by Molly Macrae
“Did you want to read the letter?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“I’ve been carrying it around in my back pocket. I like the symbolism of asking him to kiss my—well, never mind about that. The trousers are on the back of the chair.”
Tallie took the letter from Janet’s pocket and read it, her left eye narrowing as she did.
“He said he’d lost track of Emma,” Janet said, “so my guess is that Una wrote that. The rest of the letters, too. It all fits. She carried grudges, she looked for the tension in situations, she invented letters for her column, and in her own, odd way, she saw herself as helping people with their problems.”
Tallie continued staring at the letter.
“I’ll add this bit to the cloud,” Janet said. “It clears up who Emma is, at least. I wonder if she really emigrated?”
“I wonder how she and Una got along? I can imagine a few scenarios where a child could want to kill.”
Janet asked the others to meet with her an hour before the bookshop was due to open. They sat in the chairs near the fireplace. She told them she didn’t want anyone dancing around her because of the letter and the situation with Curtis.
“Please don’t think of it as an awkward situation,” she said.
“You’re a better woman than I would be,” Christine said.
“Nope. Just one who’s moved on in more ways than one. I’ll call Norman Hobbs and give him the letters. Thank you, Summer, for not saying, ‘I told you so.’ By keeping them, we’ve lost Norman valuable time with them. We, on the other hand, have been asking questions and turning over theories about them, and maybe those can help him. So I’d like us to go over our theories and questions, type them up, and give him the letters and our theories.”
“I’ve got my tablet,” Summer said. “I’ll type. He can have a printout if he wants, or I can send it.”
“Thank you. Okay, the situation with Curtis gave us another piece of information, so let’s see how it changes things. It seems likely, now, that the letters are Una’s. And if that’s true, then it seems less likely that Jess was the target and Una was killed by mistake.”
“That never seemed likely, anyway,” Tallie said. “Or that was a really inept killer who gave up after that one mistake.”
“Kind of like us,” Janet said. “A stumbling, bumbling amateur.” That earned a smile from Summer, and Janet was glad for that smile’s resilience.
“I wonder if we could just ask one of the people the letters are written to if they’ve ever gotten a nasty letter from Una,” Summer said.
“Which one?” Christine asked. “The least dangerous looking? No, I still think we need to sit Rab down and sweat him until he coughs up what he knows about the letters. Because maybe he doesn’t just know about them; maybe they’re his.”
“Um, Christine?” Tallie waited, scratching her ear until Christine snapped at her.
“What?”
“Speaking as someone who doesn’t want to end up as your lawyer, let’s avoid strong-arm tactics.”
“I was being colorful. I’ll tone it down. But I still like the idea that the letters are his. Janet, your theory for how he floats through life, bumping up against people and places and collecting bits and pieces of information, could explain the letters and how they’re constructed. They’re an accumulation. He accumulates.”
“That was true of Una, too,” Summer said. “But instead of placid floating, she was more like Muhammad Ali—stinging like a bee.”
“And Rab doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who has a beef with anyone,” Tallie said.
“Because he puts his beefs in the letters,” Christine said, “and goes about his placid way. Maybe he’s creative about it, too. He wrote each one to a different person, so maybe each one is ‘from’ a different person. I’m just brainstorming here, but think about it. How does he manage to make a living doing . . . whatever it is he does? Maybe he has a vast web of intrigue and blackmail spread throughout Inversgail.”
“That’s so . . .” Janet wondered if she should be worried about her old friend.
“Why do you have it in for Rab?” Summer asked. “He seems so gentle.”
Janet, Tallie, and Summer regarded Christine—whose brows and lips were as contorted as the hands wringing in her lap.
“Because if the letters are Una’s, I hope you both realize”—the hands stopped worrying each other for a moment and one pled with Janet and the other with Tallie—“then we have to consider Curtis a suspect. You’ve been phoning his mobile, Janet. How do you know you’ve been phoning him in Illinois? Or he might be back there now, but where was he Monday night?”
“Is that all you’re worried about?” Janet said.
“All?” Christine and Tallie both said.
“Unfortunately, he’s out of the running. I know for a fact that he hasn’t left the States . . . lately. It seems I inadvertently, and by that I mean with spite aforethought, packed his passport. It’s somewhere in the shipping boxes. Possibly at the bottom of the one marked ‘open last.’”
Christine closed her eyes. “May I just say that your organizational skills are without compare? All right.” She opened her eyes again. “That theory’s down the drain. What else have we got? Anything that ties the letters to the murder?”
“Back to the letters-as-therapy idea,” Summer said. “What if they were never meant to be delivered or read by anyone else? Curtis knows about his child, but not from the letter. Maybe they were meant to be delivered at the author’s death. The author having the last, nasty word.”
“That would be nasty,” Tallie said. “I’ve heard of nasty video wills, though. So it’s possible. And if the letters are Una’s, if for whatever reason she put them in the tin, then that’s why Rosie found them. Una expected to come back for them, but . . . didn’t.”
Christine nodded. “Plausible.”
“Here are my questions, though,” Tallie said. “What if we don’t have all the letters? What if one or more was delivered at some point? What if someone found them in the recipe box earlier? How would we know if one is missing?”
