A Stodgy Slaying, page 2
“Ta, Alex,” I said, using one of the few British phrases I had picked up.
“Have a nice day,” he deadpanned back in a flat American accent.
I rolled my eyes and strode out the door. The sun had set so it was chilly but not uncomfortably so. I knew I would warm up by the time I got back to the inn. I wanted to make sure I got home and put everything away and had time to read tonight.
The inn had been closed for the past several weeks after Aunt Selma’s death. I decided to use the time to spruce up the old place with fresh paint in certain areas along with new curtains in others. With the reopening of the inn just over a week away, I planned to start tomorrow morning getting up at the time I would need to rise once I had guests. Which meant, early.
I was deep in thought when I started up the street toward the inn. The moon hid behind clouds as usual this evening. As I got to my house, I stopped.
A large figure seemed to be lying against my front door. I nearly stepped on his shoes when I realized it was a man lying on his stomach. I dropped my bag to the ground and stepped around him.
“Sir, sir?” I knelt down to see who it was, but I didn’t recognize him. That’s when I noticed the red spots on his head and suit coat. The spots looked like blood.
Pulling out my cell phone, I quickly punched in 9-9-9, the British equivalent of America’s 9-1-1. I had used it so much when I first moved here, you’d have thought it was on speed-dial. The dispatcher said they would send someone around shortly.
“Please, hurry!” I urged her as I clicked off, hugging my arms around my body. I noticed my mallet lying on the steps, so I picked it up to get it out of the way of the medics.
I blew out a big breath. Just when things were looking up for me, it looked like a problem had literally landed on my doorstep.
Chapter 3
I paced the sidewalk in front of my house as the constable showed up. Jaime Allen, a Cumbria constable, strode toward me, a worried look on his face.
“Kat, are you all right?” Jaime had known my aunt well and had made it his responsibility to look after me once I arrived.
I waved him away toward the porch, one hand still clutching the mallet. “I’m fine, I’m fine. But there’s a … a…a… man on my front steps. I think he’s dead.”
Jaime hurried over to the porch just as paramedics arrived. He peered closely at the man, then snapped photos from several angles, including close-ups of his head injury, before stepping aside so the paramedics could gently roll the man over.
One of them began CPR. That gave me hope that perhaps the man wasn’t dead yet. The other paramedic watched warily, glancing over at me, then back to the patient.
After several minutes, the two paramedics put their heads together to confer. One finally shook his head, then motioned Jaime over. More conferring. More glancing over at me.
The team then pulled over a gurney and gently lifted the man onto it, pulling him toward the ambulance. Jaime gave a wave, then looked toward me with something that looked like suspicion. I shook my head. That couldn’t be right. I must be reading it wrong.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up as he walked slowly toward me. He gestured for another officer, who had been setting up crime scene tape on my porch, to join us.
“Is he dead?” I asked as he approached.
“Ms. McCoy,” he started.
“Ms. McCoy?” I barked out a laugh, glancing toward the other officer, then back to Jaime. “What’s going on, Jaime? Ms. McCoy? You act as if you don’t know me.”
“Kat,” said Jaime, his voice low. “What are you holding there?”
I glanced downward, only to realize I was still holding the mallet from earlier. My knuckles were white from how hard I had clutched it.
“Oh.” My voice was suddenly small.
“Kat, let me have the mallet.” Jaime’s voice was quiet as he held out a large plastic bag and gently took the tool from me, holding it by the edges with a tissue. He dropped the mallet into what was apparently an evidence bag and quickly sealed it.
As I released the mallet, I noticed red stains on the palm and fingers of my hand, so I quickly closed it and dropped it to my side.
The other officer handed some sort of wipe to Jaime, who reached for my hand. I jerked it away.
“Stop!” I barked at him.
Jaime flinched. His eyes wouldn’t meet mine. “Kat, you have blood on your hand. I need to take a sample to know whose blood it is.”
My eyes searched his face. “Jaime, it must have come off the mallet.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of, Kat.” His eyes finally met mine. “Now, please.”
I blew out a breath as my shoulders dropped in surrender and I held out my hands to Jaime. He quickly swabbed them and dropped the wipe into the bag held open by the other officer, who sealed it as he walked away.
Jaime pulled out a small notebook and took a deep breath. “Tell me what happened tonight.”
There wasn’t much to tell, as far as I was concerned. I told him how I’d come home from the grocery to find the man face down on my front porch.
“Is he dead?” I asked again. “You never answered my question.”
Jaime glanced up sharply, his pen still poised over his notebook. “That’s because I am the constable here, so I ask the questions,” he said, his voice tight. “I’m fairly certain they do it the same way in the States.”
He gestured toward the front steps as he continued, ignoring the small crowd of people who had gathered on the sidewalk across the street and near the neighbor’s house.
“Ms. McCoy, can you explain how you came to be standing with what is likely the murder weapon when we arrived?” Jaime’s voice was hard, but his eyes held what looked like fear in them. “Can you?”
I shrugged and raised both hands, palms up. “After I called the police, I noticed my mallet was lying on the ground. It wasn’t where I had left it, so I automatically picked it up to put it away so the paramedics wouldn’t trip on it.”
