The Butler Didn't Do It (A Maddox Storm Mystery Book 2)

by Claire Robyns

  EIGHT

  While we’d been upstairs, most of the GRIMMS had scattered far and wide.

  “Mr Sash walked into town and Mr Sitter is measuring time laps to the hanging tree,” Burns told us, the nearly-muted words skimming over his lips like a summer breeze.

  “Time laps?” Nate queried.

  “You do not want to know,” Burns assured him. “I haven’t seen Mr Mayer in a while, but he did make enquires about the walking trail and the Parkers have taken a rowing boat out on the lake.”

  My eyes widened. “We have a rowing boat?”

  “Several.” Burns settled a strongly suggestive look on me. “And one that’s motorized for our less athletically inclined guests.”

  “Are you implying I don’t have the stamina to pull oars?”

  “I wouldn’t dare, Ms Storm.” He smoothed his jacket down and drifted away.

  “At least I don’t have a compulsive napping disorder,” I grumbled, to myself apparently since Nate appeared to have deserted my side.

  He returned to the lounge a minute later with Jack in tow. “No need to hunt them down,” he was telling Jack, “but gather them up as and when they wander through.”

  “If they resist?” Jack asked

  “We’re not placing them under arrest, Spinner.” Nate had that look of endless patience on his face, the one reserved for troublesome witnesses and, it would seem, rookie-green cops. “Tell them I’m conducting interviews and it would be helpful if they stayed close.”

  “Okay.” Jack noticed me and gave a small wave.

  “Hey, Jack.” I stepped between him and Nate and tipped forward to whisper, “If you get bored waiting around, Charles Sitter is doing something with time laps by the hanging tree. Could be worth checking out.”

  Nate’s hands landed on my hips from behind and set me firmly aside so he could look Jack in the eye. “Or you could remember that I’m the lead detective on this case.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jack said at once.

  Nate took me by the arm and led me away. “Did you just counter my direct instructions?”

  “I’m being useful.”

  “You’re interfering.”

  I dug my heels in, bringing us to a blinding halt. “Aren’t you the least bit interested in what Charles is up to?”

  “He’s estimating the time frames to carry Lydia Fieldman to the tree, taking into account each suspect’s strength and leg span,” Nate drawled. “And no, I’m not interested in his findings because the vic wasn’t carried or dragged, she walked there on her own two feet.”

  I stared at him. “That wasn’t on the whiteboard.”

  “Not everything goes on the whiteboard, Maddox.”

  “Then how on earth am I supposed to help?”

  He didn’t say it, but the pointed look he gave me did. My helpful efforts were not exactly his top priority.

  “Fine,” I said coolly, “but storing stuff inside your head doesn’t seem very efficient, especially with your poor memory.”

  “My poor memory?”

  “See?” I threw my hands up, point made. “You told me yourself, that’s why you like to jot everything down in that notepad of yours.”

  “Are we done?” Nate sighed. “I’d like to start the interviews.”

  We were far from done. “You know for sure Lydia Fieldman walked out there herself?”

  “There was a single set of footprints, indicating she’d left the house via the front entrance. Forensics confirmed the match.”

  My head spun. “What are you saying? That this was a suicide?”

  “We’ve ruled out suicide,” Nate said. “But we do know the killer arrived separately and probably met her there.”

  “They found another set of footprints?”

  “They found another dozen sets of footprints,” Nate reminded me. “Every single person in the house made their way up along the lake last night.”

  “Wait…” I rubbed my brow, trying to pinpoint what was niggling me, then it came. “But one set would have led back, right? I mean, Mason and Jenna were already there, but I saw everyone else arrive afterwards, so the killer had to have gone back to the house and then returned later with the others.”

  “I thought of that,” Nate said. “That’s why I had Spinner lead your group back to the house last night. He made sure to keep everyone on a clear path. But the ground along the shore was already too messed with all the footprints and tire tracks. Forensics couldn’t pull anything out for us.”

  Frustration punched my gut. “Doesn’t that just eat at you? We could have had the killer.”

