Murder at Longbourn

by Tracy Kiely

  “Jesus,” Peter said. “Don’t do that! You scared the crap out of me!”

  Still angry, I ignored him. “Aunt Winnie,” I said, “I think I figured out something! I’ll need to check it out, of course, but—”

  Aunt Winnie’s face clouded over. “No, Elizabeth,” she said, interrupting me. “I’ve made my decision. I want you to stay out of this. And you, too, Peter,” she said, turning to him. “Let the police handle it.”

  “Are you kidding?” I said.

  Peter was equally astonished. “You want us to leave this in the hands of Detective Stewart and Ichabod Crane out there?” He jerked his head toward the foyer.

  “In a word, yes,” said Aunt Winnie.

  “But why?” I asked. “I think I’ve figured something out—” Aunt Winnie grabbed my arm. Hard. “Why? Are you serious? Listen to me! Elizabeth, this isn’t a game! Jackie is dead because she tried to play detective! And someone tried to kill Linnet because he thought she knew something. I’m not going to let the same thing happen to you. You are the closest thing I’ve ever had to a daughter and I’m not going to put you in danger!” Her voice caught and tears sprang into her eyes. “And you!” she said, spinning back to Peter. “Don’t you get any stupid ideas, either. I may not be related to you, but as far as I’m concerned you’re a part of this family. I am pulling rank on the both of you. You will not get involved. We will let the police handle this. I know that they suspect me, and I appreciate what you have been trying to do, but I cannot let you do anything more. It’s simply too dangerous. Am I understood?”

  Peter and I stared mutely at her. She glared back. “Answer me! Am I understood?”

  “Yes, Aunt Winnie,” I said, pasting on a meek expression.

  “Yes, Aunt Winnie,” said Peter with equal meekness.

  But I knew we were both lying.

  Aunt Winnie knew it, too, because she said, “And to ensure that you do just that, I’ve taken the liberty of calling your friend Bridget.”

  “What?” I said. “When?”

  “Last night. She and Colin are on their way up.” She checked her watch. “They should be here by two o’clock. They’ve agreed to stay a couple of days. I’ve already got their room ready.”

  “Who are Bridget and Colin?” Peter asked.

  “Bridget is my best friend,” I answered quickly, forgetting that I wasn’t speaking to him, “and Colin is her fiancé.” I looked back at Aunt Winnie. “But why did you call them?”

  “Because I know you. And I can’t watch you twenty-four hours a day to make sure that you—the two of you—stay out of trouble. But among me, Bridget, and Colin, the odds are much more in my favor.”

  “But this is silly!” I sputtered. “I don’t need a babysitter!”

  “I never said you did,” Aunt Winnie answered. “Think of it as a little peace of mind for me.”

  The arrival of Bridget and Colin might bring peace of mind to Aunt Winnie; it would do anything but that for me. Bridget had an overblown and finely honed sense of loyalty. If she had promised Aunt Winnie to keep me from investigating, then that’s what she would do. I glanced at my watch. If I wanted to get anything done before she and Colin arrived, I would have to get moving.

  After breakfast, I went into town under the pretext of visiting Lily and Pansy and stocking up on more pastries. In reality, I wanted to go to the Internet café. It was the only place where I’d be able to confirm what I now suspected.

  I stopped at the Teapot first, so my outing would not be a total lie. Both Lily and Pansy were agog with questions about Jackie’s death and Linnet’s collapse. Looking over her shoulder, Pansy said in a hushed voice, “I can tell you it’s cast a pall on this town. Everyone is scared and no one wants to venture out of doors. The other day this place was packed—Mrs. Ramsey and that housekeeper of hers, what’s her name?”

  “Mrs. Jenkins,” provided Lily.

  “That’s right, Mrs. Jenkins. Anyway, they were here placing orders for the reception after the funeral.”

  “That friend of hers was with her, too,” Lily added in a meaningful voice. “You know the one.”

  “Daniel?”

  “That’s the one.” She nodded. “He’s a handsome devil.”

  “He and Polly were here?” I asked.

  “No,” said Pansy, shaking her head. “Not Polly. Lauren.”

