A Perfect Case of Murder

by B. T. Lord

  “If he’s guilty, Mantree will prove it.” Cammie looked about her. “How did you get along with her?”

  He lifted his shoulders. “I appreciated her honesty. And she appreciated mine. The most refreshing thing about Helen is that I never felt judged by her. We accepted each other for who we were, not what society or our family thought we should be.”

  “Did she have any children?”

  Cammie watched Doc’s jaw tighten. “She has a daughter, Lily.”

  “You don’t like her, do you?”

  “She is a very disagreeable woman.”

  Cammie caught his eye. “Is Lily the real reason Helen left Boston?”

  Her gut told her that played a large part in Helen’s decision to come to this isolated spot. However, if she’d hoped Doc would open up and reveal the dynamics of the relationship between Helen and Lily, she was left disappointed when he answered, “I’ll let you be the judge of that.” Offering him a quizzical look, he added, “After we leave here, we’re heading down to Boston. There’s the planning of her funeral, some business pertaining to her estate, and a myriad of other things that must be attended to. I don’t think, that is, it will be difficult-”

  “I understand,” Cammie interjected. And she did. Even though a part of her was disappointed she wasn’t going to be getting back to Jace as quickly as she’d hoped. To hide her regret, she stood up.

  “Do you mind if I take a look around?”

  “I thought you said you don’t have jurisdiction up here.”

  “I don’t. But maybe there’s something here forensics missed.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her. “It’s an addiction, isn’t it? This need to pull apart a person’s life?”

  She smiled, but refused to answer, using Doc’s habit against him of remaining silent when he didn’t want to answer a question. Instead, she pointed at the room. “Don’t forget to check to see if anything was stolen. We can swing through Houlton on the way to Boston and drop off the list with Mantree.”

  Doc nodded as his eyes sadly roamed the room. “I have absolutely no idea where to start to clean this mess up. The house will have to be sold. As for her things…”

  Cammie noted he was talking more to himself than to her. Taking advantage of his preoccupation, she set about inspecting the cabin.

  Despite forensics already processing the scene, old habits really did die hard as Cammie slipped on a pair of latex gloves that she always carried in the inside pocket of whatever parka she was wearing. She wasn’t sure what exactly she was looking for, though a note saying so-and-so wants to kill me would have been helpful.

  Sensitive to Doc’s emotional state, she quietly and efficiently picked her way throughout the downstairs, opening cabinets, looking underneath knick-knacks, all the while side stepping the papers that lay strewn all over the rug and hardwood floor. Occasionally she would glance down at them, but they looked like bills and junk mail that found its way even to this remote area. She knew it would take too long to go through all that paper, so she tamped down her desire to do so and continued to poke her head here and there.

  The downstairs revealed nothing, except for the obvious anger directed towards Helen Carsgrove. It didn’t look so much as though the place had been ransacked for robbery purposes; rather it looked as though the perpetrator had continued their murderous rampage until they’d grown exhausted, or there was nothing left to break.

  Shaking her head at the malicious destruction, Cammie went up the spiral staircase to the loft. There, she found Helen’s closet door open and her clothes thrown over the two dressers flanking the queen size bed that took up the middle of the small room. The drawers to the dressers themselves were hanging open and their contents spilled onto the carpeted floor. Cammie thought it interesting that despite someone ransacking the furniture, the bed remained untouched. Its frame was made of white brass, and the bedspread was a rich copper colored brocade with songbirds delicately stitched onto the material. She resisted bouncing up and down on the mattress to see how it compared with Doc’s bed from paradise she’d slept in during her recovery from a gunshot wound a few months ago. Noticing the many similarities between Doc and his aunt, she wouldn’t be surprised if this bed was every bit as comfortable.

