Tracy Kiely - Murder at Longbourn

I tried to reconcile Jackie’s text message to Linnet with the facts as I knew them. I couldn’t. I tried to visualize Lauren slipping on the glove and shooting Gerald. I couldn’t do that either. And then there was the lie I’d heard told to Detective Stewart. What was the reason for it? A niggling in my brain told me that I was missing something. I drove to the beach. I walked along the hard sand, my head bent low against the wind. I pulled out my gloves from my coat pocket and slipped them on. And then it came to me. I had seen Lauren write out a number for her friend with her left hand. Like most blondes, Lauren was a southpaw. The glove found at the murder scene was for a right hand. Someone had tried to frame Lauren! But who? Lauren might be annoying and vapid, and she had clearly never loved Gerald, but it took a special kind of hate to frame someone for murder. Slowly a fantastic idea took form in my brain. I froze in my tracks, thinking about Lauren. There was someone, after all, who might have hated Lauren, someone who would derive satisfaction at seeing her in jail. But that would mean …

My mind raced with the events of the last few days, replaying scenes in my head. Of course! I had been looking at everything upside down. Once the pieces fell into place, it all made sense. However, my only proof lay in the details of a lost love and a seemingly white lie told to Detective Stewart. Could I even get Detective Stewart to listen to me? I knew better than to try. I needed more evidence, evidence I would simply have to get myself.

I raced back to my car, left a message for Aunt Winnie as to where I was going, and drove to the Linnet’s house. Thankfully, no one was home. Now that I was here, though, the question of how exactly I was going to get in presented itself. Smashing a window would no doubt set off an alarm. I peeked under the doormat in the faint hope that I’d find a key. There was none. I dragged my hands through my hair in frustration. I simply had to get in. Without the evidence, Detective Stewart would never listen to me.

I ran around the side of the house, all the while petrified that I’d be spotted by the neighbors. Despite the cold, a clammy sweat broke out on my neck and back, and I realized I could never lead a life of crime. Not due to any superior moral fiber on my part; I just didn’t have the stomach for it. The mere idea of breaking into someone’s house had rendered me sweaty and queasy. If I actually got in, there was a very good chance that I’d throw up and then pass out. Still, I kept searching for a way in, holding on to the hope that I’d find a spare key outside. My weak stomach aside, I couldn’t let Lauren hang for Gerald’s and Jackie’s murders. Finally, luck smiled on me. Hanging from a nail near some plants was a gray house key. I was no gardener, but I would bet money that these were the foxglove plants from which the murderer had prepared the poison. I grabbed the key and ran around front. With shaking fingers, I slid the key into the lock and pushed open the door.

The stillness inside amplified the pounding of my heart. I darted up the stairs and into Linnet’s bedroom. A quick search provided what I was looking for. I lifted the lid of the jewelry box and enjoyed a moment of triumph as my hand closed around the glittering earrings. I had been right!

I thought of Gerald, who was hated by nearly everyone he knew, a man who most likely caused his first wife’s death. I thought of Jackie and her ridiculous floppy hats and insatiable thirst for gossip. In spite of her silliness, she had been likable. She hadn’t had an easy life. Her dreams of moving to Hollywood were ruined by a friend who opted for marriage instead. What had Linnet said? “Jackie, on the other hand, has always had a real talent for mimicry—more of a gift, really, than a talent. She was amazing.”

Another memory slid into focus—the night of Gerald’s murder. I had been in Aunt Winnie’s office, hearing the front door open. Two voices floated in. One was Linnet’s. “This is a horrible night to be out. Really, Jackie, I don’t know why I let you talk me into coming to this. I hate these things.”

Next came Jackie’s voice, all breathy and excited. “Oh, don’t be that way, Linney. It’ll be lots of fun. You’ll see.”

But that wasn’t what Linnet had told the police. She told Detective Stewart that going to Aunt Winnie’s had been her idea. And with Gerald’s death a chain of events had been set in motion that would end with Jackie’s death. Gerald, a man who was universally hated, a man who no one was surprised to hear had been murdered. In quick succession, other facts fell into their correct place: a sudden weight loss and a smooth, unpierced ear beneath a floppy blue hat.

I was so caught up in my reverie that I didn’t hear the footsteps on the stairs. Too late, the hair on my neck stood up, telling me that I was no longer alone.

I spun around.

“Hello, Jackie,” I said, once I got my voice back.

Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side

which he never shows to anybody.

—MARK TWAIN

STILL DRESSED IN Linnet’s clothes and wearing her wig, Jackie tilted her head to one side and peered up at me. With a flourish, she pulled off the wig with one hand, revealing a head of fluffy white hair. She looked like somebody’s sweet old grandmother. The only jarring note was the unwavering gun in her other hand. It was a Derringer just like the one that had killed Gerald. “They released me from the hospital early. I took a cab home,” she said conversationally. “But when I saw your car outside, I had a bad feeling.” She shook her head from side to side, clucking her tongue disapprovingly as if at an errant child who had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. She saw me glance at the gun and nodded. “My father collected them. I grew up practicing with them. If I do say so myself, I’m an excellent shot. They were the only things of value that he left me.” She turned the small gun in her hand so that the light caught the shiny white pearl handle. “Seemed a silly inheritance at the time, but they actually have come in handy.”

I was ice cold. My mind screamed at me to say something, to keep her talking until I could figure a way out of this, but I couldn’t move, let alone talk. Fear ate at me, leaving nothing but a quivering shell. Finally, I managed to get out, “You loved Martin.”

She looked up at me again with that birdlike tilt of her head. “He was my world,” she said simply. “And then Linnet saw him.” She spit out Linnet’s name as if it were an insult. “She wanted him like a child wants a piece of candy. Martin loved me, but … but when Linnet came around, I disappeared, the way the moon eclipses the sun. Once Linnet set her sights on Martin, he didn’t have a chance. She never loved him; she just loved his money. All this,” she said, with a wide sweep of the gun, “came from Martin’s money. And Martin belonged to me. The way I look at it, this is how it should always have been—me living in this house with the things that his money bought. I’ve only righted the wrong Linnet created.”

“So you killed her and assumed her identity,” I said carefully, trying to keep my voice neutral, as I thought one should when dealing with crazy people. I warily contemplated her and the gun. I looked around for something to use as a weapon but could see nothing. I was certainly bigger and could probably tackle her, had she not had the gun. A tiny part of my brain registered that it was, in reality, a small gun, but a gun is a gun, and when you’re staring down the barrel of one, size doesn’t matter. To my shattered nerves, she might as well have been holding an AK-47. My only hope was to keep her talking while I tried to maneuver my way toward the door to the hallway. I remembered what Detective Stewart had told me: Derringers have only one shot, two at the most. If I could take her by surprise, I might be able to make a run for it.