“What about the cat?” Dave prodded obviously concerned.
“Oh. It was that same night. Just after you called me. I opened my door to find a woman holding a stray she thought she’d run over. She’d tried the other houses, she said, and it was just luck I was there and that she’d come to the right house.”
“Oh,” Dave said and smiled. “Was it okay?”
“Yes. Terribly dehydrated and battle scarred, but no injuries. Katie’s put up a few notices to see if we can find a good home for the poor thing. It’s at the surgery at the moment, but it will have to go to a shelter after the weekend.”
I reached for Ella’s hand and squeezed it. I knew she’d be worried about finding it a good home, but if anyone could, she and Katie would manage it.
“Speaking of good homes,” I excused myself and picked up the check. “I ought to be getting back to mine. I’m on duty tomorrow.”
Bill and I had a brief argument about the check, but I insisted, and he said it was their treat next time, so we all stood up. I shook hands with Bill, and got a bear hug from Dave, which reminded me very much of my mom’s, so I enjoyed it an extra few seconds.
Outside we had a short block to walk to get to the lot where we’d parked the car, and we paused to cross the street. It was clear, so I offered my hand to Ella, not a hundred percent sure she would take it, but she smiled and did. “That wasn’t our official date,” I said.
Her eyes crinkled in humor. “Oh? We get an official one?”
“Yes, we said we would when we’re not hunting murder suspects.”
“Which seems to be happening with puzzling regularity,” she teased.
“Maybe we should run an ad. No murders until Garrett and Ella go on a date.”
“Or we could go on one of those murder mystery dinners,” Ella said enthusiastically. ‘Someone dies and you have to solve it.”
I stopped suddenly, and she nearly ran into me. “Don’t you think we get enough of that in real life?”
“Maybe,” she smirked, and right that very moment I really wanted to kiss her, so I leaned down and gently eased her forward.
“Get a room!” A guy shouted as he drove past in a car. It totally ruined the moment, and I laughed nervously.
“Come on,” Ella chuckled and took my hand. “Maybe we —”
The car revving warned me a moment after Ella had stepped off the sidewalk. I just had the sense to yank her out of the way, as a silver car roared past, missing her by inches.
“Ella!” I nearly shook her when she didn’t immediately answer me. “Ella, are you okay?”
“Yes, yes I’m fine,” she said, breathlessly. We both looked down the street, but the car was gone. “Garrett, if you hadn’t have reacted so quickly, it would have hit me.”
I could barely speak. A light-colored car? Another accident? It could be a coincidence, but I’d been a cop for far too long to believe in them.
Chapter Fifteen
Petronella
Garrett and I were both pretty quiet on the ride home from Reading. He held my hand a little too tightly, though, despite having to drive, and I wasn’t sure what he might say on the way home. Would he start berating me again about not getting involved in another murder case? It seemed as if his dire warnings might be too late. What I couldn’t work out though was why the murderer was coming after me. Against my better judgement, and hoping not to start an argument, I asked Garrett a question.
“Should I be worried? Do I know something I didn’t know I knew?”
He grinned over at me. “I think I’m the one who should be worried, because I actually understood that word salad. I must be getting used to unraveling yours and Nan’s way of communicating.” He shook his head and gave me a sweet smile. “But to answer you, I’m not sure. Who have you been talking to?”
“Just Maisie and Lily and you, of course. We went together to talk to Nigel Battersley and his wife. Katie and I had lunch with Mary Appleby and I asked her a few questions about local village talk.”
“So people in the village know you’ve been asking questions?”
I nodded, grudgingly. “I suppose so, especially as we talked to Mary. My mum would say she can’t hold her own water.”
Garrett looked concerned. “Mary Appleby? Isn’t she that old lady with the funny looking dog I see around town a lot?”
“Ginger’s not funny looking. She’s very sweet.”
“I’m sure she is. She’s also pretty funny looking.” I gave a little sniff and he laughed.
