“Jackie?”
Jackie didn’t respond with words.
She responded with a bloodcurdling scream.
“Oh no.”
Chapter 5
The next morning, the girls sat with Grandma Em at a corner table in Bree’s Café.
Both Allie and Jackie had large mugs of hot tea in front of them, overloaded with sugar and full cream milk. It’s what one needed after a shock, Grandma Em had insisted. Even Jackie, who normally avoided sugar like it was the plague, was slurping on the steaming drink.
“It was horrible, just horrible,” said Jackie.
“It was,” said Allie, shaking her head at the memory. “I don’t think he’d cleaned in there for years. Decades, even. The dust was a half-inch thick everywhere. And the floor! I don’t even know what colour the carpet was supposed to be.”
“I was talking about the body,” said Jackie, a grumble in her voice. She kept holding her mug with one hand while raising her other hand into the air and then switching back over again, alternating between the two.
“That was quite horrible too. But not as bad as the rest of the house!”
“It must’ve been a terrible shock. And I can’t believe those policemen put you through the wringer like that.”
Actually, the police hadn’t been too hard on either of them. Of course, they had gone down to the station to give statements, which all in all had taken several hours, but they had been polite and professional about the whole thing and had the decency not to accuse them of being murderers.
“What are we going to do? What is Bree going to do?”
“I suppose,” said Grandma Em, tapping her fingernails against the side of her mug thoughtfully, “it will all be left to his son, Larry Junior.”
“What’s he like? Do you think he’ll sell the building to us?”
Grandma Em pursed her lips. “Not to speak ill of the living, especially one who’s suffered a loss so recently, but Larry Junior isn’t really the likeable sort. Not like his dad.”
“Not like his dad?” Allie wrinkled her nose and frowned. But Larry Senior hadn’t been likeable. She wondered what Grandma Em meant.
“He’s got a bit of a temper,” Grandma Em said. “And he’s not really a people person. And he can be quite… punchy.”
“Punchy?” Jackie held her own two fists in front of her face, mimicking a pugilist.
One of the group classes she taught was boxercise which, while not quite a martial art, had at least given her a lot of experience in swinging her fists around.
“I expect he’ll be shaken up about the death of his father though. That kind of thing usually brings people back down to earth. Might make him turn over a new leaf. Take a good look at his life.”
“Do you think so?” Allie’s face had lit up. “If that’s the case, I’m sure he’ll be amenable to my offer.”
The tinkling of the front door drew their attention, but the gentle sound of the tiny bell’s ring did not at all mirror the face of the man who came through the doorway.
In fact, the man actually seemed to be about the same size as the doorway, though a lot angrier.
“Speak of the devil,” said Em under her breath.
Allie gulped.
The man was looking at them. And even she could plainly see it wasn’t in a friendly manner.
“It’s you two, is it?” he said, stalking across the room towards them.
His hands hung by his sides, but they were bunched up into meaty fists, and his whole frame seemed to be shaking.
“I’m so sorry about your father,” said Jackie, offering a supportive smile.
“He was quite mean though,” said Allie.
Jackie kicked her under the table in warning.
Larry Junior ignored Allie’s critique of his father. “You’re still here. Hard to believe. But you won’t be for much longer, will you?”
“Actually, we’re here for another thirteen days,” said Allie. “We’re booked in upstairs.”
Jackie kicked her again under the table, harder than last time. Allie didn’t understand why. She was only telling the truth.
He slowly shook his head, a wicked smirk on his lips. “You won’t be staying here for two more weeks. Either the police are going to arrest you, or I’m…” He put his hands on his hips, leaned over them, raised his eyebrows, and let his words hang in the air like an anvil above the table.
“You’re what?” asked Grandma Em pointedly.
He didn’t answer right away, and when he did, it wasn’t to finish the last sentence.
Instead, he went for another vague threat. “We don’t like murderers around here.”
Allie looked up at him in surprise. “Oh, we’re not murderers. We just found the body.”
Larry Junior locked her with a stare, driving his eyes into her with a glare so threatening that most people would have been immediately cowed. Not Allie though. She was too oblivious for that.
“We wouldn’t be murderers anyway.”
He lowered his head even more so that his face was just inches from Allie’s. He maintained a stony silence as he looked at her.
“We would be murderesses. If we did it, I mean—which we definitely didn’t. Did we, Jackie?”
Jackie shook her head no in agreement but didn’t speak.
Larry Junior slammed his hands down on the table, causing waves of warm tea to slop out onto the table.
Allie gasped, and her hand went up to her mouth. How beastly! That wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do it all. They were going to need a kitchen towel, stat.
“Are you admitting it?” Larry’s voice was so low that it seemed to almost shake the table.
“No,” said Allie with a look of consternation. “I was just saying that if we were the killers, which we’re not, we would be murderesses, not murderers. Because we’re women. It’s grammar. Do you see?”
This time, both Grandma Em and Jackie kicked Allie. She was going to have some serious bruises at this rate.
