“Indecisive,” Emily replied with a nod.
“So you have a hammer cleaned and then dirtied up again, Patti’s body carried to the woods—she was left on the ground at one point back there—but then picked up again and taken to your yard. One of them was fine with leaving her in the woods, the other wasn’t. The murder was impulsive, happening just before a tour group was about to enter the cemetery, so Patti was quickly half-buried where she fell. One of them added a bat to make the scene look more like a tour display. But then, maybe because one of them didn’t want the historical society’s relationship with the cemetery tarnished, they moved Patti’s body, putting her in the trunk of a car that already had cemetery dirt in it because it had been used to steal headstones. Or maybe they used a tarp or trash bags to catch fibers from her clothing. Only on their way to another location, they encountered a sign announcing a DUI checkpoint.”
I sat back, waiting for Emily’s response.
“Wow. The way you explain it . . . I can see it, yes. But where’s the proof?”
“We don’t have it. And the only one who might be able to help us is Brodie.”
Emily sat forward. I could see in her eyes that the pieces had fallen into place. “You’re talking about Jonathan and Olivia, aren’t you?”
“It has to be them, working together.”
“How can Brodie help?”
“He was searching for something at the Dawson grave, and I think he was helping Jonathan. He didn’t want us to see him search the area, but at the same time he wasn’t nervous, which means he wasn’t searching for himself and didn’t think what he was doing was connected to Patti’s murder. What if Jonathan dropped something in the dirt when he was burying Patti?”
“That’s a long shot. Why wouldn’t Brodie tell the police?”
“You said it yourself.”
“He’s a puppy dog.”
“A puppy dog who only now has an idea what happened at the grave—and why Jonathan and Olivia had to get rid of Patti’s body after they moved it. Brodie’s been mulling it over.”
“Which brings us back to why.”
“Patti was a history and genealogy geek. I think she found out something about Jonathan or Olivia, and I’m betting it was Jonathan. Just one minute after we met he made a point of telling me his family goes back more than two hundred years. He’s proud of his Smithwell heritage and uses it for his own egotistical purposes.”
Emily seized the library book and flipped to the back. “Selkirk, Selkirk,” she said, running fingers down a page.
“You look, I’ll get my coat.”
Back in the kitchen, I checked the oven again, since once was never enough for me when it came to major appliances, and told Minette she could come with us.
“Here!” Emily exclaimed, twisting back in her chair. “There’s an Edmund Selkirk. I wonder if he’s related? What an awful man.” She rose slowly, still reading the book. “Kate, he made his fortune in the slave trade. I didn’t know there were slaves in Maine.” She looked up.
“I’ve read about that. There were some slaves here in the early and mid-eighteenth century.”
“Edmund was ostracized and eventually gave up his slaves.”
“Sold them is more like it.”
“And made even more blood money.”
“You said Patti did everyone’s genealogy, but only going back a few generations. What if she read about Edmund Selkirk and decided to go further into Jonathan’s past? What if she found out Jonathan’s family standing in Smithwell comes from slavery?”
“Jonathan would be humiliated. Anyone else would be saddened, but Jonathan would think only of himself and his family’s reputation.”
I waved the book. “There are only three copies in all of New England. Maybe in the United States.”
“And no one knew about Edmund until Patti—”
“Who spent hours in that library—”
“Found out.”
“That’s why Patti was staring out the library window, holding the book. She’d discovered a secret and was contemplating what to do with it. How her wheels must have turned.”
Minette took to the air, shouting, “Go! We must go now! Brodie is in danger.”
She dove for my pocket, and Emily and I raced out the side door, nearly knocking each other over in our haste.
“Call Rancourt,” I said, whipping through the turnaround. “Ask for him. Don’t talk to Bouchard. He’s thick as they come.”
Emily dialed, and I drove as fast as I sensibly could down Birch Street for downtown Smithwell. At the corner of Falmouth and Plymouth Avenue, Emily shouted, “Stop sign!” and braced herself.
