Aunt Bessie Believes (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery)

by Diana Xarissa

  Rockwell smiled as he followed Bessie into the kitchen. “What makes you think I’ve something on my mind?” he asked.

  “You haven’t dropped in to see me in a month,” Bessie pointed out. “I find it hard to believe that my shortbread is suddenly irresistible coincidently when you’re in the middle of another murder investigation.”

  Rockwell laughed. “This is why I come to see you,” he told Bessie. “You understand people.”

  Bessie laughed and then got out plates and cups and set the kettle to boil. “While we wait for our tea, you can tell me how you’ve been,” she instructed the man.

  “Oh, I’m fine,” he replied airily. “It’s been interesting running the station here. Lots of neighborhood policing, but not a lot of CID work.”

  “I hope you’re not getting bored.”

  “Oh no, I’ve really been enjoying having the time to get to know the community. Laxey is wonderful and Lonan is very special as well. But I’m sure you can imagine why, when Moirrey Teare died, I was eager to use her home as a practice crime scene.”

  “Indeed, and young Hugh seems to have learned a lot from the exercise.”

  “Yes, and his mistake was just about the only thing that saved my job for me as well,” he told Bessie.

  “Really?” Bessie was appalled.

  “Well,” Rockwell shrugged, “I don’t know what might have happened if it came out later that Moirrey was murdered and we hadn’t suspected. I’m not sure that they would have fired me, but I might have been reassigned. Even the chief constable has admitted that there was no reason to suspect murder. Her own physician was happy to sign the certificate as natural causes.” The inspector sighed. “Turns out it was anything but natural.”

  “You’ve had the test results?” Bessie asked. The kettle whistled and Bessie quickly made up a pot of tea, offering milk and sugar to the inspector. Then she piled pieces of the delicious leftover shortbread on a serving plate and offered it to him as well.

  He took a large piece and ate half of it, washed down with tea, before he answered her question.

  “Ah, that’s terrific,” he told Bessie. “And yes, we’ve had some test results back and it seems clear the Moirrey took one of the switched tablets, which makes it murder in my book. Now we just have to figure out why someone wanted to kill her.”

  “And that’s why you’re here?” Bessie guessed. “You think I can help supply a motive or two?”

  Rockwell grinned. “I’m really hoping you can,” he told her. “From what I’ve heard, anyone who spent any time with Moirrey in the past month could have switched the tablets.”

  “Which probably includes pretty much the entire population of the island,” Bessie told him. “In spite of her insisting that she rarely went anywhere because of her ill health, she was prone to popping up at just about any event going. She’d arrive, make a bunch of incredibly rude comments to the hosts and the guests of honour and then rush away, claiming she felt unwell.” Bessie sighed. “She really was most unlikeable.”

  Now the inspector sighed. “I was rather hoping you might narrow it down a bit more than that,” he told Bessie.

  Bessie shrugged. “What about means?” she asked. “Can’t you trace the origins of the tablets?”

  “I wish we could,” Rockwell sighed. “Right now it looks like they were standard prescription tablets that just about anyone could have had access to over the years. Apparently this particular drug fell out of favour in the UK a few years back and the company that was producing it stopped making it, but at its most popular it was being prescribed daily to help people deal with chronic pain and difficulty sleeping.”

  “But Moirrey wasn’t prescribed it?”

  Rockwell shrugged. “Her doctor tried to explain it all to me, but I’m sure I didn’t understand. Basically, though, no, this drug would never have been given to Moirrey. Dr. Quayle said that, in spite of all the medication she was taking, he’d never had to prescribe something to help her with pain or sleep. And if he did, it certainly wouldn’t have been this particular drug because of the negative ways it interacts with some of the other medications she was taking.”

  Bessie sighed. “But lots of other people might have been prescribed it over the years?”

  “That’s what I’m told,” Rockwell agreed. “And so far we’ve found thirty-seven people on the island who were prescribed this drug in the last ten years. We’ve spoken to several of them, but they all say the same thing.”

