An Isle of Man Ghostly Cozy Collection - ABC

by Diana Xarissa

  “Shelly was right about Sophia,” Peter said after a few minutes of companionable silence. “She had a way of making you feel as if you were the only person in the world that mattered.”

  “That must have been difficult for her husband,” Fenella suggested.

  “He encouraged her,” Peter countered. “She was good for his business, you see. He’d invite a few prospective investors to his house for dinner and then let Sophia convince them that they should give Christopher all of their money.”

  “And did you?” Fenella had to ask.

  Peter laughed. “I prefer to handle my own investments,” he said. “Although I suspect I may well have done better if I had given Christopher some money. He was very good at what he did, and his brother does well, also.”

  “Shelly seems happy with her results, anyway.”

  “I’ve never heard a complaint about either brother,” Peter said. “Oh, some odd grumbling whenever the markets tumble and there are short-term losses, but overall, Carl’s done very well.”

  “Even without Sophia drumming up business for him,” Fenella commented.

  “Oh, she still did that after Christopher’s death,” Peter told her. “She kept a share in the company, so she was still motivated, you see.”

  “Did you think she had something to do with her husband’s death?”

  “I don’t know,” Peter replied. “She’s the type of woman that men kill for, if you know what I mean.”

  “I think I do.”

  “But she never remarried, so if someone did kill Christopher in the hopes of winning her hand, they failed.”

  “Has she been linked with anyone else since her husband died?”

  “There have been all sorts of rumors over the years,” Peter told her. “People watched her every time she was around Carl, especially, but as far as I know they have always treated each other like brother and sister.”

  “Daniel had a list of possible suspects,” Fenella said. “But I can’t remember any of the names now.”

  They’d reached the Sea Terminal, so they turned around and began their leisurely walk home.

  “I’m sure Herman Clucas was on the list,” Peter said. “He was another one that everyone thought would be after Sophia after a suitable period of mourning, but he married someone else about two years after Christopher’s death.”

  “Yes, I do remember that name,” Fenella said.

  “And I’m sure he talked about Roger Starr,” Peter added. “He’s a sad case, is Roger.”

  “Sad?”

  “Christopher got rid of him because he’d turned up for work drunk on more than one occasion. The thing is, Roger is a good bloke. Christopher felt terrible about letting him go, but he didn’t feel like he had a choice. Roger was increasingly unreliable. At the time, we all hoped that Roger would sort himself out and turn things around.”

  “But he didn’t?”

  “He took himself off to some rehab center across for a while,” Peter told her. “When he came back, I actually hired him. He worked for me for about a year and he was damn good at his job, until one day he came in an hour late smelling of cheap gin. I gave him about five second chances, but in the end I had to let him go.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He’s still around. He bought himself a small house many years ago, when he was still working regularly. I believe he invested every penny he could with Christopher and then Carl. I see him once in a while, just sitting on a bench outside one of the shops. He’s usually a little bit drunk or a lot hung over, but we always exchange pleasantries.”

  “Could he have killed Christopher?”

  “I’m sure he was quite capable of bashing the man’s head in,” Peter told her. “But getting the man and his car off a cliff took some planning. I’m not convinced the man was capable of anything that complicated at that point.”

  “I thought you said he went to rehab.”

  “After Christopher died,” Peter said. “He told me, when I interviewed him for the job, that Christopher’s death had been his wake-up call. He claimed that he was determined to never touch a drop of alcohol again.”

  “The poor man,” Fenella said.

  “I know addiction is hard to conquer,” Peter said. “But I’d like to think that I did everything I could to support him. Some people simply don’t want to be helped in the end.”

  Fenella didn’t feel as if she could argue, especially as she didn’t know the man in question. They’d reached their building now anyway, so she simply didn’t bother to respond. Peter stopped at Fenella’s door.

  “Good luck with your cold cases and with Katie,” he told Fenella softly.

  “Thank you,” she replied.

  He bent down and kissed her gently on the lips. “We should do this more often,” he muttered before turning and walking quickly to his own door.

  “Yes, we should,” Fenella replied quietly after she’d let herself into her apartment.

  “We should what?” Mona asked from where she was sitting at the dining room table.

  “I was just answering Peter,” Fenella told her aunt.

  “Did he kiss you goodnight?” Mona asked.

  “Yes,” Fenella said, feeling her cheeks beginning to burn. “But it was just a friendly kiss.”

  Mona sighed dramatically. “My dear niece, we are going to have to have a long talk about your love life,” she said.

  “My love life is fine.” Fenella replied. “I’m perfectly happy with simply having several friends of both genders.”

  “Friends don’t keep you warm at night,” Mona told her.

  “But Katie does,” Fenella countered.

  The kitten must have heard her name, as she suddenly came running. “Meerrwwowowwow,” she told Fenella.

  “I have to call the vet tomorrow and see about getting you sorted out,” Fenella told the kitten after she’d picked her up and given her a cuddle. “It won’t hurt, at least not much.”

  “Merrreeww,” Katie protested.

  “Yes, I know you don’t want to have surgery, but it truly is for your own good,” Fenella said.

