It was thus the morning after the murder in The Lone Peak Hotel that Constance went about taking the first step in any murder case: establishing that a murder had happened.
One would think that a dead body was an automatic sign that someone had been murdered. But this wasn’t always the case. The victim may have had a heart condition, he may have committed suicide, he may even be in a very convincing coma for all she knew. It also hadn’t escaped her knowledge that Sheriff Nevil had resolutely refused to call what had happened a murder. Yes, he admitted that someone was dead. But a murder? Not necessarily.
So, before Constance could solve the murder of Mr. Christie, she had to make sure he had been murdered.
As far as Constance could see, the only way she could confirm this was if Sheriff Nevil told her so. She had no access to the coroner and couldn’t very well go down and inspect the body herself. But she also didn’t relish the idea of walking into the precinct and asking him straight out. And even if she did, she was quite sure that he would refuse to tell her. What she needed to do was catch him while his guard was down, when he wouldn’t be expecting it.
Luck wasn’t always on Constance’s side, but the morning after the murder of M. Christie, she would be remiss if she didn’t admit that someone up there was looking out for her. For not only was it a beautiful day in the small town of Modest Peak, but it was also the first morning that Constance and the other members of the Town Council were required to begin setting up the Spring Fair.
The Spring Fair was to take place in Modest Peak Park – an open field located on the other side of town, nestled into the bosom of the mountain range. It was vast in size, open in layout and near perfect for any event.
It was not yet 10am as Constance hurried toward Modest Peak park with an urgency she carried with her in almost everything she did. Where usually the idea of setting up the Fair was enough to excite her in itself, today’s set-up brought with it an extra dimension that she couldn’t help but be excited for. Every member of the Town Council was required to be here today to oversee the set-up, and as every member of the Town Council were required to be there, then Sheriff Nevil would have no choice but to be present too.
And indeed, no sooner had Constance appeared on the outskirts of the park, did she spy Sheriff Nevil in the center of the throng as he helped to set up one of the stands dedicated to the ‘Best in Town’ contest.
“Hey Roger!” she called enthusiastically as she made her way across the park and toward the police chief.
“Hey there!” he called back with delight; apparently thrilled to see her. “If it isn’t my favorite hotel manager and dare I say the very best in town.”
Working alone, Sheriff Nevil stood in the middle of a large wooden frame that would eventually become a stage. Where the frame was ready to go, he was in the process of nailing the wooden boards to the side, thus giving the stage some stability. It was a perfect setting to both give the two some privacy and distract Nevil at the same time.
“You mean the only hotel manager in town?” Constance smirked as she reached him.
“It doesn’t make it any less true.”
Constance always found it amusing how different Sheriff Nevil was when he wasn’t on duty or in uniform. Today he wore a simple pair of blue jeans and a red plaid t-shirt, and it was this most simple of outfit changes that had the most remarkable effect.
First of all, he lost all traces of authority. Arguably the most powerful man in town, while dressed in his civilian clothes, he was a meek kitten content to take orders and be bossed around by anyone who was willing. Even now, where he should have been directing others to be setting the stage up, he was more than happy to get his hands dirty and do it himself.
Secondly, and this was what Constance noticed more than anything, was his willingness to flirt with her. Having always had a crush on her, it was no secret that he would bend over backwards for a date with the hotel manager… but this only extended for so long as he was dressed down. When he had his uniform on, he became the epitome of respectability. Never once did he flirt, suggest or insinuate that the two were anything other than friends.
As such, Constance was glad for the current Sheriff Nevil that she had been gifted. She would need him loose and casual if she were to trick him into telling her what she needed to know.
“You better watch that tongue of yours,” she joked. “Or I’ll report you to the local authorities.”
“Please do,” he shot back as if he had been waiting for the response. “I’d love nothing more than to investigate that case personally.”
As Sheriff Nevil positioned a piece of timber up against the wooden frame, Constance hurried in to hold it steady. The moment her hands touched the wood, he let go and reached behind him to where a bucket of nails sat.
“How’d you sleep last night?” she asked as he sorted through the bucket.
“Fine,” he shrugged as he scooped out two nails. One he rested in his mouth, the other he held over the ply-wood, readying to hammer it in. “I’d be more worried with how you slept.”
“Me?” She grimaced as he thumped down on the nail, the vibrations sending shocks through her arms. “Why would you worry about that?”
“Well it’s not every day that a man dies in your hotel.”
“Dies?” she frowned, acting as if she had not a clue what he was talking about.
He hammered at the nail, driving the metal into the wood. “Yeah,” he frowned and scrunched his brow as he glanced down at her. “You did see the dead man in your hotel last night?”
Constance tried not to look to upset by this. Her goal had been to produce a slip of the tongue and have him admit that someone was murdered.
“How long have you been in the force for?” she asked casually, trying out a different tact that she had readied earlier. She had about five different methods she could try but hoped she wouldn’t need to go that far.
“Me?” He pulled the nail from his mouth and positioned it above the wood. “Going on thirty-five years now. You know I joined the academy as soon as we graduated.”
