Blackthorn Winter (11 page)

Exhaustion forgotten, I jumped out of bed, my heart in my throat because when a phone rings at midnight it's never good news. My heart started thudding hard, and I could smell that smell again, that salty, sweet smell ...
Dad?
I thought.
Oh, no, not Dad.

I hurried into Mom's room. I ran to her bed and sat on the edge, listening. "Oh dear," she was saying into the phone, staring at me with wide, disbelieving eyes. "Oh no,
that's awful! Poor thing—how did it happen?" She listened, her face flushed. "Is there anything I can do? No, no, I suppose not. Not tonight..."

She spoke a moment longer in a hushed, tense voice, then hung up the phone. "No," she said, reading my expression. "It's nothing to do with your dad..."

No, the phone call was from Quent Carrington. He was calling to say that almost as soon as we'd left his house, Oliver Pethering rang with the shocking news that there had been an accident—and Liza Pethering was dead.

"
Beware of false prophets,
which come to you in sheep's clothing,
but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
"

 

—M
ATTHEW
7:15

"Dead?" I couldn't quite grasp this news. "Liza—dead?
But we just saw her! I mean, she was there at the party. How—oh, wait. Did she drink too much?"

"No—she woke up and decided to take herself home." Mom rubbed her eyes. "Quent didn't know all the details yet. Just said that Oliver had rung, sobbing that he'd stumbled upon Liza's body by the footbridge. He called the police right away. It looks like she must have tripped while walking home, and knocked herself out when she fell ... or maybe it was a heart attack? In any case, bad luck would have it that she fell into the Shreen."

I thought of the little bridge we'd crossed that morning, that little bridge over that shallow stream. "She
drowned,
you mean?"

"That's what Oliver told Quent. Oh, Juliana—what a shock. I can't quite believe it..."

I put my arms around Mom and she was trembling. "Let's go downstairs and make a cup of tea," I suggested after a while.

"You're an English girl at heart, I think," Mom said shakily with a little laugh.

"Well, you told me you and Dad heard that my birth mother maybe came from England, right?" I said as we wrapped up in our fleecy bathrobes and headed down the
stairs. "Maybe that's where I get it from. Of course, she could have been from Australia or New Zealand—or other places. Americans aren't very good at pinpointing foreign accents, are they? And the guy who maybe knew my birth mother said she was an addict, so maybe that means he was, too, so maybe his entire report wasn't reliable in the first place. Anyway, people drink lots of tea in Australia and New Zealand, too, don't they? And tea gets in your blood, Liza said..."

I knew I was blabbering nonsense, but somehow the words were just flowing out and I knew if I stopped them and tried to speak sensibly, we would have to speak about Liza Pethering, and neither of us was ready to do that. Liza was dead? Liza—
dead
? That black-haired, energetic, in-your-face, witchy woman I had met only yesterday
—dead?

People died all the time, of course, but it was so hard to imagine this had happened to such a lively person, someone who only an hour or two ago had been loudly full of life and obnoxious vigor.

"In the midst of life we are in death," Mom murmured. "That's in the Bible, I think."

I made the tea the way I'd seen Quent do it. I boiled the water; I warmed the pot; I measured out the fresh, loose tea leaves. Mom and I sat at the little table, sipping silently. I had run out of chatter, and Mom didn't seem to want to talk. Liza was dead, and everything felt different.

Wake up, wake up! Oh, please wake up!

I shook my head to dislodge the sudden, strident little voice. I saw that Mom had tears on her cheeks. "Liza was always rushing about," Mom whispered. "Heedless. Careless. Tactless, too, but always, always full of life. And such a talented portrait artist, Juliana—you've never even seen her work! And now ... a stupid fall and she's gone."

"Her work isn't gone, though," I said, trying to comfort Mom. I had known Liza Pethering not quite two days, and I'd found her irritating, but Mom had known her more than twenty years, had lived with her and studied with her. I was shocked at the suddenness of the accident, of course, and I'd be sorry in a general way for
anyone's
death—but for Mom this was a personal loss.

"Poor Oliver," Mom murmured. "He'll be shattered. Now he's all alone..."

