Dying for Murder

by Suzanne F. Kingsmill

  “Would your father have wanted her dead?”

  She stared at me unblinking, her face frozen, her eyes bulging, and in that instant I knew she knew.

  “My father?”

  “Wyatt.” She did a pretty good job of choking on her own saliva and Martha was all over her while darting the evil eye at me. But when Mel finally raised her eyes they were clear and steady. Without speaking she gathered her things and left. I was spared a tongue lashing from Martha when Duncan appeared at our table and took a seat. The waitress came and took their orders, and even though I warned against the whirly burger Duncan threw caution to the wind.

  “Apparently the ferry is up and running so you ladies will be able to leave tomorrow morning as planned,” said Duncan.

  Martha and I looked at each other and grimaced.

  “What? You don’t want to leave?” asked Duncan.

  “No, no it’s just that this case is getting to us … me.” I realized Martha’s grimace had been for something entirely different as she gazed fondly at Duncan.

  I filled Duncan and Martha in on all that had transpired. Martha was fidgeting like a woman with ants in her pants, or like me itching my legs.

  When I finally finished she said, “I’ve got another piece of the puzzle.” She looked around at us triumphantly. “I searched the name that Rosemary gave to you, Wyatt Thompson, on the Internet. There were multiple references to a second trial.”

  We looked at her expectantly.

  “They had to do with the murder of a young woman in Austin, Texas.”

  She waited for us to say something so I humoured her. “What has that got to do with anything?”

  “The young woman was Jennifer Nesbitt and her killer was acquitted for lack of evidence.”

  When Duncan and I looked bewildered she said, “Jennifer Nesbitt was Rosemary Nesbitt’s sister.”

  I let that bit of information percolate and then said, “And the killer?” But I already knew.

  “Wyatt Thompson.”

  After that little bombshell we sat in silence for a while. I ordered another drink from the waitress. Duncan ordered two more and quaffed them both almost in one go as soon as they arrived. I was very proud of myself — I didn’t say a thing.

  “Isn’t Rosemary Wyatt’s assistant?” asked Duncan.

  “Interesting, eh?” I said. “I mean, why would the sister of the woman Wyatt allegedly killed take on a job working for her sister’s murderer?”

  “And what does that have to do with Stacey’s murder?”

  “If anybody, Rosemary would want Wyatt dead.”

  “Rosemary, Mel, Sam, Trevor, David, Jayne, even Darcy all have solid motives,” said Martha.

  “But Wyatt is our best bet,” and I told Duncan about the MedicAlert and the cricket.

  “So we can put him at the scene of the crime?” said Duncan. I nodded but suddenly remembered Wyatt and how he had refuted everything I said and how I had felt unwell. I felt unwell again. Was I beginning to believe Wyatt?

  Martha jerked me out of my thoughts by saying, “How could Stacey have made so many enemies?”

  “She didn’t,” Duncan said. “Only one of these people killed her, the rest are motives only. They only become real if you’re the murderer.”

  I thought back to the murder scene. Something in my subconscious was waving frantically and my conscious mind was trying valiantly to catch up. Something to do with the murder scene. I pictured it again in my mind. Stacey tied with those horrid slip knots to the chair, the necklace clenched in her fist, the smell of chloroform, the medical texts. And, like a face emerging from the depths of a lake, there it was in my mind, where it had been all along.

  “Stacey was tied to the chair with slip knots.”

  Martha and Duncan looked at me with interest.

  “You never told us they were slip knots,” Duncan said.

  “Who uses slip knots to tie a person up?” I asked.

  “Most people would use a reef knot or some other knot that’s easier to tie,” said Martha.

  “And more effective at binding the hands,” said Duncan.

  “So why use a slip knot?” But I already knew. I just had to check the crime scene again and then I’d be sure.

  chapter twenty-four

  I told Duncan and Martha to meet me at the scene of the crime — I’d always wanted to say that — and I took the quickest route back to the station, where I picked up a bunch of supplies, and then headed over to Stacey’s. I was peering through Stacey’s door when I heard Martha and Duncan arriving. I had each of them look inside at the chair and the desk.

