Aunt Bessie Considers

by Diana Xarissa

  “So we could be wasting our time here,” Hugh sighed. “The killer could be someone Bessie’s never even met.”

  “Indeed,” Bessie agreed. “But I think it’s still worth considering the people I do know. It seems more likely to me that the murderer is someone associated with the conference in some way, not just a random member of the audience.”

  Rockwell nodded. “I’d tend to agree with that,” he said. “Especially in light of the missing slides and the attack on Bambi. If the killer were just a random audience member, why take the slides? And why come back today?”

  “Okay, so we know that everyone who is involved in the conference knew about Mack’s allergy, right?” Doona checked.

  “Yes, so we aren’t going to be able to eliminate anyone on means,” Bessie sighed.

  “Before we get into motive, what about opportunity?” Rockwell asked Bessie. “Mack had shut himself up in the cuillee while everyone else went to the dessert bar. Who could have snuck back into the Moore Lecture Theatre while everyone else was eating?”

  Bessie sighed. “Again, as far as I know, it’s pretty wide open. I certainly wasn’t watching everyone and people were all over the place, going to the loos and possibly in and out of the building, even. Henry and Doug, the two employees from Manx National Heritage, were in the Moore Theatre straightening out the chairs when I found Mack, but they said they’d only just started because they were serving the cakes and biscuits for the first twenty minutes or more after Mack’s talk.”

  “Let’s try it from another angle, then,” Rockwell suggested. “Who would Mack have opened the door for?”

  Bessie shrugged. “That rather depended on what sort of mood Mack was in,” she replied. “He might not have been willing to open the door to anyone so that he could get ready for the questions that were sure to come, or he might have welcomed just about anyone so that he could bask in the glory of his shocking news.”

  “Just how shocking was his news?” Doona interjected.

  “Very shocking,” Bessie answered. “Archeologists have been searching the island for evidence of Roman occupation or settlement since they started exploring the island. Poor old Harold Smythe has pretty much devoted his entire career to the hunt. And Mack claimed he’d found it.”

  “And now his slides are missing,” Rockwell added.

  “Indeed,” Bessie replied. “Which makes it even more difficult for anyone to prove or disprove his claim.”

  “That sounds like you think Mack made it all up,” Doona said.

  Bessie sighed. “I don’t know what to think,” she confessed. “It’s almost impossible for me to believe that an archeologist of Mack’s standing would fabricate such a hugely important find, but Harold hasn’t been able to find any evidence to support Mack’s claims, and I thought he had the contacts with the farmers if anyone did.”

  “For what it’s worth, the police haven’t been able to find anything to back up Mack’s claim either,” Rockwell told her. “They’ve been in touch with as many land owners as they can around the island and they haven’t yet found anyone who admits to working with Mack in the last year or more.”

  “How did the murderer get Mack’s injectors away from him, though?” Doona asked. “I wouldn’t have thought he would have just handed them to someone without a fight.”

  “Unless someone managed to get close enough to simply take them out of his pocket. He might have dropped some or all of them as well,” Bessie said. “He always kept them very close to hand. I think he kept them all together in a little bag; I suppose the bag could have fallen out of his pocket, maybe if he took his jacket off or something.”

  “Let’s leave that for a moment,” Rockwell suggested. “If we believe that just about everyone at the conference had the same means and opportunity, we need to discuss motive. Bessie, what are your thoughts there?”

  “The way I see it, there are two possible motives, personal and professional,” she said.

  “Oh, let’s talk about the personal one first,” Doona grinned.

  Bessie smiled back at her. “Mack was, well, something of a womaniser, I guess is the best way to describe it. Marjorie told me that he always had a beautiful blonde girlfriend on his arm, but he also always had a second girlfriend in the background.”

  “Sort of like a chain-smoker,” Hugh suggested. “Lighting his next cigarette with the previous one.”

