Lady Marmalade Cozy Murder Mysteries: Box Set (Books 1 - 3)

by Jason Blacker

  “Can I help you, ladies?”

  “Yes, thank you, we’re here to see Inspector Gibbard,” said Frances.

  The constable looked at her for a moment and then picked up the telephone.

  “Inspector Gibbard,” he said to the switchboard operator.

  They all waited for a moment until the constable was put through.

  “Yes, sir, you have a couple of visitors...Right...”

  The constable covered the voice receiver with his hand and looked up at Frances.

  “Your names please?”

  “Tell him it is Lady Marmalade and Ms. Hudnall.”

  “Lady Marmalade and Ms. Hudnall,” he said into the telephone.

  “Okay...yes, sir...Good bye.”

  The constable replaced the telephone and looked back up at Frances and Florence.

  “If you’ll please have a seat, my Lady, he’ll be right out.”

  Frances and Florence sat on the hard bench off to the side. Being right out turned out to be extremely optimistic. They waited over five minutes until Hank Gibbard graced them with his presence.

  “Nice of you to come,” he said, though Frances had the impression he was being rather sarcastic. “Follow me.”

  They got up and followed Gibbard down the hall. He turned back to look at them just as they got to the cells.

  “I think you’re wasting your time. He hasn’t said a word to us, and I doubt he’ll be in the mood to speak to you two.”

  “We’ll give it our best go,” said Frances smiling at the ruddy inspector.

  Gibbard nodded at the constable and he opened up the heavy metal door.

  “I have him in one of our interview rooms,” said Gibbard, walking down the end of the hall with Frances and Florence in tow.

  On the left, Gibbard opened up a white painted metal door with a small square window in it. They entered in after him. Enoch Habbit was sitting on a wooden chair, his hands and feet cuffed together. He was wearing prison overalls. There was a wooden desk in front of him that was bolted to the floor. Two chairs were placed on the opposite side of where Enoch sat.

  “You ladies can sit here if you like,” said Gibbard.

  Frances and Florence sat down and put their handbags to the side of their chairs. Enoch looked at them through his heavy eyes.

  “I ’member you two,” he said.

  Frances smiled and nodded.

  “Yes, we were there when Inspector Gibbard arrested you.”

  Enoch looked over at the inspector who stood off to one side. In the room behind Enoch was a constable standing stiff as a board.

  “You remind me of ma’ aunt,” said Enoch.

  Frances smiled.

  “I’m gettin’ out of ‘ere in a bit,” he said. “Why’d you come ‘ere anyway?”

  Frances and Florence had their hands in their laps, they stood straight and a little nervous. Frances smiled at him thinly.

  “I was hoping you might be able to help me find out who murdered Ginnie, Mrs. Forsyth.”

  “Wasn’t me. I neve’ done hurt a woman,” he said.

  Frances nodded.

  “I know.”

  “Anyway I don’ know who killed that nice lady.”

  “Do you know who might have wanted to hurt her?”

  Enoch shook his head and looked at his hands in his lap before looking back up at Lady Marmalade.

  “Look, you seem like a nice lady, but I ain’t got nothin’ to say with the copp’rs ‘ere.”

  Enoch looked at Gibbard.

  “Too bad,” said Gibbard.

  Frances turned to look at Gibbard.

  “Inspector, would you please give us a moment to speak with Enoch alone.”

  Inspector Gibbard shook his head.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that. He’s a very dangerous man.”

  “Inspector,” said Frances, “in fifteen minutes you have to let him go, we could wait until then but I’d rather seize the moment now. Surely you don’t believe that Mr. Habbit is going to do anything to jeopardize his freedom?”

  Frances and Gibbard locked eyes for a moment.

  “Very well. I’ll give you ten minutes and that’s all.”

  Gibbard nodded to the constable.

  “You keep an eye on things through the window. If Habbit even so much as twitches I want you in here and this interview is over.”

  The constable nodded his head.

  “I understand sir.”

  “Don’t try anything funny, Enoch,” said Gibbard, looking at him harshly with squinted eyes. Enoch nodded slowly, and then Gibbard and the constable left. Frances turned to look at Enoch.

