Aunt Bessie Solves

by Diana Xarissa

  “Yes, well, I think Inspector Kelly never quite believed that it was murder,” John sighed. “He said some things that made me think that he believes Jeanne killed herself.”

  “I thought that wasn’t possible,” Bessie said.

  “It’s remotely possible,” John conceded, “if she killed herself and then someone else came in and removed all of the evidence. I can’t imagine why anyone would do that, especially as the note was left behind, though.”

  “What did the note say?” Andrew asked.

  “I don’t have a copy with me, but it was something along the lines of not being able to take it anymore, but nothing more specific than that,” John replied.

  “Did anyone suggest any reason why she might have been suicidal?” Bessie wondered. “We didn’t ask anyone that specifically, but no one brought it up, either.”

  “Maybe that’s something else to ask Howard,” John said, making a note.

  “You told us before that the handwriting was definitely hers, correct?” Andrew checked.

  “Yes, according to a handwriting expert who studied it, anyway. It may be worth having someone else check it again, I suppose,” John said.

  “Have you seen the original note?” Bessie asked.

  John shook his head. “Just a photocopy.”

  “Was it on a full sheet of paper, or is it possible that it was cut out from a longer letter?” was Bessie’s next question.

  “I’ll have to have Carl pull the file and see if the note is still there,” John said. “Why would someone go to the trouble of leaving behind a note and then take the medicine bottles away with them? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Maybe she really did kill herself, and when someone found the body he or she decided to try to frame someone else for murder,” Hugh suggested.

  “If that’s the case, that someone did a terrible job of it,” John said.

  “Do you think it was suicide?” Bessie asked John.

  He took a sip of tea and then nibbled on a biscuit for a moment. Eventually he shook his head. “No, I don’t think it was. I think she was murdered. It feels off as suicide, for some reason.”

  “For what it’s worth, I’m with John,” Andrew said. “I think she was murdered.”

  Bessie nodded. She felt the same way, although she couldn’t say for sure why.

  “Howard has to be the number-one suspect now, doesn’t he?” Doona asked. “I mean, he lied about when he’d met Jeanne, how long he’d known her, and about her, um, behaviour with men. That all makes me suspicious of him.”

  “I’m going to talk to him tomorrow morning,” John said.

  “I can’t see any of the other men that we’ve met killing her,” Bessie said. “Kenny probably had the strongest motive, but I believed him when he said he was still in love with her and never would have hurt her.”

  “If she did kill herself, I think he’s the most likely person to have tried to hide that fact,” Hugh said. “Maybe he felt as if he were responsible for her doing so and couldn’t deal with the guilt.”

  “Aside from Kenny, I’d agree with Bessie. I can’t see any of the other men we talked to being involved in any way,” Andrew said. “I’m reserving judgment on Kenny for the time being.”

  “What about the women?” Doona asked.

  “Sandra had a strong motive, but I can’t quite see her as a murderer,” Bessie said. “I know I shouldn’t go on my instincts, but I just don’t feel as if she could have killed Jeanne.”

  “She was dealing with a toddler and a new baby,” Andrew said. “I can’t see her having the time or the energy to kill anyone.”

  “What about Mabel?” Hugh wondered.

  “She was meant to be Jeanne’s closest friend. Why would she kill her?” Doona asked.

  “Maybe Jeanne was having an affair with Howard,” Hugh suggested. “Maybe they’d been carrying on for years and Mabel found out.”

  “Except everything we’ve heard suggests that Jeanne wasn’t that interested in a physical relationship,” Andrew said.

  “But maybe Howard was busy doing DIY for Jeanne and not spending enough time with Mabel,” Hugh persisted.

  “I’m going to talk to her after I’ve spoken to Howard,” John said. “If nothing else, to see if their stories match.”

  “Perhaps Bessie and I should pay Mabel another visit,” Andrew said.

  John frowned. “It feels as if we might be getting close to a solution on this case,” he said. “You two need to be careful.”

