Part one
"Of course, Dr. Deacon, that is not what the phrase 'the exception that proves the rule' actually means."
I heard this and I quietly reversed course, moving away from the two people who were standing by the staircase. I had intended to find out if I could be useful to my employer, but since it seemed that she was in full pontificating mode I decided to look for some books to buy instead.
The Town Hall of Claremont, Massachusetts, had burned to the ground a few weeks before. The fire had apparently been an accident, but, accidental or not, it had also destroyed the town library, which had been on the second floor of the building.
The citizens of the town were obviously not about to rally around to donate money for a new town hall, but the library was another matter. Many people from the town, including my employer, had donated used books to a sale to raise money, and the local Presbyterian church had made their basement available on a Saturday afternoon.
Dr. Deacon was the priest, a tall, elderly, and benevolent-looking man who had apparently unwittingly ended up being lectured by Jan Sleet, the journalist and "lady detective" (as it said on her business cards).
The priest was dressed casually but neatly, in chinos and a polo shirt. He was tall and slender, although not as tall or as slender as my employer, and his back was rather stooped. His hair, which was gray and thinning, had probably started out carefully combed over his bald spot, but now it was somewhat disarranged because he was running his fingers through it periodically, perhaps as a way of controlling his frustration at my employer's... Well, I will admit that I don't know exactly what she was going on about – as soon as I heard the sentence quoted above I'd moved back out of earshot as quickly as possible.
My employer was dressed in a casual weekend ensemble: a royal blue pinstripe three-piece suit, with a midnight blue necktie and a gray pocket square.
I felt a light tap on my sleeve. "Mr. Marshall," a small voice said, and I looked down. A very serious face, wearing very serious horn-rimmed glasses, looked up at me, seriously.
I smiled. "Hello, Jo," I said. "How are you?"
She ignored the question. She had been involved in a murder case which had ended a couple of days earlier, and she was very interested in learning more about the upcoming trials.
Jo was an aspiring novelist, and I'd been questioned by her before. I knew my lack of information wouldn't discourage her, so, after a few minutes of interrogation, wanting to change the subject, I tapped the book which she was clutching to her chest. "You know, that used to belong to my employer."
She looked down at it, frowning. "You mean, it was stolen from her?"
I chuckled. "No, not at all. She donated many books to the sale, including that one. She's a great believer in libraries."
Jo nodded, apparently relieved that her prize was not about to be snatched away from her. "Libraries are good, but I do like to own books..." She saw somebody behind me and her eyes widened.
"I'll talk to you later, Mr. Marshall," she said, edging away. "Thank you."
Wondering what she was thanking me for, I turned and saw Phyllis, who I had met in connection with an earlier case.
"Why did Jo call you 'Mr. Marshall'?" she asked, smiling.
I shrugged. "That's kind of an inside joke. How do you know her?"
"She was one of my students, some years ago. Apparently I still make her nervous."
I thought of commenting that quite a few things seemed to make Jo nervous, but that felt disloyal. I was rather fond of Jo, and, since I had met her when she was in the middle of a murder investigation, I probably hadn't seen her at her best.
I smiled. "I must confess that I don't find you to be that frightening, but it's been some time since I was a student."
"So, how are you, and your employer?"
"We're fine. I guess we're lucky that the Heron House case ended a couple of days ago – at least our part of it. We do enjoy a good book sale, but cases always come first."
"I know what that's like," she said. She didn't have to explain further, since I knew she lived with the sheriff, and I was sure that their lives, and their free time, or lack of it, was largely determined, often on short notice, by Sheriff Rhonda's official responsibilities.
I was afraid for a moment that Phyllis, like Jo, would pepper me with questions about the case which had recently been concluded, but instead she looked around the huge room and nodded. "Good turnout today. They should make some money."
I nodded. "We donated a lot of books – my employer's books. They'd been stored here in town since she left college. She hadn't looked at them in years, and it's not like we can start hanging shelves where we live."
Phyllis gave me a sidelong look. "I've been wondering about that. Are you two planning on staying here in town for a while? Buying a nice house, white picket fence, that sort of thing?"
I laughed. "When you put it like that, it does sound unlikely. But writers, even writers like her, sometimes need peace and quiet to do their work."
"I thought the book about the civil war in Bellona was written already, and now she was just trying to get it published?" She leaned forward.
"She's working on a different book now."
I thought Phyllis might ask about the new book, but she changed the subject. "Speaking of books, how many did your employer donate to the sale?"
I stretched, somewhat ostentatiously. "Boxes. Many, many boxes."
She chuckled. "I gather you carried them here yourself, heavy volume by heavy volume, over a long distance, up a steep hill..."
I laughed. "Well, it wasn't as bad as all that. They were in cartons, I borrowed a good hand truck, and they were stored very near to here."
"Okay, I withdraw some of my sympathy." She nodded. "Oh, I see. At the Arkright house." She gestured in that direction. "That came out in the Marvel Phillips case – the books that Jan stored here in town after she graduated college. How many of them did she donate?"
"All of them."
She raised an eyebrow.
I leaned forward. "When we first heard about the sale, she declared, perhaps impulsively, that she'd donate them all. And then, later on, she found that there wasn't a clear path for her to stage a tactical retreat from her original position."
"Stubbornness." She smiled. "I'm somewhat familiar with that."
Part two
After we left the book sale, my employer and I walked slowly down the hill toward the center of town.
We walked in silence, but for once it was not a comfortable silence.
My employer seldom got actually angry, although she was becoming skilled at performing imperious anger when she thought it might be useful, or fun. However, she did get annoyed from time to time, and she was annoyed now, and I had no idea why.
Actually, I did have a hunch. If I'd been forced to guess, I would have said that somebody had tried to pay her to investigate something.
Any attempt to buy her interest with money was always going to be doomed to failure. As she had said in the past, in similar situations, she was not a public convenience, and she earned her living by writing, not by investigating.
Once, when she'd been offered a very large sum of money – at a time when we'd really needed it – to do something both uninteresting and a bit morally questionable, she'd glanced at me to see if I would protest and remind her about our impecunious situation, but I'd remained silent. She took that, correctly, as my vote about what kind of firm I wanted to be part of.
Of course, based on her expression, this was not the time to ask her if my guess was correct.
I was using the borrowed hand truck to transport the stack of books my employer had purchased at the sale. There were eight substantial hardcover volumes, plus one small – and apparently rather racy – paperback (which we had tacitly agreed not to discuss).
My plan had been as follows: to return the hand truck to my friend Mickey at the News Store, to get a sturdy paper bag there which I could use to carry the books down the block to the Wagon Wheel, to have a pleasant supper at the Wagon Wheel, and then to call a taxi to get us, and the books, home.
But a meal at the Wagon Wheel would have been arduous, if not excruciating, with my employer in her current mood.
However, even when she was annoyed, my employer was usually aware of how she was behaving and the effect it might have on the people around her. So, as we passed the Wagon Wheel, she gave me a rather apologetic sidelong glance, aware that her disgruntlement had forced me to adjust my plans for our supper.
"I know," she said cheerfully. "Let's try that new sandwich shop!" She pointed, probably wishing there was some universally understood hand gesture which conveyed not only direction but also: "It's not very far from here!"
I shifted the paper bag of books, to make sure I had a firm hold on it, and followed her down the sidewalk toward the end of Main Street.
The sandwich shop was on a side street called Pine Street, on a narrow strip of land between the pavement and a small, swampy inlet. The building itself was tiny, basically a kitchen with one window where you placed your order, and another where you picked up your food when it was ready.
It seemed to be mostly a lunch establishment, but it was open, and it was what we needed. We ordered our sandwiches and then we sat at one of the picnic tables and drank coffee while we waited. We were the only customers.
"I saw Jo at the sale. How is she?"
This was clearly just making conversation, since we'd both seen Jo very recently, but I appreciated the effort.