  “The layout is similar to ours, except Stacey just had one bed,” I said to Martha.

  “What are you getting at, Cordi?” asked Duncan.

  “I want to recreate something for you, but we obviously can’t do it here.”

  I led them back along the path to my cabin and had them both sit on one of the beds. I pulled out the chair and sat down in it. I tied one of my ankles to each leg the way Stacey had been tied. Then I tied four pillows around my chest and stomach to simulate Stacey. I took the cloth, dunked it in pretend chloroform, pressed it quickly to my face, and then threw it away. I picked up the duct tape, took a section and ripped it from the roll, then lay it on my lap. I took another section of duct tape and put it over my mouth. Using a slip knot, I tied one hand to the chair. On the other I prefashioned a slip knot, tying the loose end to the chair and leaving a large noose at the other, and left it on my right leg. Duncan caught his breath but I continued. I placed the duct tape over my nose and then slipped my free hand through the noose and jerked up on both my arms while trying to reach my face. The pillows got in the way, as I knew they would.

  Duncan was off the bed in a nanosecond, ripping off the duct tape in one painful tear.

  “You could have killed yourself,” he said accusingly.

  “Precisely.”

  “Stacey killed herself,” said Martha, somewhat redundantly.

  Duncan was looking disturbed.

  “I didn’t tamp the duct tape all the way down, Duncan. I could still breathe.”

  “Crazy little stunt,” he said.

  “With both of you guys there?”

  “We might have fainted or something.”

  “She committed suicide.” Martha was like a broken record.

  “It’s certainly another scenario,” said Duncan as he balled up the duct tape and threw it in the trashcan.

  “A woman diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, with two years to live watching her body deteriorate around her,” I said, and my mind went on a tangent thinking about Stacey and the demons she had faced.

  “She had a motive for her own murder, no question,” said Duncan. “But what’s with the chloroform? Was she trying to say something? … Cordi? Are you listening?”

  I blankly looked at Duncan. The only thing I could say was, “All I’ve done is add another suspect to the list.”

  After that Martha and Duncan left and I spent some time looking through Martha’s pictures. She was really very good, although there were no pictures of people, just animals. Some of the shots were out on the beach, some were in the forest, and, by the looks of it, some were just outside the door. My mind was whirling around so fast that I lost interest in the photos and went up to the mess to see who was around. Darcy and Trevor had taken the plywood off the windows. It was a beautiful day, so it wasn’t surprising that no one was around. I went down to the labs to do some snooping and passed by an open door. It was a small office that might better be described as a closet. There were no windows and the lighting was dim. Every square inch was plastered with botanical plants of one sort or another.

  “Cordi. What can I do for you?” I turned and saw Darcy bearing down on me.

  “I was just wandering around.”

  “I see you’ve found my office,” he said, a little too brightly.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to pry.”

  He came up to me and
nodded his head peremptorily.

  On a whim I said, “Do you remember how Stacey was tied?”

  He went pale then.

  “So you do know?”

  I took a guess at what he meant. “That it was suicide?”

  He nodded, but I think it was because he was speechless.

  “Was she depressed before she died?” I asked.

  “Wouldn’t you be?”

  I took the deserved rebuff in stride and said, “I mean, did she behave any differently than she had over the previous five weeks?”

  “She seemed resigned, if that’s what you mean. She was never a happy person, but she did seem more depressed than usual. But then she became elated. That’s the only word I can think of. As if she had made up her mind — I guess suicide was her only way out.”

  “But she was Catholic. That would have gone against her faith.”

  “It would have been against every moral fibre of her body to do it.” His voice was shaking. “Her agony must have been intense. For her sake, I tried to stop you.”

  “Stop me?”

  He looked disconcerted, as if he had said too much.

  “Stop me from what?” I said and still he didn’t answer. “Stacey’s dead. What harm could it do for me to know?” I asked.

  “A lot. That’s my point. She would never want it known that she committed suicide. I had to keep you from finding out.”

