Nora had been in this area before and she’d seen the huge mansion, she’d just never imagined going inside. It was as big as a castle and looked like one, too, with ivy climbing up the walls and gargoyles all around it. At the very crest of the house was a marble statue of an eagle spreading its wings, it’s beak open in mid-cry. Yet, for all its glory, the house looked unloved. The gardens that surrounded it were patchy and wanted care. The driveway itself had loose bricks and a large pothole. The garage at the side looked as though its roof was sloping a little too much and might come crashing down any second on the Cadillac inside.
They rang the doorbell and, to Nora’s surprise, an unknown man opened it. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Mrs. Mullally recoil. The man who opened it had incredibly dark hair and, just like Rosemary, shining green eyes that seemed to see more than what was on the surface. His jaw clenched as he saw Mrs. Mullally.
“You!” he said.
“Yes, me,” Mrs. Mullally’s chin rose up. “I’m sorry for your loss, Raymond, but-”
“Oh! Sorry for my loss? You mean the loss of my twin sister, who I loved more than anyone on this miserable planet? Gee, thanks. That makes it all better.”
“There’s no need to talk that way to her!” Nora barked.
“No? How would you talk to your sister’s murderer? Not that you’d know how it feels to lose a loved one to violence! Only violence you’ve ever seen was probably on TV.” He shook his head and gave a frustrated punch to the wall, wincing as his hand hit concrete.
“Stop it!” Nora exclaimed, horrified. “Look, we’re just here to see Frank.”
“Well you can’t see him,” the man said. “Get out of here.”
“Please let us in,” Mrs. Mullally said. “We can all sit down and have a talk.”
“I don’t want to talk,” he said. “I want to strangle whoever did this. Or, maybe, just beat them to death for murdering my sister.” He glared at Mrs. Mullally. “What do you think about that?”
Nora shrank back in fear as he towered over them, his eyes glittering with hate. At this moment, he looked ready to kill, as though his anger had made him lose touch with reality. Worse still, all his rage seemed concentrated on Mrs. Mullally. He took a step forward, and Nora pushed herself between the two of them.
*****
Chapter 5
Civil Conversation
“Ray! What’s going on?” a voice cried from behind him.
Raymond’s huge frame seemed to crumble into pieces at the sound of the voice. Instantly, the violence in him was replaced by indifference.
“You’ll rot in jail,” he hissed at Mrs. Mullally before turning around and stalking off. They saw a confused Frank in the hallway, staring back at Raymond, who nudged him out of the way and quickly stomped up the stairs.
“Ray’s a little… touchy,” Frank said uncertainly. “Why are you here, Margie?”
It took Nora a minute to realize that he was referring to Mrs. Mullally. It was so weird to hear her first name, almost as though someone had called Queen Elizabeth, “Betty”.
“Frank?” Mrs. Mullally looked hurt. “I came to see you. I came to-”
“To what? Console me?” Frank bit his lip, and rubbed his toe in the carpet. “I’m alright. Thanks. Donna, Ray and I were up all night, sitting and talking in the kitchen.”
“Why are you being so cold?” Mrs. Mullally asked, moving forward.
“Ray told me…” Frank’s voice hitched a little. “Ray told me they found your stuff at…at the crime scene. He told me they’re going to arrest you soon.” He looked as though he was nearly tearful at the thought, as though his feelings were tearing him apart. Raising his head, he looked Mrs. Mullally in the eye, and said, “Did you do it, Margie?”
Mrs. Mullally took a step back, and shook her head in horror. “Do you think I did?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Frank sighed. “I’m just very tired.”
“Frank-”
“Ray told me you fought with her yesterday at the diner,” Frank said. “He told me your scarf and your trophy were found near Rosemary’s body. He said you’d obviously killed her, just so you could get my money.” A tear slipped out of his eye and dripped onto his shirt. “Is it true?”
“Frank, I’m 83 years old,” Mrs. Mullally said. “What do I need money for? I have everything I want in this world.”
