The Hour of Death

by Jane Willan

  The cemetery was deserted by the time she reached it, and she planned to retrace her steps in her attempt to find her hat. But she stopped short at the entrance. Kneeling next to Tiffany’s open grave was Lewis Colwyn. Uneven, wailing sobs shook his body. She stood and watched for a moment, unsure of what to do. Spotting her hat lying at the foot of a particularly interesting gravestone that she had stopped to examine on the way out, she picked it up and jammed it over her short, gray hair, without moving her eyes from Lewis. She hated to walk away and leave him there alone, but it seemed a very private moment, and to interrupt and offer him comfort would have been invasive. She turned and slipped back out the gate and headed up Church Lane, wiping tears from her own eyes.

  * * *

  Sister Agatha headed up the steep stairs to the library—the books for Sister Matilda and Lewis Colwyn’s winter gardening class had come in and she wanted to get them labeled. Saturday afternoons at the abbey were usually quiet and she had high hopes of getting a lot accomplished.

  Halfway up the stairs, she found herself thinking over the stirring words from the noontime prayer:

  And God shall come down like rain upon the mown grass,

  as showers that water the earth.

  And the righteous shall flourish, and there shall be an abundance of peace

  so long as the moon endureth.

  Usually the sisters didn’t observe noontime prayers. But it was something special that Reverend Mother was doing every day during this last week of Advent. Today’s reading, Psalm seventy-two, read in Sister Harriet’s lilting voice, had drawn her in: An abundance of peace, so long as the moon endureth. On late nights at her desk, watching the moonrise had become her norm. It was as if she and the writer of the psalm shared an understanding of what was important in the world—the constancy of the moon’s nightly rise and the desperate need for an abundance of peace.

  She also felt preoccupied with thoughts of Tiffany’s funeral, including the sight of Lewis Colwyn sobbing at the grave. Had he and Tiffany been friends? She didn’t think so. She had asked Father Selwyn about it, and he just said that tragedy affects different people differently. Maybe Tiffany’s death triggered some old grief in Lewis. Sister Agatha wasn’t convinced, but she didn’t have anything better.

  Reaching the top step realizing that she really needed to get back to the gym—her mobile pinged. She dug it out of her jumper pocket and, stepping into the library, read it. If Reverend Mother can spare you, I could use some help. Emeric’s been arrested. FS.

  * * *

  Father Selwyn and Sister Agatha pulled up behind the police cruiser that was parked in front of Emeric Scoville’s small bungalow. By the time she had made it back down the library stairs and located Reverend Mother, Father Selwyn had already turned into the abbey drive in his 1968 BMI Mini. After a quick consult with Reverend Mother and the other sisters, who were about to start the hanging of the greens, she had climbed into the tiny car and they had sped back to the village and Emeric’s house. Emeric had frantically called Father Selwyn to say that the constable was searching his house and threatening to arrest him. Sister Agatha knew Father Selwyn felt a little guilty. They had gone to Constable Barnes about Kendrick, and now it was Emeric who was under suspicion.

  Parker Clough nodded to her as she hurried past on her way up the cobblestone walk to the house. He was digging up the flower bed in the front garden. His face was stoical, but his eyes betrayed his concern. Something was wrong here. She remembered that Parker’s youngest sister took piano lessons from Emeric, as did half the children in the village. She followed Father Selwyn through the front door, where they found Emeric slouched on a worn loveseat and Constable Barnes sitting across from him. The constable was perched on a chair far too small for his large frame. From the sound of it, officers were searching the house, and through the kitchen window she could see two other officers pulling up plants in the back garden.

  “What’s going on?” Father Selwyn asked, ducking his head under the doorway as he stepped into the small front room. The bungalow was an old council house that had been built right after World War II. It had three tiny rooms and a kitchen. Sister Agatha’s parents had owned a house very similar to it once they retired from sheep farming. She took the seat next to Emeric on the sofa and clasped his hand in both of hers. Emeric gave her a desperate glance and went back to staring at the top of the coffee table. Try not to look so guilty, she wanted to say to him.

