A Jazzy Little Murder

by Beth Byers

  “I don’t think that’s how hell works,” Denny told Jack seriously. “If anyone would escape hell, it would be those sent there. If you could just get out, it wouldn’t be much of a punishment, would it?”

  “Oh my goodness,” Rita moaned. “Would you please return your attention to clearing your sister-in-law?”

  “I’m not all that concerned,” Denny whispered loudly to Rita. “I didn’t like Martha as a child. Let alone now.”

  “Denny,” Lila said, “we need to clear her name and get rid of her. If you keep making her sound bad, we won’t be able to foist her off on Rita.”

  Rita sighed and threw herself back on the sofa while Violet crossed to the bell and rang for Beatrice. She needed Martha and the details of Bobby’s life that only a girl half-in-love and trying him on for size in her imagination would discover.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Violet sighed and threw herself on the Chesterfield. “My head hurts.”

  Jack pulled her up and sat down underneath her. “You’ll feel better if you could sleep better.”

  “Is she having nightmares again?”

  “Yes,” Jack said, sounding as frustrated as Violet felt, “about—”

  Violet smacked him. “People being stabbed.”

  “People?” Victor asked suspiciously.

  “People,” Violet lied.

  “Lie,” Victor declared, and Violet straightened enough to give him a commanding look until he held up his hands in surrender.

  “Let’s get back to work while we wait for your idiot sister,” Violet said, standing quickly to exorcise the memories of the baby being stabbed from a hand in the dark. Jack’s arms tightened around her as she rose, but he released her.

  The chalkboard of her notes so far read:

  LILA LANCASTER— Too lazy to murder.

  DENNY LANCASTER— Even lazier.

  VIOLET WAKEFIELD— Victim claimed she stabbed him. Violet spent the entirety of the evening with Jack, Lila, Martha, and Rita. There was no opportunity to have stabbed Bobby without a witness. Why did he claim it had been Violet who tried to kill him? If he knew who killed him and claimed it was Violet, he must have loved them enough to lie with his dying breath.

  MARTHA POTTER—PRINCESS.

  JACK WAKEFIELD — No motive. No opportunity to stab Bobby. Even if Jack hated Bobby, why would Jack stab Bobby when connections at Scotland Yard could destroy him easily?

  RITA RUSSELL —No fan of Bobby, but no chance to kill him either. She arrived late to the tango club and then spent the rest of the evening in direct contact with her friends.

  HEATHER FLYE-

  SALLY —

  JOSHIE—

  HENRY —

  DOOR MAN —

  Violet started with Martha since experience had taught her that seeing your own name on the suspect list made people far more likely to be open. She wrote after Martha’s name:

  The slumming princess has a large motive for having killed Bobby. He had led her to believe that his criminal activities was somehow more righteous than being born wealthy—as though “grit” and “sweat” in committing crimes was to be respected. Did Martha help in the selling of drugs? Did Martha help find the venues and the rich marks like Denny and Violet to scam out of their money?

  Violet stepped back to read what she’d written and then glanced back and winked at Lila as Vi added:

  Surely Mr. Potter will lock down Martha’s inheritance if he realizes how she’s been spending her time. Any freedom she has will be whisked away, and she’ll either have to truly work to support herself or obey the dictates of her uptight family.

  Denny giggled at that as Violet waxed almost poetic in adding:

  No more parties. No more modern dresses. Married off to the first righteous man who comes along unless she risks everything like Lila did, marrying for love and knowing her family might disown her.

  Violet stepped back.

  “Too much more and you’ll clue her in,” Lila warned. “She isn’t entirely stupid. Put some stuff on the board about the others. Something about how Bobby loved Heather the most and Martha and Sally were just easy marks.”

  “You’re cruel, wife,” Denny told Lila.

  “You like it,” Rita said.

  “I do,” Denny agreed, blowing Lila a kiss.

  Violet wrote:

  HEATHER — Bobby’s true love.

  SALLY — Bobby’s long-time friend and companion. Perhaps his closest friend. The keeper of his secrets. The person who knew him the best.