  Bessie grinned. “Let me guess, they all reckon they took them when they needed them and then threw out any left over, but it’s been so long now, they aren’t sure.”

  Rockwell laughed. “That’s it,” he told her. “And to make matters worse, it’s still being manufactured and widely prescribed in the United States, and I’ve found two Internet pharmacies that carry it as well. I suspect I could get my hands on some with very little effort.”

  “But you’d still have to know enough about medicine to know that it would kill Moirrey,” Bessie said.

  “Or simply be desperate enough to try,” Rockwell suggested. “The killer might not have had any idea what the drugs would do to Moirrey,” he said. “He or she might have thought that Moirrey would die if she didn’t get her normally scheduled medication and simply switched her normal tablets for whatever he or she had lying around.”

  Bessie shook her head. “This is impossible,” she complained.

  “No, it’s never impossible,” Rockwell insisted. “We just have to focus on motive.”

  “I guess,” Bessie said doubtfully as she refilled tea cups and took another piece of shortbread. Well, she’d had rather a lot of vegetables that evening, hadn’t she?

  The inspector took his own second piece and then smiled encouragingly at Bessie. “I need you to tell me who had a motive,” he said. “And I need every possibility you can come up with, no matter how slight. Sometimes it can be the littlest thing that tips someone over the edge, and with this sort of remote method, that might be more likely than usual. It seems to me that switching tablets, especially if you aren’t sure what the result might be, hardly feels like murder, more like helping fate along.”

  “This is hard,” Bessie complained. “Many of the people I could name are friends of mine.”

  “So let me start you off,” Rockwell suggested. “Tell me about Moirrey’s fight with Anne Caine.”

  Bessie sighed deeply. “I don’t know how much I can tell you,” she prevaricated.

  The inspector sighed. “Bessie, this is all strictly off the record,” he assured her. “I’m not going to arrest anyone because of what you tell me. I just need some hints that might point me in the right direction. I need to know who might benefit from Moirrey’s sudden death, and from what I’ve been told, Anne Caine definitely falls into that category.”

  “She didn’t need to kill Moirrey,” Bessie argued. “I gave her enough money to get Moirrey off her back.”

  “When?”

  “When what?”

  “When did you give the money to Anne?”

  “Oh, sorry,” Bessie shook her head. “On the Monday night, the night that Moirrey died.”

  “And the tablets could have been switched any time in the last month,” Rockwell pointed out. “Anne couldn’t have known you were going to help her out. She could have switched the drugs weeks ago.”

  Bessie wanted to argue, but the inspector was right. Anne couldn’t possibly have guessed that Bessie would help her out. “It sounds like you already know all about Anne’s problems,” she said.

  “I’ve heard the story, but I’d like to hear it from you as well.”

  Bessie nodded. “Basically, Anne’s father, Robert, worked for Moirrey’s father, Ewan. Robert managed the estate and in return he was given a small cottage to live in. Anne was born in the back bedroom of the cottage, but, unfortunately, her mother died in childbirth. It was about ten years later that Ewan Teare finally offered to sell the cottage outright to Robert Hall, rather
than just let him live in it while he was working for the estate.”

  “Any idea why he made the offer at that point rather than earlier or later?”

  Bessie shrugged. “The rumour at the time was that Robert was offered a job across at some stately home. Ewan had to find something to make it worth his while to stay here. The initial agreement for the sale of the property made it almost more of a gift than a sale.”

  “So then what happened?”

  “Ewan and Robert had a falling out about five years later. Robert started drinking heavily, and apparently there were other issues as well,” Bessie sighed. “You have to remember that the Teare family has always been very private, and Robert wasn’t any more forthcoming about family matters. Everything I’m telling you is second- or third-hand and unsubstantiated.”

  “That’s fine,” the inspector told her. “I’m just gathering information at this point. Everything you can add to the general picture is a help.”

