by Glenna Mason
Jimmy Joyce's blood on his own truck was only circumstantial, but it was highly inflammatory circumstantial evidence in view of the manner of his death. “I will put this in my Jimmy Joyce file and bide my time,” Elizabeth decided. “I want to see what Chapters Five and Six reveal. I want to do some more checking into the other husband's death. I can always go to the police when I have it all together.”
Elizabeth, wandering back inside, swept her eyes across the barn one last time, assaying more carefully the contents. She noticed piles of tobacco sticks used for drying, a pulley, complete with ladder, to assist the workers who must raise the tobacco to the top rails of the rafters of the barn, and the tank for gasoline. Everything had the appearance of years of neglect. Time had passed this barn by. This farm had not been a working tobacco enterprise since Jimmy Joyce bought it almost two decades ago.
“I have seen all I need to here,” Elizabeth decided. The tank of gas, however, lit a sudden spark in Elizabeth's mind. “No wonder she hasn't washed the truck. What a nice quick way to dispense with a whole barn.” Elizabeth, therefore, elected to take her cell phone from her shirt pocket, and, using one of the features she actually understood, photographed the barn and its contents. “Just in case,” she said.
Then pulling the heavy door back together, Elizabeth mounted Gypsy and, feeling personally safe for the first time since she arrived at the barn, trotted gleefully to the fence row beside the gravel drive, which just happened to sport a gate for access to the tobacco barn from the lane. “Thanks, Claire, for your perfect map to the truck. It saved me wandering and searching three hundred acres of property.”
Back at home, Elizabeth placed the new evidence in her Carstairs file; she would develop the pictures and add them soon. Once the file was safely replaced in its alphabetical order in her cabinet, Elizabeth headed to the shower to try to wash off the stench of hate and murder she was now certain emanated from the Carstairs property.
The water beating like a masseur against her strained back and warming her stiff shoulders, Agatha Christie's Why Didn't They Ask Evans? again flashed through Elizabeth's mind. The refreshing warmth easing her neck and mind alike, Elizabeth pondered the irony. The novel featured a character named Carstairs, the only other time Elizabeth could remember hearing the name. “Well, maybe when I compile a few more bits of evidence, the police will indeed ask Evans.”
Now with substantial proof in her file and a shower cleansing her mind and body, Elizabeth relaxed into a somber and yet, contradictorily, a somewhat inexplicably jubilant province of her mind. Claire was set aside, at least until next week. Fitzwilliam, the dinner for his friends, her classes beginning next week, her new students, new challenges at the barn and, most significantly, a slight change in her body took center stage.
“What am I teaching?” Elizabeth wondered, as she stepped from the shower. “It might be time to find out.”
*****
Elizabeth understood that her whole fall schedule was a heavy load, but it was worth it to have a lighter spring one. She had eliminated Saturday classes. She would not keep Fitzwilliam from Lancaster. Heck! She didn't even like Saturday classes. It was just that, she now comprehended, before Darcy she had been a workaholic. No more.
Initially even the thought of going back to class, to no longer round a corner any time of day and see Fitzwilliam there, was not very appealing. However, she knew that he too would now be much more involved. With the expansion of the charity foundation and his subsequent new responsibilities to it, Darcy would be spending hours a day working to expand its reach and influence, gathering new funds, new impoverished horse industry personnel needing succor and, most significantly, new horses to be saved. In addition, his harness practice would definitely pick up with the fall and winter seasons just around the corner.
And so when she sat down in front of the computer and her schedule popped up, Elizabeth was relieved to find herself even a little exhilarated at the thought of once again teaching all that literature she admired so much. She was glad to see that she had no new courses to research. “The tried and true,” she commented, “or perhaps I should say the tired and blue.”
Her enthusiasm expanded even more at the thought of all those eager young faces. “I guess I'm ready, after all,” she said, agreeably surprised.
