Death of an Ordinary Guy

by Jo A. Hiestand

  “Your words are a comfort in this time of trial, Margo.”

  “—prevented a greater mishap. After all, the moronic element never let an opportunity for a good joke pass. Especially if it causes alarm or disgust. You were saying?”

  I stood up, smiled at her, and said, “To quote our Fearless Leader, ‘Ora pro nobis.’ We who are about to die—”

  “Don’t give me that crap, Bren. You’re too worried about what he’ll think. Just go in and talk to him. He’s not God, for Christ’s sake!”

  “Of course I’m worried! He’s my superior officer!”

  “You’ve been placed with him to support him and learn. So make a few mistakes and learn!”

  She stood up, slung my purse over my shoulder, and pushed me toward the pub door before wandering off.

  Graham and I sat in my room at The Broken Loaf, mulling over the possibilities already forming in this case. A combination art show/Christmas bazaar had eliminated the village hall’s eligibility as a rural branch of the Derbyshire Constabulary. Exuberant displays from the area’s talent smothered every interior inch of that hall. So, a space in the pub served as incident room. I was content. I got fed more regularly this way. And with any luck, we’d be out of here by the end of the week, and the publican could reclaim his territory. Murder inconveniences everyone.

  I had relaxed considerably once we had started talking, but still struggled with unease at having Graham in my room. We observed the proprieties—he sitting in the chair and I on the bed. And even though we kept to the neutral subject of the murder, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d welcome or resist his advance if he chose to do so. I glanced at the bed, recalling times when I had wished for a romantic interlude with him, but now that he was so close, in such an intimate surrounding, I found my chest and throat tightening. I sought solace and protection in the murder. Angling the notebook toward the light, I said, “We’ve got the Guy Fawkes pre-bonfire festivities starting a bit before 7:00.” I squinted at my handwriting. “Vamsyhe, Vanoyke…”

  “VanDyke?” Graham suggested. He never could bear any type of suffering. “Ramona VanDyke?”

  “That’s the lady,” I admitted, remembering she was Arthur’s intended. “Thank you, sir. Usually I don’t make such a mess of my notes.”

  Graham replied that normally my notes were the pride of B Division, and asked me to continue.

  “As I said, the program starts a bit before 7:00. With Ramona VanDyke doing the singing honors. Most of the village had gathered by that time. I think it’s probably the same each year. Not much else to do at these village bonfires. We always told jokes at ours. Or worked up some sort of comedy routine. Not on the level of Eric and Ernie, of course, but it kept us entertained while the potatoes were roasting. Bonfires don’t seem to be as good these days. Why is that, you reckon?”

  “And Ramona’s contribution to the evening’s joy was over by…”

  “7:10, or close enough to it. There was a rather embarrassing dance routine by a local girl—”

  “Embarrassing? She fall into the bonfire?”

  “No, sir. Suggestive attire.” I remembered the scanty bikini. “More in keeping with August temps and the beach, I would have thought—”

  Graham smiled, then asked me to go on. “Executed to music played on a portable cassette player. Following that, we have a poem read—written for the occasion, and a violin solo. That amounted to another five minutes or so. Then the vicar says his bit to the assembled mass, lights the torch, and hands it to Ramona.”

  “Who promptly reveals the effigy is in actuality a corpse, and faints.”

  “Easy and succinct.”

  “Wonder if everyone was where he or she should’ve been?”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning,” Graham replied, “if this village drama is as old as everyone says, and it varies hardly a millimeter from year to year, and all of a sudden Talbot, say, wasn’t next to the vicar to hand him the wooden torch—”

  “I see what you mean. Kind of obvious, though. Wouldn’t the murderer have more brains than that? Wouldn’t he have thought that out and been where he should be?”

  “Speaking of being in places, why don’t you question Talbot, if he hasn’t sought the refuge of eiderdown? And while you’re breaking down his flimsy alibi, I’ll see what our illustrious landlord has to offer.”

  “If it’s beer,” I said on my way out the door, “save me a pint.”

