A Lamentation of Swans

by Valerie Bronwen

  “I wasn’t aware Bast was engaged,” I replied. “I’m very happy for him. It’s way past time for him to settle down, isn’t it?”

  “Well.” Peggy made a face. No one could be ever be good enough for Bast, as far as Peggy was concerned. She’d spoiled and indulged him when he was a little boy, and sometimes it seemed like she still thought of him as a little boy she needed to spoil and indulge. “She’s a model.”

  She said it in the same tone she would have said, She has the plague.

  “I haven’t seen him linked to anyone lately.”

  “He says they’ve been keeping a low profile because it’s the real thing.” Peggy stood up. “Her name is Kayla. She seems harmless, I suppose, if you like the type. If you want to relax, you can go on up to your room—I need to go check on dinner. Joseph will bring your things up when he gets back from the inn. Dinner will be around seven. That should give you enough time to get settled in.”

  “Thanks.” I got up and kissed her cheek. “But is everything all right, Peggy? I couldn’t help overhearing you and Charlotte talking…”

  “Oh, that.” She waved her hand. “Yes, this may not be the best time for you to be here. Charlotte is—”

  Whatever she was going to say next was cut off by the library doors bursting open and Maeve, her face pale and trying to catch her breath, standing there. “Pardon me, Miss Peggy, but it’s Angus.”

  “What about him?” I asked, standing up.

  “I’m afraid…” Her lips were quivering. “Oh, miss, I’m afraid he’s dead.”

  Chapter Four

  “But I just saw him,” was all I could say, stupidly, like my seeing him out on the grounds somehow negated what Maeve was telling us.

  Maeve’s eyes were red, and her hands were shaking. Of course, she’s related to Angus, I thought, as Peggy took control in her usual, ruthlessly efficient way.

  “Maeve, have a seat,” she said, taking her by the arm and leading her over to one of the chairs we’d just vacated. “Are you okay?” Her voice was kind.

  Maeve nodded, but didn’t say anything for a moment, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hands. She took a deep breath and visibly got a hold of herself. “I’ve already called for an ambulance and for the police, Miss Peggy. They’re on their way.”

  “The police?” Peggy shot a glance at me.

  Maeve nodded. “Someone—he—oh, Miss Peggy!” She burst into tears, covering her face with her hands. Peggy rubbed her arm gently, murmuring something comforting in a calm, quiet voice I couldn’t hear.

  I walked over to the windows in the tower section of the library. The windows faced the driveway, and I could see the tour van, still parked out there but out of the way. I could hear sirens in the distance. As Maeve continued to sob, she tried speaking at the same time. The gist of it was one of the groundkeepers had gone out to turn off Poseidon’s Fountain and drain it a little before the storm hit—standard procedure, I remembered, whenever there was a storm, to keep the fountain from overflowing—and he came across Angus’s body.

  He’d been hit over the head with something—there was a massive wound on the back of his head and blood everywhere.

  The body was near the entrance to the maze, right around where I’d seen him.

  The center of the maze is where the truth lies. Remember, Miss Ariel, remember.

  I shivered as I watched the flashing lights of the ambulance draw closer and finally pull up in front of the house. A couple of EMTs got out quickly and went up the front steps, and a few moments later a police car pulled up behind the ambulance.

  “They’re here, Peggy,” I called, walking back over to where they were both sitting. Maeve got to her feet, using her apron to wipe her face dry. “I’ll go down,” she said. “I can’t trust Allie to deal with them.”

  “One of the maids,” Peggy said, seeing the puzzled look on my face. “I’d better go down and see what they need from me.” She shook her head. “You may as well go wait in your room—I would imagine they’re going to want to talk to you.”

  “Me?”

  “You may have been the last person to see him alive, Ariel,” she said as she closed the library door behind her.

  I sank back down into the chair I’d been sitting in earlier. I poured myself another cup of coffee. There were a few pastries left, but my appetite was long gone. I felt a little like I’d been punched in the stomach. It didn’t seem real.

