Aunt Bessie Volunteers

by Diana Xarissa

  A hot shower helped to clear her head. After, as she patted on the rose-scented dusting powder that reminded her of her first love, Matthew Saunders, she began to feel more like herself. After a light breakfast, she headed out for a brisk walk on the beach. She’d walked along Laxey Beach every morning that she could since she’d bought her cottage at eighteen. The fresh sea air and exercise were given much of the credit for her long life, in her mind, anyway. As she walked, she thought about Matthew.

  They’d met and fallen in love in Cleveland, Ohio. Her family had moved to the US when she’d been only two years old. She’d grown up in Ohio with her sister, who was two years older than Bessie. When Bessie was seventeen, her parents had decided to return to the Isle of Man. Bessie’s sister was already engaged to be married, so she was permitted to marry and remain in the US. Bessie, however, had been told that she had to return to the island. Her parents barely knew Matthew, and they didn’t trust him with their seventeen-year-old daughter.

  Bessie wondered now what might have happened if she’d remained in the US with her sister. Katherine had been willing to let Bessie stay with her and her new husband, but their parents refused to even consider the idea. That Katherine had eventually had ten children made Bessie think that perhaps her parents had been right in their decision. She hadn’t felt that way at the time, though. All those years ago, she’d been furious. They’d practically had to drag her onto the boat for the sailing across the Atlantic and she’d cried for the entire journey. She’d barely spoken to either of them, even though they’d shared a house, until she’d received a letter from Matthew. He’d decided that he couldn’t live without her and he was coming to the island to get her. As she would have been eighteen by the time he was excepted to arrive, she could have done what she pleased, whatever her parents thought.

  The memory of how happy she’d been when the letter had arrived was still strong, even after all these years. Bessie wiped away a tear as she thought about the days that had followed. When her parents had told her that Matthew hadn’t survived the ocean journey, she hadn’t believed them. When she finally understood that it was true, she’d turned her upset into anger, blaming her parents for Matthew’s death. A short while later, she’d discovered that Matthew had left all of his worldly goods to her in a will that he’d prepared just before his sailing. Bessie had sold nearly everything and used that money to buy her cottage on the beach. It had already been given a name by the previous owners and Bessie had been convinced that Treoghe Bwaane, or Widow’s Cottage, was the perfect place for her to recover from her loss.

  When she’d first purchased the cottage, she’d thought she might one day meet someone else. Marriage and children might still be a part of her future, she’d told herself. Years later, when she did meet another man that she might have loved, she’d discovered that she cherished her freedom too much to give it up for anyone. He’d returned to Australia and eventually married someone else while Bessie had remained happily on her own in her little cottage by the sea.

  Thanks to clever investments by her advocate, Bessie had never needed to find a job. Instead, she’d lived frugally on her own as the years flew past. Now all those years of cautious living meant that she had more money than she’d ever imagined. She’d extended the cottage twice in her years of ownership and had no desire to do anything further with it. Her only real indulgence was books, and in the past few years she’d fallen into the habit of buying far more than her bookshelves could accommodate. As she walked back towards home, Bessie began to wonder if she might squeeze another bookshelf into the cottage somewhere.

  “Hello, Bessie,” a loud voice called across the sand.

  Bessie turned and greeted Maggie Shimmin with a small smile. Maggie and her husband Thomas owned the row of holiday cottages that ran along the beach from Bessie’s cottage to Thie yn Traie, a huge cliff top mansion. They’d bought the land and had the cottages built, and Bessie knew that they worked hard to run their business successfully. She truly liked both Thomas and Maggie, but Maggie had a tendency to complain about everything and gossip about everyone. Some days she simply wasn’t in the mood to talk to Maggie. Today was one of those days.

  “How are you?” Maggie asked as she reached Bessie.

  “I’m fine. How are you?”

