A Dodgy Death

by Jacqueline M Green

  She looked back to her tea, then set the spoon on the saucer. “I’m not sure, but…”

  “Clarissa, anything will help. I think it’s related to Aunt Selma’s death, but I don’t know how yet.”

  Clarissa’s eyes widened. “Related to Selma’s death? Why would it be?”

  I took a quick sip of tea before I answered the question. The thought had been running through my head all night, born of years on the police beat before I earned the investigative reporter job.

  “It’s been my experience that things don’t happen in a vacuum. It would be odd, particularly in such a small town, a village, for there to be a death and an unrelated break-in at the same place. I just think it’s too much coincidence.”

  Clarissa thought about that for a minute even as her eyes roamed the room, making sure her customers were taken care of. I couldn’t tell if she was just avoiding the question.

  “I don’t know if it’s related,” she finally said, leaning forward and lowering her voice. “But some time ago, maybe four months, Selma said she found four illustrations by Helen Beatrix Potter while she was remodeling. They had been hidden in a secret panel in the pantry.”

  The illustrations? The ones Aunt Selma had been so secretive about? I had forgotten all about them.

  “Aunt Selma told me about them just before she died.”

  Clarissa sat up a little straighter, peering at me. “Did you see them? Did you actually see them? She wouldn’t show them to me.”

  I shook my head. “She said she hid them.”

  Clarissa groaned. “That’s what she told me, too. They could be anywhere, but no one knows how much they’re even worth.”

  I chewed on that as I, well, chewed on the croissant. “Do you think someone broke in to steal the illustrations?” My eyes widened and I nearly choked on the croissant. “Did Aunt Selma fall down the stairs or was she killed?”

  Chapter 6

  Clarissa’s voice was hushed with urgency as she leaned toward me. “Are you saying that Selma was murdered?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know.” I threw up my hands, my food forgotten. “Is that a possibility?”

  The bell tinkled again, and Clarissa’s eyes drifted back to the front door. “Isn’t this convenient? Let’s go right to the source. Yoo-hoo, Jaime!”

  I turned to see who Clarissa was waving at, a tall, dark-haired man about my age in a police uniform. He smiled and waved back, heading our way but stopping to say hello to patrons on the way.

  “’lo, Clarissa. You’re Selma’s niece, right? Did you get settled in all right? Heard about the break-in. How are you getting on?”

  Wow, that was a lot of questions. I tried to answer them in order.

  “Yes, I’m Kat McCoy. Starting to settle in, and I’m fine. The officer who came last night was very helpful.”

  “Kat, this is Constable Jaime Allen. Jaime, what can you tell us about poor Selma’s death?”

  The constable looked awkwardly toward the ordering counter, then back at Clarissa, then back at the counter just as more tourists wandered inside. Clarissa jumped out and pointed to the third chair at the table.

  “Sit. I will get your order.”

  “But you—”

  “No, no, I’ve got it.”

  The constable sat down and clasped his hands on top of the table, then looked at me, his deep brown eyes twinkling. “She doesn’t know what I want, but I suppose I will take whatever she brings back.”

  He smiled, clearly a little embarrassed. I couldn’t help myself. I smiled back.

  “I’m so sorry about your aunt,” he went on. “Your great-aunt, wasn’t she?”

  I nodded, really wanting to continue eating but not wanting to show poor manners by eating in front of him. “My grandmother’s sister. Grandma moved to the States when she was barely in her twenties, but she kept strong ties here.”

  “That’s lovely then. Did Selma ever visit her in the States?”

  I tilted my head as I thought about that. “I can’t remember a time she came to the States. I think she was afraid of flying.”

  He smiled gently. “I can’t imagine Selma afraid of much of anything actually. She was quite something.”

  “So … about her death?”

  Just then Clarissa waltzed up and set down a steaming to-go cup and a wrapped sandwich, plopping them down on the table in front of the constable. He picked up the sandwich and turned it over in his hand, a question on his face.