  “It is,” Mona agreed. “But it won’t be pleasant and she won’t be happy with you.”

  “It will be fine,” Fenella said firmly. “But what are you doing?” She’d suddenly realized that Mona had all of the newspaper clippings spread out across the table.

  “I was reminding myself of all of the details of the two cases we’re going to solve for Inspector Robinson,” Mona told her.

  “We aren’t going to do any such thing,” Fenella said. “We’re just going to read through the clippings and let Daniel talk about the cases. Or rather, that’s what I’m going to do. You’re going to stay out of the whole thing.”

  “Yes, dear,” Mona said, waving a hand. “Go to bed or something. I’m reading.”

  Fenella thought about collecting the cuttings and taking them away from her aunt, but she couldn’t be that mean to her elderly relative. Even if she did only look about thirty, Mona had been ninety-one when she’d died. Fenella had to treat her with some respect.

  “That’s a good idea,” Fenella said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Wishing she could storm out of the room and slam a door, Fenella settled for walking into the kitchen to refill Katie’s dishes. After that she switched off the lights and made sure the apartment’s door was locked. She left herself a note in the kitchen to call the vet’s office first thing the next morning before she headed off to her bedroom. A glance at Mona showed that the woman was still looking at the various papers. Fenella had left a single lamp on for her, but as she washed her face, she began to wonder whether she needed to do that or not. Could ghosts see in the dark?

  Unable to get the question out of her head, she walked back into her living room. Mona was gone and the room was dark. Sighing deeply, Fenella climbed into bed, careful not to disturb Katie, who always slept in the exact center of the king-sized bed.

  Fenella found
herself rushing over breakfast the next morning, eager to get to the newspaper clippings Daniel had left. Before she sat down to start reading, she made the phone call she didn’t want to make.

  “Good morning,” she said when the call was answered. “This is Fenella Woods. It’s time for Katie to have her little operation.”

  “You were on my list of people to nag today,” the woman on the other end of the line told her. “Mr. Stone is always eager to get cats and dogs spayed or neutered.”

  “I know, but I hate the thought of making the poor little thing suffer,” Fenella explained.

  “We all do, but it truly is for her own good,” the woman replied. “Now, I’ve had a cancellation Thursday morning at nine. I’ll put Katie in there, shall I?”

  “Thursday?” Fenella repeated.

  “Yes, first thing Thursday,” the woman said cheerfully.

  “But, that is, I need more time,” Fenella said.

  “Why?” the woman asked. “Isn’t it better to simply get it over with?”

  “I suppose so,” Fenella said reluctantly.

  “Right, so have her here fifteen minutes early so that Mr. Stone’s assistant can check her over before nine. She can have a small breakfast, but only about a third to half of her normal meal. Keep her water bowl filled as normal. You’ll be given a full set of printed instructions for looking after her after the surgery when you arrive on Thursday.”

  “How long will the surgery take?” Fenella asked.

  “Not terribly long, but Mr. Stone does insist on keeping animals overnight after surgery. They need rest and quiet and this is the best place for them to get it.”

  “But Katie will be lonely,” Fenella said, blinking back tears.

  “Not only will she have two other cats and a dog for company, Mr. Stone or the assistant vet will be spending the night here as well. They take it in turns to stay over whenever we’ve done any surgery.”

  “That must be difficult for Mrs. Stone,” Fenella remarked.

  “There isn’t a Mrs. Stone,” the woman told her. “And with the hours that man works, I’m not sure there ever will be one.”

  Fenella put down the phone and looked at Katie. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Katie glared at her for a moment and then stalked away. When Fenella looked for her a minute later, Katie was stretched out in the spare bedroom, fast asleep, or pretending to be.

  “It’s not my fault,” she told the snoozing animal before heading back to the kitchen. She poured herself a large cup of coffee and then settled in at the table where Mona had been sitting the previous evening.

  “How did she do it?” Fenella wondered as she looked over the neatly arranged newspaper clippings. When she’d once tried to touch her aunt, Fenella’s hand had gone right through the woman. How had Mona managed to move the pieces of paper around on the table?

  All of the articles about Mel’s missing wife were together, and Fenella decided to start there. The clippings told her very little that she hadn’t already heard from Daniel and Peter.

  One article was centered around a man who lived in the apartment building next door to the missing woman. He told a reporter that he’d heard a loud argument coming from the Belsoms’ apartment the evening that Kay disappeared. The paper printed several comments about this witness in follow-up stories about the disappearance over the next week or more. Fenella nearly missed the single sentence that came later. It explained that the witness in question had actually been listening to another neighbor’s television, rather than Kay and Mel.

  When she’d finished all of the articles about the missing woman, Fenella took a few notes on the questions she had for Daniel.

  “Former boyfriends? Best friend must know more than she’s telling. How hard would it have been to disappear in 1986? Mel never remarried?”

  She frowned at her notes. It wasn’t much, but it was all that she could think of at the moment. With that done, she turned her attention to Christopher Manderly. An hour later, she felt as if her head were spinning. The papers had seemingly chased one theory after another. There were hints that the man’s business was an illegal front for something, veiled suggestions that both Christopher and Sophia were cheating, and a report of an anonymous letter that pointed the finger of blame at Herman Clucas.

