Arsenic with Austen (13 page)

Bustopher Jones yowled from the kitchen, and Emily turned back there once more. This time she turned on the light and noticed that the door to the cellar stairs stood open. Bustopher crouched opposite the doorway, baleful eyes fixed upon it, the tip of his tail twitching.

Emily padded up to the doorway. An odd smell rose to meet her, the dankness of dirt and mold mixed with a whiff of last year's apples, overlaid with a stench like meat left out too long in a hot room. A subtler odor she puzzled over, finally identifying it with the smell left on her hands after counting a jar of pennies.

Steeling herself, she stepped onto the landing and looked down. Two steps from where she stood, jagged edges of broken boards stuck out where the tread should be. At the bottom of the flight, a dark shape loomed.

Emily held her breath and flipped the light switch on. Nothing happened. She reached up to touch the bare bulb—it was loose in its socket. She tightened it, and a white glare flooded the stairway.

At the bottom of the stairs lay Agnes Beech, legs doubled up and arms flung out to her sides, her head twisted in a way no living head could be. As Emily stared aghast, a fat fly alighted on one sightless eye.

 

fourteen

“A man does not recover from such a devotion of the heart to such a woman!—He ought not—he does not.”

—Captain Wentworth to Anne Elliot,
Persuasion

Emily had read enough detective stories to know one must never disturb a possible crime scene. But even if she hadn't, nothing would have induced her to go down those stairs and take a closer look at Agnes's body. She rushed to the powder room, grateful she hadn't taken time for breakfast, then staggered to the library to call Luke.

In five minutes he was at the door, and in five minutes and ten seconds she was in his arms, incoherent and weeping. She managed to convey that Agnes was in the cellar. Luke helped her to a sofa in the library and poured her a glass of sherry, then grabbed a blanket off a chair and tucked it around her shivering shoulders.

He knelt before her, a hand on her knee. “Can you tell me what happened, Em?”

She gripped her glass and tried to breathe deeply. “I came home and she was nowhere. I looked all over. Came back to the kitchen. The cellar door was ajar. I turned on the light, but nothing. I screwed the bulb in, and that's when—I saw her.” She forced the gag reflex down.

“Did you notice anything else? Any sign of anyone being there?”

The picture rose vividly in her mind. “One of the steps was broken.”

“Good girl.” He stood, keeping a hand on her shoulder. “Is there another way into the cellar?”

She scoured her childhood memories. Sneaking in for apples—so much more fun than asking, although the housekeeper would have given them all they wanted. “There's an outside door. Around the back.”

Luke left the room, and she heard him speak in a low voice to his officers at the front door. Then he was back, kneeling before her. “I'm gonna have to leave you now and check it out. You be okay?”

She nodded, though she was by no means sure she would; but she couldn't keep him from his work.

She heard noises from the cellar—muted voices, thumps, taps. Then a new voice at the front door—Dr. Sam Griffiths. The officer on duty sent her around to the back. She must be standing in for the medical examiner. But surely Dr. Griffiths ought to be a suspect? What if she declared it was an accident?

Long minutes passed. More people arrived. From the library window Emily could see them tromping through the steady rain back to the outside door: a man sheltering a large camera, a woman lugging a heavy case full of God knows what. The crime scene team, no doubt. And a little later, a couple of paramedics with a gurney.

She waited for what seemed forever. She poured another sherry, lay down on the sofa and tried to rest, got up and paced awhile, then collapsed by the window again. The macabre procession repeated itself in reverse: the paramedics wheeling a gurney that bore a body bag, the crime scene people, the doctor, the uniformed deputy from the back door. And finally, Luke himself.

He came in through the French window off the terrace, sat beside her on the sofa, and took her hands. “Looks like it was planned,” he said.

She nodded. The loose bulb had told her that.

“That broken stair—it'd been half broken and stuck back together. The nails barely held it in place. One step on that'd send anybody straight to the bottom.”

“What killed her exactly?”

“Broken neck. Would've been quick, at least—she didn't lie there and suffer.”