  “I’ve heard that you don’t often work within the law.”

  Enoch looked at her and smiled. He had a warm smile, but it was marred by his rotting and missing teeth.

  “I ain’t had a charmed life as some of you folks might say.”

  “I am certain of that, Mr. Habbit,” said Frances.

  “You can call me Enoch.”

  “Thank you, Enoch. Now I don’t believe you murdered poor Ms. Forsyth. You might not be a good man, but I don’t believe you’re evil either.”

  Enoch stared at the table in front of him.

  “A man is made how he is by circumstance ma’am.”

  “Please call me Frances, Enoch.”

  He looked at her and nodded.

  “There’s been things in ma’ life made me bitt’r and angry. Things’ll make you cry.”

  Frances looked at him as he stared at the table.

  “A boy turns into a man an’ a man has ta carry that baggage with ‘im. Only now he’s gott’n bigg’r and sometimes he gets tired of carry’ng that baggage.”

  He looked up at Frances then and Frances tried to smile at him. It was a hard smile, a difficult smile that felt awkward on her. Like someone had placed the wrong mouth on her face. But she understood in a way how he was. But she wasn’t sure he was redeemable. A part of her liked to hope so, but a part of her had seen such men redeem themselves so rarely that you might as well pray for rain in the Sahara.

  “I ain’t done hurt nobody didn’ deserve it. An’ I ain’t never hurt no woman.”

  He looked at her searchingly with his heavy eyes. Frances nodded.

  “A man, even a bad man gots to have a code to live by, an’ I gots a code, Frances, I try even as you don’t believe it, I try to live by a code.”

  “I do believe it. I also believe that bad men can find their way to goodness again.”

  He looked at her earnestly for a moment before breaking her gaze.

  “Do you think I killed Ms. Forsyth?”

  “No, I don’t, Enoch. But what I don’t understand is why you’re the Forsyth’s groundskeeper. Your hands are rugged, scuffed and hardened but they aren’t the hands of a groundskeeper.”

  Enoch brought his hands up and placed them on the table and looked at them for a long time. The fingers were intertwined like the roots of a tree planted in hard ground.

  “I been doing a lot mo’ gardenin’ than I done in a long time with the Forsyths.”

  “Yes, but you’re not a gardener are you?”

  Enoch slowly shook his head.

  “I like you, Frances, you ‘mind me of ma aunt. But what you an’ your kind don’t un’erstand is that there’s some bad people in high soci’ty. You look at me an’ see a bad man, ‘cause I got a mean face, I got scars and rough hands. But a gentl’min in a fine suit he could be rott’n to the core an’ you can’t see it. You won’t see it.”

  “Are you talking about Mr. Forsyth.”

  “He’s jus’ one example.”

  “But he’s the one I want to talk about. Why is he a bad man?”

  Enoch unclasped his hands and lay them palm down on the table, all the fingers pointing to Frances.

  “Ms. Forsyth deserv’d better n’ that. He’s a man who’s going ta lose ever’thing to opium, women and gamblin’.”

  “I’ve heard you work for Mr. Lee Chan, is that co
rrect?” asked Florence, who up until this time had been quiet as a mouse, but now found her courage and her voice. Enoch looked over at her.

  “Mr. Chan is a businessman, an’ like any businessman he expects to be paid his due.”

  “Enoch, I wish you’d speak more plainly with us. The police aren’t here and they can’t hear what’s going on.”

  Enoch looked up at Frances and smiled. This made his eyes even smaller and the realization that he needed a dentist even more apparent.

  “Mr. Forsyth owes Mr. Chan a lot of money. An’ he’s a addict an a wom’nizer an a gambl’r. I’m at Mr. Forsyth’s ‘cause he’s tryin’ to repay his debts. But it ain’t going ta work out fo’ him. He’s a weak man an’ a spen’thrift. His justice is comin’ due.”

  “Are you saying that Mr. Forsyth is going to be killed?” asked Frances.

  Enoch shook his head.

