Dead Cold Mystery Box Set 3

by Blake Banner

  Armstrong stayed seated, half-shouting. “Yis don’t know shit!”

  If you shout back, they just shout louder. So I spoke quietly. “I will communicate my findings to the police tomorrow, and they will act on them and it will be up to them to find the evidence to prove, or disprove, what Detective Dehan and I have found.” The room fell silent. I added, “You all had the opportunity to speak before. If you have anything to say, that was the time to have said it. If you didn’t say it then, I suggest you wait till morning and tell the cops when they arrive.”

  Armstrong spoke up again. “Ah didneh get a chance to speak. You don’t want ta hear what ah have to say, do ye? Wha’s the matter? The old man paying yous to keep a few things quiet?”

  Suddenly Sally was on her feet and Gordon was pulling at her arm, telling her to sit and be quiet. But she wasn’t in the mood to sit or be quiet. Her red hair flying and her blue eyes flashing, she let rip.

  “Why don’t you shut yer fuckin’ mouth, Bobby Armstrong? All you and yer bloody whooring mother ever did was cause trouble! Why don’t you fuckin’ sit doon an’ shut yer fuckin’ trap fer once in your fuckin’ life!”

  You have never really seen anger until you have seen an angry Scotsman. Armstrong’s face went crimson and the veins in his forehead stood out and pulsed. His eyes were wide and staring. He stood and his voice was a rasp in his throat.

  “Who are you callin’ a fuckin’ whoore? Fuckin’ thus thievin’ bastard and fuckin’ his son at the same fuckin’ time! An’ you call my mother a whoore?”

  I saw Gordon flash a look at Sally and then at me. He was putting two and two together. But Armstrong hadn’t finished yet. He was stabbing the air with a finger that would have pierced concrete.

  “At least mah mother was faithful te Old Gordon. At least she loved the old man! But you? You are just a gold digging fuckin’ user!” He turned and pointed at Cameron. “Ye’re married to a good man! An honest man! And you humiliate him every fuckin’ day with yer filthy, disgusting behavior! Ye should be ashamed o’yerself!”

  Sally was not about to be silenced. “Och! Spare me yer bloody moralizing sermon, you hypocritical piece o’shite! You think we don’t know what you do when you get the ferry across to John O’Groats? You think the whole island doesn’t know you been seeing whoores? Cause no fuckin’ island woman will touch you!”

  Armstrong went dangerously quiet. “What I been doin’ in John O’Groats is my own buznezz, Sally Cameron. But I’ll tell you thus. The only person on this island who doesn’t know about you and tha’ dead man in there, is his thievin’ fuckin’ father.”

  The room was deathly silent. The major was staring hard at the floor. Sally had gone very pale. Armstrong sneered at Gordon, then turned to me. “Did yous include that titbit in your brilliant piece o’detection? Ah bet ye didn’t.”

  He turned and sat down again. Cameron was still standing by my side, staring at Sally.

  I looked around the room. “Are we all done? Good. I suggest you all go to your rooms and get some rest. Brown will arrange a couple of rooms for Mr. Armstrong and Dr. Cameron. I would ask you all to please stay tomorrow morning to speak to the police when they arrive. I am sure they will want to talk to you.”

  Gordon got to his feet and looked suddenly like an old, broken man. Perhaps in that moment, he understood for the first time the nature of the weapon he had been wielding most of his adult life against his family. Sally reached out for him but he waved her away and crossed the room to the door.

  Somebody rang the bell for Brown and shortly afterward, he led Cameron and Armstrong out into the hall and up the stairs to the spare rooms. That left Sally and the major. He made to leave, then stopped by the door and looked back at me. “Is it a bluff? Do you really know?”

  I nodded.

  He said, “Who and how…?”

  “Who and how, major.”

  He turned and hurried away, across the checkerboard floor and up the stairs, muttering something about talking to Bee. Sally stood watching us. After a moment, she said, “I guess I’ve blown it.”

  Dehan nodded a few times. “Nothing like screwing a man’s son to undermine trust in a relationship.”

  I frowned and shook my head. “What made you do it, Sally?”