  But that meant that he had lied to Detective Stewart when he said that he’d been with Polly all that day. I snapped my mouth shut. I was not about to repeat Jackie’s mistakes.

  Once my purchases were boxed, I thanked Lily and Pansy and hurried along the snow-covered street to the Internet café. I bought a cup of coffee and settled at one of the computers. The place was empty save for the proprietor, who idly leafed through a magazine, and a lone customer who methodically tapped away at his keyboard. The former, an earnest-looking boy with wire glasses and neatly trimmed blond hair, and the latter, a lumpy man with stringy black hair, paid me scant interest.

  I typed in Baxter and waited. In no time, the information I was searching for appeared on the screen. It was just as I had suspected. I reached over and hit the print button.

  CHAPTER 25

  Keep breathing.

  —SOPHIE TUCKER

  I DROVE AS fast as I dared back to the inn, although I was hampered by the icy conditions of the roads and the timid progress of the other drivers. On my way, I called Detective Stewart, whose number I had memorized by now. The line rang and rang and rang and rang. My heart sank with each additional chime and I feared that I was going to get his voice mail again. Thankfully, he finally picked up the receiver. With a sigh of relief, I blurted out what I had learned. My words were jumbled and incoherent, but they must have made sense to him because after a brief silence, he simply said, “Damn it! I’ll be right there. Don’t do anything stupid.”

  I wondered what exactly constituted “stupid.” After parking my car, I raced into the inn. In the foyer stood the Andersons, putting on their coats. I couldn’t let them leave. “Um, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson?” I said. “I don’t think you should go out today. The roads are terrible. I’ve just been out myself and it’s treacherous.”

  Henry ignored me and continued to help Joan into her heavy coat. For all I knew, their bags were packed and already in the car. I felt a stab of panic.

  Joan shook her head. “It can’t be that bad. After all, the policeman was able to drive here.” She nodded in Ichabod’s direction. Watching us with a wary expression, he did not join the discussion.

  “Yes, but they have special cop cars equipped for the snow,” I babbled. At this, both Henry and Ichabod turned to me in surprise. Special cop cars? I knew with a sinking feeling that there was no way I was going to convince them to stay, especially if I kept talking gibberish. Aunt Winnie, Randy, and Peter came out of the kitchen. “Hello, everyone,” said Aunt Winnie politely. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing is going on,” said Henry. “Joan and I are going for a ride.”

  “I don’t think it’s safe to drive,” I said stubbornly. “The roads are sheer ice.”

  Aunt Winnie glanced at me. “That’s very considerate of you, Elizabeth, but I think the Andersons can make their own decisions.” Randy said nothing but watched Joan silently.

  Joan gave Aunt Winnie a grateful smile and started to pull on her gloves. I had to do something. They were leaving. Taking a deep breath, I stepped forward and pulled out the necklace. It hung from my hand, the long silver chain glinting in the light. “I know about Vicky.”

  Joan spun around, her eyes riveted on the necklace. Forgotten, her gloves dropped to the floor and her face drained of color so quickly that I thought she might follow after them. Pulling Joan to him in a steadying grip, Henry eyed me with ill-concealed fury. Belatedly, I wondered if this was what Detective Stewart meant by something stupid.

  “Detective Stewart is on his way here,” I said. “Why don’t we wait in the reading room for him?” Joan’s face was deathly white.
Henry’s, on the other hand, was purple with anger. Mutely, they followed me.

  Joan sank down onto a chair. “What is this all about?” Aunt Winnie asked me. Next to her, Randy stepped back toward the bookcases.

  “Joan was Gerald’s sister-in-law,” I answered.

  Aunt Winnie gasped. “Are you sure?”

