Fair Isle and Fortunes

by Nancy Warren

  “Clara, what did you think about the way they reacted to the idea of linking that cold case with Elizabeth’s murder?”

  “Well, it’s an interesting possibility, isn’t it? It would narrow down the field to people who had known Grayson Timmins and would have been both old enough to murder him thirty years ago, and yet, still young enough to shoot a deadly arrow. In mortal years that would suggest that they must’ve been at least teenagers thirty years ago and no older than about seventy now.”

  Sylvia shook her silver head. “I for one do not think the cases are linked. That woman who wants to prove her boyfriend is innocent is clutching at that idea the way a drowning person keeps clutching at any bit of flotsam and jetsam.”

  “If there is a link,” I said, “it’s that watch.”

  Sylvia said, “You put a lot of stock into that watch. But don’t forget, my dear, you only saw it briefly. Then you had the shock of finding that woman murdered, and quite a bit of time elapsed before you saw that picture of Grayson Timmins. And it wasn’t even a photograph of the watch, it was a painting. Painters notoriously take liberties.”

  I knew that Sylvia was right and it was quite possible that either my eyes or my memory was playing tricks on me. And yet, it was peculiar to have two murders of people who seemed to be unlikely victims in a relatively short period of time.

  “Sylvia,” I said. “You’re right. I believe that watch links the two murders, but I’m relying on pretty flimsy evidence.” The last thing I wanted was for Jason Palmer to get away with murdering his wife and be rewarded with a fortune all because I had put together a link between the two murders that was tenuous at best. However, I didn’t want an innocent man to suffer for a crime he hadn’t committed while the true murderer got away with not one but two murders.

  “I know what I have to do. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. Harry Bloom. He’s a retired police detective who moved to Moreton-Under-Wychwood. He was one of the detectives on the Grayson Timmins case, and he was at the fête.”

  “Now you’re thinking like a sleuth, Lucy. Well done.” Sylvia didn’t toss out praise like it was Halloween candy, so I took a moment to drink in the compliment.

  She continued, “The life insurance company won’t thank you for proving Jason Palmer didn’t kill his wife.”

  “Why?” I took my eyes off the road to glance at her.

  “Because if he’s convicted of murdering his wife, the insurer won’t have to pay out the life insurance.”

  “Poor Jason. A lot of people seem keen to convict him and not always for the purest of reasons.”

  “It’s human nature. We don’t like to think of killers in our midst, so we try to convict killers as quickly as possible so that people can feel safe and comfortable again.”

  I knew she was right. And since my cousin Violet had been pulled into this mess, and dragged me into it by becoming my temporary roommate, I was one of those looking forward to this case being solved so that I could sleep better at night.

  Chapter 22

  The cottage where Harry and Emily Bloom had retired looked idyllic. Made of stone and surrounded by pretty gardens, it looked like something out of a fairy tale: the roses climbing up the side of the house, the profusion of flowers and even a wishing well surrounded by bright, blooming poppies.

  I wondered if, after a career spent dealing with criminals and the aftermath of crime, whether Harry Bloom had been drawn particularly by the fairy-tale aspect of this cottage. Or perhaps his wife had wanted it. I walked up the winding stone path to the front door but detoured when I saw a man in a straw hat bent over a flower bed with a trowel in his hand. I headed around the side of the house toward him, and sure enough, it was Harry Bloom himself.

  I wasn’t sure what kind of reception I’d receive, but I went with a cheerful and confident, “Hello, there.”

  He turned, and I watched him go through the effort of first recognizing me and then remembering where he’d met me. I saw the moment he placed me. He brushed his hands on his knees and rose to his feet. “Hello. You’re the young lady from the fortune-telling booth.”

  “Yes. I was very sorry to hear about your mother-in-law.” Violet had again been correct. However, thanks to her uncanny fortune-telling abilities, Mrs. Bloom had been able to help her mother during her illness. I hoped it would make the Blooms charitably inclined to Violet and to me.

