Dead in the Water (Olivia Grant Mysteries Book 1) (16 page)

I reached the door to the hallway and cracked it open. Voices. I held my breath. However, the people belonging to the voices didn't enter Edward's room, but the one next door. If I remembered correctly from the day I replaced linens, that was William and Beryl's sitting room.

They were male voices—William and Chaz—and they were engaged in a heated argument. All family members raised their voices when speaking to William anyway, but I could tell the subject matter created the high volume of this particular conversation.

"How dare you have done such a thing?" William shouted.

"What I do is my own affair," Chaz answered.

"Not when it involves the family. You've disgraced us, disgraced yourself."

"Hold on. Nobody's done anything to anybody."

I shrank back, wondering what indiscretion Chaz had committed now, and then I heard William speak Elizabeth's name, and it became clear. William
had not
been dozing in the library that morning. He heard Elizabeth say Chaz raped her. But how could he? Had we been so preoccupied we didn't notice him peer around the corner of his chair and face us so he could read our lips? No, I chose a simpler explanation. The foxy old man had turned on his hearing aids. Unfortunately, we'd gone into the hall when Elizabeth admitted it wasn't rape after all, so he didn't hear that.

I closed the hall door quietly and retreated back into the room. A few muffled words reached me: Chaz insisting grown-ups behaved as they pleased and something about nobody getting hurt. I did what William should have done that day (although perhaps the cat was out of the bag, so to speak, before he could do so), turned around and used the connecting door to reenter Noreen's room and scamper toward the hallway.

Once more safely in the passage, I turned around and saw Aunt Alice. She had her back to me, bent forward, ear pressed to Beryl and William's sitting room door. So, I wasn't the only snoop in the house. It seemed that now five people knew about Elizabeth and Chaz.

Grim silence hung over the dinner table that night. Chaz didn't appear at all, and William sat stiffly, his lips barely opening sufficiently to put food inside. Alice's face seemed flushed, her eyes red, the flesh around them swollen, and Elizabeth touched almost nothing on her plate and excused herself before dessert. Jason behaved somewhat normally, trying to get a conversation going, but only Beryl responded to him, and he finally gave it up.

I felt a little guilty for not making the mealtime pleasant, but my brain refused to cooperate. What could I say? "Guess what, everyone, I think Noreen planned to marry another old man for his money"? Or how about this one: "By the way, Elizabeth told me Chaz raped her, and now William and Aunt Alice heard that and think it's true"?

Instead, my thoughts centered on what Alice must be feeling, and I wondered if she'd confronted Elizabeth with what she'd heard. Poor Elizabeth. She'd told me she didn't want anyone else to know about that evening with Chaz, especially her mother. I also worried she might think I'd been the one who revealed it. So, when I left the dining room, I went upstairs, planning to tell Elizabeth that William had been in the library and might have heard just part of the truth. I knocked on her door, but she didn't open it and said she wanted an early night.

While I stood still in the hall, wondering what to do next, other family members came upstairs as well and retreated into their own rooms. Several doors closed at the same time, like gangster movies with jail cell doors slamming shut simultaneously. I went downstairs again and chatted with cook in the kitchen while she did some washing up. I posed some discreet questions, but Annie either knew nothing or was too shrewd to gossip about her employers.

I took Mr. Tarkington outdoors, then stopped at Tim O'Brien's door and asked if he'd be available to take me somewhere the next morning. Although he announced he expected rain the next day, he agreed.

When Tark and I returned from a longer-than-usual walk, Annie had retired to her own quarters, and the entire family seemed to have vanished. Talk about your deserted mansion. I could swear my footsteps echoed when I climbed the stairs and went into my room. I set my travel alarm clock for an early rising, determined to leave the house and visit Roy Capelli before I had to encounter any unhappy relatives. Before long, the rain Tim predicted began to fall, pelting my windows, but its rhythmic, staccato beat didn't keep me from falling asleep.

*   *   *

Although clouds covered the sky, no rain fell the next morning, and true to his word, immediately after breakfast Tim brought the car around. "Mornin', Miss. Where to today?"

I looked at the name I'd written in my pocket calendar. "A place called Youngacres House. Do you know where it is?"

"Youngacres House? Certain you want to go there?"

"Of course. Why not?"

"Not for me to say, Miss." He turned away from me to face the road and put the car noisily into gear.

