The Missing Party-Girl: A Rags-to-Riches Cozy Mystery Romance

by Nhys Glover

  Cage scanned the bar as soon as they entered, giving Adie a nod when he spotted their target. Roland Hughes sat with a much younger man at a wooden table by the front window. Both men looked their way as Adie and Cage strode resolutely across the crowded space towards them. Quiet classical music played in the background, blending perfectly with the quiet voices. There was no loud 80s rock here, or people yelling to make themselves heard over the music. The place was all about sophistication and class.

  The two men rose as Adie approached. Roland—because he had to be Roland, given his aged, plump body and bald head—looked her over with an appreciative gaze.

  “You must be Minerva Reynolds’ niece. How wonderful to meet you, my dear,” he said, taking Adie’s hand.

  His skin was paper thin and slightly damp. “I am Roland Hughes and this is my assistant, Laurence Ford. Please, sit. I am dying to discover what Minerva might have said about me that brought you out to meet an old man like me.”

  Adie gave him a polite smile. “I’m Adie Reynolds and this is my associate, Cage Donovan. He’s helping me sort out Aunt Minerva’s bequeathments.”

  The men exchanged handshakes as Adie sat in the chair directly across from Roland.

  The waiter came over to take their orders before quickly disappearing.

  Getting right to the point, Adie said, “I’m reading my aunt’s journals. She kept them all her adult life. Right now, I’m reading 1965. That’s where I came across your name. You were dating her flatmate, Georgie Wyatt.”

  Roland’s eyes opened wide for a moment, before they took on a faraway expression, as if he was remembering the past. Fondly, she thought.

  “Georgie! Now there was a stunner. Flaming red hair and a curvy shape not unlike your own. Women back then liked to look like women, not skeletons.”

  He nodded in Cage’s directly, expecting to get a nod of agreement from him. It surprised her when Cage did just that. Maybe he was just playing a role again.

  Roland went on in his very cut-glass accent that spoke of nobility not just a grammar school education. “I’m rather honored to know Georgie spoke of me. To be honest, she was way out of my league. I did everything short of buying her an island to win her over.”

  Adie smiled politely again. “She spoke well of you, I can assure you. When did you last see Georgie, do you remember?”

  Roland looked up at the ceiling, which was a long way above them. “Let me see. It was before she was killed by that mobster, that’s for certain. Mid March of ’65, I think. I was supposed to see her at the very end of March, but she never made it. The mobster you know. Terrible end for someone as wonderful as Georgie. Terrible.”

  His expression matched his words, shaking Adie’s belief in his culpability.

  “You think she was killed by a mobster?” Adie asked, her spine stiffening.

  Could he mean Owen Jeffers? He was the only one she knew about who had mob connections.

  “Well, I assume that’s what happened. You see, she rang me that Saturday morning, beside herself with worry. The night before, Friday night that would be, her boss tried to force his attentions on her. When she slapped him, he told her she was fired.

  “Georgie had a bit of a temper. I suppose it came from being a redhead. She said she slapped him again. At which point the bastard told her she’d be sorry. He reminded her of his mob connections and how easy it would be to make her disappear forever.

  “’No one disrespects … whatever his name was, and gets away with it. Or so he told her.

  He frowned a little uncertainly, his gaze turning up to the ornate ceiling once more. “I think I remember that part correctly. I was somewhat worse for wear when she rang, as we’d had rather a late night of it. But, yes, I am sure that was how she phrased it.

  “She was running scared when she rang me, pleading for me to let her come out to my house. To hide out for a while. I was having a house-party again that weekend, hence the late night Friday. I was occupied with my guests, as well as being a little under the weather. But I do remember how desperate she sounded. I took pity on her, invited her to stay the rest of the weekend, and suggested she could then come with me to the Continent the following week.

  Adie exchanged surprised looks with Cage as Roland went on.

  “I suggested she lay low for the rest of the day and take a train out to Lewes once it got dark. All the better to cover her tracks, so to speak. It felt rather like a spy film or the Godfather. I don’t think I took her too seriously. Really, who would think someone would really murder a woman for knocking you back? If that were the case, I would likely have been bankrupted paying off all the hit-men I’d need for the women who told me no.”

  He chuckled, a little licentiously, his assistant echoing him politely.

  His gaze fell on Adie. “It is always about playing the odds, don’t you know. The more often you proposition women, the more often you succeed. And fail. But you certainly succeed more than you would if you never tried it on at all.”

  Adie would have to ask Cage if that attitude was common among men. It certainly seemed to support Jeffers’ perspective. No woman was that important. You tried it on. If you got somewhere, all well and good. If you didn’t, then you just moved on. Yet from the way Roland spoke of her death as a done deal, his argument didn’t hold up to close scrutiny. He might not have taken her seriously at the time, but afterwards he’d obviously decided Jeffers had done the deed.

  The waiter returned with drinks for everyone at the table. While they waited for the man to move off, Adie’s mind was working overtime to process all she was learning.

  “So she was going to take the train down to Lewes Saturday evening, is that right?” Adie checked, taking a sip from her diet coke.

