Arsenic with Austen (14 page)

“I can see three good reasons why not. One, it's not proper procedure to have a civilian along. Two, they might not talk in front of you. And three, I'm starting to be afraid for your safety. I'm thinking maybe the less you know from here on out, the better.”

Emily deflated like a balloon. “It can't be dangerous for me to know what you know. Couldn't I listen on a hidden intercom? Watch through a two-way mirror or something?”

Luke barked a laugh. “Emily, you've seen my office. Intercom? Two-way mirror? You're thinking TV again. Besides, I don't want to put the wind up them yet. I'm going to talk to them wherever I find them.”

She sidled up to him and ran her hand down his arm. “Oh, come on, Luke. Can't you swear me in as a temporary deputy?” She gazed at him from under her lashes. “Please?”

The muscles tensed along his jaw, and his breath came short. “Emily, don't do this to me. It's not fair.”

She took a step back and dropped her arm, her face hot. “You're right. I'm sorry.”

He ran his hands over his face. “The thing is—I might actually be able to do that, except that technically speaking, you ought to be a suspect.”

“A suspect! But I wasn't even here when she died. Either of them.”

“No, but neither was the murderer, far as I can tell. You profit the most from Beatrice's death—anybody who didn't know you would at least want to check you out.”

“But why would I kill Agnes?”

“Maybe 'cause she knew something damaging. Just like with the real murderer.”

Emily was shocked to her core. That anyone—especially Luke—could even think of her in the same sentence with the word
murder
 …

She had just tried to cozy up to a traitor.

She turned her back on him. “I think you should go now.”

“Emily—” She felt his hand on her shoulder and shrugged it off. “Em, please. I didn't say I
do
suspect you—it's just you're in a position relative to this case where I can't involve you on an official level. It's not my decision. It's policy.”

She maintained a stony silence.

“
I
know you'd never kill anyone. Or even think about harming them. Hell, do you think I would've fallen in love with you—would still be in love with you—if I thought you capable of that?”

His words rocked her to her foundations. Her voice came out small and high. “You're—
still
in love with me?”

“Damn straight I am. You didn't know?”

She shook her head, then slowly turned to face him. “Go, Luke. Go interview your suspects. I'll find something useful to do while you're gone.” She put her hand up to his cheek. It flamed under her touch.

He pulled her palm to his lips and kissed it. “I'll be back as soon as I can.”

 

fifteen

“There is always something offensive in the details of cunning. The manoeuvres of selfishness and duplicity must ever be revolting.”

—Anne Elliot to Mrs. Smith,
Persuasion

Emily had no idea what useful thing she'd find to do in Luke's absence, but she wasn't left to wonder long. The sound of his engine had barely faded down the drive when she heard another car approaching.

To be precise, a van, ocean blue, with
THE WAVE
painted in an inexpert wavy shape across the side. From the driver's side emerged a young man with a camera. He went around to the passenger side and assisted in extracting the beached whale woman from her seat trap.

Emily shut the door behind herself and stood at the top of the porch steps. Rita hauled her bulk toward her. “I hear there's been another murder,” she bellowed. “We're here to get the scoop.”

Luke had not instructed her on how to handle a media assault. She fell back on her usual model of behavior: fiction.

“No comment,” she said. “You'll have to talk to Lieutenant Richards.”

“Oh, come on,” Rita boomed. “You can at least confirm that Agnes Beech is dead.”

“No comment.”

“Rick, go get a picture of the cellar.” The young man with the camera headed toward the side of the house.

“The cellar is a sealed crime scene. No one is allowed to enter.”

Rick paused. “Go on, Rick. Don't listen to her.”

“Mrs. Spenser, you and your tame cameraman are trespassing on private property. There is nothing for you here. Now please leave before I call the sheriff.”

“You go ahead and call your tame sheriff. He's just the man I want to talk to. About why he hasn't already arrested
you
!”

Emily felt the blood rush to her face. Her fists clenched of their own accord, and her pulse throbbed in her ears. She, so long a mistress of words, could find no words scathing enough to express her fury with this human scourge.