  * * * *

  Talbot’s cottage lay in a thick pocket of the woods, at the end of an earthen track driven clean of grass through hundreds of trips. Tree branches and leaves littered the edges of the lane, barely allowing room for my passage. Once I had to stop mid-point, the engine of my Mini idling in the quiet as I got out to drag a large tree limb from the road. There was a rustling in the undergrowth to my left, as though I had disturbed some animal’s midnight foraging. But no eyes glared at me, no angry retort came. I heaved the limb into the woods, the leaves—crisp from frost —crunching under my feet. I wiped my hands on my trousers and glanced at the sky. Stars seemed to balance high overhead on bare branches, as tips of fairy wands. I got back into the car and turned up the heat, the scene seeming suddenly desolate. Minutes later, Talbot’s house emerged from the gloom.

  It was a gray stone cottage, half submerged in Virginia Creeper and half hidden by elderly oaks. A kind of witch’s house from Hansel and Gretel, with a large wood pile leaning against the southern side to protect it from winter’s blast. A curl of smoke seeped from the stone chimney that sat in the middle of the slate roof. Two windows, like giant eyes, stared into the woods from either side of the front door. Below the windows was the remnant of a small flower garden, its wizened stalks and leaves barely visible above the forest’s castoffs. The door glistened bright yellow in the glare from the car’s headlights. A beacon on dark nights?

  I found Talbot, as expected, there. He looked to be in his sixties, and was as thin and gray as the weathered wood he handled for the annual bonfire. Nearly indiscernible dark eyes wedged between a craggy forehead and hollow, sunken cheeks in a long, gaunt face, producing a living likeness to a Grimm fairy tale goblin. He stood in the open doorway, a patch of moonlight catching his facial hollows. He cautiously eyed me before begrudgingly letting me inside. I took the indicated chair, aware that he still leaned against the closed door. He remained there for a minute or more, as though deciding something. When he finally crossed the warped wooden floor, his shoes clattered into the stillness.

  Talbot came to a halt in front of a well-used chair, the back of his legs touching the knobby-textured fabric. His eyes fixed on me while his hand sought one of the chair’s upholstered arms. Lowering himself into the lifeless cushion, he asked what I wanted, adding, “Kind of late to be rousin’ folks, isn’t it?”

  “Sorry if I roused you, but the light was on, and you opened the door readily enough.” I surveyed the room, not so much as to prove Talbot had indeed been awake, but as to set the man in his environment and help me understand him.

  It was a small room, as all rooms probably were in the small house, serving as a catch-all lounge and dining room. A plate complete with dinner remnants sat on the end table, a heap of newspapers served as a place mat. Well-worn, solid furniture ringed the room’s perimeter like American football linebackers. A low wattage light bulb from a floor lamp did its best to illuminate a corner. I could just discern a few books in the over-all gloom. The electric fire was on the lowest setting—barely glowing or disseminating warmth. I rubbed my arms.

  Talbot noted the dinner plate, my observation, and the work clothes he still wore. Useless to pretend, Matey, I thought.

  “Just talkin’ general, Sergeant. Now, what’s it you want? Suppose it’s about the killin’. Can’t think of why else you’d be here.”

  I felt more than saw Talbot’s eyes drilling into mine. Like a vulture tracking a wounded mouse. I watched a brief flash of light skate across the dark hollow that hid Talbot’s eyes. U
nnerving. I pushed the discomforting comparison from my mind, and settled in for the routine of gathering information. Perhaps he’ll thaw a bit once we’re underway. “I understand you built the bonfire.”

  Talbot fidgeted and shifted his emaciated body, his veined hands gripping the arms of the chair. Moments passed before Talbot’s head nodded, the thin gray hair slipping in and out of the lamplight like gossamer strands of a spider web undulating in a faint breeze.

  “Near twelve, fifteen feet high, it was. I take my time with the buildin’ of it.” He settled back into his chair, his eyes buried even deeper in the shadow cast by the chair’s high back. “Unlike most villages where they just let anyone throw on whatever. I take my time to see it’s all set up proper. That means a solid base of the bigger stuff, then taperin’ up to the smaller. Mind you, Sergeant, I can’t always hold strictly to that ’cause sometimes people bring me old furniture or wood or whatever after I’ve got beyond the base. But I do with what I have, and do the best with what I have. And so far, there’s been no complaints. Or mishaps from crumblin’ wood.”

