Weekends Can Be Murder, page 9
Larry understood instantly what he meant. So did Selena. He sensed rather than saw her stiffen behind him. “Are you sure it’s the same one? Did you touch it?”
“I’m sure,” Vaile said miserably. “And no, I didn’t have to touch it. It has the Heron Springs logo engraved on the grip, and we only own the one pistol. And I very much want to destroy it, but I suspect it could be important.”
Larry thought furiously for a moment. Vaile was right. The return of that gun to the drawer was evidence of something, and the police had hard and fast rules regarding the handling of evidence. Only a cop could touch or move it, establishing the first link in a chain of custody that had to remain unbroken for the duration of the investigation. Otherwise, the evidence would be adjudged to be contaminated and therefore inadmissible in court.
Larry wondered briefly whether Andrew Baker should be informed about this, then rejected the idea. Baker might be the unofficial police presence on the island for the next few hours, but it wasn’t a presence he trusted particularly, and with good reason. Baker was in the employ of someone who stood to benefit from Arthur Pyke’s death. As well, Harald’s security chief apparently liked to blame first and investigate later. He’d been awfully quick to suspect Gareth Wylde. That sort of thing might even have been the reason he’d left the public sector.
“Okay,” Larry finally said. “Consider me told. Now we need to leave it where it is and make sure no one else touches it before the authorities get here. Is there a way to lock up that desk?”
Vaile pondered this blearily for a couple of beats. “I think there’s a key in the shallow middle drawer. But I’m not going in there until Dragon Lady has vacated the premises. She hates me.”
Larry threw a questioning glance over his shoulder and met Selena’s steady gaze.
“Give me a second,” she said, and disappeared back into the foyer.
Vaile let out a long, boozy sigh and wrapped his right hand tightly around the neck of the whisky bottle. “There’s a book in my quarters that I’ve been meaning to finish,” he announced. Then he levered himself out of his chair, carefully cradled the bottle in the crook of his left arm, and set out with measured, deliberate steps in the direction of the lower north wing.
As he stood watching the major domo cross the foyer, Larry heard Selena’s voice beside him. “Done,” she declared, dangling a pair of keys in front of his face before detaching one and sliding it into the front pocket of her blue cotton slacks. He put out his hand for the second key, and she dropped it onto his palm.
“Did you look first to make sure it was still there?”
“Of course. Shall we?” she invited him, gesturing toward the drawing room door.
Edyth’s liquor of choice was vodka. From the doorway, Larry saw the open bottle sitting on the table at her elbow and the quarter-full glass in her hand, and guessed that this was neither her first nor her last drink of the evening. Another wounded soul. She was a harridan, to be sure, but no one could blame her for wanting to dull the pain of losing a child, himself least of all.
“Mrs. Pyke?” he said, leaning into the room a little. “May we come in?”
Facing stolidly frontward, she replied in a monotone, “I’d rather you didn’t. But I guess I can’t stop you.”
Larry and Selena exchanged a look. She might tell them nothing, but it was still worth a try. They padded over and took the chairs on opposite sides of her.
“We’re very sorry for your loss,” said Selena.
Edyth uttered a syllable of mirthless laughter. “Of course you are. Everyone is so very sorry. They can’t even imagine how much this damned house has taken from me.”
“Rafferty House is very old, isn’t it? I’ll bet it’s witnessed a lot over the years,” Larry remarked, mentally crossing his fingers.
Her expression hardened. “Indeed it has. More deaths than any family should have to endure,” she muttered, and took a swallow of her drink.
“There have been other deaths here?” Selena prompted her.
“Almost a hundred and sixty years’ worth, my dear. This place should never have been built. Never. The whole island is cursed. It first tasted blood in 1861, and it’s been drinking it ever since,” she said darkly. “For the longest time, I had no idea. I first came here when I was just seventeen. I was starry-eyed in love with Philip Pyke. He wanted me to meet his parents, so he brought me to them at the family cottage. That was what the Pykes called this place—a cottage. Well, they were richer than Croesus back then and could call it anything they damn well pleased.
