Merciless Legacy: Merciless Murder - A Thrilling Closed Circle Mystery Series

by Tikiri Herath

  “A woman? Was it Katy?”

  Nancy shook her head.

  “I don’t think so....”

  “When did this happen?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Try.”

  “Guess it was a good ten or fifteen minutes ago,” Nancy replied, sniffing. “I couldn’t find Jim, so I came down to see what was going on, and I saw this... he... it was horrid!”

  “Did you see anyone else on the landing or the corridor?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Nancy, I need you to be absolutely frank with us,” I said. “Can you tell us what you were doing at Mrs. Robinson’s room when she died?”

  She shot me a terrified look.

  “I, er...”

  I waited.

  Nancy moved away from Jim and leaned against the wall.

  “It was about Jim,” she mumbled.

  Jim gave her a horrified look.

  “Me?”

  Nancy turned to the room, her eyes filled with tears. “Look, y’all know we’re having trouble. It’s not a secret. I went to Mrs. Robinson for advice. Whenever I couldn’t sleep, I went down to talk to her, and she made me tea. She helped me.”

  “But... but, I....” Jim tried to speak, but was faltering.

  “Thank you, Nancy,” I said quietly.

  I glanced around the room. There were two people missing from here: Katy and Caril. I was about to ask Charles where his partner was, when Tetyana, who’d been circling the pastor’s body, looked up with a deep frown on her face.

  “What happened to Doctor Fulton?” she asked.

  Jim cleared his throat and opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

  “What is it, Jim?” she asked.

  “It was me and Pastor Graham,” replied Jim, giving a furtive glance at the body of the man who’d terrorized him for so long. “He told me to help him take the doctor downstairs.”

  “Downstairs? Where?”

  “To the...” He swallowed. “To the wine room.”

  Tetyana glared at him.

  “Why in hell would you move a dead body?”

  “Because he said so,” said Jim, his voice rising defensively. “It’s too warm up here. We had to keep him cool, like with Mrs. Robinson. He said if he stays here, who knows what will happen. So I helped him move the doctor.”

  “Nancy, did you touch or move the pastor’s body too?” asked Tetyana.

  Nancy flinched, as if she was repulsed by the very thought.

  “Is this how you found him?” Tetyana asked again.

  “I didn’t even come into the room. Spotted him from the doorway. So, I ran up and banged on everyone’s door....” She choked back a sob. “I didn’t do it. I swear to you. It wasn’t me!”

  She burst into tears.

  I looked over at Charles, clutching at the doorway, like he wished he could run away but knew he shouldn’t.

  I spun around, glowering at the room.

  “Someone put a tripwire across the top step in the main staircase and the back stairwell. They meant for one of us to fall over and break a neck. That’s what Katy tripped over.”

  I whirled around to make sure I looked everyone in the eye.

  “Who did it? Who put that death trap in place?”

  They looked at me with shocked expressions on their faces, but no one spoke.

  “Where were you all in the past hour?”

  “Sleeping,” said Charles, answering swiftly. Too swiftly. “In my room.”

  “Me too,” said Nancy through her tears.

  Lisa nodded.

  “I was with you,” said Jim to me in a small voice.

  “I was in my damn room,” shouted Barry. “What’s with all these questions?”

  “We’ve had three murders in the past twenty-four hours and our friend Katy has vanished, and you’re not even remotely concerned—”

  “Shut up!”

  Barry stomped toward me, his tumbler raised in his hands.

  “You!” he thundered, swaying like a zombie. “Throwing your weight around, pulling out guns and asking questions like you’re the damned FBI!”

  I stepped back. Even from halfway across the room, I could smell his whiskey-fumed dank breath. I had no intention of being on his warpath again.

  “Who do you think you are?” he hollered. “Showing up like the witches of Macbeth and all hell breaks loose. You have a lot of explaining to do. How do we know it wasn’t that redheaded pal of yours who killed Pastor Graham?”