“Back to Mary Appleby,” he prompted.
“Well, I talked to Mary and asked her about any old talk she may have heard about a crazy ex of Roger’s. She mentioned a girl from his secondary school, years ago, but the family moved to Bristol some time later after they both graduated. Then she brought up old things about Roger I already knew, like Roger making up sources for his sometimes shocking news stories.” I glanced over at him. “Which could have been the motive for his killer, come to think of it. Has Wainwright looked into any of that?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Well, I’d be willing to bet he hasn’t.”
“Ella…”
“It doesn’t seem to me that he looked any further than Maisie. Once he made up his mind about her, it snapped shut, and he’s never tried to find anyone else.”
“I know it may seem that way, but Wainwright’s an experienced investigator. I’m sure he would have looked at everything.”
“Are you? Well, I’m not so inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“I think we’ve gotten a bit off track here. I’m worried about you at the moment.”
I shrugged. “I appreciate it, but maybe we’re jumping to conclusions here. Maybe that was just an accident. We’re a long way from Adlebury.”
“Not so far. Only about fifty miles away.”
“Still, that’s a stretch, isn’t it? How would anyone even know where we’d be tonight?”
“I didn’t keep it a secret. Did you?”
“Well, of course not, but I didn’t mention it to that many people. Just Lily and Katie. Henry too, because I was going out of town. Maisie and Eric, because when I told Maisie, her dad was there with us, and he and my dad are good friends.”
“So then any of them might have mentioned it.”
“Yes, but why would they? It’s not exactly big news that we were going to have dinner with my parents.”
He shrugged.
“How many people did you mention it to?”
“Just Tom. And I may have mentioned it to Roberta.”
We were both silent for a moment. I was thinking that with that many people knowing about it, it was probably all over the village by now, and I was sure he was thinking the same.
“Well, anyway,” I said. “The streets are busy here. I’m sure it was only a coincidence.”
“Yes. But like I’ve told you before, I don’t like coincidences.”
We didn’t say much else on the way home and before long we pulled up outside my house, and I smiled over at him. “I had a good time. Thanks for coming with me to meet them.”
“I enjoyed it. In fact, I’m looking forward to doing it again sometime soon. But go in with me to see Lily. I know she’ll want to hear all about it, and it’s still early.” The fact was I was still feeling a little shaky, though I didn’t want to mention it to Garrett, so I let him talk me into it. And I barely even glanced nervously at the quiet street behind us as I followed him inside.
****
The next day was fairly slow in the clinic, and Henry was there, so I decided to take a long lunch. I knew Maisie would want to hear about the dinner with my parents, and as soon as she brought my order to the table, she had a seat and began asking me all about it.
“Can you spare the time?” I asked her and she laughed.
“Not if Dad was here to see me, but he’s gone to the dentist. I have Terry, our part-time here to help out, and most of the rush is over. I have a minute.”
&
nbsp; I had just begun to tell her when I saw her stiffen in her chair. I turned to see Detective Wainwright walk in with a uniformed officer behind him. The detective wasn’t an attractive man. It wasn’t so much his features, or even his premature baldness, though I think he was self-conscious about that, as he tried to do a really bad comb-over. I think it was his expression, like he smelled something bad and was looking around for someone or something to blame it on. He might have been at least tolerable if a smile had ever been allowed to crack his face. He came directly over to my table where Maisie was sitting and without asking permission, he sat himself down and faced Maisie. The uniformed policeman stood behind her.
“Ms. Wickham, I went to your house and you weren’t home,” he said, pursing his thin lips, as if she were supposed to be on some kind of house arrest. “I need to speak to you. If this lady,” he said, glancing forbiddingly at me, “will excuse us, I have a few questions to ask.”
Since I was obviously right in the middle of my lunch, I looked up at him in surprise.
Maisie grabbed my hand and held on. “No, please. I’d like her to stay. She’s my best friend and anything you have to say to me can be said in front of her.”
