by K. J. Emrick
Miranda’s mouth simply hung open for a moment. The woman, although beyond rude, had just given herself motive for murder. Not to mention she’d admitted to knowing—and hating—the victim, all before Miranda could even ask a single question.
As the door was shutting, she put her hand out and stopped it. The woman glared at her. “I’m sorry,” Miranda told her, “but I’m here to offer you my condolences.”
“Condolences?” the woman said, letting the door swing open again. “What are you talking about?”
“Maisie Fraser,” Miranda said. “She’s dead.”
“Dead?” the woman blinked as if the word had no meaning to her.
“Is she just going to repeat everything you say?” Kyle asked, floating around them both like some giant flitting insect.
“I really am so very sorry,” Miranda continued, not sure if sorry was the right word based on the reaction she’d gotten so far. “To be honest, I thought the police would have been here by now to talk to you about it.”
“Now hold on.” The woman stepped back. “Are you telling me that Maisie Fraser is dead?”
“I’m not buying this,” Kyle butted in, leaving Miranda to once again concentrate on two conversations at once. “I don’t believe for a minute that she doesn’t understand what you’re saying. This is an act, I tell you.”
“Maisie was found earlier this evening,” Miranda decided to explain, ignoring Kyle. “She died on the rocks at the bottom of the cliff behind your house. This is your house, right?”
“That’s… too bad,” the woman said with a smile that put a lie to her words, and left Miranda highly suspicious. “Won’t you come in, and tell me more? You’re Miranda Wylder, aren’t you? From up the street? I’m Leah Robinson-Wells. That’s a hyphenated last name. I married into the Wells family just a few years ago. Welcome to our home. I can’t wait to hear this story. No, I certainly can’t wait to hear this one!”
Chapter 6
Once she was inside, Miranda’s attentive mind picked up details of everything around her, knowing that anything might be important later on. The entryway was rather grand, and brightly lit even in what was now the wee hours of the morning. The walls were adorned with all sorts of plaques and framed pictures and photographs. Potted plants in huge urns were set on pedestals up and down the hall. Miranda walked slowly on purpose, trying to take in as much detail as she could on the way through.
Her eye was drawn to a photograph of a small house, in a plain black frame. She recognized the background and in the next instant she realized it was right here, where she was standing. Her psychic impressions before had been right. There used to be a smaller house here on the grounds. That house right there in the photo. Over the years it had been added to, and it had grown like a living thing. She could only imagine how much it had cost to transform that humble dwelling into the hulking brute that Miranda and Kyle saw around them.
As she continued to walk, Miranda found other photos and paintings of the house through the years. What had been an apple orchard was now cleared away for the lawn and the hedge rows. People smiled from the images, no one she recognized, waving or smiling or squinting into the sun.
Near the middle of the hall there was a signed cricket bat mounted on a rather large plaque. Miranda couldn’t quite make out the name scrawled across the flat of the bat. She knew a few of the greats in the game. Don Bradman. Shane Warne. Matthew Hayden. The signature wasn’t any of those but it must mean a lot to someone, to be displayed like this.
Miranda’s attention was distracted by a long low whistle and she knew that Kyle was seeing all the same things she was. There was certainly money in this household. Or, at least, there had been a lot of money at one time, to build all this.
“It’s big, it’s a bit flashy, and the decor is totally tacky,” Kyle said with a sniff. “I mean, it’s obvious there’s just been way too many decorators. Nothing goes together. The woodwork doesn’t even match.”
Miranda kept her eyes focused on a single painting on the wall, not really seeing it, while she listened to Kyle prattle on. She wished he’d just shut up so she could follow Leah into the house and hear more of what she had to say.
“I know,” Leah said from behind her. “That painting isn’t particularly pleasant. I’ve never liked it.”
Now that she said that, Miranda focused on what she was looking at. There were dark streaks, and blue swirls, and the shape of something she couldn’t quite make out. It rather sent shivers running along her skin. Ugly didn’t cover it. This was… disturbing.
