“I’m glad you’re well enough to be going out,” said Victoria stiffly.
“Not really.” Her mother’s dry voice grated on Victoria’s nerves. “Sybil here insisted on bringing me. I’m not up to driving at the moment after the stress of the memorial. I don’t know how I will manage with shopping when she goes on holiday next week.”
In the expectant pause that followed, she raised her eyes to Victoria’s face. Her daughter swallowed. “I’ll come by and take you.”
“If it won’t put you out,” her mother replied in that curiously dull monotone, bending her head over to hide the small victorious smile that creased her sunken cheeks. She glanced at Sybil. “Becky always helped so willingly with everything.”
Sybil murmured something appropriate while glancing apologetically at Victoria.
“My two daughters were always very different,” Vera continued. “Becky was of course much better known in Hancock. Everyone would stop us to chat when we went out, right down to that beggar over there.”
“What beggar?” Victoria swung around in the direction of her mother’s pointing finger, viewing a slightly hunched figure in an old brown raincoat with a bag slung over his shoulder. “The war vet. Todd!” she exclaimed under her breath, starting to run.
“Hey, hey, are you catching a train?” Steve caught her by the arms just in time to stop him running into him full tilt.
“Steve, I didn’t know you were here!” she said breathlessly. “The war vet — he’s over there!”
She pulled free and ran in the direction of the man. He had taken the bag off his shoulder and was rummaging in it as she raced toward him.
“Todd. Todd!” she shouted, Steve on her heels.
The man glanced up, narrowing his eyes in the twilight in his effort to see who was yelling.
“Are you Todd?” The beggar nodded apprehensively, clutching his bag to his chest.
“Hancock Police,” Steve said. “We have a few questions we want to ask you.”
“About?” Todd blinked at them over his bag.
“My sister,” said Victoria, passing him a photograph of Becky from her wallet.
He held it very close to his face to look, his eyes narrowing in his effort to see more clearly. He started and, looking nauseous, quickly shoved back the photo as though it had burned him. “Yes?”
“We are investigating the circumstances surrounding the murder of Rebecca Wharton. And also the delivery of a threatening note to the Hancock Inn.”
Todd glanced from Steve to Victoria with scared eyes, then fumbled in his bag. “I don’t know about any murder,” he muttered, half to himself, peering up at Steve with large, frightened eyes, then sliding his eyes down again. He emptied out his bag and grasped hold of his bottle with shaking hands and drank, sighing with relief.
“What about the note for Victoria handed in at the Hancock Inn?” demanded Steve.
Todd swallowed and drank again.
“What note?” he said, and Victoria got the impression he was trying to buy time.
“You know nothing about a message, composed of cut-out letters from a newspaper, that told Victoria to leave Hancock?” asked Steve.
“Why would I?” Todd countered, stuffing the bottle back into his bag, along with the other bits and pieces that had fallen out. Victoria held out a scarf to him that had slipped onto the grass and then paused, staring at it intently.
“Where did you get this?” she demanded.
“I don’t remember.” He reached out to take it.
She snatched it back. “That scarf was my sister’s,” Victoria said. “I gave it to her when we were still at school. Do you remember, Steve? She loved the rainbow of colors.”
Todd suddenly dropped his bag and took to his heels. He was surprisingly agile for someone who appeared so slow and vague, but he was no match for Steve. The young detective sprinted after the beggar and tackled him, bringing him crashing onto his hands.
Victoria hurried after them and caught up. “Come with us,” she said grimly.
Steve hauled Todd up and gripped his arm. Todd flailed desperately but to no avail.
Steve smiled triumphantly at Victoria. “We may just have found our killer.”
Chapter 18
The next morning, Victoria stirred before sunrise. She lay half-awake, her first thoughts flitting automatically to a teenage Becky pirouetting before the mirror in her scarf, her slender fingers extended as she spun.
