MURDER at CRAWFORD HOUSE (Allie Griffin Mysteries Book 3)

by Leslie Leigh

  Allie unscrewed the toothbrush tube and extracted the toothbrush. She clenched it in her fist and ran her thumb over the bristles. By the glow of the flashlight she could she a tiny spray misting off the brush. The tube of toothpaste had a small dent at its base. She replaced the toothbrush back in the tube and snapped the container back into place.

  Next to the bed was a small night table on which a travel alarm clock sat. Next to that were a glass of water, half-filled, and a bottle of prescription pills. Allie lifted the bottle and squinted at it by the glow of the flashlight.

  "Beta blockers," she whispered. "For heart disease. Tom was on these."

  She motioned for Del to accompany her back to the closet, from which they fetched Bertie's suitcase and took it to the bed.

  It was a very old piece of luggage, dating back to a time when men wore hats everywhere and typed letters to old friends, and an apple pie and coffee cost fifteen cents, and there were some still around who considered that overpriced. It was ragged without any of the character that vintage items tend to possess when kept in the same state of their acquisition and never used again. With fraying bands and rusty hinges, it was just a sad, used item that could only be called an antique because of its age, not because of any sort of rustic charm or personality.

  The latches opened without any discernible sound, so overused they were, and the thing smelled faintly of mothballs and less faintly of that soap that Bertie used. Other than that smell, it was completely empty.

  She closed the suitcase and replaced it in the closet in the exact spot where she found it.

  "I guess we're done in here. Now..." She motioned with her head.

  "Now what? What does that mean?"

  "You know. We talked about this."

  The look of realization came over Del's face. "Oh no."

  "We talked about it."

  "Yeah, but...no."

  "Come on," she said. "Back to our room. I have to get gloves."

  4.

  It certainly wasn't the first time either woman had seen a dead body. It was, however, the first time Allie ever laid her hands on one.

  The absence of life was a strange sensation. The body had all the physical feeling of a live body, but it lacked the warmth, the subtle movement, the vibration of life in it. Allie wore a pair of knit gloves she'd gotten as a gift from her friend Jimmy Welles's landlady, the year Allie had found Jimmy for her. She felt terrible using them for this ghastly purpose, but they were the only gloves she had on her. She promised herself she'd try not to touch too much.

  The initial shock wore off in a matter of minutes, and the logic and puzzlement of the case won over the emotional part of Allie's brain.

  With the wind howling outside, she found they both had to be extra quiet. No one would be coming into this bathroom, that much was certain. But every little noise reverberated off the walls of this room. She knelt down, the light from her phone's flashlight casting an eerie bluish glow over the body and sending splashes of the ghostly light over objects that made strange, wiggly shadows appear and disappear all around the room. She looked at Del, thinking, here goes nothing.

  The first thing she did was feel around in the pockets of Bertie's jacket. The only thing in there was his wallet. She opened it: a driver's license, two credit cards, a library card, and no cash. That was it. Replacing the wallet in the pocket, she took notice of the label on the jacket.

  "Interesting," she whispered.

  She looked up at Del, who was standing by the sink, looking away.

  "Hey," Allie said, "I want you to see this."

  "I'm getting creeped out here."

  "Just look, will you? Look at this label."

  Del squinted in the muted light. "Harris Tweed. Ok."

  "Notice anything?"

  "It's the Harris Tweed brand. They’re expensive jackets."

  "Ah ha, but you’re wrong. Harris Tweed is not the name of the maker; it's the name of the fabric. Jackets made of Harris Tweed do wind up being expensive jackets, but usually only when they're brand new or by some high-end garment maker. This one looks to be a second hand one. See the Harris Tweed label?"

  Del turned and glanced down quickly, nodding assent with clenched teeth.

  Allie continued, "I only know this because Tom used to wear Harris Tweed jackets. This isn’t the usual Harris Tweed label, which means it was probably made specifically for a client by a tailor who put the Harris Tweed label on it. It's likely the client didn’t want a conspicuous tailor's label on there as well, which means..."

  She turned over the inside pocket and revealed a tiny label with plain printing on it. "Ah ha," she said, and squinted at the writing. "Robert J. Woodson Fine Clothing Maker, 1946.So there it is. Bertie either got this jacket second hand or he inherited it. What does that tell you, Watson?"

  "I'm really uncomfortable in here."

  "Ok, I'll tell you. It means that all these wonderful old things that Bertie owns were probably acquired through his dealings in antiques, but most likely were not that expensive to acquire. Remember that toiletry kit? It's old, yes, but not immaculate. Antiques dealers are extremely specific when it comes to the condition of the items they deal in. I've never known one who didn’t know the exact quality of a collector's item he dealt in."

  "That's great. Now can we get out of here?"

  "One second. I want to check something."

  With her gloved pinky, she lifted the corners of the dead man's lips. "Wow. Those detectives are so right. You really can tell a lot about a person by his teeth. Look here."

  "Oh, I'd rather not. Thank you, though, for thinking of me."