The car's momentum pushed me back in the seat, and I pondered what Tim meant. I assumed Mr. Capelli would be wealthy, but could this Youngacres House be so grand as to be out of my league? My imagination took off. Could it be a home the royals used and therefore off limits to outsiders? Perhaps a trysting place once used by Charles and Camilla?

I grinned at that then leaned forward over the seat to ask Tim. "Is there something I should know? Will I be turned away?"

"Oh, no, Miss. You can go there, right enough."

Tim's expression looking as if he considered our conversation finished, I settled back again, reasoning that Mr. Ingersoll had told me Roy Capelli lived at Youngacres, had probably been there himself, and knew I intended to go, so it must be all right.

The place was evidently not a secret hideaway used by the royal family, and I was in no danger of running into Queen Elizabeth. My thoughts wandered as they sometimes did to the entire monarchy concept. The idea of being ruled by a king or queen seemed so terribly old fashioned.

Still, I didn't begrudge the British their ties to a past both colorful and historical. Thanks to my father, I claimed part of that history in a small way, even though I was born in the US.

We drove even farther out into the country and finally came upon a large estate bordered by a high iron fence. Amidst acres of grass, behind tall trees, sprawled a four-story, stone mansion looking large enough to have its own postal code. Tim turned the car in between the iron gates where I saw a sign reading
Youngacres
and proceeded up the curving driveway to a covered portico. As we approached, I realized someone had misnamed Youngacres. The structure looked older than Mason Hall and in nowhere near as good condition.

Tim stopped the car, then stepped out, came around, and opened my door. "When shall I come to fetch you?" He spoke in a low voice, almost as if we were conspirators, although no one could hear us.

I took a guess on how long it might take to get some information from Capelli. "Three quarters of an hour?"

Tim looked at his watch. "Right-o." Then he climbed back into the driver's seat and took off, no doubt to a pub.

Two shallow steps led to oversized wooden double doors, scratched and gouged and, despite the protective overhang, badly weathered. At the right side a plastic sign read
Ring for Entry
with a button beneath, which I pressed firmly until I heard it ring somewhere inside.

A husky, bald man who could have doubled for a bouncer in a New York bar opened the door. "Yes?"

"I'd like to see Mr. Roy Capelli."

He stepped aside, and I entered a large dim entryway revealing a cluttered desk behind which another man, older and grey-haired but almost as husky, talked into a telephone. He glanced up at me, finished his conversation, and also said, "Yes?" leaving me to wonder if I'd missed a new law that said from now on people must speak one-word sentences.

"I'd like to see Mr. Roy Capelli," I repeated.

Without answering he picked up the telephone again, punched in a three-digit number, and said something I didn't understand. Except it seemed to be at least four words this time. Next he waved me to a low wooden bench, and I assumed I needed to wait. In a few minutes a tall, white-uniformed, fiftyish woman appeared and gestured for me to follow her.

We passed through an arch suspiciously like the metal detectors at airports and then walked down a long corridor punctuated by many closed doors with narrow barred windows in them. I wondered what on earth I'd gotten myself into. This was no mansion belonging to a British millionaire, but clearly an institution of some sort. A not-very-well-maintained institution requiring extensive security measures. What role did Mr. Capelli play in it, owner, manager, or some other employee?

I caught up to the woman in white when we reached another set of double doors. "Excuse me, but where am I? Where is Mr. Capelli? What does he do here?"

She stopped and turned to me, her expression saying she didn't suffer questioners gladly. "Do? Mr. Capelli is an inmate."

An inmate? My brain had trouble processing the information.

"He's in the day room now. Don't excite him."

She opened the door, and I followed her meekly into a large, high-ceilinged room. Its long windows barred and heavily draped, they let in almost no light. I let my eyes adjust to the semi-darkness, and the nurse/guard—by then I'd figured out her probable occupation—pointed to a man in a wheelchair, turned, and left.

Capelli, like the three other men in the room, wore a bathrobe and sat in a wheelchair separated from the others as if all preferred contemplation to conversation. I walked toward Capelli, past worn sofas and chairs, scarred tables holding dog-eared books and well-used magazines. When I reached his side, he looked up from his magazine and took off dark-rimmed glasses as if to see me better. He didn't look seventy-nine. He looked ninety-nine going on death. His thin body hunched over, he had a narrow face, and his head was bald except for a small thatch of hair that resembled something you'd pull out of a shower drain. If he had ever been good-looking, time and a wayward lifestyle had had their nasty way with him.

"So?" he asked. That one-word sentence again.

