Aunt Bessie Invites (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 9)

by Diana Xarissa

  “They don’t, actually,” Bessie said. “Fenella always wanted children, but they simply never arrived. I remember when she and Eoin first got married everyone teased her about when the babies might start arriving, but for some reason they never did.”

  “And medical science couldn’t do much about it in those days,” Doona added.

  “No, there wasn’t much that could be done, and women didn’t feel comfortable talking about such things with their doctors either. If you didn’t get pregnant you just accepted it and got on with your life. I’m sure it was hard for Fenella, maybe for Eoin as well, but it was just how it was.”

  “So what happens to the farm when Fenella and Eoin pass away?” Doona asked. She shook her head. “What a morbid question,” she said. “Maybe you should just ignore me.”

  Bessie smiled. “It’s a natural question, after the conversation we’ve been having,” she said. “I told you the farm has been in the family for hundreds of years, but I’m not actually certain who might be in line to inherit it after Fenella and Eoin. Of course, they’re still relatively young. I’m sure they’ll be around for many years to come.”

  “Did Niall have any brothers or sisters?” Doona asked.

  “Actually, he was an only child, the same as Fenella,” Bessie said. “His mother nearly died delivering him and I gather she couldn’t have any more children afterwards. As I said, his father passed when Niall was in his teens.”

  “What about Eoin? Does he have brothers or sisters?”

  “You’re quite worried about this, aren’t you?” Bessie teased her friend.

  “Having been unexpectedly named the main beneficiary of someone’s will quite recently, the question of inheritance is probably on my mind too much,” Doona replied.

  “Yes, well, that makes sense,” Bessie told her. “As for Eoin, he had a brother and a sister. His sister died in childhood of some sort of fever. I don’t know that I ever heard more than that, really. It happened when I was in the US, but it wasn’t unusual in those days before antibiotics were readily available.”

  “And his brother?”

  “His brother led a very colourful life,” Bessie said. “He moved across as soon as he was eighteen and managed to get himself into all manner of trouble.”

  “What sort of trouble?”

  “Mostly with the law,” Bessie said. “Now you’re really testing my memory, though. I haven’t thought about Nicholas Faragher for years.”

  “Is he still across?” Doona asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Bessie said, trying to remember events from many years earlier. “I heard that he spent some time in prison. I think he’d stolen a car and some other things. There was some talk about him moving to the US or even Australia, so that he could start over once he was out, but I’m not sure that I ever heard what happened to him.”

  “He didn’t marry or have children?” Doona asked.

  Bessie looked curiously at her friend. “You’re very curious about all of this,” she said.

  Doona flushed. “I’m being nosy,” she said. “I think I’m just talking to keep my mind off my own troubles.”

  “Is everything okay?” Bessie asked.

  “It’s fine, really,” Doona said. “There’s just a lot going on with the solicitor from across coming over on Friday, and having to work with him and my advocate here. Then there’s Anna at work, which isn’t fun.” Doona sighed. “I suppose hearing about other people’s problems make mine seem less serious. Just ignore me.”

  “Of course, I won’t ignore you,” Bessie replied. “As for Nicholas, I don’t know if he ever married or had children. Niall and I weren’t exactly friends. Farmers are very busy people and he was bringing up Fenella on his own. I only really ever saw him around Thanksgiving time, and he wasn’t the sort to spread stories about the younger brother of one of his farmhands.”

  “But I thought everything that happened on the island became common knowledge,” Doona teased.

  “Nearly,” Bessie replied. “Most of the farms are quite remote, so they had a measure of privacy. And then Nicholas moved across or maybe even abroad. Fenella never spoke of him when I happened to see her in town and I probably went years at a time without seeing Eoin except for when I visited my turkeys.”

  “So we don’t know what happened to Nicholas,” Doona concluded.

  “I’m sure he’s alive and well somewhere,” Bessie said emphatically. She couldn’t help but think of another person who everyone had thought had left the island many years earlier. That young man’s body had recently been found and there were still unanswered questions about his death.