  “You are diabolical, Vi,” Jack said. “If someone wrote any of that about you, I’d be tempted to track them down and throw them on a ship to China.”

  “You’d have to believe it, first.”

  “And she does have one such person in her life.” Victor clapped Jack on his back.

  Jack shook his head at Victor and said, “Martha might not know what we need to know, and she’ll be more likely to talk if I’m not here. I’m going to speak to the doctor and see if he can give me a time frame on when Bobby might have been stabbed. We’d rule out Heather, at the least, if we knew it happened at the tango club, and Martha if we knew it happened after.”

  Violet kissed Jack’s cheek as he left and then turned back to the board, filling in the information for Joshie.

  JOSHIE— Was owed money by Bobby. Enough to kill over?

  HENRY— Drug-user with Bobby. Did they sell the drugs at these parties together? Perhaps there was a scuffle over being declined drugs. Perhaps Henry owed Bobby money for drugs and was turned down when he wanted more.

  “People do get squirrelly over drugs,” Victor said. “My goodness, how much time has passed since breakfast and what do I have to do for a cucumber sandwich?”

  He glanced at Kate and noticed she’d fallen asleep while they’d been talking.

  “Poor love,” Victor said. “I think we’re never having another baby.”

  “I don’t think you can make that decision, old man,” Denny said. “You have to leave it to Kate.”

  “Says the man harassing his wife for a baby.”

  “They’re not all as bad as Kate. My cousin glowed the whole time. She was never prettier than when she was expecting.”

  Violet rolled her eyes, and Rita said, “Women have been having children for ages. There was a woman in India who was sick the whole of her first child. The second child, she never seemed healthier.”

  “I don’t think any of us are in a position to discuss it,” Violet said. “Kate will do what she wants and Victor will want what she wants. What happens with you two,” Violet told Lila and Denny, “is none of the rest of our business.”

  “But if we name the baby Vi,” Denny asked, “you’ll leave her some money too, right? Because I expect Lila and I will spend all we have.”

  Violet sighed, knowing it was most likely. “I could help with that.”

  “I’m taking Kate home,” Victor announced and then lifted her into his arms. Surely he realized that she was going to wake the second the outside air hit her even if she didn’t wake before they left the house.

  The others said their quiet goodbyes.

  “I was hoping you would,” Denny said, continuing the conversation. “See Lila, I told you Violet would do it for us.”

  Violet scowled at Denny, but he just giggled as he usually did. Violet would happily have helped him, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to smack him a little. “Why do I like you?”

  “I’m like a fungus. You just can’t get rid of me.”

  “Oh, laddie,” Lila said. “You really are contagious.”

  Violet shook her head, but it raised another thought. “I need to have my stepmother over before we leave.”

  “May I be there?” Denny demanded.

  “No,” Lila told him, “but I’ll be.”

  “But I want to,” Denny whined.

  Violet ignored both of them. She paced the room. “Have you noticed that our lives have gotten complicated? Children, murd
ers, re-doing houses, placating stepmothers, seeing your children don’t starve?”

  “My life feels the same,” Rita said with a smirk. She winked at Violet’s frustrated glance. “It’s not my fault you got married and bought a house instead of moving into a hotel. I suppose your stepmother isn’t your fault, but the rest—”

  “Careful, miss,” Violet told Rita. “Your father re-married once. He might again.”

  “He had two murdered wives,” Rita said. “I think he feels cursed.”

  “He’s still a handsome man,” Lila said to Denny’s groan.

  “And rich,” Violet added when she noticed that Martha had arrived with Hargreaves and Beatrice. “Very rich.”

  “Who is rich and handsome?” Martha asked.

  Rita’s gaze widened and she shot Violet a vengeful glance, but it was ruined at the sound of Denny’s hysterical giggles.

  “I’ll have the tea tray in soon, my lady,” Hargreaves said. He glanced the room over and then nodded to Beatrice, who cleared the scattering of teacups and cocktails glasses onto a tray. Hargreaves held the door open for her.

