Blackthorn Winter (19 page)

I added the picture of the pirate ship that Edmund had drawn for Dad, and the letter in code from Ivy, and asked Mom if she had anything she wanted to send to Dad.

She looked up from her sketch, distracted. "What? Oh—no, nothing, honey."

P.P.S.,
I wrote.
Mom sends all her love.
I sealed the envelope.

The day stretched out minute by minute. I couldn't settle at anything. I couldn't stand sitting at home with Mom and the stain until school was over and I could talk things over with Duncan, and I certainly couldn't count on writing letters or working algebra problems to divert me from my thoughts. When I tried again with algebra, the numbers swam in front of my eyes. They made as much sense as Liza's death. Which was
no
sense.

Mom decided to walk over to Blackthorn First School to meet the Goops and I shrugged into my coat and started out with her, watching carefully as she locked the door behind us. We crossed the garden and let ourselves out into the road through the red door in the stone wall. There we parted—Mom to the school and I in the other direction, toward the village center. My feet carried me along swiftly through the darkening afternoon, as if I had a plan of action, as if I knew where I was headed. But beyond stopping at the post office to mail (
post
) my letter to Dad, I didn't
have a plan. Maybe I would just wander along Castle Street and look in the shop windows. Maybe stop in at the newsagent's and buy a magazine and some chocolate. Maybe see if the tiny library was open. Maybe just head down to the beach to hurl stones in the water until dark ... Anything to help with this feeling of frustration. Maybe a good dose of those negative ions would banish my bad mood.

I walked down to the beach. It was empty, and the tide was coming in. Gray waves lapped the shore, each new one eating away more of the land. I climbed over the seawall and jumped down onto the sand, then picked my way carefully across the wet, slippery stones until I stood at the water's edge.

Pushing away my usual initial dizziness and concentrating on good form, I heaved beach stones out into the water. It was good to feel my muscles strain, pleasing to have a stone fly really far, satisfying to make a big splash. I reached down for another stone, and another—then stopped, staring at the rock in my hand. It was nearly perfectly round, the size of a baseball. It had thin lines of white quartz running through it, and looked so much like Nora's stone up in the sunroom that it could almost be its twin.

Nora's
missing
beach stone.

With a sudden shock of realization I knew what the murder weapon could have been. The murderer—Simon Jukes or someone else—could have come into our cottage with Liza Pethering and used Nora's beach stone as a weapon, bashing Liza on the head and knocking her out. Okay, then it wouldn't really have been a
murder
weapon, perhaps—not exactly—but using it the murderer could
have knocked Liza unconscious and taken her to the stream to drown. I shivered, staring down at the stone in my hand. It wasn't the same one, I could see that, but it was very similar. I dropped it and stepped back.

After a few steps, I couldn't make out which stone I'd been holding; they all looked so alike.
And that's just what the murderer might have done,
I realized. Where better to hide the weapon than on the beach it had come from? One rock among millions—no wonder the police couldn't find it!

But wait—something didn't fit with that theory. It would be bloodstained. A police dog, trained to search, might sniff it out on the beach. So the murderer would have had to throw it into the sea.

No, that didn't make sense—would the murderer, hauling Liza, really have taken her all the way to the Shreen and then walked all the way back across town to the beach? There must be a quicker way to dispose of the weapon....

If my life were a cartoon, a lightbulb would have flashed above my head as I suddenly realized the perfect place to hide the beach stone. I turned and ran to the seawall steps, then made my way as quickly as I could back across the village.

At last I found myself on the footbridge over the Shreen. I stood on the wooden bridge and leaned over the railing, staring down at the water where Liza had been found. The stream was less swollen today, moving more slowly. The blackthorn bushes along the sides of the water were white and fragrant. There was a scattering of blossoms floating on the surface, and—
yes
—a flash of white below. I had seen that flash of white before but not realized its possible importance. Was I right? Was it just the reflection of the blackthorn flowers? Or a tangle of white rope under the water? Or—? The closer I looked, the more I was sure I could see the white, spider-webby lines....