  “No ma’am, Frances, I ain’t sayin’ that. A dead man pays no debts. But Mr. Forsyth ‘as made more people angry an’ upset than me and Mr. Chan.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I means ta say, that all the Forsyths is in a bad way. Mr. Jack ‘as been ruin’ng the business, Mr. Gerald knows about it and Mr. Garrett has a temp’r you probably ain’t seen the likes of.”

  “Are you saying you think they could’ve killed Mrs. Forsyth?” asked Florence.

  “I ain’t sayin’ that. I ain’t no d’tective but I reck’n that whoever kill’d Ms. Forsyth was part of that family. If I’d be guess’n I’d say it was Mr. Jack.”

  “Why?” asked Frances.

  “‘Cos Mr. Jack is a weak man. He’s got no control over his probl’ms and he’s going b’hind Ms. Forsyth’s back with that Meredith, only they’s in Ms. Forsyth’s face ‘bout it. An’ she’s not the only one Mr. Jack’s with.”

  Frances looked down at Enoch’s hands for a while. She was staring and thinking. Despite his lack of education, Mr. Habbit seemed to have a good grasp on human nature, perhaps having learned about it from the school of hard knocks.

  “Thank you, Enoch,” said Frances, “I don’t think I have any more questions.”

  He nodded and looked at Frances as she and Florence got up.

  “I lik’d Ms. Forsyth. She been good ta me. She deserv’d better ‘n this.”

  Frances nodded.

  “She did.”

  “She deserves justice, Frances, an’ I hope you can get it for her.”

  “I’ll try.”

  And Frances and Florence walked towards the door having picked up their handbags. They exited and the constable went back into the room behind them. They walked out the way they came. Inspector Gibbard was at the front entrance of the police station.

  “Did you get anything out of him?” he asked.

  “Well, he has his opinions as everyone else does, but nothing worth noting.”

  “But he did say...” said Florence.

  Frances looked at her and put her hand on Florence’s forearm.

  “He did say,” said Frances interjecting, “that he hopes we find out who the real killer is.”

  “So he’s still protesting his innocence,” said Gibbard.

  “Well I think he’s innocent of this too.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “I’m going to speak with the Forsyth staff tomorrow.”

  “I guess it’s your time to waste as you wish,” said Gibbard.

  “And how are you going to use your time,” said Frances, ignoring his barbs.

  “I will continue to dig for stronger evidence on Habbit. I’m certain he’s the one who did it.”

  Frances smiled at him sweetly.

  “Well, I suppose you can waste your time however you wish Inspector. Good day.”

  And then she and Florence walked out of the police station and hailed the first taxi to take them to Winter Gardens for some tea and lunch.

  TWELVE

  Chapter 12

  THE four p.m. train from Blackpool to Puddle’s End was busier than Frances was expecting. Nevertheless, the two of them shared a first class compartment to themselves and they sat in it the whole way back home. Shopping at Blackpool had not turned out to be as successful as they had hoped. Neither Florence nor Frances were carrying any shopping bags. But the tea and lunch had been wonderful.

  “Why didn’t you want the inspector to know what Enoch had told us about his feelings regarding Jack?” asked Florence.

  “Well, I don’t have the most faith in the inspector, Flo, and I don’t think it would have been helpful. It seems to me that Inspector Gibbard is set on charging Enoch and I doubt he’ll be dissuaded otherwise. I’d rather not have Jack aware that he’s a suspect in his own wife’s murder.”

  “So you think Enoch might be onto something?”

  “I do, but not necessarily about Jack. Jack may well have killed his wife but I’d rather not have word make it back to him about what Enoch thinks. And I’d rather not take the chance and have Gibbard send a constable down to make cursory inquiries that alert Jack to the fact that his misgivings are coming to the attention of the police.”

  “I see.”

  “Let me see if I can’t explain better, Flo. If you let sleeping dogs lie, you can better inspect their lice.”

