The Minstrel & The Campaign

by Lila K Bell

“That’s a lie,” he said, and the pique in his voice gave me hope that I would get at least a few answers out of him this time around. He was more upset over the suggestion that he’d fought with Amelia than the accusation that he’d killed her, and I didn’t know what to read into it. “I loved Amelia, Miss Gates. I don’t know what you were told, but whatever this person claims they heard never happened. We were making wedding plans that night. Although the date was well in the future, Amelia wanted every detail ready when the time came. If any argument was heard, it was probably raised voices over napkin colours.”

  He stood and paced his cell. That was twice he’d done that when I’d questioned him, and this time I pushed him a little bit harder.

  “If you didn’t argue with her, was anyone else there that night she might have fought with?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” he said, and stopped in front of me.

  He’d caught himself again. Every time he got riled up and I thought I had him, he seemed to find the self-control to wipe away his reaction. I wished he’d stop being such a goody two-shoes and start trashtalking people to get himself out of this mess.

  “What about Veronica Moore?” I asked.

  He narrowed his eyes. “She was the one who told you about the fight, was she?”

  I arched an eyebrow but didn’t answer. Two people could play at this withholding information game if that was how he wanted to play it.

  “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised if she was the reason the police focused on me so quickly,” he said, and rubbed his brow. “Yes, she was there. No doubt she’s spread a whole series of lies about me.”

  “Why would she do that?” I asked.

  He hesitated, drawing in a sharp breath, and I expected another refusal to answer. But to my surprise, he said, “She was attracted to me. Right from the start I noticed behaviours that made me uncomfortable. Offers to take on responsibilities that crossed too far into my personal life, for example. Attempts to take over some of Amelia’s tasks if it meant spending evenings in my office. Eventually I told Amelia to deny her the opportunities, which led tension in the office, to say the least. Veronica took out her resentment on Amelia, treating her poorly. Harping on her work, passive-aggressive nonsense, that sort of thing. Nothing that would get her fired, but nothing to ingratiate herself to either of us.”

  “Why didn’t you let her go?”

  “Because, unfortunately, she was damned good at her job. After a while things seemed to settle and we went on without trouble. After Amelia disappeared, she tried to attach herself to me again, but I still couldn’t bring myself to be interested. I couldn’t let go of the hope that Amelia would return.”

  The pain in his eyes as he expressed his lingering hope pinched my heart.

  It also brought Veronica’s version of events into higher contrast. Susan and John both claimed Veronica and Amelia had issues. If the only person saying otherwise was Veronica herself, then I would believe her about as much as I believed my mother would ever wear off-brand clothing.

  “It was almost a relief when I lost the next election. It meant I could move on to something else. Something that didn’t remind me every single day of the woman I loved and lost, and I could get away from Veronica.”

  Had he told any of this to the police? If so, had they looked at her at all, or were they too focused on John to believe it worth their while?

  Either way, I felt I’d won a point. He’d gone from not wanting to speak ill of anyone to dishing the beans on his general secretary, and, in my opinion, there was enough suspicion to make her a decent suspect. Gramps was probably right that she wouldn’t have been able to kill, move, and bury Amelia herself, but who knows? Adrenaline and determination can offer anyone super strength when they need it.

  I would need to get creative to find another reason to speak with her, but it would be worth it. Would she be able to stick with her story for a second round, or would I be able to pick at some cracks until the lies crumbled?

  “So,” I said, “while I’m here, is there anyone else you can think of who might have been there that night? Anyone else Amelia might have argued with or proof that you weren’t the last person to see her?”

  John sank back onto the cot. “No one I can think of,” he said, and this time he sounded defeated, as though he accepted his days of denial were over.

  At least, I hoped that was the case.

  “As far as I can remember, the building was dead that night except for Amelia and Veronica.” He frowned. “Why aren’t the police taking a closer look at her?”

  “Maybe because you never gave them reason to,” I said.

