by Sara Rosett
The photo was of a patch of mud with a shoe print at almost dead center. The indentation showed a separate square heel, tapered toe, and smooth tread.
CHAPTER 13
“A man’s dress shoe?” Alex asked as he looked at the photo on my dad’s phone.
“I think so,” Dad said. “Most of that area around the folly is grassy, except right up against the edge of the bottom step. I think this footprint is what caused them to come look for me. I checked the rest of the ground in the area, but didn’t find anything else. Grass everywhere, even in the maze. In fact, the paths of the maze have some sort of special low-growing turf that’s springy and doesn’t hold footprints. Even with all the tracking back and forth that the police did in the maze, the grass doesn’t show a single imprint.”
“No wonder they latched onto the footprint by the folly,” I said. “Especially since Nick wore running shoes.”
Alex said, “The tread on Nick’s shoes would have left a completely different imprint.”
Dad said, “Ah, so the chances are good that the footprint might belong to the murderer—someone wearing a men’s dress shoe in my size.”
“But that could be a huge portion of the wedding guests or staff,” I said. “Or even someone who happened to wander by earlier in the day.”
“It is possible that it could be completely unrelated, but I’m sure Quimby is running through everyone’s shoe size now,” Alex said. “Did you find out anything else?”
“Only that a steak knife went missing from the kitchen. They were one short when they cleaned up after the wedding. I discovered that from another of Parkview’s staff this morning before I walked here. I’ve noticed lots of the Brits are a bit standoffish, but not this guy. He wanted to know where I was from and what it was like in Kansas.”
“Must have been Neal,” I said.
“That was his name. He told me about the map with visitors’ hometowns. Since he was asking questions, I asked a few of my own. He said the chatter with the staff is about that missing steak knife. Still hasn’t turned up, but he’s sure that was what was used to kill Nick.”
“It could be. I did notice the knife when we were in the maze,” I said. “In fact, I was sort of mesmerized by it. It had a slender silver handle like the cutlery used at the reception. I wanted to look away, but couldn’t seem to make myself do it. It was such a strange thing to see, and there was so little blood.”
“If the knife is left in the body, there can be only a small amount of bleeding,” Dad said. “Some, but not a lot.”
“Don’t let Quimby here you saying things like that,” I said.
“It’s common knowledge to any mystery reader.”
I’d inherited my love of mysteries from my dad but didn’t want him broadcasting his specialized knowledge, especially when it seemed Quimby was so interested in him. “Still, probably best to keep it to yourself,” I said. “Neal could be right, that someone picked up a knife during the reception and used it later to kill Nick.” I handed the phone back to Dad. “This is not good. If that’s what happened, then it’s something else that ties Nick to our wedding.” The list of links to the wedding was growing—the menu card, Mom’s feather, and now possibly the knife.
“Not necessarily,” Alex said. “It could be that the knife was misplaced and will turn up later.”
Dad said, “I plan to chat with everyone I come across today about the incident. I figure they’ll speak freely—at least until the word spreads that the police think that your mom and I were in it together.”
“But that makes no sense at all,” I protested. “Why would you or Mom—either together or separately—want to kill Nick? You have no motive.”
Dad swept a trace of sugar off the table with his hand. “You’re forgetting about your mother’s blasted journal. Why Ava had to turn introspective at this point in her life is a mystery to me. And then to go and lose the thing. I’m sure the police think she killed Nick then asked me to help her move the body to the maze to keep it from being discovered right away.” He broke off and took a long sip of his coffee as if to keep himself from saying more.
I said, “Mom wouldn’t want her journal made public, but I don’t think that it would drive her to murder someone.”
“Unfortunately, it sounds as if that journal—and the fact that Nick was using it to blackmail your mom—is all the police have now as far as a motive,” Alex said.
“Then we have to find something else.” The butterflies in my stomach settled down. Alex drew a breath, and I added, “You know I feel better when I’m doing something. I can’t sit around and—pick out wedding pictures and pack for our trip to Venice when I don’t know if we’ll even be able to get on the plane.”
Alex gave me a long look over his coffee cup. “You are a take-charge person, I do agree with that.”
I said, “We’re only expediting things for the police. They’ll eventually come to the conclusion that Mom and Dad had nothing to do with Nick’s death, but it may take them days or even weeks to discover definite evidence that clears them. If we talk to a few people maybe we can shake out a few other suspects for Quimby to look at. You know he’s thorough. If we bring him evidence that someone else could be involved, he’ll check it out.” I put my hand over Alex’s. “I have a feeling that if we don’t give the investigation a nudge, we might be stuck here for quite a while.”
Alex turned his hand and laced his fingers through mine. “I can’t argue with that.”
Dad cleared his throat. “You’re sharp, Alex. It took me a long time to realize that when Kate decides to get something done, it’s best to get on board or get out of the way.”
“That makes me sound so bossy.”
“You are,” Dad said with a grin.
“But only about the things that you are passionate about—the things you love,” Alex added.
“I think you two are getting along a little too well.” I surveyed them both with mock severity, then said, “Okay, so where were we?”
“Your mother and her journal and Nick’s blackmailing her about it,” Dad said. “Weak motive.”
“I agree.” I sat up straight. “I know that Mom has her moments, but she wouldn’t stab someone any more than she’d…I don’t know…bake a cake from scratch.”
Dad chuckled. “Still the queen of the to-go order, is she?”
“Always,” I said. To Alex, I added, “Thank goodness you know your way around the kitchen.”
Alex shrugged. “I know a little.”
“You can make more than a grilled cheese sandwich and omelets, so you’re miles ahead of me.” I turned back to Dad and asked, “Where is Mom?”
“Migraine.”
“That’s too bad.” Mom had a terrible time with migraines. She hadn’t ever found a medicine that worked for her. She’d be in her room most of the day with the drapes closed, trying to sleep it off, which was the only thing that worked for her. “Then I doubt we’ll see her until tomorrow, but there are a few things that we can do today.”
I gave Alex’s hand a squeeze before letting go and reaching for a paper napkin. I wished I had my Moleskine journal with me, but it was packed away. Dad took a pen from the inside pocket of his sport coat and handed it to me. Using feathery strokes, I wrote “Questions” at the top of the napkin. “These questions have been running around in my mind all morning.” I jotted them down as I spoke. “I think the biggest one is why did Nick want to come to the wedding? No matter how interested you are in architecture, you don’t buy an airline ticket and bribe your way into a wedding just to see the interior of a stately home.”
“Especially when that stately home is open during other times of the year,” Alex said. “He could have toured it anytime during the summer or waited until next weekend when it’s open to visitors.”
“So why did he want to get in during the wedding? To meet someone who’d be there specifically for that event?” I asked. “It couldn’t have been either of us.” I moved the pen back and f
orth between Alex and me. “Nick didn’t even attempt to get near us.”
“And he didn’t bother your mother during the reception,” Dad said. “So it must have been someone else.”
“But that’s rather hit or miss, isn’t it?” I said. “We had the names of the RSVPs, but how would Nick have known who would be there? What if he hoped to meet someone there, but they didn’t come? And if he did want to connect with another guest, why would he travel all the way to England just to meet someone? Wouldn’t calling them be much easier?”
A silence descended for a few seconds, then I said, “Okay, we’ll leave that one. Maybe we can get in touch with his fiancée, Fern. She might know something about why he came here and wanted to go to the wedding reception.” I wrote “Fern” on the napkin.
“And you have to wonder what he was doing between the time he arrived here in England and when he showed up at the pub the night before the wedding,” Dad said.
“Good question.” I put it down. “Where did he spend Wednesday afternoon, Thursday, and Friday morning? We know he arrived at the inn on Friday afternoon.” I explained about the conversation with Marie then added, “Marie said she saw a baggie of weed in his room, which might explain some of Nick’s erratic behavior.” I’d already told Alex about the conversation I’d had with Marie and wanted to see what my dad made of the detail.
“Hard to say how drugs would affect a person, but doesn’t seem to go with someone who travels halfway across the world and blackmails someone to get into a wedding,” Dad said.
“Well, it’s a question that needs to be answered.” I wrote it down, then started a new column. “Here’s what we do know. Nick was a blackmailer. If he used threats to get Mom to do what he wanted, he might have done it to someone else. What else do we know about him?”
“Quimby said he lived in San Bernardino,” Alex said. “He worked occasionally, but didn’t have a steady job.”
“He was a bum, sponging off his girlfriend,” Dad said. “And he was a twenty-five-year-old kid, who met your mother for coffee, and listened to her yak, probably for hours. He had to be playing some sort of long game—something shady, I bet.”
I read over the list. “Blackmailer, liar, possible conman.”
“Sounds like there should be plenty of people who would want to bump him off,” Dad said.
I nodded. “We just have to find them.”
“Oh, I thought of something else.” I reached for my phone and brought up the wedding photos. “Maybe Nick is in some of the pictures from the reception.” Dad and Alex looked over my shoulder as I scanned the images. We zipped through the images of the family groups, but I slowed down when we came to the candid shots of guests seated at the tables. After a few minutes, we all tensed. “That’s him.” I enlarged the photo as much as I could on my phone.
“Who’s beside him?” Dad asked.
“That’s the organist,” I said, “but I don’t remember her name.”
“Sylvia,” Alex supplied.
“That’s right. We met her briefly during the reception. She wasn’t with Nick then.”
“She sure looks friendly with him in that picture,” Dad said, and I had to agree. The photo wasn’t one of those posed photos with stiff expressions that usually were the result of the photographer calling for everyone to smile. The camera had caught Nick and Sylvia sharing a glance that had an intimacy that was easy to see.
“It looks like they were getting along pretty well,” Alex said. “I think we better add Sylvia to the list of people who might know something.”
“Done,” I said. “I’ll call Ella and see if she can put us in touch with her.”
Dad tapped the list. “That girlfriend of his, the one who caused the stir at the reception, she’s where we should start. And you’re the one who should tackle her, Kate. Girl talk and all that.”
“I think you’re right,” I said. “But I’ll bring Alex along. He’s much better at sussing out emotional notes than I am.”
“Good.” Dad braced his hands to push back from the table. “I’ll head back to Parkview and see who else I can talk to. Who knows what someone might have seen.”
Alex said, “Did you have other plans for today?”
“Well, yes. I was supposed to go to Sheffield. A bookseller there says he has a first edition of A Christmas Carol,” he said regretfully.
“I think it might be a good idea if you continued with your normal plans. See that man by the window?” Alex tilted his head slightly, indicating a burly man with cropped dark hair. He looked to be in his late twenties. A day’s growth of beard gave him a dark shadow on his cheeks. A button-down shirt strained across his shoulders, and a barn jacket rested on the back of his chair. “He came in a few minutes after you did and has kept an eye on our table the whole time you’ve been here.” A folded newspaper, the local weekly, was propped on the table in front of him.
Dad discreetly looked over his shoulder. “I think I saw him on the path on my way here.”
“You walked?” I asked.
“It’s not far, and it’s a nice morning. The weather is supposed to turn later, so I wanted to get outside while I could. I stopped at that arched stone bridge to look at the water. That’s when I saw him. He was walking slowly, doing something on his phone. In fact, that’s why I noticed him. Can’t imagine being so tied to your phone that you can’t take your eyes off it while you walk through the countryside here.”
“I think he’s following you,” Alex said. “I bet he’s with the police.”
Dad’s eyebrows shot up. “Tailing me? Why would he—oh, I get it. To see if I do anything suspicious…like try to dispose of clothes with blood on the cuff or something of that sort.”
“It could be a coincidence,” I said. “Maybe he’s enjoying his coffee and reading the paper.”
“He hasn’t turned the page once,” Alex said.
“Oh.”
“And he has a sort of contained energy about him,” Alex said. “Whatever he’s doing, he’s not relaxing with his morning coffee.” Alex leaned toward Dad. “It would probably be better if you went about your day as you originally planned. If you spend your day questioning people about the night of the reception…”
“It could look as if I’m meddling, maybe even trying to shake out someone who saw me doing something nefarious.”
“Exactly,” Alex said. “That’s why you should go to—where was it?—Manchester?”
“Sheffield.”
“Go to Sheffield, and take your watcher with you. Let him see you visit bookshops and whatever else you had planned,” Alex said.
“Once Dad gets in a bookshop, good luck getting him out,” I said. “Especially when it’s an antique bookshop. He’ll be there all day. You should certainly be able to tell if Mr. Five-O’clock Shadow is trailing you.”
“And if he’s not,” Dad said. “I’ll come back here and check in with you two—after I look at that copy of A Christmas Carol, of course.”
“Of course.” I couldn’t help but smile. “It would be a shame to go all that way and then not see it. We’ll go over to Hedgely and see if we can talk to Fern. I’ll call you if we find out anything.”
Dad checked his watch. “I think I can catch the next bus to Sheffield. I won’t look back. Let me know if he follows.”
“You know which bus you want?” I asked.
“Lucky number thirteen, departing from the bus stop at the village green.” He stood. “I got the details this morning from that stuffy guy with the bow tie.”
“Malcolm,” I said.
Dad nodded. “Knows his bus routes, despite acting like he’s the king of England.” He raised his voice slightly as he said, “Okay, I’m off to see some books.”
“Don’t overdo it,” I murmured in a low voice.
“Me? Never.” He winked.
Alex and I stayed at the table. A few seconds after Dad left, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye at the table where the guy with the five-o’clock
shadow had been seated. Alex was facing that direction. He raised his mug and said from behind it, “Mr. Five-O’clock Shadow is gone. He’s keeping back about ten paces or so, but he’s heading in the direction of the green.”
CHAPTER 14
H edgely was a twenty-minute drive from Nether Woodsmoor, but the countryside had a wilder and more dramatic feel to it. The hills were higher and the drops to the streams that wound through the landscape were steeper. Rocky outcroppings of limestone thrust out of the hills, creating craggy promontories. The gray clouds sweeping in on gusts of wind added to the feeling that we were driving into a scene from a gothic novel.
“All that’s missing is a castle with crumbling walls,” I said, looking at the darkening sky, “and we’d have the perfect setting to film something like The Mysteries of Udolpho. But we’d also need the woman in a flowing white nightgown, running across the landscape.”
“Goes without saying,” Alex said, and we exchanged a smile, then he checked the rearview mirror, something that he’d been doing quite a bit on the drive.
“Still nothing?” I asked.
“Nope. I guess Quimby thinks we’re not important enough to follow.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“It would be fun to try and lose someone on these twisty roads,” Alex said.
“Well, I’m glad we’re not under police surveillance. It looks like it’s going to rain, and I wouldn’t want to slide off the road into a ditch.”
“Spoilsport,” Alex said in a good-natured tone.
“I do wish I’d brought my camera, though,” I said. “The light is so interesting.” While the darker clouds and their shadows flowed overhead, in the distance the sky was still clear and bright, casting a glow that filtered under the growing cloud cover. I rarely went anywhere without my camera, but both Alex and I had decided to take a break from work during our honeymoon. I had packed my camera in my suitcase, but I only planned to take photos of the canals and palazzos in Venice—pure tourist stuff.
