Murder, Mayhem and Bliss (Myrtle Grove Garden Club Mystery Book 1)

by Loulou Harrington

  Jesse tried to think of some way to soften the rest of what SueAnn had seen, but she was pretty sure Vivian would want to know the worst of it before the sheriff came back through the sunroom door. Taking another deep, steadying breath, she plowed on. “The medical examiner’s van was there.”

  Vivian gasped, turned pale, and let the coffee cup slip from her suddenly limp fingers. Jesse reacted fast enough to catch the cup before it hit the stone pavers. Then she retrieved the saucer, put the cup in it, and set them both back on the tray. She also slipped the platter of snacks from Vivian’s lap and put it back on the table.

  Vivian sat staring into space, frozen. Jesse, and probably about everyone else in their quiet corner of the world, knew Vivian as a woman who was always in charge, of herself and of any situation she found herself in.

  If any doubt had remained, Jesse knew now that her decision to come here and tell Vivian what little she knew had been the right one. At least the older woman would have a chance to catch her breath and collect her thoughts before having to face whatever it was Joe Tyler wanted to question her about.

  “Oh, my God.” Vivian sprang to her feet with amazing agility for a woman of her age. “He’s questioning Bliss!”

  “There’s nothing we can do about that,” Jesse said gently.

  “We can listen!”

  “Oh!” Jesse liked the idea immediately and was sorry she hadn’t thought of it herself, except… “Where? We can’t be outside the door when they come out.”

  Vivian frowned, deep in contemplation, then pointed to the back side of the house. “Run around to the library and see if there’s a window open. And be quiet. If we can hear them, they can hear us.”

  Jesse stood and gave Vivian a quick peck on the cheek. “You are spooky amazing,” she said, not for the first time.

  Vivian gave her a wink. “That’s what Malcolm always used to say, or words to that effect.”

  Breaking into an easy jog, Jesse slowed at the corner of the house. Listening for voices, she picked her way quietly toward the library on the other side of the sunroom. The foundation of the main house was elevated, and the windows were above her. If she stayed close to the house, she wouldn’t be seen, but if she rustled the shrubbery, she might be heard.

  After a few more steps, the low murmur of conversation reached her, and she looked up to where one window in the middle of a bank of windows was raised no more than five inches. Retreating to the corner of the house, she signaled Vivian, who was already making her way carefully across the open lawn. Jesse pointed toward the library and put her finger to her lips, then gave Vivian a thumbs-up and went back to find an optimum listening post.

  “Why are you asking me these questions?” Bliss’s voice came clearly through the partially open window. “Has something happened to Harry?”

  Wherever she was seated, if she stayed there, she should remain reasonably audible. Sheriff Tyler would be another story. Jesse didn’t trust him not to move around, possibly even going to the window to stare out, heaven forbid. She moved closer to the side of the building, stepping inside a young boxwood to stand almost flush with the stone wall.

  Vivian rounded the corner of the building, and her eyes widened at Jesse’s serious dedication to the task. She covered her mouth with her hand and ducked her head, in what was either a smothered sneeze or a giggle. Jesse’s guess would be a giggle, since she was pretty sure both women were still fairly snookered. Champagne tended to get into the blood and linger awhile, especially when it was what you had for breakfast.

  “If you don’t mind,” Sheriff Tyler said in what sounded like a mild tone, at least for him, “I’d like to hold off on answering any questions until I’ve had a chance to get your and your aunt’s responses to my questions.”

  “Well,” Bliss said with uncertainty in her voice, “I guess that sounds reasonable. It’s just that…” She drew in a deep, hiccupping breath. “I’m so afraid…” Her voice faltered, then grew stronger. “That you’re here about something awful.”

  As Jesse was thinking “shut up, shut up, shut up,” she looked over at Vivian, whose eyes were wide while her head shook “no” back and forth repeatedly.

  “I mean,” Bliss continued in a plaintive warble, “why else would you be here? I mean, it’s not like he would have embezzled from the company. He owns the company. Something awful must have happened, like an accident or something, and you won’t tell me.”