  He started and looked up at me, but there was nothing I could say to offer comfort. He’d made his decision and would have to deal with the consequences of keeping his mouth shut.

  Even now, there was something he was holding back. I knew it by his pacing and reining himself in. I’d gotten him to admit the truth about Veronica, but how much about that night still rested behind his stubborn principles? What else was he keeping to himself?

  Unless he trusted me enough to tell me, I thought it possible that, in the end, there was only so far I’d be able to take this case.

  ***

  My luck in avoiding Sam lasted until I was on my way out. I’d only just passed the lobby when I heard him call after me, and I froze in my steps.

  I debated pretending I hadn’t heard him.

  Maybe he would think I was a trick of his imagination. He expected to see me so he believed he had.

  But my conscience wouldn’t allow it.

  I hated that the longer I held off from thievery, the louder the pesky angel on my shoulder became. I would have to steal something soon or risk it taking over altogether.

  For now, though, I turned around and greeted Sam with a bright smile.

  “What brings you back here again?” he asked.

  “I’ve been enlisted as messenger between John and Gramps. He was really hoping to make it here himself today, but his hip is acting up. All that dampness in the air.”

  I pictured Gramps raising an eyebrow at my gradual evolution of his infirmity into complete immobility. At this rate, I would going to have to get him a wheelchair for his errands just so he wouldn’t give me away.

  But hey, I’d had a makeover for that man. The least he could do was hobble a little bit for me.

  Although, honestly, I don’t know how well my lie was working today. Sam stared at me as though expecting me to add something else, and I couldn’t help but think he doubted me.

  I knew I should have told him the truth. He’d expressly asked me to stay out of this and I’d broken my word. The least I could do was be honest about the fact that I’d betrayed his trust.

  I couldn’t bring myself to do it. How would he react if I told him about Veronica and all I’d learned? Would he take the information to Detective Curtis and reopen the investigation? I thought not. More likely, he would thank me for getting something out of John, and then, thanks to bureaucracy and the way these things go, find some reason as to why the information supported their existing theory that John had killed her. He killed her because Veronica’s story was the true one and John wanted to be with her. He killed her because Amelia’s jealousy was getting out of control. Who knows?

  What I did know was that if I opened my mouth now, my freedom to find out more would vanish as completely as Amelia had — and I didn’t have twenty-five years to wait for a second chance.

  “I read the article in the paper,” I said. “About the case. The golf trophy, all that. It’s not looking good for Kingslake.”

  “No, it’s not,” he said. “That’s why we arrested him.”

  I smirked. You could always count on Sam to point out the obvious.

  “You don’t feel that it’s looking… too not good for Kingslake?”

  He crossed his arms. “What do you mean?”

  “Just that it seems like nothing is making anyone else look not good, either. There ar
e no other suspects.”

  “Fi, this case happened twenty-five years ago, and he buried her beside his own office. As soon as the cement went down, he probably thought he was in the clear. He was sloppy. The fact that there are no other suspects makes the case stronger, not weaker.”

  So he said, but there was a flicker of doubt in his eyes, like the time I swore to him the laxative milk would ease the spiciness of the ghost pepper I’d convinced him to eat.

  What can I say? I was a brat when I was twelve years old.

  Not much has changed, really.

  “I guess so, but it just strikes me as odd that everything is so clean-cut. The murder weapon, the location, all the stories against him. Susan Featherby has something different to say on the subject, by the way.”

  He grabbed my arm and guided me to the corner of the lobby, out of earshot of anyone walking through.

  “And just what were you doing chatting with Susan Featherby about this case?”

  “She’s a gossip — I listened, that’s all,” I said. “But come on, Sam. Are you sure there’s not more to this than there seems to be?”

  His blue eyes looked around to make sure we hadn’t attracted anyone’s interest, then he shrugged. “I’ll admit, Curtis has some reservations on the subject, but there isn’t anything we can do. The budget is tight, and her lieutenant is breathing down her neck to close this one. She has to follow the evidence.”

