Aunt Bessie Believes (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery)

by Diana Xarissa

  “That doesn’t sound like Moirrey,” Bessie remarked. “I can’t see her sleeping with him without being married. Besides, he told me he did it. He said that she was driving him crazy and he couldn’t take it anymore.”

  “That certainly sounds like Moirrey,” Doona said dryly.

  “He admitted to cutting Anne’s brake lines when we talked as well,” Bessie reminded the inspector.

  “He’s not admitting that either, now,” Rockwell replied.

  “I suppose that figures,” Bessie sighed.

  “We have more than enough to hold him for now while we investigate,” the inspector said. “And if we run out of things to charge him with, the authorities in both Canada and Australia would like to talk with him as well.”

  Doona sighed deeply. “I finally meet a guy who ticks all the boxes and he turns out to be wanted in three different countries.”

  Bessie laughed, but Inspector Rockwell looked serious. “The Canadian authorities are taking another look at Andrew Teare’s death,” he told them soberly. “It’s entirely possible that his medications were switched deliberately as well.”

  “But they were best friends,” Bessie protested.

  “Maybe,” Rockwell shrugged. “I find it interesting that Joe had the foresight to cut off some of Andrew’s hair, just in case he ever needed it for DNA testing.”

  “That’s just creepy,” Hugh said.

  “He claims he kept it as a keepsake,” Rockwell told them. “I think that’s pretty creepy as well.”

  Doona shuddered. “It’s all creepy and I can’t believe I was dating the guy. I’m so glad we were taking things slowly, but I wish now that I hadn’t ever laid eyes on him.”

  “He was very good at hiding his true character,” Bessie told her. “I didn’t like him, but I didn’t think he was a murderer.”

  “The more information I’ve been able to gather, the more it looks like that is exactly what he is. It seems that he was very skilled at causing ‘accidents.’ The Australians want to talk to him about the sudden death of an older woman that he and Andrew Teare were staying with at one point, as well. Apparently he was very good at disappearing whenever it looked like anyone was getting suspicious.”

  Doona sighed again. “Just like he did this time.”

  “Exactly,” the inspector agreed, giving Doona’s hand a squeeze.

  “I didn’t like him and I didn’t trust him, but I do believe that one of the reasons he left was because he was genuinely falling for you,” Bessie told Doona. “I don’t think he would have given up so easily otherwise. He’d planned this impersonation for a very long time.”

  Doona shrugged. “I don’t know if I want to believe that or not,” she replied. “I’m not sure if I’d rather think he was just conning me or that a man who could kill people actually fell for me. They’re both pretty awful notions, really.”

  Bessie smiled at her friend. “Tell yourself that you managed to bring out the little bit of good in a man who has had a difficult life,” she suggested. “I believe that’s true and….”

  A knock on the door interrupted their conversation. Bessie let Anne in and got Hugh to bring a chair from the sitting room into the kitchen for Anne.

  “Before I forget,” Anne said as she crossed the room. “Here’s the cheque you gave me for Moirrey.” She handed Bessie back the cheque that Bessie had written weeks earlier.

  “Should I write another one to someone else?” Bessie asked. “I don’t want you to lose your home.”

  “It’s all fine,” Anne assured her as she sank into her seat. “Thank you, though, I really appreciate your willingness to help. Ah,” she sighed. “I’d forgotten how tiring it is standing all day in the shop. I’m glad tomorrow is my last day.”

  Bessie offered Anne some pudding and she accepted eagerly. “I brought some sandwiches from home for my dinner, but that was hours ago. I very nearly treated myself to a huge bar of chocolate at the shop, but we were just busy enough that I never really had the time.”

  Everyone sat and waited politely while Bessie cut a piece of the pudding for Anne and added a spoonful of custard. Anne took a bite and sighed.

  “This is delicious,” she told everyone as she looked up from her plate. She burst out laughing then, as four pairs of eyes were staring at her with ill-disguised impatience. “I’m sorry, I suppose you’re all waiting to hear why I didn’t tell anyone that I knew the man was a fraud.” She sighed again and then blinked hard several times.