  She poked her head in the bathroom, a bit disappointed that Helen hadn’t installed a multi-headed shower from heaven. Then again, living off the grid precluded using so much water, especially if she was catching rain water or having it brought to the house. Nothing appeared to have been disturbed; all was orderly and neat. She opened the medicine cabinet and found a couple of bottles that contained what looked like dried grass and seeds but which, on closer inspection, were homeopathic ingredients for everything from headaches to muscular aches and pains. Not surprising since it couldn’t have been easy on Helen’s 71 year old body to be hauling everything herself, in spite of whatever physical shape she was in. Cammie wasn’t sure she could have managed this place all by herself and she was half Helen’s age.

  Turning away from the bathroom, she was about to return downstairs when her eyes strayed back to the bed. She stood there contemplating it for a long moment before shrugging her shoulders.

  “I’ve got nothing to lose,” she murmured to herself. As she started towards it, she heard Doc’s step on the stairs.

  “Are you done violating Helen’s privacy yet?” he asked.

  “Almost. Did you find anything missing?”

  “Yes. A few small pieces of sculpture, an original photograph signed by the famed photographer Alfred Stieglitz, and a tea set purported to have been owned by one of our ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War.” As he spoke, she shoved her hands under the mattress. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he uttered in disbelief as he saw what she was doing.

  “You’d be surprised at the things I’ve found under a mattress in the course of some of my investigations,” she responded.

  “I don’t even want to know what they were.” Finding nothing, she stood up and began to systematically remove the pillowcases from the five decorative pillows Helen had propped up against the headboard. “Good God, is nothing sacred to you?” Doc asked, aghast.

  “Don’t you think it strange that whoever came up here left the bed untouched?”

  “They obviously didn’t think they’d find anything, unlike you.”

  Lifting the last pillow, Cammie started to pull the pillowcase off when she heard the rustling of paper. “There’s something here,” she announced. Doc came up beside her as she withdrew a well-worn envelope. There was no writing on it.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  Because of its fragility, she carefully opened the envelope, withdrew a cream colored note and slowly unfolded it. It was obvious the note had been read and reread countless times. The handwriting was fading in places, but still legible.

  Cammie scanned it. “It looks like a love letter written to your aunt on October 15, 1976. It’s signed ‘Rob’.” She looked at Doc. “I thought you told me her husband’s name was Freddy.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Cammie was surprised that Doc wasn’t more surprised. She tried to study him without outright staring at him, but his face remained impassive. She turned back to the note and began to read it aloud.

  My love for you is undying. I am bereft when you are not in my arms. I honestly count the minutes – the seconds – until we are together again. I know it’s a waste of time to think on the past. The past contains only regrets. I live for the here and now when we are together where we belong. Where we have always belonged.

  “Well, Shakespeare obviously has nothing to worry about,” Doc quipped when she was done.

  “Did you know she had a lover?” she asked.

  He chuckled. “Haven’t you yet learned that in the world of Boston’s Beacon Hill, we never discuss things like that?”

  “But this sounds like she was having an affair.”

  “She was obviously discreet about it. And that is the name of
the game. As long as you are discreet, you can live as many alternate lives as you want.”

  “You didn’t.”

  He shrugged. “I grew tired of the pretense.”

  “So you don’t know who this Rob is?”

  “It could be a number of Robs. It’s not an uncommon name.”

  “Whoever this Rob is, he obviously meant a great deal to her. You can tell how often she’s read this letter. She even kept it near her in bed.”

  “Well, my dear, whoever this Rob is, he may be dead by now. Or so decrepit, it doesn’t matter.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Unless you think he killed my aunt?”

  “You can’t rule anything out.”

  They returned downstairs where, diving into another inside pocket of her parka, she withdrew a paper bag and carefully placed the letter inside it.

  “Do you have a forensics lab inside that coat of yours?” Doc asked sarcastically.

  “Lesson number one in law enforcement. Always be prepared.”

  “I think that’s the Boy Scouts.”

  “Whatever.”

  Doc looked around the room. “I suppose I should tidy some of this up, but I’m just not up for it right now.”

  Cammie understood. They tamped down the stove, locked up and climbed into the Navigator.