He blew out an irritated breath. I could almost see the wheels turning as he decided whether or not it was worth making a scene in the pub, currently crowded with lunchtime customers. Finally, he gave me an irritated little look and continued.
“I need to know your whereabouts on the night of the eighteenth of this month.”
“The eighteenth?”
“The Saturday evening before last. I believe there was a W.I. event in Adlebury your father was providing the alcohol for?”
She flushed. “Wine and ale. Yes, the ladies of the W.I. asked him. There was a dance, you see.”
“And did you help your father run this ‘bar’ set-up?”
“It was actually over by the time I got there because of the special constable’s accident.”
“Roberta Gideon.”
“Yes.”
“I understand the event was well under way by the time Constable Gideon was struck by the automobile. Are you saying you were late in arriving?”
“I-I had to wait for our relief bartender to arrive before I could go. And then I got behind a tractor on the road into town and…yes, I was late in getting there.”
“How late?”
“I didn’t look at the time, but I think the ambulance had just left with Roberta when I arrived.”
“Of course, your ‘relief bartender’ should be able to corroborate the time you left the pub, shouldn’t he?”
“Yes. We were pretty busy, but I think he knows what time he got there, and I left right after that.”
He leaned back in his chair. “As a matter of fact, I’ve already spoken to the man. He says he didn’t notice the time, but he didn’t think he was more than a few minutes late.”
Maisie flushed. “He was twenty minutes late, as a matter of fact.”
“Hm. So you say.”
“So I say. Are you calling me a liar?” Maisie’s tone was defiant, as she flushed an even deeper pink. I squeezed her hand under the table, and she glanced over at me.
“And then you got behind this convenient tractor.”
That’s when I spoke up. “Highly inconvenient, I’d call it.”
He glanced over at me dismissively and reapplied his focus to Maisie. “Is that correct, Ms. Wickham?”
“Yes, like I told you. There was a farmer on a tractor and I couldn’t get around.”
“What’s the farmer’s name?”
Maisie looked blank. “I…what?”
“His name?” he said, his pen poised over a notebook. “Surely you recognized this tractor-driving farmer. Adlebury is a small village. And I can’t imagine anyone from outside the village bringing a tractor to ride up and down the public roads, blocking traffic. In fact, the entire situation seems rather unusual to me. Don’t you think so?”
“No, I don’t…I think the farmers travel from field to field at times. I’ve certainly seen them on the roads before. It was just bad luck he was there when I was running late. And I really didn’t notice who it was.”
“You didn’t notice.”
“No,” she replied, sounding a little desperate. “I was distracted and in a hurry. I kept trying to get around him, but the road was too narrow for my car to pass him.”
“Yes, your car. What vehicle were you driving, Ms Wickham? Yours is still under impound.”
I tried not to react in any way, though this odious man was making my blood boil, twisting my friend up in knots. And now he was about to find out she was driving the same kind of vehicle Roberta said struck her. I could only imagine what he was going to say.
“I was driving my father’s car.”
“Which is what exactly?”
Maisie darted a glance at me, and I replied for her. “Her father drives an Audi.”
“A sedan?”
“Yes.”
Another glance at me, his lips thinning. “What’s the color of this vehicle?”
Maisie looked him right in the eye as she replied, her voice quavering only a little. “Silver.”
Wainwright sat back in his chair with a gleam in his eye. “Silver. You were driving a silver car. Like the one that struck Constable Gideon.” He drummed his fingers on the table a moment. “Tell me, Ms. Wickham, would your father’s car happen to have a temporary tire on it…say on the passenger side?”
“No,” Maisie replied firmly. “It most certainly does not, and before you ask me, I did not run Roberta Gideon down with my dad’s car. Why on earth would I do that? The idea is ridiculous!”
“Is it?”
“Yes, of course it is!” she said, pushing back from the table and getting to her feet suddenly. Her chair scraped the floor and then fell backward with a loud bang. We now seemed to have the attention of everyone in the pub. A hush fell over the usually chatty lunch crowd, as they watched us in fascination.