  “I doubt it.” Nate started moving again, crossing the lounge to the French doors. “These people take their sleuthing seriously; they even have a damned society for it. If our killer is a GRIMMS member, which is what I’m thinking, then he—or she—would have taken everything into consideration. They likely removed their shoes and padded through the shallow water on the return journey.”

  “Ella Parker,” I exclaimed. “She jumped into the lake as soon as Jack’s cruiser pulled up. Maybe it was to hide the fact that she was already wet.”

  “The Parkers were drunk out of their minds. Spinner couldn’t even get a cohesive statement out of them.”

  “A convenient alibi, huh?”

  “Other witness statements concurred that the Parkers started drinking heavily at dinner and it just got worse as the night went on.” Nate glanced at me. “But you’re right, we can’t rule them out. It could have been an act before the murder, and then they really got inebriated afterward to seal their alibi.”

  We found Miss Crawley and Julie Brown on the terrace, engaged in conversation over a pot of tea. Miss Crawley was quick to volunteer when Nate interrupted with his intentions to hold a second round of interviews. She excused herself to Julie Brown and accompanied us to the library.

  I made a dash & grab at the sideboard for an almond croissant before following them inside.

  Miss Crawley gave my croissant a disapproving look. “You’ll spoil your appetite for lunch, my dear.”

  “Trust me, it’ll take a whole lot more than this to spoil my appetite,” I said and took a healthy bite.

  Nate dropped his notepad and pen on the desk and we fell silent to admire the muscle action as he rearranged the armchairs, one in front of the desk and the other slightly to the side.

  Once we were all seated, he flipped his notepad open.

  I finished off my croissant and licked the sugary icing dust from my fingers.

  Miss Crawley started the interview off with, “I suppose you want to ask about Lydia Fieldman.”

  She tipped forward, beckoned Nate to do the same.

  Nate slid his elbows over the desk.

  “Did you know she was only thirty-two years old? Not that I was fooled for a second by her little masquerade, but thirty-two?” Miss Crawley pursed her lips in disbelief. “I’ll say this much, that silver bun did no favors for her complexion.”

  “Do you know why she’d do that?” Nate stretched back in his chair again. “In my experience, women strive to look younger, not older.”

  “How much experience would that be, Detective Bishop?”

  Nate coughed. “That’s hardly relevant, Miss Crawley.”

  “Experience is always relevant, my young man.” She speared him with a look over the top of her rimless spectacles. “Too little has its charm. Too much and you’ll end up as a roaming-eyed Casanova.”

  I jumped in with, “Detective Bishop has just the right amount of experience,” before the interview deteriorated further.

  Nate sent me an ungrateful look. For Miss Crawley, he pulled out that slow-melting smile. “Is there anything else you’d like to share about Lydia Fieldman?”

  Miss Crawley’s eyes lit up. “Well, I’m not sure I should say, but I did hear—”

  “If you’re not sure, then you probably shouldn’t,” I warned her, drawing from my past mistakes.

  And my loose tongue had nothing on Miss C
rawley when she got going. She didn’t just repeat rumor, she created it. Look at me. One aborted kiss weeks ago and she’d saddled me with Nate’s twins. She’d have the entire town locked down under Martial Law once Nate was done with her.

  I leant in closer. “Detective Bishop doesn’t do off the record. Everything you say can and will be used.”

  Nate shoved to his feet. “Maddox, could I have a word with you outside?”

  “Right now?” I peered up at him. “We’re in the middle of an interview.”

  “Right now,” he growled and rounded the desk.

  “Is everything alright, dear?” Miss Crawley said.

  “Perfectly fine,” I assured her as I rose from the chair.

  It wasn’t, of course.

  I wasn’t a total idiot.

  But neither was Nate, and he purposely used that smile of his like a lethal weapon. All I’d done was give Miss Crawley fair warning and a moment to carefully reconsider before she spilled deep, dark secrets. She was one of ours, warts and all, and someone had to stick up for the civilians.

  Nate opened the door and waved me through ahead of him. One of those gentlemanly gestures that irked me (my backside was not my most attractive feature), but I didn’t think this was the time to pick a fight over who goes first.

