by Beth Byers
Once they were in the auto, Barnaby motored towards Katherine’s house.
“We have a new doctor?” Georgette asked.
“We do.” He smiled at her. “What happened?”
Georgette considered and then shook her head. She really had no idea at all. “She was just there. She was on her face. I turned her over. Maybe it was a sort of…of…internal attack? I was so afraid it was Katherine that I have to admit I was relieved it wasn’t her and then I was relieved that the woman was alive.”
Georgette’s hands were shaking, but she’d caught her breath. Barnaby noted the shift in her and said, “You know, Charles is going to lose his mind that you went running through the wood after finding a poor woman hurt and alone.”
She laughed, but it wasn’t all that funny really. The last thing she wanted to do was stress her poor husband. “I’m sure it was only an accident.”
Georgette thought back. The noise, the birds, the poor woman. She rubbed her forehead and then glanced towards Barnaby. He was frowning as well.
“The wind had picked up,” Georgette said, knowing she was struggling towards an answer for what had happened to the woman. “Then there was the noise, like a crack. The noise couldn’t be part of it if the problem was inside her.”
“She might have fallen or tripped?”
Georgette pictured the woman and then shook her head. “No, I’m quite sure she was lying in a clear space. I’d have noticed a collapsed chair or bench. Even a large rock. Or a tree limb,” she added, recalling her earlier thought of a fallen limb.
“A coincidence, then,” Barnaby declared.
“Unless it isn’t.” Georgette winced at the thought. “And the noise is part of it.”
“You think it could have been an attack?”
Georgette shook her head, uncertain or unwilling to consider it.
“If it was an attack,” Barnaby said, “who would do that to a stranger near Katherine’s?”
“Maybe they intended to hurt Katherine?”
The two exchanged looks and then shook their heads in unison. Katherine was a widowed grandmother who made pies for the neighborhood, biscuits for children who stopped by, who had the most beautiful hobbyist flower garden that Georgette had ever seen. There was no reason for anyone to harm the woman.
“We’re jumping to conclusions because of our history,” Barnaby suggested. “Dr. Fowler makes us seen villainy where there is nothing.”
“It is odd, though, isn’t it?”
Barnaby brought the auto to a halt and they both rushed out and towards Georgette’s dogs. She heard one of them howling and was sure that it was poor Dorcas. The gentlest and most nervous of her dogs darted towards Georgette the moment she hurried into the clearing. Georgette scooped her up, comforting her through the low whine as Barnaby dropped down next to the woman.
“She’s breathing,” he said, “but she’s not waking.”
“I heard her moan,” Georgette said, kneeling next to him. Georgette took the woman’s hand, tucking her dog, Dorcas, next to her side while she felt for a pulse. “She’s alive.”
Barnaby stood and hurried to the auto, returning with a blanket that he laid over the woman. By the time they’d tucked the blanket around her, an ambulance arrived along with the constable and the new village doctor.
“Georgette,” Barnaby said as they stood away with the dogs while the doctor hunched over the body of the woman. “Look.”
She turned and her breath caught. Under the ferns of the nearby tree was a large wooden shape. It was too straight to be a tree branch, but the right shape to be a fence post. She met Barnaby’s gaze, who met hers in return. They mirrored each other’s horrified expressions. Slowly, the two of them approached the wooden object with Barnaby slightly in the lead with the dogs hanging back, but Georgette had her hand on Barnaby’s arm as if she needed to be able to yank him back.
The broken fence post had been tossed recently onto the ferns, bending back several fronds. The sharp corner of it was smeared with red that couldn’t possibly be paint.
“Georgette—” Barnaby said with caution in his voice. It matched the growing concern in her. “I think…I don’t think that…I—”
“I don’t think this was an accident,” Georgette finished. They grasped each other’s wrists tightly and then both looked back. A young man was helping the constable lift the woman onto the stretcher. Georgette hadn’t noticed in her distress that the woman was a larger round woman. The two men struggled to get her into the back of the auto.
