Murder and a Song (A Pattie Lansbury Cat Cozy Mystery Series Book 2) (2 page)

            Blossom
sat down opposite Pattie.  She looked ten
years older than her real age, heavily lined with straw-like brown hair and
hooded eyes.  It seemed as though decades
of partying had aged her prematurely. 
She said, “I have a lawyer and he’s on his way up from Cornwall.  He’ll be a few hours.  I just want to get started.”

            “Alright,”
said Pattie with a smile. “I’ll get us some tea.  Have you eaten today?”

            “No.  I don’t want anything.”

            “I’ll
ask one of the officers to stay with us. 
That’s procedure in these situations.”

            D.C.
Downey nodded at his partner, then said, “Constable Palmer will sit in on the
interview.  She’ll observe and only step
in if there’s a breach in protocol.  I’d
better get back to handling the festival.”

            He
closed the door and the three women took seats. 
Pattie set up the recorder and took out a pad to make notes.  Someone came by to give Pattie a cup of tea
and Constable Palmer a coffee.  Blossom said
that she couldn’t stomach anything.

            “I
threw up a few times,” she explained reluctantly.

            “That’s
quite normal.  You’ve had a very rough
morning.  I was sorry to hear about your
partner.”

            Blossom
said nothing, just looked at the table.

            “Had
you been together long?”

            “Just
a few months.”

            “Maybe
you could run me through what happened, as far as you know?” suggested Pattie,
her pen poised.

            Blossom
nodded. “Okay.  Daryl and I drove up from
Cornwall day before yesterday.  For the
festival.  We set up the tent and have
just been chilling out since then, taking walks around the valley, had lunch in
the village yesterday, getting to know the people in the tents nearby.  Last night we both went to sleep.”

            “About
what time was this?” asked Pattie.

            “Just
after midnight, I think.  We were tired
but we’d been chatting with some other people and were having a good time.  Anyway, we went to sleep, and when I woke up
this morning, Daryl … He was … dead. 
Lying on his front with a … a knife in his back.”

            Blossom
put her hands over her trembling lips and closed her eyes.  She took a few deep breaths and then wiped
her cheeks. “I don’t usually get upset about things, but this was … Obviously
it was a big shock.  The last time I saw
a body was my Dad, after he passed away in hospital a few years ago.  At least then I knew that it was coming…”

            Pattie
took a packet of tissues from her coat pocket and offered Blossom one.  The suspect’s handcuffs jangled as she wiped
her eyes.  Pattie said, “What time did
you wake up and find the body?”

            “About
five past ten.  It’s easy to sleep in
late during festivals.”

            “And
whose was the knife?”

            “It
was … mine.  Just a small kitchen knife
we brought with the cooler.  For making
sandwiches, that kind of thing.  I can’t
believe that someone was in our tent, doing … that … and right next to me while
I was sleeping!  Oh, god…”

            Pattie
pushed her spectacles up her nose. “Forgive me for saying, but from an
outsider’s perspective, the simplest explanation is that you killed your
partner.  The weapon belonged to you; it
happened in your tent with no-one else present.”

            “I
know that’s what it looks like,” she replied, burying her face in her hands.

            “Had
you any reason to be upset with Daryl?”

            “We
bickered sometimes, but not over anything serious.  Directions in the car, things like that.  Nothing enough to make me want to
kill
him!”

            Constable
Palmer cleared her throat. “Mrs Lansbury, we have witnesses who claimed to see
Ms Carter and Mr Hardy arguing loudly the night before his death.”

            “Is
that true?” asked Pattie.

            “Yes.  We couldn’t find the schedule for the folk
stage and blamed each other.  A stupid
little row over nothing,” Blossom explained wearily. “We found it later on,
under his sleeping bag.  He could be a
bit of an idiot sometimes.”

            “Is
there anyone else who might have wanted to cause you or Daryl harm?”

            “Argh,
I’ve been thinking!” Blossom exploded, pulling on her hair. “I can’t think of
anybody!  We knew each other well enough,
but it wasn’t like we were married.  The
only person I ever knew who made threats against Daryl was the day we arrived
here in the village.  There was this
farmer just outside the parking space for the festival, and Daryl nearly hit
one of his cows.  The farmer went mental
at him, yelling and screaming.  He said,
‘I’d better not see you again, or you’re in
for it!’
but we didn’t take it seriously. 
I suppose we weren’t exactly friendly to him after he started yelling,
not that he deserved anything less.  He
was a nasty piece of work…”

Pattie talked with Blossom for almost
an hour, then sat with Constable Palmer to compare notes.

            “That’s
the first we heard about an angry farmer,” she said to Pattie. “Who do you
think it is?”

            “There
must be four landowners around that festival site.  It could be any one of them.  Can you spare anyone for interviews?”

            She
smiled. “Tom – um, D.C. Downey, he’s run off his feet on peacekeeping detail
with the festival.  We’re really
undermanned for this whole thing, and the organisers of the festival have had
to hire private security companies to keep their insurers happy.  I think it’s pretty much just me for this
one.”

            Pattie
went with her to photocopy her handwritten notes for the case file. “So, how
are you and Thomas getting along, as partners? 
You’ve been working together for over a year now, am I right?”

            The
Constable must have seen the older woman’s discreet smile, and her eyes
twinkled in response. “It’s a perfectly professional relationship, Mrs
Lansbury.  Don’t get any ideas about us!”

            “Oh,
of course not,” said Pattie, but that didn’t stop her giving the young woman a
wink.

            They
took out a map and divided up the five local farmers whose land was adjacent to
the festival ground.  Pattie secretly
picked the two most likely suspects for herself.

