Kittens and Killers

by Diana Xarissa

  “Rude suggestions? How awful.”

  Donna shrugged. “Times were different. Men often said inappropriate things to women, and we were meant to just shrug them off or even, heaven forbid, feel flattered by the attention.”

  Fenella nodded. Things hadn’t changed that much by the time she’d started working. She’d had a few bosses in her younger days who had suggested that she could get ahead faster if she’d be a bit friendlier. Fortunately for her, those were temporary jobs that she’d only done while working on her degrees.

  “As for Marilyn and Ewan, well, I never thought they were either happy or unhappy. They both seemed rather resigned to the life that they’d chosen for themselves and they both just seemed to be doing what they needed to do to get through it.”

  “That sounds horrible,” Fenella exclaimed.

  Donna chuckled. “I didn’t mean to make it sound quite that bleak. Let me try again. Marilyn seemed quite excited to set up her own little household and get away from her mother’s influence. Sadly, that didn’t last long. She fell pregnant almost immediately and had a very difficult pregnancy. It wasn’t long before her mother had moved into the spare bedroom in the newlyweds’ little house. I don’t really think she ever moved back out again.”

  “How awful.”

  “Marilyn did need someone to look after her, but I never felt as if her mother had Marilyn’s best interests at heart. She was the sort of woman who’s only happy when someone needs her, and she did everything in her power to make sure that Marilyn needed her. I think things may have worked out, but sadly, the baby was born early and suffered from some sort of genetic abnormalities. I never found out exactly what was wrong with him, but he was incredibly sickly and looking after him became something of a full-time job for both Marilyn and her mother. When they finally lost him just before his first birthday, Marilyn was already six months pregnant with her second, and having just as difficult a time with this pregnancy as she’d had with the first.”

  “How was Ewan coping with everything?”

  “As far as I know, he was putting in as many hours as he could at work and trying his best to stay out of the way.”

  “And yet Marilyn got pregnant again,” Fenella pointed out.

  Donna laughed. “Yes, well, I don’t think I want to comment on that particular aspect of their marriage. I’ll just point out that they were both still in their mid-twenties. Marilyn was beautiful and Ewan was quite handsome, especially if you’re attracted to men in uniforms.”

  “Are you?” Fenella asked.

  “Not in the slightest.”

  Fenella nodded. “I’m fascinated by the story. What happened next?”

  “As I said, they lost the first baby, and then Ewan nearly lost Marilyn, too. She had some sort of hemorrhage and nearly bled to death just a few days after the baby died. She spent the rest of the pregnancy on bed rest, with her mother dancing attendance on her, of course.”

  Mona had told her that none of Marilyn’s babies had survived for long, but Fenella still found herself hoping that things were going to get better for Marilyn. “I hope the baby was okay,” she said softly.

  “Sadly, he wasn’t,” Donna told her. “The doctors told Marilyn that the blood loss had been too much for him. He was born alive, but he was incredibly weak and sickly. Marilyn and her mother did everything they could for him, but he passed away when he was six months old. Marilyn was devastated and had something of a breakdown, really, although no one would have called it that in those days. She went across for six months, to a specialist facility somewhere. Her mother went with her, of course.”

  “Why do I feel as if this story isn’t going to have a happy ending?”

  Donna shrugged. “When she came back, she got pregnant again almost immediately, even though her doctors had told her not to try for any more children after her hemorrhage. All things considered, her third pregnancy was her easiest, but something happened in the delivery room. They ended up having to do an emergency cesarean and that left her unable to have any more children.”

  “And the baby?” Fenella asked, blinking back tears.

  “Had the same issues as their first. He lived for about three months before succumbing to the condition.”

  Fenella wiped her eyes. The miscarriage and infertility in her past made her feel terribly sympathetic toward Marilyn. While she’d carried on with her life and really couldn’t imagine what life would have been like with children, there was still a part of her that grieved deeply for the children she’d never know.

  “Did she and Ewan stay together after all of that?”

  “Oh, yes. I can’t imagine any reason why Marilyn would have ever divorced Ewan. Maybe she’d have considered it if he’d done something horrible, such as taking up with another woman, but he would never have done that. He wasn’t the type.”

  “Wasn’t? He’s not still alive?”

  “No, he passed away about ten years ago. He never got to live with Marilyn without her mother again. Marilyn’s mother just died around three years ago, but Marilyn’s been in a home for quite a while now. She was in a bad car accident not long after her husband passed. She’s in a wheelchair, which means she needs quite a lot of care.”

  “Are you still friends?”

  Donna shrugged. “I used to visit her once in a while, maybe twice a year, but I haven’t seen her since her accident. We drifted apart after she married, really. I felt sorry for her when she lost her babies, but she had Ewan and her mother to help her through that grief. I found that I usually felt as if I was in the way when I tried to visit her in those years. I probably should make more of an effort to see her now, but I don’t really feel as if we have anything in common any longer.”

  Fenella nodded. “Your lives went in very different directions.”

  “But we were going to talk about Mabel,” Donna said as the waitress crossed to them.

  “Refills?” she asked brightly.

