A Most Unpleasant Wedding
Page 19
“You were working.”
Tee bit his lower lip. “I’m not proud of my behaviour, Detective. I should have taken some time off, taken her on one of those romantic Caribbean vacations — she would have liked that — done something to make her feel special.”
“Instead, you brought her to an inn, a half-mile away from the woman she thought you were having the affair with.”
Tee spread his arms. “Detective, when I booked the trip, I didn’t know she thought we were having an affair. I had mentioned to Evelyn that I was looking for something different for my annual fishing trip. She suggested the Pleasant. I didn’t know Bonnie thought we were having an affair until that night. I screwed up, but I can’t do anything about it now.” He slumped back in his chair. “I had to stand by Bonnie. She would have been devastated if I’d called the police.”
Brisbois watched him for a moment “How far were you prepared to go to cover up for your wife?”
“As far as I had to.”
“Including covering up the fact that she murdered Jack Arnold?”
“What?”
“Your wife has confessed to helping him along with a spiked drink.”
Tee’s face collapsed. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know. My God, she must have had a complete breakdown.”
Brisbois tapped his pen against his notebook. “It’s too bad Bonnie thought she had to deal with Mr. Arnold. She said he was trying to blackmail her. He told her he saw her going up the side road the night Evelyn Hopper was murdered. Bonnie told everybody she’d never left her cabin.”
Tee shook his head.
“If she hadn’t killed Arnold,” Brisbois continued, “she might have had a future to look forward to. She might have got a break for Evelyn’s murder. Maybe manslaughter. But what happened to Mr. Arnold, that was planned. And that means murder, Mr. Lawrence.”
Tee stared at the table.
Brisbois turned to Creighton. “Have you got those photographs? And can you tell us what that report says?”
“The report says Mrs. Hopper’s tissue and blood were found on a rock at the scene,” Creighton said. He handed the photographs to Brisbois.
Brisbois turned to Tee. “What do you think about that?”
Tee moistened his lips. “I don’t know.”
Brisbois held up the first photograph. “This is the rock.”
Tee stared at the photograph. “All right.”
“You remember that we found your footprints up there.”
Tee’s gaze wandered. “We’ve already talked about that. I said…”
Brisbois interrupted. “We agreed the print matched the tread and markings on the shoe you were wearing that night.”
Tee sighed. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, Detective. I was in the woods. I was near Evelyn’s body. I left footprints. So what?”
Brisbois pulled out the second photograph. “We found the footprint under the rock.” He smiled. “How do you suppose it got there, Mr. Lawrence?”
Chapter 21
Detective Brisbois faced Elizabeth Miller over the table in the dining room at the Pleasant. “I’m glad I caught you before you left. I wanted a chance to wish you well.”
“Why, thank you, Detective.”
“I hear you’re headed to Algonquin Park.”
“I want to show Edward the real wilderness.”
“I hope you’re taking plenty of bug spray.”
“A Girl Scout is always prepared.”
He didn’t respond for a moment, just stirred his coffee, enjoying the quiet of the dining room after the breakfast rush. “You have a good eye, Miss Miller. That scarf didn’t look like much when we packed up Herb’s things.”
“We can thank Mrs. Rudley for cleaning it up.”
He nodded. “And for so much more.” He paused. “Still, if Bonnie hadn’t panicked, we might not have been able to get her on the scarf alone. If she’d had the presence of mind, she could have said she dropped the scarf anywhere around the place and Herb picked it up.” He shrugged. “I hate to say this, but she isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.”
“She lost her nerve.”
“Yes, the stress of trying to hold things together got to her, for sure. When she saw you looking at the scarf, it was almost a signal for her to let go.”
“I could forgive Bonnie,” Elizabeth said. “Everything she thought was important in her life was in danger of being taken away — first by Evelyn Hopper, then by Jack Arnold. But what Tee tried to do is unforgivable.”
He nodded. “Evelyn was still alive when he found her. At that point he could have saved Evelyn and saved Bonnie. If Evelyn had survived, Bonnie would have had a chance to reclaim her life.”
“It was all about him.”
“He was ambitious,” Brisbois said. “He thought, if he killed Evelyn, he would be free to pursue a political career. He figured, in the worst-case scenario, if Bonnie got caught, he could at least go on as before. But if Evelyn lived, the story of his infidelity would come out.”
Elizabeth gave him a chagrinned smile.“He thought his career could withstand his wife’s criminality better than his infidelity.”
“Yes. Hard to understand.”
She looked pensive, sat stirring her coffee lazily.
“A penny for your thoughts,” said Brisbois.
“Maybe implicating Tee was Bonnie’s ultimate revenge. She didn’t have to say he was involved in anything. After all, she didn’t know he had killed Evelyn.”
Brisbois raised his brows. “You mean maybe she wasn’t as dumb as she seemed?”
Elizabeth smiled. “At least, now, she knows exactly where he is at every minute. Probably for the first time in years.”
“I hope we never see him again, Margaret,” Rudley said as Brisbois disappeared down the front steps.
“Be nice, Rudley.”
“If he insists upon coming here for dinner, we won’t stop him, of course. But I’ll be damned if he’s going to make a career of this place.” He looked up as Lloyd entered the lobby.
“There’s a man out there who wants to talk to you,” said Lloyd, motioning toward the veranda.
“Did he say what it was about?”
“Just that he had to talk to Mr. Rudley.”