  Bessie got up and found a box of tissues, which she set down next to Anne on the table.

  “Have you ever worked so hard at keeping a secret that, even when it really didn’t matter anymore, you still felt like you couldn’t tell?” Anne asked, looking at each of them in turn.

  Bessie nodded. “The older a secret gets, the harder it is give it up,” she said.

  Anne sighed and pushed her pudding plate away. “I don’t even know where to begin,” she said. “Doona, I am so very sorry that I didn’t warn you. I never intended for you to get hurt. I knew he wasn’t Andrew Teare, but I wanted to see what he was up to before I said anything. I didn’t realise that you two were dating, I just….” she trailed off and buried her face in a tissue.

  After an awkward moment, Inspector Rockwell cleared his throat. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?” he suggested. “Start with the first time you met the imposter and go from there.”

  Anne nodded from behind her tissue and then wiped her eyes and sat up straight in her chair. “I can do this,” she said loudly.

  “Of course you can,” Bessie answered emphatically.

  Anne gave her a small smile. “Okay, well, I first met the imposter at La Terrazza, the night that Bessie was there having dinner with Doona and….” she sighed. “What’s his real name?” she asked.

  “His real name is Joe Watson,” Inspector Rockwell told her.

  “Thanks, that might help move the story along,” Anne grinned. “I met Joe at the restaurant that night and almost blurted out that he wasn’t Andrew Teare. He interrupted me and offered to sign my cottage over to me, so I held my tongue. Mostly, I was curious as to what he was up to; I never suspected that he’d killed Moirrey.”

  “No one thought he’d killed Moirrey,” Hugh told her.

  “Anyway, he met me after work that evening and we had a long talk. He told me that he’d been Andrew’s best friend. I’m not sure where the conversation might have gone if my Andy hadn’t turned up just then, but he did. My son was hoping I could lend him some cash so he could go out for a drink or two with his mates. Joe took one look at him and knew he had me right where he wanted me.” She sighed again and began to pick at her pudding with the spoon.

  “He threatened to hurt Andy?” Bessie asked angrily.

  “Quite the opposite,” Anne told her. “He promised that if I kept my mouth shut he would make sure that Andy was taken care of. He told me that Andrew Teare had made him promise that he’d look after me and my family.”

  “He told me that Andrew never even mentioned your name,” Bessie replied.

  Anne flushed and bit her lip. After a long minute, she wiped tears from her eyes and spoke again. “That’s probably more likely to be the truth,” she said with a catch in her voice. “Anyway, I promised I would keep my mouth shut and Joe promised he would make everything right and I wouldn’t be sorry.” she shrugged. “It wasn’t long after that that he tried to kill me.”

  “You had to know who’d cut through you brake lines,” Inspector Rockwell said in a carefully measured tone. “I can’t understand why you didn’t tell us at that point.”

  “Joe was following my car across the mountain,” she told him. “He followed the ambulance to Noble’s and the staff let him in to see me even before the police arrived. He told me that if I said anything to anyone that he’d kill Andy. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that he meant it, as well.”

  Doona shuddered and Inspector Rockwell patted her hand gently. Bessie gav
e Anne’s hand another squeeze as Anne continued her story.

  “I was glad I was able to get police protection, but all I really wanted was some protection for Andy. I made him stay with me as much as I possibly could and I worried constantly when he was out of my sight. I didn’t finally relax until they told me that Joe had been arrested.”

  “You could have sent him to stay with Jack across, couldn’t you?” Bessie asked.

  Anne laughed sharply. “Even if I knew where Jack was, I wouldn’t have done that,” she said.

  “You don’t know where he is?” Bessie queried.

  Anne sighed. “All sorts of secrets are going to come out tonight. No, I don’t know where he is. He left me in February and moved to Birmingham to be with some slut he met at The Cat and Longtail. He kept in touch long enough to send divorce papers through, but now everything is being handled by our advocates, and I don’t have any idea if he’s still with her in Birmingham or if he’s moved on. I don’t really care, either.”

