by Alexie Aaron
“I see you may have met Mr. X, but that isn’t his name. The sergeant ran the picture and guess what he found out?”
“Come on, Alex, out with it.”
“His name is Bruno Vanchencho and he’s a former Soviet that is presently a thug for hire, guess where? He is rumored to be using London as his base of operation. I had the sergeant send the particulars to Chief Superintendent Browning, the one Noelle wrote me about. Anyway, let me read the rest. Bruno Vanchencho is approximately fifty years of age, and a mercenary by trade. There’s some stuff about last known whereabouts and three or four aliases he has used in the past.”
“Good work, Alex.”
“No problem, Ma.”
“Shame about Donald. Sorry, Father Michael. Hey, can I talk to Noelle?”
Before I could exit the chair, Noelle was almost on top of me. The two of them started chatting about this and that. I adjourned to the front of the café with Angie and Michael. As I waited for Noelle and Paz to finish I read the missives sent by Alex. They were newsy and short. Each ended with the line: “Your car is fine.” Alex was full of complaints about being left out, but between the lines I could tell he was happy Noelle was here with me.
The girls finished, and I paid our tab. My eyebrows rose a bit at the expense, but I paid the bill anyway.
“Mom, we’re going to grab some food and hit the pub scene.”
I told her to be careful and watched as she walked with a lighter step out of the café. I turned to the others.
“I'm starving, let’s go someplace to eat, my treat.”
Angie nodded.
“I will join you after I find someplace to stay,” Father Michael said as he tucked his notebook into a pocket.
“You’ll stay with us,” Angie said, “lots of room.”
“You can have my room, and I will bunk in the dormitory with the girls. Or are you afraid for your reputation?” I bated him.
“It would be a pleasure to stay with you ladies and watch Cin haul her behind up to the third floor.”
I linked my arms in with Angie and the Father. “Done and done. Hey can you go in a pub in that, er, uniform?”
“Better be a Catholic pub.”
“I know just the one.” Angie led us down the street.
When we sat down in the pub. I asked if they noticed all the people staring at us.
Father Michael asked, “What people?”
“If people did stop and stare at us,” Angie laughed, “it was because you are so obviously a tourist.”
“Obviously.” I smiled.
Chapter Fifteen
“A redhead, a priest and a Brit go into a pub...” the pub owner started.
“Burt, if you continue on that path, the Father here will have you doing double duty in purgatory,” Angie warned.
“Then you won’t be the only one there.” He snapped a towel in her direction. “Tell me, what’ll you be drinking?”
“Double scotch for me.”
“Ma’am.” He stared lustfully at me.
“You wound me up with the ma’am, so I’ll test your prowess as an international pub owner. Do you have behind that beautiful polished bar of yours, sweet vermouth?”
“Aye.”
“Throw a shot in a glass and marry it with two shots of cheap whisky. Give it a drop of bitters and a cherry for a reward.” I smiled.
“Don’t you be asking for any ice, my red-haired witch.”
“I wouldn’t dream of putting you out.”
“So if I make this Manhattan, an old man’s drink, for ye, what will my reward be?”
“Why go to purgatory when you can dance in hell with me?”
Burt laughed and slapped the counter. “Guess you lost two souls all over a bit of cherry, Father.”
“My son, if you make two Manhattans I’ll let you skip the Hail Mary’.”
“Done and done.”
It took only a moment for our drinks to arrive. We chose a booth as far away from the din of the jukebox as we could find. I took a sip of my drink and felt all the kinks leave my body. Angie and Michael waited until I took another sip before getting down to business. I sifted through the pile of papers I had been carrying to find the report Paz’s bloke from the Royal Academy of Music put together on Maurice Sherborn. I scanned the page and dug in my purse to find a pen. I attacked the page with vigor.
