by Beth Byers
“I think we should try,” Lucy said.
“Who better than us?” Georgette asked. “Our family of orphans.”
Robert parked near the doctor’s office and climbed out of the auto. He handed out Georgette and then Lucy. Janey popped out on her own, already bouncy again with the idea that they could somehow help the Mangan family.
Georgette followed Lucy to the door and gave Janey money for sweets before letting her run to the market rather than follow them in.
“Mrs. Aaron,” Dr. West said, “Are you feeling all right? Hullo, Lucy. Happy Christmas, Robert.”
“Happy Christmas,” Robert said, his gaze narrowed on Dr. West. “How nice to see you.”
Georgette bit down on her bottom lip as she looked among the three and then she said, “Dr. West, we’ve come to invite you to our Christmas Eve supper.”
His eyes widened. “Oh, I’d like that. Thank you.”
Georgette smiled and shook his hand, and then she asked, “Have you been able to determine what killed Mr. Mangan?”
Dr. West glanced between them, blushing brilliantly, and Georgette guessed that he knew he shouldn’t tell them. She and Robert eyed each other and then waited for the doctor, who stammered an excuse.
“It looks like arsenic,” Georgette tried. “Didn’t you think so, Robert?”
Dr. West shrugged noncommittally.
“Oh, leave him be,” Lucy said. “We’re here to make sure you have a place for Christmas,” she told the doctor. She shot the other two quelling looks. “You’ll get what you want to know from Joseph anyway.”
“I suppose that’s true.” Dr. West frowned. “Please don’t ruin my career here.”
“Oh no,” Georgette said, shaking her head. “No. We don’t want to do any such thing.”
“I think it might have been digitalis,” he said with a sigh, relenting. “If it was given in small enough doses, it could have induced the symptoms he experienced. I wish—” His mouth snapped shut.
“You couldn’t have known,” Lucy said.
“I am a doctor,” Dr. West reminded her. “The mayor checked several times on me given my appearance. I might look like a child, but I assure you, I am not.”
Robert frowned and cleared his throat. “It’s Harper’s Hollow, man. Vomiting, sweats, heart palpitations in the influenza season. Why wouldn’t it have been what you guessed?”
Dr. West’s mouth twisted. “Because it wasn’t. It was likely a poison. Very likely digitalis. Which means that he was dying, and I could have saved him if I had realized the source of the problem.”
Lucy looked up at the doctor with wide, concerned eyes and Georgette noted how they shone a little brighter when they stared at the baby-faced doctor. She glanced towards Robert and then out the window. Janey was sitting on the auto’s bumper with a small brown bag in her hand.
Georgette said, “We can’t know what would have happened or how reasonable it would be for you to have jumped to poison. It’s like Robert said, this is Harper’s Hollow. A small, quiet town where the first conclusion is reasonably the influenza, especially in a home where a man has several small children. Dr. West, people will die under your care. It’ll be because of their own choices, bad luck, or poor health. You know you can’t save them all.”
“I can try,” he said.
“That’s what will make you a brilliant doctor,” Lucy told him.
Georgette pressed her lips together to hold back the laugh at the besotted girl. “Digitalis. Isn’t that foxglove?”
The doctor nodded, handing Georgette a book, and she read about the flower, feeling certain she’d seen it before. “May I borrow this?”
The doctor didn’t object, and Georgette thanked him as they left. “See you on Christmas Eve, doctor.”
Chapter 6
GEORGETTE DOROTHY AARON
Georgette glanced at Lucy and Janey, who seemed as glum as she felt. “Darlings, why don’t we bring some gingerbread cookies to Anna and Barnaby?”
The girls agreed, but as they packed a basket full of treats only Lucy cheered up. Janey’s gaze remained fixed in the distance and Georgette finally said, “Let me see if Charles wants to go.”
He had leaned back in his chair, set his feet on the desk, and was snoozing. Georgette crossed to him and tapped his shoulder. He straightened and she sat in his lap, his hands sliding around her body to cradle her swollen belly. “What’s this? A naughty Christmas elf?”
