by Fiona Grace
DCI Lewis nodded her greeting.
In contrast, Superintendent Turner’s snappily responded, “How do you think?”
His female partner shifted uncomfortably, as she always did when he was rude to the witnesses.
Superintendent Turner peered about him, his beady eyes like a hawk’s. “Did any of you see what happened?”
Lacey, Tom, and Gina shook their heads in unison.
“Any noises?” the detective continued. “A body falling like that from a height like that would make one hell of a thud.”
They all shook their heads again.
“He was cold to the touch when we found him,” Lacey offered. “I think he was killed a while ago.”
Superintendent Turner regarded her for a beat. “Who says he was killed?”
“No one,” Lacey replied. “But you wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
The Superintendent narrowed his eyes, looking disgruntled by her astute observation.
“Do you think he jumped, Officer?” Gina interrupted, with a hopeful note in her voice.
“Not unless he took a flying leap,” Superintendent Turner replied. “Which in my experience of suicides isn’t how it happens. But then again, he was one of those goth types, wasn’t he? They don’t tend to do things by the book, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a unique suicide method, too.”
“Sarge,” Beth Lewis said reproachfully.
Superintendent Turner ignored her. “Which one of you found him first?” he asked the group.
“It was Chester,” Lacey said, petting her pooch on the head.
“The dog,” he replied through clenched teeth. “I should have guessed.”
Beth Lewis removed her hands from her pockets, producing a notebook and pen as she did, and poised herself to take notes. “Can you talk me through what happened, Lacey?”
“There’s not a lot to tell,” Lacey explained. “We arrived a short while ago, and Chester ran off immediately. I went after him, and this is what I found.” She gestured to the dark heap lying beneath the tower, now surrounded by officers and cordoned-off behind tape that fluttered in the wind.
“And no one saw who pushed him?” Superintendent Turner asked, peering up to the top of the ruins. “Or saw anyone fleeing the scene? It’s at least, what, fifty feet to the top? That’s a lot of steps for a perp to run down in order to flee without a single person seeing anything.”
“Like I said,” Lacey replied, “he was long dead when we got here. Whoever pushed him was probably already off the island before we even got here.”
Gina started to tremble. “Or maybe the reason we didn’t hear anything is because it wasn’t a person who pushed him at all. It was a spirit.”
As much as Lacey loved Gina, she really wished she would keep her mouth shut right now. Superintendent Karl Turner was not the sort of man who had patience for, well, anything, and she suspected he had even less for all that mystical nonsense. And considering he already held a grudge against Lacey, the last thing she needed was Gina adding more fuel to the fire.
Superintendent Turner gave Gina a peculiar look. “There aren’t meant to be any certainties in investigations, but I can say for certain that this wasn’t the doing of a spirit.” He patted her arm in a stilted manner.
Gina didn’t look reassured at all. She began wringing her hands fretfully. She looked to be on the verge of blurting out something stupid.
Worried her friend was about to blame herself for Alaric’s death in front of a murder detective, Lacey decided to step in and deflect attention.
“Could the perp still be on the island?” she asked Karl Turner. “Hiding in the ruins?”
“My officers are exploring every inch of this island,” the superintendent replied. “If there’s anyone hiding out here, we’ll catch them.” He looked back over to the dinghy. “That’s all for now. I want you all to head home and await further questioning after the crime scene is secured. Beth?”
She looked up from her notebook. “Sarge?”
“Escort them back to the shore.”
The female detective nodded. She returned her notebook to her pocket and addressed the group. “This way, please.”
They headed for the dinghy.
As they went, Lacey heard Superintendent Turner’s voice call out after her. “Oh, and Lacey?”
She paused and looked back at him. “Yes?”
“No trips out of Wilfordshire, okay?”
In that moment, Lacey realized her plan to visit her father was in ruins. In fact, her whole future was in ruins. Superintendent Turner had confirmed what she’d feared all along. He’d made her a suspect.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Thanks for the lift, Tom,” Gina said, as she wearily exited the van with Boudica.
