A Stodgy Slaying, page 10
So I hugged him, too, whether he wanted me to or not.
For now, we laid the painting on the coffee table in the front sitting/breakfast room.
I gently touched Aunt Selma’s cheek.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Alex murmured in my ear. “I’m not positive it was dry when we wrapped it. He was far too excited to bring it to you.”
I grinned over my shoulder at him, then turned back toward Corbyn standing in the doorway. “So that’s what you’ve been doing every night?”
“I wanted it to be a surprise,” Corbyn said as he rubbed a hand over his forehead and looked around the entryway. “Now, what can I do to help around here?”
I chuckled. “Corbyn, you pay for your room. You don’t have to work.”
His blue eyes pierced mine. “I’m nearly ninety, Kat. I don’t plan to sit around waitin’ to die. Put me to work. Not this moment, of course. Perhaps tomorrow.”
I looked from Corbyn to Alex, who nodded slightly, then back to Corbyn. “Okay then. I’ll put you to work. But only if I can pay you or take it off your room.”
Corbyn shrugged. “Whatever pleases you, dear.” He gently slapped his hands on his thighs. “Now, it’s been an exciting day already and I feel ready for a lie-down. If you’ll excuse me, Kat, Alex.”
With that, he started for the stairs.
“Rest well, old man,” Alex added.
“Thank you again,” I chimed in because I didn’t want Alex to have the last word.
Corbyn chuckled as he climbed the stairs.
“I can’t believe that’s what he has been doing.” I looked up at Alex. “I really was afraid he was staying away because he thought I was a killer.”
“No one thinks you’re a killer, Kat,” Alex said, looking me directly in the eyes.
“Jaime does,” I said flatly, my eyes dropping to the floor.
“He doesn’t. Not really. He’s a good investigator, Kat. Trust the process,” Alex said quietly. “Now how about some tea? You can tell me what happened last night and how it has to do with your investigation.”
Alex and I sat in the kitchen drinking tea and munching on cookies – biscuits, he called them. He scolded me for going outside in the dark of night to meet a stranger, even if it was just outside the back gate.
Then we discussed the suspects in the case. He didn’t think there was anything suspicious about Geoffrey McPherson helping Corbyn paint Aunt Selma’s picture, so I pushed aside the thought for now.
Alex left just as Franklin arrived. I had asked him for last-minute cleaning on the upstairs walls. The stains had been too much for Ginny and me, but Franklin thought he could clear off the spots.
I left him on the second floor as I climbed up to the third floor and gathered some linens from the attic that Ginny and I had left there. I opened the laundry chute door and threw the linens into the laundry basket inside. As I reached in to push more sheets inside, the basket gave way and fell off one of the hooks.
“Oh!” I caught myself on the side of the chute and pushed myself up, taking a moment to catch my breath and let my bruised side stop protesting.
Reaching for the hook that failed, I saw it had snapped off. That was odd. I was sure Aunt Selma had just had the system put in within the past year. This way, she didn’t have to carry laundry up and down the stairs. I had only used it once before, but I was certain I hadn’t broken it already.
I paused, staring at the hook in my hand. If it really was the killer breaking things in my house, how had he – or she – gotten inside? After the events with Aunt Selma’s illustrations, Corbyn and I kept the inn locked up tight, often even when we were there.
The realization washed over me, causing me to put one hand on the wall to steady myself. The only person who had been around the dumbwaiter besides me was Ginny. I flashed to the night before, how she hadn’t wanted to bother the medics. Did she fake the fall down the stairs? Had she even hurt her ankle at all? As we sat in the kitchen, she’d questioned me about the case.
I banged a palm to my head. I’d stupidly told her I was “close.”
Was it a coincidence that I had been attacked last night, just hours after I had told her that I only needed one more piece to the puzzle? I leaned my back against the wall as the pieces started to fall into place. Ginny’s father owned a restaurant and had closed to bad reviews.
What had Clarissa mentioned in passing? I gasped. Edgar Elliot Graham used to be a restaurant reviewer.