“Doctor Griffiths didn't say it was an accident? I don't trust her, Luke. She was so shifty when I talked to her about Beatrice. I wish you'd had some other doctor on this.”

“Doc said it looked like an accident, but she just meant it happened in the fall. Not for her to say if the fall was planned or not. I say it was.”

“You didn't—let her near the evidence?”

He dropped her hands and sat back away from her. “Course not. What do you take me for? I don't get a lot of murders on my beat, but that doesn't mean I don't know my job when I do.”

Oh great, now she'd offended him. Her book-learning versus his street smarts had always been a sore point between them. “I'm sorry, Luke, I didn't mean that. Of course you know your job. I'm so keyed up, I don't know what I'm saying.” She let her guard down, and the shivers returned.

Luke wrapped the blanket tighter around her. “Don't mind me. Sorry I snapped at you.”

She snuggled into his arm. “I knew last night something was wrong. I just felt it. I should have come back then.”

“Em, she's been dead at least twenty hours, maybe twenty-four. You would've been too late. This is not your fault. There was absolutely nothing you could've done to prevent it.”

She digested this. Maybe she couldn't have prevented it by being there, but … “This is connected to Beatrice, isn't it?”

“I can't say for sure just yet, but my gut tells me yeah.”

“We were talking about Beatrice's death the other day. Agnes and I. The day before I left for Portland. But then I saw somebody in the garden and cut her off.” She looked at Luke with horror. “What if that was the killer? What if he heard something that made him think she was onto him? Though I don't know what it could have been. Nothing she said clued me in.”

“That's possible, but it still doesn't make it your fault. And sorry as I am Agnes was killed, it does give us something to go on for both her and Beatrice.” He paused and looked sideways at Emily. “I'm gonna ask for an exhumation and autopsy on Beatrice. You okay with that?”

She shuddered. “I hate the thought of it, but I guess it's the only way.”

He nodded. “We'll get him now, Em. We'll get him before he can do any more harm.”

*   *   *

The rain had abated, and as the others were leaving, Billy Beech arrived. Luke met him at the back door and brought him into the library. When he saw Emily, he removed his ancient cloth hat and held it in both hands.

“What is the difficulty, sheriff? The driveway was so full of vehicles, I could barely get through.”

“I have bad news for you, Billy. I'm afraid Agnes is dead.”

Billy's face went as white as his hair. “Agnes? Dead?” He passed a hand over his face. “What was it, a heart attack?”

“She fell down the cellar stairs and broke her neck. Looks like she was meant to.”

Billy stared, his lip quivering. “
Meant
to? What villain would want to harm our Agnes?”

“That's what we have to find out. I need to ask you some questions, if you're up to it.” Luke pulled a chair from the library table and waved Billy into it. “When did you last see Agnes?”

Billy swallowed. Emily poured him a glass of water from the carafe on the sideboard, and he gulped it. “Wednesday. It must have been Wednesday. I bade her farewell when I left, as usual. Around five.”

“Did you go into the cellar for anything?”

“No indeed, I had no occasion to that day. I did, however, remove the padlock from the cellar door in preparation for a visit from the washing machine repairman on Thursday.” He shot an apologetic grimace at Emily. “Although my skills are numerous, I fear the mysteries of modern washing machines fall outside my purview.”

“Washing machine repairman?” Luke's voice was sharp. “You mean Trimble?”

“Our honorable mayor himself. Is it not admirable that even in the glory of his high office, he still performs such humble work to earn his bread? A true man of the people.”

Luke snorted as he scribbled in his notebook. “But you weren't here when he came.”

“Alas no, Thursday is my day to tend to our local park.”

“Did you expect him to lock the outside door when he left?”

“No indeed, for the padlock was safely stowed in my toolshed. I planned to lock it myself this morning.”

Luke frowned at him. “Isn't that kind of risky, leaving it open overnight?”

Billy's eyebrows shot up. “The cellar contains little of value. Agnes always locks—” He held his hat to his heart, eyes to heaven. “I mean to say, she always
locked
the door to the kitchen stairs.”