  She sighed, seemed to sag and lowered herself onto the arm of the chair where Gordon had been sitting. “You live in New York, fer God’s sake! How could you ever begin to understand what it’s like to live on an island like thus? It’s no purgatory. Purgatory is where we go fer a day out. I’m thirty years old. If I don’t get out now, I never will. I’ll spend the rest of my existence here, on this island.”

  I went over to the tray of decanters and poured three drinks. I gave one to Dehan and another to Sally. “That doesn’t really answer my question. I get that you wanted to get out. I get that you and Gordon could have a marriage of convenience. I even get that if you knew he and Pamela were not happy, you’d be prepared to break them up. I don’t approve, but I get it. What I don’t get is why his son. Why Junior?”

  She looked down into her glass for a while. “I’m no’ proud of it. It was Bee. She looks dappy, but she’s a smart cookie, I can tell ye. An’ she’s known Charles fer years. She saw what was goin’ on between us right at the start, and even then she advised me no’ to fall for him. She said he played with people, used them against each other, an’ she told me about all the things he’d done to Pam over the years. To be honest, I felt sorry for her.” She shrugged. “I mean, there was nothing I could do fer her. Their marriage was over, you know what I mean? It was over a long time before he met me. An’ I was determined to get off o’ the island one way or another. Cameron was fuckin’ useless. He thinks you have to be faithful to your fuckin’ roots an’ all that shite. If I stayed wuth him, I’d be here for the rest o’my days. An’ that’ was no goin’ to happen.”

  “You’re losing me.”

  “Sorry. I… Bee scared me. I could see myself jumping from the bloody frying pan into the fire. Land up married to the old goat and stuck on this bloody island with the old bastard playin’ with me and humiliating me the way he humiliates the rest of his bloody family. Or did, when he had one. So I thought…” She shrugged.

  “You thought Charles Jr. was a better bet long term, so you’d hedge your bets and play them both. Junior was bound to come into some money at some time, and when he did, you’d jump ship.”

  “Something like that, aye.”

  “Were you aware of the terms of the old man’s will?”

  She avoided my eye. “I asked him a couple of times, but he refused to tell me.”

  I gave it a beat, then asked, “Was Charles going to tell his father?”

  She looked startled. “No! He was terrified of his father. We both agreed. For now, until things…”

  She faltered and Dehan asked, “Things what?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. Until things had settled. We were just putting off a crisis.”

  I smiled. “Until you were firmly married into the family money.”

  Her eyes were hostile. “I can’t stop you from judging me, but that doesn’t mean you have the right.”

  I never got to answer. There was a scream. It was shrill and touched with hysteria. It echoed over the banisters along the galleried landing and filled the hallway. I ran out of the drawing room and saw Bee in a pink negligee, waving her hands in the air and shouting, “Pam! Pamela! She’s done something! Oh God! Come quick! Please! Come quick!”

  I swore under my breath and sprinted up the stairs three at a time. Bee ran, her pink robe flapping behind her, leading the way to the room where Pam had been taken by Cameron. I could hear Dehan right behind me, struggling in her tight red evening dress.

  By the time we got to the room, just about everybody else was there, crowding around the door. I shoved my way through and found Cameron kneeling beside Pam’s bed. There was an empty pill bottle on her bedside table and an empty glass of water. I snapped, �
��Has anyone touched that glass or the bottle?”

  Cameron snarled, “I’m losing her, I’m fuckin’ losing her! Somebody get me my case!”

  Sally ran from the room. I repeated, “Has anybody touched these things?”

  Cameron flushed and shouted, “No! Now get the fuck out of here!”

  I ignored him and turned to the door. Brown’s bewildered, sleepy face had added itself to the throng along with the two girls. I said, “Brown, get me two freezer bags. Quick as you can.”

  He shook his head, “What…?”

  “Now!”

  He hurried away. The major was helping Cameron get Pam to her feet. Sally came back with Cameron’s case, squeezed into the room and handed it to him. She said, “What can I do?”

  He snarled, “You can get out’a my fuckin’ sight, is what you can do!”

