Читать книгу Historically Dead - Greta McKennan - Страница 13

Chapter Five

After a relaxing day on Sunday in which I did nothing more strenuous than transplant my new Japanese maples on either side of the front porch, I was ready for a new week. Still, I was unprepared for what I saw when I got off the bus the next morning and walked down the street to Compton Hall.

It was obvious that something was wrong. A couple of police cars sat in the circular drive, lights off but still ominous in the bright sunshine. The front door hung slightly ajar, a sin in the eyes of Ruth, who abhorred any thought of flies getting into the house. Suddenly fear gripped me—had something happened to Priscilla? Only slightly reassured by the absence of an ambulance, I hurried into the front hall.

The house was uncharacteristically quiet, with no noise of construction coming from the kitchen. Since I didn’t think Carl Harper had finished tearing out the kitchen appliances, the calm made me even more apprehensive. A man’s measured tones emanated from the living room. I paused outside the closed door, engaging in the time-honored tradition of all stately homes: listening at keyholes. I could only catch scraps of the discourse, which sounded like one person lecturing the rest of those present. I heard the phrase “blunt force trauma,” followed by “death.” Priscilla? I abandoned any effort to be discreet, and pushed open the door.

I gasped at the blur of faces gaping at me. The only one my brain registered was Priscilla, sitting quietly in her chair next to Ruth. She looked to be free of any blunt force trauma and as far away from death as usual. I ran across the room, refraining from enveloping her in a huge hug. Instead I knelt on the floor by her side and patted the gnarled hand lying on the chair arm.

She held a finger to her lips as if I were a student coming in late to class. “Officer Travis wasn’t finished, my dear.”

The tall, kindly-looking police officer stood in front of the fireplace, commanding the attention of the entire room. He looked pointedly at me. “Ms. Dembrowski.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt.” I glanced around at the people gathered there. Carl Harper, Jamison Royce, Louise Pritchard, John Ellis, and the TV producers Cherry Stamford and Stillman Dertz joined Ruth and Priscilla.

Office Travis nodded. “To fill you in, Ms. Dembrowski, Eric Burbridge did not die of natural causes. Preliminary autopsy results indicate that he died of blunt force trauma to the back of the head. He’d been dead for a good twelve hours before his body was found on Friday morning.” He paused.

Both hands flew to my mouth. “Somebody killed him?” I croaked. “Here, in this house?”

The officer watched me closely, gauging my reaction. “Precisely.”

He didn’t get any further. Ruth stood up, leaning heavily on her gold-tipped cane. “That’s just it, isn’t it? Someone committed murder in this house.” She glared around the room. “Who?”

Travis indicated her seat. “Ma’am, please have a seat. The LSPD will get to the bottom of this.” He continued talking about the professor’s physical condition when his body was discovered, but I couldn’t make sense of his words through the roaring in my ears. I looked around the room like Ruth had, with her imperious “Who?” echoing in my brain. She thought it was one of us!

Slowly Officer Travis’s words came back into focus. “...sorry for the inconvenience, but we are now in the midst of a murder investigation.” He plucked the radio from his utility belt and spoke into it, “Ready to question the witnesses.” He replaced the radio and stood silent in front of the crowd.

I sat back on my heels, stunned. A murder investigation. That was the last thing I wanted to be in the midst of. I’d been involved in a murder investigation during the Civil War reenactment in June, when my friend Chris found the body and was suspected of being the killer. My hands went cold. I had discovered Professor Burbridge’s body. Would I be the number one suspect?

“How long a delay can we expect?” Cherry Stamford appealed to Officer Travis. “We have a very tight production schedule here.” She swept her arm to encompass Jamison Royce and Carl Harper. “These contractors are far behind schedule as it is. We cannot tolerate an extended delay.”

“I understand your concerns, but our investigation is paramount.” Officer Travis turned away, indicating the end of that conversation. He spoke quietly to a pair of police officers who entered the room, and then they began to take one or the other of us off for questioning. A young officer with dark hair and snapping black eyes led me off to the library, of all places.

