The Emily Taylor Mystery Bundle

by Catherine Astolfo

  As soon as people began arriving, the gym was teaming with people eating and talking and laughing. There was a video playing in the gym of our myriad of sports events and other happy occasions that had been taped throughout the year. The Grade Eight students had made a display of their final elementary days with personal pictures and testimonials to be friends forever.

  They were, I was surprised and pleased to note, excited to be holding their graduation celebration in the fall. It was an opportunity to return, and besides, that's the way graduating secondary school kids and university students did it! We had decided on October 3, and invitations were given out by our fresh-faced young ladies and gentlemen, who were nonetheless scarcely able to hide their delight at graduating early and the prospect of a longer summer vacation. Parents, on the other hand, grumbled and some complained loudly. Once again, I was glad to have had the school board take the heat on this one.

  The presence of Edgar Brennan, Constables Petapiece, Ducek, and two other uniformed police officers reminded everyone that, despite our attempt to normalize the situation, it was definitely not business as usual. Their quiet, authoritative watch at each entrance served to temper some of the parents' criticism of the closing of the school. I was kept busy, however, all evening, meeting with those who questioned the Board's decision, others who felt their children had not received their full education this school year, and some who just wanted to express sympathy.

  Burchill's small town community was very different from the city, though. I had found the students here to be mostly innocent and naive in comparison to my schools in Vancouver's east side. The parents were, for the most part, supportive and enthusiastic about their school and the staff.

  By the end of the evening, I was filled with a sense of happiness and buoyed by the spirit of the children and their families. I was tired, yet energetic at the same time, filled with hope for the future. Maybe everything would go back to normal, after all.

  Marj and Bill arrived as promised at 9 p.m. They, too, looked tired and ruffled, having spent another round of days with reporters and curiosity-seekers banging on the door of the Inn.

  Strangers to our village! Intruders, not even tourists. Speaking badly of our town. It was funny to me how easily I had stepped into the role of a villager, viewing all people from 'away' as potentially damaging to our peace and quiet. Ironic, considering the fact that I now knew that someone within this village was the source of all the horror over the last few days.

  When Alain arrived to pick us up, there were a few stragglers left. Some parents, including Ruth McEntyer, organized the Grade Eight display, still putting pictures away carefully to save for graduation. A few people helped to clean up the leftover food. One group continued to talk as though they didn't see one another on a daily basis.

  May and I stood in the doorway to the gym, suddenly sighing at the same moment.

  I laughed and put my arm around her shoulders. "May, you go home with Alain. You've done lots more work than I have, and I'm the one who gets paid the big bucks. I'll ask Marj and Bill to take me home."

  May, reluctantly cajoled by Alain into accepting my offer, gave me a hug and was gone. I hadn't wanted May to know, but I had decided I was fine to go on home by myself, even if going into an empty place was a bit daunting. Then I remembered the little four-legged creature who would be there to greet me and I smiled. It was already hard to even remember life without Angel, and she had been with us for only a little over a week.

  I straightened my shoulders and used that one last burst of energy to talk to the remaining parents, help with the food cleanup (not much left over though, I was glad to see), and wave good-bye to the last staff and students.

  "Mrs. Taylor, this was such a great idea," Ruth rambled on, careful not to use my first name in front of the children, as though they didn't know it already. "The community feels so much better. Thank-you for doing this."

  I smiled and mumbled that it had been a combined effort, but Ruth kept right on yammering. I moved closer to Bill and Marj, thanking them for their contribution, trying nicely to dislodge Mrs. McEntyer from my side.

  "Thank-you both so much. This food was delicious—a huge hit. It went a long way to making people feel comfortable. And I know you gave us way more than we paid you for, so don't try to tell me differently."

  "You're welcome, Emily. It's our community and we like to give back where we can," Bill said formally. His face was puffed and red. His eyes were encircled with dark smudges.

  He'd not had much sleep with all their invaders, I thought.

  Ruth McEntyer came up beside him and gave Marj a hug. "You are amazing. Doing this for the school while handling all the extra work at the Inn. We are ever so grateful!"