  She went pale and backed away. Cameron and the major took Pam to the en suite. I heard feet running up the stairs and a moment later one of the maids appeared, breathless and wide-eyed, and handed me a roll of freezer bags. I bagged the bottle and the glass and handed them to Dehan. She grabbed them and turned to the crowd.

  “OK, guys, let’s let the Doc do his job.”

  They backed away a step or two, jostling against each other. Bee had her hands over her mouth and was blinking back tears. She kept repeating, “I just came to see if she was all right…” Armstrong was peering over her head with a sullen twist to his mouth.

  “How do we know he didn’t do ut hi’sen?”

  Dehan said, “Just get out, Armstrong, and try not to talk for a while.”

  “Fuck yous!”

  I stepped over to him. “Hey, wiseass. You know what? We’re not in New York. You know what that means? It means if I smack you in that big mouth of yours, I don’t lose my job. Talk to my wife like that again and I’ll throw you over the damn banisters.”

  He was going to tell me to try but decided against it and went away muttering. I looked around. I couldn’t see Gordon. I went back into the room. In the bathroom I could hear the sound of dry retching. My mind was racing. I looked at the decanter on the bedside table. In the bathroom I could hear Cameron saying, “We got to make her vomit… I don’t know why she won’t…”

  There were more ugly, spasmodic noises. I kept staring at the decanter. It was almost full. I swore violently and went into the bathroom. They had Pam kneeling over the pan, trying to make her throw up the tablets. I stared at the soles of her feet.

  I said, “She was injected.”

  Cameron turned and stared at me. “What?”

  I pointed. “There. On the sole of her foot. The decanter is full. The tablets were to make it look like suicide.”

  Something close to panic twisted his face. “But, what the hell did he give her? How am I supposed…?”

  “Whatever is missing from your bag! Where the hell is Gordon?”

  I turned and ran. Dehan was ahead of me with Bee by her side, shouting, “At the end! On the left! At the end!”

  She left Bee behind. She had her red dress hiked up around her hips and was speeding down the passage on her long legs and bare feet. She angled around the corner, collided with the wall and kept going toward the door at the end.

  Behind me I could hear Sally running and screaming, “Oh, God, no! No!” and Bee panting close behind her. There were other voices, maybe Brown. Dehan grabbed the handle and shoved. It was not locked. She burst through and I came in just behind her. We stopped dead.

  Behind me I heard a small gasp, then a short scream, followed by more short, hysterical screams.

  Gordon looked shocked. He looked shocked because his eyes were bulging out of the sockets in his head. His tongue was huge and protruding and his face was bloated and had turned dark purple, like a giant, grotesquely deformed eggplant. There was blood on his dressing gown and on his pajamas, but not much, and only around the collar, where he had clawed at the dressing gown cord that was tied around his neck. The other end was tied to the frame of his four poster bed. His toes, barely touching the mattress, were still twitching.

  EIGHTEEN

  We cut him down and between me, Dehan and Brown we laid him out on the bed. He was dead and well beyond resuscitation. I told Brown, “Go and tell Dr. Cameron that Charles Gordon Sr. is dead, will you? Tell him to come here as soon as he can.”

  Brown nodded, said, “Yes, sir,” and left the room. Outside, Sally was sobbing violently. She had her back against the wall and her face covered with her hands. Bee had come in and sat on a padded stool by the door, where she was just staring at the deformed monstrosity that had been the man she loved.

  Dehan backed away from the bed and stood staring around at the room. She looked tired. She spread her hands. “It could be either…”

  I shook my head. “It’s not suicide.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  I made a gesture to her to hang on a minute and turned to Bee. “Bee…?” She seemed not to hear me. I approached her and hunkered down in front of her, obscuring her view of the bed. “Bee, you can’t be here. It’s a crime scene.” I smiled. “You might be sitting on evidence. And in any case, it’s not a good place for you. This isn’t how you want to remember him.”

  She gave a small smile and nodded, then she reached for my hand and held it, staring at it. “I only held his hand once or twice, you know. So many years ago. He had strong hands, like yours. I remember it as though it were yesterday. Or this morning.” She raised her eyes to mine again. “You can’t do it, you know?”

