Murder at Longbourn (28 page)

“Why did you tell him that?”

“I don’t know. I thought that if he planted the tape here, he might look guilty or something.”

Peter cocked an eyebrow at me. “I see. Well, did he?”

“No. But he was upset. For a minute, I thought he was going to tell me something, but then you burst in and he left.” I sighed and gestured toward the desk. “Here, help me find Detective Stewart’s phone number. I’ve got to tell him about Jackie.”

Peter narrowed his eyes in confusion. “What about Jackie?”

“She came here this morning. She said she knows who the killer is—something about the lights. She wants me to call Detective Stewart for her. She hasn’t been able to reach him.”

“She said she knows who killed Gerald?” he said in astonishment. “Who?”

“I don’t know. Everyone came in from the reading room and she left.”

Confusion registered in his brown eyes. “But what did she say—and why did she say it to
you
?”

“I don’t know.” I rubbed my forehead. “She’s got this silly idea in her head that I’m working undercover with Detective Stewart. She probably thinks I can reach him on some secret bat line.”

“Secret bat line?” Peter repeated.

“It’s just an expression,” I snapped. “Just help me find the damn number.”

We pawed through the mess that was Aunt Winnie’s desk until Peter triumphantly held up a small white card. “Here it is. Detective Aloysius Stewart.” He paused and cocked an eyebrow at me. “His first name is Aloysius?”

“Yeah, I know,” I said, taking the card from him. “I think his mother was a fan of Evelyn Waugh.” I flipped open my cell phone;
there was no signal. I pushed the papers on the desk to one side in the hopes that the phone was somewhere underneath them. It was not.

“You seem to know a lot about the man. Are you sure you’re not working undercover with him on this?”

“What?” I said. “Peter, I don’t have time for this right now. Just please help me find the damn phone!”

Only by backtracking from the wall cord were we able to unearth it. With shaking hands, I clumsily punched in the numbers. The line rang and rang, until finally Detective Stewart’s voice mail clicked on. In a voice so raspy it would have been comical at any other time, Detective Stewart gravely pronounced that he was out of the office but would check his messages and return them promptly. I blurted out a plea for him to call me and slammed down the receiver.

Slumping back down in the chair, I cradled my head in my hands. My head hurt.

From somewhere to my left, I heard Peter’s voice. “Elizabeth, are you all right?”

I raised my head. “No, Peter, I’m not. For God’s sake, I’m a stupid fact-checker at a newspaper. I studied English literature in school, not criminal justice!” The stress of the last few days broke over me and I rambled on, “I know that the name of Ulysses’ faithful dog is Argos. I know that in mythology, Truth is the Daughter of Time, and I know that it’s ‘such stuff as dreams are made
on,
’ not
of
. But what I don’t know is who killed Gerald Ramsey! I have a brain stuffed with useless bits of knowledge and I’m in the middle of a murder investigation and I don’t know what to do anymore!” Wearily, I dropped my head back in my hands.

After a brief silence, Peter said, “It’s not ‘the stuff that dreams are made of’? Are you sure?”

I opened my eyes and stared at him. “What?”

“I said, are you sure that it’s not ‘the stuff that dreams are made of’? Because that’s what Bogart says at the end of
The Maltese Falcon.”

“Yes, I’m sure. And since when is Bogart the last word on Shakespeare?”

“He doesn’t have to be,” he said with a studied look of incomprehension. “He’s Bogart.”

“Get out,” I said.

“Maggie likes Bogart,” Peter began.

“Maggie also likes
you,
so that’s not exactly a point in her favor for excellent judgment.”

Peter snapped his fingers. “Carly Simon. She thinks so, too. She had that song, you know the one, where she sings, ‘It’s the stuff that dreams are made of.’ I really think you’re wrong on this.”

I threw the letter opener at him, hitting him in the arm.

“Hey! That hurt!” he yelped, rubbing the spot.

“Good. It was supposed to.”

