by K. J. Emrick
Unfortunately for me, I’ve been in this exact spot more than once. I know what needs to be done.
Carly’s got a look of keen interest on her face and in that moment, she looks a lot like her dad. She got her looks from his side of the family with those eyes that are hazel inside of brown, and the slant of her jaw, and the way she stands, but it’s more than that. My husband always had a curiosity about him that was insatiable. I think it’s where our son Kevin got his astute police instincts from, truth be told.
His mother’s no slouch when it comes to investigating murder, either, if I do say so myself.
“Call Kevin,” I tell Carly. “Let him know what’s going on and ask him to keep it quiet for now, per the request of the Secretary’s people. He’s down at the Thirsty Roo if you can’t ring him on his mobile.”
“Hold on a tick,” Thornton says to me, reaching out a hand that he drops quickly when I give him a don’t-you-dare-touch-me glare. “Who is this Kevin? Why are we calling him?”
“He’s my son,” I tell him, as if that should settle all arguments. In case it doesn’t, I add, “He also happens to be the Senior Sergeant here in our little town. He’s darned good at his job, and he’ll figure out who did this all quiet like, just as you please.”
After another moment under the heat of my stare he pulls back, stroking the lines of his mustache, nodding his agreement. Smart man. It was going to happen with or without his approval, anyways.
Carly takes out her mobile and calls her brother. It’s the new one I bought her, after Kevin and I got her out of the commune. They had her give up all of her worldly possessions while she was there which I’m pretty sure they then sold. No doubt the leaders kept all the money for themselves, but that’s a sore subject with Carly and I don’t push the issue. Then again, everything’s a sore subject for her these days.
Well, she’s here now, and she’s helping when it’s needed. That’s the girl I raised.
Standing in the doorway, I carefully screen the carpet for bloodstains before I go in. There’s some under Jackson’s body, but it hasn’t spread much. This must have just happened. Twenty minutes, I remind myself. I was only in my room for twenty minutes.
Watching where I step and trying to ignore the sight of this dead man’s eyes staring at me, I kneel down as close as I dare and put my two fingers to the side of his neck just to be sure. No pulse. He is most definitely dead. Guess it wouldn’t have mattered if Stephanie had thought to check this or not. Dead is dead.
Leaning back on my heels, I make myself give the room a better look over. I swear there’s something wrong here. Everything’s in its place. The bed’s made up. The closet door is closed. The television is off. The window is open to catch the summer breeze through the screen, although it’s too hot outside to be very effective.
What am I not seeing?
Maybe Kevin will catch it. It’s bugging me though. It’s like my mind is yelling at my eyes that they should be seeing something so incredibly obvious…
No. Not my eyes. My ears.
Why didn’t I hear anything? That’s a question, now isn’t it? I was at the end of the hall, Carly was in her room, Stephanie and Thornton were in their rooms, too. None of us heard a thing. Seems to me that when a man gets stabbed in the back, the people nearby should hear something. Even if it’s from behind closed doors.
Then another thought occurs to me as I squat there, next to this poor dead man. How did the killer get up here without Danni seeing them come up? She’s down at the front desk and she would’ve at least come to find me if someone she didn’t recognize as a guest came in through the front door and started upstairs. The only people who are supposed to come up here are guests. I doubt Jackson here invited his killer up.
Which could mean…
At the door to the room, Stephanie and Thornton are watching me. If the killer didn’t get past Danni at the front desk, they must have already been up here.
These two were up here. Am I looking at the killer now?
Stephanie was still upset, seemingly unable to get a grip on herself. Was she upset that her boss was dead, or upset because she killed him?
Thornton was controlled on the outside, but he was trying his best to cover up his own deep emotions. Was he trying to conceal what he’d done to Jackson?