  I walked out into the hallway and climbed the stairs up to the third floor. The green room was near the library, but instead I walked down toward the french doors leading to a small balcony that faced the sea, where the hallway turned to the left at a ninety-degree angle. I opened the doors and walked out onto the balcony. The wind was cold and even damper than when I came in, and the sky was covered in dark clouds. The omnipresent hedge maze stretched out green and malevolent, and I could see the fountain was still on—the groundskeeper had understandably forgotten to turn it off. As I watched, the EMTs were led along the pathway to where Angus’s body lay, facedown in the grass. I felt the coffee burning like acid in my stomach and I went back inside, leaning against the wall while I took deep breaths, trying to get myself back under control again.

  Angus had always been kind to me when I lived here, I thought as I walked down the corridor to my room. He always brought me flowers from the gardens for my room, answered whatever questions I might have about the grounds, no matter how stupid, and no matter what he was doing. He’d made me feel welcomed, even more so than Maeve and the other staff. He didn’t even seem to mind my aversion to the maze after that horrible time I got lost in there, even though it was his own personal obsession. “I don’t know what we’re going to do about the maze once Angus retires,” Charlotte had told me once. “It’s not like hedge maze experts are a dime a dozen in the United States. We might even have to finally dig it up if we can’t find someone to maintain it properly.”

  Which was fine with me—but I’d never say that out loud.

  I went to my room and checked my email until there was a light knock on the door. I looked up to see a very young-looking police officer standing there, his face red. “Miss Montgomery?” he asked, not quite able to look me in the eyes. “I’m Officer Abbott, and I—”

  “You need to ask me some questions?” I asked, getting up from the bed.

  “If you don’t mind?” He blushed even deeper.

  He was tall, well over six feet tall, and reedy, with long gangly arms and legs and narrow shoulders. His blondish hair was cut close to the scalp. His face was all angles and planes: sharp cheekbones, hollowed-in cheeks, thin lips, and a chin so pointed it could cut paper. There were some sandy chest hairs escaping from the top of his blue uniform shirt, where the top button wasn’t fastened. His pants were too big for him, the black belt cinched tightly.

  “I don’t mind.” He asked me for my full name and address and phone number, which I provided, and then asked why I was there. “I’m married to Charlotte Swann,” I replied.

  I hadn’t thought it was possible for him to turn redder, but I’d been wrong. He scribbled down everything I said, not looking at me. “I understand you saw Angus McPherson before his untimely death?”

  “I did, yes.” I recounted to him everything I could remember about seeing Angus, and his cryptic words to me.

  “So Ms. Glaven and Ms. Swann had already left before you saw Mr. McPherson?”

  “Yes.”

  “The center of the maze is where the truth lies.”

  “Yes, that’s what he said to me.”

  “And you don’t know what he meant by that?”

  “I thought—to be honest, I thought he’d been drinking.” I held up my hands. “I know he used to drink sometimes while he was working. But that could have changed. I’ve not lived here for two years.”

  “Ms. Glaven had mentioned that. You just turned up today?”

  “I didn’t kill Angus,” I replied, evenly. “And yes, I just turned up today.”
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  He flipped his notebook closed. “Thank you, Ms. Montgomery. Someone else from the department may want to talk to you—I’m not in charge of the investigation—so we’re going to have to ask you to not leave, at least for a few days.”

  “So it’s murder, then?”

  He nodded. “Someone bashed him in the head with a shovel, it looks like. We won’t know for sure until the coroner checks him out, but it seems pretty obvious.”

  “I can’t promise how long I can stay. I live and work in the city—”

  “Just check in with us if you decide to head back into the city.” He smiled at me, the red finally seeming to fade from his face. “Thank you.”

  He closed the door behind him.

  I’d never been involved in a police investigation before. My only prior experience with the police was the one time I was speeding in high school and got pulled over—and that was just me getting a ticket. This was quite a bit different. I walked over to the window and looked out. My room faced the side yard, so I couldn’t see the front of the house, or the back.

