by Morgana Best
I shook my head. “That’s terrible. The man must’ve been heartless.”
“I was wondering if his current wife had left him, when I saw her book into the motel that night,” Bella added.
The woman sitting next to Bella did not appear to notice we were talking—either that or she didn’t care—and she at once drew Bella into conversation.
I hadn’t noticed, but the auction was now over, and people were mingling. I risked a glance at Lucas and wished I hadn’t, because Lila was now seated next to him. Anyway, I had found out something significant, another suspect who had a motive.
I made my way to Linda’s table. “Come with me. There’s something I want to tell you and the aunts.”
The aunts must have seen us coming, because they walked over to stand by one of the huge windows by the time we reached them.
“I did get some good information from Bella,” I said.
“I told you so,” Aunt Agnes said smugly.
I ignored her and turned to Linda. “How many other wives did Paul have?”
She shrugged. “As far as I know, only the one, Sarah. I think she still lives in Lighthouse Bay, because Paul didn’t like going into town in case he ran into her or her husband.”
“Her husband is Tom Burris,” I said.
There was a collective gasp. Aunt Maude said something unbecoming for a lady, and Aunt Agnes at once berated her.
“Apparently she didn’t get a cent after the divorce,” I continued, “because Paul had everything tied up in a family trust.”
“Same with me,” Linda said. “That’s exactly what he said to me, too. I’m quite shocked, because the lawnmower man was around the other day. I had no idea he was married to Paul’s first wife, Sarah. Paul didn’t say a thing about it to me.”
“Did Paul and Tom have words?” I asked her.
“As a matter of fact, they did, but at the time I just thought Paul was complaining because he complained about everything. Every little thing. I could spend ages scrubbing the bathroom, and then he would come in and tell me to do it again. If I was washing up, he would insist that the plates were dirty when they weren’t.” Her voice broke.
“Oh well, you’re better off without him,” Agnes said. “You’ve had a lucky escape. Men are nothing but trouble.”
“Yes, they should be chained in the basement and only let off when they’re needed,” Aunt Maude added.
I must have looked shocked, because Aunt Maude hurried to add, “That was just a joke.” I wasn’t entirely convinced. Something told me that Aunt Maude at one point had a man chained in a basement. I certainly wouldn’t put it past her.
“So now we have another suspect,” I said.
“Everyone who met Paul hated him,” Linda said angrily. “Even that man at my table, Jack Murphy.”
She turned around to look at the table. The man must have noticed, because he tapped the elbow of the woman sitting next to him. They stood up and made their way to us.
Linda introduced them as Jack and Megan Murphy. I remembered him as the spotlighter who’d had the altercation with Paul over his pig dog.
“And these are the kind ladies who have taken me in,” she concluded, indicating my aunts, “and this is their niece, Pepper Jasper.”
I took an instant dislike to the man, but then again, he had loved his dog, so I supposed he couldn’t have been all bad. He smelled of stale beer and body odour. His wife did, too, but she also smelled of cheap perfume, the sort that produces instant headaches in non-wearers.
“Good that you got rid of that awful man,” Megan said. “I said to Jack, I said, I did, poor Mrs Williams married that awful man. I don’t know how she does it. And now he’s dead.”
“He didn’t give me back my poor dead pig dog,” Jack added. “Poor Killer, I’ll never see him again. I didn’t even get my deposit back, but I didn’t care about that, because I didn’t want to speak to that man again.”
“We had Killer for five years,” Megan said. “We loved that dog. That’s why Jack wanted to have him stuffed. I said to Jack, I said, I did, I said to Jack not to have Killer stuffed, but Jack said to me, he said, he did, Jack said to me that he wanted to have Killer stuffed.”
I nodded, considering making an excuse to walk away. The fact that the woman spoke in a monotone didn’t help at all, but the word repeating thing was really doing my head in.