He laughed. “Well, I’m glad to see that you’re feeling better. And now that you mention it, I do have some errands to run. I’ll be back soon.” He left, humming the Carly Simon song.

Taking Detective Stewart’s card with me, I walked back to the kitchen. Aunt Winnie wasn’t there, so I went to take a hot shower. Afterward, my headache was still in attendance, but in a slightly veiled way, as if it was just offstage waiting for its cue. Glancing out my window, I saw that the sky was an ominous mix of slate gray and dark purple; the clouds were thick and heavy.

Once I was dressed, I tried Detective Stewart again from my cell phone. Again, I got his voice mail. I left him a detailed message about Jackie and the necklace, and then called Jackie. There was no answer. An uneasy sensation crept over me and I had a sudden urge
to get to Jackie’s house. Running down to Aunt Winnie’s room, I rapped on the door. No answer. Peter wasn’t back from his errands, so I scribbled a note that I was going to Jackie’s and left it on the kitchen table. With a growing sense of dread, I grabbed my purse and coat and ran to my car.

I drove as fast as I dared, but the wind was fierce and it buffeted my car around like a pinball. Holding tightly onto the steering wheel, I concentrated on keeping the car in my lane and not overreacting. Jackie was fine, I told myself. I was being unreasonable. She had probably easily found the contacts and left to give them to Linnet. From the way the hairs on my neck stood upright, I knew I didn’t really believe this a likely scenario. I called Detective Stewart’s voice mail once more to tell him that I was on my way to Jackie’s house and for him to reach me there. I didn’t even bother to control the rising panic in my voice.

Pulling into the circular driveway, I could see that the front door was ajar. Running up the front steps, I pushed the door open. “Hello?” I called out. “Is anybody here? It’s me—Elizabeth.”

Silence.

Cautiously, I slid inside, calling out inane phrases like, “Is anybody home? Linnet? Jackie? Hello?” After checking every room on the first floor for human habitation, I cautiously inched my way up the staircase. From the moment I had stepped inside the foyer, every atom of my being wanted to flee. My heart thudded in my chest and my skin crawled in anticipation of some unknown horror, but I forced myself to continue. Upstairs, only two rooms were in use. One was clearly Linnet’s. The furnishings were ornate and expensive. Atop a rolltop desk, numerous pictures of Linnet posing with everyone from celebrities to politicians over the years were prominently displayed. A large four-poster bed complete with tapestries
sat regally in the middle of the room. On either side were intricately carved nightstands in the same design as the bed. One held a pitcher of bright fresh flowers; the other a lamp and some books. It had all the warmth and beauty of a museum. All that was missing was a red velvet rope strung across the door and a placard that read “Please do not sit on the furniture.” In French.

Jackie’s room was less flamboyant. There was a twin bed with a patchwork comforter and a dresser. On a white rocking chair sat a battered and well-loved-looking stuffed elephant. None of the room’s furnishings matched; the only thing they had in common was age. But to my taste it was preferable to Linnet’s room. It held no pictures, but as I turned to leave, my foot kicked a thin scrapbook by the bed. I picked it up and flipped through its yellowed pages. Unlike Linnet’s vast display, the major accomplishments of Jackie’s life were quietly preserved: her birth certificate, high school and college diplomas, a certificate of appreciation from Radcliffe’s drama department, a letter for promotion to head librarian at Ohio University, and finally a letter of commendation received upon her retirement. I shut the book and replaced it with a sense of sadness that a life spanning over seventy years could be captured in such a slim volume.

A third door off the hallway was closed. I had taken two steps toward it when a low moan filtered through its thick frame. The pitiful sound faded and was replaced by an erratic tapping noise. My mind’s eye saw a feeble hand desperately grasping for the door handle. Taking a steadying breath against what I might find on the other side, I yanked open the door. A few suitcases and a pile of boxes were the room’s only belongings. As I stood there, the moaning returned. I whirled around and saw the giant tree outside the window sway under the gusting wind, its protesting limbs groaning under the strain. Long spindly branches brushed at the glass.

