Murder In The Family
The Audrey Murders
Book Four
Leonie Mateer
Murder In The Family
Copyright © 2016 by Leonie Mateer. All rights reserved
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, and events is entirely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the author except as provided by USA copyright law.
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Published in the United States of America
1. Mystery/Crime/Fiction
2. Women’s Fiction/Crime
4.22.2016
ISBN 978-0-9976574-3-2
C H A P T E R 1
Words. Nasty, hateful words. Recriminations, accusations, words written in spiny squiggles on yellowed paper – remnants from her diary. Ben closed the book and fell back on the pillow. It’s too late. I should never have kept it. Her words burned holes in his mind. I hope she burns in hell!
As his thumb felt for each pearl in practiced formation, he recalled the last time she wore them. Her pale blue eyes shocked open, smeared red lips stretched, her swanlike neck straining against his clumsy hands as he watched her light fade and the pearls fall to the floor.
Retribution was imminent. He lowered the lid of her keepsake box and closed his eyes. Each breath now more difficult. He hadn’t left a will. No need. He had nothing left to give. His family hadn’t spoken to him in years. He hadn’t even bothered to leave them a farewell note. What was there to say? That he was sorry? That he was responsible for her death? It was too long ago.
He heard the door open and turned to face the wall.
C H A P T E R 2
Audrey opened the email. She had red-flagged it earlier in the day knowing she would open it and read it when she had the courage to do so. What could her sisters want with her now? Too many years had passed. Too many words left unsaid.
There it was. In black and white. Just like them. No please or thank you. They were coming to stay at her cabins. All of them. Uninvited and unwanted. Important, she read. We need to talk. What could they possibly need to talk about that couldn’t be done over the phone?
The cabins were all fully booked for the next few weeks. She would need to cancel reservations and suffer the financial loss. Damn her sisters!
It was mid-day. Most of the guests had already checked out. She picked up the phone and began to make the calls.
C H A P T E R 3
Honey’s suitcase was a jumbled disaster. What to wear? That was the question. Every year her suitcases got bigger and bigger to accommodate her ever-increasing clothes size. This trip wasn’t her idea. It was bloody Becka’s. She had called the meeting. “It is time to sort this all out,” she had said. “We have no choice.” Honey wished she had said no. But saying no to Becka was not that easy.
Honey picked up the heavy suitcase and dragged it downstairs. Fat, fluffy cats sat waiting in their cage. Honey hated taking them to the cattery as much as they hated staying there. Thank goodness it would only be for a few days. Her long skirt caught in the door as she slammed it shut, pissing her off even more. Why do we have to bring it all up now? She pulled at the skirt. When I wanted to talk about it everyone acted as though it was all in my head. She unlocked the door to release her skirt and dropped the keys. Shit, shit, shit. The cats meowed in unison protesting their confined quarters and lack of attention.
C H A P T E R 4
The wind pulled at her coat exposing her to the bitter cold. The platform, eerily empty, filled with the roar of the approaching train. She pulled her suitcase up the steps and was welcomed with a blast of warm air. It was a fifteen-minute ride to Heathrow and a grueling twenty-hour flight to New Zealand.
How long since she had seen her sisters and brother? She couldn’t count the years. They had been just children. Escaping to London in her late teens was the best thing Becka had ever done. She had made a life for herself. At least it had been a life. Now she was alone. Her husband was up north, remarried and affluent. Her sons were lawyers in the City. She hadn’t told them about her trip. She wouldn’t. They knew nothing of her past and never would.
How did the old woman get my phone number? She wondered. He was dying. Well bloody good riddance! It was not sympathy but pure curiosity that stirred her into action. Greta was adamant that she should come. “He’s going fast. I didn’t know whom else to call. You were the only family he ever talked about. He keeps saying he is sorry.” Sorry for what? “You had better come.”
She would come. But she was not doing this alone. They were all involved. The doors swung open and she pushed her way passed the incoming passengers and up the escalators towards the terminal.
C H A P T E R 5
Audrey cancelled all her guests for the next five days. She didn’t want strangers around her family. Best to keep things quiet. All the cabins were clean and ready for their arrival tomorrow. Tonight she would visit her brother, Ben. There could only be one reason for her sisters’ sudden call to arms. She must make sure their secret remained a secret.
She parked her Rav4 off the road, out of sight and walked across the overgrown lawn toward the derelict villa. Old rusty bike wheels leaned against the front veranda – a reminder of her brother’s healthier days. Wicker chairs, unwound and unloved, sat on either side of the front door. Audrey took the small path leading to the back door. Branches tore at her clothes as she made her way in the shadows. Peering in through the window she saw Greta stooped over the stove staring into a large black pot.
“What do you want?” she snapped, startled at Audrey’s uninvited entrance.
“I think you’re stirring up trouble. What have you been saying? Whom have you been talking to? I thought we had an agreement.”
“Been saying nothing.” The old woman snapped.