"About the same," I replied. "She bought one of your old books, by the way. Behind Enemy Lines."
I didn't know anything about the book myself, except that I had the impression that it had been the subject of some sort of controversy while we'd been out of the country.
My employer winced. "I was glad to be rid of that one. Bad books are a fact of life, but when they're autographed by the author, with an overly effusive..."
She made an abrupt chopping motion, closing that subject.
Part three
After finishing our supper, we strolled back across Main Street and continued on Pine Street, which would eventually take us home, or, depending on which fork we took at the Catholic Church, to the town pier.
Cars went by from time to time, but we didn't see anybody else walking. The houses had their front doors closed (it was too brisk out for just screen doors), but most of the living rooms were illuminated by warm, cozy-looking light.
In the early evening quiet, I heard a car approaching from a distance behind us. It was moving fast – much too fast for that road in semi-darkness – but the motor barely purred. Definitely not a hot-rodder.
We were passing a narrow side road which went down a steep slope. We'd always wondered what was down there in the thick trees, but we hadn't yet explored.
I quickly put my arm around my employer's narrow waist and pivoted, half carrying her down the hill and then pulling her behind a large tree. She was absolutely silent, and she rested her hand on my arm as she steadied herself.
We heard the car slow as it passed the road, but I was not going to poke my head out to try to see anything. After a moment we heard another car pass, and then the original car moved on also.
She was sitting on the porch of the inn as we arrived home, and she was hard to see in her dark clothes. The porch light was off. I could make out the shape of her pale face, but I did not immediately recognize her.
I was especially alert because of what had happened twenty minutes earlier, so the moment we reached the corner I slowed and stopped. My employer, her arm looped through mine, stopped also, and she waited.
There was a streetlight behind us, and it happened to come on at exactly that moment. Well, any attempt at a complicated maneuver would probably have failed anyway, so I moved forward, releasing my employer's arm. She fell into place directly behind me as I walked across the street and toward the inn.
Then, as I saw the woman's head turn slowly toward us – although I was sure she had been aware of us ever since we'd stopped at the corner – there was a thunk.
I had a hunch about what that thunk had been, but if I'd hit the ground – my most immediate and primitive instinct – it would have exposed my employer to possible danger, so I continued to move forward, aware of the steady tap of her cane on the sidewalk behind me.
On the porch of the inn, the rocking chair was still moving slightly, but it was empty. No one was in sight in any direction.
A car appeared and passed by the inn and headed toward the pier. It definitely wasn't the smoothly purring car from earlier.
The knife was around nine inches long, and it was sticking out of the door jamb. I was glad it hadn't landed a few inches to the right because then it would have shattered the glass of the door itself, and that would have attracted the attention of our landlady, Mrs. Jessup.
My employer looked at the knife, at the chair, and then all around. She used a fingertip to stop the chair's motion, then she looked at me.
"Where are my books?"
"I dropped them back at the corner, when the streetlight came on. To increase my tactical flexibility and freedom of motion."
"Hmm." She glanced pointedly in that direction. "Well, perhaps you should go back and get them now."
"After you're inside the house."
She nodded. "Yes, that makes sense." Our eyes met for a moment. "I'll wait in the front hall until you come back."
Part four
My employer sat at her desk and brought the meeting to order.
"First item on the agenda," she said, slowly filling her pipe. "We need to address the coffee situation."
I nodded. She really wanted a cup of coffee (as did I, I confess), and we had no easy way to get any. I could have gone out and got coffee for us, and on other nights I had done just that, but we needed to figure out what kind of danger we might face if either of us went outside at that moment.
We needed to buy a coffee machine. We agreed on that.
I had pulled the window shade down as soon as we'd entered the room, but I found myself glancing at it from time to time, wondering what, if anything, might be going on outside. I didn't hear any sounds, but of course one feature of the evening so far had been a very quiet car.
"Moving on," she said. "I cede the floor to you." She glanced at the window shade as she fired up her lighter.
"Three things," I said. "One: The incident on Pine Street. We need to assess that as fully as we can. Two: The incident on the porch. The woman who was sitting there, whoever she was and whatever she was doing there, and whoever threw a knife at her."
"Unless she staged that herself."
"Unless she staged that herself, yes. And, three, to be blunt–"
She nodded impatiently. "Yes, I had a... disagreement at the book sale, while you were chatting with Jo and Phyllis and so on. When I... Anyway, and you think that I may have annoyed somebody to the point that he decided to seek, or at least threaten, retribution?"
She shrugged and drew slowly on her pipe. "My knee-jerk reaction is to say no, but we need to thrash it out and figure out if I'm right."
I nodded. "I listed it third, but I think we should start with that, since it came first."
"Cause – possible cause – before possible effect. That makes sense. As you did observe, I had a spirited epistemological debate with Dr. Deacon, which was quite enjoyable, and then he introduced me to his younger brother, Fred.
"Dr. Deacon moved away at that point, and Fred Deacon immediately... buttonholed me I believe is the term." She considered and discarded the idea of pausing to speculate on the origin and history of the verb "to buttonhole."
"His daughter, he said, had vanished, very suddenly, at the same time that a large sum of cash went missing. He wanted to hire me."
"To find the daughter, or the money?"
She shook her head – almost a shiver. "I have no idea, nor do I want to know. He offered to pay me, I started to decline his offer, he interrupted me in order to suggest that he might offer me even more money. He actually seemed to be about to pull out his wallet right then and there, so I turned my back on him and walked away."
She puffed thoughtfully on her pipe.
"First of all," she said firmly, "I want to put aside, at least for the moment, the idea that Fred Deacon, rejected by me, perhaps somewhat rudely, decided to threaten or injure me. He gives the impression of being quite well off, and prosperous people, the law-abiding ones anyway, when their initial offer of money is rejected, almost always react to this by offering more. They may move to some sort of Plan B later on, but their first instinct is usually to view rejection as a bargaining tactic."
I nodded. "That's a generalization, of course, but it's a good one. At least for the moment, as you say."
"Shall we move to the knife, the woman, or the knife thrower?"
"The knife is the most solid of the three – let's start with that."
I took it from my jacket pocket, still wrapped in the handkerchief I'd used to pull it from the door jamb, and I handed both items to her.
She was careful not to handle the knife directly, of course. She sometimes acted disdainful about physical clues like fingerprints, but she didn't want her prints on a weapon unless she knew exactly where it had come from and who it had belonged to.
She studied the knife, but I knew she had seen the word on the haft right away.
"The interesting thing – or at least one interesting thing – is that it was etched into the wood some time ago. That's easy to see. So, the knife was not modified just to deliver this message."
"If it was a message, do you think it was a message to you, or to the woman on the porch?"
"How close would it have passed to the woman's body?"
I squinted, trying to remember the details of the scene. At the moment when I'd been looking at the woman, my focus – the focus of my mind and my ears, at least – had been on the tap of my employer's cane on the sidewalk behind me.
"The knife thrower was probably on the far side of the laundromat – that's why we didn't see him, or her. So, the knife..." I shrugged. "I don't know. I'll look at the scene tomorrow morning, in the daylight, and see if there's anything I can figure out. And, you know, look for footprints and so on." I took the plunge. "And maybe try to figure out who the woman was – the woman who was waiting on our porch, presumably for us."
Then we both waited for a moment, wondering what I would say next. I decided to remain silent about the fact that I thought I had recognized the woman, and I was fairly certain that I hadn't been the only one.
Part five
The following morning, as my employer took a shower, I went outside, ostensibly looking for footprints or other clues.
The large laundromat across the street had just opened for the day, and a few energetic souls were already tending to their washing. The sound of the machines, and the smell of detergent, filtered out through the plywood walls as I scrutinized the gravel in the driveway beside the building.
Had somebody stood there the night before, hidden from us by the building, and thrown a knife across the street at the woman on our front porch?