  After their drinks had been refilled and the waitress had gone, Fenella smiled at the other woman. “Tell me about Mabel, then,” she suggested.

  “I don’t even know where to start,” Donna sighed. “As I said, we were very close. We all went to primary school together, all four of us, and we’d been friends since the first week of reception. In those days, women were meant to finish school, get married, and have children. That didn’t appeal to me. Jeanne, Mabel, and I all started jobs right out of school. Marilyn got a job too, but she wasn’t really interested in having a career. She made it clear she was simply working until she found herself a husband.”

  “Tell me about Jeanne,” Fenella suggested.

  Donna smiled. “She was smart and funny, but a bit obsessed with men, really. She talked with Mabel and me about having a career and not needing a man, but I always felt as if she didn’t really mean what she was saying. Her problem was she could never find a man who was ready to commit to her.”

  “Did she ever find a husband, then?”

  “Oh, yes, she got married just before she hit thirty. They had four children in five years. That’s when Jeanne and I drifted apart, although it was somewhat more abrupt than that, really. I visited once in a while after the first one arrived, a scant six months after the wedding, I must add, but as she kept having more, I lost interested in seeing her. She could talk of nothing but her children, and I’m sorry to say I wasn’t particularly interested in their rather mediocre accomplishments.”

  Fenella hid a smile behind her teacup. “Is she still alive?”

  “Oh, yes, and so is her husband. They share a room in a care home near here. All of my contemporaries are in care homes, aside from the ones who are dead, of course. It’s quite depressing, really.”

  “Annabelle and Robert both seemed close to your age,” Fenella suggested.

  “Robert is a few years older and Annabelle is a few years younger. They both have enough money to take proper care of themselves, I suppose. Anyway, I haven’t seen Jeanne in ten years or more, and I�
��m not particularly interested in seeing her now, or I wouldn’t be if it weren’t for the police reopening Mabel’s case. It’s brought up all manner of memories, some of which I was hoping were buried forever.”

  “I’m sorry,” Fenella said softly. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Yes and no in equal measure. I’ve an appointment with the police tomorrow. No doubt your friend, Inspector Robinson, will have a great many questions for me. I thought maybe if I talked through some of it with you, I might feel better about having to see him tomorrow, but now I’m not so sure.”

  “Who do you think killed her?” Fenella asked.

  “I wish I knew. I’ve had fifty years to think about that question and I don’t think I’m any closer to an answer now than I was fifty years ago. It’s almost impossible for me to believe that someone murdered her, really. Murders happen in cheap novels and on bad television programs, not in real life.”

  “Didn’t I read that Mabel had a brother?”

  Something flashed over Donna’s face. “Yes, Clyde,” she said.

  “Do you not want to talk about him?”

  “I don’t care either way,” Donna replied tightly. “He was four years younger than Mabel. We all thought of him as a younger brother, really. He was quite upset about the murder, but then we all were.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  “At Mabel’s funeral.”

  Fenella was surprised. If they’d all thought of the man as a younger brother, it seemed odd that she hadn’t seen him in fifty years. It was a small island, too. Was it possible that Donna had spent fifty years deliberately avoiding Clyde? She took a sip of her drink and tried to decide what to say next.

  Donna sighed. “We had something of a disagreement at the funeral,” she said before Fenella had found the right words. “I assumed, at the time, that we’d work it through the next time we saw each other, but then, as time went on, we simply never seemed to see one another. After a while I began to believe that Clyde was avoiding me. When that continued, I found that I wanted to avoid him as well. He’s in a home, too, now. I seem to be the only one left who is capable of looking after myself.”

  “What did you and Clyde argue about?”

  “I won’t discuss that, not with you, and not with the police, either.”

  Fenella didn’t push the woman any further. Daniel could probably get the story from someone else, but even if he couldn’t, there was little doubt in her mind that Mona would know what had happened.

  “Who were the main suspects in the murder, then?” she asked, changing the subject.

  “Jeanne, Marilyn, and me, for a start. I believe Marilyn had the best alibi, but I don’t think it was completely watertight or airtight or whatever alibis are meant to be. I had nothing even close to an alibi. I’d been home alone, getting ready for the engagement party. Jeanne was in an even worse position, as she’d been alone at home, and then she’d gone to Mabel’s house and found the body. She always felt that finding the body made her the main suspect.”

  “Do you think that Jeanne or Marilyn killed her?”

  Donna hesitated and then shook her head. “Thank you for not including me in the question,” she smiled. “I haven’t spoken to either of them in years, but no, I don’t think either of them killed Mabel. We were still like sisters in those days. I can’t imagine why any of them would have wanted Mabel dead.”

  “Maybe she was having an affair with Ewan.”

  Donna looked surprised and then shrugged. “If she was, they were both incredibly discreet. As I said earlier, though, Ewan wasn’t the type. He was crazy in love with Marilyn. At the time, I thought he couldn’t really believe his luck. She was stunning in those days, much prettier than any of the rest of us. Besides, even if Ewan was interested, I can’t see Mabel doing that to Marilyn. We were all happy for her, expecting her to finally get away from her mother.”

