Murder at Longbourn (14 page)

Peter’s head jerked up at the sound of my voice, but he didn’t respond. I don’t think he’d heard me at all. He stood up, placed his coffee cup on the low table in front of him, and walked out of the room.

I felt like the girl in the commercial who is unwittingly driving everyone away with her terrible breath. I surveyed the empty room, littered with breakfast dishes and coffee cups. “That’s okay,” I yelled at Peter’s retreating form. “I’ll get all this.”

My sarcasm was met with silence.

When I got back to my room, my cell phone was ringing. It was Bridget.

“Elizabeth!” she yelled happily when I answered and I knew why she was calling. Colin had proposed. I didn’t want to burst her bubble by beating her to her own announcement, or worse, telling her what had happened here.

“Hey, Bridge,” I said, keeping my voice neutral. “Happy New Year. What’s up?”

There was a split second of silence before she said, “You know, don’t you? Damn it!” I heard her pull the phone away and yell, “Colin, you told Elizabeth, didn’t you?” I heard Colin’s muffled response
and she came back on the line. “Oh, well, no matter. Isn’t it fantastic? I’m so excited! I wish everyone could be this happy!”

I smiled. I was glad that at least someone had had a nice New Year. “I’m really happy for you, Bridge,” I said. “How did he do it?” I cradled the phone to my ear and closed my eyes. Her voice was the closest thing I’d had to normalcy since arriving here.

“Over dinner,” she replied. “He pushed this little black velvet box onto the table. As soon as I saw it, I started crying. I was just about to scream, ‘Yes, I will marry you!’ when I had an awful thought—what if the box had a pair of earrings in it and not a ring? But thankfully it was a ring. Oh, Elizabeth! I can’t wait to show you. It’s absolutely gorgeous!”

She was right. It
was
a gorgeous ring. I had helped Colin pick it out two months ago, and trying to keep that secret had nearly killed me.

“You’ll be my maid of honor, right?”

“Of course I will! Just promise me that you won’t make me wear some god-awful dress with a bow on the butt.”

“Don’t be absurd. You know me. I want to keep this very casual. What do you think about us getting married on a beach somewhere?”

“I think your mother would slit her wrists,” I said honestly. Bridget’s free-spirited ways were a constant source of frustration to her mother. Mrs. Matthews was aghast at Bridget’s spiky hair, which veered from bright red to magenta or purple—a bit like Aunt Winnie’s. And Bridget’s clothes had a tendency to render the normally loquacious Mrs. Matthews mute. A wedding on the beach would no doubt push her over the edge.

“You’re probably right.” Bridget sighed. “But I’ll be damned if
I’m going to wear some ridiculous dress that makes me look like a giant meringue.”

I heard Colin’s voice in the background and Bridget yelled, “That’s not funny, Colin!”

She got back on the line. “So, how are you? How was your New Year’s?”

My stomach sank. Caught up in Bridget’s excitement, I had almost forgotten about Gerald. Almost.

“Well, it was a bit more exciting than anyone had planned for,” I said, attempting to downplay the seriousness of the situation. It might have been more believable had my voice not caught.

“Elizabeth? What’s happened? Isn’t the inn doing well? Is Aunt Winnie okay? Are you okay?”

“She’s fine. I’m fine,” I said, focusing on not crying. “It’s just, well, well, a man was actually murdered during the dinner show.”

“Holy shit!”

“Yeah, that about sums it up.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Afraid not.” I took a deep breath. This was ridiculous. I had to pull myself together. There was no reason for me to fall apart over Gerald Ramsey’s death. After all, it wasn’t as if he was someone I knew, or even wanted to know, for that matter. I refused to listen to the more emotional side of my brain, which told me that Gerald’s odious personality wasn’t the problem. It was the memory of his blank stare. I quickly told Bridget the rest, from the cliché-like shot in the dark to Detective Stewart and his intimidating eyebrow.

“What a nightmare!” Bridget said when I was done. “How’s Aunt Winnie?”

In the background I could hear Colin peppering Bridget with
questions. “Colin,” she barked at him, “would you please shut up for half a minute! I can’t hear Elizabeth with you yelling at me! I’ll tell you in a second!”

“She’s as good as can be expected,” I said. “Actually, I think she’s doing better than the rest of us.”

“Well, that’s good. I’d be more worried if she were a mess. When are you coming home?”

“I’m not sure. The police have asked me to stay for a few more days until this is all cleared up.”

“But why? I don’t understand. Why do you have to stay? They can’t possibly think that you had anything to do with this!”

“I don’t know what they think,” I said wearily.

The sounds of a struggle floated over the phone line. Bridget yelled out angrily, “Colin, knock it off! Hey! What the hell are you doing? Give me back the phone!” The next voice I heard was Colin’s.

“Elizabeth!” he said abruptly. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

At the sound of the concern in his voice, my eyes welled up, but I held the tears in check. “I’m fine, Colin, really. One of the guests died last night—well, he was murdered, and the police are still trying to figure out what happened.”

“Jesus,” he said. “Do you want us to come up? We could be there in a couple of hours.” I heard Bridget yell something.

“No! Please, Colin, don’t do that. I’m fine, really.” I added quickly, “I’m sure that I’ll be home in a day or so. Besides, I think the fewer people trampling around here, the better it will be for the investigation and for Aunt Winnie.”

He hesitated. “Okay, if you’re certain. But make sure you keep us posted.”

“I will,” I said. “I promise. Now go enjoy being engaged. Give Bridget a big hug for me. Don’t worry, Colin. I’ll see you soon. I’m perfectly fine.”

He hung up and I congratulated myself. Apparently, I was finally getting better at hiding the truth from people.

