Unholy Rites (10 page)

Arthur's first few lines didn't carry much conviction, but as he outlined Petruchio's scheme for wooing Katharine, Danutia began to sense a subtle transformation. By the end of the speech, she found him totally convincing as a strong-willed Italian nobleman. With his wavy coppery hair, he even looked a bit like Howard Keel in
Kiss Me, Kate
.

Danutia was nothing like the fiery Kathryn Grayson, with her long black hair. Yet she hated having her own name shortened or made into nicknames, and so on hearing Petruchio's “Good morrow, Kate; for that's your name, I hear,” she had no trouble retorting:

“Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing:

They call me Katharine that do talk of me.”

She stumbled through the exchanges that followed, not understanding some of the wordplay but grasping Petruchio's attempts to assert his control, and Katharine's resistance. Beneath the words, she sensed Petruchio's admiration for Katharine's wit and spirit and glimpsed tenderness in his eyes. Petruchio's or Arthur's? At the thought she missed a cue and had to be prompted.

That night when she smuggled Arthur into her room at the Temple, it was her scarf that lay abandoned on the floor.

For the next week
Danutia threw herself into her work, creating a pilot project to test on Vancouver Island when she returned home. She was too tired at night to return Arthur's calls, or so she told herself, too busy to see him on the weekend. By the time April Fool's Day arrived, she needed a break.

She hit Save, shut down the computer, and massaged her stiff neck. Seeing Kevin put down his phone, she left her cramped cubicle and made her way to his desk.

“Time for a coffee?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I've got to check out a burglary in Tideswell. Want to come along?”

“I'd love to, if I can use you as a sounding board. I'm feeling discouraged about this project I'm working on.”

Kevin heaved himself up from his desk. “My pleasure.”

As soon as they'd cleared the city traffic and were heading out of Buxton on the A6, Kevin asked, “So what's the problem?”

“One of the strings attached to my funding is that I come back with a solid proposal for a pilot project for reducing youth crime. I've learned a lot from the training courses, and from observing Buxton's mentorship program. But the more research I do, the more doubtful I am that anything will do much good. Too many kids come from backgrounds like that school shooter in Alaska recently. A sixteen-year-old took a shotgun to school on the school bus and killed a classmate and the principal and wounded two others. You think, how can something like this happen? Then you read about his family, and it all makes a warped kind of sense. The father's jailed after an armed incident when the boy is five, the mother's an alcoholic and loses custody. In three years the boy's shuffled through eleven foster homes, where he's bullied and abused, physically and sexually. Finally he's adopted and moves to another city. The bullying at school continues and something in him breaks. When the police get involved it's way too late.” She gazed out the window at the greening countryside, thinking of her last case, the awkward busboy from Metchosin, belittled by his mother, father unknown. What would have happened if he'd had access to a gun?

“We're not teachers, social workers, or child psychologists,” Kevin said. “We have to work within our duties as prescribed by law. Most kids don't get into trouble. Even the ones that do, can usually straighten out their lives with a little help. Just look at Eric.”

They were descending the hill by Corn Mill Crafts. “Speaking of Eric, how is he making out with the Cloughs?”

“Stacey says he seems to be staying out of mischief.”

Danutia couldn't seem to shake her glum mood. “Maybe that's the best we can hope for.”

As they passed St. Anne's, Kevin slowed for the Transpeak bus to pull out ahead of them. “How's your friend Arthur? You have a falling out? You haven't mentioned him lately.”

“He's in Spain with a friend,” she said shortly. “A guy he acted with in university.” She didn't mention that Arthur had invited her to go along and she'd turned him down. She just didn't have room in her life for a serious relationship, and she wasn't interested in any other kind. Unlike Arthur, whose infatuations seemed to come and go as regularly as the tide. It had been a mistake to fall into bed with him, one she didn't intend to repeat. They rounded a curve and a scattering of stone cottages gave way to Tideswell's main street. Glad to escape the quagmire of her personal life, she said, “You'd better fill me in on this burglary.”

