Murder in the Cemetery: A Lady Margaret Turnbull Cozy Mystery Book (International Cozy Mystery Series 3)

by C T Mitchell

  “Did any of his crimes occur in Clunes? That would be a good enough reason to link the two of them together.”

  “No, no. I don’t think either of them knew the other one was alive. Again, I could be wrong, and I’m sure you’ll tell me if I am…but as far as I can tell, no. And all of his crimes were in the Lismore area, none of them were in the countryside or even anywhere near Clunes. Next question.”

  “Perhaps, from his experience with his parents, he was afraid to venture too far away from where he was used to. Why, do you think, did neither of the children contact their parents when they were taken to safety? Why would you not do that? Were there any reports of child abuse in the home? I mean, I can’t really imagine Jane or Charles doing anything like that…they seemed like the nicest people. But as you know, Detective, it’s usually the people who seem the nicest that do the strangest and most terrible things.”

  “I’ll look into it.”

  Chapter 5

  Later that afternoon, when the police finally get ahold of Thomas Kilkane, he was completely stunned to learn about the death of a sister they said he had. As far as he knew, he’d never even had a sister. He claimed he’d never heard of a Valeria Charmers, had never been to Clunes, and was certainly never anywhere near the Bangalow cemetery.

  All of this seemed fine enough, but when Lady Margaret arrived to the police station and asked to go into the interrogation room, the young man immediately changed his stance. He sulked in his chair, and cowered away from her as she entered the room. Under his breath he started a string of panicked mumblings that seemed to be directed at Maggie. Something along the lines of I’ll never be late to cooking class again, I promise! He looked positively scared, and like he was about to be punished.

  Maggie was very confused, and was eventually asked to leave the room by the psychologist on the case, who was finding it more and more difficult to get the man to answer questions while she was in the room. Once the meeting with him was over, the psychologist closed the door behind her and stepped over towards Detective Sullivan and Maggie in the hallway.

  “Well he has certainly had some sort of childhood trauma, folks. But he isn’t insane, and he’s not belligerent. I also really don’t think he is capable of murder. He’s got a pretty sweet spirit, I think he’s just been broken by life and been dealt a really unfortunate hand. That’s certainly heartbreaking, but doesn’t make him a murderer. The only things to be dug into are the fact that he can’t recall having a sister at all, and can’t remember where he’s last seen Lady Turnbull. I’ll send over my final report by morning, but until then, that’s my off-the-books answer for you. Have good day.” And with that, she was gone, her heels clacking on the cold tile of the police station floor.

  “Well it seems we are at an impasse, Lady Margaret. If he can’t even remember having a sister, or he’s blocked all memory of her from some sort of childhood trauma, then I don’t really think he could hold a grudge against her long enough to kill her. Any other ideas floating around up there in that inquisitive mind of yours?”

  “I’m really more concerned with the parent’s obvious disregard for their children’s lives, here. Aren’t you, Tom? I mean…who could just assume that their children drown, and then carry on with everyday life?”

  “They basically just told everyone, that their children were dead and then retreated back into their cocoon. Seems odd, don’t you think? They must have abused them in some way, I’m sure of it. There had to be something like that going on for Carol and James…or Valerie and Thomas, as it were…to never have contacted them after having survived the boating accident. There simply has to be an astounding reason for that.” Lady Margaret stated.

  “You know, I’ve been thinking back to when the two were in my class when they were younger. I recall them being a very timid, couple of people—very reserved. I also remembered earlier today, in the interrogation room, that Carol was always trying to better her brother in some way. Maybe she continued that on right into adulthood?”

  “Yeah you may be right, there, Lady Margaret. You usually are. But why would she completely refuse to acknowledge him after all that time. Do you think she even remembered that she had a brother? It certainly looked like she was okay in the head enough to do well for herself in life. I mean, that was a pretty fancy dress as far as I could tell…and everything we found on her from the last ten years or so suggested that she did pretty well for herself. Why would she leave her brother to live in abject poverty while she so obviously lived the high life? That hardly seems fair, maybe she was abusive after all?”

