A Scandal in Scarlet

by Vicki Delany

  “Tell me about Sharon Musgrave.”

  Robyn let out a bark of laughter. “Sharon. I’m surprised she hasn’t moved into the museum, she spends so much time there. “Get a life,” is the phrase that comes to mind when I think of Sharon.”

  “You mean she cares too much about it?” Jayne asked.

  “I mean that place is her life. I didn’t mind if she spent all day every day there. Saved me having to find other volunteers or balance people’s schedules. Others didn’t agree. They thought Sharon was too fixated on the place. She wouldn’t agree to any improvements or changes in the way we did things. She must be out of her tiny mind now that half the house has burned down.”

  “Not really,” I said. “She’s enjoying making do in the barn.”

  Robyn laughed again. Underneath the groomed appearance and New England manners, she had a mean streak as wide as any Sherlock Holmes would have come across in the back alleys of London. “I’m sure she is. She’s not only a volunteer at the museum, playing dress-up in the kitchen, but she also keeps our books. Sharon and I never got on particularly well; I thought her obsession over the museum was potentially harmful, but I was prepared to keep her on because I didn’t want to rock the boat. Kathy didn’t see it that way, and they clashed immediately. Poor Sharon was about to be shown through the original seventeenth-century doors, but Kathy died before she could get rid of Sharon. I wonder what’s going to happen now.” Her eyes glittered with malice.

  “Get rid of her? Why would Kathy do that if Sharon was such a good volunteer?”

  Robyn looked at me. Something stirred in her eyes, and the corners of her mouth moved. She’d once again caught me out and was pleased to have done so. “Oh, you didn’t know? Sharon burned the museum house down.”

  Jayne sucked in a breath. “What?”

  She stood up. “If you’ll excuse me, we’re expecting guests this evening, and I have things to do.”

  I also stood. Robyn was a good deal shorter than I am, but we seemed almost to be eye to eye. I was aware of Jayne scrambling to her feet.

  “The arson investigator and the police aren’t saying who was working that night,” Jayne said.

  “Not publicly, but everyone at the museum knows. Why Kathy didn’t fire Sharon on the spot, I don’t know. She probably enjoyed dangling the threat in front of her for a while. Sharon must have had a couple of highly unsettling weeks, waiting for the ax to fall.”

  With that, she showed us to the door.

  * * *

  “If Sharon caused the fire in the museum,” Jayne said, “and Kathy was considering firing her because of it, Sharon would have reason to want to see Kathy dead.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “If that’s what happened and if Sharon was at fault rather than it being an accident.”

  “We now have a viable suspect. Good work, Gemma.”

  “We do,” I said. “But it’s not Sharon.”

  “What? You think Robyn might be the guilty one? She’s put the museum behind her.”

  “So she wants us to think. Robyn’s an interesting woman. Everything about her, from her mannerisms to her clothes and makeup, to her house and car, tells me she’s disciplined and organized. A woman in control. People who like to be in control don’t take it well when control is taken from them.”

  “I like to be in control,” Jayne said. “At work, anyway.”

  I gave her a quick smile. The tearoom kitchen could be used to illustrate the dictionary definition of chaos. Jayne ran Mrs. Hudson’s with efficiency without being demanding. Her staff knew what they had to do, and they did it without her peering over their shoulders and criticizing. She had her way of doing things, but she was always open to new ideas. Jayne was anything but a control freak.

  “Robyn,” I said, “is almost as good a liar as I am, but I hope I don’t make such sloppy mistakes.”

  “You think she lied about why she was outside the tearoom? West London’s a busy town in the summer, Gemma, and Baker Street’s at the heart of it. Seemed natural enough to me that she’d be in town to do some shopping and be curious to see who was coming to the museum auction.”

