Fetch a Pail of Murder (We're Not Dead Yet Club Book 1)

by Constance Barker

  “I got it with Brad…”

  “Brad? You’re still with that low-life?” Ida May’s eyes returned to where Lucy’s hand rested. “What did you get this time?”

  Lucy’s eyes leapt with glee. She fumbled with her shirt before gently lifting it a short way to reveal the fresh tattoo that crept up her side towards her breast.

  “It’s a dragon,” she explained proudly. “It’s only half finished. I’ve got to go back to get the tale finished when I have more money.”

  “Interesting,” Ida May replied, her eyes glued to the leaking design. “Does your mother know about it?”

  “Mom? No, she’d freak out if she knew I got another one. She almost kicked me out last time when I got the angel wings on my back…” She hesitated, a moment of fear flickering across her eyes. “You won’t tell her, will you?”

  Ida May shrugged. “Your mom always was a bit of a prude.”

  “So, you like it?”

  Ida May allowed her face to burst into a large, uncontrollable grin.

  “I love it!”

  Ida May loved coffee shop pastries. It was the only thing she’d ever eat. The sandwiches had too much mayonnaise, the cup cakes were too sweet – but pastries had a knack of hitting just the right spot. She licked her finger and dabbed up the last of the crumbs, humming contentedly as she put the last one in her mouth and collapsing back into her chair. Her fingers toyed playfully with the coffee cup, spinning it back and forth, before she finally picked it up and drained the last of her latte.

  Lucy was laughing ecstatically.

  “You? A detective?”

  Ida May’s eyes swooped down on her and narrowed to little more than pin pricks. “And what is wrong with that?”

  “I dunno,” Lucy replied. “You just seem more of a law breaker than a law keeper.”

  Ida May was flattered by the comment. “Can’t a girl be both?”

  Lucy laughed again and drained the last of her cappuccino. As soon as the last drop was gone, she signaled to the barista for two more and leant forward across the table, her eyes boring into Ida May’s.

  “So, you think you know who did it?”

  Ida May sighed. “We can’t even be sure we have the right victim yet, let alone a suspect. I’m telling you, this is all a monumental waste of time. But, if it’s keeping Hazel occupied then I’m not complaining.”

  “Don’t tell me the old girl is buying into it…”

  “Hook, line and sinker. She thinks it’s her new hobby!”

  Lucy smiled cheekily. “What? She’s going to start murdering people just so she has something to solve?”

  Ida May chuckled. “I wouldn’t put it past her,” she replied, before suddenly turning rather more serious. “No, she’ll get bored of it – just like she does with every other hobby. I’m telling you, when we haven’t found anything new in a day or two, she’ll be on to the next thing…”

  “Like surfing or hang gliding?”

  “Don’t even go there…”

  Lucy giggled and leant back just as the barista placed two new coffees down on the table. She leant forward and scooped up her new coffee, taking a large gulp but never letting her eyes leave her grandmother’s expression:

  “You never know. You could keep it interesting and plant something on one of the suspects. You’ll have a whale of a time watching Hazel follow leads that go nowhere…”

  Ida May couldn’t help smiling. “It’s a thought…” She burst out laughing again. “Seriously, though, I need to do something, Lucy. I thought this body in the well would change things up nicely, but all I’ve done so far is sit in a library and research…”

  “With Hazel…”

  “With Hazel,” Ida May confirmed. “I’m bored, love. I need to shake up the status quo a little.”

  Lucy thought about this for a moment. “We could get tattoos? If you pay, I can get the dragon finished…”

  Ida May shot her a disapproving glance. “Nice try. I’m not falling for that one again…”

  Her eyes glazed over as she remembered the small skull tattooed discreetly beneath her right armpit. She had never made a point of showing it to me and Hazel, but we both knew it was there. She’d accidentally flashed it to one of the old boys at the Senior Center and the poor guy was so excited he almost had a coronary.

  “Something less drastic, perhaps.”

