The Haunted Season (32 page)

Max nodded. “And there's your motive. So, Awena, everything she said about Peregrine was bluff—that he had no potential in her eyes. She was trying to toss red herrings in my path and succeeding for a while. She saw lots of potential in Peregrine—he was her means to an end.

“She liked to emphasize the difference in their ages, and certainly she was the more mature of the two—her upbringing was not cosseted as his was—but she was only five years his senior. Even so, it's like the difference between human years and animal years. He couldn't possibly keep up.”

Cotton said, “According to the boy, who broke quite nicely once we'd frightened him out of his skin—thank you for the idea, Max—their affair started not long after her marriage to his father. He was a teenager and she was just out of her teens and finding herself tied for life to a very old man.”

“Something she might have noticed before she married him,” Awena remarked.

“Oh, she did,” said Max. “I believe she certainly did. It was her bargain with the devil, and she went into it with eyes wide open, or so she thought. She wanted to escape the past, and her looks were her ticket out. But she was marrying into one very unhappy family. And Lord B-B could be bit of a brute.”

“Tolstoy was right, although he couldn't have reckoned on this lot,” said Cotton. When, Max wondered, did Cotton find time to read the classics? The remark made Max remember his disturbing dream of the severed head with the long Tolstoyan beard.

Max said, “I suppose having an affair is a lot like being a spy. All the skulking about, all the lying and passing coded messages, and varying your route in case you're followed.”

“Maybe that is part of the appeal for some people. For a certain type of person. They enjoy the secrecy, the danger of being caught.”

“And for others, the secrecy does them in,” said Max. “The guilt overwhelms them. I do not get an overriding sense that was a drawback for Bree, do you?”

“Not at all. Lady Baaden-Boomethistle is a very cool customer. And the son is not exactly wallowing in guilt at betraying his father.”

“I will grant you remorse is not in Bree's repertoire,” said Max. “But Peregrine might be caught up in a web of several emotions. I am not sure we can write him off entirely, even though he nearly was tempted into patricide. He was the means Lady Baaden-Boomethistle first tried to use to get what she wanted.”

“Which was what, precisely?” Awena asked.

“Apart from the money? Freedom—much the same thing in her mind, I would imagine. The freedom to do exactly as she pleased, when she pleased, and the money to do it with. To buy horses and ride horses and travel the world, following the sun.”

“And this she couldn't do with him alive?”

“Not with him controlling the finances for both her and the boy. And according to her prenup, if she left Lord B-B, she'd leave with not much more than the clothing on her back. She was not well advised by lawyers, perhaps. In fact, she seems to have signed the papers without giving it a thought. She was young and maybe not as smart in the ways of the world as she became later. That would breed anger, too—that her youth and inexperience with lawyers had been taken advantage of.

“So she may have started by leading Peregrine on, perhaps out of boredom and a taste for revenge as much as anything, not really sure he would do anything so mad as to kill for her, but trying nonetheless to turn him into the unthinking instrument that would extricate her from this marriage. It was fun. It was, if nothing else, a challenge.”

“But she failed.”

“She might have succeeded over time—my money is absolutely on her in that regard—but then she came to know she was backing the wrong horse, to continue the racing metaphor. And that's when she decided to try elsewhere. She needed someone without the emotional complications of a son's guilt. Someone more mature and steady, whose love for her was primal, beyond question. Certainly that is what she had in Chanel.”

“Chanel?” said Awena.

“Yes, didn't we say?” said Max smoothly.

“No, Max, of course you didn't say!”

 

Chapter 24

CONNECTIONS

“Once Cotton got someone capable of staking out the summerhouse over there on the property, whom did they see?” Max asked. “The son, yes—we expected that. But the surprise was Chanel, meeting up with Bree to discuss what happened next. Taking time out from her busy day of advising others how to live, writing books stuffed with good advice, to engage in a spectacularly ill-advised scheme.

