The Hotspur Affair: A Richard & Morgana MacKenzie Mystery

by Jack Flanagan

  “A fish? What fish?”

  “No one has any idea. This is all craziness. Who would have thought anything like this would happen to Uncle Raymond? He looked after stray cats, for God’s sake,” I grumbled.

  “May God have mercy on his soul—”

  “And on the soul who killed him,” I said, surprising myself by the remark.

  “Amen,” said Joe. He then leaned forward, emerging out from the shadows. His glinted glasses as he asked, “Was your uncle ever married?”

  “No, Uncle had tons of girlfriends, though. It seemed the older he got, the more lady friends he acquired. But, no, he never married.”

  “I remember meeting your Uncle Raymond; it was at your wedding. I immediately liked him. If I remember correctly, we chatted about ancient monasteries found along the Adriatic coast. He was very knowledgeable and funny . . . very likable guy.”

  “From what I knew of him, he was . . . in more ways than one.”

  “Rich, I don’t want to say anything now that would be hurtful, but as God is my witness, I think that your uncle’s . . . death and my recent experiences are linked. I can’t say why, or how, and I don’t know for certain, but, I truly feel that all these things are connected . . . Too many strange coincidences to be otherwise. And before you protest, I know that you are not a believer in coincidences.”

  I stared at Joe as he leaned back into the shadow of his chair.

  “Joe, do you actually believe that your mugging, and this envelope, and Uncle Raymond’s death are all in some way connected?”

  “My short answer is—Yes.”

  “And your long answer would be ?”

  “My long answer is—Yes, I do,” he answered with an impish grin which I hadn’t seen since our college days. “What are your thoughts?”

  “I . . . I don’t know. If anyone else asked me that, I would think that person was completely nuts. And, considering the mood that I am in right now, I might have punched him in the nose for his inappropriate timing.”

  “But you wouldn’t do that, especially to your friend, Joe,” said Morgana as she entered the room carrying a tray with three trigger mugs of chai. “Deep down, Richard isn’t a violent guy. He just likes to bark.”

  “You’ve been listening, haven’t you?” I remarked.

  Morgana set her burden on our mahogany butler’s table and distributed her brew. “Of course. It’s my house too.” With nonchalant confidence, my wife sat herself down in our cushioned barrel chair, battered her eyes, and, with a grin, asked, “Well, boys, what’s to be done?”

  “About what?” I asked as I sipped my tea and wished for something stronger.

  “Do we open the envelope now?” asked Morgana. “Or should we speak to the authorities, in particular, your brother, and open it when he gets here?”

  “We open it now,” I said without hesitation. I reached for the decorative letter opener on the end table next to me, and with the skill of a New York surgeon, I unseamed the letter and pulled out its contents—a single handwritten missive of some sort and two typed pages, three items in all. I unfolded the pages and quickly thumbed through them. “I have no idea what these are.”

  “They’re in German,” commented Morgana, who by then stood behind me, looking over my shoulder.

  “No kidding, Fräulein Smarty-pants,” I snapped for her obvious assessment.

  “Excuse me, grumpy,” replied Morgana, giving me her evil eye.

  “Sorry, Love. I’m feeling, eh, off . . . tired. Hey, you know some German. Can you read these?”

  Morgana looked intently at the words. “It appears to be an informal letter of sorts. But I don’t have the vocabulary to give a full translation.” She turned to our guest. “Joe, how about you? Read German?”

  “Sorry,” said my old friend, waving his hand, “German is not on my list of accomplishments. Now, if those pages were in Latin, Greek, Spanish, or Italian, well, then I would be your man.”

  “At the first opportunity,” said Morgana, “I’ll do a rough translation using the net.”

  “Hey, let’s take stock here,” I said. “We may be making a mountain out of a molehill with our collective imagination. These papers could be anything, even love letters, for all we know.”

  “Do you think this Father Mason and Uncle Raymond were gay?” teasingly asked Morgana.

  “No. But the way that things are going, I wouldn’t be surprised if I did by tomorrow morning.”