Tom nodded. He looked exhausted from the events of the evening.
“Gina,” Lacey said from the passenger seat, before her friend slipped away into the darkness. “This wasn’t your fault. You do know that, don’t you?”
Gina gave her a haunted look. She quite clearly believed she had unleashed a curse by reading from the grimoire, and that Alaric’s death was her fault.
“See you tomorrow,” she said, simply, shutting the car door behind her.
Tom reversed out of Gina’s drive and drove the short distance along the single-track cliff path to Crag Cottage.
“Do you want me to stay?” he asked Lacey as she opened up the passenger side door.
Lacey knew he had an early start at the bakery the next morning. She shook her head. “I’ll be all right. I’ve got Chester for company.” She petted her dog’s head.
“As long as you’re sure,” Tom replied.
“I’m sure,” she said.
She kissed him swiftly, then exited the vehicle and staggered inside her cottage. The darkness and silence enveloped her like a welcome embrace.
She shut the door tight and rested her back against it, listening to the crunch of Tom’s tires on the gravel as he drove away.
Chester nudged his nose into her palm.
“Quite the day eh, pup?” she said.
She headed into the kitchen and switched the lights on. As she sank into the round table at the window and dropped her head into her hands, her emotions caught up with her.
So much for her plan to visit her father. Even if she was in the right state of mind, Superintendent Turner had expressly forbidden her from leaving town. Instead of solving the long-lost mystery of her father’s disappearance, Lacey had now been thrust headfirst, against her will, into the mystery of Alaric Moon’s suspicious and untimely death.
She wondered how long it would take before her phone rang and she was summoned into the police station to give her statement and answer their questions. Six a.m., she suspected. Superintendent Turner always liked to get in early, to catch her in a groggy state.
“Let’s go to bed,” she told Chester.
He followed her as she exited the kitchen and trudged up the staircase, her legs heavy with fatigue. The moment she saw her bed, she wanted nothing more than to face plant into it, but she thought again about Superintendent Turner’s penchant for early morning calls and decided to shower first so she wasn’t caught out.
She headed into the bathroom, discarding her rain-dampened clothes on the floor. The bottoms of her jeans were coated in clumps of the island’s distinctive gray sand, but Lacey was too tired to do anything about that now. It would be a task for another day.
As hot water cascaded onto her head, Lacey’s mind turned to the Knightsbridge Auction House job offer, which seemed like it belonged in a different version of her life. She pictured herself in a crisp black suit, bringing her gavel down on a multimillion-pound bid for a famous statue. Right now, that seemed way better to Lacey than where she was now. She was always so embroiled in death and murder here in Wilfordshire, maybe she should just up and leave.
But knowing me, Lacey thought sadly, the bad luck will follow me.
*
&nbs
p; Lacey was surprised when she was awoken by the shrill beeping of her alarm the next morning. She’d been expecting to be interrupted from her slumber by the loud knocks of the cops at her door, so it was a pleasant surprise to realize she’d slept straight through the night. And not even a single nightmare.
Wary, she got out of bed and peered through the curtain down to the lawn below. No sign of any police cruisers in the driveway or on the lane. No plainclothes cops mingling with the sheep. Maybe she’d been too hasty in assuming Superintendent Turner had made her a suspect.
She dressed for the day and went down to the kitchen to make her morning coffee. The whole while she drank it, she gazed out the kitchen window at the grisly morning, half expecting the bright headlights of a police car to cut through the foggy drizzle at any minute. But none came.
“What do you think, Chester?” she asked her pup, as she fetched his leash from the hook by the back door. “Calm before the storm?”
He barked in response.
She wrapped a raincoat around herself, then headed out into the brisk autumn morning.
Chester trotted alongside her as they made their way down the cliff path to the beach.