  “That was the plan. She was to tell no one where she was going, so her friends couldn’t be forced to reveal her location. Once at Lewes, she’d take a taxi out to my place. I would hide her away so no one knew she was there and then take her with me when I left on Monday. That was the plan. But she never arrived.

  “To be honest, I didn’t even realize she hadn’t. Not until late Sunday afternoon when I began to sober up. I thought she’d changed her mind. Georgie was a little scatty, if I’m being honest. Unreliable. It was part of her charm. You can’t keep a butterfly to a schedule, can you?” He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

  “So you think Owen Jeffers had her killed?” Adie checked yet again, baffled beyond words by this latest turn of events.

  It just didn’t make sense. What reason did Jeffers have to lie to them? Unless Winsley had found something Jeffers was willing to lie for. She remembered how he’d kept saying wild goose chase, as if taunting her. Had he been having fun doing exactly that, sending her on a wild goose chase, when he knew perfectly well that he was the one who’d had Georgie murdered?

  “I do indeed. Of course I didn’t think anything of the sort at the time. I left for the French Riviera as planned the following week and was gone a couple of months. When I came home the papers were filled with stories about a missing actress and dancer, the ex-wife of a nobleman. The papers said it was either the ex-husband or the mobster who killed Georgie.

  “Fredrickson was a bastard. The things he did to that poor lass when she was married to him don’t bear thinking about. If that mobster didn’t get her, then I expect her husband did. The poor woman didn’t have a chance.

  “Although I was a good deal younger than she was, and she was quite the woman of the world, I felt protective of her. She was a little like Marylyn Munroe. Fragile and lost. Every man she met wanted to protect her, and yet she seemed to be drawn to the violent ones who tried to control her.”

  “So you don’t really know if he killed her or not?” Cage said, speaking for the first time.

  Roland looked surprised. “Well, no. But that was what everyone was saying at the time. It seems very coincidental, don’t you think, that the day after her boss threatens to make her disappear, she does? Clearly, s
he believed him. I heard it in her voice. Why else would she not make it to my place that night?”

  Adie had to agree. The chances that something else happened to her seemed remote. Yet Adie had been so sure Jeffers had told her the truth. But if Georgie said he threatened her, then it must have been so. How would Roland have known about it otherwise?

  “I always expected the police would come knocking at my door. But for some reason they never did. And for that I’m grateful. The last thing I wanted was to get embroiled in a murder. Things like that didn’t happen in our neck of the woods. Well, not then at least. And it wasn’t as if I had anything worthwhile to contribute. It was all hearsay, wasn’t it? I didn’t actually hear him threaten her.”

  Now Roland sounded apologetic, as if he believed Adie was blaming him for not coming forward. Maybe he’d spent a great many years blaming himself.

  If he was as innocent as he was making out. Who was to say she wasn’t killed at his house-party and Roland disposed of her on his estate? A jilted mobster would be the perfect cover-story.

  Cage waved the waiter over and handed over his credit card for the drinks at their table. Adie used that as their cue to go.

  She rose and offered her hand to Roland. “You have been very helpful. Thank you.”

  “I wish I could have given you better news. I suppose Minerva thought Georgie ran away with me all these years ago,” he said, taking her hand between both of his.

  “Yes, she did,” Adie answered with a sad smile.

  “I doubt even a threat on her life would have kept that woman from her son. That’s how they realized she was missing, you know. She was supposed to take her son for the long weekend. When she didn’t arrive the headmistress reported her missing.

  “That poor lad. He’d been taken from his mother by the courts, sent to a boarding school with boys he didn’t know, and then had his mother go missing. It would be enough to devastate a young, impressionable lad. Only ten, if I remember correctly.”

  Adie nodded. “Yes. Poor Rory.”

  For most of the drive home they sat quietly, separately mulling over what they’d learned. The whole interview had taken no more than half an hour, and yet it had totally scuttled their weeks of investigation.

  “Do we go back to the prison again? See what Jeffers has to say about this piece of information?” Adie asked eventually, her tone dejected.

  “I don’t think Jeffers did it. I can see why the media jumped on him as the murderer. His connections to organized crime, and the business he ran, made him the perfect suspect. Jeffers was convicted by the reporters without even a trial. Given what Georgie had told Roland, it’s easy to see why he assumed Jeffers did it. But I don’t think he did.”

  He looked thoughtful, contemplative, for a moment more before he went on. “I saw the look on that old bastard’s face. He wanted to claim the murder as his own. He wanted the kudos and notoriety it would have given him, especially as he was watching his life and power being eaten away by cancer. He wanted to see fear in your eyes. Yet he didn’t claim the kill. There’s no reason for him to do that unless he really didn’t do it.”

  “Unless he was trying to thwart us, for Winsley. And if not him, then what happened to her, Cage?” Adie wailed. “I’m going around and around, chasing my tail over this. I’m no detective! I was sure Roland would have the answers we needed.

  “Do you think he could have killed her? I know it’s hard to see an old man as a murderer, but he was only twenty back then. And it would have been easy to make her disappear, if no one knew she was coming out to the party.”