“Where is my brother?”
“He’s in his room. I wouldn’t disturb him. He’s sleeping.”
Audrey pushed past the woman and made her way down the long hallway to her brother’s bedroom. As she opened the door the pungent smell of death was overwhelming. She was too late. Her brother lay motionless. She felt for his pulse. Nothing. He was gone. Then she saw it. An ornate wooden box sat on his side table. She recognized it immediately. Why does he still have it? She opened it and let out a long sigh. There it was. The proof. She had told him to burn the diary long ago. He hadn’t. Now she had a problem. Greta must have read it. Is that why her sisters were coming to stay?
She noticed Greta’s bedroom door was ajar and peered into the stark, sparse space. A small table lamp exposed a single bed with white spread, a wooden chest of drawers, a wardrobe and a straight-backed chair as its sole contents. There was a suitcase on the bed. Audrey wondered if she was planning on going somewhere. Surely not. Approaching the suitcase she lifted the lid. It was packed. She opened a drawer in the dresser. Nothing. Greta knows, and she is leaving. But where to? To whom?
Audrey returned to the kitchen and sat down at the table. “He has gone,” she told Greta.
Greta looked undisturbed at the news and remained staring into the pot as it came to a boil.
“Why don’t you take a seat and let me make the tea,” Audrey suggested graciously.
Greta removed two cups from the shelf above the stove and placed them on the bench. “It’s no trouble,” she said gruffly.
Audrey insisted. “Please,
you have done so much for my brother. The least I can do is make the tea.” She turned the old lady gently towards the table in the center of the kitchen and reached for the tea caddy on the top shelf. “Did you contact Becka and Honey? You know you should have called me first.”
The old lady looked guilty. “I phoned Becka because Ben was so upset. He kept calling her name. Seemed to want to tell her something before he died.”
“What sort of things?” Audrey poured a splash of milk into both cups.
“I don’t know. He didn’t say. But I bet it had something to do with that old diary he kept reading over and over again.”
“What diary? Did he show it to you?” Audrey asked as she removed a tea bag from the tea caddy and another from her pocket, placed them in the cups and covered them with boiling water.
The old woman didn’t answer.
“Did you read it?” Audrey carried both cups to the table and handed one to Greta.
“So what if I did?” she said. “What difference does it make now? He is dead.” Greta sipped her tea and complained. “Didn’t you add any sugar?”
Audrey collected the old china sugar bowl with a little macramé beaded cover and tiny sugar spoon and watched as Greta added multiple scoops of sugar to her tea.
Audrey knew she was going to have a busy night. In fifteen minutes Greta would be dead. Suicide, they would say. The old woman would no longer have had a roof over her head and nothing left to live for. At least, that is what Audrey would tell the police if they ever asked. She felt for Greta’s pulse. It was weak. She picked up the cups and meticulously washed away all traces of their contents, emptied the pot of boiling water into the sink and returned everything to its appropriate place.
Stepping over the old lady crumpled at her feet, she revisited her brother’s bedroom and collected every remaining piece of evidence she could find. The box, her mother’s diary, newspaper clippings stuffed in files in his desk, the pearl necklace and his laptop computer.
She had one last task. Opening Greta’s suitcase she removed every garment, one by one, and returned them, neatly folded, to their respective places in the drawers. Finding a one-way bus ticket to Auckland in Greta’s old clasp purse, she tucked it into her pocket and placed the old suitcase on top of the wardrobe. She looked at her phone. They would be here soon. She had made the call after retrieving her car and parking it in the driveway. It was just on eleven thirty.
She fondled her mother’s pearls now prettily adorning her own slender neck. They were exceptional in design. Each pearl perfectly sized. She sighed. They belonged to her now.
C H A P T E R 6
Higgins had returned from walking his dog when his phone interrupted his nightly ritual. He was a meticulous man, one of the reasons he lived alone. Except for Marcus, of course. Marcus was a boxer breed, which meant he slobbered – a trait that Higgins had never come to terms with, and never would. But loyalty and responsibility were two of the detective’s biggest attributes that, no doubt, explained his canine tolerance.
“Detective Constable Higgins” he barked into the phone.
“Yes, detective, we have a situation here. Two bodies. Don’t like the look of it. 365 Mountain Road. Would like your opinion.”
“Two bodies you say? I’m on my way. Don’t touch a thing.”
It was after midnight. Marcus liked to accompany him on his nightly rounds but tonight he would leave him at home. He didn’t know how long this would take. The funeral directors only called him when they suspected foul play. He presumed the coroner would already be on his way.
The scene inside was quiet and orderly. The funeral director had cordoned off the two areas where the dead lay undisturbed. The elderly lady’s body was cold to the touch. The middle-aged man’s body was in the early stages of rigor mortis indicating that he had been dead for at least three hours. He looked at the time, one a.m. He guessed the time of death to be around ten p.m. The lady, he couldn’t tell. There were no signs of injury to either body. “Who called you?” he asked.
