Elizabeth MacPherson 06 - Missing Susan

by Sharyn McCrumb

  For once, it was Charles Warren who spoke up. “Talking about murders,” he remarked by way of introduction, “we called our youngest daughter this evening, and she gave us some news from the States. Seems there’s a mass murderer loose at the University of Florida.”

  Immediately the group fell silent, and Rowan and Elizabeth looked like firehorses who’d just heard the alarm bell. “What sort of mass murderer?” asked Rowan, exhaling clouds of smoke.

  “Sounds like another Bundy to me,” said Charles. “This past weekend he went on a rampage and killed four women students, I think, and one young man.”

  “Young man?” echoed Elizabeth. “Oh! I suppose he was in the apartment with one of the women?”

  “Right.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “Collateral damage. He just happened to be in the way. I’d like to see the girls’ pictures, wouldn’t you, Rowan?”

  “Only to verify that they look very much alike. They will, of course. Serial killers are very particular. Bundy liked brunettes with long, straight hair parted down the middle.”

  Susan Cohen patted her blonde curls and laughed. “I guess I’m safe, then!”

  “You are from Bundy,” said Elizabeth gravely. “So this guy killed five people over the weekend. They ought to have caught him by now.”

  “They have,” said Charles. “Our daughter said they’d arrested an eighteen-year-old student on suspicion.”

  “It’s not him,” said Elizabeth and Rowan together. Elizabeth nodded toward the guide, inviting him to explain.

  “He’s too young,” said Rowan, gesturing with his whiskey glass. “Serial killers may start as young as eighteen, but I cannot believe that this is that murderer’s first killing spree. Doing away with five people in two days sounds very much like the fugue state one associates with the end of a serial killer’s career. To use our previous example, Bundy did just such a multiple crime just before he was caught. Psychologists think they do it subconsciously wanting to be caught.”

  “If I were the Florida police,” said Elizabeth, “I’d be looking for a trail of missing women or unsolved crimes involving victims who resembled these latest murdered girls. Whoever did this had to work up to this kill spree.”

  “Murdered women!” said Alice with a disapproving frown. “Always women! Aren’t there any female serial killers?”

  Rowan Rover shrugged. “Little old lady poisoners. But they kill boyfriends or family members. I’d hardly classify them as sex crimes.”

  Susan Cohen giggled. “What we need for true equality is a female serial killer!”

  Elizabeth MacPherson looked thoughtful. “I suppose the closest we get to it is child killing, wouldn’t you say, Rowan?”

  “As far as I know,” he agreed. “Although, nothing is too bizarre these days. Somewhere in New Jersey there may be a woman karate expert picking up unsuspecting male hitchhikers and doing them in on stretches of lonely road. I find it hard to imagine, though. Yes, I should say that child killing is the closest female equivalent to the Bundys of this world. Were you, by any chance, thinking of Constance Kent?”

  “I suppose I was,” said Elizabeth.

  “Interesting. So you think she did it?”

  “All right,” said Frances Coles, holding up her hand. “Time out. If you’re going to talk shop, you might as well let us in on it. Who was Constance Kent?”

  Rowan Rover looked pensively into his empty glass. “I wonder if I might have another double Scotch first?”

  Kate Conway volunteered to stand him a drink in exchange for the story, and after she had supplied him with a fresh glass, he settled back in the leather wingchair and began the tale.

  “We shall be traveling within a few miles of her house,” he said. “She lived in a large house near Rode, a few miles south of Bath. This was in 1860. The murder occurred in that year—when Constance was sixteen. Her father was a factory inspector, but he insisted on living extravagantly, so that the family was always hard-up for money. I think Kent had five children by his first wife. After her death, he married the pretty young governess, Mary Pratt, and they proceeded to have several more children, including a son, Francis Savile Kent, born in 1856. In 1860 the boy was found with his throat cut in an outbuilding on the Kent property. The actual cause of death, though, was suffocation.”

  “How could they tell that?” asked Frances.