“Who painted this?” she asked. “Is it an impressionist master or something like that?”
Leah laughed harshly. “Hardly. That was done by Maisie herself. The dearly departed, if what you’re telling me is true. My husband insisted on keeping it around.”
Hmm, Miranda mused. That must mean that Maisie had a strong connection to this house… or to Leah’s husband.
“Come along,” the woman said, rather flippantly. “I’ll take you through to the dining room. Everybody is still in there. We were having a party and I think we lost track of time somewhere around midnight. I was just about to head to bed when you came along. They always seem to loiter and talk after every meal. It can be a little tedious, but I suppose we have fun.”
Miranda could hardly believe how much she was learning from Leah without even trying. She had to believe that if the police had arrived at the door and started asking questions they would have been stonewalled. For Miranda, Leah seemed not the least bit embarrassed to be airing the household’s dirty little secrets.
Miranda followed along a turn to the right, where the paneling changed yet again. At the end there was an open door. Conversation floated out to her, and she could see part of a long wooden table even from this far back.
“Oooh,” Kyle cooed. “I wonder what they serve in a fancy place like this?”
Miranda wanted to tell him that he couldn’t smell the food, much less eat it. Besides, dinner was long done at this point. In a few hours it would be time for breakfast!
That made her wonder, as she stepped into the huge room, what these people were still doing awake at this hour.
At one end of the table a woman easily in her sixties was hovering about and watching two men playing cards. Plastic chips were piled in the middle between them.
“You know I have the upper hand,” one man said. He had a mop of blonde hair, and behind his glasses with their thick lenses he had a very guarded expression. Almost as if he was expecting someone to tell him he was doing it all wrong.
Miranda saw the woman behind him put a hand on his shoulder, patting him in a way that was almost possessive. He stared at her hand, his nose wrinkling. “Oh, dear, Mother. Is that a little cigarette ash on your glove?”
“Of course not,” the older woman—his mother—said, as if a little embarrassed.
Her son chuckled at her, turning so his humor could be shared with the man sitting across from him. “Mother, don’t tell me you’re back to smoking. You were doing so well!”
Miranda let her eyes stray to those gloves. She could see them better now at the door to the dining room. They were some soft beige material and very much at odds with everything else the woman was wearing. Her frilly dusty rose colored dress was accented by a bulky looking pearl choker which looked incredibly uncomfortable. The outfit would have done nicely at a formal dinner party. The gloves looked like driving gloves. They weren’t feminine at all.
Quickly, now that everyone was looking, the woman put the gloves down low and started brushing them off furtively.
Miranda made a hasty study of the three people in the room. If this was the place where Maisie had died, then these were the suspects.
The other man sitting at the table was lightly drumming his fingers impatiently. He was a contrast to his blonde-haired friend. His hair was dark and his skin was browned by the sun. His face was full of disdain for everyone around him. Deep black eyes made his counten
ance even darker. The man’s eyes were narrowed and the drumming fingers seem to work ever faster as he stared at his cards. “Can we get back to the game now?” he asked. “I’d like to finish this hand, since I’m winning, and finally get to bed.”
“Ha!” the blonde man retorted. “You only think you’re winning, Ashton.”
Next to Miranda, Leah cleared her throat. “We have a guest. This is our neighbor from up the road. Miranda Wylder, let me introduce everyone to you. I’m sure you’ve never met our family before. We try not to socialize with most of the people here in town. Not our kind of people, after all. Anyway. That dashing blonde man over there is my husband, Paul Wells. Behind him is my mother-in-law, Mrs. Natasha Wells.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Miranda said, nodding to each of them, and committing their names to memory. Paul. Natasha. She couldn’t help but notice that Leah hadn’t fully taken her husband’s name, but kept it hyphenated instead as Robinson-Wells. Of course, women had any number of reasons for wanting to hold onto their own family name once they were married. It was just an interesting tidbit to add in with everything else.