  “Why tell us any of it, if he killed her? Why not just deny he ever heard from her after she came to his house-party in mid-March. Why say she was coming, and when, and then say she didn’t get there. You’d only go to all that trouble if it were true. And he really believes Jeffers had her killed. I saw it in his eyes.”

  “So have we reached the end of it, then? Have we exhausted all our leads?”

  Cage shrugged and shook his head. “There’s something he said that I’m trying to put my finger on. But it keeps slipping away. When he mentioned the police not coming to his door…”

  “He said murders didn’t happen in their part of the world. That he didn’t want to get embroiled in a murder investigation.”

  “Not then! That’s what he said. Murders didn’t happen in their area, not then. He added it, for accuracy sake.”

  “So, Lewes has more violent crime these days.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s what he meant. I’m tired. It feels like midnight, when it’s just after seven-thirty,” he said on a heavy sigh.

  “I know what you mean. I’ve been on tenterhooks all day, waiting for this breakthrough. And now it’s just blown up in our faces. We’re no further ahead, are we?”

  “You should get points for getting further than the cops did,” Cage said, sighing again. “How the hell were you supposed to solve this case after all this time? Minerva really was a pain. Maybe you should just give in and let Winsley have the money. Get on with your new life. You don’t deserve all this crap!”

  “What about not letting bullies win?” Adie asked, leaning her head on his shoulder.

  “I guess it depends what it costs. We walked away from Vietnam when it became clear we couldn’t win. Maybe this is one instance where walking away is the best option. Fuck Minerva and her games. It’s not like you need the money.”

  Adie nodded. How often had she thought the exact same thing? She didn’t need the money. She sure didn’t need the angst. But her mother’s church had gotten money they didn’t deserve. She’d be damned if Winsley would, as well.

  Not if she could help it.

  Chapter 15

  Adie tossed and turned for hours. Although she was bone weary, her body and mind wouldn’t let her rest. Something was there. She was sure of it.

  What was it Cage had picked up on? The bit about not having murders back at that time. How many recent murders had Lewes had?

  Curious, because she had nothing else to think about, Adie decided to find out. It was a bit like researching minks, and how she’d wanted to know about film noir. Now her curiosity had her wanting to know about murders in Lewes.

  She padded down to the kitchen with Jig close on her heels. The house was silent, so she knew Cage must be sleeping soundly. Unlike her.

  Absently, she put almond milk on the stove to warm and dug out a pack of drinking chocolate. It was not good for her weight, but right now she needed comfort food more than she needed to be healthy. And the warm drink might help her sleep.

  Pulling a treat from the bag, she gave it to her companion. She never felt lonely when Jig was at her side. She never felt lonely when Cage was around, either. Even now, knowing he slept somewhere above her, she felt oddly comforted.

  What would she do when he left? The thought horrified her. She couldn’t imagine her new life without him. As difficult as Cage could be at times, she had never known anyone she got on better with. He had so many sides to him, and all of them she liked.

  But most of all, he made her feel safe. She could never remember a time in her life when she felt totally safe. Not like she did now. Even with Winsley threatening her and those she loved, she felt safe.

  Hot chocolate in hand, she went to the kitchen table to boot up her laptop. In moments, she had Google on the screen and she was entering the words, murder and Lewes.

  The thousands of hits made her wish she had a tighter parameter.

  As she sipped, she surfed through the information. What she was looking for, she wasn’t exactly sure.

  There were murders in Brighton by organized crime, the bodies buried in a forest outside Lewes. That was the late 50s. There was the Onion Pie Murder at Lewes prison in the 50s. Another suicide in Lewes Prison. Then she hit pay dirt.

  She clicked on the link and began reading The Lewes Gazette for 1988.

  Mass Body Dump Discovered on Local Farm.

  Monday 16th May. Horr
ified constructions workers early this morning made a grisly discovery of multiple graves in a local farmyard.

  After years of abandonment Yewtree Farm had recently been sold to developers after the previous owner, Leonard Watkins, died intestate in 1980. The farm had been left to fall into disrepair until last year while legal wrangles ensued.

  The new owners, Harding and Walsh Constructions, were in the process of gutting the house and barns as the first step towards converting the farm into a small, up-market residential complex. However, as bulldozers were clearing away the ground around the barns a gruesome discovery was made. Skeletons of at least three people were uncovered in shallow graves.

  The police were immediately called in. By 10 am, the dump site had been declared a crime scene. Further excavations began shortly thereafterf to determine the extent of the crime.

  The exact number of bodies so far unearthed has yet to be released. The police detective in charge, DI Kevin Mills, was quick to allay fears of a mass murderer on the loose, by declaring the skeletons are not recent. Nor were they part of an ancient burial ground.

  Speculation now centres on whether the bodies were buried at the derelict farm after Watkins death, or whether Watkins himself committed a series of brutal murders and buried his kills in his barnyard.

  Adie’s heart was beating so hard in her chest it hurt. Frantically, she searched for more on the bodies at Yewtree Farm. She found them in the same paper dated a few days later.

  Ten Female Skeletons Uncovered in Farmyard

  Monday 23th May. The police have finally released more details concerning the grisly discoveries at Yewtree Farm, five miles outside the quiet township of Lewes.