Murder on Location

by Cathy Pegau

  Charlotte joined him and held her hands out to the stove for warmth while he prepared a pot of coffee. “I was just at Michael’s office. It’s pretty much official now, isn’t it? Stanley Welsh was murdered.”

  “That seems to be the case. Now we just have to figure out who did it.”

  “And why,” she added. That was what fascinated Charlotte in murder cases: motive. What would it take for a person to kill someone? Where did anger turn into rage, so that physical harm to another person was the answer? “If we learn that, we can usually find out who.”

  James walked to his desk and sat, turning his chair toward her and leaning back in a relaxed manner. “I think we can rule out self-defense. There were no marks on Welsh that indicated he’d been the attacker. And no one else seemed worse for wear.”

  Cicely’s bruised cheek came to mind, but she’d explained that as an accident while rehearsing with Roslyn. There didn’t seem to be any other injuries on the scenarist. Nothing visible, at any rate.

  Charlotte sat on the corner of his desk. “There are attacks and then there are attacks.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The details of a story Charlotte reported several years before came rushing back. At the time, it had been a local sensation, but even in retrospect, a wave of sadness and anger swirled in her gut.

  “A few years ago, the police were called to the home of a prominent family who lived not far from my parents. I usually avoided reporting on news involving neighbors or people my parents knew, but this one drew me in. Victor Chaffey, a local businessman, had been found stabbed to death at the foot of the stairs. His wife, Pauline, was holding a knife and covered in blood when the police arrived. She had called them herself.”

  “That made it easy for the cops,” James said.

  “Yes and no. Pauline admitted killing Victor, but she claimed he’d been abusing her for years.” Charlotte watched James’s face cloud over. He had a particular dislike for stories of abuse to women or children. “The trouble was, Pauline never had a mark on her. Not a bump, not a bruise, not a scratch. He had never raised a hand to her. Ever. She made that statement outright to the police.”

  Understanding dawned in James’s eyes. “He did things like calling her names or making her feel worthless.”

  “That, among others. She claimed he took control of all her finances, chose her friends for her, and dictated what she’d wear and where she went. Some days, she said, he wouldn’t allow her out of the bedroom, locking her in or threatening to kill her if she came out.”

  “She got fed up and killed him.” James shook his head. “Why not just leave?”

  Charlotte had asked herself the same question, and had put it to Pauline Chaffey in an exclusive jailhouse interview. “Because she had nowhere to go and no one to go to. Over the years, Victor had isolated her from her family to the point they hadn’t had contact with her for nearly a decade. It wasn’t just that she was fed up, James. She was terrified. The night she killed him, Pauline claimed he had threatened her with the knife because she hadn’t had dinner ready on time. When he put it down and walked out of the room, something broke inside her. She grabbed the knife, followed him, and stabbed him in the back. Seventeen times, the coroner said.”

  James crossed his arms. “His back was to her? She outright murdered him.”

  Charlotte crossed hers as well. “Or was it, in a way, self-defense? Victor constantly threatened her, more and more over time. Was she supposed to wait for him to actually stab her first before she could rightfully defend herself?”

  At her trial, Pauline’s attorney had posed that very question, claiming mental duress after years of emotional abuse and terrified anticipation of Victor’s promised attack. The prosecutor made a case for murder. In the end, Pauline Chaffey was convicted of second-degree murder, by reason of temporary insanity, and sent to a women’s asylum. Charlotte hoped she was at peace in some way.

  “You think the murder of Stanley Welsh was the result of his abusing someone? Who? Carmen?” James didn’t sound convinced, but he was always very good at poking at her theories. It wasn’t that he didn’t agree, but it made them both think the case through from different angles.

  “Possibly,” Charlotte said. “Though they did appear quite attentive of each other. Not that a public face is always the most accurate.”

  Last November’s murder of Lyle Fiske had proved that as well. Caroline Fiske, his widow, had been treated quite differently out of the public purview.

  “No,” James agreed. “Who else? Cicely? I doubt anyone but a family member would have had as much personal time with Welsh. And the two of them had their disagreements about the storyline in the film.”

