Murder Most Austen

by Tracy Kiely

  Inspector Middlefield’s mouth twisted into a taunting smirk. “Really? And how is this helping? You didn’t come to me with any of this information. You kept it to yourself. What were you going to do—track down the killer and out him in a room full of other suspects? Tell me, was there a plate of watercress tea sandwiches being served when this happened? Were you all drinking sherry? I also suppose that once you cleverly outed the killer, he would meekly bow to your superior detective skills, quietly confess, and then allow himself to be arrested! Let me remind you that this is real, Ms. Parker. This is not some bloody period drama on Channel 3!”

  My face flushed with well-deserved embarrassment. She was absolutely right, of course. Years of watching civilized murderers tracked and unmasked by equally civil detectives all from the safety of my couch had clearly warped my thought process. Somewhere over the past few years, I had assumed the mantle of amateur sleuth. Granted, it wasn’t without merit. I did seem to have a knack for finding things out, but I wasn’t helping anyone by keeping those tidbits to myself. “I’m really very sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean any harm.”

  Inspector Middlefield closed her eyes and let out a weary sigh. “I could have you locked up—you know that, right? I could charge you with about eight different offenses.”

  “I am sorry,” I repeated.

  Inspector Middlefield tapped her notebook in frustration. “Right. Well, I’m not. Going to lock you up, that is. Whether I like it or not, you have provided me with some valuable information. But from now on, I must insist that you stay out of this investigation. And if you do happen to innocently stumble across information”—she paused to glare at me as she said this last part—“then you will call me immediately.”

  I nodded my agreement. “Of course I will.”

  She paused, as if uncertain how to proceed. “There were several—well, more than several—a surprising number of incoming calls logged on Valerie’s phone. She did receive calls from Ian, Gail, Byron, and Cora this morning, but it would seem that the vast majority came from New York; however, they are all different numbers. We are working on identifying them, but it’s still early.”

  “Do you think that these calls might have been from the killer?” I asked, leaning a bit forward in my chair. “Could Valerie have been working with this unknown person all along to get hold of Richard’s paper and then sell it? If so, does that mean Valerie might have been involved in his death? Could Valerie have been the woman in the Elizabeth Bennet costume who rushed Richard outside?” As my questions tumbled out one on top of the other, I felt a faint sense of hope that Valerie’s frequent caller was the killer. I liked that scenario much better than one in which the killer was someone I knew.

  Inspector Middlefield held up her hand and shot me a quelling glance. I closed my mouth and tried to affect an expression of casual interest, rather than one suggesting unhinged meddler. I leaned back against my chair in what I hoped was a nonchalant manner.

  “I am saying no such thing,” she said. “I just wondered—seeming as you’ve been conducting your own investigation—if you’d noticed anything odd about her incoming calls.”

  I thought about the question. “She did seem to always have her phone with her,” I said after a minute, “but I guess that’s not too surprising, as she has a young child back home. However, I did overhear one of her calls last night.” I quickly told her about Valerie’s odd conversation in the bathroom.

  Inspector Middlefield listened intently. “So are you sure she said, ‘Now, do you know what I’m going to do?’”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  Inspector Middlefield frowned. “Any idea what she was talking about?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry, I don’t. It was just the way that she was talking that struck me more than anything else. I mean, it wasn’t her usual voice. It was lower, somehow. And once she realized that someone else was in the bathroom, she got off the phone.”

  Inspector Middlefield closed her notebook and stood up. Fixing me with a dark look, she said, “Okay. Well, thank you for letting me know what you’ve found out. But please believe that I’m serious about your staying out of this investigation. Unless I ask for your help, consider it not needed.”

  I’d like to think I left the interview with poise, but I’m pretty sure that any unbiased witness would have used the term slunk.

  * * *

  AUNT WINNIE WAS waiting for me when I came out of the interview. She took one look at my face and said, “Are you okay, sweetie? What happened?”

