Death at the Café (A Reverend Annabelle Dixon Cozy Mystery Book 1)

by Alison Golden

  “He could have been anyone!” the Inspector said quickly. “A random passer-by who was unfortunate enough to land in – or be landed upon by, I should say – this mess.”

  “Not a random passer-by at all, Inspector,” Annabelle said, raising her finger as if scoring a point. “He fits the description Mary gave you at the first crime scene exactly. Tweed suit. Tall. Dark-skinned and with strange features.”

  “Annabelle, this is London. It has a population of over nine million people. I could tell my officers to go out and find me an albino in a pink dress, and they would probably find one before teatime.”

  “It’s still strange that he was right there in the vicinity at the time of the arrest, don’t you think?” Annabelle replied. “And though you scoff at the ice dart theory, what could be stranger than an empty cigarette case that is wet on the inside, even though it has not rained for days now? I’d also fashion a guess that the toxicology reports on Teresa indicated a poison was inserted directly into her bloodstream, perhaps via a needle or possibly by dart rather than orally, the method by which you assume we would have killed the two women.”

  “There’s still a grey area surrounding how you poisoned both of them,” the Inspector said. “And the toxicology reports are inconclusive.”

  “But Inspector –” PC Montgomery interjected, before a sharp jab in the ribs curtailed his speech.

  Annabelle smiled at this vague answer.

  “If I’m not mistaken, Inspector, your reasoning is that we murdered Teresa, turned over her apartment in order to find the emeralds and then proceeded to bake them into a cake in order to carry them around discreetly.”

  “Precisely,” Cutcliffe scowled.

  “How, Inspector, would we have had the time to bake such a delicious cake, with those complex, rich flavors, in such little time? There were two hours, if that, between the time we left you at the first crime scene and our meeting at the second. You can check the closed circuit television cameras at the tube stations to confirm that it took us roughly an hour to arrive at Teresa’s apartment.”

  “That gives you plenty of time,” Cutcliffe responded.

  “If anyone who likes to bake heard you say that, Inspector, they would laugh. Laugh, I tell you. That cake has thick layers of cream which have been slowly mixed with fine melted chocolate. It has flecks of almonds that have been slightly toasted to bring out their flavor. It had to have been cooked slowly at a low heat to retain that incredible, flaky moisture. Two of the finest chefs in the world could not bake such a cake in under three hours, at the very least!” Annabelle’s voice rose as if she were enunciating a theatre monologue. “There is only one answer to that question, Inspector. The cake was baked before we got there!”

  “Maybe so!” the Inspector said, angrily slamming his palm upon the table, uncomfortably aware that his theory was starting to unravel. “But you still stole it!”

  “Why would we upturn the entire apartment to look for the emeralds if we knew they were in the cake? We would have simply taken it from the kitchen,” Annabelle said, before slamming her own palm on the table. “Where cakes should be!”

  “This is insanity! We’re here to interview you, Reverend! Not the other way around!” DI Cutcliffe shouted, standing up from his seat sharply and pacing as he did when exasperated. “This is a case involving two deaths and a theft amounting to millions of pounds, but you’re here talking about bloody cakes!”

  PC Montgomery hunched further over, focusing all his attention onto his fidgeting hands that lay in his lap. He had expected a routine cross-examination, not to be caught in the collision of two such blustering firebrands as DI Cutcliffe and Reverend Annabelle.

  “You’re a Catholic man, aren’t you, Inspector?” said Annabelle.

  “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

  “That’s why you gave Sister Mary the benefit of the doubt on more than one occasion,” Annabelle said firmly, “and that’s why…”

  The two policemen looked toward Annabelle as she trailed off abruptly.

  “What?” PC Montgomery ventured, in a quiet, shaky voice.

  Annabelle looked to the side, as if deep in thought again. Her face changed, and she nodded to herself as if struck by a stunning revelation. She turned her face back toward the Inspector with eyes full of righteous purpose.

  “That’s why you trust the Bishop implicitly.”

  Slowly, DI Cutcliffe took his seat again, and spoke in a low tone, directing the full power of his voice and his attention toward Annabelle.

