Ransom at Sea (13 page)

Lily DuPree was still asleep in her chair on the opposite side of the deck, facing the water, a paperback romance lying open on her lap.

“It's after eleven-thirty,” Lynn said after glancing at her watch. “What would you like to do until lunch?”

“Actually, I think I'll go to my cabin and rest for a while.”

“Did you tire yourself out too much?” Lynn said, her smooth white forehead furrowing.

Emily smiled rather mischievously. “No, my dear, I tired myself out just enough.”

Lynn laughed, then accompanied Emily down to the blue deck. When they reached the bottom of the second staircase, they rounded the corner into the hallway and were surprised to find the door to number 8 ajar.

“Becky must've forgotten to close it,” Lynn said.

Emily glanced at her, then went over to the door and pushed it open. Marcella Hemsley lay sprawled on the bed, her face bloated and purplish, and her arms and legs splayed. Her macramé belt was twisted tightly around her neck, and the compass lamp was lying beside her head, a smear of blood on its base. She looked like a huge rag doll that had been carelessly tossed on the bed.

Emily proceeded into the room and laid two fingers on Marcella's wrist.

“Oh, my God, is she—?” Lynn asked.

Emily released the wrist. “Yes. She's dead.”

Lynn sputtered. “But—that's impossible! Becky said she just looked in here!”

“I know.”

4

“The way I see it, this young lady is the only logical suspect.”

The man speaking was Joseph Barnes, sheriff for Allegro County, the small county that encompassed Macaw and its surrounding villages. He was in his early thirties and had reddish blond hair, a full, neatly trimmed mustache, and sallow skin. His face was thin, his eyes light brown. His summer uniform consisted of khaki pants, a matching short-sleeve shirt, and a black tie, the knot of which was never tightened to his throat. The office was a small square with a window to the right of the desk. The window looked out on a clearing less than thirty feet wide. Barnes sat behind the desk, resting his elbows on its top, his finger interlaced.

“I talked to all the passengers and the crew. It doesn't look like anybody really knew Marcella Hemsley other than to nod to, except for her niece.”

“That doesn't mean one of them couldn't find a reason to kill her.” Seated across the desk from Barnes was Detective Jeremy Ransom. He had driven half the night to reach the town, and was feeling the worse for wear: his joints ached from six hours behind the wheel, and his crystal blue eyes felt dry and stinging from staring so long at the ribbon of highway. And of course, there was the lack of sleep.

“Well, since any number of things could've happened to the old lady,” Barnes said amiably, “I suppose some psycho killer could've just happened to choose that time and place to sneak on board to do somebody. But this isn't Chicago.”

Ransom smiled. “Even there I've found that psycho killers are relatively few and far between.”

Barnes laughed outright. Though his lips were thin and pale, his smile lit up his face. “I suppose you're right. Most murders have a definite reason.” He sobered. “But, see, that's just my point. The only one I know of who could've had a reason to kill her is the niece, Rebecca.”

“And that reason is…?”

Barnes shrugged. “I don't know. But she was the only one that knew her. And there's the fact that she lied when she said she looked in her aunt's cabin and she wasn't there.”

“Are you sure about that?”

He shrugged again. It appeared to be an automatic gesture for him, indicating a certain embarrassment at being right. “The other ladies, your friends Miss Charters and Miss Francis, they said they were in there right after meeting Rebecca, and they found the body.”

“Did Miss Charters offer any observations about the matter?”

The sheriff produced an apologetic smile, the type that implied one had to make allowances for the elderly. “Oh, yeah, she had a lot of things she noticed. Bunch of little things that don't add up to anything. You know how old people get: they don't have much to do with their time, so they watch everything going on around them and build up something in their heads.”

“Hmm,” said Ransom. “I don't know that much about other elderly people, but I've known Emily long enough to know that one ignores her observations at one's own peril.”

There was a beat. “Have you talked to her yet?”

Ransom shook his head. “Just briefly. On the phone. Not long enough for her to go into details.”

