Did You Declare the Corpse? (37 page)
Read Did You Declare the Corpse? Online
Authors: Patricia Sprinkle
The only weapon I had at the moment was my pesky tongue. I desperately hoped it would be mightier than her sword.
“Why did you do it?” I tried to sound more interested than judgmental while wondering wildly if anybody was in earshot if I yelled.
“He was a rat.” Her voice was frighteningly calm. “An abuser and a rat. He let my daddy go to jail for his own crimes, then he married and beat my mother until she killed herself.”
I prayed to say something calming and profound. Instead, I blurted, “So why’d you wait fifteen years?”
It caught her off guard enough for her to answer. “I didn’t know where he went after Mother died. He just disappeared. Then last spring, like a miracle, he walked onto my flight from London to Zurich.”
Miracles don’t generally result in murder, but this wasn’t the time to discuss the finer points of theology.
“Did you talk to him?” Talking was what I needed to do a lot of right then, until somebody came within hailing distance.
“No. I didn’t want to be recognized.”
She moved slightly, her arm slowly raising the sword while she went right on talking. I think she said she’d asked another flight attendant to chat with Norwood and get his address, but it’s hard to listen while your ears are roaring and every pore in your body is focused on a sword aimed at your solar plexus.
“So you went to Jim and suggested you get together on this trip to Auchnagar?” Keep her talking. Let her think she has one safe person to whom she can spill all her beans.
“No, I told Jim I’d seen Norwood and he lived in Auchnagar. I was still trying to think how to get here when Jim called and asked if I’d get together a group. I didn’t know why he wanted to come, but he said it was important that it be this weekend. He didn’t mention Norwood, and neither did I.”
“But you wrote a play for him to star in.”
She nodded. “I knew it would hook him. The vanity of the man! The colossal vanity!” Her eyes narrowed. “You’ve got that, too, Mac. You think you’re so smart—”
When she licked her lips and took a breath, I knew the end was near. My heart was thundering along in time to a silent prayer:
pleaseGodpleaseGodpleaseGod.
pleaseGodpleaseGodpleaseGod.
I tried not to stare at the shining point winking in the sunlight as I slid my hands under the afghan and tensed.
The thrust was quick and sure, but I was ready. I grabbed the sword with both hands muffled in afghan and yelled as loud as I could. If I lost fingers, so be it. That was better than losing my life.
I clutched the blade through a double layer of thick crocheted wool and tried to wrest it from her hand. She jerked it back.
I felt it slice through the yarn and the meaty part of my left hand. The pain was like fire. But still I clung to that blade, forcing it back and forth and dodging while making such a racket that surely the police would arrive any minute.
If I could hold on that long.
Blood made the wool slick. I felt the blade slip in my hand.
When she tugged it again, I let go. She staggered back.
I rolled to one side, kicked free of the afghan and flung it over her. Then I pelted uphill in the garden, running for my life.
When I reached the gravel, though, I had to pause to breathe. A stitch in my side threatened to paralyze me. I snatched a quick peek behind me and saw she’d gotten free of the afghan and was more than halfway up the garden, holding the sword like she meant business.
“Dear God in heaven,” I moaned. History was repeating itself. Jim had come over for his own version of the Highland Clearances. Now I was fixing to get my own private Culloden.
30
“Mac? What’s up!”
Laura strode around the corner of the house like a happy goddess, swinging a helmet. “Man! I gotta get me—” She stopped and her eyes widened. “What have you done to your hand? You’re bleeding all over the place!” She looked over my shoulder and called, “Joyce! Get us some towels or something. Quick! Mac’s been hurt.” She grabbed my arm and raised it above my head. As much as I hurt, I could see her, clear as day, in her Brownie uniform at seven, telling me seriously, “Me-Mac, I’m gonna cut off your blood, but it won’t hurt one bit.”
Now she gasped, “Hold that up a minute,” while she whipped off her belt and made a tourniquet, then shouted over her shoulder, “Roddy, can you give Mac here a lift to the doctor? She’s been cut.”
I finally caught my breath enough to gasp, “Joyce—she—”
“She’s gone for towels,” Laura promised. “She’ll be back in a minute. Until then, here.” She jerked off her down parka and wrapped it around my bleeding hand.
Roddy scrunched around the gravel. “She’ll have to wear a helmet. The sergeant’ll have my license if I take her through the village twice without one.”
Laura was already fastening the strap under my chin. “She’s ready. Go, Mac!” She gave me the little pat she used to give her soccer mates before a big play. “I’ll be right behind you.” She raised her voice. “Don’t bother with the towels, Joyce. Roddy’s taking her to the doctor.”
“Don’t go in the house!” I cried. “She’s got a sword!”
I could tell Laura thought I was raving from loss of blood. “She killed Norwood Hardin,” I called urgently while Roddy pulled me by one elbow toward his bike. “Don’t go in the house! Get the police!”
I don’t remember much about my second motorcycle ride, but I now have a fuller understanding of the term “hanging on for dear life.” Life had never seemed so dear.
I remember sliding to a stop, then I remember opening my eyes and seeing a magnificent red-gold mustache. “When did you grow a mustache?” I murmured to Roddy.
“Take it easy, noo,” said a deep, musical voice I recognized as the doctor’s. “Ye’ve just fainted, but you’ll feel better soon.” A firm hand steered me toward an open door at a turtle pace.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever feel better. My hand hurts.” I held out the parka-swathed paw, stained with seeping blood.
That sped him up. Within seconds I was sitting beside a table and he was shooting my hand full of something to numb it so he could get busy with needle and thread.