She was saved from spontaneous combustion by the appearance of Billy Beech from the back of the house. He advanced on Rick and Rita with all the authority of a cannonball. Even Rita quailed before him.

“Away with you forthwith, you poisonous worm! Go! Begone! Leave my mistress in peace!” He shooed them back into their van like so many chickens. He gave the van a slap on the rear bumper, and it bolted like a frightened horse.

“Billy! I didn't know you had it in you. Thank you.”

“I am ashamed to say, madam, that female snake is my cousin and the bane of my existence. It was a pleasure and an honor to dispatch her from your presence.” He bowed—just an inclination this time, not a full-fledged marshmallow fold—and rolled back the way he'd come.

*   *   *

Emily divided the next couple of hours between prayer and sleep. She hated herself for sleeping at such a time, but her body demanded it after the adrenaline depletion of the morning. Yet every time she dropped off, she was awakened by Bustopher Jones's piteous howls from the kitchen. She'd tried giving him food and water, even attempted to pet him, but he rebuffed all her advances. He preferred to be alone with his grief—though he wanted all the world to know about it.

Late in the afternoon Luke returned. He sank into Bustopher's favorite chair—currently unoccupied—and lay back, exhausted. Emily offered him sherry, but he asked for coffee instead. She was about to call for Agnes when she remembered. She went to the kitchen and made the coffee herself. When she returned, Luke was dozing in the chair.

She stood over him, tracing in memory the lines of his youthful face, now hidden beneath the coarsening of maturity. He'd kept in good shape, but he hadn't kept out of the sun and wind. She laid the coffee tray on an end table and ran one finger lightly around his hairline and down his jaw, reacquainting herself with the feel of him. Then she bent down and lightly kissed his brow.

He didn't stir. She hated to wake him, but he must have so much yet to do. “Luke?” she said softly.

His eyelids fluttered, then abruptly he sat up straight, looking about as though he had no idea where he was. He turned to her and focused again.

“Did I fall asleep?” He scrubbed his face with his hands.

“Just a little. I brought your coffee.”

“Thanks.” He took the cup from her hand. She'd added one sugar but no cream. He sipped it and smiled. “You remembered.”

She felt herself flush. “I remember lots of things.”

He set the cup down. “We better save that for later, okay? Got to stay focused on the case. You understand, don't you?”

“Of course.” She took the chair opposite him. “What did our two suspects have to say?”

“Talked to the mayor first. He was easy to find, in his office. Insisted he didn't know a thing about it. I took him through it. He got here around ten
A.M.
Thursday. Came to the back door to check in with Agnes. She told him to go in from the outside, which he did. Asked if he noticed anything funny—nope. Looked at the stairs—nope. Must've fixed the washer with his eyes closed, practically. Agnes didn't come down; he didn't go up. He was done in half an hour and went out the way he came, leaving the door latched but not padlocked, like Billy said. Went to the back door again and handed Agnes a bill.”

“So that's the end of that?”

Luke rubbed the back of his neck. “I don't know. I took him through it a couple of times. His story didn't slip, but he was jumpy as a cat the whole time. He sounded innocent, but he looked guilty as hell.”

“Hmm. What about Brock?”

“Took me a while to run him down. Tried the Stony Beach Inn; they said he'd checked out Wednesday night around seven and hadn't come back. Asked around all the restaurants and taverns, found out he'd had lunch at the Friendly Fluke at one o'clock today. Nobody'd seen him in between. Finally found him on the beach, said he was waiting around till three
P.M.
to check back in at the Stony.”

“Did he have any explanation for lurking around my yard?”

“Said he'd lost a cuff link in the grass and was looking for it. Claimed after Billy ran him off, he'd driven straight back to town, gone to the Beach Brew for a couple of beers and a pizza, then decided on a whim to drive to Portland. Said his agent'd got him an audition for a stage play. Had the audition Thursday, but it didn't pan out, so he came back this morning.”

“Do you believe him?”

