No Mortal Reason (19 page)

“Get out.” Myron’s voice was soft now, and all the more threatening for the lack of volume. “I want you out of my hotel.”

“We have a contract.”

“Not anymore.”

“I’ll sue.”

“Go ahead. I’d like nothing better than to meet you in a court of law.”

Belle Saugus slumped onto the sofa beside her husband and burst into tears. It was a masterful performance, designed to melt the coldest heart. Diana had to admire it, even though she was certain it was all an act. And it was successful. By the time Belle’s tears were stemmed, Myron had agreed to let the couple stay until noon the next day.

“Woman needs time to pack,” he mumbled. “Guess it don’t make no difference so long as you’re gone soon.”

Ben took Diana’s arm and they joined Myron and Howd at the door. Myron opened it, then turned to glare at Saugus once more. “Did you ever deal honestly with me?” he demanded. “Or was the plan all along to burn me out for the insurance?”

Saugus didn’t answer verbally, but the cocky smile he sent in Myron’s direction rekindled the other man’s rage. It took both Ben and Howd to keep him from charging the sofa. They hauled him out into the hallway and held on until they heard the lock click behind them.

Released, Myron stormed off. Howd and Ben exchanged a glance.

“He’ll cool down,” Howd said.

“Keep an eye on him.”

“I will.” He started after his brother, then stopped. “I doubt anyone will feel like sitting down to a meal this evening. I’ll have Sebastian bring something up to your suite.”

“What about them?” Diana asked, inclining her head toward the Saugus’s door.

“Let them starve,” Howd said, and went after his brother.

When he had gone, Diana looked wistfully at the closed door. “I have a few more questions for Norman Saugus.”

“He’s not going to answer them.” Ben steered her toward the stairwell.

“I think it’s a mistake to send Saugus away,” Diana said when they returned to their suite. “If Saugus killed Elly Lyseth—”

“They won’t leave sooner than they have to,” Ben cut in. “I was thinking of driving into Liberty tomorrow anyway. I need to send a telegram and I thought we could—”

“You were going to look at local records!” Remembering his plan, she brightened. “You thought you might find proof of fraud. Will this help?” She produced the notarized document she’d stolen from the box in Saugus’s parlor.

As Ben studied it, his brows lifted. “This is worth following up, certainly. Another thing we can do in Liberty in the morning. If you come with me, we—”

“Oh, yes. I’ll come. I’ve been hoping for a chance to talk to the coroner.”

The odd look he gave her made Diana realize she had yet to tell him she was supposed to be writing an article about Sailor Jack. That news could wait awhile longer, she decided. Perhaps until after they’d had a good meal in the privacy of their suite.

Perhaps until morning.

Chapter Nine

Monday dawned without rain and the temperature began to climb as soon as the sun was up. Diana and Ben rose early and were just finishing breakfast when Mrs. Ellington rushed into the private dining room.

“Dr. Northcote,” she exclaimed. “Thank goodness you’re still here!”

“Is someone ill?”

“Not ill, no. It’s the Castine boy, Freddy. The blacksmith’s youngest. A horse kicked him. Looks like the blow broke his arm.”

“Say no more.” Ben hastily wiped his mouth and tossed the napkin onto the table. “I’ll fetch my medical bag and go at once.”

Diana started to rise but he waved her back into her chair.

“Finish your breakfast. This won’t take long, but it’s best to set a broken bone as soon as possible.”

“I’ll walk to the livery stable to meet you,” Diana called after him. “If his boy’s hurt, the blacksmith won’t want to leave him to bring the surrey out here.”

Mrs. Ellington nodded her approval. “He’s a good man, your husband,” the housekeeper said.

“Yes, he is.”

Tressa Ellington seemed about to say more, but instead just nodded and turned away. Diana ate quickly, polishing off steak and potatoes, her customary breakfast fare, before setting off at a brisk pace for the village.

She found the walking far easier than it had been the other day in the rain. The morning air had a fresh, clean smell, augmented by the fragrance of wildflowers. Diana smiled as she passed the tree where she and Belle Saugus had sheltered and glanced toward the comical figure of the scarecrow in the cornfield just at the foot of the Hotel Grant’s long drive.