  “Things could have finally come to a head over creative differences, or personal ones. Cicely and Roslyn claim her bruised cheek was from a boisterous rehearsal.” Had that been the case, or had father and daughter fought? Charlotte rose and began to pace. “Paige Carmichael was having an affair with him. Maybe Stanley was running roughshod over her and she got tired of it and his failed promises.”

  Who else would have been angry enough to take his life in such a way as strangulation?

  “Caleb Burrows had his reasons as well,” James said, answering her silent query. “Though not due to years of abuse by Welsh. Perhaps years of dealing with men like him.”

  “Same with Miles Smith,” Charlotte added. “Burrows had his second conversation with Welsh that evening that he isn’t mentioning. According to Burrows, Welsh was still leaning toward a not-so-accurate portrayal of Natives, but was coming around. Was the later meeting I heard the follow-up to their argument that was finally smoothing things over?”

  James quirked an eyebrow. “According to Burrows they were working it out. No reason for Burrows to hurt Welsh if they were, right? A beautiful friendship was forming.”

  Charlotte immediately realized what the deputy was doing. “You think Burrows could be lying, that Welsh actually had no intention of changing the story, and Burrows got angry and killed him over it.”

  “We don’t know what they were specifically talking about that you heard,” he said. “If you’ve killed a man, lying about any circumstances surrounding it can come quite naturally. Especially to someone who’s trained to think on his feet and with no witnesses to naysay him.”

  She had to agree with James on that, but perhaps there was a witness.

  “Burrows was bunking with Miles Smith. He might have seen or heard something.”

  James stood up and tended the coffeepot on the stove. “Or Smith did it himself, or was an accomplice.”

  Michael’s suggestion that two people could have been involved in Welsh’s death rang in her head.

  “Or it was someone else entirely,” Charlotte reminded him.

  He handed her a cup of coffee. “Or that.”

  “Are you going to interview everyone again?” She sipped the hot brew. It was stronger than he usually made it, and no cream or sugar to be had.

  “I’ll have to, though whether I’ll get much further is always questionable.” James paused, eyes narrowed as he looked at her.

  “What?”

  “You’ll be hanging around with them anyway, won’t you? Getting your story for the paper. Asking questions, listening in on conversations.”

  Charlotte raised her chin in false indignation. “I do not ‘listen in’ on conversations, Deputy. I just happen to be in the right place at the right time.” She grinned at him. “But yes, I will be doing just that. Are you asking me to provide you with information?”

  “Every little bit helps,” he said. “As long as you obtain it legally.”

  They had had more than a few discussions about that in the past, but both would have to admit to a certain amount of rule bending.

  “I’m sure that can be arranged.” Charlotte set down her half-empty cup and leaned forward to kiss his cheek. “I’ll see you later.”

  James placed his free hand on the side of her neck and sh
ifted so their lips would meet instead. Charlotte smiled as they kissed, tasting coffee on his mouth. She pressed her hand against his chest, the soft wool shirt a poor substitute for his skin underneath. Her fingers curled, grasping the material, and errant thoughts of being skin to skin with him made her breath hitch.

  James deepened the kiss, his fingers sliding to the nape of her neck, tickling her hairline. She felt his other arm at her back, drawing her into him. Not forcing her, but suggesting, like a dance. It was a dance she missed terribly.

  He broke the kiss and eased back half a step. His fingertips gently twirled the stray hairs at the base of her neck. “Sorry,” he said, his voice low and rough. “I shouldn’t push.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about, and you aren’t pushing.” Charlotte closed the space between them and took his lower lip between her teeth. She smiled when his breath hitched. “But one of these days, Deputy . . .”

  His eyebrows rose. “Yes?”

  She rolled her eyes and kissed him quickly before pulling out of his arms. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”

  As she started to move away, he grabbed her hand, preventing her from getting far. Charlotte turned back, expecting another silly face or some remark. Instead, James’s eyes had softened. He raised her hand and kissed the knuckles. His warm breath on her skin sent shivers up her arm and down her spine.

