Murder in the Cotswolds (The Sheriff Chick Charleston Mysteries Book 5)

by A B Guthrie

  “That’s it. Not alone. Oliver was with her. I heard both their voices.”

  “You’ve helped me, maybe. But Rose a suspect? Hardly.”

  “I’m not in the business of suspecting. That’s your field. But that Smith. What a beast! He put me in mind of that made-up combination, part goat and part man.”

  “A satyr.”

  “And the affliction?”

  “Satyriasis, I believe.”

  “My goodness,” she said as he pressed against her. “I do believe you must be afflicted yourself. Good for you. I guess I’m part nymph myself.”

  They made love again, slower this time and better than ever.

  “Now I must go,” she said. She began putting her clothes back on. “You don’t have to get dressed, not unless you want to. There,” she went on, buttoning her blouse. “Thank you for a lovely time, Inspector.”

  “My name’s Fred.”

  “Mine’s Drusilla, Dru for short. So goodnight and thanks, Fred.”

  “Wait. It’s late. I’ll see you to the inn.”

  “Oh, no, not together at this hour. I’ll sneak back.”

  She took her jacket from the rack, opened the door, and said, “It’s quit raining.”

  “Thanks, Drusilla. More than thanks, Dru.”

  When she had gone, he pulled on a robe, poured another drink and lighted his pipe. He’d offended the rules, being intimate with one who might still be a suspect. Not a suspect to him, though. A sweetheart of a woman, and to hell with the rules. He felt the drink in him. Tomorrow might break the case. He felt better.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Perkins was first in the incidents room the next morning, his mind dwelling on last night and Drusilla Witt, and he felt quite cheerful, putting them in the back of his head. Today could be a lucky day.

  Goodman came in and then Rendell and Charleston. They sat down after exchanging good mornings.

  “I’d like to have more inquiring around,” Perkins said. “Rendell put us on to Mr. Burroughs, the solicitor, and I’m hoping there’s more of that kind of information if we look for it. Rendell, I’d like for you to go back to that tobacco store clerk and see if you can’t dig up something more.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now where’s Constable Doggett? He’s the man for this kind of thing. Knows everybody. Where is he?”

  Goodman answered, “Last I knew, he was looking into the business of some stolen sheep.”

  “I want him.”

  Goodman got up, said, “Yes, sir,” and went out the door.

  “Something on your mind, Chick?”

  “Sure is. Thank my wife. A young fellow named Tom Smith inherited quite a spread and a good deal of money. That’s in Lower Beechwood.”

  “Smith?”

  “Yep. Smith. He’s a punk. Purse-proud and pushy.”

  “Smith and Smith. But there’s one hell of a lot of Smiths around.”

  “Right. There’s more, though. From something he let fall, Geeta got the impression there was a quarrel over the estate.”

  “That makes it tighter.”

  “Sure, when we know what Oliver Smith was here for. Business in connection with an estate, they said.”

  Perkins began filling his pipe. “We have to see that man Burroughs!”

  “That’s right, noon today.”

  The door swung open. Goodman took one step inside. “Doggett’s dead!”

  “Dead?” Perkins was out of his chair. “Dead! What in hell?”

  “Somebody beat his skull in.”

  Perkins clamped a hand to his head. “That’s all we need. Where, Goodman?”

  “At his home.”

  “Murder weapon?”

  “A spurtle.”

  “What in Christ’s name is that?”

  “Scottish utensil. Wood. For cracking shellfish. Like a small bat. The murderer broke it, hitting Doggett.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “I made sure he was dead, sir.”

  “Broken into? The house?”

  “No. Door was unlocked. I left it that way.”

  Perkins shook himself straight. “Let’s go.” He led the way out.

  The day was overcast, gloomy with death, Perkins thought. Right in the house where he had taken his pleasure, maybe at the very same time, a man took a beating and died. How’s that for sound-proofing, gentlemen? And now Hawley would charge in, the lab crew with him, his little mouth dripping slurs. Maybe he’d pull him off the case. Maybe he’d appeal to the Yard. Fine prospect, either way. He said, “Shit,” under his breath.

