Aunt Bessie Enjoys (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 5)

by Diana Xarissa

  “Joan’s lovely,” Bessie said. “She’s in quite a bad way from arthritis now, but she used to be very active. Her husband, Michael, owned a small landscaping company that he inherited from his father. Joan always insisted on his coming over and looking after the little bit of landscaping my cottage needs.” Bessie sighed. “Their son took over the company and ran it out of business in less than a year.”

  “I understand they had three children?” he asked.

  “They did,” Bessie agreed. “They lost their youngest, a little girl, to some childhood cancer that was untreatable in those days. She must have been about three when she passed. Their other daughter lost her life to breast cancer in the seventies. The last I heard about their son, he was serving time in gaol across for some sort of fraud.”

  “We’re checking on his whereabouts now,” was all that John would tell her.

  “That’s all the ladies,” Bessie told him. “Their lives all seem rather tragic now that we’ve discussed them like this, but I never really thought about them that way.”

  “They certainly seemed like a happy enough group yesterday,” John said.

  “They did,” Bessie agreed. “They were always like that, though. Growing up in the twenties and thirties meant they’d seen a lot of difficult times. Getting through the Second World War was tough, as well. Some of their husbands or future husbands were sent to serve.” Bessie shook her head. “They were raised to just keep carrying on, no matter what life brings,” she told the inspector.

  “Now I just have to figure out who stopped Nancy King from carrying on,” the inspector said with a frown.

  He politely refused Bessie’s offer of tea and biscuits as she cleared away the lunch dishes. “I need to get back to the office. The ladies are all coming in, one at a time, to talk to me this afternoon,” he told her.

  Bessie shook her head. “I just can’t get my head around it,” she replied. “I can’t imagine why anyone would murder Nancy King, or any of the Raspberry Jam Ladies for that matter.”

  “Thank you for the background,” the inspector said, as he stood up to leave. “I expect it to be very helpful when I talk to the ladies.”

  “I wish I could do more,” Bessie said. A thought suddenly occurred to her. “Nancy King might not have been the target, though,” she said slowly. “You’re collecting all the jam jars. They might all have been poisoned, mightn’t they?”

  John gave Bessie a quick hug. “At this point, it’s too soon to say anything for certain. We aren’t even sure Mrs. King’s jar was poisoned. It’s just a strong possibility at this point.”

  “But if all the jars were poisoned, someone could have killed dozens of people,” Bessie said worriedly.

  “But they didn’t,” John told her. “We’ve managed to track down every single jar of jam and no one else has had so much as a stomachache from it.”

  “So some people did eat their jam?” Bessie asked.

  “Some people did eat some of the jam,” John said, seemingly reluctantly. “And there haven’t been any negative reactions anywhere else.”

  “Maybe the jam that killed Nancy was from a totally different place, then?” Bessie asked.

  “Anything is possible,” John told her. “For now, we’re collecting all of the jars and having them all tested. We won’t have any results until Friday at the earliest. Until then we don’t know what killed Nancy King and we don’t know if anyone else was in any danger.”

  Bessie frowned. “I don’t understand any of this,” she complained. “If no one knows where the jam came from, and all the jars are identical, then anyone could have been given the jar with the poison in it.”

  “You’re making assumptions that I can’t confirm or deny,” John told her. “Just try to put it all out of your mind for now. I’ll tell you what I can, when I can.”

  “In the meantime, I guess I shouldn’t accept jam from strangers,” Bessie said wryly.

  “I would suggest you don’t accept anything from strangers,” John told her. “Not until we get this mess figured out.”

  Bessie locked up behind the inspector and paced around her small kitchen. She had dishes to wash, but her mind was racing and she couldn’t concentrate, even on as small a task as that. It was raining lightly, but she threw on a raincoat and headed out for a walk. She couldn’t think of a better way to let her mind work.

  The beach was deserted and Bessie felt as if a million eyes were on her as she stomped through the rain past the row of rental cottages down the beach from her home. She glanced over at children and adults who all seemed to be staring out at the rain with sad expressions on their faces. When she couldn’t stand their bored scrutiny any longer, she turned and headed for home.

