The Hound of Bar Harborville (A Jane True Short Story) (Trueniverse Book 1)

by Nicole Peeler

  She laughed, putting her hands on either side of my face to draw me down into a kiss. “And that’s why I love you, you giant wierdo.”

  We’d walked up the stairs we’d found to find ourselves right next to the bedroom we’d been staying in. The secret door explained how Timmy had been able to disappear on me so quickly, and also began to explain how Jack(ques) had ended up in our bed.

  “So Aisha has some sort of connection to Jack that may or may not be innocent, and whoever put Jack in our bed probably did it by sneaking him out of the conservatory, up the secret stairs in the kitchen, and into our room.”

  “All while you were coming down the other way,” Jane said with a shudder.

  “And you were in the bathroom.” I didn’t like that last idea at all.

  I looked to the room we were staying in right now, just across the hall. “I’m feeling I didn’t protect you very well that night. It makes me feel sad and vulnerable. So maybe we should go have sex.”

  “You are pathetic,” she said, shaking her head. “We’re not done yet with our work.”

  “This isn’t work,” I reminded her. “This is a hare-brained scheme. It’s a Scooby-Doo episode. You and those crazy kids.”

  She shook her head. “Nuh-uh. This is justice. Something evil happened here and we must uncover what it is.”

  “You just want to win our wager and break my hip.”

  She flashed me an evil grin. “I will have my way with you!”

  “Now you sound like you’re the one in a Harlequin romance,” I warned her, but she wasn’t listening.

  “Let’s knock on Kitsy’s door,” she said. “See if she’s in.”

  I trailed after, beginning to accept that we weren’t having sex until we figured out who left Jack in our bed, and why. It was a sad revelation, but I figured we only had two more people to talk to before it became apparent who was the culprit.

  This hadn’t been the work of a criminal mastermind, and someone would fess up soon.

  Wouldn’t they?

  Kitsy answered the door almost immediately, as if she’d been waiting for someone. But she definitely hadn’t been expecting us, as her crestfallen expression intimated.

  “Oh. Hello,” she said. “I was just about…”

  “May we come in and talk?” Jane interrupted, not letting her finish. Kitsy glared daggers at Jane before she remembered she was supposed to be a polite woman of society.

  “Of course. Just for a minute, however, as I’m due at a friend’s.”

  “We understand,” Jane said. “This should only take a few seconds…oh my gosh!”

  Both Kitsy and I jumped at Jane’s exclamation. She was pointing at Kitsy’s ring.

  “Your stone is gone!”

  Kitsy looked down in surprise. “Shit,” she swore, not sounding at all lady-like. The she looked around the room.

  “There it is,” she said, bending down to pick something up off the floor near the comfy chair shoved in one corner of the room. Sure enough, the diamond was glittering in her palm a second later.

  “The setting’s loose,” she said, almost apologetically. She set the stone back in and fiddled with the ring. “There. That should stay.”

  Jane was staring at her in open-mouthed wonder and I wasn’t sure what my love would have done if Kitsy hadn’t picked up her pocketbook and headed toward the door.

  “As I said, I do have a social obligation. If you’ll excuse me…”

  We trailed behind her, and she gave us a brief, tight smile before heading down the hall.

  “You don’t plop a diamond the size of your knuckle back in its setting and stroll away,” I said, watching the woman’s retreating figure.

  “No,” Jane said. “No, you don’t.” Then she gave me a look as confused as I felt.

  What the hell was going on here?

  “We have to talk to Timmy,” I said, watching Jane brush her hair before we left our room after lunch. We’d nipped out for a bite down the street and I’d hoped to coax Jane into staying out longer, but she was on a mission.

  A mission I hoped to end quickly, so we could do other things with the word “mission” in them. At least as a warm-up.

  And speaking of missions…I went into stealth mode when I saw her eyes unfocus in thought.

  “Yes, we definitely have to talk to Timmy,” Jane said.

  “Jack was a big guy,” I said, creeping a few steps closer.

  “Yup.”

  “He needed carrying.” Creep, creep, creep.