  The walk to Doggett’s door was stone. No footprints there. There’d be no footprints anywhere unless the killing was done after the rain.

  Goodman opened the door, stood aside, and let the others in, Perkins first.

  Doggett’s body sprawled on the floor, fragments of bone showing in the blood of his head. Perkins stepped to it and bent down, looking at what he didn’t want to see. “Couldn’t be deader,” he said, straightening.

  The spurtle lay on the floor, bloody at the big end, cracked at the handhold. Some hairs sprouted from the blood. On a counter beside the kitchen sink were two small plates, one with a piece of bun on it. A chair lay overturned near the body. Doggett had probably fallen from it, tipping it over as he went down.

  “Have to wait,” he announced. “Doctor first, lab crew, photographer, the whole damn bunch, but you know that. Come on. Get out. No fingerprints.” They knew that, too.

  A few people were gathered outside. “What’s doing?” one of them called. “What’s the matter with Doggett?”

  In the group Perkins saw Charlie Evans, the newsman to whom he’d made a promise. “All right, all of you, and you, Evans, Doggett’s dead, his head beaten in. That’s all we know.”

  Evans dared to ask, “Any connection with the Smith murder, Inspector?”

  “We don’t know, and in your boots I wouldn’t guess. Now,” he went on, “we’re sealing the place. Understand? No one can go in. Rendell, stay at the door until relieved. Sergeant Goodman will be back to seal it. Then it’s door to door for him. Not you. You stay.”

  The three of them walked back to the incidents room where Goodman picked up a kit and then left. Perkins said, hearing himself sigh, “Now for headquarters.” He lifted the phone. Then, “Superintendent Hawley? Inspector Perkins here. Constable Doggett’s been killed. Head beaten in. That’s what I said, and that’s all we know. We just found the body. I know, sir. Of course we haven’t meddled. Everything is just as it was. Yes, we’ll be expecting you.”

  He hung up the phone and turned back to Charleston. “That’s that. Prepare for the royal visit. Where were we?”

  “Doggett knew his killer.”

  “Plain enough from the plates, the half-eaten bun. But, hell, Doggett knew everybody.”

  Charleston asked, “Did Doggett have any relatives?”

  “None close, I think. Have to find out. None around here at any rate.”

  Charleston lighted a cigar and said through the smoke, “Two murders, and you think of connections.”

  “Right. Might be, might not be.” Perkins paused and went on, “Maybe Doggett found out too much.”

  “Wouldn’t he have told us?”

  “Who knows? He might have wanted to show us up, dumb as he was. Improve his image.”

  Goodman entered then, saying, “Something, maybe.”

  As if just now conscious of the kit bag in his hand, Goodman put it on top of the file case.

  “Sit,” Perkins told him.

  Goodman sat. “There’s a retired constable lives three doors up from Doggett’s place. Retired just before Doggett took over. He hadn’t heard anything last night, didn’t know about the killing until I told him. He said Doggett didn’t have an enemy in the world. Then he thought some more and told me a man Doggett had fought with and got convicted had just been released after six months. Word was he’d returned to a little patch of land he owns out of town. His nam
e’s Harold Peck.”

  “The ex-constable?”

  “Sam Bailey. He wanted to talk, but I had enough, felt I better report what I had.”

  Perkins gave himself a minute to consider. “Chick,” he said then, “you want to go with Goodman on follow-up? See Bailey, see the man Peck? I’m stuck here.”

  “Sure.”

  “If it’s a fizzle, maybe you can drive on to Burford and see Burroughs.” He consulted his watch. “Should be time enough.”

  “Yep.”

  “Then hurry back, will you? I want you on hand if something breaks.”

  Charleston nodded and followed Goodman out the door.

  They walked to the house Goodman had visited. “Lives with his daughter,” Goodman said before rapping at the door. A woman let them in, saying with a gesture, “Pa’s in the kitchen, having his tea.”

  A man sat alone at a table, sipping. He was a round man, round and rosy of face and round in body. Charleston was reminded of Santa Claus.

  “Hello again, Sergeant,” he said, getting to his feet. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Charles Charleston, an American helping us out.”