“After that, Philip and I came up here every year, for two or three weeks during the summer, whenever he could get away. In the later years, we had the house to ourselves. Except for the servants, of course. Lovely people. They lived here year round, maintaining the property. Whenever we were here, they devoted themselves to our comfort, spoiled our children shamelessly… Rafferty House was like a vacation paradise, the perfect place to get away from it all. I couldn’t understand why hardly anyone else in the family took advantage of it.” She paused for another mouthful of vodka. “Until the year Philip took Alice fishing.”
“Alice?” Selena asked.
“Our daughter. Our eldest. She was fourteen. Harald was twelve. Arthur was just eight. It was early in the morning. They went out in the motorboat. Promised to be back for lunch. That was the last time I saw either of them alive.”
Selena’s mouth was an O of sudden comprehension.
“Did you find out what happened to them?” said Larry.
“They drowned. Georgian Bay has a fierce and unpredictable temper, Mr. Holmes, as someone from Groverton would certainly know. Storms blow up without warning and sweep across the water, destroying whatever small craft are unlucky enough to be in their path. Pieces of our boat washed up on shore several hours later, along with the bodies of my husband and daughter. The day I lost them, I vowed never to set foot on this damned island again. And when my mother-in-law finally told me about the other deaths, I swore I’d never let my sons come back here either.”
Larry leaned in, anticipation tightening every muscle in his body. “The other deaths. You said that blood was shed…?”
“Every twenty years, for as long as the family can remember, a Pyke has died on or around Rafferty Island. I forbade my boys to come here, and they obeyed… until my father-in-law passed away and left Arthur the family cottage. We pressured him to sell it, but by then Arthur had found an old photo album and had fallen in love with the idea of restoring Rafferty House. I tried to talk him out of it, but there was no dissuading him, and since the property was legally his, I had no recourse to stop him.”
“Did you tell him about the family curse?”
“I didn’t have to. Every Pyke knows about Rafferty Island. But Arthur was determined to break the cycle. He wasn’t going to let the bad luck or carelessness of other family members rob him of his dream. He swore he was going to make me proud. Begged me to come and see what he had accomplished.”
“You suspected there would be a death this weekend,” said Larry. “That’s why you brought Baker with you, hoping he could prevent the inevitable from happening.” To Selena, he added, “Andrew Baker is Harald’s chief of security, whatever that means.”
“Unfortunately, Andrew failed,” Edyth said, the stoniness of her expression belied by a tremor in her voice. “And now my son is dead. I accept that. What is harder to accept is the way in which he died, brutally murdered in his own home by an invited guest. Now, if you wouldn’t mind…?”
That was their cue to leave.
“Of course, Mrs. Pyke. And again, you have our deepest condolences,” said Selena.
Silence.
When they were once more standing in the foyer, Selena murmured, “That is one very bitter woman. And she’s entitled to be. Of all the ways to lose a family member, murder is the most painful.”
No, Larry thought, his mind forcing him back to the worst day of his life, it wasn’t.
He had stood at Tamara’s bedside in the hospital, watching her mother kiss her gently on the forehead before signing the order to withdraw life support. That same day, his platoon captain had taken one look at his face as Larry entered the fire station, and had promptly ordered him to turn around and go back home, putting him on critical incident leave.
“Do you need some caffeine?” Selena’s voice broke up the memory.
He shook off the pieces. “No, I’m fine. I just need to talk to Baker.”
“Then go grab yourself a coffee, because he’s filling a mug from the urn right now,” she advised him.
Larry strode into the dining room and lined up behind the other man, cup in hand.
“This is turning into a bloody nightmare,” Baker growled over his shoulder. “I’ve secured the murder scene, but sequestering suspects from one another is proving to be impossible, and they could be contaminating or disappearing evidence as we speak. Can you imagine a worse situation?”
He was asking the wrong person. Larry had been imagining worst case scenarios practically from the moment he’d stepped off the Windsong motor launch. Right now, he was too tired to bother concealing his irritation.
