The Marlowe Murders

by Laura Giebfried

  “You're sweet,” she said softly. “But, really, I don't mind.”

  I hesitated. I couldn't remember the last time someone had called me sweet, which meant it had either been before I had properly trained my memory or simply had never happened at all. I was leaning toward the latter.

  “I should get back to James,” she continued, though she didn't sound like herself anymore: she sounded like someone broken. Or perhaps that was who she really was, and who I had been seeing was simply a woman wearing a mask for the outside world. “He might need me.”

  “I doubt he'll know one way or the other,” I said before I could stop myself. I bit my tongue too late to stop the words, then faltered for an addendum. “I mean – because he – because of –”

  “Because he's damaged,” Rachel said for me. She smoothed her skirt over her legs, staring down at the thick wool fabric. “We don't really know how much he understands. Sometimes I think he knows everything we're saying. And other times … nothing at all. But since I can't be certain, I have to assume that a part of him is still here.”

  She raised her eyes to me, and I felt that I ought to say something: to tell her that I understood what it was like to love someone who couldn't love me in return, or that I had spent the past decade of my life trying to fix the damage that had been done to my mother's mind. Yet as the seconds ticked by, I couldn't get the words out. Words only came to me when they were straightforward and harsh, and never when they carried any sentiment or understanding.

  Rachel stood up and moved around me to get to the door. I listened to her footsteps disappearing down the hall, still wishing that I had said something. It felt as though every chance that I missed to prove I still had a heart chipped away at me with a chisel, and the deeper it dug, the more it exposed my insides to be made of stone.

  Something silver on the table caught my eye: a cross hanging on a chain. It was the same one Rachel had worn the night of the wake. I picked it up and turned it over in my hands. The back was etched with delicate letters. To RMM, love FEK. To Rachel Marlowe, I guessed, from Frank Kneller. I stuffed it into my pocket and leaned down to press my jaw onto my balled hands, suddenly feeling defeated. If she had killed John, I wouldn't have blamed her – and I wouldn't point the police at her, either, regardless of whether she had ruined any chance I might have had at returning to the university.

  I stood and left the room, making my way to the Drawing Room in the hopes of finding her to return the necklace. Perhaps she had left it behind on purpose, but I didn't think so. She wouldn't have been wearing it to her mother's wake if it meant nothing to her, so there seemed to be no reason to leave it behind now. I reached the Drawing Room, took the necklace from my pocket, and raised my hand to knock, but –

  Voices murmured from inside the room. I leaned in closer, thinking that she might be speaking to Mr. Langston.

  “ … really shouldn't be talking about it,” Rachel was saying.

  I felt my breath catch at the thought that I had been right: she had killed John and was confessing to her husband. But then –

  “ … so just don't say anything,” she continued. “You know what they'd do.”

  “But I have to,” came a second voice. It took me a moment to recognize it as Bill's: it was strained and gruffer than usual. “I can't just pretend it didn't happen …”

  “You can pretend. You should pretend. Let them think it was someone else. Please, Bill. Please.”

  “What if it's not someone else?”

  “It is someone else,” she said, and her voice cracked unnaturally. “I'm certain it is. So please don't say anything.”

  There was a long pause. I sucked my breath in, waiting for Bill to ask her how she knew such a thing, but then he said, “And what about the fact that she's lying?”

  “You don't know that for certain. She could just be mistaken –”

  I moved to lean closer to the door, but the slight shift in my weight caused the floorboards to give an awful squeak. I jumped back, but the necklace chain caught on the door handle and yanked me forward again. I grappled to untangle it, but footsteps were already coming toward me and before I decide what to do the door swung open, snapping the chain at the clasp and releasing it into my hand –

  Bill's face appeared in front of me. His expression was nearly wild, and his startled eyes zeroed in on me standing there. I held up the necklace.

  “Mrs. Langston left this in the Smoking Room,” I said rigidly, forcing my tone to be neutral and hoping that my expression matched.

  Bill eyed the cross dangling from the chain. It spun ever slightly as I held it out between us, turning in an imperceptible breeze.

  “You shouldn't disturb people when they're in their rooms,” he said.

  “I'm sorry, Mr. Burton – I just didn't want her to worry that she'd misplaced it.”

  “I think she'd be more worried to know that you're sneaking around outside her room – I certainly am.”

  “I'm not sneaking,” I said carefully, but then my brashness got the better of me. “And if I was, I don't know why you'd be concerned. Unless you had something to hide –”

  “Me? I have nothing to hide!” he said angrily. “It's you who's – who's –”

  He struggled to find the word he was searching for, his spluttering getting the best of him as he swayed in his spot, but before he could finish, Rachel appeared by his shoulder.

  “What's going on here?”

  Bill jumped and looked over at her.

  “She was listening at the door!” he exclaimed.

  Rachel glanced at me, then down to the necklace in my hand. She turned back to Bill.

  “It looks like she's just returning my necklace,” she said. She reached forward and took it from me. As Bill began to protest, she cut him off. “Alexandra – can you put the ramp out? Bill and I are going to take James for a walk.”

