Murder at Blackwater Manor (9 page)

“I only do this for my closest friends,” he confessed.

“Oh,” Sage said, a little taken aback. So, that’s what they were? Close friends? She felt stupid and uncomfortable for assuming it was a date. “Are we?” she asked in a while after licking the rich flavor off her fingers, “Close friends, I mean.”

“Well, not yet,” Dan said.

The way the light from the fire danced across his face and reflected off his eyes, Sage wished they were anything but friends right now.

“Not yet?” she said after clearing her throat. It had become difficult to speak all of a sudden.

“I’ve been making you coffee for a few months now and you haven’t told me a single thing about you.”

“I… There isn’t much to say,” she said quietly, staring into the fire. “Do you know things about all of your customers?”

“Pretty much,” Dan said, slipping another mussel into his mouth.

“What do you want to know then?”

“Well, what was so bad that happened to you?”

Sage flinched. The tiny space had suddenly started to feel too intimate. She was feeling hot, despite the cold chills she’d been getting out on the beach just moments ago.

“How do you know anything bad happened to me?”

“It’s a guess,” Dan said with his infuriating half-smile. “No one just gets up and moves to Rosecliff. Unless they are running away from something…”

“How about people who want to visit their sisters?”

“A visit takes a few days, maybe weeks. You’ve been here for months.”

Sage felt as if she was under attack. The space now felt too small, too closed in. She needed to get out. She’d been right to think this whole date, which wasn’t even a date, had been a bad idea.

“I think I need to go now,” she said and rose to her feet, “Thanks for dinner.”

Dan’s hand reached for her and his long fingers locked around her thin wrist. He pulled her back down gently and her leg twisted, so she lost her balance and landed in his lap. As soon as she realized what had just happened, she struggled to get out of his grip. Dan’s strong hands only wrapped her more tightly and he pulled her towards his chest.

Their eyes locked and the fear in Sage’s eyes was almost palpable.

“Let me go.”

He didn’t listen. Instead, he leaned in and kissed her. It took a moment for her to stop struggling and relax into his arms. She gave in to the kiss.

“So, this
was
a date then?” Sage said quietly when their lips finally parted. She was still snuggled against him and her heart thumped against his chest like that of a scared bird.

“What did you think it was?” Dan said and stroked her hair, looking straight into her eyes.

“Just… I don’t know.”

“Sage, you don’t have to tell me anything, okay? Not if you don’t want to.”

“Good, because I really don’t feel like talking now,” Sage said with a smile and reached up for his lips again.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Late Night Musings and New Clues

When she shut the door to Dan’s truck and watched him drive off down Seaview Street, Sage noticed there was only one lit window in the house. It was the kitchen.

She came in quietly, partly because she didn’t want to wake up the sleeping people upstairs and partly because she still felt like a young girl who hadn’t kept her curfew. The pang of misunderstood guilt, however, didn’t dampen the enthusiasm from the past couple of hours. Sage needed to admit to herself that she hadn’t had that much fun in months, maybe years.

“Hey,” she whispered to her sister, who was hunched over her accounting book at the kitchen island. “Why are you still up?”

“Sage! Finally,” Prim said, turning to reveal an almost sleeping face, “You don’t think I could possibly sleep before I heard how your date went, do you?”

Sage wrapped her hands around her sister.

“I know you’d love to hear it, so here it goes. You were right. He is sweet.”

“I knew it! Did you two have a good time?”

“It was perfect,” Sage said dreamily, slumping in another stool. She quickly told Prim how the date went, but left out the details of the kiss. It wasn’t not like they weren’t grown women, but there was something so special about that moment, she wanted to keep it all to herself for now. “Is Ben asleep?” she asked after she was done with her story.

“Yeah. He’s had a really long day.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“Not yet, but he is going to work later than usual tomorrow, so we can talk to him in the morning. I think it’s best if we all get some good sleep.”

“Prim, there’s something I need to show you,” Sage said in a serious tone and pulled out the small note from the front pocket of her hoodie. She quickly shared the thoughts and questions that had run through her head when she’d found it.

“But then,” Prim said after reading the note a second time, “how could have Anabelle and Thea killed Philip if they were secretly meeting in the garden?”

“And above all, why would they kill him? It doesn’t make much sense.”

“Maybe the note is about something else,” Prim mused, “But if it’s not, it could still not be addressed to Thea. She was in the kitchen anyway and nowhere near the garden.”

“True. She could have just found it like I did.”

“There’s another thing,” Prim said, sitting up straighter, “I thought I’d tell you tomorrow, but I might as well do it now.”

“What is it?”

“I realized that the only person we don’t have any background information on was Cecile. Sure, we know her side of the story, but we don’t know much else about her and she was there the whole time. I thought Ben could have been wrong about the watch. It could always have been broken at another time or something… I mean, she could have murdered Philip while we were all out on the terrace before eleven.”

“Only, she has no motive.”

“That’s what I wanted to find out too—whether she’d have any reason to hate her employer so much that she’d consider murder.”

“And? Did you find out anything?”

“I stopped by at the grocery store after I closed up and ran into nurse Sheila there. I didn’t directly ask her, of course, but I knew she was among the few friends Cecile has around here. As you already know, she’s not a local.”

For a moment Sage wondered what constituted a local and whether she’d ever count as one.

“So, did she tell you anything useful?”

