Corbyn tilted his head with a gentle smile. “Small towns tend to be like that. Why do you think everyone has a motive?”
“Because they’re in a small town and they have no money. The illustrations Aunt Selma found are possibly worth nearly one hundred thousand pounds, and I’m sure they’d all love to get their hands on it.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.” Corbyn looked off in the distance as he spoke. “I think you’ll find most of the people here are fairly satisfied with their lot. At least, satisfied enough that they wouldn’t kill someone for it. You wouldn’t, right?”
I blew my nose on the tissue, then crumpled it in my hand. I shook my head.
“Most of the folks here wouldn’t either. Have you found any particular suspects?”
I pulled out my list and launched into the particulars of each person. Corbyn nodded, pursed his lips, nodded some more, frowned, then nodded as I spoke. I wasn’t sure if he was really listening or just making appropriate facial expressions.
When I stopped, he was mid-lip purse.
“Constable Allen? Did you ask him where he went after leaving the school?”
I shook my head. “I’ve only seen him briefly since then, and I was irritated, so I didn’t ask.”
“You should. I don’t see him hurting Selma or anyone for that matter. He abhors violence.”
“What if he caused Aunt Selma’s death by accident?”
Corbyn smiled. “He would stand up for it. He’s a strong lad, a good man. I’d make bank on that.”
“So I should start there?”
He nodded. “That’s what I would do. Then, you’ll have someone besides an old man and a tea shop owner who can help you.”
The warmth of gratitude filled my heart. I could see why Aunt Selma was so fond of this gentle, kind man. I swallowed the lump that suddenly arose in my throat. As I stood to leave, I leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.
“Thank you, Corbyn.”
“Of course, dear.”
He followed me to the door. I heard him click the locks as I left. Aunt Selma’s death had affected us all.
Chapter 23
By the time I got back to Aunt Selma’s house, my firm resolve to spend the rest of the day hunting for the last two illustrations had begun to wane. My brain felt foggy and my whole body stressed out.
If I were home, I would lace up a pair of running shoes — trainers, they called them here — and hit the trail. I’m not fast but I’m steady. Instead, I decided to lace up my sturdy walking shoes and follow some trails around the lake. The area was renowned for hiking trails, after all.
I followed a trail north out of town that veered into the brush and away from the road.
Good. I wanted to get away from people, particularly certain constables, who may or may not be killers.
After nearly a half hour of walking at a steady click, I heard peals of laughter and squeals of delight, as well as calls to “just let go” and “right here, mate!”
I peered through the trees to see a rope course set up high above the ground. Several people were on the ropes, zip-lining and climbing on the ropes from tree stand to tree stand.
I smiled in spite of myself. Keeping to the edge of the course, I made my way around to what appeared to be the beginning.
“Do you want to try it?” A familiar voice in my ear made me jump. I wheeled around to see the one person I particularly did not want to see right now, no matter what Corbyn suggested.
Jaime’s voice had a lilt to it, but his face was wary, no doubt because of the way I had shut the door in his face the previous evening. He was dressed in jeans and an old jacket, apparently on his day off.
I looked from his face back to the ropes course. It looked like fun, and I was on a British adventure, after all. Biting my lower lip, I took the plunge.
“Yes.” I spoke firmly in case my nerves gave me away.
“Let’s go. I know the owner.”
Of course, you do.
I followed Jaime to the office, more of a makeshift shack than an actual building. Jaime explained that the ropes courses were used for teambuilding as well as tourist and family entertainment.
Perfect. Corbyn seemed to think I needed to bond with the constable, so teambuilding, it was.
Before I could intervene, Jaime had bought two tickets and handed one to me. I protested that I could buy my own, but he waved me off.
We went through a quick informational safety talk before stepping into the harnesses, then climbing the steps to the first ropes obstacle. My stomach flip-flopped and my hands felt sweaty in spite of the coolness of the day. Jaime went first, showing me how to clip my harness onto the safety ropes and then how to maneuver across the obstacle.
One obstacle involved walking across a slack-rope with hands holding another rope at chest height. I stepped slowly and gingerly, the rope at my chest wiggling beneath my hands. I breathed a sigh of relief when I reached the small platform on the other side.
Another obstacle was a rope bridge, where we stepped from rung to rung. I discovered that moving quickly gave the ropes less time to wiggle.
At each obstacle, we would click the harness onto a safety rope, just in case we made a wrong move. I appreciated that, not wanting to tumble to my death before I figured out who killed my aunt. Rain started to drizzle as we moved through the course.
At the fourth or fifth obstacle, Jaime turned his head as he climbed gingerly up a rope ladder.
“How are you actually doing, Kat? You don’t seem quite as comfortable as you did when you first got here.”
He turned his head back to continue his progress and, I suspect, to give me adequate time to answer the question.
“I’m not doing great, Jaime. Here’s the thing. I don’t feel like I can trust anyone in town, except perhaps Corbyn and Clarissa.”
He reached the other side and turned toward me in surprise. “Why don’t you think you can trust me? What has changed?”
