Once Upon a Crime

by Mona Marple

  Before she even realised what she was doing, she turned and walked away. Footsteps behind her showed that she was being followed. She increased her speed, so did her assailant. She broke into a light run.

  “Wait!” The voice called behind her, but she had no intentions of doing as he called. She looped back to the village square, let herself in the shop and locked the door behind her, then dived behind the counter. Her heart was racing. She set her phone to charge on the charger that was always left, but never used, next to the till. She would hide out in the shop until her phone was charged enough for her to ask Coral or Cass to come out and fetch her; they wouldn’t mind.

  After ten minutes, her heart rate had returned to normal. She was considering turning on a small light and making herself a mug of mocha, but was disturbed by a loud shout from outside. Peeking around the corner of the counter she saw, in the middle of the village square underneath a lamppost, her friend Cass. Sandy jumped to her feet, ready to call out and offer her friend help, but before she could reach the door, she saw another woman follow Cass.

  “It was a mistake!” The woman called into the empty square. Sandy attempted to get a clear look at the woman but she was in darkness. All she could tell for sure was that it was a female voice.

  “It’s always a mistake. It was always a mistake.” Cass said, her own voice quieter.

  “He was a fool! But maybe we can be together now.”

  “I need time to think,” Cass said. “It’s gone so far now. I’ve lied because of you.”

  “I know, Cassie. I’m sorry.”

  Hearing the nickname sent a shiver down Sandy’s spine. Nobody called her best friend Cassie. Who was this mysterious woman?

  The woman turned and walked away. Cass dropped to the ground by the lamppost and covered her face with her hands. Sandy ached to run out and comfort her oldest friend, but couldn’t give away her cover. Whatever she had just witnessed, she shouldn't have.

  “Aargh!”

  The loud cry made Sandy jump. The unknown woman had returned to the middle of the square, closer to Cass than she had been before.

  “Just go,” Cass said, and Sandy recognised that her friend was crying. “We can’t be seen together.”

  The woman stepped into the light for a moment, opened Cass’ hands and placed something into them, then turned and ran into the night.

  Not wanting to attract any attention to herself, Sandy moved away from the cafe windows and settled herself on a beanbag in the children’s section of the bookshop where she spent an unsettled night with little sleep.

  **

  The loud rapping on the door of the cafe roused Sandy out of her slumber. The bright sun shone in through the windows, hurting her eyes.

  She wiped her eyes, walked into the staff toilet and gave her face a quick wash, sniffed at her armpits and straightened her ponytail, and heard yet more banging on the door.

  “I’m coming,” Sandy called, wondering how late she had slept.

  An unknown man in a long coat, holding a tall umbrella in his hand, stood at the front door. Her assailant.

  “Who is it?” She asked.

  He reached into his pocket, and fearing the worst, Sandy stepped away.

  “DC Sullivan, can you let me in? It’s windy out here.” He said, holding up his ID badge.

  “DC Sullivan?” Sandy repeated, unbolting the door. The man was too young to work a murder case.

  “Yes, that’s me. Sandy Shaw, is that your real name?”

  “Yes.” She said, trying not to sound annoyed. The jokes about her and her sister’s seaside names had stopped being amusing years ago.

  “You’re a hard woman to find.”

  “Really? I can’t imagine I’m…”

  “I posted a note through your door yesterday morning asking you to call the station, and then when I saw you last night, you turned and ran.”

  “So it was you last night? You unnerved me, a man in the dark following me.”

  The officer sighed. “Yes, I realised that. That’s why I didn’t chase you. You shouldn’t be walking around on your own especially down deserted roads at nighttime.”

  “I realised it wasn’t my best idea.” Sandy realised the officer had been looking for, and must still want to speak to her. “Do you want a coffee?”

  “Oh, no. I can’t speak to you here. I’ll need you to come down the station.”

  “Now?” Sandy asked, horrified.

  “Later will be fine. It must be today. Come straight from work.”