“Turns out,” Prim said in a conspiratorial whisper, “she did have a motive to kill. Only, not Philip. Before she moved out here, she used to be pretty well off. She owned her own transportation business and she was quite the ambitious entrepreneur. She had big dreams for her business, but she made a mistake and trusted the wrong man. She was one of the victims of…”

“…James’ scam,” Sage finished her sister’s sentence.

“That’s right. He pulled her in and she ended up losing her business and going bankrupt. I’d understand her if she’s still harboring some resentment after she went from a prosperous business woman to a maid.”

“Yeah, it’s strange that she ended up living in the house of her nemesis’ brother. It still doesn’t tie up though.”

“I know,” Prim agreed. “Why would she wait seven years for her revenge?”

“And why wouldn’t she go straight for her enemy, but murder his brother instead?”

“My head is spinning, Sage,” Prim said and rubbed her temples. “I think we should go to bed now. We can analyze the things we learned today all we want, but I doubt we’ll get anywhere.”

“You’re right. It’s much better to look at all this with fresh minds. Let’s go to bed and tomorrow we’ll try to put everything together and tell Ben what we know. Hopefully, he’ll have his own theory based on his interviews with the suspects today.”

“Let’s hope so,” Prim said, and taking her sister by the hand, she led her upstairs for some much needed rest.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Blueberry Pancakes and Evidence

The sun hadn’t even risen yet when Sage eagerly rubbed her eyes and stumbled into the tiny bathroom next to the guest room she now occupied. She had no idea what time it was, but she simply couldn’t stand to spend another minute in bed, being idle.

She’d had a rough night, hardly getting any sleep from all the thoughts and questions that had kept springing up in her head. She must have fallen asleep at some point, because as soon as she splashed some cold water on her face, she felt fresh and ready for the day. In fact, she was as eager as a kid on Christmas morning, and she couldn’t tell if it was the excitement of last night’s date and the possibility to see Dan again, or the complicated murder case that still had too many open ends.

As she came down the stairs, she was not too surprised to hear noises coming from the kitchen. If getting up before dawn was an accomplishment for her, it was an everyday thing for her sister and brother-in-law. A pleasant smell of freshly brewed coffee tickled her nose and she followed it into the brightly lit kitchen.

Ben was already in his sheriff’s uniform and Prim was fully dressed, fussing between the toaster, the frying pan and her husband. Sage wrapped her robe more tightly around her pajamas. These two had definitely woken up at least an hour before her or else, they had magical powers.

“Good morning,” she greeted them.

“Good morning, Sage,” Ben smiled at her and patted the bar stool next to his. “Just in time for breakfast.”

“I’m glad I didn’t miss you.”

Ben gave her a quizzical look.

Prim deposited a mug of coffee and an empty plate before her sister and mouthed “Not yet” at her. Sage looked at Ben’s plate and seeing that it was still empty as well, she quickly figured what her sister meant. Talking to a hungry man was neither fun nor productive, so as impatient as she felt to open the topic, she settled down and prepared to wait.

Sage decided that if she helped out with setting the table, instead of sitting like a helpless child, it would speed things up, so she got up and started bringing jars of jam and yogurt, spoons, napkins and orange juice. Prim was smiling in approval as she flipped a pancake in the pan. The sisters had started to understand each other with just one look, just like they used to in their childhood.

Soon the kitchen island was covered with a delicious breakfast. Blueberry pancakes, buttered toast, scrambled eggs and sausages and generous portions of fruit salad were all displayed as if for a professional photograph setting. The three of them dug in the little feast and for a while all the noise in the kitchen came from the clinking of silverware against porcelain and happy chewing.

“Ben, honey,” Prim started when she’d judged it was the right moment, “How did the investigation go yesterday? Did you get to talk to everyone who was at the house?”

Ben swallowed and the two sisters held their breath.

“I did,” he said mildly and they breathed out in relief to see Prim had been right. The breakfast had definitely softened Ben, because he wasn’t usually too eager to discuss work at home. “It took hours to get through everyone’s story and I’m still not certain they were all telling the truth. There are certainly some things in their testimonies that just don’t add up.”

“We thought that too,” Sage hurried to say.

“You did? How come?”

“We were curious, honey,” Prim interjected with a gentle tone, “So we did ask around, just to see if our own memories matched with what the others think happened that night.”

Ben had raised his eyebrows now. He was intrigued. He never underestimated the power of small town gossip. It was something that was mostly out of his reach, but he knew it could provide as many outrageous speculations as useful details that people forgot to mention or thought irrelevant at the sheriff’s station.

“We also stumbled across some strange facts from the past that might shed some light on people’s possible motives,” Sage added.

“Go on,” Ben said, taking another bite of sausage, and feeling encouraged, Sage went through all that they had learned yesterday. She mentioned Anabelle’s strange behavior when she’d gone out of the house just after eleven, her husband’s past obsession with Mrs. Blackwater and the rivalry between him and the dead man, James Blackwater’s suspicious past and current debts and the maid’s relation to the family. She also gave a detailed account of where people said or were said to have been when the murder occurred. Finally, she pulled out the mysterious note that could have fallen from Mrs. Blackwater’s purse or could be altogether unrelated to the case.

Ben sat in silence for a couple of minutes, processing what he’d just heard and tying it to the first impressions he’d got from his suspects yesterday.

“All this is actually really useful,” he said, “I can’t believe you managed to gather so much in one short day. You are one talented sleuth, Sage.”

Sage immediately blushed. She hadn’t thought of herself as a sleuth (not seriously anyway), but she loved the word, especially when preceded with
talented
, coming from Ben’s mouth.