Chameleons and a Corpse

by Ruby Loren

  The meal with my publisher had turned out to be good news - at least, she’d thought it was good news. My comic’s success had reached some ears in Hollywood and there was apparently a lot of interest around having a film made. When I’d questioned how they proposed to animate the comics - especially as they were more funny scenes than coherent storylines - I’d received the answer I’d dreaded ever since film making had been mentioned. The Hollywood people were interested in my story. They wanted to know the ins and outs of how Monday’s Menagerie had risen to fame, and the mortal dramas in my own life that surrounded it (someone had clearly been doing their research!) I’d had to take a deep breath when Gloria had said all of that. My first reaction was to say no, absolutely not, but saying that would obviously lead to more questions - questions I couldn’t answer. The problem was, most of the story behind my comic’s success was protected by the Official Secrets Act, and I wasn’t sure of how good an alternative story I could come up with.

  Then there was the horror of having my own life displayed on the big screen. I’d never actually sought any limelight and the idea of some faux memoir made me itch with discomfort. In the end, I’d played for time by telling Gloria it was a really big opportunity and that I needed to think about it. After I’d got home, I’d called Katya and filled her in on the problem. She’d promised me that she’d either get back to me, or I’d find my problem had been solved by some behind-the-scenes persuasion. I’d known better than to ask beyond that, but with a bit of luck, the film was dead in the water.

  “Are you okay to take Rameses over? He’s taken to you,” Auryn said.

  The tan coloured dog had seemed to adopt me as his chosen person over the past day. He was currently leaning against my leg, watching mournfully as I ate my cornflakes. “No problem. If it weren’t for my strong suspicion that Lucky is planning something dastardly beneath the facade of tolerance, I’d say we should offer to keep him ourselves. Especially as he seems to be causing Scarlett such inconvenience.” I rolled my eyes when I said it, knowing that I was in safe company with Auryn.

  “Maybe we should get a puppy?”

  “You think?” I asked, entertaining the idea. I’d always treated Lucky like a dog with his lead walking training and the adventures I’d hoped to take him on when working as a consultant. Adventures that were still going to happen, I firmly reminded myself. But I could tell that while he loved Lucky, Auryn was a dog person at heart. His friendly, happy-go-lucky personality just fit with a dog’s perfectly. At the same time, I had no doubt that I was a cat person, but I did also like dogs.

  Rameses sighed and breathed doggy breath in my face. I shot him a ‘do you have to?’ look. Yep, I definitely preferred animals who understood the concept of personal space. “Hopefully you’ll be all settled in with Scarlett before long,” I told the dog, hoping I sounded surer than I felt. Much like myself, Scarlett did not actually strike me as a dog person.

  When I pulled into the lane that led to the Marsden house, I suddenly realised my phone charger was missing from the car. In a moment of clarity, I realised I must have left it behind when cleaning the house. When we’d found the will, everything had gone up in the air a little. Auryn had tidied the house some more, but I wasn't surprised to discover I’d forgotten something. Fortunately, I’d attached the house key Scarlett had given us to my main keyring, so I was able to let myself in when I pulled up. To my surprise, I heard movement inside of the house as soon as I opened the door.

  “Hello?” I called, tightening my grip on Rameses’ lead. The dog was happy to be home, but I didn’t want him to run into an intruder - especially not when they could be none other than Timmy’s murderer!

  “Hello? Madi, is that you?” a familiar voice called down the stairs.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked Officer Kelly in as light a way as I could.

  She blushed all the same. “I’m just checking for anything else we might have missed. Detective Gregory wanted to make double sure now that this will has turned up. I’ve kept everything tidy,” she added, keen to let me know she hadn't undone the hours of work we’d all put in yesterday.

  “You didn’t find anything?” I asked, but both of us knew there was no way anything had been missed. The police officer was here for a very different reason. She wasn’t ready to let go.

