Aunt Bessie Questions (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 17)

by Diana Xarissa

  “I left you a note,” Bessie told her. “It’s under the kettle.”

  Doona laughed. “I didn’t even go into the kitchen. I peeked in on you, and you were gone, so I came in here to look outside and see if I could see you. You walked back in before I even got to the door.”

  “I just had a walk up and down the street. It isn’t the same as walking on the beach, but it was the best I could do,” Bessie explained.

  “You should leave a change of clothes here,” Doona suggested, “just in case you ever have to stay over again.”

  “I hope nothing like this ever happens again,” Bessie told her.

  “I do too, but maybe it would be good to be prepared.”

  Bessie shrugged. “You don’t have spare clothes at my house,” she pointed out.

  “No, but maybe I should,” Doona retorted. “I’m going to shower and get dressed. I’d like to be presentable when John gets here, and I do have to go to work before too much longer as well.”

  Bessie curled up with a book that she borrowed from Doona’s shelves. She had trouble getting into the story, but was just starting to find it interesting when someone knocked on the door.

  “John, good morning,” she said as she let the man in.

  “Good morning,” he replied.

  Doona walked into the sitting room as John dropped onto the couch. “Good morning,” she told him.

  “Good morning. The crime scene technicians are finished with the cottage,” he told Bessie. “Most of the mess was confined to the kitchen, and they cleared the worst of the puddles on the floor before they went. The next thing we need is for you to go through and see what’s missing.”

  “Did they get any fingerprints?” Bessie asked.

  “They got a great many fingerprints, or partial prints,” John replied. “I suspect the vast majority of them will belong to legitimate visitors, though. I suppose it’s lucky that Hugh, Doona, and I all work for the police. They already have our prints to compare with the ones they found on the scene. Can you suggest anyone else who has been there lately who should be eliminated?”

  “Helen,” Bessie said, “but she’s on her honeymoon. They’ll have to wait until she’s back to get her prints.”

  “I’m sure if I ring Pete, he’ll be able to find someone in the US to take her prints and send them to us,” John said.

  “No, don’t do that,” Bessie said. “I don’t want to bother them during their honeymoon. It can wait until they get back.”

  John looked as if he wanted to disagree, but after a moment he nodded. “Anyone else been at the cottage lately?”

  “Dawn Gray,” Bessie said thoughtfully. “She never went any further than the kitchen, though. If her prints turn up anywhere else, that could be interesting.”

  “I’ll have Hugh visit her today and ask her to let him take her prints,” John said.

  “What if she refuses?” Doona asked.

  “We can’t make her cooperate, but I can’t see any reason why she’d refuse. Surely, she’ll want to do what she can to help,” John said.

  “Yeah, right,” Doona muttered.

  “Were her brother or father ever actually inside the cottage?” John asked.

  “No. They never got past the door,” Bessie told him.

  “I’m going to have Hugh ask them for their prints anyway,” John said. “We can tell them that we found several prints on the door itself and that we want to eliminate theirs. They might be more reluctant than Dawn, however.”

  “Especially since I’m sure it was Brandon who broke in,” Bessie said.

  “I haven’t seen the notes from the constable who interviewed them last night yet, but I’m sure if Brandon did or said anything suspicious, it would have been brought to my attention,” John told her.

  Bessie shrugged. “Until you catch whoever did it, I’m going to believe it was Brandon,” she told John. “Is there anything else for now, or can we go and see it for ourselves?”

  “Let’s go,” John said, getting to his feet.

  Bessie stood up and squared her shoulders. This wasn’t going to be pleasant, but she was tougher than she looked, she reminded herself.

  “I have to get to work,” Doona said, glancing at the clock. “Are you going to be okay on your own?”

  “Grace is going to be with us,” John said. “She’s going to meet us there. She’s bringing the children, so they can run on the beach while we go around the cottage.”

  “You go and work,” Bessie told Doona. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Promise me you won’t start on the cleaning until I get there,” Doona said, taking Bessie’s hands. “Promise?”

  “There’s so much to do,” Bessie said. “I promise I won’t get it all done before you get there.”

  “Don’t even start,” Doona said firmly. “There’s far too much for you to do on your own, and you’ll only get discouraged if you try. I’m going to see if I can’t get a few helpers together for tonight. Just leave it all until then.”

  “She won’t do anything,” John told Doona. “I’ll make sure of that, even if I have to arrest her and take her down to the station for the day.”

  “It’s my cottage,” Bessie said crossly. “If I want to clean it, I can.”

  “Doona is right,” John said gently. “It’s going to be a huge job. Let Doona come and deal with the heavy lifting and the difficult parts.”

  Bessie was too overwhelmed by it all to argue any further at that point. What she really wanted to do was see what was missing. The more time she spent arguing with John, the longer it would be before she could do that.

  “Let’s just go and see what’s been taken,” she said, aware that she sounded defeated.

  “The team didn’t notice any obvious gaps anywhere,” John told her as they walked to his car. “It may just have been criminal mischief rather than burglary.”

  Bessie was silent on the drive. When they pulled to a stop in front of her cottage, she stared at it for a moment. It almost didn’t look the same to her. It didn’t really seem to be her safe, cosy home at the moment.

