Death in a Major (19 page)

“Oh yes, it certainly was. We haven't had so much excitement in the neighborhood since Donna and Jim Baristo's marriage fell apart and she threw all his belongings out a window.”

I did my best to appear interested, although I had a sudden picture in my head of me standing there for hours, listening to all the neighborhood gossip from the past ten years. Perhaps there was a way I could turn the conversation in a direction more to my own advantage.

“The reason I'm here,” I said before she had a chance to delve further into neighborhood drama, “is because I knew the dead man.”

The woman's eyes widened with shock, although their thrilled gleam didn't disappear entirely. “Oh my goodness. How terrible for you.”

“I actually know his nephew better, but still . . . I wanted to come and see where he was found.”

“Of course, of course.”

She clicked her tongue at her terrier as he strained at the end of his leash, trying to reach the base of a Douglas fir. The little dog trotted back toward her in response, his leash retracting into its handle.

“You see,” I continued, “it's been quite difficult for the family.”

“Yes, yes, I imagine so.”

“And the police aren't saying much. They can't, of course, at this point, but it's still hard not having any details.”

The woman nodded in sympathy, drinking in every one of my words.

“We don't know if he died of natural causes or an accident or what,” I said. “I thought I'd come by to see the spot where he died, but in the end that wasn't quite as helpful as I'd hoped.”

“You poor thing.” The woman clicked her tongue again as her dog lunged toward a squirrel darting up a tree trunk. “But I can tell you that he didn't die of natural causes and, in fact, this wasn't the place where he met his end.”

“Really?” I asked, intrigued. “How do you know?”

“See that house?” She pointed to a blue and white one across the street from the faded purple house. “My best friend, Linnea, lives there.” The woman beamed with pride. “She's the one who found the body.”

 

Chapter Twenty-One

A
CL
EAR NOTE
of excitement pealed through my head like the ringing of a stately church bell. I knew this woman was eager to share her information with me, unlike Detective Salnikova, who preferred to keep even the tiniest of scraps to herself.

“I'm Janet, by the way.” The woman gestured over her shoulder with her thumb. “I live one street over. Linnea and I both walk this path several times a day. She has a toy poodle named Toby. He's having problems with his kidneys of late, poor little thing, but he still gets out for a short jaunt two or three times a day. And of course Linnea and I walk this way coming and going from each other's houses. It's nice to go by the woods here, to see the birds and squirrels. And this time of year, with the leaves changing color, it's really quite beautiful, don't you think?”

“Yes, it is.” Her ability to rattle on almost overwhelmed me, but I pulled myself together and jumped in before she could ramble on further. “But you said Linnea found the body?”

“Yes. Although, to be precise, it was Toby who found the body. He was off leash and went for a little sniff. His kidneys might be a little wonky but his nose still works as well as ever. He darted through the trees, right to the body, and wouldn't come back. Linnea had to trek into the bushes to see what was up. And, my, did she ever get the shock of her life!”

“I'm sure.” Again, her rapid wash of words had almost put me into a daze, but I tried once more to steer her back on course. “And Linnea could tell that the man didn't die of natural causes?”

“Oh, yes, indeed.” Janet dug a small dog cookie out of one of her pockets and fed it to her Yorkshire terrier. “He had a nasty gash on his head, you see. Oh sure,” she said, giving her hand a dismissive wave, “the police will have to do all their fancy tests before coming up with a definitive cause of death, but I'm telling you it was as clear as day to Linnea that the head wound was what killed him. She likes reading police procedurals, don't you know. Watches them on TV too. Blunt force trauma. That's what they call it.”

“Right.” I tried to filter out and absorb the pertinent information while keeping up with her rapid tempo. “But how did she know that he didn't die here in the woods?”

“The lack of blood, my dear.” She nodded sagely, as if she had solved the entire case herself. “There was blood crusted on his head, face, and clothes, but none on the leaves or ground around him. And you know how head wounds bleed.”

I did, from personal experience. At age seven I'd tripped in a friend's garden while playing tag and had cut my scalp open on the corner of a landscape tie. The amount of blood that came out of the wound had both frightened and impressed seven-­year-­old me.

