by Beth Byers
The next two papers were IOUs for amounts even Janey could pay followed by one that was massive and signed by Guy Bayles. The last thing was a school report. It had been folded and refolded so Janey read it carefully knowing it had been important to Justin Alanson.
On his own, Justin is a pleasure to instruct. He is bright, clever, and hard-working. He turns in excellent work and has a bright future save for his companions. When with his compatriots, Justin cannot be trusted to behave himself. He is constantly in some scrape or another of greater and greater depravity. Justin should be a leader, but he is a lemming. It seems certain that he will follow his friends over the side of a cliff and ruin his future rather than rise up and stand tall. I hate to say this, but Justin will never get anywhere in life as long as he continues with those rogues he calls friends.
Even Janey winced at that and her own report had described her as being a ring-leader of mischief who used her cleverness to cause mayhem. Janey considered taking the wallet, but she heard an auto. She crossed to the window and saw Constable Rogers arrive with another one of the officers. She watched as they stopped the vehicle and slowly got out. Should she take the papers and confess later? Janey winced at the certain tongue-lashing she’d receive and then quickly replaced the papers. The police would surely find them on their own and they didn’t need to know they were the only ones who had the treasure trove of clues that Janey had found first. She grinned evilly and slipped out of the room and out the back of the house using the back staircase.
Eunice was still in the kitchen, so Janey leaned back in the shade to wait and made notes for herself. She soon had documented her investigation and given herself a list of questions that needed answers. Now all she needed was to determine whether she should share what she learned while being stifled by her family, or, if she should sidestep their inquiries and solve this on her own.
9
Charles Aaron
Charles arrived while Eunice and Janey were still gone. Given that Eddy was with Constable Rogers and Lucy was running off to get married, it was just the two of them. He took the seat across from her typewriter, having found her alone while the nanny had Wentworth in the nursery.
Her gaze met his and the corners of his eyes crinkled at her, noting the stack of papers next to her.
“Writing again? I thought this started because you were avoiding writing.”
“I was,” Georgette admitted. “I’m glad I was avoiding writing or Eddy would have been alone when he found the body. Only, once I was alone, I didn’t want to think about that poor boy any longer.”
Charles leaned back as he lifted the pages she’d written so far. He glanced through them without reading, but her muse must have been active with so many pages since she’d started this book. “Harper’s Bend?”
Georgette nodded and then crossed to sit next to him. She put her hand in his and relaxed a little into his side as she placed her head on his shoulder. She shuddered lightly as he lifted her hand to his mouth and pressed a soft kiss, letting him know just how upset she was. “I’m worried.”
“I am as well,” Charles told her honestly. “Lucy—” Charles shook his head thinking of their quiet, earnest girl. Lucy wasn’t like Georgette or Janey. Lucy didn’t want anything other than love, a home, and children. Charles didn’t think that Dr. West was a bad choice, which was why he and Georgette had welcomed the lonely doctor into their home so many times. “I’m not sure rushing off to be wed while Dr. West’s mother dies is the way to begin a marriage.”
Georgette nodded against his shoulder and her soft voice added, “She’s alone there. It’s scary to get married even when you’re confident in your decision. It’s just such a big and permanent decision. She’s alone, surrounded by people mourning their matriarch; no one is going to be there for her. They’ll all have other priorities.”
“She’s alone,” Charles agreed. “She’s not weak, Georgette. She’ll be all right.” He hoped it was true, and that he wasn’t consoling Georgette with empty assurances.
He paused as his gaze saw the worry in her eyes. He didn’t like to see her upset, but he was entranced with how deeply she loved. She was entirely lovely, he thought, though he knew that not everyone agreed. She was quiet looking rather than vibrant, so most people looked past her and missed the layers of golden honey in her brown eyes. Georgette had to be comfortable to let her grin out and you’d see how lovely her smile was and how even her teeth were. Her skin was a clear, soft cream that colored with the palest shades of pink.
Charles wove his fingers through Georgette’s and asked, “What have you done to help Eddy so far?”
“I sent Eunice and Janey to the Bayles house to find out what they could about those boys before the constable arrived.”
Charles leaned back and lit his pipe as he considered what they knew. Eddy, Robert, and Georgette had run into those boys yesterday when they were probably making their way to the lake the day before. Had he died that day? Or, had he gotten up and then been murdered before Georgette and Eddy had reached the lake this morning?
Charles thought back to the morning. Georgette had fed the baby very early just as Charles was leaving the house. He knew she normally fed him again around breakfast and then he napped for the morning. Georgette would have left the house after Wentworth was napping, so it had to have been around 9:00 a.m.
If the walk to the lake was an hour, the boy would have to have been well and truly dead before 10:00 a.m. Perhaps, if that pack of boys had gotten up to go fishing early, he might have died before Georgette and Eddy arrived at the lake. Charles could only imagine such a thing if the other boys had taken the victim to the lake with the intent of killing him, if they’d worked quickly, and if none of them were bothered by what had happened.