  “And probably won’t ever be. You seem to have an excellent grasp of engineering. How many years have you been constructing the fires?”

  “Since 1964,” he said, screwing his eyes shut as though it was an effort to remember. It hadn’t taken him long. I suspected Talbot knew readily enough; he just wanted to emphasize his importance in village life. “What that make it? Thirty-one years? Took it over from Mr. Brains when he left for study in America. The Polytech weren’t good enough for him, it seems.”

  “Would that be Derek Halford?” I ignored the man’s opinion.

  “Same one and all. He takes himself off, spends four years in university and comes home with his degree. He built the fires before he left—threw them together would be the word. Didn’t build them careful like I do.”

  “So he left in 1964 for his university courses, and you have been in charge of the bonfires ever since.”

  “You got it, Ma’am. Sergeant. Miss,” he added, wondering about my title.

  “He ever give you a hand with it? I just thought he’d miss the fun of it. They don’t do this sort of thing in America, I understand.” I thought of my discussion with Graham earlier that evening about necktie parties, and sighed.

  “Indeed they don’t. It’s purely British, and I can’t see it ever crossin’ the Atlantic like so many other things of ours has done. And no, Derek’s never had a hand with the fires since he come back. Don’t know if he’s too high and mighty for manual labor now that he has that university degree, or what. Seems it was fine for me as a thirty-one-year-old man with no education to do, but too common for a twenty-one-year-old educated one. And he’s never so much as hinted he’d like to reclaim the buildin’ duty, neither.”

  “Maybe he has other commitments,” I suggested. “Marriage seems to take a lot of some men’s time.”

  “Don’t get started with that line of thinkin’,” Talbot insisted, pounding his forefinger against his thigh. “Derek didn’t bring back a wife when he returned from his studies abroad. Wasn’t even courtin’ Kris. Don’t know why he wasn’t interested in the Guy Fawkes celebration. Never asked him. Anyway, I’m happy with things as they are. I enjoy buildin’ the fire—and I don’t want to give it up to Mr. Educated Halford!”

  I hoped the blast hadn’t damaged my hearing. “You all seem to have your talents in this village, Mr. Tanner. You have the fire to see to; Ramona…”

  “Ramona gets the dummy together,” Talbot said, a grin slowly consuming his weathered face. “I’d say it suits her fine, seein’ as how she’s courtn’ the village’s biggest dummy!” He rolled back his head and laughed in one loud bark. “Her official part in all this is to ask at the homes hereabouts for any castoffs. But as she and Mr. Lord-of-it-All Catchpool are keepin’ steady company and will probably be married in not too many months, that could change. Arthur’s a bit jealous when it comes to Ramona. Can’t see him lettin’ her run about, beggin’ for clothes from the men. But she’s a willful lady. Rather enjoys it, and if I know Ramona, she’ll keep on with it even when she’s enthroned as Lady of the Manor.”

  “So it’s more than keeping up an image, then.”

  “Can’t see her givin’ up that little bit of work when she gets that ring on her finger. There’s nothin’ to most of this work, is there? What’s so damned hard about findin’ old clothes?” Talbot’s eyes stared out from the darkness beneath his eyebrows, daring me to contradict him.

  “Nice that you have so devoted and caring a group in your village. Many places aren’t so lucky.”

  Talbot sniffed, wiping the back of his hand across his nose. “Like I said, it’s not all that bad. There’s nothin’ to most of it. It’s a one-shot thing.”

  “Not like being church choir director, for instance?”

  Talbot nodded and said no one would ever corner him into doing something on-going. “I’ve got my own things to worry about. But it’s not too much to build that fire. Only takes a few hours from my year. I just content myself with that and no more. The Big Three can bask in the limelight all they want. I like my dark corner.”

  “The Big Three…” I looked up from my notebook and searched Talbot’s face for meaning. “Would that be Arthur Catchpool, Derek Halford, and Ramona VanDyke?”

