Switcheroo (A Gideon Oliver Mystery Book 18)

by Aaron Elkins

  Here, Rafe broke in. “Now, that’s something we can’t promise. Dr. Oliver made a particular point of saying as much. What we might learn—”

  “We already know who killed him,” Miranda said coldly, glaring at him. There was no mistaking her meaning: Your father. Roddy Carlisle. “The police made that quite clear in their report.”

  As inoffensively as he could, Rafe declined to pick up the gauntlet, responding with no more than a polite, neutral smile and a small shrug. But Abbott jumped right in.

  “I understand what you’re saying, Aunt Miranda, I really do, and there’s a lot to be said for it, but shouldn’t we remember that that was their first report, a good five years before they learned that Roddy himself was killed the very same night? And not only Roddy, but er . . . ah . . .”

  “Er, ah, mmm, hum, Bertrand,” growled Miranda. “Bertrand Peltier? My husband?”

  “Aunt Miranda, I’m so sorry, I forgot for a moment.”

  Forgetting Bertrand’s name wasn’t that surprising, since Miranda made a point of not talking about him. Whether this was because it pained her or it bored her or she just wanted him in her past and not her present, Rafe didn’t know. What he did know was that for the first two decades following her husband’s death she had lived a private and restrained widow’s life, unbroken except for another brief foray into marriage, this time to an older man named Atterbury, who owned two markets, one in Saint Helier and a smaller one in Saint Brélade, as well as a pub in Rozel. That had lasted only two years before Mr. Atterbury made a run for it, but she’d kept her second husband’s surname as her own. Legally, she had been Miranda Atterbury since 1990.

  Then, in 1999, something extraordinary happened. A onetime English teacher, she had taken a stab at writing the romance novel she’d always said she could write and, to everyone’s surprise except her own, had landed a contract with Tatting & Nivens, a London publisher of historical romances. Under the pseudonym Tennessee Rivers, she had since written nine novels, all set in 1840s California, about a beautiful, gunslinging gold prospector named Belladonna “Red” O’Higgins, revered and feared around the Old West as “Two-Gun Bella.” They had quickly found an enthusiastic and ever-growing readership, especially in the United States.

  She was quite well-to-do now and had become something of a celebrity and a jet-setter, flying off to England or the United States several times a year to do book signings or television interviews and frequently showing up in feature articles in the Jersey and Guernsey papers. Her sizable income had enabled her to buy and completely refurbish Dechambeaux Manor, a moldering, once-grand manor house, and to purchase the fifty acres of open land around it, all of which she christened Belladonna Park. Currently she was in the process of cranking out number ten in the series: working title, Vein of Blood. The word was that Hollywood had already optioned it.

  At sixty-nine, she acted and looked fifteen years younger, with the same rangy, big-boned, outdoorsy good looks that Rafe remembered from his childhood. She bred horses at Belladonna Park now, mostly for her own pleasure, and when she was mounted on one of them, as assured and elegant in the saddle as she’d been at thirty, she could make him shake his head in admiration.

  Her personality hadn’t changed much either, but that wasn’t anything to celebrate. Generally speaking, Rafe’s friendly looks and pleasant manner reflected the man within. He took people on their own terms and liked almost everyone he met. Oh, he saw others’ faults as well as anyone else did, but he looked on them with tolerance and often with amusement; he was well aware that he had plenty of his own. Even Abbott he found reasonably congenial when his foibles weren’t actively driving him mad. But Miranda was another matter.

  Once upon a time they’d been close, or at least in his child’s mind they had. She had been his funny, irreverent Aunty Mandy then. She’d always had a sharp tongue, but she’d been witty too, and as a youngster he had often giggled at her barbs. Not so much anymore. Now they were flung about in greater profusion but with much less wit. Rafe had concluded some time ago that it wasn’t so much that she’d become more mean-spirited with age (well, maybe a little) but that her celebrity—and in Jersey terms she was a superstar—awed and intimidated people enough so that few had the nerve to do anything but laugh when she insulted them or nod thoughtfully when she said something patently inappropriate. Apparently, it had gotten her to believing that her particular brand of blatant disagreeableness was droll and that anything that might come from her mouth was, ipso facto, worth saying. But to Rafe, these careless, side-of-the-mouth throwaways seemed to have little point other than wounding.

