Evanly Bodies

by Rhys Bowen

  "Nobody told me anything. I saw your names together on the roster sheet for last month. Missy isn't a usual name around here, is it?"

  "Oh well." Pamela Alessi sank onto on the nearest chair. "It was worth a try, wasn't it? I never really thought we'd get away with it."

  "Of course we would have got away with it," Missy Rogers said. "We would have done now if you two had kept your heads."

  "Would someone mind explaining to me what The Laurels is?" DI Bragg demanded.

  "Mrs. Rogers?" Evan looked at her. "Would you like to tell the inspector?"

  Her gaze did not flicker. "It's a safe house for abused and battered women. We met there a month ago." She looked from one policeman's face to the next. "I can see you're surprised. Surely not respected, cultured Martin Rogers? He was never a wife batterer? Well, he wasn't, not like Pamela's husband, or Megan's. I didn't come there with a black eye, like Pamela or having had a miscarriage because my husband had kicked me in the stomach after he knocked me to the floor like Megan. But there are other effective ways of abusing somebody, and Martin was a master at all of them. First the belittling, the humiliating, making me think that I wasn't good enough for anything, that I couldn't function without him, then the power over me-handing out the housekeeping money, making me account for every penny, flying into a rage when the least little thing was wrong, cross-questioning me whenever I dared to go out, cutting me off from everybody I loved and trusted until I had nobody."

  "You could have left him," Bragg said sharply. "You didn't have to put up with that."

  "I could have left him?" She looked at him and gave a brittle laugh. "I told you he had driven a wedge in between me and any friends I might have had. He had alienated me from my one sister, and if I dared to disobey him, he was frightening. He told me that if I ever had the nerve to leave him, he'd findme, wherever I was; and not only would he kill me, he'd punish those who had helped me too." She looked at Pamela. "Pamela's husband told her the same sort of thing."

  Pamela nodded. "Nowhere to run; nowhere to hide," she said.

  "So what gave you the courage to try to walk out on him?" Evan asked, turning back to Mrs. Rogers.

  "Lucky. My dog means everything to me. Martin became horribly jealous that the dog preferred me to him, and that I lavished affection on it. So he set about torturing Lucky: teasing him, brushing him so fiercely that Lucky yelped in pain . . . that kind of thing. It was no good telling him to stop because he went on all the more savagely. I had to keep Lucky locked in the summerhouse for his own safety. Then, out of the blue, Martin announced that he had become allergic to animals and was advertising for a good home for the dog. No more hairs around the place, he said. That was it, as far as I was concerned. The straw that broke the camel's back. I took Lucky with me and called the battered women's hotline. And I moved into the shelter."

  "And so you decided to kill him," Bragg said, "because he wanted to get rid of your dog." There was almost a smirk in the way he said it. Evan could hear the prosecuting barrister adopting exactly the same tone as he looked at the jury.

  "Because he had abused me for years; taken away any life I might have had; and reduced me to a phantom who worked in the garden, walked the dog, and looked after Martin's needs." She glared at them, suddenly animated. "Oh, and he did have needs too, Inspector, let me tell you that. If he'd been screaming at me, frightening me, reducing me to tears, he took sadistic pleasure in forcing me into bed and then raping me. It was the ultimate humiliation, you see. Oh no, Martin Rogers deserved to die. I have no regrets at all about doing it."

  She reached across and patted Megan's hand. "Strangely enough, I think that Pamela and I would have endured somehow, if it hadn't been for Megan. We're old. We should know better, but Megan-nobody should have to go through that at twenty. Her husband was out of control. Terrifying rages, especially after he'd been drinking. She'd tried to get police protection but with no success. In essence they told her it was her fault and not to upset her husband when he'd had a drop. She was terrified of going back home. 'He's going to kill me,' she kept on saying. But if she went to her mother's, he'd find her there and bring her back. I decided there and then that such men should not be allowed to live."

  "So you came up with the plan," Evan said.

  Missy looked at the other two and nodded. "It seemed foolproof. We'd each be the other's alibi. I couldn't see any way you could ever have connected the three of us. You should never have."