  “You never ever sit down to finish it, so I wrapped it ahead of time.” Clarissa sat down, crossed her arms and legs and looked at him with raised eyebrows. “Now about Selma.”

  The constable took a deep breath and eyed Clarissa. “She fell down the stairs at her house.”

  Clarissa threw me a glance and leaned closer, lowering her voice. “Or was she pushed?”

  He pulled away from her, his eyebrows raised. “Pushed? She was eighty-seven years old-”

  “Or thereabouts,” I interjected.

  He nodded. “She wouldn’t really need much help falling down the stairs, don’t you think?”

  Clarissa and I exchanged a look. His eyes ping-ponged between us. “What? What do you know?”

  “Those are the exact same words I used.” I crossed my arms and settled back in my chair, my eyes on Clarissa.

  She launched into the tale of the illustrations. The constable’s eyes narrowed with every word. He looked about ready to explode out of his chair.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this last week when she died?” He finally burst out, exasperated.

  “I thought everyone knew about the illustrations,” she bit back. “You’re the constable. Surely you knew?”

  “I knew she had found something, but no one thought it was actually worth anything, did they?”

  Clarissa shrugged. “Like you said, she was in her eighties. I didn’t really connect the dots until someone tried to break into Selma’s, I mean, Kat’s house last night.”

  His gaze whipped around to me. “You think they’re connected?”

  My turn to shrug. “I’m not a police officer, but coincidences like that don’t happen too often.”

  He nodded. “True.”

  “Plus,” I hesitated because I hadn’t told Clarissa this. “Aunt Selma called me a few days before she died and said someone was trying to kill her.”

  If possible, the constable’s eyes grew even wider. “And you’re just now telling me this?”

  “She was eight-seven years old!” My voice grew louder.

  Clarissa looked around the room to see if we were disturbing anyone. She held up a hand. I mouthed “sorry” at her.

  I told them about the conversation until I reached the last part, which rushed back to me in startling detail. “And then she said that if she died, I should ‘follow the path,’ and-”

  I stopped, my mouth still open and about to form the words “don’t trust c-.”

  My gaze ping-ponded between the constable and Clarissa. Two “hard C” sounds sat right at my table. Suddenly I was overwhelmed with uncertainty. Could I trust Clarissa and the constable?

  “And what?” Clarissa motioned for me to continue.

  “And then the call dropped.” I quickly turned my attention back to my sandwich and took a bite. I held it up and mumbled, “Sorry for eating in front of you, but it’s getting cold.”

  The constable crossed his arms, and one finger was tapping his chin as he stared at the floor in thought.

  “The coroner seemed to think it was an accident. There were no obvious signs of other trauma on the body, Selma’s body,” he corrected himself. “I’ll have another chat with her to make sure we haven’t missed something, but other than that, there’s not much we can do.”

  “What about the break-in last night?” I asked.

  “We don’t know what the thief was after. If you had let him come in and muck about somewhat, we’d have an easier time guessing what he wanted.” He shrugged and smiled slightly. “Sorry,
that’s a joke.”

  My face clearly did not read “make a joke right now.”

  The constable stood up, reached for his tea and sandwich. “On that awkward note, ladies, have a lovely day. I’ll be in touch if I hear anything.”

  We watched him leave. Clarissa turned to me with worried eyes. “He didn’t seem to take our information very seriously.”

  “I noticed.” I ate the last bite of the sandwich and used the paper napkin to wipe my mouth.

  “What are you going to do?”

  I started to gather up the remains of my breakfast and then looked at Clarissa. “I’m going to go home and get the glass repaired, then try to figure out who might have wanted to kill my aunt.”

  Chapter 7

  My brain reeled and my heart felt heavy as I walked home through the drizzly Lake Country rain. The Lake Country – or The Lakes, as it is known in England – gets rain about two hundred days each year, which makes for soggy hikes but gorgeous greenery. I vowed to go for a hike or two while I was there, if I got the chance.

