Wading Into Murder

by JOAN DAHR LAMBERT

  “Oh Claudine, I am sorry. He must be very hard to take sometimes.”

  “Pretty much all the time. He wasn’t that bad at first, though, and it’s no use complaining. I found that out a long time ago.” Her voice was resigned now.

  “No,” Laura agreed, “but I do think you have a right to let off steam. I would if I were in your shoes.”

  “I guess that’s why I talked to you. You being American. It’s a different attitude there. People are… franker, not so stiff upper lip. That’s not just a term, by the way. You may not have noticed, but Englishmen really do have stiff upper lips. That’s why they talk so funny. I should know – I had to practice and the only way I could sound like a nob was to keep my top lip from moving at all. Try it sometime.”

  She sighed. “So here I am, griping away. Sorry. Not your problem.”

  Laura wanted to hug her but dared not take the chance. “I don’t mind listening at all,” she said instead. “And I think it’s about time you did some grumbling. It can’t be easy being married to…” She hesitated. Did Claudine actually call her husband Ludwig?

  Claudine seemed to read her thought. “Ludwig!” she exclaimed. “Can you imagine saying that at the altar? Except it wasn’t an altar, just a magistrate’s office, or whatever those guys are called.

  “You’ve got no idea what it’s like being married to a shrink,” she went on explosively. “Every word I said got analyzed to death and thrown back at me, all twisted around. He said he was helping me find my repressed past so I could forgive… How the hell can you forgive someone you never knew?

  “When that didn’t work he decided I was a repressed lesbian,” she went on fiercely. “Can you believe? Him, who can’t keep his eyes off the little boys. The only way he gets his kicks is to eyeball them. What a joke!”

  That was an interesting perspective on Dr. Bernstein, Laura thought, and filed it away for future reference. Pornography maybe? Did Violet know that, and was that why she disliked him so much?

  Claudine shook her head in bemusement at Dr. Bernstein’s deviant tastes, but her eyes held despair. “After that, I learned to keep my mouth shut,” she added succinctly. “It’s got so shut now it never opens.”

  “Well you can open it to me,” Laura assured her with genuine sympathy. Nobody deserved night and day doses of Dr. Bernstein.

  “Uh oh, speak of the devil,” Claudine muttered. Laura followed her gaze and saw Dr. Bernstein hurrying toward them from the path below. Even from here she could see he looked winded, as if he had been walking fast ever since she had last seen him near the bottom of the folly.

  “Claudine,” she said quickly, “I would love to talk to you some more. There might not be much I can do, but I would like to hear.”

  “Thanks. I will, if you really mean that. I guess you get defensive when you grow up like me, so you don’t trust anybody.”

  “I’m not the gossipy type,” Laura assured her. “And I like to listen.”

  Claudine gave her a tight smile of thanks before she started toward her husband. It was as if those perfect lips no longer knew how to stretch far enough for a wide smile, Laura thought sadly. How badly she had misjudged this woman!

  Claudine turned to face her again. “I’m… I’m kind of spooked, to tell you the truth,” she admitted grudgingly. “Don’t know why really, it’s just that I think he’s into something odd, only I don’t know what… It’s the same feeling I used to get when the mafia, guys like that, came around. They were all over the modeling business, the sleazy part of it anyway, and the skimpy clothes cocktail bit. I used to have a kind of sixth sense if they started taking over. Then I’d get out, and now it’s like that...”

  She stopped abruptly as Dr. Bernstein called to them. “Don’t tell him I said anything. Don’t tell anyone,” Claudine pleaded, looking frightened now.

  “I won’t say a word,” Laura promised. “Not a word to anyone.”

  “Watch out for him,” Claudine warned suddenly, looking into Laura’s face. “He’s got his eye on you now. I’m not sure why, except…”

  “Claudine, my dearest, where have you been?” Dr. Bernstein’s voice was plaintive. “I have looked everywhere!”

