Aunt Bessie Solves Read online

“Thomas is fifteen and Amy is thirteen,” John replied. “They’re both out having fun with their friends today, even though I’m sure they both have homework to get done.”

  “It’s Saturday. Let them have some fun today and then crack the whip tomorrow,” Andrew suggested. “Although you probably shouldn’t take advice from me. I was the fun parent. My poor wife had to be the one who cracked the whip all the time.”

  “I was the fun parent when Sue and I were together. Now I’m the only parent when the kids are here and that isn’t any fun for anyone,” John said. He shook his head. “I’m sorry. It isn’t like me to complain.”

  “No it isn’t, and it’s long overdue,” Bessie said firmly. “Sue is being selfish and she’s put you in an impossible situation.”

  “Who’s Sue?” Andrew asked in a loud whisper.

  Bessie and John both laughed. “Sue is my former wife and the mother of my wonderful children,” John explained. “She just remarried and is on a honeymoon trip with her husband, an oncologist. They thought it would be, um, interesting to spend their honeymoon in a developing country helping people in need.”

  “Interesting, maybe, but not very romantic. Her new husband seems to be a bit of an idiot,” Andrew said.

  John laughed again. “I would never say such a thing about the man, but you may believe what you like. Anyway, they left in July and were meant to be back by the middle of September. The kids were going to move back to Manchester and stay with Sue’s mother for a few weeks until Sue and Harvey returned. The return date keeps getting pushed back further and further, though, and the kids don’t really want to go and stay with Sue’s mum anyway.”

  Bessie hated the frustrated look that she could see on her friend’s handsome face. John was only in his forties, but the stress of the current situation seemed to be taking a toll on him. His bright green eyes looked tired and she was sure she could see more grey in his brown hair than normal.

  “It will all work out in the end,” she said soothingly.

  “I certainly hope so,” John replied, ‘but let’s go into the sitting room and relax. I promise there’s less mess in there. I cleared off the couches and everything.”

  The sitting room was spacious and comfortable. Bessie sank into an overstuffed chair while Andrew settled onto one of the couches.

  “Does anyone want tea or coffee or something cold?” John asked.

  “We just had lunch and ice cream,” Bessie replied. “I won’t want anything else for hours.”

  “I’m fine as well,” Andrew said.

  John nodded and then dropped onto the other couch. “I asked you here to tell you about a cold case,” he told Andrew. “I was hoping to reopen the investigation into it, but I’ve not been given permission to do so.”

  “Why not?” Bessie asked.

  “Our resources are stretched thin at the moment for one thing, and it isn’t really my cold case, either, for another. The murder took place in Ramsey, which is outside my jurisdiction,” John explained.

  “Whose case is it, then?” Bessie wanted to know.

  “Technically, it now belongs to Carl Clague. When it happened, Patrick Kelly was working CID there, but he’s now working in the drugs and alcohol unit and Carl has taken over in CID,” John said.

  “I’m sure Carl wouldn’t mind if you wanted to solve one of his cold cases for him,” Bessie replied. She’d met the man during a recent murder investigation. He was charming and kind, and nearing retirement. There was no way he was going to be upset if John started a new investigation.

  “He would probably be delighted, but the chief constable doesn’t want anyone working on cold cases until we get our staffing numbers back where they should be,” John explained.

  “But you can still tell us about the case,” Andrew suggested. “Maybe Bessie will have a brilliant idea about it like she did with my cold case.”

  “Did she, now? Maybe you should go first, then. I can’t wait to hear about Bessie’s brilliant idea,” John said.

  Andrew cleared his throat while Bessie blushed and stared at the floor. “It was a dark and stormy night,” Andrew began.

  Bessie laughed and then sat back and listened as Andrew recounted the story for John. When he was finished, John asked a number of questions, most of which Bessie thought were much smarter than the ones she’d asked.

