Closer than the Bones (27 page)

“I knew you had it in that knitting bag,” Brett said triumphantly. He slapped the table with his hand. “I knew you weren’t sitting around knitting.”

“Yeah, she’s not exactly the knitting type,” Jack said, grinning, the strain in his face lessening a bit.

“If you’re not careful,” I warned them jokingly, “I might just knit you both something for Christmas.”

They both twisted their faces in expressions of mock horror, and I rolled my eyes at them as I took another sip of coffee. Finally, some warmth was seeping back into my bones.

“If I hadn’t been put off the track by that so-called manuscript I found in the desk in my room,” I confessed ruefully, “we might have found the real thing earlier.”

At Brett’s puzzled expression, I quickly explained about the pile of blank paper I had found, and how it had led me down a blind alley. He tried not to laugh. I shrugged. “And that’s all it was, a pile of blank paper. While we were waiting for Jack and his men to get back here, Miss McElroy did admit to putting it there, hoping it might put me off the scent for a while. Which it did.”

“I shouldn’t have fallen for it either,” Jack said, “but your explanation seemed reasonable at the time.” He took a sip of coffee. “But there are still some points to clear up, even though we know who the murderer was.”

“Didn’t his note explain everything?” I asked. Morwell Phillips had left a lengthy suicide note in his office for Jack, and he must have already written much of it before he had listened to me reading Sukey Lytton’s manuscript to his wife over the intercom. Ever the gentleman, he absolved his wife of all blame, taking responsibility for everything that had happened.

“Not everything,” Jack said. “For one thing, who rang the bell in Packer’s bathroom? Phillips didn’t admit to doing that.”

“That would have been me.” Without our being aware of it, Russell Bertram had come into the kitchen. He walked over to the table, his gait none too steady, and plopped down in a chair. “How ’bout some of that coffee?”

His diction was slightly slurred, and his breath would have done justice to a distillery. Brett jumped up and got him a mug of coffee. Russell drank it straight, like he did his whisky, practically pouring it down his throat.

“You, Mr. Bertram?” Jack asked. “You rang the bell in Packer’s bathroom?”

“’S right,” he said. “I did.” He stared defiantly at Jack.

“Why did you do that?” Jack asked.

“Went into Hamilton’s room to talk to him,” he replied, making an effort to speak more clearly. “He wasn’t in the bedroom, so I pushed open the bathroom door, and there he was.” He shuddered. “Dead as a doornail, that knife in his back. I almost puked up my guts, right there.”

“What did you do then?” Jack prompted him when he fell silent, lost in the memory.

Russell roused himself. “I didn’t know what to do, at first. Just stood there and stared at him. Then I figured I’d better let somebody know what had happened. So I went around and rang the bell.”

“And then?” Jack said.

“I panicked,” he admitted sheepishly. “I know how it is, in a mystery novel. They always suspect the one who found the body, so I hightailed it out of there and back to my room. Alice knows. She can tell you.”

“I have a question, Jack,” I said.

He nodded, even as he frowned and stared at Russell.

“How did he lure poor Katie out to the summerhouse? Did he say, in his note?” I still couldn’t say his name.

Jack cut a sideways glance at Brett. “Yeah, he said he gave her a note, said it was from Mr. Doran here. He made her think Doran wanted to meet her out in the summerhouse for a little fun and games. He was hoping we’d find the note and tag Mr. Doran for the murder.” He shook his head. “We finally found the note. Katie had hidden it just inside a copy of Mr. Doran’s novel she had on her bedside table.”

Brett had gone pale, and I reached across the table to give his right hand a squeeze. He thanked me with eloquent eyes.

“One more thing, Jack,” I said. “It's not really that important, but I’d like to know. Did he admit to destroying my dress, trying to scare me off?”

Jack looked puzzled. “No, the note didn’t say anything about that. He did confess to trying to make you fall down the stairs, but nothing about the dress.”

Russell made a snorting sound into his mug of coffee. “Yes?” I asked. “Do you know something about it?”

He stared at me with bleary eyes. “Alice,” he said. “Alice did it. She thought you were an uppity bitch, and she didn’t like the fact that Mary Tucker gave you that room.” He stared down into his coffee for a moment. “Alice always wanted that room, and Mary Tucker never would let us stay in it. Always put us in the room we’re in now, and Alice was mad.”

I ought to have known,
I thought. It seemed more typical of Alice Bertram, anyway.

Neither Jack nor Brett had anything to say to that, though Brett offered me an arched eyebrow as he looked at me.

Jack stood up. “Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’d better get going. Time to get back to the office and take care of some paperwork.”

I glanced at my watch; it was nearly midnight. “Surely it can wait,” I protested.

He shook his head. “No, gotta get it all wrapped up. Now that my men are finished outside. I’ll be back sometime in the morning to talk to everybody a bit more, and to Miss McElroy, of course.” He held out his hand to me. “Thanks.”

I squeezed his hand before I released it. “Be careful,” I said, “it’s still pretty nasty out there.”

Russell stood up also. “Better go on up to bed,” he said. “See you in the morning.”