That night Elizabeth and Darcy headed to the barn together for one of Charlie's nights off.
“Jake, is everything going well?” Darcy asked, the moment they stepped into the barn.
“We've rounded up the moms and foals. They are all feeding. No one is missing, Mr. Darcy.”
“Then all is indeed going well,” Darcy said, the 'nobody missing' causing him a little jolt, thinking back to his own activities next door in early Match.
Darcy and Elizabeth took their time checking each mare and foal before saddling up Gypsy and her friend Susie Q for their trip across the fields to check for any missed gap in a fence, open gate or rock in the field.
Out of sight of the barn, the two could not resist riding close together, holding hands part of the time, their mood enhanced by the lowering sun's rainbow of colors across the sky.
At a far fence, they stopped, “You see that gate over there, my love.” Elizabeth pointed.
“I know that gate, Lizzy. Yes, I do!” Darcy answered, a small frown creasing his forehead. “This is the lane to Pope Road. I took Alexis and Junie out that gate from Sir William's Field Thirteen.”
Elizabeth noticed immediately Darcy's extreme response. She had hoped that he had managed to get past his guilt. She placed her hand on his; it was trembling. “My love, I envision that gate as the entrance to my present happiness. I hope someday you will see all your past through that lens.”
“Perhaps,” Darcy replied.
She reached across the saddle and with graceful hands and gentle action turned his stern face to hers. She peered into his green flecked hazel eyes and caressing his face in both hands, kissed him softly.
Darcy was not assuaged. He sat stiff in his saddle.
“Fitzwilliam.”
He curved in the saddle to face her, and said, “Lizzy, instead of receiving just punishment for my crimes, I have been rewarded with new friends, a new lease on life and with you—my love. That is unbalanced, and thus I ask myself, 'Why?' The answer tortures me.”
“Why, Fitzwilliam?”
“Lizzy, I am afraid. Truly afraid!” A shiver extended over his entire frame.
“Afraid, Fitzwilliam?” she queried.
“You see, my lovely Elizabeth,” Darcy continued, “I do not deserve such a future. I know it.”
Elizabeth, speaking with the beginnings of alarm, requested, “Fitzwilliam, please answer me. What are you afraid of?” She needed to understand, so that she could help relieve his feelings of anxiety.
“Elizabeth, it is hard to comprehend and also hard to put into words, but I have this unbearable premonition that since my happiness is undeserved I will deservedly lose it and that will be my punishment,” Darcy answered. “Elizabeth, I wake up at night after nightmares, my body covered in sweat.”
“But—”
“It is just an occasional, fleeting essence, but it flows unbidden through my being.”
“What, Fitzwilliam? What? Now you are frightening me.”
“Elizabeth, I am convinced almost beyond reclamation that because my present euphoric life is not earned that I will not keep it. It will be snatched away. I will lose—” Darcy paused and sighed and then said, “—somehow I will lose you, my darling, my whole purpose now for life itself.”
Elizabeth clasped Darcy's face firmly and insisted, “Banish this moment these cruel fantasies, Fitzwilliam Darcy. You are a fine, fine man. You deserve every right to happiness. And, my precious love, you will never, ever lose me! Never! Nothing and no one is strong enough to separate us. I, Elizabeth Francine Bennet-Darcy, so decree it.”
“I do pray every day that you are right.”
“Fitzwilliam, believe it.
No earthly force will ever separate us—till death do us part.”
“Death,” he repeated.
They dismounted their horses and stood arms around each other, as the sky blazed with streaks of the disappearing sun. Yet despite Elizabeth's protestations, Darcy continued to visibly tremble. Soon both sighed in unison, a reflection of the disparity between their current ardor and the unassailable knowledge that despite Elizabeth's protestations to the contrary, their idyllic life together could indeed end in a flash.
