Closer than the Bones (9 page)

The room, somewhat disappointingly, looked much like a room in my house, except for the high ceilings and large windows. “Mary Tucker has endeavored to keep as many of the furnishings intact as possible, throughout the house, but since this is a private home and not a museum, one has to take into account the fact that there will be wear and tear. Many of the pieces of furniture you see throughout are originals, but of course the fabrics in most cases are not. They simply couldn’t stand the daily usage by several generations of McElroys and their guests.”

I nodded my understanding. I could give a catalog of the many beautiful pieces of furniture I saw during that tour, but after a while, one could exclaim “How lovely!” only so many times without sounding ridiculous. Since all the bedrooms on the second floor were now occupied by guests, we went up to the third floor, where Phillips was able to show me most of the rooms. One room, however, we did not look into. Perhaps it was his own room, and I couldn’t blame him for not showing it to me, though I’ll admit I was more than a bit curious to see it.

After we completed our tour of the third floor, I followed Phillips back down the stairs. We walked into the kitchen where he introduced me briefly to the cook, Mrs. Greer, and the two young women who had served our lunch, Betsy and Katie. I expressed my thanks for the delicious food (at least, what little of it I had gotten a chance to eat), and they beamed their thanks back at me.

A door on one side of the kitchen led us into the hallway of the courtyard wing of the house, as Phillips called it. Most of the ground floor of this wing consisted of the ballroom. We walked into the vast space, and I stood once more in awe. Hanging over the center of the room was a magnificent crystal chandelier. Thousands of pieces of crystal sparkled and danced before my eyes as the afternoon sun shone through the large windows on the west side of the room. When Phillips told me how much it had cost, when Belisarius McElroy had had it imported from Europe, I gasped.

The butler gave a wry grin. “We couldn’t afford one like it these days,” he said. “I’m still not quite certain how old Bell afforded it in the first place, but it is amazing, isn’t it?”

We stood in the echoing space of the ballroom, about half the length of a football field, while Phillips gave me a verbal tour of the rest of the wing. The upper two floors of this wing consisted chiefly of the servants’ quarters. Many of the rooms were no longer used, since the complement of staff had been sharply reduced over the years.

“I’ve talked to Mary Tucker about using this wing for a bed and breakfast, but she won’t hear of it. We do use some of the rooms on occasion, for example when she hosts one of her writers retreats here, but that’s not very often these days. I hate to see the rooms not being used. A house should be lived in, don’t you think?”

I nodded. “Particularly a wonderful house like this. I know it’s seen its share of tragedies and triumphs over the years.”

Phillips sighed. “And there will be more to come, I suspect.”

“Yes, this new situation promises to be full of drama,” I said, trying to decide just what I could say to get him to talk to me. He had thawed considerably during our tour. Would a direct approach work? Or would he revert to his earlier coolness toward me?

Evidently the urge to gossip a bit won out. “Hamilton is an old hand at stirring things up,” he said, “and I just hope this time he doesn’t stir up more than is good for him. And for the rest of us.”

“He’s certainly being provocative,” I said, “but it sounds to me like Sukey Lytton, may she rest in peace, is the one who was really trying to stir things up.”

Phillips’s face contracted in a brief spasm, whether in pain or annoyance I couldn’t decide. “Sukey was a difficult girl, there’s no doubt about that.” He trailed off and stood staring at something I couldn’t see, out one of the windows of the ballroom.

“But was she really as awful as everyone says she was?”

He sighed. “She was an outsider here. She struggled to fit in, but she came from the trailer park, literally, and she never felt truly comfortable in surroundings like these.” He gestured broadly with his right arm.

“You seem to have a bit more sympathy for her than some of the others,” I said.

Shrugging, he said, “Perhaps. Partly because I could understand how she felt. I didn’t grow up in a place like this either. Far from it.” His tone had turned bitter.

That didn’t surprise me. He was Miss McElroy’s butler, after all. But I was intrigued by his air of sympathy for the dead girl. Thus far, Miss McElroy was the only person in the house who seemed to have actually liked Sukey. “But you liked her,” I said.

