A Simple Country Killing

by Blythe Baker

  I heard another laugh on the line. “I can certainly try to help you, dear. What is it that you need?”

  “This might sound strange, you know, but I am in great need of a mechanic,” I said. “A good one, mind you. It’s my husband’s car, you see. He’s away, and sometimes I think he loves that car more than he loves me. Anyway, I promised him that I would get it serviced every three months while he was away, and wouldn’t you know that the time for the servicing has arrived while I am staying with my cousin?”

  “Oh, yes, men can certainly be particular about their vehicles,” Mrs. Georgianna said. “My late husband was quite a motor enthusiast himself. He loved to go out for Saturday drives, eager to show off his pride and joy to anyone he might pass by…” There was a happy sigh on the other end.

  I was pleased to see that the knowledge I’d learned about her over the years had finally paid off. A talkative woman, she would often keep me well occupied when she would come into the haberdashery, and talk for so long and so often that I would have to excuse myself to help disgruntled customers who felt they were being ignored.

  “My cousin was right, you certainly were the right woman to call,” I said. “Do you by any chance know of a younger man who might be able to get the job done sooner rather than later? I do have a tight schedule to keep.”

  “Oh, I certainly do, yes,” Mrs. Georgianna said. “You might try Lucas Adams. Quite the young fellow, and I heard that he was rather sweet on the daughter of that poor minister who just passed away.”

  She couldn’t have made that any easier.

  After saying goodbye, I felt simultaneously pleased with myself for being able to hold an accent as long as I had, as well as happy with my quick thinking and ingenuity at retrieving the information I needed. The old lady was bound to be confused later when she realized that she did not, in fact, know a Gwen Thomas, but I hoped she would remain ignorant of the fact until the investigation was over and done with.

  Was it lying? Certainly. Would it harm Mrs. Georgianna in any way? Not in any way that I could see, no.

  Lucas Adams was a name I had heard around the village before. Mr. Diggory had mentioned him once before, and I was certain Sidney had worked with him on more than one occasion. That made sense, given the fact that the two men must have been about the same age.

  After a quick look through the telephone book, I managed to locate the address of Lucas’ shop, and saw it opened right at eight. I wasted no time having a shower, changing my clothes into something that might conceal my identity more than usual, and setting out into the bright morning sunshine.

  I pulled the hat I’d thrown on low over my face as I walked. I’d chosen something I would have worn back in Plymouth, something that was much less flashy than I normally would wear, hoping it would keep people’s attention away from me. A drab dress of beige and cream, I knew that it was something Roger would have asked me to get rid of before long. It hung over my shoulders, much like a tent.

  The mechanic’s shop was down High Street, and then left onto Rose Avenue, and then down on the corner of Walsingham and Themes Roads.

  It was a small shop that seemed to be in the middle of more projects than it could possibly handle. Over a dozen cars sat out in the front drive, some of which were missing doors, another of which was missing all four of its tires. A lovely red car had the bonnet pulled up, and the engine inside seemed to be in pieces.

  The garage itself was tucked back against a tree line that seemed to follow the river that circled the village. The doors to the garage had been thrown open already, and a catchy jazz number filtered out into the morning air.

  I approached the office door alongside the garage, and struggled to push it open as it seemed to be still locked. I pushed my weight against it, the knob turning, but the door itself seemed to be –

  “Jammed,” said a voice behind me. “It does that in the early mornings sometimes. Just give it a good shove.”

  I glanced over my shoulder and saw a young man who couldn’t have been much older than I was. He looked like what I’d imagined a mechanic would, with grease stained fingertips, ratty clothing and a sleeveless shirt that revealed lean but well-toned arm muscles, and an oil rag hanging out of his pocket. There was a smudge of some sort of oily fluid across his cheekbone, and sweat beaded up along his dark hairline. A rather scruffy beard covered most of his jaw, but it did nothing to hide his young face.

  “Oh, thank you,” I said, but I turned away from the door. “Do you by any chance know where I might be able to find Lucas Adams?”

  The man’s green eyes narrowed. “And who might be asking?” he asked, pulling the rag from his pocket and wiping his hands on it.

  “I don’t mean to be nosey, but I…well, I’m trying to help reach out to those who knew Mr. James and his family, and I – ”

  “I’ve got nothing to say to you…” Lucas said darkly, his face screwing up as he brushed past me to the door. With one good shove with his arm, he managed to unstick it, and strode inside.

  I hesitated for only a brief moment before following after.

  “Mr. Adams, I am simply reaching out to those who might have been affected by his death, and know that you had connections to the family when – ”

  He rounded on me, not bothering to hide the anger in his gaze. “I don’t know who told you what, but my connection with his family is long since passed,” he said in a low rumble. “Now if you would kindly tell me what it is about your vehicle I can help you with, then I can certainly take care of you.”