  “Ok. Yes, I will. Are you sure I can’t make you a drink to go, for your drive in?”

  “I’m sure, thank you. Goodbye for now.” DC Sullivan said, then turned and left the shop. Sandy grabbed her bag and left after him, locking the door behind her. She’d never opened the shop without having had a shower and wasn’t about to start now, so she walked as fast as she could and let herself in her little cottage, bolting the door behind her. With the bathroom door bolted as well, she had the quickest shower she had ever had, being careful not to wet her hair. She was ready in record speed, dressed in her favourite pair of baggy jeans and an “I Love Waterfell Tweed” t-shirt that she had bought from the school two years ago as part of another fundraiser. She grabbed her rain mac and left the house, driving back to the shop. Her walking days were over, for now.

  “What time do you call this?” Dorie asked, standing outside the door.

  “Sorry, sorry!” Sandy apologised, unlocking the door. Dorie planted herself in her normal seat and picked up the menu which seemed unnecessary considering how long she had been a customer.

  “Do you have any of those vegetarian sausages?” Dorie asked.

  “What? Well, yes, I do… do you want one?”

  “Ooh no. I’ll get a full English today and a pot of tea.”

  “Coming right up,” Sandy said, trying to hide her confusion.

  Sandy disappeared into the kitchen and set the sausage, bacon, and egg to fry. As they cooked, she checked the cake supply from the day before. There should be enough. She was annoyed with how much the DC had unsettled her; all to tick her off his list of villagers he hadn’t spoken to yet.

  By the time she heard the bell of the door being opened and reappeared into the cafe, Elaine Peters had already sat down next to Dorie.

  “Good morning, Elaine.” Sandy said, pleased to see her neighbour continue to get out and about. “What can I get you?”

  “I’ll have a veggie breakfast please, Sandy.” Elaine said, her cheeks still flushed from the battering cold winds outside.

  “Of course.” Sandy said, hiding her surprise and returning to the kitchen. If Dorie, a fierce meat eater, had enquired about vegetarian sausages and Elaine was a vegetarian, this must be a planned meeting. Sandy hadn’t thought the two had anything to do with each other.

  She hung back near the counter and pretended to be checking tea bags.

  “I can’t believe I did that to him.” Elaine whispered.

  “It’s for the best. I wish I’d been brave enough myself.” Dorie said.

  Sandy dropped the tub of tea bags on the floor where the ceramic pot had its fall broken by her big toe. “Ah!”

  “Oh my, Sandy, are you ok?” Elaine called, up from her seat. She hovered on the other side of the counter, not one to enter a restricted space without permission.

  “I’m so careless, sorry ladies. I’ll be fine.” She said and forced a smile. Dorie hadn’t stood from her seat but was watching with curiosity.

  Elaine gave a half-smile, nodded, and returned to the table where she and Dorie sat in silence until Sandy was out of earshot. Sandy tried to forget the conversation she had heard, and busied herself with preparing the two breakfasts.

  When she returned out front, Dorie and Elaine were sitting on separate tables. Dorie smiled and accepted her breakfast as normal, but Elaine’s eyes were red and puffy and she nodded at Sandy.

  “Do you want a tea or coffee?” Sandy asked, realising that her customer ha
dn’t ordered a drink.

  Elaine shook her head, took a crisp £5 out of her purse and placed it on the table, and then pushed her chair back and left the cafe. When Sandy turned to Dorie, the older woman was concentrating on cutting her sausage.

  Sandy picked up Elaine’s plate, and her money, and returned behind the counter.

  The bell rang again and in walked Cass.

  “Hey, hun, can I get a cappuccino to go? My kettle’s bust.” Cass asked.

  “Sure. How are you?”

  “Oh, you know… same old.”

  “Do anything last night?” Sandy asked, attempting to sound nonchalant.

  “Nah, just stayed in and watched rubbish on the TV.” Cass said.