I had no idea.
Several cars passed by as I pretended to investigate, but I didn't pay much attention to them, except to try to listen to each one to make sure it wasn't the softly purring vehicle of the night before.
Then, having failed, as I'd anticipated, to discover anything useful or interesting next to the laundromat, I crossed the street again and went to the driveway to the right of the inn.
The mystery woman who had been on the front porch the night before had been dressed in dark colors, and she'd only been clearly visible to me when her pale face had been turned in my direction. I'd been looking at her face when the knife had landed in the door jamb next to her, and then I'd lost sight of her, probably because she'd turned her head away from me. But how had she got off the porch?
With the street light on, she couldn't have walked down the steps to the sidewalk (and, in any case, that would have meant walking directly toward whoever had just thrown a knife at her). It seemed most likely that she'd gone off the far end of the porch, over the railing and down to the driveway where Mrs. Jessup parked her car.
Possible? Yes, easy to visualize. Had it happened that way? I saw no direct evidence, but it seemed likely.
Having come to that conclusion, for whatever it was worth, I was unsure how long I needed to maintain the fiction that I was doing vital investigative work. So, it was something of a relief when a police cruiser pulled up in front of the inn and Sheriff Rhonda got out. She saw me, and she waited for me to come over to her.
"O'Connor," she said.
"Sheriff White. Good morning. What a pleasant surprise."
"Is your employer at home?"
"As far as I know." I nearly went into a bit of banter, but her expression dissuaded me. I opened the front door and held it for her, and as she entered I heard my employer's voice.
"Sheriff," she said cheerfully. "Good morning."
I stepped into the front hall behind the sheriff and I saw that my employer had three mugs on a tray. She was fully dressed, with her hair brushed.
"I do indeed want coffee," Rhonda said slowly, "but how did you know I was coming? Frankly, under the circumstances, that looks suspicious."
My employer laughed as she handed me the tray. "This is not for you, Rhonda, although you are welcome to pour yourself a mug of the nice, fresh coffee which our wonderful landlady, Mrs. Jessup, provides for us every morning, which we very much appreciate, of course." She gestured at the urn and then started to ascend the stairs.
I was tempted to put the tray back down and pour coffee for Rhonda, but she moved to serve herself.
I looked at the three mugs on the tray. Two of them had coffee, and the third apparently contained tea with lemon. My employer and I usually drank coffee, so who was the tea for? And where had my employer obtained a slice of lemon?
And, if a visitor had arrived while I'd been outside investigating, how had I failed to notice?
Of course, someone could have entered the inn via the rear deck and the kitchen and the parlor, but how would he, or she, have got past Mrs. Jessup, who always had her breakfast in the kitchen
And, at least as important, I didn't think I had ever seen my employer get coffee, or tea, for anybody.
I held out the tray so Rhonda could add her mug to the others. She preceded me up the stairs, and as I followed her, making sure the mugs didn't slip around on the tray, my eyes seemed to be drawn to the pearl-handled revolver on her hip.
Our visitor – my employer's visitor – was wearing a striking yellow three-piece suit, and she sat in my employer's desk chair, with the morning sun streaming in through the window behind her. It seemed to make her clothing, and her long, strawberry blonde hair, glow. The details of her face were difficult to see clearly, but already I knew what she looked like. I had a vivid memory of being cross-examined by Miss Tamara Nelson, Esq.
Rhonda paused, but she was far enough into the room that I was able to squeeze around her and bring in the tray.
It took a moment, but Rhonda came up with a line. "Miss Sleet, I do want to question you in connection with a possible crime, but is there a reason you have an attorney with you?"
Part six
My employer, who was sitting on her bed, smiled at the sheriff. "I assume that this possible crime is the 'circumstances' you referred to downstairs?"
Rhonda sat in our one easy chair (without an invitation, but of course this was not a social visit). I stood by the door.
"There appears to have been a kidnapping last night."
My employer waited. Miss Nelson sipped her tea, her expression blank.
Rhonda continued. "I've had a few reports about your conversation with Fred Deacon at the book sale yesterday, and they were inconsistent, in terms of how they–"
Miss Nelson's voice seemed to float across the room. "Did any of these witnesses actually hear the conversation, Sheriff White? Was anybody close enough?"
Rhonda turned to the attorney. "Not that we've been able to discover so far."
"Well, in that case, my client–"
"Rhonda, would you like to hear what was said?" My employer took a sip of her coffee and placed her mug on her bedside table, carefully centering it on a coaster. "I can recite the entire conversation for you verbatim, if you want, and then Marshall can type it up and bring it to your office this afternoon, including carbon copies."
I got the idea that Rhonda was here because she had to be. She had a case that didn't interest her very much, but she had to do her job (and she wasn't about to have anybody from her staff interview my employer).
I kept my face impassive, but I was amused to think that this was not going to be one of those cases which would interfere with whatever personal plans Rhonda and Phyllis might have made for that evening.
Rhonda sighed. "That's not necessary. A simple summary will be enough."
"For now," Miss Nelson murmured, smiling. She sipped some more of her tea.
"At the book sale," my employer began, "I had a very pleasant conversation with Dr. Aubrey Deacon." I expected her to light a cigarette, but she didn't. "It went on for a while, and then his brother Frederick came up to us. Dr. Deacon introduced him to me, and then he left us."
She sighed.
"There was, I must add, a clumsy and painfully obvious attempt by the brothers to make this all seem casual, but they had planned it in advance. So, that put me off from the start." She looked like she was about to launch into a rant, but she held it back.
"Are you familiar with Mr. Deacon's daughter?" she asked the sheriff.
"Which daughter? Julie or Jennifer?"
My employer frowned, apparently surprised. "I confess that I don't know. Nothing in what Mr. Deacon said – at least while I was actually listening to him – told me that he had more than one daughter." She paused thoughtfully, and the sheriff waited.
"His daughter, whichever one it was, has apparently, from what he said, been kidnapped. Or, possibly, she has run away from home – he didn't seem to be entirely sure.
"I... as Marshall can tell you, this was a stupid approach for Mr. Deacon to take. As I explained to him, quite clearly, I am not a private investigator, nor do I have any desire to become one. I am a professional journalist and I support myself by writing, not by investigating. If I do decide to turn my attention to solving a mystery, it's because I find it interesting, and sometimes because it seems that it might make a good subject for an article – or maybe even a book – after the fact. I..." She stopped herself and made a face.
"To put it briefly, he told me his daughter was missing, he offered me money to find her, and he tried to get me to come to his house, immediately, to get started on 'our case,' as he called it."
Rhonda nodded. "Did Mr. Deacon give any indication–"
"Of why he was coming to me rather than going to the police? No, and I didn't ask. I'm afraid that, when he sensed my lack of interest and started to mention how much he was planning to pay me, I turned and walked away from him while he was in the middle of a sentence.
"I located Marshall, we paid for my books, and we left.
"Allow me to guess. Evidence has now come to light that Miss Deacon – a Miss Deacon – has been kidnapped."
"No, Fred Deacon has been kidnapped. Apparently."
I was finding that I had to focus on the conversation between my employer and the sheriff, because it was becoming increasingly obvious, at least to me, that the well-dressed attorney sitting by the window was studying me. It looked like she was only somewhat engaged by the conversation which was going on around her. I wondered if my employer was noticing this (well, of course she was), and whether I was going to get teased about this later (definitely, in private, at the most opportune time, probably when my guard was down).
The sheriff asked a few more questions, and she got answers. They were truthful answers, of course, but they did not happen to include any reference to possibly menacing cars, mysterious dark-clad women, or throwing knives with Portuguese words carved into their handles.
Part seven
The sheriff, having discharged her responsibilities, departed (after thanking my employer, of course). The attorney left a moment later, nodding to each of us in turn, apparently in lieu of a spoken farewell.