  Just then, Detective Alfred Logan walked in with a few files in his hands. “Excuse me, Detective, do you have a minute? There’s a break in the case.”

  “Sure thing, I always have a minute for that; what have you got?” Tom took the papers he was being handed and listened intently.

  “Well it seems that Charles Pemberthy has a sister, and she lives here in Lismore. Her name is Helen. I thought you might want to pay her a visit. These days, sir, she’s known as Alice Kilkane.

  When they arrived at Alice’s house about an hour later, the questioning went relatively quickly. She let them know that she did, in fact, see Thomas after his disappearance. A few days after he had supposedly died in the boating accident, he showed up on her doorstep. She was in complete shock, and when she offered to take him home to his parent’s, he would have nothing to do with the idea.

  Soon after that, Helen moved to Lismore and settled down, changing her name to Kilkane and raising Thomas as best as she could. The boy had gone to school and done fairly well, but suffered nightmares. He told his aunt how much his sister made him suffer, and Helen recounted stories of what a vicious child Carol was.

  “Under a mask of cleverness and gentleness, she was evil, Detective. When he showed me his scars, that sealed the deal for me. That’s why I took him away and raised him on my own. No one should have to live through that, it’s inhuman.”

  A few hours later, back at the police station, the other detectives managed to track down the foster parents that took in Valerie after the incident. They’d found her wandering the streets of Lismore eating discarded food and trying not to be noticed.

  Under the watchful care of adoptive parents, she eventually went to beauty school and did quite well there. The foster parents explained that they had no idea about her antecedents and could shed no light on why she might have been murdered and stored in her parents’ crypt.

  Chapter 6

  On the way back to the station with Lady Maggie, Tom phoned the former Helen Pemberthy to ask her if she thought Thomas could ever act upon his nightmares. Apparently they were often about harming his sister, and Helen couldn’t be sure. She hadn’t ever seen any signs of acting out on them, but she wouldn’t consider it impossible.

  Detective Sullivan concluded to Maggie that this behavior probably contributed to his homelessness. The psychologist also called and let the two of them know that Thomas did have a deep-seated childhood trauma, along with some schizophrenia.

  “You know,” Maggie said as they drove. “Maybe they found each other by accident? Twins can find each other while being blindfolded, you know.”

  “I think you’re right, Maggie. I think that Thomas Kilkane killed his sister, and has no recollection of it due to the schizophrenia. His alter ego just doesn’t acknowledge that it happened, because to him…it didn’t. The poor guy, can you imagine not remembering doing anything, much less murdering your sister?!”

  “So how do you think it happened, Detective?” Maggie tried to keep the conversation light because normally she enjoyed this part. The look on that girl’s face, though, still haunted her.

  “I hope we get to know, Lady Margaret. It could be months before he assumes his other personality. That’s the only real way to get any information out of him.”

  Several months later, Inspector Sullivan was interrupted during his morning coffee at the police station. Detective Hodges walked up to h
is desk and handed him a statement. It was from Thomas’s alter ego, and he had given his testimony of what had happened that night in the crypt.

  Apparently, as the statement read, Thomas was begging on the street for alms when his sister walked by and dropped some coins into his bucket. He didn’t recognize her face at all, and the detectives concluded that Valerie suffered from the same schizophrenia that Thomas did because she didn’t appear to have recognized him either.

  The two of them would have passed in silence, as two ships not even acknowledging each other’s presence, were it not for a small spark. Though Thomas didn’t recognize her face, since she’d had facial reconstruction surgery, he did recognize her hand. Something about the way her hand twisted and let her wrist be exposed, he remembered it from the years of being tormented by her as a child, and something inside of him snapped.

  Under the pretext of forgiving his sister and forgetting the past, he took her to their parents’ crypt. She went willingly, and Thomas believed that was because she wanted to return to the abusive sister he always knew her to be.

