Up from the Grave

by Marilyn Leach

  Cherry spotted the backside of the envelope and emitted a quick gasp.

  “What?”

  “It’s slightly open.” Cherry looked at Berdie, chin down and eyebrows raised.

  Berdie tried to adjust her ‘vicar’s wife hat. “This is a personal correspondence,” she advised. And then the vicar’s wife hat went askew. “Is there a chance he may have intended the letter for you?”

  Cherry grasped the envelope from Berdie’s hand and gingerly moved her finger along, lifting the flap of it ever so carefully. Then, with great concentration, she pulled out a single tri-fold sheet of office paper and unfurled it.

  Berdie made every effort to stay glued to her seat. She tried desperately not to be overly eager.

  “Oh, it’s a bill,” Cherry informed with a bit of disappointment. Then her eyes enlarged. Berdie held back the impulse to grab the paper and read it herself.

  “A bill for thirty thousand pounds,” Cherry all but shouted.

  “Thirty thousand pounds?” Berdie lifted her well-kept brows.

  “Hang about.” Cherry ran her finger over the paper. “This is a confirmation of payment. It’s a receipt. He’s paid thirty thousand pounds.” Cherry was agog.

  Berdie calmly nodded while grasping the arm of the sofa.

  Cherry waved the paper in the air without caution. “Where did my grandfather get thirty thousand pounds?”

  I only wish I had the answer to that question Cherry, that and several other questions that surround your grandfather. “Nest egg?”

  Without warning, four very rapid rings of the door buzzer made Cherry jump and Berdie stand to her feet.

  “Guests,” quickly fled Cherry’s lips like a child caught in the Easter sweeties. “No clean rooms.” She tried to refold the letter, but her haste made it worse.

  “I’ll get the door.”

  “Oh, yes, please.”

  Berdie swooshed into the hallway. “I’ll greet the guest, introduce myself, tell them their hostess will be with them shortly. Yes, that should be enough time for her to recover.” Berdie opened the door.

  When she did, she came up short. There on the step was the churlish man from the coach tour, the man who left without so much as an ‘I’m away,’ and who had caused Mathew Reese a great deal of consternation. The fellow, bags in hand, spoke the question Berdie thought to ask.

  “What are you doing here?” He frowned and looked past Berdie in search of a familiar host. “Church taken to raising funds by bell-hopping luggage?”

  “Cherry, your hostess,” Berdie nearly scolded, “has her hands full at the moment.” She eyed the man’s two large leather bags. “And by the looks of it, so do you.”

  “I need my room.”

  “The coach tour’s moved on.”

  “I’m well aware of that,” the impatient man barked as he bumped Berdie’s shoulder in an attempt to move forward.

  “Mr. Smith.” Cherry was now behind Berdie. “I thought I recognized the voice. You’ve returned?”

  “I am standing here,” he retorted dryly. “I need my room.”

  “Yes, yes, please come in.”

  Berdie pursed her lips and moved aside. Mr. Smith handed one of his large bags to Cherry. Well, I never. Berdie restrained the words from departing her lips. True, petite Cherry was an innkeeper, but really.

  Cherry bumped and scooted the heavy bag along the hallway. “Jeff,” she called out, summoning her husband, then continued conversing with the returned guest. “It’s good to see you back, Mr. Smith.”

  Berdie was not having it. Mr. Smith my eye. “You left so suddenly last you were here, Mr. Smith. Is that John Smith?” Her tone was stilted. “Mathew Reese tried desperately to ring you. I assume he was successful.”

  “Assume what you like,” he spouted and followed Cherry down the hall to reception, a small wooden counter with a key rack behind.

  “I’m looking for a seasonal let,” the man directed towards Cherry. “I’ll need a room until I find a suitable one.”

  “A seasonal let?” Berdie realized her volume was elevated.

  The man tossed a furrowed glance at Berdie. “I’m looking to settle here in Aidan Kirkwood,” he announced, “if it’s any of your…”

  Berdie reared her chin back and crossed her arms.

  “If you care to know,” Mr. Smith finished.