  “I’ll wait as long as you want me to, Charlotte.”

  James knew she needed time, and he’d certainly been more patient than other men she’d known. More patient than she herself had been with those men.

  “I—” The words caught in her throat. “I appreciate that. And one of these days, I will tell you everything.”

  “Only what you want to,” he said, smiling as he released her hand. “Now let me get back to work.”

  “I wasn’t the one causing the delay, Deputy,” Charlotte said as she sauntered to the door.

  “Oh, but you were, Miss Brody.” She glanced back to see him wink at her. “Indeed you were.”

  Laughing, Charlotte waved and left the office. She made sure her coat and scarf were in place before heading through the outer door, but goodness, she was practically baking. Lingering heat from being with James, she figured, and grinned all the way to the Windsor Hotel two blocks away.

  The walkway in front of Cordova’s fanciest hotel had been scraped nearly clear of ice and snow, but a new layer was forming quickly with the storm. Charlotte opened one of the double doors and was immediately hit with a warm wall of bacon- and coffee-laden air and excited conversation. The paneled lobby was humming with people, and it took Charlotte a moment or two to sort out who was there and what the hubbub was all about at nine-thirty in the morning.

  At least half a dozen members of the film crew were gathered around some poor soul, all talking at once. A few others stood off to the sides, watching.

  “Hold on! Hold on!” came a deep male voice from within the crowd. “I can’t understand any of you if all of you are jibber-jabbering at once.”

  After a moment of relative quiet, they began again.

  Charlotte skirted the edge of the group, attempting to see who was trapped at its center. She sidled up to a man she recognized from the Fortune crew but didn’t seem involved in the situation. “What happened?”

  The man glanced down at her. He was about ten years her senior, wearing a rough shirt and heavy trousers. One of Roger Markham’s men, she thought. “Hey, Miss Brody. Kinda crazy this morning. A few of the rooms were ransacked while folks were at breakfast.”

  Instinctively, Charlotte retrieved her notebook and pencil from her coat pocket. “Ransacked? Was anything taken? Was anyone hurt?”

  “No one hurt,” he said, focusing again on his companions. “Not sure if anything was taken, but Mr. Meade there found a note.”

  He indicated where Cicely, Roslyn, and Wallace Meade were off to the side speaking with another policeman, Ned Keith. Ned was taking notes as Cicely spoke, and Meade mopped his reddened face with a well-used handkerchief. He seemed more upset than either of the women. No surprise, considering some sort of note—which was unlikely to be a good thing—had been left in his room. Ned paused in his writing to unfold a piece of paper he’d tucked inside his notebook.

  “What did the note say?”

  “Something like, ‘Get out of our town or you’ll be sorry.’”

  Not the most original of threats, but it got the point across.

  “I’m assuming it wasn’t signed,” Charlotte said.

  The man laughed humorlessly. “Not hardly. I keep sayin’ this film is cursed, but no one believes me.”

  After a death and a threatening note, Charlotte wondered what it would take for them to believe something—or rather someone—was keen to stop the film.

  But why and who?

  The two policemen finished gathering information. Charlotte loitered, taking her own notes, but no one had anything definitive. The occupants acknowledged they had left their rooms unlocked, thinking they would only be down at breakfast and gone for a short while. They also were quite sure nothing was stolen.

  “Well,” Ned, the senior officer, said, “all we can do for now is tell you to lock your doors. This ain’t Los Angeles or Seattle, but we have an element here.”

  “What about the note?” Meade asked. “Going through our things was bad enough, but obviously someone wants us gone.”

  Ned held up the paper. “We’ll hold on to it, but no telling who wrote it.”

  “The only ones who wanted us out of town was that Native group,” one of the crewmen said. “Maybe you should start with them.”

  Charlotte couldn’t help but respond. “You have no idea if that’s true. You shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”

  “I’m not,” the man argued, “but who else had a beef with us?”