  I was well aware of the danger in his voice, and not wanting to step on any toes, I held up my hands defensively. “I do not wish to trouble you, Mr. Adams,” I said in as gentle of a voice as I could muster. “My only hope was to offer you some help if it was needed – ”

  “I don’t need any help,” he said. “I’ve made my peace with it. Mr. James was…” his voice trailed off just as my ears perked up. “It’s sad what happened to him, but I have kept my distance on purpose. Now please. If you don’t need anything else, I must get back to work.”

  He disappeared behind another door, labeled with an Employees Only sign.

  I bit down on my lip, looking around.

  The shop itself was quiet. Whoever the cars that he had been working on belonged to, they clearly were not here at the moment.

  I wondered if Lucas was the only one here, or if there were other mechanics who worked at the shop. To check, I made my way to the garage, peering outside.

  There didn’t seem to be any sound apart from the radio playing yet another jazz piece. Everything was still, including the cars that were lifted up high above my head on motorized platforms.

  I paused. Would there be anything in here that might point me to whether or not Lucas Adams was the killer I was looking for? Or would I have to look elsewhere?

  I glanced over my shoulder, back into the shop, where my eyes fell on the door that Lucas had walked into.

  That is likely where he would keep his personal belongings. There, and in an office.

  I wandered back out to the front of the shop, hoping to catch a glimpse of Lucas heading back out to the shop, leaving me with an opening to sneak in and look around while he was busy with a car or another customer.

  I leaned against the wall, listening as hard as I could.

  It was clear that Lucas knew exactly what I was talking about. The flash in his eyes had made my stomach flip over, and it made me sure that he was the one I had been looking for.

  Was his desire to avoid talking about Mr. James because of his involvement in his murder? Or had his relationship with the vicar’s daughter gone badly?

  I was not going to get any more information out of Lucas, that much was obvious.

  Searching his office or through his personal belongings seemed like the best place to start.

  I only had to wait another quarter of an hour before Lucas made his way back out into the garage, whistling through his teeth. I heard the clank of a metal
tool against the frame of one of the cars. The music soon grew in volume, and he began to sing along.

  Knowing that my time had come, I snuck back to the door to the shop. Glancing over my shoulder to make sure he hadn’t wandered back out into the front drive, I casually leaned against the door as if I was meant to be there, and stepped inside with confidence.

  The music was faint through the walls of the inner shop, but I could also still make out his singing.

  I made my way to the door, waiting just a moment before slipping inside, latching the door behind me.

  It was a small room, with an overcrowded desk, a cluttered shelf, and an old, torn up leather chair. A stack of clothes sat on an old, worn armchair along the wall, a mixture of ordinary clothes and work clothes. The room smelled heavily of axel grease, gasoline, and burnt rubber.

  This is going to take forever to go through…I thought.

  I walked around the desk, looking at the stacks of papers that were balanced precariously on top. I feared that if I sneezed, they might go flying, and I knew I would never be able to put them all back the way they were.

  I imagined that if Roger were to instruct me on the best way to investigate a place, his advice would be to leave it just as I found it so as to not tip off the person I was investigating that I was onto them.

  I pulled the top drawer of the desk open, but found nothing more than a hodgepodge of pens, loose notes, and order forms. There was nothing to indicate that Lucas was anything other than a hard worker. Even as I looked up and around the room, I realized there wasn’t a shred of personal information in the room. Not a photo, not a list of what to pick up at the grocery store.

  That’s strange, isn’t it? I realized. If this is where he works, all day, every day, wouldn’t he want something here to remind him that work isn’t his entire life? Unless…work is his entire life.

  That was an interesting premise. Would I have to go and search his home instead? That would surely be a feat to find. I could always follow him home…

  I stepped around the far side of the desk, and gasped as my foot caught something rather heavy and bulky, nearly causing me to trip over myself.

  I looked down and saw a pair of boots beside the desk. Thick soled and made of leather, the boots appeared to be as well worn as the chair behind the desk. They were also covered in a dried mud that had flaked off and scattered on the floor beneath it.

  Typically, I wouldn’t have thought twice about dirty boots in the middle of a dirty office…but something about the color of the mud caught my attention.

  It had a great deal of clay in it, much like the dirt along the river…but there was one other place that I had seen it.

  A detail I would have likely overlooked had I not recently been standing at the side of a grave when it was being dug…or even more recently watching the life leave a man who was dying, his fingers caked in the muddy dirt…

  The church cemetery. The dirt at the churchyard had the same reddish clay mixed within it.

  This is quite a stretch, though, I thought. The river right behind the shop here might very well have the same sort of dirt along the bank. I cannot be sure that the dirt on the boots is the same as that from the cemetery.

  Even still…the boots were hidden, weren’t they? Tucked away, out of sight. And who else would come in here but Lucas in the first place?

  I chewed on the inside of my lip, wondering if this was enough to call Sam and let him know what I’d found. He was going to have to have a good reason to barge into this office to check it. And even if he could, then would Lucas simply lie about it all in the first place? Would it end in a dead end after all that trouble?

  I quickly made my way out of the office after one final look around, coming up empty apart from the boots.