  “What are you implying, Annabelle?”

  “I would bet the entire value of those emeralds,” Annabelle said, not balking from the severity of the Inspector’s tone, “that it was the Bishop who told you to arrest us today. And who told you precisely where we would be.”

  DI Cutcliffe’s eyes narrowed with pinpoint focus upon the Reverend.

  “So what if it was?”

  “It should be obvious, Inspector,” Annabelle said, slowly. “The Bishop is behind it all.

  CHAPTER 6

  THAT’S A BOLD claim,” Cutcliffe said, after taking a moment to make sure Annabelle had really said what he thought she had. “I underestimated you. You really did top the ice dart theory. If you’re trying to get off on insanity claims, you’re certainly doing a good job, though.”

  “Like it or not, Inspector, it’s the truth,” Annabelle said, raising her chin in defiance.

  “I don’t suppose you have any evidence to back up your claim.”

  “Oh I do. It’s all right under our noses. “

  The Inspector raised his eyebrows in disbelief, unable to find words to respond to something he found so extraordinary.

  “I’ve been thinking about our meeting with Teresa since it happened,” began Annabelle, displaying a focused curiosity. “She said she liked to sit by the window in order to keep watch. Not to ‘look outside’ or to ‘see people’, but to ‘keep watch’, as if on guard. As she died, she was in the middle of saying that she’d learned something, about knowing she was in danger.”

  “Could be meaningless turns of phrase,” Cutcliffe said.

  “But put them together with the fact Teresa had baked the emeralds into a cake. And add the fact that her niece had decided to tell Mary about Teresa’s danger with a note rather than communicating it verbally. After all, she had the note already written before she was suddenly struck down.

  “It all points to someone powerful, someone able to listen in on conversations, observe Teresa even in her home. Someone as powerful as the Bishop, with spies, accomplices, a large network, and employees, presumably, like the ‘doctor’.”

  “I’ll indulge you for a moment, and agree that it sounds like somebody was watching them. Teresa’s niece obviously felt some sense of insecurity to write that note. But why the Bishop? There’s no connection.”

  “Think about it, Inspector. The Bishop has known everything from the start. On the day of the murders, I received multiple calls from him at the church. He told Mary and me that he called you after he had learned about Teresa’s death. From whom would he have learned about the murder so quickly, if not the killer himself? And wasn’t it he who told you where to find us just now? I’m guessing he gave you a clever excuse as to how he knew, but how did he know where we were if the tweed-suited man were not working for him and following us on his orders?

  “Consider this, Inspector, if Teresa were in danger, why would she contact Mary and myself for help? Why not the police? Or indeed, why not the Bishop himself, if they were as friendly as he claims?”

  “Maybe it wasn’t serious enough.”

  “Or maybe she knew that nobody else would believe her.”

  The Inspector sighed and looked to his officer, who seemed at a loss.

  “Okay. So Teresa was in danger. Why not leave? Why stay in her apartment?”

  “I believe there are two reasons for that Inspector. First, Teresa very rarely left the house. She had a limp whe
n we saw her and mentioned that her niece performed most tasks for her. Secondly, I don’t think even Teresa realized the depths to which the Bishop would sink. She wanted to guard against theft of the emeralds and had no idea the Bishop, or rather, his assassin, would be willing to kill for them.”

  DI Cutcliffe put his hands on the table. He was visibly struggling with what Annabelle was saying. It did make sense, but it was still too far-fetched for him.

  “So these… ‘Cat Emeralds…’”

  “Cats-Eye Emeralds,” Annabelle corrected.

  “’Cats-Eye Emeralds,” the Inspector repeated, “why give them to you? Why not give them to her niece to stuff somewhere safe? Why not put them somewhere meant for valuable things? A bank deposit box or a museum vault?”

  Annabelle nodded at the legitimacy of the question. “I think Teresa wanted very much to help Mary, no matter how corrupt she believed Bishop Murphy to be. Perhaps she thought that the Bishop would never have suspected one of his own, certainly not someone as innocent as Mary. Teresa knew that her niece was being watched. She also knew that whoever had the emeralds would be in grave danger unless the person themselves were beyond suspicion and carrying them unwittingly. So she decided to give them to Mary directly and in such a way that she herself would not realize it until she was at a safe distance.