“So he either died as a result of an accident or he was murdered,” I said, more to myself than to Janet. “But either way, somebody moved his body from the scene of his death.”

“Precisely.” The excited gleam in her eyes took on a shade of curiosity. “Any idea who might have wanted him dead?”

“No clue,” I said, though that wasn't quite true. I didn't have a name to give, but I still believed there was a good chance that his father's killer was also his own killer.

A hint of disappointment flitted across Janet's face. “Oh well. Perhaps the police will solve the case.” She didn't sound as though she'd bet on it.

A glint of light flickered across my line of sight. My eyes went straight to the place I thought it had originated from—­the side window of the faded purple house. A second quick flash confirmed that I'd pinpointed the source. Even so, I couldn't quite believe the implication of what I'd seen.

“Somebody's watching us with binoculars.” Incredulity underscored my words.

Janet followed my gaze to the purple house. “Oh my. I suppose we can't blame them for being curious after yesterday's discovery.”

“Do you know the ­people who live there?”

A slight frown turned down the corners of Janet's mouth. “Not really. The homeowner's a single woman. An older woman—­probably her mother—­comes by now and then but otherwise she keeps to herself.”

I could tell that not knowing all the details about the life of someone in her neighborhood irked her. I fought back a smile and pulled my phone from my bag to check the time, more as an excuse to get on my way than because of any particular concern with the hour.

“It's been really nice talking to you,” I said as I returned my phone to my purse, “but I need to be on my way.”

“Of course, dear. It was nice talking to you too. I hope the poor dead man's family is able to find some peace before long.”

“So do I,” I said, although I knew many questions would need to be answered before that could happen. “Goodbye.”

I waved to Janet and headed for the street, casting one last glance at the side window of the nearest house as I went. Perhaps whoever had watched us through their binoculars had simply done so out of curiosity, as Janet had suggested. But as I walked along the sidewalk, passing in front of the purple house, a shiver vibrated up my spine.

T
HE TRIP B
ACK
home gave me plenty of time to think. With my library book forgotten in my bag, I sat in my seat on the Skytrain and went over everything I'd learned from Janet. Despite her tendency to chatter like an excited chipmunk, in among the irrelevant gossip she'd revealed a ­couple of nuggets of valuable information.

Kevin had sustained a significant head wound and he hadn't died there in the woods. When taken together, those two clues told me that someone had most likely murdered him. Sure, it was possible that he'd died as a result of an accident while in someone else's company and that person had panicked and dumped his body, fearing that they might be blamed for his death. But it struck me as far more likely that his death involved foul play.

The real question in my mind was why Archibald Major's killer would want Kevin out of the way.

To me, the simplest answer was that the killer had felt threatened by Kevin. If that was the case, then perhaps Kevin had known the killer's identity, or at least had known enough to worry the murderer. If he had indeed known something along those lines, it didn't surprise me that he hadn't gone to the police with the information.

Considering his history, Kevin probably didn't have the greatest relationship with law enforcement officers, and I didn't know if he had cared all that much about seeing his father's killer brought to justice. It was easier for me to envision him using his information for his own benefit. Perhaps that's what got him killed. If he'd attempted to blackmail the murderer, for instance, removing him from the picture might have seemed like a good idea, especially considering that the murderer had already killed once.

I knew my theory was formed mostly on the basis of speculation, but it made sense. It didn't answer all of my questions, however. I still wondered why Kevin's body had ended up in a patch of woods in Surrey. Jordan had mentioned that his uncle lived in downtown Vancouver, so Surrey wasn't all that close to home. Had he gone there for a particular purpose? Was he killed nearby or was his body transported a good distance after his death, perhaps by car? Was this neighborhood familiar territory for the killer?

So many questions. Even more questions popped into my mind when I considered my list of suspects in relation to this latest death. Although I could now attribute Andrea Duffy's suspicious phone call from the other day to her affair with Mr. Hollingsworth, I couldn't yet cross her off my mental list. It was still possible that she'd killed her father. I had a harder time picturing her as her brother's murderer, however, because I couldn't come up with a solid motive.