  “Of course.” I moved my eyes away from her face over to Bill's. Holding his gaze, I added, “That's why I'm here, after all.”

  I turned to cross the Foyer to get my coat from the rack by the door, knowing Bill's eyes were following me as I went. I tugged on my boots and opened the front door to escape his distrusting eyes.

  Cold air greeted me when I stepped out onto the front porch. The large piece of wood that Kneller had brought from the shed was resting on the far side beneath a layer of white from the last two days of snowfall. I heaved it across the porch, the weight of it protesting against my efforts and the rough edges sending splinters into my hands. When I finally reached the stairs, I gave it a firm kick to get it down, and it slid down and stopped in front of a familiar pair of oxfords. Lennox took a step back.

  “There you are,” I said, not bothering to apologize for jabbing him in the toes. “I was trying to find you.”

  “I was just having a cigarette.”

  I had half a mind to tell him that he must have had a dozen or so cigarettes in the time that I had been looking for him, but instead I shuffled down the ramp to him and took out a cigarette of my own.

  “Why'd you stop me from telling the family about the letter opener?” I asked as I lit it.

  Lennox heaved a sigh.

  “Because it's not a good idea,” he said firmly, “and I don't know what you're expecting you'll get out of it if you do.”

  “I'm expecting to get a reaction out of them – maybe one that will point at whoever did this.”

  Lennox stuck his cigarette in his mouth and took a long drag, his eyes not leaving my face as he did so.

  “Let me ask you something, Alexandra: did you observe the family when you brought them outside to show them John's body?”

  “Well, not exactly.”

  “What about after we told them he'd been stabbed?”

  I thought back to when the family had collected in the Augustus Suite, picturing Marjorie's belligerent manner, Bernadette's quizzical air, Rachel's pained eyes, Edie's terrified grimace, Bill's tense form, Mrs. Tilly's disbelieving shaking head,
and Amalia's livid expression.

  “I noticed how they looked,” I said.

  “And?”

  “Do you want me to recount it?”

  “No, because I observed them, too, and do you know what I saw?” He waited for me to shrug. “Nothing. No signs of guilt, nothing incriminating – nothing remotely out of the ordinary as far as reacting to such news goes.”

  “So what's your point?”

  “Someone in that room killed John, unless Edie's right about a madman hiding out on the island. And if the killer can feign normalcy so well, then there's nothing you can say that will shock them into giving themselves away. Whoever did it chose the letter opener for a reason, and maybe it does have some sort of significance – or maybe it was selected specifically to draw attention away from them and to point to someone else.”

  I took another drag of my cigarette, considering what he had said. For all of my stubbornness, though, I found that I agreed with him.

  “Alright, well …” I said, “then I won't say anything about the letter opener.”

  “Thank you.”

  A thumping sound came from the front porch, and we both watched as Bill and Rachel brought James's wheelchair down the ramp and onto the path. They pushed him down in our direction. Bill threw us a look as they passed but said nothing. When they were a safe distance away, I turned back to Lennox.

  “I think Bill and Rachel know something,” I said, then briefly relayed the conversation I had just overheard. Lennox finished his cigarette and lit another as he listened.

  “Well, it sounds fairly generalized,” he said when I was done. “They could have been talking about anything.”

  “She specifically said, Let them think it was someone else,” I repeated. “What else do you think they'd be talking about in these circumstances? Who forgot to turn the lights out in the Parlor?”

  “I don't know. It seems unlikely, but if either of them knew who killed John, I don't know why they'd keep it a secret.”

  “Unless it was one of them who did it.”

  Lennox raised his eyebrows.

  “Well, that I wouldn't believe for a second,” he said.

  “Bill sounded like he wanted to confess something: he either knows who did it or he did it. And like you said, why would he protect the killer?”

  “I don't know. But I don't know why he would kill John, either.”

  “Maybe he thought he'd be the one to get the estate.”

  “I highly doubt it. I don't think anyone expects Sylvia to have left him anything.”

  “Bernadette thought it was possible. She said, It won't be split up among any of us if the will states it has to go to a male heir. If anything, it would go to Bill. Remember?”

  “Well, not word for word, no,” he replied, looking mildly intrigued.

  “And just this morning when they were all talking about how you might get the estate,” I went on, “Bill said that he's a closer male heir than you.”

  “Well, he is,” Lennox said. “But again, I doubt either of us were left anything. I'm sure Sylvia would have left everything to a blood relative.”

  “But if there aren't any male blood relatives who aren't third cousins twice removed, then she might have picked him. And if he's next in line, wouldn't that make him a likely suspect?”

  “Outwardly, yes. But it sounds to me like the conversation you heard was out of context.”

  “I doubt it. He sounded upset.”

  “He could be upset about anything.”

  “Such as?”

  “Perhaps his marriage is failing,” Lennox guessed. “He and Edie might be separating and they haven't told the family yet.”

  “Seems like a funny time to bring it up,” I said, growing impatient that he refused to even entertain the idea. “We're all trapped in a house with a killer, and you think they're hiding in the Drawing Room talking about whether or not he's going to get divorced?”