Frank put a hand over his mouth, and rubbed it. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know anything.”
“You know me,” Mrs. Mullally said. “At least, I thought you did.”
“I thought I did, too,” Frank said. “Please, just don’t be here right now. I need time to think.”
“Alright. This was a mistake,” Mrs. Mullally squared her shoulders and turned around. “Come on, Nora. Back to the car. We should probably go down to the station and talk to Sean anyway. The Sheriff will have news for us, hopefully.”
Nora hesitated. “Mrs. M, why don’t you go?” She tossed her the car keys. “I want to talk to Frank. Get his side of the story.”
Mrs. Mullally’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. “You don’t mean you believe them, too?” she asked.
“No, Mrs M…I only-” But before Nora could curse herself for being insensitive, before she could explain herself to Mrs. Mullally, the lady had taken off at a brisk pace, heading toward the car.
“Wait!” Nora took a step after her but, without turning around, Mrs. Mullally raised a hand to indicate she wasn’t interested in listening. Nora watched as she got into the car, turned around and accelerated out of the gates.
“Oh…” Nora was out of words. Her eyes flashing, she turned to Frank. He looked like he had shrunken in the course of a night. His shoulders drooped and his eyes were hollow. He was, she noted, still in the same bathrobe as last night, only with a fresh pair of silk pajamas under it.
“Mr. Azure,” Nora said. “I only wanted to talk to you because I’m confused about some things. What was your relation to Rosemary Worth, for one?”
“She wasn’t related to me,” Frank said. “She was my spiritual guide. My mentor.”
“And her brother, Ray? Is he living with you?”
“Ray and Rosemary are a package deal,” Frank shrugged. “Plus, Rosemary said I needed security, living here all alone. Ray’s my personal bodyguard.”
“Why did you need a bodyguard?” Nora asked. “You’re not receiving any threats, are you?”
“Well, no,” Frank looked doubtful. “But Rosemary had warned me that I have enemies everywhere. She said I needed to be careful. Maybe she was right about that. Enemies disguised as friends...”
Nora had to tamp down her urge to defend Mrs. M. Instead, she said, “Look, let’s sit down. You look like you could use some coffee.”
“This way.” Frank led her to the kitchen. Once there, instead of serving her coffee, he looked at her expectantly, as though she was supposed to do the work. Nora sighed. Here was a man so used to being waited on that he didn’t realize when to play host.
“Would you like to drink something?” she asked, reading his next look.
He seemed relieved. “Yes. OJ and Vodka, please.”
Nora stared at him. “It’s 9 am, Frank.”
“It’s midnight as far as I’m concerned.” Frank seated himself. “I haven’t slept a wink all night.”
Nora opened the fridge, looked through the well-stocked cupboards & spice cabinet and began to make him something a little more suitable. Maybe it was a good thing he was so useless in the kitchen. She felt better moving around anyway. With her hands automatically doing their work, her head felt clearer, more able to think. Especially with so much to work with.
“What are you making?” he asked as she grated some ginger into a glass, topped it with ice and mint leaves and added a splash of lemon.
“Lemonade with ginger and mint,” Nora said, pouring a generous amount of sugar into it. “It’ll help you calm down.”
“I definitely need t
hat,” he said thankfully, as he took the glass from her. She sat facing him, wondering if he would begin to talk.
He did almost immediately. “I met Rosemary in Boston, two years ago,” he said. “I’d gone there to speak to my lawyers. They needed me to sign something or the other. My lawyer’s wife knew Rosemary and said that I should go get my palm read for fun. I didn’t much believe in all that, you know.”
“But she was different?” Nora asked.
“She was incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it. She knew me,” Frank said. “She knew…” He placed a hand to his head, then his heart, “Just… everything.”
Nora bit her lip. Very likely, the lawyer’s wife had been manipulated into sending Frank over, and Rosemary, having thoroughly researched her subject, had begun to use her charms to manipulate a lonely, old man.
“So then what?”
