Family Case of Murder

by Vanessa Gray Bartal

  Aunt Enid stood by the door, Emeril Lagasse perched rakishly on her shoulder. Was it Lacy’s imagination or did he frown at her? Could monkeys frown? This one seemed to be doing so as his eyebrows hunched together and his nose wrinkled in distaste. He was probably sad that it was she accompanying him this morning and not his beloved Riley.

  Aunt Enid was wearing a velour jogging suit, which was disconcerting for some reason. Maybe because she was a throwback to the Victorian era and Lacy expected to see her in a starched dress with a parasol and hat. The jogging suit smacked of ladies in Atlantic City who spent their days at the casino, shuffling money into slots. Aunt Enid was definitely not one of those; she was probably as close as she had ever come to a casino—a few hundred miles away.

  They began their walk in silence. Lacy searched her mind for something to say, but she was at a loss. Thankfully they had only gone a few steps when Aunt Enid got to her purpose.

  “Thank you for accompanying me on this walk, Lacy. I feel that I am long overdue in making my apologies to you.” She paused as if waiting for Lacy to comment, but Lacy was still at a loss, so she continued. “First there was that business with Emeril Lagasse biting you a couple of years ago. So abominably shocking, that. He’s usually such a gentle, timid soul.”

  Lacy glanced up. The gentle, timid soul in question bared his fangs at her like some kind of monkey vampire. Again she refrained from comment, even though it seemed like Aunt Enid was expecting her to chime in with a compliment for Emeril Lagasse.

  “I had barely begun to know you before you were whisked to the hospital—an overreaction in my estimation, but Robert was in love. Love makes one foolish.”

  This time Lacy had a more difficult time keeping a cap on her tongue. She had required several shots and stitches. It had hurt, and she had bled for days from the wound. And it hadn’t been Robert’s insistence that took her to the hospital; it had been her own. If it had been up to him, he would have slapped a bandage on her and continued with supper.

  “And then you and Robert broke up and, well, I’ll be frank: I was disappointed.”

  She paused again, which was good because this was a bombshell announcement, so much so that Lacy finally found her voice. “You were?”

  Aunt Enid nodded. “I see myself in you.”

  Lacy looked away so Aunt Enid wouldn’t see her dismay at being compared to a spinster with a monkey companion. Furtive movement from the corner of her eye caught her attention, but when she turned her head, no one was there. Were they being followed, or had it been a bird? She shuddered. This place was making her paranoid.

  “How so?” she forced herself to ask.

  “You might not see it because you don’t know me that well, but we share a droll sense of humor. I’ve watched your expressions these last few days, and I imagine we’ve shared a lot of thoughts about my family situation. I love them, but…” she let the thought trail because there was no way to finish it without being unkind. I love my family, but they’re a nightmare. I love my family, but they’re sucking me dry.

  “And then there’s your inheritance,” Enid continued.

  Lacy stopped short, looking at the old woman in surprise. “How did you know about that?”

  Aunt Enid sighed, looking contrite. “This is something else for which I’ll have to beg your forgiveness, Lacy, but when you are the overseer of a vast fortune, you have to become paranoid. I have always checked out the love interests of my niece and nephews. And that information is periodically updated when it becomes relevant. When I learned you were on the guest list for this weekend, I contacted the agency that I use for such matters, and they updated your dossier. It contained the new information of your inheritance. I hope you won’t think me impertinent for my intrusion, but as someone who has dealt with an inheritance most of my adult life, I would like to give you some advice, if I may.”

  “Please,” Lacy said, and she genuinely meant it. She had no idea what to do with so much money beyond the notion that she wanted some good to come of it.

  “Don’t allow others to become dependant on you and your wealth,” Aunt Enid said. She sounded weary and a little bit sad. Lacy wanted to feel sorry for her, but she was torn by the feeling of being watched. She turned sharply, but there was no one there.

  “How do you stop such a thing from happening?” she asked. Surreptitiously, she turned her head at an angle so she could watch behind them, but soon found her view obscured by large hedges.