  She set down her brush. “The women could have done it if they worked together, at least two of them, but I can’t see any one of them tossing Jack over her shoulder and carrying him upstairs. The police said Timmy lives in the carriage house…”

  With that, I pounced, scooping her up into my arms and then tossing her onto the bed before lunging after her.

  “Now I have you where I want you…” My lips and then teeth found her neck just where I knew drove her crazy, and her back arched and she melted against me.

  We made out like teenagers until suddenly she stiffened.

  “Do you hear that?”

  I went back to my nibbling, but she was having none of it and poked me hard in the ribs. “Anyan, do you hear that?”

  “It’s just Timmy vacuuming,” I said, listening to the swish of the machine and hearing a repetitive “okay,” like a litany. “We saw him with it earlier.”

  “Exactly,” she said, her eyes shining. “He’s not at home. We should snoop.”

  “I’ve got all the snooping I want right here,” I said, kissing her cleavage as I moved down her body.

  She laughed but pushed me away. “The sooner we clear this mess up, the sooner one of us wins that wager.” Her eyebrows waggled at me. “And the sooner you will be servicing me like the queen I am.”

  “I could service you now,” I said. “I think my hip is stronger. I think we should forget the wager. I lost. I can just go ahead and do your thing, if you’re gentle…” I nudged her knees apart with mine and tried to pin her with my weight, but she twisted out of my grip like a…well, like a seal.

  “Nuh-uh, mister,” she said, her eyes sparkling as she popped up next to the bed. “We have a bet, and you know I never lose. Now come on.”

  I groaned but did as she said, adjusting my jeans with a sorrowful expression she refused to acknowledge. Jane was in it to win it.

  So I held out my elbow, which she grasped like a girl latching onto her swain to be led out on a date at the movies, not a date to track down a maybe-murderer and probable body-mover.

  The carriage house had been converted into a garage, but there was a second story that must be where Timmy lived. We went up the wooden stairs that led to an aluminum house door. It was so flimsy that when I knocked and it opened, I thought I’d used too much muscle, but the door must have been open a smidge. I wasn’t that strong, nor was I fool enough to barge through a door that was open where it should have been shut, at least without good reason.

  “Hello?” I called into the apartment, pushing Jane firmly behind me. I didn’t create any magical artillery for fear of scaring the humans, although I did gather it to me, just in case.

  No answer from inside the apartment. I called out again. “Hello?”

  When all that answered us was more silence, I crept through the door, trying my best to keep Jane behind me. She was absolute rubbish at keeping her safe, however, and as usual was managing to skirt my hands and wander off toward what was almost guaranteed to be certain danger.

  The apartment was small, just two rooms—a kitchen/lounge area and a tiny bedroom. All were empty.

  “Anyan, look at this.”

  On the table was an album of photos, with newspaper clippings sticking out of the very back. The photos were of two smiling boys, one was hulking and one very slight. A woman’s handwriting underneath read “Timothy and Clark, aged two.” Timmy’s mouth hung open, but Clark’s eyes were sharp on the camera. More photos of the boys,
all of them together and, at least in the oldest photos, all of them in matching outfits. In all the pictures, Timmy clung to Clark, even though Timmy towered over the smaller boy and probably outweighed him by another small child.

  “Timmy was a twin?” Jane mused.

  “Fraternal, if so,” I said.

  A later photo showed the boys with their whole family. Again, this one was labeled. Regina and Stuart were the unsmiling, serious-looking parents. There were the twins at probably about five, Timmy still clutching his younger brother. A line of drool showed on Timmy’s chin and his eyes were as soft and unfocused as they were now. Next to the twins sat a much older boy—a young man, really. The name written next to him was “Jack”.

  “Timmy was Jack’s younger brother?” Jane said.

  “Looks like it. What are those clippings?”

  Jane pulled one out, the paper dull with age. It was from a newspaper in San Francisco. Jane’s forehead wrinkled as she read.

  “Oh, how sad,” she said, ignoring my attempts to grab the newspaper away so I could see for myself. “How very sad.”

  “What?” I asked, impatiently.