  “Oh, you know. I mustn’t complain. Thomas is doing slightly better. The doctors seems to think he’ll be well again by summer, which is just as well as I can’t be expected to run the business all by myself, can I? I mean, when he wanted to build the cottages, I wasn’t certain it was a good idea, but he was so tired of working all those hours every week at the bank that I agreed we could try. It’s turned out to be a lot more work for me than it was meant to be, though. I mean, I don’t mind doing the shopping for the cottages, or even baking pies and cakes for our guests to purchase, but Thomas was meant to deal with the cleaning and upkeep. I believe I’m going to have to paint the interiors this winter, which is a huge undertaking.”

  “You could hire someone to do it,” Bessie suggested.

  “We thought about that, but painters seem to be charging a lot more than they used to for their services. It’s all those comeovers that are moving here to work in the banks. They get paid a small fortune to relocate to the island. House prices have gone crazy lately because of them and now it’s starting to drive up the prices on everything else. We needed a plumber the other day. Don’t even ask me what he charged for an hour of work.”

  “I’m glad Thomas is feeling better.”

  Maggie nodded. “He charged us over five hundred pounds, and I don’t think he even spent a full hour at the house.”

  “My goodness. Was that just for his labour?”

  “Well, no, he had to install a new pipe and some new taps and things, as well, but still. It was outrageous.”

  “I shall have to hope I don’t need any plumbing doing in a hurry.”

  “Thomas could have done the job himself if he were feeling better, but he’d have needed my help, too. My back has been playing up again and my one foot aches something awful when I walk too much. We didn’t have a choice but to get someone in to deal with the problem.”

  Bessie nodded. “At least you can do the painting yourself.”

  “I don’t know,” Maggie sighed. “With my back the way it is, we may have to find someone to do that as well. But I mustn’t complain, really. At least this time, when you found a body, it wasn’t in one of my cottages.”

  “I didn’t find the body,” Bessie countered automatically.

  “You always say that, but you were there, anyway, which is just the same. I heard, though, that all you really found was a few bones. Someone told me that all that could be seen from the doorway was a skeletal hand reaching out from the ground.”

  “Someone has an overactive imagination. It wasn’t anything like that.”

  “So you could see the whole body?”

  “I’ve no idea. Mark discovered it and I glanced inside so that I could tell the police exactly what we’d found. Once I saw that it was a skeleton, I rang 999. How much was actually visible didn’t even register with me, but it was certainly more than just a hand.”

  “Interesting,” Maggie said.

  Bessie imagined that Maggie would be spending the next several hours ringing around the island to share that bit of news with all and sundry.

  “But who is it?” Maggie asked.

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “You must have some suspicions. When Hugh dragged up that old cold case, you were able to give him a list of possibilities, one of which turned out to be correct.”

  “Because we knew the gender of the body and when he had died. This body could have been lying there, undiscovered, for decades. Until someone can give me an approximate date of death and work out the skeleton’s gender, I couldn’t even begin to guess who it was.”

  “I’ll bet the police are going through all the old missing person reports right now.”

  “They may
be. It’s always possible that the person we found wasn’t from the island, though. Maybe he or she was just visiting.”

  “Maybe the person sailed over on a boat in the middle of the night. The boat might have been wrecked on the rocks behind the castle. I can see a poor shipwrecked sailor dragging himself out of the sea and climbing up to the castle, looking for shelter from the storm. He crawled into the first tower he came to and then, sadly, succumbed to his injuries.”

  “That’s one possibility,” Bessie said, mentally rolling her eyes.

  “Was the body in the tower nearest the castle entrance?”

  “No, not at all. It was in one of the back corners.”

  Maggie sighed. “Maybe our brave little sailor climbed the castle wall and then collapsed on the ground beneath it, eventually managing to crawl into the tower.”

  Bessie shrugged. “It’s far too soon to be speculating about such things. Let’s see what the police and the coroner can determine before we spend too much time and effort on the matter. I’m still hoping that the body will turn out to be hundreds of years old and not a police matter.”