  “We won’t do anything foolish,” Andrew promised. “I thought we might just get another slice of cake and have another chat with Mabel, that’s all.”

  “I suppose I can’t stop you from having a slice of cake,” John said.

  “What about Amanda McBride?” Doona asked. “I think she’s the only suspect we haven’t discussed tonight.”

  “Let’s call her a witness,” Andrew suggested with a chuckle. “She’s on my list, but she’s pretty far down it. I can’t imagine a motive for her, really.”

  “We could speculate about her all night,” John said. “If she did have a motive, she’s probably the only person who knows what it was. I may try to speak to her after I’ve talked to Howard, but she’s not a priority.”

  It seemed to Bessie as if both Andrew and John were convinced that Howard had killed Jeanne. While she didn’t exactly disagree, she wondered about Mabel. Perhaps they would get all of their answers soon.

  “I need to go,” John said, checking his watch. “I have to collect Amy from a friend’s house in a few minutes.”

  “She’d probably be thrilled if you arrive late,” Bessie suggested as John got to his feet.

  “She would be, but the other girl’s parents probably won’t be as happy,” he laughed. “Andrew, would you mind walking me to my car?”

  Bessie exchanged glances with Doona as the two men exited the cottage. What did John want to discuss with Andrew that he couldn’t say in front of everyone?

  “I suppose I should go as well,” Hugh said. “Grace will be waiting to hear what you all thought of her cooking.”

  Bessie insisted that Hugh take the leftover food home with him. “They’re your containers, after all,” she reasoned, “and Grace did all of the hard work. She ought to get to try everything.”

  Doona was tidying the kitchen when Bessie turned back from letting Hugh out. “We should have lunch together one day next week,” she told Bessie. “I feel as if we haven’t had a proper talk in ages.”

  As Doona only had one day off during the week, it didn’t take them long to make the necessary arrangements.

  “And now I must be off,” she told Bessie. “I really hope John and Andrew can get both cases wrapped up in the next day or two. Ring me the minute you learn anything.”

  When Bessie opened the door to let Doona out, Andrew was standing behind it.

  “I was just about to knock,” he said with a grin. “Should I come back in or would you rather take a short walk on the beach?”

  “As long as the weather permits, I’d almost always prefer a walk,” Bessie said. She slid on the nearest pair of shoes and locked up the cottage behind them.

  Doona waved as she pulled away and then Bessie and Andrew began their stroll.

  “John is going to ring me in the morning, once he’s had Howard brought into the station,” he told Bessie. “He doesn’t want us to talk to Mabel before that.”

  “I suppose that makes sense.”

  “We don’t want to get in the way of the official investigation, but I do think we might learn something from Mabel if we ask the right questions.”

  “I have quite a few questions for her,” Bessie said, “but I don’t know that she’ll want to answer any of them.”

  “We may learn more from what she won’t answer than what she will,” Andrew suggested.

  “I don’t know about that, but I’m looking forward to tomorrow anyway.”

  “I am as well. I checked my emails before I came
back over to your cottage, and Lukas hasn’t replied yet. I’m going to ring him in the morning, and also my friend in London. I should be over to collect you around nine, though, if that suits you?”

  “I’ll be ready, but what if Mabel doesn’t work until one o’clock again?”

  “She works from eight to five tomorrow,” he told her. “I asked.”

  “They must think it’s odd, someone ringing up every few days to ask when Mabel is working,” Bessie suggested.

  “This time I told them a long story about visiting last year and not having enough money with me to leave a proper tip,” he replied. “It was a long and incredibly boring story, so that by the time I’d finished, whoever I was speaking to just wanted to get off the phone.”

  Bessie laughed. “That was very clever of you.”

  “I try.”

  Andrew insisted on walking Bessie back to Treoghe Bwaane. At the door, he gave her a hug. “If I’m up early again, I may see you on the beach.”

  “You’ll be more than welcome to join me for my morning walk,” Bessie assured him.