“He's as plausible as an abbey full of monks, but I don't trust him. Still, I followed up on everything he told me, and it all checks out. That is, all except him driving straight to town after Billy threw him out—bartender at the Beach Brew remembers him coming in but had no idea of the exact time. So there's nothing to say he couldn't have snuck back into the cellar while you and Agnes were inside and rigged that tread.”

“Seems like we would have heard something.”

“What were you doing between five and six?”

“I was in here, reading. Agnes was making dinner—come to think of it, she had the radio on pretty loud. I could hear it in here. But that would be awfully bold, to be jimmying a stair just a few feet from the kitchen door with Agnes on the other side of it.”

“There's also the chance he could've come back later, after you were both in bed. Brock stayed with a lady friend in Portland. She said he got there at nine, but it wouldn't surprise me a bit if she was lying.”

“Good point. I'd certainly never hear anything from the third floor. Agnes sleeps—slept—right off the kitchen, but I think she used earplugs to block out the sound of the sea. I like it myself, but it bothered her.”

“So Brock's still in the running. I asked him—before I'd said anything about the cause of death—whether he'd ever done any carpentry, and he said he didn't know one end of a hammer from another. I put one of the boys onto a full background check to see if that pans out. Should know by tomorrow.”

He sat, slumped, his elbows on his knees, hands dangling. He looked like he had as much energy as a marionette with no puppeteer holding the strings.

“You're exhausted, Luke. Why don't you go home to bed?”

“Can't. Still got a ton of paperwork.” He eyed the coffeepot. “Any more in there?”

She poured him another cup and stirred in the sugar. He drank the lukewarm coffee in two gulps, then pushed himself to his feet. “I'll see you tomorrow. Dinner's still on, no matter what.” He gave her a weary smile.

She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “No matter what.”

*   *   *

Hunger finally caught up with her after Luke left. She went to the kitchen, hoping to find something she could nuke for supper. But not only were there no convenience foods and no leftovers anywhere in the kitchen, there wasn't even a microwave. No shortcuts for Agnes.

But Emily did find eggs and cheese in the fridge and a couple of scones in the pantry, so she made herself a quick-and-dirty omelet. Bustopher Jones had given up howling and now crouched under the kitchen table, staring at Emily as if he held her personally responsible for Agnes's absence. She tried speaking to him, but he only glared the more balefully.

She ate her supper in the library, which had always felt cozy to her before but now seemed huge and empty, the house around it stretching out into indifferent infinity. She washed her few dishes and then toured the house, making sure all the doors and windows were fastened and locked, before plodding up the stairs to bed. Even her tower room could not comfort her. The sea pounded, distant and uncaring, almost threatening, beyond her windows. She crawled under a pile of blankets and shivered.

Philip?
she said tentatively, but he did not reply. Even Philip had deserted her—perhaps because of what had happened with Luke. Never in her life had she felt so alone.

In the morning she cooked more eggs and washed more dishes, feeling like a bumbling intruder in her own kitchen. Bustopher Jones still sat under the table, his food and water untouched. She was beginning to worry about him. He wasn't a young cat; prolonged fasting couldn't be good for him. But try as she might, she could not coax him out.

The house's silence thundered in her ears. She had to get out of here, do something—but what? The investigation, such as it was, seemed to have reached a stalemate. She would have liked to do something for Agnes, but Billy had insisted he had the funeral under control, knew exactly what Agnes would have wanted and was well able to pay for it out of the legacy that would now pass to him.

The weather was uninviting—gray skies with a lackadaisical drizzle, hardly more than a mist—but she decided to go for a walk nevertheless. She wouldn't accomplish anything sitting in the house. If she walked into town, she'd have at least a chance of picking up some useful tidbit. She threw a rain slicker over her chinos and sweater in case the drizzle decided to buck up and act like a real rain.

The mile and a half to downtown felt like three, so she treated herself to a latte at the Friendly Fluke before moving on. Several people she hardly knew stopped by her table to offer curiosity disguised as condolences about Agnes's death. Following Luke's instructions, she implied it was an accident without saying anything specific.