Those were all very good questions, and I had the feeling there would be heaps more questions than answers for a while, but I wasn’t going to find them in this room. I’d already seen everything I could here. Just Jackson Fillmore, lying in an otherwise orderly room, knife in his back, legs sprawled out, arms akimbo, his hands lying flat on the floor as if he was trying to crawl away from his fate, that childish copper ring catching the light.
“Kevin’s on his way,” Carly called into me. “He’ll be here soon.”
Her words bring me back to myself, and I remember I’m just a few inches away from a dead body. Not someplace I thought I’d find myself this morning when the sun came up, that’s for sure. I stand up, and make sure to avoid the blood again on my way out. “Good. Do me a favor and call down to Danni at the front desk. Tell her Kevin’s coming in and she needs to wave him through without any questions, all right?”
“Yes,” Thornton says in agreement. “The fewer questions the better.”
Obviously neither he nor Stephanie had ever been involved in a murder investigation. There’s no such thing as a few questions, when it comes to murder.
Then again, if Thornton is the murderer, he’d be wanting fewer questions, wouldn’t he? Just like he wanted to keep this whole thing quiet. That would be just the sort of thing a killer would want. I look him over again, sizing him up, with his expensive suits and his weaselly face. A functionary in the Parliamentary Secretary’s office whose boss suddenly dies. Would he be looking at a promotion now?
Probably not, now that I thought about it more. Most likely he’s out of a job starting today. Stephanie, too. If either of them has a motive, it has to be something personal. These three worked together a lot. There had to be some personal connections between them. Secrets. Frictions. Things someone might consider important enough to kill for.
But what?
That’s where my Kevin’s police skills are going to come into play. I might have helped him on several investigations in the past but no matter the high opinion of my own skills, I’m no cop. I’m an Innkeeper.
“Ahem.”
A deep voice from the end of the hall draws our attention that way. There’s no one else who’s registered in a room up here. No one who should be coming up here. Not for any reason.
But I know that voice, and this man has a habit of showing up when he’s least expected.
Mister Brewster is a long-term guest at the Pine Lake Inn. He always pays his bill in advance and he keeps mostly to himself. It’s a steady income he represents for us, and I don’t have anything against him. In fact, the best way to describe him is…
Creepy.
That’s the word I usually come up with. He’s tall and dark skinned, always dressed in black with shaggy black hair falling across his forehead, and a look in those piercing silver-gray eyes that makes it hard to meet his gaze for very long. He’s been here for as long as I can remember, actually, and it’s hard to believe I don’t know more about him. Like what he does for a living. Or why I can’t ever remember his first name. Or why he just stepped up onto the second floor while we’re all standing around the room of a dead man.
As casually as I can, I reach out, and close the door.
“I heard a scream,” he tells us, as if reading the questions written on my face. “Sounded as if someone was in trouble. Can I be of assistance?”
“Who’s this bloke?” Thornton asks, his face scrunching up and his arms crossing in challenge.
Before I can try to explain who this is, he answers for himself. “My name is Mister Brewster. I’m sure you don’t know me, but of course I know the two of you. Thornton Dunfosse, Fidus Achates to the Parliamentary Se
cretary for Regional Development.” His eyes slid over to Stephanie. “You, are Stephanie Collette, personal secretary to the Parliamentary Secretary. Which, I suppose, makes you the secretary of the Secretary? Yes. Well. Both of you are minor cogs in the bigger machine of the Tasmanian government. You work for a slightly bigger cog named Jackson Fillmore… who appears to be missing from this little ensemble. Ah. Inside the room, is he?”
I was surprised by how much Mister Brewster seems to know about these two. Or these three, I suppose, if you count dead Mister Jackson Fillmore in his room. I’m even more surprised by the reaction his words evoke. Stephanie looks away, and shifts about on her feet uncomfortably, chewing on her lower lip. Thornton unfolds his arms, and folds them again, and starts to say something and then stops himself, blowing out his mustache. Is it just Mister Brewster’s unexpected arrival that’s making them nervous, I wonder, or something else?