  “You're talking about people who still sit down for formal meals three times a day despite knowing that someone among them is a murderer,” Lennox replied. “So, yes, I think it's possible.”

  “And yet you don't think it's possible that he killed John?”

  Lennox sighed. He flicked his cigarette to rid it of ash.

  “No, quite frankly, I don't,” he said. “I've known Bill a long time. He's a good, hardworking man. He wouldn't kill someone in the hopes of inheriting some money.”

  “But it's not 'some money,' it's a load of money. How much is this island worth? A million? What's the family's shipping company valued at? Twice that?”

  “More, I would think,” Lennox said mildly, and I wanted to scream at him to wake up.

  “You can't just say he didn't do it because he's nice!”

  “I didn't say that: I said your reasoning is too flimsy. If it was set in stone that he was next in line to inherit, then I'd consider the possibility – but it's more likely that Amalia is getting the money, or thought she was getting the money, or one of Sylvia's biological children.”

  “You didn't see him when he realized I'd overheard him. He was frightened.”

  “I'm sure he was. John's dead. No one knows what happened. If anything, I think that Bill's frightened for his life, not frightened because he's guilty.”

  I crossed my arms.

  “Just because you like him doesn't mean he didn't do it,” I said. “People do horrible things all the time, and it's the people we like who disappoint us the most.”

  Lennox's cigarette was drooping in his mouth. I took several quick drags of my own, trying to look unaffected, but he was giving me that searching look again as though he was reading the thoughts running through my head, and I got the feeling he knew exactly what I was talking about.

  “That's a very cynical point of view,” he said after a few moments. “Especially from someone so young.”

  “It's not cynical: it's factual,” I replied. “There's a difference.”

  Lennox dropped his cigarette and pushed it into the snow with his shoe.

  “I could be mistaken,” he said after several moments, his diplomatic tone returning. “You're right: it could be him. But you asked me for my help because I know the family better than you, so I'm just telling you that I find it much more likely that it was Amalia, Marjorie, or Bernadette.”

  “And your reasoning?”

  “Because Amalia thought she would inherit from John, Bernadette is the oldest, so she might be the next in line, and Marjorie –” He paused, searching for a word. “Marjorie is … volatile.”

  I could still see Bill and Rachel in the distance. He was pushing James' wheelchair down the path at a slow pace, periodically getting stuck in the snow, while she stood by his side. I frowned.

  “What if he did it for Rachel?” I asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The night of the wake, when the family was arguing about how John inherited everything, Marjorie said that Rachel was out of money and had asked John for more.”

  “She did?”

  “Marjorie said, Then why were you practically on your knees begging him for money yesterday to help you out of your debt? I'm surprised you would bother to humiliate yourself. You ought to have known he'd say no. And Rachel was pretty embarrassed. So what if Bill knows – or assumes – he's the next to inherit, and so he killed John to get the money for Rachel?”

  “And they were just casually discussing it in the Drawing Room, in full earshot of anyone standing outside the door?”

  “Like I said, he wasn't happy to see me standing there.”

  “But if he was truly talking about killing someone, then why didn't he go somewhere where no one could overhear him? And what was the bit about someone lying?”

  “He said, And what about the fact that she's lying? And Rachel replied, You don't know that for certain. She could just be mistaken.”

  “So Bill killed someone, told Rachel, and now someone's lying about … what?” he challenged.

  I shift
ed my jaw, trying to come up with a good argument.

  “Maybe he's talking about Edie,” I said. “If Bill sneaked out and killed John, then his wife probably noticed him getting up from bed. She's lying to protect him from blame, but maybe not for much longer. You saw her at breakfast: she looked like she was ready to fall apart.”

  Lennox made an odd face as though he was frightened but trying desperately not to show it. I smiled inwardly at my victory: he couldn't deny the possibility of the murderer being Bill any longer.

  “Well, that's … that's …” he started. “I don't think that's right, but … we can certainly observe him more closely, since you've brought up a good point.”

  Rachel, Bill and James had disappeared beyond the clusters of trees. As they left my view, I tried to think of what it would mean if my assumption was correct. Bill would inherit the money – go to prison, depending on whether or not it could be proven that he did it – and then his wife and Rachel would split the millions depending on what their deal was. I shook my head. I could see why Lennox didn't want to entertain the possibility. The three of them seemed to be the best of the Marlowe family.

  “What happened to them?” I asked. I didn't expect him to outright tell me given the ethics of it all, but perhaps, given the circumstances, he would bend the rules to tell me about his client's children.

  “Who?”

  “The family. The Marlowes. How'd they all wind up so …?”

  “Maladjusted?” he finished. He heaved a sigh. “I could guess, but I don't know for certain.”

  “Give it your best shot. It might explain who killed John.”

  He shifted in his spot and crossed his arms, staring off across the snow as he thought. I had the feeling he was planning what to say carefully to avoid being unethical.

  “Well, I would think the way they were raised explains the most,” he said. “Sylvia and Malcolm wouldn't win any awards for parenting.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I don't really know: it's not like I was around when they were growing up. But Sylvia had her issues, and her husband sounded like he was a piece of work.”