Untimely Death (14 page)

It was dark by the time the bus dropped them back at the village green. They stood on the sidewalk, organizing their shopping bags as the bus drove off, its red taillights disappearing around the curve in the road. After a short walk to the police station, Charlotte told Aaron to get along home and that she’d see him in the morning. Inside the police station, the receptionist had gone home and the little waiting area was empty. She rang the bell, and a moment later, Phil appeared.

“Oh, you’re back,” he said. “Come on in. He’s waiting for you.”

She followed Phil into the main room. He didn’t look at her, but sat down at his desk and turned his attention to his computer. His behavior wasn’t cold, exactly, but rather like a juror who can’t look at the prisoner when the verdict is guilty. She had a sinking feeling that she knew what was coming, and when she entered Ray’s office, she
knew she was right. She’d been struggling to think of a way to replace the ring in the little red box without Ray knowing, and now she wouldn’t have to. He’d cleared his desk in preparation for this conversation. There was nothing on it but the little red box.

He closed the door behind them and then gestured at the chair across from this desk. “We need to talk,” he said.

Heart pounding, dreading what was coming, she sat.

He pulled his chair closer to the desk and slowly reached out and picked up the box. He snapped it open so she could see inside, its white satin lining slightly yellowed and the empty slot where the ring should be.

Unable to meet his eyes, she opened her handbag and removed a small blue box. She opened it, removed the ring, and returned it to its red Garrard box. The worthless stones put out a halfhearted twinkle under the overhead fluorescent lighting.

“I’m so sorry,” she said softly. “I shouldn’t have taken it, I know that. I don’t know what came over me, and then I had no idea how I was going to get it back in the box without you knowing. It’s almost a relief that you know.”

“Why would you do a thing like that?” Ray demanded, and then, without waiting for an answer, he continued, “Have you any idea how much trouble you’re in? If you were anybody else, I’d charge you with evidence tampering, but of course, I never would have let anybody else
near it. The chain of custody has been broken, and if this ring turns out to be important to the case, it won’t be admissible in court. I was supposed to hand over the box this afternoon to the state investigators, and thank God I checked it before I did. Can you imagine what it would have looked like if I’d given them this,” he shook the box slightly, “that’s supposedly been locked in a police safe, without the ring inside? When I saw the box was empty, I couldn’t believe that you could possibly do such a thing. But I knew it had to be you.”

She said nothing, and stared at her fingernails.

“Charlotte, look at me.”

The tone of his voice startled her, and she raised reluctant eyes to meet his. His blue eyes glittered like cold steel. “Tell me. Why did you take it? And don’t give me that crap about wanting to draw it so Lady What’s-her-name could have a new ring.”

“Lady Capulet,” she said softly.

“So now tell me. Why did you take the ring? What did you do with it?”

“I took it to New York to get it appraised.”

“You did what?! What the hell were you thinking?” He stood up and paced back and forth behind his desk, struggling to regain his composure. When he was seated again, his mouth twisted into a contortion of disgust. “And what if you’d lost it? Did you think of that?”

“I did, actually,” she replied. “And I was terrified that I would. I had to keep reassuring myself that I still had it.”

“But why? Tell me that. I don’t understand what would have possessed you to do something like that.” His tone was a little gentler, and she sensed he was starting to thaw and the worst was almost over.

“I don’t know, really. I just had a feeling that the ring was somehow important and I . . . Well, I’m afraid that Aaron’s going to be fitted up for Lauren’s murder, and I wanted to prove somehow that he didn’t do it.” She sighed. “I’m so sorry. I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing. I really don’t know why I took the ring. I just found myself doing it. It was a really bad choice. So stupid of me.”

“Well now we’ve finally got something we can agree on,” Ray said. “You don’t know what you’re doing, and yes, it was an awful decision.”

“What about you?” Charlotte asked. “What did you tell the detectives?”

“Nothing. I’ll hand this over to them tonight. I knew it had to be with you, and since we’d be seeing each other this evening, I decided to talk to you about it in person rather than phoning you.”

“So you didn’t tell them the ring was missing?”

“How could I? I’d have looked like a total idiot for losing something that was supposed to be in a police safe. How could I tell them that I let my girlfriend look at the ring and while my back was turned, she stole it?” His voice was slightly raised, and Charlotte cringed at the harshness of the words. Seen in that light, maybe the
worst wasn’t over, after all. She tried to steer the topic onto more solid ground.

“And Rupert? How was he?”

“I took him for a walk about one,” Ray said abruptly. “He was fine.”