She had gone a few steps beyond that point when it struck her that something had changed. Turning back, she looked at the scarecrow again. She had not been mistaken. During the rainstorm, the straw man’s limbs had flapped. Now they were stiff as boards. They looked . . . heavier.

Enough of a breeze stirred the leaves that there should have been some movement, enough to frighten birds away from the corn. Instead the straw-stuffed figured appeared to be attracting them in record numbers. Diana counted a half dozen crows pecking at the effigy.

“That’s not right,” she murmured.

Before she thought through what she was doing, she’d walked into the field. Her movements were hampered by the outfit she wore. In anticipation of the trip into town, she’d assumed full female regalia, including a breath-restricting corset, full skirts with several petticoats beneath, and a good-sized bustle. In spite of these impediments to rapid locomotion, she quickly closed the distance to the scarecrow.

Diana was almost on top of it before she suddenly realized what it was that had drawn the scavengers. She jerked to a stop, staring in disbelief at the figure before her. The old overalls and plaid shirt and weather-beaten, broad-brimmed hat were no longer stuffed with straw. There was a man inside the clothing—a very dead man.

Diana swallowed hard. Her hearty breakfast threatened to rebel.

Although she knew it was far too late to do anything for him, she moved closer, reaching out one tentative hand to feel for a pulse at the man’s wrist. Her fingers touched cold, dead flesh, sticky with blood.

Helpless to stop herself, she looked up, peering under the brim of the hat. The wide open but sightless eyes, one of them blackened, of Norman T. Saugus stared back at her. A vile smell assailed her at the same time and the combination was too much for her. Diana fled toward the road, stopping only to be horribly sick in a ditch.

Her steps unsteady, a foul taste in her mouth, Diana stumbled into town. It would have been closer to go back to the hotel for help, but Ben was in Lenape Springs. She ran the last few yards to the livery stable, staggering to a stop with a little cry of alarm when someone stepped in front of her.

“Mrs. Northcote? Are you ill?”

Belatedly, Diana recognized Luke, the blacksmith’s oldest son. The expression of concern on his youthful countenance snapped Diana out of her panic. She’d come this far. She could not fail now. She had to tell Ben what she’d found.

“I’m not about to faint.” Her tremulous, breathless declaration did not sound convincing even to her own ears. “It’s just . . . I found a body.”

“Ma’am?”

“A body,” she repeated. Her voice shook less the second time she said it. Steadying herself with one hand against the side of the surrey—Luke had been hitching up the horse when she stumbled into view—Diana ordered herself to calm down. This was no time for hysterics. “As soon as Dr. Northcote is finished setting your brother’s arm, I must speak with him.”

“
Whose
body?” Luke’s agitated voice went so loud of a sudden that it made Diana jump. “Not Mercy?”

“No! Oh, no, Luke. It’s Norman Saugus who’s dead. Not another young woman.”

“Thank the Lord.”

“Amen,” Diana whispered, and meant it. Bad enough to have found Saugus.

She hadn’t liked him in life, but she’d known him. And now he was dead. Someone had killed him.

Someone had
murdered
him and left him in that field to be found.

The reality of what she’d seen struck Diana with such force that she swayed. Luke caught her before she could fall and steered her inside the livery stable.

“A chair. I’ll get you a chair.” He sounded in worse shape than she was.

“No. No, I’ll be fine.” She gripped the half door of an empty horse stall so hard her knuckles went white but she remained standing. She was afraid that if she sat, she’d collapse completely. She had to keep her wits about her. She had to tell Ben what she’d found.

Oh, God! It had been horrible! She’d never had to face that kind of death before. Death had always been remote. Something to write about. Something to hear about. She’d been that close to a dead body only once before, and although Evan, too, had been violently dispatched, he’d been cleaned up before she’d seen him, resembling a wax figure rather than what remained of a man.

To her shame, Diana knew she’d not been deeply moved by the discovery of Elly Lyseth’s bones. The girl had been dead for years and Diana had never met her when she was alive. But Norman Saugus had been real. She’d seen him only last night when—

Stifling a moan, she gripped the rail of the horse stall more tightly and with both hands. She was suddenly afraid she
might
faint.