  I could only nod. To say anything more would give away my true motives for being here.

  I understood — I really did — but surely he had to see why I couldn’t leave this alone. They were restricted, I wasn’t, and I would put whatever skills I possessed to succeed where they couldn’t.

  10

  I’d just reached the car when my cell phone rang, and I made sure to give the display a good, hard look before I answered it. The last thing I wanted was to be trapped in a surprise lecture from Sam or Detective Curtis.

  Or worse, from my mother if Sam or Detective Curtis had called her first.

  You might think twenty-five years old was too grown up to be terrified of a mother’s tongue-lashing, but when that mother is Rose Gates, there is no such thing.

  Thankfully it was Bea.

  “How are you, my lovely?” she greeted when I answered. “Philip told me you came home looking pretty as a blossom yesterday. One might wonder as to the occasion.”

  “Murder investigation,” I said. I didn’t feel the need to lie to Bea. Not when I was pursuing my line of inquiry at Gramps’s request.

  “I should have known. Your granddaddy has been quite the secretive one the last couple of days. Though it does explain why he asked me for Irene Wright’s contact information.”

  The note of disapproval in her voice sat beside one of amusement, and I tried to picture her reaction. No doubt it would be plenty of eye-rolling, with a few shrugs and deep sighs in between.

  Bea was more than my grandfather’s home care nurse — as far as I was concerned, she was part of the family. For five years she’d taken care of Gramps, coming in every day to make sure he was comfortable, taking him for walks and doctors appointments. Putting up with my parents.

  Really, the woman was a saint.

  That Gramps and I were dragging her into an investigation that shouldn’t be happening in the first place gave me a pang of guilt, but I told myself she wasn’t doing much. Amelia’s mother was a good lead, but it wasn’t a direct association with anything the police were looking into. I could easily say I was visiting her to offer my personal condolences.

  It might seem odd considering I didn’t know her, but maybe that was my new thing. Offering comfort to the recently bereaved. Not even Sam could find fault with that.

  “Did you have any luck tracking her down?” I asked.

  “I didn’t have to try very hard. She’s out at the Wise Words Nursing Home. Do be careful with her, Fi. She’s eighty-nine years old and grieving for her daughter.”

  “I promise. The last thing I want to do is upset her.”

  A pause on the line. “And be careful yourself. I don’t know what got into your granddaddy’s head asking you to look into this, but he must have had his reasons. Be smart.”

  “I will.”

  I hung up and glanced at my reflection in the rear view mirror. Today I recognized the face staring back at me, unlike the makeup-caked tones of yesterday, and the woman reflected in the mirror looked like she knew what she was doing.

  Good. At least one of us did.

  I pulled Wise Words Nursing Home up on my GPS and headed away from downtown to the highway that would take me there.

  It wasn’t a long drive. We didn’t ship our senior citizens out to the boonies when they reached a certain age or anything. On the contrary, Wise Words was located along Lake Ontario, tucked beside a bay that offered some beautiful walking trails along the water. The home itself was an old estate that had been converted into individual rooms, each one cozy and bright, and the staff appeared friendly as they escorted their tenants across the grounds.

  I walked into the lobby and crossed to the reception desk. When I asked for Irene, I was directed to the third floor, room 306.

  “She should be awake, but if she’s not, please try not to wake her,” the receptionist said. “We had the doctor in to see her yesterday to deliver the news about her daughter. It’s not a happy subject for her.”

  “I understand. Thank you.”

  My stomach twisted with nerves. Was I making a mistake by coming here? I’d meant what I said to Bea: the last thing I wanted to do was push an eighty-nine-year-old woman into hysterics.

  But if Irene Wright knew anything about her daughter’s last days, it would be worth asking a question or two. Any help she could give me would move me farther along than I was now.