  He remained in the doorway and called out, “Spinner!”

  Jack left his position by the French doors and hurried over.

  “Is Jack joining our interview?” I asked.

  “No.” Nate didn’t look at me, kept his eyes on Jack. “Spinner, new orders. Guard this door. If Maddox tries to enter, you have permission to restrain her.”

  I turned on him. “You can’t do that!”

  Jack slipped neatly between me and the door that slammed in my face. “What the hell did you do?”

  “I offered some sage advice,” I snapped. “Is that a crime now?”

  Jack shrugged. “If Detective Bishop says so.”

  “Unbelievable.” I spun away from him to pace.

  Okay, so Nate was pissed at me. I could see his point of view and I understood. But I also had a point of view, which he might have understood if he’d bothered to discuss it.

  The door popped open again before my rant built up any proper steam.

  Jack stood aside to allow Miss Crawley out.

  “Spinner, please fetch Julie Brown,” Nate said from behind them with immaculate composure. He left the door open and made his way back to the desk.

  Not an invitation, I knew that.

  I watched through the doorway as he sat down, ran a hand through his hair, tapped the notepad with his silver fountain pen.

  His eyes lifted, creased around the edges as he regarded me thoughtfully—probably silently reciting some law official’s version of the Hippocratic Oath to remind himself why he couldn’t strangle me.

  I left him to it and turned to Miss Crawley. “You weren’t in there very long. Did you say anything at all?”

  “I most certainly did,” she said with a stamp of satisfaction. “I told Detective Bishop there’s never a good reason to slam doors inside a house and then I told him I wouldn’t say another word until I’d spoken with my lawyer.”

  “Why would you need a lawyer?” I steered Miss Crawley out of Jack’s hearing and lowered my voice. “Whatever you were about to tell us doesn’t incriminate you, does it?”

  “That juicy bit of hearsay about Lydia Fieldman?” Miss Crawley flicked the very idea away with her fingers. “I don’t need a lawyer, but I’d wager her husband might need one.”

  Uh-oh. I’d wanted to stop an avalanche of dirty secrets, not withhold vital information from the law.

  I settled Miss Crawley on a sofa with a cup of tea and perched beside her. “Are you suggesting Lydia’s husband wanted her dead?”

  “Not me, my dear.” Miss Crawley sipped her tea, approved the blend with the tiniest nod. “Charles mentioned that Lydia had come to him only last month, distraught over what she’d discovered about her husband.”

  “Another woman,” I concluded.

  “Oh, no, not at all,” Miss Crawley twittered.

  I shrugged and revised that with, “Another man?”

  “Worse, my dear.”

  I thought about that and came up blank. “Okay, so what had she discovered?”

  “He started keeping odd hours, lying about where he’d been,” Miss Crawley declared. “So Lydia decided to do a little snooping. The poor woman suspected it was just an affair.”

  “There’s no such thing as just an affair,” I muttered.

  “And rightly so.” She patted my hand. “But smuggling Asian artifacts is a criminal offense.”

  Alarms went off inside my head. A black market smuggler! “Mr Fieldman is currently in Turkey on a dig. You don’t think…?”

  I swallowed the accusation as I remembered he was also a philanthropist. That conjured up images of benevolent old men with spare money to give away, not hard-hearted criminals with greedy morals.

  I frowned at Miss Crawley. “You don’t think he was maybe just bringing the artifacts home for safekeeping?”

  “Lydia didn’t think so. She followed him a few times to an abandoned warehouse and after that, well, she set up surveillance in the house.” Miss Crawley sipped her tea while I digested that. “She uncovered a secret bank account and a hidden safe she’d never known about. That’s when she brought her suspicions to Charles.”

  “What did she expect Charles to do about it?”

  Miss Crawley gave a delicate shrug. “She’d known him since she was a child, so perhaps she considered him a fatherly figure. If she was looking for advice, she certainly got it. Charles insisted she had to go to the cops.”

  “And did she?”