Brett and I watched as he followed Jack out of the kitchen. “Geez,” Brett said, stretching out in his chair and rolling his shoulders, “this has been a hell of a few days.”

I got up and poured myself some more coffee. My body ached with tiredness as I sat down again at the table. “I can’t argue with that.”

Brett regarded me with sympathy. “You’re taking this pretty hard, aren’t you?” he said.

I sighed. “I just feel so sorry for Miss McElroy. I wonder if she’ll ever really recover from all this.”

“She’s tough,” Brett said. “I’ve known her longer than you, Ernie, and she’s a game old girl. I’m not denying that this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to her, but she’ll go on, somehow.”

“Maybe,” I said, “but I don’t think she’ll be able to forgive herself.”

“She didn’t do it,” Brett said. “He did, not her.”

I shrugged. “I know that, and you know that. But he did it for her, in a twisted sort of way. At least, that’s what she says. He had gotten himself involved with Sukey, who was threatening to make a laughingstock of him. Not to mention what she was planning to do to Miss McElroy, with that vicious novel of hers.” I shook my head. “You just can’t imagine how nasty it is.”

Brett laughed, bitterly. “You’re forgetting. I knew Sukey, and I know what she was capable of doing. It wouldn’t have surprised me in the least.”

I shivered, as I suddenly recalled something Morwell Phillips had said to me. “He said to me at one point,” I explained haltingly to Brett, “that he would kill Sukey all over again—or words to that effect—for what she would have done to Mary Tucker with that manuscript.” I drained the rest of my coffee. “Little did I know I should have taken that for a confession.”

“As my grandmother would have said,” Brett cocked an eyebrow at me, “don’t it beat all!”

“Amen to that!” I said.

“What do you reckon will happen to the manuscript?” he asked.

“Who knows?” I said. “Since they have a signed confession, it’s probably not as important as evidence. Things have been known to get lost, and I wouldn’t be all that surprised if this particular piece of evidence just happened to get damaged or lost.”

Brett laughed. “I, for one, wouldn’t object, that’s for sure!”

I pushed back my chair and stood up. “I’m just exhausted, Brett, so I know you’ll excuse me. I think it’s time we all tried to get some sleep, if that’s possible.”

“Okay, you go on up,” he said. “I’ll see you in the morning.” The thunderstorm had passed on by now, and the old house was quiet as I made my way from the kitchen, up the back stairs to my room. All I heard was the creak of the stairs as I trudged upwards.

I paused for a moment outside Miss McElroy’s door, debating with myself. After a moment’s indecision, I knocked softly, then opened the door.

Selma looked up from her doze beside the bed, blinking as she focused her eyes on me. She wearily got up from the chair and crossed the room to stand beside me.

“How is she?” I asked, nodding my head toward the bed where Miss McElroy slept.

“Resting quietly,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck with one hand.

“Why don’t you go lie down for a while and let me sit with her,” I said. “Go in my room and rest, and I’ll call you if she needs anything.”

She started to protest, but a huge yawn forestalled her. “Maybe I will,” she said. “Just for a little while.”

I squeezed her shoulder, then stood aside for her to leave the room. I took up her former position in the chair beside the bed and tried to get comfortable. It was going to be a long night.

I studied Miss McElroy’s face in the dim glow of a bedside lamp. She had told me she had to know the truth, whatever the cost. Even when she had suspected the truth all along. Would the cost prove too much for her?

I shifted in the chair, leaning back and resting my head against one of the padded wings. I shut my eyes. It was going to be a long night.

Also by Dean James

Cat in the Stacks Mysteries

(writing as Miranda James)

Murder Past Due

Classified for Murder

File M for Murder

Out of Circulation

The Silence of the Library

Deep South Mysteries

Cruel as the Grave

Closer than the Bones

Death by Dissertation

Bridge Club Mysteries

(writing as Honor Hartman)

On The Slam

The Unkindest Cut

Trailer Park Mysteries

(writing as Jimmie Ruth Evans)

Flamingo Fatale

Murder Over Easy

Best Served Cold

Bring Your Own Poison

Leftover Dead

Simon Kirby-Jones Mysteries

Posted to Death

Faked to Death

Decorated to Death

Baked to Death

Nonfiction

The Robert B. Parker Companion

By a Woman’s Hand

Killer Books

The Dick Francis Companion

About the Author

Dean James, a seventh-generation Mississippian, is a librarian and Edgar-nominated author of over twenty works of fiction and nonfiction. His nonfiction has won both the Agatha Award and the prestigious Macavity Award. Writing as Miranda James, he is the
New York Times
bestselling author of the Cat in the Stacks series, featuring librarian Charlie Harris and his trusty rescue cat Diesel. He is also the author of The Trailer Park Mysteries, writing as Jimmie Ruth Evans and the Bridge Club Mysteries, writing as Honor Hartman. As Dean James, he’s authored The Deep South Mystery Series and The Simon Kirby-Jones Mysteries. He lives in Houston, Texas, with two cats and thousands of books.

See his
website
to discover even more!