As we heard our departing guests walk down the stairs, one and then the other, my employer regarded me with a frown.
She was not, I thought, expressing disapproval of my appearance or my actions. When that was the case, she usually pulled her glasses down to the tip of her nose and gave me a stern look over the rims. But it was obvious that something about the sight of me was not filling her heart with joy, and I thought I knew what it was.
Before either of us could speak, however, if we were going to, there was a tap at the door.
The stairs were carpeted, but a couple of the boards usually creaked enough to alert us to any new arrivals.
There were exceptions, however – people who were not heavy, or who walked carefully.
My employer and I glanced at each other. Neither of us had forgotten the events of the night before.
I was moving to get my gun when we heard a familiar voice.
"Good morning! It's Kate Lane, from the Crier!"
My employer's shoulders slumped about a quarter of an inch. She gestured at the door with her eyes. I went over and pulled it open.
Miss Lane, a reporter from the local newspaper, looked up at me eagerly. "I saw the sheriff leaving, and I thought–"
"Miss Lane," my employer said, getting to her feet, "I do not conduct business in my bedroom. We can talk on the deck."
I saw the reporter's eyes flick around our modest room, perhaps accumulating clues that it was in fact a shared room. We never made any attempt to disguise the fact that we lived together. People quite often appeared to be curious, but almost nobody ever asked directly.
In the downstairs hall, my employer poured two mugs of coffee. She made a face that the reporter couldn't see – she knew that the impact of not offering anything to our guest was vitiated by the fact that Miss Lane had a container of takeout coffee in her hand.
The sky was clear but the air was cold on the rear deck, which was in the shade at that time of the morning.
Our regular table was pretty much as we'd left it after our breakfast the day before. Mrs. Jessup never sat out here now that the weather was colder.
I brought over a third chair for our guest.
Since we'd met her, I'd had the impression that Kate Lane, in her mind, regarded herself as our friendly rival – the scrappy local reporter who spars with the gifted amateur sleuth who has moved into her town.
However, I do have to report that, in reality, we seldom gave her any thought at all.
"Jan–" Miss Lane started, but my employer gave her such a glare that she stopped immediately.
I wasn't surprised that the reporter had blanched. My employer had looked as if she was about to call down a lightning bolt directly on the rear deck of the inn.
"So," my employer said as I lit her cigarette, "Miss Lane, what can I do for you?"
The reporter recovered her composure and she smiled, apparently not entirely able to conceal how pleased she was with the situation, even after her initial faux pas.
"Miss Sleet," she said slowly, "I've heard that Fred Deacon approached you yesterday to help find his missing daughter. Have you decided to take the case? Is that why the sheriff was just here?"
My employer shrugged. "Sheriff White was here to ask me about that conversation, yes. Under the circumstances, that's part of her routine. I had no huge revelations to give her – I can tell you that much. I can also tell you that I declined Mr. Deacon's offer yesterday – I refused, in no uncertain terms, to investigate his missing daughter, and that decision has not changed."
Miss Lane nodded. "I guess that answers my question. Thank you. Does–"
"The answer to your next question, which you should have asked first, is that this is on the record. Please feel free to quote me." She stubbed out her cigarette and used her cane to get to her feet as I pulled her chair out. "If you do decide to quote me, please quote me accurately and completely. Have a pleasant day."
As we walked down the path to the front of the inn, my employer regarded me again, still displeased.
We were apparently going to investigate – or at least begin to investigate – the Deacon case, whatever that might turn out to be, and she had no possible justification for this action on our part.
She couldn't claim that it was for the money, especially since the person who had offered her the money was the one who was apparently now missing.
If she had claimed that it was to help the poor, suffering members of the Deacon family, I would have reminded her that she was not – according to her – a public convenience.
She made a face. "Well, come on then," she said, turning away and leading me down the sidewalk toward the corner.
I made a mental note that there were still four dirty mugs in our room, which I would have to remember to wash at some point.
Part eight
The Deacon house was smaller and shabbier than I'd expected. It looked like an old summer cottage that had been converted for year-round occupancy. It was on Pine Street, just a few doors down from the sandwich shop where we'd eaten our lunch the day before.
It occurred to me that if my employer and I did ever have the desire, and the wherewithal, to buy a house in Claremont, a house like this was probably the best we'd be able to manage. And then we'd need to get furniture...
I made a mental note to make sure we stayed on Mrs. Jessup's good side.
As we walked downhill on the narrow path from the sidewalk to the house, I wondered how we were going to get "in the door," so to speak. Did my employer have a plan, or did she think that her fame in the local area was now such that any family in any sort of distress would automatically welcome her arrival?
She used the head of her cane to knock on the wooden frame of the screen door. After a few moments, the inner door opened and we could see a young woman in a dark hallway, looking out at us. It seemed that it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the bright sunshine outside, and then she opened the screen door.
"Miss Sleet! Can I..." her voice trailed off.
"Miss Deacon, I am Jan Sleet. This is my assistant, Marshall. May we come in?"
Miss Deacon stepped aside and motioned us in. "Of course," she said awkwardly, after we were already inside. "Can I..."
"You'd like to know why I'm here, obviously. I spoke to your father yesterday at the book sale, and today I've heard that he's missing. I was wondering if there was some way I could help."
"Oh." She looked around the dark and narrow hallway. "Would you like to come into the living room?"
"That's very kind. Thank you."
My employer sat in the best armchair in the small living room. Miss Deacon perched on the arm of a sofa and I sat on a straight-backed chair.
Miss Deacon (whichever Miss Deacon she was – had my employer figured that out already?) was apparently around twenty years old, slender and dark-haired, dressed in a Claremont College T-shirt and washed-out jeans. Her feet were bare.
"My father is missing," she said slowly. "From what the sheriff said, I know he talked to you at the book sale–"
"How did you learn he was missing? Do you and he live here alone?"
"My sister Julie – she's a year older than me, and she's at college." She stretched out her T-shirt. "This is one of her shirts. I'm a senior in high school."
"Will you attend Claremont also?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. I'm going to apply to several schools, and see where I get accepted..."
"Do you live here – just you and your father? Does your sister live on campus, in the dorms?"
"Oh, no. She still lives here, too. She has a boyfriend. Sometimes she... They're out sailing now – he has a boat."
I could tell that my employer was finding it rather charming that Miss Deacon was trying not to state the obvious: that sometimes her sister spent the night with her boyfriend.
Miss Deacon waited a moment, then she said, "Miss Sleet, do you think you'll be able to help?"
The great detective shrugged and smiled. "I have no idea. Not yet."
Miss Deacon seemed to take this as cautious optimism, combined with eagerness to get the investigation going.
I had a different interpretation.
Part nine
My employer lit a cigarette. There was an ashtray on a small table near her, with several butts already in it.
"Miss Deacon," she said slowly, "please outline, in general terms, what happened yesterday. I saw your father at the book sale. Did anything unusual happen before that? Did you see your father in the morning?"
"We had brunch together. We usually do that on Saturday. Then I did the dishes while he read the newspaper."
"The Crier?"
"And the Globe. Yesterday's Globe. He said he was going for a walk, and then he'd go to the book sale, to see Uncle A. And maybe buy some books."
"Was there anything special about the way he left?"
She frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Did he say or do anything unusual? Did he seem preoccupied, or worried?"
"No, just like normal. 'Stay out of trouble, kitten.' And he said he'd try to find some good books at the sale." She smiled. "We both like mysteries."
"As well you should. Did you see or hear anything from him after that?"
"No. I thought he'd be back for supper, but he wasn't. So, I heated up some leftovers, then I studied for a while, then I got ready for bed."
"Was... Is it unusual for your father to be away like that, not letting you know his plans?"
"I asked him once... Anyway, he said that a father needs to keep track of his daughter – not the other way around."
My employer drew deeply on her cigarette. She was suppressing a smile.