  “And Bessie had a brilliant idea,” John mused. “Bessie usually thinks outside the box. All I keep coming back to is the idea that the four women couldn’t be trusted, but I can’t seem to work out why they all lied about the same thing, even when it was proven that they were lying.”

  “Ready to hear Bessie’s bright idea?” Andrew asked.

  John shook his head. “Let me leave all of that ticking over in the back of my mind while I tell you about my cold case. Then while you and Bessie are puzzling over it, I can think more about yours.”

  “That sounds a fair deal,” Andrew said.

  “My case only happened about five years ago,” John began. “A woman called Jeanne Stowe was found dead in her flat in Ramsey.”

  Bessie gasped. “I remember the case,” she told the others. “As you said, it wasn’t that long ago. I would have said just a few years, really, but it could have been five, I suppose. It was the talk of the island for weeks, but as far as I know no one was ever arrested. I had never been involved in a murder investigation when it happened. I followed the case in the local paper, of course, but I didn’t do any more than that.”

  “Maybe you could try tapping a few of your sources now, then,” John suggested. “It’s the sort of case that should have been solved but wasn’t.”

  “Tell me the whole story,” Andrew said. “From the very beginning, please.”

  John sat back and shut his eyes. “Jeanne was thirty-seven. She lived alone in the flat that she’d purchased after she and her husband, Kenny, divorced. He kept the house in Douglas that he and Jeanne had purchased together.”

  “And from what I can remember, he had another woman moved into the place before Jeanne was fully moved out,” Bessie added.

  John nodded. “He and Jeanne had divorced because Kenny’s girlfriend had fallen pregnant. From what Kenny said to the papers, Jeanne didn’t want children and Kenny realised that he did. He and Jeanne were already talking about separating when Kenny started seeing Sandra Oliver. She fell pregnant almost immediately, and that sped up the divorce proceedings. According to Kenny, it was all friendly, though.”

  “I remember Jeanne’s closest friend told a different story,” Bessie said.

  “That would have been Mabel Lloyd. She gave an interview to the paper in which she claimed that Jeanne had been devastated when Kenny asked her to leave. Mabel’s version had Jeanne struggling with infertility. Mabel told the papers that she was sure that Kenny had killed Jeanne,” John told them.

  “How long before Jeanne’s death did the divorce happen?” Andrew asked.

  “About three years,” John said. “Which was one of the reasons why Kenny was never taken seriously as a suspect. He and Jeanne were divorced and he and Sandra were living together. Inspector Kelly couldn’t come up with any possible motive for Kenny or Sandra.”

  “Was it possible that Kenny was seeing Jeanne again behind Sandra’s back?” Andrew asked.

  “He was working full-time and going to school at night. Besides that, he and Sandra had a toddler and a new baby. Inspector Kelly didn’t think the man had time to cheat on Sandra,” John replied.

  “Before we get too caught up in the suspects, take me through the crime scene,” Andrew requested.

  Bessie sat up a little straighter. This was information about which she knew nothing. The papers hadn’t said anything about the crime scene.

  John nodded. “None of this can leave this room. Officially, it’s still an open investigation, and we never released any information about the crime scene.”

  Bessie and Andrew both nodded before John continued.

  “Jeanne was found in her
bed. She’d taken a massive overdose of several different drugs, mostly various sleeping pills and painkillers. She even left a note of the ‘I can’t take it any more’ variety, but there were a number of problems with the setup as suicide. For one thing, someone had taken away all of the medicine bottles.”

  “That was sloppy,” Bessie remarked.

  “Inspector Kelly assumed that at least some of the bottles may have been prescribed for the killer, who took them away as his or her name was printed on the label,” John explained.

  “That makes sense, but surely if someone went to the trouble to make it appear to be suicide, they’d be smarter than that,” Bessie argued.

  “Well, in this case they weren’t. There were no bottles, and there was no glass of water or even an empty glass on the bedside table. The bedroom door was locked, but it was a simple push lock that could have been set before the door was shut. The door to the flat was also locked, but it was self-locking. The deadbolt wasn’t on.”

