The Zachery Case (A Markham Sisters Cozy Mystery Book 26)

by Diana Xarissa

  When she walked back into the kitchen with the book in hand, Joan frowned at her.

  “Why did you keep that book?” she demanded.

  One of the first things Janet had done, after they’d purchased Doveby House, was go through every single book in the library. She’d rearranged them in a way that suited her, with her favourite books by her favourite authors carefully arranged on the shelves next to the most comfortable chair in the room. While sorting, she’d removed a number of books that weren’t of interest to her, which had given the sisters space to add the books they’d brought with them to the shelves.

  Janet flushed. “I thought it might be useful one day,” she said. She’d never told Joan, but she’d occasionally considered having a go at writing one of the cosy mysteries that she enjoyed reading. Some knowledge of body decomposition might be needed for that, she’d reasoned when she’d come across the book while clearing the shelves.

  “When you murdered me in my sleep?” Joan demanded.

  “Pardon?” Robert said from the dining room doorway.

  Janet and Joan both flushed.

  “She was teasing,” Janet said quickly.

  “I was,” Joan agreed.

  “I can take your statement now,” Robert told Joan.

  Michael had followed Robert into the room. He gave Joan a hug before she followed Robert into the dining room.

  “Let’s see what I can find, then,” Janet said as she began to flip pages.

  “What are you looking for?” Michael asked.

  “How long it takes a body to decompose into a skeleton,” Janet replied.

  “Eight to twelve years,” Michael said.

  Janet stared at him. “Should I ask why you know that?”

  He chuckled. “It came up in my training when I was studying to be a chemist and it stuck with me because one of my classmates became rather obsessed with the idea. He used to talk about it endlessly. We were all convinced that he’d turn into a serial killer one day.”

  “Where is he now?” Janet asked.

  “He has a small chemist’s shop in Jersey, and as far as I know, he’s never murdered anyone.”

  “Timing is everything,” Robert said from the doorway.

  Everyone laughed.

  “I’ll just have a quick word with Stuart,” he said.

  “I wasn’t even there when they found the body,” Stuart protested.

  “Yes, but you are in and out of the carriage house regularly. I have only a few questions for you for now,” Robert replied.

  Joan sat back down as Stuart left the room. Michael took her hand.

  “All good?” he asked.

  “I’m fine. I couldn’t tell Robert much of anything.”

  “None of us could, although if the body has been there only eight to twelve years, I suppose I could be a suspect,” Michael replied.

  “Eight to twelve years?”

  “That’s how long it takes a body to become a skeleton,” Janet told her.

  “If it hasn’t been embalmed and is buried in regular soil,” Michael interjected. “There are a great many factors that come into play that can affect that rate of decay, though.”

  “Such as?” Janet asked.

  “Exposure to air, the weather, the sun, insects, water, especially water, actually. Water causes bodies to decompose much more rapidly,” Michael told her.

  “So we’ve no idea how long the body has been there,” Joan concluded.

  “We know it has to have been there at least two years, because we haven’t been anywhere near that back wall until today,” Janet said.

  “Unless someone broke into the carriage house recently and put the skeleton in there,” Joan suggested.

  “Even if they had, we would have noticed if boxes had been moved. The layers of dust in there are quite impressive. We would have missed them if boxes had been moved,” Janet replied.

  “Someone did break into the carriage house last month,” Michael said.

  “Yes, but that was before we’d started clearing away boxes. There’s no way he was able to move everything, hide a skeleton, and then put it all back in a single night,” Janet argued.

  Michael shrugged. “I don’t know what to think. Let’s hope they can work out how long the body has been there fairly easily.”

  “I just keep hoping that they’ll find that it’s either ancient or plastic or something,” Joan said.

  “Either of those things could be true,” Robert said as he escorted Stuart back into the room. “It’s going to take the crime scene team a while to process everything. We probably won’t have any answers for several days.”

  “How frustrating,” Janet said.

  “I have everything I need from you for now,” Robert told them. “I know where to find you when I need more information.”

  Janet walked him to the back door and then watched as he followed the path towards the carriage house. Back in the kitchen, everyone was sitting in gloomy silence.

  “Edward will be here tomorrow,” Janet said. “I had to persuade him not to come earlier because of the skeleton.”

  “You should have told him to come today,” Joan said. “He probably knows more about murder investigations than Robert does.”

  “Robert did say that someone from Derby might be coming to take over the case,” Janet told her. “Apparently, he’s never conducted a murder investigation before.”

  “If it even was murder,” Michael said. “That’s going to be hard to determine with just a skeleton with which to work.”

  “Unless the skeleton’s head was bashed in or something,” Stuart suggested.

  Joan shuddered. “Perhaps we could talk about something more pleasant.”

  “Maybe we should go out somewhere,” Michael said. “We could go into Derby and get some lunch, maybe.”

  “I’d rather not go that far from home,” Joan replied. “Let’s just go to the café up the road. I don’t want to cook anything right now.”

  Janet stared at her sister. It was very unusual for Joan to not want to cook. “Now I’m worried about you,” she told her sister.

