Deadly Thyme (9 page)

11

Wednesday
, 10:03 a.m.

Both the library computers were in use.

Charles grabbed the particular book he had stashed out of sequence off the shelf and clumped to a corner where no one would be in his way. He needed to think without any interruption.

He pulled at his collar. The heating needed to be turned off or some windows opened. The room smelt of musty books and old people. They were all for destroying the creaking place and building a new facility. He’d fought it at the last couple of council meetings. He made sure they had his opinion. The facility had served well enough the last three hundred and fifty years. Why go for change for change’s sake?

He sat alone at a table, his head in the history book he had used before. It included some mention of herbs in history. Not that he needed to go over that. He had it memorized. He was good at memorization. He had been an excellent student.

Ah, school memories.

His friend Morley had once sent him a magazine at boarding school, one that his mother wouldn
’t have allowed if she had known. He was enjoying it immensely in the privacy of his room when Headmaster discovered him and grabbed the mag away. Charles had kicked him.

“Your m
other will be displeased, Charlie,” the headmaster yelled. “I shall telephone immediately.”

Charles
’s mother hated him enough; she didn’t need more reason. He spat on the headmaster’s back. The headmaster turned, his ugly features stretched so he looked like a gargoyle. Charles ran. The headmaster chased him—up the stairs, all the way to the roof of the old building and across a short flat area to the parapet where the headmaster caught him by the arm and tried to drag him back. But he turned and maneuvered into position behind the old man—one shove. He then “discovered” the body. They ruled the death suicide.

The smallness of the library corner where Charles sat made him feel cramped. The buzz of conversation grated across his thoughts.

An older gentleman spoke to an equally older woman, “You’ve read them all, have you?”

The answer was a drawn
-out, “Yes.”

The old man again, “
’Bout time to get some new books ’ere then.”

For
Charles, the problem was that old people couldn’t hear. Charles almost screamed at the old buzzard, “’Bout time someone told smelly old people to keep quiet!”

The constant clicking of the mouse from the computer nearest him set his teeth on edge. He wished he could fling the book across the room or perhaps down the stairs to hit someone
’s head.

Just for a change of pace.

He smirked. He had a plan. He took a quick glance around before he took up a looming position over a timid-looking oldster sitting at a computer. He rocked back and forth, settling for a bit of a wait.

The thing was
, he would need to keep his eyes open for a chance to let the American woman know he had her daughter—get her to let her guard down enough that he could grab her, too.

The timid oldster squirmed in her chair.
Charles didn’t move or make a noise. With a huffing sound, she turned and glared up at him. “What?” she challenged.

“I
’m waiting,” he muttered.

S
he stood and glared eye to eye. He didn’t give an inch.

With a final harrumph, she clomped away in her completely practical shoes.

Satisfied that she wasn’t coming back, he sat and logged on.

Ruth backed away from the window when she saw Trewe
’s old, black Renault at the curb. She didn’t know how she felt about his arrival. Was he bringing news? Every part of her body felt as if she’d received a beating. It was Wednesday and nothing had been found of Annie. She couldn’t live like this. She would rather die than not know what happened.

Trewe started up the walk. Another car pulled up. Woman Police Constable Allison Craig exited her car. The WPC
’s hair stuck out in wispy curls and there was a pencil behind her ear. Trewe had mentioned that he wouldn’t allow questions without the constable present.

She sucked in a deep breath and opened the door.

“Mrs. Butler, you remember WPC Craig?” Trewe stood on Ruth’s porch and kept his coat on while the constable shook out her coat and came to stand next to him.

“Yes. Hi, Allison. Come in. Can I offer you something to drink?” Ruth went to her drinks cabinet.

Allison shook her head and retrieved a notebook from a pocket of her coat.

“Nothing for me,
” Trewe said.

Ruth started to fix herself a drink
then decided against it, opting to eat something first—and changed her mind again in quick succession. She poured herself two fingers whiskey, neat.

Trewe didn
’t sit. “I still have a few questions about the morning Annie disappear—”

Ruth cut him short. “Maybe you would rather have tea?”

Trewe hardly paused. “Constable Craig could you make us tea?”

Ruth set her untouched drink down. “Please sit. I don
’t like it when people stand in my house.”

Constable Craig exited into the kitchen. Trewe sat. “Of all the people you come in contact with on a daily or weekly basis, did it strike you that day or later that someone you know wasn
’t around on Sunday? Everyone in the village was out and about looking for Annie at some point. Does anything odd come to mind?”

Ruth picked up her drink and sat across from him. “Someone I know who wasn
’t around?”

“Yes. Someone you expected would have shown up to help out
, or someone you wouldn’t have expected in a million years that showed up and was solicitous?”

“Sergeant Perstow
’s wife. She was being too nice. She’s never been the sort of person to go out of her way to be so nice to me. It did seem odd.”

“Why is that?”

“Why these questions? It doesn’t make any difference; she certainly wasn’t the one calling me from Annie’s mobile. That was a man.”

“Is there anyone in the village you
’ve had any disagreements with?”

Ruth sat back into the cushions. “No one has ever been outright rude. Indifferent, stand-offish maybe, but most have made me feel welcome.”