  The door buzzer erupted with its startling blast once again. Berdie turned to see a family of six wrestling with the door, trying to avoid the second of Mr. Smith’s bags.

  “Jeff!” Cherry trumpeted a second time.

  Berdie leant herself to greet the family and brought them into the hallway.

  Rapid steps made themselves known on the stairwell near reception. Jeff Lawler, a winsome lad and captain of the village football team, stood at the foot of the stairs. His well-kept goatee and short spiked brown hair enhanced his pleasant manner.

  “Welcome, make yourselves comfortable in the sitting room if you like.” He shot the words down the hallway to the lively family. “Hello Mrs. Elliott, Mr. Smith,” he added in a rush.

  With gusto to spare, he grabbed the large suitcase. “Room three is ready,” he informed Cherry and sprang back up the stairs.

  Berdie watched as the family helped themselves to the tea sitting on the coffee table in the sitting room.

  “Isn’t this delightful, Rodney?” the woman asked while pouring a cup.

  Cherry leaned over the counter. “Mrs. Elliott, sorry. Can we postpone?”

  Berdie could just make out the words over the noise of the rollicking children. She nodded. “Ring me.” She found herself shouting above the sound of a crash she recognized as a dropped teacup.

  Once outside, Berdie began her trek to the Butz home for the organizational meeting. Her apology to Cherry would have to come later. She strode across the green and onto the road that lead to the Butz home. She hardly noticed those around, her head was spinning so.

  “Madness,” she mumbled as she went. “Thirty thousand pounds.” Did Wilkie truly have a nest egg? No, a retired groundskeeper doesn’t have that kind of readies. Mr. Smith, whatever his real name, upping sticks? Just who is Mr. Smith? Why in heaven’s name is he coming to live in Aidan Kirkwood? Well, if indeed, any word from his mouth can be trusted. “The whole of it, madness.”

  Berdie was in a stew when she arrived at the front drive of Ivy and Edsel’s home. She looked down at the black tar of the paved drive. “Dark as lies and deception.” Berdie frowned.

  “Now whose face looks a wet weekend?” Lillie called to Berdie. The slender woman entered the opposite end of the drive with lively steps. “Well, Loren rang. We’re getting things sorted. But by your frown I’d guess things didn’t go well with Cherry.”

  Berdie sighed. “Cherry? Yes. Well, no. I mean, I really must meet with her away from her workplace.”

  Lillie now stood next to Berdie. With resignation, Berdie pulled her shoulders back, lifted her chin, and looked Lillie in the eye. “However, I can tell you one thing that’s certainly not going well. Too many questions, questions stacked one upon another and not one decent answer. It’s unnatural.”

  Lillie’s eyes became enlivened.

  Berdie continued her rabbiting, “There’s too many oddities to be ignored. And it’s all somehow to do with those disturbing bones.”

  “Yes,” Lillie said enthusiastically. “I love it when you get on your high horse.” She lowered her voice. “Will there be any kind of mischief?”

  “What a silly question to ask a vicar’s wife.” Berdie smiled coyly, laying her finger aside her nose.

  “I’m in,” Lillie piped. She excitedly rubbed her hands together.

  “There’s just one little thing that could send the horse back to the stables,” Berdie cautioned.

  “Oh, come now. When have you not been able to bring Hugh round? He knows that your gift of setting things to rights is for the benefit of all.”

  “It takes something approaching an earthquake before Hug
h gives in to my investigating, I mean really investigating. And I fear the very earth rumbles as we speak. Keep watch on the Richter scale.” Berdie turned her attention to the opening front door of the Butz home where Lucy Butz paused then bounced along to stand by the small car in the drive.

  “Hello,” she called out and waved a wooden hockey stick in greeting towards Berdie and Lillie. Her long auburn hair was pulled back into a single plait, and she wore a red sport jersey with matching bottoms that showed off her maturing figure. “I’m number seven.” She smiled.

  “Hello Lucy,” Berdie answered while Lillie sent a ready smile and wave. “I didn’t know you played.”

  “Oh, I don’t.” She shook her head.

  “I see,” Berdie said resolutely.

  Lillie leaned towards Berdie and whispered. “Is that supposed to make sense?”