A car pulled out of a space ahead and Kevin slid in. He killed the engine and turned to her. “Banker and his wife, retired here six months ago. Came back from an Easter skiing holiday to find a broken window in the back door. Some jewelry missing, nothing else as far as they can tell. The wife's making a list.”

They walked up a narrow cobbled path overhung by trees and turned left to a row of cottages snuggled into the hillside. At the end of the lane, overshadowed by the towering trees from which it took its name, sat Yew Cottage, a plain two-storey house behind a low stone wall.

“Perfect location for a thief,” Kevin said, shaking his head. “You'd think a banker would know better.”

A dapper man with silver hair and a deep tan opened the door and ushered them down the hallway to the ultra-modern kitchen, where shattered glass still glittered on the flagstone floor. While Kevin examined the door, Danutia returned to the living room, curious to know what else the thief might have had an eye on. The living room was furnished with white leather couches, tasteful watercolors, and a sophisticated entertainment system in a handsome wooden cabinet. Nothing had been touched, as far as she could tell. She gazed around the room, wondering whether the bare tables had been stripped of portable objects.

High heels clattered down the stairs and into the kitchen, and a few minutes later the low murmur of voices moved closer. Kevin poked his head in. “I'll just have a peek around and then we'll be off.”

Ten minutes later Kevin had his list of missing jewelry and they were on their way back to Buxton. A pair of plain gold cufflinks, gold hoop earrings the wife hadn't worn for ages, a gold cuff bracelet, a string of not-very-expensive pearls. “The expensive stuff is tucked away in a wall safe. I'd say she's a good twenty years younger than her husband; the missing pieces are probably from her working days as his secretary, or some such.”

“Not much of a haul,” Danutia said.

“Carefully chosen though. Nothing flashy, nothing easily identifiable, not like the stuff he left behind. Something tells me this bloke won't be easy to catch.”

Kevin proposed a pub lunch. Danutia would have enjoyed sitting in the spring sunshine for an hour, but declined in favor of takeout at her desk. “I need to get back to my project,” she said. “Coffee later?”

Mid-afternoon they set off for the Coffee Cup. This time the barista actually smiled at them. The magic of spring. The two tables out front were occupied by moms with strollers, so they carried their drinks to a nearby bench. Today Spring Gardens was thronged with shoppers, lured out by the sun. Sparrows scrambled for crumbs among the paving stones.

“Interesting developments in that Tideswell case,” Kevin said when they were settled. “The banker has discovered gaps in his collection of rare 45s, which were stored in drawers in the entertainment cabinet. What's more, a large ham and two or three loaves of bread are missing from the freezer, maybe other stuff. I suggested they make a thorough inventory and get back to me.”

“A hungry thief,” Danutia mused. “When we investigated that mutilated sheep with the missing hind leg, you said the same thing, remember?” She took a sip of her Americano and put the cup aside. Bitter and acidic. Her stomach rumbled in protest.

“Too right. That was March 10. On a hunch, I looked up the file on the Cressbrook burglary that came in the same day. Only small portable items taken, things the owners have noticed in dribs and drabs—a couple of Toby jugs from a large collection, a ten-pound note that had been stuck in a drawer, a few pieces of good silver cutlery.”

“Any food missing?”

“Nothing in the report, so I spoke to the constable in charge. He said everything's so higgledy-piggledy in that house it's a wonder they noticed anything amiss.”

Danutia thought back to the morning. “Quite the opposite of Yew Cottage, then. All the tables in the living room were bare, and I wondered if something was missing. I guess not, or the owners would have noticed right away. Still, something seemed out of place . . .”

“Maybe the drawers of the entertainment cabinet were ajar—”

“No, let me think.” White leather couches in a wide V in front of the fireplace, simple wooden tables— “I've got it! The cherry wood coffee table. That's the one Hugh Clough was sanding when we took Eric there, I'm sure of it. Triangular. Custom made to fit the shape of the couches.”

Kevin rubbed the large wart beside his nose. “What are you suggesting?”

