“We don’t know if this death is a case yet,” Graham reminded me. “‘Case’ refers to something other than natural death, Taylor.”
“But if Karol finds something,” I persisted, staring at the bundles of tree branches. “If it turns out to be—”
“Murder?” He stepped back, making room for a constable who was bringing Harry a tape measure. “Who’d want to kill a respected, well-liked woman like Ramona?”
“Who’d want to kill a respected, well-liked man like Steve Pedersen? You know as well as I do, Sir, that motives run deep. Especially in villages.”
“Well, I hope we can rule out Arthur. I don’t think I can stand the thought of a besotted lover killing his intended. I was brought up on tales of Robin Hood and King Arthur.”
“Fortunate for us that Ramona fell where she did.”
“Why?”
“That piece of rope… If it is murder, and the rain obliterated any footprints or small clues outside, the body, by falling on the rope, protected it.”
“Sounds planned. Look, Taylor, I’ll go along with your murder suggestion. I hate rushing fences, but it looks suspicious with the whitened skin of her lips. Killer had to be a local. Would she come outside at night for anyone but a local, someone she knew?”
“Unless she was carried outside after death.”
Graham called to Fordyce, who then cut a sample of rope from the nearest bundle of branches. “What say we earn our pay and take on the questioning of my two favorite suspects?”
“Talbot and Uncle Gilbert.”
“Who do you want?”
“Surprise me. You thinking of Talbot and Uncle Gilbert because they seem to like rope more than anyone else in the village?”
“Yes. I’m for Talbot, then. You tackle the ever-inebriated uncle. You seem to have such rapport with the less fortunate.”
“That motherly touch again.”
“Everyone should have such a mother. We’ll meet back at the incident room.”
While Graham was questioning Talbot, I was trying to get a sober, straight answer from Uncle Gilbert. Arthur had practically torn apart the house before finding his uncle in the ballroom. It was a cavernous room, as such rooms are. Satin-cushioned chairs lined its perimeter, ready for foot-weary dancers. A half dozen crystal chandeliers polka-dotted the ceiling, their rows of diamond-like pendants glittering in the morning sun. I crossed the hardwood floor, conscious of my footsteps.
Gilbert, amazingly enough, was conscious of them too, for he looked up at my approach. He was placidly sitting in the middle of the vast floor, putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Though all five hundred pieces were scattered about him, only a few dozen were assembled. And very creatively. One piece in particular buckled drastically from the forced fit. Still, I gave him credit. Both pieces were blue.
Gilbert’s eyes were as blood-shot as the last time I had talked to him. And as unfocused. He craned his head back to study better who was standing beside him. Upon seeing me, he laughed and gestured toward the bare floor.
“Just the person I need! You must have been sent by Athena herself, Sergeant.”
It might have been more appropriate if Gilbert had said Dionysus sent me. Ole Dion probably knows his way here by heart. Paid a recent visit, too.
“Just who I need—a cop, a ’tec to lend her great wisdom, to snoop out the errant pieces! Say you can find the missing amongst all this!” His arm flapped haphazardly in the direction of the scattered pieces. “I’m working on this tricky bit here. Need a knobby bit on the right. Blue and a funny little red stripe. If you can locate our missing member, I shall personally write a letter to your chief constable, advising him of your superior traits and recommending immediate promotion!” The puzzle piece fell to his lap as he leaned backwards in his roar of laughter.
“While you’re at it, mention I need a raise.”
Another blast of mirth roared over me. Suddenly serious, he said, “Wages are a hell of a thing, aren’t they, Sergeant? Money’s gonna be the death of civilization. You see if I’m not right. The rich get richer, and the poor—” He sniffed. “Wages, Sergeant. We’re all wage slaves in one form or another. Work and wages. Four-lettered words if there ever was. I, myself, for all the grandeur about me, am reduced to a wage. Yes, a wage. Supplied to me by my kind nephew. Not as regular as I should hope, nor as much as I should hope, but there you are.” Without any concern for matching color or shape, he wedged a piece into an accommodating area, then hammered it flat with the side of his fist. Looking up from his work, he said, “Oh, it’s you. Back again? More questions?”