She could not help but think how there wasn’t a single welcoming face in the room. Even though Paul and Natasha both smiled at her, there was frost in their eyes. Granted, a guest this late at night was an inconvenience, but usually you were at least nice to people who came to your home. Especially neighbors.
“Wow, this lot have issues,” Kyle said, agreeing with her unspoken thoughts. “Seriously, look at them.”
Miranda had to keep herself from looking at him. He was right, of course, but she’d be the odd one in the room if she started talking to thin air.
When nobody spoke back to her, Miranda couldn’t help but let her eyes stray again to the unusual off-white gloves that Natasha Wells was wearing. She could tell immediately that the older woman had noted her curiosity and, quite out of the blue, Natasha finally smiled.
“Oh, please don’t mind the gloves,” she laughed. “I have a rather bad case of eczema. It flared up on me yesterday. Not contagious, or anything, I assure you. I just don’t like people staring so I wear these. I have a spare pair with me at all times, even, just in case. Thankfully these cleaned up nicely.”
“What she means,” Leah said snarkily, “is that she’s phobic about touching anything. It’s just one of her little quirks that make us love her.”
Natasha shot her daughter-in-law a harsh glare, and Leah met it with a wide smile.
“Miss Wylder,” Paul Wells said into the silence, “why are you here? It’s very late, and we were just finishing the game before bed. Unusual to drop in at this hour, don’t you think? Perhaps you’re a friend of Ashton’s?”
He turned his attention across the table to where the other man at the table was sitting impassively.
“Oh, forgive me,” Leah said with a little jolt, realizing she’d forgotten an introduction. “This is my husband’s friend, Ashton Perry. He doesn’t live here.”
Odd, Miranda thought, that she felt the need to add that last bit.
“True, in each respect,” Ashton said to her. “And no, Paul. I’ve never met Miss Wylder before.”
“No, none of us have met before,” Miranda said, figuring that was as good an opening as she was likely to get. “I’m afraid I’ve come here with bad news.”
“That depends on your definition of bad news,” Leah said from beside her.
“What bad news?” Paul asked, looking from his wife to Miranda and back again. “Leah, what’s this about?”
“Miss Wylder here,” Leah said, “has come to tell us that Maisie Fraser is dead.”
The way Leah spat the words out, Miranda thought that perhaps she was enjoying this. It had been clear from the very first that Leah Robinson-Wells did not like Maisie Fraser one little bit. Her attitude towards the young woman’s death was callous. In Miranda’s mind, that put her a few steps higher on the suspect list.
The reaction from the others was mixed, to say the least.
“What?” Paul’s jaw dropped. His eyes widened, confusion rippling over his face. “I don’t understand. What do you mean?”
“Maisie Fraser is dead,” Leah repeated, a little louder. “She used to live and breathe on this Earth and now she doesn’t. There, that’s the news. Now, go back to your game.”
It was all Miranda could do not to stare at the woman. Who could be so unfeeling about someone else dying? What had been between Leah and Maisie?
“No, wait,” Paul said, almost pleading. “She’s dead? Are you absolutely sure?” He half rose from his chair. The cards he had been so carefully holding onto dropped to the table in front of him.
As they did, Miranda saw Ashton looking them over. He read his own cards, then the ones that Paul had dropped, and his face took on a glower as he dropped all the cards together on top of the plastic chips. Obviously, he would have lost.
It seemed to be all he was caring about at the moment.
“Miss Wylder,” Natasha asked from behind her son. “Are you quite certain that Maisie is dead? This isn’t some sort of elaborate joke?”
“I’m afraid I’m very sure, Mrs. Wells,” Miranda told her quietly. “And I really am so very sorry.”
Paul made a strangled sound in his throat as he continued to stare. Miranda wondered what the relationship between Paul Wells and Maisie Fraser might have been, for him to be the only person at the table who cared that she was dead. Even Natasha’s enquiry had been perfunctory, just asking to get the story straight. Not a show of concern in the least.
