What Evil Lurks in Monet's Pond: A (6 page)

“What is your emergency?”

“I’m at my sister’s estate and there’s a dead
man out in her woods. I don’t know who he is or why he was
trespassing, but he’s definitely deceased.”

“I’ll need a location....”

I gave a very long, very involved description
to the dispatcher, and then promised to call Nora and Andrew. One
of them would meet the police officers at the driveway and escort
them up to the pond. After I hung up, I punched the button for Nora
on my speed dial. She was less than thrilled at the news.

“No way!” she gasped. “Is this your idea of a
prank?”

“I promise you I would never be this cruel.
Listen, Norrie, show the cops the trail, but there’s no need for
you to see...to see the dead body. Just go back to the house. I’ll
get there as soon as I can.”

“Well, I must say you’re taking this very
well,” she replied. She was clearly upset.

“Must be all those episodes of ‘Law and
Order’,” I teased lamely. “I’m on automatic pilot. Next thing you
know, I’ll be helping the coroner look for clues.”

“Maisie, how can you joke about this? Who is
the man?”

“I have no idea. But he looks peaceful
enough. Maybe he’s a neighbor of yours and he walks the trail a
lot.”

“We have ‘No Trespassing’ signs posted
everywhere. It’s the liability issue. Andrew says that if we allow
people to hike on our grounds and they’re injured, we could lose
the house. We don’t have enough homeowners’ insurance.”

“If it’s any consolation, he doesn’t look
like he fell or drowned. He looks like he went to sleep. Maybe he
had a heart attack. But,” I said, following the trail of footprints
on the path, “it looks like quite a few people have been out here
recently. The snow has been disturbed.”

“Oh, dear.... Oh, dear. That’s not good,
Maise. Ooh, I can hear sirens. I have to go.” With that, she
disconnected. As I waited, I took the time to quickly assess the
situation, knowing that Langley would want a report. I took the
liberty of snapping a couple of photos of the corpse on my cell
phone. I know it seems rather gruesome, but you never know when
that kind of thing is going to come in handy.

The man obviously was headed in this
direction. He might have come from the east, where the road runs
parallel to the pond. That was at least half a mile away. I didn’t
want to alert the cops to my interest, but how I wished I could
explore the area, to follow his path, to have a glimpse of where he
had been. Then again, maybe this was just a dead body. No
indication of anything sinister. And yet, I found myself wondering
if I was being observed as I stood there. Tangiers. WikiLeaks. I
thought about all that nonsense last night with Alberta and Bowie.
What if this was another attempt to out me as a spy? Would someone
actually go to the trouble of killing a man to confirm the
information in a classified information breach? Was I getting ahead
of myself here? Lord, my feet were cold as I stood there. I stomped
on them a few times, desperate to get the blood flowing. When I got
back to the castle, I was going to park myself in front of the
fireplace and stay there until I thawed out.

Chapter Six --

In the distance came the scream of the patrol
cars, at least two of them, followed by the howl of an ambulance.
Another ten minutes passed before I heard voices coming through the
woods. Andrew was coming up the rise, followed by a female cop in
uniform and two other men in plain clothes. The taller of the two
men put his hand out, saying something to my brother-in-law. Andrew
seemed to pause for a brief moment, but then he shrugged and turned
away, heading back to Bothwell Castle.

I remained where I was, not wanting to
obscure the evidence, knowing I could in all good conscience say
that I had walked this way but once.

“Well,” said the shorter man, as the trio
arrived on the scene. “Sure does look like a dead body.”

“Did you touch him?” asked the taller man. He
was wearing a gray overcoat and a black knit hat. On his feet were
black boots that looked functional enough to get him around in the
snow. The eyes were intense, almost beady. If I had to guess, I’d
think this guy wasn’t just a local cop.

“No, absolutely not. It was pretty obvious he
was deceased.”

“Why don’t you and I step over here,” the
shorter man suggested. “I’m Matt Gromski, Connecticut State
Police.”

“Wow, that was fast,” I replied. “I only just
called the East Haddam Police Department.”

“Actually, we’re still working on the museum
theft. We were at the station when you called.”