Trewe didn’t say anything.

The silence prompted more words from Ruth. “If ever I need to know local news, I ask the postmistress. She makes it a point to let me know anybody else
’s business, so I wouldn’t put it past her to know mine, too. I guess I don’t like her much.”

“You could form a club, from what I hear. But Sunday morning she was at the church, arranging flowers
. Several people saw her. What about someone missing, someone you thought should be there and wasn’t?”

“Sam Ketterman didn
’t come till around two on Sunday.”

“How long have you been acquainted with Sam Ketterman?” Trewe asked.

Nothing like being direct,
Ruth thought. She stared down at the amber liquid in her glass. It was early for a drink, wasn’t it? “A while.” She took too big a swallow. The whiskey burned its way down her throat. She held her breath, willing herself not to choke
.

“The nature of your relationship?”

“Does that have anything to do with Annie?”

Trewe leaned forward. “I like to understand all of the people involved in an investigation, Mrs. Butler
. I don’t mean to offend.”

“The first time I met him was when he asked me if he could get into my garden. He was after thyme. I remember thinking it was a novel pick-up line. I invited him into the garden and we began to talk. That was the beginning. We saw each other
—for a short while. I don’t know why he calls himself my solicitor.” She tugged at a loose thread on her sweater. “There’s nothing between us. I broke it off with him. I don’t think he gets it, though. He has been almost what I would call harassing me since Sunday.”

Trewe stepped to the window, turning his back to her, and said, “I read from another report
that you moved here from London. You stopped in London, coming from Texas? Then why here, Mrs. Butler? Doesn’t seem the kind of place to attract a lone woman and her child.” He turned to her.

Ruth was uncomfortable. On an empty stomach, the alcohol hit hard. His words shot at her much too fast. Probably his intent. She wouldn
’t put it past him. She set her glass down too hard on the coffee table. Liquid splashed. Those frightful, white-gray eyes. She hesitated, measured her words. “I followed a friend to London. Found a good job, working for a newspaper … on its redesign. It was a small newspaper, one of the boroughs—Merton. I had a little to live on.” He didn’t need to know that her parents took out a personal loan so she could get away—that her father had to work an extra job to pay the loan back, because any money she sent him could be traced back to her—how her father died before she could even thank him. Her stomach roiled. “Annie and I came to Cornwall for a holiday. Annie loves the beach.”

She rubbed her face. “I
’d read Thomas Hardy’s
A Pair of Blue Eyes
and had notions of becoming a writer living the romance. I read everything by Rosamunde Pilcher and Dauphne du Maurier and decided that the West Country was my stopping place. I’m a horrible writer. I do artwork for hire. I felt some sort of homing pull when I came to Cornwall, though. Sometimes sitting at the top of the cliff watching the way the sun set beyond the sea—the cottages planted against the valley slopes, the wildness of the sea during a storm—I think it’s like something made up, and … such a contrast from the forest of buildings and the diesel fumes of London. But that isn’t what you want to know is it?”

“I think you answered the question.” He sat again. “So you do artwork for a living?”

“Technical stuff and advertising art, the occasional illustration job.” She pointed at the mock-ups for the illustrated dictionary of herbs she had been working on that were pinned across one wall. “I have a crafting website that pulls in money from advertisements.”

Trewe watched her for a moment before saying, “I apologize for asking
, but tell me more about your ex-husband.”

“I lied about his death to my daughter so she would never go looking for him. The hiding, the lies, the cross-world move
—it was a justified deception. Stealing Annie was a necessary evil.”

“I do understand, Mrs. Butler. I have family.”

Ruth wondered if Trewe could picture her in a previous world—an existence more foreign than miles made. “Everything was so different.”

Constable Craig entered with tea and biscuits on a tray. “You sounded very Texan just then, Mrs. Butler.”

“Call me Ruth. That part is my real name. I’ve been hiding so long, it’s hard to remember what normal could look like.” Ruth didn’t take the offered cup of tea or cookies, but took a slice of dry toast. “The police might still be looking for us. I’m sure we’ve been on milk cartons and the post office walls in my home state.”

“You are a
‘wanted’ woman, but not in a serious way. I wondered if that response was how things were done in Texas. It called for more questions. That’s really why we’re here.”

“I would describe the police in Texas as being a lot more aggressive.” She remembered how they had handcuffed her arms behind her, cuffed her feet,
and tossed her in the police car like a sack of rice. It happened after she had run away from Bubba. But those had been officers who were Bubba’s friends. “They would still be the same cold arm of the law, unless …”

“Unless what?”

“Unless Bubba called off the search.” A cold chill crept up from her feet.

WPC Allison Craig put her cup down with a clatter. “And the only reason he would do that?”

“Because he had found us and wanted to exact his own revenge.”

Trewe sat forward in the seat. “We are trying, Mrs. Butler. But you understand that even if it isn
’t Mr. Brock who has done this, Mr. Brock is now aware you are in England, as his picture has been put in the paper. I tried to keep it somewhat quiet, but when it concerns a child, these things take on a life of their own.”