A Simple Country Mystery Read online

  2

  “Another murder?” Irene asked, incredulous, her jaw hanging open. “You cannot be serious.”

  Sidney nodded. “I certainly wish I was not,” he said. “Unfortunately, the news was confirmed by Mr. Hodgins this morning.”

  Mr. Hodgins, the town butcher, was always up before the sunrise to prepare his shop for the day. I had never known a butcher who kept his produce as fresh as he did, and from what his wife had told me, he wasted hardly anything.

  “What exactly did he say?” Irene asked, her brow furrowing.

  “Just what the newspaper reported,” Sidney said.

  I turned around and glanced at the welcome mat near my front door. Lying there, half in a puddle, was my own morning paper.

  I hurried to it and snatched it from the water, the edges of the page dripping as I carried it back toward the garden gate.

  “It should be right there on the front page,” Sidney said, pointing at the paper in my hands.

  I unfolded the sopping paper, the ink bleeding through and making it difficult to read. After peeling some of the pages apart, I scanned the headlines.

  War Entering Tense Times!

  Rationing Restrictions Reevaluated!

  Tired of Tuesdays? Try Tommy’s Time Wasters!

  “I don’t see it,” I said, looking up at Sidney.

  “Down there, toward the bottom,” he said.

  Irene leaned over my shoulder as I flipped the paper over and found a small column in the bottom corner, written in tiny font that was rather difficult to read.

  “Woman found dead in her home; Police suspect foul play.”

  I stared up at Irene, my mouth hanging open slightly.

  “How dreadful…” Irene said, laying a hand over her heart. “Does it say who it was?”

  I returned my gaze to the page, my eyes searching through the words.

  “Mrs. Lowell, a local widow, was found dead early Monday morning in her home by her daughter…” I read.

  “Mrs. Lowell?” Irene asked, and her face fell. “Oh, my word…”

  “Who is Mrs. Lowell?” I asked. “I’m not sure I’ve ever met her.”

  Irene rested her palm against her cheek. “She was perhaps the sweetest woman in this whole village. A fantastic painter with such a gentle heart, an artist, through and through.”

  “Was she the petite woman with the blonde hair?” Sidney asked. “The one who always hung around the park on Ivy Street?”

  “The same,” Irene said. “Her daughter, Evangeline, is the spitting image of her, as well…and good heavens, she can’t be any older than Michael is…ten at the very oldest.”

  My heart ached for the poor girl, as well as for the mother.

  “What else does it say?” Irene asked, eyeing the paper in my hands.

  I returned my gaze to it, clearing my throat. “When the police arrived, she was unresponsive. She was rushed to the hospital, where she spent several hours under careful observation of the doctors, but was pronounced dead at 12:04 pm.”

  “But how?” Irene asked. “How did this poor woman die?”

  Sidney sighed, his hands on his hips. “The article doesn’t explain,” he said. “But as the headline says, the police suspect violence.”

  Irene frowned. “I just hope that poor girl didn’t find her mother in some bloody mess…it must have been troubling enough to find her in the first place.”

  Sidney shook his head. “When I spoke with Mr. Hodgins this morning, he seemed to think that it might have been a poisoning, or perhaps something as simple as a heart attack,” he said. “He seemed to think that the reports were far too eager to paint this as a murder as opposed to just a natural death.”

  I gave Sidney a searching look. “What do you think?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “How can I know? I haven’t seen the body, and goodness knows if it was some sort of gruesome murder, no one else will, either, as they will certainly have a closed casket funeral…”

  “Well, it seems they wished to keep this quiet until the police were ready to discuss it,” Irene said, holding out her hand for the paper. “May I?”

  I nodded, passing it to her, feeling rather hollow inside.

  Her eyes scanned the page, and she picked up where I left off. “Inspector Graves was pulled aside for questioning at the scene; ‘We would like to assure everyone that the matter has been handled, and that Mrs. Lowell’s daughter is going to be taken to a foster home where she will be cared for until we can find a family to take her in.’”

  Irene shook her head. “A foster home? As far as I know, Mrs. Lowell had no family in the village anywhere. She and her husband moved here when they were married some years ago, and she couldn’t have been older than eighteen at the time.”

  So…this woman was likely younger than I was…and she was already dead?

  “That’s awfully young to die like she did,” Sidney said, folding his arms and echoing my thoughts almost exactly. With a glance at him, a chill ran down my spine. “She couldn’t have even been thirty then, right?”

  “Precisely,” Irene said sadly. “She lost her husband in the war last year, and has been struggling to make ends meet since then.”

  “And they’re just going to put her daughter in a foster home? Just like that?” I asked.

  “Well, it’s probably to keep her safe for now,” Sidney said. “What else should they do?”

  I hesitated. “I don’t know, but she just lost her mother, and now she has to go and live with an entirely new family?”

  “It’s better than living in that house all on her own,” Irene said. “Sam Graves will ensure her safety, I’m certain.”

  “Yes, of course,” Sidney said, nodding in agreement. “The authorities will make sure she is taken care of.”

  He stared up the street, and then glanced at his watch.

