The Case of the Fallen Hero (An Inspector David Graham Cozy Mystery Book 3)

by Alison Golden

  “Hey…” Leo began. “There’s another doorway here.” He held up the dusty tapestry to show the others.

  “What’s this one marked? Verboten?” Marina quipped.

  “Private,” Leo replied. “I mean, private to whom?”

  Harry took a look. “I don’t know. Maybe the people who run this place?” he posed. “Come on, buddy. You’ve had your fun. Let’s get out of here before we’re deported from Jersey for trespass under some sixteenth-century law.”

  “Yeah,” Emily joked, “they could imprison us down here or something. To discourage others.”

  Leo made a rude and dismissive noise, grinned at the other three, and opened the door with his shoulder. It took three firm shoves. “Gotcha!” he exclaimed.

  “Er, Leo,” Harry began, “you think, maybe, if the door’s been closed for so long that it needs a shoulder barge to open it, then they might be serious about it being ‘private?’”

  Another rude noise and then Leo was gone, headed down whatever passage he had discovered. A few seconds later, “Oh… This is so cool!”

  The other three exchanged a worried glance, seemed to shrug together, and followed Leo through the small wooden door and into a tunnel barely broad enough for two people to stand side-by-side. “Wow, Leo, what the heck have you found, this time?” Marina asked.

  “Must be a servant’s tunnel or something,” he guessed.

  “Leading from the castle’s torture chamber?” Harry responded. “‘Hither, servant, and heed my will. All this stretching and maiming and removal of teeth with a spoon has left me parched. Pray thee fetch a flagon of ale to quench mine raging thirst.’ That kind of servant?”

  Their laughter echoed down the tunnel. There was just enough light from the torture chamber for them to see that the passage opened up into a larger room, but beyond that, they could not see.

  “Anyone else think this could be a good point to turn back?” Emily asked the group.

  “No fatalities yet,” Leo objected. “I say we see if there’s a light switch in the next room.”

  Marina was squeezed in beside him and gave him a friendly push forward. “I don’t think they had light switches in the fifteen hundreds, genius.”

  Emily felt the skin on her neck begin to crawl unpleasantly. “You know, guys, I really don’t think we should…”

  A sharp sound behind them brought the group to an abrupt halt. It was the sound of stone on stone, a collision of some kind.

  “Okay, you’re right. Let’s do an about-face,” Leo began, but there was another, more gradual sound, like stone sliding over something, and then a tumbling noise that became louder and louder, booming down the tunnel, bringing with it a cloud of dust and masonry and extinguishing all light.

  CHAPTER 5

  JEFFRIES DECIDED TO effectively hand over his offices in the administrative wing to the police. Not only was he determined to discover what happened and felt it his duty to assist however he could, he was also anxious that the castle not suffer unduly from this unfortunate incident. If it were a suicide, that would be something most people might accept without question, even that of a young man at the very outset of his married life. But something more suspicious, a murder…

  He couldn’t help thinking back to the mutterings and rumors he’d heard about poor Mrs. Taylor and the White House Inn after that terrible business with the dead woman on the beach. Mrs. Taylor seemed to have recovered now, and a quick chat in the street the other day had revealed that bookings were strong – they were “getting on with it,” as the redoubtable lady put it – but Jeffries was horrified at the notion of Orgueil becoming some kind of sensationalized “murder castle.” It was hard enough to market the place as a wedding venue, for all its virtues of facilities and location, when torture and illegal imprisonment had taken place in the castle’s bowels. The delays to the opening of the torture exhibit were supposedly related to the construction work, but in reality some among the museum’s board still found the whole idea rather distasteful and had repeatedly asked for more time to mull over its implications.

  Jeffries was there when Detective Inspector Graham received the much-anticipated call from Marcus Tomlinson. “Hi, Marcus? Alright, lay it on me.”

  Graham listened for a long moment, took notes, and then asked, “You’re quite sure?” He listened again, frowned at Harding, took more notes, thanked the pathologist, and ended the call.

