“Or I'll lick you!” Arthur stormed.
“I'll lick you back,” Briarly retorted.
This made the boy pause. He had not expected such a diabolical countermove.
“I'll lick you first!” he replied.
“No, you won't!” said Briarly.
The two children began to dance and lunge at each other, tongues out. Then their tongues accidently touched. At this disaster, such screams and howls broke out, such gaggings and spittings, that Sheila collapsed laughing against the table.
As Arthur reeled, he caught a glimpse of the cook's fair face as Sheila’s stomach convulsed and her eyes teared. Didn't the cook understand that he was in dire peril?!
The housekeeper burst into the kitchen. Though yearning to rend the children, Mrs. Marshpool felt she did not have the time. The children were seized and chucked out the kitchen door before they knew what was happening. Briarly flew over a bush and rolled, while Arthur sprawled in a heap.
Slowly, the girl sat up. “What a horrible experience,” she said. She was not referring to being ejected.
Arthur was scrubbing his tongue furiously on his sleeve. “It was like licking a pan full of cold bacon grease,” he said wonderingly, “all slimy and wet.” Then he glared at her. “Give me that penny!”
Briarly took off again, Arthur in pursuit. Then he noticed she didn't have the case in her hand. She must have dropped it! He raced back to the spot where the girl had fallen, snatched the case up, and went back inside the kitchen. Mrs. Marshpool or not, he had to risk the housekeeper.
Seeing him escape, Briarly faltered, then stopped.
Once inside, the boy checked the room. Only Sheila was there. The cook shook her head at him, but he paid no attention. Looking out a window, he saw Briarly walking away.
Quickly, Arthur scouted out the housekeeper by the telephone and ran up the front stairs to avoid her. Then he hid the coin case in his parents’ room, in the most unlikely place he could think of, directly underneath the trash basket. Afterwards, he flopped down on the bed and pondered. He hadn't realized Briarly could be so jealous.
Downstairs, Jac had just received the report about Colette. “Yes, she did,” Jac was saying into the phone. “She had bronchitis.”
“What was that?” said her brother.
“Douthit wants to know if Colette had any pre-existing medical conditions. She also smoked,” continued Mrs. Salisbury into the receiver. “Her lungs must have been in terrible shape.”
She fell silent for a while, listening. “Colette also complained that the dust and mold in her bedroom bothered her.” Jac glanced at Marshpool. Flustered, the housekeeper stepped closer to Armagnac.
“We're glad to have that cleared up. People here were pretty upset. Thanks, goodbye.” Jac hung up. “Douthit says that Colette died of an asthmatic reaction complicated by bronchitis and her smoking. She threw up while having an asthma attack and suffocated on her own vomit.”
Rose let out a horrified moan, and even Mrs. Marshpool looked taken aback.
Lance stared dully at the floor. “My sister didn't have asthma,” he said.
“It can start under the right conditions, if something triggers an allergy,” Jac told him. “And the bronchitis and smoking didn't help.”
After listening to this, Eric went upstairs for his car keys. This time when he called Wendy he didn’t want to be overheard--he was going to make his call from Chichiteaux.
“Well, turn the ringer off so no one disturbs us,” said Boyle to his sister. “I’m afraid the newspapers are going to take an interest this time.”
When Arthur came down the back staircase, the knot of people gathered at the phone had dispersed into the living room. Suddenly, a male voice sounded from the answering machine. For a few seconds the machine recorded, then the caller hung up. Arthur hadn't understood the message, but the man’s angry tone frightened him. The message must be very important, then. He decided to be helpful and replay it so he could catch who the message was for. He pressed the play button and the message began. Then he pushed another button, thinking to save it, and the machine said, “Message deleted.”
Arthur froze.
The machine began to record again, and the boy listened, paralyzed, as Kyle Walker identified himself and said he was sorry he couldn't get hold of anyone, but Hamilton needed to discuss Katherine's will with the family. However, his partner would be delayed. Hamilton was out on his yacht, and a squall had blown up, and only now was it beginning to die away. It would be some hours before the lawyer could reach land. So Hamilton would drive out to Rollingwood tomorrow, Walker added.