  “You’re going to have tell us how the body was found,” Andrew said.

  John sighed. “I’m going about this all wrong. I’ve read about the case so much that I’m jumping around and skipping important things. Let me try starting at the very beginning, when the police were first rung.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Andrew said.

  “The police were rung on October 18th, which was a Tuesday, around ten o’clock in the morning. Jeanne hadn’t turned up for work on Monday, which wasn’t like her. Her supervisor rang her flat and didn’t get any answer. She wanted to ring the police on Monday, but was persuaded to wait twenty-four hours. When Jeanne didn’t appear on Tuesday, the woman rang 999,” John told them.

  “What was the supervisor’s name?” Andrew asked.

  Bessie hid a grin as she noted that Andrew had pulled out a notebook and started taking notes. Clearly old habits died hard.

  “Amanda McBride,” John replied.

  “And where did Jeanne work?” was Andrew’s next question.

  “For Ramsey National Bank,” John replied. “It was only open for about five years. I’m sure Bessie can tell you more about it, if you’re interested.”

  “I am,” Andrew replied, looking at Bessie.

  “I believe it opened in the early nineties,” Bessie said, trying to think. “It closed about two years ago.”

  “It closed in ninety-six,” John interjected.

  “Okay, three years ago,” Bessie grinned. “It was started by a local who’d had a disagreement with the island’s main bank and decided that he could do it better himself. He started out with about a dozen customers, nearly all of whom were his friends or family, but the bank did manage to grow slowly over the years.”

  “What went wrong?” Andrew asked.

  “I don’t know that anything went wrong,” Bessie told him. “It was a very small operation, really, with only a handful of employees. The man who started it fell ill and no one else in his family wanted to take over running a bank. I believe he ended up selling the entire operation to the same bank that he’d argued with in the first place.”

  Andrew laughed. “There’s irony there, somewhere, but as far as you know, the bank was legitimate and no one lost money when it was sold?”

  “As far as I know, yes,” Bessie replied. “I had a few friends who banked there, but only a very few. It only had the one office, which wasn’t the most convenient setup. My friends would have let me know if they’d lost money when it shut, though, and none of them ever complained.”

  “And what did Jeanne do at the bank?” Andrew asked John.

  “She was a customer service associate,” he replied. “They only had two of them and they both worked full-time hours. Amanda McBride was their supervisor, and she also had to cover for their lunch hours and breaks and things.”

  “And who told her not to report Jeanne’s absence on the Monday?” was Andrew’s next question.

  “Amanda’s supervisor, the bank’s vice-president. He was Nick Grant, and his father was the man who’d started the bank,” John said.

  “The father was called Jefferson,” Bessie added. “It’s an unusual name, at least in this country. I believe his mother was an American or something.”

  “I don’t know about that, but he was called Jefferson. He left the island after the bank was sold due to his health. He and his family are settled in Australia now, I believe.”

  “Nick went with him?” Andrew asked.

  “Yes, he did. Jefferson and his wife, Julie, went, along with Nick and his wife, Heather. Nick and Heather didn’t have any children, at least not when they lived on the island,” Bessie told him.

  “Any idea why Nick didn’t want Amanda to ring the police straight away?” Andrew wanted to know.

  “In his statement, he said that Jeanne had been known to be late from time to time and he didn’t want to involve the police in what he’d assumed was simply an employee problem. He claimed that Jeanne had been increasingly unreliable over the past three or four months.”

  “And did Amanda concur?” Andrew asked.

  “Not exactly. She did admit that Jeanne had been late a few times, but she insisted that Jeanne had been having problems with her car and that that was only reason why she’d been late a handful of times. For what it’s worth, Inspector Kelly checked and Jeanne’s car had been in for repairs three times in four months,” John said.

  Andrew nodded and then turned to a new page in his notebook. “Okay, so the police were rung on the Tuesday and someone went to Jeanne’s flat, correct?”

