The Marlowe Murders

by Laura Giebfried

  “You?” Amalia breathed, her eyes narrowing in on Lennox. “You killed my husband?”

  “No,” he said. He was shaking his head: his hand was on his brow, and beads of sweat appeared on his olive-toned skin. “No, I didn't –”

  “You just happened to lock the door after my husband was brutally murdered?”

  “It couldn't have been Lennox,” I cut in. “He was locked in.”

  “I saw him!” Bill said. “He was out that night! You're lying!”

  “You're the only one lying,” I returned, stepping forward so that I was standing between him and Lennox. Despite my soaked stockings and boots, I felt a sudden rush of heat come over me as I looked at him, wishing that I had told the family my assumptions about him earlier. “I locked him in – so there's no way you could have see him go out or in!”

  “I did! I'd gotten up to go to the bathroom, and when I was walking back –”

  “That makes no sense, Mr. Burton,” I interrupted. “There's a bathroom connected to the Mabel Room: you weren't anywhere near the Foyer.”

  Bill's mouth opened to gape at me. It was clear that he realized he had said something wrong, but saw no way to correct his mistake. He spluttered as he pushed his glasses up the bridge his nose.

  “Well, that's – that's because –” he started, but Edie cut him off.

  “Bill – don't.”

  He looked at his wife. His thin lips were twitching. As his eyes went back to Rachel's lifeless form, though, he put his hand to his mouth and went on.

  “I haven't been sleeping in the Mabel Room,” he said.

  “Ridiculous,” Bernadette said. “Where've you been sleeping, then?”

  Bill pointedly looked away from Edie as he answered.

  “In the Drawing Room.”

  Marjorie stared.

  “With Rachel?” she exclaimed.

  “No – it wasn't like that,” Bill said. “There's a couch in there to sleep on, and since nothing was going to happen –”

  “My God,” Marjorie said. “Lennox upstairs with the maid and Bill down here with our sister –”

  “No! There was no affair, and the point is that I saw Lennox –”

  “I can't seem to think of another reason why a married man would sleep in another man's wife's room,” Marjorie said. “Edie, did you know about this?”

  Edie looked at Bill. She had nothing but contempt in her eyes. I tried to fit her into the line of events that had happened. Was she in on it, too? Did she know what Rachel and Bill had done, and now she was deciding whether to save her husband or let him take the full blame?

  “I didn't know the details of his sleeping arrangements, no,” she said.

  “Don't be like that,” Bill said angrily. “You're the one who kicked me out of my own bed –!”

  “I didn't tell you to sleep with my sister!”

  “I wasn't sleeping with her! I was sleeping on her couch, for Christ's sake!”

  “There are forty rooms in this house!” she screamed back. “You couldn't have picked an empty one?”

  Bill grabbed at his hair, yanking it so that it stood up even straighter on end. He let out a frustrated growl.

  “Don't act like this is my fault,” he said, jabbing a finger in her direction. “You're the one who told me to go. You're the one who's so frightened of every creak in the night that you jump out of bed screeching –”

  “I – I do not!”

  “You swear you see ghosts and then vilify me when I don't agree with you!” he said. “But there are no ghosts, Edie! You're haunting yourself! You've been haunting yourself for decades!”

  “I – I have not! Why would I –?”

  “Because you feel guilty!”

  Edie looked as though she had been slapped across the face. She startled backwards, crashing into Cassandra and jumping as she turned and saw her black-veiled form. My heart pounded harder, waiting for her to lose it and tell us the truth, but –

  “I – I –” she sputtered. “I don't – I have nothing to – I don't feel guilty –”

  “Of course you do!” Bill said, and from the tone of his voice, it sounded as though he had been waiting years and years to tell her as much. “You talk in your sleep! You beg for forgiveness!”

  “Stop it!” Edie said, and she was frantic now, her fingernails digging into the banister as she began to back up the stairs away from him. “Stop it, Bill: stop it –!”