  She had had Emeric on her suspect list simply because he had lied about his whereabouts that night. But she really couldn’t imagine Emeric Scoville killing anyone. Even as she thought it, she could hear Inspector Rupert MacFarland’s voice: Always investigate! It’s not what you can imagine, it’s what you can uncover and prove!

  “I’m glad you’re here, Father Selwyn,” Constable Barnes said. “I have a few questions for you.” Sister Agatha noticed that the constable completely ignored her presence. Well, if he wasn’t going to pay attention, she might as well pull out her notebook and take some notes.

  “First, do you mind telling me why you didn’t mention your employee’s criminal background on any of the several occasions that we talked about the death at your church?”

  “Now see here,” Sister Agatha broke in. “You needn’t call him your ‘employee.’ Good heavens! You’ve been singing in Emeric’s church choir for ten years. Call him by his Christian name.”

  The constable looked pained. “Alright then. When you hired Emeric as the church organist, did you know about his past?”

  Father Selwyn glanced from Emeric to the constable. “What past?”

  “His criminal past!” The constable almost exploded. Sister Agatha wondered if it really was good for his blood pressure to be this high. “Did you know that Emeric’s real name is Michael Scoville?”

  “Emeric is my middle name,” Emeric said listlessly. “I started using it after the trial.”

  “Trial?” Father Selwyn said. “What trial?”

  “You’re telling me that you didn’t know? You and the Sister here? All of your sleuthing and you didn’t know that living right in the village with us is a man nearly convicted of murder?”

  “I was acquitted. Twenty years ago.” He turned to Father Selwyn. “I didn’t think I needed to put it on my resume for the church musician job.”

  Father Selwyn looked at the constable. “How is all this relevant now?”

  “After you left my office the other day, I had to ask, why would Emeric here lie to the police about being in the church? And when I couldn’t think up a good reason, I had Parker run a check on him. Lo and behold, he was arrested once for nothing other than murder,” Constable Barnes said, his voice almost squeaking. Again, Sister Agatha wondered if the constable was in perfectly good health. He seemed to be a candidate for a heart attack himself.

  “Arrested or convicted?” she asked. “There’s a big difference.”

  “Acquitted. But the facts are shaky.”

  “I didn’t do it,” Emeric said, looking from Father Selwyn to Sister Agatha.

  “I believe you, Emeric,” Father Selwyn said.

  “And do you know how the murder was committed?” Constable Barnes looked as smug as Sister Agatha had ever seen him. And Constable Barnes’ smug was not an attractive look for him.

  “Well, of course we don’t know,” she said, annoyed both at Constable Barnes’ attitude and at the fact that she hadn’t discovered Emeric’s past record herself. She should have looked into his background as soon as Bevan told them that he had lied. Why hadn’t she? She knew why. Because she had broken the cardinal rule of the amateur detective. She had let her feelings get in the way of her investigation. The problem was she liked Emeric. Always had. “Well, are you going to tell us?” she said. “How was the murder committed—the one that Emeric didn’t do?”

  “Poison.” The constable sat back and looked at Sister Agatha and Father Selwyn. “And not just any poison. He used aconitine.”

  Siste
r Agatha let out a low whistle. “Aconitum napellus,” she said. “The Queen of Poisons.”

  “You know it?” The constable looked surprised. And a little deflated, she thought.

  “Of course I know it. Wolfsbane was one of Agatha Christie’s favorite poisons. Not her very favorite—that was foxglove. But a favorite, nonetheless. It’s a common plant found in most English gardens. Ingestion of aconitine makes it look as though the victim has died of a heart attack and …” Her voice trailed off. She and Father Selwyn looked at Emeric and then back at the constable. “But you didn’t run a tox screen. So you don’t know if there was any poison in Tiffany’s system.” Constable looked so self-satisfied, she could hardly stand it.

  “Dr. Beese collected a blood sample, which she has sent away for a tox report. Upon receiving that report, we will know more about the cause of death. And Mr. Scoville’s involvement.” Sister Agatha sat back stunned.