Barnes pursed his lips, then drew them to one side. “You might change your thinking when you've had a talk with her … but I guess the fact that you rushed up here proves what you say.”

Ransom considered him for a moment. Though Barnes was free of what the detective would term urban polish, he had an intelligent face and a notable lack of rural wariness. “You know, Sheriff Barnes, it strikes me that you're being uncommonly gracious with someone who's butting into your territory.”

Barnes laughed and sat back in his chair, resting his hands in his lap. “Detective, we don't get a lot of murders up here. Mainly I catch kids doing drugs in the woods, and now and then I get a big catch, like when we get hold of somebody running drugs to the Upper Peninsula or thereabouts. When we do get a murder, it usually just means we find a body that somebody's dumped in the woods, or someone's been killed there and left. I don't usually have a boatload of suspects.”

“A boatload?” Ransom replied, raising his right eyebrow.

“Figure of speech. Like I said, the niece is the only one we have any evidence against.”

“The fact that she lied.”

The sheriff nodded. “And there's only two sets of fingerprints on the lamp—hers and her aunts.”

“Hmm. But you don't mind if I … nose around?”

“Uh-uh.”

Ransom smiled and shook his head. “There, you're being gracious again, which I take to mean that you have your doubts about Rebecca.”

“She swears her aunt wasn't in that cabin when she looked. If she's lying it's a really stupid lie, given what happened.”

“Then why do you think she would do it?”

“There's only one reason I can think of: she killed her aunt in the cabin, and didn't want the body found for a while, so she sets up this hue and cry, says she can't find her aunt, intending to send everyone off looking for her out in the woods. Then when they come back and find the body they all think somebody got in the boat while they were all gone and killed the old lady. So Rebecca insists on going with the captain and his wife to search so that she'll have a perfect alibi. It was just her hard luck that your friends decided to go back to the boat when they did, and that the door was open.”

“Isn't it possible that somebody else killed the aunt after the niece left the boat?”

“Who?” Barnes replied with a shrug. “There were only two people on the boat at the time—the cook, who'd never seen the Hemsley woman before, and this lady, Lily DuPree, who you could practically snap in half just by looking at her.”

Ransom sighed. “So, your explanation of the event sounds logical … impausible, but logical … given the way things look. So what's the problem? Why do you have your doubts about Rebecca Bremmer?”

Barnes sighed very deeply. “It's such a stupid crime! Why do all that? Why go back to the boat and do her there? She and her aunt went off in the woods alone. She could've done her there, then gone to the others and said she'd lost her aunt, and when they find her she's dead! Then it could've looked like some stranger came on her in the woods and killer her. Much easier than all the other rigmarole.”

“Except that since she'd have been alone with her aunt in the woods, she would've been the chief suspect.”

“Yeah, but she is anyway, and this way its even stronger. That's why it doesn't set right.”

Ransom uncrossed his legs then got to his feet. “So, as to my nosing around?…”

“Nose away!” Barnes replied, rising. “Miss Charters and Miss Francis are out front.”

“Yes, I saw them on my way in. What about Rebecca Bremmer?”

“I'm going to be holding on to her for the time being—she doesn't want to stay on the boat in any case—and give you a little while to see if you can find out anything. But not too long. I'm going to have to turn her over soon.”

“I see.” Ransom started for the door.

“Detective?”

He stopped and looked back.

“I've told the passengers on the
Genessee
that they can't leave the area until I say so. But you know as well as I do that I can't hold them here very long, if at all. The minute one of them starts squawking about leaving…” He let his voice trail off suggestively. “'Course, I understand this was some sort of church party, and if someone
does
make a stink, I'm going to remind them how they should want to help us find the person that murdered their ‘sister.'”

The right corner of Ransom's mouth crooked upward. “Thank you, Sheriff.” He opened the door and went out.

The outer office was large and low ceilinged, with walls painted pale yellow and dingy white acoustical tile overhead. A long counter in front of the wall to the left of Barnes's office was manned by one of the deputies, while another sat in a chair to the side reading the paper. Ransom stepped up to the desk and spoke to the mousy-haired young man sitting behind it.