  “You think it's your fault – no, you know it's your fault – that all of our children died!” he shouted. “The doctors told you that you couldn't have any, and you tried anyway, and they all died – even the ones that weren't mine – because of you!”

  Edie let out a wail that echoed around the room and lingered in the air long after she had run up the stairs and shut herself in her room.

  “Well,” Bernadette said into the awkward silence that followed. “That was more than I needed to know about your marital problems –”

  “Stop it, both of you!” Marjorie said. “That's not the point! Did Lennox kill John or not?”

  “Of course he didn't,” I said. I glanced at Rachel's body, knowing that it was neither the time nor place for the conversation, but I couldn't hold back when I felt so close to finally hearing the confession. “Bill did!”

  “Now hold on –!” Bill said angrily, turning back to me. “I never –!”

  “I heard you and Rachel in the Drawing Room talking about it: I heard her begging you not to tell anyone what you'd done!”

  “She was begging me not to tell them that I saw Lennox!”

  “And why would she do that?” I said, fed up with his string of lies. “If you'd really seen him, then she would have told her family about it!”

  “That's – that's what I tried to tell her to do, but – but she –”

  “She brings up a good point,” Marjorie said slowly. “If either of you knew it was Lennox, why didn't you say something?”

  “I wanted to!” Bill tried again. “I wanted to tell everyone, but – but Rachel wouldn't because she didn't think it could have been him –!”

  “That's because it wasn't him!”

  “No, it's because she was too trusting! She was always too damn trusting!” he bellowed. He looked around at the family, frantic desperation in his wild eyes, and there was such conviction in his gaze that it caused me to take a step back from him. “He killed him! I know he killed him – and he killed Rachel, too!”

  “Now, Bill –” Bernadette began, but Bill was having none of it.

  “He left right after Rachel did, didn't he? And then she just happens to end up drowned in the ocean?”

  “Amalia and Marjorie left, too,” Bernadette said. “So did the maid –”

  “But Lennox was there! He found her! What was he doing down by the water?”

  “He was with me,” I said.

  “Doing what, exactly?”

  “We were taking a walk!”

  “Oh, just taking a stroll down by the water, were you?”

  “It's not like there's anywhere else to go!”

  “He was gone for ages! It's awfully cold outside for that amount of fresh air!”

  “Sure beats being inside with all of you!” I said, but Bill's face was such a mask of accusation that my confidence wavered. My mind involuntarily flashed back to seeing Lennox walk up the path from the front of the house, but I pushed the thought away. He hadn't killed Rachel, and he hadn't killed John. “Where were you all this time, then?”

  “I was staying with James!”

  “Oh, that's a solid alibi: should we go ask him to verify that?”

  “I was in the Drawing Room when you came in screaming about Rachel!”

  “Yes – and I'm sure you had plenty of time to get back here after you killed Rachel!”

  “I would have never hurt Rachel! She was the only good part of this family!”

  I took a step toward him, but hands on either of my shoulders held me back. I glanced around to see Lenn
ox.

  “Alexandra,” he said quietly. “There's no point in –”

  “Yes there is!” I said, turning back to Bill. “If Lennox had killed her, why would've he tried so hard to resuscitate her? Why not just leave her out there?”

  “It was for show! To throw us off!”

  “I was with him! I know he didn't kill her!”

  “Just like you know you locked him in his room? Because it's sounding more and more to me like your sole purpose here is to be his alibi!”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but my clipped words were interrupted by a giggle. I turned wildly around. Cassandra stood over Rachel's body, her hands folded neatly in front of her, looking like the angel of death who had come to take her away.

  “Oh, that's not why she's here,” she tittered.

  “Knock it off, Cassie,” Marjorie warned. “This is no time for your inanities – Rachel is dead!”

  “Oh, yes, I know,” Cassandra said sweetly. “That's why I'm bringing it up: because she'll come back too.”

  “Cassie –”

  “No, it's true – I've seen it. Someone passes but then someone else comes to take their place so their life can go on. No one's ever really gone.”

