “No. If she did move, she wouldn’t want me to know about it, anyway. Like— where .”
    “What’s