Sins Out of School

by Jeanne M. Dams

  “And not one moment before,” said Lynn, giving Tom a poke in his well-rounded stomach. “Come on, nosy. The traffic getting back to London is going to be horrendous.”

  Jane stayed behind.

  “Right,” she said when everyone had left. “So?”

  The question was addressed to Alan. He replied with a sigh. “Not good. Not good at all. Dorothy, my love, why don’t you make us a fresh pot of coffee? I think we could use a little stimulant.”

  I made it extra strong to counteract the amount of food we’d consumed, and the champagne we’d had with it. When we had heavy white mugs of restorative in front of us, he gave us the worst.

  “I talked to Morrison; it’s his case.” Chief Detective Inspector Derek Morrison, who had been Alan’s right-hand man when he was chief constable, was still a pillar of the force. “It’s about as bad as it can be. Doyle died at home, sometime last night. They can’t get closer to the time until they’ve done the postmortem. Mrs. Doyle is no help with the time. She says she came downstairs this morning and found him on the kitchen floor. He was lying facedown, a kitchen knife in his back.”

  I made an involuntary noise. Alan looked up. “Nothing,” I said. “It’s all right. Go on.”

  “The knife was not in the body when the police came. Mrs. Doyle says she couldn’t leave it there, could she, not all messy. John liked the kitchen to be tidy. She told Morrison that as though it were a complete explanation for why she took the knife, washed it well in soapy water, dried it carefully, and put it back in the drawer. She took it out of the drawer and gave it to the SOCOs when they asked—sorry, Scene of Crime Officers.”

  I nodded.

  “Of course, they’ll find the blood on the knife. It’s almost impossible to wash all of it away. But the only fingerprints, now, will be hers. Not only that, she had, for good measure, moved the body—‘Well, it was lying in the middle of the floor, wasn’t it?’—covered it with a sheet, and scrubbed the floor.”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head.

  “And to put the absolute lid on it, both doors to the house were locked when the police arrived. Mrs. Doyle insists they were that way when she came downstairs, or at least she hadn’t touched them, and there are no keys except hers and her husband’s. His was in his pocket; hers in her handbag.”

  “Spring locks?” I asked in a last-ditch effort.

  “The back door is. The front door is a dead bolt that locks only with a key from either side. So yes, a murderer could have left by the back door and it would have locked behind him, or her. But Mrs. Doyle says the house was always kept locked up, and that Mr. Doyle was not in last night by the time she went to bed, around midnight. He was at a church meeting of some sort. She helped Miriam with her homework and then, after the little girl went to bed, stayed up late grading papers. She says she was very tired when she went to bed and didn’t hear her husband come home.”

  “She didn’t even know that he didn’t come to bed?”

  “They have separate rooms, it seems. One of the bedrooms is divided to make tiny rooms for Amanda and Miriam, and Doyle had the other one. She was quite shy, talking about that, Derek said. A married woman in this day and age; it’s almost beyond belief. At any rate, if she’s telling the truth about that meeting, and it’ll be easy enough to check, we can find out when he came home last night, or near enough. But as for the rest of her story, it’s so thin as to be nonexistent.”

  “She hasn’t admitted to killing him, has she?”

  “No. She keeps on denying everything and sticking to what she said at first. She’s asking us to believe that someone came home with her husband, someone he trusted enough to let him—or her—into the house very late at night, and this person then stabbed him in the back—making so little noise, mind you, that neither Mrs. Doyle nor the little girl, who the mother says is a light sleeper, heard a thing.”

  We drank our coffee and considered the matter. Finally Jane said, “Motive?”

  “Oh, she freely admits that she hated her husband and isn’t sorry he’s dead.”

  Jane nodded thoughtfully. I gathered she was somewhat familiar with the Doyle ménage.

  Alan went on. “She says, and I quote what Derek told me, ‘Perhaps now Miriam and I can have a life.’”

  I took a deep breath and let it out in a gusty sigh. “It doesn’t seem very likely, does it? For either of them.”