  Feeling inordinately pleased with life, Bessie got ready for bed and then curled up with a book for a short while. She slept well and woke at six looking forward to talking to Mabel and maybe solving a five-year-old murder case.

  Andrew was nowhere to be seen as Bessie made her way along the empty beach. There were no signs of movement in any of the holiday cottages, actually, and Bessie was sure that some of them were going to be empty now until the spring. She walked as far as Thie yn Traie and then turned back towards home. An hour with a good book was exactly what she needed while she waited for Andrew, she decided.

  “It’s already been an interesting morning,” Andrew told her when she opened the door to him a few minutes before nine. “John rang. He has Howard at the station and will be questioning him soon. He’s going to keep him there until after we’ve spoken to Mabel, just in case she says anything interesting.”

  “Let’s go, then,” Bessie said, grabbing her handbag.

  They were in the car, heading south, before Andrew spoke again. “The other news is that Lukas has found Cindy. Luckily for him, she was actually trying to fly out of Switzerland. He’s had her detained at the airport and will be speaking to her today.”

  “I’d love to be a fly on the wall for that interview,” Bessie said.

  “Yes, me too. Apparently she was very cooperative at the airport. He’s thinking about ringing her mother and asking her to come over to see her daughter.”

  “I suspect Cindy might be less than cooperative if he suggested that.”

  “Yes, I do as well. He’s going to ring me later today, or maybe send an email if he has a lot to tell me. Maybe we’ll be able to close both cases today, and then I can just relax and enjoy the rest of my holiday.”

  “That would be nice,” Bessie said. “Although I must confess that I’m enjoying our investigations.”

  “I am as well. It’s interesting, seeing things from the outside, as it were. Of course, I’m not actually on the outside, as John knows and supports what we’re doing, but I’m also not official anymore. I don’t know what I’m trying to say, except that helping John has been fascinating.”

  Bessie laughed and then sat back and watched the scenery go past as they made their way towards Port St. Mary. “Let me know when you need directions,” she said once they’d passed Castletown.

  “I’m usually pretty good with finding places again, after I’ve been there once, but I’ll let you know if I need any help.”

  A short while later, he pulled into the café car park. “It doesn’t look busy,” he said, glancing around the otherwise empty area.

  “Let’s just hope Mabel is feeling chatty again.”

  There was a man sitting by himself at a table in the corner, sipping a cup of tea or coffee, but otherwise the café was empty. Bessie and Andrew sat at the same table that they’d occupied previously. A moment later Mabel came out from the kitchen.

  “Ah, Bessie, I was wondering when I would see you again,” she said. “The police haven’t arrested anyone yet for Jeanne’s murder, so I knew you’d be back to ask me more rude questions.”

  “I don’t think I was rude last time,” Bessie protested.

  Mabel cackled with laughter. “Maybe, maybe not, but at least your handsome friend was generous when he paid me. I assume you don’t actually want anything to eat or drink, being as the food is terrible and the drinks aren’t any better. What do you want to know today, then?”

  Bessie glanced at Andrew. He gave her a small nod.

  “Different people have given me rather different views on Jeanne,” Bessie began. “Some have suggested that she was rather, um, free with her favours, while others have said that she wasn’t all that interested in intimacies.”

  Mabel laughed again. “My goodness, you’re nearly beetroot from that question,” she said. “As for the answer, I don’t rightly know. Me and Jeanne didn’t really talk about sex. Mostly I wasn’t having any, but I assumed she was. She had plenty of men in and out of her flat.”

  “And when did Howard meet her?” Bessie asked.

  “Not long after we started seeing each other,” Mabel replied. “Sadly, that was not long before she died.”

  “That’s interesting,” Andrew said. “James Poole told the police that Howard introduced him to Jeanne.”

  Mabel stared at him for a minute. “That’s not possible,” she said. “He must have given the police the wrong name or something. Howard didn’t know Jeanne before I introduced him to her.”