I pulled up a chair and sat. "You don't know me, but David Ingersoll gave me your name and told me where to find you."

He thought for a minute, rubbing a gnarled finger over his chin. "Secret agent bloke. Come here spyin'."

At least he was lucid. I considered that a plus. I didn't want to have to deal with someone with a long-gone grip on reality.

"I hope you don't mind if I ask a question or two."

"Don't got nuthin' else to do."

I took that for a "yes." "It's about Noreen Mason."

"Never heard of 'er."

Of course not. I should have sensed the mistake the instant I walked in. Noreen would never have taken up with anyone who looked like that and lived there. Wherever "there" was. I still hadn't much of a clue.

"May I ask what you," I glanced at my surroundings, "what is this place?"

He grinned, showing a few remaining yellowed teeth. "Don't know where you are, eh? Never been to a place like this, eh? It's a quod, a prison. More like a warehouse now, isn't it?"

"Warehouse?"

"A place they put us sods when they don't need to keep us locked up no more." He paused. "Can't do harm no more. No more 'menace to society' moniker for this lot."

So he was a criminal and lived in a hospital for aging criminals. I'd often wondered about prison sentences ending in the words, "to life." Most people go through a decline near the end of their days on earth. Few people, not just jail inmates, play tennis one day and drop dead tidily the next.

"What else you want to know—what I got nicked fer?"

I glanced at my watch. I had time to kill before Tim would return. "Are you sure you never met anyone named Noreen Mason, or Noreen Vickers?"

"Mind's not what it once was, but that don't ring no bell."

"Well then, what questions did Mr. Ingersoll ask you?"

"About what I did for a livin', where I worked, like he was the flippin' Inland Revenue." He chortled. "I ain't no bloody taxpayer."

So he'd started his crime spree at a young age. "What led to your first arrest?"

"Nuthin' much. GBH." When he saw I didn't understand, he added, "Grievous Bodily Harm. Struck me old lady."

"Your wife?"

"Yeah. We had a few shovin' matches, ya know, nuthin' serious. Then one time she calls the coppers, and I'm in the bleedin' cooler. Lost me job." His voice turned bitter. "What'd she expect? Lousy bitch." He shifted in the wheelchair. "Want to know about what landed me here for good?"

"No. I'm sorry I bothered you."

He told me anyway. "Armed robbery the last time. A bloke got offed. Not me. I didn't shoot 'im. But I was there at the time, see? That's how it works. 'Fore that I nicked small stuff. Not good at it though. Kept gettin' caught." He grunted.

So he was serving a life sentence for a crime involving someone's death. At least he was alive. England, like most of Europe, had long ago abandoned the death penalty. I loved my country, but I wished we would abandon capital punishment too.

Although I didn't think Capelli would become violent or that he could overpower me if he did, I decided waiting outside posed a good option after all. I said good-bye to the man, he grunted again, and I found my way back to the entrance. No one spoke to me when I left.

While I stood under the portico, rain began to fall, a perfect accompaniment to my gloomy mood. This had been a wild-goose chase and added to my list of unanswered questions. I still didn't know why Noreen had asked the detective to investigate Roy Capelli, especially since he insisted he didn't know her. I supposed I'd have to wait until Ingersoll sent me his notes. Time was running out. I had less than a week left in England, and maybe Ingersoll wouldn't send the papers he promised before I had to leave. Even if he did, they might tell me nothing valuable. Meanwhile, I hadn't learned anything.

Well, perhaps I had after all. Truth began to dawn on me. I had been barking up the wrong eucalyptus. Maybe, my imaginary Mister X, who
might
have been having an affair with Noreen and
might
have killed her, did not exist. Either one of my relatives did it, which I still hated to believe, or I had to accept Inspector Kincaid's theory she drowned accidentally. Neither one satisfied my curiosity.

I shivered and pulled my coat collar up to my chin. Then my conscience pricked. Who did I think I was, trying to play detective with no credentials or experience and in a foreign country at that? I ought to be ashamed of myself for wasting my and everyone else's time. Perhaps all my snooping and asking questions hindered family members from putting the unpleasant past behind them. I felt my face grow tight and hot despite the cold, damp air. Perhaps I should give up.

But I didn't want to give up. I'm not a person who abandons projects I've started. I've walked out of only one incredibly bad movie—whose title I'd thankfully forgotten—in my life, and back in the days when I knitted, I never relegated an unfinished afghan to the back of my closet. Okay, so the fate of the world didn't hang on my solving this riddle.