I darted off the bridge, down to the bank of the Shreen. I shrugged out of my jacket and rolled my right sleeve up as high as it would go. Then I knelt on the ground and stretched my arm out, down, down into that cold, dark water. But what I wanted stayed just out of reach.

I sat back, shivering from the chill, and scanned the stream bank. There I saw a long stick that would probably work as a fishing pole. Grabbing the stick, I poked it out and down—stirring up the muddy stream bottom, trying to nudge the white object along. But the stick slipped off the slick rocks. Useless.

I looked furtively to my left and to my right. No one was in sight, thank goodness, and I was determined. I kicked off my shoes, peeled off my socks, and rolled up the legs of my jeans as far as I could. The water was nearly knee-deep and freezing, and I gasped as I waded into it. I strode into the center and leaned down, thrusting my arm into the water almost to my shoulder.

There!
My hand closed over the smooth form at last. I needed two hands to pull it up from the sucking mud that held it. I splashed to the bank and laid down my prize: a cold, round beach stone, big as a baseball.

I rubbed off slimy mud with my wet palm and hovered over the rock, certain yet uncertain at the same time. This had to be Nora's special beach stone. I recognized the thick white veins stretching across its surface like a web. I hefted the rock high in triumph—but only for a moment. Then triumph faded fast and I nearly dropped it right back into the Shreen as the thought stabbed me that whoever had
held it last—before me—must be the same someone who had used it to bash Liza Pethering on the head.

What should I do with it now?

I heard voices approaching along the path by the water and hurriedly tucked the rock under my jacket. I remembered reading in mystery novels that the murderer often is compelled to return to the scene of the crime. Holding my breath, I scanned the nearby bushes for a hiding place. But too late. Two figures appeared around the bend in the path and shouted my name.

Laughing in relief, I waved at Duncan and Kate. They were walking home from the bus stop, wearing their school uniforms and carrying bulging backpacks. "Hullo there," Kate greeted me shyly. Then her eyes widened. "Juliana—you're soaking wet!"

And Duncan asked, "Are you out fishing? Or
swimming?
"

"Sort of both," I said weakly. Well, wading, anyway. And fishing for clues. But I didn't say that. I just brought the rock out from under my jacket. "Look what I've got here." Quickly I told them where I had last seen the rock, and what I thought Liza's killer had done.

"You mean Simon Jukes," clarified Kate.

It was on the tip of my tongue to assert that I could envision the rock in the hands of Oliver Pethering or Celia Glendenning even more readily than in the hands of Simon Jukes. But Duncan's eyes met mine. Imperceptibly he shook his head.

I could picture Oliver Pethering telling Liza he wanted a divorce. I could picture how Liza would have protested—and how Oliver would have picked up this beach rock from the ledge and smashed her on the head to shut her up. Or
maybe it was Celia herself who was with Liza that night, and Liza told Celia to keep her paws off Oliver, and then
Celia
picked up the rock and knocked Liza out cold.

Of course, the one flaw with my vision was that Liza hadn't seemed to care much for her husband. Would she even object if Celia Glendenning wanted him? Again, this wasn't something I could discuss with Duncan until he and I were alone. And why would any of them have been in
our
cottage for this confrontation?

They were both staring at me. "Wow," said Kate. "So that's ... the murder weapon?"

"Well, technically she died by drowning," I said.

"Technically that's evidence." Duncan shook his head. "Let's take it to the police."

I put on my socks and shoes, rolled down my pant legs, and we headed off together for the police station at the far end of the village.

"Now, you say you fished this out of the Shreen, right where Mrs. Pethering was found lying on the stream bank?" Detective Inspector Link looked dubiously at the rock.

"Yes, I did," I told her firmly.

"How did you know what to look for?" another officer asked. This was a man I had not seen before, with a long walrus sort of mustache. We were all standing in the reception area of the police station—yet another old gray stone building, but with a modern addition at one side. Behind a glass partition, an officer was typing something on a computer. It was otherwise quiet. I wondered if Simon Jukes were somewhere in this building, locked in a cell.