  “It looks like Timmy Georged his brother,” she said.

  “Georged?”

  “You know, Steinbeck. ‘I will hug him and pet him and squeeze him and call him George.’”

  “Isn’t that the Abominable Snowman?”

  Jane glared at me. “Anyway, Timmy Georged Clark when they were six. Squeezed him to death one night during a storm when he got scared.”

  “Ugh. How awful. What happened to the kid?” My heart went out to the big galoot who’d schlepped around our suitcases.

  Jane sorted through more clippings. “Says here he wasn’t charged, but the parents agreed to put him in the loony bin.”

  “Well, he did squeeze his brother to death…”

  “Poor nuggets,” Jane said. “Both of them.”

  “And somehow he ended up living with Jack.”

  “Who died in the conservatory and ended up naked in our bedroom.”

  “But Jack didn’t die of squeezing. He died of a heart attack.”

  “Hmm,” Jane said, obviously caught up in Timmy’s story and repeating herself. “Poor nuggets.”

  She closed the album gently and together we left Timmy’s, walking slowly down his wooden steps toward the big house. Jane stopped near one of the small ornamental gardens and sat down on a bench. I joined her.

  “Now is the time on Miss Marple when we go over the facts,” Jane said. “And the killer should become apparent.”

  So we went over the facts.

  “There was a rose petal on Aisha’s shoe,” I said.

  “Yes. She could have picked it up when she put the body in our bed.”

  “Or if she helped clean that room after he was taken away.”

  “Damn,” Jane said. “Kitsy has a fake rock on her finger and keeps creeping on Aisha.”

  “Kitsy could like fake jewelry.”

  “No, she told me it was a family heirloom.”

  “Well, maybe it is a family heirloom in a safe-deposit somewhere and she wears a fake to keep it safe. Don’t rich people do that?”

  Jane’s lips twitched in a smile. “I don’t know any rich people,” she said. “Except for you.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “So we have a not-so-grieving widow, a crushed rose petal, a fake ring, a guy who Georged his brother as a kid, and absolutely nothing else,” she said.

  I nodded. “And a partridge in a pear tree.”

  She ignored me. “We suck at this.”

  “Yes, we do,” I told her. “Which is why we should go up to our room and bone it out.”

  “Bone it out?” Jane’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

  “It’s therapy,” I assured her.

  “Bone it out,” she repeated.

  “Right out. Seriously, Jane. If we don’t have sex soon, I may actually explode.”

  She giggled, but then her laughter stopped and she put a hand on my cheek. “You mean it, don’t you?”

  “This is our vacation,” I said, my voice that of a man falsely accused and imprisoned for it. “Without our children. We get to have sex, and we haven’t. I think I am seriously going to die.”

  That small hand stroked my cheek, then over my jaw, her tiny thumb resting on my lips. “You mean it?” she repeated.

  “What the hell are you talking about, do I mean it? Yes, I mean it. I am actually going to explode, Jane. And not in the fun way that I want to. But like a Gremlin in sunlight.”

  Her eyes went full baby seal, staring at me pathetically. “You mean you still want me?”

  “What?” I asked, feeling like I just heard a record screech. “What are you talking about?”

  “I did just have twins.” Her hands closed protectively over her belly. I pulled them away, kissing her wrists and resisting the urge to tell her she was out of her fucking mind for thinking I could ever, even for a split second, not find her attractive.

  “I want you all the time,” I said instead. “And now I want you even more, which I didn’t think could be possible.”

  “Really?” she asked, those black eyes shining wetly.

  “Really.” I pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. “Can we bone it out now?”

  She shook her head, blinking back her tears and laughing. “No, not yet, but that does give me an idea.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her.

  “Pretty soon you’re mine,” she said. “Because we’re going to solve this case right now.”

  I raised my eyebrows at her and she stood, holding out her hand.

  “C’mon, puppy. It’s time to go full Poirot on them.”

  An hour later, all the parties were assembled in the cozy lounge area, settled on the two sofas and comfy chair that boxed in the fireplace set at one end of the room.