  The walk had at least partially cleared her head, so she settled in and washed up the dishes. Her answering machine light was blinking, so after she’d tidied the kitchen, she pressed play on it. Several messages from concerned friends and nosy gossips played, one after another. Only the final message held any interest for Bessie.

  “Ah, Bessie, it’s Agnes, Agnes Faragher. I’m sure you’ve heard about poor Nancy. We, that is the Raspberry Jam Ladies, we’re all ever so upset. Anyway, we’re getting together tomorrow afternoon for tea to remember Nancy and we wanted to invite you come along and share your memories of her with us. Her daughter will be planning the formal services and whatnot. This is just a chance for us, um, older ladies to meet up and remember. We’ll be at our usual place at two if you can join us. You don’t need to call me back. And feel free to bring a friend, as well if you’d like.”

  Bessie played the message a second time and then nodded. She’d be there, and if possible, with a friend.

  Chapter Three

  The next morning it was already raining when Bessie got up. She sighed and tried hard to convince herself that a walk in the rain would feel good. Not convinced, she nevertheless walked for a good hour, past the holiday cottages and along the long stretch of sand. When she reached the beach below Thie yn Traie, which she still thought of as the Pierce mansion, she glanced up at the huge house. She was surprised to see lights on inside some of the rooms. Perhaps the house had finally been sold. She’d have to call her advocate and ask.

  Back at home, she dried off and then read for a short time before making herself an early lunch. She’d called Doona yesterday, after she’d listened to Agnes’s invitation, and Doona had agreed to accompany Bessie to the gathering.

  “I’m sure John won’t mind, if I can get someone to cover for me,” she’d told Bessie. “I just hope he doesn’t think I’m snooping. There’s something strange about this case and he’s already feeling tense about it.”

  After lunch Bessie changed into a black skirt and short-sleeved grey blouse. She brushed her hair and added an unaccustomed touch of makeup.

  Now, as Bessie paced around her kitchen waiting for Doona to pick her up, she couldn’t help but think that John wasn’t the only one who was feeling tense about this particular murder. The short car ride was a fairly silent one. After initial greetings, Bessie was quickly lost in her own thoughts again.

  The small hall where the ladies always met was little more than an old cottage that had been converted for community use. Doona parked her car in the small car park and the two friends made their way inside.

  As they entered the meeting room, Bessie noted that all of the Raspberry Jam Ladies were already there. She felt a bit out of place, as she and Doona were the only other people in the room. She smiled and nodded at them in a vague way as she crossed the room. It wasn’t a large space and it was fairly sparsely furnished with a few couches and chairs. Several boxes of toys in one corner seemed out of place under the circumstances, but the group of mums and children that had use of the space several days a week had nowhere else to store things in the small building.

  The ladies were scattered around the room, presumably each lost in her own private contemplation. Bessie headed towards Agnes, as she was the one who’d invited her
.

  “Agnes, how are you?” she asked as she squeezed the other woman’s hand.

  “Horrible, so about what you’d expect,” Agnes answered. Bessie could see tears forming in her friend’s eyes that were already red-rimmed.

  “I’m so sorry about Nancy,” Bessie told her. “I can’t imagine how shocked you all must be.”

  “Of course we are,” Elinor Lewis told her as she joined Bessie and Agnes. Elinor looked the same as ever, with her severely cut grey hair and dark eyes that seemed to miss nothing.

  Doona had stayed a few steps behind Bessie; now she stepped forward.

  “I’m so sorry about your friend,” she told the two ladies.

  “We’re like sisters,” Agnes said sadly. “We’ve been there for one another through all sorts of almost unspeakable things. I’m sure we’ll miss Nancy much more than her family will.”

  “Especially that daughter of hers,” Elinor added. “All she was interested in was her mother’s money. She hadn’t been up from Port Erin to visit Nancy in nearly a year. Suddenly, when Nancy mentioned on the phone that she might be changing her will, Sarah is on her doorstep before the sun’s even up.”

