Dead in the Water (Olivia Grant Mysteries Book 1) (7 page)

After a pause, he added, "The pond is rather shallow. One would think the Thames a better choice for drowning oneself."

"Thank you, Inspector," Alice said. "You've relieved our minds, I can tell you. We didn't like to think it was murder."

Kincaid finished his tea and seemed about to conclude his visit. "One can be absolutely certain about very few things in life, Mrs. Klein, but, on this occasion, I think we're correct to rule out both suicide and foul play."

"Then you've finished questioning us?" Alice asked.

"I believe so, although your, er, statements are being checked as a matter of form." He rose and headed for the door.

Alice left her chair and followed him. "And what about the office papers that your men have boxed up and taken away?"

"They'll be returned to you tomorrow."

"And Mrs. Mason?" she asked.

"The body will be released soon as well. Someone will telephone you about the details." He turned to me. "Thank you for the tea."

Alice nodded, and they left the room.

I stayed behind, listening to their footsteps in the hall and then the front door opening and closing, wondering why the inspector had said our alibis were being checked. If they were so certain Noreen drowned accidentally, why would they need to check alibis? Or did they realize by now that almost everyone in the house had a motive to kill her?

Alice returned and picked up the tea tray, and I followed her into the kitchen.

Rinsing cups at the sink, Alice surprised me by saying, "You don't think it was an accident, do you?" Like she'd been reading my mind.

"Not really. It's just that falling that way and drowning as a result seems so improbable, even if she were drunk. I mean, she'd gotten through life to that point without killing or maiming herself."

I stopped. My constant thoughts about murder began to bother me. This was not a mystery novel, nor one of Brad's cases back in San Francisco, where murders happened more frequently. These were my relatives, and to believe in murder meant one of them might have committed it. Although I'd been away a long time, I had already begun to bond with them, and I ought to be ashamed even to consider such a thing. I felt my face flush.

I took a deep breath. I would stop thinking about murder. If the police were prepared to call Noreen's death an accident, who was I to disagree? After all, they were the experts. In addition, even if they were wrong, the world would not come to an end if I returned home without ever knowing the truth about what happened. Yet I
wanted
to know. I also didn't want to go home yet. I'd planned on a two-week vacation. I needed it.

"On the other hand," I said, "perhaps having a brother in the police department at home makes me more suspicious. Probably the detective has it right." Yet I didn't believe a word I said.

"I'm glad it's settled then." Alice wiped her hands on a dishtowel, as if she were wiping away the entire event from our lives like so much dirty dishwater.

Easy for her. Despite trying to dismiss the event from my mind, I couldn't shake the feeling that the inspector had told us Noreen died accidentally in order to lull us into a false sense of security. He would be doing more than checking our alibis. He would be watching us, waiting to see if we made a mistake and revealed the truth. Then he'd pounce.

Alice's voice interrupted my thoughts. "Elizabeth wants to take you into the city tomorrow to do some sightseeing. I'm sure you're anxious to see Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and the Tower of London."

Perhaps I did before, when I packed for the trip, and even on the flight coming over. Now, however, with a strange mystery staring me in the face? As they say in British films, "not bloody likely." I wanted to stick around the mansion and snoop.

True to her word, the next morning Elizabeth roused me from bed and hurried me off to the city. Despite the early hour at which she insisted we start, I relished the opportunity to be alone with her so I could ply her with questions. I seldom minded my own business if I could snoop into someone else's.

"I'm curious," I began, "about what Aunt Beryl said the other day, that Edward left everything to Noreen, and if she sold the Hall they'd have nowhere to go. Did the property belong to him exclusively?"

"No, and it's not entailed." As my father had once explained I knew "entailed" meant required to pass to the next male heir.

"Technically," Elizabeth said, "it belonged to Edward, but Grandfather had made provision for everyone who lived in the house, by assigning some profits from land leases to his children separately."

"Through legal documents?"

"No, worse luck, just a private arrangement, but Edward followed it, and William expected to as well."

"Yet you think Noreen had no intention of doing so."

"We can't be positive, because she didn't take anyone into her confidence, but it seemed clear she intended to sell off everything." She turned to me. "You can understand now why most family members, heaven forgive us, are glad she's dead."

"What about
her
will? Did she have one? Could she leave the property to someone else?"

Elizabeth frowned. "It's possible. We'll know soon enough, I suppose." She shrugged. "No use ruining our day with gloomy thoughts."

Her last statement startled me, being unlike the Elizabeth I had met two days before, who had seemed to hold nothing but gloomy thoughts. Maybe she didn't want to think about the problem at that time, but my curiosity grew in size from marbles to bowling balls. Nevertheless, I put it aside for the time being.