  “Thank God I decided to make reservations for us at a nice little inn outside of town. Having seen what’s left of Helen’s home, I could not have stayed there. Our inn is on a lake. I thought we’d both enjoy that. Bring a little bit of Twin Ponds up here with us,” Doc said as he swung out of the driveway and started back towards Allagash.

  They’d cleared Helen’s property and were on an unpaved road. Doc was driving slowly through the deep muddy ruts that could easily send the Navigator bouncing off the road if he hit them too fast. While he kept his focus solely on the road in front of him, Cammie kept an eye up ahead. She immediately noticed an old, rusted truck idling by the side of the road.

  As they drew nearer, a man emerged from the truck and began waving his arms at them. He was short and wiry, with a balding head, dressed in well-worn jeans and a jacket that was frayed along its bottom edge.

  “He must have broken down,” Cammie replied as Doc slowed to a stop.

  He was about to roll down his window and ask if the man needed help when the stranger suddenly pounded his fists on the driver’s side window, causing Doc to quickly jump back from the door.

  “Are you here to gloat?” he screamed, his spittle spraying against the glass. “Is that why you came up here? You want to watch me lose everything because of that bitch who had no right to come here and act like she was better than all of us?”

  “My God!” Doc exclaimed. “Who is this madman?”

  “Do not get out of the car,” Cammie ordered as she turned to open the passenger side door.

  “Are you insane?” Doc cried out as the man continued to pummel the window. “You can’t go out there.”

  “You can’t, but I can.”

  Before Doc could protest any further, Cammie slid out of the vehicle. She kept the Navigator between herself and the ranting man as she stood near the hood. “I think you’d better calm down, Mr. Harding,” she said calmly, but with unmistakable steel in her voice.

  “How am I supposed to calm down? Huh? Tell me, how am I supposed to just be okay while the bank comes in and takes my house that has been in my family since 1897?”

  “No one is here to gloat.”

  He turned his wild eyes towards her. “That’s her nephew, isn’t it? Another fucking rich bastard coming up here where they don’t belong.” He pounded on the hood of Doc’s Navigator. “I’m tired of you and your kind thinking you can waltz up here and tell us how to live our lives. She deserved to die. She had it coming. And I’m glad someone had the balls to do it! If you’re smart, you’ll drive away and never come back!”

  Cammie was loathe to pull her gun and make a volatile situation even more volatile. But he wasn’t giving her much of a choice.

  “Step away from the vehicle, Mr. Harding and no one needs to get hurt.”

  “Fuck off!”

  This time she did withdraw her weapon. “I’m not going to tell you again, Mr. Harding. Step away from the vehicle now.” He turned and saw her weapon for the first time. “What the-” he sputtered.

  “I’m Sheriff Cammie Farnsworth.” Hearing that she was law enforcement sliced through his fury. He took a few steps back. “Now I’m going to get back into the vehicle and we are going to leave peacefully. I recommend you do the same. Is that understood?”

  Still staring at her gun, Harding nodded. Cammie slowly made her way back to the Navigator where she slid inside. “Drive away slowly, Doc,” she ordered.

  Once they were well away from Harding, they both took a deep breath.

  “If I didn’t think he murdered Helen before, I do now,” Doc replied. She turned to look at him. His face was the color of chalk, and his hands were visibly shaking on the steering wheel. She thought it best to keep silent, because the truth was, she just wasn’t sure about Henry Harding.

  Doc was so unsettled by the encounter with Harding that he drove straight to the inn. As was the case in many small towns, word had already spread about the confrontation and it was reflected in the innkeeper’s face as they signed in. He wasn’t rude. But he wasn’t friendly either. Doc didn’t seem to notice. He took his key, went up the stairs and shut himself up in his room, leaving Cammie alone. It was then she noticed that she was hungry. She knew the inn had a dining room, but if the innkeeper’s demeanor was any indication, she wondered if she could eat a meal without running the risk of being poisoned. Or having her food saturated with the cook and his staff’s spit.