  “Damn!” Claudine said under her breath. Laura watched her walk away, wishing she had asked Claudine more questions while she could. She hadn’t even asked for more details about what she’d seen on the tower stairs. She stiffened as another realization hit her. If Claudine was as good an actress as she had said, she could have put on that act, accent and all. But why would she do that?

  Laura shook her head. She refused to be that cynical. For the moment, she would believe what she had been told. On the other hand, there was little doubt in her mind that Claudine could have been both Maisie, if Violet hadn’t, and the woman who had led her on that fruitless chase through the alley – and whoever else she chose to be.

  Laura glanced at her watch. Time to meet the others at the garden café. Two of them, so far, were hiding another identity. How many more would there be?

  The route took her past the Gothic Cottage, a small stone building romantically set in flowering bushes. A sweet-smelling vine covered one side. Laura stopped to sniff the blossoms and to peer in the ancient, multi-paned windows. There were figures inside, standing perfectly still. Maybe they were wax figures, she mused, put there to show how the people who had inhabited the cottage might have lived years ago.

  Intrigued, Laura ducked through the low doorway and took a step inside. Her eyes widened in horror and she stopped abruptly. Not wax figures; these were people, people she knew. They didn’t look normal now. Amy was slumped lifelessly against a low stone bench, her eyes wide open and her pretty face set in an expression of bewildered surprise. A thin trickle of blood stained her pale forehead. Margaret stood frozen-faced beside her, staring fixedly down at an object in her hand. Lady Longtree stood next to Margaret, her umbrella raised high to strike.

  ***************

  For a terrible moment Laura thought Lady Longtree had gone mad, that she had hit Amy over the head with her umbrella and was about to hit Margaret. Then she saw the object in Margaret’s hand that so fascinated her. It was a gun.

  “I sent William for help,” Lady Longtree said in a low voice. “Best not to do anything else for the moment I think. Margaret is in shock. There’s no telling what she might do if she gets frightened.”

  Laura nodded. She swallowed hard, trying to absorb the horror. The small sound of her throat moving was loud in her ears.

  Moving slowly, she took the few steps back to the door and stood guard so no one else could enter. It was all she could think of to do.

  Silence fell. It seemed to Laura to last forever, and then she heard voices outside. Tourists, only tourists. They stood admiring the cottage and sniffing the fragrant vine, chattering eagerly before they moved away. How incongruous, she thought – this tragedy inside and inconsequential chatter outside.

  Different voices came next, official sounding voices. A young policewoman appeared in the doorway. Laura moved aside to let her pass.

  The young woman stood still for a moment, taking in the scene; then she walked slowly over to Margaret.

  “I’ll take it now,” she said soothingly, holding out a gloved hand. “It’s all right. I’ll take it.” Laura noticed that her other hand rested on the stout club at her belt.

  Margaret’s eyes didn’t move but she slowly extended the gun toward the policewoman. No one breathed until the small act was completed.

  “Thank you, dear,” the young woman said gently, handing the gun on to another officer who had followed her in. “Now I think we’ll leave here and see if we can find somewhere comfortable for you to rest for a bit.”

  Margaret suddenly raised her head to look at the policewoman. “She had it,” she said pathetically. “Amy had the gun in her hand. Why did she have it?”

  The policewoman was startled but hid it quickly. “We don’t know, dear. We don’t know. But we’ll find o
ut,” she said placidly. “I’ll take you outside, shall I?”

  “But I told her everything would be all right now,” Margaret protested. “She was happy again.”

  “Yes, dear, I’m sure she was,” the young woman agreed smoothly. Her eyes met the eyes of the other officer, who nodded quickly and pulled out a notebook.

  Talking quietly about a rest and maybe a nice cup of tea, the policewoman led an unresisting Margaret out the low door. Laura saw that Margaret’s eyes were fixed on her hand again, as if she didn’t realize that it was empty now.

  Suddenly the small room was full of police. Alan came in, Violet too. She looked pale but composed. William came in behind them. He looked terrible, as if he were about to be sick, and Laura saw Violet go to him and take him outside.