I stepped hard on the brake, coming to a wrenching halt and sending Emily into the dashboard. “Sorry!”
“I don’t want to die in an accident before Laurence gets home, Kate. No, I need to speak to Detective Rancourt,” she said into the phone. “He knows me. Patti’ Albert’s body was found in my yard. It’s vital he calls me back—or he can meet me at the Fairfield Mansion. Kate Brewer and I are on our way right now. Brodie Campbell is in danger.” She hung up and stuffed the phone in her coat pocket.
We made it to Essex Street unscathed, and seeing all the cars parked in front of the mansion for the tour, I drove around to the small parking lot by the service entrance. “Let’s find Brodie first. Minette, are you all right?”
“I’m being quiet and good,” came the response.
Thankfully, Brodie hadn’t thought to lock the service door after our surprise visit, so we entered without incident and walked unnoticed through the tour crowd, first in the foyer and then in the living room, where I finally saw Brodie, a large white cookie in his hand.
“You two are back again?” he mumbled as he chewed.
Charming. And here we were trying to save his life.
“Brodie, put the cookie down for just one minute. This is extremely important.”
He considered me momentarily, then set his cookie on a couch arm and brushed powdered sugar from his hands. “I’m listening.”
“When you were in the cemetery at the Dawson grave, what were you looking for?”
“Come on, I wasn’t looking—”
“Tell me, and maybe you won’t have to tell the police. We know you didn’t kill Patti.”
“Brodie, we know darn well you were searching for something,” Emily said.
He heaved a weary sigh and threw back his head, annoyed with me but somehow understanding that his answer, his truthful answer, was crucial. “I was doing a favor for Jonathan. He asked me to find his executive director’s historical society pin. He said he dropped it there when he was putting a bat on the headstone, and he was afraid the police would think he was a suspect in Patti’s death.”
Emily gaped at him. “Hello? Earth to Brodie.”
“No, it wasn’t him,” Brodie insisted. “He didn’t do it. He wouldn’t. And besides, he found the pin at home. He’d forgotten to put it on—so it wasn’t at the grave.”
I couldn’t stop staring at Brodie. Of all the naive . . . “But he asked you to find it,” I said. “He asked you.” I smacked my forehead and turned away to keep myself from saying something I’d regret, and that’s when I saw Jonathan watching us.
“Emily, Jonathan’s watching,” I said under my breath. “He knows what we’re talking about.”
Emily stepped closer to Brodie, until she was a foot from his startled face. “Now you’re in danger. Do you understand? Did you tell anyone else you were looking for that pin? Like Olivia?”
“Jonathan asked me not to,” Brodie replied. “So I kept my word. Until now.”
“Where’s Olivia?” I asked, scanning the living room.
“She could be in danger too,” Emily said. “Kate, what if she knows about the slave trade?”
“Slave trade? You two are . . .” Brodie reached out and without looking fingered the couch arm in search of his cookie. Finding it, he shoved the rest of it in his mouth.
“I’m not as worried about Olivia,” I said. “She helped him dispose of Patti’s body.”
“Where’s Rancourt? Eating donuts and potato chips?” Emily grabbed her phone and dialed, and while both our backs were turned, Brodie, who probably thought we were clean out of our minds, fled.
CHAPTER 21
While Emily was on her third call to the police station, Detective Rancourt showed up at in the mansion’s foyer, looking for all the world like he’d just fallen out of bed: a thick five-o’clock shadow on his face, a straggly tie, rumpled hair and clothing.
Before I could make my way over to him, I saw Zane pointing him to the two tour groups and Rancourt mouthing something about not being a tourist. We met in the foyer just as Officer Bouchard walked in, and without too much detail, I told Rancourt about the history book, Edmund Selkirk, and Olivia and Jonathan’s propensity to argue over the placement of tables in the mansion. He stared blankly at me until I also mentioned the “lost” pin and Jonathan’s request that Brodie Campbell search for it at the Dawson grave.
“Why didn’t you say so?” he asked.