“That long?” she asked, feigning shock. “Wow.” She held on as he hammered into the wood. “In all that time has anything like last night ever happened?”
He looked up and met her eyes, trying to read them. It was clear he knew something was going on, but he couldn’t work it out. “You mean someone dying in your hotel? You tell me?” he shook his head and went back to the bucket of nails.
“No,” she sighed, feeling herself get annoyed. “I mean, in the town. Has anything like that happened in town.”
Sheriff Nevil paused, his hand in the bucket of nails. His kind eyes assessed her own, trying to pry from her what she was really after. “What are you trying to ask, Constance? Come on, out with it.”
Constance shrunk into herself, looked down at her hands and pretend as if she had all of a sudden become terribly shy. It was all an act of course, one designed to catch the Sheriff off guard and open him up. “Has anyone ever been murdered in this town before?”
“To be honest,” Sheriff Nevil begun with caution. He then looked around the open park, as if someone might be listening. But as the next closest person was over twenty yards away and currently hammering nails into wood with such force that the ground seemed to shake beneath him, the odds were slim. “Last night was the first murder in over fifteen years.”
Constance’s disposition changed on the spot. She let go of the wood, stood up tall and beamed knowingly. “So, he was murdered then? That’s good to know.”
“Ah….” Nevil’s face dropped as he came to terms with what had just happened. He opened his mouth to argue, closed it, opened it, then closed it tight.
“Just double checking,” Constance chuckled. She felt rather happy with herself, truth be told and had to really work to not rub it in.
“Just double checking?” Sheriff Nevil snapped before catching his tongue and calming down. “Why on earth would you be double checking?”
“No reason,” she responded a little too quickly, looking away so that Nevil couldn’t meet her eyes and see the real reason behind them.
“You’re not...” he began. “Constance, this isn’t a game.” He didn’t need to look into her eyes to know what she was after. He had known her nearly fifty years after-all. “A man was murdered. Leave it to the professionals.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she responded in an even manner.
“Yeah?” he raised an eyebrow. “Can you look me in the eyes and tell me that you’re not going to try and solve this case yourself?” He tried to meet Constance’s eyes, but she refused to give them. “Look, I know you like to be involved in everything, that’s your thing, I get it. But this goes beyond the Junior Girl Scouts. This is serious, so please just leave it alone.”
Constance, honestly about to turn and walk away before she did or said anything silly, found herself unable as she turned back to confront the Chief of Police. “If you think I’m going to leave the fate of my hotel up to you, then you have another thing coming.”
“I knew it!” He laughed at this, as if the idea of her getting involved in the case were some sort of joke. “Let me guess, you’ve got that fairy Sydney helping you out… and Eleanor too?”
“Maybe.”
“Oh, well now I feel a whole lot better. This case will be solved before lunch time,” he said sarcastically.
The only solace that Constance could take from the confrontation was that he wasn’t as mad as she had suspected him to be. Rather, he thought the whole thing to be a big joke. If anything, this was even worse.
“I take it that I won’t be counting on any help from you?” she asked, eyebrow raised, hands on her hips.
“I’ll make you a deal,” he said with a sly smile. “Go on a date with me. You do that, and I will give you all the help you need.”
Constance chose not to respond to this most inappropriate of offers. Rather she rolled her eyes and stormed back across the park and as far from the overly-friendly police Sheriff that she could.
She was rather mad in the way he had just acted, seeing her involvement as some sort of joke rather than the help that it could be. But as she made her way toward another stand where the local firefighters were working on the double to get it erected, she couldn’t help but be just a little proud of herself too. And maybe even a little more than that.
She had come to the park today after a very specific piece of information, and despite what happened, that information was still acquired with great success.
Sheriff Nevil was welcome to think that Constance, Eleanor and Sydney were one big joke. Really it didn’t matter to her one bit. What did matter was that she was now one step closer to solving a murder. That’s what it was after all; cold blooded murder.
Chapter Six
With confirmation that what had transpired was indeed a murder, Constance moved onto the next phase of her plan to solve said murder without delay. The moment that she returned from helping set up the stages at the Spring Fair – although to be fair, she didn't so much as help in the setting up of these as she did stand around and 'instruct' their set-up – she pulled Eleanor and Sydney into the back room of the hotel to discuss the next step.
"What we need now is a motive," she explained to a wide-eyed Sydney and a bored looking Eleanor.
Sydney had gotten on board with solving the murder with a level of zest and gusto that even Constance was struggling to match. She seemed to think the whole thing a game and even went so far as to bring up her winning streak in the board game Clue, as if this might have some relevance. Although Constance found this to be in bad taste, she did appreciate the enthusiasm.
Eleanor was far less ebullient in her approach to the case. In fact, Constance got the feeling that were it not for the chance to speak to some hunky young officers – Office Pike for example – than Eleanor would not have become involved in the first place.
"What kind of motive?" Sydney asked, her eyes seeming to burst behind her glass-frames.
"Any," Constance confirmed. "We know that Mr. Christie —”
"Who?" Sydney asked with a muddled look.
"Ant Christie," Constance said slowly. "The murder victim!"
"For goodness sake," Eleanor sighed.