  “I’m Bailey, Sam Bailey,” he said, extending his hand. “Seems I heard about you. Sit down, both of you. Tea?”

  They sat down at the table after shaking their heads. Bailey took a sip from his cup. “I go to beer when the pub opens,” he told them, smiling as if for approval. “So George Doggett got done in? Know anything more than that?” He was asking Charleston.

  “Very little. The lab may bring out more. We’re waiting meantime.”

  “Waiting and chatting,” Bailey said, smiling again.

  “And hoping you can tell us more about Doggett and the man Peck. How well did you know Doggett?”

  “Like a grown man knows a boy. Green for the job of constable, he was, green like grass. That’s what first got him into trouble. Reminds me of a poem maybe you’ve heard.

  “There is a man in our town

  Who often beats his wife,

  And any man who beats his wife

  Deserves to lose his life.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t follow,” Goodman said.

  “Too young, maybe. But I tell you, you go to arrest a wife-beater, and the wife will turn on you and try to claw your eyes out and you got two fighters to attend to. That’s what George didn’t know.”

  Bailey got up, refilled his cup and sat down again. “I mind it well.”

  “We’re listening,” Charleston told him.

  “You see,” Bailey replied, expanding, “there was a no-good bloke named Harold Peck. He inherited a tiny plot of ground about a mile from the village. It had a hut on it and a couple of ramshackle dumps that passed for buildings. He raised some chickens and once in a while a pig and sometimes hired himself out. He wasn’t much of a worker.”

  “And he’s the man Doggett jailed?” Charleston said, hoping to bobtail the story.

  Bailey may not have heard him. “Well, there he was, living poor and complaining, whining so much about being hard up that he won the name Poverty Peck. Yes, that was him, but we didn’t think he was dangerous. Can’t really believe it yet, I can’t.”

  They waited, and he sipped at his tea and smiled again. “No, we didn’t think he was dangerous, but one day his little girl came pounding in to tell Doggett her pa was beating her ma to death. Doggett went to see. The fight had ended when he got there, but the woman was lying on a pad, beat up. Peck was just cursing around, and when Doggett tried to arrest him, he put up a fight. And almost before he knew it, the woman was on him, swinging a stick, clawing at his face. Doggett told me afterwards he thought he was fighting for his life. But, by God, sir, he brought them both in and locked them up. The ladies of the village undertook to find a home for the girl.”

  “Did Peck threaten Doggett, I mean after he was jailed?”

  “At the trial and right afterwards he did. Yes sir. He swore he’d get even. Funny thing happened. A Gloucester reporter came, and the Pecks told him Doggett had come and tried to arrest them on some trumped-up charge, and when they tried to assert their rights, he started punching. There were fools who believed the newspaper story. It didn’t go over in court, though. Peck got six months and his wife a suspended sentence.”

  “And they’re back at their place now.”

  “He is, so I hear.” He shook his head. “I can’t tell you about her.”

  “I think we’ve heard all we need to,” Charleston said, “but how about directions to the Peck place?”

  Goodman got out a pad and took them down. They thanked Bailey, who said, “No thanks called for. My thanks for coming. Not often I get to say so much.”

  Outside, they found it was raining, not heavily, but the sky threatened more. “Step back inside, sir,” Goodman said, “and I’ll run and bring the car back.”

  “No dice, Sergeant. I’ll run with you.”

  Once inside the police car, Goodman said, “Plastic macs in back if we need them.”

  “We might. It’s raining harder.”

  “Farmers’ delight,” Goodman said, and turned on the wipers after the car was rolling. The rain started to sheet. He turned the wipers to full speed and squinted through the glass. “In Montana what would you do with so much water?”

  “Get out the lifeboats and cheer.”

  Goodman kept squinting, “Have to watch close. I think we’re almost there. Yes.” He turned off the paved road into a gravel lane.

  A hundred yards or so farther on, Charleston looked down on a small, flooded hollow where three tiny buildings lay in decay. One of them looked to be a dilapidated shack or hut. The others were drooping sheds. A dreary place, depressing, not in keeping at all with what he’d seen of the Cotswolds. The three buildings might tumble in on themselves under the beat of the rain. There was no sign of life, no dog, no cat, no human being, nothing. Just an ocean of mud with wreckage in it.

