"A Murder In Milburn", Book 3: Death In The Library (16 page)

Nora stood next to him. “Sorry,” she said to him.

“Not a problem,” Dr. Neil said. “What were you thinking, anyway? You were quite lost in thought.”

“I was thinking of Selena,” Nora said.

“Ah yes.” Dr. Neil nodded. “Tragic. First her, and now Robert. This town is suffering. It makes me think of May’s declaration at Anna’s pancake house that first morning - it’s as if a curse has been placed on us all.”

“Don’t say that,” Nora said.

“I won’t,” Dr. Neil said. “I see murder as a disease, and humans as the pathogens that cause it. It’s almost medical, really. Even in a town this size, there’s a healthy amount of disease. Healthy enough for me to do my practice. Murder is a bit rarer, but there’s enough of it for Sean to do his practice.”

“So Robert was definitely murdered?” Nora said. “There’s no chance he accidentally killed himself while trying to hide in that trunk?”

Dr. Neil laughed. “No,” he said. “There is no chance of that. Not unless he could walk after he was already dead. Someone did the very difficult task of moving him.”

“The murderer,” Nora said. “Dr. Neil, do you remember JJ Wallis and his Aunt Maude?”

“Maude?” Dr. Neil considered this. “No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Really?” Nora was surprised. “You were a witness at her trial. She was accused of murdering her stepdaughter.”

Dr. Neil frowned. “It was a very long time ago.”

“Helen was the stepdaughter’s name,” Nora said.

“Yes. Yes. It’s coming back to me now,” Dr. Neil said. “Yes, I was called in for my expert opinion. I had no doubt that Maude did it.”

“Do you still have no doubt?”

“I was young then,” Dr. Neil said. “The young have few doubts. When you become a little wiser like I am now, you begin to realize that everything in the world deserves to be doubted a few times.”

“So you do have your doubts?”

“What use would it be?” Dr. Neil said. “I gave my testimony, a woman was sent to jail. There’s an entire process, a judge, a jury, a prosecutor… we can’t all have been wrong about her.” But in his voice, there was the shred of a doubt.

Nora pressed him. “Why did you think that she did it, at the time?”

“I… well, you see, she was prescribed certain pills by me,” Dr. Neil said. “Those same pills were ground and placed in her stepdaughter’s orange juice. Neighbors had heard them argue before. It’s open and shut, isn’t it? There can be no doubt of Maude’s guilt.”

“Yet, you have a doubt,” Nora said.

“Only because you’ve bought it up after all this time,” Dr. Neil said. “Leave it alone, Nora, and there will be no doubt.”

Nora said nothing. There wasn’t much she could say.

*****

Chapter 20

Mayor Almand and his wife sat at their dining table, each mirroring the other as they cut into their salmon. It was a lovely dish: a fillet, very lightly steamed, with mango curry sauce, mushrooms, and a bed of mashed potatoes.

Mayor Almand broke the silence.

“So what do we do?” he asked angrily.

“I don’t know,” May said, looking downcast.

“You lied to me, May!” he thundered.

She looked miserable.

“I’d be all right with that,” he said, “if it weren’t true that the only reason you’re upset is that you got caught in your lies.”

May made a helpless gesture. “It was all I could do,” she said. “As for Selena--”

“As for Selena, I refuse to discuss her and spoil my dinner,” Mayor Almand said. “This whole business has been nothing but trouble from the start for me!”

The doorbell rang, and May got up. Mayor Almand asked her to sit down, and rose. “I’ll get this myself,” he said.

Nora stood at the door, her hands pressed together. She smiled as she saw the Mayor.
 

“Nora,” the mayor said. “You’ll excuse me, but I’m in the middle of dinner.”

“ I can wait,” Nora said. “Will you be free to talk after?”

“You’ve upset my wife terribly, you know.”

“I do,” Nora said, not looking the least bit sorry about it. “Will you let me in?”

He stepped aside. “Why do you want to talk to me?”