  “You forget a lot, don’t you, Abbott?” Miranda said now. “You also seem to have forgotten that by no means do we know that they were all killed on the same night. It’s nothing more than conjecture.”

  Abbott’s above-it-all veneer was beginning to show cracks. He persevered but with a slight tinge of desperation. “Aunt Miranda, I don’t have all the answers. I’m simply going along with what the authorities eventually concluded. I don’t really see how we’re in a position to dispute the conclusions of a competent, professional—”

  Miranda jerked her head. Her own tiny store of patience was about gone. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Abbott, if it’s the conclusions of the police you want to prattle on about, then what about their conclusion that it was Rafe’s father’s gun that killed him? Let me hear you get around that.”

  Abbott was getting increasingly tight-lipped. “Let me put it this way, Aunt Miranda. What you’re suggesting simply doesn’t hold water. The idea—”

  “You know, there must be something wrong with my hearing, because I could have sworn I heard you say only a few minutes ago that you weren’t going to be expressing your opinion. Am I wrong, Rafe?”

  Rafe jumped. “Ah . . . what? Well . . . no, I don’t believe he explicitly, ah—”

  “I have a few questions for Rafe too,” Abbott said abruptly. “Just who’s supposed to pay for this exhumation you’re talking about? It won’t be inexpensive. And he’d have to be reburied, that would cost money too. And I doubt if Gideon Oliver is working for nothing. And—”

  “He is, as a matter of fact.”

  “And most important, how do we know they’ll treat my father’s remains respectfully?”

  A last-ditch technique brought back from Kent? Demonstrate to the recalcitrant (Miranda) that there was a common enemy (Rafe) in the room? That things were still up in the air, that you haven’t made up your mind yet? No matter, Rafe had been expecting this particular parry, had been waiting for it, in fact.

  “Naturally, I’d pay all costs,” he said. “I’m the one who’s pressing for it, so it’s only fair. And so I’ve already looked into the matter.” He produced from his inside pocket the envelope containing the papers his secretary had prepared. “I spoke with the people at Bonnard and Sons this morning. They’ll arrange for it to be done, they’ll hold the body at their facility for Gideon to examine, and they’ll rebury him with all propriety and even hold another memorial service if you like. You’ll need a new coffin for the reburial, and I know you’ll want a nice one. Bonnard can supply that as well, and I’ll be happy to cover the cost.”

  “I don’t care for Emil Bonnard, never have,” said Miranda. “The man is flashy. Funeral directors should not be flashy. That ridiculous funeral coach, like something from the Royal Mews? No, Collett’s Funerals are far more circumspect. More dignified. If I were to agree to your proposition, which, frankly, I can’t imagine doing, I would never select Bonnard.”

  There was Miranda in a nutshell: you say something—anything—and before the words are out of your mouth, she’s come up with a way to disagree, even while removing herself from the issue being considered at the same time.

  “I can certainly understand why you’d feel that way, Aunt Miranda,” Rafe said and barely managed to check a sudden laugh; he was starting to sound like Abbott. “And so I thought the best thing would be simply to write out a check a
nd let Abbott—let you and Abbott—decide where and exactly how to spend the money. Bonnard told me he’d charge nineteen hundred pounds for their services and that their ‘Prestige’ coffin for the reburial would be another thirteen hundred. That would come to thirty-two hundred, and additional fees would likely bring it to thirty-five hundred, so I’ve made it out for four thousand pounds to cover anything unexpected as well. I’ve also gotten the necessary governmental forms filled out for you and brought them with me. All you need do is sign them, and whichever funeral director you choose will take care of submitting them. Is that a satisfactory arrangement?”

  Miranda barked a laugh. “Are you asking me? What for? Obviously, Abbott has already made up his mind and will do as he chooses. My presence here seems to be no more than ornamental.”

  “No, that’s not true, Aunt Miranda,” Abbott protested. “I haven’t made up my mind at all. I value your opinion enormously. I would never make a decision like this without your input.”