  Lady Longtree sat down abruptly on a narrow stone ledge. Laura went to her. “Let’s go outside for some air,” she suggested quietly.

  The old lady looked up. “Yes, thank you my dear. Just give me a moment. Rather a shock, all this. I must find William, too.”

  “Violet is with him,” Laura reassured her. “They are just outside.” Lady Longtree nodded and closed her eyes for a long moment, her hands still firmly clasped around her umbrella. Then she rose, took Laura’s proffered arm, and they slowly left the cottage. No one seemed to notice except Alan, who sent Laura a grateful glance.

  Violet and William were seated on a bench, and Lady Longtree and Laura joined them. William looked marginally better, or at least less ill, Laura thought, and struggled to contain a torrent of useless tears. If only she had tried harder to talk to Amy, even insisted that they meet. Maybe then Amy would still be alive.

  The tears came harder. She must not let them. Not now, she told herself. Later, there will be a time.

  At least she was happy again, she thought, remembering Amy’s face as she talked about the baby wallabies. A pang of grief so sharp she gasped shot through her, and Laura forced that thought away too.

  Alan’s voice came from the cottage. “Violet, could you join us for just a moment?” Violet stood up and went inside.

  Time passed, Laura had no idea how much of it. An ambulance arrived, using a rutted service road behind the cottage, and two men rolled out a stretcher. They stood beside it, talking in low voices while they waited. One of them lit a cigarette. The acrid smell drifted unpleasantly into Laura’s nostrils.

  Beside her, William flinched. At the smoke or at what he’d seen in the cottage? Laura put her hand on his knee, wishing she knew how to comfort him.

  The gesture seemed to help. William glanced up at her and tried to smile. “Hate the stuff,” he explained. And then: “Hate guns worse.” His lips tightened again, and his head dropped into his hands. Laura massaged the knee gently.

  Finally Violet returned. “Time to get tea, maybe something to eat,” she said gruffly. “Sounds heartless I know, but it’s no use not going on.” Laura nodded and rose, glad of Violet’s calming presence. Lady Longtree and William followed. His arm was around his grandmother’s shoulder, Laura saw, and tears threatened again. They were very close, those two.

  Violet got them tea and some sandwiches that no one ate, arranged to put them in a small private room and told them the bus would take them back to the Manor house after the police had finished their questioning. A new driver had been hired, she said, and then vanished again without further explanation. Laura was aware that Violet was very much in charge. She must have been involved in investigations like this many times before. It was hard to imagine.

  Her attention was diverted as the rest of the tour group was ushered into the little room. They all looked shocked and frightened.

  An elderly policeman came through the door. “I fear there has been an accident to one of the members of your group,” he told them soberly, and went on to say, briefly, that Amy had been found dead in the cottage. Laura tried to read their faces as they reacted to the news. To one of them perhaps, it was not news.

  Mrs. Takara, perhaps predictably, insisted she had known something like this was going to happen. “That poor girl,” she moaned. “If only I had known she was so very unhappy perhaps I could have stopped her from doing this terrible thing.”

  Even more predictably, Mr. Takara treated her to a scathing look. “My wife is easily overwhelmed,” he apologized to the policemen. “She does not always understand.”

  “But I do,” Mrs. Takara responded with unexpected spirit. “About cameras, you know. About people, I know.”

  The policeman listened politely to both of them; then he turned to face Mrs. Takara, subtly turning his back on her husband. He learned fast, Laura thought.

  “What makes you think she was responsible?” he asked pleasantly. “Did she give you any indication that she was unhappy?”

  “I am certain she was,” Mrs. Takara answered, with a nervous glance at her husband. “I have girls of my own and I know about these things.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Takara,” the policeman responded. “Now, if you will be so good, I would like to speak to each of you in turn. The manager here has kindly offered to lend us his office for that purpose.

  “Lady Longtree, perhaps you would come first? In that way, you will be able to return earlier to the Manor. I am sure you would like to rest.