“I’m Officer Maureen Franklin.” She ushered me in to the library and shut the door behind us. “And you’re Daria Dembrowski, the seamstress. I understand you found the professor...here, as a matter of fact.” She watched me closely.

“Yes.”

Officer Franklin grimaced at my curt answer, and pulled out a small notebook. “Let’s start at the beginning. How did you know the deceased?”

“I’m working on fabric arts for the remodeling of Compton Hall, so that means dresses and curtains, mostly. Professor Burbridge had done some research for me on historical curtains, and he had found some drawings of embroidered curtains. When I came in on Friday I was going to ask him for those drawings. But he was dead.” I shuddered at the thought of the professor lying huddled on the floor right in front of where I now sat. Someone had hit him on the head and killed him! He had been lying here, dead, the whole time I was rooting around the pile of Japanese maples just outside the library window on Thursday night. If I had peeked in the window, could I have saved him?

Officer Franklin’s voice pulled me back to the present. “Can you describe what you saw when you entered the room?”

“The professor was lying on the floor by the desk.” I indicated the spot by my feet. “There was some blood on his face. I didn’t see anything on the back of his head.”

“Did you touch the body?”

“No. I couldn’t see any breathing, so I guess I assumed he was dead. I called 911.”

I watched Officer Franklin taking down what I said, and then consulting another small notebook that she pulled from her pocket. A sidelong glance showed me that it was notes from my first interview with the police just after Professor Burbridge died. My heart sank at the realization that Franklin was comparing today’s answers to the ones I’d given two days ago. Was she trying to catch me out in an inconsistency, a lie? I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying for a calm, matter-of-fact demeanor. I might be a murder suspect, but I wasn’t guilty, so I had nothing to hide.

Officer Franklin questioned me for over an hour, focusing on the position of the professor’s body and my actions upon finding it. She pointed to the expanse of floor at my feet and conjured up the image of the dead man so many times that I began to feel nauseous. I could feel beads of sweat forming on my forehead, but hesitated to wipe them away for fear of looking guilty. I was sure she had brought me to this room and conducted her inquiry the way she did in an effort to prompt me to give myself away as a murderer. I could only hope that she knew that anyone being questioned in a murder investigation was bound to be nervous.

Finally it was over. Officer Franklin never spoke the words “You are a suspect.” I certainly wasn’t going to ask. She preceded me out of the library and led me back to the living room. The crowd had dwindled to Priscilla, Ruth, and John Ellis. Franklin surveyed the group and said, “I’d like to speak with Priscilla Compton now.”

Priscilla leaned heavily on the arms of her chair to get to her feet. She adjusted the full skirt of the period gown I’d made her, and accepted the offer of her nephew John’s arm to steady herself. “How can I help you?”

Ruth elbowed her son aside and settled Priscilla’s hand on her own arm. “I will accompany my sister while you question her.”

“There’s no need,” Officer Franklin soothed. “I can assure you, we will be careful not to upset Miss Compton.”

Ruth didn’t budge. “My sister has moments of diminishing lucidity. She cannot be considered a reliable witness. You may question her in my presence, or you may wait until our lawyer arrives. There are no other options.”

“Actually...” Officer Franklin bit back the rest of her retort, evidently coming to the conclusion that it was fruitless to argue with Ruth, the human dragon. “Very well. Come with me, please.”

She marched out of the room, followed by Ruth supporting Priscilla. “John, I want you here when we get back,” Ruth admonished on her way out the door.

I stood in the middle of the room, staring after them. I noticed my hands were shaking, and quickly stuffed them in my pockets. I turned to see John watching me.

“You were a long time with the cops. What did they say to you?”

“Officer Franklin just asked about Professor Burbridge’s body when I found it....” My words died on my lips at the look on John’s face: not mere curiosity or commiserating over a distressing experience that we both shared, but a look of calculation, of discovery. Ruth’s fierce “Who?” echoed in my mind once more. Could it have been John? Did John think it was me?

“Um, I should go get to work,” I stammered, and fled for the stairs.