“I’m back, yes, but it’s over a different matter.”
“Different? What the hell do you mean?”
“Ramona VanDkye was found dead this morning.”
For all of Uncle Gilbert’s advanced alcoholic state, the news of Ramona’s death appeared to sober him quickly enough. He watched the placement of my puzzle piece with no sign of awareness. His head raised slowly until he was nearly eye to eye with me, his mouth dropped open, revealing yellowed teeth and an alcoholic odor. I eased backwards as Gilbert expounded his innocence. “I didn’t do it! I had nothin’ to do with it! I was here. Asleep. Ask Arthur. Ask—”
“I’m not accusing you of anything, Mr. Catchpool.”
Gilbert asked what had happened. When I had told him, he slowly shook his head. “Awful. God awful.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“What’s today?”
“Wednesday.”
“Ahh, yes. Well, it’d have to be. Ramona saw Arthur for dinner, but that was last night.”
“I’m asking about you, Mr. Catchpool.”
“Me?” He blinked slowly. “Me and Ramona? Well, that’d have to be at the bonfire. Sunday.”
“Do you know of any reason Ramona might have been killed? Grudges, old love affairs that didn’t end amicably, debts never paid…”
“Other than her short-lived marriage, I can’t think of any old loves. And that left her a widow, so you shan’t have to look for a husband.”
“Married to whom?”
“Don’t know. Ask Arthur. Ask Ramona. She’d know. Can’t remember.”
I sighed and tried another line. “You were seen Sunday before the bonfire in the vicinity of the effigy. Are you interested in rope? Did you ask Talbot for the loan of any remnant he had, perhaps?”
“Loan of rope? What the hell are you on about? I didn’t ask for any rope—then or later. Not from anyone. And I didn’t buy rope, either. We’ve got enough about the estate. Why you asking? She wasn’t hung, was she? Rope! That’s why—” His shaking hand swept uncontrollably across his mouth, trying valiantly to moisten his lips and tongue. “That’s it. There was rope on her body. She was hung or tied up. Or else you’d not be asking me about rope. Oh, God, I had nothin’ to do with it. Nothin’! I swear, I swear…” He lowered his head, cradling it in his hands, and repeatedly groaned his innocence.
I left him to his suspicions and denials.
* * * *
“Anything reveal itself to you, Taylor?” Graham sat at a table in the incident room, his long legs extended in front of him, his heels pushed into the floor and angling his chair slightly backwards. His arms were bent and his interlaced fingers supported his head like a pillow.
“Nothing to get me a promotion. Uncle Gilbert, as you will not be surprised to hear, both denies thought of borrowing rope or knowledge of loan of rope. He seems to have minded his own business for once. You?”
Graham shook his head, telling me that Talbot admitted tying Ramona’s bundles during the weekend, but that he ended the job Monday. “And you could have told me that much. I believe anyone could have done it. Talbot’s rope isn’t uncommon, and it’s lying about, most likely, contrary to his claim to have it under lock and key.”
“Not much help. Although I was told again that our Ramona had been married. And, no, I don’t know her husband’s name. A job for Fordyce.”
“
Maybe Uncle Gilbert and Talbot are related. Do fraternal twins share similar cerebrations?”
“Don’t know about that,” I said, momentarily thrown by Graham’s word choice, “but Uncle Gilbert’s not too strong on the headwork.”
“The only interesting item I came upon was Tom in the middle of the road. He was taking photos of the pub and post office reflected in rain puddles.”
“He’s certainly creative. Wonder if it’s instinctive or if he walks around his subject before he shoots.”
“Wonder how many rolls he goes through on holiday,” Graham said, probably thinking of the film incident. “Well, he’s bound to have an interesting album. I tire of snaps of Aunt Edith reduced to a dot in the middle of a Sahara-like stretch of beach.”
“Or the wedding party and guests—none of whom I know, but should find interesting because so-and-so’s niece was a flower girl. Why is a photo of the bride and groom stuffing wedding cake into each other’s mouths so fantastic? Icing all over her makeup, fingers sticky… I should think a bride would want to forget it.”
