Winterset (24 page)

The lively interest in Mrs. Parmer’s face blinked out, as if a candle had been snuffed. “Oh. Why are you asking about that?”

“Because some similar murders have happened recently,” Reed told her. “Perhaps you have heard.”

Mrs. Parmer shook her head. “No. I don’t get out much. But I can’t see what that has to do with Susan. That was years and years ago.”

“Yes. But there are similarities. Miss Holcomb and I are trying to find out what we can about what happened to Susan Emmett.”

“The woman who was killed recently was a maid in my house,” Anna explained, and the old woman’s dark eyes slid to her for a moment.

“I’m sorry, miss.”

“The way she died was quite like the way Susan Emmett died,” Anna added.

Mrs. Parmer studied her for a moment, then asked, “Are you Miss Babs’ daughter?”

Anna looked at her, surprised, then said, “I am Barbara de Winter’s daughter.”

The old woman smiled. “Aye, that was Miss Babs. She was a cute baby, that one. I missed her when her aunt took her off to London. ’Course, it wasn’t too long afterward that I met my Ned and left the house. I’d heard that Miss Babs married the Holcomb lad.”

Anna nodded. “Yes. Sir Edmund was my father.”

They had wandered rather far afield from the subject, Anna thought, and she wasn’t sure how to bring it back. Fortunately, Reed stepped in.

“Mrs. Parmer,” he began, “do you remember Susan Emmett?”

“Oh, yes. She worked at the house with me for two or three years, I guess.”

“What can you tell us about her death?” Reed asked her.

She looked at him blankly. “I—I don’t know what you mean. I didn’t know much about her death. One day she wasn’t there, and we didn’t know what happened to her. Then they found her and said she’d been killed.”

“Didn’t you think about who might have done it?” Anna asked. “I mean, didn’t you and the others talk about who the killer might be?”

Mrs. Parmer looked down at her hands, twisting the gold band on her ring finger around and around beneath the swollen knuckle. “It wasn’t my place to talk about things like that. That was for the magistrate and such.”

“Did you talk to the magistrate? The constable?”

Mrs. Parmer shrugged. “I remember the constable came and talked to all of us. I didn’t know anything to tell him.”

“You don’t remember any speculation about who could have killed Susan—or the farmer?” Anna asked.

“Everyone said it was the Beast,” Mrs. Parmer offered.

At that moment Gert trundled in, carrying the tea tray, and their conversation was interrupted. A few minutes were taken up with the niceties of serving the tea.

Finally, after Anna felt she had taken enough sips to be polite, she said, “Did
you
believe that Susan was killed by the Beast, Mrs. Parmer?”

“Who else would have done it?” the woman replied.

“Well, at first, did they not believe it was her fiancé?” Reed put in.

“Oh, him.” Mrs. Parmer grimaced and made a dismissive move with her hand. “That one didn’t have it in him to kill anyone, let alone Susan. It was daft to think he had done it.”

“What about some other man?” Anna asked. “Was there anyone else with whom you saw Susan talking? Or someone who seemed interested in her? Jealous, perhaps, because she had chosen another?”

The old woman shook her head. “No. We weren’t allowed to have callers at the house. The only time Susan saw her fiancé or anyone besides the rest of us servants was when she went home on a Sunday.”

“Did she go home on the day she was killed?”

Mrs. Parmer looked at her. “It’s been a long time, miss. I don’t remember.”

“Were you off that Sunday, Mrs. Parmer?” Reed inquired.

“Oh, no. I was working. We got every other Sunday off. Reduced staff, you see, so that there would be someone there to wait on the family.”

Anna looked at Reed. She felt dissatisfied, but she could think of nothing else to ask the woman. Reed gave a ghost of a shrug, as if he felt the same way. He turned to Mrs. Parmer.

“Thank you very much for talking to us today. I hope we have not disturbed your day too much.”

“Oh, no, indeed.” The old woman smiled a little archly at Reed, not too old, apparently, to feel his charm.

They took their leave of Mrs. Parmer and mounted their horses, riding away from her neat little house. Anna cast a glance over at Reed.

“Did you think—” She cast about in her mind for a way to express what she felt.

“That she was hiding something?” Reed suggested.

“You felt it, too!” Anna exclaimed. “Well, perhaps not that she was hiding something, but at least that she was not telling us everything she knew.”

“She seemed cagey,” Reed agreed. “The way she sidestepped gossiping about the event.”

“Yes, and the pious statement that it wasn’t her place to speculate about such things. As if that ever stopped anyone from doing so.”

“The thing is,” Reed went on, “I cannot imagine why she would do so. After all these years, what difference does it make? Almost everyone involved in the matter must be dead. Who would she hurt? Who would care?”

“I don’t know. It was frustrating. I kept thinking, if only I could ask her the right question, she would start chattering. But I couldn’t think what it could be.”

They rode to the center of town, where they stabled their horses at the inn and took a private dining room for a bit of lunch before continuing to the records office. They were shown to the best room by an obsequious innkeeper who, while he did not know them, knew well enough the cut and quality of their clothing, as well as the high breeding of their horses, and had great expectations of a large bill.

The private room was well apportioned, but small, creating a sense of intimacy. They seemed much more alone, Anna thought, than they ever did in either of their homes, with all the servants about. Here, once the maids had bustled in with their meal and laid it on the table, they were left quite alone, the door closed between them and the rest of the world. The room lay at the back of the inn, and the windows were open to the summer breeze, letting in the peaceful sounds of birds and the occasional distant noise of a horse and wagon, or the laughter of one of the ostlers.

Anna glanced over at Reed, who was busy carving the roast. She enjoyed looking at him this way, without his knowing how long her eyes dwelled on him, or seeing the warmth that she was afraid crept into her face when she saw him. Her eyes went to his hands, strong and quick, then back up his arms, the muscles moving beneath his coat.