"They didn't have children, did they?" I asked.

Mom shook her head and reached for a tissue. She blew her nose. "No, they never did. Liza wasn't the mothering type, it always seemed to me. She was too busy to slow down for a child, I think. Too involved in her own life. Or maybe her painting was her child. Opening that gallery was her biggest goal and most glorious achievement."

It was another hour before we went back to bed. The Goops had slept through all the excitement. I had thought I was tired when we'd first come home from the party, but now I lay in bed for a long time, unable to fall asleep. I kept seeing Liza Pethering in her clingy red dress, kept remembering how she flitted around at the party, chatting all the time, watching everything with her bright, sharp eyes ... and then I pictured her walking home, probably still more than a little drunk, tripping in those impractical high heels, falling into the stream. When I closed my eyes I saw her face underwater, the inky black hair floating out like seaweed.

 

I
T WAS TAPPING
that woke me the next morning. No, not tapping—heavy knocking. Then as I realized someone was at our door, the knocking changed to peremptory banging.
All right, already, all right!
I thought, as I grabbed my
bathrobe and stumbled out of the room for the stairs.
Keep your shirt on!
I unlocked the front door—and started with surprise.

Um—let me rephrase that. Keep your
uniform
on...

Two police officers stood there, a man and a woman. The man wore a uniform—the uniform was different from that of police officers in America—but a cop's a cop. The woman wore regular clothes: a gray skirt and jacket. They both flashed badges at me.

"Sorry to wake you, young lady," said the older, gray-haired man. "I'm Constable Petersen of the Blackthorn police, and this is Detective Inspector Link, from Lower Dillingham. We'd like a word with your parents."

Constable Petersen reminded me of Grandad. Detective Inspector Link was younger, but also gray-haired. Despite her sort of cozy, grandmotherly appearance (she looked to me like she ought to be serving tea and scones or something), she had an air of stern authority. You wouldn't want to get on her bad side, I decided.

"Um—my mother isn't awake," I told them. "But just a minute—"

"Who is it, Juliana?" Mom called down the stairs.

"Police, Mom!"

"Goodness! I'll be right down. Ask them to come in."

"Would you like to come in?" I asked, though why else would they be here?

They both stepped inside. Detective Inspector Link smiled at me. "Sorry to bother you so early." But she didn't say why they'd come.

Mom came downstairs, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt and thick socks. She had taken time to brush her hair, which was short and always neatened up easily. My long
hair must be a mess. Self-consciously I put my hand to my head. Yes—a rat's nest. Ivy and Edmund, sensing excitement, barreled down after Mom, still in their pajamas.

"What can I do for you?" asked Mom, smiling uncertainly at the officers.

"We'd like to offer our sympathy, ma'am," said Constable Petersen. "We understand you were a friend of Liza Pethering's, and one of the last to see her at Mr. Carrington's party. Is that correct?"

Mom glanced pointedly over at Ivy and Edmund, and I realized the Goops didn't know what had happened last night. The officer looked abashed.

"Kids," Mom said to them gently, "a very sad thing happened last night after Liza left the party. Juliana and I heard about it once you two were asleep, and we didn't want to wake you. But she was walking home, and she tripped in the dark and hit her head—and fell into the stream."

"Brrr," shivered Ivy. "I bet she was mad about that!"

"Well," said Mom slowly, looking to the police officers for help, "I think she was knocked unconscious when she fell. So she didn't know..."

"Couldn't she swim?" demanded Edmund.

"Not if she was unconscious," Ivy said, rolling her eyes. Then she stared at Mom. "So what are you saying? What happened? Is she in the hospital?"

Mom put her hands to her face. She took a deep, shuddering breath. "She died last night," Mom whispered.

The Goops gasped.

"I'm sorry," said the policewoman. "Perhaps it's of some comfort to know that it seems she was unconscious and didn't suffer."

Ivy's and Edmund's voices merged in a tangle of shrieks: "But we just saw her!"

"She was wearing that slinky red dress!"

"She was wearing the coolest highest heels in the world!"

"She invited us to see her art gallery today!"

"We were just talking to her at dinner!"

