by Beth Byers
“I know, Vi,” he said gently and then sort of nudged her towards the bedroom. “You’ll be of more use to Rita if you’re not exhausted.”
Vi nodded and once in bed, curled into Jack’s side, tried to sleep. She didn’t think it would be possible, but she was a bit like a wrung-out dishrag from the crying and long vigil. Vi found that the endless tears of the evening begged her eyes to close, and once she did, awareness slipped away.
She woke when Jack left the bed and she gasped, “Is Rita all right?” Only there was no answer. Jack had already left the room.
Vi rubbed her eyes, sat up, and then crossed to the doorway. She eyed Ham and Rita’s closed door before turning to Jack, who was standing just outside their own door.
“What? What is happening?” Vi whispered, ensuring that her voice wouldn’t carry through and potentially wake Rita or Ham.
“Rita’s—” Jack paused and then said, “as she was before. I’m going to see Mrs. Meyers. Hargreaves said she’s telephoned several times and had declared that it’s an emergency.”
“An emergency?” Violet’s opinion was clear, and it wasn’t something she cared about. She didn’t care for whatever was happening to Jason Meyers.
“I finally talked to her, and…” Jack’s gaze moved to the door. “It’ll be better to have her stop telephoning, Vi.”
She nodded but was completely unconcerned about what he was going to do for Bertha Meyers. The woman was only someone that Vi helped out of curiosity and because she loved spending time with Jack. At the moment, Vi didn’t want to leave home or deal with the woman’s wants. Vi didn’t care if Mrs. Meyers found her grandson, or care what else happened next for the woman and—at the moment—Jack’s business.
Vi rubbed her brow and then began pacing, almost tiptoeing to ensure that Rita wouldn’t hear. Back and forth, Vi went while Jack disappeared down the stairs. Eventually Victor appeared, watched Vi pace and then paced with her.
“Babies are lost often,” Victor tried. It sounded as though he’d tried that same comment before and found it dissatisfactory. Vi gave him a look that said his argument didn’t work for her. It didn’t work for him either, so he winced and paced with her. It took too long for Vi to realize they were both holding their chests, as if they could somehow soothe the worry and pain.
They continued to pace, silently, both in stockinged feet until the grandfather clock rang 10:00 and Vi realized it was late morning.
“Has anyone seen Ham?”
Victor shook his head, but it seemed they weren’t the only ones who had heard the clock. Ham slid from the room and the twins faced him with the same eyes: wide, worried, and expectant.
“How is she?” Vi asked softly.
Ham’s dark circles and sick expression were enough to tell Vi not well. “She’s stopped…ah, the process has stopped.”
Vi nodded.
“Nanny said that there was nothing to be done. It wasn’t Rita’s fault. Nanny swears it wasn’t the stairs or anything, but Rita won’t believe her.”
Vi bit her bottom lip. She wasn’t sure she would believe it either. It was so easy to blame yourself. Maybe if Rita had only eaten the healthiest of foods and stayed home and gone for easy walks, she could say it wasn’t her fault.
“I don’t know what to do.”
As Ham said these words, Vi closed her eyes against the pain in his face because they sounded as helpless as she felt. Vi pressed her hand into his palm and said, “Cajole her through some tea and toast.”
“I’m going to try,” Ham said, but Victor rushed past him. “I’ll get it.”
Violet stayed with Ham, but he lingered only a moment before he disappeared back into the room. She wished she’d told him to give Rita her love, but Vi could easily guess that even the mention of those waiting for Rita to emerge was a burden that Rita didn’t need to bear just yet. Instead, Vi sent her all of the love, prayers, and wishes she had to offer. She’d have gladly scraped more out of her heart.
Victor returned and scratched at the door where Ham and Rita rested. Ham took the food for Rita, and Vi returned to her pacing. Up and down, up and down, up and down, until she could take no more and went to the nursery to cleanse her heart with the babies. Vivi, Agatha, and Lily got the love that Vi would have poured on Rita and Ham’s child until Jack appeared in the doorway—well after teatime.