“Theory,” Janet said. “What if the murderer found the letters on Una, read through them, and realized their discovery would direct attention to others? Could that be why they were ‘hidden’ in the tearoom? What if the murderer left the rest as a nest of red herrings?”
Summer stopped typing. “A nest of red herrings? That’s an icky image that I don’t want in my kitchen cupboards. But to add onto that, if there was a letter to the murderer, of course the murderer took it.”
“And again, how would we know?” Tallie asked. “I can think of a lot more questions, too.”
“We probably don’t need to put down every single question,” Janet said.
“No,” Christine agreed. “There’s no need to boggle Norman’s mind. Oh, bugger. I’ve just thought of a workaround for Curtis and his passport. He hired someone.”
Janet and Tallie laughed. Elizabeth II frowned at their hilarity.
“Oh, Christine, I know you’d like him to spend time in jail, for my sake,” Janet said. “But no. He couldn’t have done that. Curtis never balanced the checkbook. He never did his own taxes. He was incapable of filing insurance forms. Putting out a contract on Una would be way beyond his ability to plan something and then carry it through.”
“Plus that would be an awfully up-close-and-personal way to make a hit,” Tallie said. “I think we’re looking for someone who was out for personal revenge or who felt an imminent and very personal threat.” She looked at her phone. “Almost time to open.”
“I’ll call Norman,” Janet said.
“What about the letter to Curtis?” Christine asked. “Do you want to keep it back? I think everyone will understand if you do.”
“Absolutely,” Summer said.
“No.”
“What about Christine’s suggestion that he might be guilty?” Summer asked. “Shall I keep it in the notes? I can de
lete it.”
“Keep it. Not because I want him to twist—any more than I’ve already enjoyed watching him twist—but because it’s bad enough that I didn’t turn the letters over immediately, and we do want the murderer caught.”
Constable Hobbs followed Janet and Christine into the tearoom, looking much like one of the lowering clouds Janet had seen out her window that morning. He brightened briefly, as the morning had, when he took in the new paint job. But like the day, his dour look returned when they showed him the cupboard, the recipe tin, and the handful of envelopes.
“Rab MacGregor was reading tea leaves,” Hobbs said, “and Rosie Crozier had a psychic episode. And you say that you opened and read these letters. All of you.”
“Minus Rab and Rosie,” Janet said.
“And as I’m sure you would have, Norman,” Christine said, “had you found anything so unusual in your kitchen cupboard. But whilst these letters were in our care, we had time to consider and discuss the possible reasons and . . .” Christine hesitated and looked to Janet.
“Ramifications.”
“Thank you, Janet, yes. And we formed various theories. We’ve made note of them here.” She handed him one of the pages Summer had printed out. “And here is a separate page with some rather good questions which might trigger thoughts of your own.”
“You seemed to appreciate our notes last time,” Janet said, hoping to see a lightening of Hobbs’s spirits.
“Thank you,” said Hobbs, not perceptibly lighter. He put the papers on the counter, folded them into meticulous thirds, in half again, and tucked them in his pocket behind his pink notebook.
“We think we know who most of the letters were written to,” Janet said. “That should save you some time—that I know I wasted for you, and I’m so sorry about that. One of them is to my ex-husband, Curtis. It’s all in the notes, but did you know that Una has a granddaughter?”
Hobbs made no comment but took his pink notebook from his pocket.
“But we’d be happy for any input or insight from you on the identity of the others,” Christine said. “For instance, do you know who a Moira, an Agnes, or a Tristan might be?”
“I have no comment at the moment, Mrs. Robertson.” Neither did he write anything in his notebook.
“Of course, you can read our thoroughly thought-out theories at your leisure,” Christine said, “but the big questions remain. Did Una leave the letters here, and if she did, why?”
Hobbs remained silent. Possibly contemplative, but silent.
Janet felt worse and worse that she hadn’t turned the letters over to the police immediately. She also felt this meeting wasn’t going as well as it might. Christine was doing a fine job, but her own contributions were paltry. Surely there was some part of discovering the letters or a detail from the interview with Una she could recall to redeem herself. And then, in a flash of remembrance and inspiration, she surprised Christine and Constable Hobbs—as well as herself—by breaking into song. “The texts, the texts are calling me.”
“Janet?” Christine asked. “Are you ill?”
“That’s what Una did just before she left here Monday afternoon. She looked at her phone, and to the tune of ‘Danny Boy,’ she sang about texts calling her. That’s why she left. Norman, do you know who sent the texts?”
“I have no comment at this time.”
“But the police do know about the texts?”
“They do, Mrs. Marsh. Looking at texts and phone messages is part of what police do. That’s the kind of thing that police do in a timely investigation.”
“Then you must have a suspect,” Janet said.
Rather than answer, Hobbs asked another question. “How did she react to the texts?”
“She ended the interview. Prematurely, I thought. She looked around the kitchen, acting like a victim of advanced ADHD. I didn’t actually see that, though. Summer brought her in here and I stayed out there. She was getting on my nerves by then. It sounded like she opened and closed every cupboard and drawer. She never stopped talking. She turned on the water and left it running. But it was all misdirection, wasn’t it? So she could leave the letters. Finding the tin was probably a bonus. Now it’s your turn, Constable. What do you know about the texts?”