  I could see Marj trying to politely disentangle herself. Her eyes, too, were puffy and dark with sleeplessness. She looked at me over Ruth's shoulder and I gave her a sympathetic smile.

  Eventually, by about 9:45, the remainder of the people had left, even Ruth McEntyer. Marj and Bill were loading tablecloths and trays into their van, while I turned off lights and locked doors.

  I was coming from my office, having secured everything there. The Percivals were back in the gym, collecting the final remnants of the evening.

  I stopped just outside the doors to the gym.

  One voice was female, high pitched with anxiety, the other male, nervous, shaky, gruff. Gone were the British accents. The flat, understated tones of purely Canadian-born took their place.

  I recognized them at once. The voices from the cottage at the puppy mill.

  They were whispering to one another, but in the cavernous emptiness of the room, their words were clear.

  "She knows. I'm sure she knows. Did you see the way she looked at me?" Almost squeaky, high-pitched, shaking.

  "She doesn't know. She's not looking at you funny. You're falling apart. Get a hold of yourself." He, stiff and formal, anger seething underneath. "She would have told someone by now if she knew. We wouldn't be standing here in the school if she suspected, you ass. She's a goddamn goody two-shoes, you know that. And a bloody busy body on top it all." The sound of a tray banging against the table. "You are going to be responsible for anyone finding out, idiot. You've been acting stupid. If you don't watch out, you will be the one I'll have to get rid of."

  I stood frozen, just on the other side of the door, when they emerged. Frightened, shocked, nauseous, I could not force myself to move.

  Bill and Marjory Percival stood and stared at me, the trays incongruously stacked in their arms. Then suddenly Bill moved, the trays crashed loudly to the tile floor, and his big hand clasped my arm with bruising force.

  "Now she knows, you bloody idiot," he flung back to his wife, who stood shaking, tears flowing down her face, still clutching the detritus of a celebration.

  And still I could not move, could not take a breath, could only stare incredulously at the hand squeezing my arm. When I did breathe, I felt dizzy and ill from the sudden intake of oxygen. My mouth began to work again.

  "Bill, Marjory...how could you? Those puppies, Nathaniel, the pony…" I was stuttering, blithering, not making any sense.

  "Shut the fuck up." Bill Percival's face was flushed with anger and frustration. He was no longer the jovial innkeeper. His eyes flashed with cruelty. He was clearly enraged at this turn of events.

  "If you had kept your mouth shut," he hissed, turning to his wife, who still had not moved or made another sound, "we wouldn't have had to deal with this. And if you had minded your own goddamn business…" He spat at me, too furious to speak further.

  With a shove of his leg, he swept my feet out from under me. I fell hard on the tiles, first my hipbone and then my chin crashing onto the floor. Pain seared up my spine and through my head, forcing my eyes shut and a screech of anguish to come bubbling from my lips. The toe of his boot swung back and struck against my ribs. My breath came swooshing out. Mercifully my consciousness shut down before the second kick reached my pain
centre.

  When I opened my eyes again, I knew that I had never felt such agony before. My chest hurt with the pounding of my heart and the shallow breaths that I was able to gulp.

  Bill was slapping me hard, making my head sear with pain. A ringing began inside that dulled my hearing.

  "Get up, bitch, or you are dead here on the floor of your school like that bastard of a caretaker."

  He yanked on my arms until I was on my hands and knees, trying to get the breath and strength to stand up. I knew somehow that this was what he wanted and that I must obey, but my body screamed at me in protest. My knees gave out once, but suddenly I was upright, trying to keep my eyes open in the fluorescent glare.

  As if she had heard me, Marjory turned off the hall lights, plunging us into the eeriness of the night-time lighting system. Their faces were ugly and smeared with hate, the dim red emergency lights striping their eyes as they moved quickly around either side of me.

  "We'll take her out the back into the van. The lights aren't bright there and there are no houses backing onto the yard. We'll get away, Marj, stop blithering."