  Lucy thought again, her eyes drifting slowly up to Ida May’s hairline.

  “How’s purple working for you?”

  Ida May’s eyes shot over to her, glimmering with glee.

  “What are you thinking?”

  Lucy shrugged. “Green is very in at the moment.”

  “Will it look garish?”

  “Would you care if it did?”

  Ida May’s mouth broadened into a massive smile.

  “Good point.”

  It was probably around this point that I arrived outside Ruby’s house for the second time that day. I’d tried calling ahead, but there’d been no answer. Now, as the clouds began to gather overhead, I started to wonder whether I’d made a massive mistake.

  For some reason, and don’t ask me why, my eyes began to wander from Ruby’s front porch, to the house a short distance down the road. It was the house that belonged to Vera, Thomas’ mother, and it was – for all intents and purposes – a slightly smaller, if not a little bit more elegant, version of Ruby’s house. The front façade was the same, the windows were the same – even the brass doorknockers on the front door were the same. My eyes drifted up the wall and rested on a window at the far left of Vera’s house on the top floor.

  All the other windows were covered by white, lace drapes – but this one was different.

  A pair of cold, grey eyes stared out at me.

  Vera was watching, dressed entirely in black, and stood motionlessly behind the window.

  I raised a hand to wave hello, but to no response. For a moment, I began to wonder whether the old girl had passed on as well, and just happened to be leaning up against the window when death had come for her, when – in a blink of an eye – she stepped back away from the glass and vanished from sight.

  It was the most peculiar thing…

  I don’t whether it was this strange incident, or because of the cold wind racing up the hill towards us, but I felt a sudden chill down my back. Without a second thought, I turned back to Ruby’s house and reached out for the doorknocker. As I pounded the knocker against the wooden door, I felt it buckle under the strain and slowly swing open revealing no one stood behind it.

  I hesitated in the doorway. Something about this wasn’t right. As if by some instinct, my eyes darted down to the lock of the door.

  It was intact – the door hadn’t been forced open.

  I stepped inside, feeling my heart pounding in my chest and my breath flowing loudly from my mouth.

  “Don?” I called out. “Is anyone home?”

  There was no answer. Not so much as a mutter.

  I took another step inside, my eyes darting fearfully from doorway to doorway, expecting someone to step out into the hall at any moment to frighten the life out of me. But the only movement came from an old grandfather clock that was stood at the end of the hall – the weight swayed back and forth, cracking each time it changed direction.

  Tick.

  Tock.

  Tick.

  “Hello?” I called out again. “Don, are you there?”

  Tick. Tock. Tick.

  There was nothing – nobody.

  I felt my heart start to calm and my breath steadied. I turned and pushed the door closed – I imagined that Don had just popped out somewhere. Or maybe he was in the garden and had been expecting visitors.

  I headed along the hallway, past the lounge where Ida May and I had eavesdropped on Milton earlier today, and made my way towards the kitchen. As I stepped in through the doorway, something happened – and the silly thing is I can’t honestly say I know what it was.

  From out behind the
door, a hand grasped at my mouth, pulling my head tightly towards the figure who appeared out of the shadows behind me. I let out a small scream, but it didn’t last long.

  Maybe it was the shock. Maybe I was just tired. But all of a sudden, I began to feel faint. My legs buckled beneath me and I clattered to the floor, my head landing in the center of the open doorway as my attacker bolted for the front door.

  The last thing I saw was his retreating back, his head covered by a sweater hood, as he bolted towards the front door and dived out into the world outside.

  And then the darkness took me.

  Chapter Nin e– Tea at Aunt Ruby’s

  Isn’t it funny how something can be so clear in your mind – like having a memory that you know you could never forget – and have it vanish in little more than a few seconds, almost as if it was never there. That was how I felt in those first few moments when I came to. I was vaguely aware of someone dabbing my brow with a damp handkerchief and the hushed, worried voices talking over me. I slowly opened my eyes and the darkness was flooded with the yellow glare of a midday sun bursting through my narrow eyelids and momentarily blinding me once again before everything began to fall into place.