  “She’s a teenage girl.” Berdie spoke quietly. “Does anything have to make sense?”

  “Hurry, Lila, we’re going to be late.” Lucy yelled loudly enough to make the curtains twitch across the road.

  Lila Butz, one year Lucy’s junior, timidly stepped from the doorway. She, too, wore a red sports jersey. It appeared just ever too small for her ample body. Indeed, it looked as if her shoulders should pop through the fabric at any moment. Her matching shorts, however, were quite large, even room for an extra leg or two.

  Lila’s “Good Morning Mrs. Elliott, Miss Foxworth,” was truly obligatory and barely audible. “I should step into the garden if I were you.” She gave a weak smile and nudged her black rim glasses against her brow nearly tripping over her hockey stick.

  Lucy grabbed Lila’s stick and, along with her own, tossed them through the open window into the backseat of the car. The younger teen entered the car’s passenger side.

  Heeding Lila’s advice, Lillie and Berdie stepped out of the drive into the garden.

  “Does Lila not play as well?” Lillie questioned Lucy with an uncertain tone.

  “I should say she does not.” Lucy laughed and entered the driver’s seat.

  The car started, it lurched, charged in reverse down the drive catching the edge of the garden then stopped abruptly.

  “My boyfriend’s sister plays you see,” Lucy shouted out the open window. “Two of her teammates are chucking it in, won’t play, and the team will forfeit. So Lila and I are hasty replacements, benchers really. We’ll make the full complement of the team you see.”

  “Very community spirited of you,” Berdie verbally applauded.

  “Not really,” Lucy admitted. “I’m doing it for my boyfriend, and Lila’s doing it because I’ve promised to change Dottie’s nappies for the next six weeks.”

  With that, the car accelerated out into the street, paused momentarily, and rocketed forward.

  “God’s speed,” Berdie called after the auto.

  “I should think you mean that literally,” Lillie quipped.

  “Yes, well, after Nick and Clare’s adolescence, surprisingly enough I still have kneecaps.”

  “Kneecaps?”

  Berdie grinned. “I mean I nearly wore out the knobby old things praying for my offspring in their growing up years.”

  “Yes, well, growing up.” Lillie sighed. “Lila and Lucy seem to do all right, really. Opposite ends of the stick, but both doing well.”

  “Indeed,” Berdie agreed. “Siblings. Clare was always so intense and Nick so carefree.” Something stirred in the back of her mind. “Yes.”

  Lillie moved towards the front door, Berdie close behind.

  “Now Mathew Reese was always the good boy of the village when he was growing up,” Lillie continued. “And Dave Exton attended St. Elizabeth’s you know, but he only stayed one year. Got on better at the village school.”

  “Did the Darbyshire girls board for their schooling?”

  “Yes. They went to St. Elizabeth’s as well.” Lillie paused. “Until their sixth form when Robin went to some posh school further afield. Colonel Preswood read her abilities and started grooming her for his protégé. Her first time back to Aidan Kirkwood, she had gone off small village ways altogether. Her brown hair was black, eyes dramatically blue, contacts of course, clothes exclusive.”

  Berdie knocked on the large door of the Butz home. “But she still made occasional visits to her family?”

  “Oh, far more than occasional. She went off village life, not her family. No, she stayed ever so close to the family.”

  “I have a great curiosity about the Preswoods in general, another situation of more questions than answers.”

  “Yes, I recall something about elephants,” Lillie teased.

  The door opened widely and Ivy Butz, cheeks bulging at the ends of her grand smile, greeted with delight. “Hello. Hello.”

  A pink bow adorned her brown hair. It complemented the bright pink floral dress she wore. “Please come in Mrs. Elliott, Lillie. I’m still waiting for the others to arrive.”

  The women entered the hallway, and Ivy continued her chatting.

  “I just got Dotty to sleep. We’ve so much business to attend to for the children’s fête. I’m considering a decorated egg hunt in the front church garden, you know. Certainly not the back garden.”

  “Certainly not the back,” Berdie reiterated.

  “Lots of details to sort and even some knots to untie,” Ivy blustered.