  “No, nothing. By the way, the Marsdens came back down this morning. Lizzie finally caved in and admitted she had come here that morning. No one answered the front door and it was apparently locked. She went round the side gate and across the patio and saw that her brother-in-law was dead. Then she claims she panicked and decided to leave, instead of reporting it to the police.” Officer Kelly raised an eyebrow to show what she thought of that story. “Understandably, they’re both being held in custody for now.”

  “Did she say why she came all the way down from Leeds?” I asked, surprised but pleased that my police officer friend was in such a sharing mood. I supposed it was probably because, although they thought they had a good murder suspect, some missing piece must still be eluding them.

  “Her husband claims he had no idea she was gone. Apparently, she was supposed to be at work. When Lizzie saw the will, she stopped being so tight-lipped. We’d already managed to confirm her maiden name by then, so we knew she’d had the baby with Timothy Marsden.” Officer Kelly sighed. “I thought she’d just admit she’d done it at that point, but she didn’t. She said that everything she’d told us was true. Timmy had apparently called her on the day he’d changed his will, letting her know that he’d decided to pass on his part of the family inheritance to the child, should he die. She said that with anyone normal, it might not have been anything to worry about, but she knew Timmy was an adrenaline junkie. One slip on a mountain and she knew her husband would discover the terrible truth. Lizzie claims that she was visiting Timmy to reason with him to change the will and forget about the child. After all, they had given it up for adoption, so it wasn’t theirs anymore - that’s what she said anyway.”

  “But Will was in here searching with her. Doesn’t that imply he already knew the truth?”

  Officer Kelly nodded. “We thought of that, too. Lizzie was still begging us not to tell him at that point. She says she told her husband that they were searching for a will that cut him out of the family money, should Timmy die an early death. I’ve no idea how she justified why Timmy had called her with that news, rather than call his brother, or even told her at all, but she claims she managed to convince him it was the truth. Apparently, family tradition dictates that the family money is passed on only to Marsdens. Spouses get missed. It’s blood over anything else I suppose. With that logic, the child would have every right to inherit, as they are a blood relation, but then - there never was supposed to be a child. Lizzie said it was a mistake that happened when she was young and foolish and Timmy had looser morals…”

  I inwardly raised my eyebrows. After what I now knew about Timmy’s morals, I wasn’t sure I wanted to imagine that.

  “It wasn't until years later when they met up for old time’s sake that she also met his brother, Will, and things just happened from there.” Officer Kelly shrugged. “It sounds to me like a motive for murder.”

  “I don’t know…” I said, struggling to put it all together in my head. “I suppose the way Timmy was found does correspond with her coming in through the back door and stabbing him. Then she could have gone through and unlocked the front door to make the police think it happened a different way - breaking and entering.” I thought some more. “Hey, did she say what time she thought she’d arrived?”

  “She says it was around eleven.”

  “Did she see a dog lead on the ground?” I asked.

  Officer Kelly frowned. “I’m not sure if that’s been asked. Do you think it’s relevant?”

  “I don’t know. Andy said he might have heard shouting. If he was right, then Timmy was still alive at that time. I suppose Lizzie might have killed him when she came along later, but
don’t you think it’s something to look into? He might have been shouting on the phone… or anything… but it could help.”

  “I’ll make a note to get that question asked.” Officer Kelly looked around the kitchen we were standing in with a wistful expression. “It’s stupid, I know, now that I know everything he was up to, but I’ll miss him.”

  “I know,” I said, understandingly. I might see Timmy as a bit of an ass, but he’d obviously had a way of connecting with those he had dalliances with in a caring way. I thought that both Officer Kelly and Annabelle Wright might have got closer to ending up with Timmy than I’d originally imagined. Not all flings were equal.

  I bit my lip when I remembered something else that Annabelle Wright’s husband had said. It had bothered me the other day when we’d come in to clean. “Andy Wright said he heard classic rock playing when he came round and then left without seeing Timmy, but the CD in the sound system is pop music. I had a look, but I couldn’t even see a classic rock CD around.” It was really beginning to bug me.

  “Maybe it was one of the neighbours’ music?”