After the machine finished recording, Arthur, in a panic, looked around to see if anyone had noticed what he'd done. His parents would tell him to behave like a grownup and confess he’d destroyed the first message.
But of course grownups never worried about confessing, he thought irritably. No one ever spanked them for it. It didn't matter if he did the noble thing, he'd just get spanked anyway. Absolute silence was obviously the best course here. But Arthur hesitated. What if the message was important? Then he had an idea.
Upstairs, he knocked quietly on the door of James' room. “Mr. Maxwell?” he called out shyly.
“Come in, Arthur,” said Eric, who had just found his car keys. “Did you need to talk about something?”
“I accidentally, um, messed up the answering machine,” said Arthur hesitantly, once Eric's door was closed.
“And I'm a safely neutral person to tell, huh? What did you do, drop it?”
“I accidentally deleted a message I was trying to replay.”
“Was the message an old one or a new one? If it's old, someone's probably listened to it already.”
“No!” said the boy, agitated. “It had only just recorded.”
“Oh, that's nothing. They'll just call back if it's important. Do you remember who it was for?”
Arthur told him, and added, “The guy said he was calling from the Green Mountain racetrack.”
“He'll just assume his message got overlooked because of all the excitement here,” the reporter assured him, “he'll understand.”
The boy’s eyes were wide. It had been a rough day for him, being mugged by Briarly and attacked by Marshpool. Then he recalled he had something even more important to talk about.
“What's the matter?”
So Arthur told him about the bloody scythe in the barn and the bloody handfork in the shed. Eric listened closely.
After Arthur left, the reporter made for the hall phone anyway. He decided he couldn't waste the time driving into town. “There's been another death,” he told Wendy, and repeated the coroner's diagnosis. “Though Colette smoked, she didn’t seem very sick. I thought she was getting over her cough.” Eric was sure any girl inclined to run a hand down his leg must not be feeling too badly. He didn’t mention this to Wendy, though.
“But Douthit did do an autopsy?”
“Yeah, though it may not have been very competent.”
Wendy sighed. “The state medical examiner will have to re-autopsy her. Why Colette? She wasn’t going to inherit anything except that ten thousand dollars, but nothing once Woofie was gone. And why not kill Lance as well?”
“I can’t guess, either.”
“Well, let’s give up on her for the moment. Do you have anything new?”
“I’ve more on Heydrick. But first, Arthur told me something else about that shed. Do you remember his story about seeing the CD case there? He claims he saw a bloody handfork next to it. Willowby said Heydrick only bought a lock the day the housepainters came and never kept the shed locked before then. I tried to look inside, but the shed didn’t have any cracks or windows, unfortunately. This sounds too convenient, but Arthur might be telling the truth.”
“A handfork?”
“I think it’s also called a cultivator. You rake the soil with it.”
“I wouldn’t know. I’m a city girl who can’t keep a houseplant alive.”
>
“Arthur also says he saw a bloody scythe hanging inside the barn, not too far from where Woofie was found.”
“Little Arthur sounds rather fanciful. Could you drive to the farm and see if the scythe is real?”
“Uh,” said Eric. He had not thought this far ahead. “I suppose I could. I do know that all the family has keys to the farm gate, and all the servants. The only ones who don’t seem to have keys are the Wileys. What did you discover about Heydrick’s criminal record?”
“He did seven years. He got into a fight outside a bar, pulled a knife and stabbed the other guy to death. The jury ruled manslaughter.”
“Not self-defense?”
“It was the knife that tipped the jury away from that argument. The other guy wasn’t armed.”
“Oh. I guess I can see why Katherine would try to protect him, if she thought he was only defending himself.”
“But why did he have the knife in the first place? Why enter the bar with it? Had Heydrick quarreled with that guy earlier? The court record didn’t say. If that CD case is in his shed, he’s my main suspect. What about that bottle of dandelion wine?”