  “Dr. Beese collected blood?” she asked.

  “She did.” Constable Barnes hesitated. “Apparently, that’s not entirely uncommon when the medical director is also a licensed physician. She thought that there was some potential for the death being considered suspicious. So, she drew blood before the body was embalmed.”

  “Well, then,” Sister Agatha said to Father Selwyn. “I have new respect for Dr. Beese. Even if she is a little young to be a doctor.”

  “Do you have a warrant?” Father Selwyn asked.

  “Of course I have a warrant. And it wasn’t hard to get after I’d described Emeric’s police record.”

  “Even so,” Father Selwyn said. “All you have is conjecture. There are no actual facts. You can’t arrest a man on circumstantial evidence.”

  “Unfortunately, he can,” Sister Agatha said, flipping through her notebook and locating her notes from one of Inspector MacFarland’s podcasts on the subject. She uncapped her Sharpie as she scanned the page. “An arrest can be made on probable cause, and probable cause can be based on circumstantial evidence even if it only indirectly indicates that a crime has occurred,” she read from the page, trying not to look smug herself. “According to Inspector Rupert MacFarland, that is. However, as to holding him longer than forty-eight hours—that will prove tricky.” She snapped her notebook shut and looked up. “Right, Constable?”

  Constable Barnes sighed. “Right, Sister.”

  “Should Emeric get a solicitor?” Father Selwyn asked.

  “That’s up to him,” the constable replied. “We’re here to search the house and see what we find. Even if we find nothing, don’t forget that he lied to us, which interfered with a murder investigation.”

  Sister Agatha interrupted. “You weren’t even investigating until Father Selwyn and I went to see you yesterday.”

  “In truth, Constable Barnes,” Father Selwyn said, “you have nothing except a past acquittal.”

  “He was acquitted on a technicality. A goof-up in the courtroom concerning evidence. And the case went unsolved. The killer is still out there. And for all we know, the killer is sitting here in this house with us.”

  “Preposterous!” Father Selwyn boomed in his pulpit voice. Sister Agatha always noticed that it was hard to ignore Father Selwyn’s pulpit voice. “You have next to nothing on Emeric. Not even evidence that Tiffany died of poisoning.”

  “And,” Sister Agatha said, thinking quickly, “if you arrest Emeric, who will play for the St. Anselm’s Christmas cantata? It’s in three days and the choir’s been practicing for weeks. Everyone loves the cantata. It won’t seem like Christmas in Pryderi without the Christmas cantata.”

  It was true. The entire village turned out and filled the pews in St. Anselm’s. For one moment, Sister Agatha thought she saw the constable waver. He had the solo in O Holy Night.

  “That makes no difference, Sister. You know that.”

  “You would arrest a church organist during the last week of Advent? A good person like Emeric? Who has served this community faithfully for more than a decade? What about the children who take piano lessons from him? They have their annual Christmas recital coming up. Are you going to tell them and all their families that you’ve arrested their piano teacher?”

  “What do you think they will say when they find out that their beloved teacher murders people with poison?” The constable’s face had grown red and splotchy again. Perhaps, thought Sister Agatha, he hadn’t thought through what it might be like to arrest someone so well-liked by so many people. She also realized that she felt annoyed with Emeric. It didn’t look good that he just sat there staring. Just when the tension had grown almost unbearable, Parker Clough stepped into the room.

  “Here you go, Guv,” he said holding up a dried and shriveled plant with a bulb of frozen soil still clinging to its roots. He held it carefully, Sister Agatha noticed. Even in the midst of a murder investigation, the young officer was careful not to drop dirt on the carpet. “It matches the photo from the plant book. Wolfsbane. There’s a whole patch of it in the back of the garden.”

  The constable stood up. “Can you identify that plant, Mr. Scoville?” he said.

  Emeric seemed to shrink back into the couch. He looked at the plant and then buried his head in his hands. His long, delicate fingers, so adept at Bach and Vivaldi, entwined his unruly red hair.

  “Please, Mr. Scoville.” The constable’s voice had lost its gruffness. “Emeric. Identify the plant.”