Otherwise, Charles would think that the murder had happened prior to that morning. The problem was that it was hard to believe that an entire group of boys would commit murder together. He just couldn’t see it. Not in the slightest. Which meant that the likeliest course was that those boys had seen the lake together the day before, left, and then one of them had convinced the boy to return with him.
“How many of them were there?” Charles asked Georgette, who had taken her pages from him and was glancing through them again. She was making quick notes on a separate piece of paper, and he knew her process well enough that she was sketching out the ideas for future scenes before she forgot what she intended.
She looked up and blinked rapidly, needing a moment to think back to his question and slide out of her story. She took a breath and said almost absently. “I’m not sure. Actually,” she frowned, “I think some of them may have been ahead. I want to say that I saw three…” The number was said as if she was asking him to verify the guess. Her brow furrowed and then she said, “It feels like there was at least a couple ahead.”
Georgette’s frown deepened and she slowly nodded. “Yes, I heard one of them say something about the two ahead and I glanced that way. I saw two heads bent together while they walked.”
“So five then.” Charles’s thoughts had already moved on from his wife to the boys who she had seen the day before. It was easy to set aside the feelings of the young people. He had little doubt, however, that Lucy truly loved that doctor of hers. He had little doubt that Eddy desperately missed his parents and that he was determined enough to become a doctor to see his way through anything.
Charles had little doubt that Janey—who was the fiercest of the children—felt as deeply and as strongly as any human who had ever lived despite her relative youth. And, for that matter, Charles could imagine Janey committing murder without a second thought if she felt that it were the right thing to do. W ell, perhaps not without a second thought. Janey would carry what she’d done with her, but it wouldn’t prevent her from reaching for her goals despite that.
Charles sighed. “I think we can’t avoid being drawn in. Robert has gone for Joseph, but Robert pointed out that Joseph would probably not be assigned t
o this case given that Eddy is involved. Joseph has been on a particularly intense case. They’re not going to pull him off for a maybe-suicide.”
Georgette nodded. She glanced at the clock, knowing that the baby would wake soon. “Charles, we can’t avoid this case. We need to find out more. I’m just not sure how we can. Without Joseph, without being friends to this family, how can we investigate? I’ve met Mildred Bayles, and she’s not going to help us.”
Charles shrugged and said, “Eddy didn’t kill that boy, and we’ll find a way.”
Janey sidled sideways into the room at that moment. She grinned excitedly and Charles winced at the look on her face.
“What did you do?” Georgette asked. “Where is Eunice?”
Janey tried for an innocent expression but failed. When she was actually innocent, she looked a bit like a shell-shocked fish with eyes that shone with fury that she was being accused of something she both hadn’t done and something she would have gotten away with.
Georgette lifted a brow and eyed the girl until she frowned and then crossed the room, slumping into Georgette’s place behind the desk.
“I didn’t stay with Eunice.” Janey crossed her arms over her chest defiantly.
“What did you do when you weren’t with Eunice?” Charles asked easily as though he weren’t concerned. He was, of course, concerned. Janey had inserted herself in a murder investigation, and she did so with the likely grace of a rampaging hippopotamus.
“I climbed into a cabinet near Mr. Bayles’s office and where Mrs. Bayles was lingering in her parlor.”
“You did what now?” Georgette asked breathily and Charles squeezed her fingers. Charles felt the same horror, but they did have the comfort of a safe Janey right in front of them. Charles was concerned he might need to sleep outside of Janey’s bedroom and nail her window shut to keep her safe, but she met his gaze without an ounce of regret.
Janey recapped her adventure and then smiled brilliantly while Georgette and Charles stared in horrified shock.
“Look what I found!” Janey said happily. It wasn’t that she didn’t see their horror. She just thought that her risk was worth the reward. When they didn’t relax, Janey eyed both of them and slowly added, “Eddy is at risk.”
Charles cleared his throat and then, finding his voice was a little shaky, cleared it again. “What did you find?”
“Justin Alanson isn’t the first of their friends who died.”
Georgette gasped as Charles leaned closer.
“The other one drowned. Everyone thought it was an accident, but the reporter said that he was an expert swimmer and they assume he got a cramp or he was ill and it was just a terrible storm of unfortunate events that led to his death.”
Georgette cleared her throat, “But that note said, ‘Keep Quiet’?”
Janey nodded quickly, making her braids fly. Eunice reached the library as Janey continued and glanced at Georgette in apology. Charles didn’t blame Eunice for Janey’s mischief. None of them had been successful in holding the little girl back from trouble.
“Betty Witham confessed that those boys were disgusting, that they pinched Molly on the bottom more than once, that they fought several times during this visit, including breaking quite a valuable vase, and that they normally didn’t fight at all.”
“What happened when the constables arrived?”
Eunice shook her head. “Betty Witham shooed me out the door. Molly had walked out on her position and suddenly the housekeeper was being asked for tea and being ordered about like a housemaid. When Betty shoved me out the door, she was commenting on finding a new position herself.”
10
ROBERT AARON
When Robert hunted up his brother, he found him at Scotland Yard only by chance. Joseph had stopped into his office for paperwork or some other such nonsense and Joseph heard the story, paled at the realization that Eddy might be blamed and then shook his head.