“But you were still holding it when we got here.”
“I guess I was in shock. It’s not every day a dead man turns up on my front steps.” I turned to look Jaime full in the face. “Are you saying my mallet is the murder weapon?”
“Possibly. Why was it even out here?”
I pointed to where the new flag stood earlier. I didn’t see it so I rushed over to the spot, but it had disappeared. “Wait a minute. It’s gone. I used the mallet to pound in the flagpole.”
Jaime walked over to where I was pointing. Whoever had taken the pole had also partly covered the hole. He glanced back at me. “I don’t see a flagpole, Ms. McCoy.”
“I just told you that it’s gone.” I ran my fingers through my hair as I studied the ground. “I got the mallet from the shed this afternoon and put up a flag that said Little Windermere Inn. It was right here.”
I looked frantically around, then I spotted the crowd across the street. “There, Eleanor, ask her. She told me I had to take it down.”
Jaime held up his hand apparently to silence me, which, frankly, just made me madder.
“Ms. McCoy, how do you know the victim?”
“I don’t. I’ve never seen him before in my life. Why aren’t you asking Eleanor?”
“Then why was he on your porch?”
I looked at him in confusion since I was still focused on Eleanor, whom I couldn’t see in the crowd any longer.
“Again, constable. I don’t know,” I said, gritting my teeth.
“So you’re saying a man you don’t know just happened to show up on your porch and got himself killed while you were away.” Jaime closed his notebook with a snap. “You can see how this looks, Ms. McCoy. Don’t leave town.”
My mouth fell open as he turned to walk away.
“Don’t leave town?” I called after him. “I just got here. Where would I go?”
Chapter 4
Jaime had barely turned the corner onto the main street, after sternly instructing me to stay out of the crime tape area, when Clarissa was at my door. I didn’t question how she knew to come. In the village, word travels faster than footsteps.
She scooted in and I quickly closed the door behind her. She turned toward me and took both of my hands in hers.
“Kat, what happened?”
“Some man died on my porch and Jaime thinks I did it.” I clutched her hands.
She rolled her eyes and made a face, releasing me. “Oh, pish. Jaime jumped to a conclusion. He’ll come to his senses tomorrow.”
She followed me into the kitchen and got out the teacups we had just used for dinner. Then she made me tell her everything that had happened.
She studied the tea in her cup. “He didn’t say who the man was?”
I shook my head. “I was so stunned that he was interrogating me that I didn’t think to ask him. But I looked at the man’s face, and I’ve never seen him before.”
Clarissa was just leaving when Corbyn returned home from the senior citizens centre. He was full of questions, so I had to go through the whole thing with him, too.
As Clarissa had done, he instructed me to put it out of my mind and get some rest. Easier said than done.
I tossed and turned all night, my thoughts bouncing between concern for myself and the idea that Jaime thought I might be a suspect, and Aunt Selma’s B&B. The grand re-opening loomed. Guests were booked, and I still had much to learn. I didn’t have time for a dead man on my porch.
That thought brought me up short. I bowed my head as I realized that for me, it would likely be an inconvenience. For the man on the porch, it was a dire sentence.
The next morning brought a loud banging on the front door.
“I’ve got it,” Corbyn called from the foyer.
Heavy steps sounded shortly, and Jaime appeared once more in my kitchen. I crossed my arms and leaned against the counter.
“Yes, constable, how may I help you?” I wasn’t ready to forgive him so easily.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t looking for forgiveness.
“Ms. McCoy, you’ll come with me to the station for questioning in the death of Edgar Elliot Graham.”
My mouth fell open for the second time in twelve hours. “What? That’s who was on my porch?”
Jaime tilted his head to look at me. “Of course, it was Mr. Graham. Now, if you’ll come with me. And bring your passport.”
I wiped my hands on a dish towel, dug my passport out of my bag, and followed Jaime out the door.
“I’ll watch after everything here, Kat, don’t worry,” Corbyn said as I stepped onto the porch.
I threw him a wave along with a weak smile as I stepped into Jaime’s car.
Jaime drove us the four blocks to the constable’s station and parked on the side. He walked me through the front door. A gleeful smile crossed the receptionist’s face before she ducked her head. When she raised it again, her lips were pursed as she looked at me disapprovingly.
I glared back at her.
Marjorie Brooks, the receptionist, had taken a dislike to me as soon as I came to town, I was fairly certain.
Her mother, Irene, and my great-aunt had been friends at one time, though they had had a falling out a couple of decades ago.
Nice to see Marjorie didn’t hold a grudge.
I followed Jaime down a dark narrow hall to a door, which he opened and gestured for me to enter. He followed behind me and set his hat and notebook on the table, then glanced up at the mirror on the wall and gave a slight nod.
After pressing a button on a recording device, he cleared his throat. We went through the formalities of my name and age, among other things.
Then he asked me again what happened the previous evening. I repeated the story. Then sat back and looked at him.
“Ms. McCoy, did you know Edgar Elliot Graham?” he inquired.
“No. He emailed me several times and I spoke with him on the phone yesterday,” I said.
“Hmm,” he said, glancing at his notebook then back at me. “What did he want?”