“The grandson is d-e-a-d,” Jack said, as though the babies could spell or even understand the merest of idea of what death meant.
Vi slowly stood. Lila’s nanny lifted the baby from Violet’s arms so she could step out of the nursery with Jack. In the hall, she hissed, “He’s dead? I’m not sure I have it in me to care about that too, Jack. At least not right now. This is why there’s Scotland Yard. Mrs. Meyers knows the location of her grandson, and you’re not a Yard man anymore.”
“She didn’t call the Yard.”
Vi’s gaze snapped to him. “What now?”
“When I got there, she was sitting in her parlor, embroidering, while her grandson lay dead in the office.”
Vi’s mouth dropped open because she needed a moment to think of anything beyond her initial staggering shock. “I don’t understand.”
Jack snorted. “There’s no understanding that madness. One doesn’t craft a new doily for an armchair while a beloved grandchild’s body is cooling and expect the actions to be understandable.”
Vi felt like a parrot when she asked, “A doily?”
“My grandmother had them like that,” he said, distracted. He ran his hand over his face. “Vi, it was horrible. Worse than the battlefields during the War. Not that those weren’t…everything that is wrong and evil, but—” He shook his head and then took her hands, pressing them against his chest as if she could somehow fix what he’d seen. “It wasn’t the death. Vi—it was more horrible because that woman opened the door and brought me to her grandson as though she were leading me in for tea.”
Violet pressed her face against his chest, hoping somehow that it would help comfort him. She had no idea what to say. Just the image of what he’d seen that morning, the idea of it, would give Violet nightmares. She was grateful, beyond grateful, that she hadn’t decided to dress and go with him that morning. It had crossed her mind for the shred of a moment. If she had left the house, she could escape the funereal air and the painful mourning that was as constant as breathing, but only to walk into a charnel house.
Vi pulled back from Jack. “I assume Scotland Yard knows now?”
Jack nodded. “Mrs. Meyers wants me to find who killed her grandson.”
“Surely it was her,” Violet said, shivering at the idea of a young, handsome man lying dead surrounded by a chorus of cuckoo clocks. She swallowed bile, feeling a bit faint and knew she should have eaten earlier in the day.
“I don’t know,” Jack muttered. “Everyone we met in connection with this case has a reason to hate Jason Meyers. I hate him a fair amount, and I didn’t even meet him.”
Vi paused and then said, “I’d like to pretend to care, Jack, but I don’t. I don’t care who killed him, and I have no desire to help find his murderer.”
“Usually justice itself reaches out and refuses to let you rest.”
“Except,” Violet countered, “what justice? Where is the justice that Rita and Ham’s baby died without living and that…that…beast Jason Meyers got a quarter of a century, and he used that whole time to torment the people who loved him. I don’t care if Mrs. Meyers is grieving her grandchild. I don’t care. I just…I don’t have it in me right now, Jack.”
He pressed his lips against her forehead. The simple, “All right,” was all that Vi needed to hear to breathe a little easier.
She headed down the stairs, saw the closed bedroom door, and choked back an unholy shriek. She’d have let it out if it wouldn’t have added to Rita’s pain. Instead, Vi pressed her own hand over her mouth and growled low.
Jack followed Vi into their bedroom. She crossed to the bed, slamming her fists int
o it over and over again, and then—exhausted too quickly—curled up on the end of it.
“I wish she wouldn’t try to be brave.” Vi closed her eyes against the building headache. The lights of the bedroom were burning through her lids, and she wished they’d lose power again. She’d much rather have the softer light of a candle in moments like this.
“Have you had any coffee today?”
Vi shrugged and yawned. Had she? Hargreaves had sent food up to the nursery, always thinking of her, but Vi didn’t remember eating. She had rocked Agatha and sung her to sleep for a nap and then dealt with the tantrum Vivi had thrown with every bit of her incredible will.
Then, later, Vi had rocked baby Lily while Lila watched silently. Lila was a good enough friend that she didn’t tell Vi that she would be a good mother. Though, now that Vi thought about it, she didn’t think that either of them would have said such a thing today.