  She said it was such innocence that it was difficult to believe she was anything but horribly naive. As her sisters gaped at her, she got down on her knees and brushed Rachel's wet hair from her face.

  “Just look,” Cassandra continued, her hand still brushing her dead sister's hair, and there was something so sinister in the sight and sound together that it felt as though they pierced straight into my bones. “Mary came back.”

  “What in God's name are you talking about?” Marjorie said.

  “Oh, don't act like you haven't noticed,” Cassandra replied, her voice becoming sweeter and sweeter with each passing second, and she finally stopped stroking her sister. She looked up, then pointed her finger directly at me. “She's right there.”

  Everyone turned to look at me.

  “That's the maid,” Bernadette said.

  “No, no,” Cassandra said. “Look again.”

  “For Christ's sakes,” Bill growled as Marjorie and Bernadette peered more closely at me, “are you actually going to listen to her –?”

  Marjorie's sharp intake of breath cut him off.

  “Wait a minute: she's right.”

  “Oh, not you, too,” Bernadette said. “Mary is dead!”

  “I know that!” Marjorie snapped. “But look at her! She looks just like her!”

  There was a look of utmost horror on her face, and yet as she took a step closer to me, it became mixed with accusation.

  “I knew there was something funny about you,” she said. “I knew it from the moment I laid eyes on you –!”

  “Well, you obviously didn't,” Bernadette said, “or else you wouldn't be realizing it now –”

  “That's because her hair was covered! Look at her, Birdie! Don't you see it?”

  Bernadette teetered in place. Her eyes ran over me as though she had never really noticed me before, and her double chin wobbled beneath her open mouth.

  “Well, she has the same hair color – but she's not nearly as pretty, and her nose has that awful bump on it …”

  “She looks damn near close enough for me!” Marjorie said. “Her height's the same, and her build, too. And the eyes – they're that same green –”

  “What does it matter?” Amalia said, echoing the thought going through my head. I had noticed that I had the same hair and eye color as their father when I had seen his painting, after all. I looked to Lennox, but he had turned away from me, ignoring my request for him to tell me what the others wouldn't.

  “It matters because it explains why Lennox has been so cozy with her!” Marjorie exclaimed.

  “I don't care who he's been cozy with unless it has something to do with my husband's murder!” Amalia returned.

  “Wait –” Bill said slowly. He looked from me to Lennox and then back again. “Wait – that's just it, then, isn't it? That explains it.”

  “Explains what?” Bernadette said exasperatedly.

  “Everything!” Bill said. “Why she's been lying for him! Why she said she locked him in and was with him when Rachel was killed!”

  “I'm not following you,” Bernadette said evenly. “Just because she looks like Mary doesn't mean she'd give him an alibi.”

  “Maybe it's the other way, then! She – she killed John, and Lennox is – is covering for her!”

  “That's completely asinine: she's the maid!”

  “The maid who's a dead ringer for your sister!”

  “This is getting us nowhere,” Bernadette said. “Alexandra, are you going to explain how it is you look like Mary?”

  I raised my eyebrows at her. The situation was rendering them all completely senseless.

  “No,” I said shortly.

  “See?” Bill exclaimed. “See? Now she's denying it!”

  “I'm not denying anything!” I said. “I didn't know I looked like anyone – and I don't know why it matters!”

  Bernadette's stomach swelled as she took a deep breath and Amalia let out a stream of curse words, but it was Marjorie whose expression changed from irritation to understanding.

  “Oh, wait,” she said, her mouth twitching. She looked at Lennox. “Does she not know?”

  I stole a look at Lennox, as well, but he had shut his eyes behind his hand.

  “I know who Mary is,” I said. “I just don't know why it matters –”

  “No, I don't think you do,” Marjorie said, inching closer as she continued to stare Lennox down. “I don't think he told you.”

  “She was – she was your sister,” I said, but Lennox's reaction was throwing me off. “Your youngest sister.”