What happened, Becky? How did a homeless beggar get hold of the scarf you cared about so much? Surely he isn’t a killer? Did he steal it from you? Snatch it from your corpse? Did he even realize you were dead? An image of Todd’s hands, unsteady and grimy, rose before Victoria’s eyes, and she pictured the swollen knuckles and dirt-encrusted nails of his outstretched fingers reaching out to take the cherished garment from her sister’s cold, dead neck.
She started as she heard clattering from the kitchen and the crash of a metal lid banging down onto a pot.
“Breakfast,” Victoria whispered to herself with relief. Anything to shake the thought of Todd’s grasping hands. Getting up, she hurried out of her room and down the passage to the kitchen.
Janet looked up as she came in and passed her a bowl of oatmeal. She waved a hand in the direction of the cutlery drawer. “Help yourself to a spoon. You’re off to the police station this morning, I presume? Did you have a good night?”
“I barely slept,” Victoria admitted, eating hastily. “I can’t believe we might finally have a breakthrough.”
“Do you think you will get a confession?”
“Not necessarily of murder, but maybe he can lead us to the person who killed my sister. Last night, we got the server from the Hancock Inn to identify him, and she confirmed he dropped off the note. Steve and I will be questioning him at the station.”
A few minutes later, Victoria had dumped the empty bowl into the sink and was on her way. At the police station, she found Todd sitting dejectedly on one of the chairs around Steve’s desk, his bag still clasped in his hands, and Steve watching over him. The deep lines above Todd’s eyebrows were smeared with dirt, as though he had wiped his hand across his forehead. His cheeks were unshaven, and one side of his face was crisscrossed with faint indentations as though he had slept on an uneven surface. A bruise showed on the other cheek through the grizzled stubble, and Victoria frowned.
“Where did you get that?” she asked.
“It happened when I tackled him last night and he fell, right?” answered Steve for the war veteran. Todd cast a quick, scared glance up and nodded.
Victoria looked hard at Steve for a moment, then sat down and turned her gaze to Todd. “I want the truth,” she said. “Did you write that note I got at the inn?”
Todd spread his hands before him. They trembled on his lap. “How could I?” he asked, echoing what Joe Evans had said. He sighed. “My hands are not so steady,” he added simply.
“Then who wrote the note?” demanded Steve, looming over the beggar.
Todd blinked as though confused and paused. “I was walking outside Hancock,” he said, taking the time he needed to remember, for the days often passed in a blur. “It was getting dark, and I was looking for somewhere to sleep for the night. Not too cold, not too far off the road.”
He scratched his head in his effort to recall the details. “Someone came up to me and said he would pay me to take a message to the Hancock Inn. Said it was for the sister of Rebecca Wharton.” He sighed, his vague eyes watery. “Most people won’t give me anything,” he said. “Because they think I will just drink if they give money. I keep trying to stop, but sometimes I drink too much.”
Victoria, noting the broken veins on his cheeks and the bloodshot eyes, suspected this was an understatement.
“Rebecca was always kind. She didn’t give me money—” He shrugged — “but she would buy fruit and keep it with her in her car or bag for when she saw me.”
“Who gave you the note?” asked Vict
oria.
Todd frowned hard and then shook his head from side to side in confusion. “I couldn’t see his face. My eyes can’t see well in poor light.”
“Who do you know in Hancock who might have given you the note?”
“Most people know me,” Todd said. “I have done some odd jobs here and there. For the churches in and around Hancock. For some of the bigger houses needing grass cut or gardening done. For the animal doctor.”
Victoria glanced, startled, at Steve, who sat suddenly, his eyes riveted to Todd’s face. Had the man who had given Todd the note been John?
“What color was the hair of the man who spoke to you? Dark?” demanded Steve. “Red-haired?”
“It might have been,” Todd said, blinking as he tried to remember.
“Which?” snapped Steve.
“Either,” said Todd. “It was dark, and I don’t really remember. I drink sometimes,” he repeated, as though this was sufficient explanation — which, Victoria guessed, it probably was.
“Who knew that your eyes were poor?” asked Victoria. “No one you could identify would have risked using you to take the note.”