  Bessie blinked. “I hadn’t thought of it like that,” she said, “but I guess I can see the analogy. Anyway, Marjorie reckons that his secret girlfriend might be at the conference. Maybe she was tired of his games and decided to get rid of him.”

  “That’s possible,” Rockwell said. “Any idea who the mystery woman is, though? No one has admitted to the police that they were involved with the dead man other than Bambi.”

  “You need to look at all of the blonde women at the conference,” Bessie told him. “Mack definitely had a type. Any blonde under the age of fifty could have been involved with him.”

  “Of course, hair colour can be changed,” Doona interjected, smoothing down her own lightened locks.

  “So I guess you need to question every woman under fifty,” Bessie laughed. “That’s got to be a quarter of the conference, maybe.”

  “Inspector Corkill is organising background checks into as many people as he can,” Rockwell told them. “He’s looking for places where Mack’s path crossed with anyone else at the conference. Besides that, we already know that Marjorie was a former girlfriend. What are the chances that we’ll find a few more of those when we dig deeper?”

  Bessie flushed. “I know you’ll find at least one,” she said. “I’m only telling you because I trust you not to harass her, but Liz Martin from my Manx language class dated him very briefly when she was at university.”

  “Liz did?” Doona asked. “I’m shocked. She doesn’t seem like the type to date a man like that. I thought she and her husband had been together forever, anyway.”

  “They have been,” Bessie told her. “She only went out with Mack a couple of times, but it was after she’d already met her future husband. That’s why she didn’t tell Inspector Corkill about it. She really doesn’t want to upset Bill.”

  Bessie poured herself another cup of coffee. She’d never get to sleep later, with all this caffeine in her system, but sleep was less important than figuring out what happened to Mack. She added a couple more biscuits to the plate in front of her. She was sure she’d put three on there earlier, but they seemed to have disappeared.

  “Maybe we can figure things out before Inspector Corkill finds out about Liz and Mack,” Doona said. “She and Bill are such a happy couple; I’d hate to see them having problems over this.”

  Rockwell remained silent, simply taking notes as the conversation about Liz washed over him.

  “Anyway, beyond that, I know that Mack propositioned my friend Helen last night as well,” Bessie told the group. “She probably didn’t want to mention that to the police. I think she was embarrassed.”

  Doona shook her head. “I am so very sorry that I didn’t come along to this conference with you. I really wish I could have met this guy. I suppose I would have been disappointed, though, if he didn’t try to chat me up.”

  The inspector made a sound that turned into a cough and drew everyone’s attention. “I think that covers the personal side of the motive issue,” he said. “I want to add that it seems to me that someone with a personal connection with Mack would be more likely to be able to get the injectors away from him. But what about the professional side of things?”

  “Well, Harold was furious with Mack. First Mack went behind everyone’s back and got George to let him give the first talk at the conference and then Mack announced that he’d found exactly what Harold has been looking for pretty much his entire adult life. I can certainly see Harold wishing that Mack would suddenly drop dead, even if I can’t see him killing him.”

  “Do you know of anyone else who might have a motive to
do with Mack’s talk or his professional life?” Hugh asked, earning a nod from the inspector.

  “Not really,” Bessie replied. “But then I don’t keep track of the games academics play. It seems like someone is always mad at someone about something, but I don’t pay any attention unless it impacts one of my friends.”

  “So there could be more there, if we look for it?” Rockwell asked.

  “Absolutely,” Bessie agreed.

  “No one knew what Mack was going to talk about, right?” Hugh checked.

  “That’s right. Most of us who were planning to attend the conference didn’t even know he was going to be here. He wasn’t on the schedule. I’m not even sure when he talked to George and made the arrangements to come.”

  Rockwell was scribbling furiously. “That’s interesting,” he told Bessie. “And it might just narrow down our list of suspects. The person who brought the brownie must have done so knowing that Mack was going to be there. We just have to figure out who knew.”

  “From what I heard, Mack called some people and invited them himself,” Bessie said. “He wanted a big audience for his big announcement. Maybe you should focus on people who decided to attend at the last minute.”