“Well, thank you for seeing to him.” They lapsed into a pained silence filled with mistrust on one side and regret on the other, which Charlotte broke a few moments later. “Well, I guess if that’s everything, I’d better get home to him. It’s been a long day, and I’m tired.”

Ray nodded and stood up. He checked one last time to make sure the ring was in its box, and then placed it in the safe. “I’ll drive you,” he said.

They said good-night to Phil as they passed his desk, and Ray held the door for her as they left the station and made for the marked police car parked out front. As they drove toward the hotel, Ray broke the silence.

“What about the ring? After all the trouble you went to, did you get it evaluated?”

“It’s fake.” Her voice sounded small in the darkness. “If Brian gave it to her, knowingly or not, he gave her a worthless piece of costume jewelry. What the jeweler said his grandfather would have called ‘paste.’” She stole a glance at Ray’s profile in the soft shadows of the car’s interior lighting.

“But here’s something interesting that I should have told you,” she went on. “That ring is a copy of one that
Lady Deborah wore at the staff party on Friday night. You know, the party you were too busy to attend.”

“Don’t be like that. It doesn’t become you. I’d have gone if I could, but something came up.”

“Sorry.”

“As a matter of fact, I was really looking forward to seeing you. I haven’t seen enough of you lately and I’ve missed you. It’s been all business. Murder inquiries do tend to take precedence over everything else. The good news for you at the hotel, though, is that the Albany boys are winding down that part of the investigation and they’ll be out of there soon.”

“That doesn’t matter to me. What matters is us. Do you think you can forgive me?”

He reached over and touched her hand. “I already have. But it does make me wonder if I can trust you, so we’re going to have to work on rebuilding that. I thought I knew you and then this. It seems so unlike you.” He slowed down for the turn into the Jacobs Grand Hotel driveway. “And you have to promise me you’ll never do anything like that again.”

“No, I won’t. Of course, I won’t. But here’s something else. I think the jeweler I spoke to knows something about the ring. He seemed a bit shifty.”

She sighed and settled back into her seat, and a few moments later, Ray pulled up beside her bungalow.

She leaned toward him. “Call me when you can. Again, I’m so sorry.”

“I know.” He leaned over to kiss her, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him. “I’m on shift until eleven,” he said. “I could come over when I finish work, but don’t wait up for me. If I get called out, it could be late.” She nodded and then reluctantly let him go. Ray waited until she was safely inside her bungalow and then put the car in reverse and drove away.

Rupert was curled up on the sofa, waiting for her return. He stood up, waggled his bottom in greeting, and accepted her pats. She was glad for the opportunity to take him outside for his evening walk. As they strolled past the bungalow where Lady Deborah and Brian Prentice were staying, a light went off in the living room, and a moment later, Brian charged out of the house.

“You stupid, bloody fool!” came a shrill shout in a refined English accent. “You’ve only gone and ruined everything!” This was punctuated by the melodramatic sound of a slamming door.

Ruined what, I wonder
, thought Charlotte.

Brian said something in the direction of the slammed door that Charlotte didn’t quite catch, and a moment later, he was on the path in front of her. As he took a step or two closer, she caught the sour smell of alcohol that was his breath.
God, he’s been drinking for hours
, she thought.

“Everything all right, Brian?” asked Charlotte, mentally kicking herself for saying such a daft thing.
Why do
we English always ask if everything’s all right when it’s obvious everything is bloody well not all right?

“Oh, I didn’t see you there. Yeah, everything’s fine, thanks,” Brian replied, and then he let out a barking cough that shook his shoulders.
Of course it is
, thought Charlotte. He lit a cigarette and fell into step with her.
I wish he wouldn’t smoke
, she thought.

“I hear the state police are winding down their investigation here at the hotel,” Charlotte said. “Have the police talked to you yet?”

“Yeah, they asked me all the usual questions.” He took a deep drag on his cigarette and blew smoke into the trees above their heads. “At least, I guess they’re the usual questions; I’ve never known anyone murdered before. ‘Where were you? What was your relationship with the deceased?’ That sort of thing.” He pulled an old-fashioned hip flask from his coat pocket, the kind that sporting gents used to take to the races, and tipped it in her direction. She shook her head, and he took a long, hard sip ending with a satisfied “Aah.”
I’ll bet that flask’s got a lot of mileage on it
, she thought.

“And where did you tell them you were?” she asked.

“I told them where I was. I was at home all morning, learning lines. It takes me a lot longer to learn them now than it used to, let me tell you. Deborah was there. She can vouch for me.”

The thin trickle of conversation ran out, and they trudged on for a few more steps in strained, uncomfortable
silence until Charlotte said, “Right, well, this is where Rupert and I leave you. We’ll be heading back now. Come on, Rupe, this way.”