  I looked at him with my jaw open. “You’re the one who has been trying to kill me.”

  He cradled his forehead in his hand. “I was never trying to kill you, just scare you off the case. And it was just the lighthouse fire, nothing else.”

  “But what’s the point? The police would have figured it out.”

  “Not without the primary clue.”

  “Which is?”

  “That she was tied with slip knots. Only you and I knew that.”

  But I was momentarily distracted from Darcy as I remembered a conversation I had had and realized with a wallop that somebody else did know. I clued back in when he said, “With you out of the picture I just had to keep my mouth shut.”

  “But the ropes are physical evidence.”

  “Were physical evidence.”

  I looked at him with my mouth open. I could picture Stacey’s raw wrists as we moved her up to the cooler, but there had been no ropes. He must have gone back to the crime scene before he asked me to address everybody.

  I could hear someone on the phone down the hall and wondered if their conversation was going better than mine.

  “You realize you have destroyed evidence that the police might need to charge someone with murder,” I said.

  “But I thought you agreed it was suicide,” he said, his voice sharp and insistent.

  “It could be, but it also could not be. The police will have to sort that one out. But for the record, you nearly succeeded in killing me. What were you thinking? Why did it matter so much to you?”

  “She took a chance on me. I stole her laptop when I was her student at Dal. She caught me in the act and scared the shit out of me. Held me at gunpoint while she questioned every inch of my life. I must have answered the right way. In exchange for her silence she actually hired me as her assistant free of charge.”

  I must have looked surprised because Darcy chortled and said, “She pays me now.”

  I left Darcy and headed back to my cabin, thinking that Darcy could have killed Stacey to finally be free of her and the secret she carried.

  Martha was snoring on her bed and had put all her photos and the printer on my bed. I really wanted to lie down but she was so peaceful looking that I picked up a handful of pictures and found a place to sit down at the end of my bed. I leafed through, looking at the pelicans skimming the sea, the male Indigo Bunting belting out its song of love, the feral pigs and the wild horses. I stopped at the picture of a screech owl. It was obviously taken at night but the little owl with the large ear tufts stood out. Its golden eyes stared at the camera, as if daring it to do something, which of course it had by taking the picture.

  I was about to set the photo aside when something jumped out at me. I bent to look more closely. Behind the owl I could make out a cabin. But it wasn’t the cabin that interested me. It was the person standing in the doorway and the time stamp on the image. My eyes weren’t good enough to read it so I woke Martha up and she found the photo online. I was looking over her shoulder as she zeroed in on the face.

  “What is Rosemary doing there?” said Martha. “I had no idea she was there when I took this picture.”

  “Do you remember where it was taken?”

  “Yeah, that’s right outside Stacey’s cabin.”

  We digested what she had just said and then Martha zoomed in on the time stamp. July 22, 2:45 a.m.

  “Isn’t that around when Stacey died?” she asked.

  “Zoom in on her left hand,” and the left hand came into focus holding what looked like a roll of duct tape and some latex gloves. I had Martha zoom in on every section of the picture. We could see beyond Rosemary into the cabin and the back of Stacey’s head slumped against the chair.

  “Jesus. Did I capture the moment right after her death?” Martha quietly asked. “What are the odds?”

  “Somehow I wouldn’t have pegged Rosemary for a murderer,” I said morosely. “I mean, she doesn’t really have a motive.”

  “Cheer up, Cordi. Motive shmotive. We should be celebrating. You’ve solved the case.”

  But for some reason I didn’t feel much like celebrating.

  “Did you ever think that instead of murdering Stacey maybe she was helping her?” I said.

  chapter twenty-five

  I went looking for Darcy. In my haste I had forgotten I wanted to bring him up-to-date on everything so that someone would have all the facts to tell the police after I left the next morning. But after fifteen minutes of searching I couldn’t find him.

  I was at the bottom of the stairs to the mess when I heard a voice from above. I looked up and saw Mel. She was breathless.