  “The bones wouldn’t still be around if it was that old. I read a book about decomposition.”

  “Really? Why?”

  Maggies shrugged. “It was fascinating, in a really macabre way. I found it at the library when I was looking for travel guides to Greece. Someone had put it in the wrong place, obviously.”

  “Are you going to Greece?”

  “We’re thinking about it for next winter. If we have another good summer season, I think we’ll deserve a holiday. Warmer weather should be good for Thomas, as well. We don’t want him catching pneumonia again.”

  “Let’s hope you have another good summer, then.”

  “We’re almost totally booked already, actually, even with another price increase to make up for losing the last cottage and for the cost of tearing it down. People seem incredibly keen to stay on Laxey Beach for some reason.”

  “I’m happy for you,” Bessie said, even though she was less happy for herself. The summer visitors were generally polite and stayed away from Bessie’s cottage, but they did get in the way when she wanted to walk on the beach. Their constant presence from April through October made the beach feel different, as well. Still, Bessie never complained.

  “Thanks. Let’s hope once that last cottage is gone we won’t have any more murders down here. They aren’t good for business.”

  “I keep hoping we won’t have any more murders because they’re simply awful,” Bessie countered.

  Maggie flushed. “Of course they’re awful. I didn’t mean to suggest that I didn’t mind murders that happened elsewhere on the island, by any means.”

  “No, I’m sure you didn’t.”

  “But I haven’t time to chat with you all day, unfortunately. I must go and check the last cottage one more time. I’m certain we’ve cleared it out, but I had a dream last night that we’d left some plates and bowls in the cupboards. They’ll be coming any day now to tear it down, you see.”

  Bessie nodded and then turned and made her way home. The message on her answering machine made her frown even more than the encounter with Maggie had.

  “Bessie, my dear, it’s Dan Ross. Please ring me back. Surely you won’t mind talking about a decades-old skeleton from Peel Castle? Ring me.”

  The reporter from the Isle of Man Times was nothing if not persistent, Bessie thought as she deleted the message. Why he thought that she’d want to speak to him about anything at all was a mystery to her. She was relieved that he hadn’t tried to guilt her into talking to him, really. A month ago, when she’d suggested that he investigate something, he’d nearly been killed for his efforts. He hadn’t blamed Bessie for the experience, which was the only thing Bessie appreciated about him.

  She spent some time tidying her cottage before lunch and then headed up to her office to work on Onnee’s letters for a while. Onnee had grown up on the island before impulsively marrying a visiting American man named Clarence. He’d taken her back across the Atlantic to his family home in Wisconsin. There, Onnee had been shocked to meet Clarence’s fiancée, Faith, who had been staying with his parents while he’d been travelling. They’d been equally surprised to meet Onnee, as Clarence’s letters to home had been delayed.

  A year later, Onnee was pregnant but worried that Faith was also expecting Clarence’s child. Faith was still living with Clarence’s parents, while Onnee and Clarence were living elsewhere.

  Onnee’s handwriting was difficult to decipher, but Bessie was determined to get through several months of letters today. She worked until her eyes were so tired that the words began to blur on the page. It’s almost easier to read when I can’t focus, Bessie thought to herself as she pushed the letter she was transcribing to one side. While transcribing, she worked from word to word, barely noticing the contents of the letters. Now she sat back with her own neatly written copies and read through what she’d found.

  Mostly, the letters had detailed Onnee’s daily life in Wisconsin. She read books and did her household chores, all while dealing with morning sickness and other pregnancy issues. She did tell her mother that it appeared that Faith wasn’t pregnant after all. Instead, Faith seemed to have fallen ill. Clarence was spending more and more time with his former fiancée, telling Onnee not to complain as Faith needed him. The last letter that Bessie had transcribed was mostly about how uncomfortable Onnee was feeling in the last weeks of her pregnancy. The final words of the letter brought tears to Bessie’s eyes.

