Manor of Death--A Short Read

by K. J. Emrick

  The doorbell interrupted Miranda’s answer, along with a string of questions she wanted to ask.

  “That’s probably the police,” Jonah said as he hummed out into the hallway in his wheelchair. “Algernon, go and answer it, boy!”

  On his way to the door, Algernon gave Miranda another glare. Violent man, this one. Could he possibly be the person who had loved Lea Maroney?

  Or maybe, the one who killed her?

  “I do not like this, Miranda.” Suddenly Kyle was at her side, having materialized through the wall. “I don’t like this one little bit. You need to be careful on this one.”

  “I always am,” she quipped. “Besides, I’ve got you to watch my back.”

  “Right. If anyone threatens you, I can yell ‘boo’ at them.”

  She couldn’t help but smile, in spite of the circumstances. Kyle could always make her feel better when things were going wrong.

  “I’m not so sure I like it either,” she had to agree, “but we’re here now and we’ll just have to make the best of it. Look, can you drift through that wall and go sit with Morgan in the closet? Just see what he does or says, okay?”

  He stared at her. “Really?”

  “What?”

  “You’re sending me into the closet?”

  Miranda could feel her face heating. Kyle and she had the same taste in men. “You know I didn’t mean it like that!”

  “Oh, sure, but it’s not lost on me that you just asked me to get into the closet.”

  “Kyle.”

  “I suppose later I’ll come out of the closet. Won’t that just be all metaphorical like.”

  “Kyle!”

  “All right,” he said finally. “Fine. Here I go…!”

  With that he phased through the wall, his blue glow disappearing through it as though it wasn’t there.

  Just in time, too. As Miranda turned to go back to the dining room, Algernon was coming back with two police officers. One was wearing the blue uniform of the Moonlight Bay Police Department, his hat with the white and black checkered band set squarely on his head.

  The other was Jack Travis.

  Dark haired and blue-eyed, he always filled out his three-piece suits so nicely. Miranda had seen him in regular clothes, on their dates, and the view from her side of the table had been just as nice. Maybe nicer. He was still keeping some secret from her but she just let it go for now. After all, she was still keeping the fact that she had a ghost following her around a secret from him.

  Seemed fair. For now, their dates were just for fun.

  “Hey,” he said to her by way of greeting. “We have to stop meeting like this.”

  His hand touched hers briefly. He was working, and a public display of affection would have to wait for their next date. She thought about their almost kiss from their last outing and felt her cheeks start to warm. If only he had followed through.

  “Um, right,” she said. “I agree. We should meet in some other way. Maybe this Friday? For dinner, maybe?”

  He smiled, but it was a slim thing. “I’m serious, Miranda. Do you know that since you’ve come to Moonlight Bay our homicide rate has gone up, like, two hundred percent?”

  She was trying not to feel insulted by that. “You can’t possibly blame that on me!”

  “Not directly, no, but I’m not a big believer…”

  “In coincidence,” she finished for him. That was interesting that he said that because one of her favorite sayings went right along with it.

  Nothing is coincidence.

  “Look, Jack,” she started to say, only to be interrupted by the noise of an argument starting all over again in the dining room. Jack and the other officer raced there, leaving her standing in the hallway.

  A sigh escaped her lips. This was the real problem with their relationship. If she wasn’t holed up in her office at Ragged Rest typing out the last few pages of her latest novel, he was rushing off to do his duty. There seemed to be little time for them to just be them.

  She hadn’t even had the chance to tell him about the man in the closet yet.

  Back in the dining room, everyone had begun blaming each other for what sounded like everything since the beginning of the world. Jack immediately took charge. “Everybody calm down. My name is Detective Jack Travis. I’m with the Moonlight Bay Police Department. And, you can all stop trying to talk at once, because we’re getting nowhere.”

  As everybody began to back off a little, Sapphire stepped over to Miranda’s side. “Right,” she said. “Well, you have the floor now, Detective Travis. Just tell us what you need.”