  But that damned maze was there in sight, just to my left.

  I shivered.

  None of this made any sense.

  Why would anyone kill Angus?

  I shook my head. For all I knew, there were any number of people with a reason to want to kill Angus. I tried to remember what little I knew of him. I knew he was related to Maeve and several of the other people who worked on the estate—they were all McPhersons, one way or another.

  I shivered again.

  Other than whoever had killed him, I was the last person to see him alive.

  That was…that was a bit much to handle.

  The killer had probably been out there, watching and waiting, while I was speaking to Angus.

  And Angus knew. Angus knew his killer was there, was going to kill him. He was trying to signal me, trying to get me out of there but somehow let me know something.

  The answer is at the center of the maze.

  What on earth did that mean? Maybe if I’d been a little less self-absorbed and paid a little more attention, he might be alive right now.

  No, don’t go there. It wasn’t your fault.

  But I still couldn’t understand why anyone would kill Angus. Sure, he was a bit gruff and could be unfriendly. I’d seen him be borderline rude to Peggy before, but he was devoted to Sea Oats and to the Swann family. I remembered that his wife had died years earlier, and he didn’t have any children. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it being a crime of passion. But Angus’s death, while shocking, also made me take stock of myself a bit more. I’d lived at Sea Oats for a year, and I knew next to nothing about him or any of the other staff on the estate, other than their names and some bits and pieces here and there.

  I wasn’t sure I liked what that said about me.

  The only thing that made any sense to me was that it had to be some random thing, some trespasser on the grounds. Maybe someone who was mentally unbalanced? Angus was very protective of Sea Oats, had often run trespassers off with a rifle and threats. Maybe he’d gotten into a scuffle or something with his killer and it was an accident? Self-defense?

  I walked out of my room and down the stairs, back to the library. Someone had cleared the tray—Maeve, no matter how rattled, always made sure things got taken care of—and I wondered if it would be in bad taste for me to go down to the kitchen for some coffee, and to see how Maeve was doing.

  Probably.

  I walked over into the tower section and looked out the windows. The ambulance, its lights off, was leaving, and there were now four police cars out there. The tour van was still parked where it had been.

  Karen was going to have a hard time explaining this to her group, I thought as I sat down in one of the window seats. A drop of rain hit the window and the wind rattled the panes. The storm was about to break.

  “What’s going on?” a voice asked from the library door, startling me.

  I got up and walked back into the library. A man I didn’t recognize was standing in the doorway. He was about midforties, with a shaved head and strongly built body. He was wearing a tight black long-sleeved T-shirt that showed off his strong muscles and narrow waist. His black jeans were also tight, but incongruously he was wearing a pair of slippers. His face was a perfect oval, his eyes enormous and brown. A thick single eyebrow stretched across his lower forehead. He hadn’t shaved today—there was salt-and-pepper stubble scattered over his face.

  “And you are?” I asked. My voice sounded distant, far away. I shook my head and held out my hand, adding in a friendlier tone, “I’m Ariel Montgomery.”

  “The interior decorator?” The right side of the eyebrow went up, a smile creeping across the thick lips. “I saw that piece on you in the Sunday Times a few weeks ago. Nice to meet you.” He took my hand and shook it. “I’m Dustin Rockwell.”

  The name was familiar to me, but I couldn’t quite place it. “It was actually a couple of months ago, but thank you.”

  “What’s with the cops?” he asked, ignoring what I’d said.

  “Angus, the head groundskeeper, has been killed,” I replied, shivering again.

  “Killed?”

  “Murdered. Someone hit him over the head with a shovel.”

  He goggled at me. “Who would kill a groundskeeper?”

  “That,” I said, turning and walking back to my chair, “is why the police were called.”

  He followed me into the room, sitting down in the chair recently occupied by Peggy. “Wow. I’m not sure how to wrap my mind around that, you know? I don’t think I’ve ever been in a house where someone was killed before.”