  We washed the dishes rather silently. There didn’t seem to be much more to say about the Doyle family tragedy.

  I slept badly that night, though I was very tired. I couldn’t stop thinking about that repressed, unhappy woman, and that oddly sweet little girl with the warped religious views. What was going to happen to her if her mother went to prison for murdering her father? Surely there must be some family somewhere, grandparents or aunts and uncles or someone. She needed to be looked after, loved, weaned away from the bleak credo in which she had been raised.

  No, I had no right to say that. Her beliefs were her own business, repellent as I found them. What on earth had she meant by that “vanity” remark when she was setting the table? That pretty things were evil? I certainly didn’t agree with that. Trivial, frivolous perhaps, but not evil. And the idea that God would punish a child with deafness was not just misguided, but positively diabolical. No, darn it all, she needed to be set straight.

  Maybe her mother didn’t believe all this guff. Mrs. Beecham had seemed to think the heavy-handed religious training was all the father’s doing, and now he was gone. Maybe her mother could guide her into a gentler sort of creed.

  Maybe her mother killed her father. Very possibly she did. Gentle?

  Despite the comforting warmth of my husband and two cats, I tossed and turned in the bed and fell asleep only toward morning.

  I was restless when I finally made myself get out of bed. The day after Thanksgiving, back in Indiana, was always a big Christmas-shopping day. There was no such tradition here, of course, and I didn’t feel much like shopping, anyway. The house was clean and there were leftovers to last us several days; no need to cook. Alan, absorbed in the book of memoirs he’d begun to write, didn’t need or particularly want my company. I’d given up my volunteer job at the Cathedral gift shop, but I felt at loose ends. Maybe I’d go over there and see if they needed any help. Even tidying up or restocking the shelves would help with the restlessness that possessed me.

  The truth, of course, was that I didn’t want to think about the Doyles, and I couldn’t seem to think about anything else. That poor child. That poor woman. I wished I could help, somehow, but I barely knew either of them, and it would be foolish for me to become involved. Alan and I were too old to look after Miriam, and as for any other sort of help—well, the police were thoroughly competent to investigate a case that seemed all too simple. I refused even to think, this time, about poking my nose into the matter.

  I changed from slacks into a sweater and skirt, to fit in with the Englishwomen at the Cathedral. Women in England still don’t wear slacks much for any except the most informal occasions, a habit I find uncomfortable. But I conform, most of the time. I told Alan where I was going (I doubted he heard a word I said), put on my hat, and stepped out the door.

  It was a beautiful day, more like October than nearly December. I’d do a little gardening when I came back from the Cathedral, I decided. My gardener, Bob Finch, had for the last couple of weeks been on one of his periodic alcoholic binges. I knew when he sobered up and came back to work he’d cluck over the state of my garden as if it were all my fault. Pulling a few weeds would make the place look better and me feel better. It is, I’ve found, very hard to be depressed when your knees and back are aching and there’s dirt under your fingernails and sweat is dripping into your eyes.

  My house is the last on my street, right up against the wall of the Cathedral Close, and it’s by far the oldest in the neighborhood. It was built in the early 1600s, after the Cathedral (then the Abbey church) fell into private hands upon Henry V
II’s dissolution of the monasteries. The house was meant to be a gatehouse for the manor house that had been built on the Abbey grounds. As the wheel of history turned and the Abbey property came back into the possession of the church, the new Close was laid out, the new wall built, and the house that centuries later was to be mine was divorced once and for all from the Cathedral. But it is the nearest house in all the town to the great church, and the bells, sounding overhead at frequent intervals, have become so much a part of my life that I scarcely hear them unless I’m listening for them.

  This day I listened. There was no mighty peal being rung, only the bells of the clock telling the hour, but there was comfort in the sound. The bells, some of them, have been there for longer than my house; the two oldest date from the fifteenth century. The chimes of the clock are nothing like that old, but somehow, when I hear them ring out, I hear also a hint of eternity. Age and tradition suggest continuity and permanence. In this uncertain, impermanent world, I find that a consolation.