Mom asked the police officers to sit down while she calmed Ivy and Edmund. Then she delegated me to take the Goops upstairs and supervise while they unpacked their clothes into their dressers. I knew she wanted us all out of the way before the police said anything else, but I was intrigued and wanted to stay. It isn't every day that we have two cops, especially English cops (
bobbies,
Mom said they were sometimes called) on our doorstep, much less sitting in our living room. But Mom signaled me with her eyes to get going.

Reluctantly I climbed upstairs after Ivy and Edmund. They ran down the hall to their rooms, jabbering a mile a minute in excited, horrified voices. I lingered at the top of the stairs, listening, wondering what this visit was about. I had a sick sort of feeling in the pit of my stomach—as if I could guess. As if I almost knew...

"We're investigating the death of Liza Pethering," I heard the male officer say gravely.

"You're
investigating
—?" Mom's voice rang with surprise. Let the Goops deal with their own suitcases! I ran back downstairs and stood next to Mom, linking my arm with hers.

"Yes ma'am," rumbled the deep voice. "Because it turns out that Liza Pethering's death was not an accident after all. I'm sorry to have to tell you that Liza Pethering was
murdered.
"

Mom gasped. I squeezed her arm tighter as we listened to the officers' explanation. Liza had been found last night by her husband who, Detective Inspector Link told us, had been waiting at home because his wife had not left the party when he had. After about an hour, Oliver rang her cell phone to tell her to come home on the double, but there was no answer. He rang Quent's house, too, but there was only an answering machine. So, annoyed now, he decided to go back and fetch her. As he crossed the little bridge over the Shreen, he saw a body lying across the footpath, half in the stream, half out. He'd run to see if he could help, and was horrified to discover that the body was his own wife's. He dragged Liza out, but it was too late. Apparently she had been coming home to him, but had tripped in her high heels and fallen, hitting her head on the pavement. She must have lain there unconscious, breathing in stream water until she drowned.

Oliver had snatched up Liza's purse from where it lay on the path nearby. He noticed right away that the wallet was gone. But at least the cell phone was there, and he grabbed it and punched in the emergency number.

"That's 9-9-9 in England," Mom muttered to me urgently, interrupting this account. Her face was very pale.
"
Not
9-1-1 like in America. Juliana—remember that! 9-9-9. Promise me!"

"Nine-nine-nine," I repeated. "I'll remember, Mom."

"The ambulance and police van came quickly, but there was nothing we could do," Constable Petersen said, continuing the account. "Mr. Pethering spent the night at his mother's house in the next village, calling various friends to tell them the dreadful news."

"But what the police learned early this morning," added Detective Inspector Link, "—once the coroner had Liza's body moved to the morgue, that is—was that Liza's head wound was inconsistent with a fall onto the pavement. Further investigation revealed she'd been coshed on the head, I'm sorry to tell you, and knocked unconscious."

I winced. Mom's face tightened.

Detective Inspector Link hurried on. "We suspect that Mrs. Pethering was knocked out first and then laid in the stream to make the death appear to be an accidental drowning. As indeed it did appear—at first."

The detective and the older constable met each other's eyes and each had a satisfied expression. I realized that to them, solving murder was a puzzle. And as much as they no doubt loathed the nature of the crime, they enjoyed putting the puzzle pieces together.

The older officer nodded. "A bad business all around," he said to Mom. "And now we need to speak with all the people who last saw Mrs. Pethering. You and your children were the guests of honor at the party Mrs. Pethering attended last night, were you not? So we'd like to know your impressions of the events of the evening."

Mom wrapped her arms around herself. She was shivering. "I just can't believe it," she whispered. "Murder?"

"A very clever setup, ma'am," said Constable Petersen.

"Should I make a pot of tea, Mom?" I asked. She didn't answer, but Detective Inspector Link nodded. I escaped gratefully into the small kitchen.

Boil the water. Warm the pot. Measure out the tea leaves. Leave them to steep.
A cuppa tea will save your life.
But all the cups of tea that Liza Pethering had drunk had not saved her from the nameless, faceless person who'd snuck up from behind and bashed in her head and stolen the wallet from her sequined red handbag—and then left her in the Shreen to drown.