  The inspector nodded. “The next thing we have to talk about is the missing slides,” he said after he’d drained his coffee mug and then refilled it. “Who could have taken them?”

  Bessie shook her head. “Anyone and everyone,” she replied. “They were sitting on a projector in the back of the Moore Theatre. Did they take the whole carousel or just the slides?”

  “Just the slides,” Rockwell told her after he’d checked his notes.

  “Anyone could have taken off the carousel, dumped the slides into a small bag or even a pocket and then snapped the carousel back in place. It would have taken less than a minute and if they were challenged they could just say they were getting them for Mack. There were only about ten slides anyway. Didn’t Mack have copies?”

  “Bambi seemed to think so, but we haven’t found any,” Rockwell answered.

  “Which brings us to what happened to Bambi today,” Doona said. “John, you said when we talked earlier that it looked like an overdose. Is that still what the police are thinking?”

  “It was definitely an overdose of something,” Rockwell answered. “We’re hoping that when Bambi wakes up she’ll be able to tell us how it happened.”

  “She wasn’t suicidal,” Bessie said insistently. “I talked to her after Mack’s death and she was fine, sad but not depressed.”

  “So that leaves accidental overdose or attempted murder,” Hugh said. “Did she do drugs?”

  Bessie frowned. “I thought she was on something when we talked last night,” she admitted. “She was spacey and unfocussed, but she was also bored and out of her element. I think attempted murder is more likely.”

  “We’ll know more once we’ve spoken to her, but in the meantime, let’s work from the assumption that it was attempted murder,” Rockwell said. “Means, motive and opportunity?”

  “I can guess that the motive was just to shut her up,” Bessie said. “While the police seemed to think Mack’s death was an accident, she was running around telling everyone, including Inspector Corkill, that Mack had been murdered. If I had killed Mack, I would have wanted to shut Bambi up.”

  Rockwell nodded. “I think that’s the clearest possible motive we’ll find,” he said. “As far as we know, she didn’t know anyone here before the conference, aside from Mack. Of course, people could be lying to us, but Bambi herself said she didn’t know anyone when Corkill interviewed her yesterday afternoon.”

  “Do you know what she overdosed on?” Doona asked.

  “Not yet. It’s far too soon to have any lab results. Until we’re sure, we almost have to assume that anyone and everyone had access to whatever it was.”

  “Well, that complicates things,” Hugh sighed.

  “How did the drugs get into her system?” Bessie asked.

  “Again, it’s too soon to be sure. If she didn’t take them voluntarily, then they were probably hidden in something she ate or drank.”

  “I didn’t see her at dinner,” Bessie said. “And the only thing I saw her with after dinner was a bottle of water.”

  Rockwell checked his notes. “One of the men sitting with her in the foyer before the last talks of the day told Inspector Corkill that she had a bottle of water in her hand when she sat down. He wasn’t sure where it came from, but it was the same type as all the others that were all over the foyer. That was all he remembered seeing her eat or drink.”

  “And then Claire and Joe collected all the empty bottles for recycling,” Bessie said. “Inspector Corkill wasn’t happy about having to send hundreds of bottles away for testing.”

  “I can’t imagine,” Rockwell shuddered. “It will blow his lab budget for the next six months or more.”

  “Maybe when Bambi is up to answering questions she’ll be able to help,” Doona suggested. “Maybe she’ll confess to having taken something before she got there or something.”

  Rockwell shrugged. “As she’s still alive and reasonably well, Corkill may well decide it isn’t worth worrying about testing all the bottles. We’ll have to see what happens in the next twenty-four hours or so.”

  Bessie topped up her coffee cup again and frowned at her plate. It was empty, which had to mean that she’d eaten the biscuits, but she had no recollection of having done so. She sighed and took a few more from the plate in the centre of the table. Caffeine and sugar were all that were keeping her going at the moment.