“Well, Mayor Almand--”

“Call me Brett.”

“All right then, Brett.” Nora took a breath. “I want to talk to you about Helen.”

The Mayor’s face turned first pink, then red, and then very very pale. “Not here,” he hissed. “Not here, please. Meet me in half an hour.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere! The library.”

“All right,” Nora said. “Half an hour. I’ll be waiting outside.”

They met at the steps of the library half an hour later. The Mayor shuddered as he saw the yellow tape with
Police Work: Do Not Cross
on it.

“Horrible business,” he said to Nora. “They found Robert’s body after all. Seems as though we all misjudged him.”

“Seems as though we did,” Nora said.
 

“Why did you call me here?” the Mayor asked harshly. “You never told me clearly. If it’s blackmail of some kind...”

“It’s not blackmail,” Nora said. “I just wanted to talk to you. You could help me clear out some of my confusion.”

The Mayor nodded.

“Robert and Selena were both determined to write about Milburn’s history,” Nora said.

“Well, I’m not sure that would have been a very big hit,” Mayor Almand said. “After all, who wants to read the history of a small town?”

“It would have sold out here, at least,” Nora said. “I got the impression that neither you, nor your wife, wanted the town to read about its own past.”

“What? Rubbish! We’re proud of Milburn and it’s history.” Mayor Almand shifted from foot to foot. “We would have promoted the book. Especially if it had been written by our very own Selena. Robert’s version, I think, would have been a lot less flattering.”

“Robert was a particularly curious sort of man,” Nora said. “His actions wouldn’t make sense to many people unless they knew him. Really knew the way he thought.”

“Did they make sense to you?”

“To me? Yes. I think they do,” Nora said. “He had a chip on his shoulder. A gigantic ego, and a hot temper. Bad combination of things. He loved Selena, but he was also proud of what he’d made himself into. When she didn’t instantly fall into his arms on seeing him again, he sniped at her. He publicly started a fight with her, and then, in a fit of devilishness, he started a fight with all of Milburn by calling the town a town full of snakes.”

“I heard of that.” The mayor chuckled. “Silly lad.”

“Silly? I wonder. He was right, in a way. Milburn has its fair share of snakes. Perhaps more so than an average town.”

“Don’t you start.”

“I’ve been surprised, you know, at what I’ve found,” Nora said. “The town’s history is full of betrayals.”

Mayor Almand spoke harshly. “Come to the point. You wanted to talk about Helen.”

“I did,” Nora said. “I wanted to talk about a twenty six year old man who dated a seventeen year old.”

“It wasn’t… I never did anything,” Mayor Almand said, flushing. “I was young. It was so long ago, and then…” He shook his head. “It’s all over now.”

“Tell me all about it,” Nora said.

Mayor Almand took a deep breath. “Very well.”

“I was younger then. I wasn’t a pervert, if that’s what you’re thinking. At twenty six, I was fit. I had a full head of golden hair. My muscles practically tore at my shirt sleeves. I was the kind of lad who could have had any girl he wanted, and believe me, I had plenty.”

“So why get engaged to May?”

“My father.” Mayor Almand shook his head. “He had grand plans for me. He was a lawyer, you know. He saw my potential. He was always pushing me to think big. At the time, I thought he was being a stick in the mud. I wanted adventure. I wanted to be rich, and travel the world. I wanted to fall in love, and here he was, forcing me to court May, daughter of the town’s richest man.”

“You resented it?”

“I hated it. I hated May. I hated her father. I hated my own father. I hated this town, and all the townsfolk who thought they had me pinned down. Who thought they could predict my every move. I wanted to be different. To be unpredictable.”

“That’s when you met Helen?”

“I’d known her a long time. We went to the same church. Now suddenly, she was… she wasn’t the child I’d always thought her to be. She captivated me. She was dating some nerdy bookworm at the time. But I saw her eyes on me. She tried to pretend she didn’t care, but I know women. I knew that look.”

“You pursued her?”