  “No one who’s a frequent shopper at the West London Fish Market would go there at four o’clock on a Saturday afternoon. All they have left is fishy rejects and melting ice, and not much of that. She’s never before been inside the Emporium, despite her husband being a regular. But on the one day we were hosting the museum, she decides she needs to buy him a gift. The book she mentioned came out in 2016. She would not recently have seen a review in the New York Times. Robyn Kirkpatrick was standing outside Mrs. Hudson’s because she was furious that they were having a major event and she had not been invited. Not only not invited, but I’d be willing to bet she offered to help—on her conditions, of course—and was rebuffed.”

  Jayne let out a long sigh. Traffic between Chatham and West London was heavy, and we were stuck behind a van packed to the rafters with a gang of college-age kids, their brightly colored paddleboards stacked on the roof. “Suspicion is one thing, Gemma, but proof is entirely another. I don’t see how you’re going to force Robyn to confess.”

  “I’m not planning to do anything of the sort. I’m gathering data to present to the police. As for Robyn, she’s merely on my suspect list.”

  “We have a suspect list?”

  “We do now. I haven’t forgotten Sharon. My working hypothesis is that someone who was in Mrs. Hudson’s for the auction went to the storage room during the break, removing the teacup chain decoration from the wall as they passed. If Robyn did come in the back way, she did not have the opportunity to grab the chain.”

  “What are we going to do next?” Her bag began to ring.

  “I don’t know. I need to talk to Dan Lamb before I go much further, but that needs to be handled with some delicacy. Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “The word delicacy rarely applies to you, Gemma.”

  “Answer your phone,” I said.

  She pulled it out of her purse. “Hi, Ryan. Did you get my message?” She listened for a short while and then said, “Great, thanks,” and hung up. “The police see no reason to hold Kathy Lamb’s body if the autopsy turns up nothing unexpected.”

  “When’s the autopsy?”

  “Later this afternoon.”

  “That’s fast. It must be a slow day at the hospital. And on a Sunday too.”

  “He said something about the pathologist being on hand because he starts his vacation tomorrow.”

  “Did he say what funeral home’s handling the arrangements?”

  “Glenbow in West London,” Jayne said.

  “How involved is your mother with the museum?”

  “Not too involved. She’s still devoting a lot of her time and effort this summer to the theater festival.”

  “How’s the festival doing?”

  “A sold-out season. The dramatic departure of the headlined actor and what happened after that proved a boon for ticket sales.”

  “Glad to hear it. Speaking of the festival, you haven’t seen Eddie lately, have you?” I said, referring to a stage actor who Jayne had begun dating when the play first came to town.

  “No, I haven’t, Gemma. It was nothing but a brief infatuation that passed almost immediately. Not that my relationship, or lack thereof, with Eddie or anyone else is any of your business.”

  “Just checking,” I said.

  She harrumphed. “Are you wanting to talk to Mom about the people involved in the museum?”

  “I’d like to get her take on what we’ve learned.”

  “Do you want me to call and ask her if we can drop by?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Jayne did so, and when we arrived, Mrs. Wilson came out of the house to meet us, accompanied by her dog, Rufus. If Rufus was disappointed not to see Violet leap out of the Miata, he hid it under his explosion of excitement at the arrival of Jayne. While they romped, I greeted Leslie with a hug. She was looking well, and I was glad to
see it. Earlier events at her beloved West London Theater Festival had been hard on her. She called to Rufus, and we went into the comfortable, although outdated, kitchen. Then again, maybe it was comfortable because it was so outdated. There wasn’t a steel appliance or metal stool to be seen, just aging linoleum, laminate countertops, and backsplash tiles featuring tulips and Dutch windmills.

  Jayne and I took seats at the scarred pine table. “I assume you two are here to ask me what I know about Kathy Lamb and who might have wanted to kill her,” Leslie said as, without asking, she put the kettle on (for me) and took a pitcher of iced tea (for Jayne) out of the fridge.

  “Why do you assume that?” Jayne asked. “Can’t I drop in for tea with my mother?”

  “You can drop in for tea with your mother anytime, dear, and you know that. It just seems that where murder happens, you two are sure to follow.”

  “That’s not right,” Jayne said. “Gemma follows the clues, and I follow Gemma. Half the time I don’t even know where I’m following her to. Or why.”