“Oh, everyone.” Todd nodded and kept nodding as though rather pleased at last to be able to give a more definite answer.
“Were you on the Harris Center trail when Rebecca was found?” Victoria demanded. “Did you leave a beer bottle there? We are going to have to fingerprint you to check.”
Todd looked scared. “It wasn’t my bottle,” he said, his eyes shifting rapidly. Victoria was sure he was lying.
“What about the scarf you had?” She pointed to his bag. “Where did you get that?”
Todd suddenly shrank into himself. He stared in front of him, his expression blank.
Steve bent forward, his shoulders tense. “Where did you find the scarf? Did you steal it?” When he got no answer, he rose and stood next to the older man, towering over him. “I asked you a question.”
Todd thought for a moment, his eyes shifting slowly from Steve to Victoria and then back again. Victoria watched closely as the fear slowly drained from his eyes to be replaced by a curious, sly glance, as though he had suddenly realized something to his advantage.
“The scarf’s my secret,” he murmured. He took it from his bag and ran the material through his fingers, caressed it. “Its secret is safe with me.” Then he lapsed back into silence, his face vacant once more.
Victoria stood up in disgust. “We’re not going to get anything more from him today,” she said. “Probably Rebecca gave him the scarf without telling my mother.”
“Can I go?” asked the beggar, trying to rise. Steve pushed him down again, but Victoria jerked her head at the door. Steve frowned and shook his head, but she spoke before he had a chance to contradict her.
“You can go,” Victoria said. “Where can we get hold of you if we have more questions?”
“I’m usually on the common in the late afternoon,” replied Todd, shuffling eagerly toward the door. “Or down near the Meeting House. You can meet me there if you have anything to ask me.”
Again, that disturbingly cunning look crossed his face just for an instant before his usual blank expression returned. The door closed behind him.
“Why did you let him go?” Steve demanded.
Victoria sank back into her seat, exhausted. She closed her eyes. “He wasn’t going to tell us any more. I suspect he was on the scene, maybe saw her body and kept quiet. But you surely don’t think he did it?”
“Of course I do,” Steve replied, and her eyes flew open. “He is wandering around with property belonging to your sister. He probably sold her phone long ago. No doubt he accosted her on her walk — maybe she didn’t have any food for him. Maybe he was tired of getting food and in need of money to buy alcohol. So he attacked her and accidentally killed her.”
“Why didn’t he take her cell phone when he killed her then?” questioned Victoria.
“You’ve seen the guy. His brain is so addled with alcohol he can hardly think straight, even first thing in the morning. He probably ran off in fright when he went too far and killed her. But later, his need for alcohol overcame his fear. He hid in the undergrowth and watched as Paula discovered the body. Then as soon as she left, he grabbed your sister’s phone to sell so he could buy alcohol and her scarf to keep him warm. What do you think?”
Victoria pursed her lips as she considered his arguments.
“No,” she said at last. “None of it makes sense. I mean, how likely is it he would have known I was staying at the Hancock Inn or even known who I was? It’s not like he is really part of society in Hancock here. He hangs around on the fringes doing bits of work where he can. And who would buy a phone from him round here? Everyone knows about what happened to Becky. He’d have been in jail before he could get anywhere close to buying liquor. We haven’t found the phone in his possession, and it hasn’t turned up anywhere else. In any case, he hardly strikes me as someone who is violent. He is so wobbly on his legs, my sister would easily have fought back even if he had tried anything. And why would he want to steal her phone when he has been getting cash for jobs here in Hancock?”
Steve stared at her, clenching his jaw as though trying to control his temper. “You don’t make allowances for the clouded mind of an alcoholic,” he said, trying to keep his voice even. “Maybe you can rationalize away everything with your logic, but alcohol can do weird things to people — make them behave differently from usual. Like my mother.” He laughed bitterly. “Maybe even drive him to use more force than we would think him capable of.”
“What about the note? He isn’t capable of that!”
“The work of Maurice Jenkins?” Steve suggested. “Think of everything you told me about him. Did that ever occur to you? If you keep investigating him, he might end up getting exposed for his harassment of your sister — and attempted adultery.”