  Miranda almost laughed. The woman could see auras but she could not see what was right in front of her. If pink was supposed to indicate someone cared about you romantically, then hers and Jack’s auras should be shooting off little pink sparks. Still, a murder had been committed and Miranda’s romantic aspirations would have to take a backseat to that.

  “Where’s the body?” he asked.

  Jonah cleared his throat. “Detective, I’m Jonah Keaton. This is my home. Lea is next door in the sitting room. We decided it would be best to leave her there, along with all the evidence.”

  “Right, who actually witnessed the death?” Jack began.

  “I didn’t see a thing, Detective. I was in my study with Miss Wylder.” Jonah’s electric wheelchair buzzed its way up closer. “The first I knew of it was when Algernon burst into my study in a state.”

  “Okay, first things first. Is this everyone?”

  “No,” Miranda said quickly. “There’s one more person who was in the manor. The chef, Morgan Dale, is locked in the closet in the hall.”

  He stared at her incredulously. “In the closet? Why in God’s name is there a man locked in the closet?”

  “Because he did it!” Algernon exploded. “He wouldn’t leave Lea alone and she rebuffed his every advance. He poisoned her. I’m sure of it!”

  Jack traded a look with Miranda, as if to ask why she hadn’t started with that bit of information. “Okay, then. Algernon, is it? You and I are going to take a walk. We’re going to let your prisoner out of his cell, and then you and I will talk first. Officer Snopes, make sure nobody leaves here.”

  And with that, Jack and Algernon left the sitting room.

  There was a general grumbling from the others as they went to find seats around the dining room table. Miranda remembered the promise of a lavish dinner but with the chef being a suspect in a sudden death, she didn’t think she would have much of an appetite until she left the house.

  Jonah wheeled himself over to the very far corner of the dining room to where a sideboard was cluttered with odds and ends. When he reached it, he lifted a book that had been left there and open, and began to read. Miranda could not help but think that a rather curious thing to do in the middle of such mayhem.

  She saw Fiona Remington make her way over to join him by the window. As the two began to talk quietly, Miranda nonchalantly worked her way around the edge of the room to stand in front of another window, close enough to hear what they were saying.

  Fiona sighed and laid a hand on Jonah’s arm as he closed the book into his lap. “Why would anyone want to hurt Lea? I just can’t imagine it.”

  “Really? You can’t imagine it, Fiona? You and Lea were hardly the best of friends, were you? Just yesterday the two of you were arguing so loudly I had to send Algernon to separate you.” He paused to take a breath and seemed to realize how harsh he sounded. “Look, I’m sorry, I should not have said that. And I won’t be mentioning it to the police, so don’t worry. Although, I believe I should tell them about threatening to fire Morgan. Perhaps my son is right. Morgan does seem to have plenty of reason to try for murder.”

  “If it was murder,” Fiona reminded him. “She may have just passed away. People do that sometimes. Besides, I didn’t dislike her as much as you think. I think we actually began to get over our differences. Was she good at stocks and shares and what have you? Was she a good student, Jonah
?”

  Miranda thought she could detect a certain edge to Fiona’s question. A certain hidden meaning.

  “She had a command of the basics, Fiona. She wasn’t exceptional, but very few are in this business. Some of my students are good, some are not so good. To be honest I do not get particularly involved with them beyond advising them. They are just my students after all. I only mentor them, and Lea Maroney was no different.”

  Jonah began to turn his chair a little by degrees and very quickly he noticed Miranda standing there. The look on his face clearly indicated that he knew she might have overheard.

  “Do you need anything, Miss Wylder?” his tone was so sharp that Miranda actually flinched. For such an elderly man, he had a true presence about him.

  “Oh, erm… well, I was just hoping to ask you about Lea. I just heard you telling Fiona here that she was a student.” She did her best to mimic the same tone Fiona had used.

  Before he had a chance to answer, Fiona smiled at them both and quickly scurried away, clearly not wanting to talk about it.