“Yes, I can.” Ignoring Baker’s startled glance, he asked, “How long before the PPS arrives?”
“They’re estimating another three to four hours. August is a bad time to be sitting on a fresh corpse. It has to be twenty-eight degrees Celsius outside right now. There’s no air conditioning, even if we were allowed to turn it on, which we’re not. Mustn’t muddy the time of death, after all. We’ve got the ceiling fans going in every room that has one, except for Arthur’s quarters, of course. Meanwhile, he grows ever riper, and if that smell continues to fill the air inside the house—Well, let’s just say that I don’t imagine anyone is going to have an appetite for breakfast.”
And there could be a structure fire, Larry added glumly to himself. It was possible. A house that had not been completed would not have been inspected either, and as he already knew, this one was riddled with fire hazards.
Rotating his shoulders to shrug off the sense of dread that had settled across them, Larry took his turn at the spigot. “Will you be accompanying the Pykes on the helicopter?” he remarked casually.
“No. Mr. Pyke has instructed me to stay and monitor the police investigation. He’ll want regular updates.”
“By the way, who’s guarding the crime scene while you’re on coffee break?”
“He is.”
“Harald Pyke must have either a weak sense of smell or a very strong stomach.”
“Maybe, but what he told me was that his mother and I are the only people he’s certain couldn’t have committed the murder, and he refuses to entrust his brother’s body to someone who may have killed him.”
“That’s fair enough. You know, you nearly sent us on a wild goose chase earlier,” Larry pointed out.
“That was no one’s fault, Holmes. The intel was good when I received it. As soon as I realized Wylde was sitting in the parlour, I would have dispatched someone to let you know.”
Uh-huh. “And who provided you with that intel, if I may ask?”
Baker frowned. “One of the servers. The one with curly blond hair. I think his name is—”
“Farley,” Hugh supplied, suddenly standing at Larry’s elbow. “Will’s hair is longer, and dark. Mr. Baker, Liz and I have been discussing the situation with Vaile—”
“Terrific!” he groaned.
“Not the real murder. We understand that you need us to refrain from talking about it, and we need something to keep our minds off it. So, what if we were to proceed with the murder mystery game that was already planned for this weekend?”
Baker thought for a moment. “You mean the one Vaile and his actors set up, with Wylde as the celebrity murder victim?”
“Yes. There’s been a script prepared for each of the guests, including yourself. Everyone will be stationed in a different room, thus preventing collusion among the witnesses. I understand you’ve been concerned about that. Vaile tells me he had to simplify the mystery when he discovered the house wasn’t finished, so we ought to be able to solve it before the police arrive. Even if we can’t, it will have served its purpose. What do you think?”
“I think it’s the best idea I’ve heard so far,” Baker replied. “Is Vaile okay for this? He does have a head injury.”
“Diane has fixed him up. He says his headache is much better, and he’s anxious to do something that will distract him from everything else that’s been going on,” said Hugh.
“All right, then,” Baker decided. “Let’s do it.”
“Excellent!” Hugh was once more grinning like a leprechaun. “I’ll go tell our major domo—”
“—that the game is afoot?” Larry supplied wearily.
“That’s the spirit, Holmes!”
“Indeed,” Baker remarked as they watched Hugh hurry away.
Nine
Hugh wasted no time spreading the word and issuing invitations to a preliminary meeting in the parlour. He’d apparently been very persuasive. As Larry crossed the threshold, he couldn’t help noticing that even the Pykes were in attendance.
“Can we begin now?” Hugh asked the room.
“Wait a second,” Georgina cut in. “Gareth isn’t here yet.”
“At my suggestion, the corpse of honour is sitting out the investigation,” Vaile told her. “He was complaining of feeling a bit rocky, despite Diane’s ministrations, so he’s probably just lying down in his quarters.”