“Yes, I did,” he said, sounding almost surprised by the admission. “She wasn’t an easy person to know, but she could be very sweet, sometimes.” He shrugged again. “The problem was, whenever she was here, she had a gigantic chip on her shoulder, and she did her best to dare everyone here to knock it off.”

“And someone finally did it,” I commented without thinking about what I was saying.

“What do you mean?” His tone was sharp, and he once again focused on the here and now. His eyes bored into mine.

“Her death,” I said. “Do you really believe it was suicide, or even an accident?”

“So that’s why Mary Tucker brought you here. I was wondering,” he said, his tone grim. He walked away from me, his long stride rapidly lengthening the distance between us. I hurried to catch up to him.

“Well, what do you think?” I asked as I followed him back into the kitchen, nodding at Mrs. Greer and Katie, who were busy with after-lunch cleanup.

Before he could answer me, we were all startled by shrieks coming from somewhere in the house.

Chapter Eight

At the piercing sound of the first scream, Mrs. Greer dropped the bowl she was holding. It shattered all over the stone floor of the kitchen. She started babbling an apology, but Morwell Phillips brushed that aside as he ran toward the door leading out into the hall. I was right on his heels.

The screams continued for a moment longer, then they ceased abruptly, as the screamer seemed to be cut off in the middle of another ear-splitting wail. Once we were out in the hall, I could tell that the screams had been coming from the second floor. I pounded up the stairs behind the butler, passing him after the first few steps. Even though I’m sixty, I’m in pretty darn good shape, and I almost sprinted up the stairs. I could hear him huffing along behind me.

At the top of the stairs, Brett Doran held a sobbing Betsy in his arms. Even though her face was buried in his chest, she was talking, but her words were unintelligible. Down the hall, Miss McElroy had come out of her room and was moving toward us, while Lurleen Landry and the Bertrams were standing in the hallway.

“Betsy, my dear, what on earth is the matter?” Miss McElroy called out as she approached.

“In there, in the bathroom,” Brett said in a terse voice. He jerked his head toward the room behind him.

While he continued to try calming the hysterical girl, I brushed past them and entered the bedroom. The door was ajar, and the moment I went inside, I could smell the identity of its occupant. This was Hamilton Packer’s room, and his pungent stench lingered, no doubt emanating from the clothes strewn without care across the bed. To the right a doorway led into the bathroom, and I approached it with caution.

A grisly scene met my eyes. Hamilton Packer, his naked flesh obscene in its puffy whiteness, sat slumped forward in the bathtub, which stood to the left of the doorway, under a window. The water was stained red with blood. My gaze focused on the large knife protruding from Packer’s back. I swallowed, trying not to vomit right then and there. I took one step closer, to gain a better view of the knife, then I retreated.

I hadn’t noticed it, but the others had crowded into the room behind me. “Out! Now! Every one of you,” I said, using my best bossy schoolteacher voice. Without even thinking about it, they did what I said. I followed them.

“Dear Lord,” Miss McElroy said, collapsing on one of the chairs on the landing. “Who could have done such a thing?”

I stared at each of them in turn, but all I could read on their faces was shock and horror. As far as I knew, none of them had an alibi, at least until we knew more about when the man was killed. One of them had killed Hamilton Packer. Could it be the same person who had killed Sukey Lytton? Surely it must be.

“He was almost begging for it,” Alice Bertram said in triumphant tones. “The bastard asked for it, and he got it.”

“Alice!” Russell Bertram made the token protest, but he knew as well as we all did that his wife, for once, was absolutely right. She, however, was the only one to be completely open about her feelings.

“We need to call the sheriff’s department right away,” I said, taking charge, since no one else seemed inclined to do so.

“Right.” Phillips snapped out of his reverie and made for the stairs. “I’ll go call them right now.”

“Brett, dear, please take Betsy downstairs, away from all this, and get her some brandy. I think that will help restore her a bit.” Miss McElroy, after a few moments’ distress, was once again taking over her role as lady of the manor. “Betsy, my dear, please go with Brett and try to remain calm.”