  “Thank you. My wife stayed on in Yorkshire, to help with the grandchildren and to sort out the house and things.”

  I merely nodded.

  “I thought I’d better come back in case I was needed. I heard the police reopened the investigation into the Timmins case.”

  Both our gazes traveled to the flower bed he was currently working on, and he made a face. “Seems I was wrong about being needed.”

  I wanted his help, but I had to tread carefully. I didn’t know how much he was at liberty to discuss the details of an old case. I began by saying, “That fortune-teller is my cousin Violet. She’s having a hard time right now, people in the village are blaming her for Elizabeth Palmer’s death.”

  He nodded, not looking a bit surprised. “I heard something about witchcraft at the pub.” A series of empty flowerpots from the nursery sat beside half a dozen full ones. He’d been planting petunias, and the bright trumpets of red, pink, purple, and white were like bursts of light in a dark room. “As you know, I don’t believe in all that nonsense, but she did have an uncanny knack of getting the future right.”

  Oh great. If this rational man joined the witch hunters, there was no hope for any of us.

  “I’m glad your wife was able to see her mother before it was too late.”

  “Yes. So were we. She’d have been gutted not to be there.” He looked at his nearly finished planting once more and then said, “Can I make you a cup of tea?”

  I appreciated his politeness, but I could tell that he really wanted to finish his planting. “Why don’t I help you finish? And then perhaps we can have tea.”

  “Brilliant. I admit I’d like to get them in the ground so they don’t dry out. I thought they’d be a nice surprise when my wife comes home.”

  I liked this man and, fortunately, I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. I happily dropped to my knees in the grass. I eased plants out of their little plastic pots. They were packed six to a pot, and so I separated them as I could see he had done and handed them to him one by one for planting. It was pleasant under the sun. Bees buzzed around us, clearly waiting for us to finish so they could give in to the lure of those bright blooms. Birds swooped and played, and a fat squirrel paused to watch us for a minute before going back about his business.

  I felt guilty about my own garden. The only reason it hadn’t completely gone to seed was that Gran toiled regularly in the middle of the night to prune and weed. I really needed to step up and do more.

  It didn’t take very long to finish the planting, and then Harry Bloom got me to water the newly planted petunias while he tidied up the pots and put the garden tools away. When we were finished, he nodded with satisfaction.

  “Right. I’ll put the kettle on. I think we’ve earned a nice cuppa.”

  We had tea in a gazebo in their back garden. He settled back contentedly. “I do love it here, you know. There are badgers who come nearly every night, and the odd deer.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  He leaned forward as though about to impart a great secret. “And I’m bored witless.”

  This was the perfect opening for what I wanted to talk to him about. “I remember when we first met, you told me you had investigated a murder here.”

  His eyes crinkled in a smile, but they were wary too. “And I recall telling you that you’d be a very good addition to a police force.”

  “I don’t want to work for the police, but I am interested in proving that Violet had nothing to do with Elizabeth Palmer’s death.”

  “But the police have arrested her husband.”

  “I’m not
sure everyone in the village believes he killed his wife.”

  He still looked wary. “I was surprised to find a fear of witches here.”

  He should have been in the coffee shop when we were nearly mobbed.

  “But surely she’s not a suspect. Wasn’t she inside her tent giving a reading at the very moment that woman was killed?”

  “People seem to think she may have cast a spell on that woman and somehow killed her.”

  He shook his head. “Superstitious nonsense. What can I do to help?”

  “Do you think there could be any connection between Grayson Timmins’s murder thirty years ago and the one that just occurred?”

  He rubbed his thumb along the edge of the table as though the answers might be written there in braille. I noticed a rim of dirt around the edge of his fingernail where he hadn’t quite managed to scrub all the evidence of his gardening activities away. “It’s funny, a young detective from Oxford asked me that very question. DI Chisholm.”

  The way he looked at me prompted me to say, “I know DI Chisholm.”

