“You okay?” I asked, handing him the glass.
I would’ve placed it on the coffee table, but I was worried objects would have to be pushed for me to make room.
“Thank you,” he said, taking the glass with both hands. “I don’t use these. I have three cups—well, if you’re thinking of making tea.”
“Would you like a—”
He nodded. Luckily, I’d already put the kettle on—or, he’d heard it bubbling away—but that was unlikely.
“You hear anything from Doreen?” I asked, taking a seat beside him.
He scoffed. “Every day. Always out in the garden. Always low buzz. You know the one, drives me crazy.”
“You don’t get out much, do you?”
He shrugged. A no. “I get my exercise in. Up and down the drive.”
“Do you visit Doreen?”
Another shrug came. It was possibly a tick at this point. “She gets me stuff from town, occasionally.”
“That’s nice of her.”
“Nice?” he scoffed. “She does it to keep me quiet about her theft.”
“Oh. Did you put those signs up?”
“Doreen did. But it’s my land, so I let them stay.”
I nodded. “How about I make that cup of tea now?”
He smiled, finally, a smile.
I left my handbag on the couch. Charlie laid across papers on the ground, his energy once again depleted. I also didn’t want him getting any ideas about the papers being used as a bathroom.
In the kitchen, I wondered if Mortimer had any family. I couldn’t recall any mention of him having children, or a wife—I was sure at one point he was married, and perhaps a daughter, but neither of them were more than half-certainties in my mind.
I filled added tea bags to two cups, filling them with water, and adding sweeteners to both of them. Glancing at them on the counter, I needed milk. I turned on the spot to face the once white refrigerator covered in tacked notes and paper clippings.
The refrigerator was almost empty, a solitary glass bottle of milk. I knew it was fresh, given the prompt milk delivery service operating in Silver Lake.
“Coming through,” I said, carrying both cups of tea back into the living room.
“Thank you,” he said.
I took a sip. “I put a sweetener in there, I didn’t know how many, so I just added the one.”
“Oh, yes.”
I continued to hold the cup, there was nowhere for me to place it.
The old newspapers in the room gave out a damp smell, it didn’t hit me at first, it grew. There was mould somewhere around, not like he could see it, not like anyone could with everything inside.
Was my house the same? I hoped not.
“Do you have family?” I asked. “A wife? Any kids?”
“Had a wife,” he grumbled back, his shaky hand holding the cup. Thankful I hadn’t filled it too much, I knew how older people were and how their body became once hitting a certain age, there was no shame in growing old. “Got a daughter, probably, somewhere.”
“Does she visit?”
“Well, the wife’s dead, so no.” His voice petered off into a chuckle. “As for the other, she’s—well, she probably doesn’t know. Doubt anyone cares much.”
Charlie yapped. A growling howl came from the back of his throat. He jumped to his paws and skittered off around the papers.
“Charlie! Stop!”
Mortimer continued smiling. “Probably found the cat.”
“You have a—”
“He’s not much of a house cat, comes and goes as he pleases.”
Charlie was a playful dog, he’d chased cats in the past, but he was a tiny dog, definitely not the type of animal to attack. His bark was the worst thing about him, even if on occasion he would attempt to open his jaw wide and playfully nip at my clothes.
“Well don’t make a mess,” I called to him as he skittered across my feet. Looking around the room, I wasn’t sure if my words were made in error. It was already a mess. Referring to my own home, I called it organised chaos. But I knew what it was, and yet I called it every other word.
“I never hated Doreen,” he said quietly, muttered to himself.
“I didn’t think you did.”
He looked at me, revealing his red bloodshot eyes. “I’d never wish her dead.”
“I never said you did.” I reached out and held his free hand resting on his lap. “What were you fighting over? Land?”
“Fighting?” he grumbled. “We argued, occasionally. It’s like every day, she was taking up more and more space. All them greenhouses, all of them pushing closer to my property. Can’t even go out into the garden. All I see are them—them—them eyesores.”
His hand shook in mine, nerves and increased blood flow.
A hush came from my throat. “It’s okay, Mortimer.”
It wasn’t okay. Doreen was dead.
He shook his head at me, tears in his eyes.
Knock. Knock.
FIVE
Mortimer reached out for his cane, attempting to stand. The teacup in his other hand threatening to pour over and scald him with the hot water.
I tapped at his knee. “I’ll get it.”
Knock. Knock.
“It’s probably the police officers,” he said. “They’ll want a statement.”
I nodded. “Let me see.” I stood, taking the cup of tea in hand with me.
Spotting Charlie sitting in the kitchen, he sat opposite the cat. They looked at each other, sat on their hind legs, almost a mirror image of one another. Perhaps the cat had never seen a dog before.
Knock. Knock.
They were impatient, whomever they were.
“Hello,” I called out, quickly in my approach to the door.
Paul Green, my brother-in-law and the local inspector over our small village and town. His face flushed and his teeth tampered with a biting clamp.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I was headed over to Doreen’s when—”
“I should’ve known.” He sighed, throwing a hand into the inside pocket of his jacket. “And why were you going to Doreen’s house?” He pulled out a small black leather notepad.