“Audrey Wetherby,” replied the funeral director, looking at his notes. “She is waiting in the library. I thought you would want to speak with her so I asked her to stay. She said the man is her brother and the old lady is his caregiver. Her brother was diagnosed with stage-four brain cancer. His death was imminent and expected. The old lady’s death is a mystery.”
Higgins used his cell phone to snap a few photos of both bedrooms and the kitchen area before entering the library.
The blonde middle-aged woman stood up when he approached.
“Detective Constable Higgins” he introduced himself. “I am sorry for your loss. Please sit down.”
“Thank you detective.” Her voice soft and purposeful. “He was my brother. He was in such pain and is in a better place now.”
“Tell me about the lady? I understand she was his caregiver.”
“She has been with him for fifteen years or so. She was his housekeeper until he became ill. Then she became his caregiver. Maybe it was the shock of him passing that caused her death. I know they were very close. She was like his mother.”
“Are your parents still alive?” he asked.
“No, our parents passed away many years ago.”
“Do you know if Greta has any living relatives? Anyone we should contact?”
“No one that I know of. This was her home. I have already given the funeral directors all the information they asked for.
“Your brother, any children?”
“My brother never married. He was very reclusive. There is just myself and my three sisters.”
“Thank you,” said the detective. “It is late and I’m sure you want to get home. I just need to take your details in case I need further information.”
Audrey obliged handing him a set of keys to the old villa. “Can you please lock up when you have finished and put the keys under the mat by the back door?”
“One last thing. Did Greta have any health problems that you know of?”
“She had a weak heart but refused to see any doctors,” Audrey stood up to leave. “At least that is what my brother told me. She was a strange old woman. A spinster who liked my brother’s reclusive environment. They were well suited. My brother and she.”
“Oh, one more thing, sorry. How did you come to be here? I presume they were both dead when you arrived?”
“Yes, Detective. They were both dead. It was just a coincidence. I came to visit my brother. I knew he was desperately ill. Unfortunately I was too late. I would have liked to have said a final goodbye.”
The detective shared the news with the coroner. “The old lady had a weak ticker, it would appear.”
“Looks like we have two deaths as the result of natural causes.” The coroner removed his gloves and picked up his bag. “You can take them away,” he advised the funeral directors. He looked at Higgins. “I will fill out the paperwork and get you a copy first thing in the morning.”
“Sorry to get you out of bed” the funeral director said to Higgins. “Looks like I need not have bothered you.”
“No worries. Appreciate the call. I would have done the same thing.”
As he walked toward his car he thought it odd that Ms. Wetherby just happened to arrive not long after they had died. And both of them dying within a few hours of each other? Higgins didn’t like coincidences.
Something was bugging the detective. As he pulled into his driveway he remembered what it was. The home of Ben Brown was immaculate – everything in its place except for a suitcase in the old woman’s room. It was sitting at an uncomfortable angle atop the wardrobe. Anyone who is so precise in his or her neatness would never position it in that manner. Higgins would know, suffering himself from borderline OCD. The angle of the suitcase would be a constant irritation. Also, in the kitchen, every plate, cup and spoon had their designated home with the exception of two china cups on a shelf. Their handles faced in the opposite direction from the rest of the matching set. A tea ca
ddy and sugar bowl also looked somewhat disturbed. He doubted the old lady had put them there. Mr. Brown was obviously unable to make tea in the kitchen. So who placed the cups on the shelf? Had someone else made tea in the kitchen recently? There was also a small printer in the library but no sign of a computer. Why?
Marcus rushed to door to greet him. “Missed me. Didn’t you old boy?” Marcus knew not to jump up on his owner. He wagged his tail and gave a short bark.
It was good to be home.
C H A P T E R 7
It was bedlam in the Mayflower home. Piper was pulling clothes out of drawers hunting for her favorite blue top with the cut out sleeves. Her mother was yelling constantly, telling her they had to leave for the airport in thirty minutes. It was a school day and she was chuffed she was missing the geometry test. Her friends were so jealous she was going to Northland with her parents and wouldn’t be back until Tuesday next week. “I’m definitely surfing at Taupo Bay and snorkeling and waterskiing,” she had responded to their endless questions. Of course she didn’t tell them the main reason for their trip was to attend her Uncle Ben’s funeral. She had never met him. He was the Uncle no one talked about.
“I’m coming,” she called for the umpteenth time.
“Your father is already in the car.” Her mother looked agitated. “I hope you packed something suitable for the funeral?”
C H A P T E R 8
Audrey stood waiting at the Kerikeri airport. Becka was arriving any minute from London. She was not looking forward to seeing her sister. Becka was the cold one – detached and demanding. She wasn’t even the oldest. But somehow had taken on the role of everyone’s keeper. Not that the sisters communicated often. Audrey tried to remember the last time she had seen Becka. It was on one of her trips to London. That was years ago.
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