I paused on the rope ladder, unsure if I should continue or turn back. I chose the latter, stepping back to the previous tree stand as I turned to face Jaime.
“I know you don’t have an alibi for the time of Aunt Selma’s death. Marjorie says you were giving a safety presentation, but I know that you finished early and left the school. You don’t have an alibi.”
Realization dawned on his face, along with something that looked like disappointment.
“Ah, that’s why you stopped by the station the other day, to check my alibi. Why didn’t you just ask me, Kat?”
Rain dripped down my face as I responded. “Because you might have killed Aunt Selma.”
“Why, Kat, why would I kill Selma? What was my motive?”
I swiped at the rain on my face and shook it off my jacket.
“I don’t know,” I yelled across the ropes. “Maybe you were trying to get the illustrations so you could have a nice retirement. Or maybe it was just an accident and you didn’t want to ’fess up to it. You tell me!”
“There’s nothing to tell because I didn’t hurt Selma. Do you want to know where I was from the time I left school until I got the call for Selma?”
I clung to the rope on my side of the obstacle for dear life. I nodded. Fervently.
“I was helping Alex Lewis build a ramp for his mum. Dozens of people likely saw me. I was right outside the back of his store.”
My nose began to sniffle, and my eyes started to water. “You were? They did?”
He nodded at me, a small smile beginning to play on his face. “I wasn’t a ton of help because I only had about thirty minutes before the call about Selma came through.”
Relief coursed through me. I didn’t realize how much I needed someone else to trust here. Clarissa and Corbyn were great, as far as they went, but they couldn’t really help me solve Aunt Selma’s murder. Jaime could.
I climbed as quickly as I could to the other side of the obstacle and impulsively threw my arms around the surprised constable.
Jaime looked mildly amused. “You mean, thank you for not being a killer? I wouldn’t think you’d need to thank someone for that, but all right then. You’re quite welcome.”
Welcome. Something clicked in my brain about Aunt Selma’s new “Welcome” sign she had put up in the B&B along with the cabinet. Was there someplace large enough in the cabinet to hide an illustration?
I tucked the thought aside as Jaime and I made our way across the rest of the rope obstacles, laughing and cheering each other on. Finally, we settled helmets on our heads to zipline side by side a quarter mile back to the beginning of the course. As my zipline took off, I opened my arms wide and hollered as loud as I could, feeling the wind and light rain drops smack into my face and whoosh through my jacket.
Freedom, fueled by a sense of relief, filled my body, propelling me forward as much as the zipline. At the end, I landed with a bounce and the aide caught me before I bounced away, both of us laughing.
Jaime offered me a lift back to Aunt Selma’s and I gratefully accepted, catching a glimpse of my cheeks mirrored in the passenger side window. My face looked red and splotchy, but there was something else strewn across it that I hadn’t seen in quite some time.
It looked like happiness.
Chapter 24
Back at Aunt Selma’s, I paused long enough to make a cup of tea to warm myself after the cold ropes course, then sauntered back down the hallway to the cabinet set just before the stairs. This was one of the projects that Aunt Selma had video-conferenced about.
I blew on the hot tea, then set the mug on one of the steps so I could use both hands to feel around the edges of the cabinet. I didn’t expect to find something right away; I hadn’t on the first two. Aunt Selma was more cautious than that. She wouldn’t want someone to find the illustrations by accident.
I ended up pulling everything off the two shelves inside, which mostly consisted of snack bars and crisps to replenish the bowls that sat on top. Feeling my way inside and tapping the sides of the cabinet, nothing seemed out of the ordinary until one of my fingers slipped and I felt the back of the cabinet slide.
Down on my hands and knees, peering into the bottom shelf, was where I was when a rap came at the front door. Clarissa’s face pressed up against the glass and her eyes were wide.
I struggled to my feet, which had fallen asleep because I had been sitting on them for some time, and tottered over to the door, clicking open the locks. I grabbed Clarissa’s arm and pulled her inside.
“What in the world are you doing?” Clarissa exclaimed as she peeled my hand off her arm. She looked from me to the cabinet and correctly read the situation. She gasped. “You found something, didn’t you? You did!”
Her eyes wide with excitement, Clarissa hurried over to the cabinet, standing over it and looking at me with an expectant air. “What did you find?”
I held out a hand to hold back any more comments. “I’m not sure yet. Stand over there so that anyone else looking in the window won’t be able to see what I’m doing.”
Clarissa dutifully moved into position as I returned to the floor on my knees, one shoulder practically on the ground as I reached into the cabinet and gently slid a hidden door aside at the back of the cabinet.
“What are you doing in there?” Clarissa asked.
“Shhh.”
“Why? Is it a safe in there and you’re cracking it open?”
“Shhh.”
I leaned in further and wiggled another narrow box, just like the other ones, out of its place in the back of the cabinet. Setting it on the bottom shelf, I pushed myself to standing, then reached back down and pulled it out.
Clarissa’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. “You did it!” she stage-whispered. “You did it!”
“Why are you whispering?” I laughed.
Clarissa glanced around. “This is a village, Kat. Ears are everywhere.”
