Murder at Blackwater Manor (10 page)

“There are some more details that I learned at the station yesterday,” Ben added after a while. The way he said it, it looked like he was debating whether to share this.

“Like what?” Sage asked.

“Well, I guess three heads are better than one,” Ben said as if making an excuse in front of himself, “So, here it goes. I got the results back from the fingerprint tests on the silver vase and there were a couple around its neck, belonging to the maid.”

“But she could have cleaned it earlier,” Sage said, “It doesn’t necessarily mean she used it as a weapon.”

“That’s what I thought, too,” Ben sighed, “Also, I’d sent out the ash we found at the foot of the desk to the lab and it turned out it wasn’t cigarette ash at all. It was paper. Either Philip Blackwater had burned something he didn’t want others to see or his killer did.”

The two sisters were staring at him, their eyes huge with surprise.

“I also got the results back on the cigarette end we found under the chair,” Ben continued, “and it belonged to James Blackwater. As for the red piece of fabric, no luck there. We couldn’t get anything useful out of it. I need to go through everyone’s closet and look for the piece of clothing it was torn from to figure out whose it was.”

“This is all fascinating!” Sage exclaimed, but seeing her sister’s reproachful look, she toned down her enthusiasm a bit. “I mean, I think we should be writing all this down and making a timetable with everyone’s whereabouts at eleven o’clock, linking them to all the information we have so far.”

“Wait,” Ben said, “There’s more. After I performed a thorough search of the crime scene, I discovered that there was a will in one of the drawers that was dated and signed on the day of the murder. In the event of his death, this will left almost everything that Mr. Blackwater owned to his brother James. I also found a pen in Philip’s lap, so I assumed he’d just been using it. When I sent it to the lab and they compared the ink of the signature on the will with that of the pen, they found a perfect match.”

“Finally, among the ashes there was a piece of burned paper that had somehow remained whole. The writing on it was mostly illegible, but I could discern the words ‘I’m leaving’ so it must have been the previous version of the will, the one that should have left everything to his wife. ”

The two sisters gasped.

“So, it must have been him then!” Prim said, “James Blackwater is the murderer.”

“Or he had an accomplice. A murder that went unnoticed in a house full of guests must have required a lot of scheming and perfect execution.”

Sage was the only one not saying a thing. She suddenly got up from her seat and left the room. She returned in a moment, holding her notebook and a pencil.

“What’s going on, Sage?” Prim asked concerned.

“Something just doesn’t sound right here,” Sage said and started scribbling in her notebook. Ben and Prim looked at each other and Prim shrugged. She knew the best strategy was to just let Sage finish what she’d set out to do.

“That’s what I thought,” Sage said after a while, “Look here. Isn’t it at all possible that…”

She started from the very beginning, even before the murder and weaved a story that not only connected all the clues they had gathered so far, but undoubtedly pointed to one person, who’d had both the motive and the means to commit the horrific crime under everyone’s noses.

Primrose and Ben listened engrossed and only nodded from time to time to indicate that Sage’s story did make perfect sense.

“I’m going to call everyone down at the station right now. I don’t care how early it is. I don’t want to give this criminal even a second of undeserved freedom,” Ben declared. “You two are coming as well. It will look better if everyone who was present that night was there to testify once again and confirm Sage’s theory.”

“Maybe we should stop by at the estate first,” Prim suggested.

“I’ll head straight to the station and wait for everyone and you two can go get Mrs. Blackwater and her maid and use the opportunity to take a look at the same time. Just don’t forget to take pictures if you really find what we think is there.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Sage said, thrilled, “Just give me a moment to get dressed.”

“Perfect,” Ben said, “I’ll start making the calls.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Lukewarm Tea and a Murderer

The sheriff’s station was almost deserted at the early hour. The deputy sheriff was still quietly snoring in the back office, while the night shift receptionist was drinking yet another bland coffee and rubbing her eyes to stay awake until her replacement showed up.

When Sage and Prim walked in, accompanied by Mrs. Blackwater and Cecile, the receptionist jerked up and straightened her thick-framed glasses.

“Can I help you?” she said, squinting at them and trying to place their faces. “Oh, Mrs. Greene! The sheriff is here if you are looking for him. He is in the interrogation room, said no one should disturb him.”

“It’s okay Tammy,” Prim said calmly, “He is expecting us. And please, send everyone who comes in straight to us.”

“Sure,” Tammy said, “Would anyone like some coffee?”

Prim didn’t have good memories from the coffee they offered at the station. Sometimes she brought thermos flasks with homemade coffee and a box of white chocolate and blueberry scones to treat her husband’s staff. She regretted not bringing anything today.

“Tea would be fine, Tammy. Thanks,” Prim said and everyone else followed her example dodging the coffee offer and going for tea instead.

They went in the interrogation room, which was not the coziest place in Rosecliff, but at least it was warm. This early in the morning, Mrs. Blackwater was even wearing gloves. It was that cold.

There was a large rectangular table in the middle of the room and half a dozen uncomfortable-looking basic office chairs. There was another smaller table by the wall with an old TV and a DVD set. Besides these objects, nothing else offered a change from the complete sterility of the place.

Ben was sitting in one of the chairs, flipping through a case file and going back and forth between the pages. When the four women came in, he got up respectfully and invited them to sit. Tammy was soon in with a tray of tea for everyone.

“I still don’t understand what we are doing here this early,” Thea Blackwater said indignantly as she inspected her tea. “I thought I told you everything yesterday, Ben. If you haven’t forgotten, I have a funeral to plan.”

“That’s true and I’m sorry for dragging you here again, but I thought you’d want to be around for this. We’ll begin very shortly. We are just waiting for the others to arrive.”

“Others?” Thea asked. Her maid was sitting next to her, quietly gazing at her feet under the table.