  It was said with a great show of sincerity, and it occurred to Rafe that the man might actually believe what he was saying. It was possible. For someone with an indisputably keen eye for inconsistencies and ambiguities in financial matters, he could be amazingly obtuse when it came to self-perception. But then, who couldn’t? he thought charitably.

  “Abbott . . . Aunt Miranda,” he said, “would it be helpful if I had Professor Oliver come round and explain a little more fully what it is he’d be doing? He could do that far better than I can.”

  “A bit late for that,” Miranda said. “Why didn’t you bring him with you in the first place?”

  “I thought it would be best to treat it as a family matter, without outsiders present,” he said. “Apparently, I was wrong.”

  “Apparently, you were,” said Miranda.

  The slightest of grimaces marred Rafe’s amiable countenance for a split second. I am really starting to dislike this person, he thought.

  “Well, why don’t you go ahead and give him my number?” Abbott suggested with a complete lack of enthusiasm. “At least we can hear him out. It won’t take long, I hope.”

  “I will. The sooner, the better. Later this afternoon all right? He’ll be here only a few more days.”

  “No, I’ve got to get back to the bank. And, honestly, this is a very bad time for me. I’m going to be terribly busy for the next several days.”

  Rafe was struck with the belated perception that Abbott didn’t really give a damn about any of this. He’d laid the whole affair permanently to rest. He was cooperating now because he had no good reason for refusing Rafe’s request and because it offered him another chance to hone his Consensual Decision Making skills. But Miranda wasn’t cooperating, and Abbott was clearly tired of the whole thing and thinking about a face-saving way of throwing in the towel.

  Well, why wouldn’t he be? Abbott had even less connection to his father than Rafe did to his. When Roddy died, Rafe had been three, and his earliest memory was of falling into a little inflatable swimming pool and landing on his back. It was only a few inches deep, but water had gotten into his nose, and he lay there, hysterical and sobbing, limbs waving like an overturned beetle’s. Out of nowhere had appeared his father’s smiling, reassuring face, and Rafe had been swept affectionately up into his strong arms and into safety. It was his warmest memory from infancy, although he was no longer sure whether he really remembered it or he’d just heard his mother tell the story. Abbott, on the other hand, had been born a few months after George had been killed. He couldn’t have any memories of his father, not even imagined ones.

  All of which made it more important than ever to get them together with Gideon in a hurry if anything was to come of it. “This evening, then?” he suggested. “He says he’d need to get started no later than Friday. Assuming the exhumation itself will take—”

  “No, no, no, tonight is out of the question. Tuesday is my sunset hiking group.”

  “Yes, Rafe, you wouldn’t want him to miss that,” said Miranda. “How else do you suppose he maintains that magnificent physique?”

  “How frightfully amusing, Aunt Miranda,” Abbott said crossly.

  Actually, Rafe did find it funny, although he was no longer in a mood to laugh. Abbott’s “hiking” group called themselves the Over-the-Hill Gang, a dozen bankers and a few other businessmen, some aging and the rest aged, who put on jeans or fatigues and sturdy shoes and met once a week to stroll the coastal or forest paths for an hour. For Abbott, even this mild exercise was overdoing it. It was an open secret, the subject of jokes out of his hearing, that somewhere about the twenty-minute mark, he would find some appealing spot from which to admire the view or meditate to the sounds of nature or simply not be up to par that particular evening. The hikers would then pick him up on the way back, and all would repair exhausted to the nearest pub to restore their strength with a classic British evening of pub grub and pints.

  “Tomorrow morning, then?” Rafe pressed. “Early?”

  “I suppose so,” Abbott said, loosely lifting one hand, palm up, in a clear whatever message. “But no, not early. I should be able to get away at ten, though, if he promises to keep it to half an hour. But have him ring me earlier—between seven thirty and eight—to confirm that he’ll be here. You can make yourself available, Aunt Miranda? Ten?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” she said drily. “Indiana Jones himself. Will he wear that splendid hat of his, do you think?”

  Rafe’s responding smile was on the weak side. Maybe getting Gideon together with them wasn’t such a good idea after all. Abbott wasn’t exactly keen about it, and Miranda was digging in her heels, a warrior salivating for battle.