  “It will get better,” John told her. “You’ll have to give it some time, though. For now, it’s normal to feel as if it isn’t home anymore.”

  Bessie nodded and blinked back tears. “Let’s go,” she said in a low voice.

  Grace was standing on the beach, watching John’s children as they splashed in the sea. She pulled Bessie into a hug when they reached her. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  Bessie took a step back and then smiled at her friend. “My goodness, when did that little bump appear?” she asked.

  Grace grinned and rubbed her tummy gently. “I’m still getting used to it being there, although I understand it’s going to get quite a bit larger,” she said. “It isn’t much of a bump yet, really, but I’m ever so fond of it.”

  “Thank you for coming over this morning,” Bessie told her. “I’m sure you have better things to do.”

  “We were going to go to Castletown,” Grace reminded her. “With that off the cards, no, I really didn’t have anything better to do. I’m a teacher on summer holidays. My days are long and lazy, and coming over here was better than sitting at home and worrying about the new house and the baby.”

  “Let’s go, then,” John said. He led Bessie up to her door and then removed the police tape that was stretched across it. “I may need to put this back up once we’ve been through,” he told Bessie. “It depends on what you find. If things are missing, we may need to get a tech back here to take a closer look at some things.”

  Bessie nodded and then took a deep breath and followed John inside. Grace was right behind Bessie, holding tight to her hand.

  “It isn’t as bad as I feared,” Bessie said after glancing around the kitchen. Someone had done a good job of clearing up the mess on the floor and had also cleared away most of the spills on the countertops and table. The air felt dusty as Bessie breathed in, no doubt from all of the flour th
at was still liberally covering everything.

  “Can you tell if anything is missing in here?” John asked.

  Bessie glanced around the room and then shook her head. “They could have taken a few spoons or an odd cup or two, but I can’t tell from just a quick look.”

  “I went through here last night, and I couldn’t think of anything that might be missing,” John told her. “All of the drawers and cupboards were left open, but they all seem to be full, aside from the ones that had had food in them.”

  “Those are all empty, but we know where the food went,” Bessie said, glancing around again. “They might have taken some boxes of biscuits, I suppose. I don’t want to try to work out exactly what’s been thrown around in here.”

  “Let’s move on,” John suggested, “unless you had any secret hiding places in your kitchen?”

  “Secret hiding places?” Bessie repeated.

  “Some people keep extra money inside an empty tin can or something like that,” John explained.

  “It seems a good idea, really,” Bessie said, “but I don’t have anything like that in the kitchen.”

  Aside from books on the floor, Bessie couldn’t find anything out of place in the sitting room or the dining room. When they got upstairs, she again found that many books had been pulled from their shelves and dropped to the floor, but nothing appeared to be missing.

  In her bedroom, she frowned at the books from her nightstand that had been scattered across the floor. She carefully picked up the Complete Works of Shakespeare that was always at the bottom of the pile.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” she exclaimed as she opened the book and found that her small collection of jewellery was still in place in the hollowed-out centre of the book.

  “They missed that, then,” John said.

  “None of it has any real value,” Bessie told him, “but it all has sentimental value.”

  “They’d have taken it anyway, if they’d found it,” John said.

  “I’m awfully glad they didn’t,” Bessie sighed. “As far as I can tell, nothing was taken.”

  “They may have been looking for money or medication,” John said. “I assume you didn’t have either in the house.”

  “I don’t keep money lying around,” Bessie said. “I have credit cards and debit cards for shopping. Any notes I have I carry with me in my handbag.”

  “And medication?” John asked.

  “I don’t take anything other than over-the-counter medicines, and those are all in their usual place,” she replied.

  John nodded. “Perhaps, then, whoever it was became upset because they didn’t find anything to steal. That may be why they destroyed your kitchen.”

  “I still think it was Brandon,” Bessie told him. “Maybe he thought he could scare me away from my home or something.”

  “If it was Brandon, I’m not sure what he was hoping to accomplish,” John said, “which is one reason why I’m more inclined to think it was someone else.”

  “Who else would break into my cottage?” Bessie asked.

  “As I said last night, kids from the holiday cottages,” John replied. “They might have just been bored, or they might have been looking for drugs or money. While this sort of thing doesn’t happen on the island very often, it wouldn’t be the first time teens on holiday behaved badly.”

  “And you think that’s a more likely explanation than Brandon?” Bessie wondered.

  “At this point, yes,” John replied. “I simply can’t see what he’d feel he might gain from breaking in here.”

  Bessie didn’t argue. She didn’t have any logical reason for suspecting Brandon; she was simply going with her gut instinct. It rarely steered her wrong, but that didn’t prove anything.

  “I think we’re done here,” John said as Bessie dropped her jewellery pouch into her handbag. “Let’s just walk back through slowly, so you can have another look.”

  Bessie took her time going back through the house, checking on little things here and there. When they got back to the sitting room, she stopped. “There might be a few books missing,” she told John. “I won’t know for sure until I get everything back on the shelves, and even then I won’t be certain exactly what’s missing. I’ll just know if there are spaces left because the shelves were pretty packed before.”