“Vanished.” He related Sheila’s story. “I’d swear Rose didn’t poison it, though.”
“Eric. James disinherited her. Motive to kill him. If she inherits from Katherine, she has a motive to kill her aunt. And Bert’s a repairman, so he could have installed that CD player.”
“I really don’t think it was her.”
“I haven’t met her, so I don’t know what she’s like.” Wendy shrugged and toyed with her phone cord. “Logically, she has to be on the list.”
“So’s Armagnac and the housekeeper.” He told her why James had disinherited his son.
“Okay, they’re both on, too.”
“So’s everybody else,” he reminded her, “if everyone’s inheriting from Katherine.”
“God,” Wendy groaned. “I assume we can cross off Bradley,” she added irritably.
“You sound upset.”
“I am! This is maddening. Usually you have fewer suspects in a murder case. God! Now, did you find out who knew that Katherine was going to leave plenty of bequests?”
“It seems everyone did. Sheila said the staff knew. I suppose all the relatives did too, except maybe Lance and Colette.”
“That doesn’t help. Why the hell was Colette killed?” Wendy added distractedly. “See if you can find that scythe, then you and Bradley move to a hotel. You two need to look after your own safety.”
“I’ll talk to Bradley about it. Should we go to the police? I don’t know why they haven’t done anything.”
“Try them. It looks like they need a push.”
After they hung up, Wendy regarded the tape machine that was running on her kitchen counter. It had been recording the conversation, just as it had taped all her conversations with Eric. She shut it off, glanced at her futon, and shook her head sadly at it.
“Do you see a sign that says Sheriff’s Department?” asked Eric. He and Bradley had driven into Chichiteaux.
“Not yet. You know, I’m wondering if those old ladies at the church might have been right about a few things,” Smith admitted. Eric had told his friend about the iron harpies and added Wendy’s information, without mentioning Wendy’s name.
“You’ve been doing a lot of research.”
“I’ve had help. I’ll tell you about it later.” This reminded Eric that he’d forgotten to ask Wendy whether she’d verified any of the old ladies’ stories. He would have to call her again.
“There’s the sign next to the courthouse,” said Bradley. “See the flags?”
“Considering how tourist-colonial this town is, I'm surprised it doesn't say ‘Ye Olde Coppe Shoppe.' God, this is going to be weird.”
They had to push a buzzer to enter the building, and a police officer let them in. He was sitting shrouded in a strange blue light at the front desk.
“We need to talk to someone about the recent deaths at Rollingwood. Bradley, here, is a member of the family,” Eric said apologetically.
The cop’s face was unreadable, but Eric sensed he was very interested in their words. He made a call and told them they could talk to Detective Escott. They were led through a door, down a short hallway, and into a room past a series of desks. The walls around them were peach and the carpets lime, as if some decorator thought a sheriff’s department ought to be perky, but the sight of officers with guns destroyed this effect.
They were led to the desk of a grey-haired, paunchy detective who looked as though he’d chased his last criminal about forty years ago. His desk was clean except for the wrapper of his lunch sandwich, strewn with lettuce slivers. Escott swiped the remains into the trash when he saw the two men enter, then shook hands with them.
“Pleased to meet you, gentlemen. I’m the detective investigating these deaths at Rollingwood.” He nodded them towards a pair of chairs and asked, “So, which of you is the relative?”
“Me. I'm Bradley Smith, James Boyle’s grandson.”
Escott looked at the dyed blonde hair, polished leather boots, garish jacket, and the rubber dragon, and Maxwell could tell the detective was thinking, You're old James’ grandson? How in God's name did that happen?
“And you're--”
“Eric Maxwell. I'm a friend who drove him to his grandfather’s funeral, since Bradley doesn't have a car. About these deaths--we think these were murders.”
“Why?”