  Vivian’s eyes were closed, her head was thrown back, and as she continued to shake her head, she mouthed the word “no” in a silent mantra.

  Mercifully, Joe Tyler stopped Bliss’s verbal hemorrhaging. “Really, Mrs. Kerr, there’s no need for you to say anything except in response to what I ask.”

  Bliss took a deep, shuddering breath. “Okay. I’ll try.”

  “That’s good. Now, when did you last see your husband?”

  “Oh, my goodness. I’m…I’m not really certain. Uh, Friday morning?” She took another deep breath and let it out slowly. “He, um, was late leaving the house, and I saw him in the kitchen. He said, uh, he said he wouldn’t be home until late and he would probably sleep downstairs, so I might not see him at all.”

  She paused, then said soft as a whisper, “And I didn’t.”

  “So, you didn’t see him at all Friday night.”

  “No.”

  “Or Saturday morning?” Joe Tyler’s voice was as close to a verbal tiptoe as Jesse had ever heard it, as if he just wanted to get through the interview without sending Bliss into another meltdown and wasn’t sure he could do it.

  “No.” Bliss’s voice sounded calmer, but possibly a little shattered.

  “Did you talk on the phone?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know what he was doing on Friday night?”

  “No.” Each single-word answer came out as an exhale, a hushed whisper pushed out with a breath of air.

  “Was there any physical sign that he had been in the house at all on Friday night?”

  “No.” Bliss cleared her throat, smoothing some of its ragged edge. “Uh, nothing that I could see.”

  “Was this, um, unusual?”

  “It’s happened before.” Something in her voice said that it had happened before a lot.

  “Do you know what he does on the nights that he doesn’t appear to have come home?” Sheriff Tyler asked carefully, making the words as gentle as a question like that could be.

  “He used to try to tell me, but after I stopped believing him, he quit bothering.” She said it matter-of-factly, without bitterness, and Jesse recognized a tensile strength in Bliss Kerr that hadn’t been apparent before.

  “So it might not have been business?” he asked, taking advantage of Bliss’s shifting mood.

  “I doubt very much that business would keep him out for the entire night.” Her voice sounded tight, but somehow stronger than before.

  “Yes, well, I regret having to ask you this, Mrs. Kerr.” He paused, to give them both a minute, then plunged ahead. “Did your husband have a girlfriend that you were aware of?”

  “In all honesty, Sheriff, I would suggest that my husband’s assistant, Maria, would be the one to ask about that.”

  “Oh.” His voice held surprise. “Were they, uh…”

  “Oh, no. Not anymore. At one point, yes, but that was years ago. Now she’s just his secretary. Well, more than a secretary, but…” Bliss’s voice faltered. She grew silent, then drew in a deep, audible breath that was exhaled on a sigh steeped in regret.

  When she continued, her words were halting and obviously reluctant. “Anyway, Maria sees so much more of Harry than I do, considering the hours he puts in at work. And she isn’t someone he would need to lie to. I would imagine that she lies for him now. And to do that, you have to know whose phone calls he’s taking on any given day.”

  “Ah.” In that one word, Sheriff Tyler sounded as tired as Bliss did, and Jesse knew how he felt. There was a wealth of pain, and acceptance, and forgi
veness that lived inside the woman he was talking to, much more of each than most people would have been able to live with. And it left even Jesse wondering if there was a breaking point, and if it had been reached.

  “Well, I appreciate your candor, Mrs. Kerr.” His deep voice, that carried admirably well, interrupted Jesse’s rambling thoughts. “I’m not going to ask for anything more right now. If you could just stay close while I talk to your aunt, then I’ll, uh, I’ll talk to the two of you together before I go.”

  “Thank you. I think I’ll be outside in the garden when you need me. Some fresh air would be wonderful right now.”

  Jesse extracted herself cautiously but quickly from the boxwoods. Vivian was already to the corner of the house, moving slowly and steadily back to the area where she was expected to be. Jesse caught up with her before she reached the chaise and assisted Vivian in achieving a pose of tranquility while she waited to be summoned.