  They goose-stepped me down the empty hallway, pinning me close to them with their hips and arms. I shuddered in horror, distaste and discomfort, unable to propel myself without them, toward a new terror that my mind refused to even ponder.

  Bill Percival kept talking the whole way, reassuring his wife, telling her they were going to get away with it, they'd head to the airport straight away, he wouldn't kill me.

  "Marj, it's okay, I don't want more blood on my hands. I didn't even mean to kill Nathaniel, you know that. He just wouldn't listen. And the old man, he deserved it, you know that too, Marj. But if you don't want me to kill this bitch, I won't, I promise. Just stop the crying, please. I can't take it anymore, Marj. You're acting as if I wanted all of this. We'll just put her where they won't find her until we're gone." But I didn't believe him, and I could sense that neither did she.

  Bill shoved the back doors open, where the blackness of the inside of their van yawned in front of us. Marj twisted sideways through the portal, still clasping my arms. I could hear her whimpering and sniffling, could see the tears glistening on her face in the moonlight. My mouth could only handle the tortured breathing. I couldn't ask her why.

  Chapter 27

  "Stop now, Bill." The voice blasted out from the quiet schoolyard, close enough that all three of us jumped. "Don't make it worse than it is."

  And Edgar Brennan stepped around the van, his gun in his hands, pointed at our absurd six-legged team. From the other side, I saw Constable Petapiece, her gun steady and aimed calmly in our direction.

  Amazingly, Bill Percival titled his head back and laughed, his voice echoing absurdly in the still heat of the summer evening. "Edgar, Edgar," he chided, still laughing, "how the hell could it be any worse?"

  He flung my arms away as if I had been clasping him. Marj covered her face with her hands and began to sob loudly.

  Slowly, as if I had been a puppet on strings, I sank to the gravel and lay crumpled there, as Edgar placed Bill and Marj against the sides of the van, their hands high, their legs spread apart, his gun at their backs. At some point, Constable Petapiece encircled me with tender arms, slowly lifting me, and before I was able to think, I found myself sitting in the back seat of an OPP cruiser.

  It seemed no time passed when suddenly there were cars and lights and an ambulance in my little school's yard. Parents and students had flocked back, attracted by the noise and disturbance, and were standing shocked and silent behind a police barrier.

  He had spoken several times before I was able to actually decipher Edgar's words.

  "We were still in the yard, waiting for Bill and Marj and you to leave, talking about everything, just trying to mull the whole case over."

  As if I'd asked him how he'd rescued me, I thought. Had I?

  "Finally, when you seemed to be taking too long, I started to enter from the back doors. That's when I heard and saw you. Bill was confessing his brains out, though he didn't know it at the time. We waited to make sure they didn't appear to have a weapon on you, then out we stepped."

  I think I was intoning thanks, but I'm not sure. Edgar was still holding onto my hand when I was placed on a stretcher and lifted into the ambulance. There was only one other time I had been taken to a hospital this way, and I remembered with deep fear and sorrow that Will hadn't been with me then, either.

  "You mean Langford?" I could hear the puzzlement in Edgar's voice and suddenly I wondered what I had spoken aloud. "I've called his cell phone, Emily. He's on his way. He'll be there at the hospital soon. I have to stay here, get the questions answered, do the paper work. You're in good hands, Em. I'll see you both very soon."

  Later, I remembered only bits and pieces of the trip to the hospital, images and touches and pain. Faces filled with concern and kindness seemed ethereal. Hands and needles and darkness and light swam past, until finally I slept, long, hard, dreamless.

  Langford Taylor, his pepper hair askew on his forehead, his lips touching my hand, his eyes filled with love, was my first image when I awoke. My body felt slack, bruised, but warm and supported. I sighed, drawing a long comforting breath, so filled with gratitude at the life to which I had been returned.

  Will smiled and kissed me gently, then sat on the bed, his hand still clutching mine. Never, never let go.

  "It was Bill and Marj. Langford, can you believe it? Is this real?" Several tears escaped, rolling salty onto my lips.

