Murder in the Cemetery: A Lady Margaret Turnbull Cozy Mystery Book (International Cozy Mystery Series 3) (2 page)

Chapter 4

Tom didn’t know, but no one seemed to have any information
on her, or anyone fitting her description who had relocated in the last ten
years.

“Well I’ve definitely never seen her face before.  And she
has such a striking one—or she did—that I would have remembered it, I think.”

“Didn’t you say you knew the Pemberthy’s?”  Tom asked. 
Maggie had mentioned during her statement that the tomb the woman was found in
belonged to the Permberthy’s, who had been semi-frequent guests of her cooking
classes at the bed and breakfast.

“Yes, I did.  And I know what you’re thinking.  They had a
boy and a girl, but they both drowned in a boating accident years ago.  They
were twins, and their bodies were never found.  That was my first thought, as
well.”

“Well, I had one of my detectives look into the matter,
because quite frankly, the manner of death for the parents was some cause for
concern.”

“Follow me,” Lady Margaret said.  “And keep talking, I’m
listening.  I’m just going to grab something.”  As Maggie tried to picture what
the Pemberthy’s children would look like, an image of Valerie Chamber’s face
Kept popping into her head, interfering with all other thoughts.  Frustrated,
she marched up to the little attic of the bed and breakfast, Detective Sullivan
trailing behind her.

“So anyway, Jane and Charles Pemberthy, as you probably know,
because they were in your cooking classes, died relatively closely to each
other, time frame wise.  Within a year or so of each other, they each had a
stroke.  I remember it striking me as odd, kind of like Johnny Cash and June
Carter.  It’s sweet, but it doesn’t happen all the time.  What are you looking
for up there?”  Tom steadied the attic ladder Maggie had pulled down, when she
didn’t answer him, he just kept talking.

“Valerie’s face is really haunting me, Tom.  I can’t
remember exactly what Mrs. Pemberthy looks like…”  She backed down the ladder
and tore out a paper from an old cooking school yearbook.  “Can you do me a
favor and run this through some fancy science machine and let me know if this
looks anything like what Carol looked like.”

“Carol, their daughter, yes?”

“Yes.  I’m sure you have something that can do that, don’t
you?”

“I can do you one better, I’ll run the pictures through the
aging program and let you know what the Pemberthy’s daughter would have looked
like, had she grown up.  I’d imagine we’ll at least get close that way.”

After Tom left, Maggie decided to take a walk around her
property. Stretching her legs and a bit of country fresh air would do her good;
and her mind wonders. The reunion had quieted down and had given her time to
think.  Unfortunately, all she could think about what Valerie’s face.  It was
so haunting how she’d been smiling.

The next day, Tom let Maggie know that her hunch was
correct, as usual.  For some reason, though, Maggie didn’t delight in it as she
usually did.  Valerie was, indeed, Carol Pemberthy, all grown up.

The medical examiner also confirmed that the young lady had
had some facial reconstruction surgery, though Maggie couldn’t for the life of
her figure out why.  The woman had good genes; she would have been gorgeous
either way.

It was certainly a twist in the case.  As far as Maggie
could tell, all they would have to do would be to retrace her steps from the
day she supposedly drowned in the river.  Her body was said to have been washed
down stream, which was verified by someone on the scene.  What happened after
that was the big mystery.

“What about her brother?” Maggie asked as Tom picked her up
to take her to the police station that morning.  She’d insisted on driving and
he reminded her that it would be very hard to catch her up on things while they
were in two separate cars.  Detective Sullivan had mastered the fine art of
talking hands free on the mobile phone while driving, but Maggie still insisted
that it was very dangerous.

“Do you think he survived?”

He did, but he doesn’t use the name Pemberthy.  He goes by
Thomas Kilkane these days.  The Lismore Police Department is looking for him
right this moment.  From what I can tell, though, he doesn’t really fit the
profile of a killer.

Most of what he has going against him are minor robberies
and such.  And even those are just from being poor and down in life.  Not
something we’d really classify as dangerous.  One of the times he was picked
up, he was asked if he was a drug addict.  He joked that it was a luxury he
couldn’t afford!  I thought that was a pretty clever way of saying no.”

“Did any of his crimes occur in Clunes?  That would be a
good enough reason to link the two of them together.”

“No, no.  I don’t think either of them knew the other one
was alive.  Again, I could be wrong, and I’m sure you’ll tell me if I am…but as
far as I can tell, no.  And all of his crimes were in the Lismore area, none of
them were in the countryside or even anywhere near Clunes.  Next question.”