Georgette pinched his ear and replied, “I have sad news. Do you want it?”
“From the widow?”
She nodded and told him about the worries of being able to provide for the family and about Robert’s idea. Then she shared the visit with the doctor and showed him the book.
“Foxglove? Why does that ring a bell for me?” Charles asked.
She’d have shaken her head, but she was very comfortable against his shoulder. Instead she tangled their fingers together and admitted, “I don’t know. It does for me as well. Perhaps we saw some on our honeymoon.”
“No,” Charles muttered. “No, I don’t think so.”
There was a knock on the door and Georgette sighed. “We’re going to take Anna and Barnaby ginger biscuits, Charles. Janey is still quite glum.”
Charles stood, holding Georgette, then set her on the table. “It’ll get better in the passing time and she’ll see joy around her again. She just needs some distance from it.”
Georgette frowned and then admitted, “Their trouble brings back my own, I suppose. Just like the children. I hate that feeling of helplessness. It makes my stomach hurt and the memory is almost as bad as living it was.”
Charles lifted her hand, tangling their fingers together. “I don’t like to think of before either.”
“You were never as helpless as I,” Georgette told him. “I was never as bad off as that woman with her children. At least it was only me and Eunice.”
“Georgette,” Charles said softly. “I know you’re feeling her troubles in your heart, and we’ll try to help, but—”
Georgette smiled, taking his face between her hands. “Charles, I’m emotional and tired. I promise I won’t be sad forever.”
“Let’s go find Anna. She buys odd teas, too.”
Anna and Barnaby Mustly lived directly next door to Georgette and Charles. They welcomed the intrusion, noting the circles forming under Georgette’s eyes, the lack of happiness on Janey’s face, and Lucy’s pretended cheer.
“Oh darlings,” Anna said, pulling them inside. “Your family was friends with the Mangans, weren’t they? It’ll be all right in the end.”
“I don’t see how,” Janey said. “Joseph thinks that maybe Mrs. Mangan poisoned him even though no one tells me anything. But she wouldn’t have. She wouldn’t have!”
“Well, now, why do they think that?”
Georgette sighed and explained.
“Digitalis?” Anna asked, staring.
“That’s foxglove,” Barnaby answered. “I know you know, darling. By Jove—”
Georgette glanced between the horrified couple. “It was your garden, wasn’t it? Where it was grown?”
“It’s lovely,” Anna admitted. “We’d had it for years, but sometime this last summer, Barnaby noticed several stalks missing. We thought it must have been a mistake, but we paid attention to them.”
“Right before the flowers died for the year,” Barnaby added. “Someone had definitely been in the garden. Once there was some missing again, we got rid of it. Pulled the whole patch, burned it. What if some fool didn’t realize what it was?”
“What if someone took it on purpose?” Charles asked. “Joseph will need to know about your garden. Though, perhaps we are borrowing trouble.”
Barnaby lifted a brow and Charles huffed. “Perhaps not. I’ll send Joseph over later,” Charles told Barnaby. “Shall we have biscuits?”
Janey frowned and asked, “May I go home, Georgette? I would like to talk to Eunice.”
Georgette nodded
and Lucy rose with her. “I told Marian I would help her decorate Joseph’s cottage today. It’s coming on tea, and I haven’t gone yet.”
Georgette rose as the girls did and leaned down to kiss Anna and whispered, “Don’t let it worry you, Anna.”
“How can I not? We knew what it was and thought it would be all right.”
Georgette squeezed her hands. “The burden is on the person who took them and used them.”
“She’s right, Annie my love,” Barnaby said. “Perhaps if it was an accident then the blame would fall to us, but it wasn’t an accident. We’ve heard about it. He got sick over and over again. Someone kept trying and failing.”
On the way back to their house, Georgette and Charles swerved to the back garden and circled since it was too cold to sit.
“Our holiday has been stolen,” Georgette told him, wrapping her arms around his waist to steal his warmth. “It should have been especially exciting with Janey. Christmas morning, and her new doll? With clothes? She’s the most affected of us.”