  “Missed the brass ring, Sergeant,” Talbot whooped, slapping his knee. “Though Ramona will be movin’ into that slot soon enough after she’s married. Can’t be too soon for her, either, from what I hear. She’ll certainly welcome Arthur’s bank account. About run through her own, she has. Wants the Lord of the Manor to increase his B-and-B portion to take in more payin’ guests and shore up Arthur’s bank account, but I can’t see him destroyin’ any more of his precious rooms to give over to tourists.”

  I said it would be a shame, from what I had seen of the Manor, for Arthur to destroy more rooms to harbor en suite facilities.

  “Got too many antiques, anyway. What would he do with ’em if he does over a dozen more rooms, say? Sure wouldn’t pile them on the fire come next November! But as to the Big Three, now, no. Number Three of the Trio is Byron MacKinnon, Arthur’s indispensable secretary and convenient shoulder to Mrs. Halford, should she ever need it. And many’s the time she does. That’s the high and mighty trinity that rule this village, our lives, and allow us to do what they like. That’s the bloody group.” Talbot’s voice strengthened and soared to a dangerous high. “They’ve all cheated me out of my legal money, sought to cheat me out of everything due me ever since I told ’em who I really am. Ever since—” Talbot stood up and glared down at me. “But maybe you need to go now. Getting’ late. I need to get to bed. Should think you’d want to, too. You’ve been here all day. I saw you, down at the green. Nosin’ about the fire. What for?”

  I explained my original assignment, stressing that I had merely been there to prevent firecracker trouble. Talbot grunted. ”Pure waste of time. We never had trouble with firecrackers in this village. We don’t go in for that. Hangin’ out for that! Waste of money.”

  I wasn’t certain if he meant the firecrackers were a waste of money or if my assignment was. The ill-lit room did nothing to help me penetrate the darkness thrown over the man’s face and read the emotions in his eyes.

  Talbot bent forward, his hand supporting his thin frame as it dug deeper into the chair. I heard the metal spring contracting beneath the compressed chair fabric. “Government’s into everybody’s lives. Don’t let a man breathe, go about his own business. What we need is a democratic government, individual rights, where a man ain’t beholdin’ to no lord—”

  Somewhere in the darkness outside, a dog howled. A long, slow, frustrating howl. Give me another minute, Dog, and I’ll join you. “That’s probably true,” I said, glancing at Talbot’s meager dinner remains, “but I need to establish a timetable for the day’s events. It’d be very useful to our investigation if you could tell me when you recall—”

  “If
you want to do something useful, you look into this business of the dole. You look into the dealings of Arthur and Derek, and you find the money they’ve cheated me out of. You do that, Miss Detective-Sergeant,” Talbot exploded, his knee pushing the heavy chair forward a bit. “You nose about a bit into that Terrible Trio’s goings-on and you come back here and tell me I’m wrong!”

  I mumbled something memorized and noncommittal, and left Talbot in the middle of his lounge. The lone, howling dog had induced others to join him and, to me, the yelping chorus sounded peaceful compared to Talbot’s raving.

  SEVEN

  I left Talbot’s bewitched woods and the cacophonous canine chorus, wondering if the man had assimilated to the setting, or vice versa. The night had settled in with a calmness that probably belied the agitation and grief gripping Ramona and the Halfords. Flashing past the blackness of the churchyard, I could see the brilliant openness of the village green where constabulary duties were still being done. A moment later I parked, last in a long line of police cars, at The Broken Loaf. Graham’s red Insight hugged the curb opposite the front door—coincidence or right of rank?

  Rectangles of light spilled from the pub’s windows, washing the courtyard flagstones in liquid gold. An apt hue, I thought, recalling the region had been the haunt of highwaymen and criminals. The pub had catered both to them and honest clientele, storing chests of gold, silver plate and jewelry in its dim cellar. The medieval building still suggested its past through creaking floors and blackened timber, yet the publican had been careful to hide its modern appointments from the tourist eye. I paused in the courtyard, imagining a midnight call to the shutters, a clatter of horse hooves on stone. Now the air held only the familiar chatter of police business.

  I turned to a noise behind me. Nothing moved in the darkness. At the farthest end of the yard, where the light did not reach, wrought iron tables and chairs huddled in great piles, waiting for winter storage. A fountain, waterless and looming like a nightmarish creature, squatted in the near corner. I caught an odor of wet stone as I passed.