Eric told the detective about the CD case appearing, disappearing, then reappearing inside the shed. He was alarmed to note that Escott was not bothering to write anything down.
“And the ostrich,” Bradley prompted. “Tell him about Woofie.”
Eric winced. He wished he didn't have to mention Woofie. It sounded too ridiculous. As he explained, the detective seemed to be struggling not to smile. Eric also told him about the handfork and scythe.
“Have you personally seen any of these things?”
“Uh, no,” Eric admitted. Bradley too, shook his head.
“So it's the word of a child that these things exist.” Escott leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Well, Mr. Maxwell and Mr. Smith, it sounds too convenient to me. I'm sure this Arthur is a perfectly decent boy, however.”
“But hey, three deaths?” Bradley exclaimed.
Eric was regretting mentioning Woofie at all. The ostrich seemed to have weakened their case.
“Let me be frank, Mr. Smith. Yes, there is some concern, but James Boyle--excuse me,” said Escott as he opened a desk drawer. The detective spent a few minutes searching for the file he wanted and seemed to have forgotten where he’d put it. “Ah, here it is.” He opened the file and began to read silently to himself for a moment, as if refreshing his memory. “James Boyle did indeed die of a heart attack, gentlemen. His previous heart attack is noted in his medical records, and he had very high blood pressure. I suppose you know he was a rather choleric man. His doctor assured us that what Mr. Boyle experienced in that car could definitely have killed him, considering his personality. Yet we have no evidence that murder was the intention. Frankly, gentlemen, when you want to kill a man, you use a more straightforward method. Shooting, or poisoning, or something of that sort. James Boyle could easily have survived that episode in the car. That's why we think it was an irresponsible practical joke, not a murder attempt. As for Katherine Boyle, we know she had heart disease and had been under a lot of stress. We called Rollingwood, and a certain member of the household (I won't mention who) told us a terrible scene had taken place not long before Ms. Boyle died. Our source claimed that Ms. Boyle, her nephew, and niece were involved in a confrontation about an employee at Rollingwood, and that Ms. Boyle experienced heart pains afterwards. I'm willing to bet that she had a small coronary right there, and sadly, didn't think she needed to go to the hospital. She seems to have died of another coronary not long after.”
“But,” Eric protested, “I've heard that no autopsy was performed in
either case, and that your local mortician, who’s also your coroner, is terrible.”
At this, Escott smiled outright. “Well, Douthit’s Douthit. He's definitely a character. But we still have nothing solid to make us suspicious of the deaths of James or Katherine Boyle.”
“What about Colette!” Bradley demanded.
The detective’s face became somber. “I'll be honest with you. Some of us here are uneasy about her death. But we did send one of our guys over to Douthit's--I suppose you know Douthit actually did perform an autopsy on her--and our officer reported that Douthit found her airways were clogged shut, swollen and filled with vomit and mucous. Plenty of mucous was also in her lungs. Our officer saw this himself. Having bronchitis and asthma simultaneously was a fatal combination for her. She also had a strong odor of cigarettes on her clothing.” Escott cleared his throat delicately. “It appears Colette's own behavior contributed to her death.”
“But she didn't have asthma, according to her brother,” said Maxwell, wondering how many more times he was going to use the word ‘but’ in this conversation.
“A family member said Colette had complained that dust bothered her. Is this true?”
Eric admitted it was.
“So there you have it, gentlemen. I understand your concern, but there appears to be a natural explanation for all three.”
“Woofie was murdered too!” said Bradley indignantly.
Again, the detective seemed to be trying to hide a smile. “I believe the vet, Dr. Anderson, thought that a wolf had attacked the ostrich. I’m inclined to trust his judgment, since he’s more of an animal expert than the three of us are. Still, I understand your concern.”
In two minutes, both men were back out on the street. “Well, that was a waste of time,” said Eric acidly.
“He’s an idiot. We know they were murdered.”
The other shook his head irritably. “We need some proof. Let’s go get that goddamn scythe.”
A Will To Murder Page 17