  Sandy pictured her friend in the square, arguing with a mystery woman, and shook her head.

  “You ok?”

  “Yeah,” Sandy said. “Just had a chill rush over me.”

  Cass left with the cappuccino and, for the first time since she’d known her, Sandy was pleased to see her leave.

  “She’s a strange one,” Dorie called from her chair.

  “We’re all strange ones,” Sandy said in reply. It was the peacekeeping thing she always tried to say, not wanting to involve herself in the village gossip, but she realised this morning that she really meant the words. She was learning increasingly, since Reginald Halfman died, that most of the villagers had a secret or two.

  **

  The rest of the day raced by, especially since Sandy ran out of cakes at 2 pm and had to apologise to everyone who came in afterward and offer them a savoury alternative. She could, if she’d had a staff member at work, have gone into the kitchen and made something from scratch, but with a killer on the loose, she didn’t want to turn her back on the counter more than she had to.

  One woman, a regular whose name Sandy had never known, opted for a caramel latte to get her sweet treat. Several others sat with only a drink while a couple even browsed around the bookshelves and bought new reading material when they couldn’t buy a cake. Ordinarily, those latter people would have made Sandy delight, but she was too distracted by her upcoming meeting with DC Sullivan.

  She’d been in the police station before and suspected most locals had. A village police station wasn’t like what she imagined a city police station to be. It was a spoke in the community, just like every other business or organisation. Anyone doing a sponsored cake bake would traipse into the police station and cajole the officers to buy. Similarly, people would often wander in just for a chat, and parents would take their small children in to make them familiar with police so they didn’t grow up scared of law enforcement, or to ask a police officer to tell them off for some minor wrongdoing.

  Sandy didn’t go in the station as often as some people did (Dorie Slaughter almost lived there when Jim was on duty - checking he wasn’t too cold, checking what he wanted her to make him for dinner, telling him not to be late home). A few years earlier a child had gone missing, and the police had launched a huge manhunt; the child was found safe and well in a derelict shop hours after he should have returned home from school, and the police went down as quick-thinking heroes. Sandy couldn’t help thinking that in her day, she was still playing or dawdling down by the river that long after school on many nights without the police being alerted, but she knew that times had changed. She had baked a Victoria sponge and walked it across to the station to present to the officers.

  She locked the shop at 5 pm and walked across the village square and down High Street to the station and announced herself at the check in desk, where Jim Slaughter sat, reading a magazine.

  “Busy?” She asked, indicating the magazine.

  Jim shrugged. “Quieter than normal. They’re keeping all the murder work to themselves.”

  “They?”

  “Sullivan and his team.”

  “That must be frustrating,” Sandy said. “I thought there’d be plenty of work to go around on such a big case.”

  “Nah, I’d be scared of doing something wrong, anyway. It’s nice to have a bit of quiet time.”

  “Ah, Sandy Shaw, you made it.” DC Sullivan called, appearing in the check-in area. “Follow me.”

  While Sandy had been in the station before, she’d never gone past the reception space. DC Sullivan led her into a tiny, uninteresting corridor with two doors off each side and two faded posters dotted along the wall. He opened the door to Room 3 and gestured for her to take a seat at the table.

  “Drink?”

  “Tea would be nice, please.” She asked. He nodded and left the room, returning a few minutes later with two styrofoam cups of tea.

  “So, if we can get down to it. I want to speak to you about Reginald Halfman, and your whereabouts on the night of his murder. I’m not cautioning you because you’re not under suspicion, I’m speaking to you as a witness.”

  “Ok.”

  “Tell me how you knew Mr Halfman?”

  “He was a regular customer in my shop; it’s a cafe and bookshop. He would come in twice a week or so.”

  “Would you say you knew him well?”

  “Not really. He was quite a character, so the things I knew about him were things he announced to the whole of the shop, not things he told me. He took out adverts in the newspaper, too, to announce things.”

  “What things?”