  I thought about that and then nodded. “It could have been Ethan’s radio. He was playing music when I let Rameses out before he disappeared. I think he likes to listen to music while he sits in his hot tub,” I explained, realising that I’d always heard some kind of music when I’d been outside. He’d even been asked to turn the music down when we were all out for a barbecue.

  “Lizzie Marsden probably thought that was a gift from heaven. It was all the sound cover she needed to kill her brother-in-law and get away with it. It’s just too bad we haven’t been able to find the murder weapon.”

  “Hmmm,” I said, feeling the cogs turning in my head. I looked down at Rameses and he looked back up at me. I suddenly had the strong feeling that the mystery of how Rameses had got out, and then back in, might just be the final piece in the puzzle that uncovered the murderer. “I don’t think Lizzie Marsden killed Timmy,” I announced, remembering something else. It hadn’t seemed significant at the time but now it had risen to the surface and seemed to make the whole thing glaringly obvious. “When I let Rameses outside, I noticed there was water on the floor of the kitchen. I didn’t put much thought into where it had come from. I suppose I explained it away as being Rameses, but he isn’t a drooler.” It was one of the things I’d been glad to learn when the dog had stayed with us. “Perhaps there were water marks on the patio, too, but they’d have dried quicker in the sun.”

  “There wasn’t any water on the floor when I got here. It would have been logged by the first responders, too.”

  “Perhaps it dried up, or perhaps…” The final piece of the puzzle dropped into place. “Someone could have come back when Auryn and I went outside to call the police. They could have wiped up the evidence that they’d ever been inside the house. Only… they left the gate between properties open and Rameses got out. That was how he got away! I wouldn’t be surprised if Rameses came back in that way, too. Heinrich was making a racket when Auryn and I came to confront Will and Lizzie. Rameses must have used it to find his way back home. The culprit would have felt pressured into letting him back through in order to perpetuate the idea that Rameses jumped the fence - even though he’d never done it before.”

  I shook my head. “It was the killer’s final mistake. Ethan Pleasant was listening to everything that I’d been talking about with Georgina, and then Harry, on the day I’d come to look for Rameses. He'd have known that the prevailing theory was that Rameses had jumped the fence, so logically, he should be able to jump back over. He must have let Rameses back through the gate when he turned up again and probably got Heinrich sniffing around exactly where he didn’t want him. If he’d just kept him in the garden and then told us he’d found him, the side gate theory would have looked a lot more likely. I think he thought he was being smart but really, he panicked.”

  I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. “Ethan said he was in the hot tub when the murder must have happened, but I heard the sounds of splashing when Auryn and I arrived. If that were true, he’d have been in there for hours!”

  “Well, it was a nice day,” Officer Kelly allowed, playing devil’s advocate.

  “Sure, but it would also be the perfect way to wash off any evidence that you just murdered your next door neighbour.”

  “But why on earth would this next door neighbour want to kill Timmy?”

  “Don’t you remember? We found that gym membership card with Shona Pleasant’s name on it. Ethan must have discovered, like a lot of men, that his wife was having an affair with Timmy Marsden. He must have been the first to act upon it,” I said.

  “That’s all well and good, but without a murder weapon or any physical evidence - which you think was deliberately removed - we’ve got nothing on him. Just an escaped dog and the knowledge that his wife was probably cheating. Even that could be explained away. She could have popped round for a cup of tea and forgotten her gym card.”

  I snorted to show what I thought of that theory, but I knew Officer Kelly had a point. We were stuck, and as it stood, I thought the police were far more likely to go with the couple who’d been caught redhanded, searching the house, and who also had witness testimony placing Lizzie in the area on the day of the murder - when she should have been hundreds of miles away.

  “Someone had better do something,” I said aloud. I looked down at the dog. “I’m supposed to be delivering Rameses to Ethan right now. I’m sure he won’t mind a friendly chat at the same time…”

  “Madi, don’t do anything dangerous,” my police officer friend begged me.

  “Ethan has no quarrel with me that I know of. Anyway, you’ll be right behind the hedgerow, recording everything he says and ready to jump into action at a moment’s notice. What could possibly go wrong?”