  I was already feeling better as I entered the side door and walked past tombs and chantries and memorials in stone and bronze. Even these reminders of mortality didn’t depress me. They were, after all, reminders of immortality as well. I stopped in the little chapel set aside for private meditation and said a prayer for Mrs. Doyle and little Miriam, and a reluctant one for Mr. Doyle, and then went on to the gift shop.

  It turned out they didn’t need me there. It was a slow day. The manager, Mrs. Williamson, kindly let me putter around a bit, but it was busywork, and I soon tired of it. The Cathedral had done its work on my mood, anyway. I’d go home and get at those weeds.

  I was on my knees and thoroughly grubby when my husband came to a stopping place in his work and strolled out to survey my progress. “Nearly time for a turkey sandwich, wouldn’t you say, love?”

  “Right. I’m starving. But I want to finish this corner first.”

  “Then I’ll make the sandwiches. Oh, by the way, Derek called while you were out. They’ve let Mrs. Doyle go home.”

  “Somebody bailed her out?” I crawled forward another foot, careful not to crush any chrysanthemums.

  “Posted bond, my dear. No, as a matter of fact. They found some evidence that cast considerable doubt on her guilt.”

  I sat back (to the ruination of several plants) and looked up at him. “Really! What evidence?”

  “Don’t get excited. It’s nothing conclusive, and it won’t be until the autopsy is completed, but it turns out that there was a good deal less blood on Mr. Doyle’s clothing than one would have expected. So little, in fact, that they are now not sure the stabbing was the cause of death. That upsets the whole scenario, of course. So they’re letting Mrs. Doyle go home, for the time being, at least. I imagine they’ll put pressure on the medical examiner’s office, try to get the autopsy rushed through.”

  I pulled another weed or two and thought about that. “It doesn’t really help much, does it? Because even if she didn’t stab him, she might have killed him some other way. Though why she would then stab him …”

  “Precisely. She might have done. People will do almost anything. If I learned anything in nearly fifty years of police work, it was that. If she hated him enough, she might have wanted to make assurance doubly sure. But it seems a little unlikely.”

  “So she’s home with Miriam?”

  “For now. The forensics people have finished with the house, so they’ve let them back in.”

  “That was quick work.”

  “I imagine it was the thought of the little girl that hurried them. She’d have had no place to go.”

  So now they had a home, anyway. But Mrs. Doyle wasn’t likely to go back to her teaching job for a while, I thought as I disposed of the last few pesky weeds. That wouldn’t help the family financial situation. It gave me a practical way to help a little, though. I’d take some turkey and other leftovers to the house this afternoon. At least they wouldn’t have to worry about food for a while.

  I went in with a lighter heart to clean up and eat my lunch.

  6

  I HAD to stop at St. Stephen’s to find out where the Doyles lived. Catherine wasn’t in the office; the secretary told me she was taking Mrs. Doyle’s class. I felt guilty that I hadn’t even offered to substitute for another day. I also felt that if I didn’t get out of there quickly, I might very well be roped in. I got the address and some directions from the secretary and hastened out the door.

  The Doyles lived in a part of town I knew only by reputation, and I got lost getting there. Sherebury isn’t a big place, but because the heart of town is medieval, and was at one time walled, the streets are narrow and winding, and even after several years here I can still get lost very easily. One might think that the newer areas, developed from the middle nineteenth through the late twentieth century, would have been laid out on a more rational grid, but not so. The streets are slightly wider, but they wind just as much. In a way it’s actually harder to navigate in the new housing estates, because the buildings are all exactly alike, at least in the less expensive developments.

  The Doyle home, when I finally found it, was in the least expensive area of all. Built in the 1980s (not a happy period in English domestic architecture), the skimpy two-up-and-two-down houses were of shoddy construction, and most of them were showing it badly. The pebbles that had originally covered up the exterior stucco had fallen off in haphazard patterns, giving the walls an odd moth-eaten look. Large cracks had appeared here and there. Rain gutters sagged, downspouts were missing. Roof tiles had been replaced, not with the original brown, but with any color that (one assumed) was on sale. Woodwork had been left unpainted for so long it was, in many places, beginning to rot. The small square houses must always have been ugly, but it would have been an austere, sterile ugliness when they were new. Now the majority of them were simply squalid.