“Probably some damned salesman,” Rudley muttered. He charged out onto the veranda.
A few minutes later, he returned.
“What was that about, Rudley?”
“That was the Reverend McBroom from St. Peter’s in Brockton.”
She frowned. “Where are your manners? You should have invited him in for tea.”
“He heard about the wedding.” He slipped in behind the desk, stood, fiddling with the register.
“Out with it, Rudley.”
“Very well.” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “It seems, Margaret, that the Reverend Pendergast was involved in an incident at St. Peter’s Parish Hall recently.”
Her brow furrowed.
“It seems that while a guest at the one-hundredth anniversary of the St. Peter’s Ladies’ Auxiliary, while tea was being served, the Reverend Pendergast proposed a toast, then, to everyone’s consternation, he dropped his pants.”
She put a hand to her mouth. “I trust he was wearing underwear.”
“Not a stitch.”
“Oh, dear.”
“So,” Rudley continued, “the bishop called the reverend in to account for his behaviour. He found him a tad senile. He decided to keep the matter under wraps — well, as much as you can keep anything under wraps when it’s done in front of fifty old ladies — and allow him to enjoy an honourable retirement. Part of the understanding was that the old pisspot would refrain from performing the sacraments.”
She looked at him in horror. “Do you mean they’re not married?”
“Quite right. But no matter. Reverend McBroom will contact the young couple and sanctify their vows in some sort of backroom ceremony.”
“They’re headed into the wilderness with
out benefit of clergy.”
He put an arm around her. “No matter, Margaret. It’s not as if they haven’t been there before.”
About the Author
Judith Alguire’s previous novels include Pleasantly Dead and The Pumpkin Murders, the first two books of the Rudley Mysteries, as well as All Out and Iced, both of which explored the complex relationships of sportswomen on and off the playing field. Her short stories, articles and essays have also appeared in such publications as The Malahat Review and Harrowsmith, and she is a past member of the editorial board of the Kingston Whig-Standard. A graduate of Queen’s University, she has recently retired from nursing.
“Alguire is clearly of the sly and cosy old-school British detective fiction à la Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple. And that’s a venerable genre of mystery writing.”
— Winnipeg Free Press
“If a British-style ‘cosy’ mystery usually resembles a stroll through the dark side of a park, The Pumpkin Murders is a 100-yard dash — with attitude. Autumn in Ontario cottage country: scarlet colours, crisp evenings and morning frost — with a female impersonator on the run and some very annoyed drug dealers. More than just pumpkins get smashed at Pleasant Inn this Halloween. The same group of characters from Alguire’s first mystery is back, including the owners of Pleasant Inn, cops whose whistles are short of a full blast, vintage card-sharp aunties and murder victims. Snappish dialogue fuels the pace with good one-liners spicing up the tone and revealing a variety of gaudy characters and quaint settings. The Pumpkin Murders is a cheery resurgence of the British standby — in Canadian style.”
— Don Graves, The Hamilton Spectator
Also by Judith Alguire
Pleasantly Dead
ISBN 978-18987109-37-3
Also available as an eBook
ISBN 978-18987109-68-7
Trevor and Margaret Rudley have had their share of misfortunes at The Pleasant Inn, the cherished Ontario cottage-country hotel they’ve owned for twenty-five years. There have been boating accidents, accidental poisonings, and then there was that unfortunate ski-lift incident. But this year their hopes are high for the summer season. However, barely a week goes by and their hopes dashed. There’s a dead body making a nuisance of itself in the wine cellar, and it’s nobody the Rudleys know.
The guests at The Pleasant Inn, a wealthy and eccentric lot, are dying for distraction, and one of them, Miss Miller, sets out to solve the case of the deceased, relying on wild speculation, huge leaps of logic, and the assistance of her great admirer, Edward Simpson, who is too smitten to dissuade her from her adventure in detection. Challenging her in the race to resolution is the disciplined Detective Brisbois, whose deep-rooted insecurities about his style and status are aroused by the hotel guests’ careless assumption of privilege. When Brisbois stumbles into peril of his own, the intrepid Miss Miller is the only one left who can solve the crime.
The Pumpkin Murders
ISBN 978-18987109-45-8
Also available as an eBook
ISBN 978-18987109-69-4
Autumn returns to Ontario cottage country. Leaves redden. Pumpkins ripen. And Trevor and Margaret Rudley, proprietors of the Pleasant Inn, expect nothing more than a little Halloween high jinks to punctuate the mellow ambiance of their much-loved hostelry. However, the frost is barely on the pumpkin when Gerald, an old female-impersonator friend of the Pleasant’s esteemed cook Gregoire, turns up, dragging his very frightened friend Adolph behind. They’ve witnessed a drug deal in progress in Montreal and they’re on the lam, hoping to blend into the Pleasant’s pleasant rhythms until the heat is off. Alas, they hope in vain.
As the bodies pile up, the intrepid Elizabeth Miller jumps into the fray, fully armed with her peculiar intuition, her maddening charm, and her devoted swain, Edward Simpson, who proves a useful fellow behind the wheel of a car. Detective Michel Brisbois, in the past bested by Miss Miller in rooting out unpleasantness at the Pleasant, finds himself racing — quite literally — to keep up with his amateur challenger. But when the chips are down — as they inevitably are — it’s the laziest creature on earth who ends up saving the day for the kindly and rather eccentric folk of Ontario’s most peculiar country hotel.