  Jonah stared after her before turning his attention back to Miranda. “To be perfectly honest with you, Miss Wylder, I would sooner not speak about somebody who has just recently passed away. I’m still rattled. You understand.”

  “Oh yes, of course,” Miranda said respectfully. As she began to make her way towards the door of the dining room, Miranda was aware of Jonah Keaton’s eyes upon her the entire time.

  For a moment, she considered trying to follow Fiona to see if she could speak with her further, but she’d most likely pushed her luck with that as far as it was going to go. In the end, though, she decided she needed to do some snooping of her own.

  Stepping close to Sapphire, she whispered, “I’m going to go see what I can find out. Keep your ears open.”

  Sapphire nodded, putting her thumb and index fingers together by her ear and then popping them open. Miranda loved her kooky friend.

  The officer left stationed in the room by Jack called to her as she roamed close to the doors at the far side of the room. She smiled sweetly and said she was just heading into the attached kitchen to get a drink of water. The police officer’s eyes narrowed and she had the quick idea to ask if it would be all right if she made some coffee for everyone. The officer looked very grateful for that. It was going to be a while before the ambulance arrived to take the deceased to the hospital, he explained, and some coffee would be wonderful.

  Holding her smile in place, Miranda pushed through the set of double doors that led from the dining room. Of course she was hoping to explore more than just the kitchen. If she was lucky there would be a doorway from here to the hallway as well.

  Apart from a few unwashed pans, the kitchen was exceptionally clean and tidy. Casting a quick eye over the surfaces, she could see nothing of note. Hurriedly, she made her way over to a large trashcan and, lifting the lid, she peered inside. On top of a mountain of coffee grounds and some tomato skins was a balled-up piece of paper. Gently taking it out of the trashcan, she unraveled it to find a note written to Morgan Dale.

  “Morgan, please see that you exclude peanut products from the menu for the next few days for the sake of…” The rest of the message was unreadable as the paper was wet.

  There was no name signed on the note. Whoever had written it would remain a mystery, at least for a while. Maybe she could find some handwriting samples. Jonah, perhaps, or Algernon. Or Fiona, for that matter. It obviously wasn’t Sapphire’s writing but then she hadn’t considered Sapphire a suspect to begin with.

  Taking some paper towels from the holder by the sink, Miranda carefully wrapped the paper to protect it for possible fingerprinting before popping it into her bag. She knew Jack would want to see it.

  Looking up from her bag and about to move away from the sink to head back to the trashcan she caught sight of something moving outside of the kitchen window. She quickly moved closer to the window to get a better look outside just in time to catch a glimpse of someone wearing white scurrying away into the bushes and out of sight.

  “Very suspicious,” she muttered to herself. She would have to tell Jack about that soon.

  Miranda turned back toward the trashcan, to see if there was perhaps anything else she might have missed. Peering into it, she noticed a small pill bottle barely visible amongst the trash, under where the note had been. Using another paper towel, she took it out and held it up to the light. It contained some small blue pills but the label had been torn off. She tried to think if she recognized them. Not Viagra, certainly. She’d had a boyfriend once who… well, that wasn’t important. She just knew what that looked like and these were the wrong shape. They were oval capsules. Maybe Jack could identify them.

  She was betting Jack had never needed to use that type of medication in his life.

  Biting her lower lip to stifle a smile over that thought, she looked back in the trash. Nothing else there. She took another look out of the window but there was no one out there now either. She wondered who it was that had been out there. Someone up to no good she was sure.

  Taking a last look around the kitchen, Miranda stared down into the pots and pans that had been neatly stacked ready for washing. In the bottom of a large baking pan she found a congealed blue lump, like a powder.

  Could it be from one of the pills?

  If it was, she had to save it as evidence. If it got washed somehow before anyone could look then what she was looking at would disappear. Glancing around for a safe spot to put the pan she decided to pop it in the oven. No one was going to be baking anything anytime soon.