“I’m saying it now,” I retorted. “I had to give you the background. And by the way, I think Jonathan knows Brodie told us about looking for the pin, and Brodie took off after we talked.”
“Where did he go?”
“I didn’t see.”
Rancourt turned to his officer. “Bouchard, everyone stays down here. Herd them into the living room and keep them there—no exceptions.”
“Sir.”
“And you two stay here with everyone else,” Rancourt said, shoving us aside.
He mounted the stairs and disappeared from view around the corner, but when I heard him again on the staircase, I realized he was making his way to the third floor. With great effort, I was sure.
Emily and I stood in a corner so no one would jostle my coat pocket, and I surveyed the living room until I spotted Olivia. She was nervously pacing the tiny space allotted her by the assembled crowd, like a turkey who knew she was about to grace someone’s Thanksgiving dinner table.
“What do you think Olivia got out of this?” Emily whispered. “I wouldn’t help a murderer.”
“She got control,” I said, certain I was right in that. “And maybe she had some skeletons in her family closet, too, just like Jonathan. Patti might have been delving further into her family tree and Olivia was glad she was gone.”
“Why didn’t Jonathan just steal the book and throw it away?”
“I think he planned to. Zane said that lately he’d been trying to spend time alone in the library. He just couldn’t manage it. No one else knew that book held secrets about his family, so he thought he had all the time in the world to dispose of it. It’s also possible Zane didn’t tell him which of the Smithwell history books Patti had located the Selkirk family in, and Jonathan was scouring books’ indexes, trying to find out.”
I heard a thud from somewhere upstairs. Several people laughed, thinking only of ghosts, but I was worried about Rancourt. He was a little older than Jonathan and less agile by far.
Bouchard was staring at the ceiling, probably thinking the same thing I was. Carefully, with Emily acting as a human barrier to protect Minette, I worked my way through the crowd to the officer and asked him if Rancourt knew about the back stairway.
“Don’t think so,” he answered. “Maybe I should check it out.”
“Jonathan might escape down it.”
“Maybe . . .”
Understandably, given his order from Rancourt, he hesitated to leave his post.
“We’ll make sure everyone stays here,” I promised. “I think he might need your help.”
To my shock, Bouchard broke into a wide grin. “Nope, I don’t think so,” he said, gesturing at the stairs.
There was Rancourt at the head of the stairs, moving slowly downward, side by side with a handcuffed Jonathan, the latter, his black tie askew and his suit jacket torn, looking as though his world had come to an end. And behind them by a considerable amount was Brodie, limping his way down each step. He looked as though he’d just made a narrow escape.
Bouchard led Jonathan outside, and Rancourt, free of his prisoner, marched into the living room, seized Olivia by the arm, and escorted her rather limp and resigned body into the foyer, where another Smithwell police officer took her into custody.
I followed Rancourt, anxious to find out if Jonathan had confessed.
“Jonathan Selkirk was on the third floor trying to rid himself of the potentially troublesome Brodie Campbell,” Rancourt said. He stopped to take a deep breath. “Caught in the act, as it were. Mr. Campbell is going to need a stiff drink.”
“Jonathan killed Patti? Hit her with a hammer?”
“At the Dawson headstone. Mrs. Albert was fascinated by family history and Mr. Selkirk suggested he’d found a stray family member—and a misplaced bat. He claims he acted out of anger and didn’t plan to kill her, only scare her.”
“But he hit her only once? That was enough?”
“A lucky hit, you might call it. And a very heavy hammer.”
“Did Patti tell Jonathan about the slave trade and his family?”
“Well, I said the word ‘slave’”—he hitched up his pants—“and the man about threw up, so I guess so. But all he said was Patti Albert was blackmailing him, he had to do something, and Olivia Atkinson helped him cover up the murder so she could take control of the society—running it through him—and get his help selling headstones on the black market. Seems he knows some people in the business. He was talkative once he was cuffed. On the second floor he said Mrs. Atkinson made him take the body out of the cemetery, and she talked him into not leaving the body in the woods. She couldn’t stand the thought of worms and decay, as it happens.”