  “Was Mrs. King changing her will?” Doona asked.

  “She wanted to,” Elinor said. “She wanted to leave everything to the Raspberry Jam Ladies. She said she wanted us to have a holiday or do something extravagant with her money. Unfortunately, she didn’t manage to get a new will written before she died.”

  “Have you told the police about this?” Doona asked.

  Elinor gave her a strange look. “Of course I have, dear,” she answered. “But aren’t you with the police? I’m sure I saw you at the station yesterday. I assume you’re here with Bessie to investigate.”

  Doona flushed. “I’m just civilian front desk staff,” she said. “I just came with Bessie as a friend.”

  “Of course, you still don’t drive, do you?” Elinor smiled at Bessie. “It’s never too late to learn, you know.”

  “I’m more interested in learning where the jam came from,” Bessie told her.

  Elinor shook her head. “If we knew that, we’d all be sleeping better,” she replied. “As it is, we’re all convinced that any one of us could have been the target.”

  “The jars weren’t labeled with any names or anything?” Bessie asked.

  Agnes sighed. “I can’t bear to go through this again,” she said plaintively. “I’m going to go and start the kettle.”

  They watched her go. “Agnes is taking Nancy’s death very hard,” Elinor told Bessie and Doona. “They were very close.”

  “It’s always hard to lose old friends,” Bessie said, thinking briefly of some of the people she had lost in her own life, beginning with Matthew Saunders, the man she would have married, had he lived.

  Elinor passed a hand in front of her eyes. When they met Bessie’s, they were quite dry, however.

  “You were asking about the jam,” Elinor said. “When I arrived at the tent on Tynwald Day morning, there was a box on our table with twenty-four identical jars of jam on it. Well, at the time I assumed they were identical. Agnes and Nancy were already there, and when I asked them who had brought the jam, they both just shrugged. I assumed it was one of them, but I didn’t give it much thought.”

  “Wasn’t that a bit unusual?” Bessie asked. “A box full of jam turning up out of the blue?”

  Elinor shook her head. “It was and it wasn’t,” she said. “Years ago, when we were a younger and more energetic group, we’d often bring jars of jam or marmalade or some such thing to gatherings. We’d usually try to slip them on to the table unnoticed. That way, if our efforts were, well, not terribly successful, we could deny all knowledge of the runny marmalade or the slightly scorched jam. If everyone loved our offering, we’d take full credit, of course.”

  Bessie nodded. “I remember being gifted with many jars of various preserves by the Raspberry Jam Ladies over the years,” she said softly. “They were nearly always delicious, as well.”

  Elinor laughed. “Some of us were more successful than others,” she said. “I don’t think anyone would disagree that Peggy was probably the worst of our little bunch. She just didn’t have the patience to do things properly. She was forever undercooking things or forgetting about them and letting them burn.”

  Bessie laughed. “I remember opening a few jars and finding runny jam or jam that had a rather peculiarly burnt flavour, but, as I wasn’t about to fuss with making it myself, I never complained.”

  “Yes, well, over the last several years the tradition has rather died out,” Elinor continued. “I’m afraid age has begun to catch up with us, and making homemade jam just seems like too much bother. I simply assumed that someone had decided to make the effort again, probably for one last time.”

  “But no one has come forward to admit to making it?” Doona asked.

  “Everyone in the group has denied any knowledge of where the jam came from,” Elinor said. “Agnes says the box was there when she arrived, and she assumed it came from Nancy, who was the only one at the table at that point.”

  Bessie nodded; she’d make a point of asking Agnes about it later. “So everyone in the group took a jar and then you gave the rest to other friends?” Bessie asked.

  “Some of the ladies took more than one jar,” Elinor replied. “As I’m all alone, I only took one, but Nancy took a second jar for her daughter, because she knew she was coming to see her, and Margaret took an extra jar to share with her neighbour who hasn’t been well. The rest we passed out to people we knew as we saw them in the crowd.”