  She was stuck in a semi-healthy cycle where she could at least hold down a steady relationship and get through life. When she saw Thomas, though, and saw that familiar vulnerable look in his eye, she snapped back to being her sinister self.

  Thomas believed that she would attack him again, and when they neared their parents’ tomb, he took her inside and killed her before she got the chance to harm him.

  Maggie, as Tom was retelling the story, imagined that’s where the look of satisfaction had come from. In her mind, she was planning on returning to the evil version of herself the whole walk down to the crypt. It was only because Thomas acted faster that she was killed. Had he not acted quickly, she likely would have done the same.

  When the story was finished, and Detective Tom Sullivan had given Maggie the very last detail, she was happy to have the case out of her system. Never again did she want to think of those two children as something other than the slightly timid people from her cooking class.

  Now back home, she took the class yearbook up into the attic. She tried her best to let herself know she didn’t do anything wrong. Everything in her told her she should have done something for those two kids. That she should somehow have been able to spare them their pain, and she couldn’t.

  Getting this emotionally involved in a case wasn’t something Maggie had ever let herself do before, but this time it felt personal. It felt sadder. And Maggie was ready to be on to the next case, which would hopefully be a murder case that was a bit more upbeat. Even that is a little sad.

  Excerpt from Murder in the Village

  Lady Margaret’s birthday was coming up, and it wasn’t something she was too keen on thinking too hard about. There wasn’t anything wrong with birthdays, really, she just didn’t feel as old as her birthday cards told her she was, so she was disinclined to open them. She’d have the cake, but the reminder of getting older? Not so much.

  She was drinking her first cup of tea of the day, standing in the large kitchen of her bed and breakfast property, Lawlers Loft, she ran on the outskirts of town, reading the paper. There wasn’t really anything noteworthy happening in the small town of Bangalow, New South Wales. One of the quieter cities in Australia, it was an old favorite of Maggie’s and her late husband’s during their many travels over the years from the UK. For some reason it struck her as the perfect amount of quaint and city life, kind of a cozy village and it suited her perfectly since she decided to move here after her husband passed away.

  She bought the bed and breakfast on Lawler’s Lane, and was the strange mother-figure of the small town. Everyone loved her, even though she was a bit forthright. Her posh British accent, not to mention her knighthood, was much the talk of the district and it certainly helped in getting onboard with the local community councils; great venues for Maggie to listen in on the town’s gossip.

  Disappointed in the lack of enthusiastic news reporting for the week ahead, Maggie refreshed her tea and strolled over to the little picture window over the sink. Clad only in her bathrobe, she was caught off guard by the knock at the door.

  “Who on Earth would be ringing me at this hour?” She wasn’t expecting any deliveries for the inn, and the mailman would never ring her so early for fear of catching her in her bathrobe. And Lord knows that even though she was in decent shape for her age, she was pretty sure no one wanted to see that. After all, it wasn’t proper.

  Nevertheless, whoever was at the door was knocking so adamantly that they couldn’t be kept waiting. She hurried to the front door, careful to look quickly through the foyer to make sure no guests would see her in her robe, and shuffled to the door. When she opened it, she gasped a little, greeted by the flushed cheeks of Inspector Tom Sullivan of the local police force.

  “What’s the matter, Tom?” she asked, making sure the robe was closed all the way and pointing to his reddened cheeks with her free hand. “Cat got your tongue? Or has it just been a while since you’ve seen someone other than your wife in a bathrobe? Don’t flatter yourself, dear. I’m not interested.”

  Inspector Tom cleared his throat mid-laugh and asked to be let in. He didn’t look, Maggie thought, like he was really in the mood for joking. Though she was glad she got that one in, because seeing his cheeks flus was worth all the flack she would catch for it later. She waved her arm out in front of her and gestured for him to go into the kitchen quickly.