Brian stubbed out his cigarette in the damp earth of the path.

“Right, then. See you tomorrow,” came the alcohol-soaked voice out of the darkness behind her.

As she and Rupert settled in for the night, she pulled the bedclothes over her shoulder, turned on her side, and switched off the light. She lay in the dark, eyes closed, listening to the quiet night sounds outside her window, as her thoughts drifted over the moment in time that had been today. What was the significance of the two rings? And what had Brian ruined?
Probably everything he touched
, she thought,
if past experience is anything to go by
. Rupert made little snuffling noises as he drifted off to sleep. She put her arm around Rupert and thought about Ray, who she hoped would arrive soon.

“Morning, Aaron. Nice to see you in here so bright and early.”

He looked up as Charlotte entered, smiled, and then returned to his task. A long piece of brown pattern paper covered the worktable. He referred to a list of measurements and, using a hip ruler, tape measure, and T-square, marked off straight and curved lines with a thick pencil. Swatches of fabric were pinned to a nearby dress form.

“Oh, I’ve been hard at work for over an hour. Mattie’s already been in, and I’ve taken her measurements. She wanted to get that done before morning rehearsal began.”

“Oh, right.” Charlotte approached the worktable. “So, tell me what you’ve got going on here,” she said.

Aaron pointed to the paper. “I’m working on the pattern for the underdress. I thought I’d put in a high waist
to make it more flowy and to give it some movement when she walks.”

“Let’s revisit your sketch,” said Charlotte. When he handed it over, she pointed at it. “There’s no high waist here. You’ve drawn it slightly fitted, and this will be much more flattering and period appropriate than what you seem to have in mind. And while flow and movement when she walks are good, a high waistline in this case is not.” She pointed at his pattern pieces. “That’s practically a Regency silhouette you’ve got there, and you’re not making a dress for Elizabeth Bennet.”

“Who?”

Charlotte laughed. “Oh, dear me. It’s not your fault, Aaron, but everyone really needs to know a bit of history and literature to get on in this profession. Did they not offer a course in the history of fashion at this school of yours?”

“Next semester, I think.”

“Oh, I do hope so. In the meantime, how are you coming along with that copy of
Romeo and Juliet
I asked you to read?”

Before he could answer, Simon Dyer appeared in the doorway, and Aaron shot him a grateful look for coming to his rescue.

“Oh, hello, Simon,” said Charlotte. “We’re just going over the details of the new costume Aaron’s making for Mattie. The new girl playing Juliet.”

“Yes, I know who Mattie Lane is,” said Simon gently. “Listen. I need your help. We’re about to start morning rehearsal, and I was supposed to meet with Brian Prentice, but he hasn’t turned up. Have either of you seen him? I tried ringing his phone, but there’s no answer.”

“Not me,” said Aaron, pulling a pencil from behind his ear and returning to his pattern.

“No, I haven’t seen him this morning, but I did see him last night,” said Charlotte. “He was out walking and he’d had a few.” She looked from Simon to Aaron and back again. “He may be in trouble. I’ll get my coat. Aaron, you come with me. Simon, you’d better give us his phone number, just in case, and we’ll let you know as soon as we find out anything.” She handed Simon a square of her scrap paper, and after scrolling through the numbers on his phone, he scribbled down a number and gave it to her.

Aaron and Charlotte walked down the hallway at a normal speed. When they reached the back door, Charlotte pushed down on the bar that opened it, and they crossed the parking lot and reached the walkway that led to the bungalows.

Aaron waited outside Charlotte’s bungalow while she ducked in and emerged a moment later with Rupert on his leash.

“If we’re going for a walk, he might as well come, too,” she said as they set off. The car was not parked in its usual spot outside Brian and Deborah’s bungalow.
“Here, hold Rupert and wait here while I check out the place,” said Charlotte. “Maybe he’s just slept in.”

She ascended the three wooden steps, and after a quick backward glance over her shoulder in Aaron’s direction, she opened the screen door and knocked on the dark green wooden door. She waited a moment, and when there was no sound from inside, she tried the handle. It was locked. She knocked again and placed her ear close to the door, listening for the slightest sound from within. Nothing.

She returned to Aaron and said, “I think the house is empty, but let’s go round and look in the windows. The car’s gone, so presumably his wife’s out. For all we know, he might have fallen after she left, so let’s look in the windows and see if we can spot anything.”