“Anna?”

“What? Oh.” Startled, she looked up into Reed’s face to find him watching her, holding a slice of meat ready for her. Color flamed in her cheeks, and she quickly held out her plate. “I’m sorry. I was thinking…about the murders.”

“Yes?” he said questioningly.

“I was wondering whether we are actually accomplishing anything,” Anna said. It was a thought that had occurred to her more than once in the past few days. “Even if we are able to find out something about the murders that took place forty-eight years ago—and I frankly wonder how we can accomplish that when no one was able to at the time—will it really help us to find out what happened to Estelle and Frank Johnson?”

“I’ve wondered, too,” Reed admitted, slicing off another piece of meat and laying it on his own plate. “Anyone could have decided to copy the murders. He wouldn’t have to have a connection to the earlier ones. Yet I can’t help but think that it would be wrong of us not to pursue those killings. What if we do find something that will give us a clue about the recent murders?”

“I know. I don’t mean that we should abandon what we are doing,” Anna told him. “But I wish we could think of some way we could find out more about what happened to Estelle or that boy.”

Reed glanced at her somewhat speculatively. Anna’s eyebrows went up.

“What?” she said. “You are thinking something.”

A half smile touched his lips. “You are right.”

“And you’re thinking I won’t like it,” she continued.

“Right again.” The partial smile turned into a full one, and Anna felt her insides melting. If he only knew, that smile would probably have her agreeing to almost anything. “I have been thinking about your ‘gift.’”

“My gift?” Anna looked puzzled.

“Your ability to—to sense what has happened. Or is about to happen. As you did with your brother, or what you felt when you found the Johnson lad.”

“Oh.” Anna put down her fork and leaned back in her chair, looking at him warily. She did not know what he was going to say, but she disliked the thought of talking about her visions. She feared that he wondered, as she often did, if these strange occurrences were evidence that she, too, might be slipping into madness. “What were you thinking about this ‘gift’?”

“Only that I wish we could use it.”

Whatever she had been expecting, it had not been this. “Use it? How?” she asked, leaning forward a little.

“To tell us more about the case. I don’t understand it. But what you sensed about your brother was remarkably accurate, don’t you think?”

Anna nodded. “Yes, I suppose it was.”

“You saw the place where it occurred. You felt something of what happened to him. I wish there was some way you could direct that ability onto these killings. Maybe you could get some sense of who had done them, or how.”

Anna shifted in her seat. “I—I don’t know.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to push you,” Reed said quickly, reaching out to lay his hand over hers on the table. “I wouldn’t want you to do it if you didn’t want to. If it made you uneasy or…” His voice trailed off.

Anna was very aware of his hand resting on hers, of the warmth and texture of his skin. It sent a tingle up her arm and into her chest. She shifted in her chair, sliding her hand from his and folding it with her other hand in her lap.

“It’s not that I don’t want to, exactly,” she said. “I just…don’t know how to do it. It isn’t something I have ever tried to do. The visions, the feelings, or whatever you want to call them, just come upon me. There is no warning, and I don’t do anything that causes them. I just suddenly feel them. I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t know how to go about encouraging them.”

Reed removed his hand and started in on his food, nodding.

“Perhaps…I could try thinking about Estelle,” Anna mused. It sent a little shiver through her to think about trying to open her mind up to thoughts about the murder.

Reed looked over at her and saw the way her face had paled. “No,” he said quickly. “It isn’t worth it. I didn’t think—the effect on you would be too terrible. It was a foolish idea.”

Anna was warmed by his concern, just as she had been by the way he talked about her visions as if they were something normal and natural, an asset, rather than something to be hidden and denied.

“No, it wasn’t foolish at all. If it would help us find the killer, it would be worth a bit of discomfort for me.”

“I think it would be more than a bit of discomfort,” Reed guessed shrewdly. “I saw the look on your face just now when you were considering it. They must be very difficult for you.”

“They are…rather frightening,” Anna admitted. There was something freeing about being able to talk about her visions to someone. “I—I feel the pain and the terror that they are feeling—or at least a part of it. The way I felt the burst of pain in my head when I was thinking about Kit.”

“Then you certainly shan’t do it,” Reed said in a voice that brooked no denial.

Anna smiled a little. “Don’t you think that it is for me to decide?”

He grimaced. “You are as bad as my sisters. Well, promise me this—tell me you will not try to experiment with your ability unless I am with you, so that I can help you if you need it.”

Anna looked at him. She realized that her visions would be easier to bear if Reed was there with her. His presence would give her strength, make her feel safer.

“All right. I will not try unless you are there.”

Reed nodded with relief, and they returned to their meal. Putting aside the gloomy topic of their research, they talked about lighter and more general subjects as they finished their food.

When they were done, they walked to the records office. There, Reed, looking and behaving every inch the son of a duke, informed the clerk of the records they wished to search, and after a brief and futile protest, the man disappeared into the back and returned some time later, bearing a wide, stiff book fastened by brads.

There was no convenient place to sit, so they stood at the long oaken counter and opened the book, thumbing through the yellowed pages until they reached the inquest they wanted. There were several pages of testimony from witnesses regarding the discovery of Susan Emmett’s body, beginning with the senior Dr. Felton, who expounded on the wounds he had found on the woman’s body. There was nothing in his testimony that had not been included in his notes. Indeed, there was less, as there was none of his speculation about the manner in which the wounds might have been inflicted.

The next witness to testify was the man who had discovered the maid’s body lying beneath a tree at Weller’s Point. As Anna looked at the name of the witness, she stiffened, staring in stunned surprise. The man who had testified about finding the body was Nicholas Perkins.