  “What’s that, Bee?”

  “Play around with love and sex. It’s not a game. Sooner or later, all that passion just turns…” Her eyes looked past me at the obscenity on the bed, and she said simply, “Ugly.”

  I nodded. “If only more people understood that, Bee. Come on.” I stood, pulled her gently to her feet and guided her to the door. There she stood a moment, looking at Sally. Next thing, Sally was crossing the corridor with an ugly, twisted, crying face and her arms held out, and the two women were holding each other and sobbing into each other’s shoulders.

  Dehan put a hand on my shoulder. “We need to get a grip on this situation, Sensei. Where is everybody?”

  I nodded. “More to the point, where was everybody?” I moved to the door up one and across the passage from Gordon’s bedroom and tried it. It was locked. I called, “Brown!”

  I heard the scuffle of feet and the butler came hurrying around the corner. “Dr. Cameron will be with you in a moment, sir!”

  I pointed at the door. “Can you unlock this, please? And let’s get everybody assembled in there.”

  Dehan grabbed Bee and Sally and gently propelled them toward the spare bedroom while Brown fished out his keys, opened the door and switched on the light. I went around the dogleg and found Armstrong and the two maids leaning on the doorjamb and Cameron pushing his way between them. He caught sight of me and said, “What the hell is it now?”

  I pointed at Armstrong. “You, in that room with Bee and Sally, now.” He drew breath. “Give me any more of your attitude and I’ll throw you in there myself.”

  He sighed noisily and pushed past me muttering something about fuckin’ Yankees. He went in the room with Bee and Sally and I called Brown over.

  “Lock Mrs. Gordon in her room and give Dr. Cameron the key. Put one of your girls on the door, the other on the spare bedroom, tell them to raise merry hell if anybody tries to get in or out. Nobody, and I do mean nobody, goes in there but him or me and my wife. Understood?”

  He nodded vigorously. “Of course, sir.”

  He went away to lock the door. I turned to the doctor. “Come with me. You need to write out another death certificate.”

  He didn’t say anything until we got to the room. Then he stood on the threshold, staring at the body.

  “Dear God, what happened here?”

  “He was hanged. He has his own dressing gown cord tied around his neck in some kind of a slip knot.” I pointed at the
frame of the bed. “You can see where it was tied. We cut him down, but he was already dead.”

  He turned and looked at me bitterly. “I have to say, Detective Stone, you’re doin’ a great job of solving this crime. You know who it is and how they did it, but you’re going to leave them to run around killing the rest of us till mornin’? Tha’s a great plan!”

  I fought down the irritation I felt and said, “I need two things from you, Doctor, and one of them is not any more of your attitude. I need a death certificate and I need to know if there is any bruising premortem or perimortem.”

  He muttered something obscene in some ancient, primal Celtic language and opened his bag. Dehan came in and stood staring at me. With her hair disheveled, the strained expression on her face, the scarlet dress and her long, tanned leg showing through the slash, the only word to describe her was ravishing. She shook her head and said, “When I bought this dress, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

  I smiled at her, but it wasn’t a happy smile. “You want to go and change? I got this.”

  She shook her head. “Let’s try and work out what happened here. Time of death…” She took a deep breath and blew noisily. “Anytime after he left the drawing room and came upstairs…”

  I turned to Cameron. “You didn’t sedate Bee…”

  He was carefully removing the rope from Gordon’s neck and spoke without looking at me. “I gave her a mild sedative, but it apparently had no effect.” Then he added, “I hope you’re no seriously suggesting that she is capable of…”

  “Can it!” I turned back to Dehan. “Who else was not in the room?”

  She shook her head. “Only Brown and the maids.”

  “So, at this stage, once everybody got upstairs and went into their rooms, it could have been anyone except Pam. So we’ll need to see who can alibi whom.”

  She nodded. “But it does mean that whoever it was was not waiting for him in the room. They came afterwards. He was already changed, but he had his dressing gown on, so either he hadn’t gone to bed or, most likely, whoever it was knocked, he put on his gown and came to the door.”