  Violet’s head cocked as she examined Martha. The girl was lushly beautiful, Violet had to admit. For men who preferred a curvaceous woman, Martha—like Lila—was a perfect example.

  “Who is rich and handsome?” Martha asked.

  “Rita’s father,” Violet said. “You know he’s already married young and beautiful once.”

  “What happened to her?” Martha demanded, her gaze flicking from Rita to Denny to Violet.

  “She was murdered horribly,” Rita told Martha. “My father was a suspect.”

  Denny’s giggles turned into a hysterical howl. “Too late,” Denny said, wiping tears, “the magic words of handsome and rich have been said.”

  Violet shot Rita a telling glance before speaking to Martha. “You can keep pursuing the authentic grit and sweat and potential criminals, or we could introduce you to rich and handsome men. We know many.”

  Martha’s gaze narrowed, finally looking around. “What do you want?”

  “Just the truth,” Violet told her. “We need the details to clear you. Surely you know as the spurned upper class lover of a criminal, who was being led on while he pursued his true love, you are who Scotland Yard is considering for the most likely killer. They think you just grabbed a knife and stabbed him and then stayed with us when you saw him walking around. It must have been like seeing the walking dead. Wasn’t it?”

  Martha’s gaze moved between then, wide and scared. “But, that’s not true. I didn’t stab him. I would never have.”

  “Never cross a woman scorned,” Violet reminded her. “Men have been writing plays and books about the danger of a spurned, abandoned lover for generations. Scotland Yard can’t imagine anything else.”

  “Jack doesn’t think that, does he? He doesn’t. He was nice to me when I cried over Bobby.”

  Violet’s gaze narrowed on Martha, and she heard Denny’s, “Oh-ho,” but Violet didn’t react.

  “It isn't Jack’s case,” Violet told Martha flatly. “Jack doesn’t get to vote. Why are you protecting them anyway? I’d think you’d want to help find whoever killed the man you thought you loved.”

  Martha scowled. “I never loved him. I just loved watching Lila squirm. He was fun.”

  “That feels like an edited version of events,” Denny announced. “She’s changing her tune now that she knows they called her princess and laughed about taking her money.”

  “You don’t know that they laughed at me.”

  “We did,” Denny told Martha.

  “Be quiet,” Violet told Denny. “No one laughed at you. We girls knows what it’s like to fall for a man who doesn’t treat you right.”

  “Lila doesn’t.”

  “Lila saw me suffer,” Violet lied. “We’ve known Rita long enough to see her suffer as well.”

  “Hear, hear,” Rita said, and Violet glanced over, hearing too much truth in that statement. What had Ham done to Rita and why was she so determined to go to Siam?

  “The men don’t understand,” Violet told Martha. “We risk so much more than they do. We don’t have the same rights. The same protections aren’t in place for us.”

  Martha’s lip quivered. “It’s not fair.”

  “I know,” Violet said so very gently, “I know.”

  “I only want someone who loves me like Jack loves you, like Denny loves Lila.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Like Bobby loved Heather?” Violet asked in that same gentle voice.

  Martha scoffed and shook her head. “It’s like you said, Vi. Heather didn’t even use drugs on her own. Bobby would slip them into her drink or push her into using them. He didn’t like it when she didn’t use them because Heather didn’t like how he acted when he was on drugs. His solution was to slip some to her. He didn’t do it so often that she needed them like he did. She would never trust him after, you know. They’d get out of her system, and it would take him weeks to catch her unaware again.”

  Violet would have made notes, but she didn’t want to stop the flow of Martha’s story.

  “My goodness, Martha, why did you find him attractive?” Lila didn’t sound lazy—she sound disgusted, but Martha didn’t seem to notice, thank goodness.

  Rita placed a hand on Lila to quiet her as Violet said, “It’s funny what women will do if they’re in love.”

  “He was compelling when he wanted to be,” Martha said. She scowled and then admitted, “Usually when he wanted money for something. He always made it seem like he was doing me a favor taking money off of my hands.”