  “There’s a snake,” she said. “It’s a copperhead. You told me you wanted to see one. It’s at the lighthouse. If we go now it’ll probably still be there. I spent the morning filming it.”

  We went on Mel’s ATV and I found myself wishing I could stay on the island longer as we barrelled through the woods. By the time we got there I’d forgotten why we had come, so wrapped up was I in the stillness and beauty of the island. Mel led the way to the lighthouse and I wondered what the chances were that two snakes would climb those stairs to bask in the windows. We went up to the final turn in the stairs to the fourth window.

  Mel was blocking my view when she suddenly said, “Damn. It’s gone,” which immediately made me look around in case I was about to step on it. And that’s when I heard someone coming up the stairs, slowly, deliberately, and unhurried. I glanced at Mel but she was looking down the stairs. I called out but the steps kept coming. “Who’s there?” I called out again. The steps stopped for a second and a voice came drifting up. “Rosemary.” It sounded ghostly, echoey, creepy, and I had this weird premonition. I looked at Mel but she was still staring down the stairs as Rosemary came up out of the darkness.

  She was different somehow — perhaps in the way she held herself, not mousy but strong and determined.

  “The snake’s out on the parapet basking in the sun.” And she passed on by us on the way to the roof. Mel and I followed in silence. I was wondering if Rosemary had a special interest in snakes or was a clairvoyant when we all broke out onto the walkway that circled the top of the lighthouse. I could see the loose boards where I had almost fallen through. The view of the marching dunes, the swaying sea grass, the rolling waves, and the scudding clouds made me envy people who live by the sea. Its massive breadth and twisting, tumbling waves have got to be the closest thing to eternity that we have. That and the Himalayas. I brought my mind sharply back to the present.

  “You think you’re pretty smart, d
on’t you?” Rosemary asked me as she manoeuvred herself between me and the lighthouse wall. I looked over the railing. It was still a long way down but this time there was no vine in the offing.

  “I don’t think I follow.” But of course I did. I wondered how often somebody who helped somebody else commit suicide had ever been sentenced for the offence. Was that why Rosemary was acting the way she was? Or was it because she actually murdered Stacey in cold blood?

  “You’ve spent the last three days snooping in other people’s business.”

  “I’m sorry if that’s a problem for you.”

  “Damn right it’s a problem. You’ve found out too much for your own good.”

  “What, that you’re a murderer?” I said with forced bravado.

  Rosemary laughed. “Is that what you think? I thought you would have come up with a better theory than murder.”

  “How about suicide, then?”

  She looked at me with some surprise and maybe a bit of respect.

  “Suicide lets me off the hook,” she finally said.

  “Unless you helped her.” I saw Mel flinch at that.

  “Go on.”

  “Maybe Stacey decided to commit suicide but couldn’t get up enough nerve to do it all on her own,” I said.

  “So I helped?”

  “It’s a scenario.”

  “Tell her it’s not true,” said Mel to Rosemary, her voice insistent.

  I looked from Mel to Rosemary and back again. “You were in on it together.”

  Rosemary smiled and Mel frowned.

  “How did you know I was thinking of suicide?” I asked.

  Rosemary coughed and then said, “Mel. She overheard you talking with Darcy back at the station.”

  “But I really thought it was Wyatt,” I said.

  “Just what we wanted you all to think,” said Rosemary.

  I stared at her for several seconds and the penny dropped. “You were framing Wyatt with Stacey’s suicide.” It all finally came together. “You had her die for a murder conviction. You used her.”

  “You’ve got that last part wrong,” said Rosemary. “Can’t you see the beauty of it? It was our one way to get back at Wyatt for what he did to Stacey and to my sister, and we planned it together. I borrowed his clothes and stole his necklace and planted it all in Stacey’s cabin, along with the boot and the cricket. I made everyone dislike him by making them believe he was beating me. That was really just overkill because no one much liked him anyway. He is a naturally nasty man. We even got him to handle the cheesecloth that we soaked in chloroform so that it would look like he knocked her out before tying her up. Stacey put it to her face to simulate that for the forensics guys.”