  I sank into one of the nearby chairs. “No, I’m not okay. I feel like a jackass. I told Inspector Middlefield everything we’ve learned. She was pretty angry. And you know what? I don’t blame her. I’m not a detective. I’ve no right investigating this murder—especially as I didn’t tell the police what I learned. I’m nothing more than a meddling phony.”

  Aunt Winnie sat in the chair next to me and put a comforting hand on my leg. Giving me a reassuring smile, she said, “Honey, you are not a meddling phony. You are a sweet girl who tried to help a woman who was scared and afraid of being arrested for a murder she didn’t commit.”

  I tried to return her smile, but I couldn’t. “No, I’m not. I’m trying to be something I’m not; namely, a clever detective. I appreciate your trying to make me feel better, but it’s no good. I’m not a detective, and I need to stop pretending that I am.”

  Aunt Winnie scoffed. “That’s a load of bullshit. You’ve been amazing in helping the police in the past—and you’ve done it again this time, whether they want to admit it or not. Yes, you didn’t tell them what you’d learned, but that doesn’t make you a meddling phony. I know you. You just didn’t want to say anything until you knew it was relevant. You kept quiet because you didn’t want to hurt anyone.”

  I stared at my lap. I wanted to believe her, but I just didn’t know anymore. Ever since I’d lost my job and my apartment, I felt like I was at loose ends. All around me, friends and family were moving forward with their lives. My best friend, Bridget, was newly married. My older sister, Kit, was expecting her second child. And what was I doing? Playing Miss Marple.

  Before I could explain this to Aunt Winnie, Izzy ran up with Cora in tow. “Is it true?” Izzy asked breathlessly. “Did someone really kill Valerie?”

  Her face was pale, her eyes large with fright. Cora simply looked dazed. “It’s true,” I said in a low voice. “Aunt Winnie and I found her. She’d been strangled. But that’s not all. Someone broke into Byron’s hotel room this morning and stole Richard’s paper. Part of it was found in Valerie’s hand.”

  Izzy’s hand flew up to her mouth. “Oh, my God. You poor things! Poor Valerie! I didn’t like her, but she didn’t deserve this.” The memory of Izzy last night saying that she could cheerfully strangle Valerie popped into my head. I quickly looked away before my face transmitted my thoughts. However, I wasn’t fast enough for Izzy not to notice. “Elizabeth?” she asked, squatting down in front of me and grabbing my hands in hers. “I hope you don’t think I had anything to do with this. I was mad at Valerie for what she’d done to Mama, but I swear to you, I wouldn’t kill her!”

  I tried to read her expression. She certainly looked sincere, but what the hell did I know? Despite her declaration that we were “soul mates” and destined to be “friends forever,” I had met her only a few days ago. I really didn’t know her at all.

  “How is Ian taking it?” Cora asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since breakfast.”

  “So, do the police think that Valerie stole the paper?” Izzy asked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Byron said he got a phone call this morning from someone claiming to be Valerie. She asked to meet him to discuss a job with the magazine. Valerie never showed up, and when Byron went back to his room, he found that the paper was gone.”

  “Was it the only copy?” asked Cora. “I know that Richard was weird about computers.”

  I nodde
d, wondering how well known Richard’s aversion to computers had been. “Yes,” I said. “It was the only copy. Either Valerie made the call to get Byron out of the room, stole the paper, tried to sell it to someone, and then was killed for her efforts…”

  “… or someone is trying to make it seem that way,” Aunt Winnie finished.

  Something that Inspector Middlefield said suddenly resonated in my mind. “Cora?” I asked. “Why did you call Valerie this morning?”

  Cora flushed crimson at my question and looked down at the carpet in confusion. “Um, well, I don’t think that I…,” she began, but I cut her off.

  “The police have Valerie’s phone, Cora,” I said. “They’ve already checked. They know you called her.”

  Izzy whirled around and stared at Cora with all the indignant fury of a mother finding her child sneaking out of the house. “You didn’t! Oh, my God! You did!” she cried. “You actually called her! I told you not to. I told you that I would take care of it, but did you listen to me? No! Of course not! And now you’re probably back in the police’s crosshairs!”