  "It was luck," Evan said. "Pure luck."

  "Our bad luck, as usual," Pamela said.

  "So you took turns shooting your husbands with the same gun?" Bragg said.

  Missy nodded. "After I had shot Martin, I sewed the gun into a small pillow I had embroidered, put it into a padded envelope I had prepared, and prestamped and posted it to Pamela on my dog walk that morning. Pamela dropped it into the post to Megan . . ."

  "And Megan?" Bragg asked. "Where is the weapon now?"

  "It's gone," Missy Rogers said firmly before Megan could speak. "It's gone to a place where you will never recover it. It will never be used as evidence if it comes to a trial. Your case will be all supposition."

  "So it was all done just as we suspected in the beginning," Bragg said, looking rather pleased with himself. "You turned on the lawn mower so nobody would hear the shot. You opened the window, called your husband to it, and when he appeared, you shot him then closed the window."

  "Not exactly like that," Missy Rogers said. "He came to the window and yelled "Turn off that bloody lawn mower while I'm trying to eat my breakfast." He looked quite surprised to see the gun pointed at him. I was too close to miss. Then I sewed up the pillow in no time and went on my dog walk, dropped off the gun at the post office, and came home to discover his body."

  "And Mrs. Alessi?" Bragg turned to Pamela. "How did you manage with the sleeping pill?"

  She shrugged. "I only took half, at one in the morning. It left me so groggy that I could hardly walk straight when I went to post the package with the gun in it to Megan. I said I had to go out for butter. The kind constable offered to go for me, but I needed the sub-post office at the back of the corner shop, so I convinced him that fresh air would do me good."

  She gave a wistful smile. "I'm not sorry either. I'm fed up with years of lying, saying I fell down the stairs, I burned myself on the iron, to cover up for the way he bashed me around. And like Missy, he never let me out of his sight either. Always wanted to know where I'd been, who I'd spoken to. And heaven help me if I chatted to one of the customers if I was helping out in the café. If I'm going to hell for killing him, I don't really care. What I've gone through was worse than hell."

  "I've been through hell too," Megan said. "But I still can't help feeling terrible about it. My Terry wasn't always like that, you know. We were in love once. He was lovely when we were going out together. Then he got laid off, and he felt angry and powerless so he just took it out on me."

  "Don't make excuses for him," Missy said. "We've all spent too many years making excuses. If I had cooked the meat the way Martin liked it, if I had ironed his favorite shirt better, I wouldn't have made him angry. That's how those men operate. They want us to feel guilty for pushing them over the top."

  Pamela Alessi was nodding as she spoke. "And afterward he'd be loving and sweet as if nothing had happened. He'd go out and buy me presents. Bastards, all of them. I'm staying away from men from now on."

  "And the weapon," Bragg asked. "The one we'll never find?"

  "It was, as you correctly established, my father's from the last war. Taken from a captured Japanese officer. A bit of a trophy. And light enough for amateurs like us to handle."

  "But you're not going to tell us where it is?"

  "No." She eyed him steadily. "And you haven't yet formally charged us, Inspector. So before we proceed, I think we should have a solicitor present. And while one is being found, I should like to go home and make arrangements for my dog." She saw Bragg open his mouth to speak and ga
ve a scornful smile. "Oh, don't worry. You can send an officer with me if you like. I wouldn't dream of leaving my sisters to face this alone."

  Bragg looked at the other officers with a triumphant smile as the door closed. "We did it," he said. "We bloody well pulled it off. Well done, Evans, for spotting those names. Very sharp of you. A nice open-and-shut case with a full confession, that's what I like."

  "But they won't be charged with murder, will they?" Evan asked.

  "Of course they will. Shot their husbands in cold blood."

  "But the court will consider the extenuating circumstances," Evan insisted. "They were in fear of their lives. Their husbands had battered them and threatened to kill them . . ."

  "Not at the moment they fired the gun. The prosecution will say it was premeditated murder. I reckon they'll get life."