  “But I warn you, Abbott,” she continued, “I’m not likely to be swayed. Besides, I would much rather have this settled today.”

  “Well, it would be, if you would only—”

  “I would also like to have my sister Edna’s views, if she’d care to offer any.”

  This last sentence was directed somewhat threateningly at Edna, who snapped to frightened attention. “May I go home now?” she ventured. “Teatime at the Hamlet is at two thirty sharp, and they’re awfully prompt about it.”

  “In a minute, Mum. Miranda’s right, this is important,” Abbott told her. “Try to concentrate.”

  “Edna, they do not have tea at two thirty. That’s ridiculous,” Miranda said. Even with her mind-destroyed sister, she could find something to dispute. “You must have forgotten.”

  “Oh yes, they do too. They have a lot of old people there, you know, and old people like to eat early. And on Tuesdays—isn’t this Tuesday?—they have apricot tarts, but if you arrive even five minutes late, they’re all gone.” She scrabbled nervously at her sleeve. Her eyes welled. Her lip began to tremble.

  “I’ll get you there by two thirty, Aunt Edna, I promise,” Rafe said tenderly. “It’s on my way.” He knew perfectly well that she wasn’t his aunt any more than Miranda was, but from his earliest childhood he had called her that, and this wasn’t the time in the old woman’s life to tell her otherwise.

  Not that it would have made any difference. She smiled brightly at him. “Thank you, young man.”

  Rafe’s heart contracted. Once she had been the warmest and most delightful of his supposed relations, and he’d been her favorite so-called nephew. “You’re welcome, ma’am,” he said.

  “Mum, this is your husband we’re talking about,” Abbott said forcefully. “Do we have your approval to exhume him or not? That’s all we’re asking you. Just tell us, yes or no, and you’re on your way home.”

  “But I still don’t see how any of this concerns me,” Edna said, on the edge of desperation. “I don’t believe I know the gentleman to whom you’re referring.” She appealed to Rafe: “Shouldn’t we be leaving now, young man?”

  “Mum, we’re talking about your husband!” Abbott exclaimed. “George—your husband!”

  “Oh, no, not mine. I don’t have a husband, never did.”

/>   “You—”

  But Edna had reconsidered her words. “I don’t think I have a husband,” she said slowly, scowling with the effort to remember. “Or maybe . . .” Behind her eyes, a dim light flickered. “Maybe years ago, I did. Oh, yes . . . now, what was his name?”

  Miranda’s exasperation broke through. “His name was George, for Christ’s sake, Edna! Your husband. Abbott’s father. Can’t you just, for one minute, try—”

  Rafe jumped to his feet and held out his hand. “Come along, Aunt Edna. Let’s get you to the Hamlet on time.”

  Edna took the hand and rose with a beautiful smile. “Get me to the church on time,” she sang softly.

  “I’ll leave it to the two of you to sort out,” Rafe told the others. “As for myself, I really don’t give a damn anymore what you decide, or if you decide. Just leave Aunt Edna out of it.” It had been a long time since he’d had an outburst like that, and he was immediately embarrassed by it. “Sorry about that,” he said stiffly. “I seem to be a little touchy this afternoon.”

  “I’ll say,” Miranda said.

  “I do apologize, and I appreciate your giving me the time to talk with you. I hope you see your way to approving the exhumation.”

  They couldn’t have been more unreceptive, both of them looking at him with dull stares.

  Well, consider that a mission blown, he thought glumly. A surprise, really. He’d expected no trouble. But then, he hadn’t anticipated the presence of the impossible Miranda. Perhaps he needed some training in Consensual Decision Making himself. Too late now, though. With a sigh, he gave up the ghost and bestowed his most winning smile on Edna. “Come on, dear. Tea and tarts wait for no man. Or woman.”

  “I say, Rafe?” Abbott called after them. “Look, why don’t you leave that paperwork here? Aunt Miranda and I will talk it out for a while longer.”

  Miranda rolled her eyes, and from deep in her throat came a low warning rumble. “A little while longer,” she said. “Randy’s probably waiting for me downstairs right now.”