  I reached her room and found her sitting up in bed, running her fingers over a picture frame. Her silver hair sat in a soft bun, and her cream cardigan hugged her thin wrists. She didn’t appear to be the bedridden sort, her frame still muscular, and I guessed her afternoon lethargy was at the doctor’s recommendation.

  She looked up when I knocked, her green eyes sharp and alert.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “My name is Fiona Gates. Philip Courtney’s granddaughter.”

  Her brow furrowed as she tried to place the name, and then her face lit up with recognition. “Oh yes, he’s a friend of John’s isn’t he? I met him a couple of times. How is he doing?”

  “Well, thank you,” I said, and made myself comfortable in the chair beside her bed. “He sends his condolences about Amelia.”

  “Thank you, dear,” she said, and ran her fingers over the picture. I caught a glimpse of a smiling face, brown hair curled in a loose perm, and a bright purple turtleneck. “I’m surprised not to feel more upset than I do, but, honestly, I think I’ve been preparing for this news for twenty-five years. Amelia would never have gone off without telling me or getting in touch. I accepted long ago that I would never see her again. To have her found, to be able to bury my little girl, it’s all I could have asked for.”

  My throat closed at her sturdy resignation. This was a woman who had lost her daughter and husband, who lived in a nursing home with only nurses and friends for company, and here she sat, dry-eyed. She had to be made of steel.

  “But this news I heard that they arrested John Kingslake,” she said, shaking her head. “I think that surprised me more than anything.”

  “Do you think he did it?”

  Her fingers curled around the edges of the frame. “I don’t know, which makes it that much harder. I want to say no. He was always lovely to me, and Amelia looked so happy with him. She never let on that there were any issues aside from the delay in the wedding. If he did it… I think that would break my heart even more, because I would be losing both of them.”

  “Has he kept in touch over the years?”

  “No,” she said, “but that was mostly my fault. The rumours at the t
ime suggested he might have been involved, and though I didn’t really believe it, I found it… difficult to be around him. Just in case, you understand. What if it turned out that he did have something to do with her disappearance and I’d been friendly with him all this time? Sometimes I regret that decision, but now, with him being arrested, what am I left to think?”

  I realized I was picking at my nails and tucked them under my thighs to stop my fidgeting. Did I want to tell her why I was really here? She was bound to ask eventually, and I would hate to have her think I’d come under false pretenses. But what if I told her and opened wounds she thought were closed?

  There were so many parts of this whole investigating thing I still hadn’t wrapped my head around.

  Tact, for one.

  “Gramps doesn’t think he did it,” I said. “He asked me to find evidence to prove John’s innocence.”

  I waited for Irene to tear up, but she simply nodded. “I hope you find something. It would be nice to see him cleared of any suspicion.”

  Feeling safe enough to test the waters a little farther, I said, “Would it be all right if I asked you a few questions? I’ve spoken with John already, but you might have a different insight into what was going on with Amelia at the time.”

  “Of course. I’ll help where I can. The police came yesterday when Dr. Addison was here to ask me a few things themselves, but all they seemed focused on was blaming John. Not surprising, I suppose. I can understand how he would be the most likely suspect.”

  She raised a shaking hand to her brow and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. At the sight of her tremor, I refilled her glass of water on the bedside table and handed it to her.

  “Thank you, dear.” She sipped it, then gave me a small smile. “So what would you like to know?”

  “Do you know if Amelia was having trouble with anyone? Veronica Moore, for example?”

  “Veronica… Oh, John’s other secretary. Yes, I remember her.” She chuckled. “Amelia used to regale me with tales about the woman’s attempts to lure John away. She was never jealous — she was sure he loved her — but it did bother her that the woman was so determined when she knew he was already involved with someone else. It wasn’t just that, of course — Ms. Moore was also out for Amelia’s job. Taking over responsibilities without asking, coming in early, staying late, making a mess of things and laying the blame at Amelia’s door.” The crease reappeared between her eyebrows. “You don’t think she would have killed her over something as foolish as that?”