  Florence nodded and looked out the window as the green English countryside smeared by like wet paint. It was raining outside, or more accurately it was drizzling but there was very little mist. The day, although gray and dreary, was clear. Much as Lady Marmalade’s mind was starting to clear from the fog. Though she was by no means certain as to who might have murdered poor old Ginnie, though she was beginning to whittle down her suspects.

  “So you want to go to the Wet Whistle again when we get back to Puddle’s End?”

  “I do, I want to ask Finley if he saw Garrett at anytime during the afternoon yesterday.”

  “Oh yes, that’s right, he said he had gone down to the pub for a drink.”

  “With all the information Finley shared with us yesterday, I forgot to ask him about Garrett,” said Frances.

  “I know, me too.”

  “This way we’ll be certain of his alibi, I’m sure someone must have seen him at the Wet Whistle if he was in fact there.”

  Frances smiled out the window.

  “Finley’s good at that sort of thing. He can rattle off the names of just about everyone who’s been at his pub over the last couple of days. Do you think Garrett might have been lying?”

  “Not necessarily, Flo, but if Garrett was at the Wet Whistle he wasn’t drinking anything other than tonic water.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I didn’t smell any alcohol on his breath when we were asking him those few questions yesterday. Did you not notice it?”

  Florence pursed her lips together and brought her finger to her mouth. She looked out the window before turning back to look at Frances.

  “You know, I can’t say I noticed, Fran. Maybe he’s a teetotaler?”

  “Then he’s an off again, on again teetotaler. He was drinking with the rest of us at the table on Monday night.”

  Florence laughed.

  “You don’t miss a thing do you, Fran? I can’t say I had really paid attention to any of that, except for what I was drinking.”

  “No, I don’t miss a lot. You can’t afford to if you’re trying to help solve a crime, especially a murder. I find the more I’ve been doing it, the more careful I am at observing things. It can get quite tiresome to be honest, Flo.”

  “I can imagine.

  They sat in silence for a while, each to her own thoughts. Florence wondering who would have killed Ginnie and what kind of a brute was such a person. She liked the idea of Jack for it, even more now that Enoch had suggested the same. Florence looked over at Frances.

  “What do you really think about Jack?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?” asked Frances.

  “As the murderer.”

  “You like him for it, do
n’t you?”

  Florence nodded.

  “Enoch thinks he’s good for it. And he’s the one that keeps coming to my mind when I think about who could have killed her.”

  “Well, let’s take a moment to talk about why. Why do you think he would have killed his wife?”

  Florence shrugged and looked out the window.

  “I don’t know, maybe he’d had enough of her and wanted a fresh start with Meredith and he didn’t want to worry about Ginnie and the pain of going through a divorce.”

  “That sounds reasonable. That’s a decent motive, and men have killed their wives for reasons such as you suggest. But there could be more too. Perhaps he had taken out insurance on his wife and needed the money to pay off his debts.”

  “But we don’t know that.”

  “No we don’t, but it’s worth finding out if we’re going to be thorough. Maybe Ginnie had found out about his debts and his business problems. It seems that he’s running the business into the ground. She might be haranguing him about it. He could have had enough of the pestering and killed her just to shut her up.”

  Florence nodded.

  “I suppose there are a variety of reasons why he might have done it, if he did indeed do it.”

  Frances nodded.

  “And they’re all good motives. Not condoning any of this obviously, but you’d be surprised, sadly, what reasons some people find to be enough to kill one another.”

  “That depresses me just to think about it.”

  “As it should. Man’s inhumanity to man seems to find no bounds. Look at the atrocities committed by both sides during the Great War.”

  Florence nodded sadly. Thinking back to those awful times, she was glad for not having married and not having had any children.

  “But what bothers me about the motive you offered for why Jack could have killed Ginnie, namely, that he wanted a fresh start. Well, I think back to what Enoch said and how Jack appears to be quite the philanderer. And if that is the case, would he really want to settle down with anyone again. I’m not convinced he would.”

  “You make a good point, Fran. But it could be a reason, could it not? That he used it as an excuse. You never know, perhaps Meredith is the woman to turn Jack around into an honest upstanding citizen.”

  Florence chuckled at her own thoughts. Though stranger things had happened.