An hour later the two solemnly rode into the barn, totally bereft, their emotions spent. They started preparing Gypsy and Susie Q for their night's rest; the routine of currying and brushing the horses had a rehabilitating effect. By the time they walked hand in hand from the barn, their naturally positive attitudes had regained precedence. Soon they were on the veranda, clicking wine glasses, still smelling of barn and horses.
“I think a shower together is just what the doctor would order,” Elizabeth said.
“What a delightful medicine. Can I have a dose every day?” Darcy asked, his eyes twinkling with anticipation.
“I'll ask Jane.”
“No, don't do that.”
“Oh, silly,” Elizabeth said, breaking into irrepressible laughter. Darcy joined in. Their mood pendulum had swung back to where it should be.
After a steamy shower, the couple packed their lavender and other choices for tomorrow's trip to Lancaster. They were leaving immediately after the morning rounds. With the fall meet pending, Darcy felt the urgency to do more vigorous training.
“When your classes start, I will get busy on organizing a track in the field at Longbourn. Then I can practice at Claysmount as well as Lancaster, while you are at school. I'll rotate the stallions over.”
“Good, then we can spend ‘delicious’ time together, Mr. Darcy, without my feeling guilty about impeding your career.”
With the packing completed, Elizabeth and Darcy opened the French doors onto the upstairs veranda and walked out to stand looking out at the starry night, she leaning against his lean strong frame, he with his arms wrapped around her. They had pushed the frightening episode in the field way into the recesses of their minds and were at peace for now.
*****
Friday morning Elizabeth awoke quite queasy. “Something we ate last night didn't agree with me,” she said, with a secret smile on her face, as she rushed hand over mouth to the bathroom.
“Go back to bed, my sweet. I will get you a cup of tea and do the ride out alone this morning.”
“Thank you,” Elizabeth managed between gags from the bathroom. “I'll take you up on both.”
“I'll be right back then with the tea. Are you sure you do not want me to drive you to Jane's office?”
“I'm quite sure, Fitzwilliam, but I would like the tea.”
“I'm gone—right now.”
Elizabeth glowed. “Men can be so dense,” she determined. “It obviously has not occurred to Fitzwilliam that I might be in the throes of morning sickness. Oh, Lord, please let it be so!”
Elizabeth had decided not to say anything to Darcy until after her appointment with the OB/GYN next Wednesday. “No use disappointing him. This could be a false alarm.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
When Darcy left for the barn, Elizabeth decided to do some more research on Claire's relationship with her first husband. It was too early to call California, but not too early to find out whom to call. She ran a biography of Carl Cameron, architect. She found that he and Claire were married eight years, just like Claire and Jimmy Joyce. Obviously all the time Claire could allot a man was eight years and then zilch. Elizabeth did a slashing cut in front of her own throat and shivered.
She also discovered that Cameron had a son by a former marriage, who was now twenty years old and a student at Cal Tech, Carl Cameron, Jr. His former wife was now Mrs. Paul Pastori. She got addresses and phone numbers. The internet was incredible for certain types of data. Being a week day, Elizabeth assumed she could contact Cameron's architectural firm at nine o’clock, Pacific Coast Time.
“Now for a cover story. Who shall I be? A biographer of Claire? Perhaps, but why would they help me? I wouldn't. An old family friend of Carl? But where have I been the last fifteen years? Antarctica?
“Classmate? No!” She continued down the list. “A long lost relative? There has to be someone. An admirer of Mr. Cameron? I'd have to know more about him. An architectural student? I'd never pull that off speaking to an architectural firm. Miss Marple, where are you when I need you?”
She almost embellished a cover as a true crime story writer, but finally settled on the most sensible solution, a police detective from the non-existent Claysmount Police Department. Elizabeth had no idea if it were illegal to feign being a policewoman from a force that did not exist. “Oh, well, I'll worry about that later,” she concluded.