  Surprisingly, Cora did not crumple under Izzy’s withering glare. Squaring her shoulders, she lifted her chin a few millimeters and said, “Yes, I called her. I wanted to find out if it was true—if she’d really scammed me into thinking that I’d lost the society’s money. How was I to know that she was going to be killed? And how dare you talk to me like that? I am your mother, not some half-wit child.”

  Izzy took a deep breath and then two more for good measure. “I’m sorry, Mama. You’re right. I shouldn’t have yelled. I’m just scared that the police are going to renew their interest in you.”

  “Well, you two have been together this morning, haven’t you?” I asked. “Once Inspector Middlefield learns that, she’ll have to look elsewhere for the killer.”

  My question was met with an uneasy silence. Both Izzy and Cora exchanged anguished glances. “Well, no, actually, we weren’t,” began Izzy. “I went out this morning to get some shampoo and…”

  “I was gone when she got back to the room. I’d gone out for a walk,” finished Cora.

  “Oh, you have got to be kidding,” said Aunt Winnie, her expression incredulous.

  Cora produced a ghost of a smile. “I’m afraid not. Looks like I’ve done it again, haven’t I? There’s been another murder, and once again I don’t have an alibi.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Have you never known the pleasure and triumph of a lucky guess? I pity you. I thought you cleverer; for, depend upon it, a lucky guess is never merely luck. There is always some talent in it.

  —EMMA

  MY HEAD ACHED; throbbed, to be more precise. I was minutes away from a full-blown migraine. I was back in my room, where I had shut the curtains against the wholly inappropriately cheerful afternoon sun, in the hopes of taking a quick nap, but every time I closed my eyes, the gruesome image of Valerie’s swollen purple face swam up in front of me. I wanted desperately to talk to Peter, to hear his voice, and to have him reassure me that everything would be okay. I had left him a message about Valerie this morning, but since then my calls kept going straight to his voice mail, at which point a mechanical voice politely informed me that the mailbox was full.

  Nursing a secret hope that he actually was on a plane coming to see me rather than stuck in a meeting, I rolled off my bed in frustration. “I’m going downstairs to see if I can get a cup of coffee or something. The caffeine might help,” I said to Aunt Winnie, who was sitting on her bed scribbling into a notebook.

  Peering at me in concern, she swung her legs off her bed and stood, saying, “I’ll get it for you, honey. I know how bad your headaches are.”

  I shook my head—gently. “No, I want to go. Maybe walking will help. Lying down certainly isn’t doing the trick.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked doubtfully.

  “Yes. You stay here and work on your list.” I indicated the notebook that was covered in her distinctive looping handwriting. Aunt Winnie was convinced that if she just wrote everything down about the murders, a solution would present itself. I was less optimistic. The only thing I ever gleaned after writing out the facts to a particular problem was that I have really lousy handwriting.

  Aunt Winnie raised an eyebrow. “Don’t mock me. You never know, it might prove helpful.”

  “I wish you luck with that,” I said, as I gingerly made for the door. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  When I got downstairs, I saw that the lobby was deserted, so I poked my head into the bar in the hopes that someone was there. I was in luck. Mary, the bartender from the other night, was behind the bar restocking and kindly agreed to make me a cup of coffee.

  As I perched on one of the red leather barstools, Mary busied herself with the coffeemaker. “I heard that woman you were here with the other night was killed,” Mary said as she placed a white mug, a small pitcher of cream, and a tin of sugar in front of me.

  “You heard right,” I said.

  “That’s awful,” Mary said, as she poured steaming coffee into my mug. “First that Professor Baines was killed and then her. It’s not the kind of occurrence that generally happens in Bath. Was she a close friend of yours?”

  I shook my head as I added a generous dollop of cream and several scoops of sugar. “No. I’d just met her,” I said. “She was attending the conference. She was actually the daughter-in-law of Professor Baines.”