  “I’m fine,” Joan assured her. “I think I’m mostly frustrated that we can’t finish clearing out the carriage house, really. We were meant to get that job done today.”

  Janet smiled. Joan hated when anything upset her carefully made plans. While Janet wasn’t the least bit sorry that they weren’t able to finish the carriage house today, no doubt Joan was watching the clock and resenting every passing minute that was keeping her from the job. “We’ll get it done as soon as the police are finished,” she told Joan.

  “Yes, but when will that be?” Joan asked.

  “It could be a while,” Michael said, patting Joan’s arm. “We want them to be careful with their investigation, though.”

  “Yes, of course we do,” Joan agreed. “Someone is dead, after all, and he or she deserves a proper investigation.”

  “So let’s all go and get lunch. Maybe they’ll be some news when we get back,” Michael suggested.

  “I hope you don’t mind if I come along,” Stuart said. “I don’t want to sit here and watch the police trample all over my gardens.”

  Janet went up to her bedroom and changed back into her nicer clothes. She combed her hair and checked her makeup. “Don’t mind all the people in the garden,” she told Aggie, who was stretched out on the bed paying no attention to what was happening outside. “They’ll be coming and going all day, I believe.”

  “Meoooww,” Aggie replied in a bored tone.

  Janet left the curtains open in case Aggie wanted to look out and see the excitement. From what Janet could see from her window, though, it didn’t appear as if anything was happening.

  She went back down and waited in the sitting room for the others. Stuart arrived a moment later and Michael and Joan weren’t far behind.

  “Let’s go,” Janet said. “I’m starving.”

  She was talking over her shoulder as she opened the door, w
hich meant she collided unexpectedly with the man on the doorstep.

  “Oof,” she exclaimed as she walked into his chest.

  “Good afternoon,” he said wryly.

  Janet jumped backwards, blushing bright red. Their visitor gave her an amused smile. He was tall and broad-shouldered. Janet guessed that he was probably around sixty, with short grey hair cut in a military style. His eyes were green and they seemed to looking right through Janet as she studied him.

  “Good afternoon,” she said after a moment.

  “I’m Inspector Harold Colbert from the Criminal Investigation Division in Derby. I’ll be taking over the murder investigation from young Constable Parsons. I’m going to need to speak with each of you in turn about what you discovered in your carriage house this morning,” he said.

  Chapter 4

  Janet took a step backwards to let the man into the house.

  “We were just going to get some lunch,” Michael explained.

  Inspector Colbert frowned. “As the body has been there for some time, I suppose it won’t matter if you get some lunch before we talk. I don’t need much of your time, though. I have Robert’s notes from his conversations with you. I just want to go through them with you myself to clarify a few points.”

  “Maybe we could have some pizzas delivered,” Janet suggested, nearly laughing out loud at the expression that crossed her sister’s face. Joan didn’t really approve of pizza, and certainly not of pizza delivery.

  “That’s a good idea,” Michael said before Joan could object. “I’ll ring my favourite place and have several pizzas delivered. We can give anything that’s left to the hardworking men and women in the carriage house.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Harold told him. “But you’re welcome to get enough for yourselves, of course.”

  Michael shrugged. “What does everyone want?”

  “Just cheese,” Joan said tightly.

  “Same for me,” Janet said.

  “Which pizza place do you use?” Stuart asked.

  He and Michael began a conversation about the relative merits of two of the local pizza shops. The inspector listened for a moment and then held up a hand.

  “I hate to interrupt, but I’d like to get started. Which one of you is Janet Markham?”

  Janet held up a hand. “That would be me.”

  “Where can we talk in private?” he asked her.

  “The dining room is probably the best location for that,” Janet told him.

  “We’ll get the pizza ordered,” Michael promised her as she led the inspector away.

  Inspector Colbert took the chair at the end of the dining room table and then waved Janet into the seat next to his. “As I said, this shouldn’t take long,” he began.

  When the man asked her to go back through her entire day, Janet wished she’d grabbed herself a cold drink on the way through the kitchen. It seemed to take a while for her to repeat everything she’d already told Robert.

  “What made you choose that particular stack of boxes to sort through?” he asked when she was done.

  “Nothing specific, really. We had to go through them all, so I simply picked a stack at random.”

  “And you’d never noticed before that that particular stack didn’t reach the wall?”

  “Not consciously, although we’d only just cleared the row in front of it this morning. I doubt it would have been obvious before then.”

  “How tightly stacked were the boxes?”

  “The last row is pretty tightly stacked. The row in front of that wasn’t quite as closely fit together, and in some parts of the room there were large gaps between stacks where things seemed to have just been put in place rather haphazardly.”

  Harold made a few notes and then sighed. “I’m going to be honest with you, Ms. Markham. I think it’s incredibly unlikely that we’ll ever work out when our skeleton died, his identity, or what happened to him. I hate having unsolved cases on the books, but this one has all the hallmarks of being unsolvable.”

  “I’m told crime scene teams can do a great deal more now than they could even a few years ago in terms of processing crime scenes.”