  “Quite an estate,” he said aloud to himself.

  Goodman parked the car where the mud seemed least. He hopped out, opened the trunk and came back, wet, with two raincoats. As they struggled into them, the door of one of the sheds opened halfway, and a man stood there, peering at them through the rain.

  “Shall we slosh over there and question him?” Goodman asked.

  “I doubt there’s shelter for the three of us in any of those holes. Let’s wait a bit. It may ease up, and he’s not going anywhere.”

  “I guess I could drag him over here.”

  “Just wait.”

  They sat silent, willing the rain to stop. The man drew back into the shed and closed the door after himself. The rain dwindled. In five minutes it stopped.

  “Now?” Goodman asked.

  “I reckon. Goodbye, shoeshine.”

  “More like goodbye shoes.”

  “Let’s roll up our pants a turn or two.”

  Pants rolled up, they stepped out in mud up to their ankles. They plodded to the door the man had closed. Charleston called out, “Mr. Peck. Harold Peck. Police. We want to talk to you.”

  The answer came in a high whine. “Get off my property.”

  “Open up.”

  “Go to ’ell.”

  “Open up or we come in.”

  The door swung open then, hanging crooked by one hinge. Peck stood in the opening with a pitchfork in his hands, its tines pointed out. “Try anything, I run you through.” His mouth was wet with spit. He made a small outward jab with the fork.

  “You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Charleston told him. He took a step forward.

  “Careful, sir. Careful,” Goodman said from just in back of him.

  “You know what jail is,” Charleston said. “Prison’s worse. Give me that fork or that’s where you go.”

  “No. Watch out.”

  “Give it to me.”

  Peck retreated a step. “Give it to you, and after you done what you did? Put me in jail. Took me away from my wife. And where’s my little girl?
That’s ’ow you blokes treated me.”

  “Constable Doggett’s dead, Peck. Murdered.”

  “Doggett kilt? I don’t believe you.” The news numbed him. He let Charleston take the fork from his unresisting hands.

  “His head was beaten in. That’s why we’re here.”

  “You’re puttin’ me on.” Peck sucked in a breath as if he hadn’t breathed in some time. “’oo done it? When was it? Where was it done at? It’s like I won’t believe you unless you say.”

  “Last night. At his home. That’s why we’re here.” As he spoke, Charleston rested the fork against the wall.

  “Jesus God,” Peck said, throwing his hands up. “And you think I done it.” The narrow shoulders slumped. Charleston hadn’t noticed before how small a man he was. No man looked small who pointed a pitchfork at you.

  “You hadn’t heard about Doggett?”

  “’ow would I? I stick close here, lone-like, not botherin’ a soul.”

  Goodman stepped up beside Charleston. “But you threatened to get him at the time of your trial. Remember that?”

  Peck’s hands came out in pleading. “A man’s like to say a right bunch of things when he’s upset. I said I’d get him, but that was just gas and bile. Me get him? Hah.”

  “Why did you come back here?”

  “It’s my ’ome. I own it. My old ma left it to me. Where else would I go?”

  “Someplace you’re not known, I’d recommend.”

  “I got a good enough name around here. I’m just livin’ quiet and waitin’.”

  Goodman asked, “Waiting for what?”

  “My woman, that’s ’oo. She went to ’er mum’s.”

  “She’s coming back?”

  “She’s my wife, ain’t she?”

  “After you beat her up?”

  “Some says I did. Some says I didn’t. Right or wrong, we get along.”

  Charleston broke in. “Where were you last night?”

  “Right ’ere at ’ome.”

  “Can you prove it? Did anyone see you?”

  “No, not ’ere, but nobody seen me anyplace else. There’s your proof.”

  Charleston looked at Goodman, who shook his head and said, “Stick around, Peck.”

  “I ain’t goin’ no place.”

  At the car they cleaned their shoes as best they could, using sticks and a couple of rags Goodman found in the back.