“Why would anyone hurt this woman?” Barnaby muttered.
Georgette shook her head, shivering. She’d been so close to the event. What if she hadn’t hesitated to look for the reason of the noise and the flying birds? What if she’d wandered into the attacker? What would have happened to her and her baby? She shivered as she placed her hand over her stomach.
“Do you know her?” she asked Barnaby.
Barnaby shook his head and then paused. He frowned as he turned. “You know—I might.”
“Who do you think she is?” Georgette asked as the constable approached.
Higgins was a good man, prepared to deal with the occasional family squabble, lost dog, stolen bicycle, or whatnot. What he was not prepared to deal with, however, was a murder, a malicious attack, or the same.
He had overheard Georgette’s question to Barnaby and repeated it after a solemn greeting to them and the dogs.
Barnaby answered. “I think she might be one of Katherine Lynd’s daughters-in-law. The one married to John Lynd.”
“I didn’t know Katherine’s family was visiting,” the constable said. In a village as small as Harper’s Hollow, visitors were quickly noticed.
Barnaby shook his head. Both of them had seen Katherine in the last few days, Georgette was sure. Surely, she’d have said if she expected any of her children to come. Maybe they came unexpectedly? No, Georgette frowned. Usually Katherine went to visit them. Something about managing children on the train.
“Where is Katherine?” Georgette asked.
No one could answer.
They searched for her together. Barnaby refused to split up when Georgette suggested it, muttering about Charles, safety, and fiends attacking women in the daytime. The dogs helped as best they could, sniffing around bushes and trees. They had only just finished searching Katherine’s property when Charles and Joseph arrived. The constable must have telephoned them, no doubt because Anna had mentioned Georgette’s name when she called to report the injured woman.
Uncle and nephew stood side-by-side as Georgette and Barnaby exited the orchard. Hands on hips, faces hidden by the shadows since the sun was behind them, they would have made a striking pair if not for the dogs darting around their legs, having raced ahead to greet them.
“Poor Charles,” Barnaby said. “How many bodies are you going to trip over?”
Georgette bit down on her bottom lip to keep from answering. How many? Barnaby had no idea of the events that linked to her writing and the murders that had occurred. He only knew of the girl who’d been killed long before Georgette and Charles had moved into the village. What would her friend think if he knew the whole of Georgette’s history and the bodies she’d stumbled over? At least this one wasn’t dead.
Chapter 3
GEORGETTE DOROTHY AARON
Anna Mustly appeared in the wood about the same time that Charles dropped his hands from his hips and crossed to Georgette. He took her hand, squeezing tightly, and then tugged her close.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded against his chest.
“You’re a bit pale.”
“It’s been a bit startling,” she told him, glancing beyond her husband to his detective and nephew. “Joseph, how are you?”
He grinned at her and when Charles looked away, winked. “What’s all this? You were drawn to the scene of what we think is a crime by a—what? Mischievous spirit?”
Georgette’s expression was long-
suffering. The sound of his voice told her he wasn’t all that worried. A blustery day, a branch on the back of the head. He didn’t think what she and Barnaby thought, and he’d moved straight to teasing her. “I was escaping paint fumes.”
“No one smells those but you,” Joseph told her with enough of a smile to tease her.
“No one but me is expecting a bundle of joy.” She glanced at Charles with a silent order to make Joseph leave her alone. She hadn’t realized that taking on Charles’s nephews as family meant having little brothers, even though they’d all met as adults. “I’ll be sure to torment Marian when it’s her.”
His happiness faded and Georgette winced. Their wedding plans had not been going well lately.
“I’m not sure what being an expectant mother has to do with it, darling Georgie,” Joseph finally said. “It’s that over-active imagination of yours.” He peered beyond her. Katherine Lynd’s daughter-in-law had been taken away and the constable had stayed long enough to be sure that there wasn’t anyone about. Georgette’s and Barnaby’s search for Katherine, in case she was hurt too, had turned up nothing. They hadn’t found her, but they’d be more at ease knowing they’d looked.
