Murder Actually

by Stephanie McCarthy

  “…animals.”

  I thought of Crispin Wickford with his Poet’s Corner, and Edgar Archer with his antiques. I wasn’t sure the term applied to the men I knew but thought it was probably appropriate for the shadowy Mr. Jennings.

  She observed me warily. “So, you’re working for Ms. Nora, too?”

  “That’s right. She’s asked me and my associate to try to solve these murders.”

  Truly Jennings suddenly leaned forward in her chair. Even the baby on the rug looked up suspiciously from his jowl. “Did Ms. Nora say anything about me?” she demanded.

  “She told me you were her housekeeper.”

  Mrs. Jennings nodded her head vigorously and lit a new cigarette from the butt of the old one. “That’s right. I know Ms. Nora better than I know almost anybody, including my own kids!”

  She guffawed loudly and the baby glared.

  The interview wasn’t going as I’d envisioned. Mrs. Jennings was a force of nature.

  “I bet you’re wondering why Ms. Nora keeps me around,” she said.

  I had been wondering that very thing, but didn’t think confession would be politic, so I shook my head.

  Mrs. Jennings gave a loud bark of laughter. “Same reason as Mr. Ware had me clean his studio. It’s because I keep my eyes open and my mouth shut. I know more about what goes on than Ms. Nora does, especially where Mr. Ware was concerned.” She leaned in and fixed me with a glare. “He was screwing around on her, you know.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, the day he died I got to the studio early and heard him on the phone. He was talking to someone and kept calling her ‘sweetie’ and ‘darling’. If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s cheaters. They make me want to spit.”

  Mrs. Jennings appeared fully capable of carrying out this action in her own living room, so I forestalled her with my next question. “Do you have any idea who he was talking to?”

  “Dunno. But he was telling her that he’d see her at the book reading.”

  “Maybe it was Ms. Ambler?”

  Mrs. Jennings gave another blast of laughter. “Not her! You should’ve heard the way he talked to her! There wasn’t any ‘sweetie’ or ‘darling’ about that, it was more like, ‘do this’ and ‘do that’.”

  “Were you at the Ware house the night Mr. Ware was killed?”

  Mrs. Jennings expression shifted from open to crafty. “Supposing I was?” she demanded. “What would be in it for me?”

  “You’d be helping Ms. Nora.”

  Her features softened. “That’d be worth it, then. She’s been real good to me. Yeah, I was around. Mr. Jasper always wanted his place dusted after he was done for the day. He was very particular about dust since he had them allergies so bad, so I’d go over there after he and Ms. Violet was done. The night he was killed I went over as usual, around nine o’clock.”

  “Did you see anyone?”

  Mrs. Jennings’s massive head shook slowly in the negative. “Nope, not a soul. Just me and my dust rag. I wasn’t there long, just gave it a quick once-over.”

  “Did you notice any papers lying around or any work in Mr. Ware’s typewriter?”

  She shook her head. “Not a scrap. Like I said, I never really saw him work, and if there was any papers lying around Ms. Violet usually took them with her when she left.”

  “Did you see her there that night?”

  “Well,” she said slowly. “I can’t really say I seen anybody, but I seen something.”

  “What?”

  “After I’d finished and gone back inside the house, I looked out the window and seen Mr. Alex’s car parked outside the studio.”

  “What time was this?”

  “It was late. Around nine I’d say.”

  I did some rapid calculations. If Violet had left Inkwell around eight, that would’ve given her murderer plenty of time to kill Jasper and then go back to Black Birches and finish off Violet. And be in bed by nine-thirty.

  “How long was the car there?”

  Mrs. Jennings shook her head. “Dunno. Like I said, I got me a spare room at the Wares I use when I’m cleaning, and I went to bed right after that.”

  “Did you tell the police?”

  Mrs. Jennings expression turned mulish. “They didn’t ask me.”

  “Did Alex Ware have a key to the studio?”