  Bessie nodded and continued reluctantly. “From what I heard, eventually Robert and Ewan made up, but by that time Robert was about six months behind in his monthly payments. Ewan had his new advocate, Matthew Barnes, draw up a new agreement. From what I’m told, the new agreement had higher payments and very strict penalties for missing any. I still think that Doncan could have challenged the agreement if Moirrey had really tried to push Anne out of her home.”

  “But as far as Anne knew, she was about to get thrown out of the only home she’d ever known?”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t mean that she killed Moirrey,” Bessie said stoutly.

  “I didn’t say that it did,” Rockwell said smoothly. “But it certainly gives her a motive.”

  “I suppose,” Bessie replied.

  “And it gives her son a motive as well,” the man added.

  “Andy? He wasn’t even here,” Bessie argued. “I would look at her husband before I’d consider her son.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but her husband, Jack, has been off the island for nearly two months. We’ve checked flight and ferry records and they match what he’s told us. He left the island in February and hasn’t been back.”

  Bessie frowned. “Anne made it sound like he’d only just left.”

  “Well, maybe she was embarrassed to admit that he’s been gone so long.”

  “He could have snuck back and switched the tablets, though, couldn’t he? The ferry and flight records aren’t perfectly kept, are they?”

  “I’m sure they aren’t perfect, but they are reasonably good,” Rockwell told her. “Both the ferry and the airlines require photo identification now. I’ve spoken to Jack Caine several times on the phone and I don’t think he’s capable of planning something as complicated as faking his identification, coming over and swapping the tablets and then leaving the island again without anyone who knows him spotting him. I could be wrong, but for now I’m ruling him out.”

  “You can rule out Andy as well,” Bessie told him. “He wasn’t here, either.”

  “Actually, he arrived back on the island on Easter Sunday,” Rockwell corrected her. “He didn’t let his mother know he was back until Tuesday afternoon, which was after Moirrey had been found. But he was definitely on the island in time to do the swap.”

  Bessie frowned. “Did he tell you why he didn’t contact his mum until Tuesday?” she asked.

  “He says he was with a girl from Sunday afternoon until Tuesday lunchtime, but he won’t tell us who she is to verify the alibi. I’m guessing she’s either married or otherwise committed, but I don’t know for sure.”

  “Andy is a lovely young man,” Bessie told Rockwell. “I’m sure he would never have done anything to harm Moirrey.”

  “Even if Moirrey was threatening to destroy his mother’s life?” Rockwell asked. “Even lovely young men have been known to resort to murder for their mother’s sake.”

  Bessie shook her head. “You’re never going to convince me that Andy had anything to do with the murder,” she told Rockwell firmly. “You need to look elsewhere.”

  The inspector looked like he might argue, but then he shook his head. “We don’t have any evidence that Andy spent any time with Moirrey in the short time he was on the island before she died. Of course, he didn’t have to spend time with her to switch her tablets, but it would have been difficult for him. Okay, tell me about Matthew Barnes instead,” he suggested.

  “What does he have to do with Moirrey’s murder?” Bessie asked.

  Rockwell frowned. “When I said that everything we discuss is off the record, I need you to promise you won’t repeat anything I say as well, okay?”

  “Of course,” Bessie told him. “You shouldn’t have to ask.”

  “I know, but this is an especially tricky one,” he told her. “We have reason to believe that Moirrey wasn’t happy with how Mr. Barnes was handling her affairs.”

  “Really?” Bessie asked, intrigued.

  “Yes, really,” Rockwell frowned. “Not long before she died, she asked for a full accounting of all of her assets. Mr. Barnes insists that it was simply a routine request for information, but our initial enquiries suggest that she was suspicious that she was being cheated in some way. It’s entirely possible, of course, that she was wrong, in which case it seems unlikely that Mr. Barnes killed her.”

  “But she might have been right,” Bessie said. “I’ve always wondered why she moved out of the big house and into that cottage. Can Mr. Barnes explain that? Ewan always seemed to have plenty of money, but since he died Moirrey seemed to be far less well off than I would have expected her to be.”