While he worked, I tried not to look. But when I saw myself in the mirror over his desk—face white as chalk, hair like it had come out of a wind tunnel, I nearly fainted again.
“Careful, noo,” the doctor warned, propping me up. “Ye’ve lost a lot of blood, so ye’ll be weak. And if ye’ve not had a shot for tetanus—”
As much as Joe Riddley might prefer me with a locked jaw at times, I took the shot.
Laura arrived as I was tottering into the waiting room, and helped me out to the backseat of a little green Mini. “Watty borrowed his daughter’s car for you to ride back in.” Watty himself opened the front door with a flourish of his disreputable cap and intoned, “Where to, modom?”
“The police station,” I said in a voice that wobbled. “How’s Morag?”
“Frightened.” He settled the cap on his head and went around to the other side. “Megan’s letting her hang on to her coattails for the rest of the day.” I wondered whether Megan would have let me hang on, too. Unfortunately, it was now too late to ask.
“So.” The sergeant stood behind his desk and offered me the chair on the other side. Watty and Laura he waved to the bench along the wall. Then he sat down and asked, “What’s this I hear about you accusing Ms. Underwood of murder?”
“Have you sent somebody up to Heather Glen?” I asked urgently. “She’s got a sword.”
“That’s been taken care of.” He looked down at a forefinger he was tapping on his desk. “What made you think she killed Mr. Hardin?”
“She thought I had figured it out, so she came looking for me, to kill me, too. And suddenly—oh, it was lots of things.” I felt too listless at the moment to care.
Watty thrust a cup of inky tea into my hand. “Drink this. It’s sweet and hot.”
When I’d had a few sips, the sergeant picked up where he’d left off. “And did she give you any reason for Mr. Hardin’s murder?”
“She is—or was—his stepdaughter, Jocelyn Gray. You can find her picture on the Internet if you search under either Norwood Hardin or James Gordon. She came here expressly to kill him, and wrote the play because she knew he couldn’t resist amateur theatricals.”
My voice trembled at the end, for I’d remembered Joyce’s accusation of Norwood—and of me. Mama used to say we are most critical of people who share our faults.
Oh, dear God, don’t let me be like Norwood Hardin.
Oh, dear God, don’t let me be like Norwood Hardin.
The sergeant gave me a long, level look. “I thought the trip was set up so Jim Gordon could come to Auchnagar to make a business deal with the laird.”
“That’s how it was financed, because Jim wanted to come incognito to claim his family’s land. But Joyce was the one who told Jim that Norwood was here. And she agreed to lead the tour because she planned to kill him.”
Watty grunted. “A match made in hell.”
The room felt hot, and was beginning to get blurry around the edges. I waved my good hand and said sleepily, “I can’t talk much more today, but it’s all true. Are you sure you’ve sent somebody up to Heather Glen? If Eileen or Marcia—if anybody goes in there—” That was all I could say for the moment.
Laura came and put a hand on my shoulder. “She’s killed herself, Mac. Locked herself in the bathroom with a sword, and—” She cleared her throat. “I told the police, like you said. The sergeant went himself. He found her.”
I’d already felt weak. Now I felt like the stuffing had been sucked out of me in one glob. Could I have done anything at all to prevent that?
When I flexed my sore hand, I knew the answer. Was that why Joyce ordered two coffins?
That night, the six of us who remained in the tour group sat in the lounge until the fire died. My hand was starting to throb, and I would soon need to take another pain pill and get to bed, but as I looked around the room—at sleek Brandi, foxy Sherry, truculent Kenny, dear Dorothy, and mournful Marcia—I discovered I had come to love them like family, warts and all. The knowledge that we, like all such groups, would separate the next day and never gather again made me incredibly sad. Could I have only known these people two weeks?
On the mantelpiece was propped Dorothy’s unwitting contribution toward solving the puzzle we had known as Joyce Underwood. Dorothy had come home that evening oblivious of what had been going on in the village, bearing a small oil painting. “Careful,” she had warned. “It’s still wet. But I wanted you all to see, eh?” She held it up proudly. “I painted it yesterday and today.”
It showed the side of the Roman Catholic church facing Alex’s deck, a private courtyard framed with yews. Bright daffodils grew around the step where two figures were entering the side door. The man was short and stocky, with gray hair. The woman was taller, with brown hair. She wore a pale blue parka and carried a green bag.
Dorothy had warned me that when she was painting she never saw what she was painting. However, she also painted what she saw.
“So,” Laura said lazily to Marcia, “you’ll be staying on for another week?”
Marcia gave us all a luminous smile. “Yes, and then I’m going back to Calgary, pack up my things, and come back. I’ll be helping Eileen with the guesthouse.”
“What about you?” Laura asked Dorothy.
We could see Dorothy color up even in the firelight. “I’m going to apply for a visa to come back for a year. I’ll work at the gallery in the morning and paint in the afternoon.”
“Send us Christmas cards to keep us posted about what’s going on in your lives,” I commanded them. I didn’t want to die without knowing whether Dorothy married Alex, Roddy, somebody else, or nobody—and whether she eventually became a full-time artist.
“I’m sorry I can’t come home with you tomorrow.” Brandi spoke with what sounded like real regret. “I have to wait until they release Jimmy’s body. But I’ve got your card, Mac. I’ll call you about landscaping my garden. I want it to be a memorial to him.”
I wouldn’t count on the job. It was one of those things people say at sentimental times. But I wouldn’t mind seeing her again.
“What about you folks?” Dorothy asked Kenny and Sherry.
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