"I had a theory," Miss Deacon said hesitantly. "I... A lot of people were probably at the book sale. He might have run into some of his friends and they decided to go out afterwards..." Her voice trailed off.
"Forgive me for being blunt, but does your father often go out on Saturday night?" She held up a hand. "I'm conducting an investigation – I'm not moralizing. I need to know the facts."
My employer was aware that announcing that she herself was a teetotaler – even apart from it not being strictly accurate – would not have been helpful at this moment.
"Yes, he sometimes goes out drinking with his friends. Usually on Saturday night, or Friday... 'A man has a drink.'"
"What happened next?"
"I was getting ready for bed, and I heard the phone ring. I ran downstairs, but I wasn't fast enough, and it stopped. But then it rang again and I picked it up. It was a man's voice, and he – he didn't say hello or anything, he just said that my father was..."
"Kidnapped."
She shook her head. "He didn't say that, not that word. He said they wanted money and then I'd get him back. Then he hung up."
"And you called the police."
She looked uncomfortable. "I don't have any money, or I don't know where there is any."
"What about your sister?"
"I didn't know where she was."
"Any more phone calls, last night or today?"
"The sheriff has called a couple of times, to check in. Nobody else."
Part ten
"Shall I state the obvious?"
Her mouth quirked. There was a brief period of intense internal struggle as we reached the corner of Main Street, and then she said, "You usually do."
The snort of laughter she'd been suppressing finally erupted.
"I'm sorry," she said, not looking even remotely sorry. "You walked right into that one."
I smiled as she looped her arm through mine. "I know. I threw it right over the plate–"
"Oh, please. No sports metaphors." She gestured with the head of her cane. "Please proceed."
"One: Rhonda didn't tell Miss Deacon about your conversation with her father at the book sale."
"Agreed. She wouldn't."
"Two: Mr. Deacon offered you substantial money to hire you, but his house is very small and shabby, and one of his daughters is attending Claremont College – which has very inexpensive tuition for townies – and it sounds like his second daughter may go there also, although I got the impression that she'd rather go somewhere else. There were brochures on the table for Harvard and Yale."
She nodded. "And?"
"This is Sunday. Did she go to church this morning, perhaps to see if her father would be there, or to ask her uncle what happened at the book sale? Or, if she was afraid to leave the house, worried about missing a phone call, why not call the church?
"Also," I continued, "I do not believe she was being entirely truthful with you." Her eyes widened expectantly. "She's in high school. Yesterday was Saturday. Who studies on Saturday night?"
She snorted a laugh and punched me, very lightly, on the shoulder.
"Very good. I might consider handing this entire case over to you." She smiled and squeezed my arm. "If I had something more compelling to think about right now, of course."
She released my arm. "So, for you, right now: research, at the office of the Crier. They have a complete back issue file – more complete than the one the town library had, but not as easily accessed. However, you can talk to the editor, Mr. Merchant. Tell him that you work for me. He owes me a favor." She shrugged. "If he insists that, on balance, I owe him a favor, tell him that I said he's wrong.
"Once you've demonstrated that you're serious about the research, it is possible that he will loosen up and answer a question or two himself, depending on his mood. He knows many, many things about this town, including some interesting items which have never appeared in the pages of the Crier." She held up a long, bony finger. "Don't try to initiate any questioning of him if anybody else is around."
"Particularly if it's Kate Lane."
She smiled. "Let's just keep it as 'anybody else.'" She raised an eyebrow and waited.
I nodded. I was there to receive instructions, after all, not to write my own.
"Check with me around dinner time. I may or may not be available."
She squeezed my forearm and turned to go. I was tempted to say something, but I didn't.
"Needless to say," she said over her shoulder as she waited at the corner for a car to pass, "I know what I'm doing."
I stuck out my tongue, half expecting her to comment on that as she limped across Main Street, not looking back at me. She was moving in the direction of our home, but I would not have placed a cash bet on that being her actual destination.
I watched her cross the street, then I turned and walked down Main Street, mostly so I wouldn't be standing there at the corner if she turned around to check on me.
I strolled slowly, though. I wouldn't have minded talking to someone at that moment, but nobody appropriate came to mind, and in any case what I was thinking was not to be shared.
Well, it was time to get to work and fulfill my assignment. It was around that moment, as I quickened my pace, that I realized I was walking in the wrong direction.
I turned around and retraced my steps.
Part eleven
On the other side of Pine Street, Main Street stopped being "Main Street" and turned back into a regular Claremont street with modest houses, trees, and a narrow sidewalk which, after the first block or so, petered out completely.
The headquarters of the Claremont Crier, which was about four blocks from Pine Street, did not look very Claremont at all.
The house next to it, for example, looked like it had been there for at least a hundred years (a bit longer, actually, as I found out later). Dark wood, tall windows on the ground floor, ornate front door, decks on three sides – it reminded me a bit of the Devane house, but much smaller and more inviting, surrounded by several tall trees.
I made a mental note of the small sign planted next to the path to the front door: "Used books for sale. Tuesday through Thursday – 2-6pm."
The headquarters of the Claremont Crier, however, was a flat, uninteresting structure of poured concrete and cinder blocks. It was painted a rather dull color. The sign next to the front door was small and white. The building needed more windows, I thought.
Aesthetics aside, my biggest concern was cars. There was a narrow parking lot in front of the building, just a row of cars side-by-side facing the building (well, one car was parked facing out). As I got close to the front of the building, still walking across the street, slowly, I saw a secondary lot to the right of the building, mostly containing delivery trucks.
I strolled to the corner and crossed the street.
I was looking for Kate Lane's car, which wasn't visible anywhere. That was good. My employer had led her to believe that we had no interest in the Deacon case, so I preferred not to run into her while I was doing my research.
She would find out eventually that we were investigating a Deacon case (although, of course, not the exact case she had asked about). My employer had told her the truth, technically, but I preferred to deal with that issue later (or, preferably, let my employer deal with it – this was all her plan, after all).
I went up to the front door and tried it. I thought it might be locked, but it opened.
The small office I stepped into was unoccupied. There was one desk with several issues of the Crier, some rather haphazard stacks of paper, including unopened mail, and a variety of telephones. I could hear a low, steady hum from elsewhere in the building.
There was only one other door in the small room, and it was a dutch door. The top half was open and the bottom half was closed, so I felt ambivalent about proceeding further.
"Marshall O'Connor!" boomed a voice from behind me, and I turned to see a man with short, iron-gray hair come in from outside, carrying a small, greasy paper bag.
I have a good memory, and I was reasonably sure I'd never met this man before, but he switched his greasy bag to his left hand and firmly (and greasily) shook my hand with his right. His short-sleeved white shirt was a bit too snug and his necktie was a bit too short.
"Saw your photograph in the ones we took at the Devane trial." He circled his desk and sat down. "Didn't publish it, of course. Your boss lady sells more papers." He leaned back in his chair, which creaked. "I imagine you're here to do research on the Deacon family, for the case which your boss is not investigating."
I raised an index finger, for some reason, but he continued. "I get–"
One of his phones rang and he picked it up, motioning me into the inner precincts of the building.
Part twelve
"I was surprised that you called me," she said.
I sipped my beer. "Really?"
She smiled. "At the last minute like that – that's what I mean. I barely made it off the island before the water drowned the road. I always picture you as planning everything well in advance." She shrugged. "Of course, I guess you're always reacting to your employer's schedule."
"'Schedule,'" I repeated, using finger quotes.
She laughed. "Oh, is she secretly wild and unpredictable? She doesn't dress like somebody who's wild and unpredictable."
When I didn't respond immediately, she leaned forward and regarded me, stroking a nonexistent beard.
"Ah, I get it now," she said slowly. "You're not here to talk about her. You're here to not talk about her." She smiled. "So, please tell me all about your day, dear."