Double-checking the locks on the front door, we took the box back to the kitchen and as I set it on the table, Clarissa moved to pull the shades on the door and windows. She leaned in on the other side of the table, looking ready to jump out of her skin.
“How can you be so calm?” she asked.
“I’ll show you in a minute,” I said, gently lifting the top off the box. Inside, just as I’d suspected, lay another pen and ink illustration with signature in the corner.
Clarissa studied the illustration for a moment, then sat down in the chair beside her.
“Huh,” she said. “It’s not as powerful as I expected it to be. It’s a bit of a letdown, if you ask me.”
I agreed with her, then went to the pantry and retrieved the first box, keeping it with me as I went to the front sitting room for the other box. When I returned, Clarissa was reheating the water in the tea kettle and rummaging about for tea and a cup more suitable than the mug I was using.
As I set the other two boxes on the table and opened them for her to see, Clarissa burst out laughing. “I knew it! I knew you had found something. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m telling you now, but you have to promise, Clarissa, that you won’t tell a single soul that I’ve found these.”
Her mouth opened in protest. “I can’t keep this kind of secret.”
“I know. That’s why I didn’t tell you before. And it’s why I’m not going to tell you where I’m hiding them when you leave tonight.”
A sudden thought stopped me. “Wait. That’s it. We use your lack of ability to keep a secret as a way to flush out the killer. We’re going to set a trap.”
Clarissa’s face grew worried. “We’re going to need Jaime.”
Chapter 25
Jaime showed up on my doorstep within the hour, this time with boxes from the only Chinese restaurant on this side of the lake. As Clarissa set out the food and plates, I filled in Jaime on the three illustrations. I wouldn’t tell either of them where I had found them or where I was going to put them.
“I might need to hide them again,” I insisted. “I’m not going to tell you until the killer is caught and is behind bars.”
Jaime reluctantly agreed. He listened to our plan to the end, nodding slowly.
“I’m nervous about the two of you being involved, but this could actually work. When do you want to do it?”
I glanced at Clarissa then back to Jaime. “In light of Clarissa’s inability to keep a secret, we need to do it tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow?” Jaime shook his head “no” and wagged a finger back and forth at me. “I can’t get all the clearances by tomorrow.”
“It has to be tomorrow. Otherwise the whole town will know about it and someone else besides the killer will get the bright idea to steal the illustrations.”
Jaime glared at Clarissa as he shoveled Orange Chicken into this mouth. It was a full minute before he spoke. “You can’t keep a secret for more than twenty-four hours?”
She looked at him coolly. “Do you not know me at all?”
He rolled his eyes and turned back to me. “All right. We’ll do it, but only because I will be in the spare room the whole time, so you don’t get hurt.”
“Deal.”
Jaime had a few other suggestions, including painting the doorknobs into the house with a purple paint that could only be seen under black light. The paint would transfer to the thief’s hand. It seemed worth a try just in case the thief got away.
The next morning, we set our plan in motion. Clarissa mentioned to everyone she saw that I had found the illustrations. Then she would let drop that she thought I hid them in the kitchen pantry. Both Franklin and Hugh had seen me working in the pantry, so they could corroborate her suggestion if needed.
She also happened to mention to everyone that I was home all day cleaning but would be joining her and Corbyn for dinner to celebrate.
If anyone was going to break in for the illustrations, we figured, it would be when they thought we were at dinner at Corbyn’s house in Bowne
ss. Corbyn, as usual, had not seemed surprised by our request to use him in our plan, but he was somewhat confused about whether we would actually be coming to his apartment for dinner.
“No, no, Corbyn,” Clarissa told him for the third time, rolling her eyes at me as she spoke into my cell phone, which we had on speaker. “We are just telling people that we will be there so someone will try to break in at Selma’s during that time.”
Finally, he seemed to understand. Or I hoped so. I would hate to think he would sit in his apartment waiting for Clarissa and me to show up for dinner. I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.
The day was the longest of all. Since Clarissa told everyone I was home cleaning, I had to stay at home, making sure no one tried to break in early. I made a show of banging out rugs on the front porch and sweeping off leaves from the stoop, waving at the neighbors. A few mentioned they had heard the news.
“Congratulations! Selma would be so pleased” was a comment I heard more than once.
It warmed my heart to know Aunt Selma was well-loved by her neighbors.
Just as dusk settled in, Clarissa and I made a loud show of laughing and stomping down the front steps and into her car, then slowly setting off down the street toward Bowness. After we crossed the bridge Clarissa made another left and turned back toward Windermere. She quietly parked the car in an alley a few blocks from Aunt Selma’s house. We jogged the back streets, then quietly stepped into the yard through the back gate toward the darkened house.
Jaime, who had slipped in the back as we went out the front, opened the door for us, and we slipped inside in the dark. The three of us hurried down the hall and into the spare bedroom.
Jaime stood just inside the door, his ear listening for any sound. Clarissa gripped my hands like a vise. I finally had to gently release them, one finger at a time. She resorted to clasping her own hands in front of her, gentle swaying back and forth with nerves.
A Dodgy Death Page 10