  I called the repairman from the front sitting room. It was going to be an hour or so before he could get there, so I took a deep breath and headed to Aunt Selma’s quarters at the back of the house, turning away from the kitchen.

  I opened the door and froze in the doorway. Either Aunt Selma was a slob of a magnitude even I couldn’t comprehend, or someone had ransacked her room.

  Constable Allen showed up within a few minutes of my second 9-9-9 call in twenty-four hours. I stood in the doorway of the room as he surveyed the damage.

  “I haven’t seen Aunt Selma in a while, but I’m guessing she was not this untidy.” I stood just inside the doorway, my arms crossed.

  The constable poked at the contents of one of the drawers. “You would be correct,” he said. “What do you think they were looking for exactly?”

  “I’m guessing the illustrations Aunt Selma told me about.”

  “Hmm.” He chewed on his lower lip as he peered into a cabinet.

  “What does that mean? ‘Hmm?’”

  He looked at me over his shoulder. “It means ‘hm, I’m thinking. Do you not make any thinking noises in America?”

  “Only in bad B movies.”

  “Hmm.”

  There it was again, but I sensed he did it this time just to irritate me. I blew out a breath and sat down on the chair next to the door. The constable spun around and fixed me with a look. “What are you doing? Don’t touch anything. Have you touched anything else in here?”

  I jumped up from the chair and started to reach a hand toward the door jamb before jerking it away. “Sorry. If you need a print of my rear, I’ll have to come down to the station.”

  “Hm. Hm. Hm. You Americans are hilarious.”

  “Some of us are,” I shot back.

  He paused before turning back to the dresser. “We will need your fingerprints so we can rule out where you were in the room.”

  “I was literally right here by the door,” I protested. “I haven’t even gone into the room as far as you have.”

  “So you say.”

  “Yes, I say.”

  “And I’m just supposed to believe you because you say. Is that how they do things in America? The police must have quite the cushy job then.”

  “Now who’s hilarious?”

  He suddenly grinned and caught my eye. “A few of us Brits are, as well.”

  I bit back a smile.

  He poked around in the room a while longer before turning back to me.

  “I wondered if you had time to look for the alleged illustrations in the house.” He looked at me with raised eyebrows.

  “No, I’ve barely been home today, so I haven’t had time. What do you mean ‘alleged’?”

  “Well, alleged means there have been allegations about something.”

  It took all I had not to stamp my feet in annoyance. Who did this village cop think he was talking to?

  “I was an investigative reporter, Constable. I know what ‘alleged’ means. Why are you calling Aunt Selma’s discovery ‘alleged’?”

  He stopped and looked at me frankly, those brown eyes searching my face. “Have you actually seen the illustrations?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Do you know of anyone who has actually seen them?”

  “Noooo.” I was beginning to see his point.

  “So right now, they’re ‘alleged’ until they turn up or we find some other sort of evidence that they do in fact exist, and, no, I don’t know just yet what that evidence might be.”

  Just then a voice called from the front of the house. “Hallo! I’m here about the glass.”

  Once the glass repairman had finished his job, and the constable and another officer had finished in Aunt Selma’s room, the constable strode into the kitchen with a heavy step.

  “It does indeed appear that someone was searching for something, but the techs think they wore gloves because they’re only seeing one main set of prints, which likely are Selma’s. They’ll know more when they study them at the lab.”

  “There’s a lab here?” That surprised me, considering the size of the village.

  “We’ve a rather large spread-out population in The Lakes, Ms. McCoy.”

  He nodded toward the back door. The straight-backed chair lay on its side, having failed utterly to do its job.

  “I rarely feel the need to say this, but you might want to invest in better locks. I don’t know if they’ll be back, but they’ve tried twice already.”