  “It’s a first for me, too.”

  “What are you doing here? Are you going to be redecorating the place?” He glanced around. “The place could use some sprucing up. It’s like no one’s redecorated since the place was built.”

  “I—” I stopped, and then figured there was no point in not telling him the truth. “I’m married to Charlotte Swann. We’ve been separated for almost two years.”

  “Oh, yes, of course, how stupid of me. I knew that.” He wiped crumbs from his face. “Sorry, my mind is in the nineteenth century, and sometimes it takes me a while to return to the present. I’m writing a biography of Arabella Swann. Peggy’s invited me here to stay while I work, and as a struggling author, I never turn down a free place to stay.”

  That was where I’d heard of him before. He’d made a name for himself as an expert on New York’s upper crust in the nineteenth century. His book The Commodore’s Daughters, about the daughters of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, founder of the fabled American dynasty, had been on the best seller lists for nearly three years and had been adapted into a hugely successful miniseries on one of the pay cable networks. The follow-up, The Two Mrs. Asters, was almost as successful as his first.

  He was the perfect biographer for Arabella Swann, and it was past time for someone to write about her. I’d never read a book about her.

  I was about to ask him another question when the cop showed up at the door, looking for Dustin. I excused myself to let them have the room and went downstairs. I couldn’t imagine there were many murders in Penobscot; the most the cops here ever had to deal with most likely were drunk and out-of-control tourists, or bar fights.

  I slipped down the back stairs. Maeve was in the kitchen, sitting at the table, staring at her hands when I came through the door.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, touching her on the shoulder.

  She touched my hand and nodded. “I’ll be all right, Miss Ariel. It’s just the shock, you know?”

  “He was your…cousin, wasn’t he?”

  She smiled, wiping at her eyes again. “Yes, Angus is—was—my cousin. We weren’t close—he was a difficult man, especially after Karla, his wife, died. I always thought that maybe if they’d had some children he might not have turned out the way he did. He was so closed off after she died, never went to church anymore, didn�
�t want to have anything to do with anyone.” She nodded. “He bit my head off a time or two when I suggested he do something social, or had a woman I wanted to set him up with. All he cared about was doing his job and that damned maze.”

  I repeated what he said to me. “Does that make any sense to you?”

  She made a face and shook her head. “The only thing at the center of that maze is the map to get out”—she pushed her chair back from the table—“and everyone knows that.”

  I’d forgotten about the map. About fifteen years ago—I’m not sure when it was, but that sounded about right—a guest’s child had gotten lost in the maze and couldn’t find her way back out again from the center. Since the trick was to get to the center, it was decided that a map showing the easiest way to get back out again would be put in the center of the maze.

  I would have had it pulled up by the roots, but that was just me.

  “Do you want some coffee?” Maeve asked, getting down a can from one of the cupboards.

  “I don’t want to be any trouble…”

  “I was going to make it anyway,” Maeve replied with a slight shrug. “Keeping busy is the best thing for me to do.” She smiled sadly. “I don’t like to wallow, I like to work.”

  I sat there for a while and drank coffee with her for a few minutes, until she shooed me out so she could start getting to work on dinner.

  I escaped back up the stairs. I was starting up the flight to the third floor when Peggy called my name.

  “Oh, there you are.” She looked tired and anxious. “Given the circumstances, I hope you don’t mind too much, but I’m going to ask Maeve to just put out a buffet-style dinner in the dining room on the sideboard around six.” She ran a hand through her hair. “It’s just awful. I can’t imagine…” She shivered. “Why on earth would anyone kill Angus?”

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” I agreed, and went on up to my room.

  I went down to dinner around seven, when I couldn’t stand the hunger anymore. The dining room was empty, but there was a stack of dirty dishes and silverware in a gray plastic tub on a chair next to the sideboard. I made myself a thick ham sandwich and sat down at the table, wondering if anyone would come down.