"There is a new case–" I began.
"A new case?" she demanded. Her face crumpling. "So soon?" She sniffed. "So, you've forgotten about us already, just moved right along to something else?" Her shoulders sagged. "I just can't..."
"Mr. Fred Deacon," I patiently explained as she squared her shoulders and winked at me, "the younger brother of the local Presbyterian priest, has vanished. Perhaps kidnapped. My esteemed employer is, officially, not investigating. Or she is investigating, depending on who you talk to."
"Well, I'm talking to you, dear, her assistant, who probably knows the actual facts." She finished her beer. "Or not."
"As far as I can determine, I'm investigating the case."
"Ah. While she's off on a bender? Or having a fling?"
"Well, as far as I know, she's not doing either of those things."
She leaned forward and spoke conspiratorially. I could barely hear her in the noisy college bar. "By the way," she murmured, "if she ever does feel like having a fling in the local area here, I have several classmates who obviously find her to be... interesting. Male and female, depending on her preference." I sipped my beer. "When people found out I'd met her, there was quite the buzz."
She studied her empty beer bottle carefully, and then she turned and made her way to the bar. I quickly finished the bottle I had in front of me.
The bar was called the Rat (short for "Rathskeller," of course). We had chosen it for our get-together for several reasons, including the fact that, contrary to its name, it was not in a basement.
When she returned to the table, expertly piloting her wheelchair across the uneven floor of the bar while carrying two open beer bottles, I decided to be responsible. "It's getting dark outside," I said. I sipped the nice, cold beer she had just handed me. "We should start thinking about having some dinner."
She nodded. "That seems responsible. They have chili here, and burgers."
"Which is the better option?"
"The burgers are inconsistent," she said judiciously. She drank some more beer. "The popular theory is that on the weekends there's a different cook." She tilted her head. "No, I haven't done any investigation of this." I didn't attempt to hide my smile. "I'm happy with the one fact that I do know, which is that the chili is a better bet. More reliable."
She gestured that it was my turn to talk.
"We saw Mr. Deacon's daughter this morning," I said. "She told us what had happened: her father not coming home, the phone call about the ransom, and so forth, and then I was dispatched to do research, at the palatial offices of the Claremont Crier."
"Real research, or get-Marshall-out-of-the-way research?"
I shrugged.
"Did you find out anything interesting?" She caught my expression. "Between us, of course."
"Well, I've done a fair amount of research in my life, but the archives at the Crier are organized according to a system which I have never encountered before." Her eyelids started to droop. "It was apparently devised by the editor's wife, who is a rather imposing personage in her own right, and it utilizes file cards in a variety of sizes and colors..."
By this time her chin was resting on her chest and she was snoring.
"Also: money!" I announced.
She perked up immediately.
"I think money may be the key," I explained. "Mr. Deacon talks and acts like he has money, but everything about his personal circumstances suggests the opposite. Now someone claims to be holding him and demands money from his daughter, who doesn't have any either."
"Who does have money?"
"His older brother, the priest. Their family money all went to him."
"Primogeniture."
"Exactly. And, as far as I could determine from my research, Dr. Deacon is not overly blessed with the virtue of charity, at least as far as his family goes. Also, it seems that the older sister's boyfriend may have money."
She was giving me a strange look, so I stopped.
"Are you drunk?" she asked.
I did a quick self-assessment. "Not beyond reason, under the circumstances."
"Then I must be really fascinating, because the bartender is calling your name and you're not reacting appropriately."
I turned in that direction, and the bartender waggled a telephone receiver at me. He didn't look happy.
Part thirteen
When I returned to the table, I was sure that my face told at least part of the story. Elsa nodded as I sat down.
"Your boss?" she asked. "Time to go to work?"
"No, and yes. There's been a murder, and my presence has been requested. Immediately, if not sooner. (In fact, 'requested' is not really the most accurate word.) But that wasn't Miss Sleet – it was the sheriff."
"So, where are we going?" She waved a hand. "Of course I'm driving you. There's been a murder, everything is urgent, and you're going to wait around for the jitney? Besides, I can't go home now anyway – the island is cut off for the night. Where are we going?"
I looked at my half-full bottle of beer and sighed. "The Presbyterian church. In town."
"You'll have to give me directions," she said as I took out my wallet. She caught my eye. "I'm a Quaker – how would I know where it is?"
I smiled at that, and I placed some bills on the bar as we headed for the door.
At least we hadn't got around to ordering dinner.
Elsa opened the door of her van and hoisted herself up into the driver's seat. She reached down, lifted and folded her wheelchair, and slid it into its usual position. I had watched this process before, more than once, and this time it seemed somewhat less smooth than usual.
I went around and opened the passenger door. "Are you okay to drive?" I asked.
She smiled as I climbed in and fastened my seat belt. "Probably. We'll find out, won't we?"
A few minutes later, as we were barreling through the darkness, I thought of suggesting that perhaps I should drive, but I wasn't exactly completely sober either, and her van was modified so that she could drive it, so I didn't say anything, even as she careened out onto the highway, narrowly avoiding oncoming traffic, yelling, "Whooo hoo!"
I consoled myself with the thought that the "Whooo hoo!" had probably been deliberate, designed to see how I would react. I remained, to the best of my ability, stoic.
"Any details you can share?" she asked as we zipped along.
"I have none at the moment, shareable or not. There's been a murder, and apparently a rather bloody one. Sheriff Rhonda was trying to reach my employer, and she didn't believe me when I said that I had no idea where she was or how to reach her. So, she was not in a forthcoming or bantering mood."
There were several vehicles parked around the church. including two police cars and an ambulance. Elsa pulled up in front of the building, which did not have any visible accommodations for a wheelchair user.
"I think I'll go get something to eat," she said.
I nodded. "The sheriff did say that the scene in there is pretty bloody. Thanks for the ride."
"I'm going to try, once again, to see if I can find a decent roast beef sandwich in this town."
I got out and closed the door. "If you succeed, let me know."
She nodded and drove off.
Two deputies stood on the wide stairs which led up to the front doors of the church. One held up his hand as I approached. He started to say something, but I said, "Marshall O'Connor. Sheriff White asked me to come."
He shrugged. "ID?" I showed him my driver's license and he jerked his finger over his shoulder. "Upstairs," he said. "The padre's office."
I climbed the narrow stairs and went through a swinging door into a gloomy hallway. There were several doors, but only one was open, so I went there.
It was a small office, full of books and papers, and there was a dead body slumped on the desk. I knew the body was dead because nobody was paying any attention to it.
I assumed it was Dr. Deacon, the priest. This was apparently his office, and the top of his head and the dark clothes looked familiar. The cause of death wasn't immediately apparent, but there was a lot of blood on the desk blotter.
Sheriff Rhonda looked up. "O'Connor. You were at the Rat, right? By the college?" I nodded. "Then how in God's holy name did you get here so fast?" She seemed prepared to be outraged that anybody had the nerve to drive through her town even more recklessly than she did.
"Miss Peabody drove me."
"Miss..." She shook her head. "Never mind. Are you still maintaining that you can't reach your boss?"
"I believe I was quite clear on the phone, sheriff." I tapped a Bible on the desk. "I'd be willing to swear on this, if it didn't have blood on it."
Part fourteen
Sheriff Rhonda White was not happy.
Of course, she had at least one dead body to deal with – in a church, no less – and it seemed that there were about four things she wanted to be doing at that moment, and no way for her to do them all at the same time.
Then I heard the door behind me open wider and I smelled aftershave that I'd smelled before.
The sheriff looked up. "Dr. Wright," she said.
The coroner stepped into the room, and looked around. There was no place to sit. He gestured at me not to rise, but I hadn't given any indication that I was going to surrender my chair.
After all, he was on duty and I wasn't.