  “From the bleeding,” said Kate Conway absently. “The patient bleeds very little if cuts are made postmortem, because the heart has already ceased to pump the blood.”

  Rowan smiled approvingly. “Thank you, Nurse Conway.”

  “Why would anyone cut the throat of a dead person?” Frances persisted.

  “To make it look like a stranger had done it, I expect,” said Kate.

  “That was the police theory, certainly,” said Rowan. “But which member of the household did it? The crime was investigated at length by the local police, and the victim’s half sister Constance Kent was charged with the murder, but she was released for lack of evidence. Five years later, she astonished everyone by going to the police of her own accord and confessing to the murder of Francis Kent.”

  “There!” said Elizabeth triumphantly. “You admit it. She confessed!”

  “Oh, yes, she confessed,” Rowan agreed. “Whether or not she did it is another matter.”

  “Oh, good! A real life murder mystery!” said Frances Coles. “Who do you think did it?”

  “Before we discuss if further, I need to read up on the case again. I know the general facts, but I’m not well-informed enough to argue about it. Ask me again tomorrow night in St. Ives. I’ll try to have another look at a crime book by then. Perhaps we could discuss more familiar ones in the meantime.”

  Martha Tabram stifled a yawn. “Not I,” she said. “It’s nearly ten o’clock. Good night all.”

  Emma Smith and her mother also bade them a hasty farewell, saying that they wanted to do some walking in the early morning. Susan announced that there was a good television program coming on at ten and she wanted to watch it. The others settled back to hear more tales of crime.

  After Elizabeth and Rowan had talked shop—through two more double Scotches—about the moors murderers, the notorious Krays, and other favorite cases, the group fell silent. No one else was very keen on true crime; they simply liked a genteel whodunit to pass the time.

  Finally Maud Marsh said quietly, “Have either of you ever heard of a case concerning a Chinese gentleman named Mr. Miao?”

  “Derwentwater,” said Elizabeth MacPherson, who indexed her facts geographically.

  “Yes,” said Rowan, straining to recall the case. “I remember that it was the Lake District, wasn’t it? Borrowdale, I think, in the late 1920s.” He turned to Maud. “Yes, what about it?”

  “What happened?” she asked simply. Her face bore a look of concern that people did not usually have when casually discussing sensational crimes.

  “He murdered his wife,” said Elizabeth, who had recently read an account of the case. (The one good thing about learning in binges is that all your information is fresh for as long as you care about it.) “She was Chinese, too. Not very pretty, judging from her photograph.”

  “They were on their honeymoon, weren’t they?” said Rowan. “Staying at the hotel in Borrowdale. But they weren’t from England.”

  “There was an American connection,” said Elizabeth. “I think they sailed from New York.”

  “He was a law student at Loyola in Chicago,” said Maud Marsh.

  They stared at her. “That’s not in the books,” said Elizabeth.

  “I knew him. He rented a room from my family in Chicago when I was a young girl. He was a very nice man. Later I heard that he was involved in a murder case, and I always wondered about the details. It didn’t seem possible.”

  “What doesn’t seem possible,” said Rowan wonderingly, “is that I am sitting here talking to someone who knew a murderer who was executed in 1928. Amazing!”

 
“What was he like?” asked Elizabeth. She had known several murderers herself, but their cases seemed hardly sensational enough to make crime history. Mr. Miao, on the other hand, was a legend.

  “He was very quiet,” said Maud, summoning up her memories from half a century past. She looked a bit ghostlike herself in the plain white dress that matched the silver of her hair. Her hands twisted and untwisted in her lap as she spoke. “He came from a good family in Shanghai. I believe he already had a law degree from a university in China. He studied a great deal and he was always very nice to me. I never met his wife. Are you sure he killed her?”

  “They went out for a walk,” said Elizabeth, looking up at the ceiling as she tried to visualize her book of criminal history. “A couple of hours later, he came back, but she didn’t. He told another guest at the hotel that his wife had gone to town to shop. When she hadn’t returned by eight o’clock, the hotel proprietress became concerned; but apparently Mr. Miao wasn’t worried that she had been gone shopping for so long.”