  I nodded. “When I first met Joan, she told me her older sister had died in an accident. Her name was Vicky. I didn’t think about it at the time, but this morning I was thinking about nicknames and I remembered that Vicky is short for Victoria. Gerald’s first wife’s name was Tory, which is also a nickname for Victoria. As we all know, she also died in an accident several years ago. I confirmed it today by pulling up information on the late Mrs. Victoria Ramsey from the Internet.” I brandished the printout of my discovery. “Victoria’s maiden name was Baxter,” I said, waving the paper at Joan. “And you told me that your antiques store was named Miss Baxter’s Things of Yore. Now I understand your relationship with Polly—you’re her aunt.” Henry was standing next to Joan’s chair. His hand gripped her shoulder tightly. Turning back to Aunt Winnie, I said, “I think we now know who Joan was calling from your office—Polly.”

  Joan stared at her lap, ruthlessly twisting her hands. I held out the necklace. “The night I found you in the dining room, you were looking for this, weren’t you? It’s Victoria’s, isn’t it?”

  Joan threw her head back and stared at me defiantly. “Yes. I lost it the night Gerald was killed. But as loathsome as Gerald was, merely having once been related to him by marriage is hardly a reason to murder him.”

  “It is if he killed Victoria,” I retorted.

  A terrible silence followed, but Joan did not avert her eyes from mine. “He did kill her,” she said finally. “I know it in my heart, even if the police never were able to prove it.”

  “What happened?”

  Joan closed her eyes. “Victoria married Gerald after knowing him only a short time. She thought he was charming, and … and I think she really thought she was in love with him. He was very wealthy, which I’m sure helped, too. Vicky wasn’t mercenary, but she had struggled so hard after our parents died.” Joan opened her eyes and added, “Who knows? Maybe she saw what she needed to see. At first she was happy, but soon enough Gerald showed his real stripes. Vicky wanted to leave him, but then she found out she was pregnant.”

  Joan shook her head sadly. “She was so excited. She’d always wanted to be a mother and she thought that having a baby might change Gerald. But it didn’t.” Joan paused. “Gerald was disappointed that Polly wasn’t a boy, and after she was born, he ignored them both. Vicky was determined to make a good life for Polly, but she was lonely. And then, well, she met someone.”

  No one said anything, but Joan continued as if we had. “You have to understand, Vicky was a good person, but she was in a miserable marriage. In the end, though, she couldn’t go on with it. She didn’t like what she was doing and she thought Gerald was suspicious. That scared her because Gerald was pathological about people lying to him. Anyway, she was coming home from meeting this person for the last time when a car ran her off the road. According to witnesses, it matched a general description of one of Gerald’s. But Gerald produced several of his buddies to swear that he was with them all night. I kept pushing the police to arrest him—I knew he had done it—but in the end they just didn’t have the evidence. Vicky’s death was listed as an accident.”

  Henry silently watched his wife, anguish etched into his face. She took a deep breath and continued. “Afterward, Gerald got rid of everything of Vicky’s, like he was trying to erase any proof of her existence. Tell me, does an innocent man do that? The only thing I had that belonged to her was her necklace. Over the years, I tried to get in touch with Polly, but Gerald always blocked me. He refused to let me have any contact with her.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Joan shrugged. “Who knows? He couldn’t take his anger out on Vicky, so maybe he tried to take it out on me. Maybe he didn’t want me telling Polly my suspicions about how her mother died.”

  “Did you?”

  Joan looked at Henry before answering. Something unspoken passed between them. “No,” she said.

  “But she knew, didn’t she?”

  This time Joan didn’t need to confer with Henry; she knew how to answer. “I don’t know,” she said. “We never spoke of it.”

  “What happened to Vicky’s lover?”

  Joan paused and lowered her eyes. “I have no idea,” she said. “I … I never met him.”

  “So how did you and Polly finally connect?” I asked. “It wasn’t a coincidence that you came here, was it?”

  “No. Polly contacted me about six months ago. She didn’t know I existed until she accidentally came across Vicky’s obituary. It took her some time to find me—I was married to Henry by then and had changed my last name—but Polly is a very determined young woman when she wants something. She and I spoke on the phone a few times, but we hadn’t been able to meet face-to-face. Gerald kept a pretty tight rein on her. When Polly told me there was to be a party here, it seemed the perfect chance for us to meet. Henry and I would come up and stay at the inn and she would convince Gerald to come to the party.”

  “Weren’t you afraid that Gerald might recognize you?” I asked.