“The police came to see me and I said to them, I said, I did, I said to them that Jack was with me all night.” She laughed, showing a large set of prominent yellow teeth. “Sure, I take sleeping pills, but if Jack gets up in the night, I wake up. I think they thought my Jack murdered that horrible Paul Williams.” She caught her breath and looked at Linda. “No offence.”
“I’m not sorry he’s dead,” Jack said angrily. Small veins popped on his forehead. “I’m glad he’s dead. Did you know what he did to my dog? All I did was ask him! I didn’t yell at him, I simply said, and I was polite to him, I simply asked if he got Killer mixed up with another dog. That’s when he threw my dog across the room. He screamed at me to get out. He threw Killer! I had that dog for five years, best pig dog in the business. I loved that dog. That man deserves to be dead.” As he spoke, pieces of foam flew out the edge of his mouth. I took a step backwards.
“You don’t mean that, Jack,” Megan said angrily. “You must never joke about wanting to kill someone. It’s just not right.”
Jack was immediately subdued at her words. She took him by the arm and dragged him away, without as much as a backwards glance at us.
“He’d be a prime suspect if he didn’t have an alibi,” Aunt Agnes said.
“She could be lying. They might have been in it together. Anyway, what are we going to do now?” I asked her. “I’m happy to hear the police are doing their job. They were onto Jack Murphy, and they questioned his wife. I wonder if they know about the lawnmower man and Sarah?”
“I don’t know,” Aunt Agnes said, “but I’ll call them in the morning and tell them. They know about the other suspects.”
“I’m just going to the bathroom,” I said. “I’m beginning to get another tension headache.”
“That’s fine,” Aunt Agnes said. “I think we got enough good information for one night.”
I made a beeline for the bathroom, but was only half way there when someone called to me. I turned around to see Lila, much to my dismay.
“I’d like a word with you.” Her tone was bordering on hostile.
“Okay.” I didn’t know what she was going to say, but I was already uncomfortable.
“Lucas told me last night, when we were together, that you’ve been a little too interested in him.” She looked at me carefully, clearly trying to assess the effect of her words.
I raised my eyebrows. “Really?”
She nodded. “I shouldn’t really tell you this, but he confided in me. Anyway, he wants to keep renting the cottage because he’s got more business with his winery, but he feels embarrassed that you’re in the next cottage to him. I’m doing you a favour by telling you this.” She crossed her arms.
“How do you figure that?”
“That’s obvious, isn’t it? You don’t want to lose business. Sorry to put it so bluntly, Pepper, but you really need to stop making advances towards him. He’s too polite to tell you, but he said it’s embarrassing him.”
I didn’t believe her for a moment. She was entirely too cold and calculating.
I made to move away, but she caught my arm. “Stay away from Lucas, if you know what’s good for you.”
“Or what?”
She narrowed her eyes. “If you don’t, let’s just say the consequences will be… unpleasant.”
The hair stood up on the back of my neck. “Are you threatening me?”
She did not respond, so I turned in the direction of the bathroom. Could she be the murderer? She was certainly hostile, and in that moment I felt afraid of her.
Luckily, there wasn’t a line outside the bathroom doo
r as there had been when I arrived. I splashed water on my face and rotated my shoulders to try to relieve the tension in my neck, keeping an eye out for Lila in case she followed me in.
As I was leaving the bathroom, I saw one of the staff slip in from the door at the side and I caught a glimpse of the sea through it. I looked around me. There was no one there, so I hurried through the door.
It was heavenly out there, tranquil enough to wash my worries away. Cloud cover drifted across the face of the moon, and the lights of the town danced off the sea in front of me. I turned my face to the breeze, and stood still, letting the moonlight wash over me.
I smelled cinnamon and rosemary before I sensed him there. I spun around.
“Lucas.”
I didn’t know how to react. I wondered if he could hear my heart racing.
Should I be afraid of him? Was he a Cleaner, as Linda had said? If he was, surely I was in no danger. I had done nothing wrong.
“You’re trembling.”