“Let’s talk it over with Joseph,” Charles said. “We’ll tell him what you’ve learned. I’m sure he’s spent the day discovering anyone else who might have had a reason to kill Davis Mangan.”
“I’m tired of talking of it,” Georgette told him. “What if we find a pot of tea and a novel until Joseph returns and reports, and then spend the evening putting up our Christmas tree?”
“A day early? My dear Georgie, you utterly reckless woman!”
“Reckless?” Georgette laughed. “Perhaps excessive.”
“An excessive holiday.”
“Why not?” she asked. “How many lonely ones did we have? They’re so much more fun with family and children.”
Charles whispered into her hair, and he let her persuade him inside.
ROBERT AARON
As soon as Charles had Georgette and the girls in hand, Robert took the auto towards an address that Charles had given him. Georgette had found it, considered it, and suggested it to Charles. It wasn’t in Harper Hollow proper but towards the hills outside of it. It was a brick house, bigger than Robert would have expected. The place was tucked into the trees. Robert could tell the moment he approached it that it needed a new roof.
He got out of the auto, thinking of how Charles had said that Georgette had just felt that their house was the right house. She’d walked through the garden, peeked into the windows, and wanted it. She hadn’t wavered when she heard of the work it needed. Even now, there were rooms empty of furniture and things that needed to be restored.
Robert tried to do the same. The property for the house was mostly wooded, but there was a kitchen garden nearly indistinguishable from the wild, with the remnants of an old wooden fence that needed to be entirely replaced. A little shed for perhaps a goat or a dairy cow had fallen in on itself. The back door wasn’t locked, and Robert opened the door slowly, pushing through the squeaking creak.
The kitchen was a mess. A kitchen table was turned on its side, the sink was broken. The tiles in the kitchen were cracked and would need to be entirely replaced. Charles had warned Robert that it was rough, but that Georgette ‘liked’ it and thought it had good ‘bones.’ Charles had laughed mockingly, looking at his note and said, “It is cheap. You might as well buy a piece of property and build a house anew.”
“We don’t just throw things away,” Robert had said, but he was teasing Charles. “It has good bones.”
Robert understood now the evil glint in Charles’s gaze as he’d handed over the paper. Robert moved from the kitchen to the hall and winced at the rodent-gnawed wood hallway. There was a dining room, an office, and a parlor. The stairs were terrifying, but Robert risked them anyway. He looked into the master bedroom. There were four more bedrooms, attics, and a small nursery, too.
Robert shook his head at the horror in front of him, wondering if Charles had let Georgette walk up those stairs. Perhaps if he squinted and focused on the ‘bones.’ Robert sighed quietly. He’d imagined walking to Charles’s house and shuddering through Georgette’s weird teas with her. This house was too far for strolls to Charles’s.
He walked out of the house again, trying to channel Georgette. Robert had to admit he adored her. She was his favorite family member despite being so new to them. Somehow he and his brother and uncle had gone from rubbing along all right to having something so much deeper. Something that he had missed desperately since his parents had died.
Robert knew he was chasing that feeling still. He was self-aware enough to know that he was diving into his dreams with his book, and he was diving into his memories with a house. Maybe it was because he wasn’t quite ready to dive into a family like Charles and Joseph. A family that belonged just to him.
After seeing poor Mrs. Mangan, Robert wasn’t sure he’d feel right about having a family of his own until he could be sure they’d be all right without him. To actually have to consider, to believe, that you might have to put your children in an orphanage because you couldn’t take care of them? It was unimaginable.
He shuddered and forced the idea of Mrs. Mangan and her children out of his head. He squinted as he stared at the house. Perhaps it did have good bones. Perhaps he could see a few little ones playing under the trees. Perhaps dogs. Not like Georgette’s little things that were half-rat and snuffly, but something massive and manly. A pair of Neapolitan Mastiffs. He’d name them…Hades and Persephone.