  “Donations he had made, places he had been, that kind of thing.”

  “What did he do for work?”

  Sandy frowned. “I have no idea,.”

  “That surprises you?”

  “I never realised before. He had, erm, independent money.”

  “Like inheritance or money he had earned?”

  “I couldn’t tell you.”

  “Can you think of anyone who may have reason to want him dead?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure, Miss Shaw?” He asked, smirking at his play on her surname.

  “Yes, I’m sure. He was an odd person, detective, and I can’t say he won everyone over, but I can’t imagine why anyone would want to kill him.”

  “Ok.” DC Sullivan said. “And the last time you saw him?”

  “The day he was killed. He came into my cafe, alone.”

  “And?”

  Sandy took a deep breath. “He stood on one of my cafe tables and announced to everyone there that in a week’s time he would open a shop right across the square, a cafe and bookshop that would be much better than mine.”

  DC Sullivan looked across at her. “How did that make you feel?”

  “I was angry.” Sandy admits.

  “Surely anyone can start a business, even here in this little village. What did you have to be angry about?”

  “I realised I didn’t have any right to be angry… as soon as Reginald was killed, I realised that.”

  “Interesting choice of words.” DC Sullivan said.

  “What? Oh, I obviously didn’t kill him, I meant it gave perspective. There I was upset with my friend and my business and a man was killed.”

  “Why a friend? You didn’t describe Reginald as a friend earlier.”

  “No, not him. He owed me no loyalty. But the shop he was taking over was the shop of my friend, Cass Zuniper. I was upset that she hadn’t told me first.”

  “I see. And where were you, on the evening that Reginald was killed?”

  “I was at the shop, then I closed up, went for a walk, and then drove home. I live alone, and I fell asleep in front of the TV. My sister arrived as soon as she heard the news, and she stayed overnight with me.”

  “So nobody can corroborate your account until after the murder?”

  “I guess not.” Sandy admitted.

  “Ok, thanks for your time, Miss Shaw.”

  5

  Sandy woke early the next morning after a fitful night’s sleep.

  She padded down the stairs in her slippers and into her kitchen, making herself a rich coffee to wake her up. She had asked Bernice to open the shop and make some of her most popular
cakes to apologise to the customers who had gone without the day before. Bernice had been delighted to be asked and happy to help, leaving Sandy looking forward to a small lie in that she was frustrated hadn’t materialised.

  She took the coffee into her living room and sat in her reading chair, tucking her legs beneath her and pulling her dressing gown around her body. The house was always cold in the morning because she wasn’t there long enough to make it worth putting the heating on for.

  It was nice to have time to sit and enjoy a hot drink, something you don’t get to do when it’s your job to give other people those bursts of time for themselves.

  Her mind kept returning to the interview the day before, how DC Sullivan had asked for corroboration for her account of where she had been. Sandy prided herself on being an honest person; she’d never thought or expected that her own word wouldn’t be enough to be believed.

  But then, the city police were used to dealing with people much less honest. They had to follow systems, not hunches. Everyone was a potential liar. A potential murderer. What a sad way to view the world.

  Sandy decided that she would bake a cake for the police, to thank them for their hard work on the case. It couldn’t be easy for them.

  She jumped up and got herself dressed, pouring the rest of her coffee away and washing the cup.

  She opened her door, grabbed her bag and screamed at the top of her lungs.

  Lying face down on the path outside her house was her best friend, Cass.

  **

  The police arrived before the ambulance, and for a few moments, Sandy and DC Sullivan stood around Cass, not having enough medical knowledge to do anything other than look at her. Then the ambulance arrived, and the paramedics sprung into action.

  “How old is she?”

  “31.”

  “Any allergies, medical conditions?”

  “No… not that I know of, no.”

  The paramedics, two men Sandy had never seen before, chatted with themselves then in shorthand that Sandy didn’t understand. She watched the scene unfold as if it were happening to someone else, noticing that her body was shaking.