  The Doyles had done their best to make repairs and restore the house to its austere sterility. A fresh coat of stucco had been applied. The roof tiles all matched. The woodwork was painted a repellent shade of shiny gray. The tiny patches of ground on either side of the front walk were covered, not with flowers, but with grass that had, one felt, never been allowed to grow so much as an extra quarter of an inch before being efficiently mowed. High yew hedges, clipped to rigid rectangles, gave the house a dark, secretive look.

  Never had I seen a house that so clearly shouted of cheerless duty relentlessly done.

  I had expected to see several cars parked near the house, but there was only one, probably Mr. Doyle’s. No friends and neighbors had come to call on the victims of tragedy? I checked the address to make sure I had the right house. This was 42 Wilbraham Crescent, all right.

  Well, Catherine had said Mrs. Doyle had no friends except for Mrs. Beecham. I shrugged, got out of the car with my shopping bag full of food, and rang the bell.

  I heard a key turn. The door opened two inches against the chain and Miriam peered around the edge.

  “Hello, Miriam. I came to see you and your mother. May I come in?”

  “Hello, Mrs. Martin. I’m sorry, but Mummy told me not to let anyone in.”

  “Is she out?” I asked in some alarm. Surely no woman would leave the child alone, under the circumstances.

  “No. She’s taking a nap. She’s very tired.”

  “I’m sure she is, and I don’t want to disturb her if she’s able to get a little rest. Maybe I could just give you this?” I held up the bag. “We had so much food left over from dinner yesterday, and I thought your mother might not feel like cooking for a while, so I brought some of it to you.”

  “Well—Mummy said not to open the door, but p’raps it will be all right—I’ll have to close it first, though—”

  The door closed and I heard the chain rattle. Before Miriam could open the door again I heard Mrs. Doyle’s voice sounding clearly through the thin walls. “Miriam? Who is it, darling? Remember, you mustn’t let anyone in.”

  “It’s just Mrs. Mart
in, Mummy. She brought us some food. And I’m hungry.” The last was said in a near whisper. I wasn’t intended to hear.

  There was a pause and then the sound of footsteps on the stairs. When the door opened, halfway this time, it was an exhausted-looking Mrs. Doyle who stood there, a depressing bathrobe over her pajamas.

  “It’s kind of you to call, Mrs. Martin, and especially kind to think about food. I’m afraid I’ve been too put about to do any marketing. I don’t suppose you have time to come in for a moment?”

  She didn’t want me there. That was perfectly plain from her tone of voice. Any polite person would have taken the hint. However, she had asked me in, and she and Miriam needed some lunch.

  “Thank you, I have plenty of time, and I thought I’d just make you a cup of tea before I go.” I moved forward. Mrs. Doyle had little choice but to stand aside and open the door the rest of the way.

  There was no need to ask the way to the kitchen. It, with a dining area, was to the right of the minute entrance hall. The living room was on the left. A steep flight of stairs led, presumably, to the bedrooms and bathroom. The house was very cold. I left my coat on and buttoned the top button.

  “Really, I don’t need any tea,” said Mrs. Doyle, following me. “At least, I can make some myself.”

  “But so can I, my dear, and you look ready to drop, if you don’t mind my saying so. You just sit there at the table and I’ll have tea and sandwiches ready in no time. Miriam, dear, if you’ll show me where things are?”

  The habit of obedience was strong in both of them. The mother sat; the daughter got out the teapot, mugs, and plates while I sandwiched thick slices of turkey into leftover dinner rolls. There was no butter in the small refrigerator, but margarine would do, and I’d brought some lettuce. When the tea was brewed, I asked where the sugar was.

  Miriam looked shocked. “We don’t use sugar in tea. It’s too expensive. Here’s the saccharine.”

  “Never mind. This time you need sugar. Do you have some for baking?”