  “Dunno. Might have.”

  “Did you see him at the studio?”

  “No, I told you, I didn’t see nobody.”

  “Did Alex often visit Mrs. Ware?”

  Truly’s expression shifted again and she looked defensive. “So what if he did? She needed some comfort, poor thing; the way Mr. Ware treated her was terrible.”

  “Did you see anything else that night?”

  “Nope. I went to bed. Ms. Nora and I had stayed up late watching some old reruns of Matlock.”

  It was a sad insight into Nora Ware’s life, and I sat back on the shabby couch and thought about her and Jasper.

  “You didn’t hear Mrs. Ware get up again?”

  “No, I didn’t hear nothing. I sleep like the dead.” Mrs. Jennings reached for the cardboard box on the coffee table and pushed it towards me.

  “Are you ready to sign some books?”

  My hand was cramped as I left the Jennings trailer, and the baby in the Superman costume shot me one last malevolent glare on my way out.

  I shooed the chickens away from my car and thought about what Truly had told me.

  Alex Ware had gone to Jasper’s studio that night. He had lied to the police. He had lied to me.

  As I turned the ignition I had a sudden vision of Truly Jennings standing in the upper window at Black Birches, looking down at Alex’s car, and my last thought on leaving the driveway was one of concern. If Truly Jennings had seen the car, had someone seen her?

  Chapter 18

  As most of my readers know, not all chapters are created equal.

  If the weather’s foul and laziness reigns, I crowd the pages with prologues, epigrams, lyrics from Jon Bon Jovi… let’s face it, most of the time I just mail it in. Fortunately, my work is of such quality that most of these lapses go undetected.

  That was my frame of mind when the rain set in on Monday. It was dreary; desultory is the word. I knew how it felt. I woke up with a sore throat and the mournful tip-tap on the roof sent me scurrying back to bed. I was convinced I had a cold or something far more serious; cholera, maybe, or chilblains, and I leaned back against the pillows and sipped my Earl Gray tea. I was glad it was raining, I liked rainy days. Rainy days had no urgency, no sense of expectation, no sense in which you were somehow wasting a day.

  My bedside lamp cast a warm glow over the tattered golden chrysanthemums and stack of books on my bedside table: A Pictorial Guide to Truffles and Sponge Cakes, Eating Your Way to Thin, and Cupcakes are Easy; I’m Not. At one point, To the Lighthouse had been part of the collection, acquired after a stringent suggestion from Miss Thrimper that I try something to expand my mind. Fortunately for me, a particularly violent sneeze had sent it crashing to the floor, where it was expertly batted under the bed by Blue. I was in no condition to either retrieve it or read Virginia Woolf, so I contented myself by turning on the television and watching a program on woodworking. I was soon absorbed in building a roll top desk and reluctantly answered the summons of the telephone.

  “Hello?”

  The voice at the other end was loud and exuberant. “Hello, Elspeth? You sound awful!”

  I sneezed. “Hello, Julia. I’m ill.”

  “You poor little thing,” she said cheerfully. “Lucky for you I’m on my way over.”

  I coughed. It was obvious Julia didn’t appreciate the gravity of the situation. “I’m too

  sick to leave my bed,” I explained in dark tones. “I might develop whooping cough or
scarlet fever or something.”

  “Nonsense,” Julia said heartily. “This isn’t some Victorian novel. Besides, you only think you’re sick because it’s raining. If it were sunny you’d feel fine. Now, out of bed and get dressed. I’ll be there in five minutes. I have a surprise for you.”

  I hung up the phone and arranged my features into a Victorian death pose before padding over to my closet. After my divorce, my wardrobe had undergone a slow and steady descent into various forms of loungerie, or as some people uncharitably called them, pajamas. I pulled on my favorite sweatshirt and a ratty pair of yoga pants and headed down to the kitchen.