  I was outside now. I could feel the cold afternoon breeze on my face and smell the fresh odor of recently cut grass. I could hear a bird chirping in a nearby tree and, some way in the distance, the low drone of propeller aircraft as it swooped over some far away fields.

  Through the blinding light, I could see him clear as day. It was definitely a him; I could tell by the way he walked. I could make out every minute detail of my attacker: his clothes, his hair, the complexion of the skin at the back of his neck. He was as real in those moments as he had been before I lost consciousness, but I still couldn’t recognize him.

  And then…

  He was gone.

  “Is she going to be alright?”

  Hazel sounded quite shocked, even more so than she had been after our gruesome discovery earlier that day.

  “She’ll be fine,” muttered Don, soaking the handkerchief in a bowl of cool water before applying it back on my forehead. “Although she took a bit of a tumble. Maybe she should see a doctor…”

  Ida May’s coarse voice cut unsympathetically through the air. “Get her head examined, you mean?”

  “Ida May!”

  “Well, what do you expect? She must need her head examined, sneaking into someone else’s house like that. She might’ve been killed.”

  I’m sure she meant well – she never normally showed any real anger to anyone she didn’t truly care about – but I wasn’t much in the mood for it. As my surroundings swam into view, I finally began to gain a sense of where I was and could only presume that Don had carried me outside upon finding me sprawled on the kitchen floor. I turned my attention to Ida May – or at least what I thought was Ida May. Whilst she had a similar face to my friend, she looked remarkably different – and it took me a long moment to figure out why…

  “Why are you wearing that silly hat?”

  “That’s what I said…”

  Ida May raised a hand and gently toyed with the beanie over her head with a brief, “Ha.”

  “What’s the matter,” I asked, trying to sit myself up. “Weren’t we providing enough excitement for you?”

  I felt Don’s hand slide sharply under my back as he helped me up into a sitting position. “Steady old girl,” he whispered. “You’ve had quite a tumble…”

  I wasn’t listening. My eyes were transfixed on Ida May who, if I was not very much mistaken, blushing beneath her latest attempt at restyling herself.

  “If I’d known you’d be playing the stupid, geriatric wandering around on your own…”

  “Ida May that isn’t fair,” Hazel replied defiantly. “It is her aunt’s house, you know?”

  “Was her aunt’s house!”

  “How was she to know she’d slip and fall on the dodgy floor…”

  Don shot Hazel an irritated look. “There is nothing dodgy about the floor.”

  I shook my head. “And I didn’t slip. I was attacked.”

  The group fell into silence. I swear even the bird stopped chirping.

  Ida May was the first to break the silence. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course, I’m sure!”

  “What a thing to ask…”

  “Well,” Ida May replied, shooting a cautious glance at Hazel, “people have been known to get things like that wrong after a knock to the head…” She looked back down at me. “Pride and all that…”

  I gave her a small scowl. “I’m sure of it. I even got a good look at the guy.”

  “Really?” Don instantly replied, his face seeming to turn pale in the light. “What did he look like?”

  I opened my mouth, willing my mind to return to the memory of the man as he retreated down the hallway. But the harder I tried the fainter the image became until, finally, I was left only with the notion that I had in fact seen him although my mind remembered nothing of it at all.

  “I don’t know,” I said weakly. “But I know I didn’t recognize him.”

  “That narrows it down to most of the human race,” Ida May replied bluntly.

  “And I think he was old,” I fired back, locking eyes with my friend.

  She gave me a coy smile, almost as though she’d expected me to have more information than I originally offered. With a sly wink, she muttered:

  “That’s a little better.”

  She then turned to Don and clapped him firmly on the shoulder. “At least that puts you in the clear, Don Boy.”