  Emeric sat up and looked into the fireplace. “Wolfsbane,” he said. “It’s Wolfsbane.”

  * * *

  “But it doesn’t mean he used it to murder anyone.” Sister Agatha gripped the dashboard of Father Selwyn’s 1968 BMI Mini as he sped past a lorry. The vicar was notorious for his white-knuckle driving. “It isn’t illegal to grow Wolfsbane in your back garden.”

  “Did you see Emeric’s face when the constable put handcuffs on him?” Father Selwyn said. “He was devastated. As soon as he can have visitors, we need to get to the jail and talk with him.”

  “And the tox screen isn’t back yet, so we don’t know for sure that Tiffany even died of poison. Have you given any thought to …” She couldn’t bring herself to say it. Father Selwyn and Emeric had worked together for more than a decade. The relationship between vicar and church musician was often tenuous, but Father Selwyn and Emeric truly enjoyed each other and saw themselves as a team. She hated to say it, but what if it was Emeric? The evidence against Kendrick Geddings was stacking up. If she could make some progress on that end of things, it could prove Emeric innocent. If Emeric was innocent.

  “Are you saying you think it could have been Emeric?” Father Selwyn twisted around in the front seat and looked at her directly.

  “Eyes on the road, Father, please.” She clutched her seatbelt strap. “No. Of course not. But why did he lie about his whereabouts the night of the murder?”

  “No idea. That’s why we need to talk with him. Sooner rather than later.”

  “We need to meet with Emeric but also continue to build up the case against Kendrick Geddings. I think the tox screen will show that no poison was involved. Emeric will be released in time for the cantata. And that will force Constable Barnes to take the case against Kendrick seriously.”

  Father Selwyn braked just in time to miss a flock of sheep crossing in front of him. “I do find your optimism encouraging.” He paused. “Do you think that Emeric had any reason to want to … harm … Tiffany Reese? They certainly didn’t travel in the same social circles. And I think that Tiffany, in general at least, was happy with the music at the church. Not that an organist would follow through with killing an unhappy church member.”

  “Tiffany was a soprano, wasn’t she? In the choir? And that meant she would have been in the cantata, right?”

  “Well, yes. But there weren’t any problems. At least that had reached me. And are Christmas cantatas really that contentious?” They both looked at each other. Yes. They were.

  Chapter Twelve

  “I’m so sorry, Father Selwyn,
” Emeric said. Sister Agatha and Father Selwyn sat across from Emeric in the small jail cell. Father Selwyn had driven by the abbey and picked her up after evening prayers. Sister Gwenydd had wanted to send a tin of cookies, but Father Selwyn didn’t think it would be allowed. “I’ve really let you down.”

  The atmosphere in the cell was grim. It echoed with a barren emptiness except for a gym bag tossed in the corner. The bag seemed full, with clothes and a toothbrush sticking out of it. “Constable Barnes went back to the house and packed it for me,” Emeric said, noticing Sister Agatha looking at the bag. “And he brought over the score to the cantata. If they had a piano in this place, I would practice. I don’t know when I will get back into the choir loft.” According to Constable Barnes, Emeric wouldn’t have a hearing until after Christmas, so he would spend the holiday in the village jail. The future of the cantata looked bleak. But Father Selwyn didn’t seem concerned that Emeric wouldn’t be back. Or maybe it was the least of his concerns at this point.

  “I don’t see how they could have any charges against you. You haven’t done anything,” Father Selwyn said. He sat on the wooden bench, leaning back against the cement wall. Sister Agatha half expected him to call out for tea. “And there isn’t any evidence at this point that Tiffany Reese died from poison.”

  “When I lied about not being in the church the night Tiffany died and then also didn’t report that I heard someone talking to the victim the same night, I interfered with a murder investigation. And that’s enough to arrest me.”

  “Are you sure?” Father Selwyn asked. “That doesn’t seem right.”

  “It is,” Sister Agatha said. “Obstruction charges come into play when a person who is questioned in an investigation has lied to the investigating officers,” Sister Agatha explained.