  “That’s something I’ll have our financial experts take a look at,” Rockwell told her. “Knowing Matthew Barnes, do you think it’s possible that he was cheating a client?”

  Bessie laughed. “Absolutely,” she told him. “He’s as unscrupulous and dishonest as they come. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he’s cheating every single one of his clients. There must be a myriad of ways that an advocate can sneak money away from a client and into his own pocket, and I’d bet that Matthew Barnes knows every one and uses most of them.”

  The inspector laughed. “I didn’t realise how much you dislike the man,” he told Bessie. “I take it you wouldn’t mind if he was Moirrey’s killer?”

  “I’d be delighted,” Bessie replied. “Nothing would make me happier than seeing that man behind bars.”

  Rockwell nodded. “Okay, I’ll definitely take a closer look at him. There’s no doubt he had more than ample opportunity to switch the tablets. Moirrey was at his office at least once a week, and apparently they met socially quite regularly as well.”

  “It’s a small island,” Bessie shrugged. “Everyone meets everyone socially at least once in a while.”

  Rockwell grinned. “And not so socially,” he told her. He laughed as she gave him a confused look. “What I mean is that I seem to run into everyone all the time. No matter where I go, I seem to bump into people I know. I was grocery shopping the other day and ran into Doona and, um, a friend of hers.”

  “Which friend?” Bessie asked, curious about the odd expression on the inspector’s face.

  “Andrew Teare,” he answered.

  “Moirrey’s brother,” Bessie said. “Doona seems to be spending a great deal of time with him at the moment.”

  “Yes, she does, doesn’t she?” Rockwell sighed. “At least, as far as I can tell, he has an alibi for Moirrey’s murder. He didn’t arrive on the island until the day after the body was found.”

  “Why would he want to kill his own sister?” Bessie asked. “He seemed really upset about her death when I met him.”

  Rockwell shrugged. “We have to consider anyone with a connection to Moirrey, and you don’t get much closer than brother and sister. Maybe he is still bitter because he thought his mum liked her best.”

  “He might be,” Bessie remarked. “There was no doubt that Jane Teare doted on her daughter. I always thought poor Andrew was rather pushed aside onc
e Moirrey arrived. Of course he was shipped off to boarding school not long after. Still, I can’t see childhood rivalries triggering murder this many years later. By all accounts Andrew’s had a great life, seeing the world and such, and now he gets his inheritance which he was entitled to even when Moirrey was alive. I can’t see why he’d want her dead.”

  “And if she were still alive, she could help speed things up for him,” Rockwell remarked. “He’s still struggling to prove his identity, and Matthew Barnes seems to be going out of his way to make it difficult. I can’t help but wonder if Mr. Barnes is trying to hide things from the Teare family heir.”

  Bessie grinned. “Can’t you just lock Mr. Barnes up now and find the evidence later?” she teased.

  The inspector laughed. “If only it were that easy,” he told her.

  “There must be other people who had motives for killing Moirrey,” Bessie suggested.

  “We have a list started down at the station,” Rockwell laughed. “She didn’t have a lot of friends, and she seemed to have made a lot of enemies in her relatively short life.”

  “Most of the folks on your list will just be people who disliked her,” Bessie said. “But that isn’t usually enough reason to kill someone.”

  “True,” Rockwell nodded. “Let me run through a few of the names and see if you have any more information about them than I do.”

  In the next half hour they got through an entire pot of tea and all of the rest of the shortbread. Bessie wasn’t surprised at any of the names on the list. She’d heard about every single one of the fights and disagreements that Moirrey had started with the various people the inspector named.

  Eventually Bessie sighed. “I know her neighbours have been fighting with her about the fences for years, and I know that Joney Kelly has never forgiven her for getting her fired from her tutoring job, and I know all the others that you mentioned had legitimate reasons for disliking the woman, but not one of the quarrels or disagreements you mentioned seemed anywhere near enough to be a motive for murder.”