The image was forming in his mind, and he could suddenly understand why Georgette had stared at her house, with the wreckage it had been in, and seen something else.
“Damn it,” he muttered. “Damn it all to hell, Georgette.”
He glanced towards the front window in the parlor and could imagine a Christmas tree there. He could imagine spending his weekends and holidays fixing up the house. Pouring his time and attention into those walls, laying a new tile floor. Replacing the plaster and wood. Buying furniture or perhaps building his own.
“Happy Christmas, Robbie my lad,” he told himself. “Looks like you’ve bought yourself a house.”
He glanced at the paper, looked at the price, and decided to offer half. Might as well try. Someone had to know what this mess was. He sighed. Georgette had turned them all from pragmatic gentlemen of leisure to romantic idiots.
Chapter 7
JOSEPH AARON
“I hate this case,” Joseph muttered. “The murders in the docks when sailors argue over a game of poker or darts. Those are understandable.”
They had gathered in the library after dinner. Georgette and Charles, Joseph and Marian, with Robert. Lucy had gone to bed early with Janey ordered to go along. Eddie had spent the entire day getting them a Christmas tree with friends and then left again to go out with them.
“Understandable?” Georgette asked, aghast. She placed her hand on the baby, rubbing her belly, and then took Charles’s hand as if to make him defend her against such ideas.
“I don’t condone those actions,” Joseph told her, sounding as tired as Georgette looked. “I’m just saying I can understand the whos and the whys.”
“I don’t,” Marian muttered. “This is why I’m intended to not be a detective.”
“Is it terrible of me that I’m fascinated?” Robert asked.
“Yes,” Marian said instantly. “It’s horrifying. Somebody stole foxglove from poor Anna and Barnaby.”
“Possibly,” Joseph inserted.
“Murdered a father of three,” Georgette added, shuddering. “And you’re fascinated.”
“In a puzzle sort of way,” Robert said defensively. “Somewhere in this quiet little village are people who hold the pieces to solve the crime. It is only a question of finding who Mangan confided in.”
“I have considered that,” Joseph said dryly.
“Who do you tell your thoughts to?” Marian asked him.
“You,” he said instantly. He crossed his legs too casually and glanced at Charles.
“Me?” Marian laughed. “If Mr. Man
gan had an idea of the type of person he was dealing with, he didn’t tell his wife. And you wouldn’t tell me.” With a look to Georgette, she added, “Fool.”
“Fool?” Joseph asked. He glanced at the two women, who were both shooting him dark looks. “What did I do? Am I in trouble for the imaginary version of myself?”’
“Yes,” Marian told him with a laugh while Georgette lifted a brow and sipped her odd tea. “You should confide in me so I can help the constables find your murderer.”
“I’m not murdered,” Joseph protested, rather shocked at the idea, “and I’m not going to be murdered.”
“You need to swear to me,” Marian said earnestly, “that if you suspect you’re going to be murdered, you won’t leave me in the dark.”
All three of the Aaron men shook their heads and Charles laughed as Georgette smacked him.
“That is never going to happen, my love,” Charles said to his wife. “If I suspect I’m in danger, I’m going to lock you in our bedroom.”
Georgette gasped, gaze narrowing on Charles, who met her eyes with an absolutely unapologetic shrug. “And you?” Georgette asked, looking at the brothers.
“I’d lock you in there as well,” Robert said. “Georgette, you’re my favorite person. I’d lock Marian in as well since Joseph would be lost without her.”
“Enough of our imaginary murders,” Joseph said, sighing. “The problem is this murder. We talk to each other, all of us. If one of us had a worry that would lead to our murder, chances are one of the others would know why. So far, I’ve nothing more than what the widow has told me, and that lead hasn’t gotten me far.”
“What about his coworkers?” Charles asked. “Luther might know something about what was happening with me.”
Joseph shook his head. “I guessed that. I hoped for some work fellow who knew what about the job was bothering Mangan. Or perhaps one of the boys on the cricket team. No one seems to know anything more.”