“Oh.” I nodded. “Does that mean you think
this guy was involved?”

“No, it means that the local police
department doesn’t have a lot of suspicious deaths, so we came
along on the call just in case the guy didn’t die of natural
causes.”

“Right.”

“So, let’s go over what happened here.” He
took out a notepad and started scratching away with his pen, firing
questions at me. Ten minutes later, I was sent back to the castle,
with instructions to stay there. There would be more questions once
the rest of the team arrived to join the investigation.

When I was within sight of the stone
fortress, I let Gesso down onto the snowy path. She was more than
happy to make a beeline for the back door, driven in large part by
her desire to have breakfast. Stomping the snow off my now cold and
damp sneakers, I stumbled into the mud room and slipped out of my
coat, shed my sneakers, and unfastened Gessie’s harness. Nora
opened the door to the kitchen just as I finished.

“What happened? What’s going on? Andrew said
the state police are up there. Was this connected to the museum
theft?”

“Hold on,” I replied. I pointed to my
stocking feet. “I need to warm up. I need something on my frozen
feet. I need hot coffee in my hands. Do you know bloody cold it is
out there, when you’re standing around in the middle of the woods
for half an hour?”

It’s true. I had been up there waiting,
wondering, worrying for a solid thirty minutes. That’s a lot of
time to be with a dead body, especially if there is a secret
watcher in the woods. I used the time to take some mental notes. I
made sure I didn’t call anyone, in case someone was trying to
monitor my phone. But even as I thought about all that, nagging
thoughts popped into my head. There was no reason for anyone to
expect me to walk the dog up there. I hadn’t taken that trail on
any of the three days of walks while I was at Bothwell Castle.

Which raised an important point. That museum
theft occurred on Christmas Eve. A holiday when, traditionally, law
enforcement people ask for and receive time off from the job. In
the spy world, as with organized crime and terrorism, it’s a time
to get busy, knowing that it takes longer to call in investigators
to cover whatever crisis results from the illegal activity. Maybe
the thief knew that he had a lot of time to steal the artwork. Why
did he cut the canvases from their stretchers?

As an artist, I can tell you that when you
work on large pieces, the way the canvas is prepared is a very big
deal. You want your work to last for several generations. You
invest in frames that will increase the value of your work. The
last thing you would do is cut your painting off its wooden
support. And if you had the time to take the painting off the wall
and keep it intact in its frame, you would. It’s a protective
thing. A painting in its frame is less likely to be torn or
damaged. Maybe the thief wanted people to think he was in a bigger
rush than he was. Maybe those frames were a clue.

“Here, Maisie. Drink this,” said my sister,
thrusting a mug of hot hazelnut coffee at me. It smelled
delicious.

“You’re a peach.”

“I have socks for you and you can wear my
fuzzy slippers.”

Once warm, I found myself surrounded at the
old English pine farm table. One by one, my relatives peppered me
with questions, starting with the basics.

“Did you recognize him?” Georgina wanted to
know.

“Never saw him before in my life,” I
admitted.

“Was there any sign of trauma?” Aunt
Clementine had long been a fan of Ruth Rendell and P.D. James,
among other authors, and she got right to the heart of the
matter.

“I didn’t see any, other than his hat and
glasses were crooked. But that could have happened when he dropped
to the ground.”

“You said there were signs that people had
been up there.” Andrew was obviously interested in the answer to
that.

“Definitely. The trail was trampled. He
apparently walked in from the east, maybe parking at the road.”

“Maybe people thought the trail was public,”
said Annabelle.

“You are pretty close to several state
parks,” Broderick agreed.

“We posted signs ever 200 yards around the
entire property. You’d have to be a moron to think it was public
land. And that trail only starts at the top of the knoll, where the
ruins of the old barn stand.”

It was true. Hermione bought the castle while
it still was owned by the original owner, who farmed much of the
land. When she moved in, she got rid of the Highland cattle,
thinking it a less than stellar aesthetic for her grandiose plans.
The stone barn was almost as dank as the castle. Built of
fieldstone, it slowly deteriorated over the decades, and by the
time Nora and Andrew bought the place, area landscapers had
absconded with a lot of the stones, repurposing them in area
gardens and walls. All that remained was a smattering of stones
amidst the post-and-beam barn frame.