  Lovely , she thought to herself as she took her key and went upstairs to her own room. It was comfortably furnished with a canopy bed, and a small loveseat and chair overlooking the lake. She threw her suitcase onto the bed, and immediately dialed Mantree’s number, telling him of the encounters, both with Win and with Henry.

  “Will Dr. Westerfield be pressing charges against Henry?” the officer asked.

  “He hasn’t said anything. As you can imagine, he’s still shaken up. But I’ll do my best to talk him out of it. I think Harding has enough to worry about right now.” She paused. “Between you and me, Geoff, and despite what I saw today, do you honestly think Henry is capable of murdering Helen?”

  There was a silence on the other end of the phone as Mantree considered her words. “Henry has always been a quiet guy. The kind that never rocks the boat. But he’s been pushed to the edge. In fact, I think he’s already gone over the edge. Do I want to believe he did it? No. But is it possible he did? Yes.”

  Cammie hung up and quietly considered his words. Mantree knew these people better than she did. If he thought Harding was capable of murdering Helen, who was she to question it? Still, somewhere deep inside, her gut was telling her that all was not as it seemed.

  As she sat on the loveseat and thought about the day, her stomach started growling loudly. The last meal they’d had was a quick breakfast in Houlton and she was starving. She scoured her suitcase and parka, hoping she might have stashed an energy bar, a bag of chips, anything that could stave off her hunger. Unfortunately, the only thing she found was a lone Tic-tac buried in a corner of her suitcase under her bra. She stared at it forlornly before popping it into her mouth. As much as she hated the prospect, she was going to have to suck it up and go down to the dining room to eat. Hopefully the staff would have discovered by now she was a sheriff and leave her food alone.

  Just as she expected, all eyes were on her as she made her way to a table nearest the kitchen. From here she could peek in and make sure they weren’t adding anything extraneous to her meal.

  Her waitress turned out to be a young, high school student who wasn’t affected by the wariness and standoffishness of the rest of the staff. Bouncy, cheery and with a wad of gum in her mouth, she came up to Cammie and flipped her shoulder leng
th dyed purple hair over her ear. Cammie glanced at her nametag and saw that her name was Patty.

  “So you’re a sheriff,” she replied as she looked Cammie up and down. “That’s pretty cool. You got a gun?”

  Cammie smiled. “Of course.”

  “You ever kill anyone?”

  “I have.”

  “Doubly cool. So what can we get you?”

  “What do you recommend?”

  “Chef makes a great roast turkey dinner. I know it’s not Thanksgiving or anything, but it’s awfully good. And his mashed potatoes are to die for.”

  “Okay, I’ll have that.” Just as Patty was about to take off, she asked, “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

  The girl shrugged. “Sure.”

  “What did you think of Helen Carsgrove?”

  “I never met her, but everyone knew she was kind of bitchy. I mean, honestly, what did it matter if a couple of guys shot at squirrels and rabbits to feed their families? It’s not like they’re endangered or anything.”

  “So you don’t think anyone up here killed her?”

  The girl shook her head. “Heck, no. If someone up here really wanted her dead, they would have killed her a long time ago. And they sure as shit wouldn’t have left her body hanging around. That was pretty stupid.”

  “What about Henry Harding?”

  Patty rolled her eyes. “Henry is harmless. He’s as much a murderer as I am.” As if realizing what she’d said, she quickly added, “Not that I am, or anything. I can’t even stand to see roadkill.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I better get your order in. Ralph is giving me the stink eye and I like having extra money for clothes and makeup.”

  She turned and entered the kitchen. Cammie ignored Ralph’s stink eye as she looked out the window. Patty had echoed Win Sackett’s sentiments. Yet, she’d had cases where people had killed for a lot less than losing everything they owned. Still, as much as it would have been easy and convenient for Harding to be guilty, her gut still told her he could very well be innocent.