“He wanted to see Aunt Selma’s illustrations.” I leaned toward him, my voice lowered. “I told you about that weeks ago, Jaime. Remember? Lots of so-called ‘experts’ wanted to see the illustrations.” I used half-hearted air quotes.
He acted like he didn’t hear me. “What was your impression of Mr. Graham?”
“Jaime, I didn’t know him.”
“You didn’t like him.”
I leaned back in my chair and stared at Jaime. He had sat in my kitchen two weeks earlier and listened to me talk about the so-called Beatrix Potter experts coming out of the woodwork because money was on the line. Now he was using my discussions with him as a friend against me.
“I didn’t know him, and apparently I don’t know you as well.” My eyes grew hard.
Jaime’s eyes glanced toward the mirror, then back to me. “I have to do my job.”
“Does that include trying to pin a murder on me?” My voice grew louder as I grew more frustrated. “Jaime, you know I didn’t kill anyone.”
Jaime looked at me calmly, then back at his notebook. “Do I?”
“Yes, you do.”
“Ms. McCoy, you came to town about seven weeks ago claiming to be Selma Brown’s grand-niece. No one bothered to confirm that, so no, I don’t really know you didn’t kill someone. I don’t even know if you’re really who you say you are.”
“But, but, but,” I stammered. “My cousin Franklin will tell you that I am who I say I am.”
He looked at me as he closed his notebook. “We spoke with Franklin this morning. He says he can’t be sure.”
“He literally ran up to me on the streets of Windermere, calling my name.” I remembered it vividly because he had scared me at first.
“He says someone pointed you out to him. Though he says there does seem to be a resemblance, he can’t be sure.” Jaime stood up. “Therefore, until we confirm that you are Selma’s relative, you will have to stay here.”
“Here?” My eyes swept the dingy gray room.
“Not here,” Jaime said. “In a cell.”
With that, he motioned for me stand and follow him. After a stop to get my fingerprints taken, Jaime, my constable friend and a person I had come to trust, walked me through a heavy gray door and into a small cell at the back of the station.
Chapter 5
What a nightmare.
I sat on the small narrow bed in the cell and leaned my back against the wall. The cell clearly was just a holding cell. There was no sink or bathroom. I took slight comfort in that perhaps it meant I wouldn’t be here very long.
At least Windermere was a small town. Clarissa and Corbyn would know shortly what had happened. I wasn’t sure how the law enforcement system worked in Britain, but surely they could bail me out somehow.
I couldn’t reconcile the two Jaimes in my mind. The first one, my friend, had eaten many meals at my house. He didn’t like to cook and would always show up with some kind of fast food meal or pizza. When I was worried about someone breaking in, he had slept on the sofa in my front sitting room.
This new Jaime frightened me. He didn’t believe anything I told him. I knew Jaime had experience investigating brutal murders from his years on the London force, but I never expected to be on the receiving end of his investigative skills.
Yes, it was true that Graham had died on my front steps. And, yes, it was true that he had tried to bully me over the Beatrix Potter illustrations. And, yes, it was true that I was holding what apparently was the murder weapon when the police arrived.
Well, crumb.
When I looked at the evidence, I’d probably lock me up, too. I pulled my knees up onto the bed and leaned my forehead against them, despair just waiting to course through me. After a few moments, I lifted my head and stared at the cell door, having just remembered that I had the advantage of knowing that I didn’t kill anyone.
Then who did? I didn’t know enough about Graham to know who else might want to kill him. I reached for my phone, then remembered they had taken it. My brief thought of being productive while I sat in this cell and researching Graham faded.
Did someone from Windermere kill Graham? He had visited here before, and he wasn’t that friendly. I could easily see him upsetting someone else to the point of being killed.
Or did someone follow him from London? Then did the culprit flee back to London to set up an alibi?
I thought about that for a moment. You would have to really anger someone for them to drive across Britain, kill you, then race back to London. If anyone could do that, Graham could. He was pompous and annoying. Not a great reason to kill someone, I admitted to myself.
I sat in the cell for what felt like days but was only a couple of hours.
At last, Jaime threw open the heavy gray door and approached the cell. He pulled out a set of keys.
“All right, we have matched your finger prints and received confirmation from the States that you are who you say you are.”
“No kidding.” I wasn’t in the mood to be nice anymore.
He hesitated and glanced at me. “Right, well, we are releasing you but keeping your passport. Don’t leave town.”
“Am I still a suspect?”
“Just because you’re Selma’s niece doesn’t mean you’re not a killer,” he said as he returned my purse and my cell phone.
“Thanks for not answering my question,” I said sarcastically as I stepped around him and stalked toward the door, standing before it and waiting for him to open it. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of looking at him.
Once I got outside of the station, I gulped in a deep breath of air and took a hard right down the main street. I didn’t stop until I reached the Tea Shoppe.
Clarissa looked up from the counter and set down the teapot she was holding onto the counter, then bustled down the aisle toward me, past all the tea accessories. When she wasn’t running her B&B, Clarissa was the proprietor of the local tea shop, or Tea Shoppe, as the sign over the door proclaimed.