  “Good God.” Vivian grasped Jesse’s arm in a grip that was unexpectedly strong and pulled her down to whisper urgently, “He’s dead, isn’t he?!”

  “Something bad has happened,” Jesse agreed.

  Vivian held on, hissing, “They don’t call the medical examiner for ‘something bad.’ They call the medical examiner for dead!”

  The door from the sunroom opened and Vivian went limp against the back of the chaise. “Oh, Lord, help me,” she groaned. “All the times I’ve wished that man in hell, and now he’s there. I’m gonna roast for sure.”

  Chapter Four

  After ushering Vivian Windsor into the library, Joe Tyler excused himself and went into the next room to make a phone call. If he had to guess, he would say this was the room Vivian used as her office. The wood tones were lighter, the furniture pieces more delicate, though still clearly antique, the curtains more sheer, and there was way less leather and a lot more pillows. It was almost cozy, and that was nothing he would ever have expected from Vivian.

  Arnie’s phone went to voicemail, and Joe hissed in an undertone for him to pick up, damn it, which Arnie did, promptly.

  “You got anything yet?”

  “It’s been an hour, Joe. That’s not much time, but we’ve drawn blood, and I’ve got Chuck working on an initial tox screen. Somebody will need to check the medicine cabinets in the deceased’s house to see what drugs should be in his blood. You might ask the wife, see if she knows.”

  Joe ran his hand over the back of his neck, where the muscles were starting to feel as taut as bridge struts. “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t hold my breath on that. There’s not much indication those two people lived on the same planet, much less in the same house.”

  “One of those marriages, huh?”

  “Times two,” Joe agreed. “I forgot to ask earlier, do you have a time of death?”

  “Well,” Arnie hedged, “floating around in a heated pool kind of tends to screw up the natural progression, if you know what I mean. But rigor hadn’t set in yet, and I did check the temperature of the pool before I left. My ballpark guesstimate is somewhere around three am, give or take quite a margin for fluctuation.”

  “How wide a margin?” Joe asked, not too happy with trying to figure out what could have happened down at that pool in the middle of the freaking night.

  “After midnight. Before dawn. But, and you’re going to like this, I actually used math to arrive at that three o’clock estimate, and my gut feeling is, it’s pretty close.”

  Joe felt only moderately cheered. “So,” he said to clarify, “at three am in October, this guy is wandering around his pool, fully clothed, right down to loafers, in the dark? Can you at least tell me if he was drunk?”

  “Don’t think so. He might have had a drink or two, but his blood alcohol wasn’t high enough for him to go blindly stumbling into a pool and drown.”

  Joe hung his head in defeat. One easy answer down the tubes. “How about a heart attack?”

  “Haven’t gotten there yet. No external bruising of any significance, and other than that, you’re just going to have to be patient. I have to do a thorough skin check for needle marks, bee stings, snake bites, poison dart marks or any other exotic or completely commonplace thing I can imagine before I go cutting this guy open. All I can tell you right now is no obvious signs of violence or external trauma. And he still had his wallet, his watch and his rings.”

  “Thanks, Arnie. That’s better than nothing. At least I can say we’re working on it.”

  “Sure thing. And if you bring anybody by here, give us a heads up first so we can get the TV switched off of cable and back to computer display.”

  “Yeah. Glad you could work that out.” Joe hung up and headed back into the library, carrying a new, and wholly unwanted, mental image of his autopsy team with one eye on Harry Kerr and the other on a college football game.

  When he entered, Vivian Windsor stood at one of the many windows in the library, looking out at the vast, sloping back lawn. The view comprised a series of formal flower beds filled with what had to be hundreds of rose bushes, nearly all of them blooming at once. The scent floated on the air and into the room, a seduction that made it hard to stay inside, even for him, even when he needed privacy to discuss things that people should never have to talk about.

  “I’m sorry to keep you waiting, and I appreciate your patience. I needed to make a phone call.”

  Vivian turned, her gaze clear and focused. If the champagne was still having an effect, he couldn’t see it. Although he would dearly like to know if Saturday champagne brunch was a tradition, or if the two women had something special to celebrate this morning.