“I know who you are.” He let a long pause fill the air with threat. “I know where you’re staying.” Another pause. “And if the police don’t do their job, well…”
“They’re very professional. I’m sure they’ll do their job just fine,” said Allie with a smile.
The last noise to come out of Larry’s mouth was a growl.
Not that he growled his words, but he literally growled—like he thought he was a wolf or a tiger or some other ferocious beast.
He then stood up straight and headed towards the door. Just before exiting, he looked back over his shoulder and stared back towards their table.
He raised two fingers to his own eyes and then pointed back at them with one, angry, pointing finger. He was watching them.
Chapter 6
There’s nothing like an afternoon walk, a quiet evening of cleaning and tidying a B&B room, and a good night’s sleep, all the while soaking up the slower pace of life and the clean, crisp countryside spring air, to make you feel better after a grisly murder.
And so, the next day, Allie was feeling somewhat better about the whole affair.
It wasn’t her fault the old man had died, and she was rapidly working on compartmentalizing the memory itself so that it would just be another—rather unique—life experience to draw on.
Until she saw the morning newspaper, that was.
“Unbelievable!” yelled Jackie from the other side of the room.
The two other tables of customers looked at her and stared. Allie did the same.
Luckily, Jackie didn’t make Allie call across the café to find out what was wrong. Instead, she came over and dropped the newspaper that had been the cause of her outburst onto the table.
“Look at that!”
Allie did indeed look at it.
The Cotswolds Examiner was a local daily paper, and this particular edition really was quite offensive.
“Someone’s spilt marmalade right on the front page!”
“Not that!
Look at the story!”
With a reluctant finger, Allie twisted the newspaper around and tried—somewhat successfully—to overlook the offensive fruit preserve to what lay deeper—the headline story.
“‘Tourist Finds Murder Victim’”, read Allie. “Look, there’s even a picture of me.”
Indeed, there was a picture, and it had been snapped just when Allie had left the police station the day before. Jackie had exited just a few steps behind her, but it seemed the photographer had only identified and used the photograph of Allie.
When she had left the police station, she felt a little confused, even bewildered, by the whole string of unlikely events.
Unfortunately, the look of shellshock on her face came across as meanness in the unattractive photo the journalist had used. The caption underneath didn’t help much either.
ALOOF “TOURIST” WHO “DISCOVERED” BODY RELEASED FOR NOW—BUT FOR HOW LONG?
“They don’t know how to use quotation marks, do they?” said Allie with a sad shake of her head.
“Unfortunately, I rather think they do.” Jackie raised her arms up and stretched over backwards before sitting down across from Allie.
“Oh,” said Allie. After another brief pause, she looked up, wide-eyed. “Oh!”
Jackie gave her a grim smile of support.
“They’re implying that maybe I killed that man!”
“I’m sorry, Allie. It’s awful, isn’t it?”
She nodded morosely. “And they forgot about you!”
“They did, didn’t they?”
Allie and Jackie sat in a grim silence, lost in thought.
This just wasn’t right, thought Allie. Why would the journalist be implying that Allie was the murderer? She was just the person who discovered the body, and even that was more Jackie than her.
“That’s why people keep looking at me funny today.”
“We should complain to the newspaper. They have no right printing stories like that. Implying that you, of all people, was a murderer.”
“I should call them and tell them it should be you,” said Allie with a thoughtful frown.
“WHAT!?”
Allie’s mouth dropped open in surprise at the response. She hadn’t quite meant it how it came out. “I mean, of the two of us, you’re the more likely killer. That’s all I mean.”
“And why, precisely, is that?”
“You’re stronger than me, so you’d be better able to do it. And you’re faster than me, so you could run away from the scene of the crime more quickly. And you’re less logical than me, and most crimes aren’t carried out in a logical manner.”
Jackie took a couple of deep breaths like she did in the yoga classes she had forced Allie to attend. “You do know it was nothing to do with me, right?”
“Of course! I’m just saying that if the journalist was going to imply that someone was a murderer, it should be you instead of me. Logically.”
“Tell you what.” Jackie squeezed Allie’s hand. “You keep that thought to yourself for now. We don’t want either of us being implicated in this mess, and despite what you’re saying being technically true, other people won’t quite get what you mean. They’ll think you’re accusing me.”
“Then they’re stupid.”
Jackie’s supportive squeeze suddenly became a little too tight, crossing from the realm of support to the neighbouring land of warning. “That may be, but it’s important that we don’t implicate either of us, either deliberately or inadvertently, anywhere in this mess.”
After a brief moment of consideration, Allie gave a nod of agreement. “Yes, I think you’re right.”
While they had been talking and thinking, neither of them had noticed the arrival of Richard, the rather handsome middle-aged man who’d come in for a takeaway coffee and a cake during their previous trip to Hawthorne.
“Excuse me?” he said, materializing right next to their table.
The sisters turned to look at him.
“Yes?” said Allie, slightly hesitantly. She was on edge after realizing the implications of the newspaper story.
“I was wondering, are you finished with that newspaper?”