“Perhaps, from his experience with his parents, he was
afraid to venture too far away from where he was used to.  Why, do you think,
did neither of the children contact their parents when they were taken to
safety?  Why would you not do that?  Were there any reports of child abuse in
the home?  I mean, I can’t really imagine Jane or Charles doing anything like
that…they seemed like the nicest people.  But as you know, Detective, it’s
usually the people who seem the nicest that do the strangest and most terrible
things.”

“I’ll look into it.”

Chapter 5

Later that afternoon, when the police finally get ahold of
Thomas Kilkane, he was completely stunned to learn about the death of a sister
they said he had.  As far as he knew, he’d never even had a sister.  He claimed
he’d never heard of a Valeria Charmers, had never been to Clunes, and was
certainly never anywhere near the Bangalow cemetery.

All of this seemed fine enough, but when Lady Margaret
arrived to the police station and asked to go into the interrogation room, the
young man immediately changed his stance.  He sulked in his chair, and cowered
away from her as she entered the room.  Under his breath he started a string of
panicked mumblings that seemed to be directed at Maggie.  Something along the
lines of I’ll never be late to cooking class again, I promise!  He looked
positively scared, and like he was about to be punished.

Maggie was very confused, and was eventually asked to leave
the room by the psychologist on the case, who was finding it more and more
difficult to get the man to answer questions while she was in the room.  Once
the meeting with him was over, the psychologist closed the door behind her and
stepped over towards Detective Sullivan and Maggie in the hallway.

“Well he has certainly had some sort of childhood trauma,
folks.  But he isn’t insane, and he’s not belligerent.  I also really don’t
think he is capable of murder.  He’s got a pretty sweet spirit, I think he’s
just been broken by life and been dealt a really unfortunate hand.  That’s
certainly heartbreaking, but doesn’t make him a murderer.  The only things to
be dug into are the fact that he can’t recall having a sister at all, and can’t
remember where he’s last seen Lady Turnbull.  I’ll send over my final report by
morning, but until then, that’s my off-the-books answer for you.  Have good
day.”  And with that, she was gone, her heels clacking on the cold tile of the
police station floor.

“Well it seems we are at an impasse, Lady Margaret.  If he
can’t even remember having a sister, or he’s blocked all memory of her from
some sort of childhood trauma, then I don’t really think he could hold a grudge
against her long enough to kill her.  Any other ideas floating around up there
in that inquisitive mind of yours?”

“I’m really more concerned with the parent’s obvious
disregard for their children’s lives, here.  Aren’t you, Tom?  I mean…who could
just assume that their children drown, and then carry on with everyday life?”

“They basically just told everyone, that their children were
dead and then retreated back into their cocoon.  Seems odd, don’t you think? 
They must have abused them in some way, I’m sure of it.  There had to be
something like that going on for Carol and James…or Valerie and Thomas, as it
were…to never have contacted them after having survived the boating accident. 
There simply has to be an astounding reason for that.” Lady Margaret stated.

“You know, I’ve been thinking back to when the two were in
my class when they were younger.  I recall them being a very timid, couple of
people—very reserved.  I also remembered earlier today, in the interrogation
room, that Carol was always trying to better her brother in some way.  Maybe
she continued that on right into adulthood?”

“Yeah you may be right, there, Lady Margaret.  You usually
are.  But why would she completely refuse to acknowledge him after all that
time.  Do you think she even remembered that she had a brother?  It certainly
looked like she was okay in the head enough to do well for herself in life.  I
mean, that was a pretty fancy dress as far as I could tell…and everything we
found on her from the last ten years or so suggested that she did pretty well
for herself.  Why would she leave her brother to live in abject poverty while
she so obviously lived the high life?  That hardly seems fair, maybe she was
abusive after all?”

Just then, Detective Alfred Logan walked in with a few files
in his hands.  “Excuse me, Detective, do you have a minute?  There’s a break in
the case.”

“Sure thing, I always have a minute for that; what have you
got?”  Tom took the papers he was being handed and listened intently.

“Well it seems that Charles Pemberthy has a sister, and she
lives here in Lismore.  Her name is Helen.  I thought you might want to pay her
a visit.  These days, sir, she’s known as Alice Kilkane.

When they arrived at Alice’s house about an hour later, the
questioning went relatively quickly.  She let them know that she did, in fact,
see Thomas after his disappearance.  A few days after he had supposedly died in
the boating accident, he showed up on her doorstep.  She was in complete shock,
and when she offered to take him home to his parent’s, he would have nothing to
do with the idea.