            There
were two large areas designated for parking, and Seth MacGowan’s pastures were
adjacent to both of them.  He also fit
the bill for a crotchety so-and-so who was likely to yell at complete
strangers.  He wasn’t Pattie’s favourite
person in the village for precisely that reason.  Manners, after all, cost nothing.

            She
stopped off at home just long enough to change into her bad-weather-boots and
pet Simba, who was always the first cat to the door whenever she returned.  Then she trudged back down the valley to the
festival site.

            As
she approached the sounds of revelry became louder.  From the Post Office the music was nothing
more than distant bass thumping, but it was only another mile down the main
road when she could hear melodies and singing from the crowd.  The crowd made a constant white noise, like
surf, and even though it disturbed the quiet it made Pattie’s heart brighten to
hear so many people enjoying themselves. 
Life for Pattie had been about simple pleasures lately: a bit of easy
TV, petting and caring for the cats, a walk in the sunshine … It had been a
long time since she’d felt her heart beating in her chest from excitement.

            It
was well into the afternoon by the time she came to the edge of Seth MacGowan’s
fields, and another half an hour before she made it to the farmhouse to knock
on the door. 

            “Who
is it?” called a rough voice.  It came
from around the side of the farmhouse, not from within.  Pattie walked around and met Seth in the
yard, where he was using a pitchfork to hoist wet grain stalks out the front of
his harvester. 

            Seth
MacGowan was a rugged man in his early fifties, tanned and lined from years in
the sun, stooped and lean from years of hard labour, and evidently in a bad
mood.  He narrowed his blue eyes at
Pattie as she approached, then continued attacking his combine with the fork.

            “I
hope you’re not here to try an’ sell me somethin’,” he said gruffly.

            “My
name is Patricia Lansbury.  We’ve met
before.”

            “Yeah?”

            “I’m
here to ask about something that might have happened two days ago – a
disagreement you had with some of our visitors for the festival.”

            Seth
drove his fork into the ground and put one muddy boot on it. “Oh yeah?”

            Pattie
smiled patiently. “Did you happen to argue with someone driving into the
parking area?”

            “I
might have done.  Some idiot in a
four-by-four nearly ran down on of my heifers. 
Yeah, I gave him an earful.  Why
do you care?”

            “Because
he wound up dead, Mister MacGowan,” Pattie explained.

            A
family of ducks made their noisy way through the yard.  Seth watched them momentarily.  Pattie could almost see the news sinking
in.  The mother duck, a mallard, waddled
to the nearby fence in the hedgerow and waited patiently for her six yellow
ducklings to catch up.

            “Well,
that’s bad news,” Seth said at last, looking up. “I suppose because I made them
threats, that’s why you’re here to see me? 
You with the police or somethin’?”

            “I’m
helping them with the investigation,” she replied.

            “You
a detective or somethin’?”

            “My
son was a policeman,” Pattie explained simply. “I offered to make a few
enquiries on their behalf.  I’d like to
try to keep things simple without resorting to arrests and things of that
nature.”

            Carefully
watching his reaction, Pattie reached into her handbag to take out her small
notepad.  Seth had paid attention to her
words and tone.  Like any sensible
person, she knew that he would be co-operative to avoid an arrest.

            “Now,
could you help me, Mister MacGowan?  I
was wondering where you might have been between midnight last night and about
ten o’clock this morning.”

            “I
can tell you exactly where I was. 
Midnight I was gettin’ chucked out of the Skinny Fox for bein’ a bit too
loud – at least, that’s what Don told my wife this morning.  I can’t say I remember it.”

            “You’d
had a bad day?”

            “I’ll
say.  The farmhouse got broken into and
the wife was giving me grief about it. 
And the cat’s gone missing, probably scared out of its wits.”

            “Your
cat?”

            “My
mouser, O’Malley,” said Seth.

            “And
what were you doing this morning?”

            “I
woke up on the settee downstairs about eleven. 
She wouldn’t let me in bed, apparently. 
My wife will back me up, she said she was cleaning the lounge around me and
that I slept right through it.  I only
just got around to getting my boots on, so you’ll forgive me if I’m in a bad
mood, alright?  I’ve still got a sore
head.”

            Pattie
sighed inwardly.  So both the landlord at
the pub and Seth’s wife could vouch for Seth’s whereabouts during the period
that the murder could have taken place. 
Assuming they checked out, then Seth’s alibi was airtight.  Pattie had to admit that Seth had a pub smell
about him this morning.

            She
asked a few perfunctory questions and jotted down some more notes, then called
in on Elaine, Seth’s wife, at the farmhouse.

            “Oh,
I can tell you exactly where that useless husband of mine was!” she said, hands
on hips.

            Pattie
could already tell that she was going to have to find another avenue of enquiry
for this case.

An hour later Pattie sat in front of
Blossom in the interview room.  The woman
looked haggard and tired.  Pattie knew
from experience that the cells weren’t all that comfy, and with nothing to entertain
oneself the temptation was to just sleep. 
The situation and the uncomfortable cot meant that it was difficult to
get any rest at all.  The police officers
didn’t mind; they found that it was easier to get answers out of suspects that
way.  Constable Juliette Palmer sat in
the corner of the room with a strong coffee.

            “Can
you elucidate on your relationship with Mister Hardy,” Pattie told Blossom. “I’d
like you to tell me more about the argument you had with him the night before
his death.”

            “There
was nothing to it,” said Blossom tiredly. “I don’t even remember.”

            Pattie
put on her serious face. “Ms Carter, have you ever owned a cat?”