“I’ve asked everyone who was there the evening your husband was murdered to come down to the station. It’s best if I run the case by everyone.”

“You mean, you know who did it?” Thea’s eyes grew large. She tried to conceal a sideways glance at Cecile that was full of suspicion, but Sage caught it.

“We are very close to finding out,” Ben said cryptically as he paced impatiently around the room.

In a minute, the door opened again and Tammy led in the Bluebirds and James Blackwater, placing another tray of tea cups on the table.

“Good morning,” Ben greeted the sleepy newcomers who looked weary and confused. “Sorry for dragging you out of bed so early, but this couldn’t wait. If you’d please take a seat. We are ready to start.”

Eyes traveled all over the room as people were trying to figure out what could Ben possibly have on them. Varying degrees of fear and worry were written all over people’s faces as they nervously sipped their tepid teas.

“Okay,” Ben said, looking at Sage and Prim, who nodded in reassurance, “I think we can begin now.”

He switched on the recorder in the middle of the table and recited the usual introduction, stating the date, time and people present.

“Let’s all go back to the night of the murder,” he said after that, “You all had a pleasant dinner and enjoyed Miss Cecile’s culinary masterpieces. My wife and sister-in-law were also present and have confirmed what followed next, as have most of you during our talk yesterday.”

“You all felt quite full,” he went on after he looked carefully at each person present, “so someone, Mr. Bluebird actually, suggested you all go out for a smoke. Since he was the only person in the room, who didn’t smoke besides Sage and Primrose, Philip excused himself and went upstairs to his study, saying he had something to take care of.”

“What it was, only one of you really knows and another one found out accidentally later, which led to the gruesome murder.”

People started shifting uncomfortably in their seats, but no one dared to interrupt Ben for fear of drawing unwanted attention.

“You all came back to the game room at eleven o’clock and everything else happened in the next fifteen minutes. You went out, Thea,” Ben said, turning to Mrs. Blackwater, “and said you were going to the kitchen to check on your maid and make tea for your husband. At about the same time Anabelle went out the front door and into the garden under the pretext that she needed fresh air. Minutes later, Mr. Bluebird got up, worried that his wife had disappeared and went to see if she wasn’t in the kitchen. Mr. James Blackwater was left alone in the game room for some time. Primrose and Sage were freshening up in the downstairs bathroom. Is that what all of you agree happened that night?”

The people around the table nodded feebly, with the exception of Prim and Sage who said a loud ‘Yes’ together.

Ben waited a few moments before resuming his talk. He knew that the tension was high in the room and the longer he managed to draw this out, the higher the chance would be of extracting a confession from the murderer.

“So, Mr. Bluebird,” he said and turned to Alex, who was patting his wife’s hand to comfort her, and flinched at hearing Ben address him. “Did you see anyone when you went into the kitchen just after eleven?”

“No,” he said, his voice trembling, “I mean, of course, Cecile was there…”

“Did you hear anything? Any noises from upstairs?”

“I don’t think so,” Alex Bluebird said, “The water was running, Cecile was doing the dishes.”

“Thank you,” Ben said and turned to the scared-looking Anabelle.

“Mrs. Bluebird, did you really need fresh air just a couple of minutes after you were out on the terrace?”

“No,” she admitted quietly.

“What were you doing outside then?”

“I was meeting someone.” Anabelle’s voice was barely audible now.

“Thank you. Now, could you write your name and address on this piece of paper?” Ben said and handed her writing materials. Anabelle looked confused, but she obeyed and put down the required information.

Ben took the sheet and pulled out a plastic bag from the case file, which contained the small note Sage had found.

“Does everyone agree that this note was written by Anabelle Bluebird?”

Everyone leaned in to take a better look at the note and simultaneously agreed that the handwriting was the same.

“Thank you, Mrs. Bluebird,” Ben said and put the note in the bag in front of Thea Blackwater. “Do you recognize this note, Thea?”

The woman nodded lightly.

“Please, speak up for the record.”

“Yes.”

“Where is this all going?” James Blackwater asked impatiently.

“Just give me a moment, James,” Ben said with a smile and turned to the maid, “Cecile, how many times did you hear the front door open and shut before you heard your mistress screaming upstairs?”

“Twice, I think,” Cecile said.

“Thank you all,” Ben said and stopped walking around the room. He leaned over the wall and said, “Though many of you are not aware, there is a cold-blooded murderer in this room.” He paused waiting for the effect of his words to sink in.

“Mrs. Blackwater,” he said finally, “Did you receive a beautiful rose bouquet from your husband this morning?”

“No,” Thea whispered, then cleared her throat and repeated more loudly, “No.”

“That’s because someone else received it. Someone who had written a note to her lover to meet her in the garden at eleven.”

A few glances were exchanged and realizing what the sheriff was saying, Alex Bluebird drew his hand away from his wife, a painful expression written all over his face.

“Maybe you’d suspected this for a long time, Thea,” Ben continued, “Or maybe you just found out accidentally when you went to see what he was doing upstairs and fetch him for the card game. He’d just been writing a letter to you. At first I thought that small piece of paper I found among the ashes of the burned letter was part of a will, judging by the words ‘I’m leaving’ but it wasn’t. He was about to run away with his mistress who was waiting for him in the garden and was writing to let you know he was leaving
you
.”

A few loud gasps punctuated Ben’s speech.

“You found the note earlier, when Philip probably dropped it at dinner, but didn’t expect it to be that serious. After all, Philip had had affairs for years. You lost control then and murdered your husband in cold blood, using the silver vase and carefully wiping it before throwing it out of the window. You burned the letter with the match sticks you carry around. Then you thought fast and figured out that if you came out of the study, people could see you and would suspect that you killed Philip, so you climbed out the window and down the rose tree that’s right outside.”