  “Indeed,” Berdie replied. She glanced at Lillie. “Details to sort, knots to untie.”

  Lillie flashed her impish grin. “I’m ready for the hunt.”

  7

  Berdie loved this time of year, spring in its resplendence. The twilight of evening approached at a much slower pace. The cherished sunlight lingered a bit longer each day as if to enjoy the scent of spring florals. The meeting at Ivy’s now far behind her, she stood in Timsley, here at the entrance of Le Petit Chaumier, which only added to the delight of dusky shadows and light breezes.

  The immensely popular, prize-winning French restaurant was housed in what was once a stone washed garden cottage. The size of the structure, petit, and the fact it had a thatched roof, invited the romantic vision of a jolly chaumier, humming as he worked, grooming the thatch which kept warmth within and storms without.

  Even though they had reservations, Berdie, Lillie, and Loren, joined other expectant diners on the front walk, while Hugh still circled the nearby car park for a coveted spot. The area buzzed with conversation as hungry humanity waited and happily sated patrons departed.

  Berdie smelled of rose from her pampering soak she enjoyed earlier. She chose to wear her tailored celery green silk top. The sensuous feel of it against her skin delighted. Her very comfortable straight black skirt, she decided, complimented the top quite well. It struck just the right note between style and ease.

  Lillie, on the other hand, looked luxurious in a black sheath with a white organdy shrug that absolutely teased. It exposed her slender arms and curved shoulders, a move Berdie recognized as a counter attack to the oversized tatty jumper of two days ago.

  Loren stood close to Lillie. The allure of his smoky dark eyes and graying temples was given a boost by his darkest-of-blue suit.

  Berdie took in how really handsome Lillie and Loren were as a couple. However, it appeared to be a tender truce that held them together at the moment, Loren a bit off his game and Lillie hardily entrenched in hers.

  “Perhaps we should call out the local constabulary to search for my dear husband.” Berdie created a light note to the evening air.

  “Ah, yes, speaking of constabulary.” Dr. Meredith moved his eyes in a quick sweep of the crowd. He lowered his voice. “We’ve made some headway on the ID of your garden bones.”

  “Indeed?” Berdie kept her voice subdued. “Go on then. Don’t keep us on tenterhooks.”

  “It seems the victim, a lad approximately two and a half to three years of age, died about twenty-some years ago.”

  “You can tell that?” Lillie quizzed.

  “Not especially easily, but yes. He w
as well nourished with no apparent signs of battering.”

  “But you said there were indications of trauma,” Berdie recalled.

  “Yes.” The doctor once again glanced about the crowd. “The injuries are more consistent with a sudden impact.”

  “Like an auto accident?”

  “Perhaps, but we believe the child may have had a severe fall and from a fairly significant height, died on impact.”

  “Poor tot,” Lillie murmured almost under her breath.

  “So, from a tree, a balcony, or a landing, down a stairwell.” Berdie reasoned.

  “Quite possibly.” The pathologist nodded. “Most likely a firm surfaced interior, not out of doors.”

  “That’s a very broad sketch.” Berdie was keen to know if there could be something more.

  “We’ve one hopeful detail that could be central for the investigation.”

  Berdie’s ears stood at attention.

  “Not much mind you.” The doctor looked Berdie in the eye. “This information is given in confidence that it will be used well.”

  “Indeed.” She knew the truth of what he was saying. “In the right hands, not much can become a great deal, Loren.”

  Dr. Meredith became pensive. “We found a shard of very distinctive glass lodged at the base of the skull. Very rare glass and worth a small fortune when intact. It’s opalescent. Produced in Venice during the seventeen hundreds.”

  “But you just said the death occurred twenty years ago,” Lillie interjected. “How does eighteenth century Venetian glass fit with a child that died in the eighties? And in English soil at that.”

  “Perhaps you should ask Berdie that question,” the doctor recommended. He lifted his dark brows.

  “Well?” Lillie directed towards Berdie.

  “One of the first lines of inquiry: where would you find antiquated, expensive, Venetian glass in England?”

  “A museum, in my thinking.” Lillie shrugged.

  “Or a collector of that design.” The doctor dipped his chin.