"Oh, right!" Sydney beamed, nodding her head with enthusiasm.
"Anyway," Constance continued, deciding to ignore the fact that her number one 'detective' was as dim as a burned out light bulb, "We know that Mr. Christie was involved in a series of arguments with the guests of the hotel. What we now need to do is interview these guests and try and fish out if any of them have a reason for wanting Mr. Christie – the murder victim," she said hurriedly when she spotted Sydney opening her mouth, "dead."
"Ooooo, fun!" Sydney clapped her hands together.
"I see a problem," Eleanor cut in, lips pursed and brow scrunched.
"Which is?"
"Well, won't they just lie to us? I know I would... especially if I just committed murder."
"Oh, almost certainly," Constance said pleasantly.
"So...." Eleanor began with the same scrunched brow and pursed lips. "How do we know who is telling the truth and who isn't?"
Constance smiled a knowing smile as she looked from Eleanor to Sydney. "We won't. But let me take care of that."
***
The first of the suspects that Constance decided to interview was Sheila, the Australian backpacker. She chose Sheila as her first point of call simply because the young Australian seemed the most cordial out of the handful of suspects. This was her first suspect interview after all and Constance still needed someone to break her teeth on.
As it was just getting on to dinner time when the three sleuths set about their plan, they made straight for The Lone Peak's restaurant, sure that they would find Sheila in there, eating alone as she was wont to do. There were only a handful of restaurants in the town of Modest Peak, and Constance wasn't shy in admitting that hers served the best food.
Constance smiled broadly as she crested the entrance to the restaurant, spying Sheila sitting alone, digging into what looked to be Chef Alberto's famous spaghetti bolognese. Seeing the young backpacker eating this meal for what was at least the second time since checking-in, pleased Constance a little more than she would have liked to admit. With the Spring Fair only nine days away, and the spaghetti dish competing in the 'Best in Town' series, it lent more credence to the rumors that the Italian dish was a shoe-in to take home the gold.
"Sheila," Constance said cheerfully as she approached the young backpacker. She had no idea what her last name was and cursed herself for not double checking beforehand. "How is everything tonight?"
"It's a ripper!" Sheila responded thickly, a mouthful of pasta still in the process of sliding down her throat. "Do me a favor will you, and tell your chef that he makes a fantastic bolognese."
"I' will do just that," Constance assured her. From the corner of her eyes, she spied Eleanor and Sydney taking seats at the nearby table, as planned. "Do you mind if I join you for a moment?"
Sheila shook her head and indicated to the seat opposite her. Constance took it without delay.
"First, I want to apologize for everything that has happened over the past few days. It's a tragedy to be sure, but it's also a terrible inconvenience."
"No worries at all," Sheila assured her. She picked her phone up from the table and held it over her half-eaten plate of spaghetti. She then took a photo. "It wasn't exactly your fault... unless you killed him – kidding!" She chuckled to herself as she took a photo.
"You do like taking photos, don't you?" Constance began, seeing a perfect means by which to segue into her faux-interrogation.
Sheila kept her eyes on the phone as she continued to snap away. "This is my first time out of the country – heck, it's my first time out of Wollongong. That's where I'm from. Figured I better take as many pics as I could, ya know? And I tell ya, this spag bol is some of the
better fair I've had."
It took Constance a moment to comprehend everything the Australian had said. Her accent was rather thick, and she swallowed her words more often than she did her food.
"You were taking photos the other day too, if I remember?" she began in a casual manner. "Before Mr. Christie yelled at you."
"Who?" Sheila frowned as she looked up from her photo and at Constance. "Was that old man in the yellow raincoat?"
Another pause for comprehensions sake. "That's the one," Constance confirmed. "I was wondering if you had spoken to him before that... or after that? It was rather rude of him and I wouldn't blame you if you got a trifle upset."
"Didn’t bother me," Sheila said matter-of-factly. "Like, obviously it was pretty damn rude, but I figured he'd just had a bad day." She shrugged.
"And you didn't speak to him before that? Or after?"
"Nope," she confirmed. She then put her phone down, picked her fork up and began to twirl a string of pasta onto it, hunger in her eyes.
Constance was slightly taken aback by Sheila’s casualness. She didn't seem at all put out by the line of questioning, no doubt she didn't even comprehend that she was a suspect. Constance frowned and glanced across the restaurant toward Eleanor and Sydney; both listening with intent. They caught Constance's glance and shrugged. It really did appear as if Sheila was innocent.
About to say good day and be on her way, Constance suddenly remembered something. "Oh, one more thing," she began. "I noticed the other night that you were taking photos, of the ah, of Mr. Christie?"
"MMhhmmm!" Sheila nodded enthusiastically, her mouth too full of pasta to respond. She scooped her phone up, unlocked it and opened the photos she had taken.
Constance took the phone being handed to her and looked on with curiosity at the pictures taken. There were a few of the lobby and the staircase – police swarming in the background – and a couple more of the dead body itself. Nothing out of the ordinary and nothing that brought any new angles to the case. Constance had one final look at a top-down photo of the corpse before handing the phone back.
Murder at the Lone Peak Page 5
