Aunt Bessie Goes (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 7) (19 page)

“It seems
likely that he knew something more than anyone else we’ve spoken to, at the
very least,” John replied.
 

Everyone fell
silent for a moment and then Bessie’s phone clicked.
 
“I really should check my messages,” she
said with a sigh.
 
“There are
probably over a hundred.”

“Go ahead and
check,” John told her.
 
“I just need
to ring someone and then we can wrap this up for tonight.”

John stepped
into Bessie’s sitting room to make his call while Bessie pressed play on her
machine.
 
For several minutes she
and Doona and Hugh listened as person after person asked Bessie to ring them
back with all the details on the dead body in
Jurby
.
 
After the tenth call, Bessie
pressed
“pause” and sighed deeply.

“Not one of them
bothered to say that they hope I’m okay,” she said.

“I guess they
all figure you’re getting used to finding dead bodies,” Hugh said.
 

Bessie gave
him an angry look, shifting the look to Doona when she noticed that Doona was
smirking at the remark.
 
“I don’t
mean to keep finding bodies,” she said in a hurt voice.

“We know
that,” Doona assured her, patting her arm.
 
“But you do seem to have done quite a lot of it lately.”

“I didn’t find
any bodies in July or August,” Bessie protested.
 
“Okay, lots of my friends died in July
and I did find a badly beaten-up man in August, but he wasn’t dead, at least
not until now.
 
Anyway, I can’t just
stay home all the time.
 
None of
this is my fault, anyway.”

“Since the
first body you found was practically on your own doorstep, I’m not sure staying
home would help, anyway,” Doona said.

Bessie shook
her head and
pressed
“play” again.
 
A dozen more calls of the same nature
were listened to and deleted.
 
John
walked back in as the very last message began to play.

“Bessie, it’s Mary.
 
I do hope you’re feeling okay.
 
I was very shaken up by today’s events
and my doctor has given me something to help me sleep.
 
I’m going to take it after I hang up, so
please don’t ring me back until tomorrow.
 
I just wanted to check on you, really, and also to remind you about the
art auction on Friday evening.
 
I
know the timing isn’t great, but it’s a charity thing and George and Grant are
insisting we can’t reschedule.
 
It’s
tied to some big event across, apparently, and, well, anyway, if you can make
it, I’d love to see you.
 
It’s just
wine and light food with the auction of art by a group of very talented local
artists.
 
I forget the name of the
charity it is in aid of, but it’s always a good cause, isn’t it?
 
Ring me tomorrow and let me know that
you’re okay.
 
I’m off to bed.”

“Am I allowed
to ring her back?” Bessie asked John.

“I was just
checking with the Chief Constable about that,” John replied.
 
“Apparently George Quayle has given an
interview to the local paper, telling them absolutely everything about the
case.
 
Because of his position, he
was privy to perhaps more information than he should have been, and all of that
is going to be spread across the front page tomorrow.”

“You won’t be
in any trouble, will you?” Hugh asked.

“I didn’t even
speak to George,” John said.
 
“The
Chief Constable himself is the one who shared some things he shouldn’t have.”

“So I can talk
to whomever I like?” Bessie asked.

“You can,”
John said, nodding.
 
“The only thing
I’d rather you didn’t mention to anyone is that you think you saw the dead man
in the flat at Seaside Terrace.
 
The
information might be out there, but I’d rather people think that Pete
Corkill
recognised
him, instead
of you.”

Bessie
nodded.
 
“And what about this party
on Friday?
 
I assume there’s no
reason for the police to stop it going forward?”

John
shrugged.
 
“I’d like to, after what
George has done, but no, we haven’t any reason to stop it from happening, at
least not yet.”

“Is there
anything else we need to discuss?” Bessie asked.

“I thought you
might like an update on Ms. Partridge,” John told her, smiling.

“Oh, yes, what
happened to the lovely Fiona?” Bessie asked.

“She was
questioned, then escorted back to her hotel for her things and taken to the
airport.
 
Her company paid for her
to fly back to London immediately.
 
Apparently, they will be sending someone else to handle the furniture
auction when it’s eventually rescheduled.”

“Poor Mary,”
Bessie said.
 
“When will that be?”

John
shrugged.
 
“We were willing to try to
be finished up there by Friday so the sale could go ahead as planned, but Mary
decided to just cancel and reschedule.
 
I guess Fiona was also going to handle the evening event, but they’ll
have to send someone else for that as well.
 
Ms. Partridge has been asked not to
return to the island.”

“That seems a
bit harsh,”
Bessie
said, unable to imagine being told
she couldn’t come back to the beautiful island that she called home.

“Yes, well, I
requested that she remain at the scene of a very serious crime and she
refused.
 
When cornered by police,
she fled on foot and then, when arrested, she resisted.
 
She admitted, when questioned, that
she’d taken some rather high-powered pain medicine this morning.
 
Of course, she claimed that she has a
prescription for it, but we couldn’t confirm that.
 
In the end, we agreed that it might be
best for everyone concerned if she just flew home and didn’t come back.”

With that
piece of news, it seemed as if everyone had run out of things to discuss.
 
Doona and Hugh quickly helped Bessie
tidy up the small kitchen after John left.

“I’ll ring you
tomorrow,” Doona told Bessie as she walked them to the door.
 
“I’m not sure about this auction on
Friday.
 
I think George Quayle is
mixed up in these murders somehow.”

“We don’t even
know that anyone was murdered,” Bessie pointed out.
 
“Anyway, Mary said you were welcome as
well.
 
You can keep an eye on me
there.”