Which was when the thought occurred to me that they could have both done this murder together.
“Well, then,” Mister Brewster says, shrugging his wide shoulders. “I’ve been all the help I can, I suppose. If I can’t be of any further assistance…?”
Just like that he turns around and starts down, going lower and lower on the switchback stairs until all we can see is his head, and then not even that. Before he disappears completely, he gives me a wink.
“What’s he on about?” Stephanie demands. “He hasn’t helped us at all, except by leaving.”
I nod absently, but then I’m reminded of a few times when Mister Brewster’s said something that seemed pointless but was in truth pretty useful information in hindsight. Not sure if there’s anything to it this time, but you learn not to discount such things here in Lakeshore.
In the next second, we hear footsteps coming up to us, and there’s my Kevin, his face set and grim, already in police officer mode knowing that a man is dead. Not just any man, either, but a representative of the Tasmanian Parliament. He knows that means a special kind of trouble, same as I do.
“Right,” he says. “Got more of my people on the way and for now we need to clear this hallway. Let’s get everyone downstairs, okay Mom? Nobody else has been up here, I trust?”
“Just us,” I tell him. “Although Mister Brewster was up here just a tick ago. He didn’t come any further than the stairs, so I doubt he saw anything. You probably met him on the way up the stairs.”
Kevin gives me a blank look, and it’s obvious that he didn’t see anyone at all. Almost like Mister Brewster disappeared just as Kevin was coming up. That’s odd.
Not really something to worry about now, I suppose. Not when we’ve got another murder on our hands and a hundred different reasons to solve it quick as you please.
Chapter 4
I’ve got a little office down on the main floor, behind the registration desk. Don’t use it much, except when I’m doing paperwork or just looking for a minute to myself when I can’t pop up to my rooms. Sometimes I even forget it’s there. It’s tight quarters and not meant for a party, but to keep all this quiet, there’s four of us cooling our heels here until Kevin finishes upstairs. Me and Carly, Stephanie and Thornton.
And yes, I’m keenly aware that I’m in a room within spitting distance of two people who might be killers. Just another Sunday in our sleepy little town.
When the silence had stretched on between us for far too long, I turn to Thornton Dunfosse. “So what was it that Mister Brewster called you… a fido ashtray? What is that?”
“A Fidus Achates,” he corrects me, pronouncing it ash-at-tay. Must be French. “It’s a fancy way of saying I was Jackson’s personal assistant.”
“Is that so?” I fold my arms at him dubiously. “So what was it you did for Jackson as his personal assistant?”
His dark eyes bore through me as he loosens the knot in that fine silk tie some more and opens the top button on the shirt that had been so tight around that thick neck of his. “Obviously, it means I assisted him. Of course, now that he’s dead that’s all over. I’ll have to find another job somewhere. I hear Johann is looking to take someone on.”
“Always the sentimental type, aren’t you, Thornton?” Stephanie snaps at him from where she’s sitting in the plastic patio chair that I’ve got stuffed into the corner. That chair’s a bit dodgy. Got one leg held together with duct tape. “You know we both stayed with Jackson because we respected him, and we trusted him.”
“We stayed with him,” Thornton argues, “because he paid us. Now that’s over and we have to be practical.”
“The man is upstairs lying dead on the floor,” she declares angrily. With her next breath she leans her head forward over her knees, fisting her hands into her dark hair. Her voice is trembling. “Show some respect, will you?”
Thornton gives that comment a snort. “You showed him enough respect for both of us.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” he says with a shrug, “what it means.”
I lean back against my desk, studying them both closely as they snipe at each other. I’ve never seen two reactions so completely different from each other. One was trying to act all cool and collected, and I thought maybe trying a little too hard. The other was a wreck, her eyes red with unshed tears. It hadn’t slipped my attention, either, that Thornton didn’t actually answer my question about what he did for the Parliamentary Secretary.