"The body in the pew downstairs is also dead," he said. "Broken neck, apparently, but he's been stabbed as well. I won't know which he died from, if either, until I've done the autopsy."
The sheriff nodded.
Dr. Wright turned to me. "Is your boss involved with this?"
I shrugged, surprising both of us by standing to shake his hand. "To the best of my knowledge, no."
His handshake was firm.
"Well, that's something," he said with a chuckle as I sat down again. He turned back to the sheriff. "Unless you plan to produce any more bodies tonight," he said, "I think I'll take my leave."
She nodded and gestured, dismissing him. As he left, she turned to me. "So, what have you got for me, O'Connor?"
"Quite a bit, and also, as far as I can tell, nothing."
She made a face that I'd seen before. "That's not helpful."
"I know." I leaned back in my chair. "Miss Sleet is not investigating this case, so I'm willing to open the bag. But there isn't a lot in the bag."
"You and the boss lady went to the Deacon house this morning. Who did you talk to?"
I couldn't suppress a smile. "I'm not actually sure." Sensing her impatience – which would have been difficult to miss – I continued, giving her a brief summary of what Miss Deacon had said that morning. Then I pointed at the photographs on one shelf of the priest's bookcase. "Have you looked at those?"
"Family photos. I didn't study them."
"I see two things which seem interesting. Several of the photos show two teenage girls – apparently sisters – at different ages. Some photos show just the girls, others show them with Dr. Deacon, their uncle."
I couldn't resist holding up a forefinger as she crossed the room to look at the photographs. "None of the photos include Mr. Deacon, the girls' father." A second finger. "The brunette girl we spoke to at the house said she was the younger sister, Jennifer, but these photographs, obviously taken over quite a few years, suggest that the brunette girl, the one who we spoke to, is the older sister, Julie, and the blonde girl, with the curly hair, is her younger sister.
"Also, the girl we spoke to – call her Miss Deacon – was wearing a Claremont College T-shirt, which she passed off as her sister's."
Rhonda frowned. "I'm still wondering why you were there in the first place, if Miss Sleet isn't investigating the case."
"I have no idea. After we left the Deacon house, she dispatched me to the office of the Crier, to do research on the history of the Deacon family, and I haven't seen her since. Or heard from her. I've had no communication with her, or from her."
She held up a hand. "I get the point." She sat down again and tapped a finger on her notebook, looking at the photographs, and then at the wall.
She looked up. "Here's one for you. Nobody called the Deacon house – Fred Deacon's house – on Saturday night. I wanted to find out who made the call about the kidnapping, of course, and there were no incoming calls to that number at all."
I had been wondering about that, but I didn't say so.
Part fifteen
"Can I know what's been going on here?"
That's the question I almost asked, but I stopped myself.
Instead, I said, "FYI: If the body downstairs is Fred Deacon, it may turn out to be important, to some people, to determine which brother died first."
That focused her attention back on me.
I continued, "I should say, as a caveat, that none of this is, so far, documented fact."
She gestured that I should continue.
"I have read that Dr. Deacon inherited all his family's money and property on the death of his father. He believed that this was a good system, to keep a family's estate together. So, the story goes, his own will states that his money, on the occasion of his death, should go to his brother, his only living sibling. Or, if his brother should predecease him, to his brother's elder daughter."
"Oh, crap. I see where this is going."
"Exactly. Fred Deacon, on the other hand, having been his brother's poor relation for all these many years, divided his own estate equally, in his will, between his two daughters."
The sheriff, apparently holding back something either obscene or blasphemous, or both, paused, and then she said, "We don't get these kinds of cases except when Miss Jan Sleet is in town, so it's rude of her not to be available when we get stuck with one."
I made sure not to express any opinion about this.
"On the other hand, I am not implying–" "–Of course not–" "–that I need her help to solve this."
She looked at her notebook.
"Were there any other family members? I'm not aware of any, but you're the one who did the research."
"There's nobody close, either genetically or geographically, as far as I was able to learn."
"What about the mother? The girls' mother?"
"She died some time ago. Cancer."
"Aubrey and Fred," she said slowly. "The older brother got all the money and he got the fancy name. Poor Fred, I guess.
"Anyway, here's a question which has been bugging me: Fred Deacon was putting on airs with your boss at the book sale? Letting her think he was well off?"
"Apparently."
"How in the world did he think he'd get away with that? Running a con on her?"
"He didn't – that's my idea. He was approaching her because he had to, so he did everything wrong, to be sure she'd slam him down. She can be predictable in that way, in what annoys her, and she is, after all, fairly well known in this area."
"So, the whole kidnapping thing was a fake?"
"One: Let's assume he's desperate for money, for whatever reason, and he goes to his brother. The priest seems fond of his nieces, as far as we can tell, so there's a chance that, yet again, he will bail out his ne'er-do-well younger brother if one of his nieces is in danger.
"Two: Dr. Deacon is tired of Fred's nonsense, so he says, 'Your daughter has been kidnapped, and you don't want to call the police, for fear of what will happen? Fine. There's Miss Jan Sleet, the master detective, standing right over there. Ask her for help.'"
"Which he did – in a way almost guaranteed to annoy her."
"Which it did."
"Indeed."
Part sixteen
"Do you want to know what I'm thinking?"
The sheriff shrugged, conveying that she didn't know (or possibly that she didn't care).
"The Deacon girls have just lost their father, and their uncle for that matter. Maybe we should go to their house, right now, and inform whoever happens to be there."
"And see who's there, and what's going on." She stood up, shoving her notebook into her back pocket. "Let's go."
The state police had arrived by then, and we paused on our way out so the sheriff could confer with the officer in charge. I stood a distance away, politely giving the impression that I couldn't hear anything, although of course I could. Nothing interesting was said.
Then, as we drove along Main Street, at less than the sheriff's usual breakneck pace, I noticed Elsa's van in front of the Wagon Wheel. Their roast beef sandwiches were not going to please her.
Seafood was pretty reliably fresh in Claremont, but red meat was, at best, inconsistent.
Thinking about roast beef, I remembered when my employer and I had spent a few days (hiding out from the army, in fear for our lives – a long story) on a fazenda in Bellona, and we'd eaten beef, a couple of times, from an animal which had been slaughtered just a day or two before.
It was as different from ordinary restaurant beef as fresh swordfish is from canned tuna.
Not that any restaurant in Claremont was going to have beef like that–
"O'Connor!" the sheriff said sharply, and I realized that we were parked in front of the Deacon house, which showed no life or lights. The entire street was dark and silent.
I started to open the car door when the two-way radio demanded Rhonda's attention. She took the handset from the dashboard and demanded to know what was up.
As she spoke – mostly yes and no and terse requests for more details – I got out of the car and leaned on the hood.
Somewhere along the line I had miscalculated. Why was I leaning against a police cruiser, in front of this dark and depressing-looking house? I had been asked to provide whatever information I had and I'd done so – as a responsible citizen and as someone who, for professional reasons, wanted to maintain a good relationship with local law enforcement – but, like my employer, I was not a public convenience, or a public employee, and I certainly didn't care about any of the Deacons.
I was still slightly buzzed from the beers I'd consumed earlier, on an empty stomach. I decided to blame everything on that.
Rhonda ended her call and got out of the car. After a moment's study of my face, she said, "Do you want the new news, or are you out?"
"I'm out," I said. "This is not my case."
She nodded. "Fair enough. I wish I could say the same." She gave me a sketchy salute. "Have a good night."
"You, too."
Part seventeen
My employer opened her eyes, just enough to see the morning sun streaming into our room. She groaned and threw her forearm across her eyes as she said, "Your tasks for this morning: One: Get me some coffee. Please. Two: Take your coffee and have it somewhere other than here. I'm expecting at least two callers this morning, and you're going to talk to them, not me. I'm far too busy. Deadlines and so on.
"If you have your coffee on the rear deck, please leave a note on the front door saying that's where you are. And make sure this door is locked."