“As you both know, we have many questions we need to sort out. Who killed Donald? Why are the attacks on the Bathgates and me happening now? We know who attacked the three of us, Bruno Vanchencho. We know he’s a former Soviet as was Ivan, but I’m getting ahead of myself, please bear with me. We don’t know who hired him.”
“I’d say Ivan,” Michael said simply.
“Two Russians, makes sense to me,” Angie agreed.
“Hold on a moment. Let’s not forget his center of operations is in London presently, and we don’t know if Ivan is still alive or what motive Ivan would have to harm the three of us.” I stopped a moment and let this information sink in. “Back to the ‘why now’. I have information that tells me Maurice Sherborn is being considered for knighthood. If the investigation that the new Yard is doing uncovers no blemishes on Maurice’s life then he will be a Knight of the Realm at the end of this month. That’s four days from now.”
“Why do you think Maurice has something to do with why this is all happening now?” Angie asked.
“I was scanning this list as Bobby and you were listing the class of students Donald and Maurice were in. I paid special attention to what type of music each person specialized in. The knighthood is for the body of Maurice’s work, not just one piece. One, Bobby and you mentioned Maurice wasn’t anything special, anything special in the composing department. Two, we know Maurice published Michael’s work in 1949 under his own name.”
“Michael was dead. What harm would that have done?” Angie interjected. “Michael’s work was published and that in itself is very important.”
“Yes, but couldn’t Maurice at least have given Michael credit as a co-composer? He didn’t. According to this report, Maurice debuted that piece of music during the last year of the war. Michael was away fighting. Maurice was home and making money off of Michael’s work. Wait, let me finish. Three, Maurice’s other work, well, why don’t we take a look at the match up I have done. See, here’s Maurice’s work. In the 1950’s he specialized in religious music. Donald was a hymn writer. Maurice moved on to Big Band tunes. Horace Beaufort was a Big Band composer and arranger. In the 1960’s Maurice Sherborn wowed the world with his first opera. Ivan Bendonovich was struggling with the Russian language, but he did have a completed opera before he left England.”
“So you’re thinking Maurice stole the music from Michael, Ivan, Horace and my uncle?”
“CSP Browning checked out the music library after the recent break-in and found that the manuscripts were taken from Bathgate a long time ago. Why not thirty-five years ago? And if Maurice was as driven as Bobby said he was, who was to stop him from stealing the manuscripts? Angie, you were in the hospital. Your mother wasn’t living at Bathgate full time. Your father was at the university.”
“If Maurice took the manuscripts, then why didn’t he take any of the other classes’ work?” Angie asked.
“Because there was a greater chance that the composers/students had presented their work already,” Michael answered. “Perhaps my uncle found out, and that’s why he was killed.”
“I just can’t see Maurice, as wimpy as he was, overpowering Donald. I can see him stealing the others’ work but a killer? I just don’t think so,” Angie talked into her just drained glass.
“All I am saying is the ‘why now’ is Maurice’s knighthood. I’m going to be on pins and needles until Paz’s friend comes through with the whereabouts of the surviving class members.” I drank deeply from my glass. “Any one of them could have hired Bruno, though it sure seems very convenient to put him and Ivan together. It’s possible Maurice composed all his own work,
but it nags at me as to why he hasn’t done anything in the last twenty years. I want to talk to this man. He is the key.”
“Don’t forget about Bentley.” Angie pointed to the name that I had circled on the paper. “He was a wonderful guy, helped everyone. But his eyes were sharp, I remember, awfully sharp. Used to flatter Mother into making him biscuits. I just never paid that much attention to him. Michael was my world. Poor Michael dead, with his brother cashing in on his work.” Angie grabbed my arm. “Cin, that’s why Bruno is searching the school and wants me dead. I have proof Maurice didn’t write ‘Sunlight on Water Music.’ Maurice knew about the copy Michael and I communicated on.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice if it were this simple? Remember, the others knew about the copy also. I don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle yet, but I assure you I will. Now is that Shepherd’s pie I smell?”