From where she stood near the door, my daughter gives me a knowing look. She’s a smart one, my Carly, even for all the missteps she’s taken in her life. I’ve tried to help her see past the mistakes but knew she had to come to it herself. She’s thinking along the same lines as me, wondering if one or the other of these two is faking. She looks as interested in this as I am, and at the same time just as horrified. I have to wonder if maybe this is what she’s needed all along. Something to get her actively engaged in life again.
Even if, in this case, it was someone’s death.
The moment stretches on again, with Stephanie rocking in that white plastic chair with its uneven leg, and Thornton pacing. There’s not much space to move back and forth in this room. I watch him take three steps one way, turn and take three steps back, turn and take three steps, turn and—
“What is taking so long?” he demands after a minute or so of that. “That police officer up there said to wait and he’d come talk to us, but I can’t stay here all day. I have to contact my people and make sure they’re keeping a lid on this.”
“Will you just shut up?” Stephanie demands, flipping her hair back to give him a glare. “This will take as long as it takes, and you’ve already contacted all the right people to keep this hush hush.”
“Oh really? And what about the opening ceremony for the Royal Hobart Regatta? Somebody’s got to take Jackson’s spot in that. Got any suggestions on how to explain why he won’t be there?”
“We’ll get someone else to make the bloody speech,” she insists, and then stops and puts her hand up over her mouth. Mentioning blood after what she’d seen turned her green around the gills. “You know what I mean. Someone else can do it. We’re not responsible for the whole of Tassie.”
“Hmm,” Thornton snorts, lifting an eyebrow. “Is that what Jackson used to tell you?”
The look she gave him would have melted ice at those research facilities in the middle of Antarctica. I wouldn’t want to be in her way when she was angry.
Hmm. She might’ve just moved up to the top of my suspect list.
“What did you do for Jackson, Stephanie?” I smile sweetly when I ask her that, figuring if she’s angry at Thornton she might respond better to a friendly face.
I’m wrong, as it turns out. She might hate Thornton, but that doesn’t mean she’s ready to make a friendship with me. Her eyes are full of heat when she looks my way. “I was his administrative secretary. And before you ask, that means I did secretarial work for him. I answered his phones. I sent his e-mails. I kept his schedule for him. I ran errands and I
worked all hours of the day to make sure he got his work done. That’s what I did for him.”
Thornton snorts again, intentionally looking away to hide that little smirk on his face.
Stephanie hears the implication in his silence anyway and shoots up to her feet. Underneath her the chair wobbles on its bum leg. “You can just go stuff yourself,” she snaps at Thornton. Clutching her little purse tight to her chest she lifts her chin and looks down her nose at all of us. “I know what people said about me and Jackson. I know the rumor mill caught hold of the two of us and tried to make it into something dirty. I don’t care. Jackson was more than capable of finding female companionship with people he didn’t work with. I don’t have to answer to you or to anyone at all. Jackson was a great man. Jackson was…”
I could see the wind emptying out of her sails as her shoulders slumped, and what she says next is full of quiet emotion. “Jackson is dead. That’s all that matters. Now, I’m leaving.”
She takes two steps toward the door before it opens and my Kevin steps in, looking around at each of us. I’m glad to see it’s him. I kind of poked the bees’ nest with just the few questions I asked, and I doubt either of these two would have hung around waiting for much longer.
“Sorry I was so long,” he says to everyone. “Had things to take care of upstairs, as ya might imagine.”
“We understand that, Senior Sergeant,” Thornton says, suddenly eager to cooperate or at least, trying to make it look that way. Just like before. Trying a bit too hard. “We’re at your disposal until this terrible matter is cleared up. Do you have any idea how poor Jackson died?”
“He was stabbed in the back,” my son says, very seriously.
Stephanie leans to the side, pushing out her hip. Her arms are still crossed over her chest. “We knew that, thank you very much. We saw that, didn’t we? Knife sticking out of his back and the whole bit. But you don’t know who killed him?”