The windows were low to the ground, and Charlotte thought, as she had many times before, how easy it would be for someone to break into one of the bungalows. The area was secluded, and the grounds had no motion-sensor lights or closed-circuit television cameras. The curtains in the living room were drawn, so they checked the bedrooms in the back. The curtains there were drawn, too.

“I expect Harvey has a set of keys to all the bungalows if we need to get in,” Aaron said.

“Probably. But there’s somewhere else we should look first. If he’s not in the bungalow, he could still be outside, but I hope not.”

“Outside?”

“Yes, I met him out here last night when I was walking Rupert. He’d had a row with Deborah, and he stormed out of the bungalow just as Rupe and I were going past. He’d been drinking. Heavily, by the looks of it. The three of us walked along the path, this way.” She pointed toward a slightly more wooded area, and they set off in that direction. When they had gone a few hundred feet, Charlotte paused. “Everything looks different at night, but it was about here, I think, that we stopped, and Rupert and I turned around and went home.”

She didn’t say to Aaron that she hadn’t been able to stand being around Brian any longer, with the awful smell of cigarette smoke that clung to him and the alcohol on his breath that was just as bad.

They looked around but saw only bare trees. The damp ground was littered with dead leaves. “Ring him,” Charlotte said suddenly, handing Aaron the piece of paper with Brian’s phone number on it.

“What?”

“Your phone. Call him.” Aaron keyed in the number, and a moment later, they heard the tinny sound of a cell phone ringing,
Brrring-brrring
, followed by a brief pause, and then another
Brrring-brrring
. They listened intently, turning their heads in the direction they thought the sound was coming from. And then the sound stopped.

“Gone to voice mail now,” said Aaron. “I think it’s coming from over there, but I can’t be sure. It’s hard to tell.” Aaron and Charlotte looked at each other, and then she unclipped Rupert from his lead.

“Okay,” she said to Aaron, “try it again.”

Brrring-brrring. Brrring-brrring.

“Show me!” she said to Rupert. “Where is it? Let’s go! Show me where it’s coming from.” Rupert took off in the direction Aaron had indicated he thought the noise was coming from, and the pair hurried after him. A few yards farther on, Rupert stopped and began scratching in a pile of brown, brittle leaves with his front paws.

“What is it?” Charlotte said when they reached him. She bent over to see what Rupert was pawing at, and then picked something up in her gloved hand. She held it up to Aaron. “It’s his flask. He was drinking out of this last night, so he must be nearby. Ring the phone again.” They heard the ringing again, louder this time and in a better defined direction.

“You know, it might be a good idea to put Rupert on his leash now,” Aaron suggested. “Just in case. We don’t know what we’re going to find, do we?”

“Right,” said Charlotte, holding up a hand to indicate there was no need for him to say anything more. She clipped Rupert on his leash as Aaron set off, calling Brian’s name. About a hundred feet away, at the bottom of a small embankment, he stopped, crouched down, and then stood up, took off his coat, and laid
it on the ground. With a racing heartbeat and a hard knot in her stomach, Charlotte tied Rupert loosely to a nearby sapling and then rushed to Aaron on trembling legs.

“What is it? Have you found him?”

She, too, crouched down and clutched Aaron’s arm. Brian was sprawled on his back, his head turned slightly away from them. His mouth was open slightly, his eyes half-closed.

“Is he alive?” Charlotte asked.

“I’m not sure,” said Aaron.

“Give me your phone,” Charlotte demanded.

“Oh, Ray, thank God you’re there,” she said when he answered. “We need help. Yes. Right away. I’m with Aaron in the woods beside the hotel. Brian didn’t show up for rehearsal this morning, he wasn’t in the bungalow, so we went looking for him. He’s—”

“He’s breathing!” Aaron cried. “But just barely. He’s shivering a little, too.”

“Yes,” Charlotte said into the phone. “He’s breathing, but only just. I don’t think he’s conscious. Yes, we need an ambulance. We need everybody.” She listened for a moment. “Yes, I’ll do that. Okay.”

She took off her jacket and placed it over Brian.

“Ray says you’re to stay here with Brian and I’m to return to the hotel driveway so I can show them the way. They don’t want to waste time trying to find us.”

“That makes sense,” said Aaron. “I wish we had blankets for him. He’s very cold, after being out here all night.”

“I wonder if I’ve got time to fetch some blankets, then get back in time to meet the police,” she said.

The distant rise and fall of sirens answered the question. “No,” they both said at the same time.

“You’d better go!” said Aaron. She sprinted off but paused to look back when she reached the top of the small incline. Aaron had lain down beside Brian, holding him close, trying to warm him with his own body heat.

Legs pumping and heart pounding, Charlotte ran toward the road.