“I can’t do anything about it,” Joseph said. “Rogers hasn’t even asked for the Yard yet. He has to ask, but my supervisor won’t assign me. Not now. One of our detectives was wounded, one has left for America having married some girl from California, another was fired after being involved in criminal activity. I’ve got more cases than I can handle, and one is particularly bad. Even if Georgette is right about this being a murder, they won’t assign me.”
Robert leaned back and sighed. On the morning train he had heard enough of Joseph’s comments about his case to have guessed he couldn’t help, but he was worried. “What do I do for Eddy?”
Joseph leaned back, unconsciously mirroring his brother. He frowned deeply and said, “I have little doubt that Eddy did not hurt that boy.”
“Of course he didn’t,” Robert said instantly. “But if those boys lie—”
“Even if they don’t,” Joseph said. “What school do they go to?”
Robert shook his head and then Joseph said, “Go visit the school. Rogers will tell you where they went to school. The case needs to focus on the boys when they aren’t in Harper’s Hollow.”
Robert nodded. “Eddy isn’t at that same school. If there’s a history of issues between the boys, perhaps we can at least show that one of them is far more likely than Eddy.”
Joseph nodded and wrote a name down on a card for Robert. “A good solicitor for Eddy is necessary from the start if the case turns toward him. It might be better if Rogers doesn’t ask for help from the Yard. If he doesn’t and takes the case on himself, he won’t be turned against Eddy from the beginning, maybe?”
Robert nodded, knowing it would seem as though they were trying to manipulate Constable Rogers if they did that. Neither of the two brothers wanted to do such a thing. Robert stood, clapped his hand on Joseph’s shoulder and said, “It won’t always be this bad.”
“I’m a newlywed,” Joseph sighed. “My biggest hope is that Marian doesn’t leave me before we get to a reasonable normal.”
“She won’t,” Robert said easily. He considered hunting up Evelyn since it was time for her to return to Harper’s Hollow, rejected the idea, and then knew he could do nothing else. He quickly found his way down to the file room where she worked and waited for the clock to turn to 5:00 p.m. She didn’t even see him until she left the office Then her eyes widened, though her expression stayed calm.
“Hello,” she said without inflection.
“Hullo.” He tried for bright and was afraid he sounded like a croaking toad. “I stopped by to talk to Joseph and thought you might like to ride back to Harper’s Hollow together.”
“That would be nice.”
She was quiet as they walked toward the bus and then the train station. Robert considered and rejected a few options before she asked, “Are you working on a new book?”
“Yes,” Robert admitted. “I was going to talk to Georgette about it in the coming days.”
“Why do you write with Georgette?”
He paused and then realized if he really wanted her as a wife, she deserved his truth. “She helps me make the characters feel real. Before her, they were stilted. As though I were writing the book using puppets.”
Evelyn nodded, and she didn’t seem disturbed by the idea. Instead, she took his arm almost absently. Was he a schoolboy himself because his mind tripped up at the feel of her willingly taking hold of him? Robert cleared his throat and remembered what Georgette said: it was harder for women to trust because they had so much more to lose.
“I wonder if you would help me with something,” Robert said before thinking the thought through clearly. “I am concerned about Marian and Joseph.”
Evelyn just looked up with those pretty blue eyes of hers, and he almost stuttered. It seemed that the more he got to know her the more foolish he became. When she was an archetype in his book, she’d been a wisp of a creature. Now that she was real, now that he could peek into her mind on occasion, now that she focused those pretty eyes of hers on his, he was quite the schoolboy after all.
They di
scussed Marian’s unhappiness, and Evelyn didn’t have an idea. The solution would be that Joseph spend more time at home. The problem was that he could not at the moment. Evelyn finally said, “Perhaps, I’ll just comment on how hard things are at Scotland Yard right now. Maybe she just needs to hear it from another, unconnected voice.”
Robert nodded happily and then realized, he couldn’t leave her out of the new case either. He told her what he knew and she immediately grasped the worry for Eddy. She had, after all, been the easy answer for a murder herself. Robert told her why he was sure of Eddy’s innocence and she nodded.
“Of course he’s innocent. Boys don’t murder each other over a one-time situation. Eddy has never gone to school with those boys. He doesn’t have a build-up of hatred. It makes no sense that he would hang that boy. Not unless the dead boy had done something truly awful that offended Eddy’s sense of justice. But who does Eddy love? Who would he protect?”
“Janey, Lucy, and probably Georgette,” Robert answered in a moment.
“And Lucy has eloped, while Janey and Georgette are safe. Charles would have said if there was a problem with Janey if he knew of one, and it seems that she is fine.”
“She is.”
“So Eddy doesn’t have a real motive. He has the merest shred of a motive that would burn away in the light of day.”
“You’re right,” Robert said and felt a flood of relief. “We might be borrowing trouble.”
“Better to borrow it and work to solve it than have it thrust upon you,” Evelyn replied. His grin was his only reply.