Wainwright got to his feet too, his face creasing in a mean little smile, so I jumped up as well. He glanced over at me incredulously, but continued addressing Maisie. “Why are you getting so worked up, Ms. Wickham? I’m merely asking you a few questions. In fact, I have some other questions I’d like to ask you, about Roger Battersley’s journal. I think it would be better if we went down to the office and talked about them.”
“Better for who?” I asked. “Maisie’s working today. Besides, I think she needs to contact her solicitor and have him with her before she answers any more of your questions!”
Ignoring me, the officer with him stepped up beside us and put his hand on Maisie’s elbow. She snatched her arm away, and stepped back. He made an aggressive move toward her, and without thinking it through, I threw myself in front of her to block him. He looked down at me with surprise and consternation.
“What are you doing?” Wainwright blustered angrily, putting his hand on my arm. “Young woman, I have to tell you, you’re dangerously close to being arrested yourself.”
“Arrested for what? I haven’t done anything! No more than Maisie has!”
Some of the customers were on their feet now too, and I could hear some rumblings from the men at the bar. Someone yelled out, “You tell ‘em, Pet!”
Maisie was trembling beside me, so I slid my arm around her waist and lowered my voice. “Just wait for her solicitor, please. And then she’ll go with you.”
Wainwright looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Don’t presume to tell me how to do my job, young woman, and don’t involve yourself in things that don’t concern you. Ms. Wickham isn’t being taken back into custody. I merely have a few questions for her. Step out of the way and shut your mouth before I put you under arrest.”
“For what? This is still England, and you can’t just take a person out of their home or business for no reason!”
His eyebrows riding low over his eyes and his face beet red, he lowered his voice to a mean growl.
“I have the right to detain you according to the Public Order Act, prohibiting breach of the peace and threatening behavior under Common Law.” He pointed his finger in my face. “You’re a belligerent troublemaker. Now stand aside, or I’ll have this officer put the cuffs on you for officer safety.”
I heard someone at the bar give a loud bray of a laugh, I suppose at the idea of me or Maisie causing a threat to officer safety. Seeing as how I barely came up to Wainwright’s shoulder and Maisie was even a bit shorter, it was ludicrous. But I felt uneasy, because I could see that the detective had thoroughly lost his patience and his temper.
He sneered at me and said, “Sit down, you stupid little girl, and stop interfering in police business.”
I saw red.
Too many people had belittled my size, my gender, and my capabilities, and I couldn’t possibly let that go.
“You’re not a policeman, you big bully,” I yelled stepping closer. “Why you, you’re nothing but a-a….” I glanced up pointedly at his bald head, “An overgrown ping-pong ball!”
The pub erupted. Cheers, laughing, whistling and pointing at Wainwright. Ella heard one of the men at the bar saying, “A ping pong ball!” And then the man convulsed in laughter.
The officer with him had to look down at his feet, but I could see his shoulders shaking.
“Constable Reynolds, arrest this woman immediately for disturbing the peace.”
He wasn’t—he couldn’t be serious. The constable glanced up with the same astonishment on his face, and Wainwright snarled. “Do you really want to disobey a direct order right now?”
All traces of humor vanished form the constable’s face, and before I could actually believe what was happening, he stepped forward, recited the words like I’d seen on the TV a million times and grabbed hold of my arm, gently but securely.
“What do you think you’re doing, constable?” Wainwright asked, his tone rigid and threatening.
The constable looked at Wainwright then glanced down at me clearly at a loss.
“She has demonstrated threatening behavior, and I want her properly restrained.”
I gaped. To be fair so did the constable, and sending me an apologetic look, quickly secured my wrists in front of me with what I later learned were called rigid speed cuffs. The benefit of using these, as it was explained to me later by Garrett—at some length—was that it was easy to use them on a subject who was struggling.
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