  Ned held up his hands, stopping the exchange. “We’ll ask everyone we can think of about it, but it’s not like anyone’s going to up and admit it. Go on about your business. If you do discover anything’s missing, let us know. We’ll be in touch.”

  He and the other officer left the Windsor. Some of the company headed up the wide staircase, back to their rooms. Charlotte overheard a few others talk about local clubs. The Mirage and the Tidewater would both open by noon for friendly gaming and socializing. There was mention of visiting a house or two later that evening.

  Charlotte made a mental note to see Brigit and ask her if any of the crew stopped by her place. The madam wouldn’t share specific details, but Charlotte was sure that if something significant happened or was said that affected the murder of Stanley Welsh, Brigit might bend her confidentiality rules a little.

  Meade, Cicely, and Roslyn were the only members of the company remaining in the lobby.

  “This town used to be safe,” Meade said loudly. “I regret telling you and the others that we hardly ever lock our doors, and now look what’s happened.”

  Cicely laid her hand on his shoulder. “It’s not your fault. We thought nothing of leaving the room unlocked.”

  “The intruder just went through your things and just left the note?” Charlotte asked. “He didn’t take anything?”

  “Not as far as we know,” Roslyn said, “though that’s disturbing enough. Why, the thought of some stranger pawing our personal items . . .” She gave a shudder of revulsion.

  “Thankfully, no one was in their rooms.” Meade shook his head sadly. “I’d hate to imagine what could have happened if this . . . person . . . ran into one of us unexpectedly.”

  Considering someone had killed Welsh, Charlotte was surprised any of them had left their doors unlocked, even for such a short period.

  “How does this affect your decision to continue filming?” Charlotte asked Cicely, but Meade answered.

  “I think that’s obvious,” he said. “We’re done.”

  Cicely frowned. “No, we can’t be. I won’t let something like this keep us from fulfilling Papa’s vision.”

  “D
on’t be ridiculous.” Meade sighed, then began speaking in a tone that had Charlotte envision a mother trying to convince a five-year-old to eat her vegetables, not as if Cicely was an intelligent, grown woman. “If someone is trying to send us a message, it would be foolish and irresponsible of us to ignore it. We’ve already lost Stanley to some nefarious person. This invasion and note are just a reminder that we aren’t wanted here.”

  Cicely paled, the pain of the loss of her father too fresh.

  Roslyn touched Cicely’s arm, concern etched on her lovely face. She shot daggers at Meade. “You’re upsetting her, Wallace.”

  The scenarist patted her friend’s hand. Cicely lifted her chin, seeming to recover. “It’s all right. Mr. Meade, I appreciate your concern, but I’ll be damned if I let some coward who sneaks around rifling through rooms, leaving notes, and harming sick men scare me off. There are some who want to abandon Fortune. Fine, but I’m staying. I have enough support to finish the film, with my own money if I have to. I won’t let my father down.”

  She turned on her heel and strode to the stairs, hands clenched.

  Roslyn Sanford smiled as she watched Cicely depart. “Thatta girl.” The actress glanced at Charlotte and Meade. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  She followed Cicely up the stairs.

  “Damn foolish girl,” Meade muttered.

  “I don’t know,” Charlotte mused aloud. “She wants to finish her father’s work. I think it’s a fine way to commemorate him.”

  “If someone else doesn’t get hurt or killed in the meantime.” Meade mopped his damp brow again, then stuffed his handkerchief in his pocket. “A film gets a reputation, Miss Brody, and no one wants to be associated with it. She’ll have a devil of a time if too many walk away or can’t participate because someone gets hurt.”

  Cicely Welsh reminded Charlotte of a number of women she knew, and quite a few she’d met here in Alaska: Strong. Resolute. Resourceful. “Maybe, but I wouldn’t put it past her to try.”

  Meade stalked off, shaking his head and muttering about damn women. Charlotte should have found offense in his attitude, as she had in the past, but instead she found herself smiling. More and more men were learning that women weren’t just going to collapse and let the male of the species take care of things. Women like Cicely Welsh, when given the opportunity, even under unfortunate circumstances, were bound and determined to fulfill their own destinies.