  Fenella nodded. “What about Jeanne, then? If Jeanne didn’t have a steady boyfriend at the time, might she have been interested in Clyde?”

  Donna stiffened and then frowned. “Impossible,” she said flatly.

  Fenella swallowed the dozens of questions that popped into her head. “What about a motive for Clyde?” she asked after a moment.

  “He thought Mabel was the perfect woman. She was the one by whom he judged all other women,” Donna said with a hint of bitterness. “He would never have done anything to hurt her, not in a million years.”

  “Whom does that leave?” Fenella asked.

  “The house Mabel was renting was owned by Howard and Patricia Quinn. I always thought they should have been investigated more thoroughly.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. There was something creepy about him and something terrifying about her.”

  “Really?”

  “She was one of those people who always wants to talk about religion and how everything is God’s will, that sort of thing. She didn’t approve of Mabel living on her own and she used to make unannounced visits to the house just to check up on her. The four of us would be there, sharing a few bottles of wine and complaining about men, when the door would suddenly open and Patricia would storm in shouting about cars on the drive and overnight visitors.”

  “That sounds like fun,” Fenella said sarcastically.

  “After a while, it almost became funny, really. We were never doing anything wrong and we always left before midnight, which was reasonable enough for single women on a weekend night. I think that annoyed Patricia more than anything. I’m sure she was just looking for an excuse to throw Mabel out of the house.”

  “None of you ever stayed overnight? Not even when you were drinking?”

  Donna flushed. “We didn’t give drink driving much thought in those days, not that we drank all that much, really. Mabel’s house was the one place we could go and just relax and talk about anything and everything. The rest of us lived with our parents, you see. But we always left by midnight. We didn’t want to risk getting Mabel thrown out, you see. We loved having an escape, even if it wasn’t really ours.”

  “You said Howard was creepy. What do you mean?”

  “I only met him once or twice. He was at the little party that Mabel threw when she first moved into the house, but he mostly just sat in the corner and stared at everyone all night. Patricia kept stomping around, glaring at everyone who was drinking and remarking loudly on the time every ten minutes. Howard just sat and stared. It was uncomfortable.”

  “Do you think one of them killed her?”

  “I think Patricia might have, if she’d walked in on Mabel doing something she shouldn’t have been doing.”

  “Like what?”

  “The obvious answer is having a man in the house, but knowing Patricia, it could have been something like not vacuuming often enough or leaving dirty dishes in the sink.”

  “You think she would have killed Mabel over dirty dishes?”

  “That was just an example. Patricia was, probably still is, incredibly uptight. They never had children, which meant she had plenty of time to devote to her church and to do whatever she could to make Mabel’s life miserable, too.”

  “Did she do other things besides visiting at all hours?”

  “She would show up a week early and demand the rent money before it was due. Then she’d come back the following week and demand it again. Mabel learned to always have enough money in the house to pay the next month’s rent. She also learned to get a receipt from Patricia.”

  “Did Mabel worry about having money lying around the house?”

  “She kept it hidden under the mattress in one of the spare bedrooms. There was five hundred pounds there when the police searched the house after the murder.”

  “That sounds like a lot of money, especially in those days.”

  “It was a lot of money, but Mabel was incredibly thrifty. She hated to spend money. Actually, she was really good at getting people to buy things for her. Clyde spent most of his income o
n little treats for his older sister, and Mabel never had a boyfriend who didn’t buy her at least one expensive trinket before he ended things with her.”

  “Was she seeing anyone when she died?”

  “She’d recently ended a relationship and had decided to focus on her career, actually. I think she’d have done really well with that, too, if she’d lived.”

  “She didn’t have any angry former boyfriends?”

  “No, not at all. None of her relationships had been serious. She would have liked the last one to be, but he wasn’t ready to settle down. She dropped a few hints about marriage. When he didn’t take the hints, she decided to get her own house, and he used that as an excuse to end things with her. He moved away right after the relationship ended.”

  “I’m sure the police checked his alibi,” Fenella said, knowing that they had.

  Donna nodded. “He was in London by that time.”

  “Are those all the suspects, then?”

  “I always wondered about her neighbor, Stanley Middleburgh.”

  Fenella was surprised. She’d never heard the name before. “I don’t remember seeing his name in the paper.”

  “No, I don’t think he was ever officially a suspect, but I didn’t like him.”

  “Why not?”

  “He was creepy, too, like Howard Quinn. He lived in the house right next door to Mabel’s and he used to sit outside a lot. I always felt as if he was watching me whenever I was there.”

  “Tell me more. How old was he? What did he do for a living? Did Mabel find him creepy, too?” Fenella blurted out some of the questions that had sprung to mind.

  “He was probably forty, which seemed old to me back then, when I was only twenty-five. As for what he did, nothing much is the answer. He’d been born into a wealthy family and I think he was meant to work for the family business, but I doubt he ever did anything. I believe he owned several properties on the island, but he chose to live in the house next door to Mabel’s for some reason. He had a housekeeper who did all of his cooking and cleaning and a driver who took him everywhere he needed to go. From what I could see, he never wanted to go anywhere, though. He seemed to always be home, at least when I was at Mabel’s house.”