  “You don’t think they found what they were looking for?” I sat down at the table and crossed my arms over my chest, feeling an inkling of fear creep inside.

  He shook his head. “Part of it is a hunch, part of it stems from the fact that they looked all over the room. What are the odds they tore up the entire room before they found it?”

  I pressed my hands into the table. “Constable, am I in danger?”

  The idea that I was in danger in this tiny village in the middle of nowhere seemed incredible to me, which shook me even more.

  He pursed his lips a few times and rubbed his chin with his hand. “Hm.”

  “Somehow, I knew you were going to say that.”

  “Well, hmmm, I don’t think so,” he said with a slight exaggeration before turning serious again. “I don’t know for sure. It seems that the culprit breaks in when you’re not here, or when they think you’re not here. If they had wanted to confront you, they wouldn’t have run off last night.”

  That thought made me feel a little bit better, but I figured I should still invest in those locks he suggested.

  “I think she was getting it ready for me.” My voice was softer and more timid than I expected it to be. “The house. The business. I think she was remodeling it for me.”

  He turned to look at me. I didn’t miss the kindness in his eyes. “I expect she was. That was the sort of thing she would do.”

  “Constable-”

  “Please, call me Jaime. Selma did.”

  I nodded. “And I’m Kat.”

  “Do you have any?”

  I frowned. “Any what?”

  “Uh, cats?”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s Kat with a K, short for Katherine.”

  His face broke into a wide smile. “Ah, Katherine. I like that.”

  I shook a finger toward him. “Only my mother calls me that, and then, only when she’s angry or behaving particularly motherly. At any rate, Jaime, can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt or kill Aunt Selma?”

  Jaime pursed his lips as he looked at the floor. The tips of his shoes had apparently become quite important.

  “When the call came in about Selma, I was nearby,” he said quietly, clearly remembering that day. “I was among the first responders. It really looked like she had fallen. There wasn’t anything dodgy about it.”

  “She said someone was trying to kill her. Do you know what that was about?”

  He sighed deeply just as t
he radio on his shoulder crackled. Between the accent and the crackling, I couldn’t understand a thing, but Jaime tilted his head and spoke into the radio that he would be there directly. Then he turned back to me.

  “Selma made a couple reports when she thought someone had broken in. I looked into it, but I couldn’t really tell if anyone had or not. It was really just that she had a bad feeling about it. There wasn’t much I could do. She didn’t mention that she thought they were trying to kill her.”

  The constable spread out his hands as he shrugged. “She did start locking her doors, though.”

  I turned to look out the back door, remembering what Clarissa had said. “But everyone knew where the key was hidden.”

  Chapter 8

  Once the constable was gone, the urge to leave the house felt strong. I decided to supplement the kitchen supplies with foods that were a touch faster to prepare.

  This time, when I got to the main street, I turned in the opposite direction from the tea shop to find the grocer. I assumed there was a bigger, more modern store over the bridge in Bowness proper, but this would do for now.

  I browsed the aisles with my basket. Nothing was in a familiar place so browsing seemed the best option. I picked up a large bag of potato chips – crisps, I reminded myself – and found coffee. I had rummaged around that morning and found an old coffee pot in the back of a cupboard. If I stayed, I would need to invest in a newer model, maybe even one of those pod models.

  Wait a minute. If I stayed?

  What was I thinking? Of course, I wasn’t staying. I had my life to get back to, didn’t I? Was I really happy there? I did love Jared. I gasped.

  Jared.

  I had barely thought about my boyfriend in over twenty-four hours. That probably wasn’t a good sign. I needed to call him soon and let him know I had arrived safely.

  “Um, miss? May I help you?”

  A raspy voice came from the left side of me. I jolted in that direction, suddenly aware that my inner ruminations had brought me to a standstill in the soup aisle.

  A dark-skinned man who had about ten years on me, wearing the store apron, frowned over reading glasses. “You’d be Selma’s grand-niece, wouldn’t you?”