  “Bugger,” Graham muttered. “Not a lot to go on, I’m afraid.” Harding looked crestfallen.

  “Tox screen?”

  “Alcohol, but nothing out of the ordinary, especially for a man who’d just got married. No drugs, no painkillers, none of the usual set of poisons. He even checked for that unusual one we ran into six weeks back: no dice.”

  “So what do you think, sir? Could it be suicide?”

  Jeffries shook his head. “I can’t understand why someone would do that,” he muttered darkly. “Such a terrible crime against those you leave behind.”

  “Exactly,” Graham commented. “If he chose to end his life, he did it while all his closest family and friends were right here. Surely, if he had dark thoughts, he would have reached out to someone. His family, his best man… his new wife, for heaven’s sake.”

  “For me,” Jeffries contributed, with the shyness of someone who felt they might be speaking out of turn, “it’s a conundrum to consider that this man, who had just married Marie, a very beautiful young lady from a loving family and,” he added with a hint of pride, “in a stunning location, with great music and food…. That such a man could consider this the very low point of his life? Such an act, for me, is simply inconceivable,” he said very clearly.

  Graham was nodding and making more notes. “Good points, Mr. Jeffries. Unless, of course, there are things we don’t know. And there’s nothing more certain than that.” He turned to Harding. “Where do you think we should begin, Sergeant?”

  Janice grabbed the list of wedding guests and scanned it quickly. “Mr. Jeffries, am I seeing this right? The bride’s parents did not stay at the castle last night?”

  He thought back for a second. “Oh, no. They didn’t want to be among all the noise and partying after what I remember her calling ‘a challenging day.’ Honestly, I didn’t care for the bride’s mother at all. But, clients are clients, and we must…”

  “Where?” Harding asked, without apologizing for the interruption, which affected Jeffries as though he’d been rapped on the knuckles.

  “At the Inn, of course,” the event manager replied. “The White House Inn.”

  Janice chose to make use of their unmarked police car for this visit. Poor Mrs. Taylor had seen more than enough uniformed men and women come and go during their investigation the previous month, and neither Harding nor Graham wanted to bring back bad memories. Not only had she been a stalwart help during the murder inquiry, she had extended Graham every courtesy since then. The least they could do was keep her lobby free of further intrigue and unpleasantness.

  “Oh, Sergeant Harding!” the proprietor exclaimed happily, her necklace of giant beads bouncing. “Good to see you. Are you staying for lunch with the Detective Inspector?”

  Graham quieted her with a serious look and cast a glance at the back office. They walked over to it and closed the door. “I want to do this discreetly, Mrs. Taylor,” Graham said. “You’re going to be hearing about a sudden and mysterious death at the castle.”

  Her hands flew to her mouth in shock. “Not again!” she gasped.

  “The groom from that big wedding last night took a tumble from the battlements,” Graham added, finding that his attempt to soften the tragedy had been a near miss at best.

  “Oh no!” Mrs. Taylor cried.

  “Steady, love, steady,” Harding cooed, her hand on the older woman’s shoulder. “Very quietly, we need to have a word with Mr. and Mrs. Joubert, parents of the bride. We understand they stayed with you last night.”

  Mrs. Taylor searched her memory, glad o
f the distraction. “Joubert? Yes… They might be at breakfast.” A brief check and a glance at the dining room told them that this was true. A couple in their fifties were eating a leisurely breakfast by the window.

  “Let’s wait until they’re finished, eh? Then knock on the door of their room a few minutes later,” Graham said.

  Graham and Harding tried to blend in with the guests filtering through the reception area. There were some new arrivals, others checking out, families heading out for the day, and couples wandering through, hand in hand. “Nice and normal,” Harding observed. “Best this way.”

  “Hmm?” Graham asked.

  “That we don’t make a big splash, you know.”

  Graham spotted the Jouberts making their way up to their room and checked his watch. “You’re learning one of the most important lessons of police work,” he told her. “Never cause a big fuss if you don’t have to.”