Even if Kevin's death meant that Jordan's mother would inherit more money, I didn't know how much she would care about that. She'd already gained millions by her father's death. And if Kevin's murder had come about as result of him figuring out the identity of his father's killer, I couldn't imagine him blackmailing or threatening his own sister.

The conversation I'd overheard between the siblings on the night of their father's death led me to believe that, while not of the most honorable character, Kevin was more likely to protect than deliberately harm his sister.

As for the other suspects on my list, I figured that any one of them could have killed Kevin in order to keep their identity as Archibald Major's murderer under wraps. Nonetheless, my top suspect at the moment was Dr. Beaufort. Whether he'd taken up theft for financial reasons or because he had psychological issues, I didn't know. But perhaps his motivation in that respect didn't really matter. I was convinced that his secret was related to the thefts and that his desperation to keep his habit quiet had driven him to break into Mr. Major's house. While he had less access to Major's flask than the other suspects, it wasn't inconceivable that he'd slipped poison into it. Perhaps he'd broken into Major's residence on a previous occasion, or maybe he'd used his skills as a pickpocket to get hold of the flask and return it unnoticed to Mr. Major's pocket.

Maybe that was a bit of a stretch, but I still liked Beaufort as a suspect for the murder in addition to the thefts. There was something fishy going on with him, that much was certain, and he wasn't above lying or burgling houses.

It still irked me that he'd provided the police with an alibi, casting doubt on my identification of him as the intruder in Major's study. I didn't know who'd provided him with that alibi, but whoever they were, they'd lied too. Unless Beaufort had an identical twin running about, I'd identified him correctly.

With a sigh, I stared out the window at the gray day. Despite the clues and information I'd gathered, I didn't seem much closer to uncovering the truth. I hadn't even narrowed down my list of suspects by much. I'd ruled out Ernest based on my gut instinct that he'd told me the truth at the pub the other night, and I now doubted that Kevin had killed his father, but I hadn't made much progress beyond that.

How disheartening. I couldn't solve the mystery and provide Jordan with closure if I kept coming up with more and more questions and very few answers.

As I transferred from the Skytrain to a bus, my mind drifted to thoughts of Aaron. I'd managed to divert my attention away from him for the last while, a fact I found comforting. I didn't want to dwell on the unhappy ending of our relationship. I wished he hadn't quit the band, but I had to admit things would be easier now that he had. With no chance of running into him at JT's house, I wouldn't have to worry about rushing away from my studio on band practice nights.

Scrolling through the list of contacts on my phone, I found Aaron's name and deleted his number. Somehow that added a sense of finality to the end of our relationship. While a tiny hint of guilt pinged in my stomach as I remembered the expression on his face when I'd last seen him, my sense of relief drowned it out.

I'd done what I'd needed to and now I could move forward. Whatever that meant.

I could see now that I never could have had the feelings for Aaron that I'd hoped, because my heart had belonged to someone else all along, though I hadn't known it at the time. That wasn't a thought I wanted to follow though. Not at the moment. It wouldn't take me anywhere new and I didn't want to worry about my relationship with JT. That would only make things more difficult.

With my bus ride only half over, I decided to dig out my library book to distract myself. But I hadn't even had a chance to open it when my phone rang in my hand. I didn't know who the caller was, but I answered anyway.

“Hello?” I said into the device.

“Midori? It's Andrea Duffy.”

“Oh, hello, Mrs. Duffy.”

Although her phone call caught me off guard, it didn't surprise me as much as the sound of her strained voice. When she sniffled, I realized that she either was or had recently been crying.

“Jordan asked me to call you to let you know that he won't be at his lesson on Tuesday. Actually, he wanted me to tell you that he won't be able to have any lessons in the foreseeable future.”

My increasing concern kicked into overdrive. “Why not? Is he okay?”

“Not really,” Mrs. Duffy replied after drawing in a shaky breath. “He's in police custody. He confessed to his grandfather's murder.”