“So then, I began asking her for advice,” Frank said. “Nothing major. Just phone calls once or twice a month. Then twice a week. Oh, she helped me so much. I had business trouble when I met her and it went away with her solid advice. She told me which of my board members were liars and thieves and the business improved as soon as I fired them. She even told me that I had an electrical problem somewhere in my house and, can you believe it, I did!”
“Sure,” Nora said.
“One day, she said she needed to get out of Boston for a bit. She wanted some fresh air. So, of course, I invited her here.”
“Then what?”
Frank shrugged. “That was a year and a half ago. She just…stayed on, I suppose. Her daughter Donna, too.”
“And Ray?”
“Ray only came by six months ago,” Frank said. “He’d gotten discharged from the Air Force. He was in Afghanistan, you know.”
“Oh,” Nora said, taken aback. “I didn’t realize he was military.”
“Doesn’t look it, does he?” Frank shrugged. “Well, he’s been here ever since, too. Rosemary said it’d be good if I had a bodyguard. Like I said, she thought there was danger in my future. Hidden enemies.”
“I wonder,” Nora said. “Did she ever ask for money?”
“Rosemary? Ask me for money? Of course not. She never did.” Frank looked outraged. Nora was surprised again. She’d assumed Rosemary had been looting poor, innocent Frank.
“Did you ever fight with her?” Nora asked.
Frank shook his head then hesitated. “Once,” he said. “Just last week.”
“What did you fight about?” Nora leaned forward, interested.
“Well, this is embarrassing,” Frank coughed. “I, well, I’ve been in this book club for five years, you know, along with Margie. And we became good friends. Lately, though, I’d begun to see her in a different way. I was hoping…” He laughed and shook his head.
“Hoping what?”
“I was hoping to date her,” Frank blurted, embarrassed. “But Rosemary warned me off. She told me Margie was evil underneath her innocent ways. That my life would fall apart if I invited her in.”
“Rosemary didn’t know what she was talking about!” Nora said, her anger finally leaking out. “Mrs. Mullally is the nicest woman I’ve ever met. She took me in when I had nobody. She’s a born nurturer, she finds broken things and heals them. She even rescued her dog, Maynard, from a shelter and now you can’t even tell that he was once a scared, shivering puppy who wouldn’t even eat his food if someone was looking at him.”
Frank’s face closed off a little. “I’m only telling you what Rosemary told me.”
“And I’m telling you, you were a fool to believe it!” Nora grabbed her purse and stalked off. “I’ll call for a taxi,” she said. “Good day to you!”
Nora didn’t know what to feel. On the one hand, she felt sorry for Rosemary Worth. She’d died far too young and in a rather brutal manner. On the other hand, the woman had been a scheming good-for-nothing. She’d tried to steer Frank away from Mrs. Mullally purely because she felt threatened. Nora didn’t know whether to hate her or pity her.
As she walked out towards the gate, Rosemary’s daughter, Donna, stepped out of a gap in the hedge and stopped her. “Hey, Nora. Wait.”
Nora looked up, surprised. “Hello,” she said.
Donna looked almost skeletal. Her eyes were sunken in and had dark shadows under them while her hands nervously pulled at her sweater. She looked on the verge of tears but bit her lip until they subsided. Clearing her throat, she said, “We need to talk.”
“What about?” Nora was surprised.
“About my mother,” Donna said. “Someone murdered her. And I need your help to figure out who did it.”
“My condolences,” Nora said. “I know how horrible it feels to lose a mother.”
“I…” Donna’s eyes welled again. “No. I can’t think about that now. Not the emotional side of it. There will be enough time later.” She looked like a woman with a mission. “Right now, I need to know. I need your help to figure out who killed her.”
“The Sheriff is-”
“I’m sure the Sheriff is good at his job,” Donna said, “but his job is law and order. His job is to keep the peace, not to ferret out the truth. No, from what I’ve heard around town, you’re the one who knows this place. You’re the one who’s found out the killer in more than one curious murder.”
“Those were…” Nora was about to say flukes, but didn’t.
