Kittens and Killers Read online

  “It shouldn’t matter, but I do feel better,” Daniel said with a chuckle.

  They talked about the kittens and the weather while they enjoyed the delicious food and sipped their wine. It wasn’t until Fenella had found another packet of cookies for dessert that Daniel mentioned the case again.

  “Any initial thoughts on what you read?” he asked Fenella as they settled onto one of the living room couches with their cookies and the rest of the bottle of wine. One kitten was still missing, but the other three were tucked up in the playpen with their mother and all four of them seemed to be fast asleep.

  “The papers seem to hint that Mabel was killed because she was a woman living on her own. That doesn’t strike me as much of a motive.”

  Daniel nodded. “From everything I’ve read, no one was ever able to find any real motive for the killing. She was hard working and had a few thousand pounds in savings, but as far as anyone knew, she didn’t keep cash around the house. There was no sign of a break-in anyway and nothing had been taken from the house. She was wearing a simple gold chain and a gold ring when she was found. If someone was planning on stealing from her or the house, they were interrupted before they managed to get anything.”

  “Were break-ins of that type common in those days?”

  “Not at all. If anything, they’re more common now, and compared to the rest of the world, the island’s crime rate is very low.”

  Fenella nodded. “What about boyfriends? The article doesn’t mention any.”

  “She’d been seeing someone before she moved into the house. He didn’t approve of her living on her own and ended things.”

  After counting to ten in her head very slowly, Fenella spoke. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Yes, well, it was a long time ago. He moved to Liverpool and then London right after he and Mabel split up. The police did everything they could to break his alibi, but he’d been at work until six the day the body was found. He didn’t have time to come over and kill Mabel and then get back to his flat before the police knocked on his door around nine that night.”

  “I didn’t see any of that in the local paper,” Fenella commented.

  “It may not have made the papers as it wasn’t interesting or helpful to the case. The man passed away over twenty years ago and as far as I can tell led a blameless life in London until his death.”

  “You said she’d been in the house for six months. Surely she’d have found a new boyfriend in that time?”

  “Jeanne and Donna were adamant that she hadn’t. Marilyn told the police and the papers that she thought Mabel was seeing someone, but that she’d been very secretive about it.”

  “That’s suspicious,” Fenella said.

  “If it’s true,” Daniel agreed. “Marilyn couldn’t pin it down any further than that and no one else agreed with her.”

  “You said she was close to her brother. What did he say about boyfriends?”

  “If Jeanne was devastated, Clyde was something beyond that. I’m sure one of the papers reported that he needed to be hospitalized for some time after the murder.”

  Fenella nodded. “I do remember reading something like that. Does that mean the police never actually spoke to him about the case?”

  “No, he was questioned eventually, but he didn’t say much.”

  “Was he a suspect?”

  “You know better than that. Everyone is a suspect. He didn’t have an alibi, but that isn’t unusual. I’m trying to remember how the papers put it. They said something about him being a typical young man, out on the town for the evening.”

  Fenella flipped through the newspaper clippings until she found the relevant article. “’Mabel’s younger brother, Clyde, was enjoying an evening with friends at a pub near his sister’s house. Only twenty-one, the young man has been under his doctor’s care since the murder. We wish him well and hope to interview him when he’s recovered from his loss,’” she read out.

  “They did interview him, too. I may not have included that clipping. It didn’t add any useful information to the investigation. He denied knowing much of anything about his sister’s social life.”

  “What about the man from whom she was renting the house? Did he know anything?”

  “I’m sure I included the interview he and his wife gave the papers in the file,” Daniel replied.

  Fenella flipped through the sheets and then shrugged. “Sorry, I missed that one. I read the larger article at the top of the page. That one was an interview with Jeanne. I didn’t notice the smaller one at the bottom.” She quickly skimmed through the brief interview with Howard and Patricia Quinn.

  “They make Mabel sound too good to be true,” she commented when she was done.

  “I’m not sure they would have rented their house to her if they didn’t think that she was going to behave impeccably.”

  “According to the article, they’d told Mabel she wasn’t allowed to have overnight guests without their approval, and that she’d never once asked. I wonder if any of her three friends ever spent the night. I was also curious about her brother.”

  “They all denied doing so when they were originally questioned, but I did wonder the same thing. Just after the murder, they would have lied to protect Mabel’s reputation, but maybe they’ll be willing to tell me more now that so many years have passed.”

  “I can’t imagine Mabel having a whole house to herself and not letting a friend stay over once in a while. How many bedrooms were there in the house?”

  “Three, and all three were furnished. For what it’s worth, none of the beds in the spare bedrooms were made up for guests on the night that Mabel died.”

  “Where was the party they were supposed to attend?”

  “At a restaurant a short walk from Mabel’s house. Jeanne was planning to leave her car at Mabel’s while they walked to the party.”

  “Where did Jeanne live?”

  “Over in Onchan. It wasn’t far away, but it wasn’t walking distance to the party, either.”

  “I don’t suppose anyone checked to see if Jeanne had an overnight bag in her car that night?”