  “They’re making advances every day, of course, but they can’t work miracles. I’m sorry, but I feel as if I’m simply going through the motions on this one, and I’d rather not waste my time or yours.”

  Janet nodded. “We can talk again once the crime scene team is finished,” she suggested. “You’re bound to have more questions then.”

  Harold shrugged. “I’d like to think so, but I simply don’t know.”

  Janet wasn’t certain if that meant that they were done or not. “No doubt Robert will be doing everything he can, as well,” she said after a moment.

  “Oh, yes, of course,” Harold said dismissively.

  Janet resisted the urge to talk about how clever she thought Robert was. If there was any chance she was a suspect in the investigation, she didn’t want the man to know that she and her sister were close friends with the young constable.

  Harold sat back in his seat and looked around the room. “You haven’t changed much in here, then,” he said.

  Janet was surprised by the remark. “You’ve been to Doveby House before?”

  “Once or twice, when Maggie, er, Margaret Appleton owned it,” he told her. “She had a break-in not long after she’d purchased the house. I was the inspector put in charge of the investigation.”

  “When was that?”

  “Oh, some time in the late eighties. Mag, er, Margaret bought the house, but she didn’t turn it into a bed and breakfast until some time later. For the first few years that she owned it, she was rarely even here.”

  “So you knew her well?”

  “I wouldn’t say that, but in those days there wasn’t a constable assigned to the village. We looked after Doveby Dale from our central headquarters in Derby. For whatever reason, I ended up dealing with quite a few issues in the village in those days.”

  Janet wanted to ask several more questions, but she bit her tongue. Being nosy with the police wasn’t the best idea. She could probably find out more from Robert, anyway, and Robert already knew that she was nosy.

  “I’m going to stop there for today,” Harold said after a long pause. “Can you send your sister in next, please?”

  “The food is probably here by now. Would you care for a slice of pizza?”

  He shook his head. “Thank you, but no.”

  Janet nodded and then slowly stood up. Harold began flipping through his notebook as she walked to the door. The kitchen smelled of garlic and tomato sauce.

  “The inspector would like to speak to you next,” she told Joan.

  Joan made a face before she got up and crossed the room. “How was it?” she asked Janet.

  “He just went over what I told Robert and then told me that he doesn’t think we’ll ever know who died or how,” Janet replied.

  “I hope he’s wrong,” Joan said. “I want to know who died and what happened to him or her.”

  “I’m certain we all do,” Janet replied.

  “Except for the man or woman who killed the victim,” Stuart suggested.

  Janet nodded. “But let’s talk about something else,” she said as she reached for a plate. There were several different pizzas on the kitchen counter, as well as two types of garlic bread. Joan left the room as Janet began to inspect the options.

  “We couldn’t agree on who had the best pizza, so we ordered from two different places,” Michael said. “You can try both and tell us what you think.”

  Janet took slices of cheese pizza from two different boxes and then added a portion of garlic bread from each of the options. She put her plate on the table and got herself a fizzy drink before sitting down.

  “It’s not really a fair comparison,” she said after taking a bite from both slices. “One is a thin crust and the other is thick. They taste very different, but they’re both delicious.”

  “Which do you prefe
r?” Stuart asked.

  “I generally prefer thin crust, so I suppose I prefer this one, but the thick crust is lovely and light and delicious, too,” she replied.

  Stuart looked disappointed. “I favour thick crust,” he said. “Mary always wanted thin.”

  “As I said, the thick is delicious,” Janet reminded him.

  “What about the garlic bread?” Michael asked.

  Janet sighed. She really just wanted to eat, not get caught up in the battle between the two men.

  “They’re both good, but I think I prefer this one,” she said, pointing to a slice of garlic bread almost at random.

  “Yes,” Stuart said, beaming.

  Janet raised an eyebrow. “It doesn’t really matter,” she said softly.

  Stuart flushed. “I know, but, oh, never mind. Mary and I used to fight about pizza and garlic bread all the time, that’s all.”

  Joan walked back into the room, saving Janet from having to reply.

  “That didn’t take long,” Janet said.

  “He went over what I told Robert and then sent me on my way,” Joan replied. “Michael, he wants to see you next.”

  Joan put some food on a plate and then sat down at the table. “I don’t believe Inspector Colbert is particularly interested in solving this case,” she said in a low voice.

  “I got the same impression,” Janet hissed back.

  Michael was back before Joan had finished her pizza. “Stuart, it’s your turn,” he said.

  “We’re going to have a lot of leftovers,” Janet remarked as she helped herself to more of the thin crust pizza.

  “Once Inspector Colbert is gone, I’ll offer it to the crime scene team,” Michael said.

  “Surely, he’ll be here all day,” Joan protested.

  “I didn’t get the impression he was planning on being here any longer than necessary,” Michael countered.

  When Stuart returned just a few minutes later, the inspector was with him.

  “Thank you all for your time. I’m going back to Derby now. There’s nothing further for me to do here until I get the reports from the crime scene team. If you think of anything you forgot to tell Robert or myself, please ring the station in Derby.” He dug around in a pocket, eventually pulling out a business card, which he handed to Janet.