  Mary shook her head sympathetically and crossed her arms across her chest. “That poor family. It’s mind-boggling. Have the police arrested anyone yet? Was it her husband, do you think?”

  I paused, my mug halfway to my mouth. “No, they haven’t arrested anyone. Why do you think it might be her husband?”

  Mary flushed slightly and fiddled with the coffeemaker. “Oh, no reason, I guess. They just always say it’s usually the spouse in these kinds of cases.”

  I put down my mug. “The other night, you said something about Valerie—the woman who died. You said something about her behavior and what might happen if the owners caught her. What did you mean?”

  Mary wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Honestly, I don’t like to say. After all, the poor woman is dead,” she said.

  I reached across the bar and gently touched her arm. “If you know something, please tell me. It might help the police find her killer.”

  Mary didn’t answer right away, seeming to debate the matter a little more in her head. After a few moments, she came to a decision and said haltingly, “Well, I heard her several times on her phone.”

  I nodded encouragingly. “And?”

  Mary took a deep breath. “And, well, she seemed into phone sex.”

  I blinked, sure that I’d misheard. Perhaps my headache was now affecting my hearing. “I’m sorry. Did you say ‘phone sex’?”

  Mary nodded, embarrassed. “I did. She was really into it. I must have caught her at it at least five times. I don’t know who she was talking to, but it was pretty gross.”

  “She was having phone sex with Ian?” I asked.

  Mary shook her head. “No, it wasn’t with him. She seemed to always do it in a bathroom. Privacy, I guess. Anyway, I ran into her husband a few times immediately after and he wasn’t on the phone, so I don’t think it was him. That’s why I wondered if he might have killed her out of jealousy or something.”

  Whether from my headache or this bizarre bombshell, my brain was processing information at the speed of dark. Valerie was having an affair? And engaging in phone sex? An involuntary shudder rippled through my body at the images that thought produced. Now, while I am not a prude, I have never seen the appeal of phone sex. With the unfortunate image of Valerie purring God knows what kind of kinky suggestions into the phone to some stranger, it pretty much cemented that opinion.

  I stared at my cup of coffee, still somewhat dazed. Frankly, it was hard to believe. But why would Mary lie? She had no reason to. The memory of Valerie’s brief phone conversation I’d overheard in the bat
hroom last night suddenly took on a whole new meaning. My stomach gave a nauseous lurch, as the realization that Valerie’s breathy question as to “what she was going to do” was most likely of a sexual nature.

  It also meant that my hope that Richard’s and Valerie’s killer was an unknown accomplice from New York was doomed.

  Honestly, I didn’t know which realization was more upsetting.

  * * *

  I RETURNED TO the hotel room in a fog. Still clutching my cup of coffee, I sank down into the wooden chair at the desk. Aunt Winnie regarded me with an expression of mild alarm. “Elizabeth? Are you okay? Do you need me to call a doctor?” she asked, tossing aside her notebook.

  I shook my head. “No, I’m okay. I think. I just had a rather interesting conversation with the bartender downstairs.”

  “And?” Aunt Winnie prompted.

  “And, well, she overheard Valerie on the phone a few times,” I said, before taking a sip of coffee.

  “By all means, go ahead and take your time,” Aunt Winnie groused.

  I smiled. “Trust me, you should thank me. Remember the ‘you’ in this moment. You will never get back the innocence that you now enjoy.” I paused. “Apparently, Valerie was rather fond of explicit phone sex. And she wasn’t having it with Ian.”

  Aunt Winnie’s face scrunched in disgust. “Are you serious?”

  “According to Mary—she’s the bartender—she caught Valerie at it on a number of occasions.”

  Aunt Winnie said, “Is she sure it was Valerie? Valerie Baines? The woman whose own child was probably created in a burst of friendliness that would most likely never be repeated?”

  I nodded. “That’s the one.”

  Aunt Winnie let out a low whistle. “I guess it’s true what they say about still waters running deep.”