There really was nothing like a desolate wild beach on a chilly gray morning to amplify Lacey’s melancholy state of mind. Even the ocean was gray, like a storm was brewing inside of it. Her usually relaxing beach walk felt like it was putting her more on edge.
The feelings intensified as Lacey caught sight of the island in the distance. Despite the moisture in the air, she could still make out the shadowy shape of the police dinghy attached to the jetty.
Had they spent the whole night out there, combing the ruins for clues? If they had, could that indicate they’d found an abundance of evidence, and were taking their time painstakingly collecting it? Did that explain why the cops hadn’t shown up on her doorstep this morning, because they’d already found a piece of crucial evidence that exonerated her and solved the whole case?
For a brief moment, Lacey allowed herself to feel hopeful this whole investigation would be over quickly, that her worries had been ill-founded. But as she turned the corner onto the High Street, that glimmer of hope was swiftly dashed.
Clustered at the end of the high street was a sea of red and blue police lights. They flashed like disco balls, reflected back in the windows of the stores like mirrors at the fun house. And, Lacey noted, her chest sinking, they were all congregated outside her store.
She clenched her fists. So that’s why the cops hadn’t been on her doorstep that morning. They were waiting for her here, so they could make a huge public spectacle.
“Come on, Chester,” she said through clenched teeth. “Let’s get this over with.”
She marched along the road, chin held high, eyes fixed dead ahead so she could ignore the stares and whispers of the locals as she passed.
The two detectives were standing in the road in the gap between their silver BMW and the police cruiser behind. Beth Lewis looked cold, hunkered up in a khaki trench coat as she sipped from a takeout coffee cup clutched between her beige knitted gloves. Lacey recognized the cup as one from the Coffee Nook, and wondered if the detectives had been in there earlier this morning asking Jens and Freja questions about Alaric Moon’s milk-induced hissy fit the morning of his death. Or maybe they’d just needed caffeine.
Superintendent Turner had his backside perched against the hood of the BMW, his unbuttoned overcoat hanging open, his legs crossed at the ankles. He looked deceptively relaxed, but Lacey knew he would pounce the instant he saw her.
It was Beth who spotted her first. The two women made eye contact and Lacey couldn’t help but think back to the Halloween party at the Lodge. Beth had been dressed in a corpse bride costume, and she’d danced around a bonfire to the “Monster Mash” just like the rest of them. That felt like a million years ago. Indeed, Lacey felt like Halloween Beth was an entirely different person from the detective standing in front of her now. Instead of a warm smile, all the female detective had for Lacey was a subtle mouth twitch, and it fell quickly back to neutral position, before she nudged her superior to alert him to Lacey’s approach.
Superintendent Turner looked over at her, his eyes sparking, then pushed off from the car hood. He came strolling toward Lacey and flashed her his badge.
“Superintendent Turner,” he announced, as if she didn’t already know who he was.
It was all part of the public spectacle, Lacey assumed. A show for the benefit of the watching bystanders.
“Karl,” Lacey replied, keeping her eyes fixed on him rather than the badge in his palm. She’d made a resolution to herself to address him only by his first name. Since he showed her no respect, she felt zero obligation to show him any in return.
An arrogant smile appeared on his face. He was only able to sustain it for a nanosecond. The facial muscles he needed to smile had probably atrophied many years ago.
From the fact he’d decided to publicly turn up at Lacey’s store, and from the cocky demeanor exuding from him, Lacey guessed he’d come into possession of a piece of compelling evidence against her. She prepared herself for the worst.
“We had a couple more questions for you,” Superintendent Turner said.
“You don’t say,” Lacey replied, crossing her arms. “Shall we speak inside my store, or do you want to do it out here with the whole world watching?”
“Here’s fine with me,” he replied.
Beth stepped toward them. “Let’s go inside, Sarge,” she countered. “It’s cold.”
Lacey knew she was actually intervening for her sake and flashed her an appreciative smile, though Beth did not return it.