Great. He was about to treat me like a suspect. “I was there to interview her for the Valentine’s Day edition of the magazine.”
He dotted his pen on a fresh page. “You go inside?”
I shook my head. “But Charlie did.”
“You see anyone there?”
I didn’t. But I heard the men talking, they told me with which utensil she had in her back. I couldn’t reveal I knew to him; it would only anger him towards the officers, and I didn’t need to make myself the enemy. “Mortimer came over with the two officers, but that’s all.”
“And is he inside?”
I nodded, making room for him to pass me. “In the living room,” I said, closing the door and hurrying in after him.
Mortimer stabbed his cane on the floor with two loud hoofs. “Oh, what do you want?” It slipped slightly in his grasp.
“Morti—”
“Mr Forster to you,” he scoffed.
I cleared my throat. “He’s with the police.”
“I know who he is,” he said back, his shaky hand spilling droplets of tea on his trouser leg. “You’ve been useless, the lot of you.”
“We’ll find out what happened to her,” Paul said. “But first can I—”
“What about my land?” Mortimer fought back. “Are you not here to look into what you can do about all my lost land?”
Paul glanced at my direction, flipping his notepad back in place. “Are you going?” he asked me, his voice low.
I still had a cup of tea in hand, I wasn’t planning on leaving. “I’m sure Mortimer wouldn’t mind if I stayed, would you?”
“Not bothered,” he grumbled.
Paul nodded in the direction of the doorway.
We navigated around the mountains of old papers out into the hallway.
“Yes?”
Charlie’s feet skittered against the floor, falling clumsily into my ankles. He growled in the presence of Paul.
“Listen, Eve,” he said, breaking eye contact as he glanced to Charlie. “I know you had your article in the paper. And you didn’t mention me by name, not once. But that doesn’t make you some vigilante who can do as she pleases.”
“Vigilante?” I choked back, a hum of laughter breaking through. “I’m a concerned member of the community. And—and—and I was told not to include your name, as per my editor’s wishes.”
“I basically saved your life,” he grumbled. “A thank you would’ve been nice.”
“I did, but if it wasn’t for Charlie, you’d never have come.”
I had thanked Paul with chocolates, food, the universal symbol of appreciation. However, I knew he wanted me to turn the article into some saviour piece for him.
Charlie yapped.
“Bloody dog!” Mortimer griped, followed by a thwack.
“You’re right,” I said. “I should go. My focus was on Doreen’s roses, I’ll have to come up with something else to pitch.”
He smiled. “Yeah, you do that,” he said. “And I’ll be calling Diane to make sure your story checks out.”
I smiled, humouring him. “Please do.” Because I knew the last thing Diane would want is to be harassed by Paul about what her employees are doing, although it would probably only further push her into getting me to investigate
“I’d like to have a word with Mr Forster alone,” he continued.
I hated to waste a good cup of tea—but I wouldn’t have called the tea in my hand good. I turned, approaching the kitchen. I placed my cup on the side. I would’ve washed it, but it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. My throat stuck on a dry note. “Let me grab my bag,” I said, recalling I’d left it in the living room.
“Leaving?” Mortimer asked as he saw me approach.
“Yes, but I promise I’ll visit again.” Glancing around, I knew I’d have to help him. He didn’t appear to be able to help himself.
Paul coughed into a fist, an almost time’s up.
I left the house with Charlie skipping beside my feet. The police car the two officers had arrived in was still parked outside Mortimer’s drive, alongside Paul’s car, building quite the collection, and if anyone was to pass, it would also be something the village gossips Nancy and Fran would be talking about.
The flashing ambulance lights were in full alert outside Doreen’s home.
On the short walk, I prepared myself to come face-to-face with a body being wheeled out on a gurney with the impaling implement on show for all.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case at all.
The two officers spoke among themselves in hushed voices while three paramedics scrambled around as if passing the baton in and out of the house. And now perhaps fortunately for me, the ambulance was blocking my car into the drive.
“You shouldn’t be back here,” Barker, the taller office said in his approach to me.
My eyes were all over the place, looking to the paramedics, back at the ambulance, and then my poor little beat-up car behind them, as if stranded.
Behind the officer, two paramedics hurried out of the house, their hands fixed on either side of the rolling gurney. A body wrapped inside the black tarp bag. They wheeled it over the paving, and with a whoosh, they pushed it into the back of the ambulance.
Charlie rushed over my feet, sending a shiver through my body. He ran straight for the car.
“You should be going,” the officer said.
I should. But I couldn’t.
The third paramedic approached. “We’ve bagged the garden shears,” she said, pulling back at the plastic gloves on her hands. “We’ve left that inside the house for you.”
My mind filled with shears of all sizes, large and small. Where they ones used to prune her rose bushes, or the larger ones for clipping at rogue branches? My throat fell dry, sickly.
The officer nodded, glancing back in my direction. “You can’t be here,” he said, once more, gesturing for me to wait at the end of the drive. “Once they’ve gone, you can get back in your car.”