“Rats!” Elizabeth complained. “Why is California three hours earlier than we? Fitz will be ready to leave for Lancaster by the time I can call.” She jumped up from the computer, frustrated, but nonetheless exhilarated by her perspective detective inquiry. Elizabeth showered so as to be ready for Darcy's return from the barn. The tea had already helped. Her upset stomach was abated.
“Perhaps I can have some toast and coffee with Fitzwilliam, when he gets through.”
Darcy arrived from the barn to find Elizabeth chipper and dressed in a perky blue cashmere sweater and tight jeans.
“You look great. I guess you feel better.”
“Yes. Now shower so you can join me for dry toast.”
“Exciting,” Darcy said, as he stripped for the shower.
Elizabeth postponed their departure time by one hour so she could call California. At the architectural office she was referred to the senior partner, Clarence Pierce. She was using her disposable cell just in case what she was doing turned out to be illegal. She didn't want to be traced to Longbourn.
“Mr. Pierce,” Elizabeth introduced herself, trying to sound official, “I am Detective Hammond of the Claysmount Police Force. We are running a routine inquiry into the death of a local professor of some eminence—a vehicular homicide.”
“Yes, Detective—uh—Hammond, but have you the right number? I am in Los Angeles, California. I am sorry to say that I have never had the pleasure to visit—”
“Claysmount, Kentucky.”
“Claysmount, Kentucky, now Louisville or Lexington—”
“I know, sir, but I also believe that you had a prominent member of your firm, Carl Cameron, who about ten years ago died in an unexplained automobile accident.”
“Yes, Detective, Mr. Cameron was the star of our firm. His son is now in his third year of study. We expect him to join us and be our new star. He has his dad's name, which is a big plus here in LA.”
“Good. I hope he is equally talented.”
“As do I, Detective.” Elizabeth felt that Mr. Pierce was warming to the conversation, until he added, “I still do not see—”
“Well, Mr. Pierce, in our investigation we have discovered that our victim, Dr. James Joyce Carstairs, and your Mr. Cameron have something very special in common.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, they were both at the time of their deaths married to the same woman, Claire Evans.”
“Oh, that woman! I'm sorry to say this of anyone, Detective Hammond, but she is a cold fish. Carl's first wife and his son were devastated at his death. But Ms. Evans, as she insisted on being called, never shed a tear. She came to our office the day after the funeral, signed the necessary papers, got her inheritance and disappeared.”
“But before the death was there any indication of trouble, sir?”
“She broke up Carl's marriage to Ellen and her with a two year old boy. I'm not saying Carl was blameless, mind you. He was a talented man, but a babe in arms when it came to women, very unassuming for an artist of such magnitude.
“He met the lady at a celebrity function. Carl often went to them bec
ause of his stature in his field—part of his responsibility to the firm. Ellen stopped going once the baby was born. She would have gone again, but Ellen didn't like leaving little Carl while he was so young.”
Elizabeth said with conviction, “I can understand that.”
“So Claire found that Carl was rich and famous and proceeded to dazzle him. She eventually told him she was pregnant—a lie. But it worked; he divorced Ellen and married her.
“In my opinion, Ellen has never truly gotten over Carl, although she is now remarried to a very kind gentleman. My wife and I have them to dinner occasionally for Carl's sake, the son I mean.
“Carl, Jr. showed early promise in drawing and design, so our firm has supported him for years, providing him the best education money can buy. He may innately be a genius, you see.”
“Mr. Pierce, was there any suspicion attached to Carl's death?”
“Well—to be truthful—some.”
“Oh?”
“In the first place, Carl drove the canyon roads daily, but his car went over one he would have had no reason to travel, an isolated one, far from his home. The second is that, although Carl always carried a cell phone and had a very fancy car phone, neither was in the car when he was discovered. Thirdly, Carl had an enormous wound on the back of his head. The police and the coroner could not explain the placement of the injury. There was nothing behind his head to hit. The side and the front yes, but not the rear. Behind his head was a padded head rest.