“Is there somewhere around here to eat?”

The young man turned up a pair of eager brown eyes. “Yes, sir. Well, there's a lunch counter at Friendly's—that's the general store—then there's Golda's. That's a restaurant about a mile up the road. Those're the two closest places.”

“Thank you.”

Emily and Lynn were seated on a rough wooden bench that spanned the north wall of the room. Ransom crossed to them and sat beside Emily.

“What did the sheriff say?” Lynn asked anxiously.

“It's as you thought, Emily. The only case he has is against Rebecca. He's not really going to go beyond that.”

“Then he's an idiot!” Lynn exclaimed, sitting back abruptly.

Ransom eyed her curiously. “I would probably do the same thing he's doing under normal circumstances. But the sheriff is at a disadvantage: he doesn't know Emily.” He turned to the lady in question. “What was your impression of the sheriff?”

Emily pursed her lips pursed. “I thought him quite capable.”

“Emily!” Lynn exclaimed.

“He's young, so he's a bit narrow in his thinking, but that will change with age and experience. What was your impression?”

“Pretty much the same as yours. I think he's very intelligent … and he's not quite as narrow as you might think. He's open-minded enough to let me look into this.”

“That's great!” Lynn's face brightened.

Ransom curled his lips into a self-deprecating smile. “Well, we'll see how great it is. Why don't we get out of here? I'll take you someplace where we can have something to eat, and you can fill me in on the lay of the land.” He had risen and gave his hand to Emily.

“I'm staying here,” said Lynn.

“Why?”

“For God's sake, Ransom, Rebecca's in jail in a strange town. I'm not going to desert her!”

Emily now at his side, the detective looked at the seated young woman with a return of his curious gaze. “In order to get her out, I'm going to need all the information I can get. So come with us now, and when we've had something to eat, I'll bring you back here, if you like.”

She stared at him for a moment, then huffed impatiently and got to her feet. “You're right, I guess.”

He held the door open for them and they passed out into the harsh sunlight. The sheriff's station was separated from the road by a large parking lot. Though it was not quite eleven o'clock yet, the temperature was already in the high eighties, and the lack of rain in recent days caused dust to rise beneath their shoes as they crunched the gravel underfoot.

Ransom led the two women to the “previously owned” dark blue Camry he'd bought a couple of years earlier, and unlocked the doors. With great care Emily climbed into the front seat, while Lynn stood by with a hand on the door. Once Emily was secure, Lynn tossed herself on the backseat, closing the door behind her.

Gravel spat from beneath the tires as Ransom hung a right and headed north. The right side of the road was bordered with thick forest, while the left was lined with trees through which could be seen snatches of the lake, as if through leafy tendrils, shining placidly in the sun.

The three of them remained silent, apparently through a tacit understanding that they would not discuss the case until they were situated at the restaurant. Emily sat with her hands neatly folded in her lap, eyeing the passing scenery with the interest she always seemed to manage no matter what the circumstances. Lynn rested an elbow on the windowsill, her head lolling against her hand. Her fingers had wound their way into her tawny hair, a grim frown marring her normally bright visage as she stared out the window. The trees passed in a muddy-green-and-brown blur.

“There it is,” Ransom said.

A clearing on the right side of the road revealed a glass box encircled by another gravel parking lot, most of which was empty. The glass was tinted blue, and the roof extended several feet beyond the front wall and sloped upward, forming a blank billboard across which Golda's was spelled out in pink neon.

The interior of the restaurant was
L
-shaped. The long end of the
L
was taken up by a counter in front of which stood a row of stools with pink padded seats, like powder puffs perched on pedestals. Behind the counter there were rows of old-fashioned Coca-Cola glasses and dessert dishes, and beyond them a wall that looked to be brightly polished stainless steel. In the center of this was a rectangular hole through which orders could be picked up by the waitresses. The entire place was scrubbed so clean it fairly sparkled in the inescapable sunlight.