  It was certainly weak evidence, but it was the first step I’d taken toward finding the real killer of Mr. James, and gave me more hope than I’d felt in days. I would find the person who had taken his life so carelessly, and I would certainly find a way to clear my own name so that I could go back to living in this village.

  I made my way outside, and started down the road, worrying that Lucas might have seen me leave. I wished he would have spoken to me, but at least I knew that Sam would certainly be interested in hearing about the man who had been denied the chance to see Mr. James’ daughter. That alone might be enough to open up the case once again and consider more suspects.

  I allowed myself one smile of relief. Just one. A life had still been lost, and my reputation was still on the line. This was far from over.

  But that didn’t mean that a resolution wasn’t worth fighting toward.

  7

  I made my way from the autobody shop as quickly, yet as casually as I could. I didn’t want to be seen hurrying away. If anyone were to notice me, then I knew that too many questions would be asked…not to mention the accusations about what on earth I was doing all dressed up in a disguise and snooping around a place like that.

  I realized my trip might very well have been in vain. Lucas Adams may or may not have been the killer, and I was no closer to discovering the truth.

  Was his reaction more out of heartbreak? Or guilt? That was the question I kept rolling around in my mind as I stepped back onto High Street, which was starting to wake up, becoming a great deal busier and livelier. Women strung clothes from their lines in their back gardens to hang in the sunshine, while Mr. Webster delivered the post from the back of his bicycle. Mrs. William’s dog chased her son down the street, while the boy pulled a kite after him, laughing as the wind caught the sail, lifting it high into the sky.

  Brookminster, for all the sinister happenings in its underbelly, really was a charming little village, filled with good people with good intentions. It broke my heart to see that darkness could exist in such a warm, welcoming place.

  More and more, I was beginning to understand Sam Graves’ outlook on the world. Being jaded was not something I ever wanted, but that didn’t mean that the world around me wasn’t going to push and shove me in that direction, in the end.

  It made me wonder how Roger really saw things. These were the sorts of things we never spoke about, him and I. Of course we talked of the world at large, what it would be like, hopefully, when the war was over. We dreamt of what our lives would look like, the places we could travel to safely once again, the years of joy we would have with one another.

  My heart skipped. For so long, I had been so utterly convinced, with good reason, that those dreams would never come to fruition, that he was dead and gone, and that I would never see him again.

  Until that day, in the alleyway…

  It was him. I was sure of it.

  As it had before, my heart began to stir with these new realizations about what my life could be like now. There had been no indication that Roger wanted any further contact with me, apart from his appearance now and again in the shadows, watching me. Even if he had been told to end any and all contact with those he had known, he had still given me the chance to know that it was him. Why? Why hadn’t he spoken? Why had he allowed me to see him? Didn’t he realize this brought up so many new questions that I was desperate to ask him?

  Perhaps he wanted me to be patient, or to work out the answers on my own. He had kept his distance enough to let me discern the truth of what was happening in Brookminster alone. He had done nothing to interfere, or to help in any way. I couldn’t help but feel mingled frustration and admiration in that. He either trusted me enough to do these things on my own, or he had little care for what happened to me now.

  Was it possible that I was nothing more than a means to an end for him? Could all of his honeyed words and his sweet nothings have been hollow?

  No. That wasn’t Roger. He really did love me once. Whether or not that was still true was a question I could not answer. Not yet, at least.

  As I made my way along High Street, I kept my hat pulled low over my face, the sunglasses I wore obscuring my eyes, and the scarf around my nec
k protecting what little of my face remained exposed as it flowed in the wind.

  I kept my eyes on the road ahead of me, determined to make it home so I could call Inspector Graves and ask him about what my next steps should be, and whether or not he saw value in what I had discovered in Lucas Adams’ office.

  Something up ahead seemed…off to me. While all the others in the village were moving about, hurrying on their ways while the sun still shone in the summer sky, there was one figure that stood entirely still, almost as if he were invisible to the rest of the townsfolk. They walked around his broad-shouldered stature as if he were nothing more than a tree, not even sparing a glance for him.

  His face, too, was obscured by a rather handsome fedora, the shadows preventing me from seeing his features clearly. His shoulders were relaxed, and his hands were slid into the pockets of his trench coat.

  One thing was for certain, though. His eyes were fixed upon me.

  I stopped, staring at the figure, my heart skipping in my chest.

  “Roger…?” I mouthed to him, shock coursing through me, surprise that he would let me see him for this long, let others in the street see him, as well.

  He didn’t acknowledge my question, instead turning toward the alleyway between the inn and the flower shop.

  It was clear he wanted me to follow him.

  I did just that, and did not dawdle.

  I didn’t, at the same time, want to make it too obvious that I was following. I wanted to be sure that we weren’t going to be trailed by anyone, in case this was the first time we got to speak with one another.

  My heart was pounding as I rounded the corner, the shadow of the elm tree growing between the two shops cool and inviting.

  I went to pull the hat off my head so I could see him more clearly…when I realized that the alleyway was empty once again.

  He had managed to escape without me noticing.