  "Well, fraidy cat, I can tell you that Bertie was sorely in need of dental work. His teeth are far from what you'd expect from so fastidious a person. He's even got a chipped tooth. If you ask me, it looks like our Bertie fell on hard times. Poor guy."

  "Yeah, listen, I'm more than a little queasy right now. Are we done?"

  "I can’t believe you don’t find this fascinating."

  "Whatever, Morticia."

  "Whatever indeed. There's nothing in his pants pockets, as far as I can tell. I guess we're done here."

  #

  Back in their bedroom, Del collapsed on the bed. "I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the nightmare fuel."

  "I thought it was interesting. I should have gone into forensics."

  Del shuddered. "You're a better woman than I am, that's all I can say."

  "Not so fast. I still haven’t really discovered anything, other than the fact that Bertie really did have a heart condition, and that he's not doing well financially. Medical bills, maybe? Who knows? We still have a mystery about who locked that door behind him."

  Allie paced the room several times, gathering her thoughts. While pacing and visualizing the scenario in her head, she began to speak her thoughts aloud. "Now, we came up here after dinner. We talked a bit. You went to our bathroom and I went out to use the hallway bathroom. That was around 7:45. I remember the time because I went into a mild panic about giving Dinah her insulin shot as I always do when it's later than I think it is. So anyway, the hallway bathroom was occupied then. We can only assume, because neither of us remember hearing the toilet flush, that Bertie was in there at that time. Which means that in between the end of dinner and 7:45 p.m. – which was probably a window of about fifteen minutes or so – someone got to that bathroom door and locked it. I have to talk to some people tomorrow morning. This should be fun."

  She looked over at Del, who was fast asleep on the bed.

  #

  Allie Griffin couldn’t sleep. Her mind was on fire.

  Images of Bertie’s room and his body in the bathroom crept into her thoughts whenever she tried to divert them.

  She turned over the images, just like photographs, and tried to clear her mind, but they returned. And they wouldn’t let her go.

  So she pored over them once again. Her eyes shut tightly, and with the howling of the blizzard winds jus
t outside her windows, she put herself back in that room of his. What was the problem there? The pills on the dresser? The alarm clock? No. It was the desolation, the starkness, the loneliness of it all.

  The emptiness...

  Something about that suitcase. It bothered her.

  She'd experienced this feeling once before. The feeling that she'd missed something, that there was a tiny detail that her brain had registered and logged but failed to make her conscious mind aware of it. Now, here in this surreal environment, with the blasts of snow beating against this very old house, she felt free to let her deepest thoughts out to play. And play they did. The images danced before her and taunted her.

  It was time to get up. To throw on a robe and a pair of soft socks and go back to the dead man's bedroom. To dig out that suitcase. It was the suitcase. It was too empty.

  And here she found herself, her cellphone flashlight in hand – Thank God this thing's good for something, she thought – padding around in the haunted room, moving steadily toward the haunted closet. Carefully, she opened the door. There it was, right where she had left it.

  She brought it over to the bed. Once again, the latches gave without any sound.

  Completely empty.

  Until Allie caught sight of a tear in the lining, about the length of her cellphone. She felt the frayed edges of it, and then ran her hand along the inner lining. Something was in there. She felt it – long, thin, hard angles. She was able to insert her hand through the tear into the lining and pull out a plain white envelope, unmarked.

  She almost laughed, such was the feeling of elation at having revealed the phantom of her mind that forbade her sleep.

  She closed the suitcase, put it back where it had been, and went back to her room, envelope in hand.

  Sherriff's Department

  City of Shelburne, Vermont

  SEARCH WARRANT

  Her eyes skipped down the page.

  Proof of affidavit having been made this day to me by Officer Peter Caldwell #4814.

  I am satisfied that there exists probable cause to believe that:

  [x] On person of suspect Sommersville, Bertrand Russell, Male, DOB 4/10/1969, 5'9", 175 lbs.

  [x] Or, on the premises described as Old Lace Antiques at 1545 Milford Lane

  in the City of Shelburne, County of Chittenden, State of Vermont, there is now being possessed or concealed certain property described as:

  Stolen Merchandise with the intent of trafficking and/or selling the merchandise at a fee determined by the individual.

  And here she paused. The rest of the page was all legal mumbo jumbo. The meat of it, though, she'd read. And she read it again, just to make sure.

  Bertie, and by extension his antiques store, was suspected of being, in criminal law slang, a "fence" – the middle man between a thief and the buyers of his goods.

  Good luck trying to sleep now, she thought.

  5.

  The morning was bright, but the wind was still up, and snow was still blowing in misty clouds off trees. Every now and again a swarm of icy motes in the air caught the rays of the sun and shone like a mass of frozen diamonds. If Bertie was right about anything, he was certainly right about the sun shining right into this room. The rays awakened Allie from her two and a half hours of broken sleep. She was groggy, anxious, and irritable.

  In other words, in the perfect mood to interrogate a bunch of murder suspects.

