She walked down the stairs to the kitchen and let herself into the courtyard. Then she looked back up at the widow’s walk and tried to calculate where a piece of paper would land if it had drifted down from there. It was impossible to tell. The fact that it hadn’t been picked up by the crime scene technicians suggested that it had drifted away from what they would have considered the immediate impact site.
She searched around the courtyard, paying particular attention to the gutters that ran along the sides of it. She lifted up branches and peered through leaves, hoping for a glimpse of something that might have been paper. Two false alarms got her hopes up. One was a shopping list that must have blown out of the kitchen, and the other an old piece of newspaper that had probably been used to wrap vegetables.
Then her eye was caught by the flutter of something blue trapped high up in one of the trees. She jumped and plucked it out gently between her fingers.
It was very much the worse for wear after the storm the night before. The colors had run, and the paper had become pulpy. Eulalie turned it over in her hands. It was difficult to tell what she was looking at. She held it up to the light. In the right lower quadrant of the page she could just make out the lower half of a woman’s body – a woman wearing a bathing suit of some sort, possibly a bikini.
Eulalie smiled to herself. She knew who had killed Emma.
The trick was going to be to prove it. This piece of paper would not count as evidence by any stretch of the imagination. The murderer would have to confess, and Eulalie was beginning to get the glimmer of an idea as to how she could make that happen.
The law offices of Manfred Anheim were as imposing as ever. Eulalie and Chief Macgregor sat opposite Anheim at his massive mahogany desk. Nobody had spoken for some time, but they all kept checking their watches. Two o’clock had come and gone.
Anheim shifted in his seat and drummed his fingers on the desk.
Everyone tensed when there was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” he commanded.
The door opened, and Priscilla Bosworth walked into the room.
Manfred Anheim stood up to shake hands with her. “It’s good of you to join us, Mrs. Bosworth. I know you must be anxious to get on with your packing. Emma’s will is due to be read out next week, but since you are one of the beneficiaries, we decided to process your bequest today. We would like you to sign for the items in person before you go back home.”
Priscilla sat down between Eulalie and Chief Macgregor. He was in plain clothes and she glanced at him without a flicker of recognition.
“I don’t understand. Why would Emma have left anything to me? I hardly knew her.”
“Apparently,” said Manfred, consulting a document in front of him. “These were items belonging to your late sister. Strictly speaking, of course, they passed into the possession of Mr. Mark Egger after your sister’s death. But since he and Emma had an agreement that everything contained in the house was hers, they actually belonged to her.”
Priscilla blinked. “They never belonged to Mary in the first place. They were my mother’s possessions that she left to both of us on the understanding that we shared them.”
“Well,” said Manfred bracingly. “There’s no way you’re going to prove that. The fact of the matter is that Emma Egger, out of the goodness of her heart, elected to leave these items to you in her will.”
Eulalie could hear the breath rushing in and out of Priscilla’s lungs like a bellows.
“That’s okay. I don’t care. Where are they? Where are the items?”
Manfred inclined his head towards Chief Macgregor. “Donal, would you do the honors?”
Chief Macgregor picked up a box in the corner of the room and brought it to the desk.
As Anheim announced an item, Chief Macgregor took it out of the box and put it on the desk.
“One Dresden shepherdess,” he said.
Chief Macgregor took out a small, blue and white statue of a shepherdess.
“One antique, bone-handled brush-and-comb set with mother of pearl inlays.”
Chief Macgregor took them out to join the shepherdess on the desk.
Priscilla’s mouth opened as though to speak, but Anheim hurried on.
“One antique wooden dog, nodding. One child’s music box made of rosewood.”
The items came out one by one, to be laid in front of Priscilla’s goggling eyes.
“This isn’t them,” she protested. “These aren’t the right items. They look like them, but they aren’t them.”
“What do you mean?” said Anheim. “These are the items that Emma left to you in her will.”
Priscilla’s hands clenched the desk until her knuckles turned white. “She’s messing with me. Even now.”
“I don’t understand,” said Eulalie. “It was kind of Emma to remember you in her will. She especially set aside these items which, let’s face it, strictly speaking belonged to her …”
Priscilla shot to her feet. “They did not! They did not belong to her. They were Mary’s, not hers. Isn’t it enough that she took everything my sister worked for in that house and changed it or trashed it? Did she have to take our mother’s treasures too?”
“But everyone loved Emma,” Eulalie persisted. “I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding. She would never have intended to …”
“That’s exactly what she intended. She told me so. She told me herself. She laughed at me for caring about my mother’s little knick-knacks.”
“When did she laugh at you?”
“When she … no, I don’t remember. It was a while ago.”
As Eulalie watched, the woman got herself under control. She let go of the desk and sat down again. Eulalie tried not to let her frustration show.
“Wait, there’s something else here in the box,” said Chief Macgregor.
“Listen to that, Mrs. Bosworth,” Eulalie said. “Emma left you something else. What a generous woman she was. I wonder what it could be.”
“It’s a framed photograph,” said Chief Macgregor, taking it out slowly. He kept the photograph turned towards him. “This is lovely. It’s a photograph of a woman on the beach with her two little girls.”