  “Do we know why the police think the jam was poisoned?” Bessie asked Doona.

  Doona shook her head. “The inspector has his reasons, but he certainly isn’t sharing them with me,” she replied.

  “And we don’t know if all twenty-four jars were poisoned or just some of them,” Bessie mused.

  “They weren’t all poisoned,” Elinor told her. “I opened my jar and had some on my breakfast toast before the police called me. It was fine. It was delicious, in fact. I know at least a few others jars were opened and eaten from before the police started making calls.”

  “I don’t suppose you could guess who made the jam from the taste?” Bessie asked.

  Elinor shook her head. “Years ago I could have tried, but my sense of taste has dulled with age. It was very good, though, and perfectly set. If I had to guess, I would say Nancy. Though I hate to admit it, she was always better at making jam than anyone else.”

  “Why would Nancy put poison in her own jam?” Doona asked.

  “Maybe she wanted to die,” a morose voice came from behind Bessie. “I can certainly sympathise.”

  Bessie turned and then embraced the woman who had joined them.

  “Joan Carr, this is Doona Moore,” Bessie said. “I don’t think I introduced you yesterday.”

  Joan’s husband had been a gardener, and Joan had often helped out. Her many wrinkles reflected the years she’d spent out in the sun. She was shorter than Bessie, with a slight stoop that probably came from time spent bent over weeds and plants.

  “Perhaps that’s where we’ve gone wrong,” Joan said now. “Us jam ladies have stayed friends for years. Perhaps we should have made friends with younger people instead, like Bessie has. That might have been better than staying stuck in the past.”

  Bessie smiled. “I do think my young friends are good for me,” she replied. “But I also enjoy spending time with my old friends, like you.”

  Joan nodded. “We were like sisters for so many years, the Jam Ladies were. We’ve been there for each other through so many of life’s tragedies. It was sad when Elizabeth died, and we all still talk about Peggy as if she’s just missed an odd meeting or two. But losing Nancy feels much more difficult somehow.”

  “And I’m sure the possibility that it might have been murder makes it even more difficult,” Bessie said.

  Elinor drew a sharp breath. “The police m
ust have it wrong,” she said firmly. “No one would murder Nancy or anyone else I know. Nancy must have accidently added the wrong thing to her tea or something. Or maybe she just had a heart attack and your friend the police inspector is simply overreacting.”

  “Anything’s possible,” Bessie said, determined not to argue with the woman. Clearly Elinor was very upset and Bessie could understand her not wanting to consider that her friend had been murdered.

  “The tea’s ready,” Agnes called from the doorway.

  The small group made their way from the small sitting room into the kitchen area. Agnes was busy pouring cups of tea. She’d set out several small plates with biscuits on them. The ladies each helped themselves to tea, adding milk and sugar as they preferred, before taking seats around the round table.

  Bessie sat down next to Margaret Gelling and patted her hand. “I’m so sorry about Nancy,” she told her.

  “Thanks,” Margaret whispered, staring into her teacup.

  “I hadn’t really talked to Nancy lately; was she doing okay?”

  Margaret shrugged. “She seemed okay to me,” she said. “She’s the only one who had children still on the island and I know she was having trouble with her daughter, but that wasn’t unusual.”

  “How are your two children?” Bessie asked. “The last I knew, they were both in the Manchester area.”

  “Hazel’s still there. Her husband had to take early retirement due to his health, I understand. Jack moved to Rugby a few years ago. I don’t really hear from them very often.”

  Bessie nodded. “Of course, they’re adults with their own lives.”

  “Indeed.” Margaret picked up a digestive from the plate of biscuits in front of her and took a tentative nibble.

  Bessie helped herself to a chocolate digestive and ate it slowly, washing it down with her tea. She didn’t want to upset anyone by asking about motives for murder directly, but that’s what she was fishing for.

  “Was there a lot of money for Nancy to leave her children?” Bessie asked Margaret after a moment.