"Who are you expecting?"
"Rhonda, and Kate Lane – probably in that order. Rhonda will want to give you information. You can take it or not – that's your call. I have nothing for her, and I don't care about the case – any case she may want to talk to me about."
Some time later, I was sitting on the front porch, in the rocking chair. My coffee mug was on the worn two-by-six of the porch railing.
No note on the front door would have discouraged Kate Lane from ascending the stairs and knocking on our door (at a minimum). Better to head her off on the ground floor.
The sky was slowly becoming overcast, and the air was damp and a bit chilly. I thought, idly, about going upstairs to get a sweater, but now that I was seated I was comfortable and reluctant to move.
Contemplating the easy availability of more coffee in the hall, whenever I needed it, I noticed a thin layer of condensation on the glass of the front door. I could still see the notch where the knife had landed the night before last.
My employer's coffee was ready on her bedside table. She had apparently gone back to sleep. I'd put a saucer on top of the mug, to try to keep the coffee warm for her.
I did wonder who had washed the four dirty mugs from the conference yesterday morning. They were clean and back among the collection in the hall, so somebody had dealt with them. I would have wagered a modest amount of money that it had not been my employer
Sitting in the rocking chair, sipping my coffee, enjoying the cool breeze, I remembered the woman who'd been sitting there two nights before.
She'd appeared to be tall and slender, with long, dark hair, wearing dark clothes and, possibly, wire-rimmed glasses.
Could she have been mistaken for my employer in the darkness? Is that why someone had thrown a knife at her?
I thought this was likely.
Had we met her before? I was pretty sure we had, but of course this was just... Well, my employer would have called it guessing, and "guess" was a dirty word in her lexicon.
A little while later, Mrs. Jessup, our landlady, poked her head out to wish me good morning, and I rose to return her greeting.
Kate Lane drove up and parked in front of the inn. I wondered if my employer had been right about Rhonda visiting this morning as well.
"Hey, Marshall," the reporter said cheerfully as she reached the three steps up to the porch.
"Good morning, Miss Lane," I said. I rose and offered her the chair, but she declined and half-sat on the flat railing.
"What brings you here this morning?" I asked as I sat down again.
"I wanted to find out what Miss Sleet thinks of the new case, at the college."
"As far as I know, she's not aware of any new case, at the college or anywhere else. I know I'm not. In any case, she's not available – she has deadlines."
She digested this. "Do you know how the Deacon case worked out?"
"Sheriff White interviewed me last night, and I know that Dr. Deacon is dead, but I don't know anything beyond that."
Of course, if the window in our room had happened to be open, my employer (if she were awake) would have been able hear this conversation. I was tempted to glance up and check, but obviously I couldn't do that with the reporter in front of me.
Kate Lane paused, as if this conversation wasn't going in the way she'd anticipated. As she started to speak again, I held up a finger and pointed as a police cruiser pulled up and parked behind her car.
Part eighteen
Rhonda got out of her car and walked toward the steps to the porch.
"Sheriff," I said, rising. "We're short on chairs here." I looked at Miss Lane. "Shall we three adjourn to the rear deck? Coffee is available, and I could use a refill myself." I gestured with my empty mug.
We went into the front hall, where I refilled my mug and they filled theirs, and then we went back outside and around to the rear deck, where we sat at one of the tables. Everything on the deck was damp with dew, but I had anticipated this and I'd brought a stack of napkins from the supply in the hall.
When the three of us were seated and sipping our coffee, I wondered who would speak first. It was pretty clear that each of my guests would have been much happier if the other one had not been there.
For me, I was thinking how pleasant it would be if I managed to finish my entire cup of coffee in silence. That did not seem likely.
The reporter finally turned to the sheriff. "Rhonda," she said, "do you have any comment on the death at the college?"
Rhonda shook her head. "Not yet." She turned to me. "Is your employer going to look into that?"
I shrugged. "She may not even be aware of it. I do know that she is writing against at least one pressing deadline."
The sheriff was regarding me thoughtfully. "It does seem like it's her kind of case. The death of an exchange student, in a locked room, apparently with no way in or out."
"And the knife," Kate Lane put in. "With the word 'Revenge' on the handle in Spanish."
"How did you find out about that?" the sheriff demanded.
"I do have my sources," the reporter said happily.
Rhonda frowned. "I have no comment on that."
The reporter continued to look pleased. "Any update on the Deacon case?" she asked.
"The Deacon sisters and Prescott Owens are in the hospital, recovering from their injuries."
"Are they in custody?"
"Nobody is in custody at this moment."
"And Dr. Deacon–"
"Right now, all indications are that he and his brother killed each other."
She did not raise the question of which brother had died first, and nobody asked. If Kate Lane was not aware of the possible significance of that information, I didn't see any reason to send her in that direction.
Some minutes later, after I had put the dirty coffee mugs in the kitchen, I went back to the room. My employer had finished her coffee and she was taking her shower, so I did a quick check and the knife which had been thrown at our porch two nights before, the one with "vingança" on the handle (which was Portuguese, by the way, not Spanish), was no longer where I had hidden it.
Part nineteen
When my employer emerged from the bathroom, trailing clouds of steam, I reported, briefly, on my conversations with the sheriff and the reporter. She listened politely.
I did not mention my final visitor on the deck.
* * *
The back deck of the inn was pleasant, now that I had it to myself. I listened to two cars start up and drive off.
I drank some coffee, wondering if I'd have any assignments today. The cold breeze was a reminder that winter was now very close.
Mostly I was thinking about breakfast.
The kitchen door opened and a woman's voice, not Mrs. Jessup's and not my employer's, said my name.
I rose and turned, and I saw Miss Tamara Nelson, Esq. She was wearing a cream-colored trench coat and a pair of dark slacks. She had a teacup in her hand.
She motioned for me to resume my seat. "Ms. Nelson," I said as I gestured for her to join me, but she demurred.
"'Miss Nelson,' please," she said as she placed her cup on the glass table and sat down. "I am proudly unmarried." She sipped her tea. "Is Jan going to do anything about the Deacon case?"
I shrugged, "I don't think so."
She looked down into her teacup. "Does that bother you?"
I shook my head. "I-"
"That's not your role. I understand." She looked up, her eyes twinkling.
I laughed. "I do draw a salary, but my job description doesn't say I can't have opinions."
"Do you occasionally express those opinions, in the course of your typical working day?"
"I may take the Fifth on that-"
She rapped her spoon briskly on the glass-topped table. "Overruled. Please answer the question."
I was beginning to enjoy this. I leaned back in my chair.
"To be honest, my biggest concern, in very general terms, is getting paid. Getting her paid, of course, which results in, among many other things, me getting paid. That's my main concern – keeping the firm functioning."
"Is that challenging?" She was keeping a smile at bay.
I shrugged. She waited, and then she smiled as she let the question drop.
"I saw the sheriff and Kate Lane driving off a few minutes ago. I imagine they might have been here to 'grill' you about the Deacon case?"
I shrugged. "There was no intense questioning, since I have no information that the sheriff doesn't have, and I have no reason to give any information to Miss Lane."
She nodded, waiting to see if I would say more before she spoke.
"By the way," she said casually, "just in case you were wondering, I try to stay away from trials where sanity is an issue. The Crier will, I'm sure, have an article tomorrow saying that Julie Deacon is a 'sociopath' or a 'psychopath' or some other sensationalist and unscientific term which carries no legal weight. It's... It's messy, or it can be."
She finished her tea.
"So, therefore, in case you were wondering, it is not a problem that you and I are having this conversation now, and it's not a problem that I was present when your employer and the sheriff were discussing the case two days ago.
"Just in case you were wondering."
She stood up. "This was pleasant," she said. She left her cup and saucer on the table, and, after a brisk knock on the kitchen door, she re-entered the inn.
The End
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