  “Do you think,” asked Joe, “that we should tell the authorities about the contents of the envelope?”

  That was an interesting question.

  “I take it, Joe, that you didn’t tell the cops about the envelope when you were mugged?”

  “To be honest, I was more concerned with the things which the thieves took rather than with what they didn’t,” said Joe. “It was when going through Bennington that I remembered the mugger saying, ‘Nichts’ that I connected his words with the envelope.”

  “It amazes me that you could have remembered anything after being attacked,” remarked Morgana.

  “I am lucky to be alive, thank God,” replied Joe with a grin. ”So, yesterday morning, I gave your Uncle Raymond a call. He sounded fine. I explained that I had something for him from Father Mason. Your uncle said that I should come over to his place the next day. He was to phone me this afternoon about the time. He never called. I tried to call him a few hours ago, no answer. So, I called here, and I got Morgana. She told me what had happened and for me to come over here as soon as I could. I was still hurting too much today to drive myself, so Father Peter, as I said, dropped me off at your place.”

  Joe took a long sip of Morgana’s brew and savored it. “That’s pretty much it.” He looked up from his cup. “Excellent chai, Morgana. Thank you.”

  “I’m glad that you like it. The secret is to use freshly crushed cardamom and a small sliver of fresh ginger. Another thing that I do—”

  “Do you feel that you are being watched or followed?” My question came to my lips before I knew that I was going to ask it.

  “Yep . . . the guy in the black trench coat. Lord, this is very good.” Joe took another sip of Morgana’s brew.

  “What guy in a trench coat?” I said, leaning forward in my seat.

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you about him. You see, there was this fellow whom I noticed at JFK just after I went through customs. I only saw him briefly, but he struck me as someone familiar. But I couldn’t place him. Maybe he reminded me of an actor or something. Anyhow, he was wearing a black trench coat and sunglasses. I assumed that he was a limo driver looking for one of the new arrivals. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it until . . .” Joe stopped his tale. He looked up at Morgana and me as if he were seeking our reassurance.

  “Until what?” I said—a bit gruffly in retrospect.

  “I thought I saw him at the diner where I was mugged.”

  “He mugged you?” asked Morgana.

  “No, no, he had nothing to do with my mugging . . . Quite the opposite really. You see, when the two . . . eh, thugs were roughing me up, this black car pulls into the parking lot. The driver starts getting out of the car. Seeing a newcomer on the scene, my assailants abandon me and take off in their car. And then this new fellow jumps back into his car and dashes off as in pursuit.”

  “Did you, at least, get a good look at this new guy?” I asked.

  “No. By that time, I was on the ground eating dirt. I only saw a glimpse of the back of the driver of the second car. I never saw his face, but when I got to thinking, later on, I thought that he had a similar stature to the guy from the airport . . . And he wore a dark overcoat. I told the police about the driver of the second car, but I said nothing about the fellow at the airport. I, again, didn’t make the connection. I must have been quite frazzled.”

  “But you now think there is a connection?”

  “Yes.” Joe leaned forward. “And I think I saw the airport guy again when I got to the abbey. He was in a blac
k car, a car like the one that chased after my muggers. The car was parked in the shadows along the side of the road across from the abbey’s entrance. At first, I paid it no mind. But as we pulled into the driveway, I briefly saw the car broadside, and I caught a glimpse of the driver. Again, I didn’t see his face, but I swear he looked like the same guy in the trench coat at the airport and the diner. But before I could be sure, the car drove away.”

  “Curious, very curious,” I said, mulling over the details of Joe’s story.

  “Ain’t that the truth, Doc,” replied Joe mimicking an old cartoon rabbit’s voice.

  “You still do voices?”

  “It helps with children’s homilies.”

  “Did you tell anyone at the abbey about your planned visit to my uncle?”

  “No, but that was easy; the topic never came up. The monks were more concerned with me.”

  “That was decent of them.”

  Joe chuckled.

  Morgana rolled her eyes.

  “Anything else?”