  “One last question for all of you, and then I’d better let you get some sleep,” the inspector said. “If you had to pick out the murderer tonight, who would you choose?”

  Hugh grinned. “One of the women,” he announced. “Maybe that Liz who doesn’t want her husband to know she cheated on him.”

  “Liz couldn’t possibly have killed anyone,” Bessie protested. “She’s incredibly sweet and she has two small children to look after.”

  “Maybe she thought Mack was a threat to her marriage and, therefore, her children’s happiness,” Hugh argued. “Mothers will kill for the sake of their children.”

  “I still don’t see it and neither does Doona, right, Doona?” Bessie asked.

  Doona shook her head. “I can’t see Liz killing anyone,” she agreed. “But then, I can’t imagine her dating Mack, either, so I guess I don’t know her as well as I thought.”

  “If she used to date him, he probably would have trusted her enough to take the brownie from her,” Hugh argued.

  “And presumably she could have figured out a way to get close enough to him to grab his injectors,” Rockwell added.

  “But why would she steal the slides?” Hugh asked.

  “And how did she even know he was going to be here?” Bessie added.

  “Maybe Mack called her and told her he was coming and suggested they get togther,” Doona said. “Although, from everything I know of Liz, I think that’s extremely unlikely. I still can’t see her being involved.”

  “So who would you pick, Doona?” Hugh asked.

  Doona frowned. “I wish I’d gone along to this conference. It would be easier if I’d actually met these people.”

  “I’m just interested in your impressions,” Rockwell told her. “There’s no prize for getting it right or penalty for getting it wrong.”

  Doona grinned. “In that case, I’ll go for Harold Smythe. Not only did he have a strong motive, I don’t like his surname. Smythe is just a fancy version of Smith and it annoys me.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “But Harold said he didn’t even know Mack was coming until right before the conference started,” Bessie argued. “And he certainly didn’t know what Mack was going to say.”

  “So maybe he brought the brownie for himself and once Mack finished speaking he saw that he had the perfect chance to get rid of him,” Doona suggested.

  “It’s possi
ble,” Rockwell said. “The theft of the slides makes it seem more likely that Mack’s murder had something to do with his talk.”

  “But how did he get Mack’s injectors from him?” Bessie played devil’s advocate.

  “Maybe he just asked if he could have a look at them,” Doona suggested. “Mack must have trusted Harold if he took the brownie from him in the first place.” Her eyes lit up. “Maybe Mack felt the attack coming on and he gave Harold the injector and asked him to help. Then all Harold had to do was stand there and wait until Mack died.”

  “Why didn’t he call for help after he was sure Mack was dead?” Hugh asked. “He could have said he tried to help but he was too late.”

  “And why take the injectors away with him?” Rockwell added.

  Doona frowned. “Well, if you’re all going to pick holes in my theories, I’ll keep them to myself.”

  Rockwell grinned. “The whole point of the exercise is to think about every possible suspect and then poke holes in every theory,” he told Doona, giving her hand a pat.

  Doona smiled back. “So who would you pick, John?” she asked him.

  He shook his head. “This isn’t even my case,” he said with a sigh. “Inspector Corkill would probably file a formal complaint about me with the Chief Constable if he knew I was even discussing it. I’m just lucky I have friends in the Douglas Constabulary who’ve shared the information I’ve managed to get so far with me.”

  “You must have a personal favourite suspect,” Doona pushed him. “You know everything you say here is confidential.”

  Rockwell passed a hand over his eyes and then grinned tiredly. “I suppose it’s only fair that I add my opinion to the conversation,” he admitted. “I guess I’m leaning towards an unknown person, though, which isn’t much help.”

  “What do you mean by ‘an unknown person?’ Unknown in what way?” Doona demanded.

  “I mean someone who has a connection to Mack that we haven’t uncovered yet,” he explained. “I haven’t met any of the suspects myself. I’m just working from Pete Corkill’s notes. It seems to me that some of the people he’s talked to must be hiding things.”