  John nodded. “None of the books are valuable?” he asked.

  “All of the books are valuable,” she retorted. “Only inasmuch as they’re all capable of taking you on an adventure. I don’t have any first editions or autographed copies or anything like that, if that’s what you mean. I don’t even often get hardcover books. Nearly everything I have is in paperback, and they’ve all been read, sometimes many times over.”

  “Maybe we should go out the other door,” Grace said. “Then we don’t have to go back through the kitchen.”

  Bessie shrugged. “I’ll have to face it sooner or later,” she said. “I really should get started on the cleaning.”

  “Except you promised Doona you’d wait for her to help,” John told her.

  “I don’t think I promised,” Bessie argued.

  “Let’s go and take the children to lunch,” Grace suggested. “It’s getting close to that time anyway. Maybe we could go into Douglas, get lunch, and then do a bit of shopping. I need a few new books to help me fill up my summer holiday. You wouldn’t mind a trip to the bookshop, would you, Bessie?”

  Bessie chuckled. “You’re a very clever girl, but I can see what you’re trying to do. You want to keep me busy until Doona’s done at work and can help with the cleaning.”

  “I want to give you something to do so that you can forget about this mess for a few hours,” Grace countered. “And I want to have some lunch. I’m always hungry these days, and although my midwife keeps telling me I don’t need twice as many calories as normal, I definitely feel as if I want at least twice as many calories as normal.”

  “Let’s go and get lunch, then,” Bessie said, glancing at her watch. “By the time we get into Douglas, I should be hungry.”

  “And I’ll bet Thomas and Amy are hungry already,” Grace said. “Especially Thomas. He reminds me of Hugh.”

  “You don’t have to entertain my children all day,” John said. “They can go home and entertain themselves quite happily.”

  “I know they can, but as I have the day free, and I’d like to keep Bessie busy, they’re the perfect excuse,” Grace replied. “We’ll have to leave Castletown for another day, though.”

  “Maybe one day next week,” Bessie said, “after I’ve had time to get the cottage back in order.”

  It didn’t take them long to find the children. Thomas was racing another teenaged boy up and down the sand, and Amy was building a sandcastle with two toddlers under the watchful eye of their mum.

  “How about lunch and some shopping in Douglas?” Grace asked them.

  “Sure,” Thomas shrugged.

  “I need a few things, actually,” Amy said, “and I’m starving.”

  John gave them each a few notes. “I’ll be back later to help with the cleaning,” he told Bessie. “I may even make the kids help.”

  “We can,” Amy said. “We’d be happy to help.”

  “Yeah,” Thomas said with a marked lack of enthusiasm.

  “Let’s go and get some lunch for now,” Grace said. “I don’t know about anyone else, but the baby is hungry.”

  Chapter 9

  The drive into Douglas didn’t seem to take long. Thomas and Amy chatted easily with Grace, keeping up a running conversation that kept Bessie’s mind off the break-in at her cottage.

  “Italian?” Grace asked as they all walked out of the car park in the town centre.

  “That sounds good,” Thomas said.

  “Baby seems to have a liking for pasta and garlic bread,” Grace said with a grin, “or rather, I seem to be craving both nearly all the time, even at six in the morning when I first wake up.”

  Bessie suggested her favourite Douglas res
taurant, which was only a short walk away. “They do the best garlic bread on the island, as far as I’m concerned,” she told Grace.

  “I won’t argue,” Grace replied.

  The restaurant was busy. Bessie added their name to the waiting list, and then they all settled in on couches in the small waiting area.

  “I hope we don’t have to wait long,” Grace said. “I can smell the garlic bread from here and it’s driving me crazy.”

  “He said it would only be fifteen minutes,” Bessie assured her. “Let’s talk about something other than food while we wait.”

  “Dad said that someone broke into your cottage,” Amy said. “I hope they didn’t steal anything valuable.”

  Grace frowned, but Bessie smiled at the girl. “It doesn’t appear as if they took anything at all,” she said. “They just made a huge mess, really.”

  “That’s mean,” Amy replied. “We could see your kitchen when we were on the beach. It looked like a bag of flour exploded everywhere.”

  “It does, yes,” Bessie told her. “I suspect I’ll be finding flour in unexpected places for weeks.”

  “Thomas dropped a bag of icing sugar once and it went everywhere,” Amy told her. “Mum nearly killed him.”

  “It was an accident,” Thomas said. “Anyway, Mum wasn’t nearly as upset as Harvey was. I thought he was going to hit me, really.”

  “He did get really mad,” Amy giggled. “I don’t think he’s used to children. Mum told me that’s one of the reasons why they split up in the first place. She wanted to have a family and he didn’t.”

  “Well, he has one now,” Thomas said, “and I don’t think he’s overly happy about it.”

  “It will be strange for him, becoming a parent to two teenagers almost overnight,” Bessie said, feeling as if she ought defend the man she’d never met. “I’m sure he’ll get better at it as time goes by.”

  “We can help you clean up,” Amy said. “Thomas and I cleaned up all of the icing sugar, and that was sticky and awful. Flour shouldn’t be as bad.”