  “Just take care,” Leslie said. “Someone wanted Kathy Lamb dead, and that someone isn’t going to want to be found.”

  Jayne shivered and wrapped her arms around herself.

  “I always take care,” I said to Leslie. “Of Jayne and myself.”

  “I know that,” she said. “How can I help you?”

  “I’m not planning to get involved,” I said, “but sometimes I can find out things before the police do. If I learn anything, I’ll hand it over immediately.” I didn’t need to add this time. “No secrets.”

  “Good,” Leslie said.

  “Tell me about the people at the museum. Kathy Lamb was the chair of the board, but she hadn’t been in that position for long.”

  Leslie fussed with the tea things. She put a tray on the table along with a plate of freshly made oatmeal cookies. “The previous chair was a woman by the name of Robyn Kirkpatrick. Robyn had been there for a long time, and some of the other board members thought she was too stuck in her ways. I’m not on the board myself, Gemma, but we volunteers hear things.”

  “Gossip is the stuff of life,” I said.

  “Did Sherlock Holmes say that?”

  “No, but Gemma Doyle did. How did Robyn react to being ousted?”

  “She wasn’t pleased, but she took it in stride. She was asked to remain on the board, but she said she didn’t want to overshadow the new chair, and handed in her resignation. That was the right thing for her to do. With Kathy as chair and Robyn still involved, the board would have turned into a battleground.”

  “They couldn’t work together?” I asked.

  “Kathy and Robyn have never gotten on. Robyn was a traditionalist. She wanted Scarlet House to be like every other historical re-creation museum. Kathy used words like avant garde and innovative. Personally, I was on Robyn’s side. I like our little museum as it is. I think it’s a marvelous way of introducing visitors, children in particular, to the history of the Cape.”

  “Do you know Sharon Musgrave?”

  Leslie rolled her eyes. “Oh yes. We all know Sharon. Everyone calls her Poor Sharon, although not to her face.”

  “Why?”

  “The museum is her life. Her life is the museum. We want people to love the museum and to value it, but there’s such a thing as too much love. Sharon was angry when Kathy took over and announced she was looking for”—Leslie made quotation marks in the air with her fingers—“‘bold and innovative ideas to recreate Scarlet House as befits the twenty-first century.’ I thought she sounded like she should be working at NASA, not our local museum.”

  “Do you know what started the fire?” Jayne asked. “The fire department report said it was an accident caused when a volunteer left a candle burning.”

  Leslie let out a long breath. “I don’t know, dear. Not for sure. Sharon was the volunteer in charge that evening, so it was her responsibility to lock up for the night, and rumor has it she gets a mite freehanded with her homemade rose hip wine, if you get my meaning.”

  “You mean Sharon’s a drunk?” I said.

  “I wouldn’t quite put it that way, but she does like to play at being a pioneer housewife. She actually eats all that stuff she makes as part of her kitchen demonstrations because she can’t admit that modern civilization does have its advantages.” Leslie’s face curled up at the memory of Sharon’s authentic historic cooking. “Like ready access to salt. Homemade wine can be mighty potent, or so I have heard.”

  “Interesting,” I said.

  “Don’t read too much into this, Gemma,” Leslie said. “I’m telling you what I’ve heard, but it’s all just gossip and innuendo.”

  “On its own, information such as this is not all that helpful,” I said. “People have their own agendas, and they often misinterpret things. Put it all together, and if a pattern emerges, then the drops of information may become significant. I’ve been told Sharon’s also the museum’s bookkeeper.”

  “She is, and that’s why I suspect Kathy didn’t fire her after the fire—or used that as her excuse not to do so. It’s not so easy to get a qualified bookkeeper for a nonprofit.”

  I finished my tea and stood up. “Thank you.”

  “Any time,” she said. “Some people are saying Maureen Macgregor did it. You don’t think so?”

  “I’ve come to no conclusions yet,” I said.

  Once we were heading back to town, I said to Jayne, “Considering that we’re playing hooky, as you call it, how about an afternoon at the beach after all?”