“I don't know.” Though she was reluctant to follow the thought to its logical conclusion, she didn't really have a choice. Kevin was waiting. “With a break-in there's always the question of who's been around the house, like tradespeople and repairmen,” she said. “Didn't you say Eric claimed to be stealing food from the Co-op for a hungry man? Maybe he's sneaking out at night.”

Kevin shook his large head. “Surely Clough's keeping a better eye on the lad than that. At any rate, we don't know Eric helped with the delivery.” He shooed away the sparrows pecking around his feet and stood up. “Guess I'd better talk to those people in Cressbrook. I'll let you know what I find out.”

The next
day found them at Corn Mill Crafts. When they entered the tiny front office, Hugh Clough was on the phone. He nodded his head in greeting. Danutia studied the bulletin board photos of Clough's handmade furniture. Among them was the cherry coffee table with its unmistakable triangular shape.

Clough soon rang off. “What can I do for you?” he asked, coming around the counter, Boots the sheepdog at his heels. His well-worn leather apron carried a hammer and an assortment of pencils and small tools.

“Morning, Hugh,” Kevin said. “We were in the neighborhood, so I thought I'd see how young Eric is doing.”

“The boy's coming along,” Clough said. “Mornings he goes to school in Buxton. Afternoons he works with me or on community projects, like clearing litter from the river. Weekends we take him hiking or cycling, anything so he's too tired to even think about getting into mischief. He doesn't have much to say for himself, though, and he won't watch the telly with us in the evenings. Spends a lot of time alone in his room.”

“Boys,” said Kevin. “Sounds like my two. What about his mates?”

“So far he's kept clear of them, not that he's had much chance to do otherwise.”

“Eric must be a help to you making deliveries and such,” Kevin said. “I believe he was over in Cressbrook with you in February when you were measuring up for a cabinet for Mrs. Bellamy's Toby jugs, is that right?”

“That's right. She'd just found out how much they were worth and decided she'd better put them under lock and key.”

“She waited too long. Five of them went missing last month.”

“I know, she rang me, wanted me to hurry up with her cabinet. I told her you can't hurry wood. Anyway, Eric couldn't have had anything to do with that, if that's what you're thinking.”

“No way he could slip out at night, after you and the wife are in bed?”

Clough grinned and reached down to scratch the dog's head. “Not with our alarm system here. Boots has his orders. Eric tried to crawl through his window once, and Boots chased him back.”

“Good to know that,” Kevin said. “Maybe it was a coincidence, you and Eric being there just a few days before the burglary. Unfortunately, there's been another one. Yew Cottage, in Tideswell, where you and Eric delivered that table”—he pointed to the photo on the bulletin board—“just before Easter.”

Clough's face tightened and his hands closed into fists. A low rumble came from Boots. “You can think what you like. You have my word that Eric doesn't do anything outside school that we don't know about.”

“What about his family?” Danutia asked. “I believe the
CSO
said he's allowed contact with them, at your discretion.”

Clough's fists unclenched. “He has Sunday dinner with them. We drop him off after church and pick him up again at three. Alice says she can't handle him on her own and Bob's away most of the week, so that suits her fine. She says he bullies the younger son, Stephen, including cutting him with a knife. When I asked Eric about it, he said Stephen had been reading about knights swearing to be blood brothers and begged Eric to do it, so they nicked themselves, but then their mum walked in and accused him of hurting his little brother. He said she always takes Stephen's side.”

“I met Mrs. Ellison at Ethel Fairweather's funeral,” Danutia said, remembering the woman's pinched, anxious look. “What's the father like?”

Clough's left hand dropped into a pocket of his apron and Danutia heard the chink of nails sliding through his fingers. “Bob's a bit rough around the edges,” he said slowly, “and from what Eric's let slip, he's not above taking the strap to his boys from time to time.”

“Could be the boy's said something at home that's been repeated in the wrong places,” Kevin said. “I'll inquire a bit. I don't want him to think he's suspected unjustly. Surest way to send him down the wrong track. Just to be on the safe side, could you give me a list of all the places Eric's been with you?”