  “And that's all he said?” Marjorie tutted. “Oh, Lennox. Poor, poor, broken Lennox, always trying to avoid blame …”

  Lennox didn't remove his face from his hand. His chest was rising and falling heavily again, and his soaked clothing was making him shake violently –

  “Well, it's not too late,” Marjorie said. “Go ahead, Lennox. Tell her the rest. Tell her who Mary really was.”

  She couldn't hide the maniacal glee that his discomfort was causing her. Bernadette was huffing in indignation and Amalia had a look of contempt on her face as she stared at him. Only Bill shifted uneasily, clearly not eager to watch the conversation unfold. A sense of dread began to stir in my stomach, and I tilted my head to the side as I stared at the doctor, not understanding.

  “Dr. Lennox,” I said, barely moving my lips. “Just tell me.”

  He pulled his hand from his eyes, lowering it shakily to his mouth. He ran his knuckles against his lips, back and forth and back and forth as though in a trance.

  “Dr. Lennox?” I said. “Did Mary drown, too?”

  He shook his head.

  “No, she … she jumped from the nursery window.”

  I swallowed, feeling the family's eyes on me as they waited for the reaction that I didn't want to give them, so I tried to put it all together in my head: John inviting the both of us here, putting Lennox in the nursery for a reason that everyone was privy to but me, the missing painting from the East Room that he had hoped to inherit, the family's hatred of him for an unspoken reason –

  “Mrs. Marlowe wasn't your patient, was she?” I asked.

  “No.”

  He finally looked at me, and in his eyes I could see the plea for forgiveness, but I still didn't know what I was supposed to be forgiving.

  “But Mary was?” I said, taking a hesitant step closer to him as I felt I had figured it out. “And she – she died under your care?”

  Lennox's face cracked. He put his hand to his mouth again, trying hard to pull himself together before he shattered completely. His fingers tightened as though he could force the emotions back down his throat to make way for the words, and his breathing came in several gasps before he was able to calm it.

  “No,” h
e said. “No – she was my wife.”

  My stomach dropped. I opened my mouth and closed it, trying to think of something to say and trying to understand what to think all at once, but nothing came. I just stood in my spot, neither frozen nor thawed, and stared at him, not believing that I hadn't figured it out, not believing that I had been so blind to miss all of the pieces that I normally would have put together – normally, if I hadn't let myself be so infatuated with him.

  “I know I should have told you,” he whispered. “But I – I didn't know what to think, and I didn't want you to think –”

  “Tut, tut,” came Marjorie's voice from somewhere behind me, but then I felt her hands on either my arms, holding me as though to comfort me, though the effect was ruined by her long, painted nails digging into my flesh. “You see, Alexandra? Lennox was just too sad to tell you the truth …”

  I swallowed again, keeping my eyes on Lennox's face as I tried with everything within me to hold off the emotions threatening to appear on mine. Marjorie rested her head on my shoulder, her cheek right up against mine.

  “But you missed the best part, Isidore,” she said. “Tell her the rest.”

  Whatever it was, I knew I didn't want to hear it. There were tears in his eyes, and as he tried to speak, a strangled sob came out instead.

  “She –” he said, and if Marjorie hadn't been holding me I would have run from him before he had to say it. “She had our six-week old son in her arms when she did it.”

  “And there they went together,” Marjorie said, no hint of sympathy in her voice even as Lennox continued to shake with tears. “Splat on the ground –”

  I wrenched myself from her grip and spun around, my burned hand curling into a fist, and before I could think of anything at all, I punched her squarely in the face. Blood splattered across her white cheeks and she stumbled backwards, tripping over Rachel's lifeless form and falling to the floor. And as I surveyed the damage that had been done, not just by me but by all of them, I knew that the family was filled with too many secrets to uncover, and I knew that every word out their mouths were lies in one way or another, and every expression was feigned. And the worst part was that Lennox was one of them: not an outsider like he had had me believe, but a part of the family, so there was no way for me to pull it all apart, or to put it all together, so all I could think to do was run from them – out the door and into the snow – and hope that my feet would take me somewhere where I could make sense of it all again.