  As if he could feel his ears burning, Charles Sitter strolled in from the terrace. My cheeks reddened with guilt, although goodness knows why. It was Miss Crawley doing all the tattling.

  Jack intercepted his approach and Miss Crawley took the opportunity to tilt toward me and whisper, “Charles didn’t say, but what if she confronted her husband first? Perhaps even gave him an ultimatum to stop his criminal activities or she would rat him out?”

  I slumped back in the sofa. “That all sounds plausible, except her husband’s in another country and how on earth would he have…” stolen my prop rope? I caught that slip just in time, assuming it wasn’t general knowledge.

  “Sit up straight, my dear,” Miss Crawley reprimanded. “And being out of the country is no excuse. Isn’t that what hired hitmen are for?”

  I jerked upright. A cold-blooded murderer in my home was one thing. A professional assassin was another matter altogether. Then again, I supposed that meant we were all safe from being picked off randomly.

  Unless Mr Fieldman had bought a package deal.

  Jonas returned from his adventure and I lowered my head, sizing him up out the corner of my eye. What was an accountant doing with tanned, leathery skin? He wasn’t a big man, but he was solid with the kind of muscle tone you didn’t get sitting behind a desk all day.

  The library door opened, interrupting my suspect analysis. Julie Brown was ushered out and, seeing as Jonas was the closest, Nate called him in.

  I turned my suspicions on the big-haired woman as she came to join our tea party, but I couldn’t see it. If a woman was the assassin, my bets were on the victim. After all, Lydia Fieldman had been the one who’d camouflaged her true appearance.

  “How well did you know Lydia?” I asked her.

  Julie took a good while to answer, a faraway look in her eyes, but when she did her voice was filled with emotion. “Since she was a child. Her mother used to bring her to the GRIMMS annual picnic.” She sighed, shook her head sadly. “And then she became a member in her own right, of course. That must be about ten years ago now.”

  I hesitated to intrude on her emotion, but Miss Crawley had no such qualms.

  “Has she always had that fetish?” asked Miss Crawley.

  Jul
ie blinked. “Fetish?”

  “Dressing up as a woman twice her age.”

  “Oh, that…” Julie gave a brisk laugh. “That was just something she liked to do, to change things up a bit. Lydia has a—had a brilliant mind, you see. She became an Honored Master last year, our youngest ever.”

  She looked at me. “No offence, Ms Storm, but many of these mystery parties become routine after a while, somewhat boring. To make it more of a challenge, Lydia started assuming different characters for each weekend and then limiting herself within that character’s mind. An elderly lady, for example, would never…”

  She trailed off, her gaze swerving as Nate came out the library.

  Alone.

  He stepped deeper into the lounge, commanding attention without speaking a word. The set of his shoulders, the depth of his long stride, the tension literally bristling off him. I kept looking for Jonas, wondering what on earth had gone wrong now.

  Nate stopped, a furious glint hardening his eyes. He looked from one person to the next as he finally spoke.

  “I don’t give a damn what rules Ms Storm cooked up, it is never okay to lie to an officer of the law.” His jaw hollowed as he bit down on his back teeth. “Lydia Fieldman is dead. I’m not playing twenty questions to search for a party favor; I’m hunting down a murderer.”

  That hard gaze landed on me for a fleeting moment, but that’s all it took to send icy shivers down my spine. I’d seen Nate irritated, frustrated, tethered to the end of his patience, but I realized I’d never seen him truly angry before.

  Not until now.

  “So listen up folks, here are the new rules.” He balled a fist into one palm. “I’m done with second-guessing answers and second chances. The next person who lies to me will be charged with obstructing justice. Is that clear?”

  He didn’t wait for a response, whipped himself around and strode back into the library. The door clicked softly closed behind him.

  A sick feeling rolled along the bottom of my stomach. I stood, my legs suddenly shaky, and pushed my way past Miss Crawley’s crossed ankles to get out of the lounge as fast as I could.

  And, okay, most of that roiling sickness was the direct result of Nate’s anger. It felt like he’d lashed me with a whip.