Violet had gone for a walk with the twins after they had woken and both Lila and Denny had come along while Kate took an afternoon nap. Vi cried in the garden and again in the park across the street. She’d cried over the cup of coffee that Hargreaves had sent up…Vi suddenly remembered. She had cried into the cup and then set it aside without drinking any.
“No,” Vi finally answered, “no, I don’t think so.”
Jack nodded and sent for coffee before handing her aspirin and water and then nudged her down to the dining room. Vi hadn’t dressed for dinner, so she sat in a rumpled day dress, but she was in good company. Most of them staggered into the room with similar degrees of dishevelment and faced each other quietly.
To Vi’s gasping joy, Rita and Ham arrived last. They took seats quietly. Unlike the rest of the group, Rita and Ham had dressed for dinner. Rita wore a long, black evening gown that felt like mourning garb even though she’d bought it for a party. Ham wore his usual evening suit, black with a black tie. Both of them wore exhaustion like cloaks.
“Rita—” Kate started, her voice gentle.
“Don’t,” Rita snapped. She sniffed, her gaze focused on her plate. The dark circles under her eyes were glaringly obvious against her too pale skin, and her eyes were bloodshot if you could catch a glimpse of them. She had the splotchy skin of a person who had wept the day away.
“All right,” Kate said carefully. She turned to Vi, eyes wide and panicked as she asked, “How was your day?”
Vi started to answer, but she stumbled over herself.
“I,” Denny started, “read long selections of Varney the Vampire. That book, whatever it is, it’s horrible.”
Victor laughed too loudly and then added—still too loud, “Makes Vi and I seem like geniuses, doesn’t it?”
Rita seemed to relax and when she reached for the wine glass that Hargreaves had silently filled, it seemed as though the entire room sighed in relief.
Chapter 12
“Tell me something,” Rita said when the dining room became too quiet once again, “anything.”
Vi met Rita’s gaze and the two of them stared at each other before Vi said, “Jack’s case turned to murder.”
Rita slowly turned to Jack. “Murder?”
“Murder,” Denny said with forced hilarity, attempting to channel his usual good humor and failing.
“I knew that woman’s case was odd,” Smith said smoothly. His even, cool tone was as oddly melodic as ever. The normality of it felt strange, but Rita looked up gratefully with so much desperate earnestness that he added, “That woman. Can’t say I cared for her in the least. Did the grandson kill her?”
Jack stared for a moment and then he shook his head.
“Who did?” Rita demanded.
“I don’t know who the murderer is, but it was the grandson who was killed—not the grandmother.” Jack took a too large swallow of his own wine. He breathed slowly in and then elaborated. “You have to understand the scene first. Cuckoo clocks, embroidery, watercolors. The not-quite-right drawings of people bad artists draw.”
“All right,” Rita said, and each word seemed to be rain when she was dying of thirst.
“It was awful even before the old woman said, ‘I need your help.’”
“That’s why she hired you and Ham,” Rita reminded him.
“Indeed. I think I expected her to show me into her dead husband’s office and demand an accounting, but instead, she opened the door and there was her grandson.”
“Dead?” Rita demanded.
“Dead, pool of blood under him, blood coming from his mouth, dagger sticking out of his back.”
“They didn’t take the weapon?” Rita asked.
It felt a little like a game, Vi thought, even though it was a terrible thing to imagine. It felt like some sort of evening game you might play with friends on a wintery night. The clues and suspects would be laid out, the information about the evening from each of the suspects’ perspectives, and the team of friends would string their theories together and try to discover who killed the victim.
If they had to turn the murder of this man into a game for Rita, Vi was willing to do just that.
“Maybe the weapon belonged in the room,” Vi suggested.
Rita pushed back her frizzy curls and turned to Vi. Her normally smooth beauty was gone and everything that remained after the last night and day were Rita, but somehow not. The usual peaches and cream skin, tinged with blushing cheeks and pink lips—all too pale and a little green. Her big, vivid, brilliantly sapphire eyes, bloodshot and pained. The caverns under her eyes that never usually existed. The ready smile turned to a steady frown.