  “I am terribly sorry to be the bearer of such bad news today, ladies,” he said. “And I’m also sorry that it is all I have time to discuss today. Unfortunately, I have a job I must get to this morning.”

  “That’s quite all right,” I said. “You go on. Irene, do you still want to stay for tea?”

  “Yes, I could certainly use it after all that.” She waved at Sidney. “Goodbye, Mr. Mason. As unfortunate as the news you brought us was, I’m certainly glad we were able to discuss it with someone. I’m sure it will be on everyone’s mind come this afternoon. It will help me be better prepared when I open the teahouse.”

  “My pleasure, Irene,” Sidney said. His blue eyes moved onto me, and I felt a shiver as a small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “And you have a good day too…all right, Helen?”

  My face flushed with color, but I nodded and returned the smile. “Thank you,” I said. “You as well.”

  With that, he started back toward his house, where I saw his car parked in the front drive.

  “Come on, dear,” Irene said, wrapping her arms tightly around herself. “Let’s get in out of this drizzling mist.”

  The ends of my hair were clinging to my blouse and shoulders as we stepped back inside, and my skin, slick with the fine rain, glistened as I flicked on the lights in the shop.

  The tea didn’t take long to heat. Soon we both cradled the warm, steaming cups in our hands.

  “I just can’t stop thinking about poor Mrs. Lowell,” Irene said, shaking her head. “She’s had it so rough the last few years, and now to find out that she passed away in the prime of her life? It’s just too much to take in.”

  I stared down into my tea, the sugar still melting in the hot liquid. “I cannot help but feel connected to this woman,” I said. “Not only did she pack up and move to this small village, but she also lost her husband to the war…”

  Irene sighed heavily. “I should have introduced the two of you. I imagine it would have been nice for her to have a friend who would understand what she’s been going through. It really helps to put things into perspective, doesn’t it? Life can be over in the blink of an eye�
��and far too often it happens too soon.”

  My throat grew tight. The nightmares I had endured the night before now felt like child’s play in comparison to the news of yet another death in the village.

  “How do you think her daughter is going to handle this?” I asked quietly.

  “I can’t imagine very well,” Irene answered, frowning. “Especially if she was the one to find Abigail.”

  The images that flooded my mind in that moment were rather gruesome; a woman sprawled out across the kitchen floor, breakfast half finished on the counter. The same woman sitting upright in her favorite chair, her eyes wide and staring, her head lolling to the side. And an even worse scenario, where the poor girl wandered into her mother’s bedroom, only to see her mother’s hand outstretched on the floor, streaked with blood…not moving.

  I shuddered, shaking the pictures from my mind.

  “I hope they will be able to find family for her to go to,” I said. “People who will take care of her, love her and help her get through this.”

  “As do I,” Irene said. “You know, I find it all rather strange how these sorts of things keep happening in Brookminster. For as long as I can remember, this used to be such a quiet place, where hardly anything exciting ever happened. I should know, my brother likes to mention it every time he comes to visit.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” I said. “If I was a superstitious woman, I would believe I brought my own bad luck with me when I moved here.”

  Irene pursed her lips, shaking her head. “That’s nonsense, dear, and you know that. These things happen, and from what I know, they often come in waves. What’s the old saying…death comes in threes?”

  “Then let’s hope this is the end of them,” I said, frowning.

  I felt Irene’s gaze on me, and when I looked at her, I found her expression hard and serious.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked, setting down my teacup.

  “You know very well what I’m thinking,” Irene said. “If you feel like you’re responsible for these deaths, then I know you well enough now to know that you will want to get involved so you can get to the bottom of it and figure out what happened.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, averting my gaze, my cheeks flooding with color. “I have no interest in getting involved. Besides, I didn’t even know Mrs. Lowell.”

  “No, but you told me that you already feel connected to her, given your similar situations,” Irene said. She sighed. “Please promise me you will just go about your life, dear. The last thing I want is for you to get hurt, or find yourself in yet another dangerous situation.”

  “I know,” I said. “I understand. And I appreciate your concern for me, Irene. I really do.”

  Irene’s gaze seemed suspicious, and I knew she was as well aware as I was that I had not, in fact, promised not to get involved at all.

  The truth was that I had already, in a way, promised myself that after I was done with work that day, I intended to do some more digging into this woman’s death.

  After all, if someone is now coming after widows, then how can I be sure that I won’t be next?

  3

  Everything went smoothly in the shop that day. Customers came by, modifying or picking up their orders. I somehow managed to stay on top of them all, having developed a rather clever organization system that Sidney himself had helped me with, with individual drawers labeled with the different customers’ names.

  I managed to organize an entire shipment of buttons that had come in nearly every color, all thrown into a box from the place where I’d ordered them second hand. Hundreds of buttons all needed to be sorted and placed in with their matches of the same shade and shape.

  When three o’clock came around, I was quite ready to be done for the day. It seemed that nearly every customer who walked through my door had something to say about Mrs. Lowell’s death.

  Even though we had all read the same article, which was incredibly vague and left a great deal to the imagination, almost everyone had an opinion about what had happened. More than that, they were speculating about who had killed the poor woman in the first place.