“All I know is that I can’t imagine Todd committing violence,” replied Victoria. “I think he knows more than he admits, but he’s not a murderer.”
“And all I know is that you’ve just let go our most likely suspect,” replied Steve, his voice rising. “I could have got a confession out of him!”
“You mean the same way you got him to cooperate with us this morning?” Victoria asked, a bite to her tone.
“What are you talking about?”
“That mark on his face?”
“He already told you how he got that bruise,” Steve said. “He fell. Don’t forget, before you accuse me of police brutality, whose side you are on.”
Victoria closed her eyes. She heard the door slam. When she opened them again, he was gone. For a moment, she considered going after him, but pride stopped her. Doubt filled her mind as she thought back on what she had said. Had she gone too far?
Chapter 19
“I need to get out,” Victoria told Janet that evening as they ate dinner together.
“Was my meatloaf that bad?” Janet asked, clearing the dishes from the large wooden kitchen table and dumping them in the sink. “Or are you just trying to shirk the dishwashing?”
“Both,” groaned Victoria. She smiled. “It’s been a really long day. A really lousy day.”
“The interrogation of the war vet didn’t go as planned?”
Victoria slumped down in her chair and squeezed her eyes between her thumb and forefinger. “I don’t know what to think,” she said. “I honestly don’t see Todd killing anyone. If he did decide to kill anyone, he’d be so slow, any potential victim would long since have figured out what he intended and have had the opportunity to run away.”
“And Steve disagrees?”
Victoria pushed her chair away from the table and stood up, rolling her shoulders to unstiffen her neck.
Janet placed her hand on her hip. “Have you guys been fighting?”
“No, not — yes. Actually, we have. I don’t think he’s talking to me at the moment. And I’m permanently on edge. This case is driving me crazy.”
Victoria rubbed her temples.
“Headache?” enquired Janet, and Victoria nodded.
“I usually get pain here,” Victoria said, placing her hand on her chest. “It’s an anxiety thing, I guess. But now it’s diversifying and spreading upwards. My head feels like it’s on fire.”
“Go for a walk,” Janet said. “I’ll do the dishes.”
“You’re sure?”
Janet shooed her toward the back door. “Go on. Go, before I change my mind.”
Victoria swung open the stable door and stretched her neck to one side and then to the other, breathing in the coolness of the evening air. She walked down past the Vestry, glancing up at Hancock’s Meeting House as the historic bell — Paul Revere’s #236 bell — chimed.
“Eight p.m. already,” Victoria murmured to herself, checking the bell’s time against her phone. She hastened past the cemetery and went on to Norway Pond. One or two families were still swimming when she arrived, and she sat down by the waters. When the swimmers started heading home, she remained where she was, seeing, in her mind’s eye, the waters of the pond freeze over, as they did in winter, and her sister skating effortlessly across the ice. She closed her eyes, the memories of Becky slowly erasing the pounding pain in her head. She wasn’t sure how long she stayed that way.
When she eventually opened her eyes, the air held a chill, and the light had faded. She gave a slight shiver and sat more upright. She was alone, and suddenly even the innocence of childhood memories couldn’t erase the fear of the dark that later memories of her father had brought.
“Home,” she said to herself, aware of the bitterness in her voice. It wasn’t far to go after all. As she turned, a hooded figure grabbed her from behind and shoved her into the water. She had a split-second in which to scream before the water engulfed her. Spluttering, she came up for air, only to have a merciless hand grip her neck and force her head under again. She fought furiously, and felt the hand loosen momentarily as she jabbed her elbow hard into her assailant’s abdomen at the base of the ribcage. For a moment, she thought she could make it out of the water before her attacker recovered, but her foot slipped, and she felt those merciless hands again. They closed around her neck and jerked her close to her assailant. Almost subconsciously, she registered the faint smell of cologne as he breathed in her ear.
HER SISTER'S KILLER an absolutely gripping killer thriller full of twists Page 7