Murder Always Barks Twice

by Jennifer Hawkins

  Emma laughed and hugged him. “Okay, Oliver. Roast beef all ’round. I promise.”

  It was getting late, but not late enough to head to bed. Emma felt restless. She knew what she should be doing. She should be pulling out her cookbooks and getting serious about the festival menus. Hyphenated Caite would doubtlessly be going over any plans with a microscope and have plenty to say if they weren’t up to snuff.

  But Emma’s mind wouldn’t settle.

  Marcie’s books sat in their stack on her tea table. She put her mug down, switched on the overhead light and picked up Rebecca. It was a hardback copy, but the cover was battered and the jacket was long gone. She held it loosely in her hand, curious to see where the book would open.

  Not only did the book fall open in her hand, a small square of paper dropped out onto Oliver’s back.

  “What’s that?” Oliver shook himself. “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know.” Emma picked up the paper. But it wasn’t paper. It was a business card. Very nice quality card stock with gold and black embossed print.

  MINCHIN, PRICE & LITTLE

  Legal Services

  There was an address, email and phone number, of course. Emma turned the card over in case there was something written on the back. Nothing.

  “What is it, Emma?” Oliver sniffed at the paper and sneezed. “Dusty.”

  “Yeah, it’s been in there for a while.” It must have been what Marcie had at hand when she’d last been reading the book. Emma shuddered to think of all the kinds of things she’d used as bookmarks.

  She looked at Rebecca again to see what page the card had fallen out of. It was page 270, she noticed, right at the end of a chapter.

  Emma felt all the hairs rise on the back of her neck.

  Somebody had used a pencil to underline two separate phrases.

  The first was: There never was an accident.

  The second was: I killed her.

  33

  The rest of Emma’s evening was spent on the phone, coordinating with Genny and Becca, while texting updates to Pearl and Angelique. She left Rebecca closed on the table, with the business card marker in its place.

  It doesn’t necessarily mean anything, she told herself. It’s two lines in an old book. They could have been put there any time.

  Except that two separate accidents had caused Truscott Grange to change hands—when Stewart Cochrane died in a boating accident and again when Richard and Evelyn Cochrane died in a car accident. And Constance had said Marcie’s murder might have been planned in advance. In fact, she seemed to think it would have had to be, because of all the details.

  And if somebody was planning a murder, Marcie, who was smart and careful and thorough, as well as a fan of mysteries and Gothic suspense, might have suspected she was in danger. She might have wanted to leave a message.

  There never was an accident. I killed her.

  Despite being in her own warm bed, and having Oliver’s solid comfort beside her, it took Emma a long time to fall asleep that night.

  * * *

  * * *

  “So, how are we going to work this?” asked Pearl as she and Emma buckled themselves into her little blue Fiat so they could drive to the grange. She had to speak loudly to be heard over the wind. Oliver was already buckled into the back seat. He’d given up protesting about his harness as soon as Emma pointed out that they could keep the windows down.

  “I’ve been trying to think,” said Emma. “When I talked to Constance yesterday, she thought that Marcie’s murder was planned out, not just a spur-of-the-moment thing.”

  “But she does think it’s murder?”

  Emma nodded. “It looks like Marcie was killed down by the garage and her body moved up to the office, and either she was pushed out the window or left to fall. That latch might have been deliberately tampered—” Emma stopped. Pearl had gone a shade of greenish-gray around the gills. “You all right?”

  “No, not really,” said Pearl. “I’ve got three brothers too, like Marcie. I’m trying to imagine how messed up it would all have to be for one of them to plan to kill me.” She shuddered.

  “I know how you feel,” said Emma. “I’ve bickered with my brother, Henry, my whole life, but we still love each other. If I really needed him, he’d be here.” She shook her head. “But it doesn’t necessarily have to have been one of the brothers. There’s still Caite. She’s got a motive.”

  “Her dad? Yeah, I heard about that. So awful.”

  “And we know she can get into the house if she wants to.”

  “So, you’re thinking, what? Caite hits Marcie over the head, drags her body up the stairs and props her up against the window and gets out without anybody hearing or noticing?”

  “Well, it was a dark and stormy night, and it’s a big house.”

  “But if she can do all that, why doesn’t she take care of whatever it is on the computer at the same time?”

  “Frank said that Bert and Gus were still out when he went to bed. Maybe they came home while she was in the house and she got spooked before she was finished.”

  “But, hang on.” Pearl frowned. “They’d find her fingerprints, wouldn’t they? I mean, if they looked.”

  “Which they didn’t, because Bert pushed to get Marcie’s death ruled a suicide. But even if they did look, Caite’s in and out of the house all the time at festival weekend; it wouldn’t be that strange to find her fingerprints all over.”

  “Pants. You’re right.” Pearl stared out at the road for a minute. “You know, I wish we could do like in an Agatha Christie novel and gather all the suspects in one room and say ‘But it was you, Monsieur Malfeasance, who poisoned Lady Innocence!’ ”

  “I’m pretty sure nobody’s ever actually done that.”

  “Yeah, but it’d be easier, wouldn’t it? I mean, as it is, we know what happened, at least sort of, but how do we prove it?”