  “I’m sure he is,” Doona agreed quickly; no doubt her thoughts were running along the same lines as Bessie’s. “The turning is coming up, right?”

  “Yes, just beyond those trees,” Bessie pointed.

  A moment later Donna signaled to no one and turned slowly through the open gates. They passed over a cattle grid and through a second open gate.

  “You probably want to turn left here,” Bessie said. “You can go the other way if you’d like to drive all the way around the farm, but if you turn left the road goes straight to the farmhouse.”

  “Left it is,” Doona said.

  “It’s still a mile or more and you’ll need to go slowly, as the road isn’t paved,” Bessie warned her. After a moment she sighed. “You know, the more I think about it, the more you have me wondering who Fenella and Eoin will leave the farm to. I’m sure there must be distant relatives. It’s possible that Marion had brothers or sisters, but I can’t recall any. Then again, my fortune, such as it is, will all go to my family in America, even though I’ve never met any of them. Perhaps Nicholas is settled there now and he and his children will inherit.”

  “And then you’ll have to persuade them to sell you turkeys,” Doona said.

  “Yes, well, as Fenella is probably twenty years younger than I am, I suspect I’ll still be getting my turkeys from her for the rest of my life.”

  “But where will I get mine?” Doona asked. “I’m getting to quite like the whole Thanksgiving idea.”

  Bessie laughed. “I’m sure you’ll work something out,” she replied.

  They crossed another cattle grid and then found themselves driving through a large field full of sheep. Doona slowed down to a crawl as the sheep wandered back and forth across the dirt road.

  “I thought you said they only kept a few animals,” she said to Bessie as half a dozen sheep walked in front of the car and then stopped.

  “Last year Fenella said that they were considering taking on more sheep,” Bessie said. “These are Manx Loaghtan. Their meat is considered a delicacy in some circles and their wool is valuable as well.”

  Doona narrowed her eyes at a sheep that was slowly advancing towards the now stopped car. “Those four horns make them look quite dangerous,” she said to Bessie. “I don’t want to get into a fight with a sheep.”

  “I’m surprised Eoin hasn’t come out and rescued us,” Bessie said. “I told him we were coming.”

  “Maybe I should get out and try to encourage them to move,” Doona said after a minute or more.

  “But I can’t drive,” Bessie reminded her. “I’m sure by the time you got back in the car they’d have wandered right back into the road. Why don’t I get out and see if I can persuade them to go?”

  Doona glanced at Bessie. Bessie could see the doubt in her eyes. “You don’t think I can scare a couple of sheep away?” Bessie asked, lifting her chin. “I can be quite scary, really.”

  Doona patted her friend’s hand. “I’m sure you can be very scary,” she said. “But those are pretty large sheep and I don’t want them to trample you if you do frighten them.”

  Bessie put her hand on the door handle. There had to be a way to get the sheep out of the road. She was about to open her door when one of the nearby sheep suddenly stepped closer and pressed its nose to the passenger side window. Bessie gasped.

  “That’s a bi
g sheep,” Doona said.

  “Much bigger than it looked when it was a few paces away,” Bessie agreed; glad now that she’d stayed in the car.

  They sat for a few minutes, nervously watching the sheep as they strolled around the pasture. Occasionally a small gap would open on the road in front of Doona and she would inch forward

  “Perhaps we should have gone the other way,” Doona muttered as she was forced to stop again.

  “Maybe we should go home that way,” Bessie suggested. They both silently watched a large ewe as she nibbled on the grass in the centre of the road.

  After a few more minutes, the sheep suddenly seemed to tire of the game and they all moved away together. With the road clear, Doona quickly made her way through the field and across another cattle grid.

  “Well, this part is just boring,” Bessie said a moment later as they bounced along the road. Along both sides of them were immense fields that had been ploughed and were now sitting empty for the winter.

  “I prefer boring to dodging sheep,” Doona told her.