“It was a rush,” Mayor Almand admitted. “It was electric. Here I was, going about, paying my respects to May, doing what everyone expected, and suddenly, secretly, here was a girl who I wanted just for herself. A girl who wanted
me
just for myself. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a connection like that, Nora, where you want someone so badly, that you don’t care about any consequences. She and I snuck around all the time.”

“Until Maude found out.”

“Until Maude found out.” Mayor Almand nodded. “I was terrified. I thought… I was sure that Maude would expose me. Luckily, she didn’t. Either because Helen didn’t tell her my name, or because she was more decent than I would have been.”

Nora nodded.

“When Helen died I was broken. More so because I couldn’t show my grief to anyone. Not even the woman I’d so recently married.”

“Did May ever suspect?”

“She knew that ours was a marriage of convenience, not love,” Mayor Almand said. “I made a show, but once you’re married it slips away. You always expose your true face to the other person eventually.”

“Did May ever know?”

“No,” Mayor Almand said. “She would have divorced me immediately if she did. May has a fierce pride. It scares me, sometimes, how proud that woman is.”

Fiercely proud. Nora thought, and yet she’d begged Selena not to reveal the secret about her cheating on a high school paper all because she was afraid of her husband’s reaction and the scandal it would cause. How had she felt, begging in front of Selena? Had her fierce pride demanded a sacrifice? Had she decided to kill her? Had she gone through with it?

“So Helen died,” Mayor Almand said. “For years, I buried myself in work. May helped me, too. She helped me climb the ladder until I reached the very top. Along the way…” He sighed. “Along the way something happened. I fell in love again. This time with my own wife. I’d spurned her for years, acted as if I was the strong silent type, when inside my heart was breaking. I’d built up too strong a wall. Now, we both live behind those walls. Still, I’m devoted to her and I never strayed. She’s my partner in more ways than one. I love her in a way that Helen would never have been able to match.”

Nora nodded. “Very touching,” she said. “You are a good politician, Mayor Almand, and a better orator than I am.”

“This isn’t oratory,” Mayor Almand said. “I’m telling you the truth! Now tell me why you called me here.”

“Only to talk,” Nora said. “Do you believe Maude killed Helen?”

“I do, yes,” Mayor Almand said. “This was almost fifty years ago, after all. Things were different back then. People were very sensitive about their honor. Milburn was a small town. We had a tiny little main street, with a clinic, a drugstore, a grocery store and a barber. For everything else, we went to our neighboring town.”

“Dr. Neil was new back then.”

“He was barely in his twenties,” Mayor Almand said. “He was a good find. Among the most solid citizens out here, if you ask me.”

“How about Helen’s house. Clay Jarvis’ property?” Nora asked.
 

“How about it?” Mayor Almand asked.

“Selena seemed to think she had a claim on it,” Nora said.

Mayor Almand laughed. “A tenuous claim! Maude was in jail when Clay died! He killed himself after she was sentenced. The property reverted to the government.”

“Not if Selena was alive, isn’t that right?” Nora asked. “With a good lawyer, she could have tied up that land in legal cases for years.”

“She wouldn’t have won.”

“Wouldn’t she?”

Mayor Almand was turning red again. “All I hear are accusations!”

Nora nodded. “All right,” she said. “I think I’ve asked you everything I wanted to.”

“Well you’ve not heard everything I want to say, though,” Mayor Almand said. “You hear this, Nora. I’m not the kind of man to be intimidated by threats. I’m the kind of man who
makes
threats. You hear me? You don’t want to upset the mayor of this town if you want to remain in it much longer. I’ve got the power to stop a lot of--”

“A lot of what?” Harvey stepped out of the shadows, and beside Nora.

“Harvey!” Mayor Almand looked taken aback.
 

“Nora called me here,” he said. “She seemed to think she might need protection from you.”

“She’s trying to pin murders on me with no proof,” Mayor Almand said. “You know as well as I do that Selena would never have won that case.”