I did not respond. I could hardly say I was cold, because the night was warm. The electricity between us was so powerful, I almost expected to see sparks flying through the air.
“I saw Lila speaking to you earlier.”
I had not expected him to say that. I rubbed my arms, and nodded.
“Do you mind telling me what she said?”
Oh gosh, this was embarrassing. Still, there was no point keeping it from him. “She told me to keep away from you. She said you’re too polite to tell me yourself, but apparently I’m throwing myself at you.”
He shook his head and stepped towards me. We were but inches apart. He was all cinnamon and cloves. “Of course, I said no such thing to Lila. Not about you, at any rate.”
He was so close, I wondered if he was going to kiss me.
“Valkyrie!”
I looked past Lucas to see my three aunts standing there, hands on their hips. I felt like a naughty teenager doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing.
Lucas seemed amused. He lifted my hand to his mouth, and gently pressed his lips to it. Then he was gone, leaving me staring after him, my jaw hanging open in shock.
“What did you think you were doing with him?” Aunt Agnes said.
“Talking to him, if you must know,” I said. “Why did you interrupt me?” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Sorry about that, dear,” Aunt Maude said, “but there’s no future in it for you two.”
“Why not?” I said, abandoning all pretence.
“Because vampires and non-vampires can’t have a long term relationship; because vampires live for hundreds of years,” Aunt Agnes said. “Vampires never get involved with non-vampires, at least not with a relationship in mind, if you get my meaning.”
Uneasiness swamped me. Lucas thought I was a non-vampire. So then, what was his interest in me? Was I simply a dalliance?
Chapter 13
I was startled awake by my phone, so much so, that I didn’t look at the Caller ID before answering. “Hello?”
“Did I wake you up?” It was Aunt Agnes’s voice.
I sat up and leant back against my pillows. “Yes.”
“Valkyrie, please come over for breakfast, right now. We need to talk. You don’t need to bring your own coffee this time. The coffee machine’s hot.”
I mumbled something incoherent, followed by, “Shower, first.”
“Valkyrie, you sound like a caveman first thing in the morning.” Her voice was thick with disapproval.
“Cave woman,” I grunted.
“And be careful what you say in front of Linda. She doesn’t know we’re vampires, of course.”
That’s what you think. I said goodbye and staggered to the shower.
I had gone to bed happy yet conflicted, given the close encounter I’d had with Lucas, but what was his motive? Did he see me as just a fling? After all, I didn’t know much about him. All I knew was that he was intensely, magnetically attractive, and that he had inherited Ambrosia Winery. Oh, and that he was probably a deadly Cleaner vampire. That wasn’t much to go on.
In the shower, I remembered hearing about caffeine soap. I thought it a good idea and made a mental note to buy some. I threw clothes on as fast as I could and then hurried to Mugwort Manor.
I had hoped to see Lucas on the way, but there was no sign of him. His car wasn’t there, but cars were usually parked out the front of the manor, and the parking area could only be seen from the front of the manor.
Linda was sitting in the back garden under the large blue umbrella. “It’s warm already,” she said by way of greeting.
I nodded. “The aunts asked me over for breakfast. Rather, they ordered me to come for breakfast.”
Linda laughed. “Yes, they woke me up, too. They’re keen to investigate Sarah.”
“Sarah or her husband?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t even had coffee yet.”
“Me either.” I made to walk past her, but she stood up.
“Pepper, there’s something I wanted to say to you, and it’s awkward, very awkward.”
My breath caught in my throat. “What is it?”
Linda’s face reddened. “I saw you with Lucas O’Callaghan last night.”
I felt my cheeks burn. “You did?”
“I was standing directly behind your aunts. They were looking for you. They were worried something had happened to you when you didn’t come back from the bathroom, so we were all looking for you.”
“Oh.” I had no suitable response.
“I just wanted to say to be careful.” She took a deep breath, and pressed on. “Lucas doesn’t know you’re a vampire, and vampires don’t have relationships with non-vampires, they only… Well, you know.”