  “That’s correct. Amanda didn’t even talk to Nick on Tuesday. When Jeanne didn’t arrive as expected, she rang the police. A constable went to Jeanne’s flat and found the door locked. When he reported that to his supervisor, someone rang Amanda back. Amanda then rang Mabel and asked her to meet the police at Jeanne’s with Jeanne’s spare key,” John said.

  “How did Amanda know Mabel?” Bessie asked.

  “Mabel was listed on Jeanne’s paperwork as her emergency contact,” John explained. “I’m not sure if Amanda and Mabel had ever met before that day. I can go back through the notes later to check, if it seems important.”

  “So Mabel arrived at the flat with a key and the constable was still there?” Andrew checked.

  “That’s right. It must have been a slow crime day in Ramsey,” John said. “The constable stayed at the flat and waited. I should add that Mabel wasn’t all that far away. She worked for one of the cafés in the town centre. According to the police report, it only took her seven minutes to get to Jeanne’s flat once she was contacted.”

  “Walk me through what the constable did, please,” Andrew said.

  “Mabel unlocked the door and the constable entered the flat. He reported that there was an unpleasant odor that was noticeable as soon as he’d entered. Suspecting what it was, he sent Mabel out of the building and rang for reinforcements. He then waited for Inspector Kelly to arrive. The inspector was able to force open the lock on the bedroom door.”

  “I’d like to see the crime scene photos,” Andrew told John when he’d finished.

  “I wish I could show them to you, but I don’t have access to them. I can probably get Carl to share them with me, but I’d rather not ask him unless we have reason to believe that we’ll be able to contribute something to the investigation,” John replied.

  “You said that Jeanne was lying on the bed, and that she’d taken an overdose of several medications. Was she meant to be taking any prescription medications herself?” Andrew asked.

  “No, although she did have some bottles of over-the-counter drugs in her bathroom. Mabel told the police that she’d never seen Jeanne take anything stronger than over-the-counter headache tablets and that she only took those when she had a migraine,” John said.

  “I would have thought she’d have some sort of prescription for migraine,” Bessie said.

  “Mabel said that they were infrequent and that Jeanne preferred over-the-counter d
rugs because she worried about addiction,” John told her.

  “And the bottles in her bathroom still had tablets in them?” Andrew asked.

  John nodded. “Jeanne had some of the same drugs in her system as were in her bathroom, but all of the bottles in the bathroom still had at least some tablets in them. We’ve no way to know how full they were before that day, of course.”

  “Fingerprints? Neighbours who heard voices? Signs of a struggle?” Andrew listed his questions.

  “No signs of a struggle. Inspector Kelly suggested that she was already in bed when someone forced her to swallow the tablets,” John said.

  “How do you make someone take tablets?” Bessie asked.

  “Perhaps by drugging them in the first place,” Andrew suggested. “Maybe she was drinking with someone and that someone managed to slip Jeanne a sleeping tablet or two. When she started to get drowsy, her companion may have even helped her get ready for bed. Then he or she simply had to keep giving her more and more tablets, perhaps assuring poor Jeanne that each one would help to make her feel better.”

  Bessie shuddered. “What an awful scenario.”

  “It seems a likely one, though,” John told her. “There are ways to physically force someone to take tablets, but there were no signs on the body that anything like that had been done. If the killer had left a few bottles on the table, the case may have been ruled suicide.”

  “What about the note?” Andrew asked.

  “It was definitely in Jeanne’s handwriting, at least according to the experts,” John told him. “As I said, it basically said that she simply couldn’t take it any more. There was no hint of what was wrong, however, and none of Jeanne’s friends or coworkers could suggest anything that might have driven her to take her own life.”

  “What about her fertility issues?” Bessie wondered.

  “Mabel suggested that, but Inspector Kelly didn’t find any evidence that the woman had fertility issues. He had a look at her medical records and there was nothing in them to suggest that she’d ever consulted a doctor about them, anyway,” John said.

  “No one could suggest any other reason why she might have killed herself?” Andrew asked.