  “Maybe,” said Emma, “we start with where Marcie was that night, before she got to the King’s Rest. If we can find out what she was up to, maybe we can work out who wanted her dead.”

  “You know,” said Pearl slowly, “we don’t know where anybody at the grange was that night. We’ve only got Frank’s word on it that he was the first one home.”

  “No, you’re right. We should probably try to find out more about that too, if we can.”

  “You’re not sounding very confident.”

  “I don’t expect the Cochrane brothers are going to be really happy to talk to us about the night their sister died.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to get creative, won’t we?”

  34

  This time, they parked out front. Pearl and Emma grabbed their bags and briefcases. Oliver hopped out, stretched and yawned and immediately began snuffling around the gravel. Dash appeared as if by magic, and soon he and Oliver were capering enthusiastically around each other.

  Before the dogs had finished their energetic canine greetings, two more cars pulled up the drive. Emma recognized Caite’s silver Saab. The other was a black, battered four-door. Doubtlessly Brian could have identified the exact make and model, even from a distance.

  The cars parked. Caite, looking freshly washed and pressed, climbed out of the Saab. John and Tasha Boyd, along with Ned Giddy climbed out of the other car.

  “Oh, fantastic! You’re here too!” said Tasha. The little gray-haired woman beamed all over her round face. “I can’t tell you how delighted, and, yes, I’ll admit it, relieved we all were that you agreed to take the job. Oh, and did your mother tell you we spoke and she confirmed the deposit cleared?” Pearl nodded. “Excellent! Now I feel like we’re actually going to be able to move forward, just as Marcie would have wanted.”

  “Getting her way one last time,” remarked Caite, who sounded neither delighted nor relieved. “I’m sure she’s pleased, wherever she is.�
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  The rest of the board looked awkwardly at each other. Ned Giddy rubbed his hand across his shining scalp. “Yes, well, I think—”

  Ned did not get a chance to let them know what he thought; the grange’s front door opened and Helen came outside. Today, she’d had time and energy to put herself together. She wore a yellow silk, summer-weight sweater and immaculate black trousers. Her hair was pulled back in a pair of French braids, and probably sprayed into place within an inch of its life.

  Emma had the impression that this tailored, styled look was meant to be like armor. No one was getting through Helen’s chinks today.

  “Good morning!” Helen said to all of them. “Thank you so much for being here.”

  John Boyd was the one who went up and took her hand. “We’re the ones who should be saying thanks, Helen. You didn’t have to do this.”

  “Well, John, I think I did. For Marcie,” she added. “We’re in the sitting room. I think you all know the way?”

  Emma paused to kneel down and give Oliver one more head rub. “Remember what we talked about,” she whispered to him. “Be a good boy.”

  “A noble corgi warrior is always good,” Oliver grumbled. Dash shoved his way to Emma and thrust his big, wet nose at her hands.

  “Dash wants to be sure you brought the roast beef,” Oliver informed her.

  Great. The world’s only trust-but-verify dog. But Emma let the mutt smell her palms. He must have been satisfied, because he gave her hands a good, slobbery lick as well.

  “He says you’re a good human,” said Oliver.

  Emma rubbed Dash’s head. “Tell him you guys need to stick to the grounds, and come when you hear me whistling.”

  “We will! We will!” Oliver said stoutly. It might have been Emma’s imagination, but Dash looked uncertain about all this. The bigger dog evidently decided this was more than enough standing about, and took off at a run.

  Emma grinned and tried to push down her worries. She turned around, only to find Caite waiting alone on the steps.

  “My goodness, Emma. You do love your dogs.”

  “We always had them growing up,” said Emma. “A place never quite seems like home to me unless there’s a dog in it.”

  “I’m sure,” said Caite with cold pleasantry. “And, by the way, congratulations. I’d say you and your friends have managed things quite nicely.”

  “Thank you.” Emma ignored the edge on Caite’s words. “I’m well aware we weren’t your first choice.”

  Caite’s smile was thinner than the glaze on Emma’s lemon cake, and twice as tart. “Oh, no, don’t mistake me, Ms. Reed. I’m the last one to criticize doing what it takes to get ahead.”

  Emma looked at Caite’s smile and her artificially smooth face, and found that she had no patience left for this particular dance.

  “Caite, can I ask you something straight out?”

  Caite cocked her head curiously. “Of course.”

  “Why did you want to sabotage the festival?”

  “You know, you should have asked Marcie that. When you had the chance, of course.”

  Emma felt her brows lift. It normally took years of dedicated practice to achieve that level of offhand disrespect. “But you were the one who didn’t want to find a caterer,” Emma reminded her, as pleasantly as possible.

  For Caite, this seemed to be just a little too much. “I wanted to find a good, experienced caterer,” she snapped. “Not a gaggle of Marcie’s friends, or her niece’s friends. She’d already stolen enough of the society’s money. I didn’t want us paying for any little extras she might have arranged as well.”

  Despite her resolve to remain calm and professional, Emma’s jaw dropped. “You really think that’s what’s going on?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know. How could I? No one’s going to tell me anything.”