  “I almost wish it hadn’t,” the butler muttered, sitting back on his heels and watching me with the concern of a man watching his relative in a hospital bed. “I was out here tending to the garden. If I’d been inside…”

  Hazel shrugged. “Well, it doesn’t matter now.”

  She glanced up at the sky and seemed to breathe in deeply before turning her head sharply back to the three of us and announcing:

  “Time for tea, I think.”

  After a little awkwardness, Ida May and Don managed to get me back on my feet and the four of us returned inside and the three of us girls settled down in the lounge. After a short while, Don entered, carrying a wonderfully ornate silver tray complete with a whole collection of tea cups and saucers and a delicately decorated, china tea pot. Despite our insistence that he didn’t need to play the butler with us, Don proceeded to pour out each of our cups and – after much badgering from Ida May – he finally relented to joining us for a cup himself.

  As he settled down awkwardly on a footstool near the door, I could tell that he was somewhat bothered by his new found ability to join us as equals and, for the longest time, his eyes flickered sharply to the window as though expecting to see the ghost of Aunt Ruby herself, demanding his immediate attention.

  “I imagine you feel quite nervous after today’s discovery,” Ida May announced rather suddenly, turning her beady eye to watch for his reaction.

  Don paused, his eyes quickly flashing over to me before he shrugged and took a long sip on his tea.

  “Doesn’t it bother you that a man was found brutally murdered on your land?”

  Don smiled. “It’s not my land, ma’am,” he replied. “And, no it doesn’t bother me.”

  “No,” mused Hazel, her eyes gazing distractedly out of the window in the direction of Vera’s house. “I suppose it will be Milton’s house soon…”

  Don couldn’t help laughing. “Well, we’ll see.”

  I turned my head sharply towards him. “You don’t think Aunt Ruby left him the house?”

  Don smiled knowingly and gently tapped his head. “You forget, Clara, I was there when the old girl drew up the will. I know exactly who gets what…”

  “And who does get what?”

  Don’s eyes circled quickly over to Ida May. “I don’t think that would really be appropriate for me to say, do you ma’am?”

  “No, I guess not.” Ida May w
aited until Don started to sip his tea before she spoke again. “It was Patrick Sheridan’s body down the well…”

  Don almost spat his tea right across the carpet. He coughed and spluttered for a second, muttering, “Excuse me” as he quickly produced a handkerchief and dabbed at his lips.

  Ida May’s eyes flashed knowingly. “So, you know him?”

  “Patrick Sheridan? Are you sure?”

  I nodded. “Fairly sure.”

  “What do you know about him?”

  Don gulped heavily, his eyes focusing on some point near the floor. “Not a great deal. The guy disappeared fifteen years ago, I think…”

  “Twenty,” corrected Hazel, momentarily diverting her attention from the window to give him a small smile.

  “Alright, twenty. The guy disappeared and was never found. Most folk around here think he packed up and skipped town like so many youngsters do…”

  “Thomas Landsborough doesn’t think so,” Ida May shot back. “He thinks you had something to do with it.”

  Don laughed, although I could see his eyes were seething with anger. “He can go to hell. That sorry excuse for a man was always causing trouble…”

  “For you?”

  “For anyone. He probably told you that so he could sit back and watch the fireworks. Don’t pay him any attention…”

  There wasn’t much more said after that. Despite her ability to wind people up the wrong way, Ida May didn’t seem particularly keen on giving the butler anymore reason to be angry with us, so we didn’t say anything else on the subject. Hazel was still far too interested in admiring Vera Landsborough’s house to make any meaningful input into the conversation and I…

  Well, I’m not ashamed to admit it, but I was hardly in the right frame of mind nor the right inclination to want to press matters any further with Don. In fact, as the afternoon moved on, I began to feel the distinct impression that we may have outstayed our welcome with him and so – as a gesture of good will – I volunteered to help him pack everything up once we had finished our tea. He gave his objections – of course – but eventually he yielded, feeling – I suppose – a certain measure of guilt for the fact that I should have had such a horrid experience whilst the house was in his care…