“That’s just what my aunts said,” I said with dismay.
Linda nodded and avoided my eyes. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt. Goodness knows, I got hurt, although for an entirely different reason. If you’re going to get involved with Lucas, please just do it with your eyes wide open.”
I made to protest, but Aunt Agnes opened the back door. “There you are, Valkyrie! Come inside, both of you. We have work to do.”
I headed straight for the coffee machine and deposited one of the capsules I had brought from my house. I had another two in my pocket.
For once, the heavenly aroma of coffee failed to brighten my mood. Linda and my aunts had said the same thing: if Lucas was interested in me, then it was only to use me. My stomach churned. I didn’t realise Aunt Agnes was speaking to me at first.
“Valkyrie, you’re off with the fairies! Concentrate, dear.”
I turned around, freshly made coffee in hand, and then took my seat at the table.
Aunt Agnes wasted no time coming to the point. “We have new suspects now, Sarah Burris, as well as her husband, Tom. Now the way I see it, Sarah is a more likely suspect. This is the way it could have played out. She prepared some green potatoes, and then sneaked around to his cottage. She told him she had mashed potatoes, potato soup, whatever, and said she wanted to let bygones be bygones.”
“Surely she would have had to prepare the food there?” Aunt Maude said.
“Why?” Agnes snapped. “It would make much more sense to prepare it beforehand and then just hand him a container of food.”
I had consumed half my coffee, so my mind was clearing. “But whoever it was had to know that Linda wasn’t home at the time, unless they didn’t mind poisoning her, too.”
Linda’s hand flew to her throat. “That hadn’t occurred to me.”
“Well, think, Linda,” Aunt Agnes said. “Who knew you had an argument with Paul? Who knew you were staying in the motel?”
“The police already asked me that,” she said. “I ran into Jack Murphy and his wife at the motel, as you know.”
“Bella wouldn’t have known Linda wasn’t there,” Aunt Maude added.
“Yes, she did,” I exclaimed so loudly that everybody jumped. “Last night she told me she saw Linda
arrive at the motel.”
Linda frowned. “What was she doing there?”
“She works there part time,” Aunt Agnes said. “So now we have five suspects who knew Linda wasn’t at the cottage that night: Jack and Megan Murphy, Tom and Sarah Burris, and Bella.”
“Six,” I said. “You forgot Lila.”
Aunt Maude nodded. “We’ll need to investigate Tom and Sarah Burris.”
“Yes, that’s obvious,” Aunt Agnes said. “The question is, how?” She looked around the table, but everyone was silent.
“I don’t have any ideas,” Aunt Dorothy said, “but I think Lila is our best suspect to date. I’d be surprised if Paul would let a man into his house, even a man who was pretending to be conciliatory. Is that right, Linda?”
“I think so,” Linda said, “but who knew what Paul was likely to do. Still, I think he wouldn’t have spoken to anyone he’d previously had a fight with. He would probably just go off into a screaming match at the thought of it, but if it was a woman, then he would be more open to it.”
“Good to get some helpful information from someone,” Agnes said, shooting a look at Maude.
“How’s the website coming along, Valkyrie?” Maude said, changing the subject.
“I have it pretty much under control now,” I said with a shrug. “I just need some good reviews.”
“I’m happy to give you a good review,” Linda said.
Aunt Agnes frowned. “But what if someone figures out that you’re the wife of a man who was murdered here?”
Linda shook her head. “You don’t have to give your real name. I’ll leave you a good review right after breakfast.”
I thanked her profusely.
“I’ve had another idea.” Aunt Agnes removed her glasses and polished them. “We’ll have a nice dinner tonight, and invite Lila Sanders and Lucas O’Callaghan. That’s if that man is back by then. He called early this morning to say he was called out of town on business.”
Linda and I exchanged glances. I wondered if that business had anything to do with him being a Cleaner.
“What do you hope to achieve with this dinner?” I asked Aunt Agnes.