  Edeet! sat in the comfy chair directly across from the fireplace, while Timmy sat by himself in the center of one of the sofas, taking up enough room for three people. Kitsy and Aisha perched on the other sofa. Jane and I stood on either side of the fireplace.

  “What is this about, exactly?” Kitsy said, looking between the two of us curiously.

  Jane straightened her spine, gazing at each person in turn before speaking. “It’s about Jack…and who murdered him.”

  Aisha made a strangled noise and Kitsy glared at her, while Edeet!’s eyes went round as saucers. Timmy still sat, slack-jawed, a thin line of spittle running down his chin.

  “No one murdered him!” Edeet! sputtered, her face growing red. “He had a heart attack! It is what the police said!”

  “Yes,” drawled Jane. “But who says his heart attack wasn’t on purpose?”

  “That’s absurd,” said Kitsy, sitting with the rigid posture of an ice queen. Or a Bostonian. “Jack died of natural causes.”

  “And then walked his corpse up to our bedroom?” I asked, causing everyone to look away, including Timmy.

  “Look,” Jane said. “Maybe his death was an accident. But it was pretty startling to find him in my bed like that. I just want to know the truth, that’s all.”

  “I have no idea how he got there,” Edeet! said, still looking flustered.

  “Nor do we,” Kitsy said, indicating Aisha. Jane glanced at me, noticing the “we” as well. Why was Kitsy speaking for the girl?

  “Well, then maybe you can clear up some other stuff,” Jane said.

  “Like what?” Aisha said. “This is bullshit. I don’t have to listen to this.” The girl stood, but before she could stomp off, Jane dropped her first bomb.

  “One question we have is why you had a rose petal, like the ones in our room the night Jack was found there, stuck to your shoe.”

  Everyone looked at Aisha, who shook her head. “Nuh-uh. That means nothing. I had to clean the room after they took away the…the body. Plus there were rose petals all over that hallway with the cops coming in and out, and I cleaned that too.”

  “Ca
n we stop this charade now?” Kitsy said, pulling Aisha down on to the couch where the girl gripped her hand.

  “Speaking of charades,” I said. “How about that ring on your finger?”

  This time Kitsy turned beet red. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s not real,” Jane said, gently. “That was obvious when it fell out and you didn’t even notice.”

  Kitsy sputtered. “Nonsense! Of course it’s real! This diamond has been in my family for generations!”

  Edeet! snorted, then paled when we all looked at her.

  “Is there something you’d like to say, Mrs. Dupont?” Jane asked. Kitsy glared daggers at Edeet!.

  “Mais non,” Edeet! said, giving Kitsy the heavy-lidded, smug stare of a cat caught knocking over the milk jug.

  Jane’s brow wrinkled in consternation and the tip of her pink tongue licked out, wetting her lips.

  I snapped like a twig.

  “This is ridiculous,” I said, turning to Jane. “At this point I don’t even care about the thing. I just want you. Any way I can get you. The thing can wait. I’m done.”

  I turned to Edeet! and bombed her with a glamour strong enough to cross her eyes. “Tell me what happened that night.” I widened the net of my power, a coercive force that demanded the truth. “All of you, tell us what happened.”

  They began babbling in chorus and I bit back a curse. “One at a time!” I bellowed. Jane looked on in amusement. I pointed to Edeet!. “You first.”

  “The truth is that my husband had a heart attack,” she said.

  “Because you’re a damned thief!” Kitsy bellowed, all trace of the East Coast, buttoned-up matriarch thrown out the window.

  “I can’t steal what is mine!” Edeet! sprang to her feet as she shouted. “And that diamond was ours!”

  Jane mouth formed an O as she listened intently. Now we were getting somewhere.

  Kitsy also sprang to her feet, stalking toward the Edeet!. “That diamond was my daughter’s. It was my family’s. Your husband swore this piece of paste was it.” At this, Kitsy tugged off the huge diamond ring she wore, throwing it at Edeet!’s feet. As if to punctuate her statement, the stone fell out of its setting. “Fool that I was, I believed him! But he always was a con artist!”