  It seemed that all the possible clues here had been found. Another quick look around discovered nothing else out of the ordinary. She was thinking like the detective from her latest crime novel and wondering what else he would do.

  Oh right.

  She put the pot on for the officer’s coffee.

  Chapter 4

  Sure enough, there was a side door from the kitchen that led to the hallway. Knowing the kettle would take a minute or two to boil she dared to slip out into the hall. That way was Jonah’s study, so that meant this way—

  Algernon Keaton careened straight into her, knocking her to the floor.

  Rubbing her sore shoulder, she glared up at him. “I’m not so sure that was an accident,” she accused him.

  “I don’t have time for this,” was Algernon’s terse reply. Without even offering to help her up, he began to stride away.

  “Hey!” Jack Travis was there now. Miranda got the impression he’d been stalking after Algernon, and that maybe that was why Jonah’s son was in such a rush to get away. “Keaton, you knock a lady down and you don’t apologize? I don’t think so. Not where I come from.”

  “And where would that be, exactly, Detective?” Algernon said it with his chin out and his nose in the air. “I come from wealth, and I come from a place of importance.”

  Miranda’s jaw dropped to hear him talk like that. Jack, on the other hand, just smiled and stepped closer. “I’m just plain folk from back of Bourke,” he explained, spreading his hands wider, using a term that meant he was from someplace far, far away from here. “But I know which end of a dog bites, and I put my pants on one leg at a time just like you do.”

  “Good for you,” Algernon quipped.

  “Why don’t you go back to the dining room like I instructed you to,” Jack told him, with another step closer. “After you apologize to Miranda, that is.”

  It took a moment, during which Algernon sized Jack up from scuffed shoes to very serious eyes. Then he sniffed and looked down at Miranda on the floor. “It was an accident, Miss Wylder, but I apologize anyway. I wouldn’t want to be accused of having worse manners than someone who was just plain folk.”

  With an arrogant smirk, he headed off back to the dining room where the others were.

  It was Jack who put his hand down to help her. He pulled her back on her feet with ease. “Are you all right, Miranda?”

&nbs
p; “Apart from a bruised ego, yes.”

  To her surprise, he placed a kiss on her cheek, very near the edge of her ear. It sent tingles along her spine. “You’re a tough lady. You can handle it.”

  “I liked the way you defended me from that jerk,” she said. “I guess not all men can be as chivalrous as you.”

  “Aw, shucks, Ma’am,” he said in a horrible imitation of a Texas drawl. “Just doin’ my job.”

  “Uh-huh.” She found herself leaning against his chest, feeling his heart beat against her hand. “Speaking of your job, sir, did you look at Lea’s body?”

  “I did. There’s puffy red splotches around her mouth and her tongue is swollen. I’d say she was definitely poisoned.”

  That fit with the note she had found. Peanut allergies could be lethal if the victim wasn’t careful. “And did you get anything from Algernon or Morgan Dale?”

  He shook his head. “Algernon is sticking to his story. He was in the sitting room, they were all sharing some soup and bread, and then Lea dropped dead to the floor.”

  Which would prove to be a great alibi, if they couldn’t find anything to disprove it. “What about Morgan?”

  “Well, that’s a different story.” Scratching a finger against his neck, Jack shrugged. “He wasn’t in the closet when we opened it up.”

  “What?” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  “It’s the truth, I swear it. I had Algernon open the door for me and there was no one inside. That’s when we noticed the back wall of the closet was off center. Turns out there’s a hidden passage in there. Can you believe it? This place is practically a castle to begin with, and now we’ve got secret passages! Anyway, he’s gone.”

  Miranda was stunned. Their chief suspect had slipped out from under their noses. Now they’d have to track him down and where in God’s name was Kyle? Wasn’t he supposed to be watching that round man to make sure stuff like this didn’t happen in the first place—

  Behind her, in the kitchen, the kettle began to whistle.