  “Surely Andy wants to stay in touch with his father?” Doona asked.

  Anne shrugged. “He never got along with Jack,” she replied.

  “I’m not sure I understand all of this,” Bessie said after a long silence. “There’s a piece of the puzzle missing somewhere.”

  Anne smiled at her. “Absolutely, and it’s one I have to fill in, even though it isn’t easy. You need to know before Andy comes to see you later this week, because he knows and he’ll probably want to talk with you about it. He always loved talking to you about the problems in his life. He said you were the only one who ever really listened.”

  Bessie smiled. “Parents are so busy doing the job of raising their children that they don’t usually have time to listen to them as well. When kids come here to visit, I have nothing else to do but listen. I don’t have a telly and I don’t let them use their phones while they’re here. They have to talk and then they have to hear what I really think of what they’ve said,” she laughed. “Some of them only visit the once, because of it.”

  “Well, you certainly did your fair share of raising my Andy,” Anne told her. “And I never did thank you for it, so let me do that now. Thank you for everything that you did for my son.”

  “He’s a great kid,” Bessie told Anne. “And I’m glad I got to be a part of his life.”

  “Okay, enough prevaricating,” Anne shook her head. “I’ve been keeping this secret for so long that I don’t even know if I can tell it.”

  Bessie took her hand. “Maybe I should guess?” she suggested. Anne looked at her curiously. “You named your son after his father, didn’t you?” Bessie said softly.

  Anne burst into tears and buried her face in her hands.

  “I thought his father was called Jack?” Hugh said in a confused voice.

  Doona rolled her eyes at him. “Andy Caine’s father was Andrew Teare,” she explained to the confused constable.

  “He was?” Hugh asked.

  “Yes, he was,” Anne answered, as she ran a tissue over her tear-stained face.

  “Do you want to tell us the whole story?” Bessie asked. “Or have you had enough for tonight?”

  “I think I’d like to tell you, if you don’t mind listening?”

  The other four exchanged glances and Bessie could tell that they were all dying to hear the story. Bessie took Anne’s hand again and patted it gently. “We’re happy to hear it,” she assured the woman.

  “I was sixteen,” Anne told her. “Andrew was eighteen, and practically a stranger. He came home from boarding school for a few months before his gap year and, well, we….” she sighed. “I suppose it’s melodramatic to say that we fell in love, but we really did. He was kind and sweet and sensitive. His health wasn’t great, so he wasn’t rushing around drinking a lot and driving too fast like all the guys I knew from school. Andrew liked to sit and talk about books and just hold hands and watch the sunset. I was head-over-heels, madly, passionately in love with him. I suppose I still am.”

  The others sat quietly and waited while Anne composed herself after another short round of tears.

  “We were both so young,” she said eventually. “We were both so stupid. When I found out I was pregnant, I told my dad, and he went and talked to Ewan Teare. Before Andrew and I knew what was happening, Andrew was being sent away without even being allowed to say goodbye.”

  Anne paused, her face reflecting pain that was still felt even after so many years. “We managed to write back and forth for a little while,” she told the others. “But when Andrew found out that I was marrying Jack Caine he wrote me a horrible letter telling me that he never wanted to hear from me again.” Anne took a long drink of water from a glass that Bessie handed her.

  “I understand that he was hurt,” she said softly. “But I didn’t have any choice. I was sixteen. I couldn’t possibly have brought up a baby on my own. My father said he’d throw me out if I didn’t marry Jack and I simply didn’t have anywhere to go.”

  “And I’m sure Andrew understood that eventually,” Bessie murmured reassuringly.

  “I don’t know,” Anne shook her head. “I’d like to believe that, but I just don’t know.”

  “You have to believe that,” Bessie told her. “Because you have to convince your son of that. It’s important for Andy to think that his father cared and would have been a part of his life if he could have found a way to do so.”

  Anne nodded. “I know you’re right,” she said.

  “I can’t believe you kept all of this a secret for so long,” Doona said.