Luke drummed his fingers. “What time did you take off the padlock?”

“Just before my departure at five o'clock. I saw Mr. Brock Runcible off the premises first, then removed the padlock and stowed it in the toolshed, which I locked. After that, I said good-bye to Agnes and made my way home.”

“You actually saw Brock drive away?”

He nodded emphatically, his chins quivering.

“All right. I think that's all for now, Billy. You'll be around the rest of the day?”

“I shall.” He stood and turned to Emily. “My apologies for my late arrival, madam. The rain made it impossible to work in the garden, so I waited until it cleared.” Billy made his improbable squished-marshmallow bow and exited through the French doors.

Luke hunched over his notes, tapping his pen against the table. “So far that's three people who had easy access to the cellar.”

“Three?” Emily asked. Her mind wasn't working clearly yet.

Luke ticked off on his fingers. “Billy himself, if he's holding something back. Trimble, obviously. And Brock could easily have stopped by the road, waited till he saw Billy leave, and come back. So three—or, if you want to look at it that way, three thousand. Anybody could've walked in, though they wouldn't likely have known it'd be open.”

“Anybody including Dr. Griffiths. I'd be willing to bet she knows how to swing a hammer.”

Luke huffed. “Why do you keep harping on Sam? She's a doctor, for pity's sake. It's her business to save lives, not take them.”

“I know, but she wanted that clinic awfully badly, and she was so evasive about Beatrice's death. She must have known Agnes was suspicious—maybe she thought Agnes had some kind of proof.”

“Well, I won't rule her out. But the other three are a lot more likely.”

“I think we can eliminate Billy, don't you? He'd have no reason to hurt Agnes. Or Beatrice, for that matter.”

Luke chewed his bottom lip. “There's more to Billy than you might think. You know he had a brother?”

“Bobby. Best husband in the world, if Billy does say so himself.”

“That's a matter of opinion. Bobby worked here before Billy. Beatrice fired him for pilfering. Agnes sided with Beatrice, and a week later Bobby hanged himself in the garage.”

Emily stared. Such drama, right here in sleepy Stony Beach. “How long ago was that?”

“Three, four years.”

“Even if Billy were the vengeful type—which he doesn't seem to be—why would he wait so long to take his revenge?”

Luke shrugged. “Could be Agnes or Beatrice said or did something, brought it all up fresh. And, of course, he'll get Agnes's money now, assuming she hadn't made a will; she didn't have any other family. That could be a motive for both murders: kill Beatrice so the ten grand goes to Agnes. Wait the hundred and twenty hours for survivorship, then kill Agnes and get the ten grand.”

“But there again, why wait till now?”

“Maybe he's just now run into money problems. I can check that out.”

Emily couldn't cast Billy in the role of murderer no matter how she tried. “Even so—Billy? If he needed ten thousand that badly, Beatrice probably would have lent it to him.”

“You never know. What if it was a gambling debt? She wouldn't lend money for anything she didn't approve of.”

“True. I guess you have to check it out. But my money's on either Trimble or Brock.” Emily hesitated, trying to be fair to two of the people in Stony Beach she most disliked. “I guess the mayor's probably handy with a hammer if he's a repairman. Somehow I can't see Brock doing anything as practical as rigging a broken stair.”

“Well, we'll know in a week or two. Couldn't get any fingerprints, but we did pull a hair out of that tread. Sent it off to the lab for DNA. I'll get samples from all the suspects too. But I want to solve this thing faster than that. God knows what he might try next. And if I don't get an arrest quick, they'll call in somebody senior, state police even. I want to nail this bastard myself.”

“It takes a week or two to get DNA results?”

“Around here, with our budget, yeah. I know on TV they get 'em right away, but that's TV. DNA's useful for conviction, but as far as an arrest, we're on our own.”

He sighed and pushed himself to his feet. “Better get going and interview those two. We still on for Saturday night?”

“Absolutely. But couldn't I come with you? I'm starting to get into this whole sleuthing thing.”

Luke frowned, hands on hips. She swallowed. That position of his took her back thirty-five years.