  “William will be next,” he added, “so you can leave together.”

  “Thank you for your consideration,” Lady Longtree said formally, and rose to her feet, leaning heavily on her umbrella. Despite her obvious sadness, there was a set to her jaw that told Laura she intended to get answers as well as to give them. William, on the other hand, looked ghastly. His head was still buried in his hands, and he hardly looked up even when he was called into the office.

  Mrs. Takara was called as soon as William came out. She protested that her husband should come with her, since he was better at answering questions, but the policeman just smiled and guided her into the interview room, leaving a glowering Mr. Takara to fidget irritably. Laura noticed that the bus driver took Mrs. Takara back to the hotel immediately, without waiting for her husband.

  The next hour passed in a blur of whispered conversations and somber faces among the tour members, the policeman escorting them one at a time to the office and everyone returning looking even more sober than before. Laura wished they would do her next so she could get it over with, but they either weren’t anxious to question her or they wanted to make her more nervous than she already was.

  Her mind moved off on another tangent. Had Margaret really shot her friend? If she had, that was an odd comment to make to the policewoman. It had been so ingenious, so uncontrived that it was hard not to believe that the gun really had been in Amy’s hand and that Margaret had taken it from her. Did that mean Amy had shot herself?

  Laura shook her head. Impossible. Amy wouldn’t do that. She probably didn’t know one end of a gun from the other and she hadn’t a shred of violence in her, against herself or anyone else. Besides, she really had been happy again, as Margaret had said. But if neither Amy nor Margaret had done it, who had?

  Almost anyone, she thought despairingly - except for Claudine. She at least knew Claudine had not. Laura was obscurely glad. Dr. Bernstein could have done it, though, or any of the others who had been at Stourhead. Mr. Takara could have done it too. Was that why he had been in such a hurry to get back to the gardens? The list of suspects wasn’t confined to tour members, either. Any member of the criminal organization could have done it - except Abdul, who was presumably in custody.

  She was the last to be called. All the others had returned to the hotel, ferried there one at a time or in pairs by the new bus driver. After each trip, he returned to the small office to wait for the next person. Laura wondered if he was really a policeman. Perhaps he had been told to listen to any private conversations among them while they waited.

  The interview was exhausting, especially after her already eventful day. The police were polite but wanted to know about everything that had happened to h
er, what she had discovered, more about her reasons for being on the tour and even what she thought of the other participants.

  Dutifully, she related her story again and included her perceptions of each person on the tour. They listened patiently, inserting a question now and again, especially about her aborted conversation with Amy and her perceptions of Amy’s mental state.

  Laura repeated the conversation she had overheard between Amy and Margaret about the babies. “There’s no doubt that had been bothering Amy,” she finished, “but she really did seem happy again in the last few days. I can’t believe she shot herself, or, for that matter, that Margaret shot her. It’s all wrong somehow.”

  And it was, she realized. Exactly what was wrong, she wasn’t sure except that it was too… too pat, was the only word she could think of.

  “It’s too contrived,” she said suddenly.

  “Ah,” the policeman said, nodding as if he understood, and went on to ask her to tell them everything she could think of about where everyone in the tour group was from the time they reached the base of King Alfred’s tower until Laura had arrived at the cottage and seen the tragedy.

  “Claudine was with me,” Laura answered. “She and I and Violet and the Takaras climbed the tower; the others were in the gardens as far as I know. Violet came down before me; I don’t think Dr. Bernstein ever attempted the climb. I don’t know what he did instead. Claudine and I saw him below us as we were walking back from the tower. He seemed out of breath, as if he had been running, but he is not in very good shape.

  “The Takaras came down behind me from the tower and then took a shortcut to the gardens. Mr. Takara seemed in a hurry, either to get away from us or to get back to the gardens. I think he could have got there in time to shoot Amy but of course I can’t be sure. Claudine came down behind the Takaras. We talked together for a while, and then she saw her husband and went to join him.”