1 Aunt Bessie Assumes (16 page)

“Well,” Bahey said slowly, “I guess they
are.”
 
She shrugged.
 
“It’s hard to tell what they’re
thinking.
 
I guess they’re just so
upset that they aren’t really thinking at all.”

“Well, at least Donny must be happy to
have you around,” Bessie persisted.
 
“Especially now that he’s lost Samantha.”

Bahey snorted.
 
“Ha, I can’t say he’s all that broken up
about that,” she replied.
 
“More
like now he has plenty of room to move in on our Miss Vikky.”

Bessie tried to look as shocked as Joney
did.
 
“He wouldn’t chase after his
own brother’s widow, would he?” Joney asked.

“He’s chasing, all right,” Bahey answered
grimly.
 
“And she isn’t exactly
trying to run away, if you know what I mean.”

Bessie shook her head.
 
“I thought she was really devastated by
her husband’s death,” she said sadly.

“She’s just looking out for number one,”
Bahey told her.
 

“What I don’t understand,” Joney chimed
in, “is why she’s acting so posh and snobby.
 
She’s a Foxdale girl, after all.”

“She is?” Bessie gasped.
 

Joney and Bahey both nodded.
 
“I thought I recongised her when I first
got to the house, so I took a few photos to show to Joney,” Bahey told
Bessie.
 

“I recognised her right away,” Joney
picked up the story.
 
“She was born
and raised right here.
 
I even had
her in my class when she was about seven or eight.
 
She was always looking for the easy way
out, even back then,” Joney said in a disgusted voice.

Bessie frowned.
 
“Well, she certainly acted like she’d
never been on the island before when I met her.”

“The family moved to Liverpool before she
hit her teens,” Joney told her.
 
“I
suppose she might not really remember much about the island.”

“And she was awfully upset, that first
time I saw her,” Bessie added.

“Yeah, because her meal ticket had just
run out,” Bahey said caustically.

“Bahey!” Joney said sharply.
 
“I know you don’t like the woman, but
give her credit for some feeling.
 
She’d just found her husband’s body, after all.”

“Unless she was the one who stabbed
him.
 
If she was, then she’d just
rediscovered her husband’s body,” Bahey countered.

“Surely if they got into a fight, the man
was strong enough to get the knife away from her?” Bessie asked.

“If they were fighting,” Bahey
answered.
 
“But what if they were
having a nice romantic stroll and then she just snuggled up to him and shoved
the knife in?”

Bessie shuddered.
 
“I suppose that could have happened,”
she said.

“Besides, I overheard Inspector Kelly
telling Mr. Pierce that his son was pretty heavily drugged when he died.
 
The Inspector seemed to be suggesting
that anyone could have killed him; Daniel was barely conscious and certainly
not in any state to fight back.”

Bessie drew a sharp breath.
 
That was something she definitely hadn’t
known.
 
No wonder Inspector Kelly
was so focussed on the drug angle.

“Did he take drugs often?” she asked.

“Not when I was living with them,” Bahey
replied.
 
“Neither of my boys was
dumb enough to get mixed up with anything like that while I was around.
 
But I can’t say as I know what’s
happened since I left.”

“So the murder could have been related to
drugs?” Joney asked.

“I suppose,” Bahey shrugged.
 
“But I still think they should start by
looking close to home.”

“And the widow is your favourite suspect
for the murders?” Bessie asked her friend.

“Either the widow,
or.…”
Bahey paused and then looked around furtively.
 
After a long and, to Bessie, overly dramatic
pause, she continued.
 
“I do wonder
a bit about Donny’s wife.”

“Donny’s wife?” Bessie said
questioningly.
 
“He wasn’t married
to Samantha, was he?”

“No,” Bahey said excitedly.
 
“He couldn’t marry Samantha, even if
he’d wanted to, and he can’t marry Miss Vikky, either.
 
He’s already got a wife.”

“What you are going on about?” Joney
asked.

“Donny is already married,” Bahey repeated
herself.
 
“He got married here, on
the island, about two days after his eighteenth birthday.”

Bessie frowned.
 
Now that Bahey mentioned it, she had a
very vague recollection of some sort of rumours from back then about the Pierce
family.
 

“He eloped with the oldest Kelly girl,”
Bahey reminded Bessie.
 
“She was
nineteen and already had a reputation for being, um, fast.”

“The oldest Kelly girl?” Bessie was
putting two and two together quickly.
 
“That would be Inspector Patrick Kelly’s
older sister?”

 
“That’s the one,” Bahey nodded, glancing
around again as if she was worried someone would overhear her.
 

Her sister laughed.
 
“We’re all alone in my house,” she
teased.
 
“Who are you looking for?”

Bahey frowned.
 
“I really shouldn’t be talking out of
turn,” she said slowly.
 
“Mr. and
Mrs. Pierce would probably never forgive me for talking about them like this.”

“But they’ll never know,” Bessie soothed.
 
“And you can’t stop now.
 
You have to tell me what happened to Maeve
Kelly.”

“That was her name,” Bahey beamed at
Bessie.
 
“You are so much better at
remembering things than I am.
 
I had
forgotten her Christian name.
 
Of
course, it was never, ever, to be said in the Pierce household, so maybe that
isn’t surprising.”

“Finish the story,” Joney demanded,
pouring the last of the wine into their glasses.

Bahey flushed.
 
“Well, the pair ran off and got married
in Port Erin, I think it was.
 