“I can hardly believe it,” Natasha said next. “Whatever has happened?”
“Oh, Natasha,” Leah sighed, leaving Miranda’s side to go and sit next to her husband. “Who cares? It’s not like she was part of our family. Right, dear?”
She never laid a hand on Paul, never tried to touch him, but in her voice Miranda could hear a sort of control, like a verbal leash holding him tight. He nodded in response to her question, but didn’t say anything, looking up again to Miranda to hear what else she might say.
That was her cue, she supposed. “Um. To be honest, Mister Wells, um… Paul, I probably shouldn’t say too much. I thought the police would have been here by now. I was there when they found Maisie so I only wanted to come by and offer my condolences. I’m getting the impression now that I had the situation all wrong.”
Leah snorted. “I should say so. What on Earth made you think the police would come here to question us?”
“Excuse me?” Miranda said, looking at Leah with disbelief. “Um. I’m not sure I understand. Like I said, I just came to…”
“Yes, yes. You came here to give us your condolences. That’s not what I asked you.” Leah sniffed, rather noisily, and leaned forward on the table. “What I said was, why did you come here? Why did you assume that we would know Maisie Fraser, or even care that she was dead?”
Beside her, Paul flinched.
“Well, you do know Maisie Fraser, don’t you?” Miranda said, her tone a little more frosty than she had intended, but she was tired of this woman talking down to her.
“That’s not the point. How did you know that we knew Maisie Fraser?”
She hadn’t meant to give this part away, but there seemed to be no help for it. “Maisie Fraser’s body was found on the rocks, at the base of the cliff behind your home, directly beneath this property. So, you can see why I’d make the assumption that she was here, and that you knew her.”
Paul made a strangled noise in his throat, and looked down at the table. From behind him, his mother put a hand on his shoulder.
Leah didn’t bother to comfort him in any way.
“I see,” was all Leah said to Miranda. “So, Maisie was found on the rocks and you think she fell from here? Well. Aren’t you rather the amateur sleuth. In fact, I seem to remember some news items from a few months ago about you meddling in police investigations. Is that what you’re doing here? Hm?”
“Oh,” Kyle sna
rked, floating closer to the table, “I do not like this woman. No sir. Not one little bit. Can’t you just imagine her standing out there in the dark and pushing Maisie over the edge? I mean, can’t you? Be honest, now.”
Miranda could have killed him for asking something like that when she couldn’t respond. That is, if he wasn’t already dead.
He was certainly right, though. Why was it that Leah’s husband seemed so upset while she herself did not? Where on Earth did Maisie Fraser fit in to this curious little household? Not as family. That had been firmly established. Still, there was something in the way that Leah was controlling her husband that just reeked of jealousy and made Miranda think this whole business was somehow interconnected.
“Well,” Leah said, when Miranda remained silent, “thank you so much for coming out to pass on your condolences. It is, obviously, very sad news. I can only put it down to Maisie’s clumsy approach to life in general. To be honest, I had no idea she was on the premises. Of course, we never keep the front locked and anyone can walk right through the gate any time they please. She could have quite easily made her way to the back of the house and down to the edge of the cliffs unseen. I daresay that is exactly what happened. Maisie couldn’t open a piece of mail without giving herself a paper cut. Falling to her death seems just her style.”
Well, well, Miranda thought to herself. For a woman who was so quick a moment ago to disavow any real knowledge of Maisie, she was certainly full of anecdotes about the dead woman’s character now, wasn’t she?
“Miss Wylder,” Natasha said, before Leah could spout more vitriol about Maisie, “I’m afraid that my son has had quite a shock. I think it might be wise to give him a little time now to process this. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
“I understand,” Miranda said with a smile. “They were close, then?”
Paul cleared his throat. “She was my first wife.”