  “By not letting it start in the first place. You are a tender-hearted, compassionate woman. There are those who would take advantage of that kindness and generosity, your sister for one. I like Riley. She’s spirited, and Emeril Lagasse adores her, but she likes things that money can buy, the more money, the better. If you go down the path of letting her use you, she will suck you dry.”

  Lacy let that depressing thought sink in as they walked in silence a few minutes. Sadly, she couldn’t disagree. “She doesn’t know about the inheritance yet.”

  “She will. That’s the type of thing people like Riley have a nose for. She’ll find out, and she’ll figure the best possible way to tap into it until she’s drained you dry.” Now it was Enid’s turn to walk in sad, thoughtful silence. The silence felt oppressive and unnatural, the air redolent with the scent of boxwood. Lacy at last snapped out of her gloomy thoughts and took in their surroundings. Tall hedges hemmed them in on either side.

  “Is this a garden maze?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Enid answered, her tone vague and absent.

  Lacy’s heart kicked up its rhythm. Being something of an anglophile, she had always wanted to try a garden maze. But now that she was inadvertently in one, she felt claustrophobic, and she wasn’t claustrophobic by nature. But the silence was unnerving. The endless rows of greenery absorbed all sound and a whole lot of light. She was short, barely over five feet, so the hedges towered over her by more than a foot. Her hand inched up and coiled around one of the monkey braids, tugging to try and relieve a little of her anxiety.

  “Do you know how to get out?” Lacy asked, working hard to keep her voice casual.

  “Of course,” Enid said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I’ve been playing here since I was a child. Getting back to our earlier discussion, I feel there is one more reason for me to apologize to you, Lacy. You see, Hildy somehow got her hands on your dossier. She knew about your inheritance. I’m afraid her predilection for blackmail was about to come into play again. But I’m sure you found the dossier when you went through her things. Didn’t you?” She glanced at Lacy.

  “Oh, um, I…” Lacy stammered, caught in her lie. She had announced to the table at large last night that she found everything pertinent in Hildy’s room. Was it better to stay with that story, or come clean with the truth? The truth, she decided. Sue was in custody, what did it matter?

  They reached the center of the maze, a small round opening, and paused to face each other. She opened her mouth to tell Enid the truth and stopped short, the air leaving her in a rush. Why did Enid want to know? It was an odd question, especially because everything was over, wasn’t it?

  “She was blackmailing you,” Lacy said, thinking out loud.

  Enid’s proud shoulders sagged slightly. “So you do know. I had hoped you were bluffing.”

  I am, Lacy started to say, but nosiness and an odd sense of foreboding held her back. “How long had it been going on?” she asked instead.

  “Years,” Enid said. “Since right after she came to work for me. I’ve been out of money so long; I had to take out a reverse mortgage on this place just to pay her blackmail demands and the salary of the help.” She gave a mirthless little chuckle, shaking her head so that Emeril Lagasse had to grab a tuft of her hair to hang on.

  “You’re out of money?” Lacy blurted before remembering she was already supposed to know that. “I mean, you’re out of money. Yes, of course.” She changed her question to a statement. Enid gave her an odd look. “I’m sorry to hear t
hat,” she added. “I take it the rest of the family doesn’t know.”

  “Do you think they would be here if they did?” Enid said. She sounded so cynical and world-weary that Lacy wanted to give her a hug. “Do you know how it feels when the only reason people visit you is to use you? And do you know how it feels to be so desperate to keep them coming that you’ll do anything to keep your secret safe?”

  Lacy put her arms up to bestow a reassuring hug and quickly dropped them again as the words registered. “What do you mean by anything?”

  “I didn’t intend to kill her,” Enid said. “I rose in the night for some buttermilk and saw her leaving your room with the scarf, and I snapped. I was suddenly so angry with her.”

  “But you’re old,” Lacy said, which was not the thing to say to a murderer, especially not one with an admittedly bad temper.

  “I’m fifty nine!” Enid shouted.

  Lacy’s jaw dropped. She thought Enid was in her seventies at least. “Seriously? Then how are you Robert’s great aunt?”