  He stopped and swayed in place, his face red with fury.

  “This is your damn fault,” he said in a slurred voice. “You come in here sticking your noses into things you shouldn’t.”

  He took another swig of his drink and glared at me. “I don’t know what you people are up to, but I tell you, you have cursed this place!”

  I racked my brain, trying to think of how to best subdue this man. He was twice my size, but he wasn’t in control of his physical capacities right now.

  “Barry,” I said, mustering my calmest voice. “This has been a shocking day for all of us. I’m as horrified as you are—”

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m a stupid child!” yelled Barry, spitting his alcohol -fumed drool all over himself.

  “It was Mrs. Robinson who invited them here.”

  All eyes turned to Jim, even Barry’s.

  “She was getting death threat letters,” continued Jim in a quiet voice. “She hired them to help her find who it was. They’re private investigators or something.”

  Silence.

  Everyone stared at Tetyana and me.

  For the first time, Lisa raised her head and brushed her hair back.

  “Mrs. Robinson asked you to come?” she whispered.

  I nodded.

  “Lies, damn lies!” shouted Barry.

  “She showed us her letters,” I said, ignoring Barry. “All she wanted was to make them stop. We didn’t realize this was going to turn into a triple murder investigation.”

  Lisa flinched again, like I’d hit her.

  “They’re lying,” shouted Barry. “It’s them who did this. They came here and killed everyone!”

  Before I could react, he threw the whiskey-filled tumbler at me. I ducked, but I was a split second late. The tumbler smashed against my head, making me reel back.

  With another roar, Barry came at me like an angry bull, his fist raised high.

  I stepped aside, ignoring the searing pain spreading across my temple, and braced myself.

  Barry got to only two feet from me when he crumpled on the ground with a surprised bellow, bringing me crashing down with him.

  It was Tetyana.

  She’d pistol whipped Barry on the head.

  “Get off her, you frigging dufus,” I heard her growl as she forced him to his feet.

  I pulled my feet from under his bulky body and stood up. Barry got up shakily, groaning.

  I stepped back while Tetyana pushed Barry toward a chair and shoved him into it. He plopped down, protesting noisily. She placed her hands on his shoulders and pinned him down.

  The left side of my face was wet, and my head was throbbing. I wiped the whiskey from my hair, feeling nauseous at the sickly smell.

  “You all right?” said Jim.

  I nodded, trying not to think of the migraine threatening to break out any moment.

  “Anyone else try funny games like that,” said Tetyana, “and you’ll feel the butt of my gun.”

  “There’s a killer roaming around this house,” I said. “Figuring out who they are should be our priority.”

  Nancy turned a panic-stricken face at me.

  “Are we all a target now? Who’s going to die next?”

  Chapter Fifty-one

  I looked around the room, gauging everyone.

  On the surface, it seemed absurd to think Barry the drunkard could kill three people in a row in cold blood and get away with kidnapping Katy. He was too loud, too brash, and too clumsy, with the manne
rs of a bull moose in heat.

  Then there was Lisa.

  She was standoffish and distant, but if I’d have to bet on it, I’d say she wouldn’t be able to find her way out of a paper bag even with directions. She had a peculiar personality, but I wondered if she had the wherewithal to pull my friend off her bed and take her somewhere. Katy would have fought back like a mad cat.

  Nancy and Jim looked genuinely distraught. Did Nancy have something to do with Katy’s disappearance? Though Jim had opened up to us in the barn, and had us for an alibi, I wasn’t about to trust him yet.

  They could all be the best actors in town for all we knew.

  It was Charles who concerned me the most. He was a stranger, or so he had told us, but I had a funny feeling he knew this house.

  I suddenly realized what had bothered me earlier.

  I remembered how he and Caril had walked directly toward the staff entrance when Nancy had asked them to wash up. The kitchen had two doors that lead to the rest of the house. Any normal guest to this house for the first time would have asked where the washrooms were.