“Look, there’s something I want to tell the sheriff, but haven’t yet. I was simply too upset yesterday,” Donna said. “Maybe you’ll find it useful to know. Last week, someone threatened to kill my mother.”
“What?!” Nora exclaimed.
“Yes. I don’t know who it was. Just that it was a woman. Frank was out for his book club meeting and Ray was out at the movies. I came home early from my jog and. to my surprise, my mother was in the driveway, talking to another woman.”
“Did you see who?” Nora asked.
“My vision isn’t very good at a distance,” Donna said apologetically. “The woman was a blur to me. She was wearing some weird, bright patchwork shawl, I think. But all I know is, she looked angry. Her body language was… aggressive.”
“What then?”
“I distinctly heard her say, “Get me the money or die. Your choice.”
“Wow,” Nora said.
“The sad thing is, I never saw who it was. My uncle’s car pulled up just then and the woman got in with him.” Donna gulped. “Afterwards, my mother looked scared, and I mean terrified. I’ve never seen her look that way before. Not ever.”
*****
Chapter 6
Tuxedo
Nora had wanted to talk to Donna in greater detail but her taxi had pulled up by the door and Ray, apparently sick of Nora’s intrusion, had come barreling down the stairs to glare at her. Donna had turned pale on seeing him and quickly melted away into the hedge, giving Nora no choice but to leave.
Now, as she unlocked the door to her house, she wondered if she had made a mistake. She should have gone after Donna, instead of falling back. She took a deep breath and looked at her watch. 10.30 am. Tina had told her to take the day off but maybe she could shower, change and head to the diner. At the very least, it would take her mind off the murder. She pushed open the door and gaped in surprise.
Harvey hadn’t gone to work either. In fact, he was on the sofa, with his feet up on the coffee table and his head thrown back, snoring slightly. On his chest was a little black and white furball. Harvey blinked and sat up, gently cradling the furball against him.
“Nora?” his voice was hoarse. “You’re home?”
“Harvey?” She tapped her foot, her face slowly widening into a grin.
“Oh, I know my timing is all wrong,” Harvey said. He presented her with the little kitten he held in his hand. “We were talking about kittens last week and I thought this would be the perfect surprise. The previous owner contacted me unexpectedly last night saying I better get her right away or else.”
“Harvey
,” Nora said, quietly, “you bought me a kitten?”
“I thought…” he looked nervous. “I don’t know. I just thought you’d like it.”
“I love it,” Nora said. “I love her!”
Harvey let out a breath. “That’s great because I’m in love with her, too. Second woman in my life.” He winked.
All thoughts of the murder were driven out of her head as the kitten yawned and batted out a paw.
“Awww, the pads of her little feet are pink,” Nora said. “Have you ever seen anything like it?”
“No and-” He was interrupted by the doorbell. “Huh?” He looked up. “Who could that be? Has Sean come here to harass us or something?”
“Harvey-” Nora warned. Harvey had a rather tangled and unpleasant history with Sean. But Nora thought that if the two men could put aside their differences, they could actually be friends one day.
“Don’t worry, I won’t pick a fight,” Harvey said, swinging the door open. “Yes? Can I help you?”
The person at the door was a nervous, skinny looking guy. Nora’s brain flashed an image of Donna speaking to him last night at the party.
“I know you,” she said. “You’re friends with Donna, right?”
“I’m…um…I’m her boyfriend,” he answered. “Donna is in trouble. The only person I could think of coming to was you.”
“What’s happened?” Nora asked.
“Her uncle is keeping her hostage, that’s what happened!” The boy flushed. He was lanky, with a prominent Adam’s apple and a broad face with narrow eyes. “You have to save Donna from that mad house!”
“Calm down.” Nora drew him inside and seated him. “What’s going on? Who did you say you were?”
“My name is Adam,” he said. “Donna and I…we’re in love.” He shifted nervously, casting glances at Harvey. “Look, I need to speak to you, and only you.”
The Milburn Big Box Set Page 91