  “Had she not died so suddenly, I am positive Teresa would have given us instructions – no doubt cryptic – on what we were to do with the emeralds or the ‘cakes’, I should say. Perhaps she would have told us to meet someone else who could help sell them, or maybe even warn us against contacting the Bishop or people within the church.”

  There was a few moments of silence as the Inspector leaned back and scratched his head furiously while he turned over this new information in his cluttered mind. Eventually, he sighed deeply, shook his head, and said, “I’m sorry, Annabelle. It’s not enough.”

  “What do you mean?” Annabelle replied pleadingly.

  “It’s not enough for me to do anything. I’m not going to bang on the Bishop’s door and start throwing accusations around based on some discrepancies. I’m sorry.”

  Annabelle pursed her lips in an expression of rebelliousness.

  “Then let me talk to the Bishop!” she said resolutely.

  Cutcliffe chuckled incredulously. “That’s not going to happen!”

  “It’s the only way!” Annabelle persisted. “Right now, the Bishop still believes that I am in possession of the emeralds. The entire reason he made you arrest us was a last-ditch attempt to discover where we had hidden them. If you let me call him now and tell him that I’m willing to cut a deal, I can assure you he’ll do exactly what I tell him.”

  “This is ridiculous!” Cutcliffe bellowed. “Do you expect me to allow you to go and talk to the Bishop and bother him with these crazy ideas of yours?”

  “I’m willing to stake my entire reputation on this, Inspector. You can listen in while I talk to him, and if it does turn out that he’s innocent, I’ll sign any confession you like,” Annabelle said, excited by her own idea. “Without any trouble,” she added, making a gesture as if zipping her mouth shut.

  Cutcliffe chuckled darkly at the bizarre turn the interview had taken.

  “You do realize,” he said, with just a small note of defeat in his voice, “that what you’re asking me to do is highly illegal as well as absolutely insane.”

  “I believe her,” PC Montgomery blurted out suddenly. Cutcliffe and Annabelle turned to him, having completely forgotten that the meek constable was still in the room.

  Annabelle smiled triumphantly at the Inspector, who wiped a broad hand over his face. He glanced for a few moments at the unyielding expression on the Reverend’s face and then at the equally adamant expression of PC Montgomery. Slowly, he pressed stop on the tape recorder, ejected the tape, and put it in his pocket.

  “Go make sure the coast is clear, Montgomery. We’d better leave from the rear entrance,” he said in a low voice. “I’m going to be saying Hail Marys for the rest of my life.”

  Barely ten minutes later, the three of them were zooming back across London in the detective’s unmarked car toward Kensington. Annabelle had made the call to the Bishop’s office requesting a meeting. She had not said much else apart from a sly reference to “a deal.” Unsurprisingly to her, Sara claimed that Bishop Murphy was immediately available.

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” DI Cutcliffe said to himself once he had parked the car in a discreet parking spot a little way down the road from the Bishop’s house.

  Annabelle shifted nervously in her seat. She was breathing deeply, feeling both incredibly exhilarated and increasingly nervous.

  “Now listen to me,” Cutcliffe said, “these are the rules. Don’t, whatever you do, mention anything about me. If this blows up, I don’t want anyone to know I’m the one who allowed a cake-obsessed vicar from East London to conduct a sting operation to entrap a bent Bishop.”

  “Oh, of course, I mean –”

  “And get him to talk.” the Inspector interrupted. “Get him to confirm what you’re saying. We need him to incriminate himself or to at least explain some things that we can turn into evidence.”

  “Yes,” Annabelle said, almost literally biting her tongue.

  “And…” Cutcliffe looked from Annabelle to Montgomery and back again, “don’t be nervous. I don’t usually say this kind of thing to suspects, but I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think you were on to something.”

  Annabelle seemed to relax somewhat at this display of trust from the detective, however meager it was.

  “Thank you, Inspector. I won’t let you down.”