  Throwing on some sweats, she decided it was a good time to head downstairs and check out the library before breakfast. She'd just gotten on a pullover hoodie when she noticed something outside, through the clouds of tree-blown snow. A dark figure was approaching the house.

  At first, she couldn’t make out whether or not it was actually human. It wasn't uncommon to see a bear every once in a while in Vermont, especially in secluded areas surrounded by woods. However, this figure walked upright, as she now saw, and it lumbered laboriously through the snow. As it got closer, she noticed it had on snow shoes, and that it was dressed in a one-piece ski suit with a camouflage pattern, and it wore goggles.

  She watched it just long enough to see that it was now approaching the main entrance of the house, and thus was about to disappear from her field of vision.

  Quickly and quietly, she descended the staircase and opened the front door.

  The man – for it was a man – started at the sight of her.

  "Hello!" he said jovially. "You scared me. I didn’t think anyone would be waiting for me!"

  "I saw you coming from that direction. You a hiker or something?"

  He got to the base of the porch and ascended the snow-heaped steps sideways. "I am a hiker," he said with shorted breath, "but I'm not on a hike per se. I came over here to see how my friends the Gordons fared in this lovely weather. As I cleared the woods I saw they had company. Everyone ok in there?"

  "Uh, who are you again?" said Allie.

  "Ah yes," he said as he made it to the top of the stairs, and took off his goggles, revealing soft eyes and a bearded, weather-beaten face. "So sorry. Brother Al." He held out his hand. "And you are?"

  "Allie Griffin. Did you say Brother Al? You're a monk?"

  "No, monks are ordained. I'm a brother in a Marianist Community, a layperson committed to acts of charity, prayer, and the support of our neighbors. We have a house about a mile beyond those woods over there."

  He was tall, about six-foot-five, and he spoke in a chesty baritone that male singers would kill for.

  "Sorry," said Allie, "Marianist?"

  "Order of St. Mary."

  "Ah. Well, Al – can I call you Al?"

  "Brother Al."

  "Yes, well, Brother Al, since you asked, we're having a helluva time here at Chez Gordon. Sorry, Crawford House. It seems one of our guests had a heart attack in the upstairs bathroom and that, coupled with our lovely weather as you put it, has sort of put a damper on the weekend."

  The man's features froze. "Oh my... I'm sorry. Did you call 911?"

  "We tried. There's no service."

  He grimaced. "Yeah, it's the same over at our place."

  "I just realized," said Allie, looking off toward the woods, "you hiked all the way here on snowshoes?"

  "Yeah, I'm a hiker and a snowshoer."

  "Crazy."

  "So...may I come in?"

  "Oh, terribly sorry. Of course."

  "Just give me a moment," he said, plopping himself down in the threshold of the door and removing his snowshoes, which he steadied against the house. "Are Larry and Molly here?"

  "They're here. Not sure if they're up yet."

  He stood up and removed his hat, which he tucked into a front pocket, and he tousled the pate of short, dirty blond hair that grew thickly and showed no intention of receding.

  "So," he said, "let me get this straight. You have a man who passed away upstairs?"

  "In the bathroom, yes."

  "And..." He looked over at the staircase. "Is he still...?"

  "Still up there, yes."

  "Oh my," said Brother Al, and bit his bottom lip.

  "Indeed."

  "Well, that is a problem. I mean, no phone service and all." He bit his lip again."Heart attack, huh?"

  "Yup."

  "Mmm. I'd like to talk with Larry and Molly, but I guess I should let them sleep a bit. I guess you all probably had a pretty rough night."

  "Well, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I sure did."

  He stared at her with faint recognition. "Where are you from?"

  "From Verdenier."

  "Verden—, wait, what did you say your name was again?"

  "Griffin. Allie Griffin."

  "You're not the Allie Griffin I read about in the news? The one who solved that murder case?"

  She raised her hand. "One and the same."

  A bright smile appeared on the man's rugged face. "How about that." He held out his hand and she shook it. "You were a kind of folk hero there for a while."

  "I wouldn’t say that."<
br />
  He smiled and shook his head. "Isn’t that something?" He looked around and over her shoulder. "So I gather Larry and Molly's staff isn’t here?"

  "They dismissed them yesterday, and...well, with the storm and all..."

  "Mmm. So there's no one here to cook breakfast."

  "Uh, no, I guess not."

  He nodded. "Mmm. How many people you have staying here?"

  "Uh, seven? Sorry, six altogether." She felt stupid making that mistake.

  "Six. Mmm." He nodded with a brooding expression, and then his face suddenly became animated. "Well, I guess then I have some work to do here." With that, he began heading toward the back of the house.

  "Wh-where are you going?" Allie said.

  Brother Al spun around, continued walking backwards, opened his arms, and said, "Going to make some breakfast."

  As Allie watched him go, she heard an all-too-familiar voice say, "Nice of that man."

  It was Jürgen, standing in the threshold of the drawing room. He had a book under his arm, and he looked as though he'd slept in his clothes.

  "Where did you come from? Were you..."