Doona
shrugged.
 
“If the food is as good
as it was at the barbeque, I suppose it won’t be too bad.”

“And if we
pool our resources, we might be able to afford a postage stamp-sized piece of
art,” Bessie said with a laugh.

“I guess I’m
glad I have a date on Friday,” Hugh muttered.

Bessie gave
them both hugs and then locked the door behind them.
 
The kitchen was spotless so she had
nothing to fuss over before bed.
 
Instead, she curled up with a book for a few minutes, but quickly felt
the long and exhausting day catching up with her.
 

She slept well
and woke up feeling well rested.
 
Showered and dressed, she was pleased to see the sun as she ate her
breakfast.
 
A long walk on the empty
beach felt just about perfect to her.
 
Back at
home,
she cleared a new batch of nosy
phone calls from her machine before settling in to ring Mary back.

The woman who
answered the phone sounded harassed.
 
“I’ll have to see if she’s home,” she told Bessie.
 
Bessie winced as a loud bang reached her
ear.
 
It sounded very much as if the
woman had dropped the phone.
 
Several minutes passed and Bessie was just thinking about hanging up.

“Hello?
 
Hello?
 
Is there someone there?” a loud voice
suddenly shouted in Bessie’s ear.

“Yes, hello,”
Bessie said quickly.
 
“Is that you,
George?”

“It is, who is
this?”

“It’s Bessie,
Bessie
Cubbon
.
 
How are you?”

“Oh, Bessie,
how nice of you to ring.
 
I can’t
imagine why no one told me you’d rung.
 
I hope you haven’t been hanging on the line for too long.”
 
The loud booming voice suddenly
dropped.
 
“You really can’t get good
help these days,” he continued in a loud whisper.
 

“I was ringing
to speak to Mary,” Bessie said.
 
While she didn’t actually dislike George, she preferred him in very
small doses.
 

“Oh, I suppose
someone’s gone to find her, then, that’s why you were left just hanging
there.
 
I do say
,
I hope you’re all recovered from your ordeal yesterday.
 
Finding that body and all, that must
have been traumatic.”

“I’m certainly
in no hurry to do it again,” Bessie said dryly.
 
“I hope Mary is okay.”

“She’s
fine.
 
She seems quite delicate, but
she’s really as tough as old boots, Mary is.
 
Why, she was up at the crack of dawn
this morning, sorting out rearranging everything for the rest of the week.
 
We were supposed to have the furniture
auction and then the art auction and raise gobs of lovely money for charity,
and now we’ve had to just limit ourselves to the art auction.
 
Knowing my wife, she’ll expect me to
make up the difference when it comes to the donations, won’t she?”
 
George laughed heartily.
 

“When you
worked at the bank, did you know young Adam King?” Bessie asked, hoping that
changing the subject quickly might surprise him so much that he would answer
the question.

“Did I know
Adam King?” he repeated.
 
“Oh, is
that the young chap they’ve just found inside a wall or something?
 
I gather he worked at the Laxey branch
with his father.
 
I remember meeting
the father, Frank, wasn’t it?”

“Frederick,”
Bessie replied.

“Oh, yes, of
course, Frederick, yes, well, I remember meeting him once or twice, when he came
into Douglas for meetings and things.
 
I can’t say I recall meeting the son.
 
Grant’s the one to ask about that,
though.
 
I was only there for a few
years.
 
Grant was there forever and
he travelled to every branch, as well.
 
You can ask him Friday night.
 
You are coming Friday night, right?”

“I expect so,”
Bessie said.
 
“I was hoping I might
bring a friend.
 
You’ve met my
friend Doona.”

“Ah, yes, the
lovely brunette with the bright green eyes.
 
She’s more than welcome, of course.
 
You don’t even need to ask.
 
I’ll let Mary know, shall I?”

“Oh, I’d still
like a quick chat with Mary, if that’s possible,” Bessie said.

“Of course, of
course, let me find her for you.”

Bessie pulled
the phone away from her ear just in time.
 
The loud bang wasn’t nearly as bad with the phone held at arm’s
length.
 
She shook her head.
 
Was it so difficult to set a phone down
gently?
 
This time it was less than
a minute before she heard another voice.

“Bessie?
 
Are you still there or have you given up
on me?” Mary asked.

“I’m still
here,” Bessie told her.
 
“Although I
did think about giving up.”

“Sorry,” Mary
replied.
 
“Kara, who answered when
you rang, got sidetracked by one of the people who is here setting up the art
works.
 
It was only when George
started shouting the house down that she remembered and came and found me.”

“It’s fine,”
Bessie assured her.
 
“I just wanted
to make sure you’re okay after yesterday.”

“I’m fine,”
Mary said.
 
“It wasn’t my
favourite
way to spend a day, but I got through it.
 
I’m mostly disappointed that we’ve had
to cancel the auction.
 
I thought we
were going to finally get rid of some of that excess furniture and raise some
money for a good cause at the same time.
 
Now we have to rely on the art auction to raise all of the money and I’m
still stuck with the furniture.”

“I’m sorry I
won’t be much help at the auction,” Bessie said.
 
“I’m afraid my budget won’t run to the
sort of prices you’ll be getting for things.”

“Oh, don’t
worry about that,” Mary said with a laugh.
 
“George’s friends from across will fight with one another to buy the big
ticket items.
 
But there are going
to be lots of little things that will be for sale, as well.
 
I’ve just been talking with a local
group that does different crafts.
 
We’re going to be selling those things, rather than auctioning them, so
even if you only have a few pounds to spare you can help and won’t go home
empty-handed.”