Soon after that, Helen moved to Lismore and settled down,
changing her name to Kilkane and raising Thomas as best as she could.  The boy
had gone to school and done fairly well, but suffered nightmares.  He told his
aunt how much his sister made him suffer, and Helen recounted stories of what a
vicious child Carol was.

“Under a mask of cleverness and gentleness, she was evil,
Detective.  When he showed me his scars, that sealed the deal for me.  That’s
why I took him away and raised him on my own.  No one should have to live
through that, it’s inhuman.”

A few hours later, back at the police station, the other
detectives managed to track down the foster parents that took in Valerie after
the incident.  They’d found her wandering the streets of Lismore eating
discarded food and trying not to be noticed.

Under the watchful care of adoptive parents, she eventually
went to beauty school and did quite well there.  The foster parents explained
that they had no idea about her antecedents and could shed no light on why she
might have been murdered and stored in her parents’ crypt.

Chapter 6

On the way back to the station with Lady Maggie, Tom phoned
the former Helen Pemberthy to ask her if she thought Thomas could ever act upon
his nightmares.  Apparently they were often about harming his sister, and Helen
couldn’t be sure.  She hadn’t ever seen any signs of acting out on them, but
she wouldn’t consider it impossible.

Detective Sullivan concluded to Maggie that this behavior
probably contributed to his homelessness.  The psychologist also called and let
the two of them know that Thomas did have a deep-seated childhood trauma, along
with some schizophrenia.

“You know,” Maggie said as they drove. “Maybe they found
each other by accident?  Twins can find each other while being blindfolded, you
know.”

“I think you’re right, Maggie.  I think that Thomas Kilkane
killed his sister, and has no recollection of it due to the schizophrenia.  His
alter ego just doesn’t acknowledge that it happened, because to him…it didn’t. 
The poor guy, can you imagine not remembering doing anything, much less
murdering your sister?!”

“So how do you think it happened, Detective?”  Maggie tried
to keep the conversation light because normally she enjoyed this part.  The
look on that girl’s face, though, still haunted her.

“I hope we get to know, Lady Margaret.  It could be months
before he assumes his other personality.  That’s the only real way to get any
information out of him.”

Several months later, Inspector Sullivan was interrupted
during his morning coffee at the police station.  Detective Hodges walked up to
his desk and handed him a statement.  It was from Thomas’s alter ego, and he
had given his testimony of what had happened that night in the crypt.

Apparently, as the statement read, Thomas was begging on the
street for alms when his sister walked by and dropped some coins into his
bucket.  He didn’t recognize her face at all, and the detectives concluded that
Valerie suffered from the same schizophrenia that Thomas did because she didn’t
appear to have recognized him either.

The two of them would have passed in silence, as two ships
not even acknowledging each other’s presence, were it not for a small spark. 
Though Thomas didn’t recognize her face, since she’d had facial reconstruction
surgery, he did recognize her hand.  Something about the way her hand twisted
and let her wrist be exposed, he remembered it from the years of being
tormented by her as a child, and something inside of him snapped.

Under the pretext of forgiving his sister and forgetting the
past, he took her to their parents’ crypt.  She went willingly, and Thomas
believed that was because she wanted to return to the abusive sister he always
knew her to be.

She was stuck in a semi-healthy cycle where she could at
least hold down a steady relationship and get through life.  When she saw
Thomas, though, and saw that familiar vulnerable look in his eye, she snapped
back to being her sinister self.

Thomas believed that she would attack him again, and when
they neared their parents’ tomb, he took her inside and killed her before she
got the chance to harm him.

Maggie, as Tom was retelling the story, imagined that’s
where the look of satisfaction had come from.  In her mind, she was planning on
returning to the evil version of herself the whole walk down to the crypt.  It
was only because Thomas acted faster that she was killed.  Had he not acted
quickly, she likely would have done the same.

When the story was finished, and Detective Tom Sullivan had
given Maggie the very last detail, she was happy to have the case out of her
system.  Never again did she want to think of those two children as something
other than the slightly timid people from her cooking class.

Now back home, she took the class yearbook up into the attic.
She tried her best to let herself know she didn’t do anything wrong. 
Everything in her told her she should have done something for those two kids. 
That she should somehow have been able to spare them their pain, and she
couldn’t.

Getting this emotionally involved in a case wasn’t something
Maggie had ever let herself do before, but this time it felt personal.  It felt
sadder.  And Maggie was ready to be on to the next case, which would hopefully
be a murder case that was a bit more upbeat. Even that is a little sad.