  "But we can't let that happen!" Evan banged a hand on the table. "That's not justice, is it?"

  Bragg looked up in surprise. "Quite the little orator, isn't he? Listen, lad, it's not our job to decide what is justice and what is not. We bring in the guilty party, and the court takes it from there. It's over as far as we're concerned, apart from getting them to make a statement, which we'll do later today."

  "But those poor women. You heard what life was like for them." Evan looked at Wingate for confirmation.

  "The prosecutor will say they could have walked out at any time they liked. It didn't have to end in death," Bragg said.

  "I'm sure the defense will produce psychologists who will talk about post traumatic stress and inability to make valid decisions and all that kind of stuff," Wingate said. "I know how you feel, Evan. This leaves a nasty taste in my mouth too. I had to evict a family from a house once. I felt like a heel."

  "And I had to hold back local farmers while their sheep were slaughtered during the hoof-and-mouth epidemic," Evan said. "But neither of those are the same as knowing you've locked away an essentially good person for the rest of her life."

  "They'll probably get out early with good behavior," Bragg said easily. Evan could see he was actually enjoying this, anticipating the pat on the back that would come from solving a tricky case. He turned away and stared out of the window. He pictured Missy Rogers, Pamela Alessi, and then little Megan Owens behind bars and felt almost physically sick. But what should I have done, he wondered. Should I have seen those names and said nothing? And let them walk free to live with their own consciences and us with an unsolved murder case? And grudgingly he had to admit that Bragg was right. The law was the law, and it wasn't up to him to play God.

  Chapter 27

  By that evening a statement had been obtained from each of the women, now with an elderly local solicitor in attendance. Evan found the man ineffective and wished he knew how to summon up a dynamic and forceful lawyer who might have prevented the women from saying the wrong thing. After Megan Owens had broken down in hysterical tears, it occurred to Evan that he might know where to find such a person. He excused himself from the room and called Bronwen, who gave him Miss Prender-gast's number. She listened while he explained rapidly. "But this is terrible," she said. "I can't believe that you are calling me for help, Constable Evans. You betrayed those women's trust. You betrayed my trust."

  "No, I didn't," he said. "My job is to solve crimes. All I did was to have the three women brought into the same room. They confessed to everything."

  "But anything you saw while you were at that house was confidential information. You agreed to that."

  "In Jamila's case, yes, but I'm a police officer. If I've picked up a clue to the whereabouts of a murderer, what else did you expect me to do?"

  "Say nothing, as agreed."

  "And let someone who has killed another human being walk free?"

  There was a silence.

  Evan cleared his throat uneasily. "Look, I agree it was probably a dirty trick to confront them with each other like that, but it was my job to do so. I'm paid to solve crimes, you know. And now we've solved it, but I'm feeling really terrible about it. So I wondered if you had access to a lawyer who could handle their case better. One who is experienced in litigation like theirs. I don't want them to go to prison anymore than you do."

  "I'll see what I can do," she said frostily. "But you have undoubtedly blighted three lives."

  "What would you have done?" he asked. "Would you have walked away after you discovered the truth and said nothing?"

  She paused for a while. "Yes, I believe I would have," she said.

  Evan hung up. At least now he had done what he could, and he hoped Miss Prendergast would know where to find a better lawyer who would at least give the women a fighting chance. He came back to find Bragg finishing up a report.

  "Drinks all around, I think, for a job well done. I'm buying at the Queen's Head. Ready, boys?"

  Evan tried to hide his utter dislike of the man as he looked at him. Actually celebrating the destruction of three decent women, women who had already suffered more than enough. There was nothing Evan wanted less in the world than to go for drinks in celebration. And yet he knew he had to go. He was part of a team. He did what he was told to do. And he was in serious need of a pint.

  The bar at the Queen's Head was noisy and lively. A group of young people were huddled around a jukebox that was blasting out heavy metal music, filling the bar with the smoke from their cigarettes. Blue-collar workers from nearby factories rubbed shoulders with blokes in suits and fashionably dressed young women. It was the sort of lively scene he usually quite enjoyed, but not this time.