Mr.
Pierce and young Daniel went after them, and when they caught up with them at
some cheap bed and breakfast down there, they brought Donny to their London
townhouse and left Maeve there.
 
No
one ever talks about it.”

“What happened to Maeve, then?
 
Are you sure they’re still married?
 
There must be more to tell.” Bessie
threw out questions as her thoughts tumbled over themselves.
 
Bahey had to know more.

“Well,” Bahey said slowly, “I was
something of a confidante of young Donny back then,” she told the others.
 
“He told me that he made his father set
up a trust fund for Maeve so that she was ‘looked after.’
 
He also told me that he wasn’t ever
planning to divorce her.
 
He was
hoping, at least then, that when his father died, he could win her back.
 
Of course, that was nearly twenty years
ago; he may well have changed his mind.”

“And divorced her,” Joney added.

“Oh no, I know they aren’t divorced.
 
Maeve called right after Danny was
killed and wanted to talk to Donny.
 
I, um, overheard a bit of the conversation, and Maeve made it clear that
they were still legally married.
 
From what I heard, neither of them ever
felt the need to make their split legal, although Maeve is clearly the chief
beneficiary of their staying together.”

“If Donny had been the one who died, I
could see Maeve being a suspect,” Bessie said slowly.
 
“She must have some right to make a
claim towards his estate if she’s been his legal wife all these years.
 
But she couldn’t possibly have had any
claim on Daniel’s fortune.
 
Why
would she kill him?”

“Well,” Bahey answered.
 
“From what I, um, accidentally
overheard....” she paused, blushing, but Bessie simply smiled at her
encouragingly.  “I mean
,
there could be lots of
reasons.
 
All I know for sure is
that she's definitely on the island, even though when I talked to her mother
recently she said Maeve hasn't visited her for years.
 
I actually saw Maeve in Douglas last
week when I was shopping.
  
She
ignored me, but I’m sure it was her.”

“I still don't see any clear motive,” Bessie
answered after a moment’s thought.

“What if she thought she was killing old man
Pierce instead of young Daniel?” Joney suggested.
 
“Or maybe she's planning to kill Donny
as well but she wanted to make sure Donny inherited all of Daniel's money first.
 Or....”

Bahey held up a hand.  “That's enough
melodramatic plotting,” she said.  “I just think it's interesting that Donny's
wife is on the island but nobody seems to have questioned her.”

“Perhaps Inspector Kelly questioned his sister
himself,” Bessie suggested.

“Whatever happened with Daniel, she certainly
had a motive for killing Samantha,” Bahey added.

“Why?” Bessie asked.
 
“Was Donny getting serious about
Samantha?”

“I doubt it,” Bahey replied.
 
“But Maeve may not have known that.”

“Anyway, she had more motive for killing
Samantha than she did for killing Daniel,” Bahey continued.

“I don't think she had any motive for killing
either of them,” Joney interjected.
 
“I still think it was that Vikky that did it.”

“So neither of you believes it was drug-related?”
Bessie asked.

Bahey shook her head.  “I can’t see the
Daniel I knew getting mixed up in something like that,” she told Bessie.  

“People do change,” Joney said with a sigh.

“You were surprised that he got married,” Bessie
added.
 
“Perhaps he’d changed more
than you realised.”

Bahey shrugged.  “I don't know.
 
You may be right,” she told her.  “The
whole family seems to have changed in the last three years.  Mr. Pierce is
drinking all the time.  Mrs. Pierce is keeping herself medicated to the
eyeballs.  Daniel married that gold-digging hussy.  Now Donny barely
speaks to anyone other than his dead brother's wife.”  

She sighed deeply.  “I'm sorry now that I
offered to help out.  They all insist they want me there, but no one seems
to know what I should be doing.”  

“So leave,” Joney suggested.  “You have a
life of your own now.  You’re not dependent on them like you were all
those years.
 
Tell them you're going
back to your own life.”

“It isn't that easy,” Bahey sighed.  “I
don't want to leave them until Daniel and Samantha's killer is behind bars.
Leaving them in the middle of this crisis feels wrong.
 
They were like family to me for so many
years.”

“Are you sure the same person killed them both?”
Bessie asked another question that occurred to her.

“I don't know,” Bahey's head sank into her
hands.  “I can't figure out any motive for anyone to kill either of them,
let alone both of them.”

“Well, I certainly hope the same person killed
them both,” Joney said stoutly.  “One murderer running around on the island
is more than enough!”

Bessie nodded her agreement and then changed the
subject.  Bahey looked exhausted and upset and Bessie didn't feel like she
should push her any further.  The afternoon had already given Bessie lots
to talk about with Inspector Rockwell and the others later.

A short time later Bessie glanced at her watch
and was amazed to see that it was nearly five o'clock.  The afternoon had
flown past.

“What time did you say you had to be back by?”
she gently reminded Bahey.

“Oh.
good
heavens,” Bahey
exclaimed.
 
“I told Mr. Pierce that
we would have his car and driver back by five.  I’d better call the
driver.
 
Hopefully, we won’t be too
late.”

Moments later the fancy black car was back and
Bessie and Bahey wasted little time with goodbyes.  

“Thank you for a lovely afternoon,” Bessie
called to Joney as she climbed into the car.  “We must do it again soon.”

“Yes, I'd like that,” Joney answered.  

Then they were on their way, sweeping out of
Foxdale and heading towards Laxey before Bessie could collect her thoughts.