  Martha glanced over her shoulder, but her gaze didn’t land on Denny or Lila, which was good because the disgust on their faces might have convinced her to stay silent.

  “What about Sally?” Vi asked, drawing her attention again.

  Martha shook her head. “I—” Violet lifted a brow when she stopped, so Martha continued. “It was obvious that she loved him. I just thought, well, he doesn’t love her. Why is she hanging about, hoping? Time for her to find someone else, but she wouldn’t. She ran around, waiting for him to look her way.”

  Violet wanted to scream at Martha, Why did you like him? Why would you like anyone who treated someone that way? Vi wanted to take Heather and shake her. Why had she gone back to that fiend time and again? And Sally, it seemed like he treated her like a servant. Why would any girl put up with that nonsense?

  “What about Henry?” she asked instead. “Did they argue?”

  Martha shook her head. “Not really.”

  “Henry uses drugs too, right?”

  Martha paused and then nodded. Denny mumbled something to Lila, but again, Martha was so concerned with her own story and the comments on the chalkboard about her that she didn’t seem to be aware that Denny and Lila were horrified.

  “Henry comes to Bobby, gets his drugs, and works. He has another job, during the day, that sees to his rooms and food and such. He wasn’t as…sucked in as Bobby. Bobby got mean when he didn’t have drugs. Henry just found a way to get what he wanted. He’s careful too. As careful as you can be.”

  Violet didn’t scoff, but Rita and Denny were choking back their replies to that idea.

  “What about Joshie?”

  “Joshie just wants to play music,” Martha said. “He doesn’t see anything but the music. Except Heather sometimes, but not because he cares for her. He introduced her to Bobby. They needed a pianist, and then they brought her in. I think he felt bad about introducing her to Bobby. You’d see Joshie talking to her on the side. Trying to persuade her to leave the life behind. To go home.”

  Hargreaves appeared with the loaded tea trays and the fresh coffee and tea. Violet’s headache had returned, and she begged a few aspirin and found her request echoed by Lila and Denny as well. Both of them were staring at Martha as though she’d grown an extra head, and Violet didn’t blame them in the least. As far as she was concerned, Lila’s little sister was
one of the biggest fools Violet had ever met.

  “How do we get the rest of them to talk?” Violet asked.

  Martha took the cup of tea that Violet made her. Vi returned to pour herself a full cup of Turkish coffee.

  “There are cucumber sandwiches,” Hargreaves told Violet with an emphasized expression.

  She nodded and took one. It would have to be enough. Her headache had returned in full force and the aspirin and coffee were making her stomach hurt as well. Perhaps she’d feel better if she ate something else, but she didn’t think anything but a nap would solve it all.

  “Martha,” Vi asked, “do you think you could get Heather to come here?”

  Martha shook her head.

  “Don’t forget that you’re the suspect,” Lila told her sister. “Don’t forget Father is coming, and if he realizes, he won’t let you gallivant about with Rita.”

  “I need a change of scenery.”

  “You won’t get a bigger one than Siam,” Rita told Martha. “If you’re sure you want to come.”

  “Anywhere but here.”

  “I certainly understand that sentiment,” Rita said, “but I won’t help you flee Scotland Yard.”

  “May I tell her that she’s the main suspect?” Martha asked suddenly. “If we were to lie to her, she might talk then.”

  Violet’s gaze darted to Denny, who was grinning. He was the one who answered. “That might work. Making someone believe they’re in trouble is a…ah, it’s a cruel machination.”

  “Better her than me,” Martha snapped.

  “Indeed,” Denny choked out and then shoved a sandwich into his mouth before Martha realized he was fighting back a laugh.

  “Do take smaller bites, Denny.” Martha shook her head. “You’re not an animal or a child.”

  Lila, Rita, and Violet carefully avoided looking at each other.

  “Bring her by in the morning,” Violet told Martha, “if you can. Tell her that I know a private investigator who can help her.”

  “Do bring in the pretty one,” Rita said. “He adds so much to the scenery.”