Just as Jackie was about to shake her head, Allie answered, “Yes. Completely and utterly finished with it.”
Richard tentatively picked it up with a quizzical look.
“On the front page...” Richard held the paper up in the air, so it was next to Allie’s face. “Is this…? It is!”
“It’s the first time I’ve ever been on the front page of a newspaper,” said Allie.
Richard was silent as he scanned the article, his striking green eyes flicking rapidly back and forth as he went through it line by line. He had the air of someone who had spent quite a lot of time quickly scanning through text.
Finally, he lowered the newspaper, and looked at Allie again. “This article...”
“It’s terrible, isn’t it?” said Jackie with a frown.
Allie hadn’t actually read the whole article, but she sure knew the gist of it.
“They’re right on the edge of defamation. But they don’t quite outright accuse you.” He sucked in air between his teeth, and his eyes flicked back quickly through the text again.
“I mean, I assume you had nothing to do with his death, right?”
Both Allie and Jackie gave quick, affirmative nods. “Neither of us had anything to do with his death.”
“And this other rubbish about you trying to force him into selling his property...?”
“Completely false,” said Jackie stridently.
“True,” said Allie, not very helpfully.
Richard let out a small laugh of amusement. “Well?”
“We wanted to buy some property he owned—this building, in fact—but he wouldn’t sell it to us. Then he died.”
“We didn’t try to force him in any way though,” added Jackie. “We made a business proposition, not any kind of threat. In fact, it was almost the opposite—we were trying to charm him.”
“He was not a nice man though,” said Allie. “He called us stupid girls.”
Richard’s jaw dropped slightly. “He said what? Ignorant and sexist? This Larry sounds like quite a piece of work.”
“He was,” said Jackie, banging the table with her hand.
“He was meaner to us than anyone since school,” Allie added.
Richard held the newspaper by his side and tapped his thigh with it thoughtfully.
Allie counted as he tapped. One, two three, pause... one, two three, pause... one, two three.
“I bet a nasty old piece of work like that had a lot of enemies. Lots of people probably aren’t upset he’s gone.”
“Maybe the newspaper should write about some of those people,” said Jackie.
“Maybe they should,” said Richard thoughtfully. He looked at them again. “I mean, no offence, but you two don’t strike me as murderers. You don’t have that edge about you that murderers normally do.”
“Err, have you met a lot of murderers?” asked Jackie.
“Oh, loads. And you don’t remind me of any of them.”
“Thank you, that’s very kind of you to say,” said Allie.
Richard gave her a wry smile. “Saying you’re not a murderer is a compliment? You’re easy to please.”
“Trust me,” said Jackie. “In other ways, she really, really isn’t easy to please.”
“Oh, is that so? I must say—I do like a challenge.”
Allie and Jackie exchanged a glance.
On Jackie’s end it was a You Go Girl! and on Allie’s it was a kind of panicked shock. She wasn’t used to men being quite that forward.
“But trust me, once you get to know her, it’s worth it,” said Jackie quickly before Allie could say anything else.
Under the table, she gave Allie’s knee a supportive squeeze, which was a vast improvement from the repeated kicks she’d received the day before.
“Is that so?” Richard held the newspaper agains
t his side, still now, and made a point of looking at Allie again, as if assessing her. “If this old man had as many enemies as it sounds like, perhaps you should find out whether any of them actually did want him dead. I’m sure the police are doing all they can, but—believe me—it’s not always enough. They don’t have the resources these days.”
Allie and Jackie looked at each other, a mutual expression of understanding passing between the two sisters.
“Just something to think about,” Richard added. “I’ll leave you to it. Let me know if you need a hand though. You can find me in here most mornings.”
“We will!” said Jackie a bit too loudly.
“Thank you,” said Allie a bit too quietly.
“It’s nice to see you in the village, by the way. There isn’t enough youth in the village.” He started to walk away, then turned and said over his shoulder, “Or beauty.”
And just like that, he was gone, stolen newspaper under his arm as he exited the café.
“Someone’s got an admirer,” said Jackie with an over-the-top wink.
“He’s too old,” lied Allie.
“No, he’s not. There’s nothing like a safe pair of hands to guide you through life.”
“How would you know?”
Jackie shrugged. “I heard it somewhere.”
Both of them giggled.
“You know, I’m really feeling a lot better,” said Allie. “When you showed me that newspaper article, it set my head spinning. But now that Richard has told us what to do, I feel like a weight has been lifted.”
“Yes, I’m sure it’s just his advice that made you feel better. Not him calling you ‘beautiful’ or his outrageous flirting.”
Allie grinned. Even she had noticed.
Jackie returned the smile. “So, what are we going to do?”
Allie clasped her fingers together and placed her hands on the table, a serene smile on her face. “We are going to assist the police by working out who wanted Larry dead—and then did the deed.”
Jackie was biting her bottom lip. “We’ll just have to make sure not to do anything dangerous.”
“Of course,” said Allie. “Now, let’s begin.”
An Alibi A Day Page 4