“Taking it away if it belongs there would be a mistake,” Rita said before she took another swallow of wine and then leaned slightly to the left to let Hargreaves refill it.
As they spoke, plates were placed in front of them, and Vi had little doubt that Rita’s was filled with the most tempting morsels. She glanced at her plate and then sipped from her wineglass again.
“Eat,” Jack ordered.
Rita turned her big blue eyes on him, and they filled with tears.
Vi could see Jack wince, seeing the horror of what he’d caused, but he said, “You eat, I’ll tell you everything.”
Rita jerked a nod, and Jack carried on as though the byplay hadn’t happened.
“The knife was the grandfather’s. It had been in that room, on that desk for years. The grandfather had used it to open his letters.”
“Was it dull?” Rita asked, but she asked it just before choking down a bite of roast beef.
“According to Mrs. Meyers, no. Her husband kept it deadly sharp and it hadn’t been used in years. It was as sharp as the day he died.”
Rita paused, seeming to lose interest and Denny filled in. “But, no one should have known the grandson was going to be there, right? He’d been missing. If this was a crime of passion, they shouldn’t have known he was there. If there was a meeting between the grandson and the killer, the death couldn’t have been planned.”
“Unless, it was a meeting with one of the many people with a motive to kill him and they were waiting for the opportunity.” Vi was desperate to gather Rita’s interest again. “I kind of wanted to kill him.”
Rita turned to Vi, who stared at Rita’s plate instead. Rita sighed and took another bite, nearly gagging on the food despite how delicious it was and Violet rewarded her with more information. “There were the childhood friends he had stolen from, including ruining Miss Tessa Tapper’s engagement.”
Rita’s attention was fickle and Vi was sure she didn’t care anymore than Vi did about who killed Jason Meyers, but while they talked, Rita absently placed another mouthful of food in her mouth. Ham watched each bite with desperation while Vi dredged through her mind for the most salacious details she could find.
“Oh, there was the older woman.”
“The grandmother?” Rita asked, nearly listless.
“No, not the grandmother. Actually Rita, you would have recognized her. For Jason Meyers, she was the heiress he had a chance at.�
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A measure of focus returned to Rita’s gaze.
“Her father was the reverend, and in the few minutes I spoke to him, I felt stifled. I couldn’t imagine being his daughter. He was determined, fixated even, on his daughter not marrying the handsome Jason Meyers.”
Rita’s wine glass was empty again in the moments since they’d been feeding her what information they could, but her plate was half-empty. It was a victory Vi would gladly take and celebrate.
“I have been thinking on her,” Vi mused, “that she put obedience on and off like a mask.”
“Did she love Jason Meyers?” Rita asked, yawning slightly. Her hand was on her stomach as though it was roiling and Vi considered deeply for her friend, looking for any details.
“I don’t think so,” Vi answered. “I think her pride was offended. She’s a bit older.”
“She didn’t want to be wanted only for her money.”
“I think her father, however, wants the unpaid housekeeper.”
Rita scowled. “Terrible fates to choose between.”
“There’s always the other fate,” Smith said, holding Beatrice’s hand and not even trying to hide it. All of them were a little more affectionate. They had realized in the last days that they could lose one of their own. In fact, they had lost one of their own. The newest of their family, the baby they all wanted and anticipated. The fellow they’d started dreaming about.
Vi had created him in her head. It had been the son that Rita wanted. He’d looked like Ham with Rita’s eyes, and he tended towards trouble like Rita and Vi. She could so easily imagine a childhood with the boy growing and changing. Vi felt a tear roll down her cheek and tried to hide it, knowing that the pain she felt was nothing compared to what Rita and Ham were trying to shoulder.
“What fate is that?” Beatrice asked Smith as Victor wrapped his hand around Vi’s and squeezed.
“The fate of looking after yourself,” Smith answered smoothly. “Violet did that, though she did have Victor to help. Beatrice looks after herself, even still. Rita and Lila would both do the same before marrying a villain or serving without thanks.”