The trail from the ruin of the barn led down
the hill, around the pond where ambitious artists once sat on
summer days as they painted bluebirds and butterflies, and around
the back of the castle to the terraced gardens now covered in
snow.

“I hate to say this,” my younger brother
announced, “but I really do want to document all this, especially
if that death turns out to be anything but natural.”

“But why would anyone want to murder someone
up at the pond? Why even go there? It’s so far from the road and
there’s nothing around for anyone to steal.” Cara seemed genuinely
baffled and I had to admit I was in complete agreement.

“At one time, that was known as Monet’s
Pond,” Nora told us, her voice laden with sadness. “This whole
place was a showcase for Hermione. She had a gazebo up there, where
they had summer parties. I was planning to reconstruct it.”

“You were?” We all looked at her in
surprise.

“Yes. Andrew and I agreed this place is too
big for the two of us once the boys are off on their own. We were
going to rebuild it the way it was when Hermione had it, and then
turn it into an amazing little inn with event space for weddings
and special events. You know. Like Saint Clements Castle in
Portland. It was going to be called Cadell’s Castle, after the
Scottish Colourist.”

“Oh, good heavens!” I sighed. “What a
wonderful idea.”

It was true. The house was far too grand for
a family of five, even with the influx of relatives at the
holidays. But as an event space and a small inn? I began to
understand Nora’s dream. This was why she and Andrew had sunk a
small fortune into the ruin of a castle, rebuilding it one step at
a time. I could even imagine how the Food Network might want to use
it as a backdrop for a cooking show or two. Or maybe HGTV might
want to do a garden tour. And that’s when I looked up and saw the
raw pain on my sister’s face. She saw her dream slipping away.

“How lovely,” Aunt Clementine declared. “I do
hope I’ll still be able to visit.”

“Absolutely,” Andrew told the elderly lady,
giving her a fond hug as he refilled her coffee mug.

“Money pit, if you ask me.” That was
Alberta’s two cents.

“No one did,” Bertie pointed out before
moving on. “Sis, I think it’s a great idea.”

“So do I,” said Broderick. “The Scottish
Colourists never get the praise they deserve.”

“I wanted to have an artist-in-residence, or
at the very least, an artist-of-the-month exhibit. I want to market
the new Impressionists.”

“Of course, a commercial enterprise,” sniffed
the disdainer amongst us.

“Alberta, take a walk with me,” I commanded.
I had reached my fill. Enough was enough.

“Why?”

“Because I want to talk to you privately,” I
replied. “About something I found out.”

I knew that would peak her interest. Once a
busybody, always a busybody. She padded after me as I headed for
the living room. As she entered, I stepped aside, and then I closed
the double doors. This would be a very private conversation.

“Don’t speak.” I held up a hand. “Listen for
a moment. You’ve done nothing but criticize and humiliate people
since you got here. You’ve had your claws out for me for some time
now. It has to stop. If it doesn’t, you can’t be with us any more.
You are not going to ruin the holidays for the rest of us, just
because you’re a miserable human being.”

I surprised myself by saying all that without
a whiff of sarcasm. The truth is I was tired of constantly feeling
like I was under siege. I was taking back the Carr family
gatherings. We would be civilized. We would do right by each other.
And heaven help anyone who couldn’t make that happen. As I looked
into that belligerent face, it began to crumble. The jaw dropped.
The tears began to flow. The next thing I knew, Alberta was
throwing her arms around me and holding on for dear life. What in
God’s name had I done?

“Alberta?” For the life of me, I had no idea
why my cousin was clinging to me like I was a life raft on the
Titanic. “Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

Heavy sobbing. Gasping. Muffled words. Holy
mother of pearl. This was not the woman I knew.

“Alberta? Allie?” I tried to separate myself
from the near-hysterical woman. She refused to release me from her
death grip. I took a different tact. “Did something happen to you?
Something that upset you?”