“I have no comment at this time.”
“Well, you’re making it very hard for us to help you.”
“Information from an ongoing investigation is not always mine to give, Mrs. Marsh. But I can tell you this. Mrs. Graham received more than one text Monday afternoon, and those texts came from more than one person.”
Janet’s hand flew to her heart. “It was a gang? Oh. No. I see what you mean. If they’d all come from one person, it might have been like a giant red arrow trailing a banner that said ‘Number One Suspect.’”
“If the murderer even sent her a text,” Hobbs said. “Wouldn’t it be nice if things were that easy?”
Janet glanced at Christine. She appeared to be deep in thought, running the tips of her fingers over her lips. But Hobbs’s mood had improved, and Janet was encouraged.
“I see your point, that this isn’t exactly an information-sharing session, Norman.”
“I’m glad you understand. I find it’s often the case between local and specialist police, as well.”
“That’s just so silly and it’s one of the reasons we’re trying to help. Well, that and to get the specialists out of my house. But that’s some of the information they’re not sharing. Irritating people. We saw Reddick in Nev’s the other night.”
“He’s a decent chap. Does his best. I’ll pass the letters along to him as from an anonymous source. Keep you and the bookshop out of it.”
“Thank you. That’s very kind.”
“Not kind, but with all the commotion in here, painters, baking, and whatnot, and with the four of you passing the letters around, there won’t be any useful prints or evidence left.”
Hobbs and Janet both sighed. Christine was still far away.
“Here’s something that might help, then,” Janet said. “I met Lauren Pollard Wednesday. She’s the young woman who was renting my house.”
“I’m aware of Mrs. Pollard.”
“This was at the library. She was upset. Upset to the point where I could picture her being violent. She said Una broke up her marriage by seducing her husband. She said she wished she’d never set foot in the house and Una turned her life into a hell. I felt terrible for her. It was disturbing.”
“I imagine it was.”
“Ian Atkinson was there and he calmed her down. But she could be the one who dumped the garbage—literally trashing the house. And no one would think twice about seeing Lauren or Neil there. Motive and opportunity. It made me wonder, have the police looked carefully at the Pollards?”
“Alibis.”
“What?”
“They both have alibis for Monday afternoon.”
“What alibis, Norman?” Christine asked, back and invigorated from her thoughts.
“Solid alibis. A private matter.”
Tallie knocked on the door frame, interrupting a nose-to-nose confrontation between the constable and the queen.
“Do you need me?” Janet asked.
“No, it’s quiet out there. But while it is, and while Constable Hobbs is still here, I’ve got a couple of quick questions, if it’s okay?”
Hobbes turned to Tallie with a wary smile. Her warmer one didn’t prompt his to let down its guard.
“The night of the murder,” she said, “after telling us that Jess wasn’t guilty, there was something else you didn’t think we should hear. Can you tell us now?”
“I have no comment to make.”
“But there is something?”
Hobbs remained silent.
Tallie nodded. “Okay, moving on, we have another mystery.” She told him about their frequent knitter, leaving out the name Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle. “We aren’t even sure if she speaks much English. Maybe Gaelic? Anyway, we haven’t found anyone who knows
who she is. Do you?”
“You’ve been asking around?” Hobbs said.
“Out of curiosity.”
“Is she bothering you or other customers?”
“Not at all. We like her. In fact . . . we’ve been thinking of her as Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle.”
“A hedgehog. I see. Well, if the hedgehog isn’t bothering anyone, then my advice is to leave it well alone. I’ll go out the back door, shall I, and make sure the area behind is free of vandals. Good day.”
“I think he has a soft spot for hedgehogs,” Janet said after Hobbs closed the tearoom’s back door.
“Who doesn’t?” Tallie said. “But I want to know what he doesn’t want us to hear.”
“I think I know one thing Norman doesn’t want us to hear,” Christine said. “And you provided the clue, Janet. One of Una’s Monday afternoon texts must have come from Danny at Nev’s.”
25
Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle added a bright spot to the bookshop that Friday morning—literally, as the skeins she took from her carrier bag were neon shades of purple, blue, and green. Brisk business kept Janet and Tallie at the desk or in the aisles helping customers, an excellent problem to have. But it meant Janet caught only glimpses of the knitting and she couldn’t figure out what the yarn was turning into. Christine and Summer were perfecting their choreography in the kitchen and making noses lift in the bookshop as the warm smell of shortbread slipped under the tearoom door. Tallie slipped into the kitchen during a lull and brought tea and a shortbread petticoat to Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle.
“Still can’t tell what it is,” she told Janet as they traded places at the cash register. “And she wrapped the shortbread and put it in her bag. Maybe there’s a Mr. T-W at home.”
“It looked like a sleeve and then it didn’t.”
“It might not look like what it is until it’s closer to being finished.”
“That might be how this case turns out, too.” Janet bounced a pencil on its eraser and then pointed it at Tallie. “We haven’t asked Rab or Basant if they know who she is. One of them is bound to.”