  “I want more than anything to have you here,” Onnee had written to her mother. “I’m going to be become a mother soon, and I need your guidance and support. I’m terrified of what is coming, and Clarence is too busy with Faith to bother with me. I worry that he won’t be especially interested in the baby, either. If I had any money at all, I would book myself on the next boat back to the island. I know leaving my husband would be wrong, but I long for home and for you far more than I care for him.”

  As Bessie shut her notebook, she wondered if she would have come to feel the same way about Matthew if she’d been permitted to stay in the US with him. There was no way to know, of course, but Bessie once again felt that she’d ended up exactly where she was meant to be, alone in her little cottage by the sea.

  The local paper that afternoon had the body at Peel Castle as its headline article. Bessie frowned as she read what Dan Ross had written. “Mystery Skelton at Peel Castle,” was a less lurid headline than she’d been expecting, but he’d listed her as having found the body, “accompanied by some staff from Manx National Heritage.” That was just wrong, but Bessie knew better than to ring to complain. Instead, she enjoyed her dinner with Doona and then spent her evening finishing the book she’d started the previous day and trying to forget all about what she’d seen in Peel.

  The next few days passed quietly. Bessie found herself feeling oddly reluctant to go back to Onnee’s letters, expecting that the next one would announce the baby’s arrival. Instead, she read books, walked on the beach, and spent some time shopping and visiting friends. Doona rang daily to let her know that nothing had changed with Sue. On Thursday afternoon, Bessie decided that it was time to get back to Onnee. She was heading for the stairs when someone knocked on her door.

  “Inspector Lambert, hello,” Bessie said, forcing herself to smile at the frowning woman on her doorstep.

  Chapter 4

  “I think you should call me Anna,” the woman replied.

  “Oh, yes, thank you,” Bessie said, feeling flustered. “Do come in,” she added as she took a step backwards.

  “I will, thank you.”

  Bessie shut the door behind her guest. “Have a seat. Would you like a cuppa?”

  “I’d love one, if it isn’t too much bother,” Anna replied as she slid into a chair at the kitchen table.

  “It’s no trouble at all,” Bessie assured her. She put fresh water in the kettle and switched it on before fill
ing a plate with biscuits. When the kettle boiled, she made tea for both of them, handing Anna her cup before sitting down opposite her with her own.

  “How are you?” Anna asked.

  “I’m fine, thank you. How are you?”

  “Me?” Anna laughed. “No one ever asks police inspectors how they are, but I’m fine, thank you, or at least that’s the required response, isn’t it?”

  “It’s the expected response, but it certainly isn’t required.”

  “No? Would you prefer it if I tell you how I really am?”

  “I would, actually.”

  Anna tilted her head and studied Bessie for a moment. “I may, one day,” she said eventually. “Not today, though. Today we have more important things to discuss.”

  “You know where to find me when one day comes around,” Bessie said. She was surprised to see Anna blinking back tears.

  “Thank you,” she said softly. She shook her head and cleared her throat. “Tomorrow’s local paper is going to have an article about the body you found. I wanted to talk to you first, though, before everyone on the island is talking about it.”

  “I didn’t find the body,” Bessie sighed.

  Anna chuckled. “Sorry, you’re right, of course, and I should be precise. You were there, but Mark Blake actually discovered the body. Let me tell you what we now know about his discovery. The body, or rather the skeleton, was of an adult female. The coroner estimates that the woman was in her mid-twenties when she died. Based on his findings and some of the other things that were found with the skeleton, we believe she died in the late sixties. The coroner was unable to determine if she’d been moved after her death, but that seems likely. Having said that, he doesn’t believe that she was moved recently.”

  Bessie sat back in her chair and tried to think. When that didn’t help, she leaned forward and took a sip of tea. “She may have been in there for more than thirty years, then. I can’t believe no one found her before Monday,” was the first thing that popped into her head.