  My place was a mess. I’d forgotten to put away the dishes from the night before and the floor was sticky with something Blue had tracked in. I noticed the kitchen table cluttered with a messy collection of recipe books and notes and thought it would be nice to have a crackling fire and pot of tea.

  Little did I know my environment was about to go from bad to worse.

  The kitchen door was thrown open with such force that it struck the opposing wall and ricocheted back, almost hitting Julia as she struggled inside with several large plastic bags.

  “What is that?” I looked in dismay at the stinky, dripping sacks.

  “It’s garbage,” she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

  “I see that; but why are you bringing garbage into my home?”

  She looked at me in exasperation. “Betts, if you want to be a real detective sometimes you have to get a little dirty.”

  “In that case I don’t want to be a real detective.”

  I walked over the start the coffeepot as she deposited the bags on the kitchen table.

  “Of course you do! Think how it will increase your dating stock, especially with Edgar Archer. I’ve heard he’s a sucker for mysteries.”

  Julia lifted up the first bag and I cringed as a motley collection of egg shells, wrappers, envelopes and shopping flyers spilled out.

  “Not on the table!” I yelled. “Put them on the floor. I’ll lay down some tarp.”

  As we struggled to navigate a large piece of tarp to the middle of the kitchen floor, I gently kicked one of the soggy bags.

  “Where did you get all this?”

  “I went to Violet’s condo. Lucky for us, the garbage doesn’t go out until this afternoon, so we can look for some clues in her trash.”

  I took a tentative poke and shuddered. “Is this what real detectives do? I thought they just followed people and took pictures at seedy motels.”

  “Get to it, Betts. We have two more bags after this.”

  “Fine, but if I see a dirty Q-tip I’m done.”

  We sifted through the mounds of garbage, and I noticed a stack of papers covered in neat handwriting. I pulled out a few of the sheets and read through them.

  “Look at this, Julia.”

  She glanced at it. “Yeah, it looks like papers or something.”

  “Don’t you see?” I said in rising excitement. “This is the same writing that was on the manuscript from Jasper’s safety deposit box.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, look!” I pulled out a few more pages and handed them to Julia. “This is part of an Inspector Grimaldi novel, and it’s in Violet’s handwriting!”

  I sat back on my heels. My mind was racing. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  Julia shook her head.

  “It means the blackmail note that was sent to Jasper was referring to his books. He wasn’t writing the books, Violet was!”

  Julia looked up with dawning understanding. “So that’s the mystery Jasper was trying to solve! Jasper must’ve agreed to marry Violet to keep her mouth shut, and then someone found out their secret,” she slowly lowered the papers and looked at me. “Now what do we do? We still don’t know who was trying to blackmail Jasper.”

  I shook my head. “I have an idea, but it’s just a hunch.”

  “That’s all we need, Betts! I’m telling you; you’re a natural at this stuff. All we have to do is lay a trap for the blackmailer and get them to confess! That’s what Ms. Weebles does when she’s about to uncover a killer. It’s like a game of cat and mouse.”

  “Do you still call it that when it’s a cat? Wouldn’t a cat say it was a game of me and mouse?”

  Julia rolled her eyes. “It’s just an expression, Betts. You tell me what you’re thinking and I’ll tell you what we should do.”

  I explained my theory and her eyes lit up. “We’re in luck. There’s a faculty party at Essex tonight and Crispin Wickford will be there.” She headed for the kitchen door and then stopped to observe me. “Wear something nice.”

  “What do you mean? I always look nice.”

  She sighed and shook her head, and I glanced down at my ratty sweatshirt.

  My wardrobe was classic.

  Chapter 19

  Essex University provided some much-needed diversity for All Hallows, and as I drove through campus I noticed the students, if that’s what they were, appeared to be of all ages and shapes. I was left with the impression that people who attended summer school were a little strange. I remembered my undergrad years, those halcyon days of coffee shops, Natty Lite, hackey-sack, and Beck’s, all set against a backdrop of literature courses and pub crawls. I still had dreams where I’d just missed my finals and didn’t really have a degree at all. Or worse, had to retake Modern British Fiction, yikes.