  I was about to ask Charles about Caril, when Barry yelled.

  “What do you want to do now?” he shouted. “You talk like you know everything. Hang everyone we suspect? I vote we hang you!”

  I was glad Tetyana was holding him down. There was nothing more I wanted to do than to punch him in the face and tell him to shut up. Katy was missing, and he was playing childish games.

  “What we’re going to do now,” I said, “is to contact the authorities and let them do their job.”

  No one spoke.

  “Tetyana and I will search this house and the grounds from top to bottom for Katy tonight.”

  “Like hell you will,” grumbled Barry.

  “We’re going to lock the dining room as it is, so we don’t interfere with the evidence,” I continued, ignoring Barry’s glares. “Then, we’ll ask you all to go to your rooms and stay there until we get the police here.”

  “That might take days,” said Nancy, a horrified expression on her face. “You can’t lock us up like that. Besides, we can’t leave Pastor Graham... sitting here till then.”

  “Officer Jensen said he’ll come tomorrow morning to check on us,” I said, “he’s our best hope right now. We can set up a footbridge so they can—”

  “You’re a fool to trust that incompetent piece of a man who calls himself an officer,” Barry exploded. “It’ll take him weeks to find reinforcement.”

  “He’ll come,” I said, not feeling confident in my own sentiments, but I wasn’t going to show it to them.

  I turned to Charles.

  “Where’s Caril?”

  He shrugged. “In bed, sleeping, I suppose.”

  “Was she sleeping when you came down?”

  “I... I...,” he spluttered. “She said she was thirsty and went downstairs to get a glass of water. So, when Nancy banged on my door, I didn’t look. She might have come back. I don’t know.”

  “Wouldn’t you have noticed if Caril wasn’t sleeping next to you?”

  “I... just ran out. There was all this noise outside and everyone was shouting about the dead pastor. I didn’t have time to think.”

  Charles was scrambling all over the place. He was a liar and a bad one at that.

  We had to locate Caril. I was sure she had a connection to this house. The way she behaved was too unusual, not like a lost hiker with a twisted ankle.

  It was also strange the only two people missing were Caril and Katy. Something told me finding Caril would lead us to Katy.

  My mind whirred. If someone took Katy, where would they take her? The barn? The cabin? The woods? I felt heart palpitations thinking of all the dangerous places she could be.

  I turned to the room.

  “We saw tire marks on the old riverbed just outside the tree line. Does anyone know where that leads?”

  No one answered.

  “It’s not that far from the cabin. If you follow the trail to the end, you’ll see it.”

  I watched Jim, Nancy, and Charles closely, and hoped Tetyana was focusing on Barry and Lisa.

  Nancy shrugged.

  Jim shook his head.

  Charles didn’t even look up.

  He knew something, but he wasn’t talking.

  “You people are mad,” muttered Barry. “That goes nowhere.”

  I turned to him.

  “Do you know that road?”

  “Bosh. It’s not a road. Not even a trail. Why don’t you listen when I tell you?”

  “We’re listening, Barry.”

  “That riverbed stops halfway to town. It was closed down years ago.”

  “Sounds like you know it well.”

  “They built a dam twenty years ago and there’s no way to cut across that, unless you’re planning to die drowning.”

  He looked down, shaking his head, all of a sudden melancholy.

  “I used to run around over there when I was a little boy,” he said, his tone softer. “Some weekends, I went to town all by myself, bought candies and walked back. Took me all day, but I loved it. Then those bastards came and built that dam. It’s a dead end. Those good for nothing...”

  Tetyana and I locked eyes.

  It was time to stop talking and start moving.

  Tetyana let go of Barry and stepped away.

  “Jim, you’re with us,” she said. “We’ll need some extra muscle power for the bridge. Everyone else, go to your rooms until we give the all-clear.”

  We were risking it by bringing Jim with us. He had been willing to take instructions so far, but I couldn’t let my guard down. For all I know, he was the killer among the group.