This was the missing piece. My heart threatened to beat out of my chest. Ginny had come to Windermere to kill the man who had destroyed her father.
Chapter 24
With that realization, I ran downstairs and called Jaime. He didn’t pick up. I’m sure the message I left was flustered and disjointed, but hopefully, he would get the gist and return my call.
Next, I tried Clarissa, but she didn’t pick up either.
“Franklin, I’ll be right back!” I hollered up the stairs, then I raced out the front door and down the street to Clarissa’s B&B.
Clarissa wasn’t on the first floor of the inn. I hoped she was still safe at the Tea Shoppe. I glanced up the stairs and made a quick decision. Stepping quickly to the second floor, I quietly approached Ginny and Eliza’s room. First, I put one ear to listen at the door, but I didn’t hear anything inside. Then I tapped softly.
“Ginny? Eliza?”
Still no answer. Perhaps they were out for a lunch somewhere. I used the master key Clarissa had given me to open the door and slip inside. I sent a silent apology to Clarissa. She’d probably want her key back after this, but I wanted to look for real evidence that Ginny was the killer.
Quickly, I glanced through the dresser drawers. All I saw were clothes and accessories. I tried not to move things out of place. To be fair, I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. A quick glance at my watch told me I was taking too much time. They could be back any moment.
I noticed a newspaper lying on the nightstand between the two twin beds. It was folded back so someone could read a particular article. How quaint, I thought. There was a certain charm in handing someone a folded-back newspaper rather than tagging them in a post or asking them to look at your phone screen.
I stepped closer and peered down at the article: “Well-known London journalist killed in Windermere.” Picking up the newspaper, I skimmed the article to see if it had anything in it that I had missed, since Jaime wasn’t that great about sharing information with me just now.
My brow furrowed when I read that Graham had once been a restaurant reviewer, confirming what Clarissa had told me. The article went on to say he had been reassigned when the owner of a restaurant he had given a poor review to had suffered a brain aneurysm after the owner tried to kill himself.
I knew it. I pumped my fist. This was the evidence I needed.
Steps sounded down the hallway, so I tossed down the article and ran to the door. I didn’t want Ginny to know I had found the evidence I needed.
Opening the door, I slipped out and made it a few steps down the hall just as Eliza turned the corner. Relief coursed through my body that it wasn’t Ginny.
“Hey, Eliza.” My voice sounded unnatural and breathless to me.
Eliza looked at me suspiciously. “Are you helping Clarissa again? I thought she and Ginny were still at the tea shop.”
I nodded and quickly looked around, noticing clean towels on the table. I forced a smile. “Building B&B karma. Hoping if I need help – and I will – Clarissa will come running.”
Eliza slipped past me and toward her door, quickly unlocking it and stepping inside. Her footsteps tapped across the room and stopped. My breath caught in my throat. It sounded like she had stopped by the nightstand. Would she know I had read Ginny’s article?
The footsteps tapped back toward me and suddenly Eliza was standing in the doorway. Her dark eyes stared into mine.
I clutched the towels in front of me as I started to step back toward the staircase down the hall. Eliza sped around me.
“Kat, wait.”
I stopped in front of an open door, wondering if she could tell my heart was about to beat right out of my chest.
“What can I do for you, Eliza?” I tried to calm my voice. It just sounded light and wispy.
She studied my face. “You were in my room.”
I held up the towels, blowing out a quick breath to calm my nerves. “Sure, I was tidying up. I’ll be back in a little while to vacuum, if that’s all right with you. If you want to relax for a while, though, I can skip your room and just plan to vacuum tomorrow.”
“You know.” She stepped toward me. “I know that you know.”
I clutched the towels before me. “Look, Eliza, you don’t have to protect Ginny. I know what she did.”
Eliza pulled up, a small smile appearing on her face. “Ginny? Is that what you think?”
“Well, yes. I’m sure she killed Mr. Graham because of her father.”