  “Are you quite sure of that?” Andrew asked.

  Mabel nodded and then shook her head. “He would have mentioned it, if he’d met her before. I mean, they both acted like they’d never met. I never heard Jeanne mention his name before I met him. James must be confused.”

  “How did you and Howard meet?” Bessie asked.

  “At ShopFast. I was buying frozen pizza. I’m sure I told you the story last time,” the woman replied. “Jeanne and I often did our shopping together, but she’d gone off to the bakery or somewhere. Howard and I started talking and ended up making plans for dinner later in the week.”

  “And where was Jeanne while you two were talking?” Bessie wondered.

  “I just said she’d gone off to the bakery,” Mabel snapped.

  “How long did you and Howard talk at that first meeting?” Andrew asked.

  “It felt as if we talked for hours, but it was probably only twenty minutes,” Mabel replied. “It was strange because I felt so at home with him right away. He almost seemed to know all about me, even though we’d never met.”

  As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Mabel seemed to realise what she’d said. She began to shake her head. “Jeanne didn’t tell him about me. I mean, why would she do that? None of this makes any sense.”

  “Did Jeanne and Howard meet that night, then?” Bessie asked.

  “No, they didn’t meet until a few weeks later, after Howard and I were starting to get serious. She was really happy for me, though. I told her all about him long before I introduced them.”

  “I’m sure you told him about her, as well,” Bessie said.

  “Well, yeah, of course. She was my dearest friend. Then, once they’d met, I started having him help her with her DIY. I told you all of that, though, last time.”

  Bessie nodded. “Can you think of any reason why they might have pretended not to know one another?”

  “None at all. There was no reason for them to do that. If Jeanne thought we might like each other, she could have just introduced him to me. I wouldn’t have minded if he’d been her boyfriend first. But like I said, she never mentioned him to me, and she always told me about the men in her life.”

  “Did Jeanne have any family on the island?” Andrew asked.

  Mabel shook her head. “They were all across, and she wasn’t close to any of them.”

  “Parents? Siblings?” Andrew wondered.
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br />   “Her parents were both dead and her only brother died when she was a teenager. She had an aunt and maybe a few cousins somewhere, but no one that she was close to.”

  “What happened to her estate, then?” was Andrew’s next question.

  “She left everything to one of those distant cousins, but there wasn’t really much to leave. Her flat wasn’t worth much more than what she still owed on it and she didn’t have any savings to speak of. She had a little bit of life insurance, but not much. Howard insisted, after she died, that we both take out really big policies on each other. If one of us goes, the other one will be set for life.”

  Bessie exchanged glances with Andrew. There was something worrying about the woman’s words.

  “But you didn’t set them up until after Jeanne died?” Andrew checked.

  Mabel shrugged. “If it was before, it wasn’t much before. I don’t remember the timing exactly.”

  “Too bad you didn’t mention it to Jeanne,” Bessie said thoughtfully. “She could have left her cousin a lot more, if she’d done the same.”

  “I may have mentioned it to Jeanne, now that you say that,” Mabel replied. “Howard knew someone across who had died and left huge debts, so he insisted on the life insurance policies for both him and me. I do remember talking to Jeanne about it, actually, suggesting that she do the same. Life insurance isn’t that expensive when you’re young. I even told her to make me and Howard the beneficiaries, but she never followed through.”

  “Of course life insurance doesn’t pay out when you commit suicide,” Bessie pointed out.

  “But Jeanne didn’t kill herself,” Mabel said tartly.

  Bessie nodded. “It doesn’t really matter, if she didn’t take out the insurance anyway.”

  Mabel nodded. “Was there anything else? Because I should get back to work.”

  Bessie glanced around the room. The only customer was still reading the newspaper, seemingly oblivious to them.

  Andrew stood up and handed Mabel a folded note. “Thank you for your time,” he said.

  “Do you think you’ll actually be able to work out what happened to Jeanne after all these years?” she asked as she slid the money into her pocket.