  A few minutes later, rather nervous but reassured to have the experienced Graham alongside her, Harding knocked on the door. “Breathe, Sergeant,” he advised. “I can do the talking, if you’d prefer.”

  “I’ve got this,” she told him, though she hardly felt that way. She had only done one other “notification of death,” and that had been to the granddaughter of an old man who had been hit by a car. She’d taken it mercifully well, but Harding had to wonder if notifying the Jouberts of the death of their brand new son-in-law would be a tougher experience.

  “Madame Mathilde Joubert and Monsieur Antoine Joubert?” Sergeant Harding asked in her best French accent. It wasn’t simply politeness. Every notification required the identification of the family.

  “Oui,” Antoine replied, his expression puzzled.

  “May we come in for a moment, please, sir?” Harding asked. All four of them stood in the spacious hotel room while Sergeant Harding delivered the terrible news.

  Neither took it well. Monsieur Joubert was a tall, haughty, restaurateur, owner of a bistro in St. Malo, Graham later found out. Antoine was not unused to tragedy, but he was devoted to his family and horrified at the news. Mathilde, his short, stocky wife, was equally affected. When she heard the news, she went as pale as her bed linen.

  “Mais…C’est incroyable!” she cried, for the third time. The Inspector prided himself on his ability to recognize genuine shock from the artificial, theatrical kind, and all the signs were there that this was the real thing. Unless he were quite wrong, the Jouberts had no knowledge of George’s demise or of their daughter’s strange and confusing disappearance.

  “We have no reason to believe that George’s death was anything other than an accident, but it is, as I’m sure you’ll agree, especially ill timed.”

  “But it is hours…” Monsieur Joubert was stuttering, badly shaken, “only hours after their wedding. How can this have happened?” He helped his wife to the bed, where she sat in a daze. “How?” he repeated, tending to her.

  “That’s what we intend to find out,” Harding told him. “Our first step is to interview anyone who might have seen the accident,” she chose to call it, “or perhaps conversations or arguments between George and someone else.”

  Mathilde Joubert raised teary eyes to look at Harding. “Arguments? On his wedding day? Impossible…” she muttered, and then she began to cry with a long, moaning sob.

  “What about Marie? Has she been told? Is she alright?” Antoine was anxious about his daughter.

  “Marie ran off after her husband’s fall. She left him lying on the ground.”

  This news exhibited another wail from Madame Joubert.

  “So,” Graham insisted, “we must speak with everyone. I’m sorry to do this so soon after you’ve received the news. Can you tell us about the wedding?”

  Mathilde stayed silent, so Antoine took over. “It was elegant, beautiful,” he reported. “Everyone had a wonderful time.” He was distant for a moment, Graham saw, perhaps thinking back to the day’s highlights. “Wonderful,” he repeated. “No arguments or bad feelings. Just a happy couple, two delighted families. Lots of dancing, drinking. You know.”

  “Of course,” Graham said, making his usual notes. “How late did you stay at the festivities?”

  Antoine thought for a second. “Perhaps eleven or a little after. We were both tired, my wife especially. We’re not used to big parties at our age.”

  “And you returned directly to the Inn?” Harding confirmed.

  “Yes. We were asleep within moments. It had been a very long day,” Antoine replied.

  Graham took the unusual measure of sitting on the edge of the bed, a couple of feet from the grieving couple. Harding watched him work, curious as ever, but confident that this experienced and brilliant detective could glean whatever evidence was required.

  “Sir,” Graham began, his voice deliberately low, “could you think of anywhere Marie might have run to at this terrible time? Perhaps somewhere on Jersey?”

  His arm around his crying wife, Antoine shook his head. “They had plans for a honeymoon. I don’t know where. They refused to tell us, you know… it was a couple’s secret.”

  Graham nodded. His own, modest honeymoon, had been a confidence mercifully well kept by both families. School friends of his were less fortunate. They had arrived at their secluded honeymooners’ cottage to find six chickens in the kitchen and the phone disconnected. “Is there anywhere else she might have chosen to go?”