A
LT HOUGH SHE WASN’T expected to provide lunch, it being a B and B, not a B and B and L, Aunt Winnie nevertheless put out a tureen of clam chowder and some chicken sandwiches for the guests. It was a bit like leaving cookies out for Santa. You never saw anything eaten, but soon there was only an empty tray with a few crumbs. Not that I was complaining. I wasn’t keen on sitting in a room and watching other people not make eye contact with me.

My conversation with Bridget and Colin reminded me that I had other phone calls to make. I would have to call my mother, sister, and boss to let them know what had happened. Unfortunately, my mother wasn’t home and I ended up speaking with George. He oozed concern for my safety—a sentiment that would have been more believable had he bothered to turn down the football game blaring in the background. My phone call to Kit was no more enjoyable. For five minutes she screamed incoherently about how this news affected her stress, which apparently had reached its zenith over the weekend. I didn’t bother to point out that had her stress indeed reached its zenith (her words), then my news could not have possibly added to it. She
then proclaimed that had I joined her for New Year’s Eve “none of this would have happened” and asked if I had “even the slightest idea” of what this was doing to her blood pressure. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask how my presence at a hot tub party could have prevented a murder, but I restrained myself. As for her query about her stress and blood pressure, I refrained from calling them my old friends, having heard them mentioned with consideration for twenty years at least. She wouldn’t have caught the reference anyway and I saw no reason to waste a perfectly good line.

The only call I enjoyed was the one to my boss, Cheryl. As I had anticipated, she ranted and raved once she understood that I would be out of the office for the next several days. She demanded to know who was in charge of the case and I happily obliged her by giving her Detective Stewart’s direct line. I hoped she would call him; they deserved each other.

By midafternoon, Aunt Winnie and I had packed the food for Lauren and Polly and were on our way to their house, with the car radio blasting. When Aunt Winnie is stressed she likes to listen to country music. She says the songs are so depressing that they make her feel better in comparison. So as we drove along in her light blue ’68 Mercedes, I stared out the window, trying to ignore both the blaring music and her horrible attempts to sing along. Finally, it was too much for me and I reached over and turned the volume down. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Do you know what happens when you play country music backward?” I replied conversationally. Without waiting for her to answer, I continued. “You get your job back, your wife comes home, your dog comes back to life, you sober up …”

“You know, some people consider country music an art form,” she countered.

“Some people feel the same way about body piercing.”

“Are you saying you prefer body piercing to country music?”

I pretended to consider the question. “Would you be singing the country music?”

She laughed. “Oh, never mind. We’re here.” Before us was a massive colonial situated a couple of hundred yards from the beach. Dusk was starting to settle by the time we pulled into the driveway, and the trees out front blazed with thousands upon thousands of tiny white lights. It was beautiful, to be sure, but in all honesty, I preferred the simple charm of Longbourn.

A somber-looking woman of indeterminate age answered the door. She briskly introduced herself as Mrs. Jenkins. She had an intelligent face, fine brown hair pulled back into a tidy bun, and neat, serviceable clothes. This, combined with her aura of cool efficiency, made her subsequent announcement that she was the Ramseys’ housekeeper superfluous. In fact, so perfectly did she fit that part I wondered briefly if she was from central casting. I didn’t think people like Mrs. Jenkins existed outside of Agatha Christie novels.

Explaining that Lauren was on the phone, Mrs. Jenkins graciously took our wicker baskets of food and led us to wait in the sitting room. I was curious to see what an actual sitting room looked like, having only read about them in books that boasted characters like Mrs. Jenkins. Sadly, the room held only standard doors, not the French-window variety that Agatha Christie’s characters were forever popping in and out of. I felt cheated.

The room was a curious blend of both Gerald’s and Lauren’s personalities. The formal atmosphere, with its brocade fabrics in red and cream and Queen Anne furniture, was clearly Gerald’s choosing. The collection of ceramic pug dogs with giant faux-sapphire eyes, however, was just as obviously Lauren’s contribution.

The rest of my inventory was cut short by the discovery that Aunt Winnie and I were not alone. At the far end of the room stood Daniel and Polly, their heads bent close together. Upon seeing us, they pulled apart with startled expressions. Daniel recovered first and crossed the room to Aunt Winnie and me.

“We’re sorry to interrupt,” began Aunt Winnie. “We were just bringing some food over for Lauren and Polly.”

“That’s very kind of you,” said Daniel. “But please, don’t apologize. It’s always a pleasure to see you, Ms. Reynolds, and of course you, too, Elizabeth.”

The wink that accompanied this aside to me happened so fast I wondered if I had imagined it. By now Polly had joined us. Her hair was pulled back with her signature tortoiseshell headband and she wore another shapeless dress, this one of dark blue corduroy. She looked terrible. Her face was pale and drawn, and there were dark circles under her eyes. “Lauren is on the phone,” she said, “but I’m sure she’ll be off any minute. I know she’ll want to thank you.”

“How is she doing?” I asked.

Polly shrugged and glanced at Daniel before answering. “She’s doing all right, I guess,” she said, “as well as can be expected. With Lauren you never really know.”

Daniel opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, but Aunt Winnie spoke first.

“And how about you, dear?” she asked kindly. “How are you doing?”

Polly’s lower lip twitched and she took a steadying breath before answering. Daniel watched her intently.

“I’m okay,” she said, giving us a humorless smile. “I’m not going to pretend that my father and I got along particularly well, or that I was overly fond of him. But … he was my father.”

I wasn’t sure what to make of Polly’s answer. Granted, I had found Gerald Ramsey to be a singularly disagreeable man, but he wasn’t my father. It was another thing altogether for his own daughter to react this coolly to his death. But then again, she was his daughter. Maybe she was more like him than anyone realized. That said, the line “sharper than a serpent’s tooth” still sprang to mind.