  “I hope not. Okay. Call my phone, then put yours on speaker. We’ll mute ours so you don’t hear us. I want you to say a few words once you’ve walked down the street, then turn toward us. If we can hear you well enough we’ll give a thumbs up. If we give a thumbs down, come straight back to the car, and we’ll figure something else out. Once the Bishop has said enough, we’ll enter. If we don’t like what you’re doing, we’ll enter and arrest you again. If it turns unsafe, we’ll enter. Got that?”

  Annabelle nodded. “Yes.”

  “Okay. Time to go. Call my phone.”

  Annabelle promptly pulled out her phone, rang Cutcliffe, and then placed it on speaker. She gave one last nod to the Inspector and Montgomery, who nodded back with looks of nervous pride like parents reluctantly sending their child off on their first day of school, full of support but knowing that it was solely up to the child now. Annabelle exited the car, looking around, and began walking down the street.

  “Um… Ah… Oh, I’m terrible at things like this. I feel like a madman talking to myself in the street. Ah… Is that okay?” Annabelle said, turning back to see the Inspector give a thumbs up. “Okay. Good. Well, off I go. Oh, I suppose I should stop talking,” she said, turning once again to see the Inspector give another thumbs up. “Yes. Well… Good.”

  Annabelle walked slowly toward the Bishop’s house, up the path to the brass knocker, and paused. She shook her limbs, set her posture, and fixed her expression into one of casual nonchalance, tossing her hair back for good measure. Then she knocked.

  The door opened to Sara’s smile, which seemed fixed in the same position in which Annabelle and Mary had left it.

  “Hello, Reverend,” she said in her still unplaceable accent. She stepped aside and gestured Annabelle inside. “Bishop Murphy is waiting for you in his study.”

  “Ah, good,” Annabelle said, as casually as she could.

  She strode toward the study door, placed a hand upon the door knob and looked back at Sara.

  “Please go right in,” Sara said.

  Annabelle took a deep breath and opened the door.

  “Reverend Annabelle!” Bishop Murphy said, standing up from his desk and walking around it to greet her. “A pleasant – and somewhat unexpected – surprise!”

  He shook Annabelle’s hand, while she looked away
dismissively.

  “Yes,” she said, “I suppose.”

  The Bishop returned to his chair while Annabelle took hers opposite. She crossed her legs in what she thought would be an elegant movement of ease and grace, but found it such a terribly uncomfortable position that she quickly shuffled her legs to uncross them.

  “So what brings you here, Reverend?” Bishop Murphy asked with a wry smile.

  “Well, I have something that you want. And I want to see how far you’ll go to get it,” Annabelle said, enjoying the demureness of her own tone.

  The Bishop raised a curious eyebrow.

  “Oh gosh!” Annabelle exclaimed suddenly. “That sounds awfully flirty, doesn’t it? Well, I don’t mean that!” she laughed, awkwardly. “I’m talking about the emeralds, I mean. The Cats-Eye Emeralds. I’m saying that I have them, and, well…”

  Annabelle trailed off in a series of stammers and snorted laughs, while the Bishop watched her sardonically.

  After a moment’s consideration, the Bishop spoke.

  “What makes you think that I’m interested in the emeralds?”

  Annabelle gulped. Was the Bishop going to pretend he wasn’t? Did he know what was going on?

  “Well,” Annabelle said, regaining some of her composure, “you said that the emeralds were exhibited very privately and that only prominent collectors were even aware they had been found. For you to have known that meant that you were likely one of those collectors yourself. Sara told us when we visited about your own ‘private’ exhibitions in the cellar beneath this very building.”

  The Bishop laughed gently. “That’s true. I do have a rather excellent collection of artifacts. That doesn’t necessarily mean I’m interested in the emeralds, however.”

  Annabelle shifted uncomfortably once again. A note of doubt entered her mind. She gazed around the study, as if some support could be found there but knew that she was on her own. Now or never, she thought.

  “I must be mistaken then,” she said, placing her hands on the chair’s armrests to push herself upright, “I had thought you would be interested in a deal. I suppose I’ll just find someone else. Someone with better taste.”