  "Cheer up, Evans. You'll probably get a promotion out of this," Bragg said, after he had downed his first pint in a couple of slugs. He leaned closer. "Listen, lad. When you know more about women, like I do, you'll realize that they can turn on the waterworks any time they want and look you straight in the face and tell a barefaced lie. The fair sex-not bloody likely. The tricky sex, the unreliable sex, that's what they are; and to tell you the truth, I'm glad someone's going to make an example of these three."

  Evan looked at him and understood. As if in answer to Evan's unasked question, Bragg went on. "Now take my ex-wife. She could play the helpless female whenever she wanted something. And she usually got it too, including enough alimony to keep me a pauper for life. . . ."

  Evan could not have been more relieved when his mobile rang at that moment. He excused himself and went outside to answer it. It was Bronwen again.

  "Evan, where are you?" she asked, her voice sounding sharper than her usual soft tones.

  "Having a drink with Bragg and the lads in Colwyn Bay," he said. "I'll be home soon."

  "No, listen, this is serious. Can you meet me in Bangor as soon as possible?"

  "What is it, love? Has something happened to Jamila?"

  "No, not Jamila. I've got her parents with me now. We're driving down in their van. It's Rashid they're worried about."

  "Rashid-what's happened to him?"

  "They don't know, Evan, but they're really worried. Apparently he went off the deep end today when he heard that Jamila was in protective custody, and they're scared he may do something silly."

  "Like what?"

  "They've found notes in his room on making explosives for one thing."

  "Oh my God." Evan groaned. "That's the last thing we need right now. All right. Where do you want to meet?"

  "We're going straight to the house where he's living now."

  "I'll see you there," he said.

  He ran back inside and tried to make his excuses. Bragg already had two pints inside him and was at the belligerent stage.

  "What is it now, Evans. Don't tell me you've discovered it wasn't the three women after all, or are you about to solve another great crime single-handed?"

  "No sir. This is a personal matter. Helping out some neighbors of ours who are in difficulties."

  "Boy Scout as well as Poirot." Bragg's dislike of him was as clear as his own dislike of the man. "Well, off you go then. Can't keep the world waiting for your ta
lents."

  "Thanks for the drink, sir." Evan took a last gulp then went out into the night. It was cloudy with a threat of rain in the air, and the road surface was slick and black. Luckily there was little traffic, and Evan drove perhaps faster than he should. He arrived at College Street, parked, and waited for the Khan's van. Up the hill ahead of him the campus shone with lights, and wafts of music floated down to him-fiddles and flutes and drums beating out a lively rhythm. He remembered the banner advertising the Celtic festival. Celtic Pride celebration, he believed they had called it. He turned his attention away as he heard an elderly vehicle chugging up the hill-an ancient, dark blue van that came to a halt behind his own car. Mr. and Mrs. Khan climbed out, followed by Bronwen. Her face broke into a relieved smile when she saw Evan, and she ran over to him.

  "I'm so glad you're here," she said. "I don't know whether they are overreacting or not, but it's good to have you around, just in case."

  Mr. Khan refused to acknowledge Evan's presence and strode across the street to the house where Rashid was boarding. His wife flung a woolen shawl over her shoulder before she followed him. One of the young men had come to the front door. Mr. Khan let out a flood of Urdu. The young man scratched his head in embarrassed fashion.

  "Sorry, pops, but I don't have the language. Born over here, you know, and my parents didn't bother to educate me properly. What can I do for you?"

  He listened again. "I've no idea where he went," he said. "We don't keep track of each other, you know. He comes and goes as he pleases."

  A second youth had joined them. "Rashid? He's just renting a room here," he said coldly. "His crazy notions have nothing to do with us. We thought he was just talking big. So don't go blaming us if he wants to become a martyr."

  "A martyr?" Mrs. Khan shrieked. "Oh my God, what's he going to do?"

  Evan glanced back up the hill where the beat of a drum had now started up again. "The Celtic festival," he muttered to Bronwen. "He wouldn't be stupid enough, would he?"