  “I’m not. Where did you get that idea? I’m his aunt. Sue and Rita are my sisters. Sue is younger by one year, and Rita is the baby of the family.” She gave an impatient wave of her hand again. “This is neither here nor there. The point is that you’re the only one who knows everything. It’s time to end this and move on.” She pulled a wicked-looking silver dagger from the pocket of her velveteen pants, which was such an incongruous action that Lacy remained rooted to the spot, staring stupidly.

  “What do you intend to do with me? They’ll find my body as soon as Jason wakes up and reports me missing.”

  Enid shook her head. “There’s an old cistern over there.” She nodded her head to the left. “I’m the only one who knows about it. It’s a simple matter of dragging your body over and dumping it in.”

  They were evenly matched in height and size, and she was thirty years older. Did she expect Lacy to stand still and have her throat slit? “I’m going to fight you,” Lacy said, trying to sound brave, but failing when her voice trembled on the word “fight.” She wasn’t much of a pugilist.

  Enid smiled, an evil, triumphant smile that made the gooseflesh rise on Lacy’s arms. “Good thing for me it’s two against one.”

  “Two against one,” Lacy repeated, confused. Enid used that split-second of confusion to reach over and rip off the monkey hat and the scene erupted into chaos as Emeril Lagasse began emitting ear-piercing shrieks. He leapt for Lacy’s head at the same time Enid leapt for her torso. The combined weight and chaos knocked her roughly to the ground. Part of her wanted to take a moment to recover her wind, but the other part of her knew if she didn’t move, then she was dead.

  She rolled as they sprang. Emeril Lagasse caught the end of her braid and yanked hard while Enid slashed at her, shredding her once-lovely Prada shirt and skirting along her skin. The dagger must have been razor sharp because as it skimmed her, it sliced through the top layer of her epidermis like the world’s worst paper cut. She rolled away, but couldn’t stand up with both of them on top of her. Her best defense was to bat them away until she could gain her footing and run, but it wasn’t easy with both of them advancing. Four hands reached out, tearing at her. Two were fur-covered and viciously reaching for her hair. One hand was holding a knife and wickedly slashing for her throat.

  Over and over they rolled on the cold, hard ground. It was a mild day, but it was still winter. Lacy was both sweating and chilled, but she gave no mind to the temperature as she kept up the struggle for her life. All of her maneuvers were defensive. She landed no blows other than to block hands and paws, sometimes unsuccessfully. She could feel little pieces of her scalp tingling as Emeril Lagasse tore at her hair. And then it was over.

  Enid was plucked off her as easily as the monkey, both of them tossed aside like rag dolls as Jason’s eyes raked wildly over her, assessing her for injuries. He zeroed in on the blood seeping through the slit in her shirt.

  “Just a flesh wound,” she assured him. Enid was dazed from the impact of landing in a hedge. She put her hand to her head and shook it, trying to focus. Emeril Lagasse regained his momentum much faster. He leapt toward Lacy again, but Jason caught him like a fast-pitch baseball. Holding him by the scruff of the neck, he brought him eye level and gave him a shake.

  “Bite her again, and I’ll bash your little monkey brains in,” he said. They had a staring contest for a few seconds as the monkey tried to shake free of his captor. At last he sagged in defeat. Jason tentatively relaxed his grip, ready to make good on his promise if the creature turned his attention on Lacy again. But he didn’t. Instead he scrambled up Jason’s arm and perched dejectedly on his shoulder, his face set in a petulant monkey pout.

  “Looks like I’m the one the monkey chose,” Jason muttered. “Great.”

  “Thank goodness you arrived,” Enid said. She sat up and surreptitiously slipped the dagger into the hedgerow. “Emeril Lagasse went crazy. I was trying to peel him off her.”

  “Save the act, Arsenic and Old Lace,” Jason said. “I heard and saw enough to know the truth.”

  Enid’s expression hardened from innocence to rage in an instant. “It’ll be my word against hers. I’m a respected landowner.”