  Bessie wasn’t sure she agreed. The sheep had been fascinating to watch, and Bessie wasn’t really in any hurry today.

  A few moments later Doona pulled up in front of the farmhouse.

  “This isn’t at all what I was expecting,” she said. “This looks new.”

  “They tore down the original farmhouse about ten years ago and built this one in its place,” Bessie told her. “That was when Niall was still well. He suddenly decided that his daughter deserved a more modern home than what they had before. Repairing the old house would have cost about twice what building this one did.”

  Doona nodded. She and Bessie climbed out of the car. “Did they put it in the old house’s footprint?”

  “They did,” Bessie said. “And it really looks a lot like the old house, just brand new. In another ten or twenty years no one will know it isn’t the original, at least not from the outside.”

  She walked towards the front door of the large house. Doona caught up to her and took her arm.

  “Careful in the mud,” Doona cautioned.

  “It isn’t too bad,” Bessie told her. “I’m fine.”

  Doona nodded, but didn’t let go of Bessie’s arm. Bessie swallowed a sigh. She hated when Doona fussed over her, but she knew it made Doona feel better, so she tried not to complain too much. At the door, Bessie pressed the bell.

  “Maybe no one is home,” Doona said after a minute had passed.

  “Someone is always home,” Bessie countered. “Anyway, I have an appointment.” She pressed the bell again and then knocked loudly.

  “Perhaps everyone is working in the barns,” Bessie said after another minute passed.

  “Do we go and hunt for them or wait here?” Doona asked.

  Bessie shook her head. “I’m not thinking clearly,” she said. “I’ll just ring Fenella’s mobile. Wherever she is, she should have it with her.”

  Bessie found her phone in her handbag and then found the number in the small notebook that was also in her bag. After a few rings, Fenella answered.

  “Ah, Fenella, it’s Bessie. We’re here to talk to you about the turkeys,” Bessie said.

  “The turkeys? Yes, of course, but well, I’m sorry. I’m rather flustered,” was the reply.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” Fenella said. “Or rather, yes, I think there is something wrong, but I don’t know what to think.”

  “Where are you?” Bessie asked.

  “Where am I? Oh, I’m at the lower barn. Maybe you should come down. You’ll know better than I do what I should do next, I suppose.”

  “Whatever is the matter?”

  “Just come down to the lower barn,” Fenella said. She disconnected before Bessie could ask any more questions.

  “Fenella’s at the lower barn,” Bessie told Doona. “Something’s wrong, but she wouldn’t tell me anything more than that.”

  Bessie had Doona turn around and then follow the road past the farmhouse. “There are several barns scattered around the site. As far as I know, they use the lower one for storage.”

  “Storage for what?” Doona asked.

  “Old equipment and furniture, mostly,” Bessie said. “I remember Niall taking me in there one day to look at an old wardrobe that had been in his father’s bedroom. I had mentioned that I was looking for a wardrobe for my spare room. That one was far too massive for the space I had, but I remember the barn being stuffed with furniture and boxes. I’ve no idea what is in the boxes.”

  “So what could possibly be wrong?” Doona asked.

  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” Bessie said, forcing herself to ignore the feeling of dread in her stomach.

  “You don’t think...” Doona trailed off.

  “I don’t know what to think,” Bessie replied.

  Doona pulled the car off to the side of the road in front of the barn. Fenella was sitting on an old milking stool near the doorway. Bessie and Doona crossed to her.

  Like many women who farmed, Fenella had a weathered and worn look about her. She looked older than her sixty-odd years, watching Bessie through tired brown eyes. Her clothes were worn and had been carefully mended in several places. A long grey plait of hair hung down her back, and Bessie thought that she’d never seen the woman with her hair done any other way. Fenella didn’t get up as the other women approached.

  “Fenella, how are you?” Bessie asked when they reached her side.

  “I’ve been better,” Fenella replied. “Eoin had to go across for some tests. The doctor sent him yesterday after he went in to get his knee checked out.”