  He did as he was told and shuffled in with a medium sized box under his arm.

  “Tom, you’re soaked, hun. Do you want some dry clothes? I’m sure I can find you something around here?”

  “Aaah, no thanks, Maggie.” The thought was going through Detective Sullivan’s mind as to how Lady Margaret would have some men’s clothing in her possession considering her husband had passed over ten years ago. Anyway he thought better of it to ask.

  “I hate when you call me that. So what do you need? Anything at all, you know that, Detective. Let me take your coat.”

  Tom let her remove his coat, and she draped it over the back of one of her kitchen chairs. Eventually, when she saw that he wasn’t going to stop pacing her kitchen floor, dripping wet, without saying anything, she made him a cup of tea. Maggie tapped him on the shoulder, breaking his train of thought. Tom grumbled a bit and nodded his thanks to her, taking the saucer from the older woman’s hands.

  “Thanks, it’s been raining all night, and I just never dried out. I appreciate the warm tea, Lady Turnbull.” He made a fake salute to her with his small tea cup and hoped she would appreciate him using her proper name.

  “Well, hopefully you don’t catch pneumonia and die an old fart. You really should take better care of yourself. Now what brings you here? Do I need to call the Mrs. and let her know where you’re at.”

  “No thanks, mam. I appreciate the sentiment. But I’m not really speaking to anyone at the moment.”

  Maggie’s eyes perked up and one eyebrow danced across her forehead. “Oh really?”

  “Yes, really. Don’t go getting all excited about it, it’s nothing like that.”

  Maggie grinned widely at her friend. “Oh I think it’s exactly like that, Tom! You know me, and it’s nearing my birthday, even! This must be your gift to me, a juicy secret case to be solved on the quiet. That’s very kind of you.” She dipped her head to him and he half-chuckled, “Now what have you got for me, here?”

  “My socks are soaked through, Lady Margaret. I’m freezing and I don’t want to be here all day, I’m knackered. I came to you because I don’t want to be airing out my dirty laundry all over town. I’d much rather come to you, since you have a way with these sorts of cases, than to have it broadcast all over town. It’s from my Aunt in Byron Bay, she sent it in the post and I wanted you to have a look at it before I took it to the Station.”

  “Alright alright, cool your horses. Settle your spirit, love. You look shaken, what’s going on? Why do you want me to look at it first?” Maggie
asked.

  Tom handed her the box, and Maggie eyed him carefully. Whatever was in the box has him pretty worked up. “It’s probably a book of some sort, I’d imagine.”

  She pried the lid off with one hand, and half expected there to be an old sandwich or something inside of it. When the lid finally came loose, Maggie swallowed hard. Nestled into a crimson-colored piece of fabric was a jar. The jar was cloudy inside, and had a liquid in it, held securely by a firm piece of cork. Inside the bottle, which Tom looked away from as soon as she opened it, was a slender finger. It was floating in some sort of liquid, and upon a quick smell of the bottle, Lady Margaret assured him that it was formaldehyde. She could see the color in the Detective Inspector’s face grow lighter, and he looked as if his stomach was a little queasy.

  Lady Margaret regained her composure quickly and squared her shoulders at the kitchen table. “This is not what you were expecting, I take it?”

  The Detective shook his head and brought a fist to his mouth, looking as though he were about to be sick. “No!” He shouted, suddenly upset. “I thought it was an old book or something that she’d gotten you for your birthday!”

  Only a few moments later, Maggie was showing him to the front door. Detective Tom apologized profusely for the interruption and confusion, and excused himself to the police station at Lismore to try and figure out what the package was all about.

  Maggie watched as he went back to his car, not quite fully dried out yet, still holding the plastic bag under his arm. He had barely wanted to wait for her to wrap it up, but she’d insisted, so that he could maintain privacy. Those goons at the police department had no business asking questions about a beat up old shoe box; just yet anyway.

  To read the rest of Murder in the Village, please buy it at: