Mary O'Reilly 10 - Veiled Passages

by Terri Reid

  Tracey turned to Sally. “Why don’t you give her a chance,” she suggested. “She is very sensitive.”

  Mary turned to Tracey, surprised at her choice of words. Was Tracey more than she was letting on?

  “Humph,” Sally snorted. “She’s about as sensitive as this clod sleeping next to me.”

  Ian, seated next to Sally, his arms on the table and his head nestled on top of them, was sound asleep and happily snoring away.

  “Considering he guarded the house all night, so we’d be safe,” Margaret inserted before Mary could, “I have no problem with his snoring. If it offends you, you’re more than welcome to leave and come back another time…or not.”

  “Well, I never,” Sally sniffed.

  “Oh, darling, I’m sure you have,” Margaret replied sweetly.

  Mary cleared her throat loudly. “Perhaps we could all concentrate on the case we’re working on,” she suggested. “I’ve got several pieces of information I can share with you and I’d like your input.”

  She opened the manila folder on the table and picked up the first document. “I checked on the publishing house in Madison that had a relationship with Peter,” she explained. “I was surprised to find that after Peter’s death they closed up suddenly and didn’t even publish Peter’s last book.”

  “It was probably a scam operation set up in Peter’s name,” Sally said caustically. “It was probably one of those vanity presses that charges people to be published. And he always bragged about it. The imposter.”

  “Uh, Mary, I didn’t realize you were going to check on the publishing company,” Peter said. “That’s not a good idea.”

  Mary looked over at Peter. “Why?” she asked.

  “Why?” Sally replied. “Why do I think he was an imposter? Because his writing was never very good. His plot lines were always very thin. His characters were unbelievable, and his grammar atrocious.”

  “Were not,” Peter pouted.

  Mary stared at him and lifted her eyebrow.

  “Okay. Well, the publishing house was a vanity press of sorts,” he said slowly. “Their interests were…varied…and my books were only a small portion of their portfolio.”

  “But his books sold well,” Mary said. “Sales numbers were high, not only in the United States, but throughout the world. Why would he need a vanity press?”

  “How many were discounts or giveaways?” Sally asked. “His income from book sales was very low.”

  She paused and rolled her eyes. “He always told me he made money by his work with the alphabet agencies. Like anyone would believe that.”

  “Well, I did check his bank account,” Mary said. “He did have a regular sum of money deposited into his account from the publishing house in Madison. He made a very comfortable living from his books sales, according to his banking records.”

  “I wonder if he was scamming other authors, like he scammed us,” Honora said. “Maybe that was his kickback from the publishing house. He was very convincing, you know.”

  “Is that possible?” Mary asked. “Would that many writers be willing to pay money to have their works published?”

  Tracey nodded. “Oh, yes,” she said. “To be published, actually published, is a dream that has enticed thousands of authors to throw away their money just to have their names in print. There are a number of legal cases against vanity presses who perpetrated fraud into the millions of dollars.”

  “I had no idea,” Mary said. “But, this company in Madison had no lawsuits against them. And I thought the money Peter had taken from all of you was actually found in his room. Weren’t you all reimbursed?”

  Sally sniffed. “Well, yes, we were,” she admitted. “And I actually contacted the publishing house myself after Peter’s death. I thought they might want to offer me the same deal they offered Peter, now that he was … indisposed.”

  “You called to get Peter’s deal?” Honora asked. “And his body wasn’t even cold yet. That’s…that’s…that’s…”

  “Despicable,” Peter said.

  “Brilliant,” Honora finished. “I never even thought of that.”

  “Well, it didn’t do me any good,” Sally admitted. “They never returned my call.”

  “Okay,” Mary interjected. “Let’s move on. I also have the coroner’s report. As you know, he died from drowning…”

  “Well, there’s something we didn’t know,” Sally said sarcastically.

  “But the water in his lungs did not contain the same chemicals as the water in the bathtub,” Mary continued.

  Tracey shook her head. “What did you say?”

  “The water in the bathtub had a chemical additive; it was basically a sodium chloride, magnesium sulfate combination with some essential oils and smaller, trace amounts of other chemicals.”

  Sally threw back her head and laughed. “Peter was taking a bubble bath,” she hooted with glee. “Peter ‘I-worked-with-alphabet-agencies’ Swift was a closet bubbler.”

  “I really wish you hadn’t brought that up,” Peter moaned. “I’ll never be able to live that down.”

  “Dude, you’re dead,” Mike reminded him.

  “Oh, yes, quite right,” Peter said. “Never mind.”

  “How did you know it was bubble bath?” Mary asked.

  “I murdered someone by putting a chemical additive in their bubble bath,” she answered calmly. “It was inert in its dry form, but when it was added to water, it acted like an acid. It was fairly devious, if I do say so myself.”

  Mary inhaled sharply. Sally murdered someone?

  “I figured it out halfway through the first chapter,” Peter said. “She’s the braggy kind of writer. Always drops too many clues because she believes she’s much more clever than her readers.”

  Mary released a soft exhale. “In a book,” she said. “You murdered someone in your book.”

  “Of course,” Sally replied. “What else would I mean?”

  “That you murdered someone,” Tracey inserted. “How would she know that you were talking about a book? And, considering what you said to Peter the night he was killed, you really ought to be more careful.”

  “She’s right,” Peter said. “I’d forgotten about that.”

  “What did you say?” Mary asked Sally.

  “Oh, oh, I remember,” Honora said, waving her bejeweled hand in the air. “She said he was not going to get away with it.”

  She paused for a moment, searching her mind for the rest and then smiled brightly. “And that he would regret his words,” she finished proudly. “She was so dramatic, standing by the door, hate oozing out of her pores. I actually used her words in one of my later novels.”

  Sally sat back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “I did not murder Peter Swift,” she stated tersely. “That’s not what I meant when I threatened him.”

  Peter sighed. “She meant I would not be able continue with our little liaison,” he said sadly. “And I truly regretted that…and missed her…for about sixty minutes, and then I was killed.”

  “You were still having an affair with Peter?” Mary asked.

  Sitting straight up in her chair, Sally’s eyes widened in surprise and she quickly looked around the room. “How did you...”

  “The spirits must have told her,” Honora said, fascinated. “I told you I felt heavenly beings in the room.”

  “Yeah, she should have seen me when I was still alive,” Mike said, a self-assured look on his face. “Talk about a heavenly being.”

  “I must add, I was quite a ladies man when I was younger,” Peter added. “You might not be able to see it now, but I had women breaking down doors to get to me.”

  “I broke down a few doors in my day,” Mike said, flexing his arms and then he stopped and turned to Peter. “But, you know, I was a fireman.”

  Mary, listening to all of the conversations going on in the room, wanted to run screaming from her chair, but instead took a deep breath and turned back to the across the table from her. �
��Sally?”

  Sally, her face slightly ashen, faced Mary. “I did not kill Peter,” she said. “I was hurt and I was angry. I was also embarrassed. Peter humiliated me in front of the entire group.”

  “Yes, she’s right, I did do that,” he confessed. “It was not well done of me. Perhaps I was feeling a little guilty.”

  “I stormed out of the restaurant, went to my room…and cried,” she said.

  “Could anyone verify that you were in your room during that time?” Mary asked.

  “Of course not,” Sally snapped. “I wanted to be alone, so I didn’t have witnesses.”

  “You realize, of course, this makes you a suspect,” Mary said. “And it precludes you from helping us with the investigation.”

  “But…but…I didn’t kill him,” she insisted.

  Mary nodded. “Even though I believe you,” she said. “You had motive and opportunity. Allowing you to continue on this case could jeopardize any of our findings. A jury might feel that you had a vested interest and altered any evidence to point in another direction. I’m sorry, Sally.”

  Sally’s face hardened and her eyes drew together in anger as she looked slowly around the table. “Well, if I’m a suspect then so is she,” she spat, pointing at Honora.

  “Well, let’s just throw everyone under the bus, shall we?” Mike quipped.

  “Honora?” Tracey asked. “How could Honora be a suspect?”

  “She’s right,” Honora sobbed, dabbing ineffectually at the torrent of tears streaming down her face. “I confess. I killed Peter. I killed Peter.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  “Now just hold on a moment here,” Mary yelled as she stood up in the midst of a cacophony of screams, shouts and wails. “Everyone be quiet!”

  Uncomfortable silence filled the room, but the tension was thick. Sally had a slight smirk on her face that Mary really longed to slap off. Honora was crumpled into her chair, sobbing silently. Tracey had risen from her chair and put her arms protectively around Honora. Peter had a look of shocked disbelief on his face. Mike was staring down at the group in wonder and Ian was still snoring.

  Margaret stood up, wiped her hands together and looked at her daughter. “I believe I’ll put the tea kettle on,” she said quietly. “There’s nothing like a good cup of tea when trouble calls.”

  “Thank you, Ma,” Mary replied, sitting back down in her chair.

  Reaching over, she took Honora’s hands in hers and held them. The older woman looked up, her eyes red-rimmed with rivulets of mascara flowing down her flaccid cheeks. “Why don’t you take a deep breath and tell me how it happened,” Mary suggested.

  Honora pulled a voluminous floral handkerchief from somewhere near her ample bosom and put it against her face. The forthcoming noise from the elderly spiritualist was somewhere between the sound of a lonesome foghorn and a flock of Canada geese flying overhead.

  Ian jumped up in surprise. “Careful, we’ll run aground,” he cried, pushing his chair away from the table, still half-asleep.

  Bleary-eyed, he looked over at Mary. “I thought I was out at sea,” he confessed. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  Sally glanced over briefly at Ian and then did a double-take. Batting fake eyelashes, she smiled softly at him and stroked his forearm. “Don’t worry about that,” she whispered seductively. “I’ll explain everything.”

  “He’s young enough to be your grandson,” Peter complained. “Don’t embarrass yourself.”

  Grinning, Ian looked up towards the sound of Peter’s voice and froze. “You don’t have any …,” he stammered, and then realizing what he almost said, he clapped his hand over his mouth.

  “I don’t have any what, darling?” Sally purred, slowly moving her hand up his arm.

  Grabbing Sally’s arm and pulling it away from Ian, Margaret placed the kettle of hot tea between them. “Nothing like a hot cup of tea to bring a little normalcy back into a situation,” she announced. “Ian, there’s a darling, won’t you go to the cupboard and see if you can locate some cookies?”

  Ian stood, relief in his eyes, gave Margaret a quick kiss on the cheek, and went to search.

  “Now, if we can all get back to the investigation,” Mary said. “Honora, tell us what you did that night and why you believe you caused Peter’s death.”

  Taking a deep breath, Honora slowly looked around the room. “I know most of you think I’m a bumbling fool,” she began.

  Sally snorted.

  “But I have discovered that I am able to summon my psychic powers and use that energy to cause things to happen,” she said.

  “What kind of things?” Tracey asked.

  “Well, it started one day when a teller at the bank was quite rude to me,” she explained. “And I thought of an old curse I’d read from a book I’d purchased about spells and incantations. I must have gotten the words of the curse right because the next time I came into the bank, I learned that she had been fired.”

  Ian leaned over between Mary and Honora and placed a plate full of cookies on the table. “Could it have been, love, that the teller had poor customer service abilities and was let go?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Oh, no,” she said, pausing for a moment. “Well, at least I don’t think so. Besides there have been a number of those kinds of circumstances where it was just too coincidental to be…to be…”

  “A coincidence?” Mary asked.

  “Exactly,” Honora said, nodding her head. “And then there’s Peter.”

  “What did you do to Peter?” Mary asked. “Exactly.”

  “Well, the night of the dinner he not only insulted the spirits, but he also hurt my feelings badly, very badly,” she said. “So, I went back to my room and I killed him.”

  Ian pulled a chair across the room and sat down next to Honora. “Hello, we haven’t been introduced yet,” he said, smiling easily at her. “My name’s Professor Ian MacDougal and I’m from the University of Edinburgh. I’m a friend of Mary’s and I study paranormal phenomenon. Why don’t you tell me about the incantations you used that night?”

  Honora closed her eyes for a moment while she sorted her thoughts. “Well, first I took out his effigy from my suitcase,” she said.

  “You had his effigy in your suitcase?” Ian asked.

  Nodding eagerly, she smiled at him. “I always travel with effigies of my colleagues,” she said. “You know they’re not just voodoo dolls, they can be used for other things too.”

  “She had a voodoo doll of me in her suitcase?” Peter asked.

  “Um, Honora, do you have an effigy of me?” Sally asked, her tone friendly and pacifying.

  Smiling widely at her, Honora then turned back to Ian without answering Sally’s question. “So, I took out the effigy and I stormed around the room with it,” she said. “You see, I was so very angry, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I could flush it down the toilet, I could throw it into the fireplace or I could drop it out the window…”

  She smiled absently up at him. “There were just so many good choices.”

  “Aye, I can see that.”

  “But then I thought that I wouldn’t want to be accused of his murder,” she said.

  “Smart thinking,” Ian encouraged.

  “So, I decided that he should die of natural causes,” she finished.

  Ian waited for a moment, but when he saw she was done speaking he said, “And so…”

  “Oh. Oh, of course,” she said. “And so I took a long needle out of my emergency sewing case and stabbed him in the heart. So he would die of a heart attack.”

  She turned to Mary. “So, you see,” she said. “I killed him.”

  “But he drowned,” Mary replied. “He didn’t die of a heart attack.”

  “But I wanted him to die,” she replied sadly. “So I’m still guilty.”

  “Guilty of justified anger,” Peter said. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

  Mary placed her head in her hands, her head was pounding and she
felt like she was the ringmaster in a circus. Suddenly a cup of tea slipped in under her hands and she felt a soft pat on her shoulder. She took a deep breath, turned, smiled at her mother and took a sip the tea. The infusion of calming herbs soothed her for a moment and she was able to think clearly. “Okay, I’ve come to a temporary solution,” she said. “Sally and Honora, because of what I’ve learned today, I have to consider both of you potential suspects. I don’t have the authority to keep you here, but I would consider it a professional courtesy if you would both stay in Freeport for a little while longer.”

  Honora beamed. “Well, of course I will,” she said. “The spirits have told me that it is my duty to stay.”

  “Don’t look at me,” Mike said, raising both of his hands in defense. “I didn’t say a word.”

  “You can’t make me stay,” Sally said, rising to her feet and walking to the door between the kitchen and the living room. “And if I do stay, it’s only because I want to meet Peter’s real killer and shake his hand.”

  “Ouch,” Peter said. “Scorned woman and all that.”

  “Thank you, Sally,” Mary replied. “I promise I’ll be in touch.”

  Shrugging, Sally turned her back on the group and walked to the door. “Honora if you want a ride back to the hotel, you had better get moving.”

  Honora jumped up in a symphony of earrings, bangles and necklaces and hurried to the door. “Thank you Mary,” she called cheerily. “If you need any psychic help, you know who to call.”

  Mary nodded. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The door closed and there was a moment of complete silence in the house, followed by a collective sigh of relief. “Well, now, didn’t that make the morning a wee bit more interesting,” Ian said, reaching over for another cookie. “Are you thinking either of them did it?”

  Shaking her head, Mary grabbed a cookie for herself and broke it in half. “Not that stranger things haven’t happened,” she replied. “But I don’t think either of them could have kept a secret for this long.”

  Tracey laughed. “You have them both pegged,” she said. “And I agree with you, I think Honora is fairly harmless and Sally wouldn’t have been able to just kill him and leave the room. She would have wanted to slap him around a little.”