  “Did you learn anything?” Vivian asked, with a tilt of her head and a very slight, but disarming smile.

  Joe felt himself being sucked in, in spite of everything he knew about the woman. Her intelligence, her spirit, her dignity never failed to impress him. She was one of those women who would be a beauty until the day she died, no matter what her age, because her beauty was embodied in who she was.

  But she was also spoiled, and demanding, and arrogant, and a tigress when defending what was hers. And if twenty years hadn’t separated them, he might well have fallen in love with her in spite of all that. Many men had.

  He shook his head. “Not much.”

  “That’s too bad.” Vivian left the window and returned to the nearest of two wingbacks flanking the fireplace, the same chair where Sheriff Tyler had left her earlier. “You had questions for me?”

  She folded her hands in her lap and crossed her legs at the ankles, dressed in a slacks set that even he could tell was silk, and a diamond necklace that was restrained but noticeable. She sat perfectly upright and gazed at him serenely, poised and confident, and Joe felt the muscles in the back of his neck tightening again. She knew something. She was way too calm, as if she were ahead of him and waiting for him to catch up. Screw that.

  “Before I waste too much of my time asking pointless questions,” he said, dropping into the chair across from her, the chair that was not a wingback, the chair whose cushions didn’t still bear the lingering imprint of her deceased husband Malcolm. “Why don’t you go ahead and tell me what you already know?”

  She smiled and ducked her head, then looked back to him with laughing, powder blue eyes. “I must be slipping.”

  He shrugged. “You’re a little too smug. And a lot too relaxed.” He spread his hands. “I’m the sheriff. You’re supposed to be scared of me, or at least a little nervous.”

  She settled back and met his gaze. “I guess there’s no need to dance around any of this. I’ve always preferred to take things head on anyway. And I don’t actually know all that much.”

  “I’ll start us off by asking you one question,” Joe said. Now that they were back on equal footing, he began to relax again.

  “Fire away,” she offered, looking no less smug.

  “What time did your niece get here this morning?”

  “Well.” Vivian stared off into space, clearly thinking, or clear
ly looking like she was thinking. “I don’t usually pay too much attention to time unless I have an appointment, so all I can say is I was up already. I was dressed, and I hadn’t had breakfast yet. So…” She lifted her arms in a graceful shrug. “Around eight?”

  Joe made a note in his pad. “Okay. Your turn.”

  “Ah, yes. Well, it seems that SueAnn Bailey, who works at the Gilded Lily, was late to work this morning. Apparently, because she spent the night with her boyfriend in Culverton. And in driving from there to work, several hours later than she would normally be out and about, she happened to pass the house where my niece lives with her husband Harold.”

  “Ah, of course.” Joe nodded. He knew where this was going, at least in part. “She saw activity.”

  “Quite a bit of activity,” Vivian agreed, “involving numerous police cars.” Then she arched her brow and the lightness left her voice. “And the medical examiner’s van.”

  “So, let me make this shorter for you,” Joe said, wanting to speed the story along a bit, because he now found himself becoming irritated again. “When she got to work, she told them what she had seen. And Jesse Camden was there, and being your very great friend, she came straight over here to, what? Tell you? Console you? Pump you for information?”

  Vivian’s brow lifted even higher and her chin tilted skyward. “She was concerned, and she did what any concerned friend would do.”

  “So, when did she tell you?”

  “She got here just before you did, but she didn’t say anything until you were talking to Bliss, and we were alone.”

  “What did she say?”

  “What I just told you,” Vivian answered, with irritation adding a snap to her voice for the first time.

  Reminding himself that she was more used to asking questions than answering them, and that he didn’t want to wake the sleeping tiger if he didn’t have to, or her army of lawyers, Joe took a mental deep breath and willed himself to calm down.

  He certainly didn’t want to explain to anyone else that it was Jesse Camden, and her constant interference in situations that were none of her business, that rubbed at him like a burr under a saddle. She not only irritated him, but she emboldened other people, and inevitably made his job harder than it needed to be. She was like the one child on the schoolground who incited all the others to rebellion.