  “It’s interesting. He asked me if you’d been to see me yet. You seem to have a bit of a reputation as an amateur sleuth.”

  I shook my head. “Not by choice, I assure you.”

  “Some people have a gift. Perhaps nosing out crime is yours?”

  I had other gifts, and I had no intention of telling him about them. He didn’t believe in our kind, anyway. Or so he said.

  “I just want to take the heat off Violet. You see, she’s staying in my spare room until people stop throwing rocks at her house.”

  His relaxed pose was gone in an instant. He straightened up, and his eyes went from lazily amused to sharp and businesslike. “She should report that to the police. Does she have any idea who’s behind it?”

  “No. She didn’t see them.” However, after the way people had acted in the coffee shop, I thought there were a lot of possible suspects.

  “I’ll tell you what I can. It’s been thirty years, so I may be fuzzy on a few details. I’ve thought about that case often over time, though. For some reason it stayed with me.”

  “Tell me what happened?”

  He settled back in his chair once more. “I was called in to the crime scene, but I wasn’t first to arrive. That’s a pity. It’s good to see people and watch reactions during moments of acute stress. They often give away more than they intend to or tell secrets that they normally hold tight. However, by the time I arrived, uniforms were already on the scene. The boy called it in. He was the one who found the body.”

  “When you say ‘the boy,’ do you mean Robert Beasley?” I thought how awful it would have been for him to discover his father like that. I recalled the terrible aura hanging around the dining room. The echo of trauma was still there.

  “That’s right. He said he arrived home to find his stepfather dead. His mother had been out at her evening class. She was taking French. She went every Thursday. When she arrived home, her son took her straight into the library, and he handled everything. She was quite content not to see her husband’s body.”

  “She didn’t even check that her husband was dead? Is that normal behavior?”

  “There is no such thing as normal in a murder case. But certainly many people would prefer not to see their loved one like that.”

  “But Robert Beasley must have been a teenager.” I recalled the dreamy man who was late for everything. I couldn’t imagine entrusting something so important to him.

  “He was seventeen. As cool as a cucumber, in fact. Was it shock? Possibly. Or a well-prepared act.”

  “But why would Robert Beasley want to kill his father?”

  “You must remember, first of all, that Grayson Timmins wasn’t his father.”

  “Right. The way he talks about him, he seems like he was very fond of him and thought of him as a father.”

  His eyes narrowed on my face. “Where did you get that idea from?”

  “I’ve met both Mr. and Mrs. Beasley. I bought a poodle lamp from the white elephant, and I had to go to their house to pick it up.”

  His eyes widened, and for a man accustomed to hearing murderers’ confessions, I suspected it took a great deal to shock him. “You bought that poodle lamp?”

  I couldn’t be bothered to give him my story about how cute and kitschy it was. “All right. I wanted to get inside that house and talk to them both. The lamp was the only thing I could remember being at the white elephant sale.”

  “And you could be fairly certain it wouldn’t have sold.”

  “Mrs. Beasley mentioned how the house is essentially unchanged from when Robert Beasley’s parents lived there. And then I met the man himself. He mentioned his happy boyhood.”

  “That’s one of the things that bothered me from the beginning. That happy childhood theory is unsupported by village gossip.”

  That was interesting. “You think he lied?”

  “From what I learned about Grayson Timmins, he was a rigid authoritarian. He believed in a hard work ethic and no imagination. The boy was a middling student at best and a dreamer. He wasn’t a bad athlete, but not good enough to excel in that or anything.”

  “But we all know how notoriously village gossip can be wrong.”

  “If Timmins was so fond of that boy, why didn’t he adopt him?”

  “That’s right. He didn’t have the same last name.”

  “When I asked Mrs. Timmins the question, she said her ex-husband wouldn’t allow it. But it turned out they hadn’t seen the ex-husband in years. Consensus in the village was that Timmins refused to bestow his name on someone who didn’t live up to it.”