Eliza burst out laughing. “My Ginny killed Edgar Elliot Graham?” She shook her head, eyeing me fondly. “Oh, dear Kat. You really aren’t a very good sleuth, are you?”
That wasn’t at all what I expected her to say. As I clutched the towels, the pieces started to fall into place around me. Eliza’s brother and Ginny’s dad was the restauranteur that Graham had savaged in the review. Her brother had tried to kill himself and suffered a brain aneurysm. My breath caught in my throat.
As I lifted my head to meet her eyes, something flickered in them. “It was you.”
“Of course, it was me, you simpleton. How dare you try to pin this on my niece!”
She jerked to the right to block my way to the stairs. I threw a glance into the room behind me as if I was going to duck into it. She lunged for me.
I threw myself to the left as I pushed the armload of towels toward her, then shoved her into the room behind me. She sprawled on the floor on top of the towels as I raced for the stairs to the first floor. Eliza threw herself toward me and caught my foot. We tussled by the stair rail until I was able to kick her off, but she had managed to get between me and the stairs.
I turned to race up to the third floor. If I could get into one of the rooms, I could lock the door behind me.
Just as I reached the top step, Eliza grabbed my foot again. I went down hard on my knee, gasping in pain. Eliza grabbed my ponytail and jerked my hair backwards.
I screamed. Eliza pulled me toward her, then punched me in the face. I felt blood dripping from my nose.
“Shut it!” Eliza hissed. Then pulling me by my hair and an arm, she dragged me up the stairs. Using my keys, she opened one of the rooms. After she shoved me forward into the room, she reached back and closed the door, clicking the lock behind us.
I scrambled to my feet, scooting across the small room from her. I turned to face her, my back to the window. A smug little smile on her face set off alarms in my head. What was she up to?
“You killed Edgar Graham.”
Her smile grew wider. “Edgar Elliot Graham, you mean? No worse than he deserved.”
“He gave your brother’s restaurant a bad review and your brother tried to kill himself.”
Eliza silently clapped her hands. “Brilliant. You’re a bloody genius after all.”
Her eyes spun wildly in their sockets. I was afraid to glance at my watch to see if Clarissa would be home soon. Most days, she stopped at the inn during the day in case guests needed anything. Today, apparently, the other guests were out hiking and visiting the sights of The Lakes.
“Did you follow him to Windermere?” I leaned on the windowsill behind me, my fingers playing with the edges. If I could throw up the window and jump onto the roof of the second floor, I could get away. It was the only chance I could think of at the moment. It would be dicey, I knew, because the roof was steeply pitched.
She scoffed and looked up at the ceiling as she laughed. I used her laughter to cover the sound of me cracking open the window.
“I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of following him from London, but I did follow him to your house,” she said, an ugly sneer changing her pleasant features. “What were the odds that he would show up here when I’m on holiday with my niece? It was like a sign from the heavens, it was.”
“That you should kill a man?” I couldn’t help it. My voice was incredulous.
“I didn’t plan to do it, but that mallet was lying on the steps.”
“Another sign from the heavens?” Probably not the best time for me to be sarcastic, but I felt angry that she had used my mallet to kill a man.
She gave me a sharp look and stepped toward me. “Just for being so judgy, you’ll need to join him.”
I pressed harder against the window. “Eliza, you don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do. Ginny has already lost both of her parents. She can’t lose me, too.” She pushed up her sleeves like she was getting ready for some dirty work. “If she loses me, too, it will be your fault. We can’t have that.”
My mouth fell open in indignation. “How is my fault? You’re the one who killed a man.” I inched the window up a little more as I spoke. “The police will know you killed me.”
“No, they won’t.” She tilted her head at me and smiled like she would at a petulant child. “They’ll find your body on the walk below.” She snapped her fingers. “And a note that says how sorry you are that you killed him, that you just couldn’t live with yourself any longer.”
“My body on the—”
She nodded excitedly. “I was so happy to see you trying to open the window. Now I can just push you out.”