All the color drained from Priscilla’s face, leaving it milk-white.
“It can’t be,” she whispered. “It’s impossible.”
“Here.” Chief Macgregor turned the photograph to show her, holding it by the frame to keep his fingers off the glass. “See for yourself.”
If Priscilla Bosworth had been pale a moment ago, she was now scarlet with rage.
“That bitch! She’s trolling me from beyond the grave. That evil bitch. I should have killed her twice. This isn’t my mother and me. This is some stupid stock photo.”
She raised the photograph above her head and brought it smashing down on the desk. The frame splintered, and shards of glass flew everywhere. The photograph inside tore slightly. Prischilla’s eyes were mad with fury. Eulalie had never really known what the expression ‘to see red’ meant before, but now she did. This woman had lost herself in an ungovernable rage.
“She taunted you with your mother’s possessions, didn’t she?” Eulalie persisted. “That night when you went up to her room to appeal to her to return Mary’s property, she taunted you with having sold them and mocked you for caring about sentimental items like that.”
The fury drained out of Priscilla, and she collapsed onto her chair. Tears poured down her face.
“Yes, she did. I had just lost my mother and my sister within six months of each other and she was laughing at me for caring about the only things I had to remember them by.”
“All except the photograph in its frame?” Eulalie went on. “She still had that, didn’t she?”
“Yes. Yes, she did. She took it out and showed it to me, laughing all the while. She held it up for me to see and said that I really shouldn’t be so attached to material objects. She took the frame off and peeled the photo away from its glass cover. I told her to g
ive it to me. I ordered her to give it to me immediately, but she laughed at me and danced backwards onto the widow’s walk. She started to tear it. She started to tear my photograph in half – my only reminder of the last time that I was truly happy.”
“You lunged at her.”
“Yes. I … I hardly remember. I was so angry, it was like I was under the influence of something. I grappled with her and she laughed some more, holding the torn photograph in one hand and the glass cover in the other. I tried to get them away from her, but she just kept laughing. I pushed her and pushed her until she lost her balance and fell backwards. She tried to claw at the parapet, but I smashed her fingers with my fists and made her fall. And my photograph fell with her, and I never saw it again. I’m sorry I did what I did, but in that instant, she deserved to die. Yes, she did.”
“And you searched her room a few days later because you thought some of the items might still be there?” Eulalie asked.
“I thought she might have been lying about having sold them. Just to taunt me, you know? But she probably sold them to pay for her pills.”
There was complete silence in the room. Then Chief Macgregor stepped forward and began to recite the caution against self-incrimination and the list of rights that had to be read to every suspect who was being placed under arrest on Prince William Island.
Epilogue
“When did you first suspect her?”
“When Emma’s room was searched. The person looked at all the ornaments and photograph frames. The only person I knew of who was missing something like that was Priscilla Bosworth.”
“This lamb is delicious, by the way.”
“I’m glad you like it. I bought it with my own two hands. It comes from Angel’s Place.”
“You’re not good at cooking.”
“I’m hopeless at cooking. At least I didn’t pretend that I made this, right?”
Chief Macgregor stared at her. “Why would anyone do that?”
“You’d be surprised. The truth is, I can’t even claim to have made the salad. It comes from one of those bags that you rip open and up-end into a bowl. Even the dressing came out of a bottle.”
“I’m enjoying it. What was the next thing that made you suspect Priscilla Bosworth?”
Eulalie took a sip of the wine Angel had pressed on her when she had left the restaurant with the lamb. “There was the payment to Antoine that had come from an overseas bank. The Bosworths live in New York State – a place that we don’t have reciprocal banking arrangements with. Then there were those fine shards of glass that landed on and around Emma when she fell. They were so thin they could only have come from a cheap picture frame. Priscilla was still riled up about that photograph, so I figured she hadn’t found it yet. When I went looking for it in that courtyard, it was almost unrecognizable, especially after the storm. But I could see enough to make out a woman in a bathing suit. That’s when I put it all together.”
“I wish I had a squad of detectives who were all as good as you. Or that I could spend more time out in the field myself. As chief, I spend most of my time behind a desk.” He raised his wineglass to her. “Not that I’m saying I’m as good an investigator as you are. My understanding of human motivations isn’t good enough, for one thing.”
“You’re getting better all the time.” Eulalie toasted him with her own glass. “I reckon we’re both in the right jobs for our skills. Will Priscilla be convicted, do you think?”
“I think her lawyer will very wisely accept a deal from the prosecutor’s office. At the moment, he is making noises about wanting to throw the confession out because it was obtained under false pretenses.”
“Really?” Eulalie looked dismayed.
“Don’t worry. Her lawyer is American and doesn’t understand the nuances of the Prince William Island legal system. Under our law, sting operations like that are allowed. As long as the suspect is cautioned when arrested, it’s all good.”
Eulalie breathed out a sigh. “How long do you think she’ll serve?”
“There doesn’t seem to have been any premeditation. She lost her temper and acted impulsively. She will probably get fifteen years and be eligible for parole after five to seven. Her children will still be young when they get their mother back.”