  “But no one had a clear motive,” she complained as she stretched in her chair.

  “On the contrary,” Mona said. “Too many people had motives.”

  “Who do you suspect, then?” Fenella challenged.

  “Oh, Sophia, “Mona replied. “There’s no doubt in my mind that she was cheating on Christopher.”

  “Did you know them?”

  “Yes, of course,” Mona replied. “And I knew Christopher’s father rather well.”

  “How well?” Fenella asked suspiciously.

  Mona laughed. “You really mustn’t believe everything you hear about me,” she said. “I didn’t have as much fun as everyone thinks.”

  After nearly three months on the island, Fenella had been told a great many stories about her colorful aunt. Almost all of them involved wealthy men and angry wives. “Just answer the question,” Fenella suggested.

  “Charles, Christopher’s father, was a self-made man,” Mona told her. “He married later in life, and he and his wife both doted on their two boys. His wife never really recovered from Christopher’s death. They were both very proud of the company that Christopher built and delighted when Carl kept it running so successfully.”

  “Did they like Sophia?”

  “Oh, I’m sure Charles did. Sophia is a man’s woman, if you know what I mean. She would have won him over very easily. I’m sure Christopher’s mother, whose name I have forgotten, didn’t like the woman one bit. But very few, if any, women like Sophia.”

  “But even if she was cheating, why would she kill him? Why not just get a divorce?”

  “Money, of course,” Mona said. “Instead of having to fight in court for some percentage of Christopher’s money, she inherited everything.”

  “Do you think she had help with the murder?”

  “Oh, certainly. She wouldn’t have done the dirty work herself. Sophia probably arranged the whole thing and then got one of her lovers to do the actual deed.”

  “So who was she sleeping with?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” Mona said. “So many possibilities. Let’s start with Carl, shall we?”

  “Her own brother-in-law?” Fenella gasped.

  “Oh, my, yes,” Mona laughed. “He’s a few years younger than Sophia and the pair used to raise eyebrows at parties because he used to follow her around like a puppy dog. He would get quite upset when she would flirt with other men, as well. I remember more than one occasion when he stormed out of a party because Sophia was behaving badly.”

  “But Christopher didn’t mind his wife flirting?”

  “Oh, Christopher was too busy with his own distractions,” Mona said.

  “I haven’t heard any women’s names as possible suspects,” Fenella said. “But maybe someone he was involved with got angry and killed him.”

  “I don’t think he ever let anything develop to that point,” Mona told her. “He was more about one-night stands and brief encounters. I think it was almost a knee-jerk reaction to Sophia’s behavior.”

  “What a miserable marriage.”

  “It was actually quite successful,” Mona replied. “I believe they must have had some sort of understanding. Certainly Sophia was good for Christopher’s business, and I’m sure he knew that.”

  “And she never remarried.”

  “No, I think she’s much happier on her own. Christopher’s death left her financially secure. I don’t think she ever wanted to tie herself down again.”

  “Even if she was having an affair with Carl, which I still find horrible to consider, do you really think he would have killed his own brother, even for her?”

  Mona gave her a thoughtful look. “No, when you put it that way,
I can’t,” she said after a moment. “If Carl was involved, whatever happened must have been an accident of some kind.”

  “How do you accidently drive a body off a cliff?”

  “No, not that; I mean Christopher’s death. If he slipped and hit his head on something, for example, I can see Carl helping Sophia get rid of the body so that she wouldn’t get into trouble.”

  “But surely she wouldn’t be in trouble if it had been an accident,” Fenella said.

  “Maybe, but maybe Sophia panicked.”

  “Let’s talk about other suspects,” Fenella suggested.

  “Roger Starr was always the press favorite for the crime,” Mona said. “He was too drunk to tell the same story twice about where he’d been the night of the accident, as well.”

  “I know he’d been fired by Christopher, but that seems a fairly weak motive for murder,” Fenella said.

  “Unless he was also sleeping with Sophia,” Mona suggested.

  “Was he?” Fenella gasped.

  Mona chuckled. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But knowing Sophia, it’s possible.”

  “I’ve led a sheltered life,” Fenella muttered as she picked up her coffee mug. The contents had gone cold. She sighed and put the mug back on the table.

  “Of course, she might have been involved with Herman Clucas as well,” Mona said. “There was all sorts of talk about him after Christopher died. Everyone thought he and the devastated widow would get married once everyone stopped talking about her.”

  “But they didn’t.”

  “No, and Herman married someone else while everyone was still speculating about his relationship with Sophia. I’ve always wondered about that.”

  “What motive did he have for killing his best friend?”

  “It always comes back to Sophia, doesn’t it?” Mona asked. “In his case, that’s really the only motive I can imagine.”

  “And is that everyone?”

  “You didn’t mention Douglas Richards,” Mona pointed out. “I’m fairly certain he wasn’t sleeping with Sophia. Maybe that’s why he killed Christopher.”

  “They’d been in school together, right?” Fenella asked, trying to remember everything she’d read or been told.