  “Since when does owning land make you special?” Jason asked. “This isn’t the nineteenth century. Take it from a cop—you gave up your credibility when you started letting a monkey sleep in your bed. We always believe the one without the monkey.” He took out his phone and dialed 911 as he walked toward Enid. Shoving her roughly aside, he reached behind her and took the dagger, wrapping it in his shirt to protect it from his prints. As he did so, Emeril Lagasse scrambled off his shoulder and into Enid’s lap. He curled into a ball and fell asleep like a cat while Enid stroked his back and spoke softly, cooing a gentle goodbye.

  “The police department is going to recognize the sound of my voice after this weekend,” Jason muttered. He gave the dispatcher the pertinent information—twice because there were several questions about the monkey—and hung up, tucking the phone back in his pocket.

  He dropped to his knees beside Lacy and tore her open shirt to inspect the wound on her side. “I don’t think you’ll need stitches,” he said.

  Lacy lay back against the frozen earth, shivering. “I’m telling my grandpa you tore my shirt off.”

  Jason gave her his best I-shouldn’t-find-you-amusing-but-I-do smile and pressed his hand to her forehead. “I’m telling your grandpa you purposely tried to get yourself killed this weekend, and almost succeeded twice.”

  Lacy bit her lip, blinking up at him with big eyes. “A valid point. Let’s agree that what happened in New York stays in New York.”

  “Agreed. On some counts, at least. There are parts of this weekend I would prefer to take back with us.” He shrugged out of his coat and laid it on her.

  “You shouldn’t,” she said, a token protest because she was freezing.

  “Don’t be a martyr, Red. Don’t even think about it,” he said, bestowing his attention on Enid who had started to edge away and was now coiled and ready to dart. “I knocked out your niece already; don’t make me do the same to you.”

  “She’s my sister,” Enid said, harrumphing as she sat down and landed hard on her backside.

  “You’re kidding,” Jason said, his reaction as shocked as Lacy’s had been. “Maybe there’s something to be said for all those beauty concoctions,” he whispered in an aside to Lacy. Sue wasn’t necessarily an attractive woman, but she looked years younger than Enid.

  “I’m not deaf,” Enid said.

  Jason had the good grace to look sheepish. They remained in awkward silence until the police arrived. The hedges were so soundproof that they hadn’t heard their arrival. One minute they weren’t there, and the next minute they were.

  They took Enid into custody and herded Emeril Lagasse into a cage, despite Enid’s protests. Jason and Lacy wrote statements—again. The officers escorted them back to the house.

&nbs
p; The family, what remained of it after two arrests, was gathered in the family room. They stood as Jason and Lacy entered the room. Lacy could only imagine what she looked like after scrabbling in the dirt with Enid and the monkey. Emeril Lagasse had pulled large chunks of her hair from her braid, and she could feel those portions standing in static-filled disarray around her head like some sort of macabre halo.

  Riley covered her mouth with both hands, stifling a gasp. She dashed forward and stopped short in front of Lacy. Reaching out a tentative hand, she gently touched the spot where Lacy had been sliced. “Prada, and not a knockoff. If I had noticed this one when I went through your things, I would have taken it and spared it this agony. That’s so sad.”

  “Geez,” Jason muttered, his tone filled with annoyance. One arm was resting on Lacy’s shoulders, lending support. The other reached out and swept Riley aside. “Excuse us, we’re packing and leaving as soon as humanly possible.”

  “Good riddance,” Chuck murmured. Jason ignored him.

  “You don’t have to rush off,” Robert said, a halfhearted attempt at hospitality. “You could stay for lunch.”

  Jason kept walking. Lacy vaguely registered the breech of etiquette, but she was filled with a combination of shock and exhaustion, long past the point of using good manners. She allowed Jason to usher her into her room and watched from the bed while he packed her things, not even blushing when he refolded her underwear.

  “It lays better if you fold it like this,” he explained, arranging her suitcase like he was being judged for a packing competition. When she had packed it herself, it had bulged until she had to sit on it to zip it. When Jason packed it, there was a cubic foot of free space leftover. He shoved what remained of her chocolates in the space, thought better of it, and handed the bag to her. She clutched them in her hand, feeling slightly vague. Jason leaned close, plucked one from the bag, unwrapped it and stuck it in her mouth.