Five years in prison didn’t seem like a fair exchange for a human life, but dispensing justice wasn’t Eulalie’s job. The main thing was that the client had paid in full. Mark Egger had not been happy to hear that it was indeed a family member who had murdered his wife. His only consolation was that Priscilla was a Bosworth and not an Egger.
After dinner, they sat on Eulalie’s couch with their espressos. Eulalie turned sideways and laid her legs on Chief Macgregor’s lap.
The man who normally had to force himself not to flinch when people touched him just smiled and rested his hands on her ankles. His thumb began to stroke lazy circles around her ankle bone.
Eulalie gave a happy sigh. She was exactly where she wanted to be. There was a reckoning coming between them; she knew that. But for tonight, a kiss would do.
As their lips met, he tasted of wine and coffee and hope.
HAUNTED
Prologue
Sixteen Years Ago
The annual school trip to Monk’s Cay was Ms. Pridwin’s least favorite outing of the year.
Seventy over-excited school children, a rambling ruined monastery, and an island thickly covered in forest added up to a logistical nightmare for any teacher. If only Queen’s Town Middle School would use a little more sense and send three or four teachers along on this expedition, instead of just two. This year it was Ms. Pridwin and Mr. Foucault who had drawn the short straw.
Mr. Foucault – or Emil, as he had recently insisted she call him – relished the assignment as little as she did. He was the only factor that made this outing even slightly tolerable to Ms. Pridwin. He was young, good-looking, and by all accounts single. A flirtation with him would help to pass the time.
A blood-chilling scream from one of the children brought Ms. Pridwin over at a run.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
A storm of giggling greeted her arrival.
“It was Layla, Ms. Pridwin. She thought she saw a ghost.”
The group of girls giggled so hard they almost fell over.
Ms. Pridwin couldn’t help smiling at their high spirits. “What did it look like, Layla?”
“Oh, Miss, it was a tall ghostly figure in a monk’s robe with no face, and skeleton arms.” Layla stretched her eyes wide open. “It drifted towards me and then disappeared.”
There was more giggling, but some of the children glanced involuntarily over their shoulders.
“That sounds like a dementor from Harry Potter!” called one of the boys.
“What’s Harry Potter?”
“It’s an awesome new book series. You should try it. The third one has just been released.”
Ms. Pridwin noticed the new girl, Eulalie Park, take out a pen and make a note of the book title on her hand. It wasn’t surprising. The school librarian could hardly keep up with her consumption.
It was time to call this outing to order.
“Line up in your classes, boys and girls. I will take Grade 7A and the girls from Grade 7B with me and Mr. Foucault will take Grade 7C and the boys from Grade 7B with him. We have about a ten-minute walk to get to the old monastery. A guide will meet us there to tell us all about the history of this interesting place. There is also a gift shop and a tea room where we will be having lunch.
One of the girls put up her hand.
“Yes, Amelie?”
“What do we do if we really see a ghost, Ms. Pridwin?”
There was more giggling, but some of the children genuinely seemed to want to hear the answer.
“I’m saying this once and once only, children. There are no such things as ghosts. Monk’s Cay is not haunted, and nobody is going to run into Layla’s sinister robed figure, or anything else for that matter. Now, pl
ease can everyone settle down and concentrate. This is an educational outing. And remember, you will be given a worksheet to fill in at the end, so you had better keep your eyes and ears open and listen to what the guide tells us.”
They set off along the path that would take them to the monastery. Mr. Foucault led the way, and Ms. Pridwin walked at the back to round up stragglers. She had just done a head count and would do another one when they got up to the ruins. The thought of mislaying one of the kids on this creepy island gave her nightmares.
The kids settled down now, especially as the path began to slope upward and they needed their breath for walking.
She only wished they had believed her about the ghosts, though. Ms. Pridwin had only lived on Prince William Island for five years, but that was enough time to realize what a deeply superstitious place it was. You could talk until you were blue in the face, but you would never convince a local child that Monk’s Cay wasn’t haunted. It was one of the accepted facts of life around here.
Still, the winters in this tropical paradise were much nicer than in her native Denver, Colorado, so Ms. Pridwin could put up with a bit of superstition. Besides, she wasn’t all that sure about Monk’s Cay herself.
Prince William Island consisted of one large main island and a chain of mini islands known as cays. Some were inhabited, and some weren’t. There was Queen’s Cay, St. Michael’s Cay, Logan Cay and a bunch of others. They were nice places to visit, with a regular ferry service that ran between the main island and the cays.
Monk’s Cay was different.
She supposed it was inevitable that this craggy little island with its ruined seventeenth-century monastery would gain the reputation of being haunted. All she knew was that no one ever spent the night here. The people who ran the gift shop and the tea room, and who gave tours of the monastery, left the island promptly on the last ferry at five o’clock.
Every now and then, you would get teenagers, usually boys, who would dare each other to visit Monk’s Cay at night. They would take a motorboat loaded with beer out to the island and build themselves a campfire on the beach. Not one of them had ever made it through the night. They always returned a few hours later, shivering and shaking, and telling tall tales about the spooky things they had seen.
The Complete H-Series of The Eulalie Park Mysteries Page 44