Emily grimaced.
“On the other hand, she talked him into bloodying up the hammer again after he’d cleaned it, intending to take it back to the mansion’s office. So they left it in your yard, Mrs. MacKenzie, and on first look, it wasn’t the murder weapon. Maybe she knew that would complicate things for us or maybe she didn’t want the murder weapon returned to the mansion’s office. But we’ll draw the details in later. By the way, Mrs. Brewer, it was Charlotte King who left that note on your windshield.”
“I had that wrong, didn’t I?”
“She knew you suspected her of stealing from the cemetery and wanted to scare you off.”
Before Rancourt left, he thanked Emily and me and told Emily to give his regards to Laurence. “I used to know your husband well,” he said. “When he worked at embassies and before he became involved in construction—or did you say hotels? Anyway, of course he’s no murderer. Never was, never could be. He’s a good man, but he’s quite a mystery, isn’t he?”
Emily’s jaw dropped. “You knew him well? But you acted as if—”
“I couldn’t make an exception. Police work, you know. There are certain questions I have to ask, papers to fill out, procedures to follow. If I hadn’t asked you where he was and when he’d left, it would’ve come back to bite both of us.”
“But Detective, until last month I’d never met you.”
“What can I say? I knew a lot of people in my old days. Goodnight, Mrs. MacKenzie, Mrs. Brewer.”
While some in the crowd were game for the tours to go on as scheduled, Emily and I set off for the service door and climbed into my Jeep, more than ready to go home. The three of us were tired, and so Emily, to keep me awake so I didn’t risk running more stop signs, talked all the way home, mostly about Laurence.
After I parked the car outside my house, Emily picked up her overnight bag and I walked her home, not because she was afraid but because I wanted to borrow her honey bear. Once we were in her house, I bravely resisted the temptation to tell her I thought I heard rats in her attic. Or maybe raccoons.
Back home, as I sat at my kitchen table, pondered the strange Jonathan Selkirk, and watched Minette sip honey from a spoon, it struck me
that Emily, who I’d been envying because her husband was alive, was alone tonight while I far from alone.
“It’s crazy to commit murder because someone in your distant past was a scoundrel,” I said. “I don’t care how evil Edmund Selkirk was—he was no real reflection on the generations of Selkirks after him. Do fairies have family histories?”
“Fairies stand alone, with only ourselves to blame.”
It was another one of Minette’s cryptic replies, but in a funny way, I knew what she meant, and I wished Jonathan had felt the same.
“I’m sorry I yelled.”
She stopped drinking her honey and said, “It’s past and gone, Kate.”
I had to laugh. Boy, did she have an unexpected way with words. “Did you hear what Rancourt told me and Emily? If he’d known how much you helped, he would have thanked you too.”
She straightened and sat, cross-legged as usual, before the spoon. “I like putting bad people in trouble.”
“Me too. Guess what? I forgot to take that boring book back to the library.”
“You can do it later.”
“How about I read you a book tonight?”
“Not that one.”
“No, I have a much better one in mind. Michael used to read it as a child. Do you like children’s books?”
“Superb!”
“Meet me in the living room.”
I dashed upstairs, went to Michael’s office, and retrieved his well-worn copy of An Owl and His Forest.
Minette was already on top of an armchair by the fireplace when I returned, quivering joyfully with anticipation. I sat and opened the book, and she flitted to my shoulder.
“Once there was an owl called Samuel,” I read aloud, “and he lived in the forest and had many friends.”
“I know this one,” Minette said. “I like it, Kate.”
SECRET SANTA MURDER
SMITHWELL FAIRIES COZY MYSTERY BOOK 3
SECRET SANTA MURDER CHAPTER 1
SNEAK PEEK
I was about to dive into a rather good homemade grilled cheese sandwich—I always made mine with mustard and Gruyere—when Irene Carrick phoned me and said she needed to discuss a matter of great urgency. She was, in fact, already on her way and was a mere five minutes from my house. Could she stop by?
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