  “Neither can I,” Anne replied. “Andy looks so much like his father that I always thought someone would guess. I suppose no one ever really saw Andrew Teare that much, but that was one reason why I was happy for Andy to move across as soon as he was old enough. As soon as Joe saw him, he knew, though.”

  “I assume Jack knew he wasn’t the baby’s father?” Bessie asked.

  “Oh, he knew,” Anne answered dryly. “And he never let me forget it, either.”

  “So why did he marry you in the first place?” Doona asked.

  Anne blushed. “My father promised him a free home,” she admitted. “Dad and Ewan Teare made some sort of verbal agreement that we could all stay in the cottage and he would mark the loan as paid each month, without any money changing hands. I guess Ewan was supposed to leave the property to me when he died, but he didn’t.”

  “So you suddenly had to start paying Moirrey every month,” Bessie said.

  “Yep. Anyway, I guess that brings us to the last big Teare family secret.”

  “There’s more?” Doona asked. “I’m not sure I can handle anything else.”

  Anne smiled at her. “As it happens, Matthew Barnes was the one keeping this secret and he was happy to use Joe to hide behind rather than reveal it.”

  “Go on then, what was that horrible man hiding?” Bessie demanded.

  “It seems that Ewan Teare left his fortune in trust for Moirrey, but on her death it all goes to his only grandchild, my son.”

  “He disinherited his son?” Rockwell asked.

  “Apparently it’s more complicated than that, but it seems that Ewan didn’t expect Andrew to ever come back. Maybe he assumed that his heart condition would kill him or something. Anyway, my Andy is the Teare family heir.”

  “Finally, some good news,” Bessie cheered.

  Anne smiled. “What we don’t know yet is how good,” she sighed. “Doncan is doing his best to figure it all out, but it seems that Mr. Barnes might have misappropriated funds here and there over the years.”

  “I knew it,” Bessie said. “I knew that man couldn’t be trusted.”

  Anne smiled. “From what I understand, the family fortune wasn’t as much as everyone seemed to think to begin with,” she told the others. “It seems my father wasn’t the best estate manager around, either,” she flushed. “And once he started drinking he let a lot slide as well. Ewan insisted on living in the big house and that cost a fortune
to run,” she shrugged. “And I gather that Moirrey wasn’t a fan of living within her means.”

  “Now why doesn’t that surprise me?” Bessie asked.

  “Anyway, it appears that Mr. Barnes found some, shall we say ‘creative’ ways to keep both Moirrey and himself happy by selling land that shouldn’t have been sold under the terms of the trust and by borrowing heavily against the property. Doncan is going to figure it all out and then we’ll see where we are. Andy is feeling totally overwhelmed, of course.”

  “Of course,” Bessie patted Anne’s hand. “I hope I can help him get his head around it all.”

  “I’m sure you can,” Anne told her. “Doncan’s son, Doncan, Junior, wants to buy the big house. Andy and I don’t have any use for it, so I think we’re going to let him have it at fair market value. Doncan reckons once we’ve sold that and squared away all the debts that Moirrey left behind, Andy should have just about enough to put himself through culinary school. If he’s lucky, he might even end up with a small down payment for his own little restaurant or bakery once he’s finished.”

  Bessie smiled happily. “I love a happy ending,” she told everyone.

  “This one seems to have been a long time coming,” Anne sighed.

  “At least we all got there in the end,” Doona told her. “Joe wanted things to end up very differently.”

  “That’s why us good guys are around,” Hugh said with a grin. “To step in and save the day.”

  “How about stepping in and washing up?” Bessie suggested, pointing to the sink full of dishes.

  Hugh laughed, but he quickly began to get the job done. Anne slid back in her chair and finally dug into her pudding. Bessie looked over at Doona, who smiled and mouthed, “I’m fine,” at her friend. This time Bessie decided to believe her.

  She sat back in her chair and watched her friends as they relaxed and began to chat amongst themselves. Hugh washed and rinsed the dishes, and after a moment, Inspector Rockwell grabbed a towel and began to dry and put away the clean items. Doona and Anne began to talk about Andy’s suddenly brighter future. Bessie smiled. A happy ending indeed.