“Do you really think it wasn’t an accident?” Joseph asked.
“The wind did pick up, but she wasn’t hit by a falling branch. She was hit by a fence post.”
Joseph looked up in surprise by that. The idea that Georgette had been a bit too imaginative changed and instead the cloak of a police officer came over him. “A fence post?”
“I believe so,” Georgette answered, glancing at Barnaby who nodded. “We’ve been quite worried about Katherine, but she doesn’t seem to be about.”
“Of course she isn’t,” Anna cut in. “She volunteers at that orphanage near Ely on Thursdays.” Anna gave Barnaby a disbelieving look that he hadn’t remembered.
“Does she?” Georgette asked, feeling an instant rush of relief. She hadn’t realized quite how worried she’d grown. Katherine was the woman who made cookies for the village’s children to come by, the woman who brought flowers to every home with a sick woman, the woman who was the first to volunteer. The idea that anything could have happened to her, it was more than Georgette was prepared for, especially with her heightened emotions.
“Thank goodness,” Barnaby said, sounding as relieved as Georgette. “I’m not prepared to lose another one of us. I just—” He shook his head and glanced away. He’d been close to the girl who had died and been left in Georgette’s attic, mourning almost as much as her family. “I can’t do it again.”
“I’m going to look around,” Joseph told them. “Take these ladies home, gents. I’ll be by to see what there is to know later.”
Georgette let Charles lead her to the auto and when they were both seated with the dogs in the back seat, he paused long enough for her to look up and examine him.
“Georgette,” he said quietly. “Tell me you were careful.”
“I was careful,” she replied.
“Tell me you weren’t in danger.”
She paused at that and then said, “I believe the dogs would have let out quite a ruckus if I had been, and Charles, I would never put our baby at risk. I only went for a walk and thought I’d check in on Katherine.”
He took her hand and lifted it to his mouth before reversing the auto and backing onto the street. The drive was mere minutes, but with his thumb moving over the back of her hand, it seemed forever.
“Did you know there was a new doctor?”
He shook his head. “I’d rather we stick with the fellow we found.”
Georgette smiled. “I’d never disregard all the work that Robert put into finding the fellow for us.” Charles’s other nephew, Robert, had helped not only in locating a good doctor, but also the village itself. “Did you know? There’s a rather nice set of rooms near the train station here. Something appropriate for a bachelor like Robert.”
Charles laughed. “I think that our bachelor prefers his life a bit livelier than Harper’s Hollow. There’s no chance he’ll even consider a move, darling, until one of you ladies traps him with a love of his own. Then, he’ll be ready to settle here.”
“Maybe her family will want her closer.” Georgette’s mouth screwed up at the thought and she muttered, “We need to get him before he meets the right woman. That way it only makes sense that they combine houses into his already snug and perfect little cottage.”
This time Charles’s laugh was a bellow.
“You know—” Georgette mused, nibbling her bottom lip, “—if we found a place like ours.”
“Far too large for him.”
“No, I mean a place that needs a little work. A place that you can get for a song—”
Charles glanced at her. “You’re serious?”
“Of course I am. You’re happier when your nephews are around, Charles. I want you to be happy. I’m going to talk to Barnaby about it. He knows everyone.”
“This is for me?” Charles sounded surprised.
“Surely you know that when I gave you my heart,” Georgette told him, pulling his hand towards her and kissing one of his knuckles, “that meant that you got all of my machinations, conniving, and loving on your behalf. Besides—I’d prefer the village’s attention turn from me to the newest Mrs. Aaron. Surely, Robert will marry a flashy bright young thing who will draw all eyes. I can fade again.”
“Oh ho—” Charles laughed, re-tangling their fingers together. “None of that, Mrs. Aaron. I’m afraid you’ve been outed.”