“The two women organized the times for their meetings by using the hymn board. I did wonder why Bree had taken a sudden interest in the church, when none was evident before.”

“The hymn numbers. Three forty-five. Of course!” Awena said.

“Once I saw the usefulness of that board to people wanting to set up a private meeting, it made surveillance of the summerhouse a bit easier—I made the assumption that any secret meetings around Totleigh would take place there, and now we knew when to keep an eye out. Generally, the board is changed late Saturday afternoon for the Sunday services, so it doesn't matter what numbers appear there during the week, when services aren't accompanied by music. Generally, the old numbers from the week before stay in place. If they were messed about, no one would notice, and it didn't matter anyway. Kids playing, people would think. The pair avoided anything as risky as sending a phone or text message or letter, which could too easily be discovered or seen by prying eyes. Eugenia was spot-on when she said she saw Chanel Dirkson changing the numbers.”

“It was clever of them,” Cotton put in. “Anything digital would be too easily tracked in the mobile records.”

“The old-fashioned methods are so often best for anyone wanting to escape detection,” agreed Max. “That is why bin Laden successfully communicated via courier and got away with it for so long.”

He felt he'd been looking at the truth the whole time and missing it. It is said that when your eyesight degenerates, it can be like that. You can look straight at someone's face but see only the trees behind them. It all made him think of Monkbury Abbey and miracle cures, and missing the forest for the trees. How could he have been so blind?

“It's like something out of a spy novel,” said Cotton.

“The ultrasecrecy was essential. Imagine the lord's reaction if he'd suspected—and I think he did suspect something was going on. He just didn't know the exact nature of what was being planned. That may have been why he called me to the manor house that night to talk. From his manner, I knew something was troubling him.

“Anyway, it was Chanel, with her deep voice, and Bree, with her similar voice, whom Destiny overheard that evening—these names! It all sounds more and more like one of the dowager's plots, doesn't it?”

“Tame by comparison,” said Awena. “So Chanel…”

“Was another of Bree's conquests, in a way. Another person under the spell of Bree's charm and beauty. She was being ‘groomed,' so to speak, to do what Bree wanted. Manipulated and lied to, pressured to act on Bree's behalf, yes. A team united—at least Chanel thought they were. Partners in crime? Oh yes.” Pair they were, something Max felt he should have realized. That conversation Destiny had overheard, conducted miles from here, in a place of privacy. That location suggested—could only mean—a close bond between two
women.
It had nothing to do with Peregrine or any other male. And their conversation proved this was more than two women friends idly chatting.

“Partners in crime,” repeated Awena. “So Bree is the killer?”

Max and Cotton exchanged glances and sighed. “Bree is certainly responsible—I would say directly and indirectly—for her husband's death. Did she goad Chanel? Insinuate? Inveigle? Make promises and paint a beautiful picture of their glorious future together? I think she did, and I think she's guilty as sin as a sort of instigator.”

“A starter,” mused Awena. “A provocateur.”

“But Chanel isn't talking anymore,” said Cotton. “She's clammed up. The prints we found on that clicker Max uncovered are hers, interestingly enough. It's not airtight evidence, but every bit helps. If Bree put that thing in the planter, by the way, it seems she was smart enough to wear gloves doing it.”

“Chanel isn't talking
yet,
you mean. That day may come—unless Bree does a magnificent job of making sure she doesn't feel forgotten, rotting in her cell. If Bree is really smart, she'll hire the best solicitors and barristers to handle Chanel's case.”

“But you do think she talked Chanel into this?”

“Not exactly
talked,
” said Max. “She's too canny for that. She'd choose her words wisely, and never say anything that could be brought home to her door. I think she only had to drop little hints of how much she longed for freedom. Mention how the pair of them could be together, and how nice it would be if they were. They could go and live on a tropical island, perhaps, if only she were free … with all that money.… How desperately unhappy she was, but it was all impossible. You know the sort of thing. It is likely that the full extent of Bree's involvement might never be known, but I would not be at all surprised if she used the oldest trick in the book, claiming that Lord B-B was unfaithful or abused her in some way. I noticed there were faint smudges under her eyes when I spoke with her, like healing bruises. I think now they were bruises, and I think they were self-inflicted. Either that or it was cleverly applied makeup. Even Chanel may not realize how much she's been manipulated.”