  “Not really,” said Joan. “I was away at school when Vicky and Gerald were married. I saw him only a handful of times. And he wasn’t the type to pay attention to people he found inconsequential.” Behind her wire glasses, Joan eyed me with a steely expression; Polly’s strong will hadn’t come only from Gerald’s side of the family. “I just wanted to meet Polly. But once Gerald was killed, I was afraid to come forward and tell everyone who I was. I’m sure the police still have the records on Vicky’s death. I made it pretty clear at the time that I thought Gerald was involved. Once all that came out, it would look as if I tried to take justice into my own hands. Polly and I agreed it would be best if we just pretended not to know each other.”

  Without warning, the doors to the room flung open and Detective Stewart stormed in. He briefly glanced at Joan before homing in on me. It wasn’t pleasure I saw staring at me in those eyes. He was livid. In case there was any doubt he yelled—loudly. “Just what in the name of God do you think you’re doing?”

  Startled, I stammered out what I had learned. “Joan Anderson. I told you there was something about her, and there is! She’s Polly’s aunt!”

  Detective Stewart’s face was a mask of controlled fury. Through clenched teeth, he bit out, “We already knew that, Ms. Parker. We have been conducting our own investigation—an investigation, I might add, that is now totally blown!” There was no restraint in these last words—they were shouted.

  Out in the hall, I heard the front door open and two very familiar voices floated in from the foyer. A second later, Bridget’s bright red head popped around the door frame. Colin, looking like a rumpled teddy bear in a tweed blazer, stood behind her. Bridget’s smile of greeting faded as Detective Stewart continued his tirade.

  “You are not a police officer!” he boomed. “You are a private citizen. A private citizen who has no authority to do anything in this case!”

  My temper flared and I shouted back. “Authority!? I don’t need your authority to help my aunt. It’s absurd that anyone would suspect her even for a moment of having anything to do with this! And yet that is precisely what is happening. My aunt is innocent, Detective Stewart, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit back and watch her go to jail because you and the rest of the police department want to pin this on her!”

  The room was silent as everyone waited for Detective Stewart to respond. He took his time, performing some sort of breathing exercises first. When he did speak, his voice sounded strained and unnatural. “No one is trying to pin anything on anybody. Two people have been brutally killed and a third is recovering in the hospital. We are doing our best to find the killer before he or she strikes a
gain. Your intentions may be good”—he paused, glaring at me as though he found this hard to believe—“but you have interfered with official police business. I am warning you, Ms. Parker, don’t do it again, or the only one going to jail here will be you!”

  With that, he turned on his heel and slammed out of the room, charging past Bridget and Colin. They watched him go with identical startled expressions. In the foyer, I could hear him talking with Ichabod.

  Henry turned to the rest of us, his face tight with anger, and said, “I will not stay in a place where I am going to be spied on and accused of murder. I’m confident that Detective Stewart can suggest a reputable inn for us to stay in while he concludes his investigation. And you can be sure that I will relay this entire incident to Mrs. Dubois. When she hears of this outrage, you can be assured that she will make certain that none of her many acquaintances ever come here!” Reaching down to grab Joan’s hand, he pulled her to her feet. “Come on, Joan,” he said. “We are leaving.”

  Joan did not meet our eyes as she followed her husband out of the room. In the foyer, I could hear them speaking with Detective Stewart.

  None of us spoke. Finally, Bridget turned to me with a smirk and intoned slowly, “And you were just going to catch up on some reading.”

  CHAPTER 26

  No good deed goes unpunished.

  —CLARE BOOTHE LUCE

  WITH THE INN empty of people who could seriously be considered suspects, we all stayed up late bringing Bridget and Colin up to date on the investigation and swapping murder theories. They were alternately horrified and enthralled by what we told them. And they laughed far too long and hard at Peter’s imitation of me falling out of a chair. By the end of the night, Colin and Peter were apparently on their way to becoming bosom buddies, and even Bridget was giving me none too subtle nudges about Peter. At one point, when everyone else was talking, she leaned over to me and whispered, “Peter’s gorgeous! Why don’t you like him, again?”