  “No. There isn’t much more to say. As I said, I called your uncle yesterday from the abbey to make arrangements to visit him. He sounded well for a man in his nineties . . .” Joe paused. He squinted his eyes as if he were reading something a few feet away from him, “Thinking about it now, our phone conversation was, well, a little odd. I just chalked it up to your uncle’s old age. But now?”

  “How so?” I asked.

  “Though we met only once, at your wedding, your Uncle Raymond talked as if we were old friends. He didn’t wait for me to explain why I was calling. As soon as I said my name and Mason’s, he happily rambled on about how great it was to hear from me again and that I should come over to his place. And then, towards the end of our conversation, he asked me if I liked to have some macaroni and cheese.”

  “Macaroni and cheese!” I blurted. Never in my life did the phrase Macaroni and Cheese have such an impact on me as it did that night.

  “Richard, stop thinking of food and let Joe finish,” insisted Morgana.

  “I remembered what Mason told me, and so I told him that I liked mac and cheese but only if it were freshly made. Your uncle chuckled; his voice became noticeably cheerier, brighter. He went on to say that we’ll have plenty to talk about at our meeting. And that was about it. I gave him my number, and he said that he’d get back to me about the time. We said our goodbyes, and that was that. He never got back to me. I tried to call him, but there was no answer.”

  I looked into Morgana’s eyes, and in them, there was a puzzlement that matched my own. “You and I know that Uncle Raymond didn’t cook,” I said. “He lived off canned vegetables, not frozen ones. My uncle had the county’s Meals on Wheels delivering his lunches. He preferred tea over coffee, and when he made coffee, it was always instant decaf coffee from packets that he had commandeered from the town’s senior citizen center. His coffee wasn’t anything to brag about. He enjoyed fine food, but he would never make it for himself, nor for anyone else for that matter. . . But mac and cheese?”

  From the way that Joe and Morgana looked at me, I had the growing suspicion that I was becoming the focal point of the conversation and not Joe.

  “Richard, you’re rambling,” said Morgana. “It’s been a long, disheartening day for you and all of us.”

  “I am tired and maybe a little bit on the slow side, but I am thinking clearly,” I said in my defense and to quell misgivings about my mental capabilities. “It may have been some type of code that Father Mason had arranged with my uncle. There was an empty box of instant mac and cheese in Uncle Raymond’s kitchen.”

  Morgana and Joe exchanged glances that betrayed their bewilderment.

  “Think about it,” I countered.

  “I have,” said Morgana, “and I think that you are exhausted . . . Everyone should get a good night’s sleep. Joe, you are staying the night. You’ll be in our downstairs guest room.”

  “Thank you,” said Joe putting down his cup, “but I should really—”

  “Nonsense! You are staying here tonight. You are at least as exhausted as Richard is, if not more. Trust me, you may be feeling sore now, but tomorrow, you’ll have more aches and pains than you’ll know what to do with. Things start feeling worse during the first forty-eight hours after strenuous activity before they start to get better.”

  “Thank you,” said Joe, accepting Morgana’s offer.

  “If I remember, you’re an early riser,” said Morgana playing the cheery hostess, “so we’ll have breakfast at seven. Call whomever you have to call and tell them you’ll be here tonight. In the morning, we can chat with clear and rested minds and make plans. And, Richard, contact Kyle first thing in the morning.”

  “But I—”

  “There are no buts about it,” persisted Morgana. “You’ll talk things out in the morning. Joe, Richard will get you back to the abbey after you speak with Kyle.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” said Joe. “I don’t have anything planned for tomorrow, anyway.”

  “So now, you two guys get off your keisters,” ordered Morgana. “Joe, I’ll show you to your room, and Rich, lock up, turn off the lights, and I’ll meet you upstairs.”

  Morgana was right; I was tired. “Fine, until the morning then. But I still say the macaroni thing was a code or signal of some sort. Think about.”

  “We will think about it. But right now, to bed with the both of you,” countered Morgana.