  “Must have been some jealous ex-lover,” said Mrs. Georgianna to a friend of hers when they stepped up to pay for their new hats. “Why else would they have moved to a place where they didn’t know a soul all those years ago?”

  Other customers had different ideas.

  “What if it was little Evangeline?” asked Mrs. Diggory in a hushed tone to her husband. “She’s always been so very quiet…I’ve been worried about the boys spending any time with her. She’s always had that distant look…don’t you think? And who would suspect a child?”

  But none of these theories were as ridiculous as what I’d heard from Mrs. Wells, the wife of one of the police officers who worked for Sam Graves.

  “You know, my husband has it on good authority that she was killed by the Germans,” she said to me, her eyes wide as she passed me her money across the counter. “He thinks they’re afraid her soldier husband told her things that were confidential, and they sent a spy to silence her.”

  I didn’t commit to any sort of response to her, but realized that Mrs. Wells was also notorious for believing her garden hose to be haunted, and that she could communicate with her St. Bernard, Louie.

  “All I’m saying is that we should all remain vigilant,” she said in a harsh whisper as I passed her a small hat box wrapped in blue ribbon. “Spies could be anywhere…anyone. We can’t ever be too careful.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Wells. I’ll do my best to stay alert,” I said.

  She nodded sharply, taking her box and hurrying from the store.

  After closing the shop, I changed out of my working clothes and into something a little better for going out in. Not only did I have errands of my own to run, but I felt a very strong pull to remain in the sway of the gossip around town. And the only way for me to do that was to follow after it, and keep my finger on the pulse of this story.

  Sidney had mentioned Mr. Hodgins, the butcher. It seemed he was familiar with the story. And knowing him, his shop would likely be very busy, especially this close to suppertime.

  I quickly changed, brushed my teeth, and splashed some cool water on my flushed face.

  As I dabbed at my cheeks with the towel, I met my own stare in the mirror, and for the first time in what felt like months, I really looked at myself.

  My hair was the same as it always was; long, straight, the color of deeply steeped tea. It was getting a little long, though…it might have been time to get a trim.

  My eyes were the same steely blue that I’d seen every day since I was born.

  And I seemed so thin…I could clearly see the bones in my wrists, and my cheeks seemed somewhat sunken in.

  I touched my face, felt my jaw, which protruded more than it used to.

  The truth was, I hardly recognized myself anymore. At least, I didn’t recognize the look in my eyes, the somewhat lost, and haunted expression.

  I had known that Roger’s death had taken its toll on me. I’d noticed it less than others, like my mother who often telephoned and reminded me to eat more than I normally would want to, or Irene who was always sending me home with little tea cakes and biscuits and sweets, just to make me happy.

  The pain was clear in my eyes, though. I couldn’t even hide it from myself.

  I tried to force a smile, but it seemed utterly fake, and it only made my heart ache instead.

  It wasn’t just pain that was evident. There was a hardness in my gaze now, too.

  I’d experienced death, stared it in the face more than once, since moving to Brookminster. Those were the sorts of things that either made or broke people, weren’t they?

  If I was honest with myself, I wasn’t quite sure which it had done to me…

  For the very first time since coming to Brookminster, I wondered if I had made the right decision to move here in the first place.

  Did I
make the decision too hastily? Should I have given myself more of a chance to heal, surrounded by those who loved me and wanted to take care of me?

  Coming here was meant to be my way of healing, of moving on from the past, I thought. But it’s never that easy, is it? Distance alone is not going to be enough to cure my heartache.

  I knew it was best not to wallow in self-pity, especially after the sort of day I’d had.

  I’m just tired, I assured myself. After those horrible dreams, and then finding about Mrs. Lowell. I just need a good night’s rest, and I’ll feel much better after I get to sleep.

  But sleep was going to have to wait until a more reasonable time. For now, I thought it would be best if I learned about this poor Mrs. Lowell’s death…and perhaps what might have caused the killer to go after her in particular, in hopes that I might discern if other women like me, widowed or living alone, were in danger at all.

  I made my way down the street to the butcher’s shop, my rationing coupons tucked inside my purse. There were several people wandering to and fro down the streets, enjoying the break of the rain that day. The clouds were blocking most of the sun, keeping the heat of July at bay, but it still surprised me that it was as humid out as it was.

  The butcher’s shop had the door thrown open, which was strange, given his tendency to keep fresh meat out on the counter, weighing and measuring it for customers as they streamed in through the doorway. I thought that he would have detested the possibility of flies, or other such creatures.

  As I stepped inside, though, I realized the open door was not purely for the temperature, but to account for all of the people that were waiting inside.

  They were packed like sardines. I saw hands in the air, waving tickets. I heard a voice call out a number from behind the counter, only to realize that it was Gary Hodgins, Mr. Hodgin’s oldest son. He wore the same white apron as his father, and he peered down from behind the counter for the hand that corresponded with his number.

  I moved inside, the scent of sweat and raw meat hanging in the humid air. Having the door open was clearly meant to keep the temperature inside the small storefront down.