  “St. Malo?” Mathilde suggested.

  “Non, chérie,” Antoine said. “The boat does not leave for another hour or two. And the flights are always full. I can’t see how she can have gone home.” Then he added, “And I can’t see why she would.”

  Harding asked the next question. “Where was the couple staying, before the wedding? Someone talked about them driving separately to the castle. Marie in a Rolls Royce?”

  Both of the French couple were nodding. “C’est vrai,” Mathilde confirmed.

  “I arranged a little place just outside Gorey,” Antoine told them, “on the hill overlooking the beach. A nice place for a bride to quietly prepare for her big day.” Antoine reached into his wallet for the address, which Graham noted. “George had his own apartment. Marie would stay there with him but for the wedding, she went to her own place. So he not see her as is the custom.”

  “Is there anything more you can tell us? Any small detail?”

  Antoine stood. “Sir… I hope this is not the conclusion you are forced to draw,” he said severely, “but if… if this were murder… I want to know, at once, who was responsible.”

  Graham had encountered the understandable desire for revenge more than once. “Monsieur Joubert, it’s important not to jump to any…”

  “George was my family. He joined la famille Joubert not once but twice. And my family are the dearest to me in the world.”

  Harding and Graham exchanged a confused glance. “Forgive me, Monsieur Joubert,” Graham said. “Did you say, ‘twice?’”

  Mathilde reached out to her husband as if to stop him. “Antoine… S’il vous plaît …”

  The fifty-year-old patriarch petted her hand but pushed on. “My wife is not well,” he explained. “This has been the most terrible shock.” Then he addressed Harding. “I recognize it is a little unusual, but George has had the honor of marrying first one and then the other of my beautiful daughters.”

  Harding’s face remained impassive, despite the overwhelming impulse to raise both eyebrows. She limited herself to a curious, “Is that so?”

  “Oui,” Antoine replied, clearly more accustomed than either Graham or Harding to the notion that a man might marry a woman, divorce her, and then marry her sister. “George and Juliette first. They had a baby, our granddaughter. She is in St. Malo with her stepfather, Juliette’s new husband, this weekend. But our Juliette is… How can I say…?” He searched the room’s walls for the word. “Flighty? N’est ce-pas?”

  “I think I understand, sir,” Graham replied, scribbling notes.

  “Will
she be able to help us, do you think?” Harding tried.

  Antoine gave a short, hollow laugh. To Graham’s ears, it was not the kind of noise any father should ever make in reference to his daughter, unless Juliette was, to the Joubert family, an apple that had fallen very far from the tree, indeed.

  “She has problems,” Mathilde said simply, beginning to gather herself. “Drinking. Smoking things she should not. You understand.” It wasn’t a question, but a request to move on.

  Harding thanked the couple, and Graham made his final notes before they left together. “Rest assured, no stone shall remain unturned.” Graham immediately doubted that the expression would translate and so added, “We’ll do our very best.”

  They left the Jouberts to their indisputable grief, closing the door quietly. “Well, Sergeant,” the Inspector asked as they crossed the lobby and waved courteously to Mrs. Taylor, “what did you make of that?”

  They reached the car and Harding sat thoughtfully in the driver’s seat. “I’d say, Detective Inspector, that if I ever married a fella, and then he left me and married my little sister, Sally,” her fists coiled as though strangling a snake, “I’d spend the rest of my life making his a bloody misery.”

  The two police officers sat in their unmarked car by the side of the road leading away from Gorey. The bright Sunday midmorning sunshine was making it difficult to see the phone’s screen. “The wonders of modern technology,” Graham breathed. “When on earth did you do this?”

  “Soon as I got to the scene,” Harding explained, “and started bagging up his effects. Routine, these days,” Harding replied. “At police college, I remember them telling us over and over, ‘Pictures, or it never happened.’”

  Graham raised the phone again and turned it to get a better look at the picture of George Ross’ driver’s license. “I’d like to think that a notebook and pencil still count for something,” Graham retorted.