But I couldn’t focus on historical embroidery. I kept getting up and going to the head of the stairs, listening for the tap of Ruth’s cane, wondering what Officer Franklin was learning from Priscilla. I shared Ruth’s concern about the usefulness of Priscilla as a witness, given her sweet vagueness. I didn’t really know if she suffered from dementia or was just delightfully quirky, but she did have a way of distorting reality that could be disconcerting, especially when it came to a murder investigation. I hoped Officer Franklin really was taking it easy on Priscilla.

I looked out my window to see a couple of officers pacing around the exterior of the house, examining the ground around the windows and checking the walls and windowsills. I shivered at the thought of a murderer creeping in the library window to bludgeon poor Professor Burbridge to death.

Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore. I threw down my curtains, having only succeeded in adding two inches of embroidery to the hemline, and strode out of the room and down the stairs. I paused in the great hall, listening. A clatter came from the kitchen, so Carl Harper must have finished with the police and gotten back to work. I turned toward the living room to find the door closed and Louise Pritchard standing outside, ear pressed to the keyhole. I chuckled at the picture she presented, far less subtle than I had been. But she could probably hear much better than I had. I walked over and tapped her on the shoulder.

Louise reared back as if I’d hit her over the head with the murder weapon. She let out a yell you could have heard all the way in Philly. Carl Harper popped out of the kitchen brandishing a massive wrench at the same instant that Officer Franklin hustled out of the living room.

“What’s the matter?”

“It was a mouse,” I cried, willing Louise to keep her mouth shut. “It ran right along the baseboard. It scared us both.” I took Louise’s hand and pulled her away from the door. “Come sit down in my sewing room to get over your fright.” I propelled her to the stairs, catching a glimpse out of the corner of my eye of Carl Harper trying to hide the oversized wrench behind his back, while Officer Franklin’s bright black eyes took everything in.

I dragged Louise up the stairs and led her to my sewing room. I pushed her into the only chair, and perched myself on the corner of the sewing table. “So?”

She rubbed her mouth sullenly. “What’d you have to go poking me like that for? Scared the bejesus out of me.” She shuffled her feet and rubbed her hands on her blue twill pants. “You didn’t really see a mouse, did you?”

“No, of course not. I didn’t think you’d holler like that, or I would have called your name or something.”

“Well, don’t go judging me for listening at keyholes.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not judging you. I want to know what was going on inside. What did they say?”

She stared at me, and then started to laugh, an ugly sound with a hint of hysteria just below the surface. I waited as patiently as I could until she settled down.

“That lady cop, she’s asking Miss Priscilla all kinds of questions. See, there was an argument with the professor, the night before you found his body. The two old ladies were going at it with him, I don’t know why. Somehow the cops found out, and now they think the old ladies bumped him off.”

I bit my lip, remembering the shouting I’d heard coming from the living room right before Professor Burbridge stormed out, muttering something about not wanting to be silenced. If he had something to say that the two old ladies wanted kept quiet, then they’d gotten their way in the end, hadn’t they? Could they have threatened him? Could they have actually killed him?

“That’s ridiculous,” I said out loud. “Neither Ruth nor Priscilla could have hit Professor Burbridge over the head hard enough to kill him.”

“Miss Ruth could have done it in a heartbeat,” Louise retorted. “That cane of hers could drop an ox. You know she murdered her husband. What makes you think she’d never do it again?”

I stared at her. “She murdered her husband? I heard she was acquitted at trial.”

“Maybe that’s what you heard, but I’m telling you, she was guilty. She had a fight with him, she stormed out of the house, and then the house burned to the ground in the wee hours of the night with him in it. Who else wanted that man dead? People loved him. He was always donating to worthy causes. She was probably just mad that he was giving away all her money.” She leaned in to whisper in my face, “I’ll bet that professor found out something about the old man’s murder, so Ruth had to shut his mouth for good.” She sat back with satisfaction, no doubt enjoying the dumbfounded look on my face. “I hope the cops get to the bottom of this before anyone else gets clonked over the head!”

I shook off the mental picture of Ruth creeping up behind Professor Burbridge and whacking him over the head with her gold-tipped cane. “Did you hear anything else just now?”

Louise stood up and dusted off her pants. “The cops said there was no evidence of forced entry into the house. The murderer didn’t need to break in. The professor was killed by someone who was already in the house.”