Betsy’s tear-stained face appeared from the shelter of Brett’s broad chest. “Yes, ma’am,” she said. The poor girl didn’t look to be a day over nineteen, and I doubt she’d ever seen anything like the ghastly scene in the bathroom, outside of those hideous slasher movies young people seem to adore these days. You’d think they’d be inured to violence, but when the real thing occurs, they are just as shaken as the rest of us.

“One quick question, Betsy, before you go downstairs,” I said, casting a look at Miss McElroy. She inclined her head slightly, so I continued. “Why did you go in Mr. Packer’s room?”

Betsy frowned. “His bell rang downstairs, and Mrs. Greer asked me to go up and see what he wanted.” Her face crumpled. “But he couldn’t’ve rung it! Why would somebody do something like that?”

“A very good question,” I said grimly. Had the murderer rung the bell so that the body would be discovered right away? What kind of game was the killer playing?

Brett questioned me with a glance, and I nodded that it was okay for him to take the poor child downstairs. She went with him, gazing up adoringly into his handsome face. Poor child. She was going to be sadly disillusioned at some point with her newfound hero.

Miss McElroy stood up. Though her face was gray, she had had time to pull herself together, and she was once more in command of herself and the situation. “I believe we should await the sheriff’s men downstairs. Russell, Alice, Lurleen, please come down with me, and we’ll wait in my sitting room.” Without argument they did what she said, preceding her down the stairs. She paused at the head of the steps and gave me a speaking look, nodding in the direction of Hamilton Packer’s room, and I understood what she wanted.

Taking a deep breath and praying that I wouldn’t disgrace myself, I went back to investigate the crime scene a little further.

Careful not to touch anything, I stood in the doorway of the room and looked around. Besides the clothes thrown across the bed, the only noticeably foreign object in the room was Packer’s battered briefcase. There had obviously been no time yet to retrieve the luggage from his abandoned car, and I doubted whether he had attempted to lug it with him the two miles from where the vehicle had broken down. From what I could see, his briefcase no longer bulged, as if something bulky had been removed from it.

Like a manuscript.

I drew a sharp breath, then wished I hadn’t. The man’s odor persisted in the room. It was likely that the murderer had taken the manuscript and hidden it somewhere after having dispatched Hamilton Packer to his reward. I brightened. Surely the team from the sheriff’s department would find it in short order, once they arrived. The killer wouldn’t have had much time to hide it somewhere. Which made the ringing of the bell even more odd. Definitely something I would have to ponder, later.

With extreme care I walked back toward the door of the bathroom and stood just outside it, looking in. I forced myself not to look at the body for a moment, though the hideous sight almost compelled me to do so. For the first time, I noticed a companion door on the other side of the bathroom, which meant that the bedroom on the other side must share this room. Who was in that room?

Most likely it was Brett Doran. I’m sure Miss McElroy wouldn’t have expected the Bertrams to share a bathroom with Packer. Since Lurleen Landry had the room directly across the hall from this one, the Bertrams must have the middle room across the hall, next to mine. Poor Brett wouldn’t want to use this bathroom any longer. He’d have to move up to the third floor now.

I made myself look one last time at the body. The knife was buried, almost to the hilt, in Packer’s back. I couldn’t swear to it, not being able to examine it more closely, but I would be willing to bet that the knife used to kill him was the same one I had found earlier in my bedroom.

No doubt it still had my fingerprints all over it.

That was going to be interesting to explain to the sheriff’s department investigators. Thank goodness I had an alibi! I had been with either Brett Doran or Morwell Phillips from the time Hamilton Packer had gone upstairs until we heard Betsy screaming.

There seemed to be nothing else to observe, so I made my way just as carefully back out into the hall. I regretted that I might have contaminated the crime scene by walking in there twice, but Betsy and probably Brett had already done so, as had the rest of the crew, when they crowded in after me the first time I came in here.

On my way downstairs I glanced at my watch. I figured about ten minutes had passed, at the most, since Phillips had gone downstairs to phone the sheriff’s department. Though Idlewild wasn’t that far outside Tullahoma, the county seat where the sheriff’s department headquarters were located, it would take at least another five to ten minutes before anyone official arrived.