“No,” Georgette disagreed, shaking her head. She leaned towards him as if she were telling him a secret and whispered. “Did you know? I find that I really don’t like very many people.”
Charles was putting the auto in park when she said that, so the burst of laughter didn’t end them in a ditch, but Georgette abandoned him to guffaws and let the dogs out of the auto. She glanced back at him as she moseyed towards the house and saw the happiness on his face. There was a clear glint of appreciation in his eyes as he paced after her.
Charles was, to be sure, very handsome. Or maybe that was her vision of him. She saw him through a gaze of love. He was, certainly, distinguished. His dark hair was edged with grey at the temples, but it only seemed to add to his looks. He wasn’t a particularly large man either in height or strength, but he was strong enough and tall enough for her.
He was the kind of man who didn’t turn heads, but somehow he’d had a whole slew of women wanting him. He had, very clearly, been the one who’d noticed her and loved her first. The idea that when a man was downright pursued by a drove of debutantes—well-off ones at that—and still looked about the world and wanted the plain Georgette Dorothy Marsh showed that Charles Aaron was a man of odd tastes.
He said that she was lovely, but she didn’t really believe it. She was fine enough, she supposed. Decent, but unremarkable. She was neither tall nor short. She was neither dark nor fair. The most appropriate term for her was medium. No. Middling. She was middling.
“I know that look—” He had the expression of a man who had told her that she was perfect and not been believed too many times. “You’re perfect.”
Georgette glanced at him and then bypassed the front doors to take the dogs around the back of the house. They followed faithfully and sniffed around as she found a cushiony patch of clover to sit before recalling how wet it would be. Charles, however, must have divined her intent because he joined her with a thick blanket that he spread on the ground.
They sat and the dogs hurried to climb into her lap. They had to scrabble over each other, rather like goats shoving each other off the mound in order to be the king of the mountain. Georgette let them lick her as they struggled to get closer until they finally settled in happily, one dog on Charles’s lap with Dorcas and Susan on her own.
“I want to visit the new doctor,” Georgette told him, “and check in on the poor attacked woman.”
“You’re curious.”
She grin
ned and admitted, “Perhaps. But I’d have checked on Katherine’s daughter-in-law regardless. I’ll be checking in on Katherine as well.”
Georgette laid her head against his shoulder. He sighed for them both. “Why on earth would anyone attack a middle-aged woman in the middle of the wood near her mother-in-law’s house? It’s just—unthinkable.”
Georgette didn’t have the answer, but she very much expected that whatever the reason, it wouldn’t be good enough. Why would someone kill another over the contents of a book? Why would a woman blackmail her long-time friend? Why would a man who supposedly loved you, kill you if you rejected a proposal? She had met people who had done all of those things, and yet—she still didn’t understand.
Charles turned her face towards his and laid a fervent kiss on her lips before he said, “They’re probably wondering where we are. I’ll work from home tomorrow, shall I?”
She didn’t argue because she knew he wouldn’t leave her regardless. Instead she said, “We could visit the new doctor and take Lucy with us to get Janey. Perhaps we could go to the pictures and enjoy the day. Janey wants to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarves desperately, and the theater is playing it near her school.”
Charles nodded and rose, shooing the dogs away. He pulled Georgette to her feet and shook out the blanket, and then led the way inside. Georgette avoided Eunice and the kitchen. There was no way that Georgette’s long-time helper would avoid scolding her thoroughly for finding another victim.
Georgette considered avoiding supper entirely, but she knew she’d never get away with it. There was a moment of feeling rather suffocated. If this were a little more than a year ago, Georgette would have been able to go to bed early with a cup of tea and a book. Now, she had to do things like check on Lucy, let Charles ensure she ate enough for their baby, and then fall asleep in his arms. All good things, she reminded herself, escaping into their bathroom to the claw-foot tub that would let her sink low. She didn’t need to be dressed for dinner for at least an hour and soaking in lavender bath salts might be enough.