  Daniel shook his head. “No one asked and there was no reason for anyone to search her car.”

  “If I were going to a party that was walking distance from a friend’s house, I’d probably arrange to stay with that friend afterward. I assume they were all going to be drinking.”

  “Remember that drink driving laws weren’t the same in those days, and people weren’t as concerned about it, either. She didn’t have all that far to go to get home. She may have simply planned to drive herself home after the party.”

  Fenella nodded. “Things were very different fifty years ago, I suppose. Even so, I still would have rather stayed with my friend than drive home. Jeanne lived with her parents, right? Mine wouldn’t have approved if I came home drunk, whether I’d been driving or not.”

  “I’ll be discussing all of this with Jeanne and with the other women,” Daniel told her. “I need to try to build a picture of Mabel in my head. Everything I’ve read suggests she was, as you said, almost too good to be true. Marilyn was the only one who ever hinted that she might have kept secrets from time to time. I’m going to talk to her first.”

  “And you won’t be able to tell me anything she says,” Fenella sighed.

  He shook his head. “There’s going to be an article in the local paper about the case tomorrow. They’re starting a series on unsolved murders on the island. I’m hoping to get this one solved before they run the next article next month.”

  Fenella frowned. “Have there been that many unsolved murders on the island?”

  “Not really, but if they run one a month, they’ll start making people think there have been. Actually, I believe they’re going to include other unsolved cases, like disappearances, as well. That should give them a story a month for the year.”

  “I wonder how Mabel’s family and friends will feel about the case being back in the news.”

&
nbsp; “They should welcome a new investigation. At least, everyone but the killer should welcome a new investigation.”

  “Which of the people we’ve discussed were actual suspects, then?” Fenella asked.

  “Mabel’s three friends are on the list. Mabel was small enough physically that another woman could have killed her. None of them had alibis that covered them for the entire window in which the murder could have taken place. Mabel’s brother also has to be on the list, as do her parents. Sadly, they’ve both passed away now.”

  “I read their interview with the paper. It didn’t sound as if they knew anything about Mabel’s life once she’d moved out.”

  “No, I don’t think they approved of her going and I suspect they more or less cut their ties with her once she was gone. No one ever said that in so many words, but it was hinted at, anyway.”

  “Could they have been mad enough about her going to kill her?”

  “Anything is possible, of course, but of everyone interviewed, they had the best alibi. There were enough small gaps to make it just possible that one or the other of them could have killed Mabel, but the investigating inspector had them at the bottom of his list of suspects.”

  “What about Mabel’s job? What did she do, and were there any suspects associated with that?”

  “She was a secretary to one of the island’s more influential advocates, a man called Andrew Neil. Jeanne worked in the same office, along with a third woman, Helen Hendricks.”

  “Was Helen a suspect? Or the advocate?” Fenella asked, feeling odd about using the Manx term for a lawyer.

  Daniel chuckled. “This bit didn’t make it into the papers, but it was the talk of the island at the time. When the police went to question Mr. Neil about his whereabouts on the night of the murder, he was evasive and eventually outright refused to answer any questions. It didn’t take the police long to discover that he’d spent the night in a hotel room in Port St. Mary with the aforementioned Helen Hendricks.”

  Fenella gasped. “I’m going to guess that Mr. Neil was married.”

  “He was. His wife was in Edinburgh visiting her mother at the time. Both Helen and Mr. Neil were able to provide unbreakable alibis once they’d admitted where they were. They had dinner together in the hotel’s dining room and then spent some time in the bar, drinking, before retiring to their room. Mabel’s body was found while they were still at the bar.”

  “Poor Mrs. Neil.”

  “As I understand it, she never returned to the island. Mr. Neil didn’t remain here for long, either, after everyone found out about his affair.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “I talked to one of the reporters at the local paper today about that. He kept track of Mr. Neil, mostly just out of personal interest. Mr. Neil moved to Poland with Helen, actually.”

  “Poland? That seems an odd choice.”

  “Apparently Helen’s mother was Polish. It was 1967. The affair was something of a scandal. Poland was far enough away to let them escape their past.”

  “What about Mrs. Neil?”

  “As far as anyone knows, she stayed in Scotland. There’s no record of the couple ever divorcing. It seems that Mr. Neil and Helen told everyone in Poland that they were married, and no one ever questioned it. They had two children together and, eventually, six grandchildren. Mr. Neil passed away in the late eighties, but Helen is still alive. Whether she and Mr. Neil were ever legally married or not, I don’t know.”

  “I’d love to fly over to Poland and talk to Helen,” Fenella said. “I don’t suppose you can find an excuse to question her and then let me tag along?”

  “I may try interviewing her by telephone at some point, just for background information, but I can’t see the department paying for me to fly to Poland to speak to her in person. As I said, she’s been eliminated as a suspect.”

  Fenella nodded. She had more than enough money to pay for the flights herself, but simply being nosy and wanting to meet the woman wasn’t enough of a reason to try to find her. “Who else is on the list, then?” she asked.