I had always liked Elizabeth. We were almost the same age and played well together that summer we both visited Mason Hall. Now we were both divorced. I still smarted from mine, and, thanks to Elizabeth's occasional surly attitude, I suspected she carried a gunnysack full of bitterness about hers. Yet that day as she drove us in her black Vauxhall, she seemed cheerful enough and asked me why I hadn't visited over the years.

"I came close to it once. The summer after graduating from college, three friends and I spent a couple of weeks tooling around Europe."

"Didn't you get to England?"

"My girlfriends had all been here more recently and wanted to stay on the continent. I suggested we visit Mason Hall, but I don't believe you lived there at the time."

"I expect you're right. Papa died young, as you know, and Mother moved back here. Yet, if you'd finished university at the time of your trip, you're right. I'd left home by then anyway."

"I wouldn't have minded seeing Uncle Edward, but, as a child, I didn't get along with Jason." Truth is I had disliked him and figured he'd probably turn into a person who gives away the endings of suspense films. "I didn't know Chaz at all, and the prospect of being dragged to visit my aunts and uncles didn't appeal to the others. They vetoed it."

"I can certainly sympathize with that." She maneuvered the car skillfully through a roundabout. "Couldn't you have come later?"

"Well, I got married that same year and secured a new job right away too. Stephen and I talked about a trip here, but it didn't happen. Then he was killed in that accident, and I buried myself in work for a long time."

"With your looks, you should have married again. You've got a great figure, pretty face, naturally curly hair. American men must be barmy."

I laughed at her expression. "I had no time to look at men, even if I'd been interested." I shook my head. "No, I waited until last year to take the plunge and then made a huge mistake. Take it from me, if a man sings Spanish love songs to you and brings you flowers every time you meet, run, don't walk, to the nearest exit."

Elizabeth frowned. "No chance of that."

She'd gleaned more information about me than I had about her. "How about putting the shoe on the other foot? Why haven't
you
remarried?" I'd already noticed she dressed as if she'd taken lessons in how to discourage male attention.

"Schoolteachers don't get many opportunities to meet eligible men. Besides, I don't think I'm the marrying kind. I like being single. No one I must please."

"There's a lot to be said for that," I admitted, "but it does get a bit lonely. Television and microwave meals are okay, but they're not a good substitute for going out to dinner and seeing a movie or play with a person of the opposite sex."

She didn't comment, and feeling again as if she were my sister, I said confidentially, "Speaking of sex, I'd like to experience a bit more before I forget how to do it."

To my surprise, Elizabeth didn't laugh at that, or even smile. Instead, I thought I saw a painful grimace flash across her face. Then, before I could find a nonintrusive way to ask her about it, she announced our arrival into the city and pointed out some local landmarks. I took that as a sign she didn't want to pursue the topic.

I'd been a child the year my parents brought me to England, and after showing me the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London—complete with gruesome stories of intrigue, torture, and death—they dropped me off at Mason Hall for that summer-long visit while they toured Europe alone. I didn't remember much of that brief trip to the city, so I found myself enjoying doing it all again with Elizabeth. We looked at the Crown Jewels then walked through Hyde Park where autumn leaves had begun to fall. I enjoyed seeing Parliament and Big Ben because I loved to look at buildings that had been around for a few thousand years. At home, city council members voted to tear down anything older than they were.

While we had lunch in a chintz-and-ruffles tearoom near Harrods, I asked her about a revolving restaurant I'd heard about on the top of the post office tower. "A strange place for a restaurant, isn't it?"

"I remember that, but it isn't there anymore. Some years ago, the IRA threatened once too many times to bomb the post office, so they closed the restaurant."

"What a shame. I looked forward to going there."

"That's not all that's changed since then. Money's different too. We went to the decimal system, worse luck."

"I thought that happened a long time ago."

"Seems like yesterday." Her voice took on a hard edge. "I hate that we don't have shillings, crowns, and guineas anymore. Not just the coins but the words are gone. They'd been part of our language for hundreds of years."

"But isn't the decimal system easier?"

"Not to anyone who grew up with the other."

I understood what she meant, and I cringed mentally. The metric system is easier too, but we Americans still clung to inches and feet, rather than switching to meters, grams, and all the rest. And, no, we will probably not have done so by the next century in case you were going to ask.

"We have pounds and pence now," Elizabeth went on. "And they say, 'P' for pence, like 'that'll be two P.'"

I couldn't help smiling. "It sounds a little vulgar."

Again, Elizabeth didn't laugh at my feeble attempt at humor. "And you can't make brass rubbings from the original figures in Westminster Abbey anymore. They've made some replicas, and you can rub those, but it's not the same."

Her pessimistic demeanor had returned, and I began to wonder if more lay behind her negative attitude than a few new rules. Did her divorce leave her bitter? I was having a difficult time adjusting to being discarded for a newer version myself. Did she have the same problem? Or did she hate change? Change is difficult at best. Lately it challenged at the speed of light. Okay, I had a cell phone, and I used a computer, and I liked e-mail. But now I faced chat rooms on the internet to say nothing of spam. Besides, I didn't want to pay my bills electronically. I felt as if my money were disappearing into the ether. Except for that, I managed to embrace all the new technology.