“That’s a problem,” said Larry, getting to his feet. “Head trauma can be dangerous. If he’s lying down, he might fall asleep, and if he’s concussed, he could slip into a coma. Someone needs to find him and stay with him, to keep him awake for at least 24 hours, or until he can be seen by a doctor.”
“I’ll do it,” said Farley. “My role in this version of the game is pretty minor.”
Larry heard a choking sound beside him as Selena bounced off her chair as well. “No!” she yelped, then added more calmly, “It has to be someone he’ll listen to.”
“And that would be me,” said Georgina. “Thanks, Farley, but he’s a bear even when his head isn’t hurting.” She handed her script to Warfield, who had taken the chair next to hers. “Congratulations,” she told him. “You’re a multiple personality.” Then she left to find her husband.
“What was that about?” Larry whispered to Selena as they sat down again.
“I’ll tell you later,” she whispered back.
“Are we ready now?” said Vaile, his patience clearly being tried. Taking the subsequent silence as a yes, he unfolded himself from his seat, cleared his throat, and continued, “Good morning, everyone. Or as good a morning as can be expected. My name is Antony Court, and I am the artistic director of the Heron Springs Dinner Theatre. However, since I’m also part of the cast, you may continue to think of me and address me as my character, Cedric Vaile, major domo of Rafferty House. This is not the murder mystery performance I was envisioning when my old friend Arthur Pyke contacted Heron Springs about staging a themed weekend at his newly-renovated summer house. To be honest, it’s not even the one I came up with when I arrived here and saw how limited the venue was. But it’s the show that we’re going to mount now.
“If you’ve been to Heron Springs, then you know that for an event like this, a cast member generally takes the role of the principal detective, and the guests participate as amateur sleuths. This time, of necessity, we’ll be doing it differently. Because there is an actual murder scene on the premises, and real evidence waiting to be found that must not be touched or tampered with, there will be no principal detective. Instead, the six members of the Crime Club will play the role of sleuth, and everyone else will be either witnesses or suspects.
“The sleuths will work as a team to identify evidence, share information, and collectively determine who committed the crime and why,” Vaile continued. “Mrs. Pyke and Mr. Pyke, out of respect for your loss, I’ve excluded you from this revised scenario. I would recommend that you sit outside on the veranda, where no one will bother you.”
With regal dignity, Edyth rose to her feet. “Thank you for that. Come, Harald, we have matters to discuss.”
Vaile raised a hand to signal a pause until the Pykes were out of the room. Then he launched into what was clearly a well-rehearsed preamble: “Each of the actors in our little drama has received a script to follow, and there may be some evidence planted around the house for an observant sleuth to find. As with any mystery, there will be one or more red herrings. And since this is a no-tech exercise, just like Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot, you will need to rely on your powers of deductive reasoning to assist you in identifying the culprit. Let me remind you that the killer could be any person in this room, including me, so be sure not to overlook anyone in the course of your inquiries. To assist you, we have placed a box of envelopes in the foyer. Each one contains a lead in the form of a question, the answer to which will bring you one step closer to solving the mystery. You may access these as and when you see fit.
“Now, it’s pitch dark outside, so I must ask you to imagine the terrible scene that has been discovered at the foot of the bluff. The bloodied body of celebrated mystery author Gareth Wylde lies sprawled on the rocks. There are two bullet holes in his chest. The protective railing directly above him is broken. I will ask each of our suspects and witnesses to go now to their assigned locations.” He paused to let all the actors take up their posts. When the room was empty save for himself and the Crime Club, Vaile concluded, “And now, Mr. Sampson, if you wouldn’t mind launching the investigation into this heinous crime…?”
At the end of his long speech, Vaile exited the stage and headed toward the door, looking as drawn and miserable as a figure from an Edvard Munch painting. Watching him go, Larry realized: Vaile had called Arthur an “old friend”. He’d also wept heartbrokenly at the news of Arthur’s death, he knew about the secret passages from having visited Rafferty House in years past, and Edyth Pyke hated him. Could Antony Court be the boy she had railed about to Harald in her quarters earlier on?