  The faculty parties were held in Lesar Hall, an ancient stone structure with enough history to be formidable but enough shabbiness to appeal to potential donors. I passed through the archway into a room on the first floor that had a homey, drawing room feel, with chintz curtains, watercolors, and plenty of overstuffed furniture. The small space was already overheated with thick bodies and intellectual conversation.

  I looked around the crowd for Julia. I was glad I’d taken some effort with my appearance, even though most of the people there were dressed with a disregard for, if not disdain of, fashion in varying degrees of dowdy bohemianism. I saw an odd assortment of sack dresses, shirt dresses, flannel pants, and on one woman, a wrap that looked like a Native American rug.

  Julia had been cornered by Professor Eleanor Ashby from political science and was enduring a lecture of some volume and length. She shot me a desperate glance, but I decided I needed some fortification before I delved into the Pierian Spring.

  Half a glass of tepid chardonnay later, I was firmly ensconced by the service door where the staff would periodically, or more aptly, infrequently, appear with appetizers. So far I’d scored a slimy bit of smoked salmon on stale rye and a nearly inedible bruschetta. I was growing desperate for something more substantial (visions of cocktail wieners danced in my head), when the door opened and Grant appeared with Ainsley.

  I caught Julia’s eye and quickly ducked behind a potted palm.

  No luck, he’d seen me and they were coming over.

  “Hello, Elspeth. You’re looking lovely this evening. Is that a new dress?”

  Since Grant had seen me wear this particular dress at least a hundred times during our marriage I was understandably peeved. Had I always just faded into the background?

  “I bought it yesterday,” I said. “How are tricks?”

  He looked at me oddly and then glanced down at my glass. “How much have you had?”

  I was tempted to act drunk just for the hell of it, but maturity reared its ugly head, so I turned and greeted Ainsley.

  She smiled at me sweetly. “I found one of your books at the library. It was very…cute.”

  “Thanks, Ainsley. That means a lot coming from you.”

  “Have you had any leads in your little murders?”

  “No, have they sent you to cover anything besides regional news?”

  Grant hastily stepped between us and offered to get som
e drinks.

  “Just a club soda for me, darling,” she said coyly.

  Grant walked to the bar and Ainsley turned back to me, her expression speculative.

  “You’ve known Grant a long time.”

  “Yes.”

  “So you know what he’s like?”

  I didn’t like where this was going. “I suppose I do,” I said cautiously.

  “Grant and I are really in love. We’ve been living together for five months now but for some reason Grant hasn’t wanted to set a date for our wedding.”

  I wasn’t surprised. “I’m sorry to hear that. Maybe he’s worried about making another mistake?”

  She ignored me. “I think coming to All Hallows was a mistake. It’s so idyllic, and you know how Grant is! He pictures himself as a retired countryman with tweeds and a pipe. He seems to be going through some kind of mid-life crisis,” she smiled, showing me her perfect white teeth. “I’m sure someone your age can appreciate what that’s like.”

  I reflected again that I didn’t like this girl. “No, I’m afraid I can’t.”

  She took a step closer to me and I could smell her cloying perfume. “I was wondering if you’d say something to him.”

  There were a number of things I’d like to say to Grant, but probably not what she had in mind. “Like what?” I asked.

  “Maybe mention that it was time he set a wedding date. That way both of you can get on with your lives.”

  “I’m sure you’ll bring him up to scratch pretty soon.”

  Her expression soured. “I don’t think you can characterize it like that, but I thought maybe if you said something to him he might make a move. He seems to value your opinion.” Her tone implied that she had no idea why, and she took another step closer. “I know you just want him to be happy.”

  I contemplated her in silence. I felt surprisingly indifferent to Grant’s happiness or lack thereof. “I don’t really care,” I said finally.