“She acted as though the whole thing were her own idea, and claims that it was. She's staying with that story, Max.”

“What made her talk?” Awena asked.

Again, Cotton and Max exchanged glances.

“Chanel fell into the trap we'd laid for Peregrine,” said Cotton. “We arranged for a headless horseman to ride through the woods, just after the sun went behind the trees, and the setting was properly spooky and cast with shadows. And we made sure Peregrine and Bree were there to see it—I'd asked them to meet me to look at some evidence near the murder site.”

Max said, “Cotton tells me that Bree, as we rather expected, kept her cool—the benefit of being suspicious by nature is that you're harder to fool. I almost wonder if she knew the famous story of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow—one of her horses is named Gunpowder, the same name as the horse Ichabod rode. A brass plate with that name is on one of the stalls in her stables. Anyway, in the story, there is a strong suggestion the whole thing is a hoax: a pumpkin is involved, as I recall.” His mind caught on the pumpkin in his dream, smashed in pieces. “Peregrine quickly came apart and confessed to the affair, but denied he had anything to do with murder. She tried to shush him, but he was past listening to her. This was all much more than he had bargained for. I'm sure he will forever have nightmares about the headless corpse of his father.”

“And then Chanel, who had been waiting for Bree in the summerhouse, arrived on the scene,” interjected Cotton. “She heard Peregrine yelling blue murder—remember, he's not much more than a boy—and she came running, just in time to see the ‘ghost' race by. Then
she
came undone. Once we'd reduced everyone but Bree to a quivering mass, the truth came out quickly enough. There was not a lot of point in Chanel's claiming she didn't know what we were talking about, not once we told her her conversations in the summerhouse had been overheard. We implied we knew more than we did, but no matter. She confessed she'd done it. She was gibbering to the point I had to interrupt the flow to caution her.”

“Wait a minute,” said Awena. ‘Everybody just wait a minute. Headless horseman?”

“Horsewoman, actually. The very diminutive Sergeant Essex, atop Foto Finish. With a cape covering her head, the horse thundering down the forest path in the flickering moonlight, it was an amazingly lifelike apparition. Essex carried an old-fashioned lantern as she rode, which I think was rather a nice touch—her idea. Quite frightening, actually—even I was shaken, though I knew who it was and what was going on.”

“Is all this legal?” inquired Awena.

“More or less,” said Cotton lightly. He toggled one hand equivocally. “It got the confession we wanted from Peregrine, as to his involvement with Bree. And a denial of involvement in the murder she had urged him to commit—a denial that was utterly convincing. The added bonus came from Chanel, as to the commission of the murder itself. She simply threw herself under the wheels to keep Bree out of it, once she saw the way the whole thing was trending: The blubbering Peregrine was, by this point, accusing Bree openly, quoting chapter and verse. From a legal standpoint, it's hearsay, of course, even though I believe him.”

“But Bree admits nothing,” said Awena.

“I am not holding my breath that she will ever own up to the extent of her involvement. It is very likely she cannot be held culpable, as things stand. And she knows it.” Cotton shuddered slightly. “She's like a spider, that one.”

“But how was it done?” Awena asked, clearly appalled. “The beheading … the wire.”

“How exactly did Chanel pull off the murder? The horse had been trained from a colt to obey the sound of a clicker. All of this was quite a normal part of his training. Then at some point, over and over, he began to be taught that to get a reward, he had to lower his head at the sound. And keep his head down and keep running until the clicker sounded again.”

“I heard what I thought was the sound of crickets that night,” said Max. “As I walked through the woods with Thea.”

“Crickets don't live in forests,” said Awena. “They live in fields and meadows.”