With that, I spun around then threw up the window. As I flung myself out, Eliza caught my right foot. I held onto the window frame as I looked toward her, then bent my left knee. With all my strength, I shot out my left foot and kicked her in the face.
She screamed and let go of my foot. Blood gushed from her nose, which seemed fair to me, but I didn’t stick around to see any more. I clambered onto the roof. As soon as I got a few feet from the window, I sat down and scooted toward the overhang.
Eliza stepped onto the roof behind me. I eyed the gutter on the edge of the roof, then kept scooting toward the edge, trying to reach the lowest part of the roof so I could hang on the edge and drop, if necessary.
Eliza stayed on her feet as she stepped closer to me, her arms in the air to keep her balance. Blood seeped from her nose. She kept wiping it with the back of her hand, then onto her trousers.
“Get back here,” she hissed at me. “You’re ruining everything.”
I looked down the hill just as two forms appeared, coming over the rise from the main street. My heart leaped. Clarissa and Ginny!
I waved and screamed. “Clarissa! Help! Help!”
Clarissa dropped her bags and broke into a run toward her B&B. I scooted closer to the edge. Eliza’s labored breath got closer and closer. I cringed away from her, reaching my hands toward the gutter.
“Kat, what are you doing?” Clarissa yelled as she neared the house.
Clarissa’s voice pulled my eyes toward her. I looked back in time to see Eliza lunge toward me down the roof. I grabbed the gutter and swung down, one leg catching on the gutter.
Eliza slid past me … and over the edge of the roof. Ginny screamed.
I closed my eyes and clung to the rain gutter, one leg still on the roof. With one loud creak, I felt the gutter give way beneath me. It broke off the side of the house and swung toward the ground. I wrapped my legs around it until I could see how far from the ground I was. Then I started sliding down the gutter.
As I neared the ground, I felt hands grab me from behind. My legs felt like Jell-O and gave way as I dropped to the ground, my whole body shaking.
“Kat, Kat, are you all right?” Jaime’s voice came over my shoulder as he placed his hand on my back. I spun around and threw my arms around him. He grabbed me with his arms and knelt beside me as I sobbed, his cheek against the side of my head. Sirens blared somewhere behind us, getting closer.
“Are you all right?” he whispered, one hand touching my hair gently.
I nodded into him. “Just so scared,” I whispered back. “Eliza killed Graham.”
He pulled me into him again. “I’m so sorry, Kat.”
My arms tightened around him. My emotions seemed to get in the way of words making their way out of my mouth.
“Kat, Kat!”
I pushed away from Jaime to see Clarissa coming up behind me.
“Are you all right, luv?” She pulled me to my feet and hugged me hard, then pushed me away. “What is it about you Americans? Ever since you moved here, I’ve been so … so… huggy!”
We both laughed and I hugged her quickly, then peered into her eyes. “Is Eliza, um, is she…?”
Clarissa smiled gently. “She’s still alive. The medics are taking care of her.”
I turned in the direction of the ambulance. It looked like Eliza had hit the sidewalk as she jettisoned off the roof while I had slipped beneath the overhang, just barely escaping Clarissa’s bushes.
Jaime stepped back over from where Eliza was being treated, his notebook out. Another officer walked with him, a blanket in her hands, which she draped over my shoulders.
“To help with the shock,” she said quietly.
I smiled my thanks, then a thought broke through my muddled brain. I looked up at Jaime. “How did you get here so fast?”
He grimaced and pointed down the street toward Aunt Selma’s B&B.
“I was coming from your house to ask you a few questions about Eleanor Davies and that confusing voicemail you left me when you came flying out the window upstairs. Then I saw the Payne woman come after you. I wasn’t sure what was going on and I was too far to help, so I called for backup. You were only on the roof for a minute or so.”
It had felt much longer. I blew out a breath, looking in the direction of the inn. With the cars parked along the road across the street, I hadn’t seen Jaime approaching.
“Are you up to telling me what happened?”
I glanced over his shoulder and saw Ginny leaning over her aunt’s gurney. She clutched her aunt’s hand and brushed her hair.