Lacey took the keys from her pocket and operated the mechanism to raise the shutters. They rattled noisily as they coiled up on their rollers—pulling the attention of yet more curious passersby as they took their sweet time. Once they finally clunked into place, Lacey unlocked the door and invited the officers inside.
The tacky Halloween decorations had never looked more offensive to Lacey than they did now. She wanted to rip all the stupid grinning ghosts and ghoulie stickers off the walls and windows and stuff them in the trash. The sight of them served as a reminder as to why she was always so damn serious, never letting her guard down. Because anytime she let her hair down, some terrible thing came along and kicked her in the butt.
“Excuse the state of the place,” Lacey said, turning to face the detectives.
“We understand the victim was known to you,” Superintendent Turner began, wasting no time.
“I wouldn’t say known exactly,” Lacey replied. “He attended my auction.”
Beth checked her notebook. “You also witnessed an altercation between him and Freja Johansson from the Coffee Nook earlier in the week. One where he supposedly ‘cursed everyone inside.’” She read the last bit with uncertainty, her honey-colored eyebrows drawing together.
Lacey nodded. “Yup. That’s correct. Freja got his order wrong and he started insulting her. I stood up for her and he threw the coffee on the ground and ‘cursed’ me.”
She used air quotes to make it clear where her opinion stood on the matter, in case of any doubt. She was half tempted to add that if they thought her MO for murder was because she’d been “cursed,” then they really needed to go back to the drawing board. But she held her tongue, because this was Superintendent Turner she was dealing with and he had quite the ability to twist her words.
“There was also another meeting,” Beth continued, reading from her notebook. “During the Halloween party?”
Lacey cast her mind back to the Lodge. She didn’t recall having seen Alaric there, but she’d been so preoccupied with Eldritch spooking her that that might account for it.
“I probably did,” she said. “But I don’t recall seeing him specifically. Alaric was part of the group staying at the Lodge, so it’s likely he attended the bonfire with the others.”
Superintendent Turner’s lips twitched. Lacey
suspected she’d inadvertently provided him with a piece of information he’d been hoping she would. She tensed in anticipation.
“Alaric’s room at the Lodge was searched during the night,” Superintendent Turner said, “as part of our investigation. We questioned the staff, the guests, everyone there.”
Lacey could tell by how fresh-faced and clean shaven he was, that Karl himself had not personally taken part in the questioning. He had left that work for his subordinates to do, and was now here to reap the rewards.
“Okay…” Lacey said. She hated the way he tried to lead her. Whatever he wanted to say, he could just spit it out.
“He brought some very interesting possessions on his vacation,” he continued. “I don’t know about you, but tarot cards and Ouija boards aren’t the first thing I put in my suitcase when I’m staying away from home for the weekend.”
“You and me both, Karl,” Lacey said calmly, while her internal voice screamed, Just cut to the chase!
“It wasn’t all bones and pendants though,” he continued. “Even goths clean their teeth and text their mothers.” He smirked, clearly very pleased with his little witticism. “His cell was particularly interesting. There was a message on the screen, an unread one, from his local bank. You know the ones—Unusual activity has been detected on your account. Please call us for security reasons. Well, we did just that. We checked in with his bank.” He paused for effect. “And do you know what we learned?”
Lacey took a deep breath. She knew where this was going. “That he’d just deposited a large sum of money into my business account?”
“That’s right,” Superintendent Turner replied. “He’d attempted to make a very, very large payment to you.”
Lacey inhaled through her nostrils. “It was to my business, not me. Alaric won a very pricey item at my auction and we took payment on the day.” She paused. “Wait. What do you mean he ‘attempted’ to make a payment?”
“It bounced,” Superintendent Turner said with a hint of malevolent glee.
Lacey was stunned. She reached back for the armchair behind her, sinking into it. “The-the check bounced? Are you sure?”