I waited for a murmur of agreement, for a commiserating word. Instead, Graham sat mute, as though he had not heard me. Or as though he was thinking of a similar situation, for his eyes stared past me, focused on something beyond the window. I watched his face, trying to read his thoughts, wanting to understand the private world into which he slipped periodically. There was a slight lowering of his eyelids and a tightening of his jaw muscles, which I knew happened when he was angry or impatient. A phrase, hardly above a whisper, escaped his lips.
“Beg pardon, sir?” I said.
He stirred, as if the sound of my voice broke his mood. Shifting his eyes to my face, he seemed startled to find himself in the incident room. “Pardon?”
“I didn’t catch what you said. Sounded like ‘till death do us part.’ You want me to check up on Ramona’s marriage?”
Graham rubbed his face and said no, that he had just been thinking of weddings. I wasn’t so sure. I thought he had mentioned Ray again. A brother or uncle? Perhaps a best friend. Someone who had bested Graham in love? I busied myself with the papers in front of me. As much as I longed to ask him about Ray, I refrained. Graham would tell me when—if ever—he wanted to.
“Driving a car requires a driving license. Doctors and architects need to pass their exams. So do plumbers. Why can’t potential photographers sit through instructional classes? All the film that’s wasted on dot-sized Aunt Ediths…”
I agreed that I tend to doze off when viewing my uncle’s photographic attempts. I had just suggested bringing in some lunch when the phone rang. Graham muttered that it was getting as bad as mealtime at home and picked up the receiver. After uttering a few oaths, he hung up and said, “Care to guess who that was? I won’t even make you lay a wager.”
“Your few choice euphemisms didn’t give me much of a clue. I don’t get much from ‘The hell you did.’ Leaves a bit to the imagination.”
“On executing constabulary business, our valiant constables found a turquoise thread.”
“Turquoise,” I muttered, recalling the puckered threads in Ramona’s nightgown. “And where was this found?”
“On a bush outside the back door.”
“Not meaning to play devil’s advocate, Sir, but couldn’t the thread be old? Days, months ago?”
Graham conceded the possibility. “Unfortunately, Taylor, I’ve had many a case that hung by a thread.”
TWENTY-ONE
We were nearly finished with our meal in the public bar—a break Graham and I admitted we needed—when Derek limped into the pub’s large room. He nodded at us before joining a group at the bar. It was evidently one of their usual meeting places, the stretch of empty tables patiently waiting for tourists or villagers.
“Derek!” Evan threw his damp towel beneath the bar counter, drew a pint of bitters, and set it down in front of Derek. “We were just saying before you came in that we’re starting up rehearsals. The walk-around’s just five weeks away, right?” Evan turned to one of the older men leaning against the bar. Receiving an affirming nod, he said, “Right. Five weeks.”
“Not much time.”
“Not much time, you may well say. So, we’ve got to get at our carol rehearsals.”
“Hope it’s not as damned cold as it was last year.” One of the men lowered his head, hardly lifting the glass from the counter top, and took a long drink. “Damned near froze to death before it was over. Bloody snow. Like as froze me feet trudin’ through that muck.”
“Aye,” another of the group agreed. “Never knew the wind so fierce as it was up at Leadlove’s farm. God, it was like I had bloody well nothin’ on. Cut right through to the bone, that cold did. Ain’t much better tonight.”
They paused, turning toward the front door, and listened. The wind moaned between the door and its frame, rattling the brass knocker. A tree branch bumped against a window, as though it wanted to come in from the cold. Returning to their drinks, the men seemed suddenly colder and talked quietly of a past snow storm. “Never found his body till next spring, it were,” one man reminded the group. “Found him up around Fenig’s Hill, near the pool. Frozen solid as a board and twice as stiff. ’Course, it’s near always certain death up there that time of year, isn’t it? Cold.”