I got up and walked to the bar. Burt looked at me. I looked at him. He gave me a tray with another round of drinks on it for us. I delivered the drinks. Then I came back and looked at him.
“What,” he snapped.
“Shepherd’s pie?”
“I have three Guinnesses to build before I can waste my good time going into the kitchen for you lass.”
“I build a good Guinness,” I said and walked around the end of the bar and stood next to him.
“How good?”
“You could write I love red-haired witches in the head with your tears.”
“Fine, you build the Guinness, and I will get the pies.” Burt snapped me on the behind with his towel. I grabbed three glasses and started to build the Guinness. I ignored the startled looks from Angie and Michael. Everyone has a talent: composing, singing, and the Lord’s work. Mine happens to be building Guinness.
~
With our bellies full of hardy food and our minds lulled by good spirits we departed Penzance. The ride to Bathgate was a quiet one. I was happy to have the silence to put everything I had learned this afternoon into some kind of order. Since my first exposure to murder was yet a recent one, I wasn’t quite sure how one goes about figuring out motive. Why do humans kill? I guess the easy answers are anger, greed and maybe self-defense. Defending yourself because of greed, someone wanting what you have. What did Donald have? Music, talent and quite possibly information that he had to be killed to stifle. Why try and kill Bobby or at least stop him from coming to England? Bobby was still sharp and would remember not only Donald’s fellow students but also the music each of them were working on. Angie? She had the original manuscript to Michael Sherborn’s masterpiece. Me? I had found out Donald was there at Bathgate. I wonder if now that Donald was found I would be able to stop whirling around each and every time I heard a footfall behind me. Why try to buy Bathgate with all its contents? I puzzled over this briefly and came up with: so no one would come across Donald or Michael’s manuscript. The interested party would have free reign to loot the house and music school to find and destroy the manuscript, not to mention having the time to discover if any of the previous students’ manuscripts had been presented. How many of those students died in World War II?
When I was struggling with algebra word problems, my father gave me the best advice. He said, “draw a picture.” It may have been a picture of trains starting out from different points or lumber needed to build a house. By visually understanding the word problems I was able to weed out the extraneous information and clearly deal with the clues given. This method helped me rise above the mercy D minus to a respectable B in algebra. I used it again in accounting and received an A plus. I know, I digress, get back to the story. Anyway, I have used it a lot in life. So why not use it now? I turned over one of Alex’s emails that Paz printed for me and began to jot down the facts, as I knew them so far.
FIRST CRIME: Theft of musical manuscripts.
MOTIVE: Greed
SUSPECTS: Maurice Sherborn - Michael Sherborn’s manuscript published as “Sunlight on Water Music” under Maurice’s name. Horace Beaufort, Ivan Bendonovich, Bentley Hughes – Students at school with Michael.
WILD THOUGHT: Maybe Donald participated in the theft and was killed for it.
I looked down at what I had written and looked for the suspect with the strongest motive. Maurice Sherborn. He reportedly had no talent. He published Michael’s work for certain, but regarding the others I had no proof. Okay, that’s one for Maurice. I was trying to keep the crimes in date order. I didn’t have exact dates, but I went on my instincts here.
SECOND CRIME: Murder of Donald Williams
MOTIVE: Defense of Greed
SUSPECTS: Maurice Sherborn – If he committed the theft and Donald had knowledge of it, Donald may have been lured to Bathgate and killed during argument. Or Donald may have been killed in case of wrong place/wrong time.
Horace Beaufort, Ivan Bendonovich, Bentley Hughes – same reasons as above.
QUESTIONS: What was Donald’s involvement in this – innocent bystander or co-conspirator? Where were the suspects during the time of the murder?
NEED TO KNOW: The condition of Donald’s remains. Was he
attacked? Was his death from drowning in the bog?