  “But you’re sure she was stealing from the society?”

  Caite drew herself up. She was a tall woman, and with all her perfect grooming, the effect was impressive. “It could only have been her or me. And it wasn’t me.”

  “But why would Marcie do that?”

  She huffed out a sigh. “Because despite her reputation as some sort of wonder worker, the grange was in trouble. The family was losing money hand over fist.”

  Emma drew back, shocked. Caite’s air of smug satisfaction brightened into triumph.

  “There. Now you know. And I imagine the rest of Trevena will know soon as well.”

  “What did Marcie ever do to you?” Emma breathed. “Or is this all about your father?”

  “Ah, here it comes.” Caite’s jaw tightened. “Hyphenated Caite—and, yes I do know about that nickname, thank you—is just jealous and vengeful. You have no idea what the Cochranes’ whispering campaign did to my family. My father was destroyed, professionally and personally. My mother was left alone and devastated. Still.” She straightened up, lifting her chin and her nose. “Mustn’t grumble, must we? After all, obsessing over the past isn’t healthy is it? Who knows, it might even make you push somebody out the window.

  “And, yes,” Caite went on before Emma could draw breath. “I did notice how closely that little scene matched the one in Rebecca, and I have no doubt you’d love to cast me as wicked Mrs. Danvers. For the record, however, I did not do it. I didn’t need to. I knew things were falling apart without my help.”

  “Then why did you sneak back into the house the day she died to get to her computer?”

  For the first time, Caite seemed genuinely caught off guard. Emma was sure she heard teeth grinding. “Who told you that?”

  “Somebody saw you.” Emma was amazed at how smoothly those words came out.

  Caite slowly walked down the three steps to stand nose to nose with Emma. “I was trying to prove that she was the one doing the embezzling,” she hissed. “I was tired of being suspected, and now that she’s dead, I didn’t want the legend of her saintliness to get in the way of everybody remembering she was also a thief.”

  Emma folded her arms. “So what exactly happened with the money?”

  Caite sighed impatiently. “Three checks were cashed, without the board’s authorization or knowledge. They were all signed by Marcie. She insisted that someone must have gotten hold of the checkbook and stolen checks out of the back and forged her signature.”

  “That’s a common scheme,” said Emma. “It used to be more common before online banking.”

  “Well, then, you’ll be pleased to know the second theft was much more up-to-date, and rather simpler, as I understand it. Someone opened up an online payment account and attached it to the society bank account, siphoned off the funds, then closed the online account. The end. But to do that, you not only need the check routing numbers but you need authorization to withdraw funds. The people who had that authorization were Marcie and me.”

  “There could have been identity theft involved. Maybe somebody got hold of Marcie’s ID when they stole those checks . . .”

  “In London that might happen, but this is Trevena. No one can possibly impersonate Marcie here.”

  “But it didn’t have to happen here,” said Emma. “If you use Barclays or NatWest or another one of the major institutions, the thief could have gone through a branch in Treknow, or St. Ives, or even London.”

  Caite frowned. “I hadn’t considered that.”

  “They might not have had to go to a branch at all. If you can sweet-talk the right clerk, it could have all been done online and over the phone.”

  Caite was silent.

  “Somebody had to have pointed this out. I mean, I’m no expert, but these are pretty standard tricks.”

  “Yes, somebody did point this out,” Caite admitted. “At least some of it.”

  Emma strongly suspected that “somebody” actually meant “Marcie.” “But you decided not to believe her.”<
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  Caite sucked in a shuddering breath. “This has gone on quite long enough,” she said. “You are supposed to have work to do, and I know that I do.”

  Caite marched back up the stairs and through the doors. Emma followed much more slowly.

  * * *

  * * *

  While Emma and Caite had been having their discussion on the front steps, something at least as intense had obviously been happening in the sitting room. Helen stood in the farthest corner whispering rapidly with Bert. The minute Emma walked in the door, she could sense the tension radiating off him. The Boyds and Ned moved about the other side of the room, plugging in laptops and setting out notepads and binders, and very obviously trying not to make too much noise.

  Pearl and Daphne were standing right by the door, clearly trying to decide whether they should try for a quick, and quiet, escape.

  Caite frowned and sailed over to the board members. Emma sidled over to the girls.

  “Hullo, Emma,” breathed Daphne.

  “Hullo, Daphne. What’s going on?”

  “Seems we weren’t expected quite this early,” said Pearl.

  “And Bert’s upset?”

  “Been on a tear all morning, actually,” Daphne muttered.

  “What for?”

  Daphne glanced toward her mother and uncle, and tugged on her ponytail. Then she pulled her mobile out of her back pocket and typed something. She passed the phone to Emma.

  Emma read:

  They can’t find Aunt Marcie’s will.

  35

  This was going to be an excellent day.

  Oliver did not forget for a moment that he was on an important mission for Emma. But that was no reason not to enjoy himself. It was a lovely day and this place was so huge! Okay, it was probably going to rain soon, but for now, the wind was just brisk. Fresh green smells; wild smells; sun-soaked smells; thick, loamy, decaying smells piled on top of each other so that Oliver barely knew which way to turn first.