  “Howard and Patricia Quinn, either separately or together.”

  “Maybe Mabel was involved with Howard,” Fenella suggested.

  “From all accounts, he and Patricia were devoted to one another. Perhaps I should say that they are devoted to one another, as they’re still together. They’re both in their eighties now, of course.”

  “What about children?”

  “They never had any.”

  Fenella nodded. The interview with them in the paper had mentioned something about that. Patricia had said something about God not yet granting them the blessing of children when she’d been talking about how sorry she felt for Mabel’s parents. Apparently, God didn’t bless them after the murder either. “Maybe Patricia was involved with Mabel,” Fenella suggested as the idea popped into her head. “Maybe that’s why the couple never had children.”

  “It’s possible, of course, but it seems unlikely. Such things were never discussed or even hinted at fifty years ago, of course, but I find it hard to believe that Patricia and Howard would have stayed together for all these years if Patricia preferred women.”

  “It’s possible, though,” Fenella said. “It might have given either of them a motive, too.”

  “If she were having an affair with either of the Quinns, we can assume they both had motives for wanting her dead. What we don’t have is any evidence that Mabel was doing any such thing.”

  “Is that everyone on the suspect list?”

  “Aside from a person or persons unknown, it is. As I said, Mabel had had other boyfriends, but the inspector who conducted the original investigation talked to all of them and didn’t feel any of them were viable suspects.”

  “What about the men who were involved with her three friends? Marilyn was getting married, right? What about her fiancé?”

  “Being that he was a police constable, he was never considered a serious suspect,” Daniel told her. “I would have investigated him more closely if I’d been in charge of the case, but the inspector knew the young man personally and eliminated him from the list of suspects immediately.”

  “Did Jeanne have a boyfriend?”

  “Not on the day of the murder,” Daniel said with a grin. “I gather she went through boyfriends very quickly. She was between men when Mabel died, otherwise she may well have been going to the party with a man rather than with Mabel.”

  “And the body might not have been found for several more hours,” Fenella speculated. “I wonder if that’s relevant.”

  “I’m not sure why it would be, but it’s an interesting thought.”

  Fenella yawned. “What else?” she asked.

  “I think that’s probably enough for tonight. I’ll leave the clippings for you, in case you want to go through them again. I have another set at the office. I’m really just looking for your thoughts on the case, nothing more. You’ve already given me a great many things to think about that I hadn’t considered before. That’s exactly the sort of help that I need.”

  “I’m really looking forward to meeting Donna Cannon tomorrow.”

  “Please be discreet if you start asking her questions. I’d rather people didn’t think you were helping with a police investigation.”

  “Maybe I’ll just casually mention that I’ve found a few dead bodies since I’ve been here. That might be enough to get her talking about the murder case in her past.”

  Daniel looked as if he wanted to object, but after a minute he yawned and then got to his feet. “I should go home and get some sleep,” he said. “Tomorrow I have to start tracking down all of the witnesses from my fifty-year-old case.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “It’s a lot easier here than it is across. If people have stayed on the island, they’re pretty easy to find. I’d like to talk to as many as I can before everyone on the island starts talking about the case.”

  “Good luck with that, too,” Fenella laughe
d.

  “Should we find the missing kitten, then?” Daniel asked.

  Fenella sighed. The other three kittens and their mother were all still fast asleep in a cuddly ball in the middle of one of the playpens. Where was the fourth kitten? “I suppose we’d better. I don’t want it wandering around the house all night. It might get hungry, too. Actually, it must be hungry now.”

  “I’ll start down here if you want to try upstairs.”

  Fenella nodded and then wrestled the baby gate open. She shut it carefully behind herself and then climbed the stairs. She started with the smallest bedroom, checking every corner, looking under the bed, even moving the curtains that reached the floor to make sure the kitten wasn’t hiding behind them. As she emerged back onto the landing, she shut the bedroom door, hoping that would keep the kitten out of the room she’d already searched. Half an hour later, she’d shut every door and hadn’t found the kitten.

  When she got back downstairs, Daniel was standing in the middle of the living room with a frown on his face. “I thought for sure you’d have found it,” he said.

  Fenella shook her head. “I was very thorough, too. The kitten isn’t upstairs.”

  “I don’t think it’s down here, either, but maybe we need to try harder.”

  “I’ll do down here. You try upstairs,” Fenella offered.

  Another half hour of searching proved fruitless.

  “I’m starting to get worried now,” Fenella admitted as they met back in the living room. “How long can kittens go between meals?”

  “I’ve no idea, but surely if the kitten were hungry it would come back here to its mother.”

  “Unless it’s lost or hurt or something. What if it accidentally got out somehow?”

  “I can’t imagine how it could have done that, but we can take a walk around the house if you’d like.”

  Fenella looked out the window. A light rain was falling, it was dark, and it looked cold. “I hope the poor thing isn’t out in that weather,” she said as she went to the closet for her coat.

  Daniel put his coat and shoes on and then stopped her at the door. “Wait here a minute and I’ll go and get a torch.”