  But Jim also knew the area, the town, the people, and he knew where to find the equipment for repairing the bridge. If it came to it, Tetyana and I could tackle him.

  No one moved.

  Tetyana raised her voice. “Anyone here looking forward to being the fourth body or discovering it?”

  No one even twitched a muscle.

  Tetyana screwed her eyes tight. “Are you all going to go up on your own volition or are you going to make me force you?”

  Nancy shot her a frightened look. “You’re not the police.”

  “We’re trying to stop a fourth killing here,” I said.

  “You’re not seriously going to jail us in our rooms, are you?” said Charles.

  “It’s for your own safety,” I said.

  Barry thumped an angry fist on the table, making us all jump. “Madness. I tell you, you’re all mad!”

  “We don’t have all night.” Tetyana waved her gun, her voice tinged with impatience. “Since you all seem so reluctant to follow instructions, I’m locking you in.”

  “Who the hell are you to push me around in my home?” hollered Barry. “You rat-faced whores. You will regret this!”

  It took five seconds of strategic prodding with Tetyana’s handgun to escort a raging Barry up to his room. After that, Lisa and Nancy went to their rooms without a fuss.

  Before locking them in, Tetyana and I checked each room, looking under the beds, inside the closets, behind the curtains, in the showers and bathtubs just to make sure Katy hadn’t been shoved in there.

  My friend was nowhere to be found, but we made other discoveries.

  On a table next to the sink in Lisa’s bathroom was a jumble of bottles, jars and even a mortar and pestle. Small clay pots of garden-variety herbs lined her windowsill. An herbalist?

  I picked up a small brown bottle whose label had an X on it. I popped the cork and sniffed the contents. Almonds. I put the bottle down, puzzled why she would have baking ingredients in her room.

  I found a small packet of white powder in the bathroom cabinet of Nancy and Jim’s room. Was this why she shouted in anger the night before? Because she found this packet here?

  Both Lisa and Nancy glared at me as I took the key from the other side and closed their doors. I felt bad for locking them in, but they ea
ch had a comfortable bed and their own things.

  Then we took Charles to his bedroom.

  His room was empty. Something told me he had been humoring us all along. He’d known his partner wasn’t here.

  We stepped inside and checked the usual places.

  “Where’s Caril?” I asked.

  “I told you I don’t know.”

  I stared at him. Katy was missing, and I was freaking out. In contrast, he seemed to take his partner’s disappearance in stride.

  “Your girlfriend’s vanished in a house where three people have suddenly died, and you’re not troubled?”

  He looked me in the eye. I thought I caught a glint of amusement. “Like I said, she probably went to get a glass of water from the kitchen.”

  “We didn’t see her when we came in.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe she’s in the downstairs bathroom.”

  I squinted at him.

  “What are you and Caril doing in this house?”

  “I already told you. We got lost.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  He gave Tetyana and me a sick smile.

  “Look, I know you’re trying to find a killer, but it ain’t me. It ain’t Caril either. You people are barking up the wrong tree.”

  “Do you know who it is?” I asked.

  He shot me an impatient look.

  “I don’t have to answer any of your questions. I’d be happy to talk to the police, but right now,” he gave me a steely look, “damned if you think you’re going to lock me up in this airless room.”

  Before I could react, he pushed me roughly aside and made for the door, but Tetyana grabbed him by the collar.

  “Where do you think you’re off to?”

  “Off to find Caril,” he snarled, struggling to push her hand away. “Let go of me. You don’t know who I am.”

  Tetyana shoved him on the bed, making him fall on his back.

  “I don’t care if you’re the Prince of Wales, bud. You stay exactly where I tell you to stay.”

  Chapter Fifty-two

  “We’re going to go room by room,” said Tetyana. “We’ll start on the third floor.”

  I pulled Mrs. Robinson’s master key ring from my pocket.

  “Here.”