Maurice again seemed to have center stage. The only shaky area was that, according to Angie, Maurice had been a frail man all his life. If Donald was overpowered and dumped in the bog, could he have done it alone?
Angie turned the lorry off the smooth pavement and the bouncing around made writing too difficult. I decided to wait until we got back to Bathgate to continue.
I decided to sit back and enjoy the view. Cornwall is unlike anywhere in the United States that I have visited or know about. It isn’t trying to be anything that it’s not. It hasn’t yet cashed in on ambiance although there is something very quaint about its rolling hills, less-than-single-lane roads, stone buildings, big skies, ancient sites without fences, and magic, lots and lots of magic.
Father Michael stirred next to me. I think he must have fallen asleep unnoticed by me. “Where are we?”
“Almost to Bathgate, Father,” Angie answered.
“I seem to be out of sorts.”
“Understandable considering you traveled through the night. A good nap is what you’ll be needing. Ah, here we are. You can get out here and...”
“Oh no you don’t!” I stopped her. “We will stay in the lorry and with you till you get back to the house. I am in no mood to fight off Russians, besides I am wearing my new shoes.”
Angie just shook her head while she guided the lorry into its place in the barn. Michael got out first and helped me down. He walked over and insisted on Angie taking his arm as we walked back to the house. I don’t know if they teach you that in Jesuit seminary or if it was his good southern training kicking in, but Michael certainly made you feel female at times.
I showed Michael up to my room. He carried his bags in and placed them at the foot of the big bed.
“If you wait a moment I’ll change the linen.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve been sleeping here.”
“Did you wet the bed?”
“No, maybe drooled on the pillow.”
“Well, then get me a new pillow case. And show me where the bathroom is. The Manhattans are wanting a way out,” he instructed.
I guided him down the hall to the bathroom. I retrieved a clean pillowcase from the linen closet and went back to the blue room. After making the bed which I left unmade, bad habits from home, I gathered up my pajamas and a change of clothes. I left my things in the drawers and closet. I didn’t think Michael would be staying long, and I could just pop in and get myself restocked.
Picking up my bra, which kept falling off the stack of clothing in my arms, I looked up to see Michael standing in the doorway. He had taken off his alb and stood there hair ruffled, sleepy eyed, in his V necked undershirt and black trousers. I don’t know how long I stared at his dark hairy chest, but it took reminding me that he was a man of God to get my mind out of the gutter.
; “Sweet dreams,” I said as I brushed by him.
“Thank you. Don’t let me sleep too long,” he said as he shut the door.
“I would bar that door if you knew what had been going through my mind, Michael,” I barely whispered as I walked towards the stairs. “Gee God, you sure do make beautiful people.” I continued talking to myself as I climbed the stairs to the third floor.
I chose the bed farthest away from the girls and swore as I remembered I would have to do the stairs again to get my linens.
“Such nasty language with a priest in the house.” Angie stood behind me, blessedly holding a set of linens.
“You’re a mind reader.”
“Well, between us girls, I was in the process of getting the linen from the closet when Father Michael walked out of the W.C. I was frozen to the spot. What a handsome creature he is. I was so deep into my impure thoughts, that before I could come out of it, I missed you. You had already started up the stairs before I could give you these.”
“Do you think he knows what he does to women?” I asked her.
“He’s a priest.”
“My son is handsome and knows it. He uses it and his charm to get what he wants. What’s so different between Alex and Father Michael?” I patted the bed beside me.
“I am going to use the excuse it’s been too long since a man has slept in this house,” Angie said as she sat beside me.
“I’m going to remind myself that Father Michael can be a big pain in the behind. Maybe that will keep me from the thoughts of mortal sin.” I looked at her and we broke out laughing.
We continued to break out in little fits of giggles as she helped me make the bed. There were no years between us girls as we each recounted our experiences with boys in our early days.
“I’m really enjoying having this house full of people again. My mother grumbled a lot, but I know she secretly enjoyed spoiling each class of boys.”