  “Perfect,” she said.

  Chapter Nine

  And it was. We stopped at Jayne’s flat for her swimming costume, and then at my house for mine. I promised Violet a long walk later and threw beach chairs, umbrella, towels, and books into the car.

  The public beach was crowded, but we found a perfect patch of sand to lay ourselves out on. Jayne paddled in the warm water of Nantucket Sound while I swam up and down the shoreline for thirty minutes. I didn’t think about the Lamb murder. I simply didn’t have enough data to put anything together yet.

  Swim over, I toweled off and dropped onto my beach chair. “Good swim?” Jayne murmured sleepily. She was stretched out on a towel in the full shade of a beach umbrella.

  “It was.” I opened my book. I’d brought The Women of Baker Street by Michelle Birkby home from the shop. I read for several hours while Jayne dozed, enjoying Birkby’s interpretation: Mrs. Hudson and Mrs. Watson as the sleuths. Every once in a while, I adjusted the umbrella to keep Jayne’s pale bikini-clad body in the shade. Close to us, an enormous family had set up what might serve as a base camp on the way to Mount Everest. Shade tent, umbrellas, blankets, tables, beach chairs and loungers, a portable grill, three coolers stuffed with drinks on ice, and containers of ready-made salads and meat for the grill. Children and dads played ball or splashed in the shallows while teenage daughters giggled in the surf and eyed the pack of teenage boys who’d appeared as if in a puff of smoke. Eagle-eyed matronly mothers settled into their seats. Two elderly ladies in baggy, form-covering bathing suits kicked off their sensible shoes and chased each other into the water, squealing with delight.

  I read for a long time, alternating this with quick refreshing dips into the water, simply enjoying being at the beach and having time to myself. Eventually, the scent of roasted meat dragged me out of my book. The family was settling down to dinner. I nudged Jayne with my toe.

  She groaned, rolled over, and blinked sleep out of her eyes.

  “Time we were off home,” I said.

  “What’s the time?”

  “Half five.”

  She sat up with a louder groan. “Half past five! I can’t believe I missed our whole day at the beach.”

  “You needed the sleep and slept like a baby. It did you a world of good.” I began packing up our things. The time off had also done me a world of good.

  I dropped Jayne at her place and headed home. The streets were busy with tourists leavi
ng the beach and going out for dinner. My phone rang as I pulled into the driveway. It was Ryan, and for a moment, I thought he might be calling to suggest dinner because the case had been solved.

  No such luck.

  “I’m coming out of the autopsy now,” he said. “It was as pleasant as ever. I never get used to these things, Gemma.”

  “That’s a good thing,” I said. “You don’t want to ever regard death by murder as normal.”

  “True. There were no surprises, and we learned nothing we didn’t already know. I need a break. What are you up to?”

  “I had a pleasant day with Jayne. We played hockey.”

  “You played hockey? Today?”

  “Isn’t that what Jayne called it? We skipped off work.”

  “Hooky. You played hooky.”

  “Oh, right. That was it. I was surprised you Americans used the same word for an illicit day off as a game played with long sticks.”

  Ryan laughed, deep and hearty. “You cheer me up no end, Gemma Doyle.” I smiled to myself. I knew full well the difference between hooky and hockey. (At least, I had since this morning.) I could tell by the heaviness in Ryan’s voice that he needed a good chuckle.

  “Want to come over for dinner?” I asked. “I can order in Chinese or pizza.” I unlocked the door and went into the mudroom. Violet barked a greeting. “Violet says please come.”

  “I wouldn’t want to disappoint Violet. I’ll drop by, but I won’t be able to stay for long. I have a meeting with the chief to discuss the autopsy in an hour.”

  “I need to take Violet for a walk. Why don’t you join us?”

  “I’d like that,” he said. “Get the hospital smell off me. Be there in ten.”

  I used the ten minutes to leap into the shower and wash the sand off and then quickly dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. Violet and I were ready and waiting when Ryan drove up.