  Joe went off with Morgana without protest, and I, as an obedient husband, did the nightly rounds. When I got back to our room, I sat on our bed and waited for Morgana’s return. There in the dark, I found some solace as I gazed out our window at celestial display in the autumn sky. The stars flickered with each passing wisp of cloud; the silver moon illuminated the mountains in the distance; all seemed peaceful in the world.

  And then, tearing through the nocturnal scene, a pair of headlights flashed on to reveal themselves belonging to a parked car across the street.

  “How long was that there?” I wondered as I got off the bed and headed straight to the window. Peering through the side of the curtain, I strained to see who our night visitor was. Suddenly, the bedroom door creaked.

  “I thought that you would have been in bed,” declared Morgana entering our room and flooding it with light from the hallway.

  I quickly turned in her direction, “Shut the door!”

  But it was too late. When I looked back at the street, I only saw a car’s taillights speed away into the dark.

  “Looking at something,” said Morgana as she walked up next to me.

  “No, not really,” I said, staring out into the night, “to be accurate, I would say someone was looking at us.”

  #

  CHAPTER 5

  Needless to say, I didn’t sleep very well that night. All sorts of thoughts, feelings, images continually careened through my brain, churning up a plethora of painful memories and unnerving speculations. It must have been in the wee hours of the morning when I finally did fall asleep . . . and even then rest eluded me.

  “Richard dear, we have to talk.” The haunting words from an all too familiar voice wormed their way into my sleep-deprived mind.

  “Not now, I want to sleep,” I grumbled.

  “Is that any way to speak to me? Sit up and pay attention.” Reluctantly, I complied.

  There in the green recliner next to our bed, sat my mother. Being dead for over a decade and on one of her visitations, I knew that getting a good night’s sleep was not going to happen.

  “Mother, what is it that you want to talk about at this hour? I have had quite a bad day, as you know, and tomorrow will be worse.”

  “Tell me about it. I didn’t expect to see Raymond until the end of the year. I had so much to do, but now, those things must be put on hold. On the bright side, your uncle’s departure allows for a trip to Spain that the two of you have been looking forward to.”

  “Wait, wait . . . wait a second. What is it that you have to
do? You’re—”

  “Don’t get uppity with me, Richard. I have been very busy; I always have been a very busy person, and I always will be. Nothing has changed.”

  “No, Mom, a lot has changed. For one thing, you’re dead.”

  “And, now, so is your uncle. Deal with it.” Mother got out of her chair and sat down on the bed next to me. “In Raymond’s study, there is a desk. In the top right-hand side drawer of his desk, you will find an old Boy Scout manual.”

  “I remember seeing it when I was looking for some medical forms of Uncle’s.”

  “Well, inside the book, there is a list of people to contact for Raymond’s funeral.”

  “Mother, about Uncle Raymond—”

  “He’s fine. Don’t worry. He thanks you for looking after him over the past few months. He only wished that he could have been more helpful to you.”

  “Tell him it wasn’t a problem, but if he wants to be helpful . . . ask him if he knows, eh, how he died?”

  “Of course he does,” replied Mother, becoming suddenly annoyed by my question. “You know, Richard, your Uncle Raymond may have been a little odd, and a bit secretive, and not in the best of health during his last days, but he wasn’t stupid. He knows very well how he died.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Well, how? Who was responsible?” I asked. “Did Uncle Raymond tell you?”

  “What?”

  “Who killed him? Who killed Uncle Raymond?”

  “Shouldn’t Kyle be asking questions like these, not you? Kyle is the sheriff, you know.” Mother glanced at her wristwatch. “Oh, dear, it’s getting late. I must be going.”

  “Oh no, you don’t. Tell me about Uncle Raymond.”

  “Richard?” A new voice entered the fray. “Richard.”

  “I must be off,” declared Mother. “I have a very hectic day ahead. Get the list, Richard,” she reiterated calmly, ignoring my frustration. “That list may help you find what you’re looking for. Have Kyle help you too, Dear. After all, he is the sheriff.” Then my mother disappeared, taking her chair with her.

  “Who killed Uncle Raymond!” I called out to the empty air.