Well, I certainly wasn’t walking, so that was a relief. “How long will they be? I have to get back to work.”
He shrugged. “Wait at the end of the drive.”
“Come on, Charlie,” I said, slapping my thigh. His tiny dog legs leapt as far as they’d carry him.
“Wait.”
“Yes?”
“You were here to interview her about the roses, right?” he asked.
My cheeks pinched in a smile. “Yes, yes. And I should’ve visited earlier in the week.” It came out quickly, I hadn’t meant for it to sound like I was annoyed because I didn’t have a story to write now.
“Right, right. Well, Valentine’s is gonna suck then, isn’t it?”
I forced the same smile. “Why would you say that?”
“Have to buy those overpriced bouquets from Briarbury in Bloom now, won’t we.”
He was right. I’d have to tell everyone they weren’t getting their discounted roses. I imagined how annoyed they’d be, but hopefully not for too long. A woman had died, after all. Murdered, quite possibly. My throat, dry once more. The notion of garden shears pruned at all the thoughts rushing through my mind, gnawing at my imagination quite viciously.
“Anything else?” I asked, shaking my head, attempting to discard the violent images swirling around like a crazed vortex.
“That’s all.”
I slapped my thigh once again and we moved to the end of the drive, standing by the country road which connected all of Silver Lake. I knew they’d have to hurry, or soon drivers would be making their rounds and stopping to gawk at the police cars and ambulance outside.
SIX
Standing at the end of the drive, I wrestled a hand into my bag while I watched everyone closely. The officers talked to the paramedics. Something wasn’t right, and they hadn’t taken to putting up police tape or cordoning the area off. Perhaps it was everyone’s first dead body rodeo.
I clutched the mobile phone, pulling it.
I dialled in Ruth’s mobile number.
Several rings, followed by a bleep, bleep, and the call cut.
Well, she was a nurse, and she rarely answered while she was in the examination room with a patient.
I attempted to call her again. It was an important call—and if I didn’t tell her now, she’d find out from someone else, and I’d never hear the end of it.
Although, I doubt I’d hear the end of anything, coming across my second body in the same month. I had to get behind the gossip before it came at me.
There was still no answer.
My second port of call was Diane.
She answered immediately.
“What’s happened?” she asked, her voice as quick as a whip.
“What do you mean?”
A dry laugh came. “I was told about twenty minutes ago, a call came in from Patrick. He has contacts in the police station, and they heard one of our staff members were at the scene.”
My face creased as she spoke. It must’ve been why Patrick was so quick at asking me not to bring the police into my article, he has someone on the inside. “So, you know?”
“Not officially,” she said. “You’re doing very well so far. It was only two hours ago you told me no to this exciting opportunity at investigating things like this.”
“Well, I wasn’t look—”
“Beside the point,” she cut me off, “you’re like a bloodhound.”
Not a comparison I found myself fond of. “I was calling because I won’t have a piece for the magazine.”
“And nobody will be getting their roses this year,” she sighed. “How truly terrible.”
Terrible was one word for it. I couldn’t say I was surprised by her wording, even if my wide-eyed gaze, focused on the hedgerows said otherwise. “But I would like to look
into it.”
“The roses?”
“No, Doreen’s death.”
The echo of a faint clap sounded. “See, a bloodhound,” she chuckled. “What do you think happened?”
Glancing over my shoulder. I made sure nobody was standing close enough to listen. I cupped my hand to the speaker and my mouth. “I think she was murdered.”
“Serious?”
“The police have garden shears as evidence. I heard they were in her back.”
“Did you see?”
“No, no, no.” I hadn’t, thankfully. But poor Charlie had. The worry in my stomach bubbled, it was entirely possible he had a scent for it now. “I’m not sure if you’ve ever gardened, but it would be difficult to impale yourself on some shears. And the officers more-or-less said the same thing themselves.”
“I bet I can already put money on who did it?” she said.
This wasn’t some betting pool, but my only lead was Mortimer, and he didn’t appear to have the follow through to clean his home, let alone commit murder.
In my silence, Diane continued to talk. “A business partner.”
“Well—I—um—I—”
“Yes?”
“In all the times I’d interviewed her, she never mentioned a business partner.”
“All the more reason for them to commit murder,” she continued. “Anyway, run wild with it. Remember to be safe, and don’t worry about the magazine. I’ll get Suzanne to cover you.”
“No, no,” I responded immediately. “I’ll keep my share of work at the magazine.”
“Unless you want to take Patrick’s offer and follow your investigative gut out into the wild?”
It was certainly an exciting offer, but I wanted to prove to Paul that he didn’t need to save me, and it wasn’t a fluke about finding out who killed Gilbert on the Silver Lake riverbank. My gut had been right about it, even if only half right.
“I think I’m happy with my current situation,” I said. It was organised chaos, much like Mortimer’s home, and much like my own. Perhaps I could use it as motivation to get my home into presentable shape too.
“Well, the offer won’t be on the table forever,” she said. Thunk. The phone cut off.
Silver Lake Cozy Mystery Bundle Page 16