Silently, I agree, knowing that patch of Thunor Moor. It was desolate, wild land, planed by fierce wintry winds that left nothing growing taller than grasses. Sheep refused to graze there, seeking instead the warmer, more sheltered dales. A pool of bracken-infested water along a walking track further chilled the wind as it swept across the pool’s black surface. Frost and ice, always thicker and more abundant on the pool’s eastern shore, seemed to linger into the summer, when it took refuge in the crevices of ruined stone walls. ‘Cold’ hardly described the moor.
“At least it’s not snowin’ tonight,” someone said as the tree branch scratched again.
“Maybe not,” Derek said, “but there’s the smell of it in the air.”
“I can feel it more than smell it. Gets into my bones. Missus says it’s neuralgia, but I don’t hold with that. Seeps into my body, cuts right through my flesh when it’s gonna rain or snow, don’t it?”
“Maybe we should bypass Leadlove’s,” Derek suggested. “I don’t know as they would miss us all that much, anyhow.”
“Not as though they was regular Church-goers. Wouldn’t think they’d miss the carols, them not attendin’.”
“Will be our twenty-fifth year of caroling,” Evan said. “Can you believe it? Quarter century, same group. Regular as clockwork we showed up.”
“I wouldn’t have given us that hope when we started,” one of the group confessed.
“No,” admitted Byron, walking up to the bar. “Sounded awful, we did.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘awful,’” Evan returned. “No one ever sounds like Kings College Choir right off. It takes a bit of work.”
“We’ve done all right,” Derek said. “Improved each year.”
“That’s where the hard work comes in. Makes it enjoyable when folks appreciate us,” Byron agreed.
Evan nodded, then snapped his fingers. “We ought to have some kind of celebration after finishing at the last house. Yes! After Leadlove’s farm. We’ll stop here at the pub for a drink and a bite, and toast another twenty-five years of the Upper Kingsleigh Carolers.”
“Ought to have some kind of plaque made,” suggested another of the locals. “Hang it here on the wall—if you aren’t of a mind to say no, Evan.”
“I’d be honored. Maybe get a few more to join, if they see how we’ve fared.”
“We’ll have all our names engraved,” Derek said. “Show our spirit—”
“Speaking of spirit,” Byron said. “If I may interrupt your meal, Mr. Graham…”
As though on cue, every head in the room turned to us. I felt their curiosity, their eyes darting between Graham and me.
Byron said, “You any nearer to an arrest?”
A few throats cleared, a few feet shuffled as the interested waited for the news.
Graham eyed me as though we shared a secret, then turned to the men. “The Constabulary, although dealing with many dozen cases simultaneously, has utilized all its available resources for the swift and successful conclusion of this case. It has received the top priority of the Chief Constable, since murder receives priority status. The expeditious completion and apprehension of the miscreant, although an honorary pursuit, must also be tempered with lawful procedures, else we should be confronted with a vigilante episode. I have conferred both with the Assistant Commissioner and the Chief Constable and we feel that an arrest, while being of major concern to the emotional and mental well-being of the citizenry—not to mention their physical survival—is imminently pending.”
Did he take a course on officialeze, I wondered, sharing a wink with him, or had he a natural talent?
The men nodded, mumbled that they had thought so all along, and occupied themselves with their drinks.
Evan wished us God speed and Derek mumbled that this was one November 5th they would not forget for many years, so it didn’t make any difference to him—other than the seeing of justice served—what happened.
“You don’t mind that it’s upset your wife, then?” asked one of the men.
“’Course I mind,” Derek said, his voice strained, his face flooding with color. “But what’s done is done. Can’t undo it. Calendar turns to Guy Fawkes night next year, Kris and I will be reminded of this mess, certainly. But other than the police finding the killer and someone being satisfied with the trial outcome, it doesn’t make a difference in our lives, does it? Will it yours, George?” he said, confronting the man. “Or yours, Byron? Or Evan? I doubt it one bloody bit.”
I felt like saying, “More tea, Vicar?” but after an awkward moment Evan cleared his throat and asked the group if they could get back to a more pleasant topic. “If we’re going to do this plaque, we haven’t much time. We must make our decisions. There’s bound to be something we can order from Buxton or Chesterfield.”
Death of an Ordinary Guy Page 20