*

“He’s critical, and the docs can’t say at this point what his chances are,” Ray said over the phone an hour later. Charlotte and Aaron had returned to the costume department after the ambulance had arrived, and they’d been keeping busy while they waited for news. “It’s minute by minute. But they did say it was lucky you two found him when you did, and he’s also lucky that the temperature didn’t drop below freezing last night. He’s got a fierce bump on his head, too.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, he could have hit his head on something when he fell down that incline. There’ll be lots of rocks under all the dead leaves.”

Fell?
Charlotte wondered.
Or was he pushed?

“The thing is,” Ray continued, “we haven’t been able to contact his wife. We’ve been calling the number on Brian’s phone. Do you have any idea where she might be?”

“Well,” said Charlotte, “I know she goes into the city several times a week, so that’s where she might be today. There’s nothing much for her to do around here, so she escapes. But where exactly she goes, or what she does there, I don’t know. Sorry. Wish I could help. If I think of anything, I’ll let you know.”

She ended the call and returned to Aaron’s worktable, where he was drawing pattern lines on the brown pattern paper, looking very pleased with himself. He stepped back from it when she approached. “Well, what do you think?” Charlotte adjusted her glasses and peered at his work.

“Looks fine. I’m glad you’re spending so much time in the preparation before cutting your fabric. ‘Measure twice and cut once’ works for us, too.”

Aaron put his pencil behind his ear and removed a few pins from the pincushion shaped like a red tomato he wore on his wrist. Charlotte had just about managed not to laugh the first time she saw him wearing it.

Charlotte went back to her desk. A few minutes later, at the sound of a car coming up the drive, she stood up and looked out the window. It was Lady Deborah’s car.
She phoned Ray, got her instructions, and put on her coat.

The day had warmed up considerably, and under ordinary circumstances, the bright sunshine would have lifted her spirits. But she wasn’t really looking forward to the conversation she was about to have.

She waited while Lady Deborah got out of the car, placing her feet carefully to avoid stepping in mud.

“Hello,” said Charlotte. “We’ve been trying to reach you.”

“Oh, yes? I had my phone switched off. I was having lunch with a friend, and a ringing phone is just so rude, don’t you think?”

“Probably. Except of course, in an emergency.”

“And is there an emergency?” she asked, opening the back door and reaching in to pick up two colorful shopping bags.

“I’m sorry, but yes, there is.” Charlotte tried to remember word for word what Ray had told her to say. “It’s about Brian. He’s been injured and is in hospital. The police wish to speak to you.” Lady Deborah straightened up slowly, a bag in each hand.

“Oh, God. Now what’s the old fool gone and done? Fallen down drunk and hurt himself, I expect.”

Charlotte held out her hands for the bags. “Why don’t you leave those with me, get back in your car, and drive to the police station in town. They’re waiting for you,
and they can answer all your questions. Or if you’d like, I can drive you.”

“Is he alive?”

“Yes.”

“Is he in hospital?”

“Yes. Kingston.”

“Well, then I don’t have any questions. And since you seem to know so much about it, why don’t you just tell me what’s happened, and save me the trip into town? Or if the police really want to speak to me, tell them they can come here and talk to me. People like us don’t want to make a fuss.”

Stunned by the dispassionate coldness of her response, Charlotte followed her to the door of her bungalow. Lady Deborah gave her an imperious look, shrugged slightly, and said, “Well, you’d better come in then.”

“Good,” said Charlotte. “I’d like to use your phone, if I may. I left mine in the office.”

As Lady Deborah hung up her coat and then disappeared, Charlotte picked up the phone and dialed. While she waited for Ray to answer, the sound of running water came from the kitchen.
That’ll be her putting the kettle on
, thought Charlotte.
There’s nothing a nice cup of tea can’t fix
. She turned her back to the kitchen doorway, and when Ray answered, she urged him to get there as soon as he could. He asked her to stay with Lady Deborah until he arrived.

“I’m just going to change out of these city clothes,” Lady Deborah called from the kitchen. “The kettle’s about to boil, and I’ve laid out the tea things, if you wouldn’t mind wetting it.”

Charlotte made the tea, slid a few digestive biscuits onto a small plate, put the whole business on a tray, and carried it through to the sitting room. She pulled open the curtains to let in some light, and then she sank into the tired brown corduroy sofa and examined her surroundings. Other than a few books stacked on a chair, a folded newspaper on a side table, and a laptop computer on the table, there were few personal possessions and no personal touches. When it was time to go, they would pick up their belongings and walk out, leaving the place exactly as it had looked on the day they walked into it, all without any of that fuss people like Lady Deborah so deplored.