I focused on telling my story coherently. "When we moved in, there was a big rock in the sunroom on the window ledge. But then it was missing," I began. "No one in my family knew where it was—and yet I had seen it on the window ledge the day we moved in."

"When did you first notice it was missing?"

"Just yesterday," I admitted. "When I was up in the sunroom with my mom. I moved some boxes and then noticed the stain on the floor. I noticed the rock was missing right before we found the stain and phoned you. I didn't think about it again until today when I was at the
beach. I saw all those beach stones, and one of them looked like this one—and it made me realize suddenly that somebody could have used the stone that was missing as a weapon."

I explained how I'd wondered whether a murderer would bother carrying the rock all the way to the beach to discard it, and how I'd remembered that the day after Liza died, Duncan and I had crossed the bridge over the Shreen and looked down at the place where she'd lain. And I remembered I'd seen a flash of white in the water then.

"So I went to the Shreen and started fishing around," I concluded. Detective Inspector Link looked at the other officer and suppressed a smile. What was so funny? Didn't they believe me? "Look," I said. "I know it's the same rock—well, I'm pretty sure—because of these wide white lines. In any case, it's a beach rock, right? I mean, it wouldn't normally be lying in a freshwater stream, right? I mean, it couldn't
naturally
be lying there."

"That is correct, young lady," said the walrus. "But a beach stone
could
be carried up from the beach by anybody, and then dropped into the stream. Which would not be a crime."

"But this is the beach stone from our cottage. I'm sure of it."

"So you say. And in fact, you could have carried it to the Shreen and dropped it in yourself."

"Are you suggesting that Juliana
planted
the rock?" Kate's voice rose shrilly. "She wouldn't do that!"

"Teenagers have been known to lark around." The detective held a quick consultation with the other officer. "But we'll keep the rock," she told us after a moment. "See if it matches the injuries to Mrs. Pethering's head."

"But—she's—I mean, we've already had her funeral," I said, confused.

Detective Inspector Link ran a hand through her short gray curls. "We have photographs to help us there."

I bit my lip, hating the thought of what those photos would look like.

"Can you dust the rock for fingerprints?" Duncan was asking.

"Prints won't stick to a wet surface," the walrus replied. "And I sincerely hope you kids aren't just playing a trick. This is a murder investigation. We don't have time for amateur sleuths, and we have no patience whatsoever with games."

"This is no game," I muttered indignantly. "I'm just trying to help! Why do you think I'd be playing some kind of game?"

"People do strange things, luv. Like to play sleuth, do little pranks. Tricks."

"Well, I'm not playing any sort of
trick!
I'm not trying to be some sort of
sleuth!
I just hate the idea of somebody coming into our house and knocking my mom's friend unconscious."

"Simon Jukes has a violent streak. It's not nice to think about, but it's true," said Detective Inspector Link.

"You leave the investigations to us," said the walrus.

"The situation is very strange," the detective added more gently, "and we just don't want any false clues entering our investigation. The waters are muddied enough, if you'll excuse the pun. But thank you for bringing us the rock. We do appreciate your help. Now ... haven't you better be heading home? We'll be ... er ... getting back to you."

"Eventually," said the walrus.

I glared at them both. I doubted they were ever going to look into any other possibility besides Simon Jukes. It was so frustrating, because there were any number of people who could have gone to our cottage the night of the party. But which person would have attacked Liza in the sunroom, and then carried her to the Shreen? And why? That was the biggest question: Why? If I could figure out
why,
then I'd know
who.

Who else could have a key to our cottage? I wondered about this as Kate, Duncan, and I walked along Castle Street. Quent would have a key because he was our landlord. Duncan probably had a key, too—which meant his grandparents could have gotten hold of it. Liza herself had had a key, of course, since she'd been the one to show us around the day we arrived. She gave back the key—but could have kept a copy. Oliver could easily have had a copy, too.

And he might just as easily have given a copy to Celia Glendenning.