  “That’s a little odd, surely, for a newlywed,” Maud conceded.

  “Unless he were married to Elizabeth here,” Rowan grunted.

  “I don’t shop that much! Anyhow, what happened then? A farmer found the body by a pool of water in the woods. She had been strangled with a blind cord and her clothing was torn. Also her rings were missing.”

  “Rape?” said Maud. “That doesn’t sound like something a husband would have done.”

  Rowan, thinking of previous wives, opened his mouth and closed it again. He took another sip of Scotch. “As I recall, the physical evidence incriminated him, didn’t it? Didn’t the blind cord match the kind used in the hotel?”

  “Yes,” said Elizabeth. “I remember that. And they found her missing rings hidden among his things.”

  Maud sighed. “How very sad. That does seem to settle it. I only wondered because of something that happened in Chicago, while he was staying with us. I remember that some Chinese men came to see him one afternoon. They were standing in the hallway, speaking very angrily at Mr. Miao in Chinese. And when I saw him later he had cuts and bruises on his face. I asked him who the men were, and he said that they were from—I think he said a rival family. Anyway, they wanted him to do something that he didn’t want to do. He seemed very afraid of them.”

  “A tong!” muttered Rowan Rover. “Chinese gangsters in America. Of course you had them in Chicago! I wonder how he got mixed up with them?”

  “I don’t know,” said Maud. “I never saw them again, and he didn’t discuss it with my parents. But when I heard that his wife had been murdered, I wondered if those people had somehow followed him to England and killed his bride. Maybe they didn’t want him to marry her.”

  Elizabeth looked uneasy. “The defense did call witnesses who stated that they had seen Oriental men in the area that day.”

  Rowan shook his head. “Japanese tourists? Korean immigrants? They never found those mysterious Orientals, did they? I think his attorney was grasping at straws.”

  “He was such a gentle man, though,” said Maud. “What was his motive supposed to be?”

  “They never really gave one,” said Elizabeth. “The theories were that he killed her for her money or because he learned that she couldn’t have children. I think in those days no one expected to understand the motivations of a Chinese mind.”

  Maud looked thoughtful. “I wonder if they forced him to kill her, or else … or else, what? I don’t know.”

  “I can’t even guess what his motive was,” said Rowan. “But considering how unconcerned he was about her disappearance, we have to assume that he knew she was dead. The fact that her missing rings were found among his possessions is strong evidence that he did it. Had I been on the jury, I’d have found him guilty.”

  “And he was hanged?”

  “Yes. At Strangeways in Manchester, I expect,” said Rowan. “We’ll be going past another famous prison tomorrow, incidentally. Dartmoor.”

  “I want to see that!” said Elizabeth. But she was a bit more subdued about crime than usual. It was difficult to know what to say to someone who mourned for a murderer. Odd how unusual even the most ordinary people could turn out to be.

  She fell asleep that night thinking of Constance Kent in a bloodstained nightdress standing over the body of her brother.

  “How many were going to St. Ives?”

  —OLD ENGLISH RIDDLE

  CHAPTER 10

  “I’LL NEVER GET used to stewed tomatoes for breakfast,” said Alice MacKenzie, peering at the shriveled vegetable curled up next to a sausage patty.

  “No,” Frances Coles agreed. “But the bread is certainly good.” She had piled a selection of baked goods next to her plate of eggs.

  It was nine o’clock and those members of the tour group who had not been up for hours were finishing up a hasty breakfast in the Manor House restaurant, an elegant banquet hall decorated in pastels, with large sunny windows, and a photograph of their most famous diner, HRH the Prince of Wales, prominently displayed.

  “You’re going to eat all those?” asked Elizabeth MacPherson, slipping into the vacant chair at their table with a croissant and a bowl of cereal.

  Frances giggled. “Eventually,” she said, pointing to her cavernous handbag.