  “That left knee still giving him trouble?” Bessie asked. She remembered hearing about the tractor accident about five years earlier that had severely damaged the man’s knee.

  “Aye. It’s worse when the weather’s damp and cold, but the new doctor said there might be other problems with it and sent him off to Liverpool to get it checked properly.”

  “You could have rung me to reschedule,” Bessie said.

  “Aye, but if you don’t see the birds soon, we’ll have to get them ready. Eoin likes to have your approval on his choices.”

  Bessie nodded. Somehow it had become tradition for her to visit the farm about a week before the turkeys were due to be killed. In the early days, Niall had quite enjoyed her annual visit to see the birds. Once Eoin took over, the tradition had carried on. Really, all she ever did was agree with Eoin, but they’d done it that way for many years now and there seemed little point in changing things at this stage.

  “So what’s wrong?” Bessie asked.

  Fenella rubbed her forehead with a dry and callused hand. “I’ve been after Eoin for years to sort through all of the junk in here, but he’s always too busy with other things,” she told Bessie. “I thought, while he was away, that I’d start going through some of the boxes, just to see what we have down here.”

  “And?” Bessie asked after a long pause.

  “There are several boxes of Christmas things, actually,” Fenella said. “They must have been my mother’s. My father never bothered to do any decorating for the holidays.”

  “What a lovely thing for you to find,” Bessie exclaimed. “But I’m sure it’s been something of a shock as well.”

  Fenella shrugged. “Not half as shocking as the skeleton that was behind the boxes,” she said.

  Chapter Two

  Doona gasped, but Bessie simply nodded. While she hadn’t exactly been expecting the other woman’s words, they didn’t surprise her as much as they might have a few months earlier.

  “Where’s the skeleton?” Bessie asked in a resigned tone.

  “In the back corner,” Fenella replied. “You’ll see it.”

  “Maybe we should just ring John,” Doona suggested.

  “I’m just going to have a quick look,” Bessie replied. “Before we drag the police in unnecessarily.”

  Doona looked at Bessie and then nodded. “
That’s probably wise,” she said.

  Bessie walked slowly into the barn. She could see the route Fenella had taken, as furniture and other items had been moved and stacked together to clear a path to the very back of the room. Carefully, Bessie and Doona made their way through the piles.

  “You think she might be, um, confused?” Doona whispered.

  “I’m hoping she’s found the remains of an ancient burial mound or something,” Bessie whispered back. “Or old cattle bones or just about anything other than recent human remains.”

  Doona nodded. “Let’s hope,” she muttered.

  Bessie stopped and then sighed deeply. “Time to ring John,” she said, gesturing towards the far corner of the room. All that was visible, half buried in the soil floor, was part of an arm, but the watch on the skeleton’s wrist suggested that the burial was anything but ancient.

  Doona and Bessie quickly retraced their steps to the front of the barn. Fenella was still sitting where they’d left her.

  “Going to ring the police, then?” she asked, sounding bored with the whole thing.

  “Yes, I think we’d better,” Bessie told her.

  “I reckoned you’d know who to ring, seeing as how you find dead folks all the time,” Fenella said.

  Bessie swallowed an angry retort. On some level the woman was right; Bessie had found rather a lot of bodies lately, and she did know whom to ring. Doona took care of that detail, however, pulling out her mobile and tapping in some numbers.

  “John? It’s Doona. We’re just out at the Clague farm and we’ve found, well, it might be a body,” she said when the call was answered.

  Bessie wished she could hear John’s reply, which seemed to take a while. Eventually, Doona continued. “We’re at the lower barn,” she said. Bessie listened as her friend gave the police inspector directions to both the farm and the barn itself.

  “What did he say?” Bessie asked as soon as Doona disconnected.

  “Something along the lines of ‘not again,’ of course,” Doona told her.

  Bessie shook her head. Ever since March her life seemed to have taken a very strange turn. Was she going to keep finding bodies everywhere she went?