She stared at the small wooden plaque attached to the top of the half door. “Jessie” it said. The horse’s name. Ben had told her the little Morgan was called Old Jessie. Diana wished Jessie were still in the stall instead of hitched to the surrey. She could use a soft equine nose to pat and the calming whuffling sound a horse made when questing for a bit of apple for a treat.

She drew in a deep, steadying breath and got her body under control again. Her mind was another matter. Her thoughts were racing. If Norman Saugus had been murdered, that meant someone had killed him, and the first name that came to mind was her uncle Myron’s.

 No, she told herself. Uncle Myron could not have done this terrible thing. He might have beaten Saugus to death last night if they hadn’t stopped him, or strangled him, perhaps, but he’d never have struck him down in cold blood. Nor would he have put the body on public display, leaving it to chance who stumbled upon it first. What if a child had found him? Or Mercy?

Mercy? She frowned and lifted her gaze from the plaque to look at Luke. He was staring at her with an expression that was half trepidation, half concern.

“Why would you think that Mercy—”

She broke off, alerted to the fact that someone was coming by the clomp of heavy boots. A moment later Ben entered the livery stable in company with the blacksmith and several other men.

“Diana! What’s wrong? You’re pale as a ghost.”

She threw herself into his arms, making no attempt to speak until she was safely clasped to his broad, comforting chest.

“She found a body,” Luke said.

Ben’s exclamation of surprise was nearly drowned out by the shocked outcries of the men who’d come back to the livery stable with him.

“It’s Norman Saugus,” she whispered. “Someone killed him and put him in the scarecrow’s clothes and hung him up in the field by the road.”

This time the exclamations held a note of disbelief, but the men of Lenape Springs were quick to go along and see for themselves. Within moments, Diana was alone with Ben. She stopped trying to be brave and buried her face in his shirt front.

“Diana,” he said gently. “I need to go with them. They mustn’t disturb the scene until the coroner comes. Do you want to stay here? I can get Mrs. Castine to—”

“No. I’ll come with you.” Although she shuddered at the thought of being anywhere near the scarecrow again, she had to go that way to get back to the hotel.

They left the livery stable, ignoring the curious stares of several village women and the postmaster. As they retraced Diana’s steps, she explained how she had come to notice the scarecrow, and how she’d verified the body’s identity. She was shaking uncontrollably by the time she’d finished the tale.

“Damnation, Diana! You shouldn’t have had to see that.”

“Someone was going to find him. It would have been worse if it had been a child.”

“I should have noticed the crows. I went past there less than a half an hour before you did.”

“You were thinking about your patient. Is he going to be all right?”

“It’s a clean break. But that’s no excuse for my failure to—”

“Whoever came to the hotel to fetch you also passed this way without noticing. You can’t blame yourself because I happened to be the first one who did.”

He stopped arguing when they reached the field, but she knew he wasn’t convinced. He was protective where she was concerned. Sometimes that was a good thing.

A cluster of men surrounded the scarecrow, hiding it from Diana’s view. “Go,” she said, giving Ben a little push. “Examine the remains. Send for the coroner. I can walk the rest of the way on my own.”

Plainly torn, he hesitated, giving her a hard look.

“Go.”

Ben did not appear entirely convinced of her recovery, but he obeyed. She watched until he reached the others, then went on. She still felt shaky, but her mind was functioning again. There were things to do at the hotel, things she could do better than the coroner or the police.

She told Myron first: “Norman Saugus is dead. Murdered.”

He blinked at her in disbelief. Then slowly dawning horror suffused his features. “I didn’t touch him! I swear to God I never saw him again after I left his room last evening. You were still there when I left. You saw me go. I didn’t go back. I swear it.”

Diana believed him. Besides, she would have heard the ruckus if he’d returned to kill Saugus. “Where
did
you go?”

“Here.” They were in the family parlor. “I came here. Howd was with me for awhile. We had some of Tressa’s dandelion wine. Then I went to bed.”

“And Howd?”

Myron’s glare was ferocious. “If I didn’t kill Saugus, Howd sure as Hell didn’t.”

“Did he retire when you did?”

“No. Said he was going for a walk.”

“At night?”

“He likes to walk at night. Besides, the moon is nearly at the full. There was plenty of light.”