  Langford shook his head, keeping his eyes on mine. "I know, Emily, I can't believe it either. I haven't got the whole story yet, but Edgar promised he'd come over soon. You've been asleep for about fourteen hours. The doctors said that's what you needed. Luckily, there's no concussion, but a couple of your ribs are broken." His voice stumbled, caught. "That's why it probably hurts to breathe."

  I smiled slowly at him. "Actually, I must be pretty well drugged up. I don't feel too much at all." I gently explored the wrappings around my body with my other hand. "How long do I have to stay here?"

  "Just a couple of days, honey, just to make sure you're healed enough to come home. Then I'll take care of you, Em." A couple of silent tears rolled down my husband's face. "I am so sorry all of this has happened to you. I shouldn't have gone away."

  "Langford, don't. None of it is your fault. Some of it was mine for being so nosy. Curiosity killed the cat, remember." I put my finger on his lips, swiped at the tears. "It's going to be okay, that's what matters."

  I moved myself slowly and carefully over to the other side of the bed and Langford gingerly lay down beside me, his head on my shoulder, our arms wrapped around each other.

  We stayed that way until a nurse cleared her throat from the foot of the bed and then I endured a round of pokes, prods, and temperature gauging. She brought us both hot soup and coffee, which we gratefully sipped as we talked and smiled at each other.

  The dishes had just been taken away when Edgar Brennan knocked and came into the room, his arms full of flowers.

  "You might as well be prepared, Emily. Stephanie said their shop has been inundated with requests for bouquets for you. I think we'll have to get you a bigger room."

  "My hero!" I beamed, taking his hands in mine. "Edgar, I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am."

  Edgar Brennan actually blushed. "Just doin' my job, ma'am," he chuckled, pulling up an empty chair and sitting. "But I must say, it was just dumb luck that Frances and I had stayed there. It wasn't like we had a premonition or anything. I was just nervous about everything that had happened, and to tell you the truth, I thought it more likely we might be invaded by reporters wandering into the school while it was still open. Frances was the one who suggested we stay until everyone had cleared out. We had parked at the other side of the school, so I guess Bill presumed everyone was gone. His lips were sure loose enough! I actually overheard everything, including his confessing to killing Nathaniel. Do you feel like hearing
the whole sordid story, Emily? Langford?"

  We both nodded our heads vigorously. I settled back to listen, but not before registering the fact that Constable Petapiece had become 'Frances' and that her name had been mentioned several times. Edgar had been a widower for a number of years now. I wondered if he might be interested in another woman at last. Didn't he say that they had been 'parked' outside the school?

  "Percival has been working the puppy mill for a lot of years, even before he married Marjory and bought the Inn," Edgar told us, obviously distancing himself by never again referring to the innkeeper as 'Bill'. "It seems they did this kind of business in Great Britain. Though they're not actually English. They're from parts unknown at the moment, but England must've been where they learned those accents. Percival is a first class creep. We're checking into his record from London and I have no doubt there will be some pretty interesting stuff. It gets worse, though."

  "Even before the puppy mill, apparently Percival and his cronies had had some kind of club going. It makes me shudder to think of it. Our little town, surrounded by sickos who wanted to abuse animals. A few years ago, apparently Ryeburn convinced Percival that to continue with the club was too dangerous. There were a lot of mental deficients who had found out about them and visited there. Who could trust them not to tell? Besides, both Ryeburn and Percival had decided to quit their disgusting habits. He said it as if they were quitting smoking or something for heaven's sake!"

  Edgar had to stop here and get his breath. All three of us sat open-mouthed at the depravity of the human soul.

  "So instead they opted for the more lucrative business of selling dogs to unsuspecting pet shop owners. Marj claims she hadn't a clue about the bestiality club. She claims she came into the picture with the puppy mill. But apparently she was quite happy to be the salesperson. Whenever she went into the cities supposedly to buy supplies for the Inn, she cheerfully sold dogs to various pet shops. Of course some of the shop owners were a little reluctant to admit that they'd bought from her. They probably suspected all along, but we've found a couple who are truly horrified and who are willing to testify that Marj Percival was their sales agent."