  “I suppose it’s not the worst idea in the world…” Officer Kelly mused.

  But it turned out that it was. It really was.

  “Ethan, are you around?” I called over the hedge, and then peered over the gate.

  The man I believed was a killer turned around in his hot tub and smiled at me before lifting a hand in greeting. “Come on through! My two dogs stay inside, apart from when we go for walks, but I’m sure they’ll be happy to have a new friend. He’ll have to stay in, too, unfortunately. I don’t have the fences for it, especially when he seems to like running off.” He pushed himself up out of the water, displaying an enviable six pack. Working in tech seemed to leave you a lot of time for relaxing and working out - or at least, it did in Ethan’s case.

  “I’m sure Rameses will be just fine until Scarlett can make arrangements for him to live with her.”

  Ethan wrapped a towel around himself and then ran a hand through his dark hair. “You think so? I got the impression she was just farming him off on anyone she could until she can get round to selling him.”

  “Selling him?” I asked, momentarily distracted from the mission at hand.

  “He’s quite a valuable dog. I should know. It was all Timmy ever talked about.” Ethan offered me a sad smile, which I returned, trying to remember the game I was playing. “He’s some kind of high-end pedigree. Timmy always said that a breeder would pay through the nose for him to breed with their bitches. I’m guessing they’d pay more than that to keep him. He cost a fair packet to begin with.” Ethan shrugged. “My little guys are rescues. Between you and me, I always thought Timmy bought him as a status symbol more than anything else. He never hunted with him, and then he left him behind when he went on holiday and paid for the housekeeper to come in more often. That’s not the life a dog should have!”

  “No, it’s not,” I agreed, making a mental note to have a word with Scarlett Marsden when all was done and dusted.

  It was with some reluctance that I turned the conversation towards the confession I hoped to get from Ethan Pleasant. Although I certainly didn’t condone murder or anyone who committed it, on the face of things, I found I liked Ethan. If Ti
mmy had been alive and you’d set both men together and asked me to pick the one I’d like to hang out with, I’d have chosen the man with whom I was currently sharing company. But if he was the murderer I suspected he was… then he needed to be brought to justice, no matter how pleasant Ethan Pleasant might appear to be on the surface.

  “You know, if Rameses hadn’t got out, I might not have realised you were in Timmy Marsden’s garden on the day that he died,” I said, unable to find a better way to ease in.

  Ethan’s happy expression vanished. “I’m sorry? I didn’t go into his garden at all that day, not even when the police arrived. I walked around the front to see what had happened. Anyway, you know Rameses jumped the fence. He must have jumped it when he came back, too.”

  “Originally, I thought that was the case. Then I spoke to Scarlett and she said that in all the time they’d had Rameses, he’d never jumped over the fence before. It just doesn’t seem very likely that he’d suddenly jump over something that had kept him in prior to that. Well - not twice in a row anyway. I had thought that he must have got out through the side gate after all, but when he appeared in the garden a second time, I should have put it together. You let him out accidentally when you came back through the gate to wipe up the water you must have realised you’d left on the floor, and then you let him back in when he came back, because the dog he knew was out in the garden.”

  Ethan’s face was ashen. “You don’t have anything,” he hissed, so quietly I was sure that Officer Kelly wasn’t going to have picked it up.

  “We found your wife’s gym membership card in the house. I assume you knew she was cheating, which was the reason why you killed Timmy. You must have watched him bring back countless women, but it was a different story when he took a fancy to Shona…”

  Ethan laughed but it was a humourless sound. “I don’t suppose you bothered to look at the dates on that gym card? My wife hasn’t gone near a gym in an age. She crash diets these days. I thought working out was something we would bond doing, but that went down the toilet like everything else. You just found that card’s final resting place, but believe me, it was a long time ago.” He shrugged. “I’ve known about it for what feels like forever. “Shona married me as soon as I was someone. Back then, I was high on money and success. I didn’t realise she was a gold digger. Now, I’m a different man, and in case you hadn’t noticed, she doesn’t live here anymore. We’re all but divorced in name.”