  That sentiment accorded with the impression I’d had from the man in that painting.

  “So you think Robert Beasley lied about his happy childhood?”

  “I do.”

  I looked him directly in the eye. “Do you also believe that Robert Beasley killed Grayson Timmins?”

  He held my gaze but didn’t answer right away. “I had no proof. The boy claimed he’d been at running practice after school. He came home and found his father dead.”

  “Running practice. Round a track?”

  He nodded, approving. “Cross country. They ran for an hour. He’d have had to be super-humanly quick to get from the school grounds back here, kill Timmins, stage the robbery, clean himself up and get rid of any evidence that connected him to the crime.” He tapped his fingers on the tabletop. “But yes. I’m convinced he did it. I think Timmins berated him constantly and one day he snapped.”

  “Do you think he could have killed Elizabeth?”

  “Of course he could have. But why?”

  “I have an idea about that. First, tell me what was stolen.”

  “Allegedly stolen. Not one item ever showed up. Usually, burglars fence the valuables and they turn up here and there. But none of the supposedly stolen items ever came to light.”

  “What was allegedly taken?”

  “Grayson Timmins was killed with a sterling candlestick. A very large, heavy, ornate one. It had a mate, and that disappeared. So did a Georgian tea set. Timmins had a valuable coin collection. That was gone as well.”

  “Where was the coin collection kept?”

  He nodded. “Excellent question. It was kept upstairs in Timmins’s bedroom. This was separate from his wife’s. Interestingly, nothing was taken from her, and she had some very nice jewelry. And Grayson Timmins’s silver pocket watch was gone. It was the item everyone most remembered about him.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Maybe this is crazy, but I have a theory.”

  He looked at me. “And I have nothing but time.”

  “On the day that Elizabeth Palmer was killed, she was very excited because she had bought her husband a watch for his silver anniversary gift.”

  His eyes sharpened on my face. “What kind of watch?”

  I smiled at him and repeated the words he’d recently said to me. “That’s exactly the right question. It was a
pocket watch. Sterling silver. She showed me the hallmarks the way you do when you’re excited about something. She got it from the white elephant sale. I didn’t think too much about it, though it did look like a very nice watch if you like antique pocket watches. What was curious was that after she was killed, the watch disappeared.”

  “What? Are you sure?”

  Now I wasn’t so sure. “I think so.”

  “Has anyone checked with the police to see if it was among her personal effects?”

  I couldn’t tell him I had a vampire network with excellent connections in the police, so I gave him an open-ended question. “If they had found an antique pocket watch by her body, wouldn’t we have heard about it by now?”

  “Tell me more about this watch. I could make a call or two. I may not be an active detective anymore, but I still have connections.”

  “I think I might recognize that watch if I saw a picture of it.” I held my gaze steady on his. I could see him debating with himself. Finally, he shrugged. “I made two copies of everything in that file, and I never gave them back. Technically I shouldn’t be sharing them with you, but you’re not a suspect in any way. What are they going to do? Fire me?”

  I tried not to look too eager, but I was beyond thrilled. As though he’d made a momentous decision, he gathered up the tea things and said, “Follow me.”

  I did. We went in through the back door that led directly into a kitchen. It seemed a happy, inviting place, painted cheerful yellow. One wall contained an open stone hearth.

  Even though his wife wasn’t home, Harry Bloom kept the place neat and tidy. Much neater and tidier than I kept my home, I realized with a pang of shame.

  After placing the tea things onto the kitchen counter, he led the way through a living room so cozy I could imagine curling up with a good book. I could see which chair was Mrs. Bloom’s, as a basket of wool sat beside it containing a partly finished sweater. It was blue and decorated with trucks, no doubt for a grandson.

  We continued up a flight of stairs and into a home office. There were neat shelves containing stamp catalogues and books about stamp collecting. When I commented on his hobby, he said, “It’s important to have activities when you retire.”