If Elizabeth had visited California years ago and then went over there today, she'd notice those changes too. Yes, the Golden Gate Bridge still stood above San Francisco Bay, and Los Angeles still had stars imbedded in sidewalks, and a venerable movie theatre contained movie stars' footprints in concrete. Yes, we had more skyscrapers, more freeways, more cars, more traffic. Also more people, and most of the additional millions were Asian or Hispanic. Whites were now a minority, at least in California. Except in the movies, I rarely saw blonde or red hair, or eyes of blue or green.

I relinquished my musings in time to notice Elizabeth's frown had laid siege to her entire face.

"I'm sorry," she said, "but I'm afraid I'm not feeling very well. Would you mind awfully if we called it a day?"

"No, of course not." Actually, I did. I'd hoped to go to Carnaby Street and similar hangouts, and I'd promised Brad I'd visit Sherlock Holmes's Baker Street and try to find 221-B, but I didn't want to inconvenience Elizabeth for my little whim.

Back at Mason Hall, she apologized again, said we'd return to London the next day, and went immediately to her room. I went to look for Aunt Alice, wanting to make myself useful but mostly to take my mind off my own gloomy thoughts.

I checked all the first floor rooms and considered giving up, when I remembered another hiding place in the mansion. We children often used the cupboard, what we Americans call a closet, under the stairs. Its stone floor was uneven and cold underfoot, and, as it had no window, and we were not tall enough to reach the light cord that hung above our heads, the little room was always dark. To say nothing of scary, as if bogeymen lurked there. Only Elizabeth, Jason, and I had been brave enough to use it during our games.

I went into the great hall and walked behind the curving staircase, and sure enough, the narrow wooden closet door stood open. The light bulb dangled from a cord in the ceiling and gave a faint glow, revealing Alice rearranging things on shelves.

"Anything I can do to help?" I asked.

"Dear me, no, not this time. You've done enough already. And you our guest, at that."

"I like being busy, and I don't think of myself as a guest."

"I'm just tidying up. We keep the mackintoshes and wellies in here, you know, and with winter soon around the bend, I thought it's time I put them to rights."

As I stood there, idly counting umbrellas in a large oriental-looking ceramic jar, Alice said, "There is something. We need to put an advert in the newspaper, and your dad said you'd done a bit of writing."

I grinned. My father would make me sound like the next J. K. Rowling. "He tends to exaggerate. I wrote monthly newsletters for some organizations I belonged to."

"You're sure to be better at putting words together than I am. If you wouldn't mind."

"No, I don't mind. What is it you want me to write?"

"Something about Noreen."

"What do you mean?"

"Her body is going to be released for burial, and we shall have to hold a funeral, but we don't know if she has any relatives who should be notified."

"She must have had
some
. Doesn't Chaz know about them? I believe you told me he met her first and brought her here."

"He claims she told him she had no parents, or brothers, or sisters, but of course that might be a lie." Alice shook her head in emphasis. "We all know the woman had an expert tongue for lying."

Good old Noreen. The list of her endearing traits kept lengthening.

"What about when she and Edward were married? Didn't she invite anyone to the wedding?"

"Nary a soul. Naturally, we all thought it odd at the time, but she wanted it very quiet. And quick, I might add. If it weren't for her age, you'd have thought she had to rush into it because she was expecting."

"She never talked about any other people in her life before she met Chaz?"

"She never mentioned any. As a matter of fact, she rarely spoke more than two words to anyone but him and Edward." She paused. "Well, there were those three women she played cards with, but I don't even know their names, much less how I could reach them."

"So you want me to write something like a public notice to put in the newspaper announcing her funeral, is that it?"

"That's right."

"And when is the funeral?"

"Tuesday next. Can't wait too long, but the notice ought to run a few days so people have an opportunity to make plans."

I went to the kitchen desk, pulled out some paper, and tried to compose something. Yet I kept thinking how ever since I arrived, I'd been running into strange or mysterious matters. I'd never met Noreen, saw her only from the back as she floated face down in the pond, knew almost nothing about her, except most people hated her, and she had died fairly young. She seemed a malevolent ghost. I decided I'd ask Alice to let me see a photograph of her. Meanwhile, however, publishing her funeral information might help me to learn more. Perhaps a friend or shirttail relative would show up after all.

Later, dinner over, all retired to their own pursuits, some to watch a favorite television program. I decided I'd take Mr. Tarkington for a long walk. Daylight hadn't quite disappeared, and I headed across the side yard toward the lily pond. I hadn't been there since discovering Noreen's body, and I wanted to see for myself if the authorities had blocked off the pond or if the gardener had cleaned it by then.