  Elizabeth stifled a yawn. She was wearing a black sweatsuit that suggested a rapid transition from bed to breakfast table. “Are you already packed? We’re heading out soon. Bernard was just finishing his breakfast when I came in. I hope we get to St. Ives today before five.”

  Alice heaved a sigh. “More shopping?”

  “Actually, no. I want to visit a library.”

  Fiances began to rummage in her handbag. “I have an extra paperback here,” she said. “It’s a Carolyn Hart, if you’d like to borrow it.”

  “Thanks, Frances, but I brought reading material. I need to find a library because I want to do some research.”

  “On what?” asked Frances. She was wrapping a croissant in a paper napkin and stowing it away for future consumption.

  “Constance Kent,” said Elizabeth. “I’m fascinated by what Rowan said last night—that just because she confessed doesn’t mean she was guilty. The books I’ve read always assumed that she was guilty, and I had never thought to question it.”

  “If she didn’t kill her little brother, who did?” asked Frances.

  “I don’t know,” said Elizabeth. “But I want to find out more about the case. Maybe we can figure it out.”

  “Didn’t Rowan say that she was only a teenager when the murder occurred? I wonder what became of her?”

  “I’ll ask him,” said Elizabeth. “I think one of my books said that she changed her name and emigrated to Canada. The author didn’t know what became of her after that.”

  With studied casualness, Alice and Frances turned to look at Martha Tabram, eating her porridge in blissful ignorance of their suspicions.

  Elizabeth noted the direction of their stares. “No,” she said. “Francis Kent was killed in 1865. That would make Constance 142 years old by now. Besides, she was a blonde.”

  Martha Tabram looked up from her spoon to find an entire table of her fellow travelers gazing at her in silent contemplation. She gave them a bewildered frown, and they smiled and waved before hastily looking away.

  “She probably thinks we’re crazy,” muttered Alice.

  “It’s time to go anyway,” Frances Coles replied. “Aren’t these tiny jam jars cute? Just the right size for one serving.”

  “And so portable, too,” murmured Elizabeth, handing over her own unopened jar of strawberry preserves. Frances added it to the provisions already in her bag.

  Rowan Rover, in his pseudo-uniform of khaki slacks and windcheater, took up his accustomed position at the microphone. “We have a long way to go, ladies and Charles,” he said, when everyone had taken their accustomed seats. “I want us to be in Cornwall by lunchtime, and that means only short rest stops this morning. If all g
oes well, we shall be lunching on Bodmin Moor at Jamaica Inn.”

  Several of the older members of the group murmured Daphne DuMaurier’s name, recognizing the coaching inn as the namesake of her classic novel about the Cornish shipwreckers.

  “Although we won’t be doing any walking tours this morning, this morning’s route is not without its points of interest.”

  “That’ll be the B3212, right?” said Bernard, starting the engine.

  “Correct. A scenic minor road through the heart of Dartmoor, and, incidentally, the road that leads to Dartmoor Prison.”

  “Can’t we go inside?” said Elizabeth MacPherson.

  “I’d rather not,” said Rowan. Ever, he added silently, with a twinge of dread at the prospect of a long-term stay in retribution for his current project. “But you will get a good look at it from a distance.”

  “Is there anyone there that we know?” asked Elizabeth, referring, as Rowan well knew, to the more notorious murderers of recent years.

  “I know a few gangsters currently in residence,” Rowan replied, “but since your interests are confined exclusively to amateur murderers, I cannot think of anyone you’d recognize.”

  “Ian Brady?”

  “He’s up north. Scottish family.”

  “Peter Sutcliffe?”

  “Up north. He’s the Yorkshire Ripper, remember.”

  “Dennis Nilsen?”

  “Oh, yes, the fellow in north London who cut up his victims and stuffed them down the sink—and then wrote to his landlord to complain that the drains were blocked. I’m not sure where he is. But I did hear a funny story about him. It seems that a movie company was considering making a film about his crimes, and when Nilsen heard about it, he wrote to the producer and asked that the cast be listed in the order of their disappearance.”