A quick, and less emotionally hysterical, tour of the rest of the upstairs yielded nothing untoward. The house was empty. I reassured myself that Jackie probably hadn’t shut the front door tightly when she’d left and the wind had blown it back open. With my nerves once more intact, I walked downstairs, seriously wondering if I should seek some kind of medical treatment for my tendency to overreact. I was on the landing when I heard a door burst open and felt a blast of cold air.

It was coming from the sunroom. Walking in that direction, I saw that the wind had blown the side door open. A bundle of rags lay just outside. But as I reached out to shut the door, I saw that it wasn’t a bundle of rags. It was a body.

Stifling a scream, I edged closer. The body lay facedown. I didn’t need to turn it over to know who it was. The blue hat told me that well enough. A small smooth ear peeked out from under its floppy folds. With shaking hands, I felt for a pulse. The skin under my fingertips was cold and lifeless. As I pulled the hat back, my breath caught in my throat. Jackie had been beaten savagely; dried blood was smeared all through her sparse gray hair and her face was horribly bruised and swollen.

Above me the trees moaned again as if in sorrow just as the storm broke, unleashing a torrent of angry snowflakes.

I
STUMBLED OUT of the house just as Detective Stewart arrived. He jumped from his car and rushed over. “What happened?” he barked at me, his expression black.

I took several deep breaths before answering. I finally spit out, “Jackie. Dead. Backyard,” before collapsing in an ungraceful heap on the stoop.

He raced into the house. I did not follow. The cold and the snow pelted my face with harsh little jabs, but I stayed slumped on the front steps. I had had enough of dead bodies.

Moments later, Detective Stewart rushed from the house and grabbed the radio in his car. He barked out orders for police backup and the coroner. Then he jogged over to me. “What happened?”

I tilted my head back. Snowflakes swirled around his face, making his expression hard to read. “I got worried when I couldn’t reach Jackie on the phone,” I said. “So I came over here to make sure everything was all right.”

He pulled out his notebook. “Tell me again what happened this morning at the inn.”

“Jackie showed up shouting she knew who the killer was. She’d been trying to get in touch with you. She still had it in her head that
you and I were working together and she asked me to call you. She said she’d be home for a little while, but then she had to go and meet Linnet for lunch.”

“Did anyone else hear her say she knew who the murderer was?”

“They could have. Everyone was coming out of the reading room when she was talking to me in the foyer. When she noticed them, she stopped talking and abruptly left. She looked upset,” I said, recalling her ashen face.

Detective Stewart’s mouth set in a grim line. “Who was there?”

“Daniel, Polly, and the Andersons.”

“Did Ms. Tanner say why she thought she knew who the killer was?”

I had been dreading this question, but I knew I had to answer it. “Yes. She said it had something to do with the lights.” I faced him defiantly.

“I see.” His eyebrow inched up. I knew what he was thinking: Aunt Winnie had been the one who turned out the lights.

Sirens wailed in the distance. A chill that had nothing to do with the weather overtook me and I wrapped my arms around my legs and put my head on my knees. I stayed that way for a long time.

Within minutes the house was overrun with police. They rushed in and out of the house, taking pictures, dusting for fingerprints, and asking me duplicate questions. I was still hunched on the front steps. I could no longer feel my bottom, but I didn’t want to go back inside the house. Someone—I think Detective Stewart—gave me a cup of coffee. I think he spiked it with some brandy, too. I held the warm cup between my hands and stared at the snow. It fell in thick white sheets. I was so caught up in watching the swirling patterns that I didn’t notice the car pulling into the driveway.

A medium-size bear got out of a gold Jaguar and stared at me. I closed my eyes and tried again. This time my brain correctly interpreted the image. I was not seeing an escaped circus act; I was looking at Linnet Westin. She was wearing the long fur coat she’d worn on New Year’s Eve. She had added a fur hat and fur-lined boots. She looked like the poster girl for an anti-PETA campaign.